Vermont - From the Peoples House

Representative Dobrovich’s Weekly Newsletter Week of March 25, 2025 - March 28, 2025 Dear Constituents, As we conclude another week at the State House, I'm pleased to share updates on our legislative activities, focusing on the House Education Committee (it’s a long one this week). Weekly Recap House Education Committee Legislative Proposal for Education Transformation: The Education Committee heard further discussion on the strike-all amendment bill H.454, the legislative proposal for education transformation. The proposal has gone through various drafts this week, and was voted out of committee on Friday along party lines with a 7-4-0 vote. The Education Committee’s strike-all amendment to H.454, driven by the committee chair and majority party members, jettisons the as-introduced version’s clear, student-driven plan for a convoluted, delayed, and partisan overhaul. Line-by-line edits could have preserved the original’s strengths—five-district consolidation and equit...

Representative Dobrovich’s Weekly Newsletter Week of March 18, 2025 - March 21, 2025 Dear Constituents, This week marked the end of “Crossover Week” in the Vermont General Assembly, a critical period when bills impacting state revenue and expenditures—commonly referred to as “money” bills originating from the House Ways and Means and Appropriations Committees—must advance to meet legislative deadlines. Floor sessions this week extended longer than usual as representatives engaged in robust debate and deliberation over a range of proposals. The House successfully passed nine bills to the Senate, where they will undergo committee review, potential amendments, and possibly a vote as the legislative process continues. Additionally, 11 new bills were introduced and assigned to their respective committees of jurisdiction, bringing the total number of bills introduced this session to 490, reflecting the active pace of legislative activity in the 2025-2026 biennium. Meanwhile, the Senat...

  Representative Dobrovich’s Weekly Newsletter Week of March 11, 2025 - March 14, 2025 Dear Constituents, As we conclude Crossover Week at the State House, I'm pleased to share updates on our legislative activities. Crossover week in the Vermont Legislature refers to a critical period, typically occurring in mid-March during the legislative session, when bills must pass out of their chamber of origin (either the House or Senate) to remain viable for consideration in the opposite chamber that year. It’s the last chance for policy bills to "cross over" before a set deadline, this year it was March 14 th .   Bills that miss this deadline are effectively stalled for the session unless they qualify for exceptions (like money bills, etc.) or are revived in the second year of the two-year biennium. This week was a flurry of activity as committees finalized and vote on legislation, shaping the session’s priorities. To identify bills voted out of committees in the Vermont ...

Representative Dobrovich’s Weekly Newsletter Week of February 25, 2025 - February 28, 2025 Dear Constituents, As we conclude another week at the State House, I'm pleased to share updates on our legislative activities.This week’s newsletter will be a special issue regarding the Governor’s Education Transformation Proposal, which entered the House as bill H.454.   Weekly Recap H.454 Key Provisions ●  Unified School Districts H.454 in its current form shifts Vermont away from the current system with 118 School Districts and 51 Supervisory Unions, implementing 5 Unified School Districts in their place. These school districts are drawn along pre-existing lines so as not to disrupt normal operations as much as possible. These new Unified School Districts will also serve to improve state-wide education standards and their implementation at the community level. ●  School Advisory Committees Within each of these Unified School Districts there are various S...