Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Sarah Launderville, Executive Director, Vermont Center for Independent Living (VCIL)]: Eliminating structural barriers that disproportionately affect disabled renters and condo owners. Turning to H423, which implements the Vermont Agriculture and Food System Strategic Plan. This plan and its funding are essential to food access, community health and economic equity for disabled Vermonters. Disabled people are among the most affected by food insecurity and supply chain disruptions. Investments in local food infrastructure, shorter supply chains, and stronger produce, processor, marketer connections are investments in disability equity. The plan also aims to stabilize the broader food and farm economy. As mentioned earlier, many farmers and food system workers acquire disabilities during their careers and investing in the business stability, workforce supports and technical assistance uplifts the population often invisible in disability policy. Strengthening food resilience and local production is especially important for disabled Vermonters who are disproportionately impacted by climate emergencies and public health disruptions. So this bill helps ensure that Vermont food system grows in a way that's inclusive and inequitable. Food access overall, including bills like H408, which strengthens the state ability to purchase local foods and eight sixty eight, which limits the ultra processed foods in school programs could also be helpful to disabled Vermonters. Food access is a disability rights issue. Disabled Vermonters experience the high rates of food insecurity in our state and administers what we call our Meals on Meals program. A lot of people know about the senior meal program, but we serve people under the age of 60 who have a disability. And most of the times that's the only nutritionally balanced meal each day. When Vermont invests in local food procurement, it shortens that supply chain and increases resilience, ensuring that people who already face transportation barriers or fixed incomes can access healthy foods consistently. So similarly, H868 is important for disabled children and families. Many disabled students rely on school meals as a primary source of their nutrition, and the quality of those meals affects development, energy, and long term health outcomes, reducing reliance on highly processed foods that ensure especially those with disabilities or chronic conditions needing steady balanced nutrition receives meal that supports their ability to learn, participate and thrive. So together, those two bills could advance disability equity by strengthening Vermont food systems and support the health and economy secured by people with disabilities. And then finally, want to speak briefly about the Vermont State Parks, which are a vital part of community life for people with disabilities. Over the years, Vermont has made meaningful strides toward making state parks more accessible and inclusive. Agency of Natural Resources affirms that individuals with mobility disabilities are entitled to use the state lands and has adopted accommodations allowing wheelchairs and other power driven mobility devices on appropriate routes. Some parks now include, and this has taken a long time of advocacy and work, but adaptive beach access wheelchairs and accessible walkways and park access fund provides free park passes for Vermonters who face barriers, including those with disabilities through those partnerships with more than 60 organizations statewide. These efforts reflect Vermont's longstanding commitment to ensuring outdoors is truly open to all people. However, significant barriers still remain. Only 1% of Vermont trails are considered accessible, leaving most to steep, uneven or narrow for many people with mobility disabilities. Many state land routes are gated or closed sometimes due to storm damage, which restricts access for those who rely on mobility devices, any predictable open routes. And we see this all the time, just even at the beginning of a season. We have to, like, call around to the parks and make sure they've sort of filled in gaps and that their, you know, trails are actually going to work for somebody if they pop over to the park. So accessible information is inconsistent, making it difficult for visitors with disabilities to plan trips or confirm whether facilities, restrooms, or beaches meet their needs. Adaptive recreation opportunities, excellent are not available statewide and economic and transportation barriers, of course, still exist, But much progress has been made, but more work is needed to ensure equitable, meaningful access for Vermonters. So thank you for your time today. That's all I wanted to share, but thank you for your leadership and your willingness to center disability issues in your work by writing disability rights into legislation through the food systems, land use, public health, or agricultural support. You help create Vermont where we can all thrive. And I'm happy to answer questions or connect you in other ways in the future. Thank you.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Thank you, Sarah. And thank you, Representative Burtt, for realizing that we hadn't turned the microphone on.

[Sarah Launderville, Executive Director, Vermont Center for Independent Living (VCIL)]: Oh, no.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: I think your testimony in its entirety is available on our website. If anybody is watching and I'd to go back, they can read that there. Representative Bauchman.

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun (Member)]: Yeah, I just wanted to say in terms of the bills that you picked out, the right to grow food, we actually haven't decided if we're gonna pass that bill or try to pass that bill by itself, or if we're gonna add that on to another one that we're working on. But we are very much on board with that issue and really wanna see that issue go forward into legislation next year. And eight sixty eight is actually my bill. And it's being introduced officially to the committee today in a fuller form So with more we haven't started working on it, but it is my hope that we're actually gonna start working on that in the next couple weeks today. Today is the opening day. So thank you for getting us all over the world and things about

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: how We that would help folks with

[Sarah Launderville, Executive Director, Vermont Center for Independent Living (VCIL)]: never met before just now. So just so people know. Thank you. Thanks.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Before I acknowledge your question, Representative Lipsky, Representative Nelson just joining us, know he had a long drive through the inclement weather that we're in, so tell us where you came from, or tell us, Sarah, where you are.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: I represent the town of Derby.

[Sarah Launderville, Executive Director, Vermont Center for Independent Living (VCIL)]: Oh, wonderful, yeah. Thank you. All

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: right, Jed. Sarah, I just, first of all, want to compliment you. For fitting testimony. Yeah. Every point is so clear, poignant, articulate. Thank you. Thank you. And I'm looking at rep Bos-Lun from you to her because, you know, of her bill, which we strongly support, I believe. And thank you for your work. Don't make excuses for failure, but the issue of staff because, you know, we work with outdoor racking in my community, so we work to adapt it and often access. With state parks in general, they've made a lot of serious capital improvements on the patient.

[Sarah Launderville, Executive Director, Vermont Center for Independent Living (VCIL)]: But

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: those trailheads, all over the state are hard to

[Sarah Launderville, Executive Director, Vermont Center for Independent Living (VCIL)]: Keep up. Yeah.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: You know, with wind throw and with unmanaged forests. So that's a challenge, I think, they're aware of what staffing and maintenance of extensive trail system is a challenge. We can do better. We should

[Sarah Launderville, Executive Director, Vermont Center for Independent Living (VCIL)]: do better. Yeah. Thank you.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Thank you.

[Sarah Launderville, Executive Director, Vermont Center for Independent Living (VCIL)]: Thank you.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Sarah, did you say, you sort of slipped into your mind there that the center oversees Meals on Wheels?

