House Appropriations panel reviews fix to property transfer tax allocations in budget adjustment act

The House Appropriations Committee on Jan. 29, 2025 heard a presentation from Ted Barnett, senior fiscal analyst at the Joint Fiscal Office, on proposed Budget Adjustment Act language intended to clarify how property transfer tax revenue is allocated to the Municipal and Regional Planning Fund.

Barnett told the committee the issue arises from changes in Act 181, which added roughly $1.3 million to the Municipal and Regional Planning Fund and left unclear how that increase should be distributed. He said the total now at issue is $9 million and that one way to resolve the ambiguity would be to apply the distribution ratios used in the fiscal year 2025 budget rather than the statutory percentages. "They can make heads hurt," Barnett said of the allocation calculations, adding that the memo aims to make the logic clearer.

Under 24 V.S.A. §4306, the statutory split for the fund is 70% to regional planning commissions, 20% to municipalities for planning activities, and 10% to the Vermont Center for Geographic Information. Barnett said applying the statutory percentages to the $9 million would shift money away from regional planning compared with the FY25 budgeted shares. The FY25 budget used a different ratio (approximately 82.4% to regional planning, 12% to municipalities and 5.6% to VCGI), and Barnett presented an alternative that applies those FY25 ratios to the $9 million: about $7.4 million to regional planning commissions, $1.0 million to municipal planning and $0.5 million to the Vermont Center for Geographic Information.

Committee members asked whether the recipient organizations had been notified and whether they had budgeted around the larger amounts shown under the statutory allocation. A member suggested checking with the state office that tracks how the dollars flow; the transcript did not clearly identify that office. Barnett and members agreed to close that loop before finalizing language. When asked whether the committee was comfortable with the proposed numbers contingent on that confirmation, members expressed informal agreement to proceed pending confirmation.

No formal motion or vote on bill language was recorded in the transcript excerpt provided. The discussion focused on resolving the technical conflict between Act 181 and the FY25 budget allocations so the committee can present clear intent in the Budget Adjustment Act.