(01/04/12) The Vermont legislature convened in Montpelier yesterday for the first day of the 2012 legisaltive session. It's session is expected to be a busy one, with lawmakers determining how to fill a multi-million dollar budget gap and recover from Tropical Storm Irene.
Anne
Galloway is founder of VTdigger.org, an
investigative news website focused on politics. She says the legislative session
will include a number of big decisions.
“Reapportionment
will be a big issue, redistricting. The state hospital has to be replaced so
they have to make decisions about that, the state office complex has to be
replaced because of the floods, there are going to be decisions made about
stream bed management after Irene,” Galloway said.
The
Vermont lawmakers were greeted with some good fiscal news. The
Legislature's Joint Fiscal Office reduced its estimate of a budget gap next
fiscal year from nearly $75 million to about $46 million. Budget
analysts credit lowered projections for spending on the Medicaid public health
insurance program for low-income residents.
A
top budget official in the Shumlin administration, Finance and Management
Commissioner Jim Reardon, says he's not surprised by the lower estimate. But
he says he hasn't analyzed the new estimate and can't say if the administration
agrees with it.
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