Vermont Foodbank, the state’s largest food assistance provider, cut nearly 10% of its workforce two weeks ago.

The organization let seven employees go and discontinued two vacant positions. CEO John Sayles said Tuesday that the cuts were necessary for the company to avoid financial hardship down the line, as food banks become more stretched nationwide.

The COVID-19 pandemic more than doubled the food bank’s level of financial resourcing for a time, Sayles said, through increases in federal, state and philanthropic support. The organization grew from 60 to 88 employees, reaching its peak in 2023.

“We had to do what was in front of us,” Sayles said of the organization’s growth at the time.

Now, the picture is different — many COVID-era public programs have ended.

In addition, Vermont Foodbank said it was losing roughly 20% of its USDA food stock earlier this year due to federal budget cuts.

This restructuring also comes as cuts to the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program threaten to leave thousands of enrolled Vermonters without coverage. About 65,000 people currently receive aid from SNAP across the state.

The timeline of these changes is uncertain, and Sayles said he was concerned that higher burdens on food shelves will collide with the need to downsize. “It really is hard to predict when and how things are going to roll out,” Sayles said.

The layoffs are intended to put the organization in a more sustainable position so “we can do the best we can to meet the need,” he said.

It’s unclear how much the food bank will immediately save through restructuring. Sayles estimated the personnel costs for the food bank will be roughly the same next year, even with fewer employees. 

Sayles said some pay raises were necessary to cover cost-of-labor adjustments, rising health care premiums and the need to retain talent.

The organization said it will try to protect against gaps in services, but the layoffs may put some parts of the operation under stress. 

“Everyone was doing work that was having an impact,” Sayles said.

He added that Vermont Foodbank had been in touch with a number of local partners to discuss how they might be able to pick up the slack. 

“Whether every single thing that the food bank did is going to continue to happen, I can’t say,” Sayles said.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Vermont Foodbank lays off nearly 10% of staff, braces for uncertainty.

The death of a woman whose body was found on the side of a road in Woodbury on June 19 has been ruled a homicide, authorities said. 

Tina Daigle, 38, was assaulted and fatally strangled, according to a Monday afternoon brief from the Vermont State Police. The autopsy was conducted by the Chief Medical Examiner’s Office in Burlington.

Daigle was born, raised and lived in Hardwick and had five children, according to an obituary. She was a nurse’s assistant in several facilities across the Northeast Kingdom and worked at the ReSource thrift store in Morrisville. She was also an amateur collector, and particularly enjoyed items related to “highland cows, native American culture and apples.”

Police are still investigating, and no suspect has been named.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Police say woman found on Woodbury road was strangled to death.

Maeve Fairfax is a reporter with the Community News Service, part of the University of Vermont’s Reporting & Documentary Storytelling program.

Vermont’s farmers are growing crops that better suit the state’s warmer and wetter climate — and branching into products that provide income even when traditional crops fail. 

Since 1900, annual temperatures in Vermont have increased by about 2 degrees Fahrenheit and annual precipitation has increased by 21% over the same span, according to the state. The changes have forced agriculture to adapt in sometimes surprising ways. 

Now that winters are milder, it has become commonplace for Vermont orchards to grow peaches. Nick Cowles owns Shelburne Orchards, and 35 years ago, he saw a bedraggled peach tree at a hardware store and bought it on a whim. Since then — especially in more recent years — peaches have become a lucrative addition to his business. 

Peach trees like rain, and so the increased precipitation in Vermont does not bother them. Historically, temperatures posed a problem for peach-growing.

“It takes around 15-17 degrees below zero in the winter to kill the bud, and it used to be that there would be a stretch in the winter that we would get those temperatures. I figured we would get a peach crop maybe every third year,” Cowles said.

Now, he said, “it’s rare that they freeze out.” 

Innovation is also making Vermont a more peach-friendly place. 

Farmers have used new technology to develop more cold-hardy peach varieties, Cowles said, and he now has trees that ripen at different times so that the picking lasts longer and brings in more customers. 

In Ferrisburgh, Erik Andrus has turned his hayfields into rice paddies. 

His Boundbrook Farm uses the rice-and-duck farming technique, a pesticide-free method in which ducklings are released into rice paddies. They control weeds and pests — and provide fertilizer. 

The farm mostly grows cold-tolerant rice varieties from Japan, which sits at a similar latitude to Vermont, but has recently started to grow loto rice from Italy. 

The farm once accidentally planted Koshihikari, a variety of Japanese rice poorly suited to the cold. It did eventually mature, but not until October, which Andrus said was “a little bit of a nailbiter.”

Floods and droughts appear to be striking Vermont more frequently, but the rice grown at Boundbrook Farm is fairly immune to both, Andrus said. 

The plants can be underwater for two days without being harmed, and the grains are protected by a husk that means they won’t be contaminated by pollution from floodwaters. Because the varieties can be planted in floodplains, they can get water even during droughts. 

Andrus said “flood-prone bottomlands” are the best places to create rice paddies. Vermont has many such areas, and rice could represent a path forward for farms impacted by flooding. 

He works as a consultant at Cornell University, where a team of researchers is studying rice-farming techniques in the Hudson Valley. They are also offering workshops and creating resources for farmers. 

