Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yes. Good morning. This is the House Appropriations Committee. It is Thursday, 01/15/2026. And this morning, we're going to start on markup of the Budget Adjustment Act. We'll start with a spreadsheet and then get some language. We have the morning devoted to this. We will take a break in there somewhere, at least one, and we'll just see how it goes. So this is our first time starting in a big little markup, and I know we have a ways to go, and so I don't expect that we're going be closing a lot of things right now. I think there'll be some things, we're also going to find out what we don't know and what we need to know more about, and then there'll be a chance to chat with committees. I've talked to all the chairs. We have Teresa coming in this afternoon for human services. I have a draft letter from health care, I'll get that. And I'm not sure that we'll even have them commit, but we'll have something from them. Some of the other committees just don't need to come in, because what they've got is either so small or they and I have chatted, it makes sense the way it is. Doesn't mean they can't come in or we can't find out more. When we get to something, somebody says, I really want to know more about this thing. So we'll just see how that goes. So let's start with a spreadsheet.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: Can I ask a really, really general overarching question here? You're addressing a lot of different things here in building in general and you said the administration when they came in said that BAA is supposed to be x. It's supposed to fix the budget with certain things that we miscalculated on or that came up and There were truing up. A truing up if you will. What's the difference between truing up somebody's ABS needs and truing up the fact that we might we might consider appropriating money filling filling filling a basket that we created last year. So let's use the Vermont's fee in Vermont's rent asked for $2,000,000 last year, needed $2,000,000 last year and they're asking for 1.5 this year but last year in our risk and we only gave the $500,000 in the

[Christopher Rupe (Joint Fiscal Office Analyst)]: big bill. Is that a truing up?

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: Maybe this is a more philosophical question because again, the difference between saying we're not going to fund new initiatives, we're not going to fund this, we're not going to fund this, and we want to take this surplus and move it forward for education taxes has been stated by the administration, not by us yet. So as we consider what we heard yesterday, the needs of basically a lot of people who are impoverished, who we have shorted over the years, and now that we've returned to austerity budgeting, we know it's really difficult to find money for services, and yet there's money for services same as there was last year. And on top of it, with the chaos coming from Washington on things that we really can't fix, would things like Vermonters losing their health care subsidies, making their lives more unapproitable. How are we going to approach this over the next two weeks in terms of adhering to this boundary that we say we shouldn't be doing x, but sometimes we do, and adhering to the standard of we could only fix this and this other money, small portion of which could be really helpful to Vermonters in one time money, not even expanding programs, but we're going to hold that back for other purposes. So I just want to get an idea of what how do we how do

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: we expose our emotions How and

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: do we put our heart and soul into what might need what Vermonters might need in the instant because of all the chaos that's happened in the last twelve months versus what some people can say is pouring money into a digital system that's highly necessary and yet we know every year we're going to be asked to pour tens of millions of dollars into software because that's how much it costs every year. It's not ever going to be even, it's never going to be square, beating people is never going to be square. So I want to know how do we weight what we're talking about because if we're just checking off things that are in the BAA, anyone can do that. And if we're, I just want to know that a conversation can be had that's a little bit broader. Yes, a conversation will be

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: had. You threw a lot out there, which is great, and I don't have all the answers for this. We're going to sort of go through this together. We will have the opportunity to have those discussions about what are the other things that we can and want to do. So the truing up part, just to get to the easy thing, is really about truing up things that were in the budget that we committed to last year. So they find out that, well, we've got it. Like, rent your rebate was off in one place and not on the other, so we just offset them. So those are the easy ones. I would not call adding more money for monitors feeding, for monitors queuing up. That would be a choice that we would make to add more money to that. They asked for $2,000,000 It wasn't like we put $2,000,000 in the budget. Truing up is we put $2,000,000 in. We only spent 5,000,000 or whatever we needed, now that we need the rest of it. So we hadn't committed to that. So that would be a choice that we make to do that. James will get us the spreadsheet of what we heard yesterday in the public hearing. So we'll have that information, too. So we're just started today. We're not going to finish today. And so we'll want to think about what those priorities are and where we have money left to do certain things. And I have talked about not using that $75,000,000 in the budget adjustment because we don't have information. We also don't know if it's going to be $75,000,000 We also don't know what's going to happen in the next three months from Washington, and whether there's going to be some other chaos that we have to really address that's more important than using all 75,000,000 or any of the 75,000,000. So there's just a lot of unknowns. We're back to austerity, but we're in austerity with a different administration in Washington that thrives on chaos and instability and changing their minds. So the SAMHSA money that we thought we were going to lose yesterday, we were told it was $4,500,000 Then we were told it was $3,500,000 And then by the end of the day, they said the money's been restored. So, you know, how do you work with that? Right? I mean, we can't run after everything. And how do we know when they're done with the thing? We don't know. So we're operating in a very different environment than a typical even austerity budget. So keep in mind what you feel your priorities are, and we'll have conversations about what are those other things that we want to be able to do, and I don't know how much they're thinking about it.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: I don't disagree with Tom's question at all. It's always a good question, because we went through this last year here as well. What might pop up as a very emergent need here, and we need to think about that, As long as we have I'm just making up something up here, what do

