Vermont House to Vote on New State Budget

September 20-15 crash.

Bernie in montpelier-- a new state budget will be debated on the house floor this week.

Local 22's spencer conlin is back from the statehouse with the latest.

Spencer?spencer bernie- the legislature shot down the governor's budget in january leaving a hefty gap for lawmakers to fill.

For weeks, the house appropriations committee has been working towards closing a 72-million dollar gap-- without any new taxes or fees... ?at?

The governor's request."this budget will not cause income taxes to go up, fees to go up or property taxes to go up" instead... the committee turned to cutting general fund spending by nearly 67-million dollars.

"there is good things and there are some things in this budget that people will not like because there are reductions and reductions impact vermonters" under the proposal, the agency of human services will see one of the biggest hits, losing close to 3-million dollars.

The committee also wants to get rid of close to 5-million dollars in administrative spending."we feel we have made investments for vermonters in this budget and we feel that we have carried on investments that have been made in recent years as well as some new initiatives" while the proposal calls for an increase in money for homeless shelters.

One program not making the cut, the 'cold weather exemption'.

It provides the homeless with motel vouchers during extreme cold weather.

"we really felt that giving an individual a voucher for a motel room, locking the door behind them that night and leaving in the morning was really not identifying a vermonter who may be in trouble" governor phil scott says he appreciates the commitees efforts in creating a plan that will not cost vermonters."they could have gone in a different direction, they could have tried raising taxes and fees and continue down this path that we've been going down for the past decade or so" despite the republican's optimism-- he says he's still not sold on the idea."there are a number of different areas where i would like to see us invest in early-childhood care and learning, higher education and the national guard fund" spencer as a whole the budget is worth 5-point-eight billion dollars-- the committee feels it's budget will have strong support on the floor