But nothing like that exists in Vermont, and acquiring the tools, seeds and knowledge to create and manage a rice paddy without help is unrealistic for most farmers here. 

Andy Jones, the manager of Burlington’s Intervale Community Farm, said it has become easier to grow crops that like it warm: peppers, eggplants, melons, sweet potatoes. 

The member-owned farm has also seen increased yields of cold-weather spinach, lettuce and kale grown in unheated greenhouses in the winter. The flip side is that, for several weeks in the summer, the farm has had to stop growing some of those crops because it gets too hot. 

Precipitation is becoming more intense but also more inconsistent. An increase in dry periods means more irrigation is needed, and bigger rainstorms mean plants get wet and stay wet, leading to an increase in diseases, Jones said. 

Climate change has hit Intervale Community Farm particularly hard because the entire farm sits in the floodplains of the Winooski River.  

Jones said that they are used to floods, but “what’s been changing is the magnitude of the flooding.” Tropical Storm Irene and the flooding events of 2023 and 2024 devastated the Intervale area. In 2023, Jones estimates the farm lost 80% of its crops. 

In response, the farm is doing more succession cropping, or planting and harvesting the same crop multiple times. Its farmers plant crops that take little time to mature, so that if there is a flood, they have new ones ready quickly. 

The farm has been renting fields at another farm in Hinesburgh to plant slower-growing crops. It’s also moved a lot of crops into hoop houses and to higher elevations to keep them dry. 

In spite of the flooding, Jones believes the farm is there to stay. 

“The Intervale has been in agriculture for more than a thousand years, and that’s not going to change,” he said.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that 90% of American farms take in $250,000 or less per year, which usually doesn’t leave much profit. A failed crop can mean disaster for a small farm. 

For apple trees, thunderstorms pose a special danger, particularly ones that include hai. Cowles, from Shelburne Orchards, said that hail can “in five minutes just wipe out a whole year’s worth of work.” 

After losing 80% of his main crop, McIntosh apples, to a frost last year, he decided to buy crop insurance, which has provided some peace of mind. But that does little to address the increasingly unpredictable nature of farming. 

“You used to be able to think seven generations ahead, but right now, really if you can even make it through the next couple years it will be good,” he said. 

Many farmers are adapting to the uncertainty by diversifying their products. Since 2016, University of Vermont entomologist Margaret Skinner has been studying saffron farming in Vermont. The spice sells for $20-75 per gram, according to the state, and grows in or out of a greenhouse. 

It ripens later than most other crops, meaning farmers have more time to devote to saffron’s tedious harvest. 

Vermont’s warming is too subtle to impact saffron’s growth. And even if erratic weather makes harvests less consistent, saffron has an advantage: longevity. It lasts two or three years if dried properly, Skinner said, and farmers can count on it to bring in money when other crops fail. 

Vermont saffron is also appealing to customers because it is niche. As Skinner put it, “People are really into local cool crops.” 

The cool crop factor also applies to Boundbrook Farm’s rice. The farm sells to specialty retailers, restaurants and consumers who pre-order it from an email list.

Cowles said the novelty of fresh peaches in Vermont made them a coveted commodity, as is the experience of going to an orchard to pick them. Shelburne Orchards’ peaches are so popular that some customers sign up in advance for pick-your-own days to ensure the pickers don’t outnumber the peaches, Cowles said.

The orchard also distills its Dead Bird Brandy from those pears and apples. 

“We bottle it after nine years, and that’s income that comes in regardless of whether we have a failed crop or not,” Cowles said.

Read the story on VTDigger here: The surprising shifts climate change is bringing to Vermont farms: rice paddies, peaches and saffron.

MONTPELIER—The Vermont Legislature on Monday passed the year’s landmark education reform package, setting in motion years of transformation to the state’s public school and property tax systems. 

H.454 would radically alter Vermont’s education funding and governance landscape over several years, consolidating school districts and shifting the balance of power over district budgets from the local to the state level. 

Despite months of contentious debates and moments when the entire package looked bound for failure, the final vote was anticlimactic. House Speaker Jill Krowinski, D-Burlington, announced the vote the chamber was considering, and when no one immediately stood up to begin debate, she called the vote by voice. That meant individual members did not have their position tallied, and no rank-and-file members spoke for or against the legislation on the floor before the vote. 

After the ‘yeas’ and ‘nays’ rang out, representatives appeared surprised by what they’d just done. 

Rep. Troy Headrick, I-Burlington, stood up in disappointment.

“I’m a little shocked actually at the speed that that vote was called,” he said. 

Though the legislation proposes generational change, the bill is replete with caveats and contingencies, requiring years of further work until the biggest transitions begin in 2028. Among the most significant moves, H.454 would start to create a new education funding formula, impose class-size minimums and reimagine income-sensitive property tax relief. 

While Gov. Phil Scott has said the bill will save “hundreds of millions,” the exact financial implications are impossible to predict without knowing what future school districts will look like. The bill’s supporters insist it will bring stability to districts and bend the cost curve that’s caused property taxes to rise rapidly in recent years. 

Earlier in the day, the Senate had passed H.454 despite most of the chamber’s Democratic caucus voting in opposition. In the Senate — and later in the House — the bill survived attempts to kill it on procedural grounds.

