A question: how much does it cost, for the year, to manage the statehouse?
The answer, by at least a measurement: Just under 25 million dollars.
This is the amount that the joint tax office of the Legislative Assembly recommends the appropriate legislators for state operations For exercise 2026, which begins in July. It would be an increase of approximately 9% compared to the $ 22 million that legislators were distributed for these purposes for the financial year (2025).
This includes financing to pay the legislators and manage offices that support their work, including legislative operations (think: committee assistants), legislative advisor, human resources, information technology and joint tax office itself. He also finances the offices of the Chamber’s clerk and the secretary of the Senate, in addition to the sergeant of arms and the Capitol police.
Scott Moore, who manages legislative finances for JFO, presented the spending plan in 2026 to the Credit Committee of the House on Friday morning. The provisions will ultimately be included, in one form or another, in the “major bill” which finances the government of the State as a whole.
Moore said that the increase in expected expenses largely represents the increases of approximately 6.5% of the legislators and that their staff was given before this year’s legislative session. Increases are linked to the legislation approved last year which presents the quantity of certain state employees.
(This is not linked to the unsuccessful attempts of the legislators during the last good to increase their own salary, in particular, which would have resulted in a much greater salary increase.)
The other reasons for the increase in the 2026 budget, Moore said, are the increase in health care costs as well as a bump on the rates to which legislators can receive reimbursements for certain expenses related to the increase in rates of similar reimbursement used by the federal government.
The budget would not create, noted Moore, new positions in support of the Legislative Assembly.
Friday morning’s discussion brought the leaders of various state offices, such as JFO head Catherine Benham and the Sergeant d’Armes Agatha Kessler, in the room of the credit committee of the Chamber. Apparently moved by the spirit of Valentine’s Day, the Democrat representative of Middlebury, Robin Scheu, the chairman of the committee, was impatient to share a little love.
“We really appreciate all the work you do. Obviously, we could not do our job without you, ”she told Benham, Kessler and the others.
Representative Jim Harrison, R-Chittenden, vice-president of the committee, then sounded-“They probably appreciate working with us too,” he said.
“Well, some of us,” said Scheu, pulling laughter in the table. “Some of us.”
– Shaun Robinson
Aware
The Supreme Court of Vermont Friday rejected a prosecution Pose by two senators on the appointment of Governor Phil Scott of Zoie Saunders As an interim education secretary, calling for the “theoretical” case.
In the decision reduced by judge William Cohen, the court said that Scott Saunders renamed in November While the Legislative Assembly was out of the session, “this last appointment replaced the previous appointment and is clearly coherent” with the law of the State.
Friday’s decision probably ends the fight almost a year against Saunders as an official of the education of Vermont. This legislative session, she played a key role in development Scott education reform packageThe most prominent legislation of the year.
Chief judge Paul Reiber, in a competitive opinion, said that the court had chosen the “restraint”. The principles of “separation of powers” and “checks and counterweights”, he argued, sometimes require a branch of the government so as not to act.
“The responsible execution of this power means, sometimes, we have nothing to say,” wrote Reiber.
– Ethan Weinstein
Only a few hours after Brooke Rollins was sworn in as secretary of the American department of agriculture in Washington DC on Thursday, at Vermont, Richard Amore received an email from 7:30 p.m. from his human resources office saying he had been dismissed with immediate effect. Amore had been head of economic development of the USDA rural development team for only four months.
“”We are a staff of around 30 years, we have lost 5, all probationary employees“Said Amore, speaking of the rural development office, adding that some have been very recently hired. “It breaks my heart of what happened yesterday. I am engaged in rural communities and you remove resources, funding, “he added.
Amore’s team is not alone. Several thousand so-called employees probationary of regional offices of the USDA across the country have also been suddenly dismissed, in particular within the agricultural service agency, the Natural Resources Conservation Service and the National Forest Service.
It was only the last of several actions that President Donald Trump has undertaken since the start of his second term which disrupted the parties of the state labor. Last week’s temporary freeze on federal funding was resolved for some of the affected people, while others continue to wait for payment. And the end of all the activities of the American agency for international development, also called USAID, left local entrepreneurs and volunteers in shock.
Find out more about the impacts of the Action of the White House on Vermonters here.
– Klara Bauters
Heart attack
Famous Montpellier’s Phantom of Valentine’s Day struck again FridayAnd lovers of the house (or at least, lovers has The Statehouse) was welcomed with a row of giant hearts along the columns at the front of the building. Happy v-day everyone-and stay warm this weekend!
– Shaun Robinson