Dubie Says Spending Federal Education Money Would Be 'Reckless'

Brian Dubie says it's "reckless" to use new federal stimulus money to help offset projected cuts in local school budgets.

For the past decade, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Susan Bartlett has been chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

She says she likes the commissioner's plan and she says Dubie's response is simply a continuation of the flawed policies of the Douglas administration.

"I think it's just more of the same old, which is here you're talking about education, so you make education the bad guy, if you will, and totally miss the point of education is one of the most important things that we do. And that it's a big system and it takes time to make some structural change."

Read the VPR story.

‘Green’ grant to train workers

By Bruce Edwards

STAFF WRITER - Rutland Herald - Published: August 10, 2010

Vermont will use $4.5 million in federal stimulus funds to train unemployed and underemployed workers for green jobs.

The two-year grant program includes training in a number of fields, including weatherization, renewable energy, recycling and sustainable agriculture.

Several organizations and businesses are sharing in the Vermont Green Energy Training Partnership (www.vermontgreen.org) grant under the auspices of the Central Vermont Community Action Council — one of five community action agencies in the state.

Read on ...

Markowitz, Bartlett Debate State's Role With Banks

Tuesday, 08/03/10 5:49pm and Wednesday, 08/04/10 7:34am

Bob Kinzel - Montpelier, Vt.

(Host) Two of the Democratic candidates for governor strongly disagree about the best way to help stimulate the Vermont economy.

The difference centers on whether a governor should punish Vermont banks that don't make sizable investments in small businesses.

VPR's Bob Kinzel reports.

(Kinzel) To Democratic gubernatorial candidate Deb Markowitz, the issue is quite simple. She says many Vermont banks aren't lending money to small businesses and she wants to change this situation. In her new TV ad, she spells out the solution.

(Markowitz) "If there are banks that aren't going to invest in Vermont, they're not going to get our tax dollars not when I'm governor."

(Kinzel) Markowitz says that if she's elected, she'll sit down with all of Vermont's banks to spell out her new policy.

(Markowitz) "As the state of Vermont, we put $4 billion into financial institutions. As governor, I'm going to bring the banks together and decide, ‘If you're taking Vermont money, you need to be putting money back into Vermont's small businesses.' It's really as simple as that."

(Kinzel) One of Markowitz's opponents, Susan Bartlett says it's not that simple and she says that Markowitz doesn't understand how financial markets operate. Bartlett argues that new federal financial regulations have made it more difficult for banks to lend money to small businesses. That's why she wants to establish an expanded, state-backed loan program for these businesses.

(Bartlett) "Let's figure out what a constructive solution is instead of trying to bully somebody into doing something that, again, if you understand fundamental economics, obviously banks want to lend money to good businesses. That's how they make their money."

(Kinzel) But Markowitz says the federal rules are only a small part of the current problem. She says the larger problem is the attitude of the banks.

(Markowitz) "They are now extremely conservative. They're holding on to their money. There are better options than lending to Vermont's small businesses that are start ups. And that's not acceptable. ...We bailed out Wall Street. It's not trickling down to Main Street."

(Kinzel) Don't tell that to Dan Yates. He's the president of the Brattleboro Savings Bank and the current chairman of the Vermont Bankers Association. His bank operates three branches in southeastern Vermont. And he says small business loans are the bread and butter of his company.

(Yates) "We're not interested in the IBMs of Vermont. We're looking at who in Brattleboro, Springfield and in between that's a small business that has a good business that needs to borrow. We're anxious."

(Kinzel) Yates says banks may be hesitant to loan money to companies that don't have solid business plans.

He says he's concerned that if Markowitz's proposal is put into place, it will discourage smaller community banks from dealing with the state because they'll be unwilling to make risky loans to small businesses.

For VPR News, I'm Bob Kinzel in Montpelier

Douglas Ignored Legislative Intent

from vtdigger

Lawmakers decried the Douglas administration’s decision to eliminate a conservation position in the Department of Fish and Wildlife at a press conference Wednesday.

