Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Good afternoon. This is the House Appropriations Committee. It's still Tuesday, 12/16/2025. It is just after 02:00, and we are continuing going through human services departments. And now we have the Department of Disabilities, Aging, and Independent Living, or DAIL. And we have a few folks with us: the Commissioner, Mr. Bowen, and Financial Director Bill Kelly, and Deputy Commissioner Angela Smith Ng on the sidelines and friends, assorted friends. So if you want to introduce yourselves and take it away, I think we have information. Yes, we do.

[Monica White (Commissioner, Department of Disabilities, Aging and Independent Living)]: Good afternoon, I'm Doctor Bowen Jill Bowen, Commissioner for Dale, Department of Disabilities Aging and Planning Services.

[Bill Kelly (Financial Director, DAIL)]: Bill's company, Dale's Financial Director.

[Monica White (Commissioner, Department of Disabilities, Aging and Independent Living)]: Welcome all, Siri. We'll open with a mission statement, which I always am very happy to make, that the department's mission is to make Vermont the best state in the nation in which to grow old or live with a disability, with dignity, respect and independence. Dale has five major divisions that contribute to achieving that mission: the Division for the Blind and Visually Impaired the Adult Services Division, which has a major focus on older Vermonters developmental Disabilities Services Division, including The U. Public Guardian the Division of Licensing and Protection, which includes Adult Protective Services and Survey and Certification, and FireAbility, which is vocational rehabilitation focused on people with disabilities and connecting them with the job. Our overview for BAA. Our total net increase for BAA, all funds combined, is 30,313,848. That is including internal service fund increase for the agency of digital services at 312,878. Our collective bargaining agreement bonus for direct care workers, all appropriations combined together is 2,396,001, and that is broken up into Attendance Services Program, the developmental service, the brain injury program and Choices for Care. Our Choices for Care estimated nursing home pressures through our emergency financial relief DFR request is $14,500,000 Our Choices for Care system wide, long term care home and community based system is 2,500,000. Our Choices Care nursing home Medicaid bed day pressures is 9,642,202. And our Choices for Care Vermont Veterans Home for settlement to state fiscal year 'twenty four costs is 963,267. Happy to take any questions and walk you through

[Rep. Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: that. Tom?

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member)]: Thank you for this, and this is more for the committee. We talked a lot last year about the internal service fund increases for ABS, And I'm and they all represented massive increases, some of them from that that were that seemed and I'm not implying anything untoward, but that seemed like, oh, we're correcting what we were charging before for our services, undercharged or I'm just curious, just this being the first day back, do people in the committee have a memory of what the resolution of our understanding of these these fund increases and how they should be shown to us because this is this is the kind of not surprise, but this is the kind of increase in the BAA that one would have thought would have been in the budget. And I thought we I'm just curious to know what committee like what was our understanding of how we would treat these ADS charges besides just going, oh, well, they have an invoice, so I guess we have to pay it.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So a couple of things. In this case, they put all the ADS charges in the central office. And then because they didn't know what each of the departments under human services were going to be charged. So all of that money is taken out of central office. They're reallocating the money that they already had in. So I'm not sure how much is new money. We could go back and look at that. But they were, ADS was operating with a system that was about eighteen months behind. I'm sorry, Jim's not here. This was his bullshit. But they were about eighteen months behind, and that's where we were putting money. We put in 8,000,000 or

[Rep. David Yacovone (Member)]: $10,000,000 into ADS so that they could get themselves up so this wouldn't be happening again.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: That was the surprise, was that everybody moved along, and then suddenly they're getting a bill that was from eighteen months prior, because their systems, the way their systems work, so they were changing their system to get up to date.

[Monica White (Commissioner, Department of Disabilities, Aging and Independent Living)]: I don't think ADS is coming in today or tomorrow, but we'll get them in

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: to talk more about how that's working because we gave them all this money last year and this year. But in the meantime, if you were to go back to the central office,

[Monica White (Commissioner, Department of Disabilities, Aging and Independent Living)]: if I can find

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: it, there was something like almost $3,000,000 that they were reducing and then they were it was getting spent in all the different

[Rep. David Yacovone (Member)]: agencies.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member)]: Correct Yes.