After the House’s voice vote, Krowinski allowed representatives to stand and discuss the bill after the fact. 

For his district in Barre, Rep. Teddy Waszazak, D-Barre City, said H.454 would transform public schools for the better by bringing the district’s funding more in line with the state’s average.

“The status quo is killing us,” he said.

Rep. Leanne Harple, D-Glover, a teacher, stood to express her “unapologetic” opposition to the bill she said would lead to the closure of small rural schools. 

“I’ve heard the word equity to justify this bill, but I believe that word is being misused,” she said. “There is nothing equitable about putting a child on the bus for two hours a day.”

The bill drew ire from the associations representing Vermont’s education community, and over the weekend, superintendents and school board members went public with their opposition.

In an interview, Don Tinney, president of the state teacher union VT-NEA, criticized how H.454 consolidated power in Montpelier.

“I think that we know that the best decisions for students are made by people who know their students,” the union leader said. “Our local school boards currently make those budget decisions, policy decisions for kids within their community, and so the centralization of power within the education system to Montpelier gives real cause for concern.”

Tinney argued the state doesn’t need to change how much it pays for education, but rather how it levies taxes. To that effect, the teachers union has called for funding schools with an income tax rather than a property tax, an idea that received little air time this year. 

“I would ask any policymaker, any legislator to spend a week in the school, to substitute in classes, to work in the cafeteria, to ride the school buses for a week, and at the end of the week, decide where all the fat is in the budget,” he said. 

Before Monday, H.454 had unusual backing for such a controversial bill. 

The Democrats leading the House and Senate had voiced support, as had Scott, a Republican. Yet a majority in either chamber was far from certain, with a slice of both Democrats and Republicans opposed, though perhaps for different reasons. Some have argued the bill spends too much. Others say it underfunds schools. Some fear it will gut rural school districts and shutter small schools. Still others argue it shifts too much power out of local hands and into Montpelier. 

What’s in the bill?

Lawmakers describe H.454 as working toward two broad goals: expanding educational opportunity across the state, and making public education more affordable for taxpayers. 

To that end, the bill would consolidate Vermont’s 119 school districts into larger, regional bodies, and move the state to a new education funding formula.

The state would gradually pivot to funding its education using a foundation formula beginning in fiscal year 2029. The method — used in most states across the country — moves primary authority over how much school districts can spend from the local to the state level. That’s a huge change from the current system, which gives the vast majority of authority to local officials. 

Under the foundation formula, districts would receive money based on the number of students enrolled, with additional dollars for students who are more expensive to educate, such as English learners and students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds. Districts could choose to spend more —but not less — than the formula provides. 

To ease the transition to the new formula, lawmakers proposed phasing in the new system. As intended, that process would slowly pull back funding from districts that spend well above average now, and ramp up spending in historically low-spending areas. 

Lawmakers, with the help of Scott’s team, devised a new income-sensitized property tax discount. The framework would allow Vermonters making $115,000 or less to exempt a portion of their house value from property taxes, with the possibility of increasing the income threshold in the future. The exemption creates a sliding scale, with lower-income homeowners eligible for bigger exemptions. Up to $425,000 in home value is eligible for the discount. 

The bill would put into effect average class-size minimums in first grade through high school for certain subject classes. But school districts would only face the possibility of repercussions for being out of compliance after three years of not meeting the minimums. Plus, a waiver process would allow schools to petition for an exemption. 

Despite the sweeping changes outlined, almost as many details need to be hashed out. The bill’s biggest unknown is what future consolidated school districts could look like. A task force will hash out not more than three possible configurations this summer that the Legislature would need to vote on as soon as next session. In rough terms, that group might bring back plans with anywhere from 10 to 25 future districts.

Those maps, as well as the new funding formula, would take effect in July 2028. 

Other key, outstanding details include how to handle existing district debt and different teachers contracts in new, consolidated districts. Lawmakers also need to figure out how to pay for — and bring down the cost of — special education, and how money would be allocated to career and technical education and pre-kindergarten. 

The bill is structured so that if certain future requirements are not fulfilled, the transformation falls apart. The foundation formula is contingent on creating consolidated school districts. Several aspects rely on future studies and the outcomes of those analyses.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Vermont Legislature passes landmark education reform bill after a messy final day.

Natalie Edwards found a sense of security at the Northlands Job Corps Center — but now that lifeline is set to close its doors along with dozens of other job centers across the country. 

After a childhood marked by abuse and addiction in the home, Edwards spent years trying to pull herself out of the cycle of instability. At 15, she entered rehab for substance use disorder for the first time. That same year, she was removed from the care of her mother, thrust into Missouri’s foster care system, and later tried — but then dropped out of — community college in Maine.

“I just didn’t really have stability,” Edwards said. “I didn’t have the type of lifestyle around me at that time to feel safe.” 

It wasn’t until her aunt suggested she move to Vermont that things began to shift.

“I messaged my aunt, and she told me I could move up to Vermont with her, and she suggested I come to Northlands,” she said. 

This is how Edwards became one of about 150 students now living on Northland’s flat, stately green campus, located just north of Vermont’s iconic Vergennes Falls.