[Sarah Launderville, Executive Director, Vermont Center for Independent Living (VCIL)]: We do, yeah. So for people under the age of 60 who have a disability and can't prepare ground meals because of their disability. So it's a very specific ways that you're in the program. We work in partnership with all the same meal sites as all the senior meal programs. So we just administer it for folks with disabilities.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: And the same drivers who would be out and about would

[Sarah Launderville, Executive Director, Vermont Center for Independent Living (VCIL)]: stop Yes. So we don't have a whole separate system. It's all funneled through that same system. Administer it for the folks with disabilities.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: I don't want to open up a can of worms by asking about funding. But can you just tell us how it's historically been funded?

[Sarah Launderville, Executive Director, Vermont Center for Independent Living (VCIL)]: Yeah, so the interesting thing is, so for the VCIL Meals on Wheels program, it's all general fund money. So it comes to us from the Department of Disabilities Aging and Independent Living. And yeah, we just asked for a budget adjustment this last go around actually. But I don't remember the year we started. It was like in the 1980s where that program started and it's always been funded state funding and we're not eligible for older American Act money, obviously, because it doesn't fit into that category. And so the and there's no other funding streams that we're currently eligible for.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Representative Nelson. Thank you, chair. I believe in the retirement derby, we have our appropriation for Meals on Wheels, and I used to be the moderator and sarcastic nature, I get up there and I introduce the appropriation as instead of Meals on Wheels, Wheels on Meals. But anyway, no, it's a great program in the center for independent living. There's a young man in Newport. Sure to make assumptions, but I'm pretty sure he takes advantage of this program, learning disabilities, but he goes around Newport and picks trash up all day long.

[Sarah Launderville, Executive Director, Vermont Center for Independent Living (VCIL)]: Yeah. Okay.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: And, you know, and avails himself in the community doing that, you know, and just a wonderful young man.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah.

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: It's a great, great program.

[Sarah Launderville, Executive Director, Vermont Center for Independent Living (VCIL)]: Thank you. And usually on the appropriations for towns, that's going to like a meal site or it's not coming to VCL, although VCL is on some town appropriations separately. Then it just depends on which town and how that all flows. But yes, it's good. Yeah, thank you.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Representative Bartholomew? A lot of us on the

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: committee, maybe all of us, are pretty passionate about the right to grow food. One of the challenges, of course, is that there's no way to provide equal access to the ability to do that because, you know, part of it relates to what your landlord would allow and do you have any south facings. So, yeah, I'm glad you brought that up and I I really appreciated you providing some specific examples of legislation that is on our wall. So thank you for that. And I think it's really useful for you to come in and remind us that these are things we sometimes don't think about as we go through a bill, and we ought to be thinking about whether there are issues in any bill relating to people with disabilities that need

[Sarah Launderville, Executive Director, Vermont Center for Independent Living (VCIL)]: to be considered. So thank you. Thank you. We did get some independent funding and I can't remember. It's probably one of the bars that helped us out. So we got some donations and we ended up buying like different gardens that people could grow small amounts of things inside their house just to start somewhere. And then they join up with the garden club and talk to other people with disabilities using those systems. So that's been sort of a fun system to see as well.

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: Even if you have a nice balcony, if it's facing north, it just

[Sarah Launderville, Executive Director, Vermont Center for Independent Living (VCIL)]: doesn't help you out.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah. Do Yeah. You have a sense of how Vermont does compared with other states overall, but specifically to agriculture or access to forest land?

[Sarah Launderville, Executive Director, Vermont Center for Independent Living (VCIL)]: I don't know. I think that in terms of the state park systems, that type of thing, have a little bit of information because we've poured a lot of time and energy into that. The response has been really good from the state around trying to work with us on those things over the years, but I don't have a good sense of overall. Yeah.

[Rosie Krueger, State Director of Child Nutrition Programs, VT Agency of Education]: Any other questions?

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Where are you spending the rest of the Are you in other countries?

[Sarah Launderville, Executive Director, Vermont Center for Independent Living (VCIL)]: Press conference at eleven downstairs that we're gonna do, and I'm in Senate health and welfare for a bit. I am going to government operations for a bit. And then there's people we're in 17 committees today, so there's people like all over the place, which is pretty fantastic. We're excited about that. And then there's a screening, if anybody's looking for something to do tonight over at the Pavilion around just Philly Rates Vermont, put out a one hour film, and we're gonna have a panel discussion over there. I think that starts at five.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah, so

[Sarah Launderville, Executive Director, Vermont Center for Independent Living (VCIL)]: thank you.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Well, thanks for reaching out. Would not have occurred to me to come to you, so appreciate that.

[Sarah Launderville, Executive Director, Vermont Center for Independent Living (VCIL)]: Reach out anytime. Thanks. Appreciate your time.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: Thank you,

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: think we will I know we just feels like we just kind of got started, but we have Rosie on for ten, but we should probably not start sooner than that. So let's just take a pause and get her set up and start up again at ten. Welcome back, Rosie Krueger from the Agency of Education. And we've also got another member of that team who I think is joining us on Zoom, who will be. Yeah, he's joining. Okay. Rosie, why don't you go ahead and introduce the record again?

[Rosie Krueger, State Director of Child Nutrition Programs, VT Agency of Education]: Sure. So for the record, I'm Rosie Krueger. I'm the state director of Child Nutrition Programs at the Agency of Education. And you're going to hear first today from Connor Floyd on my team. We're primarily here to talk about the local foods incentive program and the report that we issued per legislative direction on that. And so Connor is the expert on that. He runs that grant program. He's gonna give you the the full rundown of that. And then I'm here. I understand you are taking up a bill on ultra processed foods in schools later today, and I assume that you have some questions about that. So I'm happy to sort of have an informal conversation with you about that, but I don't have prepared testimony on it.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: So good. Welcome, Connor. Yeah. That bill is on our wall. We're getting a walkthrough of it actually this afternoon. We haven't been introduced to the committee, but I think there is interest. So while you're here, if you are able to share any thoughts, Okay. I would like to hear So Connor, sounds like you're kicking things off.

[Connor Floyd, Grant Programs Manager, Child Nutrition Programs, VT Agency of Education]: Yeah, happy to. Are you able to hear me all right?

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: We can.

