House Appropriations reviews Budget Adjustment Act language; debates transfers, tax extensions and fund repeals

Grady Nixon, joint fiscal office, presented a formatted draft of the governor's recommended Budget Adjustment Act and walked the House Appropriations Committee through language changes and technical corrections on Jan. 29.

"This is the formatted version of the governor's recommended budget adjustment. No language has been added to this from what was presented. This is just the cleanup version," Nixon said.

The committee focused on language sections (the bill's text) rather than the numerical, spreadsheet-driven decisions already under consideration. Nixon said the document begins at section 49 and that earlier numeric sections will be reinserted after the committee completes spreadsheet-based decisions.

Key substantive items discussed

- Miscellaneous one-time appropriations (section 49): Committee staff flagged a handful of changes and formatting corrections. The committee said yes to increasing the Vermont Household Health Insurance Survey general fund appropriation from $400,000 to $550,000 and to adding a $500,000 general fund appropriation for community health equity grants. A previously included $4,000,000 general fund contingent sustainability grant to mental-health and substance-use residential treatment facilities was crossed out in committee discussion and may be relocated elsewhere in the bill depending on decisions.

- Child welfare and child support IT…