Innkeepers are a busy bunch. To save you time, VLA attends Governor Scott’s Covid-19 press conferences and takes notes for you. Below is the summary from 3/8/22.
Governor Scott has a plan for the $90 million surplus in the state’s education fund and is asking the legislature to give back half of it to Vermonters as a form of taxpayer relief in a payment of approximately $250 to residential tax payers—per homestead household––stating that Vermonters have overpaid on property taxes and should be reimbursed. The remaining half would go to educational investments to support CTE centers and its infrastructure and push careers in the trades sector as an investment in the future of Vermonters and Vermont. As we come into the second half of legislative session, he has a reminder that we need to use ARPA funds strategically, to get it right on issue such as climate change, housing, water & sewer, broadband, and more, and be sure that all 14 counties benefit.
NOTES
- Secretary French:
- Half of education surplus to go to property tax rebate
- Other half to enhance CTE centers, a one-time surplus funds to expand and enhance workforce development; an investment in our future
- 3 investment priorities to use one-time funds
- $15 million fund to create CTE construction, rehabilitation, and revolving loan fund for purpose of expanding experiential educational opportunities for high school and adult students to work directly on construction projects including residential housing that will also create partnerships, beautify communities, expand housing access
- Establish $28 million competitive grant fund program for CTE facility and infrastructure upgrades tied to high need workforce areas
- $5 million to support just in time rapid deployment training opportunities and development of innovative workforce programs
- Use of funds as catalyst for expansion of workforce now and in future
- Changes in COVID recommendations go live March 14
- Masking is optional
- Bring schools in line with rest of state
- This week is a period of transition to mask optional
- Shift mitigation to critical education recovery work making use of federal relief dollars at state level with expected focus on academic/ learning and social /emotional needs of students and staff
- Dr. Levine:
- COVID-19 situation continues to improve statewide and nationally; CDC will use metrics on severe disease going forward;
- VT is well protected against severe disease due to high vaccination rate and ready access to testing and treatments available to those at high risk preparing to update VT guidance to reflect new realities
- Starting March 14 masking is up to individual; be supportive of personal choices; still good idea to keep mask as some places may still to choose to require them; hang on to masks and home test kits; remain prepared should changes take place
- Simplifying isolation and quarantine policies
- Test positive isolate 5 days
- Close contact and not up to date on vaccinations do not quarantine but get tested
- Test recommend if you have symptoms or exposure to COVID
- Encouraged to remain up to date on vaccinations and boosters; will continue to monitor disease trends, monitor outbreaks in vulnerable populations, and watch for new variants
- Know your risk; list continues to be updated; consult CDC list or take to your doctor
- White House test to treat initiative – people will be able to get tested and if positive will receive prescription from healthcare provide, pharmacy-based clinics, and federally qualified community health centers; not aware if any eligible VT pharmacies are eligible and no health centers have been notified at this time; majority of Vermonters will be able to test and get treatment at primary care practice and health care settings
Questions:
- Why not invest all of the surplus in the education fund into schools and kids?
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- Scott – Taxpayers deserve a return; overpaid and should get some of what they are due; return half to taxpayers and make investment in workforce that we know we need, invest in what will give a great return; it’s a meeting in the middle
- What would you like to see get across the half-way point in the legislature and comment on budget adjustment?
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- Scott – Still have concerns about budget adjustment act, but not enough to keep it from going through; concern where are they spending and getting the money––we using a lot of this fiscal year’s surplus money and they are using a lot of ARPA funding; have to wait and see; I don’t agree with 1.5 million ARPA funds to design new cafeteria and that will draw other funds to build
- Test kits have expiration date; can they still be effective?
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- Levine – FDA discussions on this but no update; office will look into any update
- Are you looking into temporarily adjusting or rolling back the gas tax during this period?
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- Scott – Need to do all we can as a country; state needs revenue to match federal funds to keep improvements needed in state; will not help in long term; national level is looking at impact; price we may have to pay for freedom and democracy; nationally we should be moving towards energy independence; increase domestic oil production and invest in technology
- Comment on FL encouraging healthy children not to get vaccinated.
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- Levine – vaccination is best way to prevent serious illness
- Reflections on COVID at this 2-year anniversary
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- Scott – Did not think it would have gone on this long
- Understand we don’t have all the answers
- Learn from others
- Started these press briefing to bring facts to Vermonters, to be forthright and transparent
- Give the information and do what you think is right based on information and health experts
- Levine – as a human race humility; my public health position, humility; relying on science and data; seeing the power of the powerful leaders providing misinformation; as public health official, frequent and accurate communication both good and bad; a point of stress for people and realize we have a ways to go to recover from the impact
- What are specific measures to taken when addressing social and emotional wellbeing in schools?
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- French – most importantly we have kept our schools opened this state level and local level funds; coordinate investments for most impact; state partnership with Dept. of Mental Health––more clinical resources focus on staff wellbeing; local – educational support teams interface state and local resources
- New mask guidance: does it apply to long-term care, corrections facilities and so forth?
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- Levine – Guidance we are putting out is general population guidance
- Status of testing in schools?
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- French – maintaining test at home and staff assurance (antigen testing) but will be fading out sometime soon; moving towards phasing out school testing in favor of statewide testing initiative for all Vermonters
- Still working on report of vaccination rates by schools
- What are your expectations on the new construction season?
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- Scott – Expect more projects then we have entities to construct them; federal dollars coming in to improve infrastructure and may need to ask for time extension from federal government and there are supply chain issues and workforce challenge;
- Is there something you can do regarding UVM/United Healthcare ending partnership at end of month?
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- Secretary Jenney Samuelson – evaluating situation and options encouraging consensus to continue partnership
- Commissioner Pieciak – negations are ongoing; under federal regulatory control and state has limited authority but we are doing what we can and hoping to reach positive resolution;
- Update on VT/Russia restrictions
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- Scott – still a work in progress
- What is administration doing to improve public transparency?
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- Scott – Press conferences every week; tried to do what we can; there are privacy concerns and there’s is a fine line there; we try to articulate why we take some of the stances we take.
- Does Dept. of Education have enough data to quality or quantify student educational recovery?
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- French – testing assessment has lagged and there is not good data; work to leverage local benchmark assessments data; most challenging probably mid-level transitioning to high school; still debating implementing new data metrics or providing supports directly to schools so they can intervene; renewed emphasis on afterschool and summer programs with educational aspects