by Anne Galloway vtdigger.org March 26, 2011 The Vermont House passed the budget, or the Big Bill as it’s called, on third reading Friday after a another long day of back and forth between the Democratic majority and GOP lawmakers. Republicans engaged in a futile attempt to assail a budget that was, with a few exceptions (including reinstatement of Catamount Health Care and a partial restoration of funds to programs for the elderly, developmentally disabled and mentally ill), a slightly edited carbon copy of the governor’s recommendations.
The vote was 95 to 34, along party lines, to approve $4.69 billion in total state spending for fiscal year 2012. The budget represents a 3.6 percent decrease from fiscal year 2011, according to figures from the Joint Fiscal Office. The House GOP members say total spending from 2008 to 2011 increased from $4.1 billion to $4.857 billion. The Dems attribute the increase to federal stimulus funding for economic development, transportation and human services in the wake of the onset of the Great Recession.
Lawmakers were charged with reviewing Gov. Peter Shumlin’s proposed budget and coming up with alternative ways to help the state find the combination of revenues and cuts that would fill the state’s General Fund $176 million budget gap in fiscal year 2012.
This is the fourth year lawmakers have been faced with unpleasant choices.
In previous budget cycles, they cut the state workforce by 10 percent, reduced state employees’ pay by 3 percent and the salaries of exempt employees who earn more than $60,000 by 5 percent. In addition, they have reduced funding for the growing caseload of Vermonters who need mental health services and programs for the developmentally disabled by $15 million and asked teachers to contribute $15.3 million toward the teachers’ retirement fund.
In order to meet the fiscal year 2012 challenge, lawmakers banked on $12 million in reductions in payments to private contractors and savings in labor and retirement costs from the state employees union. They also cut $23 million from the General Fund contribution to the Education Fund; raised $14.5
million in health care provider taxes; placed a 0.83 percent health insurance claims tax on insurers to bring in $10.72 million; and cut $8.7 million from human services programs.
The budget doesn’t touch the state’s stabilization money (also known as the rainy day fund), which now totals $57.66 million. Lawmakers also built $29.78 million into the human services caseload reserve fund, which the state often uses to match federal Medicaid funds. The reserve has been used in the past few years of the recession to fill gaps in funding for human services programs that are in higher demand when the economy is depressed.
As House Speaker Shap Smith, a Democrat, put it: ‘It wasn’t a fun budget to pass.’
‘I think it’s a responsible budget that meets the needs of Vermonters while recognizing the fiscal restraints we have,’ Smith said.
POLITICS DOESN’T TAKE A HOLIDAY
Speaker Smith has remarked on the collegial tone of the debate between independents, Progressives, Democrats and Republicans at the Statehouse. Smith said Vermont should be held up as a model for other states and for Washington, where party rancor has soured productive policymaking. ‘It’s a testament to the members of the House that with weighty issues and difficult decisions, we were able to maintain our composure and have a civil and substantive debate on the critical issues of the day,’ Smith
said.
So what accounts for the relative comity?
Smith said it comes down to letting the debate play out. ‘I think it’s important for people to feel they’ve been heard,’ Smith said. ‘That is what I try to have happen on the floor.’
Lawmakers have put in an exhaustive week of ‘listening,’ racking up about 30 hours of nonstop talk on taxes, health care and the budget. Still, GOP members didn’t feel they were heard. All that hot air in the end resulted in few changes to legislation as it made its way through the Statehouse.
As a minority party, there wasn’t much they could do about it except make their opinions known.
That’s because the Democratic majority in the House marched in lockstep as its members deflected amendment after amendment lobbed at them by the minority GOP party. The Republicans initially decided on a coordinated campaign, settling on a dozen amendments that would have cut programs held sacred by Democrats ‘ to the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board, the Reach Up program and Efficiency Vermont. All these amendments failed. In fact, only one change to the budget was accepted ‘ a study to determine whether the state has redundant GIS mapping programs.
The Dems also withstood a proposal from former compatriot Rep. Paul Poirier, I-Barre City, who tried, for the second time this week, to push for restoration of all the funding for programs through changes in budget and taxation policies from the committees of jurisdiction (House Appropriations, the budget-writing committee, and Ways and Means, where tax policy is developed).
His attempts to wheedle and cajole Dems into forgoing significant cuts failed.
The party held fast to Gov. Peter Shumlin’s proposal to cut hospitals, school substance abuse programs and services for the elderly, the mentally ill and the developmental disabled. During the debate on the miscellaneous tax bill on Tuesday, Poirier pitched an income tax increase. On Friday, he first tried to persuade his colleagues to accept a plan to leverage about $11 million of the state’s $54 million rainy day fund to restore the cuts. Later, he banked on money from the Tobacco Trust Fund ($4.5 million) and the enhanced federal Medicaid money ($2.9 million) to make the human services programs whole.
The Dems would have none of it.
The day started with the summary rejection of proposed amendments in the House Appropriations Committee. All but two proposals ‘ a technical correction of the bill from the chair of the committee and the plan to reconsider funding for GIS systems ‘ were dismissed by the committee.
Troop-rallying exercises ensued shortly afterward. The two major parties retired to their respective caucuses. The Dems heard Poirier’s stabilization fund proposal. The GOP held a press conference outlining $26 million in cuts to housing and conservation, Medicaid spending and Efficiency Vermont that in part would be used to buy back cuts in human services. The rest would have gone into a special fund that would have been used to soften cuts from federal budget reductions.
Anne Galloway is editor of vtdigger.org. VTD was just added to the Columbia Journalism Review's News Frontier Database for online news organizations.