John Sayles says no one in the Legislature has asked him directly about the $9 million windfall the Vermont Foodbank received a year and a half ago as he has defended the organization’s request for a $6 million state appropriation this year.
In December 2020, MacKenzie Scott, a major philanthropist and the ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, announced that she was donating $9 million to the Foodbank. It was the largest donation the organization had ever received.
But if no lawmaker has asked Sayles, the Foodbank’s CEO, point blank why he needs taxpayer money after the organization received such a large gift, it does seem to be on the mind of at least one key legislator.
“It would be great to see them use some of the investment dollars,” said Sen. Ginny Lyons, D-Chittenden, the chair of the Senate Committee on Health and Welfare, referring to Scott’s gift.
“We’re all learning to live without federal subsidies for some of these important issues,” Lyons told VTDigger. “The funds are nonexistent. There are so many demands.”
Vermont is flush with federal money, but temporary relief programs established during the Covid-19 pandemic — including those that funded hunger relief efforts — are coming to an end.
Among the funding requests Lyons’ committee considered this year were $3.5 million for substance abuse prevention, $4.9 million for child care financial assistance, $16.1 million for home- and community-based services, $3 million for an increase in Medicaid reimbursement rates for adult day services and $1.4 million for the 988 suicide prevention line. In all, the committee considered $34.1 million in continuing funding for programs and $8.5 million in one-time funding, including the $6 million the Foodbank requested.
Lyons told VTDigger that because Vermont can no longer count on a continued influx of federal dollars appropriated during the pandemic, it is difficult to maintain the support the Foodbank received over the past two years.
The Foodbank appears likely to get significantly less than it requested. The latest version of the state budget, passed by the Senate on April 20, included $2 million in funding for the Foodbank. The House version, passed in late March, included just $1.5 million. House and Senate lawmakers expect to finalize the budget next week.
Lyons gave credit to the Foodbank for its Covid relief work.
When rates of food insecurity skyrocketed early in the pandemic, the Foodbank led efforts to distribute free food at recurring events across the state.
“Without them, so many people in our state would have gone hungry,” Lyons said.
The organization already has plans for how to utilize Scott’s unexpected gift, Sayles said, but how long the money will last depends on how much the government and other donors support the Foodbank.
About $6.5 million — more than two-thirds of the donation — is dedicated to covering the Foodbank’s operating costs for the next two to five years, he said. That includes funding VeggieVanGo, which distributes produce and protein at hospitals and schools.
Sayles said the organization has created a “spendowment” with the Scott money and plans to spend about 3% of it every quarter.
Another $1 million of the Scott donation would support the organization’s work in the Northeast Kingdom and in Bennington and Addison counties, where the Foodbank does not have a physical location, Sayles said.
The organization plans to spend the remaining $1.5 million on an “innovation lab” that seeks to address the causes of food insecurity.
The need for food assistance appears to be increasing. Sayles said that at 18 of the 24 monthly VeggieVanGo events around the state, more people showed up this month than last. At the monthly VeggieVanGo event in Newport last week, he said, 750 families showed up, compared to 643 families in March.
“They’re still scared of what’s happening out there in the world and don’t really feel secure,” he said. “And I think that’s a piece of why demand is so high.”
Donations have not kept pace with the rising need, Sayles said, and with Covid aid programs being phased out, federal support of the Foodbank’s efforts is dropping 30 to 40%.
Meanwhile, he said, food costs are up significantly — 40% higher than a year ago for the national food bank network.
Sayles said the $6 million he sought this year would be dedicated to buying and distributing food, roughly the same amount the Foodbank spent last year. Without that money, he said, the organization would have to buy and distribute less food, although he plans to reach out to private donors to make up the shortfall.
He said that since 2019 the state has provided the Foodbank with about $84,000 a year from state general funds, and the federal government, outside of the exceptional Covid relief funds over the last two years, has provided about $400,000 a year.
Much of the Foodbank’s revenue comes from in-kind contributions of food. For example, in its most recent available annual report, from 2020, the Foodbank reported revenue of $47 million. Food and other in-kind contributions accounted for $26.3 million of that total, compared to $20.7 million in money.
For the year beginning on July 1, the Foodbank is planning on revenue of close to $13 million, not counting donations in kind, according to an email to VTDigger from Carrie Stahler, a lobbyist for the organization. If the Foodbank received the full $6 million it requested, it could plan on revenues of $17 million.
In Sayles’ view, the Legislature should be stepping up.
“We can’t continue to rely on the charitable goodwill of people inside and outside of Vermont to make sure folks are eating,” Sayles said. “The state needs to be a full partner in this.”