Bartlett sees the administration’s decision as a matter of priorities. “This is a continuation of this administration not being supportive of conservation and/or planning,” Bartlett said.



 
The position was written into the budget bill that passed in the last legislative session. Legislative leaders said Gov. Jim Douglas violated lawmakers’ intent and negotiated in bad faith when he signed the budget bill and then shortly afterward allowed administrative officials to ignore language in the bill. That wording was designed to protect a staff wildlife biologist who provides technical assistance for towns engaged in conservation planning to protect wildlife habitat.
 
Sen. Susan Bartlett and Sen. Peter Shumlin (both Democratic candidates in the gubernatorial primary) and House Speaker Shap Smith said the Legislature saw the position as an essential component of the department’s conservation policy.
 
Douglas administration officials say the executive branch has the right to decide the fate of individual employees and positions. David Corriell, Douglas’ spokesman, accused lawmakers of trying to micromanage personnel.
 
“On the one hand, the Legislature through Challenges for Change wants the government to run more efficiently, and on the other hand, they’re running government as inefficiently as possible by dictating the way the administration is managing government,” Corriell said.
Observers say the stalemate over the language in the law could lead to a constitutional showdown between legislators and the administration. At issue is whether the administration is obliged to uphold language in the law that it deems unacceptable, and conversely whether the Legislature has the right to insist that it do so.
 
It’s too early to say if the question will become a constitutional issue, according to Attorney General Bill Sorrell, who, as of yesterday, had not been asked by legislative leaders or the administration to weigh in.
 
Smith said there are no plans yet to sue the administration over the elimination of the position. He called the decision a “breach of the good faith that we all contributed towards in reaching a budget compromise.”
 
“When we passed the budget document, we expected it to be followed,” Smith said. “It’s not merely guidance – it is the law of the state of Vermont. This year we worked very diligently with the administration to put together a budget that could be signed by the governor and was the result of many compromises, and to then have the governor sign the budget, and then ignore the language of the budget, really cuts against the spirit of the compromising that we did to get to a budget we could all leave the building with, without the repeat of the veto and override scenario that happened last year.”
 
Jonathon Wood, secretary of the Agency of Natural Resources, said in a recent interview that there is no constitutional problem. “Those powers are clear and absolute,” Wood said. “The administration has the authority to do this. We have to manage the budget and the Legislature sets the budget. They fund certain programs and we manage the positions.”
Bartlett said the administration is choosing to ignore “what the budget said.”
 
“If the budget’s a guideline, and you don’t need to pay attention to it, maybe you just need one branch of government,” Bartlett said.
 
The position, Fish and Wildlife Scientist II, was held by Jens Hawkins-Hilke, who worked with 50 to 80 towns a year to help them identify and map habitat. A U.S. Fish and Wildlife grant paid for half of Hawkins-Hilke’s salary, which was roughly $22 an hour. He was laid off recently and has filed a grievance with the union. According to the legislative letter of intent, his position would have cost the state roughly $16,000.
 
He provided technical support for towns, as well as helped local community members understand the scientific concepts behind conservation, such as habitat protection. Often this meant helping towns identify what kinds of habitat they valued for recreation, hunting, fishing and other wildlife, he said. Some towns are focused on deer yards; others are interested in protecting salamanders.
 
Hawkins-Hilke said in an interview that he was No. 4 on the reduction-in-force list at ANR last year. He survived the first round of cuts, but in February he was told his position would be eliminated. Town planning commission and conservation commission officials canvassed lawmakers about the RIF and pressured the Legislature to retain the position. By mid-June it was clear the administration had gone ahead with its original plan.
 
Wood called it a “limited service position” that wasn’t “meant to be a full-time job” and he said the agency will continue to offer services to local communities through its district offices.
 
“The position provides planning assistance to towns and municipalities — just assistance to conservation commissions and town plans on the types of things in towns that could be done to protect wildlife habitat,” Wood said. “That type of thing has been done by the department for many years.”
 
