BY PATRICK ADRIAN
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SPRINGFIELD, Vt. —Workforce development was the focal point of a discussion between state legislators representing the Springfield area and their constituents on Monday.
Regional developers hosted a legislative breakfast at the Holiday Inn Express to discuss a range of bills being considered this legislative session to revitalize economic and workforce growth across Vermont. Participating legislators were state representatives Alice Emmons, D-Windsor 3-2, Robert Forguites, D-Windsor 3-2, Thomas Bock, D-Windsor 3-1,and Annmarie Christensen, D-Windsor 2, and state Sens. Dick McCormick, D-Windsor; and Alicia Clarkson, D-Windsor.
Vermont legislators must reconcile how to pay for Gov. Phil Scott’s recommended workforce initiatives in his $3.9 billion budget proposal for 2019.
That budget includes a $3.19 million workforce development plan intended to attract educated, highly skilled workers to the state, and help companies recruit and retain qualified employees.
The governor’s workforce initiatives include targeting key demographics to relocate to Vermont through digital marketing, providing incentives to relocate like funding relocation costs and living assistance.
Legislators and economic leaders question whether Scott’s programs are fiscally sustainable and criticize the governor’s recommendations to appropriate funding.
“The governor has made some very expensive promises,” said McCormick, “But does not describe how to pay for them.” McCormick serves on the Senate Appropriations Committee, which is tasked with determining how to fund the budget.
The governor opposes raising taxes and fees and recommends appropriating funds through spending cuts from other programs and departments. Legislators worry that the state is running out of places to make those cuts and that many of the recommendations are counter-intuitive to the governor’s economic development goal.
Christensen faults the governor’s workforce development plan for being too narrow in focus. For example, Christensen said, to help pay for more digital marketing to attract new families and workers to the state, Scott recommends cutting $687,000 in repayment loans to primary doctors and nurses for medical school.
“This is the kind of workforce we are trying to attract,” Christensen said. “These are families who would be bringing children into our schools, and contribute to the shortage of doctors that we have.”
Many Vermont communities also need investment in internet technology, particularly fiber optics, in order to grow economically, Christensen said. While larger towns like Springfield have strong internet connectivity, rural parts such as Cavendish – part of Christensen’s district – do not.
Many people want to move to Cavendish because of its skiing at Okemo, she said. Many of these individuals are able to work remotely from their homes. But since many parts of Cavendish still cannot access the Internet, those people move elsewhere.
A lack of quality child-care options poses another deterrent, others claimed. Early child education advocate Carol Stone told legislators that 5,280 Vermont infants are on waiting lists for openings to child care programs, and some towns do not have any programs available. Many of the families Vermont wants to attract look at those resources when deciding where to relocate.
Legislators agreed that child-care access continues to be a major need. The problem, they said, is both a lack of options and affordability to parents.
McCormick said that the state provides subsidies for child care to low-income working families. The problem is what he called “the cliff,” in which a pay raise puts the working parent over the cap to qualify for assistance.
The cutoff income is so low, that parents are using most of their paychecks to pay for the childcare, McCormick said, “It does not make sense for them to work.”
Legislators do not know when these workforce bills will be scheduled for House or Senate discussion.
The Senate’s schedule this week focuses on a number of gun regulation bills, including House Bill 422, a domestic violence bill which would allow law enforcement officials to temporarily remove firearms from the home of a person arrested or cited for domestic assault.
The event was hosted by Bob Flint, president of the Springfield Regional Development Corporation; Tom Kennedy, executive director of the Southeast Windsor Regional Planning Commission; and Caitlin Christiana, executive director of the Springfield Regional Chamber of Commerce.
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