There are many issues facing the legislature this year that will alter the way the state has done business, compensated employees, and provided services to its citizens. Among the thorniest and Gordian changes facing them is how the state will deal with the depleted unemployment trust fund.

Vermont has taken great pride in providing some of the highest benefits to those who find themselves unemployed. It is emblematic of the safety net we provide to other troubled and disadvantaged Vermonters. While it has been providing those very generous benefits (including according benefits to those fired for gross misconduct) it has neglected for over a decade to raise the tax paid by employers that funds the program. The result of the perfect storm of benefit generosity and underfunding is that, in the midst of the Great Rescission, the UI fund is broke.

Legislators have been aware of the funding crisis since last session. Despite valiant efforts last year by the Senate Economic Development Committee, a solution eluded the legislature. This year, the problem Vermont faces is even worse. We are borrowing from the federal government while paying interest plus penalties on the borrowed money.

In the middle of this quagmire stands the Chairman of the Senate Economic Development Committee. Senator Vince Illuzzi, a Republican from Essex-Orleans, has been a champion of Vermont workers for his long legislative career. Although an attorney by training, he grew up in the blue collar world of the Barre granite workers where his father was a world-renowned carver. When push came to shove, Vince could always be counted on to be labor’s strongest ally. But the world has changed and Senator Illuzzi finds himself at the sword’s point leading the fight for a balanced approach to solve the fiscal and social crisis that looms.

Instead of looking to the business owner to foot the bill, or the labor to absorb cuts or to simply fiddle while Rome burns, he and his committee asks that all parties shoulder some portion of the burden. Businesses are being asked to pay higher taxes; unemployed workers would not be so readily compensated for terminations based on egregious behaviors; some benefits would prospectively see modest reductions and those workers employed today would be asked to contribute to the fund (for the average worker, the cost is estimated to be 80.00 a year). This is not a Jonathon Swift-like Modest Proposal, but a reasoned and prudent approach to solving a real problem.

However, the Senator is being pilloried in some quarters (and by both sides!). Call me naïve, but it strikes me that a balanced approach that treats folks according to their abilities and needs is just plain fair what we used to call Leadership.