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Despite consensus on the need to adapt to climate change, who should adapt, and how, remain open questions. While local-level actions are essential to adaptation, state and federal governments can play a substantial role in adaptation. In this paper, we investigate local perspectives on state-level flood mitigation policies in Vermont as a means of analysing what leads top-down adaptations to be effective in mobilizing local action. Drawing on interviews with town officials, we delineate local-level perspectives on Vermont's top-down policies and use those perspectives to develop a conceptual framework that presents the 'fit' between top-down policies and the locallevel context as comprised of three components: Receptivity, Ease of Participation, and Design. We explain how these components and their interactions influence locallevel action. This analysis points to how careful consideration of the components of 'fit' may lead to greater local-level uptake of top-down adaptation policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]