The House voted Tuesday to adjust some parts of Reach Up — Vermont’s version of the federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program — for the first time in nearly two decades.
A bill from the House Human Services Committee, H.464, would allow families in the Reach Up program to keep more of their wages and child support. A working family on Reach Up — billed as an anti-poverty program — can keep only the first $250 of their earned wages each month, plus 25% of the remaining amount. The state takes the rest of their pay to offset the cost of the program. Similarly, each Reach Up family is allowed to keep only $50 per month of any child support, with the rest going to the state.
The bill would allow families to keep $350 per month of their wages and $100 per month of child support.
Cost of living increases are long overdue, said Michelle Fay, executive director of Voices for Vermont’s Children.
“By failing to provide cost-of-living increases for these basic-need-grants that go to the most economically disadvantaged children and their families in the state, we’re making it harder for them to achieve the goals of the program, which is to move toward financial stability,” Fay said.
But while the Human Services Committee is trying to increase what families take home, the House Appropriations Committee agreed to reduce the program’s funding, at least in the first budget draft approved last week. With little discussion, the Appropriations Committee agreed with the governor’s proposal to cut the Reach Up budget by $4.6 million, or about 14%, from last year.
The proposed cut was because the administration expected fewer families to use the program this year, according to Department for Children and Families Commissioner Sean Brown’s testimony to the Human Services Committee.
House Appropriations Chair Mary Hooper, D-Montpelier, said that means the committee did not cut Reach Up.
“We didn’t cut benefits that people are receiving in any way,” she said.
The expected decrease was based on modeling in October 2021 that predicted a range of possible caseloads, depending on the timeline of Covid-19 relief measures. While the Reach Up caseload normally correlates with the unemployment rate, the study found that the number of Vermont families enrolled in Reach Up decreased during the pandemic due to Covid-19 relief programs such as expanded unemployment benefit.
The new assistance programs resulted in leftover Reach Up money at the end of the last fiscal year, said Rep. Taylor Small, P/D-Winooski. Those surplus funds were distributed to families as one-time checks, amounting to about $100 per household.
According to the October projections, if Covid relief programs continued, the number of households on Reach Up would remain at about 3,000 per month for the 2023 fiscal year. If all Covid relief programs ended, the study predicted a higher demand for Reach Up assistance, at about 5,660 enrolled households per month.
The Department for Children and Families used the lowest estimate to create this year’s budget proposal, said Katarina Lisaius, senior adviser to the commissioner.
Fast forward to present day: Some pandemic relief remains (increased 3 Squares benefits and fuel assistance) but some have ended (expanded unemployment, child tax credit).
Preliminary Department for Children and Families data shows that December Reach Up enrollment — the most recent figure — outpaced the department’s low-end models by about 200 to 300 households.
Reach Up is an entitlement program, so people cannot be turned away even if funds run low, Lisaius said. And if the estimates are way off the mark, it can be fixed in next year’s budget adjustment act, she said.
But to Fay, using lower caseload estimates appears to mean deliberately avoiding extra payouts to families at the end of the year, she said.
“This is like a game of chicken, as far as I’m concerned, with the department or with the administration, who just seem absolutely hell bent on not increasing resources for Vermont’s poorest kids,” Fay said.
— Riley Robinson
IN THE KNOW
A report from the state auditor’s office, issued Monday, showed the Agency of Human Services overpaid 17 unnamed health care providers by $7 million using federal Covid-19 relief money.
The report focused on $92.7 million in aid disbursed in three separate rounds by the agency through the Health Care Stabilization grant program, revealing that 21 of the 39 payments reviewed were too large or should not have been made at all.
— Ethan Weinstein
At their final and “highly publicized” hearing (per Chair Jeanette White, D-Windham) Tuesday evening, the Senate Reapportionment Committee approved H.722, the Legislature’s 2022 reapportionment bill, with the state Senate’s new district map.
Tuesday’s vote made official the committee’s vote last week to approve the map, which attempts to evenly distribute 30 senators throughout the state for the next 10 years. Members had to wait for the House to send over H.722 before they could make the Senate map official.
The committee voted 7-0 in favor of the bill with both the House and Senate maps. It is on track to pass the Senate floor by the end of the week.
“Since food isn’t allowed in the chamber, nobody can throw rotten tomatoes at us,” White said.
