Rep. Stevens: Another veto of ‘the very least we can do’

April 9, 2025

Unfortunately, I have to update the status of the Budget Adjustment Act, which the governor imperiously vetoed again last Friday. 

His veto letter once again blames the General Assembly for the veto, claiming the Budget Adjustment Act is not the place to change “policy” (though many of his proposals change “policy”), and that by denying unhoused Vermonters who qualify a place to stay until the end of June is, in his reading, doing a service to those Vermonters to whom he is denying housing.

The governor also claims that he’s offered real solutions to the problem in the short term while dismissing the real proposals being considered and shaped in the House and Senate. This is not accurate. The bulk of the governor’s proposal is to push the problem of caring for these vulnerable Vermonters on to communities and municipalities and organizations that are not prepared to manage this population. 

And, this proposal would only fund the municipalities until the end of June. In other words, sticking to his figurative guns means exiting people three months earlier than the General Assembly’s proposal to non-existent supports before the end of the fiscal year for the sake of a program failure of the administration’s own (lack of) design.

Make no mistake, the General Assembly is under no illusion that using hotels and motels is anything more than a band-aid approach, but given that the Republicans in D.C. are dismantling the social safety net, it seems that showing compassion by keeping these folks in a room for as long as we can (and we can afford this, as there is money leftover in the Agency of Human Services to cover the costs), would be the humane thing to do.

And if we must reduce this to a political conversation, please remember that the Budget Adjustment Act is meant to make adjustments to the budget we passed last June, mostly meaning financial but certainly not limited to that.

The General Assembly agreed with 99% of what was proposed by the governor, and by vetoing this again, the governor is using the Vermont Veterans Home, and Medicaid patients and providers, and nursing homes, and state employees, as hostages in his determination to evict Vermonters from housing, no matter how subpar it is. 

When we adhered to this policy last year, Vermonters died because of the lack of shelter. This is, given the political chaos all around us, unacceptable today.

We will continue to try to come to some solution, but we are negotiating with an administration unwilling to negotiate the fate of these unhoused Vermonters in good faith, and that remains the greatest disappointment of all. When the federal government acts the way it has over the last weeks, it is necessary for us to take care of our own. 

In this case, it is literally the very least we can do.

Rep. Tom Stevens, D-Waterbury, is a member of the House Appropriations Committee. He represents the Washington-Chittenden district covering Waterbury, Bolton, Huntington and Buels Gore. tstevens@leg.state.vt.us