Vermont Legislature

Conservation easements are legal agreements designed to protect land from development forever. But a bill under consideration in the Statehouse would allow those restrictions to be amended, or lifted entirely.

The bill has sparked a fierce debate among land conservation advocates. Opponents argue the legislation could lead to circumstances in which land that was supposed to be protected in “in perpetuity” no longer would be.

The Shumlin Administration earlier this year promised to give lawmakers their first look at how Vermont might pay for single-payer health care. But the governor has once again opted to delay his financing timeline.

It’s been three years since Peter Shumlin vowed to deliver the nation’s first publicly financed health care system. But he has yet to show voters what taxes he’d use to raise the $2 billion or so  needed to fund the program.

With the shooting deaths of 20 first-graders in Newtown, Conn., still fresh on lawmakers’ minds, Linda Waite-Simpson figured the time was right last year for a debate about gun control here in Vermont.

The Essex lawmaker focused on what she thought were reasonable concessions – things like background checks on gun sales, and bringing state law in line with federal statutes. But as Waite-Simpson would quickly learn, the Vermont Statehouse is bleak territory for advocates of gun control.

As results on school budget votes poured in from across the state Tuesday night, local board members weren’t the only ones taking notice. Lawmakers too were keeping a close eye on voting trends. And legislators like Rep. Joey Donovan, D-Burlington, the chairwoman of the House Committee on Education, say the message was loud and clear.

“I think there’s a little bit of revolution afoot,” Donovan says. “I think people want to support kids, but they want to know they’re doing it in a real cost-effective way.”

The gun-control group that won big in Burlington on Tuesday is promising to continue its advocacy in the Legislature. But the early legislative prognosis for three proposed charter changes is looking grim.

The voters of Burlington approved three charter changes Tuesday that would institute new restrictions on firearm owners in the state’s largest city. But the changes will need sign-off from the Legislature before they can go into effect. And House Speaker Shap Smith on Wednesday said chances for that happening aren’t too promising.

Voters in several of Vermont’s larger communities have rejected school budgets, sending a message to local school boards and perhaps to Montpelier that the proposed tax rates were too high.

The school spending plans went down to defeat in Burlington, Bennington, Rutland and Montpelier. Other communities where budgets were voted down include Colchester, Milton, Westford and Underhill.

The union that represents state employees says the Shumlin Administration is relying too heavily on temporary workers. And proposed legislation from the Vermont State Employees Association aims to turn many of those temps into fulltime government employees.

Temps aren’t counted as state employees. But they play a significant role in the operation of Vermont’s government. In fiscal year 2013 alone, the state spent more than $15 million on wages for temporary workers. And the state workers union says things are getting out of hand.

Legislative leaders say putting together a plan to finance a single payer health care system during the 2015 session is a very aggressive goal.

But they say it’s also a timeline that’s critical to meet if the state is going to implement a publicly financed system in 2017.

The two key finance committees at the Statehouse, the House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee, have spent a lot of time during the first half of the session examining different aspects of a publicly financed health care system.

At the Montpelier Statehouse, lawmakers are looking at changes to all kinds of taxes, including the education property tax, the income tax and a tax on health care premiums. All of these decisions flow through two committees: Senate Finance and House Ways and Means.

Friday on Vermont Edition, Bob Kinzel's guests are the chairs of those committees, Sen. Tim Ashe and Rep. Janet Ancel, to discuss what these tax debates could mean for Vermonters.

Thirteen years ago, Kay Curtis transformed the two-car garage attached to her Brattleboro home into a small childcare facility. She calls it Happy Hands: A Little School for Little People. And of the 16 families she serves, 12 pay with childcare subsidies supplied by state government.

But those subsidies haven’t increased much over the past decade. And as a small businesswoman consumed by the day-to-day of caring for small children, Curtis isn’t exactly able to negotiate her compensations rates with the state of Vermont.