Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Chair Robin Scheu]: Good afternoon. This is the House Appropriations Committee. Is still Thursday, 01/15/2026. It's about 03:40PM, and we are back to talk about budget adjustment. And we have with us the chair of the Health Human Services Committee, Chair Teresa Wood, who has their committee recommendations for the budget adjustment. So we're delighted to have you, Madam Chair. And if you would introduce yourself, and you all have your memo. Okay.

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: Thank you, Chair Shai. My name is Theresa Wood. I am from Waterbury. Also represent Bolton, News Corp, and Huntington. Just like to let people know where their representatives are and what they're doing. And I am chair of the House Human Services Committee. So first off, thank you for your indulgence in letting me come in and talk about the things that we have discovered, uncovered, discussed, talked about, took testimony on over It feels like we've been here two months, not just a week and a half, but So during that I want to just tell you a little bit about the process that we use. So we concentrated on the Department of Disabilities, Aging, and Independent Living and the Department for Children and Family Services. The health department didn't have anything major that we were looking at. And so we concentrated our efforts on those other two departments that had much larger asks and adjustments. When we finished taking testimony from the departments, we also invited community partners to the table, essentially, to help us understand the impact of some of the decisions that have been made in the BAA. Or in some cases, some of the community partners were there to let us know about the implications of really what's happening on the ground in the community. So we were judicious in the recommendations that we bring forward because we kept them to things that we thought were truly FY26 BAA. So we did hear from legal instance. We heard from Vermont two 11. We heard from End Homelessness Vermont, of which not all of which, two of which had had either their requests already considered during the '26 budget process and the general assembly did not fund them or did not fund them at the levels that they wanted. And so we thought that was a decision that's been made, presented and made, and they'll have another stab at it in FY twenty seven. And with End Homelessness Vermont, that's an organization that provides services, particularly to medically fragile individuals who are experiencing homelessness. And we heard about the growing number of people who are finding themselves in that situation and the stress it's putting on not just that community provider, but that one and others. So we heard from them as well. We did not elect to bring forward their request for funding. We said you'll have an opportunity during the FY twenty seven budget process to kind of make your case. But what each of those organizations presented, in our estimation, did not fall into a true FY 'twenty six budget adjustment process. So I just want, because I know we kind of have the reputation for just bringing everything and laying it at your feet, I want you to know that we didn't do that. Okay? Thank you, Madam Chair. All right. And I also want to note that if you follow along in the individual departments or the spreadsheets that have been provided, if we make no specific comments in these sections, that the committee is recommending acceptance of those adjustments. Okay?

[Rep. David Yacovone]: Great. Thank you.

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: The first one is I'll start with the Department of Disabilities, Aging, and Independent Living. And if it's all right with you, Madam Chair, people have questions, feel free to interrupt me. Okay.

[Chair Robin Scheu]: Just raise your hand and then I'll call on.

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: Okay. So in Choices Care, just as a reminder for people, Choices for Care is a universal budget that encompasses all choices for care services. It's not broken out by skilled nursing and then home and community based services. It's all in one line item. So the money flows back and forth. So that's an important thing to understand. And it was designed that way thirty years ago to enable that flexibility and to enable us and the department at that time to be nimble in the implementation of that choices for care program. I have talked with my committee about this, and I think that we'll be investigating further whether it is time to think about having a separate appropriation for skilled nursing and a separate appropriation for home and community based services. I think that we are When that was done, it was done because on purpose, there was an intention to reduce the number of nursing facility beds across the state in favor of home and community based services. I think we are at that point, absent any business decisions that these facilities make, that systemically, we're not gonna be reducing the number unless a facility like today was announced, a closure happens as a result of the business deciding to close on its own. So I think it's time to at least start that conversation about whether there should be separate appropriations. So as you know, we've had extraordinary financial relief quite a lot in the last few years for nursing facilities in big numbers. This year is no different, although it is less than last year. So progress is being made. But it's still $14,500,000

[Rep. David Yacovone]: I think

[Chair Robin Scheu]: it was $21,000,000

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: It was 20 something, and it might well have been 21. The committee recognizes and very much values the role that nursing facilities play in the continuum of care. But we're also concerned that this is an ongoing systemic issue. And I'm not sure if people realize that Vermont is an outlier in skilled nursing and the continued use of traveling staff. And that obviously is having an impact on the cost of services.

[Chair Robin Scheu]: Do you know why that is? Well, this

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: is sort of an ongoing issue with the Department of Disabilities Aging and Independent Living. Can't really tell you why. I think that a number of these facilities are owned by for profit corporations. They're owned by out of state organizations. And there's differences in how they're run. But the workforce shortage is still out there. And it's difficult work. And one of the ways that the hospitals have been able to move away from it, and they've made significant progress in moving away from it, is that they've increased wages. Right.

[Chair Robin Scheu]: Well, that's what I was thinking. And so forgotten that we don't own. We don't have a say in the wages of some

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: of these places because they're privately owned. We don't have a say in any of the wages of So these

[Chair Robin Scheu]: if they're not paying enough, that's probably why we're not One of the good reasons is that we're

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: an outlier. Yeah, absolutely. And I would, so it's sort of odd to be in the position of being an outlier at the same time as being, really recognizing that it is probably the one of the reasons is the pay rate of these facilities. Yet we're continuing to put additional resources into it, but it's not really addressing the problem of the base rate of pay for people who are permanent employees. And the department is working on that. It is actively understanding that issue. And like I said, we have made some progress. That request is down. The other thing that we find difficult in our committee is that there are over two fifty vacancies in the field right now. And we do have a number of people who are homeless who have extensive medical needs. And we really do need the department to work hand in hand with these facilities to understand what it is they need to be able to accept some of these folks. And we need the Area Agencies on Aging who provide the case management services to really understand what that means if you're trying to convey to a person who has been living on the street, living in a hotel, living in their car, but needs dialysis, just had a transplant or had an amputation or had some other medical need, that it's not a healthy place for you to be. And you don't have to give up your personal autonomy to receive services in skilled nursing. And you don't have to stay there forever.

[Chair Robin Scheu]: It's true that I know of other stories of people who have relatives who were not accepted into nursing home places because they had chemo and they had this and that and they just didn't want to take them. So,

[Rep. Michael Nigro]: in talking to the department, do you feel that the department is communicating effectively to those folks about this issue? Mean, the issue of we're giving health this much money and their business practices and they're communicating, do you understand the problem, the nature of the problem, the cure to the problem, those sorts of things so that they might make progress? Because if there's a miscommunication or if they don't understand what you're trying to get at, they won't get it done.

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: I think the department is pretty clear that the legislature is concerned about this. And in fact, we requested and we have. We haven't had a chance to review it as a committee yet. The department is providing a report in the in the, Budget Act last year. Because of the ongoing nature of this EFR, we requested a report about how are these funds being used, who are they being used by, are they private for profit, are they not for profit? So we have not reviewed that information yet. But yeah, the answer is yes. And it is concerning, particularly since according to the department, now the industry may have different information, but according to the department, they said that there are only 23 vacancies, and that's on top of this two fifty plus, that are the result of staffing issues, what we hear as staffing issues. So that would mean that the two fifty plus are the result of something else. And I don't know the answer to that question yet, but

[Rep. Michael Nigro]: It boils down to just like an employee. You either got a training problem or you got an attitude problem or something like that. If they don't know, it's a training problem.

[Chair Robin Scheu]: Dave has a question?

