Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: I what I'm gonna start by doing is going through just a list that I've put together. It's not some I'm not gonna hand it out because it's not a format that would be not very helpful, I think, at this point. But if you want to just make a note, you make notes as I'm reading them. If you want to, it would be helpful if after I get through the list and you don't hear something, you'd say, what about this? I think we heard a budget request from this. And I don't necessarily have, I do have some numbers. I'm not sure that the numbers are right. And it may not be compared to last year's number. It may just be this year's number. But we do have a lot of information sustainable jobs fund, Jake Claro pulled together into that spreadsheet. We have that as a resource too. So here's what I'm seeing. First of all, we we will, I think, just want to comment on the agency's budget and overall and then the department's budget overall since those are clearly two key things. Within the agency's budget, there is money for working lands. So a lot of comments on that specifically, I think. And then within the Forest Park budget, there's money for serve, learn, earn based funding, and there's money for VOREC grants, which we didn't hear a lot about, but it's something that has come before our committee before. We wanna call attention to that. Then we've got, I'll start itemizing the things now, the local purchasing incentive. That's the money that schools receive, school food authorities receive if they buy a certain percentage top food. And that's I think it's $500,000 That's the number that I It's been that number for the last few years, and that's in the governor's budget. Also in the governor's budget is $500,875 So $500,875 for Farm to School, the Farm to School grant program. Also in the governor's budget is money for fairs and field days. I think it's $200,000 This is not the capital section. This is the grants that we were hearing about today.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: It wasn't the 300,000 that they were talking about?

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: It's like that. We'll have to double check.

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: And that's in institutions too, right?

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah, institutions is definitely dealing with that too. And then the full statutory funding for the housing and conservation board. This is money that we heard testimony on from the board and then from the coalition. It comes from the property transfer tax. Historically, even though it's in statute that it goes to conservation and housing, historically, the governor and the legislature have taken some of it. And and this year, the governor is saying, no. We don't vote all of it to those purposes. It's 37,600,000.0. And then there are a number of requests that were not in the governor's budget, and I will list them. Oh, I'm sorry. I did mention working lands. Okay. So that's good. But then the working lands coalition is also requesting additional money beyond the 1,000,000 that's in the base. They are requesting another

[Rep. Greg Burtt (Member)]: half

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: million. The base of 3,500,000.0 at one time funding. Do you

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: want us to chime in as you read these? No. Well, I mean, if

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: if you can't if you are so excited about something and you can't restrain yourself to chime in, but otherwise, I'll just read a memo. Sounds like Richard.

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun (Member)]: Richard might be getting excited.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: I'm excited.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: 200,000 for Vermonters feeding Vermonters through the food bank. Two yeah. 2,000,000. Dollars 2,000,000 for feeding Vermonters through the food bank. Dollars 500,000 for NOFA crop cash, crop cash plus, and the farm share program, which is a CSA program. And then for the Natural Resource Conservation Council, the governor's recommendation is 612,000 in the base. That's what it is this year, the base. And the request is to bring that up to 948,200. The Farm and Forestry Operations Security Special Fund, that's the s 60. The request was for 15,650,000. The SNAP and Medicaid benefit assistor navigator program. I don't have a number here. We do have a number, but I don't remember what the latest number is. I think it was 4.7 or eight. Something No, like it was I'd say in the range of four.

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun (Member)]: It was over five and they dropped it to under four. I mean, I'm sorry, under five. More something like that. Four point something million was for the navigators. Yeah.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Okay. I mean, it's still all.

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun (Member)]: That was the adjustment where where snap is SNAP has been dropped. It used to be a 50% match and the federal government changed it to where it's going to be, we're going to only do a 25% match. So it's trying to, like, there's all kinds of expenses.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: I thought this isn't just for the navigators that they talked about yesterday. Two

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: things I think, Michelle, yeah, that what you're talking about is money that we need to pay for administrative costs. And we actually haven't really talked much about that here. I don't think we need to address that in our letter, but we could. In fact, we could.

