In 2023, Vermont’s state auditor Doug Hoffer published an audit pointing out problems with how the state manages IT projects.
Expensive projects like a child welfare database, a Medicaid enrollment system and the unemployment insurance program, often balloon over budget and miss deadlines, the auditor found. And the Agency of Digital Services — launched as an independent agency by Gov. Phil Scott in 2017 — does not publicly provide information about how much such projects were initially supposed to cost and their original timelines, the auditor found.
The agency has a public, online dashboard of information about IT projects that cost over $500,000. But that dashboard does not include those initial project expectations flagged by the auditor.
Now, the committee is hashing out a new bill that would — in its current iteration — require the agency to add those key data points to the tool, as well as others. The bill would also mandate the creation of a new dashboard to track completed projects.
At stake is visibility into an area in which Vermont spends tens of millions of dollars of public money on crucial projects.
Rep. Kathleen James, D-Manchester, the committee’s chair, said the goal is to have a tool where people can “easily see, somewhere, when things — I wish it weren’t so complicated — when things are over budget and running behind.”
Agency officials asked legislators to hold off on passing that bill as they work to improve the dashboard on their own.
“My ask would be if the committee would consider holding the bill and working through this with us as we offer more information and issue it next session,” said Secretary Denise Reilly-Hughes, who is also the agency’s chief information officer.
But Tim Ashe, the deputy state auditor, urged lawmakers Wednesday to pass the bill. The dashboard, he said, is supposed to allow anyone to take stock of the progress and cost of the state’s most expensive IT projects.
“Clearly, the current dashboard does not achieve that objective,” he said. “So if it’s not improved, it provides almost no value to members of this committee, any other legislators, or members of the public.”
— Peter D’Auria
Cliff notes
2026 could be a bad year for health care in Vermont.
Without action from Congress, federal tax credits that help people pay for health insurance plans are scheduled to lapse — meaning Vermonters could be on the hook for hundreds of dollars more each month for premiums.
A pilot expansion of the state’s Blueprint for Health program, a roughly $10 million a year initiative to integrate substance use disorder and mental health care into primary care practices, is also scheduled to expire at the end of the year.
And Vermont’s “all-payer model,” a state and federal health care reform program facilitated by the nonprofit OneCare, is slated to shut down at the end of 2025. That program currently directs millions to Vermont primary care practices and helps hospitals revamp their payment structures.
The state is headed into a new version of health care payment reform: a federal program called the AHEAD Model, which will also pull down federal money to subsidize primary care. But that program is not scheduled to begin until 2027.
Some of these challenges are beyond the scope of a state legislature. But at a Cedar Creek press conference Thursday, Vermont physicians urged lawmakers to at least help shore up Vermont’s primary care practices — which currently face a “cliff” on Jan. 1, 2026.
“2026 could really mean a loss in access to services,” Jessa Barnard, the executive director of the Vermont Medical Society, said Thursday morning. Without funding to cover those losses, Vermonters’ primary care “practice may not be there for them to go,” she said. “Or the number of services they can find there may not exist anymore.”
—Peter D’Auria
In the know
A new coalition of rural school boards and towns announced themselves to the Legislature at a Thursday press conference.
The Vermont Rural School Community Alliance features school districts from Windham County up to Orleans County. The group’s speakers included school board members, a student, and a rural education leader. Their goal? Make sure whatever education reform comes to fruition doesn’t forget rural schools — and doesn’t close small schools without a democratic process.
“Many of our rural communities already feel marginalized and forgotten. Don’t take away our local democracy. Don’t take away our community schools,” John Castle, executive director of the Vermont Rural Education Collaborative, told the room.
—Ethan Weinstein
For years, as Gov. Phil Scott opposed most of the major climate policies sponsored by Democratic lawmakers, those lawmakers said the governor should present a plan of his own.
This year, Scott is pitching such a plan. His administration recently released a white paper outlining the proposal, and on Wednesday afternoon, the bill, H.289 was introduced in the House.
Members of area environmental organizations, including the Conservation Law Foundation and the Vermont Public Interest Research Group, or VPIRG, have called the proposal a “rollback” on climate policy. Read more here.
— Emma Cotton
Rep. Troy Headrick, I-Burlington, posed a question in a recent flyer sent to his colleagues in the Vermont House and Senate: “What if we got it wrong?”
He was referring to state lawmakers’ decision, well over a decade ago, to recognize four groups in Vermont as Abenaki.
On Wednesday, Headrick hosted a panel at the Statehouse with Abenaki leaders from a First Nation centered in Quebec who responded to the Burlington lawmaker’s question with an emphatic yes — legislators did, in fact, get the process wrong.
The panelists’ comments drew emotional responses from some members and supporters of the state-recognized tribes who were in the audience. Read more about the event here.
— Shaun Robinson
Joint assembly
Both chambers met Thursday morning for a vote among elected officials vying to join the University of Vermont’s 25-member board of trustees. Three representatives are chosen by the bodies jointly to represent them for six years every biennium, totalling nine on the board at one time.
In a contested race, Rep. Carol Ode, D-Burlington, was re-elected, while two new trustees were voted in: Sen. Scott Beck, R-Caledonia, that chamber’s minority leader, and Rep. John Bartholomew, D-Hartland.
Agatha Kessler of Barre Town faced no opposition and was unanimously re-elected to the office of Sergeant at Arms for two years.
Lieut. Gov. John Rodgers was acting governor for the day as Scott was in Washington D.C. for the National Governors’ Association meeting. And Senate President Pro Tempore Phil Baruth, D/P-Chittenden Central, was out, so Sen. Ginny Lyons, D-Chittenden Southeast, led the chamber for the assembly as temporary president pro tem.
— Kristen Fountain
Correction: An earlier version of this newsletter incorrectly identified the speaker quoted from the Vermont Agency of Digital Services.