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: we

[John Kascenska (Member)]: have out there that we could utilize here to perhaps fund something in whole, and it may be a smaller We have some requests on the sheet, and we'll see more about that and learn more about that here today. But there's some levels requests that we just may not be able to do this, but perhaps look forward to that with larger budget of things.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yeah. And I think that some things may be easier to get in the budget adjustment for one time money than to get in the '27 budget, because I think that's going to be the harder of the two years. And we also, we'll have the e board tomorrow, and we'll hear the revenue forecast. And I am not going to bet my retirement savings that the revenue forecast is going to go up. We don't know. We don't know. We'll find out within twenty four hours. So we'll know what we're dealing with there. So we'll have a couple of unknowns known as we go along, but there's still a lot that we are. And then we'll get the governor's budget by if we're also not going to pass this thing right away because we'll see what we're hearing there and that may have such impact on what we've decided.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: No thank you for that.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: I'm just concerned that the politics of the BAA in December were yay, we got it early so we could put a stew for a while. But there were definite boundaries put up. Just like last year, we did our best work we thought and it was vetoed twice. And if there was an intimation in December that the same thing would happen again if it didn't go the way that the administration wants it to go, which so will our reaction to that be, oh, we got beat last year and we got beat twice or is it like we want to do the test? We want to put the best document, the best moral document forward. So that so that you know, we Right. We know we're putting our part. We're putting our work into it rather than just ticking off all

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yeah, of I don't think anybody in this room doesn't want to do their best work on the budget. We may not all agree on all the items the budget does, right? And we'll see where we land. And I don't know where we're

[Martha 'Marty' Feltus (Vice Chair)]: going to land.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: It's too early to tell. I don't have any preconceived notions of where we're going to land. But I think we're all going to try to do the best we can, award Vermonters. And my hope is that even if we don't all agree with 100% of it that's in there, we agree with like 90% or whatever, we're still going to be able to get ourselves to a yes. And that may not be possible, but I'm hoping it will be. So we're just going to do the best we can and see what we can from there.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: Thank you for sharing because I was I think the next two weeks are going to be we're going be really hyper focused like this.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yes.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: I just wanted to make sure that I'm not four days from now ready to explode all over you.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: You still hate me, but you know that's okay, you're warning me. Thank you. I have David and Marty.

[David Yacovone (Member)]: I appreciate Tom's point also. I'm asking this really to help educate me. I don't want to keep a wrong assumption in my mind and I'm not trying necessarily to spend what I think is available funds at this time at least. You mentioned the 75. Now we may change, it could be etcetera. But isn't there also, Sarah Clark reported to, isn't there also those some of its venues, the 50 and the 30 and the 30?

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: I'm gonna look to JFO.

[David Yacovone (Member)]: Mean Pretty

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: much, there is. Right?

[David Yacovone (Member)]: Yes. So listen, that's not gone yet.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: That's right.

[David Yacovone (Member)]: And I understand something bad may happen with the potential government shutdown Yeah. That changes

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: those dynamics. I forgot to mention that. Yes.

[David Yacovone (Member)]: But once we got by that, somebody so it's okay for me to sit here quietly in my mind and think, well, you know, we could this

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: and that. Spend the money in your head? Well, I have before. I know you have. So, yes, so we've spent some of it and, you know, if we end up doing some Section eight, for example. So the 50,000,000, just as a reminder, was we appropriated to the agency administration for the emergency board. So that, and we almost had an e board meeting about Section eight in December to look at that. So that could be a place, for example, on not making any decisions. If we did something with Section eight, that could be a place where we could get that $5,000,000 because that was exactly what that kind of purpose was intended for.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: That was gonna be

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: a question

[John Kascenska (Member)]: I'd ask as well. If you're have your e board meeting here this week, forecast this year looking ahead, what do we still have to hold on to here for perhaps the short time, depending what happens at the end of the month, or longer, once we find out more details about coming down from Washington DC, because we don't know yet.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: We don't know. And Emily, are we gonna get new spreadsheets next week? Oh yeah, yeah. Well, so.

[David Yacovone (Member)]: Working on that. So

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: we'll have this conversation and then on Tuesday when we're meeting again, we'll have new spreadsheets to use. Tuesday you got to speak. Oh yeah, well that's in the afternoon. That's fair, maybe Tuesday morning. Maybe Tuesday morning, okay. I've already been waiting.

