File photo by Mike Dougherty/VTDigger
The Vermont House is close to passing a $62 million Covid-19 relief bill that includes money to help struggling businesses, invest in the state’s mental health system, and fund affordable housing and outdoor recreation projects.
The bill, approved Monday evening by the House Appropriations Committee, relies on both one-time state money and about $13 million left over from federal Coronavirus Relief Funds the state received last year.
The House plans to send the bill to the Senate later this week.
Lawmakers said they want to act swiftly on a Covid-19 package to provide immediate relief during the pandemic and jumpstart infrastructure projects. If they put the money in the regular state budget, the money wouldn’t be out the door until May.
The bill contains $1.3 million for the Reach Up program, state assistance for children and families in need, to provide additional one-time payments for families, about $1.4 million for the Vermont Foodbank, and more than $5 million for the state’s mental health system, which lawmakers say is facing increased demand during the Covid-19 pandemic.
It contains $10 million worth of economic recovery grants to businesses that did not qualify for federal Covid-19 aid.
There is also $850,000 to help mental health providers hire additional case managers, $150,000 for “training and wellness supports” for frontline health care workers and mental health professionals who are “responding to the surge in mental health treatment needs,” and $4 million for the Department of Mental Health to expand its community housing supports for people facing mental health issues.
The bill also provides fast-track funding for several initiatives Gov. Phil Scott included in his budget proposal, including $10 million for the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board and $10 million to improve recreational trail networks and develop infrastructure for the state’s outdoor recreation industry.
The money for the Housing and Conservation Board would be used, in part, to provide affordable housing and facilities to house Vermonters who are homeless, at risk of becoming homeless, or who have “suffered economic harm due to the Covid-19 crisis.”
Speaking to the House Republican caucus on Tuesday morning, Rep. Jim Harrison, R-Chittenden, a member of the appropriations committee, said the panel is interested in “taking advantage of the construction season, rather than tying up these funds and not being able to spend them until July.”
“This is really an example of trying to get a head start, and hopefully, our economy will be better for it, as well as some of the care services,” Harrison said.
The bill also reserves $20 million of state funding to address the state’s pension liabilities and prepay what Vermont will owe in the coming years to cover state employee benefits. That decision came after a recent projection by State Treasurer Beth Pearce that the pension system’s unfunded liability will grow by about $600 million.
Lawmakers are mulling major changes in the pension system this year, but the growing debt has also raised immediate concerns about the possibility of a bond rating downgrade. Legislators say they want to show major rating agencies they’re taking the problem seriously.
“What we are doing here is saying, ‘Hey, Wall Street, we’re attending to this, we’re putting a lot of money in, we’re putting our work behind this, we’re trying to take care of this right now,’” Rep. Mary Hooper D-Montpelier, chair of the House Appropriations Committee, told House Democrats.
“We’re trying to send a signal of our intent to solve this problem,” she said.
In addition, the bill would provide $700,000 for both the Association of Africans Living in Vermont and the Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program to improve translation services related to the pandemic and help immigrant and refugee families tap into workforce development programs and navigate benefit programs.
It would also direct $134,000 to the Vermont Department of Health to collect and analyze demographic data, including race and ethnicity data, about Vermont residents who experience health disparities.
