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Wednesday, May 12th, 2010
The session has finally come to an end. It is Wednesday May 12, 2010 and we have been here since 9:30 AM this morning. The time now is 11:30 PM and we have been busy all day taking up the most important bills of the session. They include the appropriations (budget), transportation, capital, municipal and teacher retirement systems and the miscellaneous tax bill. All of these bills had passed the House and Senate earlier in the session. The bills taken up today are known as the report of the conference committee and we can only vote "yes" or "no". These are the most difficult legislative votes to make because the conference committee has the latitude to add anything that is relative to the subject and they can't be amended or changed. This provision allows for some pretty outrageous items to be passed into law without any chance for modification.
The total appropriation or budget for the state this year is $4,772,081,459 which represents an increase in spending of $121,398,653 over last years budget. In a year when state employees took pay cuts, many services and programs were slashed and several of the retirement plans had to be modified, I could not justify a spending increase of this size. Therefore, I voted "no" on the proposal that eventually passed on a roll call vote of 116-25. There were several positive items in the bill but, I feel that the negative impacts far outweighed the positive. The other serious concern I have with this spending plan is that it will set the state up for a potential deficit of $250,000,000 next fiscal year. I feel that this legislature had the opportunity to make different choices in funding that would have put the state in a lot better place next year. Items such as reducing the amount of money allocated to conserving land or by putting off funding of new social programs. These two items alone will cost the state several million dollars. I am disappointed that this legislature didn't do a more thorough job in preparing this budget.
The transportation, capital and retirement system bills passed on a voice vote and were not contested in any way. These bills are very important components to the overall operation of the state. The transportation bill allocates $560,000,000 for all transportation related items. This includes new construction, paving and all road maintenance. The capital budget appropriates $71,000,000 for all state capital projects including major maintenance. The retirement bill modifies the teachers and municipal retirement plans to make them more solvent as we move forth. The changes will generate future savings in the state general fund of approximately $17,000,000.
The bill that was most important to Milton was the miscellaneous tax bill. This bill included 60 sections of which each pertained to different types of taxes. The two most important sections were 58 and 59. These two sections dealt with taxation of hydroelectric facilities. The first detailed the findings regarding valuation fluctuations and the second freezes the grand list values of these facilities for 2 years at no less than the April 1, 2009 value. I wrote about our town's plight a few weeks ago. We were facing a large loss of tax revenue from the owners of the hydroelectric dams due to a reduction in their assessed value. In our case it amounted to approximately $100,000 of taxes. Fortunately, the passage of this bill will temporarily resolve this issue. It will now be up to the town to make a permanent fix to this problem within the next two years.
As your representative, it is an honor to represent you and your concerns in Montpelier. It is hard to believe that I have just completed my fifth session and hope to have the privilege of returning again next year. As always, I am very interested in hearing from you and truly appreciate your support. Even though we are not in session, please feel free to contact me if you have any questions, comments or concerns. I can be reached by calling my cell phone at 373-5960 or by e-mail at dturner@leg.state.vt.us. My web-site address is www.donturnerjr.com. Thanks again for your continued support and I look forward to seeing you on the campaign trail this summer!