[Martha 'Marty' Feltus (Vice Chair)]: I was just going to comment in context of the BAA, but yes, we're truly not in that kind of thing. And I would comment that we just need to keep in mind as well the immediacy of some of the requests. Because an example might be that we appropriated so much for caseload and reach up or caseload and Medicaid or whatever, and utilization is up. And I'm not going out there and telling people, no, you can't go apply for Medicaid benefits. If you need them, you need them. And so that would be something where I think it's, if we have the money, we need to accommodate something like that. That's immediate in order to get it through the rest of the fiscal year because we had commenced to that project. Whereas something else, maybe adding some money in for somebody's IT project, We can do that in April. It doesn't need to be done right now perhaps. So those kinds of things. So we should have to think about the need. That's right.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: It's always nice to have clear guidelines. It's really easy. It makes life a lot easier because it's cut and dry. Everything isn't cut and dry to all of us. Know. And so the thing is but during the bigger budget process, we really have ample time for testimony and getting out. And so I think it's a risk to rush funding new things through without the scrutiny that we might give to something in the big bill.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: And some of the things we heard about,

[Martha 'Marty' Feltus (Vice Chair)]: we have had testimony on.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So it isn't, I don't know, I can't remember everything in the list. A couple of things come to mind that I know we've heard about and other people have heard about. We're also going to get a couple of letter committees who have done that sort of thing. So that's why, for example, Theresa will commit.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: Well, I'll always have some differences in opinion obviously because you know me, I'm very operational and I want to get some return on our investment and other people may feel that they like it because it feels good.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: I'm not

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: so much a feel good guy, don't have an operation.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So we have

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: some disagreements and those kind of ways.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Right, well we're all going to come at it from our own viewpoint.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: That's why I thought we the beginning of the session we should have all changed chairs so we had a different point of view. I

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: didn't hear that. I never heard you didn't hear that.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: That counts as

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: a joke.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Okay, are we good to start on the spreadsheet now? So maybe the first one is pretty easy. This actually would be Mike's. Do you have any problem with the whole auto mutate and retro mutate?

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: No, think

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: this is screw up.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Anybody have any questions or concerns about that one? Can we check those off? Isn't that nice and exciting? Yes. 204 and 207 are both Trevor's, right? Have you talked to judiciary about this?

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: Yeah, they budgeted a 4% increase for the insurance companies, but the contracts came in at 7.5%. Oh, two zero four. The real supply demand issue there. And so that's most of that, and then, well that is that item. The first item? Sheriff's contract, five five eight.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So that came in at what percent?

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: The contract came in at it was a 7.5% increase. They only budgeted 4%. So instead of going from $51 to $54 an hour, for security it went up

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: $57

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: So that's the

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: difference. Okay. And then what about the other one with the share outs?

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: That's just a combination of things, increase in mileage costs, transport deputies, all those transport deputies, overtime costs, I think three of the four items, per diem staff. Yeah, they're all reasonable.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So, the transport deputies would also be part of the 51 to $57 and then when you have overtime, it's counted based off the $57.

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: Well the judiciary have their contracts and then the transport deputies are under the Under share. So it's sort of two different things. But they all both had pressure. Yes, okay. So things are coming in lower budget, essentially.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yeah. Let's see how that goes for next year, Wayne.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: Yeah, I think we need to discuss things with the judiciary when they come in. I think we should, Chief Justice when it comes in, we should talk about some of the scheduling issues that might be able to free up some of that transport deputy.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Well, state attorneys and sheriffs, right? Isn't that really that?

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: It was scheduling. I hear that sometimes people will call in, be there for six, seven, eight hours before they see the judge. So sometimes block scheduling to be able solve some of that problem. There

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: are a lot of issues around that. And it also ties back into DOC and remote hearings and how we utilize that, so it's a big conversation. And it's not one of them, it's all three trying

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: to get together. That's right, right. They do have to, because you have somebody that's incarcerated, a new court, who has something invented to him, and they transport them. I mean, that's absurd.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: It takes them out for a full day, or more. It's always two, please.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yeah, and there's two people that have to go, right?

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: Just for instance, remote hearings, of course, there's a big uptick in remote hearings during the pandemic, and it made a lot of sense. And now that we're out of that, we're seeing a lot of Judges control this, and they're basically saying, I want them in court.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: They don't want to be. Right.

