Vt. governor: Hold line on taxes, boost higher ed vermont technical school,Gov. Peter Shumlin on Thursday outlined a budget for the coming fiscal year that called for no increases in income or sales taxes -- although certain fees would increase -- saying hell rely on increasing revenues brought by an improving economy to boost higher education and help towns recover from Tropical Storm Irene.
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The governors budget address contained a mix of specific spending proposals and policy recommendations to lawmakers without dollar figures attached.
Today, I present a budget that closes a $51 million shortll without raising broad-based taxes, said Shumlin, a first-term Democrat. This budget also preserves programs for Vermonts most vulnerable: our seniors, Vermonters with disabilities, our children, and those who live in poverty
Vermonters will have to pay more for government despite the governor holding the line on income and sales taxes. Officials sVt. governor: Hold line on taxes, boost higher ed vermont technical schoolaid fees for things ranging from car registrations and drivers licenses to state environmental permits will be going up. They also said the state will raise about $1.8 million through an increase in a tax on hospitals and other health-care providers.
-- He said he supports consolidating some of the states school districts, known as supervisory unions in Vermont, estimating that could cut administrative costs by $9 million a year.
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-- He said he supports changing the leadership of the state Department of Education from a commissivermont technical schooloner hired by the Board of Education to a secretary appointed by the governor.
We must turn the devastating flooding at our state office complex into opportunity by building efficient, effective, green state workspace for the future, the governor said.
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He said he hoped to move the Department of Education, now scattered to locations in Montpelier and neighboring Berlin, to downtown Barre.
One much-anticipated announcement was his plan for about 1,500 state workers who were displaced when the Winooski River overflowed its banks during the late-August storm and inundated their offices in Waterbury. Workers have been scattered since then to smaller, rented spaces throughout Washington and Chittenden counties.
Shumlin said plans for the Waterbury complex would have to await a report from an architectural and engineering firm about the feasibility of refurbishing and flood-proofing it.
-- He said he supports allowing Vermont high school students to attend schools outside of the districts where they live, saying it would lead to efficiency and innovation in education. Some Vermont students already have de cto school choice because they live rural towns without high schools and can choose from a range of options nearby. A Shumlin aide said the governor would like to see that system spread statewide.
He also laid out his plan to relocate state workers who have been displaced from a Waterbury office complex that was flooded during Irene. Some would go to Barre and Montpelier, with others, Shumlin hopes, returning to a refurbished Waterbury complex.
Waterbury, about 11 miles northwest of Montpelier, has been lobbying heavily to get state workers moved back there, with town officials saying local businesses have been badly hurt by their absence. Mayor Thom Lauzon of Barre, an economically struggling city about 7 miles southeast of the capital, has been pushing for some of the workers to move to a new building planned for the citys downtown.
Spending of state money will grow 3.8 percent to a bit more than $3.2 million for the fiscal year that begins in July, according to briefing documents released by administration officials. With federal funds added in, the budget is expected to total about $6.7 billion.
At UVM, he said he would expand a program that allows seniors to get job experience by working for businesses and nonprofit groups, and develop a new center for complex systems. Thats an academic term referring to studying how different organizations are joined to engage in activities none could have accomplished on their own. He said he would also create a program to help women returning to the work force after raising milies enter technical fields.
General fund revenues, for which the income and sales taxes are the biggest sources, are expected to grow by about 6.4 percent. Part of that money will go to offset about $20 million in reductions in federal Medicaid funding that flows through the state government; budget writers also had offset a $6 million reduction due to the dwindling revenues from a multi-state settlement of litigation against tobacco companies that dates back more than a decade.
-- He said he supports streamlining Vermonts environmental permitting system by simplifying court reviews when decisions of regional environmental commissions are appealed.
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Shumlin said he wanted to spend $8 million to encourage innovations at the University of Vermont and Vermont State Colleges.
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Shumlin said Thursday he wants to move the Agency of Natural Resources and its roughly 350 employees from Waterbury to a leased office building in Montpelier, which already houses the agencies of Transportation and Commerce and Community Development. Shumlin said he wants to encourage better cooperation between those agencies.
Gov. Peter Shumlin on Thursday outlined a budget for the coming fiscal year that called for no increases in income or sales taxes -- although certain fees would increase -- saying hell rely on increasing revenues brought by an improving economy to boost higher education and help towns recover from Tropical Storm Irene.
And he said he is hoping to refurbish the Waterbury complex to house a newly unified Agency of Human Resources, which has units in Burlington and Williston and until the storm was headquartered in Waterbury. That would restore north of 1,000 workers to that town, said Administration Secretary Jeb Spaulding.
