Senate committee reviews FY25 budget adjustment; housing, provider stabilization and childcare funding draw focus

The Appropriations Committee examined the proposed Budget Adjustment Act for fiscal 2025, debating a mix of technical corrections, new and redirected spending, and language changes that affect housing, human services and agency authorities.

Grady, a staff member who presented the draft, said the House changes include a $1,800,000 increase to the General Assistance Emergency Housing program and a $10,000,000 general-fund appropriation for provider stabilization grants, up from $4,000,000 in the governor’s recommendation. Grady also listed an $11,000,000 alternate payment-model reconciliation payment to “Rattleboro retreat” as pulled into the package from the FY26 GovRec, and described roughly $8,600,000 and $2,800,000 pockets of general funds targeted to housing initiatives and developmentally disabled housing, respectively.

The committee spent time clarifying drafting and legislative-intent questions about housing language. Grady said the housing appropriation language is intended to allow multiple uses: ‘‘production and preservation of affordable mixed-income rental housing and homeownership units, including improvements to manufactured homes and communities,’’ and a separate allowance for permanent homes and emergency shelter. Senator Westman asked about related bill language the senator planned to introduce later in the session.

Members also reviewed a set of transfers and reversions. Grady described a transfer pulled from the state liability self-insurance fund of $3,000,000 that the House had added and a later senate reversion that would recapture the remainder of an earlier $20,000,000 item as a $6,000,000 reversion. The treasurer’s office had requested a $220,000 transfer from the general fund to the emergency personnel survivors benefit fund to cover two anticipated survivor payouts; Grady said that transfer would bring the survivors fund balance to about $320,000 and leave roughly $160,000 after the expected payouts.

The committee discussed statutory and drafting corrections elsewhere in the bill: updates to the property transfer tax allocations, changes to names of referenced boards and funds, repeal of several defunct special funds, and technical adjustments to cash-fund drafting requested by the Joint Fiscal Office and the administration.

Childcare funding and the human services caseload reserve drew sustained debate. The House added directive language saying the secretary of administration ‘‘shall unreserve and transfer funds from the human services caseload reserve to the Child Care Financial Assistance Program (CCFAP) as necessary to maintain an appropriate balance.’’ The Senate draft removed that mandatory transfer language and instead listed CCFAP as an allowable use of the caseload reserve without the explicit directive. Senator Watson and other members argued for preserving a statutory guarantee that childcare funds be available at year end; others said the senate language treats childcare on an equal footing with Medicaid and other entitlements when the caseload reserve is tapped. Grady said the committee could consolidate the competing provisions into a single section intended to preserve funding for this year while clarifying the treatment going forward.

The bill would add and adjust several positions. The House added a court-diversion assistant director position in the attorney general’s office for FY26 and an exempt assistant attorney general post; the House and later the Senate added two positions to the Human Rights Commission. Grady said the court-diversion assistant director had no FY25 spending but would allow recruitment so a hire could begin work in FY26; committee members requested more details on the justification and costs for the attorney general positions before final action.

The House and Senate versions differ on some program language. For example, the House carried language affecting a hub-and-spoke treatment pilot by extending program carry-forward authority; the Senate proposed drafting that would make the hub-and-spoke pilot carry forward without changing the original pilot term in statute. The committee included a reporting requirement for the $10,000,000 provider stabilization grants added into Act 113: the Department of Disabilities, Aging and Independent Living (DIAL/DVHA—presented in the packet as DIVA) would provide a report due Dec. 15, 2025, on grant recipients, outcomes and any recommendations for future funding.

The committee considered an extension of property tax abatement eligibility for disaster-affected properties and a related extension of the declared disaster period for abatement purposes through Dec. 31, 2024. Committee staff said the education-fund impact was not yet final; when the committee recalculated after the 2023 floods, the prior abatement effort cost about $1 million to the education fund, and staff estimated a similar order of magnitude for the current proposal.

Several housekeeping items and technical corrections were discussed and will be folded into the committee’s language packet: statute-name corrections (for example, replacing references to the Natural Resources Board with the Land Use Review Board where effective dates changed), clarifying where appropriations must be directed for non-state entities, and removing or consolidating strikeout language for sections the committee intends to delete.

The committee did not record any final votes in the transcript excerpt. Grady said he would circulate a language packet reflecting the committee’s decisions and the administration’s technical letter for the group to review before final action.