Conservation supporters say Douglas' proposed cuts would hurt

By Terri Hallenbeck • Free Press Staff Writer • May 30, 2009

MONTEPLIER -- When a land-conservation program helped Heather Darby buy her parents' Alburgh farm four years ago, it was doing more than preserving a piece of Vermont's landscape, she said. It helped preserve a piece of Vermont's rural economy by allowing a new generation to keep farming.

Darby urged legislators this week not to put a halt to the land-conservation program, as Gov. Jim Douglas has proposed.

It's a program Douglas argues the state cannot afford in a year when state revenue is evaporating, and programs across government are taking hits. He has proposed cutting General Fund money for the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board from the $6 million the Legislature approved to $1 million, arguing that the board's conservation efforts can be put on hold until better times.

"The question we have to resolve in this deepest crisis is what our priorities are," Douglas said, arguing that college scholarships and other programs the Legislature cut are more urgent. "I think it's reasonable to take a step back on land conservation."

Douglas and the Legislature have dickered over funding for the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board in recent years, with the governor seeking to cut land-conservation money and the Legislature restoring it.

Douglas' latest budget proposal goes beyond the usual tussle, posing deep cuts to affordable-housing efforts as well as conservation, say supporters of the program.

"We're bearing a disproportionate share of the cuts," said Kenn Sassorossi, vice president of Housing Vermont, which oversees affordable-housing projects.
Housing concerns

Last year, the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board started out with a $15 million budget. Recissions approved by legislators and the Douglas administration reduced that $13 million. This year, the Legislature passed a budget would give the board $6.1 million from the General Fund, plus $7 million from other sources. Douglas argues that puts the VHCB back to $13 million, a level the state cannot afford in such a difficult budget year.

Those who use the money say it's not that simple. Much of that $7 million from other sources is targeted for specific uses. Almost none of it can be used to pay for projects that are in the pipeline, Sassorossi said.

That money includes $1 million from the capital bill for transitional housing, $3 million in federal neighborhood stabilization money, $1 million from the General Fund that goes to the Vermont Center for Independent Living to increase access to homes, and $2 million in federal stimulus money for weatherization. Supporters say all that funding is worthwhile but doesn't add affordable-housing units.

The neighborhood stabilization money, for instance, can be used only to renovate blighted buildings in high-foreclosure-rate areas, Sassorossi said, which leaves out two-thirds of Vermont communities.

Douglas' funding scenario would cut the number of housing units VHCB could construct or rehabilitate next year from 400 to 100, said VHCB Executive Director Gus Seelig. Land conservation would drop from 4,000 to 5,000 acres a year to virtually zero, he said.

Housing Vermont President Nancy Owens said projects in the works will be delayed or scuttled. Those projects typically often involve revitalizing underutilized downtown buildings, creating construction jobs along the way, she said. A pending project in Brattleboro, for example, would put affordable housing on the third and fourth floors of a new downtown food co-op building, she said. Without state money, construction will have to go ahead without the two upper floors, Owens said.

Douglas, at a news conference Thursday, said his goal was not to cut the affordable housing piece of VHCB's work, but to put a freeze on the conservation part.

Finance Commissioner Jim Reardon said he did not know the specifics of the restrictions for the funding, but he thought VHCB should still be able to perform housing work with it.

"I would think they would be able to use those dollars and meet those rules and regulations and still be able to meet their primary mission," he said.
AmeriCorp at risk

The cuts would force VHCB to lose $5 million to $8 million in federal farmland matching money, Seelig said. The cuts also would leave the board without money for its share of 44 AmeriCorps workers for whom the program provides a $215,000 contribution, meaning the positions would have to be cut, Seelig said. Some of those volunteers work in homeless shelters, helping clients find more-permanent housing.

Liz Ready, executive director of the John Graham Shelter in Addison County, said two AmeriCorps workers help run her three facilities, with the shelter providing a small share of the funding for the positions.

Reardon said he had not heard the proposed cuts would put AmeriCorps jobs or federal funding at risk.

"That tells you something that some of this has not been thought out," Ready said.

Darby, the Alburgh farmer, said the conservation cuts haven't been thought out either. People think of the program as preserving landscapes, she said, but in her case it means the seventh generation farm is still in business, still buying supplies locally, still employing local people, still producing food for the area.

"They need to look at the return on investment," she said. "It's conserving an economy."
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