Sometimes when you’re a political appointee, you have to say stuff in public that you’ve been told to say. I’d like to think that’s what Tax Commissioner Craig Bolio was doing on Friday when he had the stones to approach the House Ways & Means Committee with a scheme that should never have seen the light of day. Giving him the benefit of the doubt, Bolio was sent by his superiors to propose a painfully belated, half-baked plan (to call it a “plan” is being generous) that amounted to what Ways & Means chair Rep. Emilie Kornheiser later called a “payday loan.” Without the benefit of the ..read more

Welp, the Scott administration has put out a press release trumpeting Zoie Saunders’ first day on the job as Vermont’s education secretary. Nowhere does it mention that her appointment is pending approval by the state Senate, which won’t even begin considering the matter until sometime next week. Quite the opposite, in fact. The press release says that “Saunders will travel around the state in the coming weeks” and “In the months ahead, Secretary Saunders will kick off a formal listen and learn tour.” Yeah, the fix is in. The Senate will put on a show of performing due diligence, but honestly ..read more

It appears that the Senate Appropriations Committee is ready to kill a House-passed proposal to extend the motel voucher program that shelters thousands of homeless Vermonters. So says the chatter in the hallways, which I would not take as gospel — except that the committee made its intentions more than clear in a recent hearing. On April 2, the committee heard from Commissioner Chris Winters of the Department of Children and Families and some of his top deputies. The panel had asked him to prepare a presentation on the challenges of implementing H.883, the House-passed FY2025 budget bill tha ..read more

The headline might seem outrageous, and I’m sure it won’t make anyone on the Fifth Floor happy, but it’s the plain truth. Vermont’s judiciary system is grossly underfunded and understaffed. The result is a huge backlog of pending cases measured, not in weeks or months, but in years. Gov. Phil Scott’s solution? Cut a few more positions from the courts. This is the same governor who said, in his State of the State address, that public safety was one of his top priorities. The House decided to boost the Judiciary instead of strangling it, and approved a bill that would pay for more positions in ..read more

Rather devastating piece has been posted in an unlikely spot, Forbes Magazine, about Zoie Saunders, Gov. Phil Scott’s pick for education secretary. It’s written by Peter Greene, a longtime schoolteacher turned education commentator. We’ll go through some specifics, including a lengthy quote from an unidentified writer at something called The Vermont Political Observer*, but this must be addressed right off the top. *Hey Peter, next time check the “About” page. Governor Scott’s office, which did not yet respond to a request for comment for this article, has said that Saunders will not be doin ..read more

We began the new week with all eyes turned toward the sky, waiting for the sun to briefly disappear. But at the same time, an earthly, political-type sun also vanished — and this one isn’t coming back. Sen. Dick Mazza, who served nearly 40 years in the state Senate and 30 seconds as a TV spokesman for a riding lawn mower, has announced his immediate retirement for health reasons. On a personal level, Mazza was a tremendous guy. He was a joy to talk with. If he ever had a bad word for anyone, I didn’t hear it — and if anyone would have merited a bad word or two from Mazza, it was me, the guy w ..read more

Vermont’s longest-running Cold War ended this week, with Seven Days waving the white flag and surrendering to Sen. Bernie Sanders. It had been nine long years since Bernie had deigned to speak with Vermont’s leading weekly newspaper. The streak ended this week, with Seven Days accepting what was presumably a limited sit-down dedicated to one of the senator’s favorite issues, the plight of America’s senior citizens. Ultimately it means little to nothing, but it made me a little sad. Way back in December 2017 when I helmed the gone-but-not-forgotten Fair Game column, I covered one of the great ..read more

Maybe it’s just me, but I see a veto as a failure of leadership. It’s a last resort, to be used only after all other options are exhausted. But Gov. Phil Scott seems to take pleasure in the exercise, to judge by the frequency of his vetoes. He long ago surpassed Howard Dean’s total (in far fewer years as governor), and Dean had been, by a country mile, the most enthusiastic vetoer in Vermont history. To be fair, Scott faces the difficult task of trying to manage the state in concert with a Legislature dominated by the other party. But it’s the hand he has been dealt. It’s his responsibility t ..read more

No foolin’ this time: April 1 brought yet another mass unsheltering for no good reason whatsoever, and the blame appears to fall on the Scott administration’s failure to communicate with clients of the motel voucher program. It seems that somebody realized sometime last week that roughly 800 households — which, by the standard calculation of 1.6 persons per household, would be about 1,280 individuals — were eligible to stay in their state-paid motel rooms, but in order to do so they had to apply for reauthorization by April 1. And they hadn’t done so. According to designated unsheltering pool ..read more

April 1, 2024, Montpelier, Vermont — In a surprise announcement, Gov. Phil Scott told a hastily-assembled press corps (numbering in the mid-single digits) that he would sleep outside tonight. “At a time when so many Vermonters are having trouble keeping a roof over their heads, they need to know their governor stands with them,” Scott said, standing outside the Statehouse clad in white shirt, tie, and tactical vest. “Therefore, I’m going to spend the night sleeping outside, here on the Statehouse lawn.” As he spoke, a crew from the Department of Buildings and General Services was pitching a t ..read more