Republican Vermont Gov. Phil Scott on Tuesday proposed an $8.6 billion budget for fiscal year 2025 and, as he has done before, urged lawmakers not to raise taxes or fees for Vermonters, saying it will be a tough budget year.<\/p>\n
The budget proposal<\/a> makes investments in the priorities the governor focused on earlier this month in his state-of-the-state address: affordability, public safety and housing.<\/p>\n “I also understand the realities of a supermajority, which means you don\u2019t have to listen, or even consider, my priorities or objections,” he told lawmakers assembled in the House chamber for his budget address. “But I bet many of you do hear, and maybe even share, some of my concerns. More importantly, I\u2019m pretty sure the majority of our constituents certainly do.”<\/p>\n ‘VERMONT DELIVERED ON ALL FRONTS’: RESIDENTS AND BUSINESS OWNERS REVEAL WHY PEOPLE ARE FLOCKING TO THE STATE<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Scott urged lawmakers to work with the administration to fix, not just fund, the problems.<\/p>\n Last year, Scott vetoed the $8.5 billion budget bill that was largest spending plan in state history. But the Democratic-controlled legislature overrode his veto.<\/p>\n He said Tuesday that he doesn’t believe there will be a lot of disagreement about what is in his budget plan but likely in what is not included. Federal pandemic-era<\/a> funds have ended, and the state has returned to pre-pandemic spending levels, he warned. While the state had a recent increase in revenues, it has had unexpected costs, too, he said.,<\/p>\n 23 SKIERS AND SNOWBOARDERS RESCUED FROM VERMONT BACKCOUNTRY AFTER GETTING LOST IN FRIGID TEMPERATURES<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n House Speaker Jill Krowinski, a Democrat, said Vermont has challenges, but it also has opportunities. “I think his speech was long on fear and short on hope,” she told WCAX-TV.<\/p>\n Among the investments are $4.9 million of the opioid settlement<\/a> funds to increase the amount of staff and hours in three or more hubs for drug treatment and to support the work of re-entry and recovery centers for those leaving incarceration, according to the budget summary. He also suggests investing $1.7 million for 20 mental health workers in state police barracks and $6 million in a program that provides grants to improve vacant rental housing units and add housing units to existing buildings.<\/p>\n After catastrophic flooding hit Vermont in July, Scott proposes using $12.5 million to help communities with their state match requirements for Federal Emergency Management Agency assistance to mitigate flood hazards and $500,000 for a state match for federal funding to evaluate future flood measures for the Winooski River.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Republican Vermont Gov. Phil Scott on Tuesday proposed an $8.6 billion budget for fiscal year 2025 and, as he has done before, urged lawmakers not to raise taxes or fees for Vermonters, saying it will be a tough budget year. The budget proposal makes investments in the priorities the governor focused on earlier this month … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2275","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2275","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2275"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2275\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}