Vermont Legislative Research Service

About VLRS

The Vermont Legislative Research Service provides non-partisan policy research support to state legislators, and creates reports to aid in their policy decisions. The VLRS does so while promoting student research skills and student understanding of issues facing the state of Vermont. Students work in research teams and utilize various resources of UVM to produce these reports.

VLRS - formerly the " Vermont Legislative Research Shop" - was founded in 1998. Its purpose is to provide objective and factual information to legislators as they deliberate on complex policy issues here in Vermont. The idea for this service originally sprang from discussions between Professor Anthony Gierzynski of the UVM Political Science Department and Representative (now former Senator) Matt Dunne. Professor Gierzynski implemented the idea in 1998 by creating a class called The Vermont Legislative Research Shop. The Vermont Legislative Research Service is the objective of this class, and has operated since that time. The course is supervised by Professor Anthony Gierzynski whose training, research, and teaching includes comparative state politics, that is, studying what is going on politically in all of the U.S. states. In 2010, the VLRS became part of the UVM Jeffords Center.

The goal is to provide current research addressing contemporary issues. We strive to fulfill the following research requests: queries about social science studies on various issues and information regarding the state of Vermont; investigations into practices and programs in other states (through the Web, the NCSL, and phone contact with other state officials); information on federal programs and grants. The current archives are extensive and can be accessed by topic in the left hand side bar.

Legislators should keep in mind that the VLRS will not be able to fill every request due to time constraints and/or difficulty in finding the requested information. The VLRS does its best on a first-come-first-serve basis.

Requests should be submitted via email to anthony.gierzynski@uvm.edu or via phone to Anthony Gierzynski at 656-7973. Requests for information should be as specific as possible. Include the date by which you need the information, your name and how to contact you in your email.

Last modified December 21 2010 11:24 AM