Advance Vermont asks Legislature for $350,000 base appropriation to sustain MyFutureVT career platform

Tom Chaney, executive director of Advance Vermont, told the Vermont Senate Education Committee on March 28 that his nonprofit’s MyFutureVT online career-navigation platform is being used across the state and is seeking a $350,000 base appropriation through the Vermont Department of Labor to sustain and expand the service.

Advance Vermont is seeking to keep the annual $350,000 it previously received and to convert that support into a base appropriation so the organization can plan staffing and outreach. “We’ve come to the legislature the last number of years and received $350,000 to sustain this work,” Chaney said. He described the money as necessary to keep the platform free, up to date and to increase awareness and training for users and intermediaries such as school counselors and adult-education providers.

MyFutureVT provides three linked features Chaney described as central to the group’s work: a career-exploration portal, a public inventory of credential-bearing postsecondary programs, and a “Graduate with a Plan” school-community initiative that offers…