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Regional planning commissions tell lawmakers they are 'our towns,' with transportation central to many programs
Summary
Representatives of Vermont's regional planning commissions told a legislative panel that RPCs serve every town as state political subdivisions, provide one-on-one technical assistance and rely on a braided mix of state, federal and local funding—with the Transportation Planning Initiative (TPI) central to their work.
Representatives of Vermont’s regional planning commissions told a legislative panel that RPCs act as a link between state government and towns and provide one-on-one technical assistance, with transportation woven into many of their programs.
"We are our towns," an RPC presenter said, describing the commissions as political subdivisions of the state and noting that their boards are appointed by municipal officials so every town has a voice. That governance structure, presenters said, makes the commissions accountable to local officials.
The commissions highlighted the Transportation Planning Initiative (TPI) as a long-running core program that funds local technical assistance for road, bridge and multimodal planning. RPC speakers told lawmakers TPI funds daily work such as traffic counts, grant-writing, culvert inventories and transportation chapters of town plans. Collectively RPCs said 73% of their budgets are spent on local technical assistance; last year they said they helped 113 communities with grant work and provided planning or zoning assistance to about 88 towns.
RPC presenters described a braided funding mix: base grants from the Agency of Commerce and Community Development (ACCD) funded from the property transfer tax; VTrans funding through TPI; targeted grants and contracts from agencies including the Agency of Natural Resources (ANR), VEM and others; and town dues that typically make up 1–3% of an RPC budget. Presenters said the TPI relationship with VTrans is a significant partnership that includes monthly coordination between VTrans staff and RPC planners.
Speakers sketched several program areas that intersect with transportation: brownfields redevelopment, housing and transit-oriented development planning, the Municipal Roads General Permit (MRGP) and culvert inventories, clean water grants administered for towns, energy and EV planning, and emergency planning and local liaison work for disaster damage reporting.
On brownfields, RPC presenters urged more state funding to supplement federal EPA assessment and cleanup funds. Presenters said RPCs and regions apply for federal EPA grants and also rely on state brownfields appropriations; they described assessment grants and, in some regions, revolving loan funds to support cleanup and redevelopment efforts.
Presenters pointed to data RPCs track with VTrans: dozens of inventories completed last year, grant assistance for dozens of towns, and long-term time-tracking that RPCs said allows them to show consistent performance measures over decades.
RPCs also described work required by recent legislation (Act 181) to update regional and town plans, noting that Act 181’s requirements for future land-use maps overlap with transportation issues such as sidewalks, transit, water and sewer infrastructure and complete-streets planning.
Speakers asked the legislature to consider sustained, predictable funding and simplified administrative flows, particularly for programs that towns access repeatedly. They noted that many towns lack staffing capacity and that RPCs often act as municipal staff augmentation on projects from scoping through construction and grant administration.
The presentation closed with RPCs reiterating support for clearer funding flows, streamlined administration for grant programs and continued partnership with VTrans to deliver local technical assistance.
