We are in a time of financial uncertainty. With this comes opportunity and challenge. It is important that we find new and innovative ways for our government to do more with less. As legislators, we must “look outside the box.” A joint legislative committee was formed at the end of the last session and charged with a dual mission of improving government efficiency while identifying direct General Fund savings for fiscal year 2011. With long-term success in mind, government needs to be efficient, effective and sustainable in good and in challenging times.
Through the difficult work of the joint committee, legislation was passed with the intent of saving $38 million and giving taxpayers better value for their money. The bill sets up eight challenges. They include rewriting state contracts with a focus on performance measures, redesigning human service programs to focus on client services, making changes to shrink the prison population, reducing administrative expenses in education, achieving better results in special education, cutting the bureaucracy from environmental and energy regulation, getting more for your dollar in economic development, and giving governmental units greater freedom to generate entrepreneurial revenue. Everything is “on the table.”
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Current Use
Built into last year’s budget was a requirement that $1.6 million needed to be saved in the Use Value Appraisal Program, better known as Current Use, in the FY11 budget. Current Use is the tax policy which taxes land on its “use value,” not on its market value. It is credited with helping keep Vermont’s working landscape – its agricultural and forestry industries – viable.
The House proposed the following measures to save this money while: a) maintaining the integrity of the program, b) keeping changes simple and easy to administer, c) placing the least financial burden on the 12,500 people in Current Use (76% of whom are full-time Vermonters, including farmers, loggers, and foresters), and d) helping reduce abuse in Current Use – thereby strengthening it by making it more financially sustainable. The House has accomplished this by:
1. Establishing a one-year moratorium on the enrollment of land in the Use Value Appraisal Program. It is estimated that this will save $1.15 million. Applications filed in Sept ’09 will be held inactive for the 2010 property tax year and will automatically be enrolled (if eligible) for the 2011 property tax year. The last moratorium was in the early 1990s.
2. Changing the method of calculating the land use change tax, often referred to as the “penalty.” When land enrolled in Current Use is developed, the owner must pay a land use change tax. This change re-establishes the original “penalty” of 10% of the fair market value of the withdrawn parcel. The estimate is that this change will raise an additional $550,000 in education property tax for FY11.
3. Removing the preferential property transfer tax rate applied to enrolled land. The rate for enrolled land will now be increased from .5% to 1.25% which is the same rate applied to all other property transfers. This will raise an additional $300,000 in FY11. We are hoping that this money will fund the long needed upgrades in the electronic administration of Current Use. This will add efficiency to the management of the program, promote compliance and help the long-term sustainability of Current Use.
The Senate is working on these proposals. It is hoped that these changes will help make this invaluable program more effective, efficient and sustainable.
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School Financing
The state of Vermont like the nation is experiencing extremely difficult economic times. This can be verified by taking a look at the state tax receipts. When the legislature returned to Montpelier in January we faced a $150+ million dollar shortfall in our projected General Fund budget. We will solve this problem and build a balanced budget.
The Education Fund faces the same shortfall. Despite the Governor's recommendations we will not put teachers’ retirement obligations onto the education fund nor will we put the school capital expenses in the Education Fund. An argument could be made that both of these are a part of educational expense; however, this change would mean a huge new increase to the property tax.
Local school boards have done a remarkable job statewide to deliver budgets that are level-funded or reduced. However, with the slump in the economy, level budgeting is not enough to fund next year’s school budgets without tax increases. Just as the state has made adjustments in order to live with far fewer tax dollars or increase taxes to balance the budget, local communities are faced with the same dilemma.
The difficult choices we have to make at the state level are similar to the difficult choices our boards have to make at the local level. The good part, in Vermont, is that you get to make those choices for your community.
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School Budgets are Down
School boards across the state have done an exceptional job managing their budgets this year. It appears that 2011 statewide spending will be level with or slightly below budgets from 2010. The projected base tax rate of .88 cents anticipated a 2% increase in spending. The legislature will set the final rate later in the session based on more current revenue forecasts as well as approved budgets.