[Connor Floyd, Grant Programs Manager, Child Nutrition Programs, VT Agency of Education]: Perfect. Hi there, for the record, my name is Connor Floyd. I'm the grant programs manager on the Child Nutrition Programs team. And yeah, I'm happy to walk through, primarily going through the key points of the report that was submitted at the end of last month around the local foods incentive. So first, just a quick summary of the program. There's essentially two grant tracks associated with the local foods incentive. There's the baseline year grant, which is for school food authorities, which is the name that we have in child nutrition for supervisory unions and school districts, as well as independent schools participating in our programs, but the baseline year is for school food authorities that are applying for the first time, so very simple grant application and once that grant is reviewed and approved, they receive a 15¢ per lunch grant award, essentially as some startup funding to help them pay for the costs associated with increasing their local purchasing. After they receive a baseline year grant, SFAs are then eligible to apply for a subsequent year grant every year thereafter, as long as the school food authority achieves at least 15% local purchasing. Most of the report discusses subsequent year activity, as that represents really where all the local purchasing is happening. There are three grant tiers for subsequent year awards. There's 15¢, when 15% local purchasing is achieved, 20¢ for 20%, then 25¢ for 25%. Grant awards depend on how many lunches are served in the prior school year, but generally speaking, grant awards are in the fifteen thousand to forty thousand dollar range. Of course, the larger schools that are serving more meals often exceed that and some really small SFAs would be under that, but for a ballpark idea, we're talking about grant awards in the 15,000 to $40,000 range. So, main takeaways from this year, grant participation continues to grow. We had 14 school food authorities hit 15% this year, six of those hit at least 20%. We also had an additional school food authority hit 20%, but they missed the application deadline, but we're seeing increased participation in the grant award all around, and then the highest percentage was with Windham Northeast Supervisory Union, which actually hit 31% local purchasing this year. This is the second time, in the grant history that they've hit 31%. Grant awards exceeded the annual $500,000 annual appropriation for the first time since the grant program was enacted, and so this is going to require us to prorate grant awards. What that proration looks like is at the bottom of the report in the table, essentially SFAs can expect to receive about 90% of what they would have expected in full funding, or if there was enough funds for all grant awards, I should say. And then just an important note here is that we're currently in the process of auditing some grant awards, so we'll take a sample of applicants and conduct an audit to make sure that what they're reporting is accurate. Results of that audit might lead to lower grant requests if some applicants are disqualified for whatever reason. So some other key points that I just wanted to highlight, grant participations continue to grow, we expect it to continue to grow at least for a couple of years. One big reason is that school food authorities that work with a food service management company are just now beginning to enact really strong local purchasing language, which is really exciting for me because when we first started, about a third of our school food authorities contract with a food service management company, and they're kind of left out of the grant program because of how rigid those contracts are. It took a couple of years for us to finesse the right kind of language to ensure that school food authorities were actually going to get that local purchasing out of what they were paying for from that contract, and we're seeing now SFAs add that language in. I think it's safe to say that's a pretty direct result of the LFI, so that's exciting to see many of those districts choosing to include that language. It's all optional, we don't require it, but we provide those tools. About three quarters of all school food authorities have engaged with the local foods incentive in some way. We have 12 eligible SFAs that remain, that are eligible to apply, but have yet to apply for the baseline year grant. So, there's 12 holdouts, we're working on outreach and connecting with them to encourage them to apply, but broadly, we've seen interest across the board here. And then, in the report, I wanted to highlight chart three specifically, which is on page seven, and so this is both showing you, it's showing the grant award requests over the years, and you can see that there was initially a downward trend, and what that represented was SFAs would apply for the baseline year grant, receive it, it was a very easy grant award to receive, and then they weren't hitting that 15% in subsequent years, and so the number of SFAs receiving grant awards was going down, requests were going down to the lowest level of $240,000 in school year '24. We're now seeing that reverse, and the trend line is going up, and to me, I'm reading that as this is the local purchasing kicking in, right, and so now we're seeing the incentive doing the work that we expected, as more and more school food authorities are hitting 15%, are hitting higher tiers within that subsequent year, and so we're seeing a pretty consistent trend line going up, exceeding $500,000 My best guess is that that trend line is going to hold steady for a couple of years. Eventually, it's going to kind of plateau out, right, as it just can't keep going up and up forever, but especially as we have more of those school food authorities with management companies come into the grant program and start receiving grant awards, I do expect to see those requests continue to grow for a couple of years.

[Rosie Krueger, State Director of Child Nutrition Programs, VT Agency of Education]: Connor, I see a couple of folks trying to pull the report up. Can you just redirect I them to what they're don't see it. What that

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: It's under page seven.

[Connor Floyd, Grant Programs Manager, Child Nutrition Programs, VT Agency of Education]: Yep, page seven, It's chart under Rosie's name.

[Rosie Krueger, State Director of Child Nutrition Programs, VT Agency of Education]: It might be under my name. And

[Connor Floyd, Grant Programs Manager, Child Nutrition Programs, VT Agency of Education]: I'm happy to share my screen as well.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: I think we're good for the moment, Connor. Thank you. Okay. Representative O'Brien, question?

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: Connor, just coming back a second. Are you gonna do the audits in house?

[Connor Floyd, Grant Programs Manager, Child Nutrition Programs, VT Agency of Education]: Yes. I conduct the audits. And so Okay. They, I'm happy to talk more about what that process looks like if you're interested. And so then also highlighting chart four, which is just on the next page, page eight, what this is demonstrating to me is that we see a pretty consistent trend of about $1 of grant funding represents $3 in local purchasing. So, if we're thinking about a state return on investment, roughly a one to three has held steady over the years as we're seeing local purchasing really continue to grow, that one to three ratio remains pretty steady. I did want to call out that we had a, there was a gap in, this year in supplemental local food funds, so in school year twenty three-twenty four, there were federal funds available for local purchasing through the Local Food for Schools cooperative agreements. That funding was then taken away at the federal level, The state legislature backfilled that funding through funds to the Agency of Agriculture that have yet to kick in, so there was funding available in the prior year to help with local purchasing. It was gone for this current year that we're talking about, and it's going to come back just for one year in future years. And so, that gap in additional funding, that upward trend line that we looked at continued, and so I think that just strengthens the case that the incentive is working, it's changing purchasing practices, and it's building systems within schools, our schools are building those systems in response to the incentive that are remaining pretty steady. And then, finally, I would just like to highlight here, looking at chart four, that in the past three years, local purchasing has doubled as a result of this program, and so, we're, you know, we're pleased with those results, we're excited to see that this is making those changes at the local level, and we continue to see increased interest from school food authorities kind of across the board, you know, the folks that we hear about all the time, like Windham Northeast, but again, some folks that maybe haven't been participating in the past, such as many of those districts with food service management companies. It's been an exciting program as a result of all that. We've also, you know, there's plenty of pages at the end of the report with tables with all of that data that we collected, as well as some other attributes that we thought might be relevant in discussions tied to each of the school food authorities. So happy now to answer any questions you may have about the grant program, any of the data that we've shared. Yeah.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah. Thanks, Connor. And I probably have provided a little context, just a refresher on what the program was since we haven't talked about it for a year, And we have some newer committee members who maybe have only heard about it once in the past. But this is a program that's been running for quite a few years now that provides a payment to school districts, to school food authorities when they reach a certain if just by agreeing to participate in purchasing local food, they get a payment. That payment then goes up if they reach a certain amount of local food purchase. Representative Basilie.

