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Vermont Legislature
Follow VPR's statehouse coverage, featuring Pete Hirschfeld and Bob Kinzel in our Statehouse Bureau in Montpelier.

House, Senate Budget Proposals Diverge On Welfare-to-Work Funding

House and Senate negotiators will soon begin working on a compromise version of the 2014 budget. One of many differences between them is how the state workforce that administers the welfare-to-work program would be affected.

The Vermont State Employees’ Association said on Thursday that the Senate budget would save the jobs of case managers that administer the program known as “Reach Up.”

“We’re happy with the Senate’s proposal,” said Cassandra Magliozzi, a legislative representative with the Association, who likes the Senate plan because it reallocates $150,000 of Reach Up funding.

“It gives some flexibility to the Agency of Human Services, but retains and maintains all of the state services that are currently being provided by the Vermont Department of Labor Reach Up workers,” Magliozzi said.

The House budget, on the other hand, would cut eight positions in the Department of Labor, including Pat Barberi of Barre who’s swamped with cases.

“I’d say it’s 40 to 60 and that doesn’t include the spouse of some of the households,” Barberi told reporters at the Statehouse Thursday.

Barberi said the state would lose, among other things, years of “institutional knowledge of all the federal rules and regulations, the training that has gone into the staff.”

Barberi said, above all, recipients of welfare-to-work benefits would suffer the biggest blow. “They’re going to be losing the avenue to what turns them into successful employees,” she said.

But the Shumlin administration says the cuts make sense. Dave Yacovone, the commissioner of the Department for Children and Families, said the Labor Department’s Reach Up staff are not needed anymore, noting that Vermont has 50 people across the state doing similar work.

“We have no one, no one statewide helping people with their substance abuse or mental health needs,” Yacavone said. “Thirty-five percent of the people who’ve been on Reach Up for more than five years report that they have substance abuse and mental health needs.”

Yacovone and other administration officials said the state should redirect the dollars away from where they’re not needed to where they’re desperately needed.

Both the Senate and House budget proposals put a five-year cap on welfare benefits.

Kirk is a reporter for the NPR member station in Boston, WGBH, where he covers higher education, connecting the dots between post-secondary education and the economy, national security, jobs and global competitiveness. Kirk has been a reporter with Wisconsin Public Radio in Madison, Wis.; a writer and producer at WBUR in Boston; a teacher and coach at Nativity Preparatory School in New Bedford, Mass.; a Fenway Park tour guide; and a tourist abroad. Kirk received his B.A. from the College of the Holy Cross and earned his M.S. from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism. When he's not reporting or editing stories on campus, you can find him posting K's on the Wall at Fenway. You can follow Kirk on Twitter @KirkCarapezza.
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