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: But it's being burdened by a lot of those issues. And then you've got the issue on the other side where there's just not enough folks to do that.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: So there's also

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: a pressure on pay scales, and there's not enough folks to do the work. It's not efficient, like you say in terms of Saskatchewan, so someone's driving from Newport to Pennington, or whatever the case may be.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So is this the sort of conversation, Martin or It's

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: one of our top things to talk about. Great.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: And Wayne, keep a list of your questions that you want to ask during FY27 budget. I do. Okay. So how are people feeling about those? Should we cross those off, or is there anything else we need to know about those? Since we have not hearing The

[Martha 'Marty' Feltus (Vice Chair)]: very last one, the 53,000, it says the transport deputy position was created, that the position was not funded. And now they're asking for the year, and

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: they've funded for the second half of the year. Why was it

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: not I don't remember what happened there. It's only going to be a half year funding approach. But I don't know what happened there. I mean I can check-in on that, but I know we did create

[Martha 'Marty' Feltus (Vice Chair)]: We did create it, so I do remember there.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: Sounds like for that, that it's going to be filled for the second half

[John Kascenska (Member)]: of the year.

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: Yes. All M and M, I mean, administration is okay.

[David Yacovone (Member)]: Yeah. So,

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: why don't we, tend to check that one off and Trevor will check on the 53 and what happened. Okay and then public safety, I think these are all yours Marty. These three or four are not. The

[Martha 'Marty' Feltus (Vice Chair)]: first one is, it has to do with their indirect costs. They're moving stuff from the other clients into the general, because they have grant monies that come in to help them do a variety of things, and among the parameters of the grant is you can use a certain amount of money for indirect costs, for general admin, it's not sufficient to cover what they were doing because of the percentage amount that's allowed in the indirect. So they need to backfill that or they need to finish paying their indirect costs by taking it out of the gentleman.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: There's been a lot of this sort of thing which I find really frustrating these interdepartment hall and they didn't pay enough this is like one of the

[Martha 'Marty' Feltus (Vice Chair)]: past IT sort of things. Well I think it has to do with the terms of the contract of the grant and you get a grant for $100,000 and it says you may use 5% of this for admin expenses related to doing this function. Well, it turns out for whatever reason the 5% is not enough to cover the admin related to that particular function. So either salaries are too high or we have too many people working to do the admin work on that particular branch or it's just not realistic to consider 5% of it.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: It says payer budgets cannot support the allocated charges.

[Martha 'Marty' Feltus (Vice Chair)]: Believe that to mean the payer budgets are the grants that are coming in and you know for instance it should have been $150,000 if you take 5% out.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yeah, it was you know whatever. I can do some more checking. Yeah, that one confuses me. Okay, Cause I don't also don't see the word grant in there anywhere in explanation.

[Martha 'Marty' Feltus (Vice Chair)]: No, but it was in the handout they gave us that described how indirect costs look. Oh, okay. But I will

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: be glad to That's look that up it, okay. And then the state police, the next one.

[Martha 'Marty' Feltus (Vice Chair)]: State police, it's overtime, which I don't know that we have much control over it, that's a scheduling issue, other things, but it also includes the 130 or 108%, the net cost for the Burlington's. Right.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Additional work in Burlington. Right, which we knew we were going to get some costs related But to I wonder, would be good when they come in for the next year's budget to find out if they I don't remember if this is that's a lot of overtime, whether they're short, I guess they've sort

[Martha 'Marty' Feltus (Vice Chair)]: of been short. Yes, when they don't, I don't have the numbers right here, but the number of established, justified positions and then the number that are actually filled, and then how many are still in training. Right. Not yet.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yeah, but you just need know how, what their vacancy is, how many they're allowed to have and how many they've actually got. Still a lot of overtime. Still 750,000, 757,000 of overtime. Right across the state. Yeah.

[Martha 'Marty' Feltus (Vice Chair)]: It just seems like

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: Also, we always ask, don't you plan for overtime? What's in

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: the Well, again, I think what happens is the departments and agencies are told that they have to budget to a 3% number, which is like the veterans' home, right? And then they use the budget adjustment to solve it instead of doing the right amount, closer to the right amount.

[David Yacovone (Member)]: So we can ask them that question. Yes, for next year too, yes.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Alright, so in the meantime, you think we're okay with need to do that one? I'm not seeing anybody Okay. Say And then criminal justice.

[Martha 'Marty' Feltus (Vice Chair)]: This is one I want to check into a

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: little Okay. Bit

[Martha 'Marty' Feltus (Vice Chair)]: This is this, but I'll check into it for you. Okay. Guess I understand there's an increase based upon some software. I'm just wondering if they knew that was coming and so why we didn't budget for it in the first place. Right. Or if this is just higher than they had expected or I don't know.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Right, okay, great. Right here in the military.