The Vergennes-based chapter of the Job Corps, a nationwide network of vocational schools, could cease to exist at the end of June, following a recent order by the U.S. Department of Labor to “pause” all ongoing operations across the country. However, the department’s order is not going unchallenged, with contractors who run Job Corps programs suing to keep the program alive.

The order coincides with President Donald Trump’s “Make America Skilled Again” plan, which seeks to replace the program with a “cost-effective” alternative — a $2.6 billion grant program that emphasizes registered apprenticeships over federal programming. 

Since its inception in 1964, the Job Corps has been dedicated to training low-income young people ages 16 to 24 in a medley of primarily blue-collar professions like welding and urban forestry. The program provides room and board and an education to its participants for free.

As part of the tentative ending of the program, Job Corps staff are mandated to return students safely to their “home of record.” However, Northlands Director Michael Dooley said not all Northlands students have a home to return to. 

“There’s about two dozen students that are unhoused. … Sadly, some of them we may actually be just taking to a homeless shelter.” 

Dooley said he’s scared his students — all working class young adults — are losing a lifeline. 

“The impact of providing a safe, stable environment on somebody who hasn’t had one is enormous,” he said. “A lot of our students are going back to pretty terrible home lives and home situations.” 

Northlands is the top Job Corps center in job placement outcomes in the country, according to a paper copy of the rankings provided by Dooley. The Department of Labor has redirected a rankings webpage — alongside several other informational webpages — to a resource page for existing Job Corps graduates. 

Part of Northland’s strategy for readying students for the job market is its work-based learning programs, where students work directly for local businesses across Vermont. Several of these students work in Vergennes, and if the Job Corps program ends, Vermont’s smallest city is poised to lose one of its biggest employers.

Susan Magill has lived in Vergennes for over 40 years, arriving a few months before Northlands first opened in June 1979. She serves as a career technical manager for Northlands, and says the school has brought positive change to the city.

“We have students that are always out in the community doing something,” she said, noting students’ welding and tree removal work for Vergennes as examples of the harmony between the city and Northlands.

Ron Redmond, Vergennes’ city manager, agreed. 

“It’s a very well-run organization, in my experience,” Redmond said. “I think the tough part for us is that we have students who have contributed to the downtown. There’s a welding program that we worked with, they’ve built bike racks, and an art project.” 

The art project is “Flower Stop,” a sculpture built around a bus stop made by artist Kat Clear in collaboration with Northlands welding students. 

For Redmond, one uncertainty is how Northlands’ closure is going to impact Vergennes. 

“There is gonna be an economic impact, we’ll have to wait and see,” he said.

Dooley estimated that Northlands contributes around $2.5 million to the local economy, and said he’s worried that its closing could have a big effect. 

“You’ve got the money the center is spending and putting into the local economy, the program itself, plus the students and local staff that are buying gas, buying coffee, buying lunch. I don’t think anybody’s thought that through, really,” he said.

Despite the economic uncertainty, the impact Northlands has had on the lives of students like Edwards is clearer. 

Edwards recently started working at Vergennes Grand Senior Living, and was looking forward to renting her own apartment after completing Northlands’ certified medical assistance program. 

“Helping people. I think that’s what draws me towards it,” she said.  

At Northlands, Edwards said she’s found “a lot of stability. … It’s like a big family here. We all look out for each other.”

But she said the feeling of Northlands shutting down and her aspirations being curbed is “heartbreaking. It’s absolutely horrible.”

Read the story on VTDigger here: ‘It’s absolutely horrible’: Federal shutdown of Northlands Job Corps leaves students and city reeling.

For many Vermonters, summer’s return ushers in familiar fears of flooding. This year, that anxiety is complicated by a new concern surrounding federal changes to disaster relief programs that have helped the state in the recent past.

State and local leaders worry about how reductions in staff and funding for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or the loss of the system altogether, may be felt in Vermont, in the near and long term. 

Already, an estimated 20% of permanent staff have left the agency through buyouts or early retirement, and the agency ended a crucial door-knocking program, designed to reach people immediately after a disaster. All of this comes as President Donald Trump and his administration weigh even deeper cuts to the agency.

Still very much in the throes of recovery from the 2023 and 2024 floods, the state, municipalities and individuals have depended on these federal funds to cover the cost of rebuilding. These  recent disasters show just how much the state draws from FEMA.

“There’s a fear, too, of what happens if there’s flooding this summer,” said Sarah Henshaw, the coordinator for the Lamoille Area Recovery Network, or LeARN, a group created after the 2023 floods to help individuals navigate disaster recovery. 

“What are we going to do, as a community, when there is no FEMA?” she said. “The state has done (its) best to try to build out (its) systems, but the systems are reliant on FEMA.”

The fears surround the state’s capacity to manage short-term response and long-term recovery — things like repairing roads and houses — if more disasters hit the state in the future. Though some residents worry about how the federal shakeup may affect long-term recovery payouts from past disasters, state officials confirmed that those efforts are moving forward without significant changes. 

“I think the most accurate way to phrase it right now is that our interaction with FEMA and our progress on obligations and disbursements is functioning or behaving pretty much how it did under the previous administration,” said Doug Farnham, Vermont’s chief recovery officer. 

Still, statements by federal officials and actions are fueling anxiety about the future of the agency, even as day-to-day payouts progress.

