Part 2 of what I think will be a three-part series.

It’s nut-cutting time at the State House, with a tight 2014 budget and an even tighter outlook for 2015, plus a lot of demands for scarce bits of “extra” money and battles over which unpopular revenue enhancements will survive the process.

At moments like this, I’m very glad to be on the outside throwing rocks at the windows, rather than actually being responsible for making tough choices. That said, I’m ’bout to launch a few rocks. Hey, it’s my “job.”

Some of the proposals seem designed to save money in the short term, but cost even more later on. To some extent, I can sympathize. But at some point you’ve got to rebuild the road instead of patching the same old potholes. As a smart man recently told me, spending only 75% of what you need is a waste of money.

A few prime examples from last week’s deliberations: An omnibus bill designed to fight drug abuse that doesn’t include any new money for treatment; a new cap on welfare benefits that shortchanges programs that would help people get into the workforce; and a boost in heating fuel assistance with not much money for weatherization.

And now, the details…  

The No-Exit Drug Strategery. On a 137-1 vote, the House approved a wide-ranging bill aimed at fighting opioid and methamphetamine abuse in Vermont. The legislation combines a number of proposals that began in three different committees; House Human Services Committee chair Ann Pugh said the bill is designed to…

“…improve treatment, prevent deaths, improve access to treatment and appropriate prescribing, and to keep communities safe.”

Among the bill’s provisions: requiring doctors to participate in the Vermont Prescription Monitoring System*, requiring pharmacists to monitor sales of allergy medicines used in manufacturing meth; and sets up a pilot program for distribution of opioid antagonists. But there’s one teeny-tiny omission:

*And then, when doctors are required to take part, the law enforcement community will come back next year seeking access to the database. Smooth.

What the bill doesn’t address, due to budgetary constraints, Pugh said, is the lack of treatment options for people with drug addictions.

Anyone else see a problem here? We can devise all the crackdown strategies we want, but as long as we don’t fight addiction, we’ll still have a large population of eager customers for illicit drugs of some kind. We limit access to one, the demand will flow somewhere else. Penny wise.

Reach Up to the Glass Ceiling. On Friday, the House Human Services Committee narrowly approved a revised version of Gov. Shumlin’s proposal to impose a five-year lifetime cap on Reach Up benefits for poor families. The committee’s bill postpones the onset of the cap, provides some exemptions for certain recipients, and provides funds to beef up support services for families approaching the cap. The 7-4 majority consisted of three Democrats and four Republicans… so, a victory for bipartisanship?

The Governor had proposed the cap as a way to free up some funds for enhanced services, with the goal of helping more families get off the poverty treadmill. Human Services’ response would mitigate the impact of the cap, but it would also remove a lot of the added help included in Shumlin’s budget.  Here’s a little back-and-forth courtesy of Peter Hirschfeld, the entire Vermont Press Bureau (full article behind the Mitchell Family Paywall):

Rep. Matt Trieber, one of three Democrats on the committee to support the plan, said the time limits are designed to help families, not hurt them. He said the House proposal would bolster case management for families whose benefits are about to be cut off.

Helping families overcome the transportation, childcare and education issues thwarting their success, Trieber said, will be of far greater help than a monthly check.

Christopher Curtis, a staff attorney at Vermont Legal Aid, said there’s no indication that the state has any plan to offer those supports.

And therein lies the rub. Penny wise… and pound foolish:

Curtis… said evidence from other states that have imposed hard caps shows that new costs will only begin appearing elsewhere in the Human Services budget, when desperate families begin showing up at homeless shelters and food shelves.

Weatherization the Hard Way: Making Vermont Winters Warmer. After a post-election break, House Speaker Shap Smith came back to the State House a changed man. A family vacation in Alaska had brought home the hot, hard reality* of global warming. As reported by Peter “Who Else?” Hirschfeld (and posted behind the MItchell Family Paywall), Smith sounded a clarion call in a pre-session Democratic caucus in December:

*Well, it can’t very well be “cold, hard reality, now can it?

“I was really profoundly influenced by my trip to Alaska, and seeing the impact of climate change and hearing from people what it’s going to mean there,” Smith said. “And it just made me realize we’re not putting enough focus on something that could completely change our planet.”

…”We can’t shy away from it because other people are. We can’t say that because the rest of the country is deciding not to take action, that we will not.”

But in the hot hard reality* of this year’s budget situation, we certainly can shy away from it because the money’s too tight. On Friday, the House Natural Resources Committee gave up on expanding the state’s weatherization program and instead recommended that “the state look into” the electrification of its vehicle fleet. The bill that would have “among other things, earmarked millions of dollars for the weatherization of homes and businesses,” says VPR’s Kirk Carapezza, “had been stripped of its primary elements.”

*Like I said.

Committee chair and longtime climate change fighter Tony Klein, who’d seen the bill fall apart under his nose, said:

“It’s a baby step forward, but the problem is huge. We need to do much more and much sooner. If we don’t, then we will create a huge injustice to the generations that follow us.”

The bill does do some worthwhile things, most notably giving weatherization priority to LIHEAP clients — which will kill two birds with one stone, tightening low-income housing and lowering demand for LIHEAP funds. But it could have done a lot more. And it’s not going to get any easier anytime soon:

House lawmakers, however, conceded there may be no money to pay for effective climate change legislation at the state level. Smith said the House hopes limited steps taken Friday will be bolstered with more funding to meet a statutory goal of weatherizing 80,000 homes in Vermont by 2020.

He “hopes.” As do we all. And what’s the penalty for failing to meet our “statutory goal”?

Yeah, I thought so.

Penny wise, planet foolish.