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Appropriations committee warns of tight FY28 budget, flags potential holes from child-benefit changes
Summary
Committee leaders told members the state begins FY28 with less revenue and noted potential gaps if the bill prevents DCF from using children's Social Security benefits to offset costs; Joint Fiscal cited proxies and estimates and said the FY28 impact could be about $700,000 and might require an additional FTE.
The House Appropriations Committee used part of its March 18 session to flag a constrained fiscal outlook for the next budget cycle and to identify potential impacts arising from the omnibus youth bill under review.
Don Langwell of the Joint Fiscal Office told the committee that eliminating the Reach Up asset limit could result in additional costs and that a proxy based on 18 denials in fiscal 2025 could yield an approximate $140,000 impact. He also said provisions that would bar DCF from using children's Social Security benefits to offset state foster-care costs could create a "$700,000 hole" that would be a fiscal year 2028 issue and might require an additional full-time equivalent at DCF.
Langwell described the fee waivers for certified unaccompanied youth (for example, a $29 non-driver ID fee and $10 vital-records fee) as de minimis overall, and said most per-diem and working-group costs could likely be absorbed within existing agency budgets. But he urged the committee to be mindful of other administrative costs that sometimes emerge after bills are enacted.
Committee members asked whether Vermont currently uses children's Social Security benefits to draw federal matching funds (Title IV-E), which could mean the $700,000 estimate is understated; Joint Fiscal did not provide a definitive answer during the meeting and treated the number as a best-effort estimate that should be refined.
Separately, the committee chair warned members that the state begins next year with roughly $18.5 million less in available funds related to provider taxes and that prior-year contingencies are smaller, limiting flexibility. The chair urged members to consider multi-year strategies for buy-downs of property-tax changes rather than one-time expenditures that could create larger cliffs in later years.
The committee did not take any binding fiscal action at the meeting; staff and committees will follow up with Judiciary, DCF and Joint Fiscal Office analysis before markup and budget decisions for FY28.