During a May 20 congressional hearing, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem advocated for shifting the burden of disaster response onto states and away from FEMA, which is housed under her department. Her comments build on a sentiment Trump has advanced since the early days of his term to possibly eliminate FEMA.

Since then, he’s proposed a barrage of cuts to the agency’s budget and workforce, including the end of a $750 million grant program that his earlier administration designed. Also, FEMA administrators said they had no plan to address the projected $8 billion deficit in the agency’s emergency fund during a recent congressional hearing. The cuts leave emergency managers wondering how — and if — FEMA will be able to help communities rebuild after the next big disaster.

Experts also worry about the agency’s capacity for short-term response, given that FEMA has sharply reduced training for those tasked with on-the-ground response, as Reuters reported, and canceled its door-knocking program. 

“The whole point of federal assistance is to bring in more humans, to bring in more bodies than the state(s) can provide themselves, especially in small states,” Farnham said. “So we just can’t shift our population, our workforce that much. We need help.”

Federal support on past disasters

Federal aid has been crucial in rebuilding from the 2023 and 2024 floods.

FEMA’s disaster recovery payouts fall into two main categories: individual assistance and municipal assistance. The requests and reimbursements from federal disaster declarations in 2023 and 2024 in each category underscore how much the state, towns and individuals rely on federal support.

For the summer 2023 floods, FEMA dispersed $26.2 million to 3,616 Vermonters — that’s to provide support for things like reconstruction of homes, replacement of private roads or bridges lost, rental assistance, or even for more nuanced “other needs assistance” for things like kidney dialysis machines or space heaters that may have been damaged in a storm. 

The maximum amount an individual can receive from FEMA is $42,500, though many individuals saw damage in 2023 and 2024 that exceeded that amount.

The window to file requests for more aid from FEMA related to the 2023 floods has now closed. 

“That doesn’t mean work is done. It just means that work (and) resources need to be identified with non-FEMA sources,” said Jason Gosselin, who coordinates the individual assistance program through the state’s Agency of Human Services. He underscored how FEMA is one piece, though a large one, of the multiple sources people draw from to recover — like their insurance, savings accounts and community recovery groups. 

The appeals and payouts for last summer’s floods are still moving forward. For the first first major July 2024 flood, FEMA has provided $12.1 million in assistance to 1,686 Vermonters and more than $1.7 million to 225 Vermonters for the later July floods that year. For both 2024 disasters, FEMA has 230 appeals open, as of mid-May, according to the agency’s regional office.

The process for towns and cities to secure reimbursements is not unlike the process individuals take — but at the scale of municipal roads and bridges and multimillion dollar water treatment plants.

“It can be harder to see the role that FEMA plays in supporting cities, towns, states in doing things like cleaning up debris, paying for first responder over time, paying for mass sheltering, even things like helping cover the costs of rebuilding schools and courthouses and other public buildings,” said Sarah Labowitz, a researcher at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace who focuses on disaster recovery data.   

Once FEMA obligates the funds, the money goes to the Vermont Department of Emergency Management, which has its own approval process prior to distributing the money to applicants. Applications can get held up at any phase of this process, but collecting the right paperwork is particularly sticky. 

“The issue many times is the issue of documentation: Many of these towns have a town administrator that is part time, works very few hours in the week and they may not have any background, or really working knowledge of how roads, culverts, ditches, embankments are constructed,” said Mark Johnson, the recovery section chief for Vermont Emergency Management. It’s part of why the expertise and continuity of FEMA assistance can be so crucial. 

For the 2023 disaster, FEMA has awarded more than $190.7 million to the state, to be dispersed across municipal and state projects, according to the agency’s regional office.

Many of those projects are still in the early phases of rebuilding. “They’re still being written or formulated or created in a way that will meet all the guidelines,” Johnson said. 

“These are not the low-hanging fruit,” Johnson said of the projects that remain. “In other words, these are the tough ones — these are wastewater treatment facilities, these are things that, for whatever reason, have required more complicated (attention).” 

Among those mega projects are the repairs to the wastewater treatment facilities in Johnson, Hardwick and Ludlow.

For the two major July 2024 floods, FEMA has committed around $13 million to the state for municipal recovery. 

State officials estimate that the total cost of damage to state and municipal property between 2023 and 2024 will total around $800 million — including the big summer floods and smaller, localized disasters.

“The total changes every day. Until we have final agreement and close out projects, the numbers are going to continue to shift and morph around for several years,” Farnham said. “The things that FEMA hasn’t obligated yet are always going to be subject to change and adjustment.”

Estimates for the total cost of the 2024 floods should stabilize sooner since those damages and repairs are less complicated than those of 2023, according to Farnham. 

“We didn’t have the major, major facility damage that we saw in 2023, so we don’t have the big wastewater treatment facility projects. Other than state highways, state (infrastructure) suffered minimal damage,” he said.

One of the biggest unknowns and largest expense from the 2023 flooding is the reconstruction of the state Capitol complex, a collection of state government buildings damaged by the 2023 floods. Instead of fixing each building individually, the state has decided to address the repairs collectively and hopes to finalize its proposal by July 14. 

A future without FEMA? 

As these state and municipal projects move forward, and as individuals rebuild, the shadow of impending changes to FEMA — and what that might mean for future disasters — hangs heavy.