[Bill Kelly (Financial Director, DAIL)]: I would just echo what you're saying. It's AHS budget neutral due to that fact.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: That's not new

[Monica White (Commissioner, Department of Disabilities, Aging and Independent Living)]: to me.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member)]: No, it's just again, an unusual or perhaps just new way of representing it. So either way, it's anytime something in a BAA, it seems to me that there's a miscalculation or a correction and if this is a correction in one way then that's that's right.

[Rep. Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: Yeah,

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: so I think it's all because they decided to put all the money for ADS in the central office and then once they knew what

[Monica White (Commissioner, Department of Disabilities, Aging and Independent Living)]: the numbers were they were going to be allocated out.

[Unidentified committee member or staff]: Like I mentioned earlier, looks to me by looking at the control of the DIA that most all the agencies have corrected that. This must be a special case.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Well, I think in this case, it was just easier for the central office to take the hit. And then it's just, so it's an accounting thing. It's just moving the numbers within the same agency. So I'm less worried about it if that's all it is.

[Rep. Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member)]: Tip? Yeah, can you, I understand the Medicaid bed pressures, but can you explain the nursing home pressure is at 14.5, I think it was much higher last year, And yet still 14.5 is a lot. So I'm just wondering, what is that money being spent on?

[Monica White (Commissioner, Department of Disabilities, Aging and Independent Living)]: Okay. So again, you're correct that it was 21,000,000 last year, and it is 14,500,000. What we said last year at the EAA that our expectation is that some of the interventions that we were making, such as the two nursing home rebate, was going to have more of an impact for this go around than it was for last go around, because each two year nursing rebase is based on two years prior. And so therefore, when the 'twenty three was done, it was based on 'twenty one, and it really didn't reflect what was happening in those days. And so the difference was much bigger. And with the new rebase, it closed the gap to some extent, and so we expected there to be some decrease of EFR needs. Just to remind everybody that it's an emergency relief fund. It's not a pre budgeted amount. It is intended to relieve financial pressures of nursing homes that are at risk for financial failure. We are in a very difficult time for nursing homes. We have been and continue to be. They are filling up quickly. The need is clearly there for the whole system, the whole long term care system. Nursing homes in particular, because they're talking about EFR, we're continuing to age. That's not a surprise to anybody for this state. At the same time, managing and succeeding financially with the pressures that are primarily, but not solely, but primarily driven by the workforce challenges where they are still requiring, still needing to especially with the LMAs, which is the backbone of the nursing home workforce, to contract out. And it remains an extremely expensive acquisition. It is still difficult to hire. We have put some programs in place around recruitment, including the use of funding that was provided by the legislation, by the legislature, to provide the support around recruitment for LMAs, and that is proceeding at the nursing home level. And we ran a campaign, both Careers and Caring, I hope you saw it, to work on recruitment. So those are helping to reduce the need, but it is still pretty profound. It is just, there's a striking difference in the way I think we as a state,

[Rep. Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member)]: I don't see the nursing homes as distinct from designated agencies, In the sense that, we will build in COLAs for nursing homes, we will have an emergency fund. The designated agencies are actually an arm of the state and just am, really sorry, I'm just making a statement about the inconsistency kind of across the system of care with which we treat certain types of care and others. Can I respond

[Rep. Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: to that?

[Monica White (Commissioner, Department of Disabilities, Aging and Independent Living)]: It wasn't actually a question.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: No, it wasn't. I

[Monica White (Commissioner, Department of Disabilities, Aging and Independent Living)]: did want to respond to that. So there is actually a stabilization fund that is available through DIVA for other providers in other areas in nursing homes. So I'll just put that aside. The nursing home system is teetering, and the investment that is needed to ensure that we not only We can't lose a single bet. I mean, we're at 88% capacity in the system with a growing demographic. And I think people understand that we are a growing demographic, but I don't think they truly appreciate what that means. We have an average age in our nursing homes of somewhere around 84 years of age, and people are living longer. It's complex care that is needed. People have multiple challenges, and we have to be prepared for that. In many ways, Vermont hasn't really invested in the infrastructure of the nursing home system for a while. Several years ago, was an investment in the community based side, which still needs to be. It's not an eitheror. It's a both. The home and community based services programs for older Vermonters, the ability to stay at home and to have choice and to have residential care. The whole continuum needs to be strengthened, but so does the nursing home level of care. And during the pandemic, you saw, obviously, nursing homes drop. Money was taken out of that system. We are back to those levels and continuing to rise. The pre pandemic levels, you could see that the occupancy drop came back up. So what nursing home operators are seeing now are greater costs for staffing, inflationary costs. They're seeing the staffing challenges continue and much more complex cases, people coming in with many more complex issues. And so it's a hard business to be in. When a nursing home closes, and several of them are at risk for closing, but when a nursing home closes, it is very hard to find a buyer.

