Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Good afternoon. This is the House Appropriations Committee. It's Friday, 01/23/2026. It is about 01:20 in the afternoon, and we are going to spend various amounts of time talking about the numbers and kind of finalizing some of the decisions. One of the decisions we want to talk about relates to pilot funding. And there were some questions yesterday as well. And then when I talked with JFO last night and this morning, he had some other ideas about things. So here we are. And Chris Rubin is kindly here for about six or seven minutes and then he'll come back, but I wanted him to give us an overview so we can all ponder and then we'll come back and explain it again. So take it away, Chris. We just got your handouts and it'll be posted on our committee page at some point. Well,

[Chris Rupe (Joint Fiscal Office)]: afternoon, everyone. Chris from Joint Fiscal. Hopefully you can see this. So the chair asked me to come in and just walk you through a little bit about the pilot fund because there are a few items contained in the GovRec BAA as well as in the FY twenty seven budget that pertained to the pilot fund. So it might be helpful to have a little bit of an orientation on what goes in and out of the pilot fund and how much money is in there. So over on the left side, I pulled together with the tremendous assistance of our colleagues at the tax department, some estimates on the appropriations as well as the expected expenditures out of the pilot fund. Just to refresh everyone's memory, the pilot fund receives a portion of local option tax revenue. You all changed the law last year, so to change that shift from seventythirty to 70 fivetwenty '5. So that's why on line 17 of my sheet on the screen, you see that tax projection for pilot revenue go down slightly from '26 to '27 just because '27 has that full year of that January rate. But even at that lower rate of 25% of the money coming you know, 14,600,000.0 is a fairly substantial amount of money, and it's likely that will start growing a little bit over time as more towns enact global option taxes. We won't have a freight set still after March, how many more towns might be on the horizon, but you all changed the law a few years ago to make it easier for towns to enact local option taxes without having to

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: go through the Change a bit, yeah.

[Chris Rupe (Joint Fiscal Office)]: So you all will remember that we use this fund to pay for pilot payments to municipalities, as well as for a host of other activities that benefit municipalities. So column B on my sheet on the screen there shows the appropriations that have come out of the fund in FY '26. You'll see the three at the top there are referring pilot payment items. You also did a one time appropriation for a million dollars for the municipal grand list stabilization program. If you go just to the right, you see that that's going to be dribbled out over a period of years and roughly 82,000 is expected to be spent in '26, but more will be spent in future years.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So this was the money that we authorized to be used to help stabilize ground lists in towns that have been affected by flooding.

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: We did buy also flood properties. Backfill the

[Chris Rupe (Joint Fiscal Office)]: municipal tax councils. Right. Exactly. Right. Highlighted in that block that $500,000 that was the request from the administration for money for the tax department to continue the telecommunications property evaluation work that accompanies the telephone property tax legislation.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: And we've agreed to that. That was, we've done that. So that should sound familiar.

[Chris Rupe (Joint Fiscal Office)]: And you'll see that, you know, that's not all proposed to be spent in FY twenty six. That will be spent out over a period of years. The Town Highway non federal disasters last year, you appropriated 1,150,000 for this in lieu of T funds, and that freed up T funds, to be used elsewhere in the transportation budget. That was a one time arrangement in FY '26. And this is related to an open item that is, my understanding, it's not fully resolved in the BAA. Finance and management allowed AOT an excess receipt to draw an additional 360,000 above and beyond this 1.15 to deal with two additional projects in Norwich and Pomfret. And the GovRec BIA had proposed AOT backfilling the pilot fund for that $360,000 and that would have come at 67,000 from the general fund and just under 300,000 would come from the transportation fund. I don't know if the committee has fully resolved that issue.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: I 'm glad Chris is doing this because it brings it up, and we'll talk about that. We agreed yesterday not to make them pay the general fund part back. That was the September. We never actually talked about the T fund paying back the pilots on. So that's a conversation that Chris has put in the next batch over there. So that's still an unresolved question at this point.