The state, on its own, does not have the capacity to respond to the scale of future disasters without federal resources. Vermont received an average of $30.9 million in federal disaster funding over the past nine years. 

While that number may seem like a small share of the state’s operating budget — a little less than 1%, according to data from the Carnegie Endowment and interpreted by Axios —  it is one of the largest proportions in the country. Only six other states (including hurricane-prone Louisiana, Florida and Texas along with post-wildfire Hawaii) have higher shares of federal disaster funding compared with their overall state budget.

“There are all kinds of efficiencies that we gain from having a federal system for disaster recovery,” Labowitz said. “We spread around the risk. We spread around the workforce capacity. We spread around the cost.” 

“Does Vermont need to create a standing workforce to respond to disasters? Even though disasters are relatively infrequent, it still needs a workforce to help respond to (disasters) when they do happen. Particularly for smaller states, that’s going to be really hard,” she added.

However, the spate of disasters over the past two years has left Vermont relatively ready to react to extreme floods this summer, Farnham said. The danger, he said, is in the long term, if the state loses the institutional memory of preparedness, response and long-term recovery networks — especially if the federal structure changes.

While boots on the ground workers are essential in the immediate aftermath of a disaster, FEMA’s staff or programs are not to blame for the existing bottle neck that prevents smooth, speedy long-term recovery, Farnham said.  

The main barrier to FEMA working quickly is the accumulation of external regulations and environmental precautions that surround massive building projects. “Having fewer federal employees and the same regulations and policies is not going to be helpful,” Farnham said.

Labowitz is watching and waiting for what a summer with a hollowed out FEMA may hold. To her, “It feels like a train that you can see coming from a long way away.”

Read the story on VTDigger here: ‘We need help’: While tallying recent assistance, Vermont officials consider a future without FEMA.

The federal government has canceled a $5.3 million grant that Vermont planned to use to
provide universal access to reliable internet service. 

The Digital Equity Capacity Grant was intended to support Vermont’s Digital Equity Plan, outlined in March 2024.

“Vermont’s DE Program was going to improve the lives of Vermonters who can’t access the internet—whether because they can’t afford devices or don’t have the skills to take advantage of all the opportunities that come with being connected,” Vermont Community Broadband Board Executive Director Christine Hallquist said in a press release from the organization. “Taking this funding away now will severely limit our work and will mean many Vermonters will be left behind.”

The Digital Equity Program addresses barriers to broadband internet, telehealth care and digital literacy access. 95% of Vermonters can identify with one or more of the prioritized demographics for targeted digital equity initiatives, according to Vermont’s Digital Equity Plan.

President Donald Trump ordered the grant’s cancellation. In a May 9 letter from the National Institute of Standards and Technology, Darren Olson, the institute’s grants management officer, said the president determined that the Digital Equity Capacity Program was created and administered using “unconstitutional racial preferences.”

The Vermont Community Broadband Board is exploring legal options to oppose the cancellation and has contacted the State Attorney General’s Office, according to its website.

“Without targeted investments in digital access and literacy, many Vermonters will be unable to access the resources necessary for job training, career advancement, and economic mobility, ultimately deepening existing disparities and limiting opportunities for economic growth,” the board’s digital equity officer, Britaney Watson, said in the release.

Vermont’s implementation of the Digital Equity Act, passed under the Biden administration, would provide devices for people facing financial barriers, as well as online training programs to prepare Vermonters for remote work. The program would have also awarded subgrants to local organizations working to provide internet accessibility throughout the state, according to the release.

A Sept. 30th study by the Center on Rural Innovation found that rural areas with higher broadband adoption and more small broadband service providers have stronger, more dynamic local economies. They reported that rural counties with fiber broadband adoption rates of over 80% have significant advantages over those with low adoption, including 213% higher business growth, higher self-employment growth, GDP growth and per capita income growth.

The broadband board said in the release that it will continue to work with the Vermont Attorney General’s Office and Vermont’s congressional delegation to determine their next legal, political and programmatic steps in continuing their digital equity efforts. 

Read the story on VTDigger here: Federal government cancels Vermont’s $5.3 million digital equity grant.

Vermont’s Roman Catholic Diocese, now seeking to reorganize its depleting finances in U.S. Bankruptcy Court after settling 67 priest misconduct lawsuits, is bracing for a new wave of child sex abuse claims.

The state’s largest religious denomination paid out $34.5 million to survivors in the two decades between when news of a nationwide scandal broke in 2002 and its filing for Chapter 11 protection last fall.

As part of the bankruptcy process, all pending and future lawsuits have been placed on hold, with Judge Heather Cooper inviting accusers who haven’t reported abuse before to join the case as potential creditors.

As a result, 118 people have submitted confidential claims, records show — almost double the number of previously settled lawsuits.

The bankruptcy court doesn’t have the authority to hold hearings on any of the allegations, which are sealed from the public and the press. Instead, the judge has scheduled a non-evidentiary “presentation of survivor statements” for Wednesday at 10 a.m. at Burlington’s Federal Building.

“For many survivors, it took years and a lot of courage to come forward, so when the diocese filed for bankruptcy, it robbed those survivors of their opportunity to stand in front of a jury of their peers,” said Brittany Michael, a lawyer for a federally appointed committee representing creditors with abuse claims. 

