statehouse weekly roundup #5

During legislative week #5 two very important bills came before the Vermont House of Representatives and were approved. The first was the redistricting bill, done every ten years following the census. The bill alters several districts geographically, others were changed from two member districts to single member districts and a couple of legislative districts went from being single member to two member districts in order to get needed population numbers.The other bill was the Mental Health bill, which proposed a different solution from that championed by Gov. Shumlin to solve Vermont's housing and treatment troubles for mental health patients. Here's the run down:

Rep Linda Myers from Essex reports the House Institutions and Corrections Committee spent a marathon day Tuesday finishing up the Corrections and Institutions Committee portion of the H630, the Mental Health Bill. On Wednesday the chair and vice chair appeared before the House Human Services and Appropriations committees to explain Corrections &Institutions' portion of the bill. H630 went to the floor on Thursday and Friday. After the floor on Thursday, the committee spent time discussing committee priorities for the remainder of the session and took a quick look at H607, H626, H701, and H726, bills which were recently assigned to Corrections and Institutions. On Friday the committee took a first look at mental health issues in corrections, a section of H630 which was pulled from the bill to be offered as a separate bill.

Rep. Jim Eckhardt from Chittenden reports the Health Care Committee continues its work on H-559 (this year’s health care bill). The committee discussed the transfer of Bishca responsibilities over to the Green Mountain Care Board. This bill is full of housekeeping items meant to get the exchange up and running. The Green Mountain Care Board wanted to reach out to all supplemental plans such as Aflac, dental, vision, long term insurance, etc. Being that the GMCB is complaining that they are drastically overworked right now Rep. Eckhardt was able to pull all supplemental plans out of the Bill, saving supplemental providers a ton of paperwork and the bureaucracy that comes with a government power grab. This was a huge accomplishment. Some are starting to see that the GMCB has way to much going on right now. The Board may attempt to put control of these plans back in next year’s big health bill. If he can get re-elected and re-assigned to the Health Care Committee, Rep. Eckhardt promises again to take all supplemental plans out again. Businesses were invited to come to Montpelier to testify on the new health care initiative and testify they did. They were all small businesses and most were very concerned for their survival should they see an 18.5% increase in their Health Insurance costs once the exchanges pass. There is still no word on what is going to be covered and how much this is going to cost. Rep. Eckhardt is pushing hard for those facts. He has bipartisan support for his bill asking for this information but the committee refuses to take it off the wall for discussion. BCBS states that “recent cost estimates requested by the legislature however state the single payer system might cost Vermont taxpayers more than $9 billion or about $13,000 to $14,000 per resident”. Rep. Eckhardt asked BCBS for confirmation on those numbers and should have them sometime early next week. Stay tuned as the Chair of Health Care Committee has indicated that he wants this bill out of committee next Friday.

The Commerce and Economic Development Committee dealt with bills relating to owner-financed real estate sales, and a bill relating to regulating licensed lenders and mortgage loan originators last week, writes Rep. Lynn Dickinson from St. Albans Town. The State Treasurer came to visit the committee along with Jo Bradley to discuss VEDA and private activity bonds. The committee received the latest version of Sec. 42 from the Bishca Housekeeping Bill; this section dealt with the issue of hospitals selling their assets to for profit companies. It will change the section to a study committee proposal. One continuing concern for the committee is how to address a piece of legislation that affects the sale of property on private roads (and also Class 4 roads). Currently, if the owners do not have a written maintenance agreement because no statute creating a default for owners’ maintenance of private roads exists, then Fannie Mae will not purchase the mortgage. This is a thorny issue which passed two years ago only to die in the Senate. Gov. Shumlin killed the bill in the Senate the last time and he feels our court case from 1983 should be accepted by Fannie Mae. They do not , of course, , so people find themselves unable to sell their property. The bank won’t lend to buyers if the mortgage can’t be sold on the secondary market. The Committee continues work on the Consumer Protection bill dealing with structured settlements. On Friday, the committee heard from several legislators who have proposed a variety of bills that have been sitting on the wall. These new bills were all interesting and generated a good discussion from the Committee members.

Government Operations Committee member Rep. Mark Higley of Lowell reports the committee has been working very hard on the redistricting bill, also known as the reapportionment. A concerted effort by many to contact the Speaker's office about their displeasure with last week's proposal to pit 3 incumbent Republicans against each other in a 2 seat district in Rutland county, had positive results. On Tuesday, there were two options on the table that all committee members agreed were better than what was offered the previous Friday. The proposal that resulted in a one seat district comprised of Shrewsbury, Mt Holly and Ludlow with incumbents French (D) and Devereux (R) was presented as an amendment and passed on the floor. The reapportionment bill H.629 passed on a roll call vote of 138 in favor 4 opposed. Later in the week the committee started work on the OPR (Office of Professional Regulation) bill.

Rep. Peter Fagan from Rutland reports the Fish Wild Life and Water Resources Committee worked on the fee bill most of the week. On Friday the committee received an update about Vermont Yankee. Dr Irwin from the Vermont Department of Health reported that in a comparison of fish from Lake Carmi in Franklin county and fish from the Connecticut river found radiation found in both to be "very similar" to each other. Cesium, potassium and strontium-90 are in the same ranges for fish from both sources. This is important because it substantiates radioactivity from Connecticut River fish is NOT from Vermont Yankee but from "other human activity or natural in nature"!

The other activity includes the nuclear weapons testing programs, Chernobyl, and WW II weapons usage.

Rep. Vicki Strong from Albany reports the House Judiciary Committee started off the week discussing details regarding mental health patients who are currently in temporary situations because of lack of beds. Two topics being examined by the committee need to be brought to the attention of the caucus: 1. The dissolution of civil unions between same-sex couples who got their civil union in Vermont but live outside of the state and want to dissolve the union; 2. Safe storage of guns in the home. The committee will welcome input on these bills! Work started on a bill that pertains to which court will serve 16-17 year old delinquents. It appears the answer will be from criminal court to family court for most cases. Work will continue into next week on this bill.

Lastly, Rep. Carolyn Branagan from Georgia reports the Ways and Means Committee spent much time taking testimony on the annual Executive Fee Bill. The Fee Bill this year is very large, with dozens of fee change requests and an increase in requested revenue of over $11 million. Of course the look of the Fee Bill may change , but as of this writing the Committee has taken no action at all on the requests. There is little indication so far if the fee change requests will be approved by the Committee or denied. The Miscellaneous Tax Bill also received committee attention this week. Auditor Tom Salmon gave an interesting report on his findings in the town of Milton TIF district. The audit done by his office shows Milton owes over $3 million but the town disagrees.