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun (Member)]: I was just going to ask, I think you said that 12 districts haven't applied for local food grants yet. Is that correct?

[Connor Floyd, Grant Programs Manager, Child Nutrition Programs, VT Agency of Education]: That's correct. 12 haven't engaged in any way with the program.

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun (Member)]: Okay. And do you have a sense of why that is or if they're thinking to give it a try, or are they just, it's too complicated and they're not interested?

[Connor Floyd, Grant Programs Manager, Child Nutrition Programs, VT Agency of Education]: Yeah, so the majority of those districts that have not applied do contract with a food service management company. As I mentioned, that was a big barrier in the beginning. I think many of those are now, when they go back out to bid for a new contract and they include local purchasing, that would probably be the time when they would choose to start that baseline year. I'd say another, districts are often wary of signing up for new commitments, and we stress that applying for a baseline year grant does not mean you are committing to 15% in future years. Despite that messaging, I think that's just, know, districts are conservative in that regard, and so I think there's also a little bit of that in that group.

[Sarah Launderville, Executive Director, Vermont Center for Independent Living (VCIL)]: Do you have a sense

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun (Member)]: of how many of these districts have gone independent in terms of their food system program as opposed to going with an established company?

[Connor Floyd, Grant Programs Manager, Child Nutrition Programs, VT Agency of Education]: You're asking specifically how many have transitioned from a management company to a self operated program?

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun (Member)]: Yes.

[Connor Floyd, Grant Programs Manager, Child Nutrition Programs, VT Agency of Education]: Well, so most recently last year there was Windham Southeast transitioned. I'm trying to think, Rosie, who, since Windham Southeast, what the last transition would have been.

[Rosie Krueger, State Director of Child Nutrition Programs, VT Agency of Education]: I can't think off the top of my head if anybody has transitioned since that one. That was just actually the start of this I school

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun (Member)]: know Northeast was independent, but many It others were also independent.

[Rosie Krueger, State Director of Child Nutrition Programs, VT Agency of Education]: Depends on what period of time you're looking at. I think we have seen general trend towards going self operated. Are about a third of the schools in the state are using a management company right now. We have a handful of districts that are mixed where they're using a management company at some schools and are self op at other schools. And we do view that as a pretty inefficient model. And a lot of those folks are sort of considering whether to go one way or the other. And we have heard some interest in some of those districts with going entirely self operated. And you know, we're available either way to help folks figure this out. But we do periodically hear from people who are interested in doing a transition, we walk them through what that looks like and who to talk to, who's done it successfully, and that kind of thing.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Representative O'Brien, question.

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: Yeah, Connor or Rosie, this local foods incentive came about right around the same time we moved to universal school meals. I think we've got the pre dated, right?

[Rosie Krueger, State Director of Child Nutrition Programs, VT Agency of Education]: It might have pre dated by one year, but it's about the same time.

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: Okay, so there's been a consistency as far as how many meals are being prepared as far as the local purchasing goes. It wasn't like it really had to ramp up like you did.

[Rosie Krueger, State Director of Child Nutrition Programs, VT Agency of Education]: Yeah, I'm trying to think about those first couple of years. I don't remember which is the don't know, Connor, if you have what the first year of the incentive is. The early COVID years were weird in terms of meal counts. But we're in a weird situation right now where overall average daily participation is creeping up slightly year over year. But because total enrollment is declining, the number of meals we're serving is holding steady or even falling slightly. So I wouldn't anticipate costs for this are going to dramatically increase on that basis just because we have fewer students, so there's fewer meals being served. The way that costs would increase would be, well, you've capped the appropriation at 500,000 right now, so costs are not going to increase for it. But if demand for funding would increase, as Conor was saying, the

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: more

[Rosie Krueger, State Director of Child Nutrition Programs, VT Agency of Education]: schools switch into those subsequent year grants and achieve higher thresholds, then there would be higher demand and more prorating of the funds back down to the appropriated amount.

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: And breakfasts and summer meals are also included?

[Rosie Krueger, State Director of Child Nutrition Programs, VT Agency of Education]: They're not included in what makes the award. They're included in a calculation of the percentage of purchasing.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: The prorating that you talked about, you just mentioned, and you mentioned earlier, Conrad, so the demand or the requests exceeded the 500,000. And I know that in previous years, as the chart shows, we hadn't gotten to that 500,000. So every year, the unused funds weren't accumulating. They were returned back to the general fund. Correct. Then you start from 500 each year. So the impact and or the effect this year will be that you won't a district won't get 15¢. It'll get 14¢ or some small slightly smaller amount?

[Connor Floyd, Grant Programs Manager, Child Nutrition Programs, VT Agency of Education]: Exactly. Yep.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Okay. And there's no contractual concern there that they signed up for something and then they're not actually getting it?

[Connor Floyd, Grant Programs Manager, Child Nutrition Programs, VT Agency of Education]: We always, in all of our communications, we warn that if funds exceed the appropriation, they may be prorated.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: Yeah. Representative Baty. Oh, Rep. O'Brien asked the question. Thank

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: you. Then Nelson? Thank you. Connor, you kept referring to 12 districts. Only 12 districts have it. Yes. Are are you being in districts or s u's? Because there's 119 districts, and if you only have 12 that aren't applying, you have really good buy in.

[Rosie Krueger, State Director of Child Nutrition Programs, VT Agency of Education]: So when we talk Go about ahead, Connor.

[Connor Floyd, Grant Programs Manager, Child Nutrition Programs, VT Agency of Education]: We kind of combine them. We talk about school food authorities, which are kind of the highest level, right? So, if there is a supervisory union, we're talking about the supervisory union. In some instances, it is just a school district. It's 12 out of 60, so we have 60 eligible school food authorities, and then, yep, that's the pool that we're working with.

[Rosie Krueger, State Director of Child Nutrition Programs, VT Agency of Education]: In this context, when we say district, we mean supervisory district, which is the equivalent of a supervisory union, not those

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: So 12 out of 60, you do have really good buy in.

[Connor Floyd, Grant Programs Manager, Child Nutrition Programs, VT Agency of Education]: Yes.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Like 80%.

[Rosie Krueger, State Director of Child Nutrition Programs, VT Agency of Education]: Yes. Conversely, I would say that that baseline year grant is really easy money. So, it's a little bit surprising that those 12 have not It's answering four questions and coming up with a simple plan. Meant to be easy money to get them the funds they need in order to start on this path.