The House Education Committee receives regular updates from the Vermont Department of Education regarding proposed budgets and it appears that boards and superintendents are managing staff to match declining enrollments, but special education costs continue to be a concern in some areas of the state. The Vermont Department of Education will be working with school districts over the next two years to help reduce special education costs.
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Income Sensitivity Proposals
The governor’s position is that income sensitivity costs the state too much and that middle-income Vermonters should pay more. Income sensitivity allows working Vermont families to pay based on income without worrying they’ll be forced out of their homes by rising property values. The proposal is to reduce sensitivity by making families earning $60,000 to $75,000 pay up to 2.25% of their income. The current rate for those families is 1.8%. Also, the governor would ask those making $75,000 to $90,000 to pay 3.5% of their income in property taxes. Finally, the proposal would limit income sensitivity to a house value of $400,000 for Vermonters with household incomes below $90,000.
The combined impact of the governor’s plan would increase homestead education taxes on middle-income households by $24.5 million. Income sensitivity would be eliminated for 15,609 households and reduced for 17,285 households. It would shift taxes paid by those with the highest incomes by $24.5 million and place them on those with lower incomes. It would reduce school taxes paid by owners of non-residential property at the expense of property owners with incomes between $60K and $90K. These are household incomes, so families with two wage-earners who make between $30K and $45K each would be negatively affected. Income sensitivity allows retired and elderly Vermonters to live in their homes without the fear of being taxed out of them. It is the right thing to do. The governor’s proposal is the wrong way to go.
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School District Consolidation or Merger
The House is considering a bill that proposes to reduce the number of supervisory unions from the current 60 to no more than 16, similar to the current technical center districts. If the bill passes, by July 1, 2012 the commissioner of education would have finalized the new districts, and they would go into effect.
The centralized authority would include one board based on at-large representation and one superintendent. All purchasing, special education, transportation, negotiations, determination of common level of appraisal, school choice, technical center and preschool affiliation, and other transitional issues would be fully implemented by July 1, 2014.
The House Education Committee is also considering another proposal that would provide incentives for neighboring districts to voluntarily merge. Incentives would set education spending and a tax rate for four years without budget votes until 2018. The new Unified Supervisory District would have a single governing board that would determine the district level governance. No schools could be closed before 2018 unless voted otherwise. Collective bargaining, transportation, choice for high schools, and one tax rate and grand list would apply with full implementation in 2018. Districts that don’t merge would remain with their supervisory districts. A single district could petition the board of education for placement.
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Teacher's Retirement Changes
A commission that studied teachers’ retirement and health insurance benefits came up with recommendations for legislation. H 764 changes normal retirement eligibility for those with less than 25 years of service or who are less than 57 years old. The new eligibility follows the “rule of 90” suggesting a retirement age of 65 years or 30 years of service. Early retirement stays at age 55 but with a reduction. The average final compensation (AFC) maximum will be raised to 60% upon completion of 20 years of service. For those ages 57 or greater or with 25 or more years of service, the maximum benefit is increased to 53.34% of AFC for years of service after July 1, 2010. The contribution rate for all teachers increases to 5%.
Retiree health care premium subsidies for new hires and those with less than 10 years of service will be based on a tiered schedule based on years of service with spousal coverage at 80% after 25 years. Current teachers with more than 10 years of service maintain 80% single coverage and those with 25 years service will also have 80% spousal coverage. There is a complex schedule, based on years of service, for spousal coverage at 80% that can be found on the state treasurer’s website.
Those who have extraordinary increases in their average final compensation during their last 3 years of service will be limited to 10% per year to count toward their AFC determination. A person who serves 4 or more years with those increases will not have that 10% limit.
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Texting and Highway Safety
The House is committed to a comprehensive approach to keeping our highways safe. While we are pleased the Senate passed a ban on texting, it is only part of the larger problem of distracted driving and public safety.