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: Yep.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: This is the grant for training people after when they come back to help them build careers so that they can when they leave the service that they can do things that we would like to have them do in the state of Vermont. So last year, as you recall, we took 100,000 out of that pot ramp up. And this year, they're saying that they're not gonna use this extra $286,000 because all these deployments that are are going out, they're gonna have they they don't estimate that they're gonna have it this year.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: I think that's Keep an eye on that for '27. See any notes? Mineral Justice Council, in fact. That is mine

[Martha 'Marty' Feltus (Vice Chair)]: again. Again, I do want to talk to them a little bit more. Apparently they have an ongoing project in terms of doing a full curriculum review and they've done part of it and this is the next part of it to say the contract is complete. Again my question is did you know this other half was going to be did it get speeded up and therefore you want it during this year as opposed to next year or Is it coming in more it does say they expect to finish it in May.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Thank you.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: Should we check on that one?

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: We're checking, she's checking on that. Human rights commission come in with 25 we're with that John

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: yeah we

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: testified that 25,000 would be sufficient to cover

[John Kascenska (Member)]: loss of harmony from husbands. Yes.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Okay. Pretty good to that? Yeah. We're okay? Mike, Ben.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: The cannabis control board, this is correcting money that had been appropriated for putting up standing up their lab. Indicators have swept out returning this money.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: It's

[Michael Mrowicki (Member)]: been agreed they need the money to stand

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: up labs. Think this is just a correction. Right. Okay, everybody clear on that? Good. Good. Stage one done. Human services. Lynn, you have 300. So we will hold off on those for the moment. 306

[David Yacovone (Member)]: That's mine.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Dave.

[David Yacovone (Member)]: I'm moving to it, hold on. Hold

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: on.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: So

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: while you're looking, just a reminder that the two big things are 2,500,000.0 for this Gainwell contract, I think it's all IT stuff, and then 2,800,000.0 for that Medicaid Data and Warehouse MDWAS, which has been going on since I think, at least when I was started here ten years ago in corrections institutions, I think it was there.

[David Yacovone (Member)]: Frankly, I don't think these are controversial, but I do believe, I want to wait till we get the presentation. Teresa Wood, you're looking at these, but don't expect any

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So maybe we should hold off on all of the human services ones until we talk about that. That makes sense. That seems to make sense, so we'll skip all of these, David, off the hook for a moment. Those land and so is two. So we'll just skip the whole three hundred secondtion. Theresa will not address the three fourteen and fifteen. I've been in conversation with the health care committee and I just I they don't really have any questions but I have a couple of questions, that I'd like to Okay, check out. Yeah, so you have fourteen and fifteen. I do. There you had twelve and 03/12. Yeah. Has three ten. Okay. So 16, 17, okay. Good morning, everyone. You used to have the Dale, the age of blindness. No, talk about it. I to talk about it.

[Martha 'Marty' Feltus (Vice Chair)]: Yeah, absolutely. I was concerned about some

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: of it. Yes, okay, so we'll just, I'm just checking off all the threes, we're not doing anything unless somebody yells out that we have to. Getting some nice pages. Sort of. Okay, so now we're on page five, and we have education nutrition. This is universal school meals. They always estimate it's coming in at a million dollars less. I did talk to the chair of house ed and he said this is fine, Mike, I don't know if you've had any other thoughts or talked about it. Seems alright for you? Yep. Anybody have any objections if we reduce by a million dollars? Think we're good? Okay, we'll check that one out. Oh, did I miss it? Oh, we missed correction. What number is it? Oh, we're on page five. Education was B508, kind of the south of the center.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: But now you're right they were reducing that simply because it was

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: underutilized yes yep I checked that carefully every year going on there and so I will jump up to three thirty nine and three forty two. Trevor, corrections and veterans a veteran's home is you, are you okay with the veteran's home? Yep. Okay, everybody okay with the veteran's home? And then how about the correction three thirty nine for, oh, a 30 bp increase, I think it's kind of stuck with that being utilization.

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: Yeah, I mean, I still have a question about the, yeah, I mean, in a sense it's gone up, we had to change all the contracts. Right. And so that's driving a lot of that, and then of course they had to increase out of state bed costs, like 30 beds, so that's the separate line under correctional services. Right,

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: that's this one.

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: Yeah, the second one. The one question I do have right now is the invoice date, the '25 invoice date, Not page 20 that that's, I understand what happened, it's part of this new system, vendor system that states set up, but what doesn't make sense to me is that when I look at the carry ons, don't see that money in the carry on. So if they're paying it in '26, wouldn't that money have carried forward? And I do have a careful about

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yeah, okay, we'll leave that open. I had a question about that too, and why that happened, and then

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: I also Well, know why it happened, but I can't figure out why that money doesn't show.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Right, okay, and maybe JFO can help us with that if he gets stuck. Which time is That's the 3,000,168 invoice is covered in cash from last year.

