Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: And we're back live. This is the House Appropriations Committee. It is Thursday, 01/15/2026. It's about 10:50 a. M. And we are doing our markup of the Budget Adjustment Act. We just finished with spreadsheets, and now we are going to look at some language. Grady from Joint Fiscal has put it in the kind of formatting that we will be using for the ultimate bill. So welcome. Thanks, Grady, and take it away.

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Thank you, Madam Chair. Grady Nixon, joint fiscal. So you'll notice that this document is only 15 pages long. It's far shorter than what the committee received from the Department of Finance and Management. And it begins at section 46. So in the JFO system, we generate the quote unquote numbers sections, those amendments to B sections of the bill in what we call JFO bud, and those are automatically produced. Then this is the rest of the bill, the so called language sections of the bill. The first section you'll see here is section 46, which is the amendments to FY twenty six one times. And just before I get into anything I would like to clarify for the committee, the only change from the governor recommend document to this document is that it's been formatted and edited by both myself and drafting operations to make sure that it comports to house style and things like that.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So the parts that we aren't getting, the first 45, are the typical B section where they change the numbers and you know that's all that sort of stuff that we see. So that's why Grady isn't giving us all those extra pages because there's no change. If we change them, then then we'll see

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: those changes.

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office)]: And those changes you'll see in the spreadsheet that the committee just was reviewing those changes, whatever the committee decides will be automatically produced and added to the bill.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Okay. So if you had the Adam version, you're actually starting on page 29 of 38, which is the v 11 f. But the language should be all the same, just in our format. Okay. Thank you, Grady.

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office)]: And since the committee has reviewed some of or has gone through and discussed earlier this morning the one time sections and other sections like transfers and reserves, I'll skip over as much of that as possible. The only thing in this b eleven hundred secondtion, that I would like to call the committee's attention to is on page three of the current formatted document. So the committee will notice that at the bottom of page three, there is a sub p and an amendment to appropriations to Vermont Housing and Conservation Board. There is a sub two there now, a million dollars for general fund for the homes for all, homes for all phase two and secure housing coaching programs. This was just a technical movement, in the gov rec documents that appeared as a new v 1,100 h h one, which would have been a direct appropriation to the land access opportunity board. That correction of a reversion that you'll see in the description of that spreadsheet document. This is just moving that appropriation to the proper place in the bill and matching it with that act where the original appropriation occurred. Oh, okay. Tom? This is a rising above. I get what that is and clear on what that is. But it's rising above. The Feltio B currently is a division or is housed in VHCb, which is why it's being appropriated through VHCV. If they were an independent government operation, they would be able to be funded directly? Correct, yeah. And so this is just matching that prior appropriation currently, funneling through BHCP to the land access opportunity board. Why is that exactly just I I know that we don't fund nonprofit organizations directly, that

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: we would have to funnel it through

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office)]: a different organization or a government entity. So is that just because this is the LEOB is a subsidiary within the VHCB? Correct, just reflecting current organizational structure. Okay, thank you.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Thanks, Brady.

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Skipping ahead on page six, there's section 47, d 100 amendments to d 100, the property transfer tax allocations. So this happens every year where the property transfer tax allocations just shift slightly. So you'll just see amendments to those allocations.

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: So on page five, you have

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: a whole lot of highlighted yellow stuff.

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Correct, so those are finance and management's explanations of the one time appropriations.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Why I think like Okay.

[David Yacovone (Member)]: That helps us explain it.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yes.

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Section 48 on page seven. This is the fund transfer section, which I'll skip over for committee discussion earlier this morning. This language just matches what was in the spreadsheet that was reviewed earlier.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Which page is that?

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office)]: That begins on page seven and brings you all the way to page 10. Section 49, this is amendments to section B102, reversions. So you'll see the addition of several reversions there, three from the legislative branch and one reversion to the tobacco litigation settlement fund. These reversions have to appear in language because the spending authority is maintained with the legislative branch unless by an act of the general assembly And with the tobacco litigation settlement funds, similar language and restrictions applied to those funds for a prior act of the general assembly.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So the bond redemption of $6,000,000 was that money that we got a bond premium or something for

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office)]: So this was the treasurer bond redemption. That language appears in the Act 27 as it currently exists. Okay. It was just added here so that lawyers can understand the context of where to put these new

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

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Right. That's part of that treasurer, 20,000,000. Right.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: And so the legislature, the legislative office has turned in $17,065 in three areas, and that's the reverse.

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office)]: And we're very happy to do it.

