Meetings
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[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Good afternoon. It's the House Appropriations Committee. It is still Wednesday, December 2025. It's just after 02:30, and we are going to change direction for a moment and take up a bill.
[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner of Public Safety)]: We're look at S-sixty, and we
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: have the chair of House Ag and Forest, and I can't remember the whole name of it, Rep Derby, and
[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner of Public Safety)]: then we'll have Michael Brady from
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: the lunch council talk to us, and then we have a very brief little amendment that I think we're going to try to hear about as well. So I think Dave you wanted to go first, so introduce yourself and tell us I'm Phil. Thanks.
[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Agriculture, Food Resiliency & Forestry)]: David Yerfi, chair of the House Agriculture, Food Resiliency and Forestry Committee.
[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner of Public Safety)]: A
[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Agriculture, Food Resiliency & Forestry)]: mouthful, yep. Nice to see you all and thanks for having me in. So I'll give a brief overview of the bill and then I know Mike is here from Ledge Council too and we'll walk through it if that's your preference and then yeah we took this bill up at some point last session I'm gonna have trouble remembering exactly, it's a Senate bill it's at S-sixty, We made a couple of pretty significant changes to it that I will point out basically having to do with the addition of adding the forestry sector to the intended beneficiaries of the grant program that the bill sets up. We just to back up a little bit in the 2024 off session, you will probably remember there was a great deal of precipitation in parts of the state following a similar 2023 where there was a great deal of precipitation in parts of the state that had a pretty severe impact on farmers in many parts of Vermont. A group, several groups of farmers came together during 2024 while we were at home and began working on a proposal that ultimately became S-sixty and it's to set up a grant program or relief program that would provide funding not only from the state potentially but from private sources and would be administered at the state level but would have a board that was separate from the any of the state agencies and the intention would be to try and turn around as quickly as possible requests that came in for funding in a weather related emergency. So the bill sets up a board, it establishes a fund, it talks about what sort of circumstances, what sort of weather related circumstances might qualify for a farmer or a logger or someone in forestry operations who has experienced losses related to the weather and what sort of benefit they might receive. I've set some parameters around that. As I mentioned it came from the Senate with only agriculture, only farmers and we have been aware of the impact of weather, different kinds of weather conditions on not only the agriculture part of our working landscape, but the forestry side of it as well. When the ground is very wet it's difficult for loggers to move their equipment. In fact it can be impossible for loggers to move their equipment into the woods. They have to follow strict rules and they really only can be doing the work that they need to do when the ground is frozen or it's dry and when we had rains like we had in 'twenty three and 'twenty four, it put a severe crimp in their ability to operate. So that's sort of the high level overview of what we're doing here. Maybe I'll pause and see if there are questions. And then if there aren't, I could turn it over to legislative council.
[Unidentified Committee Member]: Any questions so far?
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: I think we're good so far, Dave. And so hang on, and we'll have Michael Grady come up and
[Unidentified Committee Member]: I'll stand by. Legal stuff.
[Unidentified Committee Member]: Thank you.
[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: So good afternoon. Michael Grady with legislative council. I am going to share my screen and show you a side by side of S-sixty as it passed the House and S-sixty has proposed for amendment by the House Committee on Agriculture, Resiliency and Forestry. Craig, can you all see that? So, chair Kirby just referenced that 60 is a bill to establish a permanent special fund to assist farmers and forestry operations who have suffered damages from weather. It would be located administered by the agency of agriculture but it would have a review board that would process the applications for assistance. The bill starts out with the finding section referencing the reasons why this special fund is necessary to provide assistance to farmers and forestry operations. You've seen you all remember the flooding in twenty twenty three-twenty twenty four, how many existing state and federal programs that are designed to support farms and forestry are difficult to access, they are not equitably distributed to small and medium scale farmers, and they don't currently meet the needs of Vermont farmers and forestry operations. Now, as chair referenced, one of the big differences between S60 has passed the senate and the House Agriculture proposal is the addition of forestry operations as an eligible entity underneath the assistance program. So, you will see a forestry operations added throughout and I'm not going to reference that each time it is Another important part of the findings is referencing how federal crop insurance is not necessarily a great benefit program for small scale or diversified farming. It's usually based on larger scale farming or commodity farming, and therefore it's not always available to smaller farmers in Vermont. And then the state should establish this permanent funding support program to maintain viability of farms and forestry operations in Vermont in order to ensure the food security, climate resilience, the rural economy, environmental health, and continuously invest in farms and forestry operations in a way that makes them more resilient, to provide a source of relief funds permanently for those forestry operations impacted by climate emergencies and extreme weather. Then you come to the definition section, This sub chapter is located in that chapter of law where programs such as the working lands or and Vermont City Vermonters is located as may happen between sessions when you take up a bill in one session, but don't pass it until the next. There are things that happen like the effective date of this bill needs to change. Another thing that can happen is that some other program might be codified in the sections where you wanted this codified which has happened. The Vermonters Speedy Vermonters program that you established last year was codified in sub chapter four of this chapter. We were going to deal with that in the statutory revision, but you can deal with it now with an amendment if you would like.
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: I think we may have a couple of things to amend, so why don't we add that to it sounds like a technical change that we will make it whatever it's
[Richard Hauser (Director of Finance & Administration, DPS)]: supposed to be.
[Unidentified Committee Member]: Okay. Sounds good.
[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: So key definition is ineligible weather condition. This is the trigger that allows for the assistance or for a farmer forestry operation to seek assistance. It's any of the following weather conditions that are found to be closely correlated with an agricultural or forest operation income loss: wind, precipitation, heat, freeze, fire, pale, drought, or any other severe weather condition impacting ag or forestry operations as determined by the review board. Then you'll
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: one second. So, does this create the review board later on? It does. Okay, thank you.
[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: Then, there's a definition of farm which is fairly intuitive. Then, there's a definition of this review board, which you will see in 4634 in a few minutes. The definition of farming is that definition of farming under the required agricultural practices. It is not your backyard person that's growing or gardening, etc. They have to have a threshold number of animals and or be making a certain amount of income from their land. It's not just anyone who lost some brussels sprouts. Then there's a definition of forestry operation. This is what I'm going to read out to you because it's not one you see every day. Forestry operation means activities related to the management of forest, including a timber harvest, pruning, planting, reforestation, pests, disease and invasive species control, wildlife habitat management, and fertilization. So that is the type of activity that would be eligible for assistance under the program. And then you see the creation of that special fund, Farm and Forestry Operations Security Special Fund. It's created to be administered by the Agency of Agriculture, It shall consist of funds transferred by the General Assembly. Last year, in the Senate passed appropriations bill, I think there was $1,000,000 that was appropriated for this. But it did not survive final reconciliation. But the fund could also accept funds from public and private sources, and there are other programs like this around the country and other states, and some of those programs take in money from the USDA and then push it out through programs like this. So the Agency of Agriculture would be able to seek federal funds or other public funds to help capitalize this program.
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: I have a question here from Wayne.
[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member, House Appropriations)]: So on the federal funds part, we already have proper kinds of insurance stuff now running through the Department of Agriculture. So this would place some of that money that's already being used to put your bag into this.
[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: So you will see later on that you only qualify for this program for uninsured, unreimbursed funds. So if you already have crop insurance or you're somehow eligible for assistance underneath another federal or state program, you're not eligible for this.
[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member, House Appropriations)]: My thinking was, I understand, that makes sense. My thinking was that if the federal government is already providing money to the government of agriculture and now that's going to go into this pot and this pot is going to have a board to assist me with extra administrative charges. Are we duplicating or are we going to diminish the amount that might go out?
[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: No, I mean, you're right. I mean, the federal government gives the agency of agriculture a lot of money right now but those are an already specific programs with dedicated requirements and or uses. So there will be a new program. This is a new program. If there's going to be new federal, there are going to be federal, it would be new federal. Thank you. The fund has to ensure language accessibility for those who are not English speakers and all balances in the fund shall be carried forward in the main part of the fund. Then you get to the assistance, and it is not a grant. It was a grant in the Senate, but it is not a grant in the House Agriculture proposal because for input from the Agency of Agriculture, and recollect from JFO as well, that you don't need to have grants, that they can move this money through payments. And payments are easier to administer and faster to administer than the grant requirements for state agencies. So switch from a grant to a payment. I don't want to be clear about that.