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: Old path invoice, was an F-twenty five, they paid it on July 26.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: 3,168,000 So 630 when I look

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: at the carry forward under that line item out, I see a small amount of pressure. Would that shorten the carry forward?

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: We it. Should talk That would be great. Well, reached

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: out to their finance people at DOC too.

[Martha 'Marty' Feltus (Vice Chair)]: Great.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yeah, that'd be great to have their folks out there.

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: And I'm meeting with some corrections and institutions folks later.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Oh, that's right. Just to talk.

[Martha 'Marty' Feltus (Vice Chair)]: Just that because of the increase in the census? Well,

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: no, not last year's invoices, the 4,550,000 I'm very concerned about is how is it that the increase in the census, I think that's supposed to say fifteen twenty five, and now it's gone up 30 or 50, and suddenly we have a $4,500,000 increase in the contract.

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: The contract before was $12.50. The new contract now is between $14.50, it's a range, $14.50, $15.50. So it's gone up 300.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: That's still a lot of money, $4,500,000. I

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: understand that.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So, yeah, so we'll hold those open until you have your meeting. Don't have to like it. I don't like it. Oh, know that. We may have to do it. But it is, it is. Yes, all right, so let's find out more about it. And I'm just wondering who's doing the negotiating also.

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: Oh, DOC does negotiate, I had that conversation with I mean, they do use some of the AHS staff, but it's driven by the DOC staff.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: I'm curious, I wonder if we have any or they have any information about how much other states pay for this kind of thing.

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: You know, probably do, I haven't answered that question. Yeah,

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: If they have it easily, I'd be curious to know what that is.

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: I'll ask a question. She was the former, she's a deputy, but she

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: can't start. Former finance. Oh, okay, good. Would be great.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: Rations and Institutions Committee, and they've had testimony on it too, because we were looking at associates and those on that committee two Okay, years

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: and then we'll jump down to the bottom of page five. The financial resources secretary Moore came in and chatted about these two, the two paying grade increase for 40 wardens and one for one and then the other is the wildfire, well not just wildfire well they're all related to wildfire yeah that's right the helicopter deployment you would see the yeah right okay everybody good with those it's like they kind of have

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: to do those yes

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Righty. Page six is the land use review board. This is this, that yours, That's fine. This

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: miscellaneous stuff.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Right, getting set up. Any questions on that one? Are we good to close-up? And page seven is the 1,100, so Rachel Hunt times. Let's see, so Mike, this one's yours and I know they took testimony away from Dean's yesterday.

[Michael Mrowicki (Member)]: I haven't got heard from after that.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Okay, I just talked to the chair who said, the governor signed the bill into law last year, and this is what they need to do.

[Michael Mrowicki (Member)]: I was going say, decision, the legislature already approved the change in methodology. I don't think that part's any question. I think the timing aspect might be the only question, which I think it's just because they're under contract currently.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: Right with

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: the telephone tax. Yeah. It's to get help to They need help with evaluation models, it's changing everything. I don't know why it wasn't budgeted for or maybe it was and they've turned it into more. It's also the health of municipalities, which is not a bad thing. There's like $15,000,000 the pilot fund. Is that what you told me, 15,000,000 or something in the pilot fund now? There's some lot amount, so it seems like it makes sense. When I talked to the chair, she was fine with it. Okay,

[Michael Mrowicki (Member)]: as long as, yeah, in that case.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So, everybody okay with that one? This next one is the fit up costs for the new offices in Waterbury as a result of the return to the Woodford. I don't even know who that would be. Well, it's Human Services Secretary's office, that would be Lynn, so we'll hold off. Same on the health department, DCF, diva, diva.

[David Yacovone (Member)]: What are you using?

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: I'm in the b 11 hundreds. So a couple of them are small, but there's 2,700,000 IT, this is more of this cloud based to remain compliant with federal data services. We'll just wait till we hear from them.

[David Yacovone (Member)]: Yeah, I don't know.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: I think it's probably going to have to do it.

[David Yacovone (Member)]: Yeah, I would think so.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: And then the final one, did this last year, it was going to be in the section C of the big bill and we pulled it into budget adjustment last year. The Brattleboro Retreat has that alternate payment method and we do it and I believe this is not going be the right number. Right, you had mentioned that and I just wondered if you've gotten it. I haven't heard anything, actually. This says Diva, so is it actually?

[David Yacovone (Member)]: Medicaid reimbursement? But is it clinical health?

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Well, doesn't, it just says it's a payment. Yeah. I will text Adam right now and ask him because He I did share something, so. Well, he knew this was coming. I mean, because I asked him that. That was my last text. No, second to last. Okay. Okay, we'll see what we find out so we'll hold off on that. The rumor I heard was that the number was going to go down. So we'll see if that's true or it was just a rumor judiciary oh this is part of the pilot that the governor did

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: yeah

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: I think we kind of have to do that States attorneys?

