I've posted about S.18 before. It's the bill to ban the sale of flavored tobacco products in Vermont. The lobbying has been fierce, with hundreds of emails urging votes against the bill flooding the inboxes of members on the committees reviewing it. They became such an annoyance that I didn't bother to open them, just clicking Delete over and over again. We heard rumors of how the email addresses were collected and I was pretty sure that most of the senders either didn't really exist or didn't know how their email was being used.

The bill had been stuck in my committee for a week or so with no explanation of why we weren't coming close to a vote. We were busy with Education Funding. There were also things happening in the background.

First of all it's important to know that the committee agenda for each week is set by the Chair. She decides which witnesses are called and when. She decides which bills we will discuss and for how long. She runs the show. So, the Chair can decide that any given bill will just never "come off the wall," and therefor never get acted on. Individual members can be obnoxious and complain to the Speaker about neglected bills or gum up the works by creating a hostile committee atmosphere but that's seldom productive. A good committee chair listens to the members and brings up the bills they think are important.

S.18 came out of House Human Services committee with unanimous support. The Republicans, Democrats, and Progressives on the committee liked it. It came to my committee, along with several hundred texts for each member, to be reviewed on its fiscal impact; banned sales mean lost revenue. A Fiscal Note was submitted by the Joint Fiscal Committee stating that there would be a loss of about $7 to $14 million in revenue to the State, with around a million of that taken out of the Education Fund. Loosing revenue, particularly to the Education Fund, at this time is not good. But we also heard testimony about the the use of flavored tobacco products among youth and the long term savings in health care costs that such a ban might bring. The result was that I needed to do some work and really look into the bill. 

I read it carefully and had some questions about the definitions of what would be banned. The definition of e-liquids and tobacco substitutes seemed pretty broad and I didn't know if that was what the Human Services committee really intended. I talked to the attorney who drew up the bill and she agreed that there might be an issue. She said I should talk to someone on the Human Services committee. I did so, and yes, that was not what they really intended, so a change had to be made. 

Meanwhile another problem with the bill had popped up because it had a financial penalty for youth using favored tobacco and that didn't seem right. So with S.18 waiting in our committee, I had time to concentrate on it and the Human Services committee worked on an amendment to fix both those issues. It took a couple weeks to get all this ironed out. My committee had possession of the bill so any changes had to come from us or wait until it came to the floor. Someone decided that we should do the amendment. So last week my committee voted on an amendment to the bill that narrowed the definition of what is to be banned and changed how young violators will be handled.

It was not an easy vote. I don't like banning products. I didn't like the lost revenue to the State. I liked to think it will keep some youth away from addiction. I am concerned about a black market. I like to think there will be large long-term savings. I appreciated the narrowing of the definition of the products banned. I respect the work of the Human Services committee. I am concerned about the impact on some small businesses. All that came together into a reluctant "yes." 

I believe the bill will go to the Appropriations committee next and from there to the House floor. I'm still not sure how I will vote then.

Not all bills are written by the attorneys that work for the Legislature. Sometime a non-profit or a lobbying firm writes the bill and convinces a legislator to submit it. That's not bad. It saves work for those over-worked legislative attorneys, but it does mean you get a bill that must be treated with care.  H.629 was such a bill. It was pretty much written by Vermont Legal Aid and become a Committee Bill, meaning it was submitted by the Ways & Means committee. After introduction, it came to us. We have been working on it since the beginning of the session. 

I didn't like it much from the start. I found the data supporting it questionable and right-away I received negative input from the Colchester town clerk. Legislators' ears always perk up when they hear from town clerks, town managers, Selectboard members, or School Board members. They are in touch with our constituents and their opinions of our work are important. 

The purpose of the bill is to standardize the abatement and tax sale procedures so that they are consistent and fair throughout the State. That's a good thing. But I don't want to add a lot of work to what town clerks and tax collectors have to do because a few are over-zealous.

Over the course of the session the bill changed a lot, but there was one portion I still didn't like. When a person doesn't pay their taxes, the Town can sell the property in order to collect the taxes. In current law that can be done right-away. If you don't pay your taxes, the first thing that happens is that a penalty is added to the tax bill. And there is an interest charge to get you to pay as soon as possible. But . . . the town tax collector can also start the procedure for a tax sale of your property. Most towns don't like tax sales. It's a lot of hassle and it kicks someone out of their home. So town tax collectors generally work with you for a payment plan and do what they can to get you to pay without a tax sale, but there is no legal requirement that they do so. Some just start the tax sale procedure.

Your home then comes up for public auction. You still own it, but the town has a "warrant" on it for the value of the taxes, and penalty, and interest. Anyone can buy it at auction. After the purchase there is a one-year redemption period during which you can pay the taxes and have the property released from the warrant.

The person buying the property is taking on some risk. S/he may buy the property for $50,000 and then have the tax payer show up, pay the taxes, and reclaim the property. The purchaser gets the money back but still, it's a risk. So there is also 1% per month interest that the tax payer must pay the purchaser if the property is reclaimed. H.629 cut that to 0.5% interest. I didn't like that. It seemed to me that no one would want to park that much money and get only 0.5% interest per month.

When the bill came up in committee for a vote. I vote "no" along with two Republicans. The other two Republican voted "yes." and the 7 other Democrats voted "yes." So the vote was 9 to 3 to approve. A kinda strange split. But that was it. The bill was scheduled to come out for a full House vote a couple days later.

But things fell apart. I think some committee members were not happy with their vote. At any rate, at the last minute it was pulled from the floor and sent off to the Government Operations committee without much explanation. And there it sits.

We continue to discuss the funding of public education in Vermont. The big questions now are: What to do about next year (the 2025-2026 school year). How do we prevent such a projected big jump in education property tax bills?

The House Education committee is also involved. This video has the Ed committee taking testimony on some possible solutions. 

I've reorganized this sites pages on Education Funding. There is now a single page with links to all the Ed Funding subjects. If you really want to know my understanding of how it works, go here.