Vermont lawmakers are set to debate a fiscal 2012 budget slightly smaller than this year’s and that requires broad-based tax increases.
House Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Martha Heath says the $4 billion budget for the 12 months beginning July 1 is down 3.6 percent from what state government is spending this year.
But she says House budget writers were able to ask for smaller cuts in many areas than those recommended in January by Gov. Peter Shumlin.
The committee cut in half the funding reductions Shumlin requested for services for the developmentally disabled and mentally ill. The committee also dropped Shumlin’s plan to merge two publicly supported health insurance programs, which doctors and other providers complained would reduce payments to them.