[W]ith days left in the legislative session, lawmakers are in the final stage of the state budgeting process.
A panel comprising three members of each chamber will spend the next several days negotiating the differences between the versions of the state budget passed by the House and Senate.
Budget writers in each chamber enjoyed unprecedented levels of tripartisan support for their finance plans.
In March, the House passed a $5.8 billion budget on a near-unanimous vote.
With no opposition, the Senate passed a budget last week with $14.5 million more in spending, funded in part by moving a teachers’ retirement contribution to the education fund.
But in the final week of negotiations, lawmakers will need to resolve major differences in how each chamber approached issues including the state’s mental health system and an aging prison facility in Windsor.
Representing the House on the conference committee are Reps. Kitty Toll, D-Danville, Peter Fagan, R-Rutland, and Mary Hooper, D-Montpelier. The senators on the committee are Jane Kitchel, D-Caledonia, Richard Westman, R-Lamoille, and Dick Sears, D-Bennington.
Toll, chair of the House Appropriations Committee, and Kitchel, chair of Senate Appropriations, both said the largest point of conflict between the two budgets is the decision the Senate made not to fund a $7.9 million teachers’ retirement contribution out of the general fund. The cost would instead be picked up by the education fund.
The Senate would use that money instead to pay for several initiatives, including a $4 million appropriation to the state college system.
Toll said many in the House have been reluctant to put pressure on property taxes, but she noted the Senate version of the budget invests in several initiatives that many lawmakers support.
She is optimistic they will be able to reach agreement.
“I’m confident that we’re going to get to something that we all can live with and that works for Vermonters,” Toll said.
Toll is hesitant to consider the governor’s proposal on teachers’ health care as part of the final negotiations on the budget. There is no appropriation, she noted, and the idea has not gone through the committee process in either chamber.
“It’s a big proposal,” Toll said. “And how it should properly be vetted is perhaps a question outside the stage we are in in the budgeting process.”
Kitchel, however, is open to the proposal to look at teachers’ health care negotiations.
“I’m optimistic that with a concerted effort we can figure out an acceptable way to do it,” she said.
“I’m not saying necessarily the way (Scott is) proposing it,” Kitchel said. “But there may be more than one way to skin a cat.”
Other major points to reconcile in the conference committee process:
• The two chambers approached investing in the state’s mental health system differently.
• The House would continue to operate a correctional facility in Windsor, which the governor proposed to close. The Senate would convert the facility to specialize in helping inmates re-enter the community.
• The two versions differ on funding cuts to the Vermont Veterans’ Home.
• The House proposed a major cut to a program that pays for motel rooms for homeless people on cold nights; the Senate restored that cut.
