The Legislature adjourned on May 10th, with a designated ‘veto session’ scheduled on June 17th to consider whether the Legislature would override vetoes by Governor Scott. To override a veto, both the House and Senate must have at least 2/3 of their members present vote to override. In this session, with 145 Representatives present, 97 would have to vote to override each bill, and with 29 Senators present, 20 would have to vote to override each bill. It is normally a very high bar. However, Vermont’s supermajority of Democrats and Progressives made it likely that vetoes would be overridden in an unprecedented manner. There were a record seven bills vetoed by the Governor that were taken up in the veto session. Six were overridden and became law.
The most significant one for Vermonters is the 13.8% education property tax increase statewide (H.687). Governor Scott believed this was unaffordable and unnecessary. The Legislature disagreed, and over-rode his veto along party lines, by a vote of 103-42 in the House and 22-7 in the Senate. Also of interest to businesses in Vermont was H.121, the Data Privacy Bill (see below). This was the only veto that the Legislature failed to override.
Career Technical Education Improvements—S.304
In the final two weeks of the session, the House Education Committee decided not to move forward with S.304, as in their view it did not do enough to improve the CTE programs in our high schools. We were at least successful in adding the additional CTE coordinator position to the budget, so now there should be better statewide coordination between CTE centers. Of note is that the Interim Secretary of Education and the Scott administration have pledged to work with VRLDA and other stakeholders to address the systemic issues our members see in these programs.
The housing crisis and workforce crisis can both be addressed by updating the CTE system and its funding—a Legislative ‘twofer’ that is a top priority for the Scott administration and for our members. This summer and fall we will be following up to build on the political capital we have gained and will stay engaged on this with the administration and into the next Legislative session.
Data Privacy—H.121 Vetoed by Governor Scott and veto sustained in Senate
After the busy final few days of the session, which saw the Senate version of the bill eventually modified to include the House private right of action language and adding language from another bill to protect youthful social media users (the so-called ‘kids’ code’), the bill was on the Governor’s desk by June 7th.
On June 13th, Governor Scott did in fact veto the bill. This was done with the support of most business groups in the State. Many of them were primarily concerned with the private right of action that would make Vermont the most anti-business state in the country in regard to data privacy.
The House voted to override the veto by a vote of 128-17. However, the Senate chose not to override the veto, with their vote being 14-15. A far cry from the necessary 20 votes, and a sign that the Senate did in fact listen to business concerns. Some version of data privacy legislation will be introduced in 2025 and hopefully it will be more in line with recently passed legislation in New Hampshire and other nearby states that do not have a private right of action.
Municipal Overweight Permitting
The Department of Motor Vehicles has hired a computer system contractor to build their online permitting system. System implementation is planned for late summer, 2025. That system will have the capacity to apply for municipal permits as well as state permits.