Notes from Montpelier
by Rep. Bill Frank

Health Care Reform and the budget was the work for the last two weeks for the House of Representatives. This is the time during the legislation session when the money committees of the House finish work on the budgets they are responsible for and the full House takes them up. The House committee on Health Care completed their work on the first phase of health care reform. 　The last two weeks we took up and passed the 2012 fiscal year State Budget from the Appropriations committee, commonly known as the Big Bill;

the Capital Construction and State Bonding bill, the Capital bill, from the committee on Corrections and Institutions; from the Ways and Means committee the commonly called Misc. Tax Bill, An act relating to tax changes, including income taxes, property taxes, economic development credits, health care-related tax provisions, and miscellaneous tax; and from the Transportation committee the 2012 fiscal year budget for the State’s Transportation Program, commonly called the T-bill.

The Big Bill this year was the fourth year in a row that the State budget required major reductions, this year $176 million. A very wide variety of services were eliminated or reduced, many of which I did not want to see reduce but the alternative was generally worse. For example the Student Assistance Program which provides grants to schools to help fund a counselor. The grant program was scheduled to be eliminated. Locally this counselor is part of the Chittenden East Community Partnership which promotes a safe environment for our youth, free of alcohol, tobacco, other drugs and violence in our schools and communities. This has been a very successful program at MMU, BRMS and CHMS. I was successful in staving off elimination, instead a major reduction in the funding. Hopefully, we will be able to restore this funding in the future.

For the first time in years the Capital budget was written as a two year bill to better provide funding for a new State Health Laboratory. The long outdated lab at the corner of Colchester and East Avenues by Fletcher Allen Hospital has been visited for many years by Joe Gunther, a character in Archer Mayor’s books. The bill also sets a goal for a 20% reduction in energy consumption for state buildings.

The $544 million transportation budget includes repaving more than 100 miles of interstate highways and 135 miles of state highways. The amount for pothole repair doubles to $4 million. But the discussion on the T-bill was almost entirely on the Clark Truck Center sign in Jericho. The committee suggested a solution that didn’t completely address Randy Clark’s request to the transportation committee. Rep. Till and I offered an amendment that was not agreed to. Members were very concerned doing a patch in the law for one specific sign. In the end no changes were made to the sign law and the committee on Natural Resources and Energy agreed to do a comprehensive review of sign laws in light of the number of new technology signs and the desire to maintain our state without billboards.

The Health Care Reform bill, H.202, passed second reading about 12:30 am Wednesday night, a Historic event. Many said there were too many questions about this bill; I listened to over 13 hours of questioning, all with answers. The first time I ran for election to the House in 2004 I made it very clear that health care reform was one of my top priorities, and I have continued to work for it. I was very proud to cast my vote in favor of H.202. I have posted a paper with general information, questions and answers and the timeline for H.202 on my web site, www.RepBillFrank.com.

Last Friday the 3^rd and 4^th grader from Underhill Central School visited the State House.  They were able to see me work on the floor of the House, have a tour of the State House and Vermont's history museum.  Rep. Till and I sat with them on the House floor and answered  some of their many questions.