SEN. CHRISTOPHER BRAY

Qualification: My parents raised me to believe that you can become anything you want, and, while you are here, you must help your community. Throughout my life, these beliefs have inspired me to take on many forms of public service, starting as a teenage volunteer at the hospital to later becoming a deeper part of my community through coaching, refereeing, fire and rescue, and serving on many boards, including the United Way, the Land Trust, the UVM Board of Trustees, and the Supreme Court of Vermont’s Professional Responsibility Board.

I have been a knowledgeable, respectful, prepared and effective Senator. I have always worked well with others, regardless of party. I am oriented to making progress on the issues we face. Serving as a senator has been the greatest privilege of my life, and I ask voters to support my continued public service.

Education funding: Yes, we need to change along with changing times, and a great deal is at stake.

Education is our principal public way of investing in the entire community’s children and in the future of our state. We help every Vermont child get a good start in life to support a healthy lifetime of learning, working and becoming a contributing member of our community.

At the same time, the average annual income of Vermonters is only 86% of the national average, so we must always work to control costs. In my time in office, I have always worked to balance quality and cost-effectiveness.

Last session, the legislature found itself handed an education funding emergency: voters across the state had voted school budgets totaling $250 million more than the prior year. The law requires legislators to fully fund the budgets passed.

If we had followed without change the letter issued by the Administration’s Department of Tax, property taxes would have increased approximately 21%. Truly unaffordable.

As a member of the Senate Finance Committee, I was able to help craft a 30% reduction in the education property tax from 21% to 13.8% (many Addison County school districts are well below this). In short, we softened the blow, and I knew that next year we have to do better. Therefore, I also proposed a study group, now underway, to address both how we deliver education and how we pay for it.

I also proposed two further actions now under study:

First, we should pay for social services delivered in school settings as we pay for all social services, though the General Fund, which has broader and more varied revenue streams supporting it. This will reduce pressure on the property tax.

Second, as Auditor Doug Hoffer has pointed out, the state of Vermont could standardize its payment schedule for medical services and procedures, saving tens of millions of dollars each year. Every $11 million saved equals a penny off the education property tax.

Housing: The Senate Natural Resources and Energy Committee took on housing directly this past session by defining Smart Growth districts that will be Act 250-free for development of housing. In addition, we made these districts 400% larger for developers of affordable housing.

For example, this made feasible Middlebury’s new Seminary Street development. And as a result of this year’s continued work, similar opportunities will exist in 16 Addison County towns and villages, with more to come as towns and villages define their own smart growth areas.

At the same time, the committee was mindful of the critical role that Act 250 has played over the last 54 years to preserve and protect the green landscape — from working farms and forests, to conserved and undeveloped fields, woods, mountains, rivers, streams, lakes, ponds, and wetlands. We want to keep Vermont, Vermont.

Overall, we created an opportunity for the development of quality, well-sited housing, including affordable housing.

We need to continue to make meaningful investments into affordable housing, which we have done to the tune of $1 billion over the last 5 years.

We need to continue to invest in the workforce, which we are currently doing through our state’s technical education centers as well as by partnering with private industry (such as the Associated General Contractors of Vermont), Efficiency Vermont, and others. We need more skilled tradespeople.

We also need to continue to build our program to support energy-efficient construction generally, and high-efficiency for affordable housing especially. We know that a modest additional expense at the time of construction delivers savings for the lifetime of the building and better health for its occupants.

Climate crisis: Vermonters in general want to live in harmony with our beautiful surroundings. We are natural stewards. We also tend to be frugal and a bit reluctant to change. We are also smart enough to do our homework and adapt: sometimes change, including change that requires spending money, ultimately saves us money.

Climate change is a real and cruel reality today, costing Vermonters’ lives, destroying their homes and businesses, and creating lifelong trauma.

The Affordable Heat Act (currently a study), sees that the way we heat today using fossil fuels can also be callously unaffordable. From the winter of ’21 to ’22 to ’23 we saw heating fuel soar from a low of $2.43/gallon to $5.52 and then $6.18 — a stunning 154% increase. Filling an average fuel tank surged from about $600 to over $1,300 and then to over $1,500.

During this period, Vermonters paid out to Big Oil (the global businesses that care not one wit for us) approximately $3.4 billion, including an extra $600 million because of these soaring prices.

We can do better.

We have demonstrated this to ourselves through Efficiency Vermont, which in its first 20 years of operation took in $784 million from Vermonters and then went out and invested it to save us $2.8 billion — literally, a smart investment — and one that also reduced emissions.

The next legislature will have a lot of work to do to design a heating program to accomplish something similar for Vermonters. I am confident we can make progress by gradually shifting over the next 25 years to locally and regionally generated electricity, whose price is under the state’s control. I am committed to building a program that enables us to heat more cleanly, more cheaply, and with more predictable pricing.

Other priorities: I have always supported an economic development model that focuses on Vermont’s unique strengths — our land and our people — and I would like to focus on oversight, and on growing and further developing programs.

1. Continue to grow and develop Farm to Plate:

More than a decade ago, I realized that while Vermont produced excellent milk, the northeastern dairy markets did not pay us one cent more for our quality. How would we capture the monetary value of Vermont quality?

My answer was to start the state’s Farm to Plate program to create opportunities to grow and manufacture food and beverages that embrace quality and place of origin. Since then, Vermont’s food system output has grown by 48%, from $7.5 billion to $11.3 billion, and today food manufacturing has become our second-largest manufacturing industry.

We can do more, playing to our natural strengths and building even greater markets outside Vermont. For example, by restoring our state’s Seal of Quality, we can help certify that customers are receiving Vermont’s best, and paying a premium price that flows back to our state.

2. Continue to grow and develop our clean energy economy:

Nearly 20,000 Vermonters make a living in the clean energy economy that is transforming how we generate electricity, heat and cool our homes, and transport ourselves and our goods.

We are making investments to grow this industry, and I want to continue to ensure that we have programs and training to help interested people to get into this line of work, to learn and earn, and to make a good living in an industry with a secure future.

3. Continue to grow and develop statewide broadband:

The internet erases the physical boundaries that challenge our rural state, creating opportunities for connection, for work and play, and for remote education and employment. With my partner Sen. Mark MacDonald, I wrote the law that created the Communication Union Districts that is now bringing broadband to all of Vermont. We have work to do to continue this build out. We are stepping up, doing for this ourselves, and developing capabilities in our own best long-term interest. We are well begun, but we have to fund this work and not get distracted and let up.