Committee includes one-time purchases and grants including funds routed to Vermont Food Bank purchasing program

During its March 20 session, the House Appropriations Committee reviewed one-time appropriations attached to bills and the budget’s one-time sheet and discussed routing choices for a $400,000 food-security allocation. Staff presented two options: direct grants to local food shelves or a statewide purchasing program that the Vermont Food Bank would administer.

John Sales, CEO of the Vermont Food Bank, told the committee the statewide purchasing approach would "touch everything":"We're purchasing food from Vermont Farms. That food is coming to the food bank and then getting distributed throughout our system, including to local food shelves," he said. Sales recommended the statewide approach because it would allow the food bank to buy from Vermont producers and then distribute across the network of local food shelves.

Committee members accepted the recommendation for the statewide purchase approach and asked staff to reflect that choice in the one-time sheet and move the line into the Agency of Finance (AF) budget as a technical placement rather than carrying it in DCF for now. The presenters also walked through numerous other one-time grants and allocations: grants to Nurturing Parents and Parent Child Center concrete supports; funding for supervised visitation; a grant to End Homelessness Vermont; Meals on Wheels funding routed through AHS; funding to HomeShare Vermont; crop-cache programs; Secretary of State election funding; and community mental-health outreach and day-shelter support.

Staff said many onetime items will be reflected in specific bills (for example, Act 67 and bills H211 and H559), while others will appear in the budget one-time sheet; several technical placements will be confirmed with the Attorney General and relevant agencies before final drafting on Monday.

The committee emphasized staff follow-up to confirm which office should house certain grants and committed to finalize the one-time allocations during the weekend drafting process ahead of Monday's vote.