After the Vermont legislature adjourned early Friday morning, passing budget and property tax bills that Gov. Phil Scott had promised to veto, the stage was set for a high-stakes confrontation. The House and Senate are scheduled for a two-day session June 21 and 22, less than ten days before the start of a new fiscal year.
And if there is no agreement by July 1, the state government could shut down.
The governor seemed to have the upper hand. The single unresolved issue was how to negotiate public school teacher health insurance: at the school board level, at the state level, or in some other way? The governor had seized the political high ground by repeatedly emphasizing the potential taxpayer savings — the fabled $26 million — that could be realized by changing the system.
And then, at a Friday afternoon press conference, he strongly defended his position — but also acknowledged that he would rather lose on the issue than risk a government shutdown.
During the press conference, Scott made a firm promise that there would be no shutdown. A reporter then asked what would happen if legislative Democrats refused to compromise.
“If that’s what happens, that’s what happens,” he said. “I know that’s not great negotiating skills to tell people you’re willing to put aside your own preference for the benefit of the state, but that’s just the way I am as a leader.”
Which begs the question: What, then, has the last few weeks really been about?
If he’s willing to fold unconditionally, why couldn’t he have accepted one of the Democrats’ offers that, honestly, weren’t that far from his position?
“We weren’t [very far apart],” the governor affirmed. “It was very frustrating on both sides yesterday because we were so close.”
So close … and yet so far apart that it’s worth not one but two vetoes, a veto override session perilously close to the new fiscal year, and perhaps an ultimate defeat on the issue?
Not to mention that the savings will be lower in late June than they are right now, because more and more teacher contracts will have been settled under the current system.
“You’re absolutely right,” said Scott. “Every time a contract gets settled, some savings are lost.”
And yet, he believes this standoff is worthwhile.
I asked Scott to identify the sticking point, and here’s what he said.
“Some mechanism to maximize the savings, to try and find some way to create some uniformity. That was the sticking point. Whether it was a statewide negotiation or trying to implement that, every step of the way it seemed to come back to, we couldn’t get beyond that line in the sand, so to speak.”
Say what?
The gist of this, I think, is that the governor has backed away from his demand for statewide negotiation of teacher contracts. But he wants some kind of change in the system that, in his mind, would guarantee maximum savings.
Of course, all the savings in every plan are mere projections. Actual savings will depend on the outcome of teacher contract talks, not only about health care but also about salary and everything else.
The problem with Scott’s position is that the legislature’s Democratic majority has a fundamental objection to changing the collective bargaining system on short notice. That won’t change between now and June 21.
“In our conversations over the last few weeks with the governor, we said that the one thing our caucus couldn’t do was interfere in the processes happening right now, and change the rules of the game,” said House Speaker Mitzi Johnson (D-South Hero).
It was at a negotiation session Thursday afternoon between Scott and top lawmakers that a deal very nearly came to pass.
“At a certain point we had a general framework that each of us was to go back and see if our respective constituents could get behind,” said Senate President Pro Tempore Tim Ashe (D/P-Chittenden). “The House and Senate were at that place where they could, and the governor’s team discouraged him from agreeing. That was sometime around 7 or 7:30 that we were told that the governor couldn’t yield on breaking up the union contracts this year. Or specifically, changing union negotiations in law this year.”
Scott sees the course of things very differently.
“What usually happened was that there would be a proposal, we would put forward a proposal and they would just say it wasn’t what they had in mind,” the governor said. “We would look for a different approach, and we worked diligently trying to continue to offer different approaches.”
Figuring out this Rashomon situation seems less relevant in light of the apparent bombshell dropped by the governor: All of his resoluteness may vanish into the mist as we approach July 1.
There’s a political interpretation to this. If the governor vetoes the budget and property tax bills, he will satisfy his conservative base and the legislative Republicans who’ve been hoping for a showdown. If he then winds up getting less than he wants in the override session, he can blame his failure squarely on the Democrats and accuse them of choosing the teachers’ union over the taxpayer.
Such calculation seems alien to what we think we know of the governor’s character. But right now, his admission that he’d rather cave than risk a shutdown seems to be either deft political jiu jitsu — or just plain dumb.
Disclosure: Tim Ashe is the domestic partner of Seven Days publisher and coeditor Paula Routly. Find our conflict-of-interest policy here: sevendaysvt.com/disclosure.
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“The problem with Scotts position is that the legislatures Democratic majority has a fundamental objection to changing the collective bargaining system on short notice.”
I guess you’ve forgotten that hasty vote where the dominant Dem house voted for (but for an absent legislator) Scott’s plan. The D’s are looking pretty bad here. Vermont has a history of pragmatism, but this crop seems to have forgotten (or rejected) that and my guess is that both the teachers (unfortunately) and the D&P’s (deservedly) will take the rap for what comes from this.
