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Vermont Legislators Override Veto and Reduce TBED Funding
In a special session on Tuesday, the Vermont Legislature enacted the state's FY10 budget, overriding last week's veto by Governor Jim Douglas. The budget eliminates or reduces funding for many programs related to economic development and TBED, cutbacks which were cited as concerns by Gov. Douglas in his veto announcement.
The $4.5 billion budget includes $4 million in economic development incentives to be administered through the Vermont Economic Development Authority (VEDA), significantly less than the $11 million proposed by the governor. The Vermont Telecommunications Authority (VTA) will receive only $500,000, which the governor says will effectively shut down the organization by September. VTA has played an integral role in the state's unfinished plan to provide border-to-border cell phone and wireless data access. Funding has been zeroed-out for the Next Generation program, which provided support for college scholarships and workforce training, including technology-related internships. Also left out of the final bill is Gov. Douglas' SmartVermont plan to leverage federal stimulus funds, which would have provided $17.2 million for statewide economic development (see the April 1, 2009 issue). The plan would have allocated $4 million for entrepreneurial seed capital, $2.5 million for loans to existing companies, $500,000 for the Vermont Center for Emerging Technologies business incubator and $500,000 for the Vermont Training Program to provide technology education to workers. Following his promise to veto the legislature's budget in late May, Gov. Douglas released an alternative budget that preserved many of his favored projects while cutting others and raising another $13 million in revenue. His budget would have restored the $2.6 million for the Next Generation program and allocated $11 million for VEDA-administered economic development incentives. The bill also would have introduced a research and development tax credit. Though many of these items were in his January budget request, the May budget proposal included tax increases and alternative cuts to offset costs. The new budget proposal, however, was set aside by the legislature in favor of the original bill. Gov. Douglas also opposed an energy bill that sets more favorable rates for renewable electricity production, but signed the bill after it was approved by a significant majority of legislators. Under the new arrangement, rates for solar, wind, hydro and methane power will be set up to six times higher than the current rate, though the state's Public Service Board will be able to make adjustments if the costs prove unreasonable. Legislators believe that the measure will eventually drive down the cost of renewable sources of electricity and promote the growing renewable energy sector in the state. Gov. Douglas, however, argued that the bill failed to acknowledge the already competitive position of renewable energy producers. The governor signed the bill last week, noting that any veto would be overridden. Gov. Douglas' explanation of the veto is available at: http://governor.vermont.gov/tools/index.php?topic=GovPressReleases&id=3507&v=Article.