BRATTLEBORO-The second half of the Vermont Legislature’s 2025–26 biennium begins on Jan. 6, and it could be a hard-knocks session.
Many key issues — education funding, housing, health care, affordability, transportation, prisons — have not been fully dealt with. Some, like the homelessness bill, were vetoed by Gov. Phil Scott in the last session. The continued uncertainty coming from the federal government will put a lot of pressure on the state budget.
Add to that an upcoming election, and this session looks especially complex.
“Each year provides new and unique challenges, especially given our current federal situation,” said Sen. Nader Hashim, D-Windham. “This year will be no different.”
Rep. Ian Goodnow (D-Windham-9) puts it more bluntly.
“Vermont relies on federal support and funding,” Goodnow said. “The Legislature will have to navigate an incredibly contentious environment while advocating for the values that Vermonters believe in.”
Given the frequency with which our federal government likes to make life more challenging for most people, it is difficult to predict what new issues may arise over the coming months. However, constituents who’ve reached out to me have made it clear that affordability, health care, protecting migrant communities, and education are at the forefront of their concerns.”
Rep. Mike Mrowicki (D-Windham-4) said the Legislature faces some daunting challenges.
“The challenges start with fending off the damage from the current president to our economy, especially regarding Canada, and our sense of safety and well-being,” Mrowicki said.
“Costs continue to rise for basics like food, shelter, and health care. Coffee and beef keep going up. Rent and mortgages, as well. Health insurance is starting to feel like a luxury item, straining budgets at home, work, and for schools and government alike,” he continued.
All these drivers of inflation, Mrowicki said, “add to what most obviously stares Vermonters in the face: their property taxes. But we are committed to do what we did last year, working together with the administration to get those final tax numbers down.”
Rep. Chris Morrow (D-Windham-Windsor-Bennington) believes new thinking is needed in state government. To that end, he is working on starting a new Caucus for Vermont’s Economy.
“Why is this needed?” Morrow asked. “Because Montpelier is stuck in outmoded thinking. Binary assessments instead of systemic viewpoints. Old, entrenched ideas instead of creative possibilities. Entrenchment instead of leadership.”
Vermont faces deep overlapping challenges in housing, health care, education, workforce, climate change impacts, and demographics, Morrow said.
“For too many Vermonters at too many stages of life, it’s simply too hard to build a good life and provide for their families,” Morrow said. “We believe every Vermonter deserves the chance to flourish — to live a fulfilling life, care for their family, connect with their community, and contribute to a thriving state.”
He described the new caucus as “a nonpartisan group committed to advancing policies that strengthen Vermont’s economy and the well-being of its people.”
The legislators will “meet regularly to build coalitions, provide a public forum, generate ideas, set priorities, and deepen lawmakers’ understanding of complex problems,” he said.
The caucus will focus on prosperity, Morrow said. It will “be holistic” and recognize that many problems are interconnected. It will also “adopt a customer-service mentality,” in the belief that government can learn from good business practices.
“With the proper leadership, creativity, and openness we can optimize state government for this era of uncertainty,” Morrow said.
Similarly, many Windham County legislators emphasized the need to keep focused on Vermonters and basic Vermont needs.
“A weaker economy and the loss of revenue from the federal government, along with the growing cost of health care, groceries and fuel, are making it harder for Vermonters to make ends meet,” said Rep. Emily Long (Windham-5).
“This is especially true for our most vulnerable citizens,” she said. “We will have to be creative in our efforts to fill funding gaps and prioritize our limited resources.”
The Legislature will have to navigate an increasingly contentious environment while advocating for the values that Vermonters believe in, said Goodnow. Protecting the vulnerable, like the LGBTQIA community, older persons, and prisoners may even become dangerous, he noted.
“It will take courage and a willingness to risk retaliation from the federal administration,” Goodnow said. “I believe this Legislature is willing and ready to do that work.”
In considering protections for vulnerable Vermonters, Rep. Mollie Burke (D-Windham-8), who is going into her 18th year as a representative, pointed to Vermont’s Fair and Impartial Policing Policy, which was passed a number of years ago.
“This limits local police involvement in immigration enforcement,” Burke said. “I believe we will be strengthening this policy.”