Data shows that cell phone use quadruples a driver’s risk of a crash. Youth are already more likely to be in crashes, yet are a much smaller portion of the driving population. The National Center for Disease Control considers youth highway fatalities a public health risk. Each year highway crashes cost Vermont $234 million in Medicaid, emergency services, law enforcement, and other programs and services. Therefore, a bill that restricts cell phones to hands-free only by adults, bans cell phones and hand-held electronic devices for junior operators (16-17 year olds), imposes a nighttime curfew for junior operators, bans texting and mandates seatbelt use would be a comprehensive, responsible approach to saving lives and keeping our communities safe.
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Jobs
Jobs. That’s where we’re focused. What are we doing about it? We’ve targeted three areas:
1. Broadband. Everyone needs to be connected to the information superhighway. We know that it’s not just about strengthening businesses’ access to the internet. The ordinary Vermonter is using broadband for some of the most innovative projects. The legislature is investing millions of dollars in new and faster connections for homes and business districts.
2. Workforce Training. By investing money in targeted skills-building programs, we help Vermonters get good jobs and we provide businesses with access to qualified and productive future employees.
3. Access to Capital. We are addressing one of the root causes of our current recession – tightening of the credit markets and lack of access to cash. For cities and towns, as well as large, medium, and small companies, Vermont provides bonds with especially low interest rates and tax deductions, as well as loans with below-market rates. For entrepreneurial low-income Vermonters, we offer help with critical business skills; we also provide small grants to help them found their own businesses that also keep them off public assistance.
We also set policy that makes business and commerce operate more efficiently and equitably. For example, we’re addressing issues like unemployment insurance, rights for condo-owners and others in home associations, mortgage hurdles for homeowners living on private roads, fair labor laws that ensure proper classification of employees for workers’ compensation, ticket scalping, nurturing the buy local movement, and supporting Vermont’s prudent banks and their Vermont regulators, to name just a few issues.
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Jobs and Transportation
Are you one of the citizens asking yourself how using transportation money is going to create jobs and improve our roads and bridges? Do you wonder if the legislature has a role in this process?
Vermont is one of the few states that received praise for its quick use of transportation stimulus funds. Doubling of paving funds would quickly create Vermont jobs and treat our roads with much needed paving. With almost half of our state’s roads in poor to very poor condition, the additional funding would be put to immediate good use. In 2009 Vermont spent $58 million on paving. In 2010 we spent $118 million, and in 2011 it is proposed that Vermont spend $93 million.
An average paving mile costs between $200,000 and $400,000. During the 2010 season, Vermonters can expect to see a 32% increase in paving from last season which will create 200-300 new jobs. This is the good news. However, it is sobering to realize that over a third of Vermont roads are rated very poor. The cost of getting that under 25% is estimated at $150 million over a two-to-three-year period.
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eWaste
Electronic waste, or "e-waste," is the biggest solid waste problem in the U.S. and in Vermont. It represents the fastest-growing portion -- and a very toxic portion -- of the waste stream. E-waste is made up of computers, televisions, printers, and other electronic products that are very expensive for consumers to dispose of and toxic to humans and the environment when disposed of improperly. Thankfully, the Vermont Legislature has passed S. 77, a "producer responsibility" bill, to solve this statewide problem. Effective next January, the bill will ban the disposal in landfills of all electronic devices, such as computers, monitors, TVs, printers, and other such products which contain lead, mercury and other hazardous substances. Joining some 20 other states, S. 77 also requires the manufacturers of certain of these electronic devices to register in the state and pay a fee according to their market share to fund free, convenient collection sites for e-waste in every corner of Vermont. We expect this legislation to have a major, positive environmental impact.
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Toxics in the Environment
We think of Vermont as a clean, green and safe place to live. We feel confident that our country learned from disasters of the ‘70s like Love Canal. We believe that protection from toxic chemicals is a concern for more industrial areas of the country. Recently, however, body-burden testing of half a dozen ordinary Vermonters has shown that no one is safe from industrial chemicals. These ordinary Vermonters have been exposed to toxins that are known to cause cancer as well as a variety of developmental, reproductive and behavioral disorders (the report can be found at http://www.goodchemistry.org/wpcontent/uploads/2010/02/EAP_BodyBurdenReport_2.pdf).