[Rep. David Yacovone]: This issue may be compounded by the structure of the services. One department in this instance is overseeing the delivery of the services, aging and independent living. Another department, Diva, does the rate setting, they're separated. It could be that because of the reimbursement process for the nursing homes, they have what's called a rebasing of the wages. So, they go in and take an audit is done and an accounting of it. And it says, okay, your wages have increased, I'm gonna increase what we pay you through Medicaid. That rebasing can take one, two or three years. So if everybody in this table, we were working in a facility and I wanted to raise your rate to market rates, I have to wait two or three years to get reimbursed for that. Some facilities have the capacity, many do not. So that may be something, if we look at the, try to go to the root causes of how can our systems be more responsive, we may wanna look at that and take a little testimony on that later.

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: We did do rebasing last year in FY '26, rebasing is occurring.

[Rep. David Yacovone]: So now they're getting paid in FY '26, they're getting paid, but they were paying people in FY '24. That is a two year lag. It may not be responsive.

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: It may not be responsive, but I guess I would I don't disagree with you, representative. I will point out that this is the only industry in the entire state government that I'm aware of, at least in human services, that receives automatic increases. That's all. I'm just Yes. It's the nursing home.

[Chair Robin Scheu]: Even though It's all community based services.

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: Just the nursing home side. Just the nursing home side.

[Chair Robin Scheu]: Which is very oddly. Even with that, there's still a case with Intermex that really doesn't

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: help the situation. I will say that there's some facilities, they have to make business decisions. They can't have a full facility of people on Medicaid. There's private pay, there's rehab, there's Medicaid. They have to make business decisions about what that balance is in order to continue to be able to be an open business. So yeah, there business decisions that folks make. That's why we want to understand and why we requested this report. We want to understand better the implications for any change, about what the pressures are. And you might recall that the General Assembly also made some one time investments to incentivize. I think it was an additional half $1,000,000, I think, is what's coming to my head in this year's budget to incentivize payments for staffing. So it's a significant cost driver, and it's a needed element in our continuum of care, and we need to understand it better.

[Rep. Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member)]: So today I learned that the Green Mountain Nursing in Burlington is closing and there are a lot of folks there. I'm just wondering, this help? I mean, could this conceivably address the shortfalls that they are currently facing or not likely?

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: I have asked the department for additional information, like if they have received EFR payments in the past. Are they one of the recipients? If you know, part of the issue is understanding that if we make payments in this kind of amount to private businesses, I'm just being clear about that, to private businesses doing the state's work in long term care. But what kind of commitments do we expect for them to be continuing in business for x period of time or anything. So I don't know if they, in fact, are one of the facilities that have received services. We've asked for additional information from licensing and protection about what's the quality rating that they've had, if there have been any licensing issues, to better understand the fuller picture. I looked it up, I haven't been to the facility. When I looked it up, it looks like it's in one of the older buildings and from the old Fort Ethan Allen. And so I think it's actually It's the address, at least. Yes.

[Rep. Michael Nigro]: Is this money Are the contracts involved? Do they have contracts that stipulate? So how do you stipulate?

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: Well, shouldn't say no. I have not seen what document exists if they receive an EFR payment. This is an EFR payment. I will need to ask about that when we have the department in for the report that they've done. When we do rate increases, there's not a contract. The rates are increased, and they bill on a per diem.

[Rep. Michael Nigro]: So So I'm just And Again, what I'm getting at is accountability.

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: Accountability.

[Rep. Michael Nigro]: Accountability and also direction to them in terms of boundaries in terms

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: of Yeah. I mean, I think it's important for people sitting in this room and listening to us to understand that we can't do this forever. And we pretty much reached our limit. Part of the point that I make here, our committee makes, is because this is all one budget, whatever is used on that side of the equation is not able to be invested on the community based side of the equation. And I'm just gonna move on to the next thing, because it follows up on that comment, So in the department's request, they requested an additional 2,500,000.0 for choices for care, but on the home and community based side. So they were, quote unquote, running hot when they originally developed this request. During testimony, they indicated that they may, in fact, have to use that for nursing facility payments as well. And we have a problem with that. So our recommendation is that this be approved for the home and community based site only as originally presented by the department. So

[Chair Robin Scheu]: this is where I'm a little confused. Is that an additional $2,500,000 Yes. That was not in the budget anywhere? Correct. But this is what they had asked for and they thought they were

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: going to get. This is what they're asking for in BAA. Right, but the governor didn't put

[Chair Robin Scheu]: it in BAA. Yes, he did. The 2,500,000.0.

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: These are all under the governor's

[Chair Robin Scheu]: request. I'm trying to find that one. That must be in the face. Is this Dale? Dale, Must be on page

[Rep. Michael Nigro]: four.

[Chair Robin Scheu]: Last month, we have page four. Oh, I see. Okay. Yes. Got it. So there is the 14.5, the 2.5, and then the 9.642, which is statutory carryforward. Okay, but that's the 2.5. All right.

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: Okay, so our recommendation is that, as they originally requested in their documents, that be utilized for home and community based side, given the 9.6 that's coming up in number three and the 14.5 that came up in number one are all going to the nursing facility side. The 9.6, as the chair just pointed out, that's really a spending authority thing. Carry forward funds from FY 'twenty five. In their PowerPoint proposal, it looks like it's adding to the request. It's not really adding. It's an accounting thing. So it's spending their carry forward. It's spending their carry forward, exactly. You look at That's why

[Chair Robin Scheu]: they add so much. It

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: doesn't seem like

[Chair Robin Scheu]: a lot, maybe that's not a lot in the context of it, but

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: Not in the overall choices for care. And the JFO put together for joint fiscal committee, I think maybe at our September or October meeting I don't remember a closeout of Medicaid. And it's in that report. You can see how it's broken down. So the department identified the sources of funds for that. So it wasn't clear in their sort of PowerPoint presentation. It looked like it was additive, and it's not really.

[Chair Robin Scheu]: So which ones do we carry for? It's on the spreadsheet. It's B-three34.1, which is on page four, and there's the whole thing is 28,600,000.0, and then there's the bottom three in that big blob, or what Theresa is talking about right there.

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: And that is, just to say what that is, they had, I can't remember if it was three or four nursing facilities that had issues with their billing. So it's not necessarily what I would call an increased cost. They had increases with billing for several months, apparently, and the department didn't know about that until very late. And so it's payment for services that have already been ready.

[Rep. David Yacovone]: Just kind

[Rep. Michael Nigro]: of an accounting thing.

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: Yeah. Okay. Okay. So now we move down to the community partners request. Yeah. And what we see here is a couple of what our committee is considering technical amendments. And one is to, again, choices these are both for choices for care. So the other major high cost item in Dale is services for people with developmental and intellectual disabilities. They're not requesting any particular changes in that area other than the things that are related for the negotiated agreement with direct service professionals, the APSME agreement, and other things that did not rise to us taking particular testimony on. So in choices for care, there's a lot of systems changes happening right now in long term care, in choices for care, in developmental and intellectual disability services. And one of those occurred last year with the case management services. I know you all have heard about conflict free case management. Case management services in choices for care used to be provided by home health agencies and by area agencies on aging. So during the last year, that was all transitioned over to the area agencies on aging. So home health agencies do not provide case management for choices for care recipients any longer due to that coming into compliance with that federal rule. And due to a technical oversight, and those are all Medicaid services, and we as a body approved a 2% COLA increase for all Medicaid services on the community based side, and they were left out. So that is roughly $141,000 I think. James, did we hear about that in

[Chair Robin Scheu]: the public hearing yesterday? I think that was the eighth year. Yeah, okay. So that's consistent with what we have heard. Okay.

