[{"_1":2,"_87":-5,"_88":-5},"loaderData",{"_3":4,"_26":27},"root",{"_5":6,"_17":10,"_18":19,"_20":21,"_22":10,"_23":-5,"_24":-5,"_25":10},"user",{"_7":8,"_9":10,"_11":10,"_12":-5,"_13":-5,"_14":15,"_16":-5},"roles",[],"isAuthenticated",false,"isPremium","planName","subscriptionStatus","featureFlags",{},"insightsBudget","isDevelopmentHost","userPreferences",{},"recaptchaSiteKey","6LcvOJcUAAAAAHsB-gPGfGktcRlKpH7OTIU_dMTD","isImpersonating","impersonation","affiliateStatus","isFreedomPortal","routes/v2/article/layout",{"_28":29,"_30":31},"notFound",true,"relatedArticles",[32,75],{"_33":34,"_35":36,"_37":38,"_39":40,"_41":42,"_43":44,"_45":46,"_47":48,"_49":50,"_51":52,"_53":54,"_55":56,"_57":58,"_59":60,"_61":62,"_63":64,"_65":66,"_67":68,"_69":70,"_71":72,"_73":56,"_74":56},"mediaId",6233177,"mediaKeyId","3424050-3490ac72dd09ce5566f3eca891938e0c","parentId",3424050,"title","Senate committee advances OPR fee changes and proposal to license early childhood educators; ECE portion likely to shift in House","audioSeconds",738,"startMs",151965,"endMs",890035,"viewUrl","/Search/View?dp=1&key=3424050-3490ac72dd09ce5566f3eca891938e0c&start=151&end=890","thumbnailUrl","https://assets.pipeline.soar.com/3424050-3490ac72dd09ce5566f3eca891938e0c/thumbnail_151965.jpg","articleUrl","/articles/6233177/Vermont/Senate-committee-advances-OPR-fee-changes-and-proposal-to-license-early-childhood-educators-ECE-portion-likely-to-shift-in-House","mediaUrl","https://secure.pipeline.soar.com/6233177-9e5251e07e431ba81d4685b41561260a/orig.mp4?Expires=1771149846&Signature=FCOJ664kFmRlLYyc7yfnTpGfcwvv5FanEU5EztLcy9KhrqSaf1WJQuv7L7dYwFGcfklPOHOxc67zyZLOTc4K1tEb0qXJaiA9LqKvGi2CVZLSKsscLBlZQlX7RwF-daJ6X5EgzX2YNAZCTjjvuhCP-K5uAkeG1WrNX4Tq4La1TpCNaqg4o0ZjJPHOXd64OwSU1e5r2DhLqPpO8Qn7P3X5EOh9lWV2fmz24jjxBwCLRS-RTcFwRkqwmHUSAvzpJnkKI-eIbHP4CQ-VdErzd17DEf3CURuUXgy4HfnmXkgXCqoWJmGI8rSSvshCDn78ymn9Ec0gVyTQgnVWZYRy9RHAcQ__&Key-Pair-Id=KUT5TJCACFTXG","author","","date","2025-05-21T07:28:03Z","article","The Senate Finance Committee advanced H.472 on May 20, a bill from the Office of Professional Regulation that would both expand licensing for early childhood educators and authorize a set of new or increased professional‑regulation fees.

The Office of Professional Regulation (OPR) and the Secretary of State’s office presented the bill. Lauren Hibbert, deputy secretary of state, told the committee the bill would establish individual licensure for early childhood educators, create a nine‑member board, and set a phased timeline with fees intended to cover program costs. Sharon Harrington, executive director of the Vermont Association for the Education of Young Children, testified the state’s workforce and recent investments make the profession ready for licensure.

Supporters said the bill creates three standard licensure tiers — ECE 1, ECE 2 and ECE 3 — plus a separate “family childcare provider” track for in‑home providers. Under the current draft, the licensure program would begin in 2027, with an eight‑year transition period allowing existing workers to meet education requirements. Hibbert described the education standards the bill contemplates: an ECE 1 pathway that relies on roughly 120 hours of early childhood training, an ECE 2 pathway aligned with an associate degree (or equivalent credits plus field experience) and an ECE 3 pathway aligned with a bachelor’s degree or equivalent. The bill directs further detail to rulemaking.