For years we have been protecting Vermonters chemical by chemical. We have fought to reduce exposure to lead, mercury, DECA and other hazardous but widely used chemicals. With over 80,000 industrial chemicals (90% of them untested) in products we use every day, this approach ultimately will not work.
The federal Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), enacted in 1976, has failed to protect us. The time has come for Congress to demand testing of industrial chemicals and to regulate those chemicals linked to health hazards. If the federal government cannot or will not protect all Americans in this very basic manner, it must provide support to the states and allow them to act.
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It's difficult to say at this time what the legislature will decide with respect to strengthening the unemployment insurance program. The Unemployment Fund is nearly tapped out, due to this recession. But it’s important to recognize that the unemployment insurance system is designed to self-correct and even if we make no increases to employers’ premiums or cuts to unemployed workers’ benefits the system will return to balance in time.
There are essentially three basic parts to the program: 1) employer insurance premiums, 2) unemployed worker benefits, and 3) borrowing from the federal fund when times are tough.
The maximum benefit to unemployed workers is frozen until the fund is solvent, and last year a one-year change to the unemployment base wage rate was increased from $8,000 to $10,000. This rate increase will expire in January of 2011 unless additional legislation is signed by the Governor.
The UI premium is based on half of an average Vermont wage. This wage base has not been adjusted for inflation since 1983. The result is that businesses have experienced a premium decrease from roughly 2% of payroll to .72% of payroll. Consequently, when unemployment skyrocketed during this recession, the UI fund was forced to borrow from the federal fund to support unemployed workers. The study committee recommended a careful approach which increases business costs gradually with fewer cuts to benefits so we can weather this economic storm before refilling the fund.
The legislature is moving carefully on this fix because we realize that any time money is removed from the economy, whether by increased employer costs or decreased unemployment benefits, it has the effect of slowing economic recovery. And both actions could make it harder for our Vermont businesses to survive and thrive.
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Changing the Date of the Primary Election
Vermont received notice this fall that we are not in compliance with the Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment Act. Beginning with the November 2, 2010 general election states must send absentee ballots to overseas voters at least 45 days before any federal election. Last month, the legislature approved moving the date for the primary election to the fourth Tuesday in August. The secretary of state’s office has requested moving the primary date forward since 2000 but the legislature never acted on it. Presently our laws are set up to send ballots out 30 days before an election.
Vermont law now allows town clerks to email a ballot to a voter overseas in a PDF file, which he or she prints out, completes, and mails back, along with a signed certificate. These ballots must arrive by 7 p.m. the night of the election.
Moving the date is the best solution for following the federal law. Proposals to create an electronic voting system would cost money in a year when we are trying to find $150 million in savings. Even if we invested in new technology to receive ballots back electronically we would still have to meet the requirement to send the ballot 45 days before the election.
If there was a year to change the primary election date to ensure deployed Vermonters get their ballots, this is it! We have over 1500 Vermont soldiers deployed to Afghanistan. We need to show our support for our troops so they can exercise their right to vote, too. They are fighting for democracy; let’s make sure they can participate in it.
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Rail Update
Vermont applied for over $100 million in three separate stimulus rail grants about a year ago. These awards were announced by President Obama the day after his State of the Union address. The New England Central Rail (NECR) was awarded $50 million, which must be spent within two years, for projects that upgrade the track upon which the Vermonter (Amtrak) runs. These upgrades will increase the train’s travel speed, resulting in more efficient and effective train travel. When you look regionally and nationally, the Vermonter connects with the defined high speed rail network. Just as important, the upgrades will allow freight weight capacity to increase to industry standard, effectively allowing more goods to move by rail. NECR is a privately owned railroad and has a proven track record of excellent management and gets projects done on time.