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun (Member)]: Human services is also looking at it, but it's kind of a big amount. I mean, basically what they've said is that the part of the way that people are gonna lose their benefits is because the paperwork has been made cumbersome enough that people aren't gonna be able to stay on by not keeping up with the requirements. And if they don't keep up with the requirements and renew in the right time or fill out the application right in the first place, then they won't get benefits. And the state and the feds will save money if people don't get to utilize these food benefits, but then they'll also be hungry. And so, I don't know.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: So yes, what I'm thinking about was yesterday in the food bank and the B app at 500,000 to help pay for navigators. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I'm thinking of. I'm pretty sure it's 500,000.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: So I partly that so I think there are two different things. And part of the confusion is both of them are numbers that are a little less than maybe a number we originally heard for different reasons. So there is definitely money for navigators, which are people who would sit and help from doctors who need help enrolling or re enrolling. And we had a request for that money. And then we also are aware of, because it was shared with us and it's been reported, that the state is now gonna have to pick up an additional 25% of the administrative costs. All states are, as we have discussed. But I don't think we heard a request to take care of that. We'll get some clarification in a second here, but I think that, I sort of have assumed that that's in the budget. Be curious to know. So I see Amy on the side there raising her hand.

[Amy (SNAP benefits/outreach advocate)]: Yeah, Sheldon. So just to clarify, the $4,950,000 request for benefit assistance includes a little over $477,000 for the additional match for the SNAP outreach partners. So it's inside that request, and we are still seeking clarity about whether that $477,000 is included in the Governor's budget spreadsheets are being requested.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: $4.77?

[Amy (SNAP benefits/outreach advocate)]: That would cover the 10 SNAP outreach partners with the 25% additional match. That amount, it's a little more than that, I don't know the exact number, but that amount is included in the 4,950,000.00 benefit the sisters request.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Now I'm confused. We heard in the, let me go back to last August. So before anybody mentioned Navigators at all, we heard that the state of Vermont was now gonna have to pay not just 25% of like administrative program, but 50%. Right. So that's a different That's something we're not talking about that here.

[Amy (SNAP benefits/outreach advocate)]: We call that SNAP admin.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: And then we're not talking about that here. That's not part that this

[Amy (SNAP benefits/outreach advocate)]: is the state, the administration side. So the state's cost is also going to be between 5% to a 50% state match, as well as the community partners who do SNAP outreach. So it's the whole thing that's going from 25 to 50. There is money in the budget for the SNAP admin. What we don't know is if that includes the outreach partners. And we do know that the outreach partners cost is a little north of $477,000

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Okay. Sorry, it's very confusing. It confusing. One more.

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: So the 25 to 50 increase is what number?

[Amy (SNAP benefits/outreach advocate)]: That is still under dispute for the state side of things.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Right, okay.

[Amy (SNAP benefits/outreach advocate)]: And what the governor has in his budget is $4,500,000 or possibly both things, SNAP admin and outreach partners, and the math has been being reviewed for the past two weeks by a variety of people. Not me.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: One of those players might.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Then we receive I think we had some testimony. We definitely received a letter from the professional loggers organization with a request for 750,000 in new funding for the slow camp program. So that was the water quality program that we we funded it two years ago, and then we had we got an update from the department and then from the bloggers on how that was going. Salvation Farms was in, and they had requested funding. I think it was 100,000 for their work. They had received three years ago a one time grant of half $1,000,000, and that was to go to building a facility and expanding the work that they do, and we heard a report on that. We're not done yet. There are several things that are in other committees that other committees are primarily recommending, and we can support those requests if we care to. Serve, learn, earn. Now that's actually in the FPR budget. They've also requested additional funding from the Commerce Committee. I think it's half 1,000,000 and they wanna rate it to 1,000,000. The food bank has, in addition to the Vermont City of Vermonters, yesterday we saw there were two other requests. One is for response readiness. I think that's for I don't have the numbers. I don't think I've got it.

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun (Member)]: That was a million.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: A million, yeah. Then 2,000,000 for just general. With our partners. Yeah, yep, for partners. Bridges to Health, that is in the healthcare committee. That's the program that we funded through budget adjustment or had proposed funding through budget adjustment.