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: So a complicating factor is we're recommending that it be retroactive because it should have been implemented on July 1. The department tells JFO that they can't do retroactive payments.

[Chair Robin Scheu]: Across the board or something?

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: No, I'm just gonna not say anything more about that.

[Rep. David Yacovone]: Is that true? That's

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: what they say. I just know that retroactive payments have been done in other times,

[Rep. David Yacovone]: so. This is a new change though, by the HR1 bill, I believe. I think we heard when Jill Olson was here testifying, and she also mentioned that, she alluded to it.

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: I think it's a new change. Well,

[Chair Robin Scheu]: when HR1 went into effect in Washington in the summer, right?

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: Yeah, these are supposed to be July 1. In any event Any event needed. What we're recommending is if that cannot be done, Dale says they can implement it as of April 1 for Medicaid, for the GC. And so we would be recommending that the state portion of what should have been allocated be sent in grant payments out to the five area agencies on aging based upon their caseload.

[Chair Robin Scheu]: So the 141 basically is global commitment funding.

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: Yes. We don't know how much

[Chair Robin Scheu]: that is general fund, but somebody will figure that out.

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: Yeah, Nolan knows.

[Rep. Michael Nigro]: Okay.

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: So I'm just wanting to make sure that I'm being clear about what the recommendation is, because that's going to come in the next recommendation as well.

[Chair Robin Scheu]: And it will be a lot of work.

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: Yes. And they would need to be included in the base for FY '27. It's ongoing expenses. Right. Okay, so let's move to the bigger one, which is folks who have been here for a couple of years will recall the Medicaid rate study that was done. We implemented sections of that, a portion of that, in FY 'twenty four. We took a year off in FY 'twenty five, and then we completed it in FY 'twenty six. So the intention was to complete the rate study. So the JFO and my committee was notified, I don't remember, was July or August, something like that, that was going to result in a decrease in rates for tier one of enhanced residential care. It was never legislative intent to reduce the rates for residential care. So what our committee is recommending is that that be put back to the FY 'twenty five level of $72.37 a day. Okay? I don't have my calculator right here, but you can calculate if you take out 35% of $72.37 you can see what we would be paying, which would be ridiculous. As representative Noyes said in my committee, people pay more to board their dogs than you would be paying for. I know. It's funny, but it's not. It's true. So this is a very strong recommendation from our committee that that be restored to the FY 25 level. 65%

[Chair Robin Scheu]: was going to be $47 a day. Yeah, roughly. Yep. So

[Rep. Michael Nigro]: how did that happen? How can we make sure that kind of thing doesn't happen again?

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: So when the administration presented the results of their rate study report, they essentially rolled up things. So there were levels below those things that we didn't see in the report. And they, I'll be honest, were not transparent about it. And we did not know to ask further questions or dig a little deeper. We saw what was on the page, and it's not really only about the numbers on a page, it's about the lives in the community. And this impacts the number of people and the number of residential care facilities that we maintain in Vermont. We have already lost a good number of residential care facilities because of the aberrant rate that Medicaid has been paying for them. So to reduce it down to $47 a day is preposterous.

[Rep. Michael Nigro]: I would think that would have a big red flag for somebody who's in charge someplace

[Chair Robin Scheu]: like Like

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: I said, they were less than transparent about it. We, both at JFO and in house human services, did not ask sufficiently deep questions because we took it at face value of what they identified in the rate study itself. What we didn't know is that that represented ups and downs within the rate structure that they have. So you

[Chair Robin Scheu]: saw the whole thing, not

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: the broker. We saw, right. They rolled it all up. Rolled it all up, and that's what we made our decisions based on. And we had an argument with them. I'll just say, well, not we, me. I'll just say, me. Make it.

[Chair Robin Scheu]: Just being transparent. I had an argument with, it's not the pre

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: revealed we. We weren't in session. It was a conversation I had And said, well, we're just implementing legislative intent to implement the rate study. I'm like, I don't think so. Because if you were just implementing legislative intent, you wouldn't have placed a specific call to me to let me know that you're reducing rates. So you know it wasn't legislative intent to drastically reduce rates to residential care providers. That's my feelings on this subject. So again, the same thing applies here. They can't go backwards. So they could make a rate adjustment effective April 1, and then we would be requesting that the general fund share be made in payments to those providers.

[Chair Robin Scheu]: Do you have a question? I'm just curious,

[Rep. David Yacovone]: do we know why they did it?

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: You would have to ask them.

[Rep. Michael Nigro]: Okay. The

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: Department of Disabilities, Aging and Independent Living. The commissioner is Doctor. Jill Bowen. And what I was told is that we're implementing the rate study. Understood.

[Chair Robin Scheu]: Okay.

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: Again, this is something that would have to be carried forward into base budget. And these two things really rise to the top for us, because they don't represent legislative intent in how they were implemented.

[Chair Robin Scheu]: We've had a couple of those.

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: Sure. Okay, and then moving on for community partners request. And this is the language that you see, the bulk of the language that you see. Know because I've received comments and calls and emails myself. I've had it from other members of the body around the implementation of several different change processes at once in the developmental disability service system. I'm just going to refresh your memory just a little bit. So the eligibility and needs assessment process, new. The conflict free case management moving to two out of state providers, new. And payment reform, new, implementing all three of these things almost simultaneously. And our committee made recommendations last year for language and the budget. It did not make it through the negotiation process. And we're back here to tell you that what we believed would happen is happening. And that is there are disruptions in service. We have providers experiencing extreme distress. We have families not getting information that they need. The case management organizations are, I think, probably doing their best. There's confusion about, am I supposed to call my designated agency? Am I supposed to call the case management organization? The payment methodologies and delays from the department in getting the needed information to providers. We had one provider in Lemoyle County who was at risk of not being able to make payroll because of delays in information that was supposed to be provided by the department. So we are recommending the language here. And I think you may hear, additionally, I think that there's been some thoughts about maybe some modification to this language a little bit, maybe not these four elements, but perhaps a fifth element. I have heard that this was the language that some people liked. Okay. So this is essentially the crux of we're not asking for any more money. It doesn't cost any money to But do there needs to be accountability for a process that we knew was going to be difficult. And nobody said, We're not gonna do this process. Everybody was saying, We need to do this process, but we need to be very thoughtful about how we do it. And again, this is impacting lives every single day. Very disruptive to the people who use these services.

[Chair Robin Scheu]: It's stressful. Mike and then Dave.

[Rep. Michael Nigro]: Sure. I don't know if we need to go into this now, but I understand we hired a consulting firm to help pull this together, these changes.

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: Terms of sort of like managing the change?

[Rep. Michael Nigro]: Well, they've initiated, are they still unevolved?

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: There a consultant who came up with the rate methodology. Is that what you're referring to?

[Rep. Michael Nigro]: I'm on the periphery of the world,

[Rep. Thomas Stevens]: trying to get a better sense of it.

[Rep. Michael Nigro]: And the whole process, because it seems like at the ground level, it's not working.

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: It's interrupting services. It's interrupting people don't really know where to go for information. And it is that the payment parts of it are causing significant distress for a number of our agencies, including our largest agency that is at extreme risk and some of our smaller agencies that are at extreme risk. I will say it's at a there's a range. I will say there's a couple of providers that are doing fine. They had cash reserves that they're able to draw on while these payment mechanisms get all worked out and the ins and outs of the information and all of that. I was upfront with the department that I honestly felt like for the kind of change process that they're undertaking, that they had insufficient staff to accomplish it because they were trying to do this essentially with the same staff they had for ongoing operations. And it's a massive change process. Anyways, that's so what you see before you is our committee's recommendation to try to help address this and try to calm the waters a bit.