The state-owned Western Corridor railway was denied its Tract Two grant. Vermont’s rail division will be challenged to spend the Jeffords federal funds in a way that positions Vermont favorably for future federal rail investments.
A small but meaningful third grant was awarded to Vermont and New York for about $1 million for rail planning. The planning examines the NYC, Albany, Bennington and Rutland rail routes for future development. This is rail investment with an eye on the future.
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Our Court System
As a result of the great recession, Vermont’s courts are currently closed about 3 days per month. When the courts close, criminal cases grind to a halt, business disputes remain unresolved, and the tension that family court places on kids and their parents is protracted. The business of our courts is too important to allow this to continue.
Our Constitution calls for a “unified judiciary” managed by the Supreme Court. The statutory structure that creates our courts and guides their work, however, fails to provide the Supreme Court with the ability to manage the full range of work that our courts conduct.
Last year’s budget established a Commission on Judicial Operations. The commission, led by Chief Justice Paul Reiber, conducted its work over the summer and fall. It has brought forward a set of recommended statutory amendments that will create a much more manageable and efficient judicial system.
The commission’s work forces us to take another look at some historically comfortable aspects of our court system. The commission recommends taking assistant judges off the bench; drastically reducing the number of probate judges, placing them in large multi-county districts; and collapsing the Grand Isle and Essex county courts into Franklin and Caledonia counties respectively.
The legislature may not adopt all of the commission’s recommendations exactly, but we will give the Supreme Court the tools it needs to manage our courts effectively.
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Mandatory Overtime
We are proposing to ban the use of mandatory overtime at hospitals for nurses and other medical staff who play an important part in our health care system. Mandatory overtime is one of those practices that may never affect you – unless you're in the hospital and expect that your nurse will be rested and able to give you the best care possible.
Nurses are licensed professionals who pride themselves on the high level of care they provide their patients. They have studied for many years and put hours and hours into maintaining their high standards. Many are also parents of school age children, or caregivers of aging parents who may need daily care. Mandatory overtime is a practice that allows hospitals to demand that a nurse (or other technician) stay and work another shift of overtime – many times without giving the nurse an opportunity to make alternative care arrangements for children, parents or spouses. Mandatory overtime demands that a nurse be prepared every single day to work longer than expected.
This kind of lifestyle is very difficult to maintain. Studies show that a nurse's mental acuity diminishes after 8 hours, and it diminishes precipitously after 12 hours. Mistakes can and do happen under these circumstances, and when they do, patients can get injured or die. And if mistakes happen, it is the nurse who loses the license, not the hospital.
Mandatory overtime also has a negative impact on nurses' families. When a nurse cannot pick up his or her children from school, or cook them dinner, or tuck them in at night, it affects the family. If a nurse cannot visit her sick mother after work, she suffers. It seems wrong that hospitals can still force nurses to work at the expense of their families – the people they absolutely must take care of every day.
Many nurses who belong to a union have won the right to ban mandatory overtime in their hospitals, but most hospitals do not ban it as a practice. Even some unionized hospitals have managed to keep this scheduling practice in place. The institution that uses this practice most frequently is the Vermont State Hospital, but all hospitals that have not yet banned it on their own continue to keep the policy on their books.
Banning mandatory overtime will provide us with a better workforce of nurses and will improve care. It will not ban voluntary overtime, nor will it prevent a nurse from continuing to care for any particular patient that may need personal attention for a time longer than the nurse's shift. And be assured that in case of an emergency, this law would not ban hospitals calling for "all hands on deck."
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Corrections Challenges
The Department of Corrections has one of the most rapidly increasing budgets in state government. Statistics have shown that 51% of people in the corrections system will reoffend within 3 years of release from jail. The legislature is looking to its partners at the state and local level to break this cycle.
