Rep. Stevens: Bills in flux are keeping adjournment at bay

May 13, 2025 | By Rep. Tom Stevens 

With the advent of spring (though it doesn’t quite feel like it yet!), the Legislature is moving toward the end of the first session of the biennium. Bills have moved back and forth between the House and Senate, and many are now in conference, where differences between each version of the bills will be reconciled.

The members of the committees of jurisdiction are working together to come to agreement. It is likely that this work will be done this week. Usually, this means that we are ready to adjourn, but that is not the case this year. There are several bills that are still being considered in both the House and Senate, and then they will have to go to conference, which will delay adjournment. We don’t know exactly when that will be, but it is looking like the end of May at the earliest.

H.454, the education transformation bill, is likely one of the bills that will take longer to consider before we adjourn. Reports of the bill from the Senate indicate that there are serious differences between the two versions of the bill, and until it comes to the House, we are assuming the conference will be lengthy.

There are two versions of a housing bill in play — one in the House and one in the Senate. Both have some common-sense proposals and some truly problematic proposals regarding using tax dollars to finance infrastructure projects related to specific housing, similar to Tax Increment Financing programs that exist today.

There are many reasons to contemplate such a scheme in order to promote the construction of new housing, but there are also many reasons to question whether it is a good idea to use funds that would normally go to the Education Fund in the form of an increased grand list revenue for housing that would primarily benefit developers of market housing. Our Ways and Means Committee is hearing testimony and will offer its decision during the week of May 12. Again, it will be sent back to the Senate and perhaps will be in conference within another week.

This has been a very different year with respect to the importance of understanding what “affordablity” means and how we can get there in the face of the tremendous chaos happening in Washington, D.C. Make no mistake, what is happening will do grievous damage to the financial stability of the country and our state. Tariffs of any kind will take money directly out of our pockets, and the instability on the stock market has already damaged people’s pensions. This administration has chosen to govern in attack mode, and it is causing nuclear levels of stress and tension in every state house and, frankly, in every one’s house. We are doing the best to track the ever-changing “executive orders” and the real effects of the destruction of the bureaucracy in the federal government. We have never experienced this in our lifetimes, at the least, and perhaps never in American history. Having political differences the way we have experienced them in the past is one thing — what is happening now is revolutionary and anarchic, and it is being done on purpose.

We will continue to do our best to monitor the many threats and changes, and to protect Vermonters from the worst if we can.

As always, please stay in touch.

Rep. Tom Stevens, D-Waterbury, is a member of the House Appropriations Committee. He represents the Washington-Chittenden district covering Waterbury, Bolton, Huntington and Buels Gore. tstevens@leg.state.vt.us