In his first veto of the session, Governor Scott sends the Budget Adjustment Act back to lawmakers, citing concerns over the state's motel program and spending.

I feel it's been a failed system, and we can do better.

If you look pre-pandemic, it was just a shadow of what we created.

It was like a monster.

After that.

Plus, housing developers look to reduce infrastructure costs, and a new public safety report says Vermont's dispatch system needs an overhaul.

All that and more head on.

Vermont this Week.

From the Vermont public studio in Winooski.

This is Vermont this week, made possible in part by the Lintilhac Foundation and Milne Travel.

Here's moderator Mitch Wertlieb.

Thanks for joining us on Vermont this Week.

I'm Mitch Wertlieband it's Friday, March 14th.

Joining us on the panel this week.

Anne Wallace Allen from Seven Days, Shaunn Robinson from VtDigger.

And joining us remotely today.

Howard Weiss Tasman from Vermont Public.

Thank you all so much for being here.

We're going to dive right into this with, the first veto of the session that Governor Phil Scott has made, the budget adjustment over the motel, program and some spending.

And, you know, we just saw that the remarks that, Governor Scott was making there, about this program.

Sean, why is the governor vetoing, this this adjustment over the motel program?

What's his beef with it?

Yeah.

So beef is a is a is a funny word.

So budget adjustment is broadly a really technical bill that makes a lot of small changes to state spending partway through the fiscal year.

But this focus the past few weeks has really been on, as you mentioned, this provision, for the hotel motel program, legislators had included $1.8 million to extend, certain people's eligibility to stay in the program for longer into the warmer months.

The administration, as we've known for a long time, is not a fan with that program.

They have beef with that program, as you said.

And they put forward a compromise, which I can also get into.

And legislators rejected that.

And the governor, as a result, has said, I'm not going to sign off on it before we get into that, because I do want to get to some of the details about, you know, what this beef is all about.

You know, we know now that there is not this Democratic supermajority.

So, you know, it's unlikely that Democrats are automatically going to have enough votes to override the veto.

What's your reading of the room so far as to whether or not, this veto is going to stand?

Yeah, I think that's a big question that's going to be on everyone's mind going into next week.

We've, you know, seen legislators sort of or the Democratic leadership in both chambers, I think, really picking their battles so far this year.

We found that with, the education secretary vote recently and some other pieces of legislation, too.

So I think we'll see you next week.

And it's, it's it's hard to know right now, but as you mentioned, with the big gains that the Republican Party made in the state last fall, there's enough, Republicans in both chambers to uphold a veto if people vote totally along party lines.

So we'll see that digging more into this about why the governor was against this.

And while so and you've been writing about this as well and I'm curious as to, you know, we heard that the remarks that the governor made there at the top saying, you know, pre-pandemic, this was one thing.

And then afterwards he called it a monster.

I mean, pretty strong language there.

Is it a fair comparison to to compare the bill to a voucher program housing these folks pre-pandemic to now?

Well, I think he was referring to the fact that there were just a few hundred people in motel rooms pre-pandemic, and now there's 1450 or 1500 and the state is spending $38 million a year to house people in motel rooms.

So, it's true that so much has changed since the pandemic that it's not as though we were we're doing that in those conditions.

I mean, the reason we're in this place is that there isn't really anywhere else for them to live.

It's it's not possible for them to rent a place to live.

We all now know that even if you have a pretty good job with high pay, you're not going to find an apartment.

They just don't exist and they're very expensive.

So, it has created, a situation where this is where we see ourselves, where we're paying a lot of money to house people in a, in a less than efficient manner.

And certainly since the pandemic, the housing crisis has gotten worse.

The homelessness problem has only gotten worse.

And there's a lot of vulnerable people.

Vulnerable people.

Exactly.

I mean, when I said less than efficient, I, I think that for people who are watching this and who activists who are who are sending letters to the governor or showing up at the state House to testify, it's the the governor would say it's not an ideal situation for the people who are living in motel rooms, either.