The corrections Challenge for Change directs the human service agency, the education department and the court system to work together to stop the revolving door at the Department of Corrections. These departments will work together to decrease recidivism while ensuring community safety. $20 million will be saved in the next two years. Of these savings $3 million in 2011 and $2 million in 2012 will be reinvested in programs and services in the community which will reduce the number of people entering into the corrections system and help ensure people within the corrections system will not reoffend once they are released.
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The Capital Bill
The Capital Bill is the legislation that allocates the state’s bonded dollars to construction of productive infrastructure for the state and for towns. In this way it can support government functions and invest in infrastructure for economic development while also creating jobs. Every year the state borrows money by issuing new bonds in order to finance such projects and we pay off bonds issued in earlier years. Issuing bonds means borrowing money and the amount of the bonded dollars this year is to be $71 million.
Some of the projects this year include the following. We will rebuild and renovate the Bennington State Office Building, which is expected to employ a geothermal system for heating and cooling, and do major maintenance on other state buildings throughout Vermont. We will improve our state park systems and fish hatcheries. We will support investments in agriculture that will help farmers and protect the water quality of our lakes and rivers. We may use some funds for information technology; investments in hardware and software for state agencies will help us to achieve our goal of improving the effectiveness of government.
The Capital Bill will also contain funding for towns applying for federal money to upgrade water and sewer facilities, which are an essential component of economic development. The Building Communities grants will continue to provide funds to municipalities and nonprofits for particular capital improvement projects. There will probably be some level of funding to continue to pay down the backlog of the state share of school construction still owed to the towns, rather than shifting this obligation onto the Education Fund as the governor recommended. The moratorium on making the commitment to pay the state share on new construction remains in place, except for emergency projects or consolidation.
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Felt-Soled waders
The Committee on Fish, Wildlife and Water Resources heard testimony that felt-soled waders are a means by which invasive species like Didimo (AKA “Rock Snot”), are carried from one water body to another. In addition, we also heard testimony that disinfecting felt-soled waders is difficult. To meet this threat, H.488, which bans the sale of these products, has been introduced. To allow liquidation of existing inventories, as well as giving individuals time to get full use of currently owned felt-soled waders, the ban doesn’t go into effect for two years.
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Vermont Farms in the Future
As we all know, the dairy industry is in crisis. And yet, when the House Agriculture Committee took testimony from the students and faculty of the Farms 2+2 program there was a palpable hopefulness that things will get better. Those students and teachers are, every one, knowledgeable, hardworking, clear-eyed enthusiasts.
The 2+2 Program is a tuition scholarship for aspiring dairy farmers who spend two years at Vermont Technical College and two years at the University of Vermont. Young Vermonters from farm backgrounds rely on this program. The agriculture committee supports fully funding this scholarship because it’s the most immediate and direct step we can take toward supporting a new generation of successful dairy farmers and leaders in Vermont agriculture.
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Farm to School
Farm to School connects schools to local farms with the objective of serving healthy meals in school cafeterias, improving student nutrition, providing agriculture, health and nutrition education opportunities, and supporting regional farmers. The Vermont program, one of the most successful in the nation, is run by a collaborative called VT FEED, which has served over 100 schools with technical assistance by providing grants for planning and implementation.
Unfortunately, at the same time that we’re beginning to recognize the long-term benefits of eating healthy local foods, especially starting at an early age, the funding for this program has been cut completely from this year’s budget. However, Senate bill S.288 uses federal stimulus money specifically to help increase institutional purchases of fresh, locally grown foods. Passage of this bill would likely mean at least partial funding of this important program.
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Vermont’s Farm to Plate Program
While Vermont is an agricultural state, we import 97% of the food we eat, and we send $2.5 billion out of state to buy in this food. This huge expense also represents a great opportunity: if we can grow and process just 10% more of our food, we can add approximately $500 million each year to the state’s economy. Further, this is growth we can achieve without spending new money, but simply by shifting the money we already spend on food from out-of-state to in-state sources.