[Rep. Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: It's not

[Monica White (Commissioner, Department of Disabilities, Aging and Independent Living)]: like we have choices. Oh, this is better. This is someone that we would love to have come from the nursing home. We're lucky if we got one viable buyer. So I just want us to understand that the emergency relief fund is not it's essential for right now, and everything that we do to try to lower it, the fact that we were able to get it down from last year is fabulous, and it does show that there's some movement going, but it's not the long term answer. And it's absolutely necessary. You could not maintain the nursing homes without it.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: I have John and then Lynn.

[Rep. John Kascenska (Member)]: Thanks for coming in today. Sure. Good to see you again. So you know with what you just described there and knowing that we're doing our best to provide some sustainability here, we can't afford to have any one of them really close, we have to come up and see what's in front of us here today here and then the kind of convention budget year here, but where do we need to move, where do we need to get to here at a point in time, we're not just at capacity all the time, we have some margin there?

[Monica White (Commissioner, Department of Disabilities, Aging and Independent Living)]: Yeah, we're working on stabilization plans. It's in the planning phase. We need to be thinking five and ten years out about where we are going to be able to go. We're looking at workforce, obviously, but not just workforce. We're looking at financial stability. We're looking very closely at quality. We're looking at complex care, because as I said, we are seeing so much more in the way of complex care. We want our nursing homes to be able to receive and serve people with complex care. Not all the nursing homes today are able to do that. We did build or open Mission Care, which is intended for that purpose and fulfilling that purpose. There are other nursing homes that do, and we do have enhanced rates for those particular challenges, but we need that to grow over the years. I mean, we are looking forward at what might be needed as the years go by. So this is just to say that we are forward thinking. We're trying to imagine ten years from now. So that's what we're working on, is planning so that we can get to ten years from now. The EFR is just necessary in order for us not to And let me just say also, when somebody asks for an EFR, it doesn't mean they get an EFR. There has been one so far this year that has been approved. There is another that has been denied. And I believe there are two more, three more pending review. It's a deep dive. It's not just, Hey, I'd like more money. It's, Are you actually cheatering? It's a forensic audit. It's a deep dive audit. And if it's determined it's necessary, it's at that level.

[Rep. John Kascenska (Member)]: Yeah. Yeah,

[Rep. Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: I'm just going to, I've got a couple of simple questions and one big question. One of the things that I see with nursing homes and home care, the elderly care that you're listing here under choices for care, is that a part of the fragility of the system financially? Is a product of the payer mix? I mean, it seems like nursing homes, many of them, primarily depend upon Medicaid. There's no Medicare. It's a small piece of private pay.

[Monica White (Commissioner, Department of Disabilities, Aging and Independent Living)]: Well, so the Medicare, if they are serving short term, like rehabs, and mostly we've had some beds for that. But yes, to your point, yes, it's Medicaid dollars. What percentage do you know? Oh my goodness, do you know the percentage?

[Bill Kelly (Financial Director, DAIL)]: The federal share?

[Rep. Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: Well, Medicaid paid the total 80 Yeah,

[Bill Kelly (Financial Director, DAIL)]: of the nursing home operation, I'm not sure.

[Rep. Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: But it's a burden. You're in that level. That's part of the burden. Because they don't get paid enough to cover their costs.

