by Anne Galloway www.vtdigger.org March 19, 2011 Representative Martha Heath, D-Westford, has performed the budget-balancing miracle for the fourth year running ‘ this time without the benefit of federal stimulus funds.
Heath, the chair of the House Appropriations Committee, worked with the 10 lawmakers on her committee to resolve the final cuts on Friday. The committee took four weeks of testimony and then spent three weeks ‘marking up,’ or rewriting, Gov. Peter Shumlin’s budget proposal.
Download the House Appropriations Committee spreadsheet, 3/19/11
The House Appropriations Committee gave preliminary approval to the budget early Friday evening. The spending bill, which includes about $80 million in cuts to human services, resolves the state’s $173 million budget gap for fiscal year 2012. Committee members will vote on the budget bill on Monday afternoon, and the Democrats hope to pass ‘the big bill’ next week.
The big items? Catamount Health will not be rolled in the Vermont Health Access Program; $8.2 million in Unemployment Insurance fines from the federal government were forgiven this year and next and incorporated into the balance sheet; and Shumlin’s proposed cuts to programs for the elderly, mentally ill and developmentally disabled would be halved, according the House proposal.
‘We worked hard to restore some cuts,’ Heath said. ‘Some of us wished we could have done more, but we’re very cognizant of what is happening in Washington, D.C., knowing if we used up our revenue generating capacity now, it wouldn’t be there to help us next year.’
Simultaneously, the House Ways and Means Committee finalized the miscellaneous tax bill, which includes $28.89 million in taxes on cigarettes, health insurance claims, hospitals, home health and nursing homes.
Heath said it’s vitally important for the state to present a balanced budget, particularly in light of the $35 million budget gap (difference between projected state revenues and expenditures next year) for fiscal year 2013, and the ‘black cloud’ of likely federal funding cuts to human services programs next year.
The spending proposal mirrors Governor Peter Shumlin’s budget, though it partially restores some of the deepest cuts to human services programs for the elderly and services to the developmentally disabled and mentally ill.
On Friday, House Appropriations plowed through the most difficult $10.7 million worth of budget items, and through a careful process of nip and tuck eliminated a little fat here and a little more fat there, all the while attempting to avoid cuts into muscle and bone. This painstaking budget surgery was designed to take some money from an array of programs and leave very few with zero funding.
Here is a rundown of the cuts and revenue adjustments the House Appropriations Committee made:
1. The Vermont Telecommunications Authority will receive $200,000 in additional funding, instead of $500,000 more, as recommended by the governor;
2. Shumlin had asked for a $1.5 million increase in the General Fund budget for the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board; House Approps gave the board $925,000 instead;
3. The Legislature will take a 5 percent cut in pay for the third year running. This self-sacrificing move saves the state $90,000;
4. The Agency of Commerce and Community would receive $300,000 over two years for a project to digitize historic records instead $300,000 in fiscal year 2012;
5. A $25,000 match for farm to school programs was dropped; the jobs bill includes $75,000 for schools;
6. The governor proposed increasing court diversion by $133,000; House Approps gave the program $66,000;
7. About $900,000 in unanticipated revenues from the tobacco settlement fund will be used to restore $900,000 to tobacco cessation programs (the original cut of $1.9 million eliminated the programs);
8. The governor hoped to save $5 million on Catamount Health by rolling the program into the Vermont Health Access Plan, and cutting reimbursements to doctors by 33 percent. House Approps cut Catamount by $2.1 million. Under the plan, doctors and hospitals will see a slight decrease in reimbursements; premiums would drop from $450 per member per month to $395 a month; participants who earn 300 percent of the poverty level or above will pay a $1,200 deductible;
9. The individual assistance program and respite care for the elderly sustained a 25 percent cut. Respite care is reduced from 720 hours to 540 hours a year; IADLs from 4.5 hours a week to 3.5 hours a week;
10. The designated agencies, which were originally slated for a 5 percent cut in the governor’s budget, saw a 2.5 percent reduction.
11. Student assistance professionals, who provide substance abuse counseling in local high schools, would be cut 75 percent, and school districts would be asked to make up the difference;
Heath said the committee had no alternative but to make the cuts.
‘I agree with those who say we can’t use the stabilization reserve unless there is a plan to replenish it,’ Heath said.
She said the state’s revenue growth rate is slower than anticipated.
‘I agree with the Speaker,’ she said. ‘We have too many challenges in front of us to use any potential tax capacity.
Anne Galloway is editor of www.vtdigger.org
House budget cuts on target, Catamount-VHAP merger dropped
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