[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member, House Appropriations)]: Usually usually grants would have some mechanism for making sure the work is done.
[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: Right, you've administrative Bolton, whatever, five I think it is, has all those conditions for grants and you have to meet all of them, you don't push out all the money at first, retain 80 to 90%, you push up 80 to 90% or retain 10 to 20 to ensure that it's the money is used. So, going
[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member, House Appropriations)]: from grants to payments and still retain that kind of thing.
[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: Well, there's still going to be accountability but it's not going to have to be the same structured and very technical compliance with administrative Bolton. Should I move on? Yes. Okay. You will see that the secretary of ag after consultation with the review board shall award these payments from the fund persons owning farms and part three operations that have incurred financial losses or expenses due to eligible weather conditions again due to eligible weather conditions, moisture flood, heat, fire, etcetera. Payments from the funds shall be an amount that reimburses a farm or forestry operation for up to 50% of the reimbursed uninsured or otherwise uncovered losses. So you're not getting double payment due to the eligible weather conditions up to a maximum of 5% of what's unencumbered in the fund for $150,000 is the max payment that can come out of this fund.
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Do you have any sense of what the size of losses typically are?
[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: Well, it's a great question and you will see later on towards the end of the senate passed version one of the things that the senate wanted to do and that the the advocates proposed at the beginning of this bill is to try to quantify what the demand is going to be to go out and look at an average loss due to weather conditions over the past three years and then to recommend that amount of money to to being deposited and to the fund there was an assumption of what that would have been. It was a large number and so because of constraints, you know better than I. Yeah. You the process moved off of that number and ultimately to a million in the senate best version and whatever would have had will happen in reconciliation. Okay.
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Yeah, because I mean, an apple farmer is different than a dairy farmer, and the size and all that, it
[Richard Hauser (Director of Finance & Administration, DPS)]: could be all over the place.
[Rep. David Yacovone (Member, House Appropriations)]: Well, I'm ahead just only very slightly to section three, which says talk about replacement of lost income from destroyed crops. So that is I don't know what time of year if
[Col. Matthew Birmingham (Director, Vermont State Police)]: you lose your apple crops to
[Rep. David Yacovone (Member, House Appropriations)]: a freeze in April, how do you quantify that unless you're using past crop numbers, I mean, I understand that this is going to be not subjective, but it's really going to be based on historical analysis of what farmers are able to produce as opposed to saying, we lost 500 chickens, average weight six pounds, that should be $50, whatever the numbers are. And
[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: you're going to see how that concern, that kind of reality plays out in this bill because there were there were income requirements including providing your schedule F as as a requirement for application. If you're if you're harmed in May, don't have your schedule F for the year. Your schedule F from last year is irrelevant to your losses at that point. So you will see that there's going to be the requirement to provide documentation of income loss, but it's not going to be tied to something like your tax return. What that documentation will be, that will be up to the secretary and administrative approval.
[Rep. David Yacovone (Member, House Appropriations)]: Just before it's changing gears, going back to the conditions and findings. There's a focus on climate, you use the word climate, and I'm more than aware of the current federal administration's well, they're taking away climate as a concept or climate change as a concept. Is this something we're going to have to pay attention to if we're in order to not create a target for a potential USDA program or something like that, if this is what this current federal administration deigns to be anti American in their view because climate change doesn't exist, then will that affect how we write this or the policy committee writes this?
[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: You can never predict the future, and you can never predict any administration, let alone this administration. So I can't say that it would somehow, just because the word climate is used in the bill that it somehow leads to disqualification or lack of eligibility. If you are concerned about that, there does need to be an amendment. And that could I think it's only used once or twice. And
[Rep. David Yacovone (Member, House Appropriations)]: I mean, just in the findings Yeah.
[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: It's just
[Rep. David Yacovone (Member, House Appropriations)]: it's about, I mean, number one, other climate fueled disasters and the administration has made it clear that they don't
[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: believe that they are climate fueled disasters. There is language. It wasn't proposed last year. It did not pass, but it make will me pass this year. You know, I can't predict the future. That says, if there is a federal repeal or amendment or something that affects the ability of a state agency to implement a statutory or regulatory required program that the change will not be effectively honored, the federal change will not be effectively honored and the state program will go on so that it can continue to provide the policy level service that you require of it under your state legislation. Not knowing what the Trump administration would do, I'm not sure that would necessarily guarantee that this program would continue, but it it would help. So we are trying to advocate state agencies are trying to get language in that would prevent the total disruption of the program because of the decision by the administration. And could you also I mean, you have an
[Rep. David Yacovone (Member, House Appropriations)]: automatic language that says if something changes that the rest that doesn't affect I
[Col. Matthew Birmingham (Director, Vermont State Police)]: forget climate use
[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: the use of this, but just
[Rep. David Yacovone (Member, House Appropriations)]: the idea of something happens that unplugs a piece of statute that it can continue. This is similar, but not
[Unidentified Committee Member]: to the
[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: same. It's it's not the same. You're you're thinking of the separability clause, which is in title one that says whenever a court finds that there's a aspect of a law that's unconstitutional or otherwise unlawful, that the rest of that program, the rest of that law can continue severed from part. But this is not really the same as that.
[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member, House Appropriations)]: Jonathan Wayne. Yes, I'm not sure if this should end
[Unidentified Committee Member]: up being a question here, we're just in a pretty close conversation with one of our reps in the house here who owns a sizable farm about the kinds of loss that may happen at some point during the year here. The recovery from that may not just be from that particular year, but may extend into next year in some circumstances. Sure, I mean, but you gotta give me a and I don't wanna misquote what he was telling me here all here today. Recovery for that may not be like getting ready for the next year, but perhaps beyond that, depending on the scale, guess, and perhaps that's something the board would have to weigh in. I think,
[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: and Representative Brady is a member that's going to address this to an extent as well, That farmer is going to have to manage when they apply. Right. Right. Right. So, when they're their losses are the the max or when they need the assistance And so there's nothing in here that dictates that when they can apply, they just have to show that they suffered those losses from the eligible weather conditions that the secretary then verifies. And So there's some flexibility for the farmer. But you're right, the losses might continue until one or two grow seasons. So that is, There's no restriction on your ability to apply. Representative Brady wants to look at see how much assistance you got over the prior five years is something that the review board will take into account for their award. And and you know that's the best I can answer. Sure. Yeah.
[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member, House Appropriations)]: Couple of things I'll I'll start with the order. We take care of your climate issues, climate's process, the things we're dealing with, your high winds, stream heat, these are all the weather conditions. You might simply just put places where climate is weather and you solve a problem.
[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: But I think weather's already referenced. I think it said weather or climate, just use activity.
[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member, House Appropriations)]: If you just move the word into this daily, because we're dealing with individual processes, not individual things that are happening. These are factors, in the process. You can do it, and it's not in conflict with anything else, it's been to this point. The other issue I see was, especially in forestry, if you had a major wind throw event going on, someone's going have to assess magnitude of that point get an estimated cost for those things. I could see that as being a positive thing to do. How are those kind of costs going to be?
[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: Paid for? Well, great question. I'm going to skip ahead to what the applicant needs to provide.
[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member, House Appropriations)]: And just went by. So,
[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: they at the bottom of PH five with the side by side, they had the Secretary of Agony to develop a streamlined application to our applicants for the award and that has to include a brief description of the damage that occurred from the attestation of eligible weather condition or event an estimate of losses and a year end report of farm or forestry operation income and expenses. So the forestry operation doesn't necessarily need to have that true and attested valuation of the loss because of the wind growth. They just have to have an estimate. And then it's up to the review board with the secretary to determine the validity of those claims.
