Senate gives preliminary approval to $7.1 billion budget

MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) - The Vermont Senate has given preliminary approval to a $7.1 billion budget for fiscal year 2022.

The Senate version that passed by unanimous voice vote on second reading Thursday is $191 million more than what the House passed and $374 million more than the budget proposed by Republican Gov. Phil Scott, the Brattleboro Reformer reported.

Republican Gov. Phil Scott said Friday that he had a lot of concerns about the Senate’s proposal.

The spending plan proposes using $478 million in federal American Rescue Plan Act funds. The House had proposed using $650 million. The Senate version also fully funds the state’s annual pension obligation and post-employment benefits, and allocates $150 million to invest in the state’s unfunded pension liability, the newspaper reported.

The continuing pandemic and its effects on people “absolutely influences our thinking in regard to how we invest taxpayer dollars and federal funds here in Vermont,” said Senate President Pro Tem Becca Balint. The spending plan seeks to meet the immediate needs and starts to address long-term needs, she said.

“We have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to invest one-time federal funds towards Vermont’s future in a way that honors what each of our communities need,” Balint said. “The Senate, House, and Administration largely agree on spending priorities, including broadband, affordable housing, and tackling climate change. We can take action in several of these areas now and take time to do careful, deliberate work on others.”

Scott said he had concerns mainly about the way federal rescue money is proposed to be spent.

He called it “a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity with a billion dollars to put towards things, tangible things, that I think are so necessary that will be transformational in so many ways if we do it right.”

“And I don’t think that they’re doing it right,” Scott during his twice-weekly coronavirus briefing.

He said he and the Senate agree on a lot initiatives but he thinks its budget plan uses too much of the federal money for program needs and one-time budgetary expenses.

“At a time when we have about $300 million of surplus money from this fiscal year, $300 million, I don’t think we need to use this one-time ARPA money for some of those initiatives,” he said.