In my mind, Johnson and Ash both have aspirations for hire office and they do not want to upset the apple cart with the VT NEA. They know the VT NEA is their meal ticket to those offices. The VT NEA is once again the big winner and VT tax payers the big losers. Very discouraging.
I think the governor has gotten a raft of phone calls from people who don’t believe he is behaving properly in this instance and has realized how horrible it will look if the government is defunded as of July 1. He never considered the possibility that his late proposal and intransigence would not get him what he wanted. He’s woken up, smelled the coffee, and realized he will lose badly if the state shut downs. Now he’s trying to save face and figure out a way to blame it on the dems and progs. If one thing is clear from the elections last fall, it’s that the dems and progs are stronger than his team, and got more votes than his team did. He was at best a compromise governor after the appalling behavior of Shumlin, and a nice guy. He may lose that nice guy label after this maneuver.
As John as said here, this was a political move more than anything. This had nothing to do with education. Both sides knew that they could not change union negotiations in the middle of them by waving a wand. This was a grandstanding affair by the governor, showing how tough he could be for his base and election next year. He was clever to use the ruse of property tax relief, for reasons we all know, when he was really trying to destroy collective bargaining and the unions and take that $26 million and put it somewhere else and the property tax payer might have got $10 or $20 bucks back. He was also clever in doing it at the last minute. Yet, I wonder if this was not something else too. Since when does a governor order a legislature to do something as though he or she is boss of it?
Reading the comments, you’d think teachers and their representation were the worst thing to happen to VT since the Emerald Ash Borer.
Teachers are not the enemy of taxpayers, nor is the NEA. The enemy is a lack of uniform school funding mechanisms, declining populations, and forced consolidation by the threat of losing ones’ town schools. Well-funded schools mean better-educated graduates, who can go on to improve and grow the local economy.
Phil tried his hand at being political in a half-assed way, a day (or 2.5 months) late and a dollar short. He won’t get his way on this negotiation.
I hope Gov. Scott isn’t waiving the white flag and this becomes a blame game between the Democrats and the Governor with the taxpayers on the losing end….again. Stay strong Gov. Scott!
The VT NEA behemoth once again runs roughshod over taxpayers and struggling local school boards. If we don’t acquiesce to the union’s wishes and demands, we are terrible people who do not support teachers. I condemn this line of reasoning as being unreasonable. For too many years the VT NEA has out-negotiated local citizens.
The VT NEA has teams of expensive lobbyists with a large staff of experienced and highly paid negotiators. On the other side of the table? Unpaid volunteer school board members. Collective bargaining on the state level would level the playing field and benefit everyone, including taxpaying teachers. Please call your legislator and support Governor Scott’s brave stand against the VT NEA and for local school boards and Vermont taxpayers.
@planetacer09, you are right teachers are not the enemy, the VT NEA is. I say that because they buy votes and there is nothing more dangerous in our state than someone that successfully buys votes.
The damn liberals legislature wins again.. Scott you should let the Government shut down..maybe losing a few paychecks might wake the fools up..they think they are smarter then we are but they are nothing but a bunch of fools who don’t know crap.. I for one am sick and tired of these out of staters moving to Vt and telling us how to live..That we have to do what they tell us..Vermont got a long way before they even stepped foot on our Vermont soil..
Sometimes You Must Choose Between Popularity and Respect !
Why would the governor pick a fight he was unwilling to see through to the end ? It’s one thing to want everyone to like you – it’s quite another thing to have everyone respect you for the decisions you make !
I think we are missing the big point in Vermont and that is we are being represented by a band of progressive out of Staters who could care less about the people that have spent their lives here making this state the wonderful place it was earning little money while doing that.
the good hard-working people of Vermont that invested their lives here are being priced out of their own State and it is obvious by the number leaving the state
We are a test tube for these progressives and that is all we are.
Things will never change until the people in Vermont wake up and start to vote the out-of-state representation we have in Montpelier out of office and get rid of these progressives that are doing nothing but tearing the state apart
Isn’t this just about math? Vermont has years now of steadily declining enrollment – but edu budgets have not followed the same downward curve. From a far distance it ‘appears’ the Gov., Johnson and Ashe all get this. Consolidation is ‘starting’ to happen, and the gov had what seems like a sane idea – he was just 3 months late in making the push for it. As Ashe said ‘ why have the legislative process if we don’t consider this as we consider all the issues.’ ( i might have paraphrased )Anyways…Lots of freshmen in big chairs….this will all sugar out…there will be no shutdown…everyone will make it to their fav swimming hole in time for the heat.