Vermont Legislature

When local homeless shelters are full, state government provides vouchers for homeless Vermonters to stay in motels for short term housing.

Last year that program cost the state $4 million dollars. The legislature cut the budget this fiscal year, allocating 1.5 million dollars to the program.

Commissioner of the Department for Children and Families, David Yacavone, says the program is already over budget and is projected to cost the state about 4.2 million dollars this year.

The problem of student loan debt is one that state Senator Anthony Pollina is trying to crack.  He's our guest on the next Vermont Edition to discuss his plan to ensure that students don't graduate from college with a crushing student debt load.  It's a plan similar to one being tried in Oregon.  We also discuss Pollina's idea to create a Vermont state bank and an alternative economic benchmark to the GDP.

As a new school year gets underway in Vermont, thousands of students are newly eligible to receive free lunches.

A law passed by the legislature provides students who previously received reduced price lunches with the free meals. 

Under the old reduced lunch program meals cost 40 cents.  Now that all students from income eligible families will receive free lunches, the state expects greater participation. 

Laurie Colgan is Child Nutrition Program Director for the Agency of Education. 

The State of Vermont is getting ready to implement a new law that allows terminally ill people to get life ending drugs.

After a fierce legislative debate, lawmakers reached an unusual compromise in order to pass the legislation.

For the next 3 years, there will be a detailed process for a terminally ill patient to get the life ending drugs.  Then in 2015, a streamlined procedure will be put into place. It’s one that basically gives doctors legal immunity if they write a prescription for these drugs.

Governor Peter Shumlin signed a group of bills Wednesday designed to crack down on prescription drug abuse and related crimes. But the measures don’t focus on increased penalties for drug abusers, in fact, quite the opposite. Instead, the so-called “Good Samaritan” law makes Vermont just the 13th state in the nation to offer limited immunity from prosecution to people reporting a potentially deadly drug overdose.

Gov. Peter Shumlin is planning to sign a bill that would decriminalize the possession of small amounts of marijuana.

The bill would replace criminal penalties with civil fines similar to a traffic ticket for possession of up to an ounce of marijuana.

The bill signing is scheduled for Thursday afternoon at the Statewide Criminal & Juvenile Justice Training Conference at the Inn at Essex in Essex Junction.

Gov. Peter Shumlin is set to sign a bill that would allow immigrant farmworkers who are in the country illegally to drive in Vermont, with a new type of driver's privilege card.

The bill is designed to allow workers who are in the country illegally but providing crucial labor on Vermont's dairy farms to get a new type of state driver's license.

After fighting about this issue in the final days of the session, the two sides did agree to work together over the summer but some major disagreements have emerged right at the start.

The two sides do agree on one thing. To determine a person’s tax burden, they want to shift from using an individual’s “taxable income,” to what’s known as “adjusted gross income.” This number is larger because it comes before applying a series of deductions. 

A bill allowing terminally ill patients to get medication to end their lives became law on Monday with Gov. Peter Shumlin’s signature.

Although the law takes effect immediately, it may be some time before it’s used. Doctors and hospitals say they’re looking carefully at whether and how to participate.

The signing ceremony in the governor’s Statehouse office was both a celebration and a quiet remembrance for those who worked on the issue but didn’t live long enough to see it through.

Mon 5/20/13 Noon & 7 pm  After laying out his priorities in January, Governor Peter Shumlin saw some of his agenda items approved by the State Legislature and others given scant attention. We speak with Governor about how he assesses the just-completed session – where he thinks he succeeded and where he thinks he failed. And what he hopes to accomplish in the second year of the biennium.