She also praised the work of state Attorney General Charity R. Clark, who has been active in suing the Trump administration over “legal transgressions,” as well as “some good judges who have been involved in protecting civil rights.”
“However, we all need to be engaged in opposing any unlawful policies and actions, and in standing up for vulnerable citizens,” Burke asserted.
Education reform
Conflicts with the governor are certainly a possibility, especially in education funding reform. Last year, Scott proposed the Transformative Education Plan, which called for revising the state’s educational funding formula, creating a single statewide education property tax rate, and reducing the number of regional school districts from more than 90 to just five.
In response, a legislative committee — the School Redistricting Task Force — met over the summer to study the issue of mergers. The committee’s report emphasized regional cooperation, not mergers, bypassing findings that were consistent with the governor’s proposal.
“The committee that was set up to explore this option decided that there may be better ways to achieve good results,” said Burke.
She views this impasse as a potential source of conflict with Scott, who “believes that his plan for mandatory consolidation is the only way to do this.”
“We need to figure out a way to address the cost of public education while also not sacrificing quality,” Burke said. “This promises to be a very difficult dance to perform.”
Sen. Wendy Harrison (D-Windham), who served on the redistricting task force, voted in favor of the report and supports the recommendations that are at odds with the governor’s roadmap.
But last year’s education bill “includes adding a new category to our property types for residential homes that are not a primary residence or a year-round rental, essentially ‘second homes,’” she said. “I support this change regardless of how the Legislature responds to the Task Force Recommendations.”
Long serves on the House Committee on Education, whose first order of business will be to review the task force’s report with its “great deal of new and important data” and recommendations.
“I have been working on education issues for more than three decades, and I have witnessed many attempts at education transformation over the years,” she said. “The proposals begin using the same assumptions and end up following similar paths, but they rarely achieve our desired long-term goals. I believe we need a new approach.”
It is clear to Long that Vermonters’ commitment to public education remains unwavering.
“The task force report has given us a unique opportunity to move away from long-held, outdated assumptions and look critically at the true cost drivers before forcing unsubstantiated change on communities and our education system, which is already under considerable stress,” Long said.
She hopes that “the governor, his administration, and legislative leadership will hear the voices of Vermonters who are asking us to collaborate with them and use accurate data to initiate positive change, especially in our rural regions where scale cannot be reached without significant negative impacts on students, families and the rural communities they live in.”
“Only then will we be able meet our goals to strengthen our public education system, lower costs and stabilize tax rates,” she said.
Burke saw other possible conflicts with the governor.
When Democrats had a supermajority — that is, if lawmakers vote along party lines, they can override a veto with a two-thirds majority — “we perhaps had more of a difficult relationship because we could totally ignore the wishes of the governor,” she said.
She reflected on the special session in 2024 when the House and the Senate overrode six of Scott’s vetoes in one day.
“One important veto that we overrode was the measure to impose a small payroll tax to help with the child care issue,” Burke said. “The governor vetoed that bill because it was a tax, and he is opposed to raising any tax — although [electric vehicle] drivers are now paying much higher registration fees.”
As the result of that law, “child care workers are receiving higher pay, which has been notoriously low, and more families are eligible for subsidies to help pay for child care, another economic benefit.”
But that sort of veto can’t happen now without some Republicans and independents crossing the aisle.
“So I think that the conflicts will be there and we will have to hope to come to some compromises, instead of just accepting all of what the governor wants,” Burke said.
New legislation
Many Windham County legislators are sponsoring new bills on subjects they care deeply about. Harrison has come up with two education funding bills based on her work on the task force.
“I saw the need for more transparency in the very complicated system that pays for our schools,” Harrison said.
Her first bill would require that independent (private) schools “meet specific requirements in order to be approved as eligible to receive public tuition,” she said.
“Second, I’m sponsoring a bill that states that school district budgets show the names of schools the district pays tuition to, the number of students tuitioned to each school, and the amount of tuition paid to each school,” Harrison said.
While parents and alumni are effective proponents of the independent schools, Harrison said she has heard much more and longer-lasting support for public schools.
