Pay hike for Speaker, more access to contraception, Blittersdorf Budget Buster on committee schedules this week

By Guy Page

The House Corrections and Institutions Committee will hear reports on the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) and an update on issues plaguing DOC. It will review funding for placing inmates out-of-state and learn more about youth placed at the Woodside juvenile facility. Also: funding for a project at the Brattleboro Retreat and a State House space utilization study.

Tuesday the Human Rights Commission will brief House Education on status of social justice and equity for public schools, as required by H.1 of 2019.

Wednesday several committees will participate in Homeless Awareness Day at 9 am in the House Chamber.

Every House Human Services member except Mary Beth Redmond (D-Essex Junction) and James Gregoire (R-Fairfield) co-sponsored H.663expanding access to contraceptives. Set for review on Wednesday, H.663 would require health insurance plans to cover all methods and forms of contraceptives without cost sharing, require school districts to make free over-the-counter contraceptives available to all secondary school students, and direct the Department of Health to coordinate with stakeholders to make free over-the counter contraceptives available in a variety of settings statewide.

Guy Page

Former Burlington Free Press reporter, St. Michaels College journalism professor and unfailing open government watchdog Mike Donoghue will appear before the Government Operations Committee Wednesday re: media and general public accessibility to public records. Attorney General TJ Donovan insists on costly fees for any state employee-assisted document review. Here’s one example, cited on VT Digger by GOP gubernatorial candidate John Klar:

“My own experience gives a textbook example of his abuse — he wants $7,232 for me to view his correspondence with Planned Parenthood in 2019. Whatever one may feel about the abortion issue, this is a question of respect for campaign finance laws and ethics rules. But no citizen can discover whether any wrongdoing occurred without investing a fortune, while he interposes a fallacious assertion that he is protecting us from corporations and litigators.”

Gov Ops also will get its first look at H.614 (Jim McCullough, D-Williston) a 20% pay hike for the Speaker of the House, Senate Pro Tem, and all committee chairs. It also would raise all other lawmakers’ in-session weekly pay to $743 in 2021, with annual increases thereafter indexed to state employees’ raises.

House Natural Resources’ two-year revision of Act 250 will focus Tuesday on oversight of slate quarries. Wednesday, NR will review proposed cannabis regulations, in part to review concerns that that legalized cultivation could despoil groundwater and soils, as has occurred in California.

House Transportation will consider “feebates,” through which gas guzzlers would be assessed higher registration fees, and a register-by-weight scheme. On Thursday, Transportation will review the study finding that it would cost up to $96 million to rehab train tracks between Barre and Montpelier for commuter rail. Renewable power mogul David Blittersdorf hopes to operate self-propelled diesel-powered cars between the twin cities, but expensive upgrades are needed – hence the state-paid study published in December, and Thursday’s review.

Read more of Guy Page’s reports at the Vermont Daily Chronicle.

Image courtesy of TNR

3 thoughts on “Pay hike for Speaker, more access to contraception, Blittersdorf Budget Buster on committee schedules this week

  1. ” (Jim McCullough, D-Williston) a 20%”

    I’ve got a suggestion for McCullough, how about when your house of fools
    lowers the cost of living here 20% we’ll think about a raise..
    The wages should be tied to taxation on the VTers…. higher tax less pay
    less tax more pay….

  2. So far there is nothing but talk about how and where to spend the tax player’s hard earned money. Not one thought has been given to the what must be dones while all the fuss is about the wish lists. It’s most discouraging. I for the life of can not understand how these clown think. It’s most probably because they don’t think.

  3. The costs of Blittersdorf’s Choo Choo track (alone) would cost about $96,000,000 – $5,800 for every man woman and child in the Barre-Montpelier service area (Barre pop. 8,959 [2012] and Montpelier pop. 7,776 [2012] ) This doesn’t include the costs of operating the diesel cars that average less than 5 MPG at 40 MPH – a speed they will never travel on the 5.5 mile run ! This is the classic case of a solution in search of a problem – which in this case is better tended to by the current solution of buses ! Blittersdorf couldn’t care about the economics of the situation, he bought his worn-out antique Budd RDS cars on the cheap and now expects the state to pay him for his mistake ! Narcissisms parading around a “Climate Change” virtue – OMG 1

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