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: This would be going forward with their new partner.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Right, with the The The three clinics. Yeah. Two clinics. Okay. That is a half million, I believe. And then the land access and opportunity board, I'm a little sketchy on the numbers there. I don't think they came in with a budget request. There in the general housing committee, and they're making a recommendation.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: And they have hedge funding now at 1 Yeah. Million

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: So I think those are all that I've got on my list here. And if I've overlooked something which is possible and anybody had something in their mind that they thought we needed to cover. Or somebody is listening and later wants to jump in, or not too much later, but soon jump in. So those are the programs. And again, some of them are in the governor's budget. More of them, I think, are not just because of the situation, the overall financial picture we're in this year. And I think we can expect that there'll be probably not a whole lot that gets funded out of any committee's request, but you never know. We did just hear the other day that the school budgets are coming in now at count meeting day, a little bit lower than the expectations or the estimates were back in December when the December 1 letter went out. So if there's and I don't know what that dollar amount is, but there's some savings there potentially. And there may be other other sources too. So

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: But the savings on the on the school budgets, that'll be just really savings of property taxes on it.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah. So it would it would mean that if we've got funding that would otherwise be used from the general fund to offset property taxes, we wouldn't need as much to do that, but there would be money then available for public banks.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: You say so far there are a number of school budgets that come in. Are you talking 1%, 2%, 10%? Do have any sense of what the range? Yeah.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Wait, maybe I get it wrong. It was significant. I don't remember the numbers, but I can check later and get to it. It was significant enough that, oh, okay, well that would free up some money, potentially. Big trend. Yeah. And to be sure, these are not budgets that are tasked because I don't think anybody's actually voted it yet, but the warnings were people who were saying this is what we're gonna be voting on and it was less than what their projections were back in December. Did you end up total request, skip over I didn't attempt to do that. Nope. It far exceeds,

[Rep. Greg Burtt (Member)]: our goal. The copywriter

[Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: doesn't go to bedtime. Yeah. No. So

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: I would be very interested in hearing what committee's thoughts are at this point. We're looking at several different things that I know in the past we've recommended. Some of the things that have actually been in the budget for several years that have been one time over and over again are not at the base and there's some

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: new things too. Yeah, John. Is appropriations brown on us potentially finding funds for some of these ads? Two, was thinking of the clean water funds, which keeps coming up.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: It'd

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: be nice to know how big that is and where the money goes. And also to VHCb, if

[Rep. Greg Burtt (Member)]: they got fully funded, we never really saw what that budget looks like either. And I don't know, we would recommend, even if

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: it was relatively small, we were like, oh, we'd suggest taking a million from one or another and using it on maybe something even appropriate.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah. We dollar know amount was it's right at 37,600,000.0. Yeah. That's a lot.

[Rep. Greg Burtt (Member)]: I mean, we saw it at, what, a couple years ago, at like 25.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah. No,

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: it is a lot. But I got a feeling that upper floor in a pavilion wants it to go to housing. Right. But, you know, can we make an argument that it goes to spawn some money? So I always figured DEC because they've got that bloated budget with 360 employees and they do not have any fund committee. And, you know, if there's money there that can be used for Like, camp. Oh, slow camp would be a a good place for it or, you know, the the working lands grants, you know, if for clean water projects, you know, our equipment for clean water drills or no till equipment injection equipment and whatnot. You could almost put a CAD, you know,

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: Like the districts

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: And and and then on the on the yeah. Conservation districts, they do I I I can only speak for my district, but they are so all over all these clean water initiatives Yeah. And doing great work with it. Where is my current thought going?

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: I gotta quit doing that. We did take some tests last year on the Clean Water Fund. It's a bit of a big challenge. Can say one

[Amy (SNAP benefits/outreach advocate)]: thing about that. I was

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun (Member)]: on institutions for four years and we used to have to go through the capital budget and it was torturous. But actually when we had water projects, they were generally met four to one. It was a four to one match. It was like the best match we got for any of the expenses we had in the state. Federal money. Money, yeah. Now, I don't know if that's changed this year, but I know in previous years, the water projects were the easiest ones to fund because we had such big match.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Okay. Do you wanna take a shoot, Bob?

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. Yeah. It came back. You know, John said, you know, on the working lands you're here, you know, what kind of matches are you getting? And, you know, I yes. Yeah. John practiced. Big John. And I don't think you're wrong. And you go through the catalog and you look and it's a lot of those were 50% matches. Some of them were, you know, 60% matches. Some of them paid for the equipment almost a 100%. And, you know, I I don't think you're you know, you could we could spread out that working lands and make it have more bang if we required, you know, we asked them to require or if we required some kind of a match. You know, New York state has a 25 on anything they do on framers. They get an investment tax credit, that's 25%. You take a million dollars and you'd be there's 25% of the the stuff you're doing last $4,000,000 worth of projects or or 50% is 2,000,000 worth of projects. And it just helps spread the love. And and you get a 50% grant. You you have equity in something immediately when you go out and get it.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah. Yep. John? William, do you mind, Jed? I know you had your I won't.

