Changes Are Coming to Vermont’s Program to Pay People to Move to the State

Source: VTDigger

The Scott administration and state senators are considering overhauling Vermont’s programs that pay people to move to the state. 

“(M)y budget will support the Senate’s worker relocation incentive program — with some changes — to bring in more families who contribute to our communities, schools and economy,” Gov. Phil Scott said Wednesday in his State of the State address.

Instead of paying people once they move to Vermont, the administration is considering either paying them before they move or awarding grants before they move and sending the money once they have resettled in Vermont, Vermont Commissioner of Economic Development Joan Goldstein told the Senate Committee on Economic Development, Housing and General Affairs on Thursday. 

Goldstein cited a report to the Legislature commissioned by the Vermont Department of Financial Regulation and conducted by Philadelphia-based PFM Group Consulting LLC that proposed the change.

“We may make that change,” Goldstein said. 

Senators appeared to agree with the proposal.

“Rather than it being an incentive to get people to move to Vermont, it is something that people who have already moved to Vermont then go to seek to collect, but it’s not necessarily anything to do with them making the decision to move here in the first place,” said Sen. Randy Brock, R-Franklin.

A person relocating to Vermont this year has received an average of $4,700, Kristen Ziter, financial analyst for the Department of Economic Development, told senators.

Ziter proposed removing the list of occupations that restricts who can be reimbursed for moving to Vermont. She cited plumbers and preschool teachers as people Vermont needs more of, yet those two occupations are not on the list.