VTrans official outlines $31.24M town highway aid, stormwater grants and project list to Senate Transportation

Joel Perrigo, VTrans Municipal Assistance Program Manager, told the Senate Transportation committee that the town highway aid appropriation in the proposed budget is $31.24 million.

Perrigo said the statute apportions that sum by road class: 60% to class‑1 town highways (about $13,485 per mile for roughly 139 miles), 44% to class‑2 town highways (about $4,915 per mile for about 2,800 miles) and the remainder to class‑3 town highways (about $1,831 per mile for roughly 8,500 miles). "The statute requires 60% of the appropriation goes to class 1 town highways," he said. He added that towns receive payments quarterly.

The municipal aid is fungible within local highway budgets but Perrigo noted an eligibility requirement: towns must document a local highway budget that meets a minimum of $300 per certified mile to qualify for the program. He said the cited funding can be used for maintenance and highway improvements, including vehicle purchases and town garage costs if charged to the highway budget.

Perrigo reviewed three grant programs grouped under Tab 24 in the budget book. The Better Roads program totals about $1.44 million of the $6.1 million line item, with roughly $1.0 million coming from the Clean Water Fund and about $440,000 from transportation funds. The Clean Water Fund is funded through the state's transfer tax; Perrigo said the clean water board decides allocations. "The million dollars is granted for projects related to the MRGP," he said, referencing municipal permit compliance work such as road erosion inventories and engineering projects.

As part of MRGP compliance, VTrans funded road erosion inventories (REIs) and re‑inventories under a new methodology; Perrigo said larger projects include in‑stream culvert replacements (36 inches and above). He described the grants‑in‑aid program, level funded at $3 million, as formula driven: awards range from about $6,000 in very small towns to $50,000–$60,000 in larger offers. Perrigo said recent flooding led to some canceled projects and rollovers, which temporarily increased award amounts in past years.

Perrigo also summarized the municipal highway stormwater mitigation program, a federally funded stream of projects intended for larger engineered stormwater work. He cited a Fair Haven downtown rain‑garden as an example and said VTrans pays applicable stormwater utility fees for state facilities located within municipalities.

On the capital side, Perrigo introduced the 10G report, which lists 27 projects entering the capital improvement plan for the first time. He said the bike/ped program received $5.7 million in federal awards and about $307,000 in state awards in 2025, and noted that transportation alternatives projects commonly use an 80/20 federal/local match.

Committee members asked clarifying questions about the aid formula, supplemental payments for additional lanes, and how stormwater utilities could be used locally to pay for required compliance work. They discussed scoping for a proposed welcome center and park‑and‑ride sites, including parking challenges in village main streets; Perrigo said scoping studies will determine exact locations and facilities.

Perrigo said the proposed new design standards received thousands of public comments during review and that VTrans plans consultant meetings to address those comments before publishing a new draft; the original target was to complete review by the end of summer but the timeline is now uncertain. The committee discussed scheduling follow‑up budget briefings for the finance committee but took no formal votes at the session’s close.

The committee recorded detailed program and per‑mile figures for towns and asked VTrans to provide additional locality‑specific information (including interstate/rest‑area fee details by town and anticipated project costs) as follow‑up.