[Rep. Michael Nigro]: Just to put a pin in

[Rep. Thomas Stevens]: it for later on, hope that our committees, we could take a look at that whole process.

[Chair Robin Scheu]: I'm sure that their committee is going to be all over this. It's been a very frustrating and I know nobody doesn't want to do it. It's that it's just impacting their cash flow, it's impacting their clients, it's impacting the staff, and it could be rolled out in a much more effective way that would really help everybody.

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: I agree. And I also need to share with the committee that over 100 staff from the designated and specialized service agencies have moved to the case management organizations. Okay, these are the very same staff who were doing this job as a designated agency. And we couldn't, as body, figure out how to pay them for the jobs that they were doing. But some of them are making double what they were making at the designated agency with these for profit companies.

[Chair Robin Scheu]: Yes. I'm spent Last a whole year, this summer, a joint fiscal committee and some were making $30,000 more than they were making

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: at the designated agency because we

[Chair Robin Scheu]: don't fund them. Dave, do have any questions?

[Rep. David Yacovone]: Did your committee, during your deliberations on this language, did you hear from anyone who didn't like it?

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: We did not take testimony on the language itself. Okay. The language

[Rep. David Yacovone]: Have you heard from anyone who doesn't appreciate

[Rep. Michael Nigro]: it?

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: I personally have not heard from anyone, but I will say I did not reach out to Dale Okay, running by thank

[Rep. Michael Nigro]: you.

[Chair Robin Scheu]: Think what I've heard is in general, the DAs are This is helpful for the DAs.

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: The designated and specialized service agencies would very much appreciate this. And as I said, I think that this will help us in trying to calm the waters, moderate some of the issues that are going on. Ultimately, it comes down to the people receiving services and the impact on them, and that's what we have to keep our eyes on. And it won't do any of us any good if we have an agency that's serving 400 people decide they can't do that anymore. I think everybody's seen in the news in the last week or so, United Counseling Service in Bennington. A lot of staff turnover, a lot of this change. That's all in the developmental services. They're at risk of de designation at this point in time. It's a systemic chaos right now, and I can't overstate that. And we don't talk enough in this building about the developmental services side of the designated agencies. We spend a lot more time talking about the mental health side and the substance use side, insufficient time talking about the developmental and intellectual disability side, which I wanna point out, in most agencies, is more than half of their budget.

[Rep. David Yacovone]: Yeah, have, if I may, though, nine out of the last 10 budgets, this body has made sure that the developmental services folks received an inflation increase. The administration did not recommend it.

[Rep. Michael Nigro]: So some of it has been disguised.

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: Yes, well, we do that. We've done that for all of our home and community based providers. I just mean the of the context and understanding how this service system is being impacted by all of these changes.

[Chair Robin Scheu]: So you have recommended language.

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: Yes, we have recommended language. I'm gonna move on to DCF because it's getting late.

[Chair Robin Scheu]: Oh yes, certainly.

[Rep. Michael Nigro]: For regular members who

[Rep. David Yacovone]: are feeling a

[Rep. Michael Nigro]: little off on this issue, I did issue a lot on this on the fall, just trying to lay out what the issue is and I'll send it to Autumn's post.

[Chair Robin Scheu]: That would be wonderful. Thank you. You've done issue brief everything. It's like there's an app for that. Thank you, Noel. Thank you.

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: Okay. Moving on to DCF. In family services, we, even though we agree with this, we, we, me, intend to continue investigating in this area. An additional million dollars in general fund for transportation. We got, excuse me, an email back from them. They're currently spending they asked for a significant increase in the '26 budget, and this is over and above that. And I'm trying to remember if my memory is gonna serve me correctly, but I believe they're spending about $8,000,000 in transportation costs. Some of it's going to sheriffs, and some of it's going to other community providers. This is general fund. Some of their transportation is eligible for federal funding, but not all of it.

[Chair Robin Scheu]: Is this one to one or is this

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: Yeah, I don't have those. My spreadsheet's in front of me.

[Chair Robin Scheu]: Oh, nope, that's not it. I'm trying to find a million dollar something. Nolan, if you can let me know sometime where that is.

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: I'm going to move on. Is

[Rep. Michael Nigro]: this some big increase in need or change in price, change in cost of sale?

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: We're going to investigate this further in the FY 'twenty seven budget process. The number of kids in state custody is actually down. So I think it's a good question. I think it's probably a combination of different things. And some of this, I shouldn't say a lot. But the sheriffs get involved, like when transports to court are involved or youth who have gotten in trouble with the law, family visitations, doctor's appointments, those kinds of things, but it's a lot. What

[Chair Robin Scheu]: line item?

[Rep. Michael Nigro]: It's in section three seventeen.

[Chair Robin Scheu]: It is. Thank you.

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: Okay, so I'm going move on to general assistance. So the administration did not present any adjustments to the emergency housing assistance portion of this budget. But eagle eyes that we are in House Human Services, we said, based upon those monthly reports that we get to our committee And based upon the appropriation, it appears that there would be an underspending. And so we asked, what is the balance? What would be the balance? So we were notified last week that they expected at least a $5,500,000 underspend. And I'm going to be honest, my calculations, I believe it's going to be closer to $8,000,000 in the emergency housing. I'm mad. I'm just gonna say I'm mad about this. And I know you don't usually say that when you're in testimony, but I will tell you, this morning we heard from the emergency rooms in the hospitals. We heard from the agency of transportation about the people camping out in the rights of way, about people camping out in rest areas. We heard about people coming into the emergency room at UVM Medical Center asking if they can sleep overnight in the emergency room. And of course, they can't. But what they're doing is they're using the emergency room. They come in with, I don't know, I've got a sore foot or I've got a And so they're utilizing a service, the most expensive service in the hospital. And we say to the emergency cold weather shelter that you can't go in until it's minus 10 below. And they say, when asked, why is it minus 10 below? Well, we were afraid we're not gonna have sufficient funds. That's in this line item.

[Chair Robin Scheu]: Let's understand.

[Rep. Michael Nigro]: So who's making that decision?

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: Emergency housing. Okay, that's in the it's actually in the OEO line item. This a problem, okay? So we're back at it. We started this week, round five. I don't know how many rounds it's been, but it's been a lot on trying to crack this nut. It's really important because the administration said that they intend to utilize this money. It's appropriated in general assistance. And that's in the economic services division. They want to use it in OEO for shelter services. And remember that they've already requested below a $2,000,000 increase in the increase that we gave them for shelter services. And they were not asking for any legislative authority to do that. We Are

[Chair Robin Scheu]: a different department or a different It's

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: a different division, and it's a different appropriation. And it was budgeted and appropriated for an intended purpose that it is not being used for. That's a problem. You can't just unilaterally do that.

[Chair Robin Scheu]: No, we have processes for that.

[Rep. Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member)]: So then I'd add, I mean, it's not in the governor's recommend, but we're looking at a surplus when we have crisis. And do you have a recommend here?

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: Our recommend is to keep it in the general assistance. Yeah, and spend it. Utilize it. We still have a lot of winter left.

[Chair Robin Scheu]: Yeah, okay.