[Chris Rupe (Joint Fiscal Office)]: And the other block I highlighted over, if you

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: jump two columns over to

[Chris Rupe (Joint Fiscal Office)]: the 3,410,000.00 on re agreed to win listing payments. That is contained in the gov rec. The governor's proposing to take funds in the tax department's budget, and this has typically been done with general fund, and instead pay for this with pilot funds. This line item pays for municipal assistance with rentless maintenance and litigation. A per parcel payment that towns get from the state is funded out of this appropriation and it is oriented toward things that support municipalities on the grant list. And the governor is proposing there's a lot of verbiage that goes with it in the gov rec 27 BAA, but he's proposing to shift these costs beginning next year over to the pilot fund.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: Will

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: see Wasn't he putting 3,400,000.0 of general fund into this fund for FY '27?

[David Yacovone (Member)]: Yeah. Okay, then I'm really more confused than I was.

[Chris Rupe (Joint Fiscal Office)]: It was drawing down some

[David Yacovone (Member)]: of the surplus from the pilot. May 26 BAA.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: He the budget, not the BAA. So he's suggesting drawing down the pilot by 3,400,000.0.

[Chris Rupe (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Yeah essentially shifting this cost into

[John Kascenska (Member)]: the pilot fund rather than the general.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Shifting the reappraisal listing payments.

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: Right.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Okay, from that was from general fund.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: From direct. So

[Chris Rupe (Joint Fiscal Office)]: based on these proposals and everything, where things stand right now is based on the, you know, there would be $15,800,000 of appropriations in '27 coming out of the pilot fund. It wouldn't, you know, due to some of the expenditures from the one time payments from earlier, the some of that is expected to continue trickling out in FY27 and beyond, which is why you see the expected expenditures being a little different than the appropriations because those one times are still being spent down. But when you factor in what the tax department expects will be spent out of the fund in '27 and what we expect the current tax projection would be, the pilot fund would still end in '27 with an almost $15,400,000 surplus.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So at the bottom, somebody asked, I think Lynn asked yesterday, how much do we spend on pilot or Wayne? One of you guys asked. And the expected for this year is the 12,923,000.000. I'm looking at your the spending expenditures, right?

[Chris Rupe (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Yeah, and yeah, that includes not just pilot payments, but the other things that are coming out of the pilot fund.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Right, but all the pilot payments, all payments coming out of the pilot fund, 12.9, but getting $14,000,008.80 is projected the revenue to come in.

[Chris Rupe (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Right, and we expect the fund would end the year with 16.9, almost 17,000,000.

[Martha “Marty” Feltus (Vice Chair)]: 17,000,000, right. Just a surplus from previous years.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Right. Yes, we keep having surplus. And then the next year, the governor's current recommendation, we'd have 15,800,000.0 in appropriations from the pilot fund. Right. And with money coming in at 14,500,000.0 we still end up, and then expenditures, we end up with that $15,400,000 So this is a healthy fund that self replenishes and is on a growth curve at the moment.

[Chris Rupe (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Right. And I want to flag that on the general pipeline, that 12,200,000.0 is conservatively budgeted and estimated. It is likely to come down

[John Kascenska (Member)]: a little bit lower, and

[Chris Rupe (Joint Fiscal Office)]: that is due to some impacts from the CLA. So in order to make sure these are fully funded, tax department puts an estimate together to make sure there is enough money. You'll see over on the twenty sixth column that they're expecting to spend a little bit less than that 12,200,000.0. So there's a little bit of potential for a little bit of cushion there. Right. And

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: so what's different about the right side? All right. Let's go over

[Chris Rupe (Joint Fiscal Office)]: to the right side.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: So for discussion purposes Yes.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Thank you. That clear.