[Monica White (Commissioner, Department of Disabilities, Aging and Independent Living)]: Well, and we do encourage folks to bring in some of the complex care folks, some of whom are waiting to be able to get access, and there are enhanced rates associated with them, they have the ability to serve that level of care. So one of the things we're looking at is what needs to be done to be able to help. And so some of that we are hoping can come through some federal funding, if it comes through, to be helpful in some of the areas. The nursing homes themselves are particularly expressing interest events and dialysis, for example, and if we are able to get some federal dollars associated with that, might be able to serve more of the folks that make me currently serve. Behavioral health focus continues to be a challenge, but some are doing that work. And when they do that work, are getting enhanced ratings.

[Rep. Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: Which leads to your overall point. Because one of the things that I understand, I don't know if it's changed, but this leads into the hospitals, where the hospitals have patients who have who are really nursing home bed ready. They can't get placement, so they're sitting there collecting a very reduced rate for people who are taking up hospital beds. So we tracked that very, very closely. That was one of the impetus behind mission care and that actually,

[Monica White (Commissioner, Department of Disabilities, Aging and Independent Living)]: could actually hear a sigh of relief at the hospitals when they were created as air to help pick them up. But we watch that very closely. I know you get a report every week and we watch closely what is happening at the hospitals. It is less than it used to be in terms of boarding, but it does go up and down.

[Rep. Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: And then they're working on something. Now the last thing I have, choices for care is listed in all of these choices for care was the home care or does that now just apply to all of

[Monica White (Commissioner, Department of Disabilities, Aging and Independent Living)]: these senior options? Choices for care is the continuum. Do you want to be specific?

[Rep. David Yacovone (Member)]: Used to

[Rep. Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: be for people who stayed at home and took care of

[Monica White (Commissioner, Department of Disabilities, Aging and Independent Living)]: a That's all community based services, which is a part of Choices for Care. But the fun thing

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: you see in the choices for care is everywhere Yes.

[Monica White (Commissioner, Department of Disabilities, Aging and Independent Living)]: That's why we really don't, from a budgetary perspective, really think about it. I mean, it is a system. Okay, thank you.

[Rep. Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member)]: So I have Tom and then Dave.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member)]: Thank you for bringing up the demographics, you talk about five years or ten years down the line. In five years, all of the baby boomers are going to be 65 or 66 years old. So we know exactly how many people there are going to be, we're going to see that bubble just keep going until it's no more, which will be thirty years roughly, considering we're all living that much longer. So one of the things that I've been frustrated with, and it's never been part of my committees or anything like that, is this lack of planning for the know. We know at birth, birth to six, how many kids there are and how that's going to affect the schools moving forward. And I'm just curious to know how do we build a program not just five or ten years down the line, but for 30, we haven't contemplated the effects of having that many people going into retirement age except in pieces, pensions, state pensions, whatnot, in this case nursing homes.

[Monica White (Commissioner, Department of Disabilities, Aging and Independent Living)]: I'll finish.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member)]: So many people like and we keep hearing about how there's not enough people to work and how much of that is tied into the fact that there's just not a lot of people compared to what it was with the baby boom, and if you need this many people, if there's certain percentage of that's going be in nursing homes based on past performance of care for the elderly, what are we going to be able to say more than five or ten years down the line because in thirty years we'll all be gone presumably and then we'll have this other system, but in the meantime this crisis of the instant is what we're paying attention to, which is the most important piece. I'm just curious, not so much do other states have other states done this, but are other states contemplating this incredible need financially from the government at a time when it's not there.

[Monica White (Commissioner, Department of Disabilities, Aging and Independent Living)]: Vermont is one of the few states that has deeply contemplated this and created age strong Vermont, And if you haven't, I would recommend to look at that. We're in year two of a ten year really incredible plan. I read it before I came here, and it was one of the drivers for me, because it's really a multi sector, multi input, multi year plan, And there's only a few of them in the country. I can tell you that I came from Philadelphia with Pennsylvania a year and a half ago, and they also have an aging population without much of a plan. There isn't really great planning out there for this. I think that, to some degree, people know it but don't truly appreciate it. In Vermont, your percentages are so strong because you don't just have an older population. And by older, mean fabulously older. Because those who are 60 and above in the state are doing amazing things for the state. I just like to make sure we highlight that, right? Are the backbone