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: Same thing.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Except all before the pilot? Yep. Okay.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: See, now I like these kind of things. It seems like we're actually gaining ground.

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: Seems to be.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: And then we heard from the land access opportunity board, this is the money that they were supposed to have and it got taken out and it's being put back in.

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: Yeah, so

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: and then

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: Williams gave a question yesterday about the positions to equip the material that they provided in those kinds of positions are about proposals for FY '20 success.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: So it'll be posed on an upcoming budget?

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: That's right. That would be

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: sent to the client. So we'll have testimony on that.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Oh yeah, we'll have testimony on all of that.

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: I just

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: clarified that this is still last year's or the year before money that was just maybe cleaned to be used.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: Questions on those positions would be operationally, are these going to provide a benefit? What kind of benefit?

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Well, they need to come in with your presentation to be telling us those things. That's what we'll be getting there. So it's interesting that we've had two things this year where they had sort of inadvertently taken the money out, and this has been happening with some regularity, unfortunately. I mean, cannabis people weren't missed, but don't know why they got messed with it, but anyway, need to keep an eye on these things.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: There are new organizations which shouldn't exempt them from the process, but clearly there's a little roughness getting them Not

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: quite used to that happening.

[Martha 'Marty' Feltus (Vice Chair)]: That was kind of like the child care tax. It's a new process and trying to figure out where to add in. Pull the money out

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: of the term loan and put it in.

[Martha 'Marty' Feltus (Vice Chair)]: What they have done. Right.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Okay, so we're on the last page, which is transfers and reversions. The first is criminal records check. Trevor is that your GPS?

[Martha 'Marty' Feltus (Vice Chair)]: I guess it's mine. Yeah.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Oh, fund shortfall. Right, which has been an ongoing issue. Trevor, did you have this at one point? No. Okay. This is the background checks, where do they get their money?

[Martha 'Marty' Feltus (Vice Chair)]: Well I presume there's a theme. Need to check into this.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yeah, let's check into that.

[Martha 'Marty' Feltus (Vice Chair)]: I recall, was under public safety as opposed to that.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Well, because it's about background checks.

[Martha 'Marty' Feltus (Vice Chair)]: Well, know, but it is the criminal justice training council that does that or did some money go through public service or public safety?

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: As I recall, they testified that there's a lot less background checks being done because people are using the internet to do things. So some of the these are not necessarily criminal. Are maybe

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: company company,

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: employee, or anything like that, a future employee, they not losing the service as much. I think that's the answer, Beth. You can check.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Well, the money was also it was that, and the money is also coming from a fund that doesn't have the revenues because they're not doing a background check. So, yes, that would be great to check into and I wonder how they're going to change things and what's going to be different in FY27. That would be an interesting question. And that would be

[Martha 'Marty' Feltus (Vice Chair)]: a question, you know, if there is indeed a fee and maybe the fee has not been updated in quite some time. So there's a whole question of if this way it means going to do a fee bill to update fees or not.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Right, and I don't know about that. So the next two on our agency of transportation John and I was chatting with JFO about these and wondering if there's plenty of money in the pilot special fund, does the agency need to take its already pretty underwater budget and put money back in the pilot fund?

[John Kascenska (Member)]: I don't know. I kind of grabbed Candice quickly in the hallway following when they came in. I need to sit down with her. Yeah. I didn't have that much time to follow-up on that. But they were short. I mean, didn't. They were

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: short and they used the pilots on, I think, an appropriate way.

[Christopher Rupe (Joint Fiscal Office Analyst)]: And the question

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: I really have to pay the back. I mean, that really make the use of because they're going to have to borrow money from general fund to do something some other I don't know.

[Christopher Rupe (Joint Fiscal Office Analyst)]: That's what

[John Kascenska (Member)]: I wonder. Don't have answer to that question yet.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yeah. If you could check that out, that would be great.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: I might want to ask whether there's some some things that have to be paid out by the fund. So if it's necessary to pay something out of the virus fund.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: I don't know.

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: One

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: of you guys over there, hello everybody. We chatted about this with somebody and Chris and

[John Kascenska (Member)]: I talked a little bit about some of this moving money from special funded

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Right, they were using access

[John Kascenska (Member)]: to I don't understand that yet fully, but we talked about it briefly.

[Christopher Rupe (Joint Fiscal Office Analyst)]: For the record, Christopher, joint fiscal. Yeah, I think the committee might want

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: to revisit this after next Tuesday

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: on the FY twenty seven.