Mike Hedges, a member of the Waterbury Conservation Commission, said he is not confident ANR will help his group finish mapping for new subdivision regulations. Nor is he counting on help from officials from the agency with plans for protecting a moose crossing corridor on Route 100 near Walker Construction. It’s the only place, he said, where the large game animals can pass from the Green Mountains to the Worcester Mountains. Hawkins-Hilke identified the crossing for the commission and was going to help them develop a plan for protecting the area.
 
“It’s hard for others to take up those extra duties,” Hedges said.
 
Wood said the agency is responding to constant downward budget pressures.
 
“There aren’t any more paper clips to cut,” Wood said. “We’ve been into significant cutting of positions for a while now. There isn’t any choice.”
 
Wood said game wardens, however, continue to be fully funded by the Department of Fish and Wildlife because they “are a high priority.”
 
“I have not tried to cut game wardens, though the Legislature has cut their overtime,” Wood said.
 
Since the recession began in 2007, the agency has eliminated 100 positions, many of which were federally funded, according to Wood.
 
Corriell said the state faces an uncertain revenue outlook in the current fiscal year and a $100 million deficit in fiscal year 2012. He said small amounts add up to “real money” in the budget and that government leaders have to make hard decisions.
 
“This is a very challenging time, and as a state government there need to be priorities,” Corriell said. “What we need to do is focus on growing our economy. It’s short-sighted to focus on one position.”
 
Bartlett also sees the administration’s decision as a matter of priorities. “This is a continuation of this administration not being supportive of conservation and/or planning,” Bartlett said.

Lamoille County senator looks to moderates to deliver primary victory

By Peter Hirschfeld

Vermont Press Bureau - Published: July 18, 2010

Susan Bartlett has read her own political epitaph before.

In 1997, she alienated powerful constituencies in her Lamoille County Senate district by helping to shepherd Act 60, the landmark education funding law, through the Statehouse.

“They said re-election was impossible after that,” she says now. “They’d dug the hole and nailed the coffin.”

In 2000, it was Bartlett’s strong advocacy for civil unions that was to be her undoing.

“They said if Act 60 didn’t kill her, then we’ve got her this time,” she says. “I was outspent 5-to-1. They said I was toast.”

Bartlett endured, though, riding her reputation for fiscal moderation to eight consecutive re-elections since first winning the county’s lone Senate post in 1992.

As the five-way race in the Democratic gubernatorial primary hits its midsummer stride, Bartlett is once again fielding rumors of her political demise.

Polls show her lagging well behind the rest of the field. And Bartlett’s fundraising totals bode ill for her candidacy (in campaign filings disclosed last week, she reported $70,000 in donations, the only Democratic candidate below $200,000).

Perhaps owing to her previous political battles, Bartlett is unfazed. Last year, when she announced her candidacy, Bartlett predicted certain triumph in the 2010 general election. Voters are ready to leave Gov. James Douglas and Lt. Gov. Brian Dubie, she said, but want a voice of fiscal moderation that she alone among Democrats can provide.

On a recent sweltering Monday, inside the dark, wood-floored living room of her North Hyde Park home, Bartlett remained cocksure in the face of political realities that point to almost certain defeat in the Aug. 24 primary.

“They’ve said I was done before. They’ve told me it was all over,” Bartlett says. “Then the silent majority goes to the polls and elects me.”

‘Willing to say no’

In the Statehouse, where she has been chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Committee for a decade, Bartlett has made a comfortable home on the conservative edge of the Democratic spectrum.

During the last two legislative sessions, more progressive members of Bartlett’s caucus championed the use of “rainy day” funds to protect government programs from revenue shortfalls. Bartlett, however, urged a fiscal restraint that exposed the Agency of Human Services to significant budget cuts.

In advance of the Senate vote on Challenges for Change, a government restructuring plan that was criticized by fellow Democrats – including three also running for governor – as a backdoor downsizing scheme, Bartlett delivered the sales pitch for a piece of legislation that cut more than $30 million from state spending.

“She’s willing to say no,” says Sen. Jane Kitchel, former human services secretary under Howard Dean and now vice chairwoman of the appropriations committee. “If you’re the chair of Appropriations, you do have to say no at times. It’s not the most pleasant position to be in, but she never led people with false hopes.”

