Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Happy 2013 everyone. Every time I greet someone by saying Happy New Year I am reminded that the beginning of the legislative session is just hours away. The new biennium will begin on Wednesday January 9^th, the Wednesday after the first Monday. But just because the new general assembly won’t be sworn in for a week doesn’t mean that work won’t begin until then. The House Appropriations Committee is actually convening later today to open three days of deliberations on the budget adjustment act- the mid term review of the budget year we are now in. As part of those meetings, the committee will hear from our Court Admi9nistrator Bob Greemore on the judiciary’s 2 to 2.5 million dollar budget deficit. I’ll try to get there for his testimony on Thursday at 1 PM and report back to you as soon as I can.

Also tomorrow afternoon, the ad hoc committee formed to look at foreclosure mediation, and what should happen if and when HAMP expires (December 31, 2013) will begin to wrap up over two months of work on a draft bill to be introduced early in the session. I’ll keep you posted on its progress.

A big issue for the VBA this year will be the funding for Vermont Legal Aid. You may not be aware that the Vermont Bar Foundation was forced to reduce its grant to VLA by $200,000! VLA will receive $695,000 instead of the $895,000 it received last year. But this must be seen in light of a loss of federal grant funds that further challenge VLA’s ability to serve some low income clients. The VBA is already working on seeking an increase in the amount of legislative funding VLA receives, which I believe has not increased since 2006. Certainly the state budget will face many challenges in addition to this one in the 2013-2014 biennium. Many of you have already donated to the Access to Justice Campaign and, for that, the VBA thanks you. if you have not yet done so, please do it now. If we are able to reach our goal of $150,000 we’ll be able to put some money back into the Foundation’s general fund coffers which will provide some cushion to the funding cuts that had to be made.

As always thanks for reading. I’ll do my best to keep this blog as up to date as I possibly can over the next four or four and a half months. If you need to want information on anything legislative just let me know. Again, my best wishes for a healthy and prosperous 2013.