Vermont is facing a season of scrutiny and change as two major developments ripple through the state government and its public services. In Burlington, repeated administrative missteps by the city’s electric utility have triggered a state-ordered audit, while at the state level, Governor Phil Scott’s administration is pushing for a partial return to in-office work for thousands of public employees after years of pandemic-era remote arrangements. Both moves reflect a renewed focus on accountability, transparency, and the future of public service in the Green Mountain State.
The Burlington Electric Department, which provides power to more than 21,000 residential and commercial accounts, has come under the microscope after an alarming pattern of errors in its reporting and spending practices. According to VTDigger, the Vermont Public Utility Commission sent a letter in August 2025 listing 11 mistakes the department had made over the past four years. Many of these missteps involved inaccurate reports to state regulators about the utility’s operations and finances—a problem that, left unchecked, could undermine public trust and cost ratepayers dearly.
Kerrick Johnson, the state’s commissioner for the Department of Public Service, responded by recommending an external audit, focusing specifically on the department’s internal quality controls. “The repeated mistakes time after time over a period of years, what that demonstrates is a lack of professional rigor,” Johnson told VTDigger. He emphasized the importance of accuracy, particularly for a public utility like Burlington Electric, which holds a monopoly in its service area.
Burlington Electric’s general manager, Darren Springer, acknowledged the department’s shortcomings in an interview with VTDigger. He admitted, “The electric department certainly takes accountability for its mistakes and acknowledges that it’s performing below the state’s expectations.” Despite the department’s generally reliable service and low number of customer complaints, some of the errors have come at a significant cost.
One of the most costly incidents occurred in 2024, when the department failed to properly report certain operations at its Burlington wood-burning plant. The oversight, which Springer attributed to staff turnover, resulted in the loss of nearly $1 million in renewable energy credits. According to Seven Days, this was not an isolated incident—other problems cited included overspending part of the utility’s budget by 33% due to invoicing errors, and inconsistencies in paperwork filings to the commission. While not all mistakes directly affect customers, the cumulative impact “absolutely affects ratepayers,” Johnson said, even if the exact form is hard to pinpoint.
Springer noted that after the costly reporting lapse, the department implemented new internal checks to prevent similar mistakes. “Those checks have worked well,” he claimed. Still, the state remains concerned. Johnson wondered aloud, “What else are we not seeing that could be an error? Are there opportunities not being seized?” He hopes the audit will provide answers to these lingering questions and restore confidence in the department’s operations.
Details about the audit—such as which firm will conduct it, how long it will take, and how much it will cost—are still undecided. However, one thing is clear: “Let’s be clear, Burlington Electric customers are paying for this,” Johnson said, underscoring the direct financial stake that local residents and businesses have in the outcome.
As Burlington Electric faces its reckoning, Vermont’s state workforce is bracing for another kind of transformation. On August 7, 2025, Governor Phil Scott announced that state employees who have been working remotely since the pandemic must return to their offices for at least three days a week starting December 1. The governor argued that the partial return would foster better mentorship, learning, and collaboration among employees—an especially pressing need as the state’s workforce experiences ongoing retirements and an influx of new hires.
“We just think that it’s time and it won’t be back full time. We’ll still have remote work for some. But I think we’ll get the best results from bringing back people into the office so they can interact with one another,” Scott said at the time, according to VTDigger. He explained that the state may have allowed hybrid work to continue too long after the pandemic’s peak, and that in-person interaction is essential for the organization’s future.
Sarah Clark, Vermont’s Secretary of Administration, echoed the governor’s sentiments, framing the move as a long-term strategy. “It’s about what we want to look like five years from now, ten years from now, and how we want to interact with each other and also with the Vermonters that we serve,” Clark explained. “We believe that it is really critical to our workforce to come back together more frequently now.”
Not everyone agrees. The Vermont State Employees’ Association, which represents thousands of state workers, has come out strongly against the plan. The union argues that remote work has proven valuable, helping to recruit and retain employees, and even improving the quality and availability of state services. The association also points to broader benefits: continued remote work could help ease Vermont’s housing crisis by freeing up state office buildings for conversion into residences. Other arguments include the challenges of child care, the environmental impact of increased commuting, and the flexibility remote work offers employees across the state.
Clark acknowledged these concerns and said the administration has created an advisory group to address them. “We are working to prioritize based on feedback that we’ve received and continue to receive from our employees and we are working to address, to the extent that we are able, some of those concerns,” she said.
The debates unfolding in Vermont—over the future of its electric utility and the structure of its public workforce—reflect a broader national conversation about transparency, accountability, and adaptation in public service. In Burlington, the audit may bring to light deeper systemic issues or simply confirm that new checks are working as intended. For state workers, the coming months will test whether a hybrid approach can balance the needs of employees, the government, and the people it serves.
As Vermont moves forward, both the audit of Burlington Electric and the return-to-office plan will serve as important markers of how the state responds to challenges—by looking inward, asking tough questions, and, ideally, making the changes needed to serve its citizens better.
