Tag Archives: House Appropriations Committee

The Administration Does Have a Housing Plan But It’s Incomplete and, So Far, Mainly Hypothetical

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Earlier this week I gave Gov. Phil Scott’s plan to address the housing crisis a failing grade. Today, two of his top officials briefed the House Appropriations Committee on a report (downloadable here) prepared by the administration’s Council on Housing & Homelessness.

It was useful and informative. A lot of good work has been done, and a lot of good ideas are included in the report. Which is not to say I was wrong in my earlier assessment; the report is lacking in two crucial ways.

First, it does little to address our current explosion of homelessness. Its focus is on “prevention,” which seems to mean preventing future unhousings while doing not much for those already without a dependable roof over their heads.

Second, virtually none of it is in Scott’s FY2025 budget, which means that all its recommendations are just that. Recommendations. There’s been no commitment to implementation, not even an actual proposal. That doesn’t mean the report will be memory-holed, but there’s no proof that it won’t be.

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Phil Scott’s Big Fat Housing FAIL

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Hey, remember last fall, when the Scott administration delivered a grim assessment of Vermont’s housing crisis? Top officials outlined a dire situation with shortages in all sectors of the housing market, from shelters and subsidized rentals to single-family homes to top-end residences. In response, the administration convened an informal task force to confront Vermont’s housing crisis. A multiagency group was going to gather once a week throughout the fall to come up with big, comprehensive solutions.

Well, whatever has become of that?

Two things, and only two things, both of which completely fail to meet the moment. First, we have a joke of a temporary shelter expansion that might net a couple hundred beds for a few months. Second, we have a push for regulatory reform.

And… that’s it. No significant public investment in housing. Phil Scott is failing to address the crisis. He is failing to lead on the issue that he himself spotlighted as the state’s biggest challenge.

This has been obvious for a while, but it was hammered home during a brief legislative hearing on Friday afternoon that wasn’t even on the schedule.

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Vermont Republicans Seem to be Just Fine with a Mass Unsheltering

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The House Human Services Committee tried its best to devise a solution for our looming, self-induced homelessness crisis. The committee consulted with Scott administration officials to put together a plan that would extend the motel voucher program through June 30 with some major changes. Eligibility would be expanded to include those in the General Assistance program plus the “adverse weather” program that kicks in when temperatures get low, but it would set a questionably realistic $75 per night cap on motel reimbursements. (Motels are currently getting an average of $132 per night.) I don’t think much of the plan, but it was an honest effort to reach consensus and keep people sheltered at least through June 30.

But now the Republicans are saying “No, thanks. We prefer the mass unsheltering.”

Human Services’ plan went to the House Appropriations Committee on Friday. At the end of the day, the committee took a straw poll in its revised version of the FY2024 Budget Adjustment Act, which included the Human Services plan. The informal, nonbinding vote was 12-0.

Fast forward to Monday afternoon, when Approps took its actual vote on the Act. And whaddyaknow, the committee’s four Republicans changed their votes. The BAA still passed by an 8-4 margin, but the Republican switcheroo meant the Act passed on a party line vote with no GOP support. And according to a report by Vermont Public, administration officials are throwing cold water on the Human Services plan.

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Welp, We’ve Got Another “Fix” for the Motel Voucher Program

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And good Lord, I hope it works, but I’m not optimistic.

Last week, while the Statehouse press corps was doing God knows what, state lawmakers and Scott administration officials were hashing out another baling-wire-and-duct-tape extension of the General Assistance emergency housing program, which is scheduled to expire on April 1. The scheme was devised in the House Human Services Committee downloadable here) and forwarded on Friday to the House Appropriations Committee as a recommended amendment to the FY2024 Budget Adjustment Act. On Monday, Approps voted 8-4 along party lines to approve the amended BAA, including the emergency housing plan. It will go before the full House later this week.

Reminder: Hundreds of Vermonters are due to lose their vouchers on March 15 when the “adverse weather” program shuts down for the season. Over a thousand more are due to be unhoused on April 1 when the GA voucher program will expire.

The Human Services amendment, now approved by Appropriations, would roll all recipients into a single class and mandate that they all be housed, one way or another, through the end of the fiscal year on June 30. (The program’s future after that will be decided in the FY2025 budget.)

Sounds like great news. Human Services deserves credit for working very hard to try to avoid a mass unsheltering event. But the devil is in the details. And I’ll be pleasantly surprised if this thing actually works.

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If They Were Trying to Devise the Worst Possible Shelter Plan, Then Congratulations Are in Order

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Well, we suspected that the Scott administration’s plan to create new shelter space would be cheap and bad. But they have outperformed expectations, and that’s not a good thing.

The full plan will be unveiled Tuesday morning before the House Appropriations Committee, but the outlines have now been reported by Vermont Public and VTDigger — oh wait, they each published the same report by the same reporter. Sigh. Our press pool isn’t shallow enough, and now our two leading nonprofit news organizations can’t even produce their own original work? Gaah.

But I digress. The plan, as outlined in the identical stories with identical titles, is just a horrific mess. Inadequate in all respects. It’s of a piece with the administration’s — and the Legislature’s — approach to homelessness: It seems to be aimed at covering official asses than in actually addressing the problem. And covering them with a teeny-tiny fig leaf at that.

It is to be hoped that the Democratic majority in the Legislature rejects this plan outright and devises a robust alternative. Housing advocacy groups are working on their own plan, which may be out by the time you read this.

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You Will Please Ask No Questions About the EB-5 Disaster and, By the Way, Here’s the Bill

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It was an “oh, by the way” moment for the ages. And an outrage against good government.

