[S]ame story, different year.
Over the course of two public meetings over the internet Monday, Shumlin administration officials heard some new, but many familiar refrains from advocates and members of the public worried about the state budget.
Meanwhile, the webinars themselves came under fire from some for failing to meet the spirit of the statute, passed in 2012, that requires the administration to see input from the public in the course of crafting the governor’s budget proposal.
Secretary of Administration Justin Johnson, Commissioner of Finance and Management Andy Pallito and others on the Fifth Floor tuned into an online webinar to take public comment on the direction for the next fiscal year budget.
In previous years, the meeting, required by a statute adopted in 2012, took place through Vermont Interactive Technologies, a system that was cut in the fiscal year 2016 budget.
This year, the two webinars were capped at 100 participants each, and the first one, on the human services budget, was fully booked. Johnson noted that’s a significant uptick in participation from last year, when fewer than two dozen people attended.
The hearing is required by a statute adopted by the Legislature in 2012, an effort to include more public guidance in crafting the budget, but Johnson also hailed the hearing as valuable to the administration’s process.
“The budget is a financial plan to achieve your goals,” Johnson said over the online meeting Wednesday. “It’s not a goal in itself.”
Meanwhile the format of the hearings itself raised some controversy. Sen. Anthony Pollina, P/D-Washington charged that the administration’s approach fell “far short” of the statute’s charge to provide the public with “direct and meaningful” participation.
“If the idea is to have meaningful participation, a two-hour webinar in the middle of the work day just doesn’t pass the laugh test,” Pollina said in a statement he issued Sunday.
“These are new,” Jack Hoffman, of Public Assets Institute said Monday, noting that the format is likely to evolve.
For Hoffman, the most important part of the hearings is to ensure the public’s voice is factored in. “I’m hopeful that there will be an opportunity for … the administration to hear from the public and really get a sense of the direction the public would like them to go,” Hoffman said.
While Gov. Peter Shumlin’s budget proposal is still more than a month away, projections suggest that state spending is on track to outpace state revenue in fiscal year 2017 by as much as $70 million. That has left many worried about what is likely to be in, or out, of his proposal.
Some testified Monday about how state services will be impacted by a directive from Johnson to agency and department heads to level-fund their budgets for the next fiscal year.
Karen Topper, of Green Mountain Self Advocates, pushed against Johnson’s assertion that his office does not make decisions about programming, leaving those choices up to departments and agencies.
“If there are programs that have increased need every year, then it really is not just a programmatic decision, you actually are kind of, I feel, instructing people to make cuts,” Topper said.
Advocates and citizens raised concerns about adequately funding adult developmental services, heavy caseloads for Department for Children and Families social workers, substance abuse treatment, and mental health supports.
One HowardCenter employee was wary of the impact that budget cuts might have on reducing drug dependence in Vermont.
“Our state is currently undergoing a narcotics crisis,” Katherine Isham, an administrative assistant at HowardCenter, said.
She noted the resources the state is putting toward treatment efforts, but raised concerns about support for prevention. “But by cutting funds to human services programs particularly for children, they’re doing a huge disservice to preventative measures against substance abuse.”
A theme emerged from speakers around the state who testified that low rates of pay are leading to high rates of turnover at Vermont’s designated agencies, the non-governmental organizations that the state contracts with to provide mental health, substance abuse and other treatment.
Jena Trombly, of the Clara Martin Center in Randolph, testified that designated agency staff routinely leave positions to take better paying jobs with the public education system, hospitals or the state of Vermont.
“The increasing loss of our workforce is extensive, disruptive and detrimental to the system’s capacity to deliver quality services to the people we are contracted by the state to serve,” Trombly said.
Later in the afternoon, many testified to call for increased state investment in after school opportunities for school children, and others voiced opinions for the need to make public higher education more affordable.