Harrington said OPR’s Sunrise review and multi‑year workforce work informed the bill and that many early childhood educators had asked for professional licensure. “Individual licensure for early childhood educators recognizes individual expertise, prevents harm, enhances the profession’s reputation, and demonstrates that licensed early childhood educators are well‑equipped to provide safe, quality care,” she told the committee.

OPR staff also described a set of fee changes and additions the bill would authorize. Jennifer Cohen, general counsel for OPR, said the bill would: allow OPR to charge for custom data feeds and APIs; raise a license‑verification fee from $20 to $30; reinstate an electrology shop fee at $200 that had been dropped in 2019; add a $50 apprenticeship application fee; create specialty‑license fees; add a $250 disciplinary surcharge tied to enforcement outcomes; and permit a larger penalty for unauthorized practice (raising the administrative maximum from $2,500 to $5,000). Cohen said several of the changes correct prior drafting errors or authorize charges for work OPR currently performs without a fee.

Hibbert and Cohen said OPR is understaffed for the number of professions it regulates — roughly 41 staff for more than 50 professions — and that many of the fee proposals are intended to help the office cover program and enforcement costs. Hibbert said the administration has proposed using the child care tax fund to subsidize licensure application and renewal costs for the first two cycles to reduce barriers for the workforce.

Several senators pressed for budget clarity and noted the early childhood components are not funded in the budget passed by the full Legislature. Senator Hardy asked whether the committee should remove the early childhood provisions now that the House appears unlikely to carry them this year; Hibbert said keeping the provisions in the Senate bill has been the preference through the Senate process and that the House may make a different decision.

The committee approved a motion to report H.472 favorably as sent by the Government Operations Committee. The motion was made on the record and carried in the committee vote recorded in the transcript.

What matters: licensing would change oversight from facility‑level regulation to individual licensure for thousands of non‑public‑school early childhood educators; fee changes would affect commercial users of OPR services and could incrementally increase revenues for enforcement and administrative operations. The licensure dates, fee levels and any subsidy details remain subject to future budget decisions and rulemaking.

Details and next steps: If the House removes the early childhood licensure provisions, the remaining OPR fee items could still move. Hibbert said rulemaking and stakeholder engagement would follow statutory changes and that the administration anticipates returning with fee adjustments every few years.

Speakers quoted in this article are drawn from testimony and committee discussion during the May 20 hearing and are attributed to the roles they used at the hearing.","mediaType","Video","parentTitle","Senate Finance - 2025-05-20 - 1:00PM","oneSentenceSummary","The Senate Finance Committee advanced H.472 on May 20, a bill from the Office of Professional Regulation that would create individual licensure for early childhood educators and authorize new or increased OPR fees.","taxTitle","Finance, SENATE, Committees, Legislative , Vermont","taxId",38150,"location","Vermont","headline","shortSummary",{"_33":76,"_35":36,"_37":38,"_39":77,"_41":78,"_43":79,"_45":80,"_47":81,"_49":82,"_51":83,"_53":84,"_55":56,"_57":58,"_59":85,"_61":62,"_63":64,"_65":86,"_67":68,"_69":70,"_71":72,"_73":56,"_74":56},6233172,"Ryegate biomass plant requests one‑year delay to efficiency deadlines; new owners say technical and market disruptions drove need",492,3327765,3819870,"/Search/View?dp=1&key=3424050-3490ac72dd09ce5566f3eca891938e0c&start=3327&end=3819","https://assets.pipeline.soar.com/3424050-3490ac72dd09ce5566f3eca891938e0c/thumbnail_3327765.jpg","/articles/6233172/Vermont/Ryegate-biomass-plant-requests-oneyear-delay-to-efficiency-deadlines-new-owners-say-technical-and-market-disruptions-drove-need","https://secure.pipeline.soar.com/6233172-0c4a54a4faf852a6255f2044ba123ce4/orig.mp4?Expires=1771149846&Signature=MzuX832k5c3djdsQOM0Sc3Fus64GIFGGfbOgtu~vN9KYpYV3f4j0e9dagPw1hNSVOpi8zcYQ51JhuuPcokK~yl~a6ODY8dRllo3GwXj3fNERMkHB60Jf2HUyGK3YNOtYW3D2NlkyT5kyP6uAVQqC7mWKIOWqLZN4fg6UwGHqEPuk83nUtXVJcQ1dUx8Kk1XeGesW6-JP4beT7BUaO6Gun-9rAHJlmhGeoRXIP2mxDjZt68hIhtr6fveACgB-WICi6oWnMh~xZxBcgmZQSyXSiROhYzxN-BcP3CFuCCkjnEWTayumgoEYYcBIc-3d5N6DQ8GPKR4lGptdmuqc6xNdkw__&Key-Pair-Id=KUT5TJCACFTXG","Owners of the Ryegate biomass electric generation facility asked the Senate Finance Committee on May 20 for a one‑year extension of statutory deadlines that require the plant to make efficiency upgrades to qualify for a utility power‑purchase obligation.

