Vermont Business Magazine Today Senator Jane Kitchel (D-Caledonia) announced her retirement from the Vermont Senate after 20 years of service. Kitchel has served as chair of the Senate Committee on Appropriations since 2011, after having served as vice chair since 2005, and as a member of the Senate Committee on Transportation since 2005. In April of 2024, she was elected by the Senate to the position of third member on the Committee on Committees. She is the first woman to hold this position and the first woman elected to represent her district in the Senate.
“When I began in public service over fifty years ago, I had no idea of what wonderful opportunities would lie ahead for me,” said Senator Kitchel. “I have been incredibly honored to serve the State of Vermont and I take pride in what I have been able to accomplish. I owe a great deal of gratitude to the many people who helped and supported me along the way. Leaving office was a difficult decision, but the time has come.”
During her tenure, Kitchel has been a primary architect of the state budget and a leader in tackling many of the State’s most complex fiscal challenges. In 2022, she was a leader in reducing the State’s pension and Other Post-Employment Benefits (OPEB) liabilities by roughly $2 billion, strengthening the State’s financial standing while preserving a defined benefit pension plan for state employees. This biennium, championed historic investments in the Child Care Financial Assistance Program, transforming Vermont’s child care system to make child care more accessible and affordable for Vermont families and to improve compensation for early childhood educators.
This past year, she made possible tens of millions in funding for Vermont municipalities impacted by 2023 flooding events. Year after year, she has championed critical investments in statewide affordable housing initiatives and in higher education through the Vermont State Colleges System.
"For most of the last two decades, Jane Kitchel has done the Legislature's heaviest lifting – designing and balancing budgets that protect the neediest and invest for the future, yet live within our means as a state,” said President Pro Tem Phil Baruth (D/P-Chittenden Central). “Her knowledge of government and its many far-flung programs is encyclopedic; her energy is inexhaustible, and her heart unerringly true. Every agency, every department, just about every hard-working non-profit owes her an incalculable debt, as do all the millions of Vermonters who have benefited from her wisdom and steely competence over the years. Our superior bond rating and financial health trace directly back to Senator Kitchel's painstaking budgeting.”
Prior to serving in the Vermont Senate, Kitchel held several leadership roles with the State.
In 1985, she was appointed deputy commissioner of the Department of Social Welfare by Governor Madeline Kunin. In 1992, she was appointed commissioner by Governor Howard Dean and she served in that role until she was appointed secretary of the Agency of Human Services in 1999. In these roles, she led the Welfare Restructuring Project, a nationally recognized statewide redesign of Vermont’s welfare system.
She was instrumental in creating the Vermont Health Access Plan for uninsured adults and the expansion of the Dr. Dynasaur health care program for children and pregnant women. She was an architect of the Reach Up financial assistance program, Vermont’s 2-1-1 community resource and referral service, the pharmacy assistance programs for seniors, and many other impactful programs and services.
"I have adopted a two-word mantra as President Pro Tem, and it has served me well: 'Ask Jane.' That will need to change now, in the wake of her decision to take a very, very well-deserved retirement, as will many other things. But I will take this opportunity to thank her from the bottom of my heart for her service, and her personal friendship. They have meant the world to me. My Chief of Staff Ashley Moore and I will miss her every single day."
Source: MONTPELIER, VT – May 17, 2024. Office of the President Pro Tempore
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