Rep. Stevens: Bills crossing over, assessing a veto, & eyeing federal cuts

March 16, 2025 | By Rep. Tom Stevens 

This past Friday marked Crossover Day for policy bills in the House. Next Friday will be Crossover Day for money bills, including Ways and Means (taxes), Transportation, the Capital Bill (investments in state structures) and finally, the Appropriations bill.

These together make up the bulk of our annual expenditures for Fiscal Year 2026, and will eventually include the Yield Bill, which will set the statewide tax rate for education funding based on the school budgets passed on Town Meeting Day. Not all communities and districts have voted their school budgets yet, and so the total increase over last year’s rates will not be known for several weeks.
These bills, once they pass the House, will move to the Senate, and Senate bills will make their way to the House. Each side will contemplate the other’s bills and will pass them back and forth until the bills are agreed upon by both houses. There is no guarantee that every bill will pass, and there is no guarantee that every need will be met by our work. We have a very tight budget this year, as it is the first year since 2020 without substantial federal funding based on the COVID-19 crisis.
As you may have heard, the governor vetoed the Budget Adjustment Act after it passed both the House and Senate. His specious reasoning focused on $1.8 million we appropriated to keep unhoused Vermonters, including over 400 children — truly our most vulnerable residents — in hotels until the end of June. Our bill also included funds for more affordable housing, millions of dollars for Medicaid, protection against discrimination (which is so important in light of how the Trump administration is trying to take a wrecking ball to equal rights and funding for so many elements of government, including for veterans, affordable housing, farmers and education), and millions of dollars to protect our Veterans Home and other nursing homes that are struggling under the weight of how expensive it is to provide this care.
I say “specious” because the “message” we received after the election was that Vermonters wanted to see compromise in the dealings between the legislature and the executive branch. We held up our end, and passed a budget that agreed with over 95% of what the governor proposed.

Where we differed was over what to do with the more than 1,400 households of unhoused Vermonters on April 1. When we did this last year, we saw an increase in illnesses and fatalities related to living outside, and there was no desire to repeat that error. We chose compassion. This is not to say the system doesn’t need to be overhauled — it does — and there will be bills this session related to doing just that. But what the governor proposed — sending money to municipalities and expecting them to manage their unhoused populations without time to plan and in a way that would only last three months — is not a plan worth considering without more input from the General Assembly and the organizations that we enlist to help with this societal problem.
As of this writing, no plans have been made available about how we will resolve this veto. To many of us, it is short-sighted and potentially life-changing for so many vulnerable Vermonters, from children to veterans to the elderly — again, people who are already threatened by the Trump and Republican destruction of a social fabric that keeps so many people alive. That said, the General Assembly remains at the table in a spirit of working together. I expect the governor to join us.
As for how those federal cuts will affect us, it is too early to tote up the damage. If threatened cuts happen, as they have for essential USAID programs overseas, Vermont will see losses of federal dollars for Medicaid, education, housing and more in the coming weeks. We will let you know as best we can, when we know.
In the meantime, please enjoy the sunshine! The sap is running hard, and fresh syrup is on its way!
Please stay in touch.

Rep. Tom Stevens, D-Waterbury, is on the House Appropriations Committee. He represents the Washington-Chittenden House district covering Waterbury, Bolton, Huntington and Buels Gore. Reach him at tstevens@leg.state.vt.us or 802-595-0429