[Rep. Greg Burtt (Member)]: I think I

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Okay. Well, I'll tell you. It's

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: don't forget, I gotta write it down for you. Let's go be here. It won't be in my head then.

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: Hand us then, Jed.

[Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: I was just gonna add, I think your point is really valid, we should explore that. Just wondering, can we do that as part of the budget process or does that require a statute change to direct? So it should require

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: a match. Is it statutes or is

[Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: it rules or That's my question.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah, think what we might want to do is invite, we're hoping the agency is going to come in maybe tomorrow and we could pose that question to them, take additional time to do that. I mean, just see what their reaction is. Then we could In the Yeah, it could be in the budget bill. We could add language in the budget, I think, that would make Yeah, that

[Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: that would be the same. And what was in your notes for working lands? What did you say? Dollar amount?

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah. So the million that the governor's recommended for the base, they're asking for another half million on the base and then 3.51 time, so a total of five.

[Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: And I think just to go on with that thought is, I'd love to give it to them. There isn't that much money. Have We're to come up with a lower number than that. As much as we may value the product.

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: But the extra 500, though,

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: seems maybe within striking distance.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: 500.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Well, they're out of millions. Right, but the 300

[Rep. Greg Burtt (Member)]: That's not happening, but at

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: least do that other you know.

[Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: Yeah, I'm not saying that we a lot of us ask for no more, but 5,000,000 is just not doable.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: No. And and I pitched the 500,000 the first day they're in here because 40% of the projects are woodland, which are are, you know, absolutely a 100%, you know, we should do that. But if if they could find some money over in the a and r budget to put it in the 500,000 and help pay, you know, agriculture, you know, AAFM has the people that are working on it, two dedicated staff, you know, if they could cover part you know, that 500,000 cover part of that dedicated staff money. It just brings scales to a leveler.

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: You had a match too and all of a sudden

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Yeah, had a match too. And 3,000,000. Now you got 3,000,000.

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun (Member)]: Chuck. Yeah. I guess I would just say, I mean, I've said it before. I kind of feel like we have an impossible choice. That said, we have to do something. And so in terms of sort of figuring out what to put at the top of the list, for me, there are I mean, it's even smaller than a handful of programs that are both food programs and farmer programs at the same time. So if we look at Vermonters feeding Vermonters, we're addressing food security and we're also helping farmers. So it's like we're getting double bang for the buck. The same thing is true of Crop Cash, Crop Cash Plus and the farm share. Those are helping individuals that are food insecure. It's also helping make a better market for farmers. So in some ways, if we have limited money and we're not gonna get all the things we want, those are all programs that kind of give us, in a way it's like we get double value in terms of the constituencies that we wanna serve.

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: The irony here is that we're a policy committee, not a money committee, and yet so much of this policy is based on money. So if you take the money away, it's like, well, what kind of policy Greg, can we

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: any thoughts?

[Rep. Greg Burtt (Member)]: Agree with Michelle. When you get to win win, when it's feeding Vermonters and it's creating a market for our farmers, I would love, I think we should put in at least a 25% match on the working lands enterprise initiative money. I think that's

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: a no brainer in my mind.

[Rep. Greg Burtt (Member)]: After that, I think it's just

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: not an easy road,

[Rep. Greg Burtt (Member)]: we gotta do, gotta do that.

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: What's the program called that you're happens to go to school?

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun (Member)]: It's Vermont. Purchasing that's in the government's. Yes, there's

