Finance commissioner outlines technical fixes, reserves and carry‑forwards in governor's budget language

Commissioner Adam Greshen, commissioner of finance and management, told the Senate Appropriations Committee that the governor's revised budget includes a series of technical language changes and policy clarifications intended to implement legislative intent and to provide flexibility for one‑time spending.

Greshen said the package includes a fix to how the property transfer tax is allocated after enactment of Act 181; creation of a temporary reserve to hold unspent general‑fund balances and release them for uses in fiscal 2026; corrective language to provide a $68,000 aggregate credit to Northeast Kingdom Choice School District for a miscalculation of equalized pupils; broader allowable uses for an existing FEMA denial reserve; the repeal and reversion of an unused workforce education and training special fund; changes to the statutes that govern tobacco settlement and trust fund transfers; adjustments to how the state accounts for and transfers debt‑service funding; and expanded carry‑forward authority for the technology modernization special fund.

Why it matters: the changes affect where one‑time and unspent dollars may be held and how they can be used — for example, Greshen said money in the temporary reserve may be applied to property tax relief, permanent housing or “any other uses determined to be in the best interest of the public.” He said the administration is using the mechanism to carry forward roughly part of an available general‑fund balance after identifying about $110 million of immediate uses out of roughly $197 million in available sources.

Property transfer tax and Act 181

Greshen told the committee the language at the start of the package (section D100 in the draft) clarifies the allocation of the property transfer tax after enactment of Act 181 and that the administration worked with the Joint Fiscal Office on a technical fix. “This comports with what we believe legislative intent was,” he said. He described…