Lenny Carter, who identified himself as president of Ryegate Associates and managing partner of Mizzen Capital (the company that became the plant’s owner three weeks earlier), told the committee that supply‑chain problems and tariffs on specialized heat‑recovery and drying equipment from Europe made the original upgrade plan uneconomic. Carter said earlier arrangements to dry wood chips for resale were canceled and that the new ownership needs time to pivot to a different, internally integrated plan to dry and burn its own chips.

“We need about a year to make sure that fundamental engineering work can pivot to a new process that is going to still work,” Carter said. He described the plant as a 35‑year‑old industrial facility that runs 24/7 with limited annual downtime and said the team has completed significant engineering work and intends to proceed with measures to lower wood‑chip moisture and improve efficiency.

Dan St. On, a local wood‑chip supplier who said he has coordinated deliveries and payments for the plant for about a year, told the committee that timely payment to chip suppliers was essential to maintain the supply chain. “If you don’t get another party involved in paying these guys, you ain’t get wood,” he said, noting suppliers need reliable weekly payments to meet payroll.

The Ryegate‑related provision would push back a series of statutory reporting and upgrade deadlines tied to the plant’s continued eligibility for a long‑term power‑purchase arrangement that utilities were directed to buy under state law. The plant’s final power‑purchase end date remains unchanged in the proposal (the transcript records the contract end as 2032), but milestone dates for submitting documentation and achieving staged efficiency improvements would move later by one year under the requested change.

Testimony and committee discussion noted the plant’s importance to local timber and logging economies and the risk that closure could hurt multiple small‑scale suppliers; at least one senator said shutting the plant down could put 30 to 40 small logging operations at risk. Committee members asked whether the Department of Public Service (DPS) or the Public Utility Commission could provide an independent assessment of the plant’s viability and likely ability to meet the efficiency objectives. Committee staff said DPS and the PUC had provided written testimony to the Natural Resources Committee previously, and that DPS’s written analysis had been circulated.

Ryegate’s new owners described a technical approach to lowering wood moisture — reducing average chip moisture from about 45% toward the mid‑20s to improve combustion efficiency — and said they are exploring on‑site uses of plant‑adjacent property for development (solar, greenhouse, or other energy‑oriented purposes) though those ideas are preliminary.

What matters: the statute ties certain efficiency upgrades to the plant’s favorable power‑purchase pricing; extending deadlines preserves the plant’s rate eligibility in the short term while owners attempt to make the project viable. The committee asked for further comfort from DPS or the PUC on technical and rate impacts before a final legislative decision.

Next steps: committee members said they would seek the Department of Public Service’s and the Public Utility Commission’s technical perspectives and written analysis. The bill containing the Ryegate extension (part of H.319, the miscellaneous environmental subjects bill) was moved favorably out of committee as amended; the transcript records committee discussion and a favorable committee report for H.319.","Owners of the Ryegate biomass electric generation facility asked the Senate Finance Committee on May 20 for a one‑year delay to statutory deadlines tied to required efficiency upgrades that underpin the plant’s power‑purchase rate.","actionData","errors"]

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Senate committee advances OPR fee changes and proposal to license early childhood educators; ECE portion likely to shift in House

Ryegate biomass plant requests one‑year delay to efficiency deadlines; new owners say technical and market disruptions drove need