Public Assets Institute: Meeting Vermonters’ needs in Fiscal 2018 and beyond
ITEP Work in ActionElected leaders acknowledge investments are needed to clean up Lake Champlain, provide families with child care financial assistance, and make higher education more affordable. But progress has been slow in making these investments. And to balance the budget they make cuts—to Reach Up benefits for the poorest families, to affordable housing programs, to key policy staff.
Despite the cuts, however, the budget gap reappears year after year, thanks to persistent structural problems: anemic state revenues even in a growing economy, and rising health care costs that demand an increasing share of state spending.