Advocacy Update – Week 9 – 2025

Quick Updates 

There was a lot of movement over the last week, so we’re going to provide you with quick, high-level overviews of what happened.  

Education & Property Taxes 

With 90% of school budgets passing on Town Meeting Day and those budgets being held down statewide, the Ways and Means Committee had the information that they need to get to work on the yield bill, which sets property tax rates. 

• Beware though, the Committee is flirting with the idea of buying down the homestead rate and increasing the nonhomestead rate, leaving businesses and renters with higher bills this year in an attempt to build up a small transformation reserve. 

Education Reform

The House’s education reform bill has an exemption from crossover, however, the work continues to shape what we will get out of this session – a bill that does not cut costs, but rather seeks to stabilize them while phasing in transformation over numerous years. These transformations include: 

• Move to consolidate districts 
• Consolidate Career Technical Education governance into a single statewide CTE school district.
• Shift to a foundation formula with a generous weighted base grant allowing excess spending by districts based on their grand list
• Impose minimum class sizes 
• Change income-sensitivity from a property tax credit to a homestead exemption
• Changes to reappraisal processes to make them more regional 

Order of operations: The Ways and Means Committee conveyed to the Education Committee this week what readers of this update already know – it’s difficult to reform the education finance system when you don’t know the district’s size or timeline of transformation. 

Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss

On a final note, it’s been a long wild road, however, the Senate confirmed Zoie Saunders as Education Secretary this week. They voted down her nomination last year and the Governor appointed her as interim Secretary, which was the subject of a lawsuit funded with mystery money by two Senators, which was found moot by the Supreme Court. 

Housing

Both the House and the Senate had housing bills make the crossover deadline this week. 

In the House:

The House Committee on General and Housing got their bill across the finish line, which includes: 

• The bill proposes to make amendments to the Vermont Rental Housing Improvement Program and create the Manufactured Home Improvement and Repair Program 
• Creates the Vermont Infrastructure Sustainability Fund, allows for tax credits for the First Generation Homebuyer and Down Payment Assistance Program
• Make changes to the Brownfield Property Cleanup Program
• Allow for municipalities to enact a one percent tax on short-term rentals
• Make amendments to the landlord certificate requirements
• Make changes to the requirements for municipal zoning appeals
• Create the universal design study committee
• Require multiple housing-related reports

Read the language of the bill here. 

In the Senate: 

We’ll provide a more in-depth overview next week, however, the Senate Committee on Economic Development, Housing, and General Affairs is moving forward with a housing bill that includes a crucial component missing in the House: infrastructure funding. 

Labor and Employment Bills

The Senate Committee on Economic Development, Housing, and General Affairs had a frank and direct conversation Thursday morning about what components of their expansive and sprawling labor and employment bills they can pass, hold to tag onto another bill after crossover, or push until 2026. 

• What’s moving: the Committee will proceed with a bill allowing workers’ compensation employees to request case management and translation services, if not already offered. 
  • Increase late penalties on workers’ compensation payments to 15% (was proposed at 25%). 
• Everything else is still on the table post crossover, including ending at-will employment in the state, banning noncompete agreements, a “right to sit,” requiring payout of vacation time at severance, and more you can read about in our previous updates. 

Next week, the Committee will take on a constitutional amendment on the right to unionize, PR3. 

Economic Development

The Senate Committee on Economic Development, Housing, and General Affairs passed their economic development bill, extending existing business support programs while adding additional funding to others. 

• The bill also creates a taskforce to research the economic feasibility of creating a convention center in Vermont. 

Public Safety 

Last session saw a flurry of activity around public safety, with the legislature passing laws around increased penalties for retail theft, car theft, and violations of conditions of release, and more. This session has seen much less activity around public safety legislation. 

• This week marked the passage of the only public safety legislation likely to pass this session. 

What’s happening: The House passed H.2 which would delay the implementation of the Vermont “Raise the Age” initiative for two more years. 

• Raise the Age: The Governor and Republicans sought to repeal the implementation of the final phase, however, in a compromise, H.2 just delays the final stage, which would expand juvenile jurisdiction to include 19 year olds charged with misdemeanors and lower level felonies.
• Sealing vs. expungement: S.12 has already passed the Senate Committee on Judiciary and moves the state from an expungement system to a system of sealing criminal records to allow judges and law enforcement to see an individual’s criminal past. 

Environment 

Energy Efficiency and Clean Heat Standard 

Things got controversial in the Senate Committee on Natural Resources, which spent the week considering S.65 which expands energy efficiency utility (EEU) jurisdiction to include greenhouse gas emissions reductions and electrification projects, increasing the EEU’s flexibility to use Energy Efficiency Charge (EEC) revenue for projects that reduce total energy use across different fuel types;

• The Public Service Department warns that shifting EEC funds could make ratepayers cover the cost of replacing lost efficiency gains.
• Additionally, the Public Utility Commission and the distributed utilities have registered concerns with the legislation. 
• There is debate over whether the bill prioritizes electrification at the expense of weatherization efforts.
• As if that wasn’t controversial enough, the bill includes a repeal of the clean heat standard. Some would debate whether it truly is a repeal as the fuel dealer registry still remains with a two-year delay. 

PFAS Ban Bill Passes the House

H.238, a bill that would further limit the sale and production of consumer products containing PFAS, passed the House. It expands the 2024 law with existing PFAS bans in cosmetics, cookware, and menstrual products to now include cleaning products, dental floss, and containers lined with PFAS.

Taxation

The House Committee on Ways and Means passed today, the Governor’s proposed tax relief package, which would retroactively on January 1, 2025, do the following;

• Increase the age eligibility for the child tax credit (CTC) from five-years old to six-years old, 
• Expand the earned income tax credit (EITC) for claimants without children from 38 percent to 100 percent of the federal EITC amount,
• Increase the adjusted gross income (AGI) thresholds used to determine eligibility for the partial exemption on Social Security, military retirement and Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS) benefits by $5,000. 

Healthcare

The Senate Committee on Health and Welfare passed their committee bill, DR 25-0907, which we will have a further breakdown of next week.