The opening month of the session was a whirlwind: analyzing how the $1.25 billion COVID Relief Funds were utilized, approving the mid-year budget adjustment, responding to the governor’s priorities for next year’s budget as well as beginning committee deliberations as bills were introduced.
Here's some good news on the affordable housing front. In the governor’s budget proposal for next year, an increased allocation of $30.8M is to be used to build more much needed housing. As well, the second federal COVID funding includes $200M that provide continued emergency rental assistance – including utility assistance. This will most certainly help, as we especially learned this past year, “Housing is Healthcare.”
I serve on the General, Housing, and Military Affairs Committee. In a joint meeting with the Human Services Committee we heard from a range of housing providers and individuals who have experienced being homeless. Among their recommendations: keep funding flexible to meet a range of current and emerging needs; continue to support collaborative, cross-sector initiatives that strengthen communities in new ways; fund additional emergency and transitional housing; and increase the number of housing vouchers and new case workers.
Mental Health Workers and Advocates detailed how unstable housing has only exacerbated issues during the pandemic. Moving people off the streets and out of shelters into hotels in order to mitigate contagion was the right short-term decision at the onset of COVID, but now eleven months into the ongoing crisis, over 2,200 adults and 400 children are still being housed in over 70 hotels across the state.
These are some of our most hyper-vulnerable Vermonters, and the isolation, displacement, and uncertainty compounded in some instances by poverty, trauma, substance use disorder, and/or mental illness has necessitated support services in order to keep residents safe. Criminal behavior, self-harm, and unsanitary conditions add further duress. These efforts are still being supported through federal relief dollars; creating a humane transition post-pandemic will be an enormous challenge.
As it is the beginning of the biennium, dozens of bills were already introduced to our committee, including prevailing wages on school construction projects, political lawn signs, zoning restrictions, organ donors, Homeless Bill of Rights, and a Eugenics Apology Resolution to all Vermonters harmed from state-sanctioned eugenically inspired sterilization programs. More on these if they are taken up for in-depth consideration. Each season, only a select few make it through the legislative process. At this time, priority is being given to time sensitive matters and pandemic recovery.
Other committee briefings included background on the Veteran’s Home, National Guard, and status of the state’s unemployment insurance fund. These reports are key for our work in the months ahead.
Significant time was spent discussing two proposed bills (H.63 & H.81), both of which propose technical changes to a 2018 bill that created a new statewide healthcare bargaining process for all public school employees. The bills contain several differences, two of which are more significant: whether the parties are allowed to bargain different premiums and out-of-pocket costs for support staff and higher-paid teachers and administrators; and in the ways each would resolve disputes through arbitration. Two members of South Burlington’s School Board, Elizabeth Fitzgerald and Bridget Burkhardt, and Superintendent of Schools, David Young, among dozens of others, gave oral and written comments regarding how the bills would impact local school budgets.