The Vermont Senate approved just over $100 million in coronavirus relief spending on Friday, building on the $79 million package the House passed last month.
The Senate’s bill includes new funding for Covid-19-related education and for workforce and economic development initiatives, and relies largely on the federal aid Vermont is expected to receive from the American Rescue Plan, which President Joe Biden signed into law last week.
It also leaves untouched the majority of the Covid-19 relief spending that had been proposed by the House.
The legislation would provide $1.4 million to help train and certify 40 to 45 new nurses to help address a staffing shortage at nursing homes in the state.
It includes $3 million to help improve literacy rates in schools, as lawmakers have recently raised concerns about data showing literacy rates among Vermont third-graders has fallen during the pandemic.
“This is to provide training to our teachers to equip them with better skills and techniques in the way in which our students are instructed in reading. And this is even more important because our students have been either out of school, or remote learning, and it’s been a very difficult past school year,” said Sen. Jane Kitchel, D-Caledonia, chair of the Senate Committee on Appropriations.
The bill also contains money for higher education initiatives, including $4 million to fund free courses at the Vermont State Colleges or the University of Vermont to help more than 2,000 unemployed workers gain workforce skills and certifications. It also provides about $3 million to fund free college courses for 1,000 recent high school graduates.
Unlike the House bill, the Senate package’s largest funding source is the federal money the state expects to receive from the American Rescue Plan — about $64 million of its proposed spending. In total, Vermont is expected to receive around $1.3 billion in state aid from the federal relief bill.
Gov. Phil Scott has expressed concern that legislators are deciding how to spend the federal money before the U.S. Treasury issues official guidance on how it can be spent.
When asked during his Friday press conference about the legislative spending plans, the governor said the “ink’s hardly dry” on the American Rescue Plan.
“We haven’t received any money yet, we haven’t received any guidance on it yet, and we’re already trying to spend it, or they’re trying to direct it, in the Legislature,” he said.
Scott said state officials have until December 2024 to use the money.
“Let’s slow down just a little bit and make sure that we’re doing this in the right way, give us the biggest bang for the buck, the best return on investment possible for the future,” Scott said.
Guidance from the U.S. Treasury on how states can spend the federal dollars is expected next week.
Kitchel said senators appropriated the federal money in “areas that we felt had long-term benefit and were clearly permissible” under the new funding bill.
Senate President Pro Tempore Becca Balint, D-Windham, said Vermont’s legislative sessions typically end in May and senators want to make sure they have an opportunity to weigh in on plans for using the federal aid.
“We are a citizen legislature, we’re a part-time legislature, our time here is short, and so we want to be able to frame the conversation. And some of that is planting a stake in the ground and saying, ‘This is where we’d like to spend some of that money,'” Balint said.
She said the governor and lawmakers are likely to have similar priorities for the federal dollars.
“I think in the end we’re going to all land in about the same kinds of areas because we have similar interests,” Balint said. “We want to invest in broadband, we want to make sure we invest in child care, there is an agreement that we have mental health needs.”
The bill approved by the Senate on Friday contains funding that has already been approved by the House, including $10 million in grants for business strained by the pandemic, more than $5 million to bolster the state’s mental health system and $20 million split evenly between affordable housing and outdoor recreation infrastructure projects.
Legislators have said they want to deliver swift funding for “shovel-ready” initiatives that provide both relief and economic stimulus during the pandemic.
The bill is expected to pass the Senate, and return to the House for final approval, after it receives a second vote next week. If it became law, the legislation would also provide:
- $5.5 million for summer meals for schoolchildren.
- $5 million in mortgage assistance to Vermont homeowners to prevent foreclosure.
- $200,000 to the Vermont Department of Health to collect and analyze demographic data about Vermont residents who experience health disparities.
- $1.3 million for the Reach Up program, state assistance for children and families in need, to provide additional one-time payments for families.
- $4 million for summer and afterschool programs
