Legislature adjourns after approving compromise scholarship deal
MONTPELIER, Vt. --The Legislature adjourned late Wednesday shortly after the House and Senate adopted a compromise that will get college scholarships to high school students who graduate next spring.
Both the House and Senate ratified the agreement negotiated during the day among legislative leaders and Gov. Jim Douglas, capping a week in which consensus also was reached on a health care reform initiative that advocates said would extend coverage to as many as 25,000 people currently without coverage.
"This Legislature has produced results that will make a real difference for our state and its citizens," Senate President Pro Tem Peter Welch said just before the gavel fell.
By early evening, when it became clear that adjournment was nearly at hand, deals were reached on a variety of outstanding issues: The Senate wrapped up the compromise version of the state budget and the House followed suit; the House finished an energy bill and both houses passed the scholarship bill.
A compromise also was reached on a bill important to the business community modifying the way the Vermont Economic Progress Council grants economic incentive tax credits. The agency will be renamed Vermont Economic Growth Incentives and its tax credits and other incentives will be more closely tied to job creation.
That bill also will allow a number of communities to establish tax increment finance districts, important to towns such as Milton and South Burlington. The Senate passed the measure and a short time later the House did, too.
The mid-May adjournment, which came at 11:20 p.m., is the earliest in a decade and missed the leadership's original deadline by only a little more than a week.
The scholarship bill that got the most attention and that set the stage for the session's work to be completed.
The University of Vermont, Vermont State Colleges and the Vermont Student Assistance Corp. will split $5 million that they'll be able to distribute as scholarships. A new commission will be given responsibility for recommending to the Legislature how an equal amount will be spent. Options include more scholarships, forgiving educational loans, paying for technical education, or some other type of work force training.
"It's an important downpayment on our state's demographic future," Gov. Jim Douglas said in an impromptu news conference with legislative leaders on the sun-splashed Statehouse steps. "This is an important step."
The agreement among legislative leaders and the Douglas administration was reached after a day filled with negotiations that Lt. Gov. Brian Dubie helped to broker.
Under the terms of the agreement, at least $5 million would continue flowing to the fund that will be overseen by the new commission for scholarships or other educational initiatives.
Sen. Richard Sears, D-Bennington, said the commission would be charged with figuring why so many of the state's youth are going away to school and not returning upon graduation. The commission will develop proposals for stemming that flow.
"We're glad the governor identified the problem," Sears said. "Now we need to find a solution. It's not easy to figure out why kids don't come back to Vermont."
Douglas initially called for $175 million of scholarships over 15 years, which would have been paid for in large measure by a 10-year boost in collections from the national tobacco lawsuit settlement.
The agreement reached Wednesday falls short of that, but represented a turnaround for lawmakers who once described the program as "dead on arrival." Nonetheless, legislators held out so they would be able to review a program that they argued was never fully fleshed out by the administration.
"It was extraordinarily important to the Legislature ... that we have the opportunity to weigh in whether the proposal the governor has made is the right one for the demographic challenges we face," said House Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Martha Heath, D-Westford.
