Vermont Tax Department outlines $37.2M FY26 budget, highlights IT modernization and service gains

The Vermont Department of Taxes presented a $37.2 million operating budget request for fiscal 2026 to the House Appropriations Committee on Feb. 11, focusing on staffing, IT modernization and modernization of the paper-based current use program.

Tax Commissioner Greg Bolio and Andrew Stein, the department’s chief operating officer, told the committee most of the requested operating budget — about 90 percent — is for salaries, benefits and IT. Bolio said the department is investing in technology and staff to speed processing and reduce errors. “When we shift and modernize a tax type into a modern system and we have talented people who are programming that system, we see improvements in integrity…and we see improvements for service because things get processed much quicker,” Stein said.

The department emphasized three priorities: improving service and voluntary compliance, reducing the tax gap and promoting a healthy organizational culture. Officials pointed to several projects funded by the budget request: a multi-year digitization and migration of the current use program into the department’s integrated vTax system; completion of the Vermont Property Information Exchange (VTPi) property tax IT system; and a multi-phase scanning project to digitize paper returns and checks.

Current use — the program that enrolls roughly…