VTrans outlines stormwater grant programs, salt‑shed funding and MRGP support for Vermont towns

Montpelier — Joel Perrigo, municipal assistance program manager at the Vermont Agency of Transportation, told the House Transportation Committee on Feb. 7, 2025, that VTrans uses a mix of federal Transportation Alternatives (TA) funds and state Clean Water dollars to underwrite municipal stormwater and road‑erosion projects, including sand‑and‑salt sheds, culvert replacements and roadside stormwater treatments.

Perrigo said the TA set‑aside that feeds VTrans’s municipal mitigation category rose after the federal Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. “When IIJA passed, it increased that set aside to 4,300,000,” Perrigo said, and VTrans has been awarding roughly half that set‑aside to environmental mitigation projects. He said VTrans also proposes flexing an additional $1.4 million of federal formula funds into the municipal mitigation category.

Why it matters: the funding supports municipal compliance with the Municipal Roads General Permit (MRGP), and helps towns pay for scoping, design and construction of projects that reduce road‑related phosphorus runoff. Perrigo told the committee federally funded TA grants are typically 80% federal and 20% local match and that federally funded projects generally follow a federal‑aid development process that can take about three to five years from scoping to construction.

Most important details: Perrigo summarized program amounts and recent awards. He said the TA set‑aside historically totaled about $2.2 million, rose to $4.3 million under IIJA and, combined with VTrans’s additional flexed funding, the combined awards reached roughly $5 million in fiscal 2024. Over fiscal years 2019–2023 VTrans recorded dozens of municipal awards; in the most recent fiscal years VTrans reported 47 projects that included 17 sand‑and‑salt sheds, 15 cover replacements or upgrades, 14 stormwater treatment practices and one slope stabilization project.

Perrigo described how VTrans funds scoping work to set up later design and construction grants: “Describe your project, and if it’s eligible, we’re essentially gonna give you the money,” he said, adding scoping grants are modest (often in the order of $50,000–$60,000 of federal funds with the 20% local match) and are intended to produce conceptual cost estimates, resource and utility identification and a preferred alternative.

Committee members asked about eligibility and equity for small towns. Perrigo said smaller towns commonly apply for salt‑shed projects and stabilization work and that VTrans encourages towns to use Regional Planning Commissions (RPCs) to help prepare applications. He said VTrans tries to keep the scoping application simple, and that the agency has relaxed earlier proximity requirements (for example, removing a strict 50‑foot requirement to a water body) so projects demonstrating a water‑quality benefit can be eligible.

State programs: Perrigo also reviewed state‑funded programs tied to the MRGP. He described two line items in the Clean Water budget — Better Roads grants and Municipal Roads Grants‑in‑Aid — which are intended to help municipalities comply with MRGP requirements. Both programs use largely Clean Water Fund revenues and typically require a 20% local match; the grants often use in‑kind municipal labor for that match. Perrigo said the Clean Water Fund receives revenue from the meals and rooms tax, the property transfer tax cleaning surcharge, and unclaimed bottle deposits and amounts to roughly $25 million per year; VTrans’s portion in the cited Clean Water budget was $4.75 million of a $45.9 million total (about 10%).

MRGP compliance targets and costs: Perrigo summarized the MRGP compliance framework — the permit covers about 263 municipalities, applies to class 1 through 4 town highways and requires each municipality to address 7.5% of its noncompliant hydrologically connected road segments each year, with 20% of annual work focused on high‑priority segments and full compliance by 2036. He reported approximately 12,000 hydrologically connected segments statewide (about 425 per town on average) and estimated the average cost to bring a segment into compliance at roughly $5,600, based on recent grant awards and project data.

Oversight and performance: committee members pressed on how VTrans and towns monitor installed practices. Perrigo said the MRGP rewrite and the requirement to maintain road‑erosion inventories prompt towns to check whether practices are functioning and to rework them when necessary. He noted VTrans and partner researchers — including the University of Vermont — have studied co‑benefits such as reduced maintenance costs after implementing these practices and that VTrans can provide research links on that topic.

Access to funding and outreach: Perrigo said municipalities typically receive a preliminary, pro‑rata offer based on the town’s share of hydrologically connected segments, then submit a letter of intent and receive a final award. He said about 230–235 towns are participating annually in the grants‑in‑aid program. For towns seeking multiple funding streams, Perrigo referenced VTrans’s “Show Me the Money” guide and said VTrans posts solicitations on its website; he acknowledged the guide is somewhat out of date and that the agency is working to consolidate outreach so towns can find opportunities more easily.

What was not decided: committee members discussed priorities and whether the Legislature could direct a different split for TA set‑aside funding; Perrigo said the agency can change internal policy priorities but program amounts come from federal formula funding and are limited by federal rules. No committee vote or formal action was taken during the hearing.

Ending: Perrigo closed by reiterating that TA and Clean Water‑funded programs are intended to help municipalities meet MRGP obligations and to reduce phosphorus loading from roads while producing co‑benefits such as reduced road maintenance costs; the committee followed with routine scheduling and a brief break.