[Chris Rupe (Joint Fiscal Office)]: I wanna be clear. This does not represent a proposal from JFO. It doesn't represent, you know, my crystal ball. This is for your discussion to to give you a scenario what things might look like. If you all were to agree to not backfill the pilot fund for those town highway projects and keep that $360,000 cost in the pilot fund, It would increase the town highway non federal disaster appropriation and expenditure from that 1,150,000.00 up to that 1.51 total. Numbers all look so similar. Yeah. Yeah. I I spent half an hour tracking down a $200 type of thing. Then I found it. Another thing for your consideration is if you were as you're thinking about closing out the BAA, if you were to look at what the governor is recommending doing beginning next year with the reappraisal enlisting payment line item in the tax department's budget at 3.41, if you were interested in seeing what it would look like to begin that in FY twenty six rather than in FY '27, that would put another 3,410,000.00 into the FY '26 expenditure column and draw 3,770,000.00 total out of the pilot fund above and beyond for the current fiscal year. If you were to do that, you still would be projected to end FY '27 with $11,600,000 in the fund, which is more than it had at the end of FY twenty four.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: On the revenue

[John Kascenska (Member)]: side, the revenue because it should be fairly stable anyway because it's coming through the same way. So it's been running $14,000,008.80. It's actually grown over time. It will grow. It's grown quite a

[Chris Rupe (Joint Fiscal Office)]: bit over time to the point where the like, you know, it used to be that the towns with a local option tax would retain 70% of the revenue, and the other 30% would come to the pilot fund. Due to the growth in consumption tax revenue post COVID and the number of towns that have local option taxes, we've seen revenue grow quite a bit to the point where the legislature last session changed that revenue share so the towns would keep an extra 5%. So even with that reduced share of revenue coming into the pilot fund, we still expect there will be some towns that will likely enact some more local option taxes. A lot of the low hanging fruit's been picked, but there's still some towns out there that might do it. And if consumption behavior tends to

[John Kascenska (Member)]: be strong, we expect that 14.5 number will probably keep creeping up. So I'm looking at the expected revenues and what we're talking about taking money out. I'd just like to see how much money is flowing in and how much it's flowing out. We make a little change here. Is it is it significant? Major factor in the future or not? Does it look as if they are would be a major factor? Yeah. I'm not I'm not

[Chris Rupe (Joint Fiscal Office)]: very concerned with the trajectory we're on right now. You know, I spoke to the tax department earlier and I think they feel extremely comfortable that the current picture and trajectory would likely support that additional 3,410,000.00 as ongoing expense. But if you were to consider adding any additional recurring expenses into the pilot fund moving forward, that could start really eroding the cash balance.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: Question about the AOT town highway non fit disastrous here, looking at the right hand spreadsheet right here, potentially going up to 1.5

[David Yacovone (Member)]: from, 1.5, right up here, practically seeing

[John Kascenska (Member)]: how much of a difference would that make here for our towns? Lots of towns have big gaps, it's a non disaster,

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: it's right here.

[Chris Rupe (Joint Fiscal Office)]: I don't think this would really make any difference for towns writ large. I think what what this is a very, very narrow Yeah. Piece of the pilot fund. And I think at the end of the day, $360,000 out of a fund with this kind of surplus is not gonna change the trajectory of the pilot fund. It could, however, be meaningful to funds like the transportation fund and the general fund that we all know are struggling to make ends meet. This wouldn't take anything away from any towns. It wouldn't be additive in the big picture. This is really related to two additional bridge projects that I believe there are bridge projects that were able to be addressed by VTrans in the past year. Which is sort

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: of an appropriate use of pilot funds. It's the exact thing. And remember, this is the one they had cost overruns. And so if they had budgeted the full amount first time with no cost overruns, they would have gotten it.

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: Right.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: But we didn't, they didn't have it. You know how projects go. It always costs more to think of, it always takes something to do. There's the two rules of project construction projects, right?

[John Kascenska (Member)]: Pardon me, Bob.