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: So my guess is, I don't know this for a fact, but given what they're calling emergency winter weather shelters that is probably coming out of the OEO budget, there's no reason why the general assistance budget couldn't also be tapped to give money to Vermont Interfaith Action, which is sort of coordinating that. Give them another million dollars to up that to zero degrees at least. When we heard from the emergency department folks this morning, it's a revolving door. People are calling for ambulance services to take them to a shelter that is I forget, somebody said a two hour drive or something like that this morning calling for an ambulance to take them to a shelter two hours away.

[Chair Robin Scheu]: And we wonder why health care costs increase, too, right? I mean, that's affecting

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: This is definitely impacting that. So I just am angry about this.

[Chair Robin Scheu]: Yeah. And it's not because there's a lack of rooms, either. We haven't run out of hotel rooms.

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: I've not been told that we are out of hotel rooms.

[Rep. David Yacovone]: Teresa, can you help me remember? We used to, I think last year we budgeted for 1,500 motel rooms.

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: 1,100.

[Rep. David Yacovone]: Are we now down to 1,100?

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: No. We budgeted for $11.90

[Chair Robin Scheu]: It's always been 1,100.

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: Well, not always, but ever since we put a number at it, it's it's been 1,100.

[Rep. David Yacovone]: Okay. So I was it wasn't 1,500.

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: I think at one point in time, proposal was for 1,500 in the house. And I think through negotiation, it ended up at 11 is my recollection. That was two years ago, maybe.

[Rep. David Yacovone]: I didn't know if one change might be, if there's not enough room to serve people, to increase 1,100 to a higher number, because it sounds like the budget dollars are there.

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: The budget dollars are there.

[Chair Robin Scheu]: Given that the We dollars don't know that they're using up

[Rep. Michael Nigro]: all the roofs. Right.

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: Well, in their December report, they are. The latest report that we have is December. We'll get another one at the January. The winter weather provisions are in effect right now. So it doesn't count towards your eighty days all that.

[Chair Robin Scheu]: Why would we be underspending if we did a calculation of x number of rooms and x number of people at a certain cost? How could we be under, like, 5,500,000?

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: Well, the Department implemented some policies, procedures, I guess, where they limited the use of certain hotels to only certain people. So for instance, and I'm not saying it's a bad idea, but it then eliminated the use of those spaces for other people. So for instance, they chose, I'm not sure how many, two or three different hotels that were going to be family only. So if you had children, this is where you would go. And that would be different than for single people who were that. They weren't being fully utilized. And yet we still had people who needed shelter. And so actually, the Vermont Interfaith Action folks were successful in getting the hotel here in Central Vermont to get DCF to release some of those rooms to other people. So there were probably more than a few, and there's been many, over 200 and probably closing in at two fifty appeals to the Human Services Board. That so far, the vast, vast majority of those have all been in favor of the individual appealing. Over GCA. Over their decisions. Yeah. So

[Chair Robin Scheu]: I guess I'm really having trouble wrapping my head around the fact that we don't seem to be figuring out ways to help house people within the constraints of our money. You're you're not coming to ask for more money. They're underspending 5,500,000.0 to $8,000,000 so why can't we use that money? That's what it's there Exactly. That's what it's there for. We should be figuring out ways to help people, not figuring out ways to keep them out.

[Rep. David Yacovone]: And instead of closing the winter program, cold weather program on March 31, maybe we could go to April 30.

[Chair Robin Scheu]: Well, 10 degrees below zero is a bit much. How many of us would wanna spend the night, I mean, below freezing over zero? Mean,

[Rep. David Yacovone]: it's crazy. Barbaric.

[Chair Robin Scheu]: Go ahead, Martha. I'm still wrapping your head. Well, I'm confused as well. I guess my concern is that, are those rules that we made at some time that the legislature made in terms of those guidelines, or that the agencies advised this and we approved those guidelines?

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: Not the cold weather shelters that have been stood up this year. Those are provisions that I'm just gonna be frank, in H 91 that the governor vetoed, we had emergency cold weather shelters as an element of that bill. The department went ahead and implemented that idea and budgeted X amount of dollars. I don't know exactly Well, they didn't budget it. They used the money that was appropriated for that. And so, no, they came up with their own sort of program guidance. We did not approve that, no. Although, we did give them feedback because it was minus 20 below. At first,

[Chair Robin Scheu]: they were gonna just do it for minus 20. It's minus 20.

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: And then they got feedback.

[Rep. David Yacovone]: They didn't need to change. They it up to minus

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: 10.

[Chair Robin Scheu]: And there's still that

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: And I can tell you that other places would prefer to be able to open sooner, but they said that we can't do that because there's a billing system. You can only bill the department if within the parameters of minus 10 degrees.

[Chair Robin Scheu]: At least be the first thing they want to change. So FMM, have a

[Rep. Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member)]: practical question. How would VA address this? Well, this is

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: why we said additional clarification be provided by the department. We needed to get these recommendations to you. We just learned about this because we gave them a deadline and they didn't adhere to our deadline to get us the information. So I had to follow-up with them to get it. And so I feel that it would be most prudent to have additional clarification from the department. Okay.

[Chair Robin Scheu]: Okay. So, Wayne, then John.

[Rep. Wayne Laroche]: I would like the right thing to be done in the end, way or the other. We're building houses for homeless people. We're doing all kinds of things.

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: We're not really building houses for homeless people. I just need to be clear about that.

[Rep. Wayne Laroche]: I thought we had some of the things that we're doing. I thought there were specifically rooms for people like that.

[Chair Robin Scheu]: Programs that include housing people. There are ways that we are getting people off the street with various housing programs. But it isn't, it's part of a larger book.

[Rep. Wayne Laroche]: The channel three news the other night said that the homeless population is triple what it was a few years ago. And so we're working on, mostly working on these things and making things better. If the problem is getting better, then if we provide such good services that we're a sink for every state in the country, we're not asking them where they come from. It's people in the state of Vermont can't do that for the whole community. So are you looking at that? Are you asking those questions so that we know that we're dealing with helping the people of the state of Vermont that are not able to cope themselves?

[Chair Robin Scheu]: There was research done on that. Yes. Very, very few people. And I want you to know, you talk to any state in this country and they all think that everybody is coming from

[Rep. Michael Nigro]: out of state. Except Montana.

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: I don't know about Montana,

[Chair Robin Scheu]: but. So

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: we require people in general assistance to be enrolled in what's called coordinated entry. And coordinated entry does There's a lot of questions you got to answer in coordinated entry. And coordinated entry does ask about your residence. And I've encouraged Representative McGuire, through having informational dialogue with some of his caucus peers, to have legislative counsel explain the constitutional issues not issues, but definitions around residency. But we do, in coordinated entry, we do ask, like, where did you spend last night? Where are you from, essentially? Yes, the answer is yes. And again, Bill five ninety four is on our wall. We started taking testimony on it this week. And again, we'll take another stab at trying to have something that seems, one, more cohesive, more responsible and more responsive to the people. And we do know more of the people now because we know where they are. I think probably Representative Stevens would say in his previous role that the annual count is probably an undercount, you know, that we had prior to COVID. I think that was pretty clear. But those were the people that could be found where they could be found. Now, we have more shelter beds. We have increased the number of shelter beds. We are utilizing hotels to a greater extent. We want to minimize the use of hotels. But in the meantime, it's kind of like you're trying to fly the airplane you're building it. And that's kind of the situation that we're in, Wayne. Yeah.

[Chair Robin Scheu]: Okay, so I have John and then Tom.

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: So you're still waiting for clarification real about this. Yeah, feel like there needs to be additional testimony about this. And I think that it's we have to be clear, I think, with the department that you can't just change between appropriations on your own. Perhaps

[Rep. David Yacovone]: we need that.