Senate President Peter Shumlin, who 10 years ago made Bartlett the first woman to head the appropriations committee, cited her “moderation” and “balance” among his chief reasons for her appointment.

“I think the thing about Susan that makes her so good at that job is that she has a very balanced approach to making decisions, and that’s what an Appropriations chair has to do,” says Shumlin, who is competing against Bartlett in the Democratic primary.

The same moderation that won Bartlett respect, and considerable power, in Montpelier – in her inaugural Senate run in 1992, she considered declaring as an independent – has probably hurt her standing with the liberal wing of the Democratic Party, which generally decides primary elections.

Going for the moderates

Bartlett has made clear her primary campaign strategy: Own the moderate bloc of Vermont Democrats, a portion of which has swung for Douglas and Dubie in the past four general elections.

That approach might be problematic, according to Eric Davis, professor emeritus of political science at Middlebury College.

“She has been quoted in the last several weeks as saying she’s looking for the support of so-called moderates,” Davis says. “But I believe her main difficulty is going to be that most of the people who vote in the Democratic primary call themselves either liberals or progressives rather than moderates.”

Moderates haven’t shown up in primaries, Bartlett counters, because there weren’t any moderates to vote for.

“I can say to people, ‘This is the primary where you actually have a choice. This is the primary where you can have a profound impact by actually coming out to vote,’” she says. “I hear folks all over the state telling me, ‘This is the one. This is the one where I vote.’ We’ll see if they show up.”

At home in the Kingdom

Even as she peddles her self-styled fiscal conservatism, Bartlett says she never wavers from her belief in the goodness of government.

“I’m sure not one of those Republicans,” she says. “My father and I stopped talking about politics when he decided he liked Ronald Reagan.”

Bartlett is a chatty woman whose family moved to Orleans when she was 15. The daughter of a soldier father and an English mother – they met while he was stationed in the European Theater during World War II – Bartlett, 63, says she took immediately to rural life in the Northeast Kingdom.

“I’d been in South Carolina before that, and this new place was much, much better for me,” she says.

Bartlett says she wasn’t a great student at Orleans High School (though her campaign website touts her receipt of the “Betty Crocker Award”). Nor did she achieve excellence in her undergraduate studies at the University of Vermont, where she met her future husband, Bill.

“I was not a terribly good student,” she says. “I just was not interested.”

At Johnson State College, where Bartlett earned her master’s in administrative education – she specialized in special education – she says she found her calling.

She started working in group homes for at-risk youth. After graduating, she was hired by the Lamoille North Supervisory Union, where she developed a districtwide special-education program.

“My parents used to tell me that from when I was a toddler, I was always a defender of the weak on the school playground,” Bartlett says. “It’s just been an obvious part of who I am, and the special-education work was a natural fit for me.”

Bartlett says her work with children helped spawn her interest in politics, which she came to see as a way to make government work for vulnerable children and adults.

“The fundamental thing that makes me a Democrat is I really do believe it is appropriate for government to create programs to help people,” Bartlett says. “This whole ‘pull yourself up by your bootstraps’ thing, maybe that used to work. But you go look at some of the poor folks in this state and tell me what the odds are of those kids being able to pull themselves up.”

For all that she burnishes her conservative credentials, Bartlett says she has a long record of supporting government programs even in the face of budget constraints.

She’s long been a proponent of the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board and, colleagues say, helped protect it from draconian cuts pushed by the Douglas administration in 2009 and 2010.

She also touts court diversion programs, for which she helped carve out additional appropriations.

‘Not slick’

Bartlett is one of the few gubernatorial candidates without a well-polished stump speech and says she rarely uses prepared remarks.

She often pauses a few beats before answering questions at candidate forums and isn’t given to rhetorical bluster.

“She’s very down to earth and straightforward,” says Sen. Diane Snelling, a Chittenden County Republican also on the appropriations committee. “She’s definitely not slick.”