[Martha “Marty” Feltus (Vice Chair)]: Just have a couple of comments just for general information. I'm probably kicking myself in the book for doing it, but not every town charges local option tax. And yet the benefits go back to all municipalities. So last year, there was a proposal in Ways and Means that the towns that did contribute to local option tax, they asked to have that surplus revenue returned to them. Conclusion that Ways and Means came out with was to change that the balance of the use so that towns got to keep more. But I think we just need to remember that all towns do not contribute, and yet the benefits go to all towns. And my town is fine. We do not contribute,

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: and yet we have a lot

[Martha “Marty” Feltus (Vice Chair)]: of state buildings, and so get a nice payment from them.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: But also the talents that do contribute get 70%. Correct. So they're already getting a lot of benefit that you're not getting because you don't have a local option.

[Martha “Marty” Feltus (Vice Chair)]: That's true. But I think we just need to remember that and to remember that there might exist at some time a request from the towns that do contribute to go back and revisit what we do with this surplus. So we just need to be prepared that.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: By the same process. All of our state lands have payment taxes.

[Martha “Marty” Feltus (Vice Chair)]: But that's a totally different fund.

[Chris Rupe (Joint Fiscal Office)]: That's a different the ANR pilot is a different. It's not the same pilot.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: We have more than one pilot. Yeah. How many?

[Chris Rupe (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Well the ANR program is not funded with the pilot special fund. We're talking about the buildings and state college properties and things of

[John Kascenska (Member)]: that picture. My assumption is all one fund. No, no,

[Martha “Marty” Feltus (Vice Chair)]: there's two separate funds and we organized the money in our fund about

[John Kascenska (Member)]: five years ago. The money goes to the towns just like with this fund.

[Martha “Marty” Feltus (Vice Chair)]: Yes, it does. But the towns don't contribute to that.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: But they could also, they don't contribute, then there are accounts that would say, we don't have any state land. And some say, we got all the state land. We want a bigger piece of the pie.

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: Starts with

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: But that's a whole separate thing. And it's not our perfume.

[Martha “Marty” Feltus (Vice Chair)]: Stay away from that.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yeah, think so. John, did you have a question? Okay, Lynn.

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: He was saying it was a 13.6 number one, is that what you saying in the end we ended up with 13.7 I don't see whatever number I see 13.2 I see 11,600,000 You're talking about the DAA?

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: 15.2 is over on the right side, yes, for discussion purposes. Said you end with 11.6. 11.6, so that's the bottom, okay. The bottom right hand

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: that's what that's what seven.

[Chris Rupe (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Right. That's what that's what you would end f y twenty seven with.

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: So that's a fund balance.

[Chris Rupe (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Based on estimates of the expenditure level that would happen, you know, like a year and a half into the future.

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: The 15.4 if we didn't make any changes. The one with the w three. Correct.

[Chris Rupe (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Yeah, the delta is 3.77.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So we have a grounding in the pilot, because it may come into play in what we're talking about with sources of funds for things we want to do in the budget adjustment. And we've kept you way past time. They haven't yelled at you and said, Hurry up and get upstairs. You know, when

[Chris Rupe (Joint Fiscal Office)]: they know where I am, they don't yell at me for some reason.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: I wish that worked

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: for us.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: We'll probably get you back at some point in the afternoon. I know you're going to be around. So thank you very much. Well, thank you. It's also good to see, I mean, spent a lot of time dealing with Pilot when I was on Ways and Means, too, and then I had them when I was a part of my portfolio here. Haven't seen as clear an explanation of all the pilot stuff one spot before, so I appreciate it. So we've got some questions answered. James, are we ready to talk with you at this point?

[James Duffy (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Would you like to discuss the ACE items or one time items?

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Let's just bring them both up.