It's, it's sort of just a stopgap measure with a lot of a lot without a lot of the services they need.

And in some cases, they're not very conveniently located to downtown areas.

So, I don't think everyone's totally happy with the solution.

But for people who, who don't want the state spending to end, they're saying, where else are they going to go at this point?

What else are they going to do?

Well, Sean, well, you know, the governor isn't just scrapping this program completely.

He's offering a compromise.

What is he talking about here?

Yeah.

So a couple weeks ago, officials from his administration came to budget writers in the House and Senate and said, you know, here's something that we will do.

And they proposed actually taking a bit more state money, $2.1 million instead of 1.8 million.

And instead of having the state spend that money, they said, let's take that money and give it divvied up and give it out to municipalities as grants, essentially.

And we can let local leaders figure out how to use it to address, presumably to address this, this crisis, these issues in their communities.

One of the ways that local leaders could use that money, of course, is to pay the cost of allowing people to continue staying in motel rooms.

So in some ways it's the same end result, right?

But just a different process of getting there.

And that process is what, legislative leaders pretty promptly said, you know, we don't agree with your solution here.

You know, they said we don't want local leaders to take on this additional burden of work, particularly over the past couple weeks, was town meeting day and select boards turning over things like that.

They said, you know, this is an issue that the state should deal with.

You know, it's a program that the state stood up in the first place.

Right?

So let's let's keep the responsibility to deal with it at the state level.

And before we move on from this, and I want to follow up on what Sean is saying here, because, you know, I think one of the perhaps criticisms is that municipalities do they have the support staff, do they have the people?

In the expertise to handle this kind of money, even if it is more money?

I think that we've we've really seen since the housing crisis became worse that municipalities don't or most of them aren't equipped to be in the business of providing housing, whether that be building housing or helping people convert buildings into housing or, creating homeless shelters or places where people you know in need can live.

They just they don't have the administrative power.

And, volunteers, a lot of the towns and cities have housing committees, but their scope is also pretty limited in what they can do.

I mean, that's that's a big, complicated job.

That's a that's a development job.

Okay.

And we'll see what happens.

Whether or not the veto stands.

Other big news, Zoe Saunders was confirmed as Vermont secretary of education.

A year ago.

This did not look like it was something that was going to happen.

Democrats in the legislature were certainly against this.

Sean, what's what's changed now?

Phil Berreth, for example, is saying that, you know, this is not a fight we want to have.

And and she was confirmed.

Yeah, absolutely.

And as you mentioned, Phil Murphy, someone who voted against this that we Saunders confirmation last year.

Right.

And he's leader of Democrats in the Senate face of the Senate in a lot of ways and I think embodies that shift.

In the comments that Senator Berreth made, you know, he said, look, the you know, Democrats didn't maybe they didn't believe initially when Zoe Saunders and the administration came up and said, we are going to put forward a big comprehensive plan for changing how education works broadly in the state.

But they they did that right.

They did that this year.

And now legislators are are in the process of passing through that.

And we'll see what ultimately, you know, sugar's off and comes out at the end of the session and in May or in June.

But yeah, I think to to your point, and I've mentioned this before, but Democrats are really picking their battles, I think, this year in both chambers.

And, you know, the big as we just talked about is that's one area where, you know, Democrats had enough votes to pass it.

They passed it.

And a lot of Republicans, pretty much all of them, I think, with some exceptions, voted against that in the House and Senate.

But the Ed secretary, you know, Bruce and others have said let's, you know, let's put that politics of that aside for right now and let's focus on on the policy work here.

Yeah.

Because education reform is such a big thing to to get your hands wrapped around to begin with.

And I guess they don't want to just, you know, spend all the time worrying about, you know, who's going to head up the, the education, for the state.

So Zoe Saunders is in I want to talk about, legislative crossover week.

So this so that you're covering, very extensively, at the state House, there's, kind of explain to us what what this means legislative crossover, because I know there's bills about policy, and then there's the money side of things.

Sure.

