The House Appropriations Committee on Jan. 8 received a briefing from the Joint Fiscal Office on how contingent appropriations from fiscal 2025 were applied at year-end and what funds remain available for fiscal 2026.

Emily Fern, introduced in the transcript as the Joint Fiscal Office deputy fiscal officer, told the committee that the statutory closeout order requires filling the General Fund stabilization reserve first, designating an unallocated carryforward (about $138,970,000), funding the contingent appropriation list in priority order, and then following statutory distributions for rainy day and pension allocations. Fern said the office had fully funded roughly $118,000,000 on the contingency list and carried forward about $138,000,000 into FY26.

Why it mattered: the closeout sequence determines whether one-time unexpected revenue pays for new priorities on the contingency list, boosts reserves or augments pension and retirement accounts. Fern said the April 2025 personal income tax receipts signaled more revenue than forecast, but federal uncertainty made officials cautious in final decisions.

The briefing described three notable contingency actions: an $8,000,000 transfer designated for the Communications Information Technology Special Fund to address a prior shortfall; a $50,000,000 appropriation to the Agency of Administration to be transferred by the Emergency Board under the statutory authority cited in the briefing; and two additional $30,000,000 tranches reserved for future appropriation by the General Assembly to address federal funding shortfalls or other issues. Those reserved amounts cannot be unreserved except by act of the General Assembly, though the governor may recommend unreserving them in a budget adjustment.

Fern recounted how the Emergency Board used its authority during a recent federal government shutdown to backstop Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program payments: the Emergency Board authorized a stopgap grant to the Vermont Food Bank, and the administration issued about $6,300,000 to cover 15 days of benefits and administrative costs. The presenter also stated a total of about $6.55 million was expended from the $50,000,000 appropriation, leaving roughly $43.45 million available for Emergency Board action.

Committee members pressed on the order of operations. One member said they would have prioritized additional pension funding over the contingency list; Fern replied that the statute sets the order of closeout transactions and that the contingent-list construct was intended to ensure certain priorities get funded if money appears at year-end. Members asked whether reserved sums could be unreserved for the current budget adjustment; Fern confirmed the General Assembly can modify appropriations in FY26 or revert and reappropriate funds in the next fiscal year.

The committee scheduled further work on contingent appropriations during an upcoming House appropriations budget workshop. The presenter flagged that the statutory language governing the $50,000,000 appropriation limits its use to purposes set in that section of the Appropriations Act and that the budget process should consider whether to modify that language for future flexibility.

(Attribution note: the transcript uses both the names "Emily Fern" and "Emily Burns" when introducing the Joint Fiscal Office presenter; the transcript text is internally inconsistent on the presenter's last name. The article attributes substantive briefing remarks to the presenter as introduced in the transcript and identifies that name discrepancy.)