[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member, House Appropriations)]: Do you think that has agriculture testified that you told you that they expected to incur additional administrative costs or technical costs? Because if they have to verify this or to do that, then it could be some in a magnitude or anything. You will
[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: see at the bottom of page six, one of the things that the committee on your committee on agriculture is recommending is that the agency be allowed to use up to $67,500 for the purposes of administering the program. So they did it. They did expect for some administrative costs and the House Community on Agriculture addressed that in their amendment.
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Chair Derby texted me while this conversation was going on, just in terms of losses, you may recall that the Secretary of Ag asked people whether there was a survey they were asking farmers to fill out because of the drought this summer. And so the information that they collected was 17,000,000 in farm losses from the drought this year. So just to give us a sense of
[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member, House Appropriations)]: So this bores means that obviously we got 17,000,000 and we got a million here. We very likely will frequently in a situation where we
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: don't have enough money to reimburse everybody for their losses. So that board will buffer
[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: us against the complaints of those
[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member, House Appropriations)]: that don't get any reimbursement. Why don't we finish the bill?
[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: Board only operates as long as it has money to operate in any fiscal year.
[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member, House Appropriations)]: So
[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: going back to the payments, the secretary has to verify the occurrence of an eligible weather condition. They can use information such as that from NOAA or from any other federal or state certified or sources. And then you will see the type of losses that are reimbursable by a payment, including wages, lost income, debt payments, cost of refinancing, feed, infrastructure, equipment repair and replacement, repair of farm roads or logging roads, an inability to access harvested timber due to flooding or other weather conditions. As noted if if it's very wet in the woods, the forestry operator can't get their equipment in there to remove the timber and the timber some of it is at risk of rot. Once it's rotten, it can't be processed. Again, the secretary develops that streamline application. We already looked at that. I referenced earlier on the top of page six of the side by side of that. The senate had that submission of your schedule. There's no schedule that requirement in the house. A proposal but a year end report of forestry operation and income expenses is required. Then you'll see the application can be made at any time and the secretary may only close the application process upon award of all appropriated funds. So everything in that bond is appropriated or dedicated. The program stops. Application for the award shall be processed in the order received, but you can't be clever and just put in an inadequate application and try to get yourself first in line and
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: that's it. They're cheating.
[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: It has to be an administratively complete application. All administratively complete applications are evaluated by the review board in fifteen days and this is the the turnaround that Terry was referencing is something that the advocates really believe is necessary to serve the needs of the farmers and forestry operators because sometimes they are at the precipice of continuing their business. So they're looking to turn these applications around within fifteen days, the review board recommends or not whether the secretary issues a payment. And if the review board recommends an award, the secretary shall issue that award within fifteen days of the date of board's recommendations. There is that money there for administrative purposes of the agency of Ag and then you get to the creation of a special fund which I know you all enjoy. I
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: think we have a question before we get there.
[Rep. David Yacovone (Member, House Appropriations)]: The chair asked me to look at the agriculture's in my portfolio, and so the chair asked me to look into and interview the stakeholders and the department. Department can testify for itself, they just want to point out they feel like the 67,000 is low, that they're going to need. While their budget has doubled from grants from the government, they have not really been given enough staff to manage them technically and is something that they want us to consider but they can testify to that as well. Mike, the other question I have is yesterday we heard testimony again from Dale about the nursing home emergency fund. Is there any DNA that's crossing? Is there any similarity between the way this is structured and the way that nursing the $20,000,000 or $14,500,000 they talked about yesterday as a fund where if a nursing home was in trouble, they could apply for these funds and have to undergo a forensic audit about whether how much they really needed it? Or is this kind of been created through I mean, there was a committee, right? There was an emergency or emergency committee of some
[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: sort or task force. There were advocates really that brought this forward with consultation with the agency. I wouldn't say that there was formal committee of any kind. I think that advocates put together approved to develop this because they saw the need that it had to the '23 and '24 and the failures and failings of some of the farms and forestry operations that they and the failure of the federal government to address those. They saw a need at the state level for this program. How similar it is to the Dale program, I don't know. Once went into Senate Finance to back up Jim Carvey on the health care bill, and they were speaking a different language that I didn't understand.
[Richard Hauser (Director of Finance & Administration, DPS)]: So I try, I don't it's not my aim works. But I think this is along the same kind of
[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Agriculture, Food Resiliency & Forestry)]: odds here.
[Rep. David Yacovone (Member, House Appropriations)]: The concept of what I was trying to do is I'm just curious as perhaps a dive down someone's rabbit hole to say, did this work? Is this Yeah. Did that one the way is it structured? Is there anything it's just it's more of a not curiosity, but just it's pressing. And it'd be interesting to see if there's any similarities so that it's easier for us to understand or explain.
[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: So I look at this BGAP. You told ACCD to set up BGAP. You gave them money. You didn't put a lot of structure. This has a lot more structure than what you directed BGAP to do. But it's it's there for that emergency. You know, when it happens and as you were seeing year to year, those emergencies, those out of the weather losses are occurring year to year. It's not like the to that specific exigent situation. There's these exigent situations year to year in the farming production operation.
[Unidentified Committee Member]: I want to go back to the part of the decision of making that the decision about payment the fifteen day period. Does the board need to say yes or no at the end of that fifteen period? Fifteen day period. Or could they keep something in suspense and work on some others and say, yes,
[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner of Public Safety)]: these are more important. This one's important,
[Unidentified Committee Member]: but not quite so important, and I'm just gonna hold on to it and see if we've
[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner of Public Safety)]: got enough money at the end, and then we could get money
[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: to number three. The way I read the language, the way I believe it's intended, that an application needs to be processed within fifteen days with a yes or no.
[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner of Public Safety)]: So they would have to decide right then whether it's critical
[Unidentified Committee Member]: enough to do something about number three and then they go on to number four or five. It's
[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: not a waiting, there's no priority points. Right, but it's first come first served, which
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: could also just stretching that out a little bit could mean if you're really good at if you have the capacity in your shop somehow to
[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner of Public Safety)]: spin that out fast. Yeah,
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: and if you're the single person who's trying to find the checkbook, it's not going to be the same. So there's a potentially inequitable situation that's being created. That may not be true.
[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner of Public Safety)]: I mean, maybe they all looked
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: at that. We're not the policy committee, but I
[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: think most farmers will pay for any benefit program. You have that dynamic. You have those farms that have capacity, that have staff, that might even have an accountant on staff that can do that work quickly, and there's the smaller farms that don't. And part of this is to address that inequity, because the larger farms commodity base, they're not gonna $150,000 is dropping the bucket. Their cornfields are millions of dollars. And so they probably won't be looking for this program. They probably will go to their crop insurance or some other program.
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Well, sounds like it was discussed. It sounds like this was discussed.
[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: I think it's kind of an underlying foundational basis for extraordinary.
[Unidentified Committee Member]: Okay,
[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member, House Appropriations)]: thanks. Is my screen. See I'm from Franklin County, a lot of farms, a lot of forestry stuff, so I obviously support those things. My worry is that since it's a small program, since it's first come first served, like you say, the little guy, the smallest operation, he might be hurt the worst, might be the most in need, might have the least capacity to be able to fly for it. In the sense that we don't have a criteria in there that would give any preference to any needs based criteria in there just concerns me that this might not actually do a lot of good. It could cause some consternation. Most of people don't get it.
[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: But they're already there. They're not explicit, but they are in five conditions unreimbursed uninsured right uncompensated in any other way your large farm should be with a cornfield that they need is going to be insured. And they can seek reimbursement through other programs as well, like dairy margin coverage. And so to say that there's no acknowledgment of the smaller farmer meeting that priority, I think it's basically built into
[Col. Matthew Birmingham (Director, Vermont State Police)]: the eligibility of the program.
[Unidentified Committee Member]: I just want to add, it's not already in here, I think agencies are pretty good about trying to let folks know about these kinds of things, whatever it might be, if you be gap or whatever you hear, the disaster strikes here, but I think once this moves through the channels here and becomes final, we've been legislation here for this and allows the agency to kind of move forward here. The full communication educational pieces that are really important.
