By Guy Page
The Senate Wednesday approved changes in the current, FY 2024 state budget – including $2.8 million funding to create a Universal Afterschool and Summer Special Fund of $2,836,983.
Revenue for planning and implementing universal afterschool and summer programming will come from the legal sale of cannabis. H839, the Budget Adjustment Act, was approved by the House earlier and given ‘second reading’ approval yesterday by the Senate. Third and final reading is scheduled for today.
The 57-page bill includes dozens of additions and deletions to the budget passed by lawmakers last year. Items below are just a sampling. Read the entire bill starting on page 2 of the Senate Journal.
Flood costs
$30 million from the General Fund will match Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) matching funds for costs incurred due to the July 2023 flood.
Also, $6.25 million will be allocated from the General Fund for grants to municipalities in counties that were impacted by the July flood and are eligible for Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Public Assistance funds under federal disaster declaration. Grants shall be made in proportion to the municipality’s share of the overall percentage of residential properties that were majorly damaged or destroyed, as designated by FEMA.
$$ for changes at public libraries
$200,000 of Dept. of Libraries funding will support Internet access in public libraries. $11,500 will pay contract costs for the Working Group on the Status of Libraries in Vermont, as required by Act 66 (2021).
You can read the recommendations (so far) of the Working Group here. Vermont’s public libraries are mostly funded at the municipal level. The Working Group recommendations for state funding and policies include:
Consider legislation to expand the confidentiality of public library records to minors aged 12 and older.
Increase funding to provide statewide access to eBooks and eAudiobooks and expand courier services to all public libraries.
Consider extending public safety laws for school libraries (including gun laws, drug laws, and criminal threatening laws) to both municipal and incorporated public libraries.
Establish ongoing funding for capital improvements of public library buildings – many of which, like the state’s schools, are overage and overused.
Emergency housing
$10,704,802 will go to emergency housing needs through the end of fiscal year 2024 (June 30, 2024). $4 million will go to “standing up shelters in five communities.”
Emergency dispatch $$
With $9 million of earmarked federal emergency dispatch funding at risk of being returned to the feds because the State of Vermont has yet to develop a pilot project plan to update and modernize police dispatching systems and equipment statewide, the BAA rewrite attempts to create ‘wiggle room’ in the planning process in hopes of keeping and spending the big pot of federal $$.
The BAA eliminates the 2023 deadline to develop a pilot project. And it gives Public Safety Commissioner Jennifer Morrison control over the $9 million. It reads thusly:
“The Commissioner of Public Safety shall seek to draw and deploy the $9,000,000 in Congressionally Directed Spending to support Vermont’s transition to a modernized, regional communications network in a manner that coordinates with and advances, to the greatest extent possible [conditional phrase added in the BAA], the goals of a statewide public safety communications system developed by the Public Safety Communications Task Force. The Commissioner of Public Safety shall consult with promptly inform the Public Safety Communications Task Force as the federal parameters for expending the funds become available and as the Commissioner develops and, if necessary, revises the plan to expend such funds. The Commissioner shall solicit recommendations from the Task Force regarding the plan, including any revisions to the plan, the implementation schedule, and specific expenditures.”
An amendment offered by Sen. Irene Wrenner (D-Chittenden) that strikes some language about the role of the Commissioner will be heard before third and final reading today.
Tax computer modernization
The BAA also allocates $1.3 million to update the state’s outmoded tax department computer system.