Taxes

After two years of debate, negotiation, and advocacy, S.71, Vermont’s comprehensive data privacy legislation, officially passed the Legislature this week after the House approved the bill and the Senate concurred with House changes. The legislation now heads to Governor Phil Scott.

For Vermont businesses, the final version of S.71 reflects substantial movement from earlier proposals in the House that would have made Vermont a significant national outlier. While the legislation still creates new compliance obligations for businesses operating in the state, the final product more closely aligns with surrounding states and regional privacy frameworks, creating a more workable path forward for Vermont businesses and organizations navigating increasingly complex state privacy laws.

The Vermont Chamber was a chief advocate for Vermont’s business community throughout this process, consistently pushing for a balanced approach that protects consumer privacy while maintaining regional compatibility and avoiding provisions that would unnecessarily disadvantage Vermont businesses.

Significant credit is owed to Senator Thomas Chittenden for initially sponsoring legislation grounded in a more regionally compatible framework, as well as the members of the House Commerce and Economic Development Committee, who continued working toward a practical path forward even as national lobbying groups pushed for Vermont to adopt far more aggressive first in the nation standards.

Debate on the House Floor became unusually contentious after the bill’s reporter delivered remarks that many viewed as mischaracterizing the work of her own committee and the extensive negotiations during the committee process. The representative voted against the bill she was reporting before moving on to lobby senators to reject concurrence. For an institution that traditionally operates with a high level of decorum and professionalism, this situation stood out from the normal legislative process.

The Senate ultimately voted to concur with the House version, recognizing the inclusion of an 18-month implementation timeline that provides lawmakers additional opportunity to revisit the law if adjustments are needed before it takes effect.

Key Components of the Final Bill

The final version of S.71 includes:

• Consumer rights to access, correct, delete, and obtain copies of personal data held by businesses.
• Opt out rights for targeted advertising, sale of personal data, and certain automated profiling activities.
• New requirements around privacy notices, consumer consent for sensitive data, and data security practices.
• Protections for sensitive data categories include health information, biometric data, precise geolocation, and information related to minors.
• Applicability thresholds that limit the law to businesses processing significant amounts of consumer data rather than sweeping in every Vermont small business.
• Exemptions for many federally regulated entities and data are already governed under laws such as HIPAA and Gramm-Leach-Bliley.

The Vermont Chamber will continue working with policymakers, stakeholders, and our members during implementation to ensure the law is interpreted and applied in a way that protects consumers while maintaining Vermont’s economic competitiveness.

After weeks of negotiations, conference committees finalized agreements Thursday night on both H.955, the education transformation bill, and H.949, the annual yield bill. Both measures are expected to receive final votes in the House and Senate today and together represent the Legislature’s attempt to address both the immediate cost of Vermont’s education system and its long-term structure.

The two bills are interconnected. H.949 determines how Vermont funds education next year and what property tax rates taxpayers will face, while H.955 lays out the structural reforms lawmakers hope will slow future cost growth and stabilize the system over time.

This connection matters for Vermont businesses. Employers continue to raise concerns about affordability, workforce attraction, housing costs, and Vermont’s overall competitiveness. Education spending is one of the largest drivers of property taxes, which directly impacts businesses, employees, and the cost of living statewide.

H.949: The Yield Bill

The yield bill establishes the education property tax rates needed to fund Vermont’s education system for FY27, while also incorporating several policy changes intended to support the transition envisioned in H.955.

Key provisions include:

• $100 million property tax buy down
  Lawmakers used approximately $100 million in one-time funds to reduce the education property tax increase for FY27. That buy down lowered the statewide average property tax increase to approximately 3.5%, significantly below what many communities were originally projecting.
• FY27 property tax yields
  The agreement sets the property dollar equivalent yield at $9,401 and the income yield at $12,960. The nonhomestead tax rate was set at $1.643 per $100 of equalized property value.
• Excess spending penalty transition
  Rather than immediately imposing the full excess spending threshold, the conference committee created a phased transition between FY28 and FY32, gradually tightening the threshold over time.
• Property tax relief expansions
  The bill expands renter credits and circuit breaker style property tax relief programs for lower income Vermonters, increasing renter credits and raising income eligibility thresholds.
• Tuition growth limits
  Beginning in FY28, tuition increases paid to public and approved independent schools would be capped based on statewide education spending growth.
• Alignment with foundation formula transition
  The bill includes several technical and conforming changes tied directly to the future implementation of the foundation formula established under H.955.

