Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Good morning. This is the House Appropriations Committee. It is Thursday, 01/22/2026. It's 10:20 in the morning. And we are going to continue working on the budget adjustment bill. And right now, what we're going to look at is draft spreadsheet of the public hearing requests that we got at our public hearing last week. James has put it into a spreadsheet for us. There aren't a lot this year for which we're grateful. The ones that you see in sort of the orangey color on the gold color on the last two pages, they're Medicaid related items, and Nolan is working on those. So we are not going to talk about those this morning. We're going just talk about the first two white papers, but this is going have

[David Yacovone (Member)]: everything on it so you

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: can at least know what's coming. And we'll either Nolan will either be here this afternoon or tomorrow morning to talk to us about those other sheets, once he has everything all put together.

[Eileen Dickinson (Member)]: So

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: just to refresh our memory, we have the Section eight funding for 5,000,000, the food bank for 1,000,001

[Eileen Dickinson (Member)]: half, the

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: hot money, this was the money that was also in Teresa's thing.

[David Yacovone (Member)]: Can I go back to that first one? Yes. Are housing authorities across the state.

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

[David Yacovone (Member)]: So does this cover all of them or the entity called?

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: No, it will do is it's who came in and talked about it and it's a sort of shorthand for what they're doing. So the section eight, the money would be, and I see your hand Mike, just a sec, the money would be probably given to the agency of administration, and then the public housing authorities would apply for it. So there would be a process to do that. And that's one of the ones that we're probably going to go in there unless everybody says no, no, no, but it's all homelessness prevention because more people would get people.

[Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member)]: I mean, we've heard all the stories. And Cameron was working on language, I thought it was finalized, but it's not. There's just a little back and forth going on. We'll have language for that.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: And the money for this would come out of the $50,000,000 that was set aside for the e board. That's what we used the SNAP money for. We almost had an e board meeting about this in December, as you've heard me say, to help them. And then we realized that we didn't need to. The timing was for this year. So we wanted to address it with the general assembly, not in the case of e board. So I have Lynn Tom. And I'll write Mike first. Hang on, Mike's first, sorry.

[Michael Mrowicki (Member)]: I'm all set. I was just waiting for it to post and it just did.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Oh, okay, great. Because you said 8,000,000, but

[Eileen Dickinson (Member)]: it says 5,000,000 on the paper.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: No, I mean 5,000,000. Did I say 8,000,000? Section eight. 5,000,000. Thank

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: you. Dose of caffeine.

[Eileen Dickinson (Member)]: I'm going to have some more

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: coffee. I haven't had enough.

[Eileen Dickinson (Member)]: Can

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: you explain to me the mechanics of taking, of using the BAA to take the $5,000,000 from the emergency fund to utilize this? I totally think that that's I mean, if this weren't in the BAA, I think there would have been a movement to go to the E board to try to do it this way.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: That's

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: right. And I appreciate that we're doing it through. Yeah, because we can create the language that makes it happen. But what language do we need to put in here to say that this 5,000,000 is going to come from this particular source?

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Grady is doing the language and we'll get that from saying we're working on that. It's being worked on now.

[David Yacovone (Member)]: Yeah okay. I just don't have it.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: Okay it's just a different way of I mean it's the right spot. Yes, it's absolutely It's the right right spot that won't hopefully create any conflicts with other bodies that we're dealing with.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: No, exactly. I mean this is absolutely the appropriate place and it's related to federal funds. Ticks all the boxes. And it's also, we talk about hierarchy of needs, right? We did it with food, the SNAP, and this is about housing. So those are kind of the

[David Yacovone (Member)]: So that's where it'll come from. Grady will have the language, right? I didn't see none. Did somebody testify?

[Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member)]: Yes, yes. From our house chair, Mahali.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Mark Mahali testified and then I think some other people did.

[David Yacovone (Member)]: Chad Simmons is one.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Chris Donnerly, yeah, we have testimony in a number of places from this.

[Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member)]: And the general housing committee endorsed this in their letter to us by a vote of eleven-zero.

[David Yacovone (Member)]: I'm not objecting to it.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: You don't want to know where

[David Yacovone (Member)]: it is. On my sheet, took notes on dollar values here and I don't see it. So it makes me wonder what's going on. Maybe you were Yeah. Was I wrote down some specific notes for, like, housing and homeless lands in Vermont. They've noted 5,000,000 and then some other areas as well.

[Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. These are condensed, because this isn't the total number of testifiers that we had.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Some people testified on the same thing, several people on the same thing, right. So we just put it in once.

[David Yacovone (Member)]: And I have proven to put it Yeah, okay.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: All right, just to go over all the other ones, and then we can go back and say what are the differences that make sense. The food bank is requesting 1,000,000 point dollars This is the feeding Vermonters program. And part of what happens, and I'm going to get this not quite as accurate. This is a program where the agency of ag makes contracts in advance of the growing season with the farmers for the food to feed for vachas. And so the reason the money's being asked for now is that if it happens later, the growing season's already started and they haven't done the growing that they need to do. They don't have a contract, so they're going do whatever they normally do because it's no contract.

[David Yacovone (Member)]: That's I spoke to someone from that group and they said the same thing.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Okay.

[David Yacovone (Member)]: These things don't, really tap into this until July 1. So contracts sometimes Right,

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: then the contract comes in September or October when the growing season's done. So part of this is to get on We can choose to do some of it, all of it, none of it, but that is the reasoning behind what we're talking about.

[David Yacovone (Member)]: So we have something in last industry's budget. Yeah. So this is they're trying to get something on cycle so that they can not do a BAA in the future.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yeah, sounds

[David Yacovone (Member)]: like they

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: don't see BAAs.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: This is a new program, like if we had started, but it's they asked for $2,000,000 last year for the big budget, for the big bill. And our conversations led them to only be appropriated $500,000 So this is back to this is getting them on cycle in from what they originally had intended. It's just

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: we

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: are seeing the need to, you know, to need to get the food coming in to do it this way.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So right now we're kind of going through for clarification and making sure we understand what the asks are and why they're here. So we're not taking votes on them at this point and this money would come from our general balance we'd have to find we would have to find the funds for that we have the $50,000,000 and it's clear, Section eight in the $50,000,000 that was presented to the e board. We have $30,000,000 for other federal funding helps. And then there was a second $30,000,000 that at the moment the governor has taken to add to reduce education taxes. So those are the other costs. The other things are whatever's in the governor's budget that he's put on. There is some flexibility in some of those funds. We don't have to do all of the things that are in the governor's budget. But there's not a lot of wiggle room for any of this. Clear.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: Tom And just going back to the emergency funds they received $250,000 I believe at the same time that you did the snap 6.5, right?

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: We gave money to the food bank at the time.

[David Yacovone (Member)]: But for a different It was

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: to help because it was going to take seven days or something to get the system rejiggered so that we could fund the EBT cards. So the money went to the food banks so there would be food available for people who wouldn't access their EBT cards. But that's different. That's different from this program.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: That was an emergency in context at the time.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: That's right. And so that was part of the SNAP money because that was all folded into the SNAP program.

[Michael Mrowicki (Member)]: Thank you.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So last year, we gave $1,500,000 to the food bank. Thank you, James. Dollars 500,000 to this program and 1,000,000 to the partner food shelves. So that's what we did in FY twenty six.

[Eileen Dickinson (Member)]: That was in the big bill.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: That was in the big bill last year. So that's what that one is. The next one is the HOF. This was the money that Theresa talked about in her letter from Human Services, where it appeared that money was being taken from this program and being used to build shelters as opposed to keeping it in the HOF program. So this is a request to keep the money where it was. And Teresa suggested keeping this money here and giving the shelters, which was expanded over all the millions that we've already given them for shelters, get the difference between that extra 2,000,000 that they wanted. So that was

[Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member)]: like $600,000

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: 2,000 would still stay with the shelters. So this isn't money. There's a source for this project. There's not other money you'd have to slice up with the budget. There's a suggestion for where to get the money from.

[Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member)]: And if we have a discussion about it, I can tell you a little bit about what I've learned from HH VA. Is that right?

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: HHAV. HHAV.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Housing and Homeless.

[Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member)]: AV, the Housing and Homeless Alliance of Vermont, just about how that money is used by these. It's not supporting staff, infrastructure. It is a direct financial assistance to help keep people in their housing. There's At any rate, yeah, well,

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: made sure of talking about that now. Is

[Eileen Dickinson (Member)]: that like number five in this OLEO $2,000,000 kind of community recommended $6.77?

