[B]y Thursday afternoon, the House Appropriations Committee was closer to locking up the big bill, which is now just $1.93 million shy of a balanced budget.
But while the numbers are crystalizing, the prospects for passage of the appropriations bill have become muddied by politics.
Republicans and Progressives oppose the budget proposal for different reasons. Republicans want to make cuts to human services; Progressive and Democratic members of the Working Vermonters Caucus want to bolster programs for low-income residents.
If Progressives and Democrats pull their support for the bill, on top of the 53 House Republicans, it may be difficult for House Speaker Shap Smith to muster the 76 votes needed for passage.
“I’m not surprised that there are people who are gathering support for voting against the budget,” Smith said Thursday. “Since the beginning of the session I’ve had some concerns about whether we would be able to get enough support for the budget.”
Smith said that representatives from across the political spectrum have raised concerns about cuts. But the big divergence is over revenue: Conservatives say the budget relies too much on new taxes, while members on the left say the proposals don’t raise enough in revenues.
“It’s no doubt going to be a difficult vote,” Smith said.
A joint resolution offered on Thursday by nearly 22 members of the House (almost all Republicans) calls for a level-funded budget on par with fiscal year 2015 spending. The resolution says the state must “reorder its budgetary priorities and adopt a far more restrained approach to General Fund expenditures.”
J.R.H. 10 also calls for a moratorium on the expansion of state programs including heating assistance, Vermont Health Connect subsidies and property tax rebates for low-income Vermonters.
“Speaking for myself, I think we need to stop the music, take a deep breath, get our house in order and fix the structural deficit, which I think is going to take several years,” Rep. Robert Bancroft, R-Westford, said this week.
Bancroft, an economist, a freshman Republican legislator and primary sponsor of the resolution, said he is concerned about Vermont’s long-term fiscal sustainability.
According to House Minority Leader Rep. Don Turner, R-Milton, the state has been spending too much money for too long, and it’s not sustainable.
Turner said the GOP caucus is in the process of developing an alternative budget plan that he expects to unveil early next week.
“We want Vermonters to know that we understand we can’t come down here with this big budget gap and keep spending like we have in the past,” Turner said.
Meanwhile, dissatisfaction with the budget has been growing on the opposite end of the political spectrum as well.
Rep. Chris Pearson, P-Burlington, said the Working Vermonters Legislative Caucus sent a letter to Speaker Smith voicing strong opposition to the budget.
Pearson said that his caucus does not want to support a budget built on cuts.
“The state needs to play an aggressive role in stimulating the economy, not cutting back on jobs,” Pearson said.
As many as 30 legislators, Progressives and Democrats, caucus with the Working Vermonters Caucus, according to Pearson.
The Appropriations Committee will likely vote the budget bill out Monday, and the floor debate will likely occur late next week.
Meanwhile, members of the House Appropriations Committee this week remain focused on completing the task in front of them: producing a balanced budget. Over the past week, the committee has succeeded in nearly closing the $18.6 million budget gap that came with a revenue downgrade in January.
Appropriations Chair Rep. Mitzi Johnson, D-South Hero, said Thursday that her committee has taken a collaborative approach to this year’s unusual budget process all along.
“We’ve been reaching out to everybody since day one,” Johnson said. “Our number one goal is to close the budget gap and then see how we can wiggle that to accommodate more of the priorities that we’re hearing from people.”
Although nothing has been finalized, the committee had come within $2 million of a balanced budget based on preliminary decisions Thursday.
