Vermont Council on Rural Development asks committee for $500,000 to expand rural technical assistance

Jessica Savage, director of programs and strategic initiatives at the Vermont Council on Rural Development, asked the House Government Operations & Military Affairs committee on Feb. 14 to include $500,000 in the FY27 budget to implement recommendations from the Vermont Evaluation of Rural Technical Assistance report.

"We are here to... ask you to provide $500,000 in the FY27 budget to make good on what rural towns have told us they need," Savage said, describing the request as a one-time appropriation to fund backbone administration, technical-assistance staff and consultants, and direct grants to selected towns.

Savage and Denise Smith, executive director of VCRD, told the committee the funding would support three core components: administrative/backbone capacity to design and run a TA and funding program; dedicated technical-assistance resources and consultants to form customized resource teams; and direct grant support distributed through a competitive process so towns can pay for services that advance locally defined projects (housing, infrastructure, childcare, climate resilience and similar priorities).

The presenters said the proposal builds on the municipal technical assistance pilot (MTAP) the state supported over the past two years and on findings from the Vermont Evaluation of Rural Technical Assistance (VERDA) report. Denise Smith emphasized the request is intended to "keep the momentum going" after much MTAP funding ended this year and to allow partners time to develop a longer-term plan for committee consideration.

Savage listed likely partners and resource-team members the program would convene when serving specific communities: regional planning commissions, regional development corporations, the Vermont League of Cities and Towns, the Preservation Trust of Vermont, the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board's economic-development initiative, the Vermont Housing & Finance Agency, and local nonprofit providers such as CVOEO, Evernorth and Downstreet, among others.

Savage also asked committee staff to accept a formal budget letter and written testimony for posting to the committee page and to circulate handouts; committee assistant Nick was named as the recipient for those materials.

Next steps: presenters said they would submit a formal budget letter and written testimony for the committee record. The committee will consider the request as part of its budget-letter process.