So the yeah, I think crossover is it's kind of a weird term in some ways.

Right.

So to your point, this week is the legislature is sort of self-imposed deadline, emphasis on self-imposed to, have bills that have to do with policy generally, out of their main committees of jurisdiction, like an environment bill getting passed out of an environment committee.

And then next week is what they sort of called money crossover, which means that bills that have implications for state spending or taxing, that's their deadline to come out of a major, important committee.

And of course, from the committee, if they then go out onto the floor for folks to consider broadly.

And so this week, what are some big things that you're watching for?

Yeah, I sort of spin the wheel and pick a topic ready to be talked about, but, but, you know, I, there's a, legislation moving to, repeal the Clean Heat standard.

That's a huge topic.

There's been rallies in the state House about that, legislation to rework the permitting process to maybe make it easier to build housing in more parts of the state.

Gosh, I can go on.

But those are just two that they come off off the top of my mind.

Yeah.

Okay.

Thank you for updating us on that.

And you've been writing about something really interesting.

Housing developers are looking to reduce their infrastructure costs.

I mean, of course, housing is so important right now.

And this gets into something called Tiff, tax increment financing.

Super sexy topic.

Everybody loves talking about it, but you've been writing about it really well and explaining what this is.

And there's some new ideas around Tiff about, you know, getting the money, maybe more directly to some developers.

What can you tell us about what's happening here?

Okay, so tax increment financing is a tool that, cities and towns use to promote all kinds of development.

Like they might take a blighted area, an area that's not used, and a site that has just an old parking lot on it.

And, they it's it's a heavily it's heavily regulated by the state, but basically they create a district and borrow money in order to put down the things that developers need, like water or sewer or sidewalks or streetlights or whatever it is that will promote development with the hopes that then, somebody will build a building there.

Or in the case of Saint Albans, which has done this really, really well, you know, several buildings, and then suddenly it goes from being a, property that doesn't generate much property tax to being one that generates a lot of property tax.

And then ideally, if this all works out, you know, that will help pay back the bond.

So, now we're at a point in the housing conversation in the state House where they have pretty much exhausted the possibilities for permit reform.

I mean, there's a bunch of other proposals out there, but they're kind of waiting to see how things have worked out over the last couple of years, the ones that are in place, and there's a lot of money going to various affordable housing agencies and a group called Let's Build Homes, which is a a nonprofit group of many, many developers and other stakeholders in housing, has new group two.

Right.

Sorry.

Yeah, yeah.

Okay.

With Maura Weinberger as their face in the state house, this fall, they proposed a very small tiff like instrument where a developer, instead of being a section of town, it could be a housing development.

And this is sort of like a bid to get more housing, especially in areas outside of Chittenden County.

By saying we'll pay for your water and sewer, it will pay, it will help pay for or the municipality will.

And when the thing is built, the tax revenues will accrue to the town.

And also part of this, the inducement is that, housing itself is seen as a social good.

Not and also the Scott administration has its own version and the lawmakers who work on housing in this state are, merging these varieties of the small tiff.

So.

Sounds interesting.

It sounds like they're kind of, you know, micro-targeting some areas trying to get again, housing is so important.

It's so needed.

But as you wrote in your article, the state auditor not happy about this, not a fan of Tiff.

Why not?

Doug Hoffer is a longtime foe of Tiff, as he would be the first to tell you.

Well, one of the reasons is that the state property tax, goes into the education fund, and with tax increment financing, a little bit of an increment of that comes out to repay the municipality or the bond.

So, opponents of Tiff see that as, something that takes away from the education fund where supportive of tests say, well, the building that is now so much more valuable in generating so much more tax wouldn't have been there in the first place without Tiff.

So actually, there's they, say that there's a net gain for the schools, but it really the problem with Tiff is that it is kind of hard to, to prove that if you hadn't done that work to ease the way for the developer, that the development wouldn't have happened otherwise.

Interesting, interesting.

And also, I think, Doug Hoffer was also pointing out that that he, he says there tend to be a lot of accounting errors when you get into Tiff, finances.

