For the second time this legislative session, Gov. Phil Scott vetoed a mid-year spending package on Friday over disagreements with lawmakers about Vermont’s motel voucher program. 

In his veto letter, the five-term Republican governor rebuked lawmakers for continuing to use the mid-year budget adjustment bill to seek an extension of the voucher program’s winter rules, which ended earlier this week, forcing out hundreds of Vermonters who have been staying in motels. 

“I’m hopeful the Legislature will stop sending me bills they know I will veto and instead send me a clean budget adjustment bill without controversial policy, so we can move forward with the many challenges we face,” Scott wrote. 

Democratic leaders are unlikely to comply.

“The governor is implying that if we send him anything he doesn’t like, it’s a poison pill,” Senate President Pro-Tem Phil Baruth, D/P-Chittenden Central. 

He said lawmakers now expect to abandon the idea of passing a mid-year budget tune-up and will instead turn to the budget for fiscal year 2026, which passed the House last week. 

Friday’s veto marks the second time Scott has struck down a bill this session. 

In their second version of an annual budget adjustment bill, which the Senate passed on Thursday, Democratic lawmakers had attempted to push forward with a three-month extension of the motel voucher program for everyone who had been sheltered. 

Last month, the governor vetoed an initial version of the spending bill which sought to extend the program for all sheltered Vermonters, arguing that the program was wasteful and ultimately fails those it serves. 

Scott instead signed an executive order extending the program until June 30 for unhoused families with children and certain people with people with acute medical needs, shielding only a portion of those staying in the motels.