[Christopher Rupe (Joint Fiscal Office Analyst)]: Oh, Correct. Lands. Yes. But yeah, I think that sort of still the the issue here and representative Essex and I both spoke with AOT, they pursued authority from finance and management to through actual proceeds to spend another $360,000 in change out of

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: the wind farm to take care

[Christopher Rupe (Joint Fiscal Office Analyst)]: of two additional municipal projects in I believe Norwich and Pondgren. And the agreement that was struck between the agency and finance and management was you could use the excess receipt authority if you make the pilot fund a hold as a result. I understand why that directive was given to the agency. You all just might want to, to your points earlier, Madam Chair, revisit this topic next week. We'll see

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: what influence it. Because maybe we don't make them do it.

[Christopher Rupe (Joint Fiscal Office Analyst)]: It might be a different path. Yeah. It was more like

[John Kascenska (Member)]: a one time strategy at the moment to kind of shift things and take care of the excess receipts that they were receiving because they didn't have enough Right,

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: but it's the paying them back part that I don't really see, do we really need to pay them back?

[John Kascenska (Member)]: When I first cite both my questions about that.

[Christopher Rupe (Joint Fiscal Office Analyst)]: And I understand the management's perspective of if they're gonna give excess receipts, make sure you leave them hold afterwards, given but the balance in the pilot special fund and the challenges of the other major funds,

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: you all might take it out Exactly. The Did I hear from Addison? No. Okay, so we'll hold off on this so we see the budget. I haven't really met with them yet about the budget for the next year here. Yeah, they don't want to talk to each other if the governor knows Okay, the we're back to cannabis.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: Yeah, this is the close out true up of the transfers of the general fund from actuals.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yes, so nice to have a reduction in general. Anybody okay with that? Okay, good. And why do we have a big zero? This next one?

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: Oh geez, trying to remember, James and I worked through trying to find out why this is Why is it even there? Confusingly presented.

[James (Joint Fiscal Office)]: James, please assist. During the fiscal office. So the reason this shows up as a zero is because they're supposed to take money from the cannabis substance misuse fund. They're adjusting the transfer amount between the cannabis regulation fund and the substance misuse prevention fund. So all transactions are within the special fund, but they're very big.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: They could have done it in two lines when they did it. Okay. So it's a zero, but stuff happened. Yes.

[James (Joint Fiscal Office)]: So $135,438.27

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: is being shifted from one fund to the other which nets us easier. Okay everybody all right with that one?

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: They're both special funds so if

[David Yacovone (Member)]: you get one special funds. Exactly okay so we're good there.

[Martha 'Marty' Feltus (Vice Chair)]: But why were they transferred? I didn't read all of them. This

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: is just based on the actuals from previous year because we base it on an estimate, and this is just close out based on actuals.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: An actual true up.

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: Yep. An

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: actual true up. We go.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Okay, unclaimed property, who is that? That's treasurer, right? So I think that's good, general fund went down and special fund went up, but we'll just have Lynn tell us. And then, do you have these other ones, Marty? Yes, I must. So I think that that's right when she came in, Wendy Knight came in, the sports betting, they're not making as much as they thought they were making.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: We're drinking more. Yes,

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: that's because they're well maybe if you're celebrating their wins, we make less in sports betting, the more people win the less money the state makes.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: Right, but perhaps the people who lost their list

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: aren't going to hurt anymore. Right, right, exactly.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: If we're going wrap all the vices and we

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: won't eat Well, might be smoking, but they are not quite bamboozle, they're

[Martha 'Marty' Feltus (Vice Chair)]: a million dollars up.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Right, so yeah, liquor has exceeded expectations and the other, I think we just need to, I think they're okay, they are what they are. They're enterprise funds. Yes. May not like him, Todd, but that's what they are. I can feed him. Yes. And then Emily under reversions of 21,000,000, I said, need to see spreadsheets. Yes. Do they have one or are they? That one is part of the

[Martha 'Marty' Feltus (Vice Chair)]: report that they sent around,

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: but then we're also working on spreadsheets. Okay. So Autumn a couple days ago stated from Adam January 12 the carry forward and reversion report and I think everybody should have should have a copy of that this is like another little really you don't you have it in your email but I'm thinking that Autumn maybe we should make copies for the committee so they have it.

[Martha 'Marty' Feltus (Vice Chair)]: Yes.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: That would be great, thank you. Do we have it electronically?

[David Yacovone (Member)]: Yes. Was it an email or is it part of

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: the Email from Autumn.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: Thank you. But

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: I think it's also good for those refer to it all the time during the course of the budget season, so you'll all get paper copies. Okay, that would be great, thanks, Autumn. Thank you. So I think that ends the spreadsheet portion. Yay. Until we come back So we spent an hour, so why don't we take a quick break and then we'll come back and look at the language. I think we have some of language in our format versus the email. Let's go offline.