By Keith Whitcomb Jr.
RUTLAND HERALD
MONTPELIER, Vt. — Gov. Phil Scott has told the state Senate what he’d like to see changed in the House’s version of the budget before it gets to his desk.
While the list isn’t exhaustive, said Secretary of Administration Kristin Clouser, it does highlight Scott’s priorities: housing, economic development, tax relief, state employee pension reform, cash flow, and substance abuse prevention.
The administration’s issues with the House version of the budget were outlined in a letter sent last week to Sen. Jane Kitchel, D-Caledonia, chairwoman of the Senate Committee on Appropriations. The budget, otherwise known as H.740, “An act relating to making appropriations for the support of government” now resides in that committee.
Clouser said the administration understands there always will be differences of opinion when it comes to any budget, but this letter makes it clear what Scott’s priorities are, and gives lawmakers some room to maneuver.
According to the letter, the House budget removed $20 million from the $70 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds that the governor had requested be put toward housing.
“Half of this reduction — $10 million — was directed to the Vermont Housing Finance Agency to establish a Missing Middle Income Home Ownership Development to support the development of new homes for purchase by working-class families,” reads the letter. “The data is clear: housing in this price range is virtually non-existent in Vermont.”
The other half of what was removed would have gone to the Vermont Housing Investment Program, which was designed to fix up blighted and vacant rental units, and for municipal grants supporting affordable and mixed income rental housing projects.
“The House has stated the policy language behind these initiatives is traveling in other bills, but the House budget does not fund these investments,” writes the administration. “The best result would be to put the language and the funding in the budget, but at a minimum, the Administration asks the Senate to restore funding for these important initiatives.”
Clouser said the House bill has pieces Scott wants to see happen, but there’s no commitment to fund them in the budget. This makes it difficult to see the budget as a whole in terms of what it will do and how things will go forward, Clouser said.
“Similarly the Governor and the Legislature agreed on certain buckets last year with respect to how we would use our ARPA funding as a state, and one of those buckets is economic development,” said Clouser. “The House stripped $100 million out of the Governor’s proposed economic development funds from the House budget. And again, no place holder for those.”
She said many of the economic development proposals dovetailed with some tax relief items the Republican governor wished to have approved.
“We’re happy that the Legislature is talking about tax relief this year, but disappointed that the Governor’s tax package hasn’t been given more discussion and debate within the Legislature,” she said.
The administration says it believes its tax relief proposals are broader than what the House has approved, yet it also targets specific areas such as child care and health care workers.
“The proposal the House is funding hits about 13% of resident taxpayers and the Governor’s proposal is much broader; I think it’s about 25% of Vermont residents, so we urge the Senate to pick up some of those proposals and start talking about them and debating the benefits of each,” said Clouser.
The letter to Kitchel states that the administration supports the pension reforms found in S.286 — “An act relating to amending various public pension and other postemployment benefits” — but wants to add language allowing all new state employees regardless of classified or exempt status, to choose between a defined contribution or defined benefit plan, and to have the option of including risk sharing provisions.
“Over the past two years, the Governor has consistently called for responsible structural changes to accompany any additional investment into the pension system,” reads the letter to Kitchel. “These changes are necessary to prevent waste of taxpayer dollars resulting from an unsustainable structural model. To be comfortable allocating the funding in the budget, the policy in S.286 must reflect a sustainable path forward.”
The Senate Committee on Appropriations is scheduled to take up the bill on Tuesday at 1 p.m.
Kitchel said she expects work on the House bill will easily go into the following week.
“We’ll be taking a fresh look and there may be some things we want to modify,” she said on Monday. “I think we know we’ve got in some areas, between all the bills, more proposed spending than we have funds, so we have some work ahead of us, particularly in the area of workforce development and economic development.”
As for substance abuse and prevention, Kitchel said her committee will have to look at what’s been proposed. She said there are funds for a statewide prevention coordinator and a provision that takes a percentage of the taxes from cannabis sales and puts it toward prevention.
keith.whitcomb @rutlandherald.com
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