House committee reviews bill requiring annual Department of Financial Regulation report

Representative Priestley introduced H.124 on Feb. 12, 2025, asking the Vermont House Committee on Commerce and Economic Development to require the Commissioner of Financial Regulation to prepare an annual supervision and regulation report covering persons, services and products under the department’s jurisdiction.

Maria Bridal, legislative counsel, read the bill’s core requirement: “the Commissioner of Financial Regulation shall prepare an annual supervision and regulation report applicable to persons, services, and products subject to the Department’s jurisdiction.” She told the committee the initial report would be due “on January fifteenth of next year and then annually thereafter.”

Sponsor remarks and committee discussion framed the bill as an effort to increase legislative and public transparency about DFR activity — examinations, investigations, enforcement actions and consumer complaints — and about fee revenues the department collects. Representative Priestley said the proposal was prompted by “a lot of questions…coming up in a variety of different bills” and by comparisons with other states that already publish similar reports.

Doug, the state auditor, told the…