Vermont transportation chief outlines budget pressures, DMV upgrade and new central garage plan

Secretary Joe Flynn, head of the Vermont Agency of Transportation, told the Senate Transportation Committee that federal funding increases and inflation have together left the agency balancing expanded capital dollars against rising costs and workforce shortages.

"The mission of the agency is as you would expect. We are continued to be focused on infrastructure condition," Flynn said, summarizing the agency's priorities as he previewed the department's budget and programs during the committee's hearing.

Flynn said the federal Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) raised Vermont's five-year highway allocation from about $1.2 billion to $1.7 billion, an increase he credited with helping avoid a deterioration of the state's roads and bridges amid high inflation and material-price spikes. He added that federal reauthorization conversations are already underway in Congress and that the national landscape for future highway funding is uncertain.

On revenue trends, Flynn told senators the state faces a predictable decline in gas-tax receipts as vehicle fleets shift to more efficient and electric vehicles. He said the administration has proposed and the legislature has supported a mileage-based user fee to recover some road funding as fuel-tax receipts fall, and that about 17,000 electric vehicles are currently registered in Vermont.

The secretary acknowledged the agency's internal staffing challenges: the agency is authorized for roughly 1,300 employees and currently has about 110 vacancies, with hard-to-fill positions including commercial drivers and civil engineers. Flynn said many vacancies are in active hire processes but that recruitment remains constrained by regional wage competition and labor-market pressures.

Flynn described the Department of Motor Vehicles' multi-year technology modernization, calling it a "core system upgrade" contracted with a vendor he identified as FAST. He said the DMV portion of the project was budgeted at roughly $40–50 million, that the first deliverable was deployed in November 2023, and that the upgrade is expected to improve customer and back-office processes when it completes.

The secretary also detailed repeated flood damage to the agency's existing central garage and plans for a replacement. After floods in July 2023 and again in 2024 that damaged vehicles and equipment, Flynn said the agency purchased about 23 acres on the Berlin–Montpelier turnpike and has FEMA support to begin scoping, design and engineering for a new, resilient facility. He described the intended building footprint as roughly 400 by 100 feet, with 16-foot doors and eight bays per side, and said the design aims to be a long-lived, low‑carbon facility.

On safety, Flynn reviewed early 2024 crash trends, saying overall fatalities were lower in 2024 than in 2023 while noting the statistics were not fully finalized pending toxicology and late-reporting hospital outcomes. He cited seat-belt use in Vermont near 88 percent and said alcohol-only and drug-only involvement in fatal crashes had declined year over year, while combined drug-and-alcohol involvement rose in the period he reviewed. Flynn said the agency funds bicycle‑and‑pedestrian programs and tries to account for vulnerable users in paving and intersection projects where feasible.

Committee members asked about municipal road funding and the agency's ability to support towns after climate-driven events. Flynn said the agency directed roughly $100 million in 2025 to municipalities from an $876 million budget but emphasized that most federal funding cannot be repurposed for town operating costs. He warned that shifting state transportation dollars toward municipalities would correspondingly reduce agency maintenance work elsewhere.

Flynn and committee members described several on-the-ground municipal supports the agency has provided outside the budget, including lending trucks, delivering culverts and coordinating FEMA and state recovery resources for hard-hit towns. He said the agency intends to continue collaborating with the chief recovery officer and local officials on disaster response and recovery efforts.

The testimony included appearances by agency leaders who attended the hearing with Flynn: Michelle Blumhauer (director of policy, planning and intermodal development), Jana Morse (director of finance and administration), Jeremy Reed (chief engineer), Andrew Collier (commissioner, Department of Motor Vehicles), Ernie Patnaud (director of district maintenance) and Todd Law (director of district fleet). Flynn said agency budget documents will be released on the 28th and that more detailed departmental presentations will follow.

No formal votes or committee directives were recorded during the testimony; senators requested follow-up information and indicated the committee will continue to examine revenue options, municipal aid, safety data and the DMV modernization as the budget process advances.