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: I
[Unidentified Committee Member]: think a lot of our smaller towns, for example, called Little Flat, we said, I know what to do here. And I think we responded the best on camera. I think the agency just needs to be approached, being way proactive about this. So those that have like the larger you know umbrella protections here would know about them and those who don't would also be aware of those
[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: and and there are the other things that brought this bill forward. I mean they they are here today. They are going to be they're going to be informing their members and others about this program as well. So, you know, I don't I think you know, you're hurting and you need money, somebody says there's a program, I think they'll get that education information out there. And the agency also has all of its resources for communicating, the monthly newsletter, the meeting house, etcetera. If you're on their list, they try to end up going. Then you have the advocates who will educate our members as well.
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Okay, let's continue.
[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: You get a special fund. It's created and for administrative purposes at the agency of Ag, the Secretary of Ag is the chair Commissioner of Parks and Parks has added as a member of our destiny because the house Ag committees are adding part to operation State Chief Recovery Officer, designated representative of three ag organizations who can demonstrate expertise in dealing with all types and sizes of farms in Vermont, especially through the grant for assistance programs to farmers who have received relief funding appointed by the Secretary of Ag, to forestry operators appointed by the Commissioner of Bars and Parks, was added by your Ag Committee. Then there was language about terms because of some some of these some of these designated subdivisions need to change as well as part of an amendment, but basically this provides for staggered terms for members. And if there's a conflict, say some of the farmers on the board want to apply or have family members who are applying. There's an opportunity for the secretary of Ag to appoint an alternate member to maintain a corner of the board to review an application or not. The board has some powers They review all of the applications and recommend to the secretary who should receive assistance. They annually report to you on the financial losses that from elder weather conditions averaged over the previous three calendar years. In order for the fund to adjust and address the the the evolution of the need for this program. They will recommend changes to the program and its application process and eligibility. And then they get to elect officers or subcommittees. They have the quorum. It's the majority. The non public members get per diem compensation. And then you get to the effective date which needs to change that it was 07/01/2025, and that there would be a recommendation to your passport change the federal of the bill to immaculate into establishing a fund for our true operations and security special fund to provide payments
[Unidentified Committee Member]: Okay, yeah.
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: If you could just check into what there's, I and secondly, I don't see the million dollars in here anywhere.
[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: So the million dollars as it happens when you put appropriations and stand alone bills, they get stripped out by certain committees.
[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner of Public Safety)]: No, we haven't done that. We're happy to do that.
[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: But the Senate Appropriations Committee did. They stripped out the specific appropriation and the bills introduced but it wasn't as a specific appropriation. It was that language I told you about earlier about developing a report about three year average loss, that may include II checked just yesterday. There was a $1,000,000 in the Senate Senate version of what was it for sixty three thousand four
[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member, House Appropriations)]: hundred eighty three. Whatever it
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: was in the budget.
[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner of Public Safety)]: 3,483 the budget.
[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah, there was a $1,000,000 in that.
[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner of Public Safety)]: In the Senate. Yeah.
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Oh, but not on what we passed.
[Unidentified Committee Member]: Not in what we have right right.
[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: A million dollars in the Senate did not survive reconciliation.
[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member, House Appropriations)]: Okay.
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: I want to remove this from the budget. Yeah, all right. So the money's
[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner of Public Safety)]: been all over the place.
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: But I'm not seeing there being any language. We usually say something about a contingent upon funds being
[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah, I never got that directive. Right,
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: and I figured that there'd be money in here and we'd be asking you to strip out the money and give you that directive as part of the Now we have multiple amendments. So my plan had been to strip the money out of the contingency language, get it over to the Senate, because they haven't seen the policy changes. And ultimately, the money will get decided probably in the committee of conference of the budget at the end of the year. So that's my plan, assuming we voted out of committee and we voted out of the House, so it just goes there. But we're not committing to any money, but we're getting to policy
[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner of Public Safety)]: and all of that.
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: We're not voting today, obviously. We're not in session, so we can't vote. We're going to need an amendment. Rick Manning is hopefully still on Zoom, and, she has an amendment also. And you've seen that amendment.
[Richard Hauser (Director of Finance & Administration, DPS)]: Maybe you wrote the amendment. I've got it.
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Okay, so if rep manning is there maybe she can
[Unidentified Committee Member]: tell us about the amendment there
[Col. Matthew Birmingham (Director, Vermont State Police)]: is a fiscal note for the
[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: verdict 3.2 which you have in front of you
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: which one is 3.2 is
[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: that the one that came out of it would
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: be with all the amendments right
[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner of Public Safety)]: We've posted the fiscal note. Okay, so we
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: can take a look at that as well. But why don't we get Rep. Brandy on and she can tell us about her medication also.
[Unidentified Committee Member]: Hi, are you ready? Yes,
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: we are. Thanks for your patience and for coming today.
[Rep. Mary Morrissey (Bennington) — presenting amendment (House Commerce)]: Thank you for having me and inviting me. And I will be brief because I know we're over time already. So I was able to listen to your conversation and we had a similar conversation about making sure that funds weren't double dipped and that there were appropriate gates, I guess, set on the money. And so working with advocates, we just made modification to the section that Michael O'Grady referenced, and I don't see it up on the screen, but I can pull, I have it on mine somewhere.
[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner of Public Safety)]: It's
[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: your committee's website. Right.
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Yep. So it's on page four of the side by side is 4,633.
[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: Right. But that's not the language in representing Bennington. Right.
[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner of Public Safety)]: But that's the
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: section she's referring to that we amended. Yes.
[Rep. Mary Morrissey (Bennington) — presenting amendment (House Commerce)]: Yep. So in section b, there are four areas that the secretary should develop the application for, and we added a fifth, and it was a list of any state grants or loans received for the purpose of farm or forestry operation business in the past five years to include amount source and purpose of funding received. And this is to do couple of things. Often we have businesses that we're incubating because it's a business in an area that we deem vital, we think is very important. And so we wanna make sure that those businesses are recognized. But also if it's a business that's on life support for lack of a better, that needs to be known as well, because again, there's limited funding here and we wanna make sure that businesses get the support that they need when they need it. And so that was our compromise to come up with a way for the secretary and the committee to understand who would be getting the money. Commerce, want our small businesses to be successful. We're really working as best we can to put those supports in place. And so we believe that this is an important program. However, we want to make sure that it's spent appropriately. Okay.
[Unidentified Committee Member]: So there was just, you
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: just added number three and the other four were the same. Okay.
[Rep. David Yacovone (Member, House Appropriations)]: Thank you representative. Can you just
[Unidentified Committee Member]: what's what's strange to me is just
[Rep. David Yacovone (Member, House Appropriations)]: a little off here or just help me understand.
[Unidentified Committee Member]: So if I have a farm
[Rep. David Yacovone (Member, House Appropriations)]: and I have made applications for grant programs five years previous to any climate related weather event that my farm, What's the relevance of that to
[Richard Hauser (Director of Finance & Administration, DPS)]: the damage that was done
[Rep. David Yacovone (Member, House Appropriations)]: and what I'm applying for?
[Rep. Mary Morrissey (Bennington) — presenting amendment (House Commerce)]: May not be relevant to the damage, but I think it's important for the state to understand where state money is going. And so that was the question, there are safeguards in the bill to not double dip for the same damage. It's also important when you're making a determination on who gets money to understand where else they have gotten money and how much money they have gotten for those things. So for example, if there's a business that has gotten a business development grant in an area, so it was already deemed valuable to that area because it got this business development grant and is now having issues with weather in that area, it's important to take that into account and that might move that business higher up on the funding decisions. If there's a business that has had issues with weather for the last three years, it might also be important to take that into account because perhaps it's not located in a place that is sustainable any longer. So it's that kind of information that we were trying to gather for the secretary and the committee to make these decisions.
