Over the past few years, hospital emergency rooms — in Vermont and beyond — have seen an increasingly disturbing condition: an “epidemic of violence,” as Liz Couto, an emergency department nurse and chair of the Vermont Emergency Nurses Association’s government affairs committee, put it Wednesday.
Across the U.S., health care staff have been shot, struck, stabbed and subject to verbal abuse. In 2021 and 2022, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Vermont had the highest rate of health care workers missing work due to violence among U.S. states.
Between July 2023 and December 2024, the Vermont Association of Hospitals and Health Systems recorded 89 instances of violence and threatening behavior in hospitals. Over half of those cases involved an assault on a health care worker. But such incidents are significantly under-reported, Couto said.
“Violence has become a daily occurrence in our hospitals,” she told lawmakers in the House Committee on Health Care Wednesday morning.
In 2023, lawmakers sought to address that epidemic with Act 24, which increases the penalties for threatening health care workers and makes it easier for law enforcement to arrest people who assault health care workers.
But now, members of the House Health Care Committee are returning to the matter. The committee is currently working on H. 259, a bill that, in its current form, would require hospitals to draft security plans for “preventing workplace violence and managing aggressive behaviors” and to collect data on incidents that take place in the hospital. As part of those plans, some hospital employees would be trained on practices like “defensive tactics,” de-escalation and crisis intervention.
In effect, the bill seeks to set out standardized guidelines for Vermont’s hospitals, which have differing safety policies and procedures, Couto said.
On Wednesday, Rep. Allen Demar, R-Enosburgh, asked if even that would go far enough.
“Is this going to be enough?” he asked Couto. “If it is an epidemic, what else should be in place for your safety and everybody else’s?”
The bill, she replied, “is a great start.”
On the move
Lawmakers gave their final stamp of approval to a midyear budget tuneup Wednesday afternoon. But hours earlier, Gov. Phil Scott told reporters he planned to veto the bill once it arrives at his desk, making it his first rejection of the 2025 legislative session.
A key point of contention over the annual budget adjustment bill is the fate of Vermont’s motel voucher program for unhoused residents.
Legislators have signed off on an extension of the program’s looser winter rules through the spring, until June 30. The move, promoted by Democrats, is an attempt to head off a wave of evictions from the program slated to begin April 1. The policy shift comes with a roughly $1.8 million price tag.
Read more about the ongoing debate here.
— Carly Berlin
The Senate on Wednesday gave preliminary approval to S.69, a bill that seeks to protect minors against addictive and harmful features of social media platforms.
The bill, known by proponents as the “Kids Code,” would put up guard rails for platforms like Tiktok and Facebook, requiring the tech companies to adjust their algorithms and default privacy settings for users under 18, among other things.
If the bill makes it through the House and onto Gov. Phil Scott’s, it’s unclear whether the governor would sign it into law. Last year, Scott vetoed a sweeping data privacy bill that contained an earlier version of the Kids Code, though he cited other provisions in the bill in explaining his veto.
The bill passed a preliminary floor vote to amend the legislation by a vote of 25 to 5 Wednesday, suggesting that, if Scott does veto the bill, proponents of the Kids Code could have the numbers to override him this time around.
— Habib Sabet
The House preliminarily approved H.2 Wednesday, a bill that would delay the complete implementation of Vermont’s Raise the Age initiative for two more years.
Months ago, Democrats looked driven to forge ahead with the juvenile justice initiative after years of repeated delays. But after calls from Gov. Phil Scott and his top public safety officials to nix the final phase of Raise the Age altogether, lawmakers appear to be seeking middle ground.
“This delay is the compromise,” Rep. Martin LaLonde, D-South Burlington, said on the House floor.
A Republican-backed amendment sought to repeal the final phase of Raise the Age, which would expand juvenile jurisdiction to include 19 year olds charged with misdemeanors and lower level felonies. That attempt was rejected.
H.2 also proposes increasing the age at which kids can be charged with juvenile offenses from 10 to 12.
— Ethan Weinstein
Cross currents
The House Environment Committee voted Tuesday in favor of advancing H.238, a bill that would further phase out the sale and production of consumer products containing added PFAS, a class of thousands of hyper-durable chemicals linked to a host of cancers and health issues in humans.
The bill would expand the state’s existing limits on PFAS-containing consumer products to include a ban on manufacturing and selling cleaning products, dental floss and containers lined with perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances.
Read more about the bill here.
Also, the Senate Natural Resources Committee moved its road salt bill ahead this morning, with all members but Sen. Terry Williams, R-Rutland, voting in favor of the amended bill. The bill, S.29, would create a certification program for commercial salt applicators to help ensure road and sidewalk safety while reducing excess salt spread, in the hopes of curbing costs and improving the health of waterways harmed by salt runoff.
— Olivia Gieger
Visit our 2025 bill tracker for the latest updates on major legislation we are following.
Read the story on VTDigger here: Final Reading: Health care workers still face threats and attacks in Vermont’s hospitals, advocates say.