While the lower average property tax increase will provide short term relief, the agreement relies heavily on one-time money to buy down costs for a second consecutive year. In many ways, lawmakers put part of the education funding challenge on a credit card that will eventually need to be reconciled in future years. This increases the pressure on policymakers to ensure the structural reforms contemplated in H.955 actually produce long-term cost containment.

H.955: Education Transformation Bill

The final conference committee agreement on H.955 moves Vermont further toward statewide education restructuring, while stopping short of mandatory school district mergers.

Key elements of the agreement include:

• Creation of merger committees statewide
  School districts across Vermont will be grouped into regional merger committees that are tasked with studying and recommending potential governance consolidation opportunities. The conference committee finalized 20 regional groupings covering districts throughout the state.
• Continued movement toward regionalization
  While mergers are not directly mandated, districts are expected to participate in a formal review and planning process that is intended to encourage larger, more regionally coordinated governance structures.
• Foundation formula transition
  The bill continues Vermont’s transition toward a foundation funding formula, which would significantly change how education funding is distributed beginning later this decade. Several timelines in the bill were accelerated during negotiations.
• Limits on tuition and supplemental spending
  The agreement includes guardrails intended to control future spending growth, including restrictions on schools charging tuition above public tuition amounts and limits on supplemental district spending above educational opportunity payments.
• Legacy debt aid
  The bill creates a new legacy debt aid structure that would provide districts with 75 percent aid on eligible school construction debt approved before the end of 2024, though eligibility is tied to participation in the merger process.
• Class size and operational standards
  The conference committee also refined definitions and implementation timelines around class size standards and district quality requirements.

Why These Bills Matter Together

Together these bills reflect the Legislature’s acknowledgment that Vermont’s education finance system faces both immediate affordability pressures and long-term structural challenges.

H.949 attempts to manage next year’s property tax impacts while H.955 seeks to create a framework for longer term cost containment and governance reform. Whether these reforms produce meaningful cost stabilization remains an open question, but the conference committee agreements signal that lawmakers are attempting to connect short term tax policy with longer term structural change.

For employers, the stakes are significant. Property taxes impact commercial taxpayers directly while also influencing housing affordability, workforce retention, and Vermont’s broader economic competitiveness. Businesses have consistently identified affordability as one of the largest barriers to growth, and these bills will likely shape that conversation for years to come.

Both bills now head to the House and Senate floors for final action today.

As the Legislature moves deeper into the final stretch of the session, attention is increasingly turning to conference committees, where House and Senate negotiators will attempt to resolve differences on several major bills before adjournment. While some of the remaining disputes center on policy mechanics and implementation, they also reflect broader philosophical divides around taxation, education spending, municipal revenue sharing, housing policy, and the future structure of state government programs.

H.933: Miscellaneous Tax Bill

H.933 serves as the Legislature’s annual miscellaneous tax bill and includes a wide range of technical and policy tax provisions. Most of the bill remains aligned between the House and Senate. Although several areas continue to reflect broader differences around tax policy, municipal finance, and Vermont’s participation in federal incentive programs. A conference committee met briefly Thursday and should continue negotiations early next week.

• Where Things Stand
  • Federal Tax Credit for Scholarship Granting Organizations (SGOs)
    • The Senate version allows Vermont’s participation in the federal tax credit program for contributions to scholarship granting organizations, while adding additional eligibility requirements, reporting standards, and safeguards tied to federal compliance.
    • The House version also allows participation, but requires future legislative action to identify qualifying organizations.
  • PILOT Special Fund and Local Option Tax Revenue Sharing
    • The Senate added language allowing collecting municipalities to receive a 5% greater share of Local Option Tax revenue in fiscal years following an $18 million surplus in the PILOT Special Fund. The House did not include this provision.
  • Additional Senate Tax Provisions
    • The Senate version also includes technical adjustments related to Vermont’s treatment of federal Section 174A research and development expensing changes and qualified small business stock treatment.
    • The bill includes differing timelines related to Vermont’s decoupling from the federal qualified small business stock exclusion.
  • Why It Matters
    • While these provisions represent relatively small portions of the overall bill, they highlight larger debates around state oversight, municipal revenue allocation, business taxation, and how Vermont structures participation in federal incentive programs.
  • What to Watch
    • The remaining disagreements appear manageable from a policy standpoint, but several issues touch broader political and philosophical divisions that could complicate final negotiations as the session enters its closing stretch.

