Appropriations committee advances impaired-driving technical fixes, adds sheriffs to task force

The House Appropriations Committee on Feb. 13 advanced H.44, an omnibus bill that makes technical corrections to Vermont's impaired-driving laws, creates a task force to study implied consent and law-enforcement processing, and requires that court decisions affecting licenses be reported to the Department of Motor Vehicles.

The bill, which originated in another committee and was presented in Appropriations by Office of Legislative Council attorney Ben Dobrowski, “makes a lot of technical corrections to the impaired driving laws,” Dobrowski said, including aligning the statutory blood‑alcohol threshold language so the criminal standard and the civil‑suspension language read consistently as “0.08 and above.”

The measure also creates an impaired‑driving processing task force charged with examining the constitutional and statutory requirements of implied consent — Vermont’s statutory scheme that makes use of the State’s roads conditional on drivers consenting to breath, blood or saliva testing — and “with the objective of trying to reduce the duration of law‑enforcement encounters and also to reduce the paperwork and processing load” on officers, Dobrowski said. The bill sets a fixed end date for the group; the text directs that the task force cease to exist on February 1 (date in bill text).

Why it matters: committee members said the task force could shorten roadside encounters and improve the flow of information that triggers civil license suspensions. Ben Dobrowski and others told the committee that, under current practice, judicial findings that should trigger a civil suspension are not always forwarded to DMV; H.44 attempts to close those gaps so suspensions ordered by courts can be effectuated.

On fiscal questions, James Duffy, fiscal analyst with the Joint Fiscal Office, told members that JFO’s review found the bill’s only identifiable fiscal impact is tied to the new task force. “Fiscal impacts will be limited to the per diem and mileage reimbursement rates that are given to non‑state employees participating on the task force,” Duffy said. Under the bill as discussed, per diems would be $50 per day; if the task force holds six meetings, that equals $300 per non‑state member in per diems (plus mileage), which JFO characterized as de minimis and limited to the Department of Public Safety budget.

Members of the Government Operations and Military Affairs Committee had asked that the Vermont Sheriffs Association be represented on the task force. Representative Matt Byerong, chair of Government Operations and Military Affairs, said Sheriff Mark Anderson requested that the sheriffs be listed as one of the members and that the language to add the association’s president or designee was drafted and inserted into the committee amendment.

Representative Ian Goodnow, bill reporter for H.44, told Appropriations members that many of the proposed task force participants understand that they or their designees would be state employees; that means a designee could be a non‑state employee eligible for per diems. “I just want to waylay any fear that there could be even more people suddenly gonna have [per diems],” Goodnow said.

Action taken: the committee adopted HAC amendment 1.1, which inserts the president of the Vermont Sheriffs Association (or designee) into the task force membership list, and then voted to accept the House Judiciary report as amended. The committee chair called the roll and members recorded votes in the affirmative; the motions carried.

Next steps: with the amendment adopted and the report accepted, H.44 will proceed toward further consideration by the full House as part of the Legislature’s normal floor schedule.

Speakers quoted in this article are drawn from committee proceedings and include only those listed in the meeting record: Ben Dobrowski (Office of Legislative Council); James Duffy (Fiscal Analyst, Joint Fiscal Office); Representative Matt Byerong (Chair, House Government Operations and Military Affairs); Representative Ian Goodnow (Brattleboro, Windham‑9, bill reporter); and the presiding Chair of the House Appropriations Committee (referred to in the transcript as “Madam Chair”).