Rep. Stevens: ‘Money bills’ at the session’s halfway mark

April 2, 2025  |  By Rep. Tom Stevens 

This last week saw the House of Representatives considering the bills passed through policy committees prior to crossover, with a focus on “money bills.” This includes the Transportation Bill (T-Bill), the Capital Bill (our investments in many facets of Vermont buildings and programs, such as clean water), the Yield Bill (setting a state tax rate for education financing) and the so-called “Big Bill,” which is the Fiscal Year 2026 budget.

Please keep in mind that these bills have only passed the House of Representatives. They now reside in the appropriate Senate committee and will likely change, and those changes will be ironed out during a conference committee. Also keep in mind that these bills did not include H.91, which is proposing a new program that will help create an organized way of dealing with General Assistance and our unhoused neighbors and where we can help make their lives a little more stable, nor did they include the wide-ranging education finance and governance issues, which will be handled in different upcoming bills.

Remaining in the background is the Budget Adjustment Act, which the governor continues to threaten to veto over keeping some of our Vermonters housed in motels until June 30. While he issued an executive order to protect some of them, he is blaming a lack of a plan (as proposed in H.91) for refusing to keep Vermonters as safe as possible during a time of unsettled weather and politics. And if he vetoes the bill again, important elements of our government will continue to suffer as well, including our Veteran’s Home in Bennington, Medicaid providers and nursing homes that are near financial failure, and even our state employees, who we agreed to appropriate funds to help cover some of an outrageous health insurance premium increase.

With respect to the Big Bill, please know this: there were serious needs addressed in the base budget, but many were unaddressed by the governor’s budget proposal. The Appropriations Committee heard from the other committees about their priorities, as well as from individual legislators, advocates and representatives of many facets of our system (including state colleges, UVM, hospitals, the food bank, regional conservation commissions, and affordable housing). We listened to constituents, and we listened to administration officials. In the end, nearly $300 million in requests were made, and we had nowhere near that amount of money to appropriate to these departments and organizations.

And so rather than list all the things we did in the budget, please know that the final list of what we were able to fund above and beyond the base budget of keeping the lights on will not be settled until the budget is finished at the end of the session.

Finally, please know that the chaos in Washington is loud and active. We are learning every day of both real and possible cuts that are mainly affecting the poorest and oldest Americans and Vermonters. Food for the food bank, health care through Medicaid, the Social Security Administration, the Department of Education, the VA, the Post Office, the National Parks, USAID, and more and more, every day. 

Some of these cuts have been rescinded, and some folks have retained their jobs, but the Trump Administration is taking a chainsaw to many things that mean something to Vermonters and may take months or years to repair. It puts your state government at a disadvantage because we can’t know how and where the cuts are going to affect us. So we are preparing for whatever changes may happen in the near future.

As always, please don’t hesitate to reach out. 

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