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: Representative O'Brien. Rosie and Connor, just wondered if at the agency of education, you're figuring out how this incentive would work with great consolidation of school people's lives

[Rosie Krueger, State Director of Child Nutrition Programs, VT Agency of Education]: or districts. We've thought about that a little bit. And so the school food authority in Vermont is at the SUSD level. So to the extent that those school districts that are not at the SUSD level consolidate, there really wouldn't be an impact because we're already not at that level. If those SUSDs consolidate, then it means your school food authority is larger. And so if it's, you know, these districts that are already participating, you don't really wouldn't really see that much of a change, but it it just means that you need to be bringing in all of these programs. And if you're operating kind of on a centralized basis, with the same menu, with the same purchasing, great. You direct everything that way. If everybody in every building is doing their own thing, it's really kind of impossible to get this because you need to show that documentation and everybody's kind of gotta be on the same path, and one district could be doing really well and another building is not doing really well on this. And so then you're averaging those out, and they may be canceling each other out. And we did see that, again, with some of those mixed districts where you've got a management company in some schools and self op in some schools, We heard some concerns that those self op schools felt like they were doing a lot of local purchasing and the management company schools weren't, and they were canceling each other out, basically. So it sort of depends on what happens and who joins. Your law is set up based on the school food authorities. There's not anything that you need to change in order to accommodate that kind of consolidation because we will still have school food authorities. You might decide you want to have some kind of hold harmless or something like that for these districts that have been achieving local. And then during those first years of consolidation, you might have a year where nobody qualifies because they're all in just different districts that are doing different things. So you might want to think about that. But it really depends on what happens with that.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: The districts that are overperforming hitting 30%, do we know why or what they're buying that helps them get to that level?

[Connor Floyd, Grant Programs Manager, Child Nutrition Programs, VT Agency of Education]: Do you

[Sarah Launderville, Executive Director, Vermont Center for Independent Living (VCIL)]: want to talk a

[Rosie Krueger, State Director of Child Nutrition Programs, VT Agency of Education]: little bit about the products that we're seeing?

[Connor Floyd, Grant Programs Manager, Child Nutrition Programs, VT Agency of Education]: Yeah, so generally speaking, you know, when I conduct my audits, that's when I'm seeing what those products are. So we don't have firm data, but just from those reviews, a it's lot of apples, it's a lot of dairy products, so cheese, yogurt, things like that, and then a lot of beef, and honestly, because we're talking about dollar value here, so it's not number of products like local vegetables, there's a lot of that purchasing happening, but when you're looking at just pure dollar value, what's moving the needle, it's, I see a lot of apples, maple syrup, yogurt and cheese, and beef is frankly where a lot of it is, and then people are trying to figure out creative ways to open up other avenues. There's been a lot of interest this year in local breads and local grains, things like that, but those are the main products that we're seeing.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Thank you, representative Nelson. Speaking of dairy, in light of the action taken with the help of our good senator Peter Welch, how many schools do we have going to old milk?

[Rosie Krueger, State Director of Child Nutrition Programs, VT Agency of Education]: You can speak to that a little bit. Okay. So this just went into effect a couple of weeks ago. It did go into effect immediately. One of the problems is that the way the law was written, it applies just to lunch. So it doesn't allow the flexibility to offer whole milk at breakfast or at snack. And so we've been talking to our schools and providing technical assistance on it, and I'm hearing from a lot of them that right now they're not going to make that change mid year because the complication of offering the whole milk at lunch and then having to move the cooler around offer it at breakfast, and then explaining to the kids why they can have it at lunch and not at breakfast, is really confusing. It sounds like at the federal level, there's some interest in fixing that. But until they fix that, there's not any flexibility there. We've got clear guidance from USDA that this is the way this is written, and this is what we have to do.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Can you tell those of us who maybe don't know what we're talking about? Yeah, sure.

[Rosie Krueger, State Director of Child Nutrition Programs, VT Agency of Education]: So the Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act was passed by Congress, I believe at the December and signed into law recently. It's effective immediately, applies to the National School Lunch Program. And previously, schools were required they have to offer milk with all the meals and they were required to offer two options. And for those two options, they could choose from skim milk flavored or unflavored or 1% milk flavored or unflavored. And with permission from the state agency, they also could choose to offer a milk that was nutrition or a nondairy milk nutritionally equivalent to milk, but they were not required to to do that. The Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act, allows them at lunch only the option. They still have to offer two milk options, but instead of being limited to just those couple of options, they also could choose to offer 2% flavored or unflavored or whole milk flavored or unflavored. And they also have the option without requesting permission from the state agency to, offer a non dairy alternative that's nutritionally equivalent to milk. So it doesn't require that they do anything, but it gives them the opportunity to do that. Unfortunately, limitation to just being effective at lunch is pretty complicated and difficult for them to handle.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Anybody see that coming? And we did What's that? We would have. Yeah.

[Rosie Krueger, State Director of Child Nutrition Programs, VT Agency of Education]: Yeah. I don't know what conversations were in Congress.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Representative Burtt. Yeah.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: And is it the laws surrounding whether it's 1% or flavor or whatnot at breakfast? Is that state or is that federal?

[Rosie Krueger, State Director of Child Nutrition Programs, VT Agency of Education]: No, it's all federal. We don't have any state laws about this.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Are there state law that would supersede it? We do for we did for me on the ice?

[Rosie Krueger, State Director of Child Nutrition Programs, VT Agency of Education]: No. This is all federal funding. So if we did something more restrictive, we'd be foregoing that federal funding.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: I wouldn't say it was more restrictive. I'd say it was less restrictive because we're offering a greater choice.

[Rosie Krueger, State Director of Child Nutrition Programs, VT Agency of Education]: I'm afraid the federal government wouldn't see it that way. So in order to get that federal reimbursement, they have to meet the federal meal pattern requirement. And one of the requirements is that the milk options be limited to these options.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Representative

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: Bartholomew. Speaking for the states, cows and goats, I would argue that there's no such thing as a nondairy product that's nutritionally equivalent.

[Rosie Krueger, State Director of Child Nutrition Programs, VT Agency of Education]: There's a federal language around that that I'm referring to. I

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: was surprised Richard didn't immediately leave up with

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Well, people some people have allergies or beliefs, and we have to honor people's

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: beliefs. Yeah. But it's still not the same.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. It's not the same product. I agree.

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: Representative O'Brien. Just a a follow-up. So in the local food purchasing, beverages, including dairy milk don't count?