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Each is of our still defined as 65 and older, though. Well, That's a

[Monica White (Commissioner, Department of Disabilities, Aging and Independent Living)]: that's an excellent point. They're an active part of our workforce. They are the backbone of our volunteer force. They are contributing to the economy and all of that. Just to do the positive spin for a moment, but we have so many fewer younger folks that the percentage So one way to increase a percentage is to decrease, and the other way is to rate. So I know that that's an important part of a lot of priorities that the governor has is focused. And that's great. So that's contemplated in that way. But as far as is there thoughtful planning, we're wrapping up year two of the ten year plan on age strong, and we will be putting out a report on where we are, what we have put into place, because it's the entire continuum that needs to be addressed. It's the preventive pieces of it, the early intervention pieces. So the upstream, all of it will contribute to what this state will be able to provide and what it will be, what the experience of living in Vermont will be over the next five to ten years. So we'll make sure that everybody gets a copy of the year two report as we go on with year three and four. There will be a lot of activity going on through that umbrella. There's a lot of shared partners and stakeholders and community involvement in that work. The nursing home piece of it, and so why the EFR always pops up, it's costly. Because nursing home care is incredibly costly. And we do want to be able to figure out how we can make sure that that part of the continuum is available, that it has high quality, and that the issues around workforce for the nursing homes, capacity, quality. I have a circle here. It's financial stability, quality, complex care capacity, and workforce, and that's our planning. So that's what's being contemplated. Some of it's being worked on already, and some of it is in the next piece of the churning and planning. We're not going to go away with this. We're not going anywhere. We are working on this. We'll need help, but of course.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Thank you. Dave?

[Rep. David Yacovone (Member)]: I hope three quick ones. I'm conversant with the impact in the future on hospital provider taxes. Can you speak to the impact, if we know it, on the impact of nursing home provider taxes in the future? Are they scheduled to be reduced the same as hospitals?

[Monica White (Commissioner, Department of Disabilities, Aging and Independent Living)]: Not that I'm aware of.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Okay, thank you. Yeah, think so, Danielle.

[Rep. David Yacovone (Member)]: And Nolan would tell us probably. And then enhanced residential care, there's a fair amount of consternation in the industry because as you know, the tier one reimbursement was reduced and tier two and three, I believe was increased for ERC payments. Can you speak to the known impact of that and the rationale?

[Monica White (Commissioner, Department of Disabilities, Aging and Independent Living)]: Yeah, okay, so what happened there is that the increase or the market study, the rate study that was done, which was done a couple of years before, looked at all of the tiers together. The ACCS, which is the first sort of entry piece of it, and then a tier one, tier two, tier three. But the ACS piece of it was put in as a market, as a rate study that was meant to go all at once. And in combination, it showed a significant increase for the providers. What happened was only half of it was approved. So initially only half of it was approved. That was the ACCS piece. And that was approved first. And that was done by the legislature. That was approved first because that's the piece of it that impacted everybody. So everybody got the ACCS. So it was a big increase, huge increase for everybody. When the second group went in, people looked at that as a whole. The ERC rates are up. Everybody was great, they're up. And it got passed as a whole. In other words, it went in as a whole, ERC rates, not one, like ACCS went in. If you put the whole thing together, what passed was great for everybody. However, because it was separated out, that goodness that came with the ACCS was like old news already. And then the increases for two and three, which were great, which looked like they balanced off ERC-one, it didn't feel that way to those who were only providing ERC-one, even though everybody made out as a whole. If you put a circle around the entire thing, everybody made out because of the ACCS. But for those who were only serving tier ones, it wasn't a happy day.

[Rep. David Yacovone (Member)]: And tier one of the lighter care?

[Monica White (Commissioner, Department of Disabilities, Aging and Independent Living)]: Yes. Tier two and three got some pretty good upswings. So as a whole, the system did well with that, but there was a lane where they found it difficult. There has been efforts to make sure that everybody was getting the correct level. So in other words, if they were at level ones, but they actually met criteria of a level two or three, they were able to adjust that. There were only a few providers who added the whole pool of providers who were impacted because several of them had met several tiers that they were serving. Those who only had tier one had a harder time. And some actually applied for that stabilization grant that Diva is managing.

