House Begins Work on Senate Bills
With a mid-May adjournment coming right up, the House is working hard to get Senate bills passed out of committee and onto the floor in the next few weeks.
S.100: Universal School Meals
Pandemic-related USDA funding to provide breakfast and lunch for all kids expires at the end of the 2021–2022 school year. S.100 will allow schools to continue to provide universal breakfast and lunch for all students through the 2022-2023 school year. The $29 million appropriated in S.100 closes the gap between the cost of providing universal meals to all students and the federal reimbursement. The continued implementation of universal meals during the 2022-2023 school year will allow for the collection of reliable data on participation rates, so we can better understand how much it will cost to continue this program beyond that.
S. 210 & S.226: Housing
S.210 and S. 226 address homeowner protection, rental housing health and safety, and expanding access to safe and affordable housing. The bills seek to bolster Vermont’s housing stock, protect homeowners, help renters be safe in their homes, and incentivize more residents to afford a home. Details include:
The bill proposes that the complaint-driven process for rental housing health and safety concerns be handled by inspectors from the Division of Fire Safety (rather than volunteer Town Health Officers) in order to ensure more rigorous protections. Components of this were in S.79 which was vetoed by the Governor. A current change is that landlords who occupy a multi-family dwelling with less than three units will not have to register their units with the Department of Housing and Community Development, nor will those who have already registered rental units with municipalities that maintain their own registries.
To better protect homeowners, a contractor registry is proposed within the Office of Professional Regulation and requires written contracts for residential construction jobs over $10,000. The registry originally in H.157 was vetoed by the Governor, but in the current bill the threshold for written contracts has been increased significantly (from $3,000 to $10,000).
Continued support for the Vermont Housing Investment Program is expanded to also include constructing accessory dwelling units or ADUs.
Additional dollars are requested to support grants for small-scale capital improvements for owners of manufactured housing communities, as well as increasing tax benefits for manufactured homes and mobile home parks.
A new program proposed by the Administration seeks to mitigate the unprecedented spike in the cost of housing and address the “Missing Middle” affordability gap. This program subsidizes up to 35% of construction and/or acquisition costs for middle-income Vermonters making up to 120% area median income.
Employers with over 50 FTE could apply for matching grants of up to $50,000 per unit to build workforce housing. Additionally, commercial property owners could apply for up to $50,000 to convert commercial properties to residential use.
S.74: Patient Choice at End of Life
The underlying patient choice at end of life statute (established in 2013) creates a process that allows a capable, terminally ill (death within six months), adult patient to request and obtain a prescription for medication to be self-administered for the purpose of hastening their own death. Participation in the law is voluntary for patients, health care facilities, and providers. A patient who obtains a prescription for the intended purpose of hastening death may change their mind at any time. Changes to the program within S.74 (such as allowing meeting with a prescribing physician to take place over telemedicine) will increase equitable access to the limited participating providers across the state and address some of the “imperfections'' in the law as originally passed in 2013.
S.234: Act 250 Reform
Vermont’s landmark Act 250 land use law has been instrumental in maintaining the Vermont we love. Its regulations help balance the preservation of our unique landscape with our economic and community needs. However, our state has evolved greatly in the fifty years since Act 250’s inception. S.234 includes many different provisions. The first sections of the bill address housing. Neighborhood Development Areas (NDAs) are state-designated areas around our designated Downtowns and Village Centers. This bill would allow NDAs to include areas in flood hazard areas if they are suitable for infill development under certain conditions. If the NDA does include flood hazard areas, the local bylaws must contain provisions consistent with ANR’s model Flood Hazard and River Corridor bylaws. It requires that an NDA have a density of four residential units per acre and it changes the cap on the number of priority housing project units that are exempt from Act 250 from 25 to 50 in towns with a population of less than 3,000 people. This bill contains many provisions previously passed by the House. It requires towns to respond to requests from Act 250 applicants within 90 days. It adds a new criterion to Act 250 that requires applicants to not cause undue adverse impacts to forest blocks, connecting habitats, and rare and irreplaceable natural areas. It directs ANR to map forest blocks and to establish procedures for updating maps. New roads and driveways over 2,000 feet would require Act 250 review. The bill also revises permit conditions for wood product manufacturers, allowing some operation on nights, weekends, and holidays.
S.287: Education Funding
S.287 is “an act relating to improving student equity by adjusting the school funding formula and providing education quality and funding oversight.” A summer task force on weighting offered two options to meet the goals of the Brigham decision, which is to “afford Vermont schoolchildren equal educational opportunities…” (Brigham et al v. State of Vermont). The Senate chose to implement weights. The House Ways and Means Committee’s current draft of S.287, is considering cost adjustments instead of weights.
S.113: Medical Monitoring
This bill creates a statutory framework for seeking damages from a business that has exposed people to hazardous materials that may create a need for ongoing testing and medical monitoring. Although insurers oppose the bill and say it could increase liability insurance costs or reduce access to that insurance, the committee approved the bill with a unanimous straw poll. Although several other states have a similar right to action (created by the courts), there have been no reports of serious impact to business liability insurance in those states.
S.161: Ryegate Powerplant
The Ryegate power plant supports our forest economy in creating a market for low-grade wood. The plant’s owners are exploring pathways to increase the plant’s efficiency and financial viability, including the development of a biochar facility to use the plant’s excess heat and generate a saleable biproduct. Through S.161, the owners of the Ryegate plant are looking to extend the contract for the sale of their power to VT utilities from 2025 out to 2032. Check out a map of the active logging jobs that are supplying the power plant.