During his weekly briefing Thursday, Vermont Governor Phil Scott and members of his administration focused on public safety. They say repeat offenders must be held accountable by the state’s courts.
Last week Republican Governor Phil Scott signed two public safety-related bills that he says address some of those concerns.
“S.58 increases enforcement of drug crimes which is critical to slowing down the deadly supply of drugs coming in to our state. We also focus on repeat offenses because existing policies have created a lack of accountability,” Scott says. “We’ve all heard stories about people committing crimes only to be back out on the street recommitting just hours or days later. S.195 makes changes to the conditions of release and bail. I want to be clear. In order to be most effective we need the courts to use these new tools to help keep our communities safe.”
Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs Executive Director John Campbell says statistics show there are about 21,000 open criminal cases in the state and about 60 percent of those have been committed by people with one or more offenses. He says the new laws offer consequences and help eliminate court backlogs.
“The courts now have to consider two things,” Campbell notes. “Not only will they consider the seriousness of the offense but also whether the defendant was currently out on other conditions of release, which we’re finding a lot of, and whether or not the defendant was compliant with court orders and whether or not that person failed to appear in a prior hearing. We need to have that accountability and these defendants need to be brought into court and they need to address the crimes that they have allegedly committed.”
Governor Scott vetoed H.887, the so-called yield bill, on Thursday, which would set the homestead property tax rate at 13.8 percent. In his veto message to legislators he reiterated that taxpayers cannot afford a double-digit increase in the wake of other new fees and taxes passed by legislators. Scott says he has reached out to the House and Senate with alternatives.
“I think there’s a path forward and I hope that they will take it seriously because there really is two ways to accomplish this,” Scott says. “One, they override the veto which they have the supermajority, fully capable of doing that. Secondly is to work with us to try and reduce rates, find some ways to, and we have ideas about this, to fix the structural issues that we have with our education system. So I’m hoping that they’ll work with us and that we can give Vermonters relief in that regard. Because a double-digit increase in property taxes, as much as we’ve talked about it, will be a surprise to many.”
Next month is the anniversary of devastating flooding that occurred in parts of the state beginning on July 11, 2023. The governor says they are working on a day of reflection to look at what happened and how to prepare for future. Chief Recovery Officer Doug Farnham notes that most states take three to five years to recover from a such a disaster.
“A lot of our communities have done an amazing job and they’re still working very hard,” notes Farnham. “Your municipal staff they’re still focusing on projects. But then you’ve got the long-term recovery groups. And that’s really the groups that are connecting to a lot of the households and need continued support. I do think we have the structures in place. We have the relationships and we’re building on that. And we have a lot of individual situations that we’re still just trying to manage and find the best options for those individuals. You know, stopping and looking back and updating a year after will be good and then we’re going to turn to okay what does this mean for preparing for future disasters? How do we think about the structure going forward?”
