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Legislature Week in Review: First deadline reached

Submitted by tim on

Through a special arrangement with VBM, Leonine Public Affairs provides a summary of legislative activity in Montpelier for week ending February 24. 2017.

FIRST DEADLINE OF THE SESSION REACHED

Last week set the stage for the House’s workload for the remainder of the legislative session. Wednesday was the deadline for legislators to get bills they are sponsoring into the queue for referral to the relevant committee. Of the 492 House bills that have been introduced since the session began in early January, 167 of them came in this week. The new arrivals address topics as diverse as securing the safety of the electrical power grid from an electromagnetic pulse attack or severe solar storm (H.431), to requiring a study of fragrances in State buildings (H.451). Because the number of bills exceed the House’s capacity to review and consider all of them, many bills simply will not advance. In fact, the time crunch is all the more intense as this week saw the setting of Friday, March 17 as the “crossover” deadline. That is the date by which bills must pass out of committee in order to be eligible to pass the legislature this year. “Money” bills such as the budget bill get an extra week. Because the legislature will be taking the week of March 6th off so members can go to their town meetings and have a short break, there are only two weeks to get most bills out of their respective committees and to the floor.

Other significant developments this week include the abrupt end of the recount of the election results in the House Orange-1 district and the Senate’s approval of a bill intended to buffer the effects of Trump administration’s new policies on immigration.

Regarding the recount, on Wednesday a group of 23 legislators were poised to review and count the ballots in last November’s contested election between incumbent Progressive House member Susan Hatch Davis and Republican challenger Robert Frenier. Frenier had been sworn in when the session started in January as previous recounts indicated he had narrowly prevailed over Hatch Davis. The new recount on Wednesday came to an abrupt halt when it was discovered one of the ballot bags had been innocently opened in early January. Under the ground rules for the recount the fact the bag had, unbeknownst to the members who were going to conduct the recount, been opened meant that the recount was over and Frenier would keep his seat.

Lastly, on Friday the Senate gave final approval to S.79, which relates to the federal immigration policy. Subject to an exception involving a state or national emergency the bill requires gubernatorial approval before any state or local law enforcement agency can cooperate with the federal government in enforcing federal immigration law. It also prohibits law enforcement agencies from gathering information about a person’s religion, race and other specified attributes and sharing that information with the federal government if the information will be used by the federal government to create a registry.

HOUSE COMMITTEE CONSIDER SERIES OF LABOR BILLS
The House General, Housing and Military Affairs Committee took testimony this week on the following bills:
  • Three minimum wage bills: H.93 proposes to raise the minimum wage to $15 by Jan. 1, 2022, H.302 proposes to raise the minimum wage to $15 by Jan. 1, 2026, and H.313 proposes to raise the minimum wage and minimum tipped wage to $15 by Jan. 1, 2022.
  • Paid family leave - H.196 proposes to create a Family Leave Insurance Program within the Department of Labor that will provide employees with 12 weeks of paid family leave. A payroll tax is imposed to pay for the program, with employees paying half and employers picking up the other half. The bill also proposes to expand Vermont’s existing parental and family leave law to all employers by removing the current small employer exemptions.
  • Pregnant employees - H.136 amends the Vermont Fair Employment Practices Act to require employers to provide an accommodation to a pregnant employee unless the accommodation would impose undue hardship on the employer.
  • Portable employment benefits - H.109 proposes to study contingent work and workers in Vermont and to study mechanisms for creating portable employment benefits to address the needs of “freelance” workers in e-commerce, self-employed workers, contingent workers or workers in the “on-demand” economy.
HOUSE COMMITTEE MAY REVISIT INDEPENDENT CONTRACTOR ISSUE
The House Commerce and Economic Development Committee is considering revisiting the controversial issue of whether employees are independent contractors or employees for purposes of unemployment and workers’ compensation insurance. Last year the committee, after expending considerable time and effort, unanimously voted to send a bill to the House floor that expanded who would be considered an independent contractor. That bill was sent back to committee where it died mainly due to objections from organized labor. However, last December the Vermont Supreme Court issued a decision, Great Northern Construction, Inc. v. Department of Labor, interpreting existing law on the independent contractor issue. Committee Chair Bill Botzow, D-Pownal, is now asking whether in light of the Court’s decision the issue should be revisited. On Friday, the eleven member committee, of which seven are new members, heard testimony from their lawyer comparing the three bills introduced to date on this subject.
HOUSE APPROPRIATIONS UPDATE
Since passing the FY17 Budget Adjustment Act in January, the House Appropriations Committee has been reviewing the Governor’s proposed FY18 budget. Earlier in the session the legislature balked at some structural changes proposed by Governor Scott, namely level-funding school budgets and requiring teachers to contribute 20 percent of their healthcare premiums. The committee is now beginning to identify what the House budget proposal will look like. They face a roughly $50 million budget gap, which will be difficult to close. The committee generally agrees they would like to put forward a budget that does not rely on fee and tax increases. As a result, the committee will have to find savings throughout state government. They have until March 24th, the week after crossover, to vote a bill out of committee.
MENTAL HEALTH BILL
The Senate Health and Welfare Committee started work on a bill that would require a review of the state’s mental health care system and set the minimum wage for some providers at $15/hour.

The bill, which has yet to be assigned a number, would create the following studies:

  • A study on patient movement throughout the mental health care system, including a review of system capacity.
  • A study on the need for a geriatric and forensic psychiatric facility.
  • A study on whether the state should use the Maple Leaf Farm facility for another purpose
  • A review of the use of involuntary medication.
  • A review of provider education practices.

The bill also requires the Agency of Human Services to work with the community health care providers known as the designated agencies to implement a pay scale for employees. The pay scale would include a $15/hour minimum wage for direct care employees of the designated agencies.

Committee Chairwoman Senator Claire Ayer, D-Addison, said she expects the bill to pass out of committee by the March 17 crossover deadline.

Here’s a draft of the bill.
THE POTENTIAL IMPACT OF FEDERAL TAX REFORM ON VERMONT'S BUDGET AND REVENUES
The following is from Leonine's weekly blog. Click here to read the whole post.

There is a lot of speculation that Congress will pass, and the President will sign, a comprehensive tax reform bill later this year. If passed, it could be the most sweeping overhaul of the tax code since the Tax Reform Act of 1986. Surprisingly, it is getting very little attention from state policymakers even through it could have dramatic implications for the states because of the interaction between state income tax laws and the federal Internal Revenue Code (IRC).

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