[T]he Rev. Debbie Ingram recalls when the Vermont Interfaith Action coalition of religious congregations first proposed a simple if not scintillating way to help people squeezed by income inequality: Why not urge state leaders to tally up a budget that, for debate’s sake, reveals the real cost of delivering the public services the state has committed to, rather than just begin annual negotiations with an already pared-down plan?
“Nobody else was fighting this fight, so it’s hard to know when you get started what’s going to happen,” says Ingram, the coalition’s executive director. “We were hopeful. We are people of faith.”
Perhaps that’s why, paying only for postcards and phone calls, the coalition was able to persuade the Legislature this month to call for more specific cost projections it hopes will stimulate public discussion on spending priorities.
Vermont Interfaith Action, teaming with the nonpartisan, nonprofit Montpelier-based Public Assets Institute, first called for the release of a fiscal forecast known as a current services budget a year ago as part of its Building Vermont’s Moral Economy campaign.
When spiritual leaders met last fall with Gov. Peter Shumlin and members of his administration, they found officials initially more reticent than receptive to the idea. State budget writers eventually offered a page of the most basic projections upon unveiling their proposal in January. But, as each side would learn, all were working with a different definition of what was wanted.
“A current services budget,” state officials wrote in an attached footnote, accounts for such factors as inflation, expected changes in the number of people using a program or benefit, ongoing formula-based adjustments and collective bargaining agreements.
But campaign organizers were concerned that definition didn’t consider any recent cuts to programs caused not by decreasing demand but by a shortage of funding. They point to Washington, D.C.’s Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and its report “The Current Services Baseline: A Tool for Understanding Budget Choices.”
“It could be problematic to establish a current services baseline right after a recession, when current expenditures are well below the level required to adequately serve residents,” the report says.
Campaign organizers asked legislative leaders to expand the state’s definition of “current services budget” to include all the resources required to fulfill the obligations it has taken on.
“We’re looking for numbers that reveal the cost of fully funding what the state has committed to in statute,” Ingram said this winter. “We’d appreciate a fuller picture of where we’re falling short.”
In response, the Legislature agreed this month to address the request, as seen on page 63 of its just-adopted 128-page fiscal year 2017 state budget.
“The governor shall develop and publish annually for public review as part of the budget report a current services budget, providing the public with an estimate of what the current level of services is projected to cost in the next fiscal year,” it begins.
Lawmakers added a list of specific projections they want, including those for:
- Child care funds so they adequately line up with current market rates and federal household poverty levels.
- Reach Up assistance for low-income families with children.
- Maintenance of all current roads and bridges.
- Retirement pensions and other post-work benefits for state employees and educators, including any currently unfunded amounts.
- The property transfer tax money required by statute to go to the Current Use Administration Special Fund, the Vermont Housing and Conservation Fund, and the Municipal and Regional Planning Fund.
- Workers’ compensation and state liability, medical and dental insurance money.
- “Other non-major enterprise funds and internal service funds where deficits exist in excess of $1,500,000, including: Vermont Life Magazine; the Copy Center Fund; the Postage Fund, the Facilities Operations Fund, and the Property Management Fund.”
Campaign organizers are hopeful they’re interpreting the expanded definition the same way state officials see it, but nevertheless want to meet with them to confirm the specifics.
“Eventually we would like to see the entire budget laid out in a detailed way,” Ingram says. “But we think this is a step in the right direction.”
“What the bill really does,” adds Paul Cillo, president of the Public Assets Institute, “is to provide more clarity.”
The Shumlin administration, which will depart when the governor does in January, says it will follow the mandate as it prepares figures later this year to pass on to whoever is elected in November.
“It will help bring more transparency into the current and future state financial obligations,” says Andy Pallito, commissioner of the Department of Finance and Management.
Campaign organizers stress they aren’t expecting the Legislature to ultimately approve whatever financial figures are projected, but instead hope the numbers shed light on the extent of demand and spark discussion on what could and should be done.
“Our hope is legislators will see this information as valuable as they’re making difficult decisions,” says Ingram, who is running for state Senate in Chittenden County — a bid she stressed was as a private citizen outside her nonpartisan role with the interfaith coalition. “Our goal is to have an open, honest and robust discussion of what our priorities are and how we can best meet them.”