On Wednesday, Attorney General Charity Clark told a House committee that we, the taxpayers of Vermont, are on the hook for a $16.5 million settlement of the EB-5 scandal.

You know, the settlement that allowed key players to avoid the embarrassment and potential legal liability of testifying under oath? Yeah, that one.

Once in a while, an issue or development just hits me so hard that I find myself lying in bed wide awake, staring at the ceiling and grinding my teeth until I have no choice but to get up and write something. And here we are. Let’s recap the high points, shall we?

  • Through a combination of incompetence and hubris, state officials allowed themselves to be flim-flammed.
  • Other state officials then covered up the truth about the affair by claiming they had to keep key documents secret pending court cases.
  • On the eve of trial, the state settled a lawsuit by EB-5 investors just days before former state officials (up to and including former governor Peter Shumlin) were set to testify under oath.
  • If all those documents were ever released once the legal peril was removed, it somehow escaped my attention.
  • The state’s insurance company, AIG, took one look at this mess and denied coverage.
  • The state rolled over and accepted a token payment from AIG.
  • The Scott administration and Attorney General Charity Clark then waited as long as possible to reveal the AIG denial — only doing so when they had to go ask the Legislature for the needed funds.

Are you grinding your teeth yet?

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Winning the Speakership was the easy part

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Congratulations to Mitzi Johnson, the apparent successor to Shap Smith as Speaker of the House. She pipped House Majority Leader Sarah Copeland-Hanzas at the post. And although her selection must be ratified by the Democratic caucus and then the full House, there’s no real doubt that she will win.

Johnson is whip-smart and highly capable. She was skillful at managing the House Appropriations Committee, which is a hell of a trick.

As for being Speaker, well, she’s about to discover how different and how difficult that job is.

Shap Smith made it look effortless, but there was constant furious activity below the waterline. He also enjoyed the support of an informal cadre of loyal House members who helped him keep tabs on the ebb and flow of lawmaking and the interpersonal dynamics that must be managed effectively if the House is to function. In that regard, a capable inner circle is just as important as the actual caucus leadership.

Johnson won’t have that. She may or may not realize the importance of having that. But the House is a somewhat random gathering of 150 willful souls with 150 agendas. And by “agendas,” i don’t mean policy; I mean unique admixtures of principle, practicality, intellect (or lack thereof), knowledge (or lack thereof), curiosity (or lack thereof), debts payable and receivable, and ludicrously overdeveloped senses of self-preservation..

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The budget mess, again

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One of the annual features of the Shumlin Era is the battle to close a budget gap*. There are reasons for this: the rising costs of (1) operating a government (mostly health care), (2) operating public schools (mostly health care), and providing social services (mostly health care).

*To be fair, it was also a feature of the Douglas Era, but the dynamic was different: Republican governor versus Democratic legislature. 

And then there’s the revenue side. Vermont is suffering from a creaky tax system that doesn’t reflect current economic realities, and is bringing in less and less money over time.

The Legislature is now in the throes of dealing with Budget Gap 2016, which has many of the features of past editions. Cries of doom, unexpected revenue upgrades, patently unworkable/unpopular money-raising ideas from Shumlin’s crack policy staff, and lawmakers trying to find alternatives. This year, we also have a significant difference between administration and Legislature over the size of the budget gap; per VTDigger, House budget writers say the administration omitted more than $9 million in basic government operations from its proposed budget…

…including a pay increase for state workers (estimated at $2 million to $6 million, depending on the results of a fact finder’s report and ongoing contract negotiations), pay increases for child care and direct care workers ($1 million each), and funding for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program ($4 million).

Shumlin’s modest proposals for new spending have already been killed by the House Appropriations Committee, whose first priority is closing the gap between current obligations and state revenue.

It’s a depressing Rite of Mud Season that has drained the energy of the Democratic caucus, party, and electorate.

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Things I learned at the Statehouse (or, My First Listicle!)

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I’ve been blogging about Vermont politics for almost three and a half years (first at Green Mountain Daily and then here), but this was the first year I spent considerable time observing the Legislature at work. In previous years, I’d dropped in here and there, but I became an irregular regular this time around.

In addition to following the fates of particular bills, I also took away some overall lessons. Many of them actually positive. And here they are, in no particular order.

— Our lawmakers work pretty hard. They get paid a pittance, and spend lots and lots of hours under the Dome. Seemingly endless hearings and debates, having to actually read and understand legislation: I wouldn’t have the patience for it. And their attendance record is shockingly good. Many of them have real jobs and/or travel long distances to Montpelier; on any given day, almost all of them are there.

— There’s always plenty of partisan rhetoric flying around, but people who disagree on the issues work surprisingly well together. This is especially true in committees, where a small group of folks work collaboratively, and cooperatively. It’s not all peaches and cream, but there were times when I was watching a committee debate and it was hard to tell which lawmaker came from which party.

Not that they were selling out; just that they were more interested in getting stuff done than in scoring political points.

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Rent-to-own: Fixin’ a hole

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This morning, I sat in on a House Appropriations Committee hearing on S.73, a bill that would set limits on the rent-to-own industry — an industry that’s virtually unregulated and preys on cash-poor Vermonters.

For those unfamiliar, RTOs offer household furnishings and appliances with very little cash up front, but interest rates that’d make a banker blush. Not to mention undisclosed fees and charges. According to Legislative Counsel David Hall, current state law gives the Attorney General rule-making authority; but RTOs write their contracts in a way that effectively puts them beyond the reach of current law.

Hey, I’m sure that’s just a coincidence.

The result is a Wild West marketplace that, according to VPIRG, results in consumers “paying many times the original price of the original item- far more than they would pay if they purchased the item from a traditional retail establishment.”

The bill would establish price caps and disclosure requirements on the industry.

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