[James Duffy (Joint Fiscal Office)]: For the record, James Duffy joined this goal. Circulating the table now are

[John Kascenska (Member)]: two

[James Duffy (Joint Fiscal Office)]: tables starting for this discussion. The first is some ideas, proposals for discussion for HAC additions to the BAA. One would be base adjustment system based items, and one would be adjustments to the BAA under the one times.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: And so just to delight people, some of these we've kind of made decisions on already, but I wanted to put everything together. And also, we talked about doing stuff,

[David Yacovone (Member)]: but we wanted to be

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: sure that we had the money to do the things that we wanted to do. And some of it we're kind of clear on, but not So all of I kind of put together a very rough little spreadsheet last night that I could try to figure out for myself where things were coming from. And I showed it to James and Emily. Mine Yes, didn't look as pretty as theirs. They're pretty enough. I put together this thing and the way I think, and they organized my life for me. It's great. So then I said, well, not sure that we can do things that I want to do or that we think we might want to do. So these guys also worked, thought about it overnight with some other potential sources of funds. Other than the ones that we've pretty much agreed on as of yesterday, and again, nothing's closed until everything's closed, our mantra, I'm putting something out there. This is not, you have to agree with everything. So we'll have a chance to have conversations. We may evolve live after this and people can talk and we can check-in with each other and see how we're feeling about it all. So this is just time to put a line in the sand and start talking together. Mike's got a question already, so go for it, Mike.

[Michael Nigro (Member)]: Is this online?

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Autumn is this posted?

[James Duffy (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Would you like this posted? I wasn't sure if we wanted I've post already emailed a copy to Rep. Nigro.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: You it your email?

[David Yacovone (Member)]: Thank you.

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: Okay.

[James Duffy (Joint Fiscal Office)]: I did. Yep. Yes.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: To Dave also? Could you?

[David Yacovone (Member)]: Oh, sure. Thank you so much.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So, I wanted us to think about it as terms of there's a bunch of one time, which is mostly what we've talked about, and then there's a couple of base options also, we have talked about, but haven't. We now have more information. So that's kind of what we'll start with

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: the context.

[James Duffy (Joint Fiscal Office)]: So, Chippy, I defer to you how you'd like to handle the discussion. I could pull these up on my screen behind me if that's helpful. Otherwise If

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: you want to do that, I'll just yeah, so you started with sources and then uses. The rounding always throws me off. It's like, 250,000, and then you have to think about what the actual number is. That's why have to go my way first, so I understand.

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: I I would do.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yeah. I'll hop on

[James Duffy (Joint Fiscal Office)]: the Zoom screen just start with this one. So what you have in front of you are potential HAC FY26 BAA proposals. The top half of the table identifies sources of funding, potential sources of funding for the committee's consideration. And then the bottom half of the table is potential uses for that additional funding that's made sources and potential one time appropriations to use those sources for. So total sources is currently, for the table in front of you for consideration, 9,390,000.00. Total uses in front of you for consideration are $9,030,000 which would leave $360,000 on the bottom line for FY '26 BAA.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: That's the big picture.

[James Duffy (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Yeah, would you like to go

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: We need to talk about where we're getting all these monies from because

[James Duffy (Joint Fiscal Office)]: So the first source of funding is consideration is $5,000,000 from the FY '26 appropriation to the agency of administration. This comes from $50,000,000 that you all appropriated to the agency of administration for use by the e board to make up for potential federal funding shortfalls. This source is sort of directly tied to the $5,000,000 appropriation and for your consideration to for section eight housing vouchers. So that's kind of

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: one we had matched those sources and uses up, and that's what we've talked about all the way along. So that's not new to anybody.

[Martha “Marty” Feltus (Vice Chair)]: And is that an appropriate use? Funds?

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yes, because it was supposed to be for federal funds impacts specifically. And this is the one where the e board almost met to do this in December, but decided that from a timing standpoint, it wasn't needed then, and we should wait till the general assembly was there. So this is the stuff we've been talking about a lot in Section eight. Yeah, how does that fit

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: in the member who just discussed this morning about that state money is not permissible for Section eight?