— Sarah Mearhoff
A bill to allow freestanding birth centers in Vermont is in legislative limbo. S.204 pits hospitals and their expensive obstetrics units against nurse midwives, who are looking to start small, cheaper health centers that handle simple births.
Hospitals say the state’s birth rate — roughly 5,300 births in 2019 — cannot support both birth centers and obstetrics units. Nurse midwives counter that birth centers could offer an alternative close to home for expecting parents in rural areas, such as Springfield, where obstetrics units have closed.
As a compromise, the Senate Committee on Health and Welfare a couple of weeks ago allowed the licensing bill through but asked the Green Mountain Care Board to study the need and licensure path for freestanding centers, which would effectively slow down the opening of such facilities in the state.
But on Friday, members of the Senate Committee on Finance stuck their toes in the health care waters during a simple review of the licensure fees in the bill. Acting on feedback from the midwives, Senate Finance members wanted to amend the bill to remove from the licensing process the regulatory hurdles Senate Health put in place.
Now, S.204 is once again up for discussion at Senate Health and nobody’s happy. An amendment would essentially constitute Senate Finance meddling in health care affairs. Health Chair Sen. Ginny Lyons, D-Chittenden, suspended discussion on the bill at Tuesday’s committee hearing but said the bill is still alive and “hopefully it will pass.”
— Liora Engel-Smith
ON THE MOVE
The House on Tuesday backed a bill aimed at broadening community participation in processes related to Act 250, Vermont’s sweeping land use and development law.
“Act 250 was designed to be a locally centered process, close to the people, so that they would know that their voice was being heard. We have moved away from that process,” said Rep. Seth Bongartz, D-Manchester, a member of the House Committee on Natural Resources, Fish and Wildlife who spoke about the bill on the House floor.
If passed, the bill would reform the structure of the Natural Resources Board, which oversees Act 250.
The bill proposes creating a professional board, which would again assume the name “Environmental Review Board” instead of “Natural Resources Board.” It would be made up of a full-time chair and four half-time members, and it would oversee the Act 250 appeals process.
The bill will be read a final time on the House floor and, if approved, will head to the Senate.
— Emma Cotton
Vermont’s bottle redemption system, commonly called the “bottle bill,” relies on a law passed in 1972 — before some of today’s common beverages broadly entered the market.
A bill working its way through the state Legislature would modernize the law and expand what it includes.
H.175, the bill currently under consideration, would increase that deposit from 5 cents to 10 cents, except for liquor containers, which would have a 15-cent deposit. The state channels the uncollected money to funding for the Clean Water Act.
— Emma Cotton
IN CONGRESS
On the second day of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s U.S. Supreme Court confirmation hearings, U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., used his line of questioning to refute Republicans’ claims that Jackson is “soft on crime.”
A former chair and longtime member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Leahy has played a key role in Jackson’s nomination process and on Monday lamented the Senate’s “judicial wars” in recent years. Some Republican critics have pointed to Jackson’s years as a public defender, alleging she could be “soft on crime” on the bench.
Leahy on Monday and Tuesday said that Jackson’s experience as a public defender is an asset, not a liability. He also pointed to Jackson’s family connections to law enforcement, and a February statement from the National Fraternal Order of Police backing her nomination.
“We are reassured that, should she be confirmed, she would approach her future cases with an open mind and treat issues related to law enforcement fairly and justly,” the police group said.
— Sarah Mearhoff
COVID CORNER
Vermont plans to wind down its state-run Covid-19 vaccine clinics, relying on health care providers and pharmacies to give out the vaccines from now on, officials said at a press conference Tuesday.
Jenney Samuelson, the interim secretary for the Agency of Human Services, said state-run clinics would likely cease around mid-April.
— Erin Petenko
WHAT’S FOR LUNCH
I caught up with Chef Bryant this afternoon as he was restocking the bottom shelf of the beverage fridge. Asked what we can look forward to tomorrow, he rose to his feet, disgruntled: “Hopefully a knee replacement for me.”
Kind of a bummer, and probably unlikely.
What we can count on, though, is fettuccine alfredo with chicken and broccoli. Fantastico!
ICYMI: Tuesday’s special was pork roast with glazed carrots and potatoes.
— Sarah Mearhoff
WHAT WE’RE READING
How qualified immunity acts as a barrier to accountability for alleged police brutality (VPR)
Vermont winds down Covid vaccine clinics as BA.2 subvariant rises (VTDigger)
Vermont hospitals, struggling to make ends meet, want to raise their service charges (VTDigger)