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yes, and then if you turn

[Eileen Dickinson (Member)]: to the next page, this is the balance.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yes, yes, so it's money that's in the budget being re apportioned in a different way than it was being requested. So that's on

[Eileen Dickinson (Member)]: the twenty sixth budget?

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: It's in this twenty sixth budget adjustment. Yes that they're that's just how she's recommending for them.

[Eileen Dickinson (Member)]: So they only recommend six seventy seven barrels. The shelters. I

[Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member)]: have contacted Oleo, a little dislochen, who's with us yesterday, to talk about where that $2,000,000 figure comes

[David Yacovone (Member)]: from.

[Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member)]: And so I'm waiting to hear So we'll hear more about that.

[Eileen Dickinson (Member)]: But this is make up the difference between the 2,000,000 and 77.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Right, so it's not money we have to find from somewhere else because it's already in the budget adjustment. It's re

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: stuff that's already there. Right.

[Eileen Dickinson (Member)]: So, currently

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: in OEO at $2,000,000 which is funds that were requested by the agency for increasing shelter capacity. But it's like they're taking it from this other program. And so the other program that's getting cut by 1,000,000 the projection is to move that million free back to that program that's directly supporting people and then keeping the shelter at the $6.77, $8.59. So it's a reallocation of the

[David Yacovone (Member)]: 2,000,000. So it's not giving it to another, it's staying in OEO, right? It's staying in OEO. Reallocating within OEO. That's nothing. Yeah, that's done.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Tiff will find out a little bit more just so we're clear on that. And then the next one is the budget deficit about the sufficient reimbursement for Medicaid patient transport, non emergency medical transport, the 800,000. Dave spoke to that yesterday. Do you remember that or do you need Dave to explain that again anymore? Okay, so people are clear on that. That's new. That's new.

[Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. What you were talking about?

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: The transit? 800,000. Right, don't seem to get

[Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member)]: We've heard about this for several years.

[David Yacovone (Member)]: It's been going on, It's not a new service. It's a new ask because the demands have gone up.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: But also this service is, I believe the testimony we heard is that it's presently located in just a couple counties and it's taking on more counties in their coverage area including Washington County is what I see. Is that James Molden?

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: Yeah, James Molden. Yes.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: Right. So it sounds like they're not, I think he's really careful. He's not expanding, but they're taking over services in other areas of the state.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Right, he originally started in Addison County, and then when another one started to fail, was asked to go help turn that one around. And he turned that one around, and he got asked to do another one. So they're all sort of under this Tri Valley Transit now. Multiple former individual public transit companies are now under this larger umbrella. So

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: the deed's not expanding except in usage, that organization is taking consolidating or whatever

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: the Yeah, world they're consolidating because now they have one executive director, not three or four, and he's also turned them around so that they can continue to run. He's done a

[Eileen Dickinson (Member)]: good job on that. The question I had is why are they failing? What is he doing right? He's consolidating under a more regional big wide. Tell me why they're failing and why he's successful, number one, and number two, is this consolidation going to just

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: make it more efficient? Well, it's been this way for a couple of years now. The ones he's had, he's had for a couple years. And that would be probably the whole the transportation committee or something else would be

[Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member)]: coming up and that would be

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: a policy committee to talk about all of that. But yeah, they ought to be using him to consult with Green Mountain and a

[Eileen Dickinson (Member)]: few of the other ones. Because we have them up in our county and they all look like they look, they look like they're running around empty. You know, you're right, you have numerous forms in every county, go lots of executive directors, lots

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: of people up there. Right.

[Eileen Dickinson (Member)]: This would make sense to be solid. Well

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: that's a whole project for somebody to talk about, probably in house transportation. Anyway,

[Eileen Dickinson (Member)]: okay thank you.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So that's that. Next to oh is this the recovery Recovery

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: centers the extra $4.20.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Recovery centers so they're requesting $4.20 Theresa suggested $2.10 She suggested half of that. So that's the other number and that would be new money. I can that from you. I

[Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member)]: can make that part. It is an open Okay,

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: that's why I asked you

[Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member)]: that's the MF code. Mean, I'll know more next

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: week. That won't help us for that.

[Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member)]: That said, I actually need I want to talk with a representative about this.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Sorry. Will you talk other things on this? Yes. Okay.

[Eileen Dickinson (Member)]: That would be new money.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Somewhere between $2.10 and $2.40.

[David Yacovone (Member)]: But it does beg the question of business management practices, because

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: That wasn't what the problem was.

[Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member)]: The problem there was that the recovery centers as a whole, as a unit, came to AHS. They had already defined their varied needs across state. It came with a proposal for divvying up that 800 ks. And AHS, instead of following that, gave a flat rate to everybody and then divvied up the remaining 200 ks to put kind of a Medicaid related formula.

[David Yacovone (Member)]: That sounds like a business management problem, one side or the other.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Well, if had done, if AHS had done what the recovery centers asked, we wouldn't be We would not be It is the problem is

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: it with the recovery

[David Yacovone (Member)]: center.

[Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member)]: And it was not communicated, the decision wasn't communicated to either the House or the Senate chairs. There was no question or dialogue about, what was this legislative intent?

[David Yacovone (Member)]: Did the committee discuss with them how are we going to make sure this doesn't happen again.

[Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member)]: I believe they are going to be having those conversations, probably language will reflect language

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: in their regular budget. Another

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: theme that we're seeing is, in addition to special funds aren't covering enough, so they're using general fund. The theme is legislative intent does not seem to be being followed. So we have to do our best on our side to make it clear. And then they also on their end need to communicate with us. They're unsure about it. So there's work to be done.

[Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member)]: Lynn? Okay.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Who's

[Eileen Dickinson (Member)]: asking for the $420,000 and why would the committee recommend only $210,000 I mean, can you only need $210,000

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: No, they could use it all, but Theresa's trying to be aware of the fact that we have limited funds. That's respectful of that.

[Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member)]: I think the needs are very, very clear because these recovery centers are backbone of our substance use treatment system. It's a hard word. And they've been really clear with us about what they need. We gave them half of what they requested last year, and then shorted a number of them through the department's decisions about allocating money. So I want to talk with Chair Wood about what she's heard in response to her recommendation. My sense is that there are some centres that are fragile enough that this will make a big difference in their ability to deliver the services that they're supposed to. Okay, because it's

[Eileen Dickinson (Member)]: just confusing with all those people here the other day. Maybe they weren't the recovery people, but They weren't. No. They were the OU? Yes. The issue is that, is this paid for by Medicaid and is the formula of the administration reasoned because it's a Medicaid payment they have to follow a formula, number one. No. And number two, do they work? What's successful do these centers work? Oh,

[Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member)]: very successful. Very successful. The Department of Corrections has invested in them. The opioid settlement recommendations have constantly focused on these centers as kind of key to the continuum of care. You need us People will leave Valley Vista, for example, and then there's nobody to kind of check-in with them about how is, so how are you doing? What supports do you need? There are a lot of people that just fall through the cracks. I know that my representative might go.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yes, I know. So I was waiting to you. I know. Mike.

[Michael Mrowicki (Member)]: Yeah, so thanks. I actually have some kind of strong feelings on this particular one. And I guess one of the things that really concerns me is just the idea that we passed a budget, gave them not what they asked for, but what we felt we could. After our budget passed, a number of recovery centers walked away believing they understood what they were going to receive. And I think folks in the legislature believing that that was also going to be what it was. So I, you know, to some degree, would say, you know, to maybe to a little bit of Wayne's question, don't know that this is the policy committee's concern so much as this really is an appropriation concern about to what degree what we expect is going to be enacted or how things are going to be determined by the administration. So I was not fully satisfied by the answers we received about how that methodology was implemented and to what degree they knew it wasn't necessarily what we had intended.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Right. Yes, I couldn't agree more. Well said. It's a problem.

[David Yacovone (Member)]: Right? See, even picking two, we're just picking a number. Obviously, number was four twenty and now it's two ten, that's half. So it's an arbitrary thing. Now, they mentioned that thirty hours was required, they didn't have thirty hours a week. February? Thirty hours a week. Don't know. To have half of the open and manned. Think that's what I recall from that. So anyhow, they have to have a certain amount of staff. And they have to cover a certain amount of hours and have a certain type of staff. So for any particular recovery center, they ought to know what those fixed costs are

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: going be. Well they do.