[Unidentified Committee Member]: So would would Mike was explaining
[Rep. David Yacovone (Member, House Appropriations)]: the bill, he clarified that there weren't points, like this is a relief fund. This is and I'm just asking because it's new. This seems to
[Unidentified Committee Member]: me to be points the way
[Rep. David Yacovone (Member, House Appropriations)]: that you just explained it where a funding decision on damages done or loss of crops done would depend on whether or not they received previous funding before, and previous funding for in agriculture is hit or miss anything else, there's always been a very limited amount of money available to farms through the USDA or even through COVID relief. So I'm just curious was it was this something that would allow the decision makers to determine whether or not the farm or the operation would be viable after receiving these funds?
[Rep. Mary Morrissey (Bennington) — presenting amendment (House Commerce)]: So to go to your question about points, that's a decision for the committee to figure out how they want to use the data, but not having access to the data is a possibility if this isn't in the language. And if they don't have information, it's harder to make a good decision. And so that's what this is about. It's about making it easier to gather information when you're making financial decisions.
[Unidentified Committee Member]: Okay, thank you.
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Any other questions for Rep. Grant? So in terms of process, she and I have spoken, and the options for this amendment are that we can just do it as part of our larger amendment, whatever pieces of the amendment, if we agree with it, or rep. Bennington can do it on the floor once it gets to the floor and leaves our committee gets to
[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member, House Appropriations)]: the floor.
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Is that right? Those are our two options. And Rip Granny, you said you were okay with us doing it if you
[Rep. Mary Morrissey (Bennington) — presenting amendment (House Commerce)]: I am fully comfortable with you all doing this. I ask the question and sometimes when you're the one who asks the question, you are volunteered to do the work. So we had many conversations, committee members and I was volunteered.
[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner of Public Safety)]: Great. Okay.
[Unidentified Committee Member]: Thank you.
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Going to have Assuming we're going get this passed out, which won't be today, we're going need a committee amendment. Would people generally be comfortable just adding Rev. Granting's amendment into what we're doing?
[Unidentified Committee Member]: I'm not.
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: You're not?
[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner of Public Safety)]: Don't have it in writing. So you don't want to have
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: the number three in it?
[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner of Public Safety)]: In The rest are
[Unidentified Committee Member]: there, my reading, can put me looking at it, that there is already a protection against double dipping for the same problem and I'm not certain that just because someone received funding for some other purpose related to their farm, not whether, is a reason for giving them lower priority on this particular
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: package. So I think they're giving you this information gathering, you get a demerit if you've
[Unidentified Committee Member]: gotten other money. But yeah,
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: I can see how it would also be interpreted that way.
[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner of Public Safety)]: We don't know anything about that. Right. So, okay.
[Unidentified Committee Member]: So, this, just to clarify, so this would be actually part of the application because folks have to fill out an application. There'll be a list of things they need to include for information about their operation to begin with. So do we need this in there as an amendment? I'm just asking because I don't know. I would have obviously, I haven't been involved in the long conversations you've had in committee about just to make sure the money is being used in the, you know, proper manner.
[Rep. Mary Morrissey (Bennington) — presenting amendment (House Commerce)]: Sorry, are you asking me or are you asking Legg Council?
[Unidentified Committee Member]: Asking you.
[Rep. Mary Morrissey (Bennington) — presenting amendment (House Commerce)]: I think that could be part of that, or it might not have to be, It might just make it easier for the committee to gather that information that's making the decision. But again, advocates are on board with this. So that was important also.
[Unidentified Committee Member]: I guess I'm only just asking here too, just from administrative point of view here, once they get the application of fifteen days to move this around. So it would be the move is to have whatever needs to be in the application to
[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: be there. It is currently in
[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner of Public Safety)]: the application.
[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: Okay. Yeah.
[Unidentified Committee Member]: That's kind of the gist of my question.
[Rep. David Yacovone (Member, House Appropriations)]: I believe the, the agriculture committee supports this amendment. Maybe it was a question for David, but I believe that the committee voted unanimously on accepting this amendment. Is that right?
[Rep. Mary Morrissey (Bennington) — presenting amendment (House Commerce)]: That is correct.
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: So the advocates have agreed to it the policy committee has approved We don't have the unity committee at the moment in our committee on that. So I think what I'd like to do is tentatively put it in our amendment, which we will have to vote on. If it turns out that we
[Unidentified Committee Member]: need to take it out, we need to
[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner of Public Safety)]: take it out. But why don't
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: we just start with it in for the moment, and
[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner of Public Safety)]: then that's not our final amendment.
[Unidentified Committee Member]: We're going change that and
[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner of Public Safety)]: take it out so that gives everybody
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: a chance to do their due diligence to make sure that they're either comfortable or not
[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member, House Appropriations)]: comfortable so
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: so I think we have whatever codification you need in the amendment We have this,
[Unidentified Committee Member]: striking climate striking the word climate and
[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: then there were some cross references in the member terms that need to be corrected.
[Unidentified Committee Member]: They changed it.
[Col. Matthew Birmingham (Director, Vermont State Police)]: And the
[Unidentified Committee Member]: date the
[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner of Public Safety)]: changes, I also think, I
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: also think we need to do something about that it's contingent upon funding, that whatever that language is, we should have that in here. And did you all, in alleged counsel, when I talked to Bryn at the end of last year, at one point I suggested maybe we have a universal kind of way that we say that so every person in alleged counsel can just say, oh yeah, we'll just pull that down being paid.
[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: Think we got to that in Senate approves towards the end of last year, but I will go and check.
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Okay, whatever works. So let's put this in, Rep Granny.
[Rep. Mary Morrissey (Bennington) — presenting amendment (House Commerce)]: Sorry, there was one thing I didn't look at my notes while I was talking to you. And what I have in my notes is unintended outcomes. And if we set this up as a program where folks who don't have insurance coverage can get money here, We don't wanna incentivize this to be used as insurance. And so that was the other reason to put that in there as a, have you been getting money from this long term ongoing?
[Unidentified Committee Member]: Okay, thank
[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner of Public Safety)]: you. So we'll put it in,
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: you maybe need to be prepared to present it on the floor. So we'll see how all that goes for now. We're now running late. I'm glad we had this extra time. Are we good, Mike? Have?
[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: I'm good.
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Okay, so we'll get you back to produce that week of January and discuss this all then.
[Michael O'Grady (Legislative Counsel)]: And could I introduce Bradley Schulman, who is a new legislative council attorney.
[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner of Public Safety)]: That's all right.
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Away it goes. Welcome if you want to introduce yourselves
[Unidentified Committee Member]: and take away for us please.
[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner of Public Safety)]: Yes ma'am, my name is Jennifer Morrison. I'm the Commissioner of Public Safety and I'm joined here today by Deputy Commissioner Dan Batesy. Good afternoon. Colonel Matthew Birmingham is the Director of the Division of State Police. Director Richard Hauser Matthew is the Director of the Division of Finance and Management Finance and Administration and Director Jeffrey Waldron who is the Director of the Vermont Crime Information Summit.
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Alright, well welcome all of you. Okay, so should we, yeah we have the big spreadsheet that Commissioner Gresham gave us for
[Richard Hauser (Director of Finance & Administration, DPS)]: I'm going to go just slightly out of order since the colonel has a hard stop. I'm gonna just jump down one page to get to the state police. So
[Unidentified Committee Member]: looking at the Vermont state police appropriation Is this B209?
[Richard Hauser (Director of Finance & Administration, DPS)]: That is correct. Okay. It's B209. The overtime line item is the only thing that we're looking for a budget adjustment on. This is our projected line item shortfall for fiscal twenty six. Cost increase is driven by the reclassification of troopers work of it to maintain proper staffing between the public safety and service points, as we call them PSAPs, or any dispatch report. And just over 100,000 of it is supporting patrols that safely serve from the Burlington.
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: So, that's a lot. So the request for reclassification is created over time?
[Richard Hauser (Director of Finance & Administration, DPS)]: No, it is increasing rate.
