Thank you to this week’s sponsor of our Advocacy Update:
April 25, 2025
It’s that time of year when the budget starts getting wrapped up, the weather starts to get warmer, and legislators start thinking about going home…
Hold up, don’t get your hopes up! The budget, capital bill, and yield bill might be ahead of schedule, yet, they’re not the limiting factor this year.
- This legislature isn’t leaving until it has come to terms on an education transformation package, and the Senate wants about four weeks to review it. The work is progressing at a promising pace; however, there is still much to be done.
There are still other significant differences that need to be bridged between any combination of the Governor, House, and Senate:
- The Senate is still working on the evolution of the hotel voucher program serving those experiencing homelessness, a topic that has unprecedentedly scuttled not one, but two budget adjustment acts.
- The House is reconfiguring a housing infrastructure program sent to them with unanimous Senate approval.
- A perennial proposal to exempt military retirement from income tax remains a subject of shelved debate, which has stalled numerous bipartisan tax cuts and still needs to be resolved.
Let’s not forget that the longer the whole body waits on a few committees to hammer out these differences, the more time there is for committees to find other things to do.
In this week’s update:
- Housing infrastructure program seeing new parameters and guardrails
- Senate reviews education transformation bill sent to them by the House
- The Laundry List
We strive to make these concise and easy to read. Feedback is not just welcomed, it’s encouraged – [email protected]
Housing Infrastructure Program Seeing New Parameters and Guardrails
The House Committee on Commerce and Economic Development spent the week considering additional parameters and guardrails for the Community Housing Infrastructure Program, which was sent to them by the Senate.
Catch up quick: the program, which is the result of multiple competing iterations, allows developers and municipalities to enter into agreements that result in the cost of the infrastructure for housing to be financed with the increase in tax revenue from the new development.
- Why this matters: Talk to any developer who’s been around for decades, and they’ll tell you that the municipalities would do this in the past, and it meant that the price of a unit of housing didn’t have to recoup the cost of anything ranging from roads, sidewalks, water, sewer, and more.
The crux: The program sent to the House by the Senate was a tool for municipalities to build housing abundance, with the understanding that the municipalities and the Governing body, the Vermont Economic Progress Council, would serve as a check on the program. Legislators in the House are less convinced of that and want to add additional guardrails and constraints.
Stuck in the middle with you: The House Committee on Commerce and Economic Development spent the week trying to head off concerns of their colleagues in other committees who don’t want to see too much housing built.
- The Committee on Environment doesn’t want to see housing built just anywhere, and pushed to keep the program limited to only those areas designated Tier 1a or 1b under Act 181, a small portion of the state.
- The House Committee on Ways and Means doesn’t want the program to utilize too much of the increment statewide and tends to legislate with an eye towards a worst-case scenario and unlikely abuse involving the creation of luxury units, which is unlikely to occur.
- The cumulative impact of these concerns could be a program with so many parameters and red tape that it isn’t actually used – therein lies the line the Commerce Committee is trying to walk; appease the concerns of other Committees preemptively to preserve the program’s prospects.
What’s Next: The House Committee on Commerce and Economic Development will soon move legislation that will tighten definitions, criteria, and eligibility. Here is what that could look like:
- Housing Requirement Tightened: Projects must dedicate at least 60% of floor area to housing, or seek approval from a new CHIP Board if they “meaningfully address” community housing needs.
- New CHIP Board Created: Comprised of housing and finance officials, including those from VHFA, VEDA, the Treasurer’s Office, and VLCT, to weigh in when requested by VEPC.
- Infrastructure Definition Overhauled: Eligibility will likely be based on a fixed list of infrastructure, including roads, water, wastewater, and utilities.
- More Infrastructure for Affordable Housing: Committee members discussed adding an incentive-based or phased list of additional acceptable infrastructure to support mixed-income housing.
- Expanded Reporting: New requirements include tracking housing costs, second-home use, and administrative spending.
- Tier Two Areas in Flux: Tier two areas will be excluded, but may be reintroduced with delayed implementation tied to Act 250 map updates.
Read more about House and Senate housing legislation in last week’s update and reach out with any questions.