[David Yacovone (Member)]: Right? Maybe some other variable cost we have there. And the big variable cost is how many customers come in the door. But from year to year, ought to be able to get an idea of that. And from that, based on those facts, we should be able to they should be able to come to us and request no matter what we need. And I'm all for the department. But the thing is, it should be done in a business like that. And if we decide to do something, it means it goes to to agencies to do it, it should be done because it's like now legislative intention.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: We're going to be, yeah, we try not to be that prescriptive, but we try to say it with words and clearly the words weren't enough. And that's why we will need language if this is something that we We would say, turning point of Rutland County gets this much, turning point of New England Northern Skin, whatever they are. That's what we're going to do if we do this. Well, was just going to

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: comment that, yes, for the full budget, I think we need to encourage them just like we did with AEO to come back with a formula that they all can agree on or that the administration wants because they had a particular formula that they thought was reasonable But we need to have the formula not necessarily the names of the organizations but the formula in statute someplace so that it can be referred to when necessary and it could even be you know a convening of the providers and come to a mutual discussion, a mutual agreement, which is what they did. But if we understand the agency went back to a formula, which made sense to them and they apparently had used that formula before and it was a fixed amount and the variable amount is not based upon the Medicaid reimbursement. They just use the Medicaid population per as a proxy of how you should divide it up proportionally.

[David Yacovone (Member)]: Perhaps that's a part of the formula they need to just rethink. Yeah, it's a reasonable part of

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: it, but it's not what the agents, the groups suspected. Thanks.

[Michael Mrowicki (Member)]: Also my understanding is that, you know, as this process was going forward, there was communication with the agency from the recovery centers about the methodology they were proposing. So I guess I also would say if the agency feels that that was a really problematic methodology, I think that's when they need to bring it to us and, you know, have said so during that process. You know, if they took issue with that, then bring that to the legislature so we can have that conversation.

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: I also presume that if the suggestion is to use two ten instead of four twenty, that the intention would be to divide the two ten portionally as they So request

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: we would get the exact number we're thinking we'd

[Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member)]: have to do and what that is. I think I would need to check-in with the recovery partners to find out how this halving, cutting it in half, would affect certain organizations, because I think that Bennington would be hit pretty hard. But there are, I think, six of these centers. And at any rate, I've indicated to Chair Wood that we need to just quickly talk and touch base. So I'll come back with her thoughts. Okay,

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: all right, thank you. I think we're clear ish on that one. The next one was brand new, Two things from Common Good Vermont, one time funding for technical assistance to nonprofits navigating federal impacts, and PACE funding for technical assistance to nonprofit recipients of state grants, strengthen financial management and compliance. We don't do we fund base to state agencies. This one is confusing to me. Does anybody know a lot more about this one? Michael, do

[David Yacovone (Member)]: have a question? Yeah. Just did it looks like they're asked suggests there's a lot of thought putting to it. Do we have a budget with breakout?

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Did we hear from Autumn? Did we get written testimony from Common Good on this? Yeah,

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: there is written testimony, but there isn't

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: There's no explanation?

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: There isn't like a line breaking down, but that's the end.

[David Yacovone (Member)]: So I got on my sheet here, I'm a parody, I'm calling it United Way nonprofit. Yeah, that's where

[Eileen Dickinson (Member)]: they're from, aren't they?

[David Yacovone (Member)]: I got $2.75 ks with the technical assistance for federal funding, that's what they said. This number is bigger.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: That was not 295, yeah, was 295.

[David Yacovone (Member)]: I have 295.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: And then $2.67 for state grants. So they're looking for technical assistance to help nonprofits with federal grants and state grants.

[David Yacovone (Member)]: Pardon me for these perhaps rudimentary questions, but when they say base funding, does that mean they're looking to be in the budget ongoing?

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: That's what base means. Yeah.

[David Yacovone (Member)]: Any nonprofit, I could make a nonprofit and come and ask you to give me $100,000 a year so that I can hire somebody to write all the grants that I want to get. But give it.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: No, so to that point, just to say there's common good for just the health and homelessness Vermont, Vermont Cares and Vermont Center for Independent Living College, which are not state agencies. And I think traditionally we would be funding that through a state agency. We don't give we don't usually, but we really don't give money directly to nonprofit organizations. So even if we were to support any or all of these approvals, I trust that we would need language to say that if we were to give money to Common Good Vermont that that would go through

[David Yacovone (Member)]: commerce or that would be So

[Eileen Dickinson (Member)]: I mean

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: we would have to determine where that money actually gets appropriated to for express purpose house. Right, right.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So I think personally I don't feel like we have enough information. It's brand new. We didn't get a lot of detail.