“We know that the opportunity to speak in court can be an important part of the healing journey,” Michael said. “The survivors’ statements are a way to at least tell their story.”

The diocese, facing allegations of priest misconduct dating as far back as 1950, is the nation’s 40th Catholic entity to seek bankruptcy protection, it notes on an explainer page on its website.

Under federal law, the diocese must present the court with a tally of its financial assets and liabilities and petition for Chapter 11 help. The judge, in turn, will decide whether to allow church leaders to develop a reorganization plan that would require approval from both the court and creditors.

Seeking “full disclosure and transparency,” abuse claimants are seeking church records detailing not only a reported $35 million tied to the diocese’s headquarters and its state-level holdings but also all the community operations it oversees, starting with 63 parishes with an estimated collective worth of $500 million.

The resulting findings are expected to spark future debate on whether abuse claimants and other creditors will be limited to compensation from the church’s headquarters or also could be reimbursed through local assets.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Vermont’s Roman Catholic Diocese faces 118 more clergy misconduct claims.

Recent efforts by President Donald Trump’s administration to revoke the legal status of refugees has alarmed Vermont service providers.

It’s definitely affecting Vermont residents from certain countries, including Haiti, Ukraine and Venezuela, said Tracy Dolan, director of the State Refugee Office.

“They’re nervous and they’re afraid for their safety if they ever have to go back,” she said.

While new to Vermont, “they are doing all the things they’re supposed to be doing. They are working. They have employment authorization,” Dolan said. “Their employers generally have been pleased with the work and are really glad to have them.”

Those impacted include residents in the U.S. on temporary protected status granted to those who came from certain countries experiencing crises — such as Afghanistan, Sudan and Ukraine — and the humanitarian parole program that allows people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela to enter and stay in the country for two years.

In light of February notices issued by Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem revoking those programs, at least two Afghans and several asylum seekers from Venezuela, Haiti and Ukraine who resettled in Vermont were set to lose their legal status this month, officials said.

The orders, which affected an estimated 600,000 Venezuelans and 500,000 Haitians nationwide according to the American Civil Liberties Union, have been challenged in court. A federal judge in San Francisco and another in Massachusetts have since ruled that those already in the U.S. could keep their protections for now. 

Alerts this month on the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services website state that Homeland Security “has every intention of ending Venezuela (temporary protected status) as soon as it obtains relief from the court order” and “No new requests for (Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela) parole will be processed.”

A hundred days into the Trump administration, the efforts amplify the president’s first-day promise to crack down on an “invasion” of migrants, based allegedly on the high numbers of asylum seekers arriving at the border. 

A previous order froze federal funding for refugee support affecting local relocation agency efforts.

“These actions by the Trump administration signal to Vermonters and Americans that this country is no longer a nation of immigrants,” said Molly Gray, executive director of the Vermont Afghan Alliance, a Burlington-based nonprofit that supports Afghans who are resettling in the state.

In Vermont, the orders affect dozens of Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans and more than 100 Ukrainians who are “very concerned that they could lose parole, be denied the opportunity to renew parole, or have their (temporary protected status) reversed,” said Matt Thompson, a program manager for refugee services with the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants in Vermont, a nongovernmental, not-for-profit international organization that helps resettle refugees and advocates for their rights.

While Thompson does not know of any Afghan residents affected by the latest order, the committee and its legal services partners have been working to ensure that Afghans in Vermont pursue other options for remaining in the U.S., he said, such as the Afghan Special Immigrant Visa or asylum.

The effort to revoke protections launched by former President Joe Biden is problematic not just from a humanitarian standpoint but from an economic one, said refugee relocation workers.

“These individuals have worked here, attend church — which for some is so important — and learn English. They want to work hard, do a good job and continue to contribute to the community,” said Yvonne Lodico, executive director of the Grace Initiative Global, a nonprofit based in Manchester that provides services to several refugee groups including Haitians and Afghans living in Vermont.

The organization often fields calls from employers looking to hire newcomers, “and we have to decline,” she said. “Vermont companies, especially those in service industries, need these individuals.”

The federal orders have caused anxiety and bewilderment among the refugee communities, Lodico said, particularly because they arrived through legal mechanisms after intense vetting.

“They anticipated that through application for legal documentation they would be able to live and work here,” she said.

Dolan said refugees have long contributed to the state economy. “I can’t speak for every person but in general all these populations are working,” she said.

Ending temporary protected status for Afghans is particularly crushing for Afghan allies who have sought protection in the U.S. while the security situation continues to deteriorate in their home country under the Taliban, said Gray, from the Afghan Alliance.

“They were made refugees because of their association with the United States government and support for U.S. military and diplomatic missions. It is these circumstances that make the revocation of (temporary protected status) that much more shameful, horrific and unconscionable,” she said.

Read the story on VTDigger here: ‘Shameful, horrific and unconscionable’: Federal efforts to revoke legal refugee status could affect hundreds in Vermont, advocates say.

President Donald Trump’s administration on Thursday told states and other recipients of federal transportation funding that they could lose those dollars if they do not comply with the White House’s interpretation of federal laws — including on immigration.

