Dear Constituents –

Our work at the Statehouse this week was dominated by two big themes: Act 181 and Education Transformation.

On Tuesday, the Speaker of the House released a response to the Rural Caucus’ position on Act 181to repeal the Road Rule and Tier 3 mapping.  Vermonters’ voices have been heard, and after an additional day of testimony in the House Environment Committee, the Chair of that committee indicated her support of the same provisions, as well.  It is our expectation that S.325 will go back to the Senate with that repeal language included; however, a vote has not yet been taken as of this writing. Thank you to all of the selectboards and individuals who took the time to reach out to their legislators to assist us in getting to this point.

On Thursday and Friday, the House debated H.955, the Education Transformation bill that doesn’t transform anything. The bill as passed leaves us in much the same place as we were a year ago.  It is much too early to predict how this bill will change in the Senate, but the trajectory in that Chamber is quite different than in the House, with little chance to intersect. The bill will likely go to a Committee of Conference at the end of the session, as the House and the Senate do not appear to be able to work together to pass legislation that is capable of transforming our inequitable and expensive pre-K—12 education system. Once again, Vermonters spoke (in the 2024 elections), and your Franklin County delegation is doing everything possible to ensure that we can afford to deliver an academically excellent and equitable education to our students at a cost we can afford.

The National Guard & Veterans Affairs Caucus met on Tuesday and heard presentations from: Adjutant General Hank Harder, who gave us an update on our service members who are deployed and how we can support the families waiting for them at home; the US Small Business District Director, who described programs to assist veterans starting small businesses and farms; the Governor’s Veterans Advisory Council to introduce their organization to the Caucus; and an introduction to the Civil Air Patrol in Vermont.

The Rural Caucus heard from the Rural Schools Community Alliance; presenters of some of the rural-school related amendments for the Floor debate; and VT Housing & Finance Agency (VHFA) on their draft rules for the Qualified Application Plan (QAP) that must be filed to be eligible to receive funding to create rental housing. In rural areas, the new draft rules will essentially shut down new housing development, particularly age-appropriate housing for older Vermonters, because of a “siting threshold” that requires all new VHFA construction to be within two miles of services such as a grocery store or a pharmacy.  VHFA realizes that this is not possible for our rural areas, and the Rural Caucus is submitting comments, as you also may do, at [email protected] by APRIL 24.

My email is [email protected]

Stay well,

Rep Lisa Hango