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Oh yeah, so I think I said something wrong. There are things that it's not permissible for, but I think I misunderstood Dave's question, or I just answered wrong anyway. But you were asking if it will help down the road with future in- And I was thinking of it a little bit differently than the way you meant it. And James, do you want to respond correctly to what I

[James Duffy (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Sure. Can explain the proposal from the state housing in Brody, as I understand it. I think they're also in the room, so they can correct me if I get this wrong. But I believe your question earlier was, does this one time appropriation, proposed appropriation, increase federal funding that flows to housing vouchers in Vermont in the future? And while no state appropriation can change the total amount of federal funding that HUD may decide to give to housing authorities, the idea behind the proposal is to increase the number of vouchers in circulation that are included in future funding years renewal calculations for public housing authorities in Vermont. So the federal appropriation, the total appropriation is what it is. It's decided at the federal level. But how that is allocated to public housing authorities is in part a function of how many vouchers they have on the street the previous year. So the idea behind the proposal is to maximize the number of vouchers in circulation now that are considered for future funding calculations in the future. So the idea being there is a benefit that flows to housing authorities in the future.

[David Yacovone (Member)]: Essentially, it's a gift that keeps not giving.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yes. A one time investment is the gift that keeps on giving. So this is clearly one time. We've thoroughly laid out that this is one time. And I think they have to open separate accounts. Can't it has to separate federal money. They would have and this would be essentially sort of the agency administration would hold the money, and then the housing authorities would apply. Have we looked at that language yet? No, we have not. Have not, as a group, looked at the language associated with that. But Cameron did a great job of working with lots of people to figure this out and make sure we have some safeguards in place so that it doesn't either hurt the state or it doesn't hurt the housing authorities going forward. So they've looked at it. Their attorneys have looked at it. All the people that need to seem to have looked at it. And people are comfortable with that. And we will go over that language. We just haven't done that yet. All right.

[James Duffy (Joint Fiscal Office)]: So that was all kind of the umbrella of discussing the first source of potential funding for additional BIA proposals. Just use. Yeah. The next under sources is funding for the reappraisal and listing payments moving this funding from the general fund to the pilot special fund. This one's a little bit interesting in the fiscal year twenty twenty seven proposed budget from the governor. There is a proposal to move funding for reappraisal and listing payments. And Liam can speak a little bit more about what that specifically is, I think. But there is a program for reappraisal and grand list payments that's currently dedicated to general fund that is being moved to the pilot fund, proposed to be moved to the pilot fund in FY 'twenty seven. What this would do is follow that same plan but for fiscal year 'twenty six, so freeing up $3,410,000 in general funds by moving that $3,400,000 corporation to the pilot.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: And the reason is we have this $3,000,000 pension issue. We have to do the $3,000,000 pension. And so figuring out where we're getting the money for that has been the challenge, to say the least, a ton.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: When there are transactions for reappraisal funding, I mean, the reappraisals in the state got hammered through COVID. There's the backlog. I mean, it's part and parcel of why property taxes got skewed and all this stuff. My understanding at one point there was was $7 for every transaction for something that helped pay for that over time that the towns could then go and get. Know where I'm not sure where that money came from. I'm just didn't it come from the pilot program? Wasn't that part of what the pilot program was originally set up to do, to to have that funding available? And and now are we saying that because there's a I guess surplus may not be the right quite the right word, but now that there's more money in the pilot program, are we making sure that that's what this money is being used for now is to pay for the towns to have their reappraisals? There always used to be funding available that at least diminish cost for the The

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: $8.50

[Martha “Marty” Feltus (Vice Chair)]: per parcel. Yeah.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Per parcel fee. Where did that come from?

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: Came from the general. I think it was this appropriate.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: So this is is this permanently shifting it so that that $8 and whatever it

[John Kascenska (Member)]: is now $8.50

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: per parcel will come out of pilot funding?

[James Duffy (Joint Fiscal Office)]: This would just shift that, you know, the source of funding for that function from the general fund to the pilot fund for FY '26?