H.949: Yield Bill

The annual yield bill sets the statewide average property tax rate and is one of the most consequential pieces of legislation each year because it directly impacts education property taxes for businesses and homeowners across Vermont.

• Where Things Stand
  • Average Property Tax Increase
    • The House passed a proposal resulting in an average increase of roughly 7%, paired with a one-time buy down and reserves intended to offset future pressure.
    • The Senate advanced a larger buy down that would reduce the average increase to approximately 3.8%.
  • Future Spending Controls
    • The House proposal maintains the excess spending threshold at 118% of the statewide average district per pupil education spending, adjusted for inflation.
    • The Senate version sets the threshold at 112%.
• Why It Matters
  • With the immediate focus largely on lowering next year’s property tax increase, the larger debate centers on how aggressively the state should constrain future education spending growth and whether stronger statewide spending controls are necessary to improve long-term affordability.
  • The debate also closely ties into broader education transformation discussions happening simultaneously in H.955.
• What to Watch
  • The House’s position on the size of the buy down may soften during negotiations, but the future spending threshold could prove more difficult to resolve because it reflects fundamentally different approaches to long-term education cost containment.

H.951: State Budget

H.951 is the state’s annual budget bill and determines how Vermont allocates funding across state government programs and services for the coming fiscal year.

• Where Things Stand
  • The conference committee has held an initial meeting and resolved several smaller issues. However, negotiators are still working through a document outlining roughly seven pages of differences between the House and Senate versions of the budget.
  • Many of the remaining differences involve funding priorities, program allocations, and broader fiscal decisions that intersect with ongoing debates around education finance, affordability, and tax policy.
• Why It Matters
  • While many of the remaining disagreements are narrower appropriations issues, the final budget negotiations will help determine how lawmakers balance affordability concerns, ongoing program investments, and fiscal pressures heading into the next fiscal year.
  • The budget often becomes the vehicle for resolving broader end of session policy negotiations.
• What to Watch:
  • Budget negotiations frequently accelerate late in session once other major policy bills begin to settle. For now, the sheer volume of unresolved differences suggests negotiators still have significant work ahead before reaching a final compromise.

S.325: Amendments to Act 181

S.325 contains revisions tied to the implementation of Act 181 and Vermont’s evolving land use framework. While not technically required for the operation of state government, there is broad political agreement that the bill is effectively a must pass measure this year.

• Where Things Stand
  • Areas Where Broad Agreement Appears Likely
    • Repeal of the road rule
    • Repeal of Tier 3 provisions
  • Areas Still Likely to Generate Debate
    • Composition of the proposed joint legislative oversight committee, where the House version allocates more seats to House members than the Senate version
    • Length of the extension for interim exemptions
    • Several additional technical but significant implementation details
• Why It Matters
  • The outcome of these negotiations will shape how predictable and workable Vermont’s land use transition framework is for communities, housing development, infrastructure investment, and economic growth over the next several years.
  • Much of the remaining debate is less about whether reforms are needed and more about how implementation authority, oversight, and transition timelines should be structured moving forward.
• What to Watch
  • While many observers expect agreement on the bill overall, some of the implementation details could become significant points of negotiation because they will directly shape how Act 181 functions in practice.

H.955: Education Transformation

H.955 is the Legislature’s major education transformation proposal and represents one of the broadest attempts in years to address education governance, affordability, and long-term system sustainability. While the bill still needs to fully clear the Senate, a conference committee already appears highly likely.