Farm to Plate will help that happen. The program means more jobs—growing, processing, distributing, and selling Vermont food. In addition, these are sustainable, long-term jobs, as the demand for food is, of course, ongoing. This shift to growing more of our own food also means that Vermont agriculture, which is now very dependent on dairying, will become more diversified and stable. This is especially good news for our rural economy.
Vermont’s Farm to Plate program, now its first year of operation, is developing a strategic plan for rebuilding Vermont’s food system over the next decade. Farm to Plate will bring more fresh local food to all Vermonters at a time when they are increasingly asking for such healthy foods.
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Electricians
When you call an electrician, do you expect him or her to be licensed? And do you expect that your house was wired by a licensed electrician? We did, and we were wrong...but any licensed electrician could have told you that. Did you know that ten or more people died in electrical fires over the last ten years?
The House is working on legislation that would require that any substantial electrical work at all levels of construction be done by licensed electricians. Up to now, unlicensed electricians could work on single family homes and duplexes – meaning any of the homes we live in may have been wired by someone who was not licensed and required to follow electrical code.
This law would increase the safety of our homes by ensuring that licensed electricians will be doing the work. If an owner wants to wire his or her own house, he or she may still do so.
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Towns protecting their rivers
The river corridor bill allows towns to prevent pollution and increasingly expensive, taxpayer-funded, after-the-fact clean-up of Vermont’s rivers, lakes and streams, resulting from runoff and flood hazards. Respecting water courses, respecting a river’s natural need to swell and recede, while leaving vegetative buffers like shrubs, grasses, and trees next to rivers, lakes and ponds is an effective, scientifically proven and inexpensive way to prevent a lot of pollution from entering our waterways.
This river corridor bill is designed to build support and buy-in at the local level. If it is enacted into law, the Agency of Natural Resources will be asked to provide educational, technical and mapping services as well financial incentives to towns that are interested in adopting shore land and river corridor protection bylaws. This is voluntary, so if a town is not interested in this support, there is no requirement for it to participate.
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DUI and Ignition Interlock Devices
In an attempt to make Vermont’s roads safer and cut down on drinking and driving, the Judiciary Committee is considering requiring ignition interlock devices when someone has been convicted of driving under the influence (DUI). An ignition interlock device doesn’t allow a car to start if the driver is impaired due to alcohol. It would allow individuals with a DUI conviction to be able to drive to work, take their children to school or day care and not disrupt functions necessary to family life. Research shows that ignition interlocks reduce recidivism among both first-time and repeat DUI offenders, with reductions in subsequent arrest ranging from 50-90%. In 2008, 12 people were killed in drunk driving crashes in Vermont – 16% of all total traffic fatalities. Additionally, 6,069 people have three or more DUI convictions and 833 have 5 or more DUI convictions. To date, 47 states have some type of ignition interlock law – Vermont, Alabama and South Dakota are the only 3 states that do not.
The committee is considering whether to make use of an ignition interlock mandatory or discretionary for first-time DUI convictions; for subsequent convictions the device would be mandatory. The amount of time the device would be installed would vary depending on the # of convictions. By preventing impaired drivers from starting and operating their motor vehicles, the separation of an unsafe driver from a vehicle that has the potential to be a deadly weapon may prevent untold tragedy. Issuing conditional licenses along with ignition interlocks is also being considered and the committee is looking at ways to keep individuals convicted of DUI from driving with a suspended license.
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Mobile Home Ownership
This past summer, a study committee met to make recommendations on mobile home rent-to-own agreements and mobile home transfers. The committee included mobile home advocates, park owners, municipal clerks, Legal Aid, and the attorney general’s office, among others. Upon receiving the recommendations, the House passed H. 542, a bill to help clarify the process for transferring ownership of a mobile home as well as ensure the rights and responsibilities of buyers and sellers. If passed by the Senate, the bill would clearly identify the requirements for the mobile home uniform bill of sale and define a rent-to-own transaction as a present-sale of property. Additionally, the bill consolidates the laws governing mobile home sales, including rent-to-own transactions, so that they are easier for all parties to understand.
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