Yes.

He's studied them very, very carefully.

And they're extremely complicated, which is actually going to make it difficult for any city or town to do a tiff.

I mean, you have to have a pretty good size and a staff to, to go through the paperwork to do this.

And he has audited some Burlington tips and found that there were sizable accounting errors in them.

Really, really interesting article.

Check it out in seven days.

Let's bring Howard Wise, who has been into the conversation.

Hello, Howard, to thank you for joining us remotely today.

You had a really interesting article, writing about Vermont's, safety report.

And the dispatch system needs an overhaul, apparently pretty important in a state with a lot of rural areas.

Remote areas.

What is the problem?

With this dispatch system, if there is one?

Yeah.

So, lawmakers asked the Department of Public Safety to take a look at this a couple of years ago.

They've been working on it.

An important thing I want to point out right away.

So this is a draft report.

And what the department is really stressing now is they're looking for input.

So they put this these numbers out.

They really want people to, weigh in on this.

There's information on our website on the story I wrote on how you can get involved with this.

This is happening this month.

But it's interesting.

It's a lot of the same conversation we're having about our schools and about our hospitals and about everything else.

We have, 37 dispatch centers in the state, and that's 37 separate rooms with people on phones, you know, moving phone calls around.

Once, you know, 9 to 1, one comes in, they're calling the police and fire emergency.

The report pointed out in other parts of the country, with 640, 50,000 people like we are in Vermont.

They have one dispatch center and we have 37.

And there are some towns where there are like two different.

So in nine one, one call comes in and one calls going out to police and one calls going out of the fire.

So it's very inefficient.

They're calling for some really big changes.

Again, very much like the education reform plan we're seeing.

They want to see six centers in the state.

So all of these boil down simplifying it, bringing in new technologies that are now available, which weren't available in the past.

So, you know, it's really interesting.

They talk throughout the report, again, harkening back to our school discussions.

There's a lot of local control issues.

There's a lot of old animosity between departments that are right near each other.

So the report recognizes it's going to be a heavy lift that a lot of people are going to have to kind of, you know, put down their pitchforks and look at really what's best for Vermont, really, what's the best for our public safety system.

So it's a really big changes and, we'll see if it goes through again.

This is a draft report.

They're looking for input now.

They're going to put a final report together later this year and then go to the legislature and talk about it.

How long is that public input?

Period.

Howard.

It's through March.

They're holding meetings, they're gathering input.

So it's, throughout this month.

Now, you've also been writing about, more help, sought from Vermonters on, high speed internet.

And this has to do with, I think, with who needs it, but also who needs the right equipment to to get to this high speed broadband, which which has been expanded in the state recently.

Right, right.

So the broadband bill that is moving forward, there's a very large chunk of money that the state is getting a little bit nervous about.

The Trump administration has, voiced its displeasure about this bid program the states expect in $229 million to continue the broadband buildout.

But this program you're talking about, as you said, is geared more towards folks that aren't familiar with technology, people that might not have computers.

So if you are bringing broadband into these rural areas, if you have folks, maybe older folks who aren't familiar with it, the state is trying to both offer training and also get them equipment.

They're going to try to set up a donation place where other people can donate their older equipment and then get it to these, folks, low income people that need the help.

So it's interesting.

And that's ongoing.

Now they're reaching out.

They're working with, social service agencies around the state that are working with these populations.

So it's an interesting program.

And briefly, Howard, is it fair to say there's a sense of urgency here because of what you said about the Trump administration not being a fan of this kind of funding?

Well, that is interesting.

The state, they think they have this money.

This money is here.

I talked to, the person who works at the BCB, and she said, we're just going to keep doing this work until someone tells us we can't.

So they think the money's here.

They think this program is a go.

And, as of, filming, as we say, it's it's gets going right now, but we are in the same we're used to having that kind of whiplash effect where things change so quickly.

But thank you for giving us the latest on that, Howard.

Very much appreciate it.

