Last week at the Statehouse the wrangling ramped up over when details on the fiscal implications of the Shumlin administration’s ambi­tious health care reform plan would be released. The administration’s opponents pushed bills that would require the governor to present the finan­cials before the election, while the administra­tion’s allies argued that those numbers simply don’t exist this early in the planning process.

As expected, the issue is shaping up to be a central – possibly the cen­tral – point of debate between Gov. Peter Shumlin and his expected Re­publican opponent, Randy Brock, going into election season.

But behind these headlines, the day-to-day work on the state bud­get rolls on, and around that work, there are voices calling on legisla­tors to look at the state finances in different ways.

Two separate press conferences – one put on last week by progressive lawmakers, and another scheduled for this coming week organized by a coalition of Vermont entrepre­neurs – are encouraging their own approaches to looking at the state’s economic picture.

Progressive Agenda

The first was led by Washington Co. Sen. Anthony Pollina and Burl­ington Rep. Suzi Wizowaty. The two legislators, along with Burlington Rep. Chris Pearson and Wardsboro Rep. John Moran, attempted to focus attention on a collection of bills introduced into the legislature promoting what they see as a more people-focused approach to craft­ing a state budget

One bill the group was promot­ing calls for creating and tracking a “Genuine Progress Indicator” index as an alterna­tive to more traditional economic indices such as the gross domestic product. It would measure the state’s economy and quality of life by a broader set of measures, including environmental conditions such as air and water quality. This is a concept that has drawn the sup­port of other constituency groups active in the Statehouse, including the Vermont Natural Resources Council.

According to VNRC’s Kate Mc­Carthy, “gross domestic product measures our well-being by measur­ing how much money is exchanged. That’s a pretty limited slice of what contributes to our well-being, and completely neglects other elements of our well-being — including the many services provided to us by the environment. It also counts things that are bad for our well-being as good. For example, under GDP, all of the money spent on recovery from Tropical Storm Irene would be counted as good for our well-being.”

Gwendolyn Hallsmith, Montpe­lier’s director of planning & com­munity development, thinks the en­tire way the legislature and the state government approach economics is skewed. “It’s hard to build a budget without understanding how money works – we don’t understand that in Vermont.” (Hall smith, a former Randolph town manager, also took part in the press event promoting the GPI, as well as the group’s pro­posal to create a state bank.)

The second group – which plans to hold a press conference this week – might well agree with Hall­smith’s statement, even if they dif­fer on the details. On January 31 in the Cedar Creek Room of the State House, a group of entrepreneurs will announce that Vermont has been designated a “Startup America Partnership Region.”

Entrepreneurial Focus

Cairn Cross, managing director at Fresh Tracks Capital, a Vermont-based venture capital firm, characterizes the Vermont economic environment as an “ecosystem.” He writes, “What I did was assemble a group of 20 people. They were mostly serial entrepreneurs from Vermont who had started more than one business. The entrepreneurs were somewhat tech-heavy, although there were some consumer products folks and a food-related entrepreneur.

“We broke up into small groups and rated the Vermont entre­preneurial eco­system on the nine criteria.”

The “nine criteria” Cross refers to come from a regional assessment de­veloped by the StartupAmerica part­nership executives, based on factors important to startups.

“What I particularly liked was that ‘government’ was only one of the nine factors to assess, as was ‘capital.’” Cross added. Other factors include op­portunities to network with each other and with larger, established business­es, as well as the available labor pool.

Startup America’s goal is to register 100,000 startups or very early-stage companies within three years and to give them tools, resources, and connections to succeed. On January 31, the national organization will an­nounce entrepreneur-boosting efforts in 10 new regions, including Vermont.

The local coalition will take the as­sessment and turn it into an online survey, “and try to get it out to the en­trepreneurial community so we can broaden the input and learn something and fine tune the ratings.”

In terms of legislative support, though, it’s an open question whether it’s even possible for lawmakers to approach these issues any differently than they do, given the adversarial na­ture of the legislature and the creeping electoral calendar.

John Odum is a longtime Vermont blogger and political columnist.