[Chair Robin Scheu]: We may have a conversation. I think rapidly. Fiscal, and Tracy, you and I may do some more commerce. It may not be through the BAA that we do it or the budget. It may be some other way. I have no idea, but let's pursue this further.

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: That's my suggestion. Yeah, I mean, one of the things that I want to point out, as you might recall, what we have done in the HOP program, which we're gonna get to in a second, for shelter development and operation is a Band Aid of a bunch of one time money. If you're going to develop a shelter, you can't run it on one time money. And so part of this I can't remember they well, they didn't put this in anything because they didn't make us aware of it until we asked. Part of the administration's issue is that they recognize that, as do we, you can't have ongoing services be funded with one time money. And that is really what has happened as these shelter beds have expanded. And that's not fair to the shelter providers, because they don't know from year to year whether they're going to get funding. That's

[Rep. Thomas Stevens]: Just to just in turn more of a comment, to say, what's happened since 2020 is not just related to I mean, getting an accurate count in 2020 and 2021 was incredibly moving and important because it did prove that we were undercounting people. What's happened since then is unprecedented, and I think we can't blame that people aren't building homes fast enough. The fact that we're building as many shelters as we are is actually kind of heartbreaking, because heart shelters are not homes. And so the idea that there's any one thing that we're focusing on is, it's just so much. And I think that this year's testimony since I've come back and it just reflected all of that is that it's just it's the tsunami of economics, it's the tsunami of availability, vacancies, etcetera, etcetera. And so I just want to in trying to deal with this, I just want us to remember that there's many, many ingredients to this problem and saying, can we do to solve it? It's like pick something out of a hat, deal with it for a session, and then something else pops up. And we don't have any control because I think we did the things that we wanted to do in order to address what was in front of us in age 91 got vetoed. So there's no control over that in the end. So I just want acknowledge that you and your committee and all of us are dealing with something that is just so amorphous and so big.

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: I will say it feels intractable sometimes. And part of the data shows us that there is a good chunk, some it runs right around twenty five percent, sometimes as high as thirty percent of people who come back into coordinated entry who have been previously housed. So they were placed into permanent housing, and for any variety of reasons, they become homeless again. Part of the problem is that at the department level where they're supposed to be developing systems, That's the department's responsibility, is to develop a system. And I will say that I think, according to the department, we're going be hearing some kind of proposal in the governor's budget address. That's what I'm getting inklings of. But to have the kind of human suffering that we have at this point in time feels unconscionable to me. And I can tell you, I've read several recent obituaries of people who have died because they were out in the cold. They literally were freezing to death. And that is on our watch, and it's on the governor's watch. And it's heartbreaking, is the only thing I can say. So, Teresa, let me- Okay, I'll move you along. Reach up. Okay, reach up. Okay, this is a perennial issue as well. Reach up, financial support for very low income. Not just moderate low, very low income, mostly single moms and families. We have this, what feels like a perennial downward adjustment in reach up. We also have a situation where we have essentially a 50% what's called ratable reduction. I think everybody on this committee probably knows what ratable reduction is. We say that it costs, I'm just gonna throw out figures, they're not the right figures, but we say, What we should be giving you is $5,000 But we say, You know, I'm sorry, we don't have enough money. We're gonna give you 50% of that. That's two and a half. And we keep saying we don't have enough money, yet every year money is returned. Recognize that this is a policy that is not to be dealt with in the BAA, but we felt it important to bring it up again. We're going to address it again in the 'twenty seven budget. And at this point in time, our committee would have preferred to retain these funds in reach up and to make some small amount of progress on that rateable reduction. But we also recognize that changing the rateable reduction is a policy change. And so we're respecting the process here and saying

[Chair Robin Scheu]: So isn't this the other one where you told me that they're using housing Well, assuming housing of some 2003 or something?

[Rep. Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member)]: 2001 housing market rates as a basis for the housing allowance part of the budget for that is then adjusted by 50%. So I mean, is I clearly have opinions about that, and it goes back to what you were saying, Tom, and others about homelessness. If we're basing the housing allowance on a 2,001 figure, I mean, that's how do we expect people on reach out not to be unhoused, you know, so.

[Rep. Michael Nigro]: Right,

[Chair Robin Scheu]: it's not practical. No, and again, they're not utilizing the budget that they've been given. That they estimate, because of their own estimates. Maybe you want $10,000,000 before, they're even using what they've been given. And am I Go ahead, next.

[Rep. Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member)]: Oh, sorry. Am I hearing from you then that your committee is going to be looking at the relatable reduction and for the We will be going

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: to dig deeply in ratable reduction during the 'twenty seven budget process in terms of our questions and responses. So I will say we're going get the Pat response. I'd pretty much expect that, that we can't afford to do a ratable reduction. We are asking JFO for some historical information about how many years have they come to BAA and returned 2,000,000, 2,500,000.0, 1,500,000.0. And so we want to have some historical information about that. You have that?

[Chair Robin Scheu]: I'm ready. More than half.

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: Here we come. We're gonna use that for basis. They use an outside consultant to help them make these estimates. They also said they may be changing that. They may be bringing that in house, their person retired or something. And so I don't know if that's going to change what they estimate. And the estimates involve a lot of different factors. But I find it interesting that, you at least for several years, we've seen

[Chair Robin Scheu]: this. Right.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens]: So do you know offhand I mean, I I think once we hear those numbers, I think we'll get a better idea. But if they're holding back x percent of the budget, and they're only putting out x percent of the budget, and is it truly that if somebody asked for five, they were only getting 2,500? I mean, using those numbers?

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: Yeah. No. This it's it's

[Rep. Thomas Stevens]: no relation to inflation. It has no relation to market anything. It's just

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: No. I think the last time we made an adjustment to up it was Senator Kitchell was here, and this is something that she always was passionate And I want to say it's been at least three or four years since we made an adjustment to And that wasn't even to the ratable reduction. That was to what year we were basing the information we were basing the costs on. And that is clearly out of date.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens]: Yeah, I mean, decades worth of data for some of it.

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: For some of it, yeah.

[Chair Robin Scheu]: Okay. Let's continue. Okay.

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: Next, OEO. So we're moving into OEO now. So this is a net neutral. Okay? It's a 02/9812. It's moving from grants to personal services. They've recruited and are hiring two full time temporary, not temporary, what do you call them? Limited service. Limited service, thank you, limited service staff because they have had an expansion in shelters. And so this is part of the oversight of shelter services. So our committee recognizes that these positions may in fact be necessary. However, we really believe that it would be appropriate to request that they be funded on their own merits and not to reduce the funding that is supposed to go out to community providers. So a quarter million dollars that was supposed to go out to community providers didn't because they're funding two positions in house. That's the shorthand. And if they're to be permanent positions, obviously authorization is needed from the legislature. And we recommend that those funds be retained in the grants line of OEO and not move to personal services, and that they address it in their '27 budget process, We got an inclination that they might be requesting two permanent positions. But they didn't say that, but I was kind of reading between the lines. But again

[Chair Robin Scheu]: Who would be the community partners, providers, that wouldn't be getting

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: These are shelter services. These are homeless coalitions, community action agencies.

[Rep. David Yacovone]: Okay.