[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner of Public Safety)]: So, there's a base rate, which is driving higher amounts of the overtime expenditure.
[Unidentified Committee Member]: Gotcha. Yeah.
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: And then the PSAPs are part of So how much overtime do people get? I mean, it's a lot of money to be spending in overtime no matter what your rate is, just what's happening now the overtime?
[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner of Public Safety)]: Matt needs to be in detail since, but in note to PSAT, some of the overtime is being driven by the fact that they now work twelve hour shifts, which means that four of those hours are technically overtime hours. Staffing is the short answer to your question, both for troopers and in some cases in the PSAPs. I think if you recall the 2021 and 2022, we were in the same boat and that overtime was driven by a different line within our overtime, which is about criminal investigations when we were having all the shootings and all the murders related to the drug trade, So there's different things that drive the amount of overtime that the state police have to work every year. In this circumstance, the criminal investigation line is only 6%, 5.5%, 6% of this total 800 plus pass. Shift coverage to cover our obligations to police the state is approximately 11.5% this year. 25% is driven by the overtime in the public safety answering points in order to provide the amount of people needed to answer the call volume that's coming into those PSAPs, and then that's basically the story, it's staffing to keep the right amount of people in the right seats to handle the workload.
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: So wouldn't it be less expensive to hire a full time person instead of pay overtime and fees?
[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner of Public Safety)]: We can't, we've been trying to hire troopers for, had a significant loss in numbers, we've converted a dozen positions from sworn trooper positions to civilian positions to do the work that troopers were doing, and we see light at the end of the tunnel, we've been having double digit recruitment classes for the last three classes, but you have to remember that we have to also keep up with the attrition through retirements and people who separate or go to other state agencies or you know what have you, so we're slowly improving the number we're down to approximately 50 vacancies right now. Those are all in PSAPs, I was just talking about the PSAPs, which
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: you said, twelve hour shifts and so the four hours is overtime and if you keep having that wouldn't it be if you hired another person, wouldn't that be less expensive?
[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner of Public Safety)]: In one of the PSAPs we historically have been unable to hire to full staffing, we historically are carrying between six and ten vacancies in one of the PSAPs. In the other PSAP, we've maintained relatively full coverage, although it's a bit of a revolving door, we're generally between one and three vacancies. I had question.
[Unidentified Committee Member]: Yeah, just so I understand the vacancy piece, we have 50 total vacancies, only the ones with troopers. Those are the
[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner of Public Safety)]: number of troopers they I misunderstood applying if she was not the driver's case at the time of the request. Last year when we sat here before you, we would have told you we had three twenty four authorized positions. We now have three twelve reporting from 03:35. So we had three thirty five, we have civilianized 12 positions. So we now have three twenty three trooper positions of those 50 are vacant currently. So that puts a lot of pressure to cover you out of work. Last year we had quite a few vacancies. We were at low safety last year at this time. So it's an improvement a little When you civilian, what does it
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: mean to civilianize? Why do you do that?
[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner of Public Safety)]: So if we identify that we can't hire people but there's work that we take a deep look at and determine that somebody not carrying a magic gun could do. For instance, we flip a detective, what used to be a detective position to a civilian investigator for cold cases. So they can do a lot of work that doesn't require going out in the community and arresting people or writing affidavits of probable cause and they're able to then when they get to the point of needing to make an arrest they partner with a detective to present the case to the prosecutor. Another example of that would be one person or
[Unidentified Committee Member]: We
[Col. Matthew Birmingham (Director, Vermont State Police)]: have seriously as a necessity, because we have not been able to hire fast enough. So there's two issues, hire qualified candidates to be sure, because we have a very rigorous screening process and high standards, which we're not holding that arrives and I think we would all appreciate that, that would be not the wrong people in uniform. And then we have a lagging training. It's about six months to eight months before they're actually become able to be utilized to cover ships. That lag is substantial and it creates a huge gap in time that we can't utilize them on the ground. Because our vacancy became so high, since 2019 we've had a net loss 63% every year until last year. When we finally fell this year, we finally were able to maintain. So in that time though, we went from about 20 vacancies and had a high of almost 70. So we really hit rock bottom last year, and we had to the workload is increasing, it's not decreasing, but we had to find ways to manage the workload. In a lot of areas we did that as a technology. A lot of our technology stuff, on whether it's technology we use during our job or technology we use to conduct investigations, that all the director of that, which is one position. Vermont Intelligence Center is now all civilian employees. That used to have sworn troopers inside the Vermont Intelligence Center, but that is not the case anymore. A cold case as the commissioner mentioned, a victim services unit. So our victim services unit now has expanded and we've converted to more positions to expand that unit as well.
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Thank you. Appreciate the education.
[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member, House Appropriations)]: Just quickly your pool of improvement pool, I know it's kind of going downhill. You see any recovery at all?
[Col. Matthew Birmingham (Director, Vermont State Police)]: Yes, we're turning a corner. So just to give you an example, in 2019 we had about 800 plus applicants for year. Last year we had 206 so it's gone almost 80%. It's gone a lot. In terms of the number of people applying, and then of the number of people applying, we only hire between 68%. So so when you're hiring 68% of of 300, you're only getting five or six in class. We can't sustain that because we have an attrition rate of about 30 a year between retirement and credit. And so we were losing every year for the last six years. And we finally had turned the corner and people are applying again. We're seeing good quality applicants. The commissioner's point, last two boxes have been in the mid teens. 14 just graduated. We're going be on 17 starting in January. The most are robust, solid numbers and so we're coming around and it's going to take a few years to get out of that because of the delay in training. So these four teams that just graduated won't even be available for shifts until March. 17, if we hire 17 in January, won't be available until September. So there's a long, long lag in their ability Coming out of the military? Yeah, we're heavily recruiting out of the military. We have three groups that are recruiters go to military bases and kind of to all other countries.
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Thanks. Thank you. So I think we've got an explanation of B209. There's two other sections that
[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner of Public Safety)]: The rest of you were okay? Yes. All right. Great,
[Richard Hauser (Director of Finance & Administration, DPS)]: so we'll skip back up to page eight to discuss our indirect cost rate. You'll see the two line items that add up to 760,000 The line items are really not important. This is a fun shortfall. These are just the line items we chose. It's a projected revenue shortfall in our interdepartmental funds, which was used as a cost center for indirect cost. I did provide the committee with a handout at the time it did work very cost rich but basically what it is it's the ratio of our direct indirect costs Direct costs is something that is directly attributable to a specific program like a truth bomb or an example of an indirect cost would be somebody like a commissioner myself where an indictment overfees the entirety of public safety, we couldn't necessarily divide our time, and so what it costs for It's everyone to
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: sort of like overhead.
[Unidentified Committee Member]: Exactly, yeah.
[Richard Hauser (Director of Finance & Administration, DPS)]: So the rate is developed by DPS administration staff, it's approved federally by our cognitive agency, which is FEMA, and we draw revenue at the approved rate based on actual costs from federal grants, interdepartmental grants, and our special funds. The funds we draw are spent on staffing costs and internal service fees out of the administration appropriation.
[Unidentified Committee Member]: Basically the indirect costs
[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member, House Appropriations)]: will cover
[Unidentified Committee Member]: the true overpayment. Correct. You're able to pull out of those grants in terms of the indirect, it's not sufficient to cover Exactly, the
[Richard Hauser (Director of Finance & Administration, DPS)]: some of these grants are capped as to what we can draw indirects, like a lot of Department of Justice grants capped at 10%, whereas our rates fluctuated between 1527%. It tends to be different every year. And the rate is not really the end all, be all as to what we can draw, because sometimes we've had a slightly lower rate, but we've drawn more just because we have grants, a lot more grants, like if public assistance has a lot of disasters, we can draw a significant amount of money on that grant program. So it fluctuates, it's really a difficult thing to predict.
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: But it's been insufficient.