Nor is she a polished politician. One of Bartlett’s early forays into campaign PR left many political observers scratching their heads. In advance of the Senate’s February vote on the relicensing of the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant, Bartlett’s campaign circulated a news release condemning the timing of the vote. She accused Senate President Peter Shumlin of grandstanding and said lawmakers needed more time to study the issues surrounding the aging plant.

It was odd enough – politically, at least – that a gubernatorial wannabe had opted to publicly criticize a vote around which her party’s faithful had rallied so strongly. Odder still was her position on a key vote just a few days later. A Republican-led amendment sought to delay the Yankee vote until later in the session – precisely the action Bartlett had called for just days earlier.

Yet she voted against the amendment.

She later said she wanted the Senate to speak in a unified voice on Yankee. When she failed to rally support for her position to postpone, she reasoned, she might as well join the majority.

But the turnabout left many Statehouse insiders wondering whether the senator was ready for prime time.

“I say what I think. I always have, and you can be sure I always will,” Bartlett says. “I really don’t spend a lot of time thinking how it’s going to play.”

Long odds

Davis, who moderated a candidate forum in Middlebury earlier this year, says Bartlett has the least name recognition of any of the five Democratic candidates. But he says she’s impressed with her knowledge of all things budgetary.

“My sense is that to people attending the forums, she comes across as very knowledgeable, especially in state fiscal policy,” Davis says. “Susan Bartlett knows more about budgets than anybody who doesn’t work on the fifth floor of the Pavilion building,” where the governor’s office is.

While Davis puts long odds on Bartlett to win the primary, he says she’s well positioned for other executive jobs. “I wouldn’t be surprised to see Bartlett end up with a senior position in the next administration if a Democrat wins in November.”

Bartlett says she’s not interested. And she warns political pundits not to embarrass themselves later by writing her off now.

“I’ve always been lifted by that great and wonderful silent majority,” she says. “They’ve always come out for me before. We’ll see if they do it again.”

Click here to support Susan now with a contribution.

Bartlett Supports Re-structuring State Government

Wednesday, 06/23/10 7:34am
Bob Kinzel - Montpelier, VT
(Host) Democratic gubernatorial candidate Susan Bartlett says it's critical to restructure all of state government along the lines of the recently passed Challenges for Change bill.
Bartlett says developing an outcomes based approach to the state budget is one way to improve government services without raising new taxes.
VPRs Bob Kinzel reports
(Kinzel) As chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations committee, Susan Bartlett played a key role in the drafting of next year's budget. As part of the process, Bartlett became a strong supporter of the so called "Challenges for Change" bill.
It's legislation that reduced state spending by roughly $30 million by implementing a system of outcome based standards for a number of state programs.
Backers of this approach said it was a positive way to deliver essential services without making serious budget cuts. Critics said the bill was all fluff and no substance and they argued that the legislation would hurt people who rely on state services.
Senator Bartlett is one of the five Democrats running for Governor this year. Speaking on VPR, she said the "Challenges" approach is a central part of her campaign:
(Bartlett) "I'm not afraid to say this is what we need to do we need to change how we are delivering services we can't keep doing things the same way there needs to be a significant structural change this isn't about efficiencies this is about significant structural change and that's not popular because that's scary."
(Kinzel) Bartlett says performance standards need to be established for all programs to be certain that state revenues are being targeted in the most effective way:
(Bartlett) "We might be spending a lot of money on child abuse but if we aren't measuring to know if we're really making progress in preventing child abuse then we may be spending a lot of money but not getting the results with the goal with this would here are the outcomes you're going to measure them so you're going to know if you're making progress and if you're aren't masking progress then you can change the strategy."
(Kinzel) Bartlett acknowledges that two of her opponents, senators Doug Racine and Peter Shumlin also voted for the "Challenges Bill," but she says they don't share her enthusiasm for the legislation:
(Bartlett) "But if you listen to them talking about it, it's a different approach I believe."
(Kinzel) Bartlett says she also supports imposing performance based standards on hundreds of independent contracts that the state authorizes every year.
For VPR News, I'm Bob Kinzel in Montpelier.