Senate committee narrows economic-development and housing budget priorities, signals larger ask for VHCB

The Senate Economic Development, Housing & General Affairs Committee met to weigh and rank dozens of economic-development and housing line items as it prepares recommendations for the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Committee members worked from a spreadsheet that compared the governor’s recommended budget, the House-passed amounts, agency requests and a “maximum” column that summed every ask. The chair told members, “we only have, even at our best, we only have just under 3,000,000 allotted for economic development. We have, like, 35, 36,000,000 in housing,” and asked the panel to prioritize within those limits.

Why it matters: the committee’s ranking will guide Appropriations as it reconciles the governor’s requests, House changes and other competing needs. Committee members repeatedly flagged the Vermont Housing & Conservation Board as a leverage point for other housing dollars and indicated they wanted Appropriations to try to direct extra resources there if possible.

What the committee did: members stroked through line items and assigned informal priority labels (high, higher, highest) rather than taking formal votes. They discussed program-level totals and tentative dollar targets. Examples of how members set priorities in discussion: - Brownfields: committee members said the program is a high priority; committee staff noted the House and governor had different amounts and the committee discussed landing between those figures. - Manufactured/mobile home‑park renovations and the Infrastructure Sustainability Fund were described as important and generally rated high or highest depending on the member. - The committee discussed lumping several VHFA-administered programs — middle‑income homeownership, a rental revolving‑loan fund, and a first‑generation homeownership appropriation — into a single $17.5 million “bucket” at the agency’s request so VHFA could allocate between them. Megan Sullivan, vice president of government affairs, summarized the agency’s position: “if you give us money, then we can determine the need, the desire, for developers” and allocate among the programs.

On the Vermont Housing & Conservation Board (VHCB), committee members repeatedly described the board as a “pillar” for the state’s affordable‑housing work and debated a wide range of possible appropriations. One senator summarized the VHCB request range reported to the committee as between $8.5 million and $25 million (a range staff said had been discussed in other venues). Several members urged that Appropriations “put as many resources as they are able” into VHCB; others said committee totals must remain realistic given the committee’s rough target of about $55 million in new commitments.

Other items discussed: municipal technical assistance, downtown tax credits, the Vermont Small Business Development Center, small‑business technical assistance and several workforce and apprenticeship supports. Committee members repeatedly noted that many small line items together add up and that prioritization requires tradeoffs: “we have to be the bad guys if we want VHCB to get a significant amount,” one member said.

On veterans and recruitment: the committee also flagged a separate proposal to create or expand a military retirement tax exemption intended to support recruitment of skilled military veterans and their families. A committee member described the measure as “an economic development tool” aimed at bringing skills into the state; General Knight was identified as expected to testify in support of recruitment arguments.

Process notes and next steps: the session was an initial “first brush stroke,” committee members said — not a final allocation. The chair asked staff to produce a printed spreadsheet for Appropriations and to clarify a few apparent duplications and line‑item overlaps (for example, a duplicated RPC brownfields line). Members repeatedly emphasized that formal appropriation levels would be set later in Appropriations and that this committee’s role was to prioritize and convey preferences.

What the committee did not do: the meeting recorded no formal motions, roll‑call votes or final appropriations. Instead, members reached informal consensus around priority labels and dollar ranges for some programs and agreed to return to several items for more detail (including VHCB and the grouped VHFA programs).

Closing: committee members asked staff to clarify specific line‑item duplications and to share the refined spreadsheet with Appropriations and interested stakeholders. Several members said they preferred Appropriations to try to direct extra available funds to VHCB because of its ability to leverage other public and private investment.