It's Tuesday and the general assembly is back in town. By now you've heard that the equal marriage issue is in the spotlight under the golden dome. The Senate Judiciary Committee has nothing but that bill on its calendar all week. The statehouse is full of visitors who want to be heard on both sides of this issue. I just returned from a hearing in Senate Finance where Mark Langan and Paul Hanlon spoke for the fourth time on S. 86, the Uniform Trust Code. This time their presentation addressed two topics. First, since transferring jurisdiction to the probate courts for inter-vivos trusts is new, a fee schedule had to be created. The filing fees proposed to the Acting Court Administrator track those for testamentary trusts. Also, Paul responded to some concerns raised by the Attorney General on charitable trusts. The bill seems to be moving forward despite these issues and Finance hopes to vote it out tomorrow. Then a stop in Senate Judiciary will delay action until it is reviewed there. Hopefully the marriage bill will be in the House by then so trusts aren't slowed down.
Tomorrow I expect to listen to the Defender General and the Executive Director of Vermont Legal Aid make their budget pitches to the Senate Appropriations Committee for FY2010 funding. VLA suffered a big hit in the two rescissions at the end of 2008. Combined with federal matching funds, VLA lost about $170K! I'll report at the end of the day.
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