Up to 200 People with Pressing Legal Needs Won’t Get Essential Help After Big Hit to Vermont Legal Aid’s Budget In Latest Round of State Cuts
Legal Services E-lert
Bibliographic Info:
Author: Louis Porter
Source: Times Argus (VT)
Date: December 16, 2008
On December 15, 2008, Vermont released a proposal to cut the state's budget by $20 million. Times Argus states: "Cutting $20 million out of $1.2 billion in General Fund spending might seem like a small amount, but not only are the cuts coming on the heels of other reductions, but much of the $1.2 billion total is inflexible, officials said . . . . [T]he proposed rescission plan includes a $60,000 reduction in General Fund money for Vermont Legal Aid. Although the organization's total budget is about $5 million, the cut is significant because it will almost entirely come from the poverty law portion of legal aid's work, which helps lower-income Vermonters with legal issues around housing, health and safety and other serious problems, costing about $1.4 million a year, said Executive Director Eric Avildsen. That will translate into roughly 100 to 200 cases a year that the lawyers at Legal Aid will not take on - and those are from the pool of the most serious of the 10,000 calls a year the organization receives . . . . What is not clear yet is how much federal money will be lost because of the reduction in state money to Vermont Legal Aid. During the last round of budget cuts legal aid lost about $25,000 in state money that was matched with an equal amount of federal funding . . . . In all, if approved by lawmakers, the new round of cuts will result in the loss of about $8.2 million in federal funding . . . . Despite Monday's proposals, the state's budget problems are far from over."