• Where Things Stand
  • Pace and Structure of Education Transformation
    • The House version emphasizes a more voluntary, locally led approach to district restructuring with greater flexibility and a longer transition timeline.
    • The Senate Finance proposal moves toward a more state directed framework with firmer timelines and stronger expectations around regional governance changes.
  • Education Finance and Governance Changes
    • The Senate version goes further on regional assessment districts, property tax structure changes, and long-term school construction planning.
    • The Senate proposal also gives Cooperative Educational Service Areas (CESAs) a larger operational role as part of a broader statewide restructuring strategy.
  • Underlying Philosophical Divide
    • The House approach prioritizes local flexibility and gradual transition.
    • The Senate is signaling greater urgency around affordability pressures, declining enrollment, and long-term fiscal sustainability.
• Why It Matters
  • Education costs and governance structure remain central drivers of Vermont’s broader affordability challenges, including pressure on property taxpayers, employers, and local communities.
  • The decisions made in H.955 could shape Vermont’s education system and fiscal structure for decades.
• What to Watch
  • These differences will likely require a conference committee to resolve. However, with Governor Phil Scott already signaling that even if the Senate version does not go far enough, a conference committee is unlikely to be the end of the education transformation debate this year.

While several other bills remain under active debate, the measures now moving through conference committees are among the most consequential remaining pieces of unfinished business this session. At this point, the pace of adjournment will largely depend on whether negotiators can bridge differences on education finance, the state budget, land use implementation, and several politically sensitive policy questions that remain unresolved between the two chambers.

With the session entering its final stretch, S.327 is the primary vehicle for economic development policy this year and will return to the Senate following House action.

The legislation reflects a mix of progress and gaps, when measured against priorities identified through the Vermont Chamber’s policy retreats with manufacturers, tourism leaders, and legislators, as well as the data driven recommendations developed from the Vermont Futures Project’s Economic Action Plan and Competitiveness Dashboard.

Key sections of the bill include:

• Business Resources and Growth
  • Directs the Department of Economic Development to inventory public and private resources available to businesses  identify gaps and improve how those tools are communicated to businesses
  • Aligns with the Vermont Chamber’s priority to improve outreach and coordination of existing programs, addressing a consistent challenge identified by employers.
• Convention Center Task Force
  • Extends the timeline and expands membership of the task force studying a statewide convention center and performance venue.
  • Continues broader tourism infrastructure discussions, though remains exploratory.
• Vermont Employment Growth Incentive (VEGI) Revisions
  • Repeals the program sunset but reduces annual allocation cap on incentives from $10 million to $5 million.
  • While it provides long-term certainty for VEGI, it reduces a key tool for attracting and retaining business investment without adding a program aligned with current needs.
• Culinary and Hospitality Education Study
  • Requires a study on rebuilding Vermont’s hospitality workforce pipeline following the closure of the New England Culinary Institute.
  • Directly reflects priorities identified through engagement with the tourism industry.
• Hospitality and Culinary Apprenticeship Pilot
  • Establishes a two-year, multi-employer apprenticeship pilot for the accommodation and food services sector.
  • Strong alignment with employer driven solutions to strengthen workforce pathways in a critical sector.
• Rural Industry Development Grant Program
  • Codifies the program in statute to support business expansion, relocation, and redevelopment.
  • Advances broader goals of supporting regional economic growth.
• Nickel Rounding for Cash Transactions
  • Allows businesses to round cash transactions to the nearest five cents with required notice.
  • A technical change providing operational flexibility.
• Commercial Property Assessed Clean Energy (C-PACE)
  • Establishes a framework for municipalities to create C-PACE districts, enabling access to private financing for energy efficiency and resiliency projects
  • Supports business investment in infrastructure and long-term cost management.

S.327 advances several priorities shaped by direct employer engagement, particularly in hospitality workforce development and improving access to business resources. These elements reflect ongoing efforts to better align state programs with employer needs and workforce realities.

The bill also leaves key priorities unaddressed. It does not include reforms to improve permitting and regulatory coordination, which remain among the most frequently cited barriers to business investment.  In addition, it does not advance policies to support automation and productivity, both of which are critical in a constrained labor market.

The most significant concern is the direction of the VEGI changes. While the program remains in place, reducing its scale without introducing a modernized alternative limits Vermont’s competitiveness at a time when the state continues to lag behind peer states in economic momentum.

As the bill moves to the House floor next week, attention will focus on final House action before negotiations with the Senate. S.327 represents a meaningful step on several workforce and development priorities, but also highlights the continued need for a more comprehensive approach to economic competitiveness in Vermont.