“It doesn’t need to be one or the other,” she said. “There are ways to support both, but we need to be aware of how financial support for independent schools can increase property taxes and weaken our public schools.”
Harrison is also co-sponsoring a bill that prohibits corporations from donating to political campaigns or organizations.
The bill, similar to one that has become law in Montana, “is based on each state’s authority to define the scope of corporations that do business within that state,” Harrison said. “Our bill strikes at the overall problem in our country with the imbalance of power (money) and the harm that the imbalance is causing. We’ve come close to enacting legislation in Vermont that addresses this imbalance through our tax code, and I’m ready to support legislation on that front, too.”
Of special interest to Windham County, Harrison and Hashim are introducing a bill to authorize a pilot program for regionalizing law enforcement services by the Windham County Sheriff’s Office, as envisioned by Sheriff Mark Anderson, who has hosted multiple public information sessions to make his case.
“Many of our towns are interested in exploring the concept,” Harrison said.
The bill would allow a temporary governance council to be established in 2026, and it would disband in 2031 unless the Legislature keeps it alive.
The council would develop a reasonable level of policing service for towns who choose to participate in the pilot and a workable method to evaluate and pay for these services.
“Participation would be voluntary; no town would be required to participate,” Harrison said.
Hashim’s priorities, “generally speaking, are geared toward my role as chair of Senate Judiciary,” he said. “I will also be supporting policy changes that will increase affordability, housing, health care, and equitable education opportunities.”
He plans to introduce several new bills that are “related to protecting migrant communities and improving how our judiciary operates,” he said. “For example, one of the bills will require law enforcement be identifiable while also prohibiting them from wearing masks, except under narrow exceptions, like extreme cold weather.”
Mrowicki is a House sponsor of this bill.
“Seeing armed hordes of masked agents prowling our streets is something Americans are not, and will never get, used to,” Mrowicki said. “Having them masked amplifies this problem.”
He pointed out that “judges, prosecutors, social workers, child protection workers all work with dangerous individuals who have targeted them […] because of their work and, yet, [they] do not wear masks,” he said. “It’s un-American, and we’re holding this action up for public scrutiny.”
Hashim will also be introducing a bill “that will update our speedy trial laws, which have not been updated in quite some time,” he said.
“I will also guide Prop. 4, the Equal Rights Amendment, through the second phase of the constitutional amendment process,” he added.
Affected by the recent police shooting in Putney of a mentally ill individual in crisis, Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun (D-Windham-3) is proposing a new bill that, among other measures, will require police officers to complete 15 additional hours of training in mental health crisis management as part of the Vermont Criminal Justice Council’s law enforcement officer certification and training requirements.
“This bill proposes to treat victims of officer-involved shootings as crime victims with greater access to victims’ services and compensation,” says a draft copy of the legislation.
“This bill further proposes to authorize the [Vermont] Center for Crime Victims Services to hire independent victim guardians to advocate for victims and coordinate with the Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs.”
In addition to the additional training requirements, the draft bill “proposes to incorporate mental health crisis de-escalation techniques into the Vermont Criminal Justice Council’s use of force policy.”
The bill was drafted with input from various stakeholders, including Hashim and Rep. Leslie Goldman (D-Windham-3).
Transportation issues
Burke is working with a group of colleagues from the Transportation Committee on an omnibus transportation bill that includes a number of measures particularly supportive of transit and bicycle/pedestrian programs.
“We are also advocating for continued funding of programs that provide grants for innovative transit initiatives and improved transportation amenities for towns, such as the Better Connections program and the Downtown Transportation Fund,” Burke said.
The program provides technical assistance and funds to local communities to help them with planning efforts to increase public transit and “improve land use, water quality, public health, and economic vitality.”
In a time of reduced federal funding, Burke said she believes it is important to keep communities vital. These two programs are important tools in that process, she believes.
She’s also looking to reinstate funding for MileageSmart, “our vehicle incentive program to help low-income Vermonters purchase a used, fuel-efficient car,” Burke said. “This program was successful in helping reduce transportation costs for persons with very low incomes.”
And paired with purchase incentives for new vehicles, our EV sales increased, helping to meet our statutory carbon reduction goals.