And Wallace Allen, you know, again, the the federal effect here and, and what's happening in Washington affecting the University of Vermont, the largest, you know, university here in the state.

There's a two month hiring freeze, that's going on at UVM amid federal funding uncertainty.

What more can you tell us about that?

Yeah.

UVM, gave its community plenty of warning that there was there were having some budgetary problems last fall.

They said that there they were, going to be facing a $10 million budget deficit on a budget of about $940 million.

I think it is.

And in January, the the VP of finance asked, unit directors to look for places where they could find efficiencies.

In other words, maybe jobs they could cut or programs that they could shrink.

And that was a sign.

He said, we're going to wait until March to see if that's going to actually going to play out.

But we need you to look now and, you know, the he has said throughout this is Richard Kay, he's the VP of finance.

He has said throughout it's not so much tuition revenues as it is rising health insurance costs, which are enormous at UVM.

I mean, he expects them.

They went up, I think, 17% last year, and he expects them to go up in a similar by a similar amount this year.

So that is what is causing a lot of UVM budgetary problems.

However, UVM has been, had to take a took a turn about five years ago toward really emphasizing research funding as a way to make up for the fact that it's a big university in a small area, drawing from a small pool of students, and that tuition is never going to be a really, really big part of them, of their income.

So they've been very bullish on research.

They hired Kirk Dombroski, who's been, just creating all these connections and helping people to bring in big federal grants.

And then we know what has happened with federal grants lately.

Yeah.

So they've had the hiring freeze, and now, it's we've seen what's happened at other universities already with grants, being curtailed or cut, either because they're deemed wasteful by the Trump administration or because they're, they're in areas like, climate change research or, Justice and Equity or DEA and they are now starting to see that happening at UVM.

It's not some big ax falling on a program or something like that.

It's it's a program.

Maybe at another university where a UVM researcher is associated shrinking and it's just like little cuts happening.

Well, another program that the Trump administration is not fond of, Howard, is a program that sent local food to Vermont schools.

It is losing its funding now.

This also helped stop stock local food shelves with local food.

Is that right?

What's happening there?

Yeah.

You know, our audiences is tired about hearing about this as we are about talking about it.

But this one is like, you read it and and you just can't even believe it.

So this was the USDA money that was bringing local fruits and vegetables and meat into the schools.

And the state got a letter, last week that, the USDA Trump administration was not going to be providing this money for the next growing season.

This was a nationwide, decision.

This was not just Vermont.

They cut this whole program.

And I spoke to, as you said, it was two things.

It was local food into the schools.

And it was also helping bring local food to food shelves and folks that otherwise can't afford local food, local food tends to be a little more expensive.

You know, I spoke to, a food hub that was working with local schools that said, absolutely, there were schools that had never had local food before.

With this money, they were able to bring in some stuff.

So it was a very successful program.

The state was hoping to get more money for this growing season.

There were farmers who are just starting their plants now.

We're hoping to be a part of it.

And the money, got shut off.

We printed this story.

Published this story a couple days ago, and we're getting a lot of comments.

People are really concerned.

People are really upset about this one.

I mean, as we've said, there's a lot of whiplash going on paying attention to this.

But, you know, old school being shut off.

Yeah.

You know, local food in schools is, that's a tough one.

We're in interesting times, to say the least.

I will endeavor to do my best to end on a high note.

At the time that you're seeing this, it looks, I think the game the UVM women's basketball team will be wrapping up their game against Albany, the Great Danes.

This is the America East Conference championship.

Third year in a row.

UVM women's team has made it to the conference.

If they won that game, and I hope they did.

They are going on to the big dance.

An automatic bid to the NC double A tournament.

That's all we've got.

The time for today.

I want to thank our panel, Anne Wallace Allen from Seven Days, ShaunRobinson, for VtDigger.

And joining us remotely, Howard Weiss Tisman has been from Vermont Public.

I'm Mitch Wertlieb.

Thanks for watching Vermont this week.

Hope to join us again next week.