Senate Reviews Education Transformation Bill
The Senate Committees on Education and Finance both began unwinding, in great detail, what was sent to them by the House.
- The game plan, as of now, is that the Senate Committee on Education will have two weeks to review and revise the bill, and then the Senate Committee on Finance will have two weeks to finalize based on what the Senate Education Committee drafted.
In Senate Education
The Senate Committee on Education rolled out an overhaul of the bill this week, reframing the bill’s intent to emphasize incremental transformation rather than immediate structural overhaul, which sets the tone for the committee’s work going forward. Significant changes to the legislation include:
Governance & Consolidation: Their draft retains 2026 as the trigger date for forced consolidation planning and replaces the House’s Redistricting Subcommittee, which consists of five retired superintendents, with a new School District Boundary Task Force comprising legislators only.
- If the Legislature doesn’t act by January 31, 2026, the task force must propose an alternative merger plan.
- The Committee also emphasized that new district maps must ensure universal access to Career Technical Education.
Foundation Formula Adjustments: The Senate supports a foundation formula, incorporating new modeling that limits sparsity aid to the most rural districts by eliminating mid-level sparsity tiers, which were perceived as providing aid to large schools in rural districts.
- Additionally, tiered English Learner (EL) weights and special education weights in the House version are not used in the current version due to what the Senators see as data constraints.
- The Committee expressed interest in conducting regular reviews of weights, possibly every two years.
Class Size Minimums: Senate removes mandatory average class size standards and the automatic Education Quality Standards noncompliance process.
In Senate Finance
In the Senate Committee on Finance, the Committee continued to review the bill and hear from interested parties.
- The Committee has already had a robust discussion on supplemental district spending, contemplating whether it should occur at all, how it should be structured equitably, and what mechanism should be used to collect and remit that funding.
The Laundry List
Hundreds of hours of committee discussion each week culminate in our advocacy update, so not everything makes it into the overall update; however, we often cover what is left on the cutting-room floor here for our most dedicated readers.
- Read previous updates: Week 1, Week 2, Week 3, Week 4, Week 5, Week 6, Week 7, Week 8, Week 9, Week 10, Week 11, Week 12, Week 13, and Week 14
- The House Energy & Digital Infrastructure Committee took additional testimony on H.121, which would require internet service providers to offer a basic plan with 25 Mbps download speeds for $15 per month and an enhanced plan with 200 Mbps download speeds for $20 per month, which has resulted in ISPs pulling service in other states.
- The House Committee on Ways and Means continued to hear testimony on military pensions tax exemptions this week, which have been stalled.
- The Senate passed a medical debt relief program this week that would involve the State Treasurer redirecting $1 million of his funding, which is currently allocated for early bond payments, to purchase and forgive Vermonters’ medical debt. Read more via VTDigger.
- Attorney General Charity Clark this week joined a coalition of 11 other attorneys general in filing a lawsuit to block President Trump’s tariffs, challenging four of President Trump’s executive orders that claim the power to increase tariffs worldwide without congressional action. The case is entitled State of Oregon, et al., v. Trump, et al.
- This week stakeholders had an initial meeting to dive into the creation of Tier 3 as part of the Land Use Review Board’s rulemaking process. The Board will identify the resource areas that will be included in Tier 3, their distribution across Vermont, and the types of projects that will require an Act 250 permit in these areas. See more about the process and a map containing layers of geographic variables that could be included as jurisdictional triggers.
- The Senate Committee on Economic Development has reviewed language reaffirming the relationship with Canada, Vermont’s largest trading partner, in light of tariffs and other frictions injected into the relationship from the federal level. Read more via VTDigger.
- On May 12th at 2:00 p.m., you can provide input on an initial draft of Future Land Use mapping CCRPC is working with each town and city in Chittenden County to build. Once the map is approved, certain areas automatically qualify for state incentives that make it easier to build much-needed homes. To learn more and join the meeting, please email [email protected].
- Truck Trouble – A joint letter from numerous Vermont business associations this week called for a one-year delay on the state’s clean truck standard. Learn about that rule here.
Hey! You read the whole update. You probably have some thoughts on the content or how we delivered it. Feel free to reach out to us at [email protected].