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

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: I know, it's $65

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: We won't ask you to explain that. What's the $3 one somewhere that Adam finshined? He's going to buy a cup of coffee. Also

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office)]: on page 11, section 50, this is an amendment to section D103, the reserve section. And you'll see the new language here is reserving the first 74,000,000 of any fiscal year end balance otherwise subject to statutory closeout provisions to be reserved for property tax relief. The joint fiscal office, is working on a more thorough explanation of the closeout process more generally speaking, and an explanation of, the intent of this section. So I would recommend deferring discussion on that to a later time. You will see on page 12 in the same section, though, that $13,000,000 of education fund that was reserved pursuant to 2023 action results number 52 is being unreserved. When the current fiscal year yield was calculated, $13,000,000 it was understood that it was unreserved and would be available in the education fund, but that actual technical unreserving had not occurred. So this is just making sure that those education funds aligned with the yield.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So this is retroactively unreserving something that was closer than unreserved. It's already happened, and now we're just going to put it. So actually, that could be a spot that maybe we can agree on that 13,000,000. If not, I think the education fund property taxes.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: So we've already used it.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yeah, so we're good with that 13,000,000 being unreserved? It's not other money that we're doing, it's just unreserving, it's action that was spent. So there, there's one. Say

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: that again, please. It was put in as unreserved, then it would have been spent, because then the unreserved didn't actually occur,

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: so it's still being Spent it without unreserving it. You were not supposed to spend it without unreserving Yes, gone.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: It part of the money that was put in last year to ameliorate the property tax or increase the funding to the fund.

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Continuing on also on page 12, section 51. So this is an additional position conversion that would occur in fiscal year twenty twenty six. This would be converting one executive director position at the land use review board to permanent exempt status.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: That's right. So this was in the governor's Trevor, this one's yours, right? Land Use Yeah, yeah. So they, right, so they, we had already done nine and then we forgot, we didn't do the executive director, making the executive director kind

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: of makes sense.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: It was an intent to do it all along it just didn't get done. Right,

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: so are we good on that one for positions? All right let's check that

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: one off.

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Section 52 at the bottom of page 12 and continuing on to page 13. So, this is just an update to the estimated state match for global commitment. Again, this is something that happens annually. Those numbers are just updated, to reflect current estimates. Everybody

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: good with that? Yeah. Okay. Why don't we say we're okay on that one? Thank you.

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office)]: For the bottom of page 13, you'll see section 53. So this would be adding a mechanism to the annual closeout in statute. This would function as a way to ensure that there are sufficient funds for childcare contribution by directing the Commissioner of Finance and Management to reserve an amount general fund equal to the consensus estimate. And again, I would recommend that the committee discuss this in the context of FY '26 closeout more generally. And I know that JFO is also working on a presentation, to more thoroughly explain the mechanism occurring here.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Okay.

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office)]: The only thing I would like to flag for the committee at this time, is that in the governor recommend this was proposed as 32 VSA three zero eight D, a repeal of 32 VSA three zero eight D still exists in statute as just a repeal. So, I recommend that the committee add this or assume any any language that the committee decides to add, as three way f instead.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Okay. It was a sense to do something to something that's repealed.

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Correct. And also the governor recommend language was not it did not include any statutory title. So if this language was added to statute, the committee would need to give this a name.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Can you give it a name for us?

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office)]: I would be happy to work on a name for it.

[David Yacovone (Member)]: Thank you.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Naming the baby.

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office)]: On the bottom of page 14 and then continuing on to page 15, this is the annual carry forward language. This is in every BAA. And then finally, the effective date section because these are all changes to the current fiscal year. Generally speaking, they all take effect on passage. If there are other sections that are added to the building must be effective retroactively, the effective dates would change.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So this the top of page 15 is standard language that we do every year, right? Correct. And then the effective date is typical. Carrie Paul reminds me, so I said this to some of you, I heard back from Adam, Brattleboro retreat all pay alternative payment is now down to 5,300,000.0 from '8 something or other eight what did James say 8,038 or 8,000,000? Yeah, was just 8 So we got a couple million bucks there. I asked Adam for something in writing and he said he'll send a revised carry forward reversion sheet that captured it. Now that we have this one, this is draft one, we'll get a new one. And I think we'll get it after the e board meeting tomorrow. So I see Wayne and then Dave.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: Just back on the childcare special fund, We heard that the tax money from that child care tax goes directly into the general fund. Does this fund intersect with that money?

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office)]: So this would be a technical reserve process. It's not actually touching on the child care contribution special fund itself. This would just be ensuring that whatever money is meant to go to that fund at the end of the year is reserved prior to closeout.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: Because of the lag?

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Yes, I believe so.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yeah, there is lag from a tax department. Yeah.

[David Yacovone (Member)]: Yeah. Dave? Is the Brattleboro retreat in the one time section? No. And is it, help me understand then, just to be clear, is this some type of reconciling they do? Yes. And they true it up or down and adjust it and then make a payment to?

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Usually it's been, you have to give them more. Thank you. So this was a, as I recall, a five year program to do this alternative payment method and Stephanie in last year and explained it and I couldn't repeat what she said. But that is what I'm trying to find.

