Committees trim H.397 funding, revert controversial buyout change before floor vote

Representative Jim Harrison, reporter for the House Committee on Appropriations, told a Government Operations & Military Affairs meeting on March 25 that committees removed three funding items from H.397, the “Act relating to miscellaneous amendments to the statutes governing emergency management and flood response.” “The amendment that you have before you is very simple. It just hits the delete button 3 times,” Harrison said, describing deletions of (1) two new positions in the Division of Emergency Management, (2) funding for the Vermont Community Radio program, and (3) the bill’s appropriations in their entirety.

The deletions reflect budget trimming to fit larger budget negotiations, Harrison said. Committee staff moved one item into the larger budget as one-time funding and reduced another: the Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) allocation was cut to $475,000 (one-time), and a $275,000 line for fire apparatus was reduced to a partial or shared funding arrangement tied to the relevant agencies. Harrison said the $275,000 was intended for the forest-fire prevention apparatus within the Agency of Natural Resources’ forestry unit and that the USAR funding was one-time support.

Representative Teddy Walzak of Burlington (Ways and Means) described several other changes Ways and Means made to the bill. He said the committee will undo an earlier amendment that would have allowed redevelopment of flood‑resilient housing on properties that had undergone buyouts, because the committee “quickly learned that that is a very large can of worms with a lot to discuss and a lot of policy work to do.” Rep. Cornizer (Ways and Means) is expected to offer an amendment on the floor to revert section 3 back to the committee’s original language.

Walzak said Ways and Means also renamed the municipal reimbursement program for buyouts to the “municipal grand‑list stabilization program” while keeping the governor’s policy intent. The committee corrected language in the bill changing a position title from “flood mitigation technician” to “all‑hazard mitigation technician” to ensure consistent terminology. A provision that would have changed how municipalities service certain debts was removed because of potential interactions with tax increment financing (TIF) districts and will be revisited with legal and fiscal staff.

Ways and Means also adjusted the local options tax split, moving from a 70/30 split to a 75/25 split in favor of municipalities and extended the flooding abatement reimbursement program to cover 2024 floods, with retroactive effective dates to Nov. 15, 2024, to match the program’s expiration and continuation. Those numbers were chosen, Walzak said, to keep the pilot special fund solvent while funding the municipal stabilization program and the pilot’s administrative costs.

Tucker Anderson, legislative counsel, confirmed that Representative Cornizer’s draft amendment (dated 03/19, draft 1.1) removes the first instance of the Ways and Means amendment so that section 3 of the committee report will “remain intact and unchanged” for now. “Autumn just posted draft 1.1 of Representative Cornizer’s amendment to the report from the Committee on Ways and Means,” Anderson said, summarizing the posted text.

The committee took informal voice/thumbs votes on the funding and amendment packages ahead of the floor. Members voted to find Representative Cornizer’s amendment to the Ways and Means amendment favorable; the chair recorded 11 in favor. The committee also agreed to advance the Appropriations amendment that removes the two line items and adjusts the one‑time funding allocations.

The meeting closed with members preparing floor reports for a busy floor schedule the next two days.

Ending: The committee’s changes do not finalize H.397; members said further drafting and floor amendments are expected tomorrow, and several provisions removed or deferred may reappear in other bills or later amendments.