Vermont’s legislative leaders made it clear at the start of the year that, in 2021, they would lean heavily on federal Covid-19 stimulus money. True to their word, they allocated $700 million in relief funding by the end of March.
When Republican Gov. Phil Scott pitched his own budget in late January, it was agnostic on the question of federal aid, instead relying on $200 million in one-time state money.
Senate President Pro Tempore Becca Balint, D-Windham, and House Speaker Jill Krowinski, D-Burlington, responded to the governor almost with indifference, preaching patience until the federal American Rescue Plan Act was passed and Vermont was slated to receive more than $2 billion.
The Democrats’ game plan — determining how to spend the federal stimulus early in the session and refusing to wait for Scott — means he’s now behind the eight-ball in negotiations over how the federal money should be used.
“He certainly came out too late with his proposal in terms of House action,” Rep. Jim Harrison, R-Chittenden, said Tuesday.
“When you don’t put that proposal ahead of when the Legislature is acting, you know, different people think differently, and so I think it loses some leverage,” said Harrison, a member of the House Committee on Appropriations.
Scott’s plan to spend $1 billion came out April 6 — with more than a month left in the session and three weeks after the House had passed its fiscal year 2022 budget, using $640 million in American Rescue Plan Act money.
Rep. Mary Hooper, D-Montpelier, the House Appropriations Committee chair, told VTDigger that she wasn’t concerned about the governor’s timing when she was working on the budget bill.
“I didn’t find it frustrating, but I also wasn’t going to wait to find out his approach to this,” she said.
The governor and the Legislature are on the same page when it comes to spending money on broadband buildout, clean water initiatives and climate measures. But there are also differences, with senators looking to include more money for Vermont state colleges, pensions and aid for employees instead of just businesses.
“The Legislature is going to have a mind of its own,” said Sen. Richard Westman, R-Lamoille, a member of the Senate Committee on Appropriations. “For those people that think just because the governor said that this is what he’s recommending, does not mean that it’s going to happen.”
As Westman and his committee work toward approving a budget next week, the governor is complaining that legislators are acting too quickly.
“I’m concerned that they’re spending this before we know what the rules are, and we may have to pay it back, and we’re not leveraging it in the right way,” Scott said at a Tuesday press conference.
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