[David Yacovone (Member)]: Kind of an ongoing

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: know what it is in one time, never mind, Miscellaneous one time.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: Yeah, that's what I

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: And between general fund and fed funds, it's 8,082,365. There's only 160,000 of fed funds, so most of it is general fund. So Adam said that they did another negotiation or talk about the reconciliation. I don't have any of the details of it, but I had heard they were meeting about it, so I asked, that's why I asked.

[David Yacovone (Member)]: It seems like part of an ongoing effort for many, many years to help the bread of our retreat stay viable.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Is that fair to guess

[David Yacovone (Member)]: I wouldn't offer that on the floor, it has.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yeah, I'm not sure whether it's that or it's just a, a I can't imagine that we're paying more money than we're supposed to be paying.

[David Yacovone (Member)]: No, no.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Maybe the way we pay it or the timing of how

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: we pay less than something about, well, I think it's a mechanism for smoothing out the payments because their needs may go up and down, up and and because of the timing and reimbursements and a variety of other things the income does keep up with it and so I think that's what they looked at as a five year period trying to guess future utilization and stuff like that and say, okay, we'll give you 40 every year instead of 40 and then 60 and then 80 and then 20 and then whatever. I just have that. Thought.

[David Yacovone (Member)]: I remember vividly when Governor Douglas was elected, the first week of his taking office, I

[David Yacovone (Member)]: was told to go to

[David Yacovone (Member)]: the bread and butter retreat and help fix their reimbursement. And it seems like there was a team of us working on it, so been a continuous process. Digress, but.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: I think you're right, Dave. And as I recall, it was kind of akin to the from the veterans home. We reconcile that every year as a means so I think this was a means of trying to Did the psychiatric hospital?

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: Yeah. So it's going to be

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: yep. So it needs to go back then.

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: So about $8,000,000 is going up or down?

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yeah, it's going to be 5.3 and Adam will give us something about that after tomorrow. So that's all the language we have at the moment?

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office)]: As of now, yes. And I believe the committee's heard about some other language elements that may be added to the bill.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yes, if we use some of these other things that are in progress, they'll be definitely using my page and some spreadsheet things. Thank you, Grady. We'll hear about closeout next week?

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Yeah, or at some point this week, I think.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yeah maybe on Tuesday or something based on tomorrow yeah well and yeah tomorrow in the afternoon we've got a meeting joint hearing with Ways and Means on with Tom Kabet after leaving boards, but that's not going to take all afternoon either. So we may want to come back here after that and have at least a little check-in.

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: Lynn? Yeah, because when I talked to David Scheu, there is, if you want to put it in to the BAA, there is these federal government assessments that they pay the school districts for employees funded with federal grants.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: That's the 3,000,000.

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: That's the

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: 3,000,000.

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: And they gave us language, but you said that probably the legislature would want to refine this probably.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Chris has a copy of it. Talk about Yeah. That in this committee at all? Oh, have it coming coming in this afternoon?

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: 01:30. We'll not have

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Chris tell us all about it today. We'll let the treasurer do it. So that's the thing that'll be coming in and it has to do with FY26. The VA is the appropriate place to put it because we know about it now. So there'll be little things like that that we're going to hear about. So, Emily or James or anybody else do we have other fleets that we want to go over at the moment? Are we kind of done what we could do? Do you have any thoughts? We can go back and look at this. Lynn wasn't around for some of the spreadsheet stuff. We're not going to review everything, but I'm wondering if there's any of your things that we want. There's a couple things on

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: the human services side. I'm to

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: hear from Theresa this afternoon. I'm just trying to see if there was anything else of yours. There's the treasurers there on Clint property, which is Yeah. We thought that was okay. Yeah, well, there's a lot

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: more going on with unclaimed property but it's not it's not in here but we can deal with that later

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: right and the health and public health I want to go over right so we'll hear from Theresa on all of those basically just and if you're okay with unclaimed property we can check that off It's on the very back page, page eight, the bottom. It's in the, Transfers and Reversions. You all right with that one, Lynn? Yeah. Okay, so everybody's okay, we'll check that one off. And we will get a sort of sheet about reversions. We have our interim carry board and reversion sheet. So, I don't think there's anything else at this point unless you can You're so busy, I'm asking you. From the public hearing list. Okay, we'll share it with me and then we'll get that out to everybody so you can see the questions there of all the asks that we heard from yesterday so we're going prepare our minutes and make sure you have

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: that right before we send that back.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So I think that's everything for right now. We have treasurer's office coming in at 01:15. And then at two we're going to have our security briefing so we go into executive session and there's stuff I have to say, we'll go on live and go out live. And then after that, we'll have a break and then we'll have Teresa come in. And I know Tom has to be on the floor for the S60 for a presenter. So that's what we have for today. So this can be a chance for those of you that have things open to do a little work on that, and I think we can go offline. Thank you.