[Rosie Krueger, State Director of Child Nutrition Programs, VT Agency of Education]: So you all need a policy decision when this was first implemented to not count dairy because dairy is a significant portion, or not dairy, to not count the fluid milk that's served in terms of the it's excluded from both the total dollar amount and also from the local amount because at the time, was a large percentage of what's being spent and there wasn't a local to Vermont option that met the same standards that you were setting for everything else. At this point, there actually is one. There are a bunch of schools, I'm sure you've heard about purchasing from a dairy in Southern Vermont, Miller Farm. But that is the only option that we're aware of that would meet that requirement. So you could make a decision to alter that. It was a policy decision you made at the time based on what the landscape was at the time.

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: And things like cider or apple juice?

[Rosie Krueger, State Director of Child Nutrition Programs, VT Agency of Education]: Those count towards the fruit component and not towards the, it's not a beverage. It's specifically that fluid milk, needs to be one of the components. So we do see some cider, we're doing some work. It's not going quite as quickly or well as I would like, but we had some grant funding from USDA at the state level to work on some farm to school. And we have had one of the contractors that we've hired with that funding trying to bring a four ounce cider cup to market because that is a product where we see a lot of even non domestic, like it's not a US apple juice product that a lot of schools are serving, and that's a violation of federal requirements. And so we were trying to kind of resolve that by producing a Vermont product that need for juice, because they're not required to offer juice specifically. They could just offer a whole fruit. And in fact, there are limitations over the course of the week on how much juice they can offer. But in some circumstances, you know, juice is a good fit. Kids like it. So we want to make sure that when they're offering that, they've got a good option and could help with the local foods incentive. But that's been going a little slower than I personally would hope. But we're working on it.

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: The challenges seem to be in packaging a lot.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah, it's a

[Rosie Krueger, State Director of Child Nutrition Programs, VT Agency of Education]: specific piece of packaging equipment.

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: Is it possible?

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun (Member)]: Yeah, so I was following the dairy bill and I didn't realize that flavored milks were included in that. So basically a school could choose to say, I'm gonna give whole milk and chocolate milk or whole milk and strawberry milk, which is made with pink artificial disgusting stuff. What's the motivation for doing that? Because that's basically adding a bunch of sugar to I can't speak to the motivation. I

[Rosie Krueger, State Director of Child Nutrition Programs, VT Agency of Education]: will say that new this year, there are federal limits for the first time on the amount of added sugar in flavored milk served in school meals programs. And those requirements about offering two types do require that one of the types has to be unflavored. They don't have to offer flavor. Many schools decide not to. They often will address it in their school wellness policy, or it will just be a decision of the school meals program. Or we'll see some schools that offer flavored milk only at lunch and not at breakfast. Over starting 07/01/1927, there will be overall limits on the amount of added sugars in school meals programs, and that's before anything any changes are made to comply with the new dietary guidelines, which recommend no added sugars for kids under age 10. So I'm anticipating we're going to see more at the federal level in this area. And in order to comply with those overall weekly limits, I would anticipate that some schools will stop offering flavored milk. Then I would also imagine that manufacturers are going to be changing their formulations. And we already have seen that to comply with the new limits that went into effect this year. I will also say we've never seen strawberry milk in Vermont. That's just not a product that our schools are buying. They could, but we just don't see that product here. So when we're talking about flavored milk in Vermont, we're seeing chocolate milk. Other states, I've seen coffee milk, but that's also not something that we've seen in our schools.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: I'm sure we could support maple though.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Would that be an added sugar?

[Rosie Krueger, State Director of Child Nutrition Programs, VT Agency of Education]: It would be an added sugar. So you just have to look at that formulation to see how much maple you could add.

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: The two get together, please. Just

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: getting back to the incentive program, and the number of, I noticed on one of the slides, the number of school food authorities districts, just because that's a mouthful, that had participated but have not continued to and hadn't returned every year. Do you have a sense through either anecdote or data collection on why that's happened, much of it has?

[Connor Floyd, Grant Programs Manager, Child Nutrition Programs, VT Agency of Education]: I mean, in short, hitting 15% is challenging, right? It's not, I think folks, yeah, I don't think a district is accidentally hitting 10%, let alone 15%, and so, there's certainly a subset that's probably more like at 3% that feels like that is just too far for them to achieve. So, I think there's certainly districts that, you know, like kind of took the baseline year grant funding and said, We're not able to do any more. Plenty more though, I do believe are working there. Very few of them will, can apply knowing that they didn't hit 15% just to give us that data. We really appreciate that, but we don't require it, and so my hunch is that there's quite a few districts that are doing that, they know where they're at, but, you know, we don't have that information just because it's not required of them to report it, but, you know, in short, I think we're moving the needle. More and more districts are hitting that 15% threshold, but it's certainly an accomplishment. It's very impressive given, I think, Rosie, in a bit, is going to just talk about the amount of funding available for a school meal, and to be able to hit 15%, let alone those higher percentages with that funding, is certainly an accomplishment.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah, I wonder whether, and to the extent that you've thought about this or feel that you've got something that would be helpful for us to know, whether there are districts that I mean, I imagine that there are districts who feel they can afford to spend more than other districts and have maybe have a budget that other districts don't have, and whether there start to be equity issues that we're providing something for some students at some parts of the state, but not for everyone.

[Rosie Krueger, State Director of Child Nutrition Programs, VT Agency of Education]: We've given you the data to look at that, so if you look at those tables, go ahead.

[Connor Floyd, Grant Programs Manager, Child Nutrition Programs, VT Agency of Education]: So yeah, pages eleven and twelve of the report, of those data tables, are showing you the subsequent year applicants, and there's a column showing general fund transfers and then a column showing general fund transfer per student, which just gives you an idea, scale of the district, what does that scale look like as a general fund transfer. Of the districts hitting 15%, all but two are subsidizing their meal programs pretty significantly with local funds. So, it's not impossible to hit 15% without spending extra, but it's even harder to do it without spending extra. So, it's almost, yeah, the baseline is that you're, or the expectation, or the norm, I should say, is that these districts are spending more. We've also included the free and reduced percentage of those districts to give you a sense of socioeconomic status of their population.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Thank you for pointing that up. Representative O'Brien?

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: I just wondered if you've ever had a fun exercise with the school good authorities. When you look at school menus, where's the limit, this ceiling on ingredients? Packaging wasn't a problem. What served in schools that we could grow in Vermont and essentially get into schools? Is it really high? Is it like 60%? There's certain things you can't do, of course, but it'd be interesting ingredient by ingredient, if

[Rosie Krueger, State Director of Child Nutrition Programs, VT Agency of Education]: you have

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: capacity here, how high we could go.