[David Yacovone (Member)]: I would consider if we could get a detailed budget which breaks this out. I have a

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: better idea to look at.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Right, but I'm thinking for the budget adjustment, this is like a brand new program and budget adjustment isn't the appropriate place for that. So a public hearing for the big bill, perhaps with some more information, would at least give us a chance to look at it in the same kind of depth that we

[David Yacovone (Member)]: look at all the

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: other requests that we get.

[Eileen Dickinson (Member)]: I like what Tom says about the agencies. We have non profits that are sliced and diced and people can really succeed, get that spot, there's agency but many of these just like Jerusalem gave us a list of things. Right. You know, we have to Right.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: And who's the appropriate agency and are they talking to those agencies to be working with this? So I think it's too early to be able to make any reasonable decision, and the budget adjustment isn't the right place for it.

[David Yacovone (Member)]: I'm going to suggest here too, if someone's receiving a grant to the state here, did not already receive some assistance here for things like financial management compliance rates. I mean, that's what I'm familiar with, at least the

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: time looked at it, if

[David Yacovone (Member)]: I earned the stake here.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yeah, mean, depending upon what it is, they were

[David Yacovone (Member)]: But I understand.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yeah, mean a lot of nonprofits need help, a lot of them are really small and that's a whole other issue about that. So I think my inclination is to not include this, to not discuss this further to budget adjustment. You agree with that? Okay. That's two. The next one is Bridges to Health, which we have been funding for a number of years now, and this is to support the one time transition as they move from UVM to a fiscal partnership with the Vermont Free and Referral Clinics we have around the state. And my guess is that doing this would land them in the place they ultimately should be, and then we will not be getting these kinds of requests which we will get in our free use. So that's what that is.

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: I don't understand what they needed the money for that says transition, I don't understand. Maybe there's some

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: more information in both ag and the healthcare committees strongly supported this so there may be some regulation Since as

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: it started to house the UVM It's either grown or UVM is not interested in helping it, just mops off and get open to different agencies.

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: Why do you need another $50,000 to have a different agency take it over?

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Tom, could you just dig into that in a

[Eileen Dickinson (Member)]: little bit? Well, it's just to help.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: What is the agency of Ag? So that's why I'm

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: looking at you. Well,

[Eileen Dickinson (Member)]: Ag, it's how

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: No, it's UBM. UBM to the free referral clinics. They run for

[Eileen Dickinson (Member)]: the clinical referral clinic who helps fund them. At the Department of Health? Why

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: don't we ask Chair Black who to talk to about this?

[David Yacovone (Member)]: I'm wondering if some of it could be computers, IT related.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yeah, I have no idea.

[Eileen Dickinson (Member)]: Lynn, can you check? I can check with public.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Anybody else here has information I'm not

[Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member)]: seeing hands being raised over some stuff but I

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: think it'd be better for other sources yeah okay And then the next one was Homelessness Vermont for case management to

[Eileen Dickinson (Member)]: support

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: work that they do, finding housing for homeless individuals. They are making it request in the budget. This would be brand new lighting. I

[Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member)]: think it's more appropriate for the budget. I do think also that this service is filling a huge gap in what the DCF can provide in terms of finding placements for folks who are homeless with disabilities. So this be a grant through, a grant to AHS?

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: Yeah funds to AHS for them to grant to it's like an organization that does these kinds of things right whether we name them

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: right we might have to name it given what our track record has done recently We don't like to do that. So that would be new money, but they are also asking an FY27. Then Vermont Pairs, this has been the same amount for the HIVAIDS. We've had standard language in the budget for I'm we almost had it. Doctor. Tina Feltus had this one as his budget. So I think this has increased. So it's not, did

[Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member)]: they get cut? No, the expenses have increased a great deal. There were two organizations that closed, so they have been absorbing their clients. And it is $45,000 The cost of syringes has gone up. The cost of rent has gone up. And I would strongly recommend this appropriation. I feel like they are kind of hanging on by their teeth. We don't fund them to a great extent. Is this yours or is this mine? It's mine.

[David Yacovone (Member)]: I don't have a big problem with it, but the thing is, they got 140 ks through the Department of Health. It's a grant, right? So why didn't the Department of Health BAA ask for that?

[Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member)]: There are lots of people who have come to us for requests that were not asked in the BAA. I think that the Pride Center closing Yeah, but the money's going

[David Yacovone (Member)]: to have to go through the Department of right? Yes. So I'm just wondering why it wasn't done that way. I mean, we got a whole VA, they made all kinds of other asks, why didn't

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: they ask it through that?

[Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member)]: They might or may not have risen to the level, I mean, were a lot of pressing

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: issues. So how

[Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member)]: do we know we don't duplicate? We are not duplicating. I do know

[David Yacovone (Member)]: that. There are very few organizations in the state now that actually provide these services. No, no, meant if we've already given the Department of Health the extra money to do this, asking another 45,000, do we know that we haven't done that?

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Oh, they have been appropriated the same amount every year for a number of years. And like everything else, costs are rising. And so that's the problem. And they've been level funded for a decade.

[Eileen Dickinson (Member)]: I don't have any money. I

[Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member)]: have a letter that You have a letter?

[Eileen Dickinson (Member)]: Yeah. They didn't give us a dollar amount.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: They didn't originally, but we did We have testimony or something.

[Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member)]: We had testimony that said 45,000 and I have a letter. I heard that as 45 I mean, heard that in the testimony. It might have just been the first sentence.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: At any rate, so that is that one. And then the last one is the Vermont Center for Independent Living Meals on Wheels to address rising costs of $30,000 That's just for one organization as opposed to I mean we do stuff with the area of aging related to Meals on Wheels So I don't know if anybody has more information, Tom.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: I don't know specifically about BCIL. My knowledge of what the Lawburi Senior Center is that they get a contract to buy Meals on Wheels for the vicinity. So if PCIL has that same kind of setup, then obviously this is for that they provided that everybody who requests it in this vicinity, but that's part of my knowledge. So I don't know specifically for why it would be done and not other Right,

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: and usually we address them as a group, not individual organizations coming in and asking for what they need.

[Eileen Dickinson (Member)]: Do we have a letter on this slide, J. D, sooner? Do you

[David Yacovone (Member)]: have something over here asking? Just, Meals on Wheels, in my experience, is a really good thing. It's a great program. Because we take it to people and we talk to people, we walk out to people who don't have anybody else around. So I'd much rather give the money to something like that than just to somebody just taking food off the shelf and running out the door.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: But what we don't know is typically, as I said, we've done this as a group and hasn't there been, Dave, some Medicaid? They've been able to use Medicaid somehow with this? I'm not. I know we've tried it. Maybe we tried it and it didn't work, but we looked

[David Yacovone (Member)]: at it. Over the years, VCI Health has come in from time to time for a specific appropriation to serve the disabled population. Oh, yeah, that's right,

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: they're the only ones that serve the disabled across the state or just in their own area?

[David Yacovone (Member)]: I do not know.

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: It Sears? It goes through Dale. I have notes. They get a grant through Dale.

[David Yacovone (Member)]: Would like to Just Bob is we have many, many food programs. Some of them are doing some indispensable things. Some of them, I just don't know what they're doing. Be nice we could do an arm threat around all of them.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: I think there's other committees that do that, and I know that the I have an amazing letter from my organization, one of my food shelves in Middlebury, who just I mean, they know all the people that come in. These are people that are nurses, are people that are working jobs, people in the military, a lot of people don't have enough money for food. So that's

[Eileen Dickinson (Member)]: the people who are using it. Yeah, my notes indicate that this is mostly for people with disabilities, under the age of 60. We have a waiting list. It's one of the important parts about Mills and Mills is not necessarily the food. The fact that they see go to the police and it's the checking in is the important part of having taken advantage of it with my father in Florida. Somebody that's there that sees is actually more important. Somebody's done.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: My husband does this in the clinic, so he has five different routes he's done And so I know exactly how this works. I think we all agree it's an amazing thing. My question is, we typically do it all together, is this because this is sort of a different kind of organization, are the areas on aging usually involved? I don't know if Dave can just find out a little bit. One of our

[David Yacovone (Member)]: representatives in the building is a director of the Meals on Wheels product at the state, and I can speak to him for ten That would be great. He might be

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: able to shed some light on Yeah, because why is this coming in separately as opposed to part of the larger group, that's really what I'd like. See. That'd be great, thank you. So I'm putting Dave on that. So, the ones I'm hearing that we need to get more information or that I'm hearing that people are interested in working from the back up are Meals on Wheels, the Vermont Cares, the Bridges to Health, the Recovery Centers, Tri Valley Transit. We're doing Section eight. I don't know what we're doing with the food bank. I just don't know. I'm trying to get a sense, I just don't know where we are. But I think could have agreed to not go further at this point, the Common Good Vermont or the End Homelessness. That's only the and we haven't dealt with the other ones,

[David Yacovone (Member)]: the Medicaid ones. Just one question about End Homelessness. When Teresa was in testifying, I think she made some reference to that. I don't remember who it was. I didn't write it down. I'm going to ask her if she had a comment about that.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: She made it not. So, said she didn't testify as the executive director And of the Brenda testified in public hearing.

