MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) - The Vermont Senate approved tax and spending bills Thursday, as Gov. Peter Shumlin’s administration angered lawmakers with a new monkey wrench thrown into the works: a request for an additional $8 million in cuts.
Lawmakers said they had never seen such a request so late in a legislative session slated to end in mid-May.
Senate Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Jane Kitchel, D-Caledonia, said lawmakers had been asking the governor for guidance since January, when economists advising the Legislature and administration forecast that Vermont would receive about $18 million less in fiscal 2016 that had been projected previously.
“We’ve been saying ’Give us some ideas. What are your thoughts?’” Kitchel said. “It’s just a little hard to understand that it’s taken this much time.”
Among the new cuts sought by Shumlin were $2.9 million in additional payroll savings from executive branch employees. The Vermont State Employees’ Association union had already been vocal in its criticism of $10.8 million in labor savings the governor has been seeking since January.
The governor also requested a cut of $2 million from a weatherization program, which helps homeowners tighten their houses with insulation and other steps to save money on heat and reduce carbon emissions.
Administration Secretary Justin Johnson said the request for additional cuts came in response to tax-increase proposals by lawmakers, including new caps on how much taxpayers can deduct for mortgage interest and charitable contributions.
The budget dust-up, which lawmakers said would have to be resolved when House and Senate conferees meet to work out differences in the two chambers’ spending plans, came on a busy day at the Statehouse that also saw movement on several other bills.
The House advanced legislation to amend an aid-in-dying law passed in 2013, with a slight change from the version passed by the Senate that will need to be sent back to that chamber. The 2013 law, which allows physicians to provide lethal medication to terminally ill patients who request it, was scheduled to undergo big changes in mid-2016. Several patient-protection provisions in the 2013 were set to disappear,. Supporters of the law wanted to preserve the patient protections. Amendments to the bill offered by opponents of the law, some of which called for its repeal, were defeated or ruled non-germane.
The House also advanced a child-protection bill previously passed by the Senate with one key change: It removed Senate language that would have made it a crime for an adult to be aware of child abuse and not report it to authorities.
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