As Vermont began to spend the vast amounts of federal funds available through Covid-19-era legislation in recent years, such as the American Rescue Plan Act passed in 2021 and the Inflation Reduction Act passed in 2022, the state ran into a frustrating paradox: The small rural towns that seem to need the money the most are often least capable of applying for it.
To improve distribution of federal funds to small rural communities across the state, the Agency of Administration in March launched its Municipal Technical Assistance Program, after the legislature allocated $3 million toward the venture in the budget adjustment act.
More than 100 of the 247 towns in Vermont have no town manager or town administrator, according to data from the state Agency of Administration. Officials there say those communities have struggled to tap into both one-time and ongoing federal money, which is primarily distributed through grants.
“Some towns just don’t have the time and resources to research the different federal grants available,” said Doug Farnham, the state’s chief recovery officer, in an interview. “Even if they get the grant from the state or the feds, a lot of them don’t have the staff to support the project administration.
“So we were seeing that a lot of our (American Rescue Plan Act) investments, despite our best intentions, were concentrated in the areas of the state that already have a good amount of infrastructure and have higher economic indicators,” Farnham said.
The municipal assistance program, known as MTAP, operates primarily by directing funds to the 11 regional planning commissions around the state. The concept is for the commissions’ staff members to meet with town officials in their respective regions to identify towns’ needs and then help with administrative work, such as grant applications and progress reports.
“The idea is to help from start to finish, from project scoping through project implementation, grant writing — all the way from figuring out what towns want to do, through helping them support that project to its completion,” Farnham said. “Those are some of the hardest stages for small municipalities, figuring out what they really want to accomplish.”
One of MTAP’s main goals is to help distribute over $370 million in remaining American Rescue Plan Act money available to the state, which must be obligated, or accounted for, through a signed grant or contract by the end of 2024.
That’s a tight deadline for a program that has been attempting to work with dozens of Vermont towns. Eight months after its launch, the work has only now started to get traction for a wide variety of reasons, including the July floods that devastated much of the state, officials said.
At the end of September, the program had accounted for just over $82,000 in assistance of its initial allotment of $3 million, according to data provided by the Agency of Administration. Commission officials say that the time they billed the state for has mostly been spent conducting preliminary conversations with rural communities in their region.
Despite that, officials remain confident about the program’s direction heading into the new year, particularly after the number of towns eligible doubled last month.
Benjamin Knowlton, a financial manager for the Agency of Administration, said the MTAP program has provided more administrative assistance in the last two months than it did in total during its first four months of operation.
“We’re still spinning up. We’re still trying to gain momentum. I think we’re seeing some positive signs, but we’re still trying to push forward,” Farnham said.
More towns are now eligible
To help identify and prioritize communities that need administrative support the most, the Agency of Administration created an index that evaluates the needs and capacity of municipalities across the state.
After initially offering MTAP assistance only to towns that made the top 25% on the index — meaning those with the most need and the least administrative capacity — the agency expanded the project to the top 50% of towns at the end of October. Select towns outside of that range that experienced intense flood damage, including Barre, Hardwick and Londonderry, were also made eligible for assistance through the program.
“If the 75%-and-over towns had consumed the full $3 million, that would have been great, but, as I said in (legislative) testimony, I didn’t think that actually would happen,” Farnham said. “I think the full assistance is going to go to the 75-to-100% and the 50-to-75% together, but we wanted to give the 75-to-100% the first bite of the apple.”
Farnham also noted that funding from the American Rescue Plan Act and other federal programs can be spent only on particular kinds of projects, and that some of the needs of certain towns may not necessarily line up with the criteria necessary for federal funding.
“We’re trying to focus the investment on areas where federal funds can be applied,” he said.
The limitations on how the funding is targeted is just one of several ongoing challenges, officials said.
MTAP’s rollout has also had to accommodate the inherently slow pace of small-town governance, said Chris Campany, executive director of the Windham Regional Commission, in an interview.
“In some cases, the smaller the town is in terms of overall population, the harder it can be and the longer it can take for them to make decisions on these issues,” said Campany. He noted that small-town officials often work on a volunteer basis and decisions are usually made at monthly or bimonthly selectboard meetings, so getting consensus on what project to focus on can take quite a while.
“In our case, it literally took a few months just to get to the scope-of-work point,” Campany said. “I think sometimes just these basic processes simply take longer in these small towns than the Legislature or administration think it will.”
This summer’s historic floods also redirected attention and interrupted much of the ongoing planning by both the towns and the commissions.
“We were hoping to be further along but then the July floods hit, and understandably the state government and regional planning commissions pivoted to help with flood recovery. So we’re just now getting back into it,” said Peter Gregory, executive director of the Two Rivers Ottauquechee Regional Commission, which covers towns in Windsor and Orange counties.
“I think the (regional planning commissions) and all partners involved are working fast and furious on this, because we all know about the federal deadlines on (American Rescue Plan Act) funding,” said Gregory. “We’re kind of back on this full force now that the immediate flood recovery is passed on now.”