[David Yacovone (Member)]: She did. Yeah. So that may have been who she's Yeah. Did I miss the 2% request by the area agencies on aging?

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: If haven't missed it, anything Medicaid related, Nolan is working on and we're going to deal with that. On the sheet, if you've got a color sheet, it's the last two pages that are in orangey color. Yep, orangey. So Nolan will be in maybe this afternoon, more likely tomorrow morning. Think we're kind of working that out when he gets this thing. I apologize,

[David Yacovone (Member)]: I think I said that yesterday.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: That's okay. So those are the reach up, the FQHC rates, the enhanced tier one residential care and the triple A's. So he's going to come in

[Eileen Dickinson (Member)]: with a number? We're going to

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: get the number. This is all global commitment stuff and you've got to figure out what the numbers are and

[David Yacovone (Member)]: all that sort of stuff.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So they'll have that and we'll look at that all together. So I'm not suggesting we make decisions immediately but everything we do here with the exception of section eight needs to have the money home so we'll have to take it from somewhere else Yes, David? The money home,

[David Yacovone (Member)]: there's the, and the governor's using 30 for buy down property taxes, then there's the 50 and 30. Right. Are those potential homes?

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: I would say we could take a look, probably not the 50. That was to the e board for serious, you know, I mean one could argue everything's an emergency, but I mean those were the in case people were suddenly not without things. I think Section eight clearly fits into that. I don't think any of the rest of these do. It would possibly be the other 30. It could be some other things in the budget. I've chatted a little bit with James, but we don't have a lot. I think we could all make a case for every one of these. Oh, the other home would be the top grant. That would be rejiggering the numbers. So that's another time. Mike?

[Michael Mrowicki (Member)]: I'm asking this just to try to understand the mechanics, not that I'm interested in spending that $50,000,000 but the $50,000,000 that's with the e board. Is that showing up in any of next year's budget? Is that in the governor's recommend? Where does that go at the end of this year?

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: We will get some closeout language from Grady. I don't know if that's today or tomorrow, that we'll talk about carrying it forward to be used for the same purpose kind of thing. So the governor did not spend the 50,000,000. The governor did not spend the first 30,000,000 because we were specific about fed funds. The second 30,000,000 included lots of things, fed funds, property tax, housing, whatever. So that's what he grabbed you.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: Thank you.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: But that middle 30? What the middle 30? Well, can change the restrictions on it, but it was related to federal funding originally. But it wasn't given to the emergency board. The emergency board only is allowed to spend up to 2% of the budget and that was the 50,000,000. So we couldn't give the board any, which was actually fine. And we're not on session. Right. But now can use it with some general assembly, we can use it.

[Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member)]: And the 75,000,000. That's a carry forward.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yeah, so we can reduce the 75,000,000. Just want to At moment, we're going carry forward into the big bill. There'll be language about that, and it won't necessarily say education on it, but it'll just be to carry forward unless we use some of that and dealt with whatever the difference was in the big bill. So there's a bunch of moving parts and ways that we can do some of the things, but you can see how tight it is and how hard this is going to be to do things. 75 and the 30.

[Eileen Dickinson (Member)]: They're together. In the big bill. That's what I'm saying.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: And $31.05. Yeah. At the moment. Plus actually, it's 115. If he gets the 10 for the purchase and use, he's using 10,000,000 of general finance markets. Because otherwise, if he didn't replace the purchase and use, all he's doing is increasing property prices, which still means $10,000,000 that we can't use for other things, but we're to use it to build roads and bridges. All right, so I think some people have some work to do on checking out some of these things. Oh, how about a spreadsheet, an updated spreadsheet, James? Do we have an updated spreadsheet with the gray out? Can we look at that? Do need, how about, do people need like five minutes to take a quick break and then we'll get the spreadsheets