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: Okay. And then OEO, again, in that line item, the administration is requesting a $2,000,000 increase in general fund due to higher than anticipated cost to develop shelter capacity and to operate shelters. Again, just as I said a little bit earlier, a lot of this shelter capacity is on the back of one time money, and that's not going to fly. However, that transparency word we keep throwing around, 14 current community based service providers had reductions of $1,300,000 in funding directly utilized for homeless services. So our committee recommends that this $2,000,000 ask be reduced to $677,859 And shortly, you will see where the rest of that money went. And just to remind the committee, the administration requested increased funding for shelters last year. The general assembly agreed and funded it, and this is $2,000,000 on top of that.

[Chair Robin Scheu]: For shelters. For shelters. Okay?

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: They Our first priority for For permanent housing, right? And just as a reminder, they want to use the bulk of that $5,500,000 that they say they have in general assistance from work shelter. So are the other So are you suggesting a $1,300,000 If

[Chair Robin Scheu]: we want to turn the page. Okay. She's got it. I'm getting it. Okay. Okay?

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: Okay, secure residential treatment. You'll see community partners request in a minute. Secure residential treatment facilities, has been a little bit of an amorphous thing, an amoeba or whatever you want to call it. You stick your finger in here, something else pops out there. We have yet to really understand the full picture about emergency residential stabilization as well as secure treatment facilities. The Woodside money is still on the base budget. It's being utilized for different things. We don't have yet a spot, a new place. We see Newberry,

[Chair Robin Scheu]: it wasn't Newberry. Was going to be for Jen's, it wasn't for Jen's.

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: Now it's not for Jen's. Now it's not Essex. Again.

[Chair Robin Scheu]: I don't know. That seems simple.

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: I don't know.

[Rep. Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member)]: And if I'm right, the money has been The budget asked has always been maybe $2,000,000 but behind it is carry forward in millions of dollars.

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: What they say is that they're running The carry forward is drying up is what they said. We have a carry forward report. Can take a look.

[Rep. David Yacovone]: Somebody used it.

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: And so this is down. I get I know this is not very good for my geography. Windsor and Windham, confused. So the ones associated with the sheriff's department, you know, the beds that they were associated with the sheriffs, it's on your neck of the woods.

[Chair Robin Scheu]: Window.

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: These are for beds developed in Southern Vermont that are coming online. So we those beds. We need those services. They're very high cost services for low numbers of youth who have multiple complicating factors in their lives. But we are going to do a deep dive on this in our committee during the budget process, because like I said, we do not feel like we have a real handle on this. And despite I I figure, I don't know, we're not asking the right questions somehow, or we need to do better at understanding really what the end result is going to be and where these funds have been redeployed. So while they saw a reduction in substitute care, they saw an increase in out of state residential. So the in state foster care and all the in state reduced. Out of state residential had a significant jump. So some of this money that has been carried forward and all is being used in that way. I think it's being used for the benefit of the children and youth. But if you were to ask me right now what's the total dollar amount we're spending on residential for kids in custody, I don't think I could tell you. That's not a good feeling.

[Chair Robin Scheu]: Basically, we're cut out for you and digging into a lot of things.

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: You're gonna need extra time, Madam Chair. And oh, we all, so this is the rest of that $2,000,000 Okay, so during testimony, committee learned that 14 different community partners had budget reductions in FY twenty six totaling $1,300,000 Okay, most of these providers, it means that they are running out, if they haven't already run out, of the flexible services funds that they use long before the end of the fiscal year. We had no advance notice. This was sort of the reason, Madam Chair, when we had our meeting at lunchtime, I said, we have to ask, what is it that you are cutting? Yes, you're decreasing.

[Chair Robin Scheu]: What are you decreasing? So there was a budget for this. Do I have this right? There was a budget for this 1.3, and the department, for the community partners, it was in the budget, and

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: then we cut it? I'm sorry, I was distracted. What is it?

[Chair Robin Scheu]: I don't even know if I'm saying this the right way. This was originally in the budget, and the department cut this from the community providers? Yes, it's in

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: the HOT program, Housing Opportunity Program. And we increased the Housing Opportunity Program. And you're saying, oh, we don't cut that budget? They didn't cut the budget. They redirected those funds to something else. And our committee, based on the testimony that we received, believes that the services that these 14 providers are providing in the community are integral to homelessness, assistance, and prevention. And $1,300,000 without any advance notice is a lot of money. So where did they redirect

[Chair Robin Scheu]: it to? Was that after the shelters? That's as

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: best as you can That's figure as best as I can figure out. I think that if we go on They do have a On the department's website under the Housing Opportunity Grant, you can see which organizations received how much and for what services. You'd have to do some digging to compare that to what it was the previous year. But the data that we received from these folks representing these providers And we're not even talking about increasing it. We just want it restored to the FY '25 So

[Chair Robin Scheu]: that language or whatever language would be happening would be clear who it would go to and how much each one would get. I

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: think that the We should probably If you elect to do this, we would need to have Katie work on language and we would need to be very directive, which I know we sometimes don't like to be, but to actually work with the community partners to determine how much would go to each. But they should know because it was last So year's funding I take that back. They should know because it's already last year's funding level. Same as they got last year.

[Chair Robin Scheu]: That they got last year. Yeah. Okay.

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: I'm going to Marty,

[Chair Robin Scheu]: what was total in this line? You're saying they underspent it by one point or they didn't spend one point, they cut it.

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: Cut They it from these providers by 1.3. They chose to spend it in a different area. They appropriated it for this purpose. The

[Chair Robin Scheu]: 1.3 or a much larger amount?

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: And they just paid less. No, the 1.3 was a reduction. So, the HOT program is much larger. Yes, this is part of the HOT program. They didn't reduce the overall HOT program. They redistributed. They said, Okay, we're deciding on a different priority. And they used the money elsewhere. The problem was there really wasn't any notification to these providers.

[Chair Robin Scheu]: Oh, I see what they were expecting. If the original intent was there's $5,000,000 here and we intend to spend it this way. And then they did not spend 1.3 of it.

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: So yes, you were expecting to receive it and that would be a concern. And I think it's important to understand that the department is very focused on shelter expansion right now, very focused on shelter expansion. And I'm not saying it's a bad thing for us to develop more shelters, but as Representative Stevens said, that is money that is not being used for permanent housing. And shelters are not permanent housing. And those are the things that we should be devoting specific funds for very low income individuals. Okay? So when, I forget Wayne's last name, when Wayne was talking about the money we were investing in, money for people who are homeless, okay, we're not, by and large, investing the large sums of money that we're putting into housing for very low income individuals, people who live on SSI only, if they have SSI or SSDI. They are elements. There are units within some of these larger affordable housing. I'll use Waterbury as an example. There's one in the finishing state is in Waterbury, 26 units, three are being set aside for people with disabilities. That goes back to the Developmental Disabilities Housing Initiative, okay? To be honest with you, I'm not sure if they are setting aside any There has to be some portion of that is set aside. One, is it? Or the care. For the person providing support and supervision, yeah. So when we talk about housing and we talk about affordable and perpetually affordable, only small portions of those units are being prioritized for people who come off coordinated entry. And I just think that's important. And that's going to be even more difficult because HUD vouchers, and I know you've talked about HUD in here some, HUD vouchers are essentially dry. And so people who need support to help pay their rent, it's I hate to paint a picture, but it's not getting brighter, as just said. It's good news. Yeah.

