Vermont Business Magazine The Vermont Bond Bank hosted the first Vermont Capital Planning Forum on April 7th and April 8th. Extraordinary resources and extraordinary unknowns face Vermont’s towns and school districts in the post-pandemic era. The Bond Bank sought to highlight the importance of the capital plan in making a community’s vision tangible while also prudently using citizen resources.
In opening the event, Executive Director Michael Gaughan said, “We’ve called this event a Forum because we hope to start a dialogue on the questions, assistance, and other resources needed to create a capital plan for every community in the state.”
The event brought together 100 attendees and featured speakers on a range of related topics from asset prioritization to debt capacity. All events centered on helping municipalities and school districts identify scalable approaches to capital planning that are rightsized for Vermont.
Center to the Bond Bank’s effort to develop a Vermont model of capital planning was recognition of the state’s best capital plans.
State Treasurer Beth Pearce presented awards to the:
- City of Burlington, Best Capital Plan for a Municipality of 10,000 Residents or More;
- Town of Woodstock, Best Capital Plan for a Municipality between 10,000 and 1,300 residents;
- Town of Grafton, Best Capital Plan for a Municipality of less than 1,300 Residents; and,
- Champlain Water District, Best Capital Plan for a Social or Physical Infrastructure System Incorporating Two or More Municipalities.
An expert panel evaluated entries for the contest and included representatives from the Vermont Association of Planning and Development Agencies, Vermont Council on Rural Development, Vermont Housing Finance Agency, Vermont League of Cities and Towns, Vermont Rural Water Association, and USDA-Rural Development, in addition to the Bond Bank.
Materials from the event are available on the Bond Bank’s website at vtbondagency.org/resource-library.
About the Bond Bank
The Vermont Municipal Bond Bank was created by the Vermont legislature in 1970. The Bond Bank is governed by a five-member Board of Directors with four appointed by the Governor and the State Treasurer serving as an ex-officio member.
The Bond Bank is a state instrumentality with a mandate to “foster and promote by all reasonable means” access to long-term debt financing for governmental units while, to the extent possible, reducing related costs to taxpayers and residents.
The Bond Bank also co-manages the Clean Water and Drinking Water State Revolving Funds with the Department of Environmental Conservation.
Source: Burlington, VT (April 14, 2022) – The Vermont Bond Bank