Burke noted that these projects were funded by the federal 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), signed by then-President Biden, which included “a number of measures to help reduce climate pollution” that have been eliminated by the Trump administration.
She said she was not hopeful about finding funding opportunities for MileageSmart and other programs that had received federal dollars, “but I want to put the issue on the table. And I want to put the issue of climate on the table as well.”
It has been “disheartening” to run out of money for programs that not only address climate pollution, but also improve air quality and public health while lowering transportation costs for citizens, Burke said.
“And it’s distressing to see how all mention of climate, and climate mitigation, has literally been scrubbed from the federal vocabulary,” she said. “Just at the time when the effects of climate change are ever-more present, posing great dangers to our economy and way of life, and to our transportation infrastructure.”
She pointed to the flooding in Vermont in 2023 and 2024.
“I entered the Legislature 17 years ago with the desire to help cut carbon emissions from the transportation sector,” Burke said. “There have been some successes, but absent a federal partner, significant work will be difficult.”
For Mrowicki, artificial intelligence (AI) also raises many concerns.
“I’m proposing a bill similar to the Illinois ‘Wellness and Oversight for Psychological Resources Act,’” Mrowicki said. “This prohibits AI from independently providing therapy or making therapeutic decisions.”
Suicides attributed to AI-provided therapy are at the root of the need for this bill, he said.
Mrowicki is also looking at the drug problem, which appears to be “taking a turn for the worse.”
He cited testimony from the Vermont Health Commissioner Rick Hildebrant, M.D., that alerted lawmakers about a “shift in drug use from opioids to methamphetamine and cocaine.”
“This amplifies the current problem, in that there is not a remedy for overdoses [for those two drugs] as there is for opioid use [Narcan, also known as naloxone], and treatment options are not as available,” he said.
“We continue to need more mental health options, and it may be time we look at our whole system of how these services get to Vermonters,” Mrowicki said.
Goodnow said he is working on two new bills. One, which is in the draft phase, “relates to allowing specific instances where landlords may ’no-trespass’ problematic nontenant visitors at multi-unit properties,” he said.
“This issue was brought to my attention by multiple housing partners in Brattleboro, including the Windham & Windsor Housing Trust,” he said. “It is my understanding that this issue is harming both tenants and landlords, and the Legislature has the opportunity to better protect both by improving the law in this area.”
The second bill aims to strengthen voter protection rights and prevent voter intimidation and interference at the polls.
“In our current political climate, we need to ensure our voters’ faith in our elections,” Goodnow said. “I am working with the Vermont Secretary of State [Sarah Copeland Hanzas] on this and to ensure we are protecting and strengthening our voter protection laws in Vermont.”
Hospital concerns
Windham County’s legislative delegation is also keeping a close eye on the financially troubled Brattleboro Memorial Hospital and will do everything in its power to keep it open and serving patients, Mrowicki said.
“Two of the biggest drivers of inflation and rising costs are housing and health care,” he said. “Without federal help, there’s only so much Vermont can do, but we will continue to look into what we can do to increase access and control costs.”
He said that legislators met with Brattleboro Hospital leadership last week and “are impressed with the steps they are taking to get things back on track.”
“Your local delegation is clear that we will do whatever we can to make sure BMH stays viable and serving our community as a foundational community institution,” Mrowicki said.
Getting in touch
Burke wants her constituents to know that she still loves her job.
“I want people to know that I am looking forward to getting back to Montpelier and working on issues that help people in their lives, whether it’s to support a special policy or program, or some other issue,” she said.
“The favorite part of my job is when I can see the difference a particular policy will make for constituents, and vote on that policy,” Burke said.
She also said that she loves helping constituents by connecting them to people in state government who can solve problems — “perhaps a [Department of Motor Vehicles] issue, or a tax issue, or a problem with timely unemployment payments.”
Goodnow, going into the second year of his first term, wants the constituents of Windham County to know that they have a strong delegation of representatives and senators speaking for them in Montpelier.
“Please reach out to us by email or phone with questions or concerns about what is happening,” he said.
Vermonters can contact their state representatives and senators at legislature.vermont.gov/people/search/2026.
This News item by Joyce Marcel was written for The Commons.