Vermont’s governor spent his weekly briefing Wednesday talking about the just completed legislative session.
Republican Governor Phil Scott noted that a number of bills were passed as the Democratically-controlled legislature finished its business and he has yet to determine whether he will approve or veto them.
“There were about 60 bills that passed during the last two weeks of the session and as is typical, I won’t be making any specific decisions on individual bills until we receive and review them, using the five days I have to take action,” Scott said. “And just for awareness, I don’t have any bills on my desk at this point. Legislative Council will take whatever time they need to review the bills and get signatures from legislative leaders before I start getting bills and they typically come in batches. That’s a long way of saying you shouldn’t expect any action this week or early next week.”
In keeping with that sentiment, Scott avoided committing, but alluded to a potential veto of the newly-passed state budget.
“As I’ve repeatedly said we can make historic progress on our shared goals without increasing costs on already overburdened Vermonters,” the governor said. “I’ve been clear. I’m ready and willing to work with legislators to find the right balance between their approach and mine, because that’s what Vermonters elected us to do. Vermonters voted for balance and expect us to work together. But they’ve also been loud and clear with me that they didn’t think Vermont was affordable even before this legislative session. That’s why I have serious concerns about the financial impacts of what they passed.”
The governor was asked about the coming end of the hotel-motel voucher program at the beginning of June and concerns that local municipalities have about an expected increase in homelessness. Scott says the program’s money would be better invested in creating permanent housing.
“We’re all in this together and it’s something that we’re not sitting on our hands waiting for the date to arrive before doing anything,” Scott said. “We’re trying to make arrangements at this point. Permanent housing is the answer. And I want to reiterate that every dollar that we spend for the hotel-motel program is money that we won’t be able to utilize for permanent housing typically. And we’re just going to have to continue to survey those who are involved in the hotel-motel program to find out what plans they’ve made, if they’ve made any, what issues they have and we’re doing just that every single day.”
Governor Scott referred questions about how many people losing eligibility have confirmed housing to Agency of Human Services Secretary Jenney Samuelson, who did not enumerate.
“We know that a significant portion of them actually have an alternative plan,” Samuelson said. “It’s a dynamic population so I don’t want to get down to the numbers.”