The guidance, outlined in a letter from U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, told recipients that their obligations, by taking federal funding, included “cooperating with and not impeding U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement,” as well as other agencies, “in the enforcement of Federal immigration law.”

Failing to do so would “compromise the safety and security of the transportation systems supported by DOT financial assistance,” the missive states, as well as “prioritize illegal aliens over the safety and welfare of the American people.” 

The four-page letter also takes aim at diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, calling them “discriminatory” and saying that states and others “must ensure that the personnel practices (including hiring, promotions, and terminations) within their organizations are merit-based and do not discriminate.”

Duffy said, without providing specifics, that there had been instances in which recipients of federal funding did not cooperate with “ICE investigations,” and that some recipients had “issued driver’s licenses to individuals present in the United States in violation of Federal immigration law,” which he suggested would be grounds for losing federal dollars. 

Since 2014, Vermont has allowed people who live in the state — but who do not have lawful status or U.S. citizenship — to get “driver’s privilege” cards. It’s one of 19 states, along with Washington, D.C., that offer “driving privileges to unauthorized immigrants,” according to data compiled by the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Vermont’s largest public transportation agency, Green Mountain Transit, funds about two-thirds of its operations with federal money and received the letter from Duffy on Thursday, said Clayton Clark, the agency’s general manager. Clark said the agency is, as a result, working on new training for what its drivers and other employees should do if federal immigration agents board a bus or come to one of the agency’s transit hubs in downtown Burlington or Montpelier. 

The state Agency of Transportation got the letter late Thursday, said Amy Tatko, an agency spokesperson, in an email Friday, and is in the process of reviewing it. In the state’s budget for the current fiscal year, which ends in June, federal funds make up almost 60% of transportation spending, according to the Legislature’s Joint Fiscal Office.

Joe Flynn, the transportation secretary, said in a brief emailed statement that the letter “requires further understanding,” especially about the Trump administration’s intentions, but added the state agency is “not overly concerned at this time” about what it says.

Clark said that Green Mountain Transit — which operates local and commuter bus services, as well as on-demand transit for people with certain medical needs, across Chittenden, Franklin, Grand Isle and Washington counties — would, broadly, tell its employees to comply with federal immigration enforcement officials. 

“We would not want them to interfere — but we also would not want them to, you know, be aiding,” Clark said. The agency’s staff has not had any such interactions with federal immigration enforcement so far, he said in an interview Friday morning. 

Still, Clark said he is concerned by the nature of recent detentions by federal agents in Vermont and other states that took place with little warning and were conducted by officers wearing plainclothes and masks. This could make it difficult, for instance, for the agency’s employees to get a clear sense of what was happening, Clark said. 

He noted that Green Mountain Transit’s No. 56 bus stops just down the street from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services office in Colchester where Mohsen Mahdawi, a Palestinian activist and lawful U.S. resident, was arrested earlier this month in that manner. Clark said he expects that some people use the No. 56 to get to appointments at that office. 

“When folks are not in uniform, not wearing any type of identification that would let you know what organization they’re from,” Clark said, “how do we know that this is ICE — and not somebody who’s, you know, trafficking New Americans?” 

Clark said he is concerned that the prospect of immigration enforcement raised by Duffy’s letter could discourage people from taking public transportation. But he said Green Mountain Transit could not afford to put its federal funding at risk, regardless of how he felt, personally, about this week’s federal guidance.

He estimated that the agency, which is already facing steep financial challenges and has had to cut some services in recent months, would only be able to provide about 20% of the service that it currently offers if it were to lose all of its federal funding.

Green Mountain Transit has already made one change to its operations in response to recent actions by the Trump administration, Clark said. After learning the administration could target federal funds used for what are — at least in the White House’s view — diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, Clark said, the transit agency pulled the plug on its “Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Committee” meant to ensure its services were meeting the needs of people from historically marginalized communities. The agency made the decision to disband the committee in March, Clark said. 

Trump has taken aim at what he considers “DEI” programs in government and the private sector from the outset of his second term. His billionaire adviser Elon Musk’s cost-cutting “government efficiency” department has, meanwhile, repeatedly targeted federal jobs for cuts that it has said were related to diversity and inclusion efforts. 

Clark said Green Mountain Transit plans to replace its “JEDI” committee with “rider engagement” committees, still aimed at soliciting feedback from its passengers.

At the statewide level, the Trump administration earlier this year put federal grants for some major transportation projects under “review,” including large new bridges and a planned buildout of electric vehicle charging infrastructure across the state. During Gov. Phil Scott’s weekly press conference on Wednesday, Flynn, the transportation secretary, said in response to a question that the EV funding was the only pot of transportation money he knew of at that point that was still under threat.

Sen. Richard Westman, R-Lamoille, who chairs the Senate Transportation Committee, said Friday that he was concerned by the position that the letter put the state in. He said it is difficult, if not impossible, to predict what steps the Trump administration will take, and noted the state’s transportation revenue challenges gave it little flexibility.

“I wouldn’t want to comply,” he said, referring to the immigration enforcement described in Duffy’s memo, among other measures. “But I can’t afford to live without the money.”

Read the story on VTDigger here: Feds threaten states’ transportation funding over noncompliance with immigration enforcement.