Vtdigger.org will run a story today about this 13-page letter from Jim Reardon, the commissioner of the Vermont Department of Finance and Management, which details the Douglas administration’s objections to items in the House and Senate budgets, slated for reconciliation in conference committee in the coming days.
In an interview, Reardon said the administration takes exception to language in the House omnibus spending bill that limits reductions in the state workforce to 1 percent because he said it is an intrusion on executive powers. The administration also says that the Legislature’s intent to retain two conservation positions in the Agency of Natural Resources is a usurpation of its authority.
The letter includes a two-page defense of the administration’s proposed purchase of “Marshall 86,” a web monitoring system for state employees.
Reardon also said the governor could not abide by the estate tax increases and the closure of the capital gains loophole that the Legislature passed last year, which raise about $21 million in revenue. Gov. Jim Douglas maintains the taxes have driven businesses and wealthy Vermonters out of the state.
Douglas adamantly opposes any new taxes, including the proposed dietary supplement sales tax, a fee on fuel oil and a 6 percent cap on the federal pass through of a corporate tax break known as the “production deduction.” (Lawmakers have taken pains not to raise broad-based revenues this year through income or sales taxes.)
In addition, Reardon said the Legislature has not made the kinds of mandatory restructuring changes to education spending — such as forcibly reducing teaching staff — that are necessary to keep property taxes from dramatically escalating once the federal stimulus funds disappear in fiscal year 2012.
