The chair of the House Appropriations Committee released a long-awaited draft proposal Friday to bridge the state’s $113 million budget gap.
The plan, authored by Rep. Mitzi Johnson (D-Grand Isle) and distributed to committee members Friday afternoon, is anything but a final product. It will, however, serve as a framework for House appropriators as they complete a budget in the next two weeks.
Because Gov. Peter Shumlin presented his January budget proposal shortly before an $18.6 million revenue downgrade, Johnson’s committee has been in the unusual position of having to come up with far more money than the administration. She proposes doing so through a mix of cuts and one-time money.
Hardest hit in her plan is Vermont Health Connect, which would lose $5 million in funding, plus another $1.5 million in cost-sharing subsidies. Other targets include:
- Subsidies to those adopting from the state foster care system ($1.8 million)
- Department of Information and Innovation ($1 million)
- Vermont Veterans Home ($1 million)
- Closure of the Southeast State Correctional Facility in Windsor ($820,000 in FY16 and another $820,000 in FY17)
- Department of Tourism and Marketing, including Vermont Life ($750,000)
- Vermont Public Television ($280,000 in FY16 and the remaining $280,000 appropriation in FY17)
Johnson took many of her ideas from what she called “the list of the big uglies” — $28 million worth of cuts suggested by legislators and the administration — which was released two weeks ago.
In addition to cuts, Johnson also made use of about $4 million in one-time money in her proposal and temporarily shifted $2 million in Vermont Housing and Conservation Board funding to the state’s capital bill.
Johnson’s proposal addresses only the $18.6 million hole left by January’s downgrade. It assumes that the House will approve all of Shumlin’s proposed budget cuts and revenue increases, which is anything but certain.
If her colleagues decide to restore any of the Shumlin-suggested cuts — the consolidation of public safety answering points, for example, or $10.8 million in unspecified cuts to state worker compensation — they will have to find other cuts or approve additional revenue.
Got something to say?
Send a letter to the editor and we'll publish your feedback in print!
Closing Vermont Health Connect would save annual costs of about $30 million…this would go a long way to relieving the budget crisis and the structural deficits we are expected to face in FY 17 and FY 18. Several states that created their own exchange have abandoned these systems due to functionality issues and escalating costs. What’s wrong with our governor and legislature that they continue to spend money on this failure in the face of VT’s budget issues? This should not be about ‘saving face’. It should be about saving our state.
You have to wonder if Ray Pecor the third and companies like Dealer.com will have an epiphany moment…Dealer can reflag their company in NY state and get ten years tax free. Pecor can buy a new boat Burlington is no further away than Bainbridge island is from down town Seattle or the commute From West Seattle to downtown… Vermont needs to get right with the world.
NY state can easily drink our milk shake if our government continues on the path of raising taxes to the moon it is time to look at a new paradigm.. the push should be how do we raise prosperity and still care for the neediest among us?
They don’t want to face reality. They will apply band-aides, and cut infrastructure that they deep down know they will need later, and hope a miracle will happen in the next year. The approach they are all taking is a political hokey pokey, in which they test the waters with the left foot then the right foot, to see what will best further their own aspirations. So they look away from the obvious fix, and devise a plan that essentially ignores the needs of the citizens, but appeases the few who “know what’s best for us all”. Wait till next year, when the effects of their short sighted chopping start to show. The courts will clog up, law enforcement and corrections will be stretched thin, needy children will be left behind, drug traffic will increase, property crimes will increase, and all the resources that could have helped will have been flushed away. The golden parachute will not appear, property values and home sales will plummet, political hopes will be smashed and we will watch the dance begin again next year.
The Green Mountain Care Board is not on the table for reductions. According to the GMCB 2015 Annual Report, the plan is to increase staff of 28 to 37 in 2016. The salary/benefits go from $3.134 to $3.765 million. Not big bucks but the only target I’ve seen is the Johnson memo of 3/11/15 where the target for GMCB is $35 thousand, less than 1% of the salary budget. The point here is that item 2 of Board responsibilities (per Annual Report) addresses keeping health care costs low. Hey, lead by example. The 3rd responsibility deals with implementing the now defunct single payer scheme that Shummy kicked to the curb. With all of the other ‘public service’ boards governing who does what and how much they charge and spend, why do we even need GMCB? If managing costs is the best way to move forward with the known $118 million deficit, who is looking at overall efficiency? Departmental consolidations? I think this approach is better than cutting public safety platforms! Hello, 911, can you hear me now? Maybe Gruber could help us dopes!