State budget cuts hit people, programs
$20 million now, more to come
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Administration Secretary Neale Lunderville listens to budget discussion. AP Photo |
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By Louis Porter Vermont Press Bureau - Published: December 16, 2008
MONTPELIER – One interesting if unscientific way to measure how much the newest round of budget cuts will hurt is how many people logged onto the state's Internet site Monday morning to get a copy of the nearly $20 million in proposed cuts. About 15,000 hits in a two minute period effectively immobilized the site for a brief time.
In the end, the interest — and the fear represented — was largely justified.
College students, the disabled, chiropractors, travelers who want to use rest areas, Vermonters who want to start their own businesses and nearly everyone else who gets state money or relies on certain state services will feel the pinch.
Also feeling the pain will be the classified state workers who will be laid off, perhaps as many as 35, and higher-paid exempt employees who will have their pay reduced by 5 percent. The cuts will be felt in, among other areas, probation and parole, agriculture, and the Agency of Natural Resources.
If lawmakers who are on the Joint Fiscal Committee agree to the proposal unveiled Monday, the reductions will begin almost immediately. And some members of the Joint Fiscal Committee actually worked with Douglas administration budget writers to compile the list.
Cutting $20 million out of $1.2 billion in General Fund spending might seem like a small amount, but not only are the cuts coming on the heels of other reductions, but much of the $1.2 billion total is inflexible, officials said.
For instance, about $66 million goes to pay the debt service on state borrowing, $33 million goes to teachers' retirements and there is a large transfer to the Education Fund – nearly $291 million as of next year. Much of the rest, about $531 million, goes to human services needs.
"Even though you don't want to do it, you have to go where the money is," said James Reardon, commissioner of Finance and Management.
"We have gone to all of the easy places," Rep. Martha Heath, D-Westford. "That is where we are at now. That is just the reality."
Some lawmakers were already dismayed by the proposed cuts Monday.
"I think they disproportionately hit low income and working Vermonters," said Rep. Ann Pugh, D- South Burlington. "Vermonters' voices are being left out of the process, which is being done in a back room." "What is even scarier is that there are $41 million worth of cuts elsewhere which Vermonters don't know yet," she added.
Other, small cuts will also have a direct effect on residents of Vermont, some said.
For instance, the proposed rescission plan includes a $60,000 reduction in General Fund money for Vermont Legal Aid. Although the organization's total budget is about $5 million, the cut is significant because it will almost entirely come from the poverty law portion of legal aid's work, which helps lower-income Vermonters with legal issues around housing, health and safety and other serious problems, costing about $1.4 million a year, said Executive Director Eric Avildsen.
That will translate into roughly 100 to 200 cases a year that the lawyers at Legal Aid will not take on – and those are from the pool of the most serious of the 10,000 calls a year the organization receives.
"This just means we are going to have to turn away more of those people who we have already determined are not going to succeed without a lawyer," Avildsen said.
What is not clear yet is how much federal money will be lost because of the reduction in state money to Vermont Legal Aid. During the last round of budget cuts legal aid lost about $25,000 in state money that was matched with an equal amount of federal funding. He is not sure if that will be the case this time, Avildsen said.
In all, if approved by lawmakers, the new round of cuts will result in the loss of about $8.2 million in federal funding.
Cuts to transportation funding are also being considered. Reducing passenger train service – Amtrak costs about $5 million a year – is proposed, although in a different form.
Under the administration's new proposal, the Ethan Allen Express by Amtrak from Albany, N.Y. to Rutland would cease to be a train at all. Instead Amtrak would run a bus service on the route, saving about $400,000 while allowing service through Bennington, Manchester, Rutland and on to Burlington along the Route 7 corridor.
Despite Monday's proposals, the state's budget problems are far from over. Administration Secretary Neale Lunderville explained that despite the $19.7 million in new cuts to the current fiscal year's state budget, there are still $17 million more in cuts to be made to have a balanced budget and $29 million more in unexpected spending to be paid for somehow.
Add to that the possibility of more revenue downgrades in January and April, and a fiscal year 2010 budget that is expected to be tighter than the current year, and budget writers in the administration and the Legislature will be talking about cuts they don't want to make for some time to come.
It is important, given the fact that delaying means the cuts must be that much deeper and given the likelihood of the state's fiscal problems continuing, that as many of the reductions be made as soon as possible, Lunderville said.
But after their talks with lawmakers stalled Sunday on an agreed upon list of cuts that total about $20 million, the administration decided not to propose more cuts on its own. The administration wanted to start with the areas in which they could reach agreement with lawmakers, Lunderville said.
"We do have to work together in the process," he said.
Heath, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee and one of the lawmakers who advised administration officials on what cuts were most likely to be acceptable, said officials in the Executive Branch could have proposed more cuts, whether legislators agreed to them at the beginning or not.
"They have the ability to go further and they can certainly put a lot more on the table if they choose to," she said.