[Rep. Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member)]: I'm very confused about the number of shelters that we are funding and it's standing, that the state is standing up and how many people are served by us. Will I find that on the AHS website? If you

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: Easiest place to find it, honestly, is if you go into on the reports page of the legislature and you look for DCF, they submitted a December report. It will tell you where the shelters are. It's over 600 beds now. I can't remember the exact number. I'm at like six thirty two or something like that, but it's over 600 beds right now. But this has been part of the problem where I said, we need a systemic approach. I personally have asked DCF, okay, what do you think is the capacity for shelters? Are we striving to meet 700? Are we striving to meet 800? Where do they need to be located? Are we seeking to increase shelter capacity in Rutland County, for instance, and in Bennington County and in Brattleboro? There are fewer shelters in that part of the state. And so I'm hopeful that they're going to come with a little bit more of a plan this year. I have to remain hopeful because if you don't have any hope, then you just dive into despair. And then the last thing. The last thing, again, community partners is related to the health department, and this is recovery centers. Again, if only we could bottle up and say, geez, work with these community service providers in figuring things out. So this is something that, if you agree, is going to end up costing us more money that it didn't have to cost us more money. If they had worked with the providers who gave them, gave the health department what they needed in terms of provider X, Y, and Z, the amount that each provider needed in order to They essentially worked on a distribution among themselves of they needed, knowing that we weren't going to give them the 1.6. We gave them 800,000. And the department chose instead to just They gave out 50,000 to everybody. So we had people who didn't need 50,000 who got it. And we had people who needed more than 50,000 who didn't get it. And so there are six providers, specific dollar amounts for each provider, and they're all different, that we did not agree with the $420,000 cut it in half and said $210,000 And that would be out of special funds, the fee fund that drug manufacturers pay So, to you have a chart. I saw somebody had a chart.

[Chair Robin Scheu]: You have a chart. The recommendation would to take whatever they said and cut each of

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: those in half. Yes. And then, specifically, in language, we need to be specific to what the Recovery Partners of Vermont.

[Chair Robin Scheu]: Recovery gets $10,500 CDE gets $15,000

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: Yeah. You can recommend it as recommended by Recovery Partners of Vermont if you want. That's the encompassing organization. Okay.

[Rep. Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member)]: But can I ask that? Can you explain why cutting in half?

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: We are trying to be as respectful of the process as possible. Which front? Just knowing that we are probably going to tap that fund in FY 'twenty seven as well, to be perfectly honest. And knowing that these are one time dollars, that they are probably then again going to be coming back in FY 'twenty seven and asking for these same funds. So

[Rep. Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member)]: I understand that the money was the $50,000 was spread out across the recovery centers. And then there was $200,000 that was in a separate pot. Do you know what that was for? And if it has actually been tapped into?

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: I don't know if it's actually been tapped into or not.

[Rep. Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member)]: That might help us.

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: Maybe they could mix that 200 back into that $2.10. Yeah, I hear what you're saying. Yeah. No, I do not know. But perhaps JFO could ask that question. Okay, so that brings us to the conclusion of our memo. And I would like to thank you for your attention.

[Chair Robin Scheu]: You guys have done a lot of work in a very short amount of time. And I think digging deep is going to be our mantra for the session for all of us. But you guys have a lot to dig into. So I really appreciate the work that your whole committee has done. Thank them. Did you actually vote on this or did you

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: We voted on each component as we went through it. And we had majority on every single one and unanimous on some.

[Chair Robin Scheu]: Great. Thank you. David?

[Rep. David Yacovone]: Am I the only one, but I'm sure it feels like throughout this whole excellent presentation, there's been willfully neglecting legislative intent, more than once. Yes. And I'm thinking, cheaper, I think we should, and I don't, not dispiriting any, but an email to the highest levels of the agency saying, watch the YouTube tape of this. Maybe they do.

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: I'm sure somebody is listening, trust me, because

[Chair Robin Scheu]: they'll probably hear about it. Yeah. Found that hearing, there were two or three places where it was very clear that statutory and legislative intent were not being met.

[Rep. David Yacovone]: And I

[Chair Robin Scheu]: think we're trying to be clear. If we're really that fuzzy, then we really need to tighten up what we're doing.

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: And that's just like, I know in past practice in either the BAA or the budget documents, we try not to sort of like list specific organizations or things like that. But I really am feeling at a loss because I feel like we are not getting the results that we are expecting. And so I'm sure that they would have a different perspective on this.

[Rep. Michael Nigro]: But

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: you're right to be think fair, in case we are watching, AHS.

[Chair Robin Scheu]: In terms of recovery partners, it's one time money in the BAA. As far as I'm concerned, we should put their names in and what their amounts are. I don't know how we can

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: make it any clearer. And if

[Chair Robin Scheu]: we don't make it this clear, I don't know what's going to happen. So, you know, for base stuff or whatever, think we don't, we try not to do that as a rule, but this is like one of those times when maybe we just have to, because it's just for this period of time. It's not about anything going forward beyond the end of the fiscal year.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens]: It's like the discretion being exercised here is kind of overwhelming the intent here. Well, just need to be a bit more.

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: About something. Yeah, about some things, yeah.

[Rep. David Yacovone]: Right. Tom?

[Rep. Thomas Stevens]: Yeah, representative Wood is my district mate. And I've seen her mad before. I've seen her passionate before, and I've seen her care for the work that she does for the people that we are supposed to be helping. And I've never seen this better. So whatever you do tonight, just be good care.

[Chair Robin Scheu]: Thank you. Yeah,

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: Some of this stuff has left me without words, to be honest. And I feel like you to call things the way they are. They're making choices about some of the legislative intent, and they're making choices not to represent. You've got a whole budget document. You've got spreadsheets up the wazoo. And they got 5 and a half to $8,000,000 that they're sitting on that they didn't bring. I mean, you may need to make a choice that you use that someplace else. I don't know. I don't know what all exists every place else. But that's I mean, now you know that you have that as some potential, but you wouldn't have known that based upon any information. I know, It's not fair to the taxpayers of Vermont. And it's not fair to the people who were expecting these resources to be utilized in a way that was intended through the legislative

[Chair Robin Scheu]: And Well, what else don't we know?

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: Right, exactly.

[Rep. David Yacovone]: What else don't we know?

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: Well, I don't know. But I want to thank you all for your kind attention and your questions and your thoughtful consideration of our recommendations.

[Chair Robin Scheu]: Well, I appreciate that you were tight. You really were trying to be careful of the person that did that.

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair, House Human Services Committee]: So good job. I've already given my committee marching order, committee marching order, 27. And we had even before our meeting today about that, I said, folks, you're going to have to be fair, but we're going to have to prioritize in ways that we haven't done recently. We're not going get everything you want.

[Chair Robin Scheu]: All right. Well, thank you very much. Okay, you're welcome. Appreciate it. It's been a long day, committee, full day. Tomorrow, we will meet after the e board. I think we have Scott coming in at 11:30 tomorrow. The legislative office, legislature budget because remember we had the 10 pages of stuff getting moved around. It's going be a little bit of a, know, moving the money around. New soil, but it's where it goes. Scott Moore's going to come in at 11:30. Talk to us about that. We have e board. We'll have him at 11:30. And at 01:00, we'll have our joint hearing with House Ways and Means to talk a bit at The Economist about what we hear about. And that will be it. We'll chat again. Well, would just, based upon all this information that they've put forward, I would like to have the appropriate folks from AHS to come in again explain. From their perspective, if indeed there is a valid reason that we're doing these things, why they did it, so that we can clarify what we need to do if we feel that if there's a discrepancy in how our instructions were, we need to understand why that was occurring and why they made this decision. I think that's a very good suggestion. So Autumn, we heard that. Think ECM and Dale are the two areas And if we could get this down too short. We'll look at the schedule but ASAP. If you all have other suggestions after things you've heard, let us know if we need to add something else to the agenda. That's a great idea.