As the Vermont legislative session winds down, Governor Phil Scott is lamenting lack of progress on his key priorities.
The Republican noted during his weekly briefing Wednesday that there’s only a few days left in the legislative session and said he is disappointed that the Democratically controlled House and Senate have failed to make substantial progress on housing, affordability and public safety.
“Take housing. While some legislators on both sides of the aisle have been true champions for housing Vermonters can afford, it’s clear it was not a top priority for the legislature as a whole. If it were, we’d have spent more time on bills to increase housing stock instead of an incredible amount of time on a bill that actually expands regulations in the vast majority of the state.”
Governor Scott spent considerable time discussing education funding and what he says is a need for structural change. He characterized the session as difficult, starting with a December 1st education rate tax rate letter from the Commissioner of Taxes projecting an average 18.5 percent property tax increase for fiscal year 2025.
“I don’t think that was taken seriously enough. I’m thankful the Senate took a more pragmatic approach in terms of the budget. To be honest with you I thought at the beginning of the session when we saw that there was going to be a $225 million property tax increase to the tune of about 18 percent, it went up to almost 20 percent at one point, I thought the legislature would see the wisdom of maybe let’s just fix that for Vermonters and not push forward with all the other tax and spending initiatives. And that didn’t prove to be the case.”
On Tuesday Addiction Recovery Channel Education Specialist Ed Baker was among a group of advocates who gathered in the Statehouse to call on the governor to sign a bill authorizing the creation of the state’s first safe injection site.
“We choose to embrace science and we choose to provide immediate access to lifesaving interventions in the form of an overdose prevention center in Vermont.”
Scott said he remains philosophically and pragmatically opposed to the idea and plans to veto the measure.
“It may save lives but how many are we going to lose because we didn’t get them into treatment or keep them from using in the first place with prevention? That’s our philosophical difference. I think we’re all on the same page. We want to save lives. We just have a different outlook on how to do that. We have approaches we think are working with treatment, prevention. I’d like to see us do more in terms of prevention than we’re doing now. Harm reduction as well. I’d rather put the money that they want to use for the safe injection sites into those areas that we know benefit us and benefit them.”
