Vermont Senate defeats amendment to codify governor's motel-priority list, approves FY2025 budget adjustment

Montpelier — The Vermont Senate on a roll-call vote late in the session rejected an amendment that would have written the governor’s recent executive-order motel-priority list into statute, then passed H.4.89, the fiscal year 2025 budget adjustment.

The amendment, offered by the senator from Caledonia (the amendment’s sponsor), would have established a limited priority category for motel assistance between April 1 and June 30 and specified that nights in that three-month window would not count toward an applicant’s annual 80-day cap. The sponsor said the change “attempts to do is to prevent or protect a class classes of very vulnerable people in the state of Vermont,” noting the language tracked the governor’s executive order.

The priority criteria named in the amendment included households that on March 30, 2025 were in a hotel or motel under the program and households with documented medical needs: a child 18 or younger meeting the Medicare definition of homebound, a household member requiring a life‑saving device that needs electricity, persons in active cancer treatment or severe kidney, liver or heart disease treatment, individuals…