[Rosie Krueger, State Director of Child Nutrition Programs, VT Agency of Education]: I don't think we've ever done that exercise. That could be a question for some of the advocacy organizations around farm to school. I think they have done more of that thinking. I would say funding though is your biggest barrier there. I mean, we can get into this a little bit, but there without the couple of counter talking about general fund transfers, he means the general fund of the school budget, which is coming from the education fund. So many of them are putting additional funds in. But between state and federal funding, they have 2.46 to produce every breakfast, and $4.69 plus $0.45 worth of USDA Foods, which is food that the federal government's purchasing to produce every lunch. And that's not just the ingredients. That's also the labor, the equipment, the supplies. Many of them are, paying for benefits for their food service staff out of that, including health insurance, trash and compost, laundry for uniforms, other utilities. It's frankly miraculous that they're able to produce a meal on that amount of funding.

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: The SFAs have access to some of the USDA commodity foods?

[Rosie Krueger, State Director of Child Nutrition Programs, VT Agency of Education]: That's the 45¢ that they're getting. That's just for lunch, but it's food that the federal government is purchasing on behalf of the the school districts. So and unfortunately, at this point, none

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: of that's coming from Vermont.

[Rosie Krueger, State Director of Child Nutrition Programs, VT Agency of Education]: We've we've worked really hard to try and move that, and it's just not something that is seeming likely to happen.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: This is why $2 and what?

[Rosie Krueger, State Director of Child Nutrition Programs, VT Agency of Education]: $2.46. And if they're a really school district with a very high free and reduced percentage, they get a little bit more than that. But it's it's not very much mine.

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: Do you remember what prisons were? It was

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: $3 ish. Was it? Yeah. I don't remember. There's spread of a range from the 3 ish dollar.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Not a basketball. For three meals. Per meal? Per meal. Well, thank you for the overview. It's always really great to have both of you in to update on this and be reminded of how much work you're putting into it. Thank you. Herbert, Ed Nelson?

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Can we talk about the ultra processed foods just a little bit? I always say the hot dog and the pig in a blanket because that's a popular lunch thing, you know, in limited numbers.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: So let's yeah. Let's unless you had anything else, Connor, why don't we

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: representative. Connor, I'm always fascinated by the mountain range behind you. Are you in a valley or

[Connor Floyd, Grant Programs Manager, Child Nutrition Programs, VT Agency of Education]: You know, I should know what you'd have to ask, like, the marketing office of the state what what ski mountain we're looking at here. I'm frankly not too sure.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: That's what I'm thinking. You're on the East Warren Road.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Okay. Thank you, Connor. Since, Rosie, you made offered to also speak to the bills that we're gonna be getting a formal introduction to later today. Let's hear what your thoughts are there.

[Rosie Krueger, State Director of Child Nutrition Programs, VT Agency of Education]: Yeah, so I haven't seen Bill text. I assume you all haven't really seen Bill text yet either. So I don't have anything there to react to, but I did kind of want to give you some context about what we are seeing because it might be different than some of the kind of perceptions of what's going on. So I'll say that my team at the Agency of Education, we spend a lot of time out in schools reading ingredient labels, looking at menus. We're required by the federal government to be out in every school food authority for a formal administrative review every three to five years. And then we often go out more frequently for technical assistance visits when we're basically doing the same thing. And during those administrative reviews, we're looking at the menu, we're looking at recipes, we're looking at nutrition facts on their labels, ingredients, and we're looking at that for the school meals. And then we're also looking at that for what's considered smart snacks. These are the federal regulations that apply to any food sold to children during the school day, which is midnight the night before to thirty minutes after the school day. So any food sold in schools actually has to meet similar nutritional standards to the school meals programs already. And so it's our team's job to evaluate that and make sure that that's happening. So we're looking at those foods as well. So stuff sold in vending machines, school stores, stuff like that. So in general, we actually rarely see food dyes in most Vermont meals programs. And there's only a few products where we're seeing it in those competitive foods, the smart snacks foods. The places that we do see food dyes in Vermont schools are in breakfast cereal. Although I do anticipate that that will be changing as some of these federal limits on added sugars go into effect and manufacturers adjust their products to meet those requirements. Because there are these strict federal requirements, both on the school meals and then also on the smart snacks, you will see that national manufacturers will make special versions of their product just to serve just to sell to schools. A really great example of this is Doritos. So the nacho cheese, the red Doritos package that you I'm sure you can all picture. The one sold in grocery stores, of course, contains red 40. The one sold to school meals programs has vegetable dye, to make it orange and, also has whole grain in it. So it's a different formulation, complies the whole grain requirement complies to the federal standards. All the other nutritional, requirements comply with federal standards. It looks exactly the same as the one sold commercially. So that's gonna be true of basically all of the other products that you see. So when you think of a commercial product that you would consider to be a processed food and you know that it's being sold in schools in a vending machine, you have to remember that it's a different version of that product. And so depending on how you wanna define ultra processed foods, you could put a whole bunch of regulations in place that don't actually have an impact on those things. That said, we do see some food dyes, in some of those vending machines. So, you know, with fermentation food dyes, cooking machines. Overall, we don't think school meals programs would have a particularly hard time complying with those requirements around food dyes just because they're not serving a lot of products with food dyes. So that's food dyes. Ultra processed foods gets really complicated because there's no standard accepted definition of ultra processed foods. So I'd encourage you to think about what is it you're trying to regulate here. And I will say that most Vermont schools really try to emphasize scratch cooking. And I think they're really doing the best they can with the funds that they have. Where we do see more packaged foods would be mostly a breakfast. So we do see a fair amount of sort of packaged bread products like a packaged muffin or packaged bars, yogurt, some pre made breakfast sandwiches, those sorts of things, certainly breakfast cereal. Depending on your definition of what ultra processed foods are, those things may or may not fall under it. And if you're looking at the process, they might fall under it. If you're looking at ingredients, some products might, some products wouldn't. The reason that we see schools offering those is mostly around labor. So they just have a hard time hiring enough staff. We're always hearing about staffing shortages in the school meals programs. And then also, we really encourage schools to offer grab and go meals, breakfast in the classroom, breakfast in between, after the bell in between class periods. And so for that kind of thing, you really need something that is portable, that isn't gonna make a big mess. And so packaged products are are really useful for that. They're also cheap, when you look at labor and and the product itself. And when you're talking about make trying to make a meal for $2.46, including the cost of food and the cost of labor and all these other costs, that's why they're relying on those products. It's not because they don't want to do better for our kids. The other place that we would see something that you might consider to be processed would be in protein items. So sausage patties and pepperoni often have additional additives like BHA or BHT. Luncheon meats, breaded chicken products, you might or might not consider those processed depending on whether you're looking at specific ingredients or the processing that they go through. But certainly, do see a lot of luncheon meats. Schools typically offer a deli sandwich as an alternative to whatever the hot meal item is. Pepperoni pizza is a perennial favorite. And one of the pepperonis that we see offered in Vermont schools does have, I think, a BHT in it. One of the other ones doesn't. You know, it depends on what you again, what do you consider processed. But and then breaded chicken products, we actually went through and looked at the ingredients in the breaded chicken products. And a lot of these have recently been reformulated and don't have a lot of those additives in them anymore. You may still consider them to be processed. Again, it really depends on on your definition. You can make a breaded chicken product from scratch, you know, and it still looks like a chicken tender, but if you've made it from scratch, you can see it being processed. It's, again, really how you make that definition. So it's very complicated. And I would encourage you as you're thinking about this to be aware that a lot of of other states have either already taken steps here or are actively having these conversations and looking at these same bills. I would really encourage you to follow what the other states are doing if you decide to do something in this area rather than trying to create your own definition or do your own thing. Because those manufacturers are not going to make a product that's specific to Vermont's needs, but they will be changing their We're already seeing them change their formulations to meet those requirements of other states. And so if you go off and do your own thing, you're likely to really increase costs and really introduce some real purchasing difficulties for Vermont schools because they won't be able to get those products that meet the labor and the cost needs that they have and the affordability needs that they have, if it's not the same requirements as those larger states. The way that a lot of those larger states are looking at doing it is a specific list of ingredients. I mentioned PHT before, BHA. It's pretty easy to have a list of the artificial colors. A lot of states have already done that. That is the simplest way if you kind of model yours based on the list of additives that other states have already prohibited, because again, those manufacturers are going to change those formulations to accommodate that. And it's much simpler for us and for the schools to know what we're looking for and to implement something like that, rather than kind of a amorphous, what steps has it gone through, that kind of thing. So if we can look at ingredient labels that we're already looking at, and that would be kind of our second recommendation is depending on what your compliance is, not introducing a new compliance process, but, tacking it on top of the school meals administrative reviews that we already do and asking AOE to look at the labels and recipes that we're already looking at, during the course of the normal federal administrative review for specific ingredients that you've decided shouldn't be allowed. That would be much simpler than starting your own new compliance process. If we just look at those items, I think it would still be a very robust process. We'd be looking at both the meals and at the stuff sold in the vending machines. And it wouldn't mean that the schools have to submit new paperwork to us. However, I will caution you that depending on what you do, you will be cutting off a variety of products that the schools really are relying on again for that breakfast after the bell and breakfast in the classroom, which really does expand meal availability to some of our most vulnerable kids. And so you're going to have to balance as policymakers, if more funding is not available, how do you weigh that challenge of making sure that a meal is available to kids and not reducing that while making the food as high quality as possible? And I'll just say that I think that everybody's trying really hard. I don't think it's lack of interest.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Thank you for that. And we will pick up the conversation again this afternoon. Representative Bartholomew did have a question.

