MONTPELIER — As it makes it way through the House of Representatives the government restructuring plan called "Challenges for Change" has been massaged, altered and — at least in terms of dollars saved — whittled down.

When the bill, effectively an addendum to the state budget, comes before the full House, the statutory changes it makes can be counted on to save an estimated $20 million. Originally the Challenges for Change process was counted on to save $38 million total in the next fiscal year, about $31 million of which was thought to require legal changes.

The fact that the House measures are slated to save $20 million will effectively mean the state Senate, now working on the state budget bill, will likely be under pressure to add provisions to the measure or risk leaving a budget gap to be filled with other cost-cutting measures, administration officials said.

In the meantime, House members are preparing their own proposed changes to the bill to be considered on the floor of the House, perhaps as early as today.

Rep. Paul Poirier, a Barre City independent, will introduce an amendment that found favor before a key House committee Wednesday and will move towards capping how many inmates can be released into Vermont communities that already have a large number of furloughed and paroled former inmates.

Part of the Challenges for Change proposal as offered by the administration of Gov. James Douglas — the government restructuring plan has been a collaboration between the executive branch and legislative leaders — would have allowed some nonviolent offenders to be released from prison.

Poirier's amendment, if successful, would direct investments for housing and other programs to those cities and towns which have more than 2.5 percent of their population made up of people under the supervision of the Department of Corrections. And it would prevent Corrections from releasing more former inmates to those communities with more than 2 percent of their population under such supervision unless they had family or other connections to that city or town.

Winooski, Rutland City and Barre City all have more than 3 percent of their populations under Corrections supervision, Poirier said.

"It would direct that Corrections shall develop a goal of reducing the number of people under the supervision of Corrections to 2 percent," Poirier said.

Poirier's amendment will not be alone. Rep. Oliver Olsen, a Jamaica Republican, and some other members of the House plan on offering an amendment to the bill that would bring the Legislature back to review and approve the administration's changes to government under the Challenges legislation in the middle of June.

"We have set ourselves a target of $38 million," Olsen said. "We have booked those savings (and) I think we are all committed to getting there."

Asking for another chance for the Legislature to review those government restructuring and efficiency measures — which will begin to be implemented by the Douglas administration in its final months — is not about second-guessing the executive branch, said Olsen. Instead it is about not leaving the administration without the legislative tools it needs to make the alterations necessary to save the money, Olsen said.

"The bill we have before us comes up short," he said.

Still the Challenges for Change bill as it now stands will not reach the full $31 million in savings expected from the statutory tweaks.

That will mean the Senate, when it takes up the measure, will need to add to it either its own proposals or administration proposals to meet the already booked savings plan and avoid traditional budget cuts, said Tom Evslin, who is the point man for the proposal on behalf of Douglas.

"I would be more alarmed if it were not for the process this is going through," he said.

"It doesn't have to be our way or the highway," Evslin said of what proposals will ultimately be included, but without statutory changes which can give flexibility to reduce government spending by at least $31 million, the process will not be a success, he said. (Another $7 million or so will be saved by the administration through management changes that do not require statutory changes.)

Some proposals, for instance those around mandated school consolidation, have not been accepted by lawmakers in the House. But Rep. Mark Larson, a Burlington Democrat and one of the key legislators working on the Challenges bill, said he is not disheartened that the measure does not — yet — account for all $31 million.

"It would be great if we had proposals to get more for less that totaled $38 million right now," Larson said. But "we always understood it would take some time."

louis.porter@rutlandherald.com