Gov. Phil Scott answers a question during his weekly press conference at the Statehouse in Montpelier on Wednesday April 3, 2024. Photo by Glenn Russell/VTDigger
Vermont Gov. Phil Scott signed a raft of bills Thursday, codifying legislation that will make changes to various areas of state government and policy.
The nine bills, which include four “miscellaneous” bills — pieces of legislation that generally include many small changes on a particular topic — were signed on the same day that Scott vetoed a bill that set property tax rates to fund the public school system. The approved bills target subjects from agricultural grants to state construction projects to substance use disorder recovery facilities.
One of the bills, H.622, aims to support the state’s struggling emergency medical services providers. Amid dwindling numbers of volunteers, rising call volumes and inadequate reimbursement rates, the state’s EMS system “is failing,” an advisory committee wrote in a report earlier this year.
H.622 aims to provide much-needed support to the system. The new law requires Medicaid to reimburse emergency medical service providers in more situations, increases funding for EMS training programs and assigns a committee to draft a five-year plan for improving emergency medical services systems across the state.
Another bill, H.882, also known as the capital bill, sets funding for government construction and infrastructure projects. The bill includes various provisions dealing with state-owned property, including language protecting the Salisbury Fish Hatchery from imminent closure, an appropriation of $100,000 for new furniture in the statehouse cafeteria and the creation of a committee to “develop a proposed process for naming State buildings.”
Scott also signed S.186, legislation that directs state officials to compile an inventory of substance abuse recovery residences and draft plans for a system to certify and oversee them. The legislation also makes changes to the process by which recovery residences can eject or transfer a resident.
S.302 directs state officials to educate medical providers about dementia and Alzheimer’s Disease, while H.870 makes updates to the requirements for some professionals licensed by the state, including estheticians, tattoo artists and professionals who practice electrology, defined by the law as “the removal of hair by electrical current using needle/probe electrode-type epilation.”
Other bills will enact a slew of often-technical changes in laws related to corrections (H.876), agriculture (H.877), the judiciary (H.878) and vehicle regulations (S.309). Those changes include provisions to help people access health care after being released from prison, increase fines for livestock “running at large,” repeal long-obsolete statutes about the death penalty and order the Department of Motor Vehicles to draft new rules about tinted windows in vehicles.
Scott had no remarks in the press release about the passage of the bills. But the announcement pointed to comments the governor made last month about how he decides what action to take on legislation.
“As I’ve always done, I will carefully weigh the good against the bad to make a decision based on whether the benefits outweigh the negative impacts for our entire state,” Scott said.
Read the story on VTDigger here: Gov. Phil Scott signs bills on emergency medical services, capital projects, miscellaneous reforms.