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: If I remember correctly, this bill is a short form bill which means there's nothing to it except the statement of purpose, which means the bill hasn't been written, which means there isn't a definition of ultra processed. So do you have an idea for what that definition says? Or would you be able to provide with Yeah.

[Rosie Krueger, State Director of Child Nutrition Programs, VT Agency of Education]: So I'll I'll point you to

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: recommended definition of what

[Rosie Krueger, State Director of Child Nutrition Programs, VT Agency of Education]: I'm recommending that if you decide to move forward with this, you follow what other states are doing. And the simplest thing that other states are doing is basically just a list of additives that they are prohibiting being sold in schools. And they're applying that to the school meals programs and to those smart snacks. So there's no undercutting of the school meals programs by the smart snacks. Those are federal things that already exist. So you can refer to the federal smart snack regulations to define those competitive foods that are sold to schools. And as long as your list sort of matched what the other states were doing, you would reduce the impact of schools not being able to purchase nationally available products.

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: So are you willing and able to, if we do that, to look at what we've proposed to see if we got it right?

[Rosie Krueger, State Director of Child Nutrition Programs, VT Agency of Education]: Well, what I would recommend is that the School Nutrition Association nationally actually has a tracker of all state legislation on this and where each of those bills are at. And it links you directly to each of those pieces of legislation. So you can look at what's been enacted, what is kind of making its way through the process, and how all those other states have defined this.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: I think that representative Bos-Lun if we're moving ahead, we'll want to work closely with the agency and with the school food authority. One

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: more question. Just one thing we haven't talked about that LFIs are the CTEs with culinary programs, do they have more freedom to do some local purchasing because they don't probably have that incredibly low for that lunch or breakfast so that they could potentially buy more local foods or even be challenged and say, we're going do 80% for a The

[Rosie Krueger, State Director of Child Nutrition Programs, VT Agency of Education]: local foods incentive just applies to the nonprofit school food service account, which is the funding for producing the school meals for the federal school meals program, and then any catering that's done by the school meals program out of that account, that kind of thing. So CTEs for their culinary programs operate a totally separate budget for those culinary programs, we're not looking at that at all. That's federal

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: not

[Rosie Krueger, State Director of Child Nutrition Programs, VT Agency of Education]: considered part of the SFA. For the federal smart snack requirements that I was just mentioning do apply to all foods sold to kids during the school day. So if the CTE program is making a meal that they sell to kids, then they have to comply with our requirements. We've seen most CTEs sort of move away from that and pivot towards selling those meals that they're producing to adults. There are some that are selling to kids and that use our recipes and sort of comply with our program requirements. But it's you know, if you're teaching somebody how to be a pastry chef, it's a little bit difficult to comply with nutrition requirements. So they found it easier to focus on adult meals there. Yeah, local foods incentive really doesn't have any interplay with CTEs.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Good. All right. Thank you very much. That's helpful. Connor, thank you again.

[Connor Floyd, Grant Programs Manager, Child Nutrition Programs, VT Agency of Education]: Yeah, thank you.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: I'll just say for the committee's sake, want to be thinking about this when we're thinking about the budget, our budget letter, because a this program that we have in the past mentioned when we're getting back to appropriations and what our recommendations are.

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: It's become base at eight zero eight?

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: It's in the base, I think. Yes.

[Rosie Krueger, State Director of Child Nutrition Programs, VT Agency of Education]: The 500 does.

[Connor Floyd, Grant Programs Manager, Child Nutrition Programs, VT Agency of Education]: Yeah. Yes.

[Rosie Krueger, State Director of Child Nutrition Programs, VT Agency of Education]: All right, we'll take a

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: break and be back. We're starting up at eleven again with some testimony

[Sarah Launderville, Executive Director, Vermont Center for Independent Living (VCIL)]: on