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: that too. I

[Rep. Greg Burtt (Member)]: don't even know what money comes from the school budgets or we just get paid for hours. So I don't even know what schools are participating in that and which aren't, you know, how much of the money is coming from. I have no idea, but obviously it hurt and it gets the ball rolling in that direction for schools to, know, I don't know, but I'd love to learn more about it. It's like the fairs were saying yesterday how by giving us a little bit of money toward capital investment, it spurs us on to be constantly thinking about how do we upgrade it. Giving schools a little bit of money for local purchases gets them on the track of saying, okay, how can we keep this program going? How can we expand it? They see how valuable it is to their program. I think that's a good, I would also suggest that we try to fully fund that. Yeah.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: So when Brett Stevens came in to talk to us, and and I I still lean in towards a 50% match on working lands. That just gets that multiplies that money we're putting out there. Just like your your Vermonters feeding Vermonters crop cash plus, that money comes in, then it goes to a local farmer and then they want to spend it in the community just like the bears get the 300,000 plus a 100,000, but which goes towards their their price money they pay out, like the 300,000, yeah, $400,000 investment brings in $9,000,000 into the local economy. You know, it's all returns on a buck. Russ Stevens came in now and he talked about us, you'll want to get more money for for people and appropriations wants to get more money for food. So I think we can put in money for food, and I think I hate to do this, but I I think if you elevate if you elevate the amount some, if they they think they've done their job cutting it back, We we gain them win, Michelle. So, you know, they they came in asking for x number of dollars, put it in at that or close to that or cut it back some. You know, we can say they came in and asked for $2,000,000. We'd like it in at $1.07 5. And then maybe they said, well, we do it at a million and a half. Yeah. I I don't know. Am I wrong thinking that was?

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun (Member)]: Last year, I think we asked for 2,000,000, and we ended up with

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: 1.5.

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun (Member)]: Was it that much?

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Yeah, and then they, in the Budget Adjustment Act, they brought back 400,000 for. Okay. I, am I wrong in my thinking chair? If there's some merit to that thinking,

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: at the end of the day, they'll have as much money as they have beg any appropriations to spend on all the different requests that have come And they certainly won't give more. I would imagine they won't give more than we suggested. How would this feel if everybody took a minute and we just went around the room and said, what you think are like two things? Maybe we've already started to do that that have to be in here and see what we would come up with. And I don't know if you feel like you've already done that, Michelle. Maybe just Yeah.

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun (Member)]: I'd say Vermonters feeding Vermonter. I mean, and if if we have to pick one, I guess I'd just say Crop Cache as the basic one. And then Cropcache Plus would be the next, and then FarmShare would be the next.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah. I think we can I think we can put NOFAs requested as one?

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun (Member)]: As one? Okay. Yep. Yep. I mean, I think they're all important, actually. So I'm I'm fine with that being

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: less than They're all important. Yep. Yep.

[Rep. Greg Burtt (Member)]: Yeah. Great. Yeah. I think Vermonters, feeding Vermonters would be

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: the number one and maybe

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: the of

[Rep. Greg Burtt (Member)]: that, probably the working lands enterprise with that 50% match being stimulated. I'd like to, you know, on our I'd like to see a committee bill where we're have a tax source for the Farm Security Fund.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: We've talked about that before.

[Rep. Greg Burtt (Member)]: Like half of the transfer tax goes into the Yeah.

[Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: Two degree drinks

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

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: On the farm security fund, I heard somebody downstairs that they're finding some money to put in on it. It's not a crazy amount, but it's enough so that it's there. So if something happens, it's a vehicle to go forward with, and I think that is a big win. I don't see anyone finding 15 well, it should be 16,600,000.0. I don't see anyone finding 16,000,000 to put in there. And I don't even know if you find it with the decimal point move back one, maybe. But that would be there so the vehicle has got some funding in it, and it's created. And that's all I, you know, what what I asked for.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Richard, if you had to vote pick for two two things out of all of different ideas that have come forward.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Working lands, the additional 500,000 for the 50% match, and more fee for bars. Or cross cash plus. That one of those. Each one of those. And and they're they're all they're all worthy projects, and I'd like to put in for working lands for more, but I'm fiscally conservative, so I have their John?

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: Yeah, I mean, those three to me seem like there's a consistency of policy, which I like from this committee, we're fighting food insecurity and we're helping Vermont farmers. And so I think we could even look at working lands grantees and see how many of those projects essentially also led to feeding the farmers. Would be interesting.

[Rep. Greg Burtt (Member)]: A lot of Pretty good.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Well, they all work for food. Right. Except for forestry, that works for that we need to have. Right. Their jobs. We're going to be heading for four to one. It's not far from coming, I guarantee it. Four to one. Maturity of course, of what we're removed from three. Yeah, we're at three now and we're going be heading four.

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: But I think our letter could focus on that policy, and it would make sense to appropriations that this

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: is what led to

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: our conversation.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Schematically, yeah. Anything

[Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: different, Con, or No, I it was three, although I might argue for a 40% match rather than 50. So a smaller contribution from the farmer? Yeah, okay. Slightly smaller. Okay, mouse nods. No.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: You want

[Rep. Greg Burtt (Member)]: to fight back?