[Rep. David Yacovone (Member)]: Our policy committee is going to discuss this, and we'll see if it comes back to us. My final question is, we inadvertently omitted case managers from the inflationary increase we granted the choices for care providers last session. If somebody could tell us if we were so inclined to want to include them with that inflationary increase the way we had in the past, what would that cost? I don't expect you to tell us today, but I think it was 179. But anyways, we should at least be aware that those folks didn't get that increase. In order to make the whole choices work, case management's important for obvious reasons.

[Bill Kelly (Financial Director, DAIL)]: So I can say a few things. I don't think it was accidentally omitted, but if we wanted to increase, I can certainly give you the amount. I think it's a different number than one.

[Rep. David Yacovone (Member)]: I think it was maybe accidentally omitted by us. Not sure. But anyways, yeah.

[Monica White (Commissioner, Department of Disabilities, Aging and Independent Living)]: I think that they were direct here that, right? Was something different about that.

[Bill Kelly (Financial Director, DAIL)]: Because there was already an increase related to case management in the ups and downs. But the history of it doesn't matter. I can get you the amount of a 2%. Thank you.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member)]: This is still going.

[Rep. David Yacovone (Member)]: Thank you.

[Rep. Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: Deborah, you want to share with us?

[Monica White (Commissioner, Department of Disabilities, Aging and Independent Living)]: Do we have more? No, no, but I do appreciate the specific questions that you're asking. We do appreciate them. They are so relevant to what we're working on. And that's a point that you have all those specifics, but from everybody. Tom?

[Bill Kelly (Financial Director, DAIL)]: No, let me just get a

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member)]: quick clarification on the veterans home cost settlement for Vietnam fiscal year '24, please. The $9.63, that's another recurring thing that they come back and ask for more. I know that their Medicaid reimbursements are also like two years behind or eighteen months behind. Is that part of what's playing here?

[Monica White (Commissioner, Department of Disabilities, Aging and Independent Living)]: Well, okay, so an estimate in the base was nearly $4,000,000. Right, and so the cost settlement total was 963,267 more than that?

[Bill Kelly (Financial Director, DAIL)]: So, yeah, this is a cost settlement for the 24 costs. And as you remember, last year was the first time that we had actually put an estimated amount in the base budget, for this purpose, because it would occur every year. And that estimate was, you know, approximately 3,900,000.0. The actuals came in at 4 point almost 4.9. So that's the differential.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: The idea is to get better at estimating, but it was the first year that you estimated because we've been using budget adjustment to balance this in the previous years. That was this is the first year of really trying to make that change. Wasn't a bad No, because it's been 5,000,000 or 6,000,000 in other years budget adjustment. So this is it's not perfect, but it's a

[Monica White (Commissioner, Department of Disabilities, Aging and Independent Living)]: big improvement for what it had been.

[Bill Kelly (Financial Director, DAIL)]: Yeah, and for Nolan, and I could answer what a 1% increase would be for the case management. It's $70,004.52 gross GC.

[Unidentified committee member or staff]: $70,004.52.

[Bill Kelly (Financial Director, DAIL)]: That's 1%. So whatever percent you wanna add, you know, the math is simple.

[Rep. Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: So this is just spending authority, The 963,000? Correct.

[Unidentified committee member or staff]: Money came in from the federal government, more money than what they were anticipating. So this is just spending authority to allow them to be able to spend that money.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Any other questions? Thank you very much for coming in. Appreciate it. Will say this after I say thank you, and I remember I want to ask just things going all right working on the budget presentation for us. It's going to be

[Monica White (Commissioner, Department of Disabilities, Aging and Independent Living)]: a little different this year, not just

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: the ups and downs. Hopefully we should see all that.

[Monica White (Commissioner, Department of Disabilities, Aging and Independent Living)]: We're looking forward to

[Rep. David Yacovone (Member)]: We're looking forward it.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Thank you so much.

[Rep. David Yacovone (Member)]: Thank you.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Committee. We're just about on time. We're going to take a break and then we're going to hear

[Monica White (Commissioner, Department of Disabilities, Aging and Independent Living)]: Department of Health

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: and Diva, where we have