[Richard Hauser (Director of Finance & Administration, DPS)]: Over the past few years. The rate started out, we started this back in 2012, and we had a decent carry over for available cash balance in that fund until probably two budget cycles ago is where we noticed. And then that's why we came in for a budget adjustment on this same thing last year, because it was going to, for the first time, dip into
[Unidentified Committee Member]: the negative. Have you ever budgeted to have a general fund, line item, or additional administrative costs? Do you anticipate doing that?
[Richard Hauser (Director of Finance & Administration, DPS)]: Yeah, can speak to that better after we get the governor's recommend for allergy. But in
[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner of Public Safety)]: the past, have you budgeted
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: sufficient to cover when you know there's a shortfall? I guess you haven't had to because you've had all carry forward.
[Richard Hauser (Director of Finance & Administration, DPS)]: Exactly and we do have general funds. As you can see, our appropriation is starting out at 7,600,000.0 and we're looking for it to go to 8.39. So we do have general quantifiers.
[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner of Public Safety)]: It hasn't been enough. This isn't the only place where
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: this has been happening in state government. And so I will say again that we would like to see it we don't want to use budget adjustment as a budgeting tool because you're told and this isn't necessarily for you, but it's for everybody because you're told you have to get in with a certain amount. So you cut it down, and then you say, well, we'll figure it out, a budget adjustment, and then we end up just paying all the money back instead if we had the right budget to begin with or closer to the right. This is sort of a general statement I'm making here, but, you guys are falling under that category. You're not the only ones. So we'll look forward to seeing what happens in FY27. Any more questions on that section from folks? Okay.
[Richard Hauser (Director of Finance & Administration, DPS)]: Great, so I am going to allow the mouse to make every attempt to get to the next page. In Criminal Justice Services D210 D210 more specifically, this is specific to the Vermont Prime Information Center, which is one of the two divisions that falls under the Criminal Justice Services Appropriation. You see the line item is other contracts and third party services for $570,000
[Unidentified Committee Member]: So that
[Richard Hauser (Director of Finance & Administration, DPS)]: increase is due to our contract with the Computer Project of Illinois for the DPS message switch, which the message switch facilitates the electronic transmission and receipt of restricted data to authorized users, basically law enforcement data and law enforcement users. Commissioner, correct me if I'm thumb up on that. Existing hardware was past end of life, leading to an inability to get parts and to maintain the system and apply reporting security practices and updates. The decision was made to move this to a cloud environment as opposed to the physical environment that we had to try to replicate that physical environment because we couldn't continue to maintain it.
[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner of Public Safety)]: So this is all of the entirety of the slurry criminal justice information that is used by far more than just sworn police officers, it's used by corrections, the courts, DCF, lots of things. And as Rick mentioned, the architecture of the information system was far beyond end of life, and this was a necessary change and it cost $100,000
[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member, House Appropriations)]: good. So is that an increase of, I mean obviously you knew this was going to happen, you had to know what's going happen. Is this the total amount for this or is this during the contracting process did you find that you would be costing more?
[Richard Hauser (Director of Finance & Administration, DPS)]: This is a one time upgrade. We actually have maintenance fees on top of that that are budgeted in our special fund. Initially, when we were looking at doing this, I think around fiscal 'twenty three, was rough, our recollection is roughly about half of that, so it is significantly more than we thought, And we'll get into this a little bit later when we talk about the special funds, which is our final ask. The criminal history record check fund, we've been covering this contract, was once quite healthy and has been vigilant, and is now in the general funds for support.
[Unidentified Committee Member]: Mike?
[Col. Matthew Birmingham (Director, Vermont State Police)]: I don't think I just want to
[Unidentified Committee Member]: be clear. This is where information is held that our record checks are pulled from. Is that
[Unidentified Committee Member]: You can
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: just pull the chair over, whatever.
[Jeffrey Wallin (Director, Vermont Crime Information Center)]: For the record, my name is Jeffrey Wallin, and I'm the director of the Vermont Crime Information Center. To your question, yes, it is one of the systems that holds criminal history data. It does a lot of other things as well. This is a integrated system. So it also what makes, wants and wants missing persons available across the country and allows law enforcement and criminal justice agencies in Vermont to know that that vehicle is pulled over from Tennessee, my home state is stolen, for example. So it does a lot of different things.
[Richard Hauser (Director of Finance & Administration, DPS)]: It's not just a single application that results there.
[Unidentified Committee Member]: And is this upgrade going to change any of our actual functionality? And what I mean by that is I hear a lot about the length of time that it takes to get record checks in Vermont. And so I wasn't sure if this affects any of the actual systems of functionality.
[Jeffrey Wallin (Director, Vermont Crime Information Center)]: As far as the actual Caledonia work is processed, no, it doesn't actually interact with that. The systems we were using and to build upon what the commissioner mentioned, and we were having to, our digital services call it for having to go on eBay to try to buy parts for some of the equipment that old, which didn't work. So It's
[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner of Public Safety)]: not really secure.
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: I'm sorry to hear that.
[Jeffrey Wallin (Director, Vermont Crime Information Center)]: It's not a funny friend, it just simply became unsustainable. And when we looked at different ways to go about that, moving to a cloud environment was the most cost effective way go back and then it also required some updates to the system, and I'm not a programmer, I'm not going to pretend to speak about different programming languages and things, but they moved it into a more modern application. So when we do that, such as things that would improve the process or allow us to automate more things, we're in a better position to do that,
[Richard Hauser (Director of Finance & Administration, DPS)]: but we still have work to do on that front.
[Jeffrey Wallin (Director, Vermont Crime Information Center)]: We couldn't have done that in world system, would have been a complete non entirely now in a
[Richard Hauser (Director of Finance & Administration, DPS)]: better position as we move forward continue to look at and have those options available.
[Jeffrey Wallin (Director, Vermont Crime Information Center)]: But this in itself is not going to make things go more quickly, just going make sure that they keep happening. So just to
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: be clear, when you did last year's budget, you didn't know this was going to be happening?
[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner of Public Safety)]: No, we knew this, we knew the message to a check-in place, we've known that for two, three years, but the time between when we knew the cost until the time of execution, things change in cost.
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: But you didn't budget anything for it at all in the budget?
[Richard Hauser (Director of Finance & Administration, DPS)]: We
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: year, did not budget for it
[Richard Hauser (Director of Finance & Administration, DPS)]: there was an amount in '23.
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Nothing for FY26?
[Richard Hauser (Director of Finance & Administration, DPS)]: In special funds, so it didn't get, it wasn't re budgeted. And I think that was around 262,000, I can't find the number, but it wasn't quite as expensive.
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: But you were planning to use special funds for that.
[Richard Hauser (Director of Finance & Administration, DPS)]: Exactly, because the special funds were healthy. Mean, skipping down to that
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Was that for last year for FY26 or were you talking about a few years ago?
[Richard Hauser (Director of Finance & Administration, DPS)]: I'm talking about
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Okay, so I'm thinking of just FY26 budget. So, you budgeted nothing for this program, even though you knew it was coming and I know you didn't know the amount, you didn't budget anything, you just did nothing.
[Unidentified Committee Member]: I think you commented that the system is used by other agencies as well, is that true? And if that's true, they help share in the cost of this process?
[Unidentified Committee Member]: So this is an enterprise wide solution. A lot of the data and day to day interaction is within the BCIC staff, but every law enforcement and criminal justice agency in the state interact with the system every day. Every piece of DMV data that goes out goes to the system as well. Currently we handle majority of the costs. I don't wanna say all of them because I'm not quite the budget guru that Rick is, but
[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner of Public Safety)]: majority of the costs are currently handled within the PS. That's not uncommon. So this, if you think about this project, it's like a hub that moves information. It's not any one database, right? But there are many solutions that we pay for in their entirety for every user in the state, whether they're a state employee or not. And when he talks about criminal justice agencies, that's not necessarily a law enforcement agency, it's people who have authority to access this level of information for official purposes. So as I said, it can be people who do screenings for childcare providers, folks over at DCF, folks who are working how to determine if they can work with vulnerable adult, corrections staff, certain other people who are authorized users, but it is not uncommon that the entirety of these, upkeep and the payment of these systems comes to I was just wondering if there was
[Unidentified Committee Member]: a significant enough part that DMV uses or the judiciary uses that charge 10%, you 2%. If that's not discreet enough to figure that out.
