The Vermont House on Wednesday unanimously passed a $300 million aid package for the state’s health care industry, while the Senate advanced a budget bill that will fund the state government for the first three months of the upcoming fiscal year.
The movement of major spending bills comes as lawmakers are angling to adjourn by the end of next week.
By the time lawmakers leave for a six-week summer recess, they plan on passing the partial budget bill and spending the majority of the $1.25 billion the state has received from the federal CARES Act.
The $300 million House health care package, which relies on the federal dollars and was approved on a vote of 145-0, is largely focused on offering financial assistance to providers strained by the Covid-19 crisis.
The bill, H.965, would give $250 million to the Vermont Agency of Human Services to distribute to providers across the state in the form of grants.
Providers eligible for the funding include hospitals, independent doctors, dentists, mental health providers, rural health clinics, federally qualified health centers, medical labs and pharmacies.
Vermont’s hospital system lost $100 million dollars in both April and May because of the pandemic, according to the Green Mountain Care Board.
Vermont’s federally qualified health centers are reporting a 20-30% drop in patient volume, and 20-30% of independent medical practices fear they will have to close, according to Rep. David Yacavone, D-Morrisville, who introduced the bill on the virtual House floor Wednesday.
“Our health care providers stood beside us and for us during this pandemic,” Yacavone said. “It’s time for us to stand by them.”
Lawmakers said that grants will be given out based on the size of a healthcare provider, or prioritize specific sectors of the industry, such as hospitals. They will also be given out based on how much providers need it to sustain their businesses.
In doling out funds, the agency will also prioritize helping providers sustain services that would “otherwise become limited or unavailable as a result of business disruptions” due to the pandemic.
It will also give funds to providers who are expected to see increased demands for certain services, such as mental health care.
“There are a lot of indications that we’re going to see a real surge in mental health needs as the impact of isolation and intense pressures on some of our frontline providers starts playing its course,” said Rep. Anne Donahue, R-Northfield.
The legislation also includes funding for a variety of other initiatives. Under the proposal, $800,000 would go to the Department of Mental Health to boost suicide prevention measures.
It would direct $4 million to the state’s parent child centers to help the organizations meet increased demand for services such as housing and food assistance and parenting support.
The package includes $9 million in “restart grants” for child care providers, summer camps, and afterschool programs between June and August.
The Vermont Foodbank would receive $4.6 million, and $12 million to the Agency of Education for the delivery of meals to Vermont students during the summer months.
“We cannot ignore the kind of demand that causes Vermonters to line up in their cars in the middle of the night and the suppliers to run out of food,” House Speaker Mitzi Johnson said of the Covid-19 spending bill in a statement on Wednesday.
“We must ensure Vermonters’ very basic needs are met in this unprecedented time, and that starts with ensuring that there is food available, especially to our most vulnerable,” said Johnson, D-South Hero.
Before the House advanced the health care package, the Senate on Wednesday gave unanimous, preliminary approval to a budget that would fund state government for the first quarter of the upcoming fiscal year (which begins on July 1). The budget passed the House earlier this month.
The Senate made very few changes to the spending package that the House passed.
The legislation gives most agencies and departments the authority to spend one quarter of their current year budgets between July and September.
Lawmakers will return in August and September to craft a budget for the entirety of next year.
That budget is expected to come with spending reductions and cuts to offset revenue losses caused by the pandemic.
Although revenue projections have improved slightly, the latest anticipate that Vermont will lose $330 million in tax revenue because of economic strain from the pandemic.
The Scott administration had proposed making a 2% budget cut across the board in the first three months of next year. But the Legislature rejected their plan, and has said that they want more time to weigh in on spending reductions.
Sen. Jane Kitchel, D-Caledonia, the chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said in an interview last week that the Legislature’s approach gives lawmakers time to see how the state’s revenue picture plays out in the coming months, and whether the federal government will give states the flexibility to use stimulus dollars to fill holes in their budgets.
“It was a way of funding government, making sure that we had a budget the first of July, and that we were not prematurely going in and disrupting programs and services without fully understanding,” she said of the first quarter budget bill.
The Senate’s bill also harnessed $50 million of the federal Covid-19 dollars to help Vermont’s K-12 schools cover expenses related to Covid-19, and make changes to improve their air quality systems before students return in the fall.