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: No, no, no. I won't

[Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: argue over that. I'm not sure where the percentage would be. But you mentioned 25, fifty, forty, but I do think there ought to be some kind of a match. Yeah. I was also curious, was that one of which is leaning. Are there other organizations besides that one that do leaning around the state?

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah, there's an association of gleaning groups and there are, I'm not sure

[Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: if they had five or six members, I'm not sure what the number is. It's important work, but I'm wondering if there, it's equal playing field out there for those organizations to get state funding.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Think that they haven't necessarily all figured out that they could. When the legislature, when this committee recommended and the legislature agreed to half $1,000,000 two, three years ago for salvation cards. We happened to have that year a lot. There was like $10,000,000 that the governor had put in his budget for grant programs, and we ended up

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: That was the meat, maple produce here?

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Meat, maple produce, yeah. We ended up reducing that, again, collectively. But we also put 500 into Salvation Farms, was normally an organization like that would have gone out to working lands and requested the money, I think. So sort of went around a little bit there. Okay. And I'm in agreement. I don't want to leave out the conservation districts. I think that the work that they do is also pretty critical. So let me just ask again, because we've got some consensus. It sounds like that's good. Our letter can say, we also support these ideas as funding is available. Is there anything else though just that each of us would wanna be sure that we include, maybe emphasize a little bit anything that is not one of those three Vermonters feeding, Vermonters NOFA working lands here. Michelle?

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun (Member)]: I mean, guess I would just say, I think the Salvation Farm one is also compelling and especially a $100,000 is not that much to utilize food that is otherwise gonna be lost, which can then go to Vermonters makes a lot of sense. It I mean, it really would be money well spent.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: I have a soft spot for Tony. I think I think they do great work, and they get they bring in a lot of donor monies for other areas. I mean, I don't I didn't ask them what is match, you know, what how much other money they bring in, but, you know, a $100,000, that's, you know, that's not covering payroll for, you know, and they yeah. I I agree. And I also the conservation districts are, know, they they they just do great work. And I I'm concerned for them in today's on federally because they do write a lot of federal grant monies, a lot, and they're very, very good at it. And as long as they keep having that, they will continue to thrive, but they don't They do a great job. Alright. Did you ever work with them?

[Rep. Greg Burtt (Member)]: I haven't, but I need to and I know you do and I hear about a lot

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: of farmers who get a lot of help from them. And they

[Rep. Greg Burtt (Member)]: You know a lot of it's it's to me it's like a I work with FSA mostly so

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. Yeah.

[Rep. Greg Burtt (Member)]: It's on the same par where they they reach out and help a lot of farmers.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: So what the Conservation District for us does, they have an eye on every program there is out there. Yeah, and then they're coming to us and saying, Hey, we think there's a good fit for this program in your farm and we want to help you. You know, they help write the grant or apply for the program. I mean, of these programs that FSA are just, you know, go down and sign up your acreage. You know, anything that benefits, like, I states, pretty simple. Yeah. And but these other programs are quite a bit, they're competitive, and they're more in-depth. And, Sarah just done great work and then she she's got my favorite hippie Ted out there, you know, doing all these water projects and, you know, he talked us into putting stems on some of our riverbanks, and that's not easy to talk a farmer than putting stems in a hayfield. Preparing. Yeah. But for me, we didn't use parable about that.

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: But that does seem like a perfect example of if we could create a source from, say, the green water fund to help the conservation districts because they do so much water work. Yeah. Well,

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: they do. They do. And they they get money from our Federal government. And they get money from our state government and the clean water fund. Yeah. Jeez. We could find them another 100,000 a 150,000 to bolster their staff. I'm sure they'd bring that much more to the table. Right.

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: Cause they had a multiplier of what? It's like nine something.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Yeah, nine.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah. Was it last year that we had the testimony on the Clean Water Fund where we brought in Doug Farnant. Two years ago,

[Rep. Greg Burtt (Member)]: I think, yeah.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Was it two years ago? Yeah, so there is a clean water board, which they exist, I think, more or less to decide how the money gets spent, and then they make the recommendation, and they're pretty much listened to, for good reason. That's why they just it seemed a little bit hard not to crack.

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: Yeah. But in our letter, it might be worth mentioning, if we went back through these asks and looked for multipliers or leveraging, those might be good, at least

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: To send it as a note.

