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Monday, March 29th, 2010
The level of intensity continues to rise as we move toward adjournment. This past week we again spent most of our time on the floor in the chamber of the house. We debated the most important bills of the session this week as the appropriations (budget), transportation and miscellaneous tax bill all came up for action this week. All three bills passed the House and are now on there way to the Senate for action.
I voted in favor of passing the transportation bill and against passage of the budget and tax bill. The transportation bill included no controversial items and passed unanimously by a voice vote. The budget bill, which was well over a hundred pages, took more than three hours to be reported on the floor and has numerous areas that concern me passed on a roll call vote. It appropriates $4.7 billion dollars for the state to operate from July 1, 2010 through June 30, 2011. The budget bill does fund many programs that I feel are important to our community, however, it continues to use one time money to fill gaps which will only create larger deficits and cutting next year. The tax bill kept the existing statewide school property tax at the same rate as it was this year. This is good news. However, it was accomplished by raising some other taxes and withholding federal stimulus dollars intended for businesses. As with all bills, both the budget and tax bill had some things I support. However, there were far more things that I could not support and that is why I voted to oppose passage of these bills.
H.709 passed this week as well. This bill created a Pre-Kindergarten-16 council to study and plan how to get more people to go to college. The bill also repealed the Commission on Higher Education Funding. This commission had been charged with monitoring the cost of higher education in Vermont and how we spend our state higher education dollars. I raised many questions about this bill. I have been very concerned for the last several years about how Vermont taxpayers dollars are being used in our public higher education institutions. UVM and the Vermont State Colleges get an appropriation that exceeds $100 million annually. These institutions have several lobbyists that are in the Statehouse on a daily basis. The other issue that I brought up was the perceived conflict of interest that legislatively elected trustees have while serving on these institutions board of trustees. This was not popular with some of my fellow legislators, especially those serving as trustees. I will continue to raise these questions until someone can prove to me that the taxpayers have representation and that there is accountability with these funds.
Hosting friends at the Statehouse is one of the things I enjoy most about serving in the legislature. This week I had the pleasure of introducing my niece Haley Lauziere and former page and daughter Erin who visited the Statehouse on Friday. If you would like to visit the Statehouse please feel free to contact me to arrange a date and time.
As your representative, I look forward to representing you and your concerns in Montpelier. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions, comments or concerns. I am very interested in hearing from you. During the session, I can be reached at the Statehouse by calling 1-800-322-5616 or by cell at 373-5960. My email address is dturner@leg.state.vt.us. My web-site address is www.donturnerjr.com. Thank you and have a great week.