[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner of Public Safety)]: I'm not aware that that's ever been a payment scheme, but
[Unidentified Committee Member]: all right thank you for the help
[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner of Public Safety)]: of it and we're happy to do the work required to get healthy again so it gains money
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: yeah okay and then you said
[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner of Public Safety)]: you had a special fund was it the one that was a
[Richard Hauser (Director of Finance & Administration, DPS)]: Yes, few each. If I scroll all the way to the bottom of this, it gets a transfer so it doesn't fit into the crosswalk. I did a complete crosswalk so you would see the impact on the entire book at all, and then we put that up. At the very bottom, the last four lines show you the section of the bill where the final It's transfer 1.059 general fund refusion into the criminal record check fund, which is the amount of our projected deficit. Revenue is about $2,300,000 in annual and the budget has passed in 2016 is just under 3,400,000.0 BCICF from our Prime Information Center has no appropriated general funds for fiscal twenty six and the Criminal Institute of Records Check fund basically covers all their staffing costs and the majority of their contract and operating. We do have some federal funds and special for fingerprints, but that's all for specific things. Bulk of their base funding source is the criminals throughout the check fund. And as I mentioned before that it was one time healthy, in fiscal 'twenty two our ending balance was $2,900,000 and that was actually our budgeted amount in fiscal 'twenty two, dollars 2,900,000.0. So equated to 1.8 at the end of twenty three, and then by 2024, we ended with 342,000, ending '25 with a slight deficit of 44,000.
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: So does this just bring the balance to zero?
[Richard Hauser (Director of Finance & Administration, DPS)]: Yes.
[Unidentified Committee Member]: And then
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: how much is actually typically being added to it each year?
[Richard Hauser (Director of Finance & Administration, DPS)]: It varies, but going forward that $3,400,000 what should be added would be just paying contractual needs like the message switch and salaries and benefits.
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Are added into the fund. How does the fund get filled again besides us giving you a million dollars in jail?
[Richard Hauser (Director of Finance & Administration, DPS)]: I'm sorry, I answered the question as to budget, not fund. So the criminal history record check fund is for online Vermont criminal conviction reports that anyone can basically plug in the information and pay at legal fees $30 to get the report. And that revenue was at one time in fiscal 'twenty one data when we were building 'twenty three, the growth rate was 33.26 and the revenue was 2,600,000 so we anticipated that to continue, but it did not. The growth rate dropped to 19.42 in '22, and from there it went down almost 5%, and then it went down 19%, so it's down 3.7%, 25, so it's kind of stabilizing, but it's still
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: What does that mean in dollars?
[Richard Hauser (Director of Finance & Administration, DPS)]: We're looking at basically $2,400,000 in revenue to support a $3,400,000 need of budget. Basically a million short.
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Cause,
[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member, House Appropriations)]: what's the cause of the decline?
[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner of Public Safety)]: Fewer people are paying for copies of criminal record checks and that could be because there's other ways to do it over the internet that don't cost you
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: $30 to cull open source data from work houses. Jeff Bryant has other theories as well. Thank you, Commissioner. The majority of the
[Unidentified Committee Member]: entities that run these name and date of birth conviction checks are housing or employment, typically they're out of state entities that handle this. And so someone's saying they lived in Vermont,
[Richard Hauser (Director of Finance & Administration, DPS)]: so they're working to see if they
[Unidentified Committee Member]: have a Vermont conviction, so it's a commercial transaction. I have not been to, in my fifteen years, able to figure out any rhyme or reasons of the fluctuations that exist. It doesn't appear to be tied to micro or macro economic trends. It just does fluctuate. We saw to explain it spiked after COVID for reasons that again, I cannot begin to speculate on, but it has returned to its prior growth level and prior level. So it did throw some challenges that way it's worth budgeting because you don't want it under, but you don't want it over either. If I stood out on the street and put a sandwich board on, it might help us finish, but
[Richard Hauser (Director of Finance & Administration, DPS)]: it's much from that. Sometimes it's gonna happen.
[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member, House Appropriations)]: So multiple factors are not predictable. Yes, sir.
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Yeah. So it seems to me that going forward, we we have a lot of special funds that are underfunded, and then we end up backfilling with general funds, which seems to me that we have to start thinking about different ways. Maybe the special fund isn't the way to go anymore. Maybe it all goes into general fund, then we pay Just pay for it.
[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner of Public Safety)]: We're open to your feedback, and we would obviously work that through. Yeah, so I'm
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: just sort of brainstorming here, but you're not the only place where there's a piece of backflow special funds because when they were set up, whatever the situation was then is not what it is now.
[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner of Public Safety)]: That has been my experience over the last four budget cycles, yes. Yeah. And then one or two unexpected large expenditures throws it completely out
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: of whack for that year with
[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner of Public Safety)]: the cascading Oh, sure, exactly.
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: So I think there's a better way to do all this, which is not just about your department. Are those all the things that you had on there?
[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner of Public Safety)]: Yes, Okay.
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: And this is yours, but this is not good.
[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner of Public Safety)]: Marty's got this. I will be
[Unidentified Committee Member]: in the
[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner of Public Safety)]: Yes. New Yes. Well, we're looking forward to working with you. We certainly had a long and lovely relationship away. So,
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: no more questions from the committee. I'm not seeing any, so thank you very much.
[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner of Public Safety)]: Thank you very much. Happy holidays. Same to you.
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: So, committee, I have a
[Jennifer Morrison (Commissioner of Public Safety)]: couple of notes here. This was our last one.
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Thank you all for hanging in there for two days, getting in shape for January. Your assignment while we're gone, until we meet in January, is get familiar with the spreadsheet and the language that Adam sent yesterday, so that we understand what's in there. If you haven't connected with your budget people, it's maybe hard over the holidays, but if there's people you can chat with that you think that you need to after hearing everything the last two days, please do that. The session begins at 10:00 on Tuesday, January 6. We will not meet before then. We will not have any 09:00 meetings before then. So it'll be 10:00 on the floor. There'll be caucuses. We'll meet again in the afternoon. The second week of the session, we'll all go to a sexual harassment prevention training as required. Don't know what day that is yet. That Friday of the second week, January sixteen, I have now learned that's the emergency board's going to meet, 10AM on that Friday the sixteenth. In the afternoon, we're going have a joint hearing with House Ways and Means and have Tom Covette come. We'll probably meet in Room 11 on both committees there so he can present and we can chat about that. And then backing up, the seventh is the governor's budget, or no, State of the State the day after we get here. So right Wednesday is the State of the State, the seventh. And then two weeks later, on the twentieth, is the budget. So we will have Adam come in that afternoon after we've heard the no, I guess well, yeah. We'll actually have him come in for a little bit, probably. The governor will speak at two, and then we'll have him come in and talk for,
[Unidentified Committee Member]: you know, maybe half an hour.
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: And we'll launch into the budget then.
[Rep. David Yacovone (Member, House Appropriations)]: Are we starting on 07:14?
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: We will see whether we're going to start on Monday for budget adjustment or not. If we don't have to, I would be very happy to have a ski day or whatever it is. So, I mean, we've gotten a head start on budget adjustment. And if we don't need to,
[Unidentified Committee Member]: we'd rather not have to go.
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: And we won't meet on the nineteenth because that's a federal holiday of January. January 19.
[Unidentified Committee Member]: That's what I meant. Okay. Date
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: is on the June 19. So we will not
[Unidentified Committee Member]: be meeting on that day.
[Richard Hauser (Director of Finance & Administration, DPS)]: That's Friday?
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: That's a Monday.
[Unidentified Committee Member]: Okay. It. So
[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: any other questions in fact clear on what we're going to be doing and what has to be done? Anyway, great job everybody.