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: Exactly, because appropriations likes that.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah, yeah. So as you saw, we looked at last year's letter, the committee, and this was not just me, the committee worked on explanations or rationales, I think, for each request. In some of those are still the same rationales, but I was we probably should take a short break because we'll have two o'clock testimony. But I was gonna ask if anybody would like to work on writing that paragraph or whatever it would be in support of any of the three. And again, we've got some language that we did last year, this wouldn't be starting from scratch. But if anybody wants to take on one, it's lovely, happy to do that. Otherwise, will pick up, I'll pick up whatever else needs to be done. But don't wanna don't wanna be the one who does it all if anybody would like to pitch in with that too. So and this would we we are we were asked to get the letter in tomorrow. I'd like to get it in tomorrow. I think we don't need to continue to drag this out. Where do we find last year's letter? I I sent it earlier. Okay. Go ahead. Email.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: I I had a basketball game go to the last night. Been a long week. I I'll look at I'm not a wordsmith. She's a wordsmith. He went to Harvard for crying out loud. Yeah. There's so many people in here smarter than I am. I I will orate to the ends of the earth.

[Rep. Greg Burtt (Member)]: David, the money was it for the BLC?

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Oh, yeah. Professional logging contract.

[Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: What was what was the idea in mind? That's what that's for. Yeah. So Just wanna

[Rep. Greg Burtt (Member)]: make sure we're representing that part of our

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Good. And and right. I haven't we haven't heard from Jed yet. So that's funding that the a million dollars that we appropriated two years ago with one time funds to help loggers install of Slow Yeah. It's what's called slow camp. So so practices that are intended to improve water quality coming out of the job site.

[Rep. Greg Burtt (Member)]: I wasn't sure if the solar can't pass with a different one from PLCI. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. So it's a

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: one. Go. And they they after 700,000 something this year. $7.50.

[Rep. Greg Burtt (Member)]: I I don't think that's actually water fund. I mean, those roads that they build for that are there to be used for the wall. Yeah. Anything that that's really improving the infrastructure or working length.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. Because they don't go in, you know, log in of when you and I growing up has changed so much. You know, they used to go in and scab off side of the mountain. Yeah. And didn't didn't worry about it because they weren't coming back for fifty or sixty years. Now they're going in and doing cut over here and a cut over there and a select cut and thin cut and take out trash so the big trees can get better. A lot of

[Rep. Greg Burtt (Member)]: times the sugar in operation go in after alongside it and they use the roads for access for that.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: For sugar? Yeah. There's more mining sugar and why do they need to build on?

[Rep. Greg Burtt (Member)]: We like to piggyback off everybody else in the Kennes Hill.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Okay. You're just like farming. You know, you don't like getting money. You just spend it somewhere else. You get

[Rep. Greg Burtt (Member)]: a bigger arch. Exactly. Faster. Bigger sastra.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: The special fund, Richard, you mentioned that there's

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: What's that?

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: The s 60 for the security funds. Alright.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I there's something coming up out of the senate. I didn't hear an exact dollar amount, but it was somewhere in the million dollar range. It don't hold me to a number, but, you know, and and I could, you know, I I don't know if that helps to put it in on our end here as well. And then if it comes up from the senate as well, then there's consensus. Yeah.

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: Is anybody on Senate ag also on Senate approves?

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Not except. Okay. Was helpful in the

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: old days to think about leagues.

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

[Amy (SNAP benefits/outreach advocate)]: Okay.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Good. So one more thing

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: on the letter. If we did say the three we all talked about, but then we could also say, for your consideration, here are two or three other things, and these are their multipliers. So if you have money, you get a really good bang for

[Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: your buck here. I think that might Yeah. Do a meaningful job.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah. Well, it's the food banks.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: John's sales crew. They operate on 15%.

[Rep. Greg Burtt (Member)]: Right.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: You know, and and he said that when they had the ARPA funds, they they they, you know, they still operate on 15%. When those funds went away, they paired back their their positions, and they're still operating at 15. 15% is a pretty incredible number.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah. Alright. So we'll we'll plan tomorrow before the snow drives us all home. Because there's snow coming tomorrow? Yeah. Look Yeah. At the letter. Why don't we take five minutes now, and we've got, I think I saw a witness pop into the Zoom room. Yeah. So