Get AI Briefings, Transcripts & Alerts on Local & National Government Meetings — Forever.
Senate advances $9.36 billion budget with appropriations committee amendments
Loading...
Summary
The Vermont Senate advanced H.951, the biennial appropriations bill, after an Appropriations Committee report and floor debate that left intact committee funding priorities and rejected an amendment to strip Higher Education Trust Fund support for UVM and a housing pilot.
The Vermont Senate moved forward Thursday on H.951, the biennial appropriations bill totaling roughly $9.36 billion, after a multi-hour Appropriations Committee presentation and floor debate.
Senator from Washington District, reporting the committee's work, said the panel crafted "a balanced budget based on those four budget principles: staying within our means, meeting basic needs of Vermonters, saving for an uncertain future, but at the same time, making investments for economic development." He described changes across the treasurer's office, pensions, elections funding and one-time disaster relief allocations and said the committee voted 7-0 to recommend the bill with proposed amendments.
The committee's package shifts some pension and OPEB management to the Vermont Pension Investment Commission (VPIC) and funds new positions in the treasurer's office tied to pensions and unclaimed property operations. The Appropriations report also makes permanent a home-improvement specialist position in the Attorney General's office intended to assist consumers with contractor disputes and restores and reallocates a range of human services, public safety and education items described in the web report and addendum.
Among human services changes, senators cited money to support AHEC primary-care recruitment, Medicaid funding realignments to the Department of Vermont Health Access and a $1.5 million addition to a provider stabilization fund. Transportation adjustments include swaps of certain transportation funds to increase district-level paving, enabling an estimated 24 miles of state road paving in this budget year, and one-time disaster relief dollars for communities impacted by last year's flooding in the Northeast Kingdom.
Debate on the floor highlighted competing priorities. The senator from Chittenden Central outlined a construct to fund $15 million in higher-education projects (including $12 million for a University of Vermont multipurpose center and $600,000 for a Vermont State University housing pilot) while directing 20% of the state's cannabis excise tax into the Higher Education Trust Fund over time to replenish it. The senator said the approach would repay the trust fund in three to four years and provide an ongoing $4 million to $5 million annual addition to the corpus.
An amendment offered to strip those Higher Education Trust Fund allocations failed on a roll-call vote, 7 in favor and 23 opposed. After further floor statements on spending levels, federal funding and priority choices, the Senate voted to propose the Committee on Appropriations' recommended amendments to the House (ayes 23, no 7) and ordered third reading of H.951.
The bill will return to the floor for third reading at a later date; committees and senators announced meeting schedules before adjourning until 11 a.m. Wednesday, April 29.