[John Kascenska (Member)]: It's for one year.

[James Duffy (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Believe that what's in front of you all for discussion would be just for FY '26. And I'll add, however, that there is a proposal in the FY '27 gov rec to do that same switch from general funders. Okay.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yes, could you I'll just add,

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: you made whatever decision you make regarding the '26 budget, this would be a one time thing for the '26 budget, you still wouldn't be able to make the decision for the '27 budget. You could fund

[Martha “Marty” Feltus (Vice Chair)]: it from wherever you wanted to.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: So so short term, this isn't going to mess with the towns. Towns shouldn't have any, like, confusion over how they're getting their money. That's

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: a good question. I'm sure they're okay. Yeah. So Marty and then John.

[Martha “Marty” Feltus (Vice Chair)]: But isn't it correct, Emily, that that money that goes to towns to help them with the reappraisals, so much carparcel and that kind of stuff, has traditionally come from the general fund? Correct. Correct. Okay. And it comes from the tax department to through the general fund, Payment to the town, the town puts it into their listers' budget, whatever, and they know that helps fund the lister activity within the town.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: And I think, I don't know if this is a true statement, but I'm guessing that it was from the general fund before we had the pilot fund the way we did and as much money as we're getting from the pilot fund. And so then it makes more sense to do

[John Kascenska (Member)]: it from the pilot fund.

[Martha “Marty” Feltus (Vice Chair)]: I understand why we might want to move it to the

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: But yes, that was a traditional and we didn't used to have enough money in the pilot fund to be able to do anything like that, nor could we pay 100% of the value of pilot until the last few years when all those changes. Right.

[Nolan Langweil (Joint Fiscal Office)]: But it was

[Martha “Marty” Feltus (Vice Chair)]: the function of state government to provide extra funding to the town for them to fulfill the responsibility of keeping an updated grand list because not only do they participate in that, use that grant list for the municipal taxes, but the state uses that grant list for our education taxes as well. So it's a function of

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: supplement everybody's student work. Right. And they'll still get the money, it's just from a different spot. Correct. That's the that propose.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: That's always been a per year payment to each town here. Per parcel per year. Put that into their budget in a separate place and not be used for anything else. That's right. Correct. Over time, some towns may have lost that, have used Some some of that one for other

[Martha “Marty” Feltus (Vice Chair)]: lost it. The towns complain it's not sufficient They do. To cover their costs.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: So it's become a bit

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Right, right.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: So it might be for some towns, it's become more of a partial

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Oh, yeah.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: Well, this is just a For this one time Oh, the whole system. Yeah, whole system.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: Yeah, I'm talking about the whole system, not so much for this right here.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yeah.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: Thank you for that explanation, I appreciate it.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Great, yes. And so, yeah, so that is, we're looking at that because of the pension issue. And we can do this without harming Pilot or harming the towns with what they would get or harming anything else. It's kind of a painless way to do things and it's one time. Okay. Thank you, James. Let's go continue.

[James Duffy (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Next item under sources. First, the Reed Vermont. So in the revised government FDA that you all saw, Additional reversions were proposed by the administration to make up for the revenue downgrade in the latter half of FY twenty six. As part of the funding that was freed up through those reversions, the administration also proposed an appropriation to the Reed Vermont program in the amount of $700,000 In putting together potential revenue sources for items before the committee for consideration, This is revenue from the general fund that was effectively freed up under the governor's recommended proposal. Could choose to use this for Reed Vermont. You could also choose to use this for potential other items before you for consideration in the DAA.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So here's what I was thinking when I did this. The governor proposed two things to start in the budget adjustment. He proposed $500,000 for the accountability courts, and he proposed $700,000 for this READ Vermont program. And I'm proposing that we keep the accountability in court in the budget adjustment as the governor recommended, but we take out the $700,000 and look at it again. It could be in Section C of the FY 'twenty seven budget and still go for this year, But we haven't heard anything about it. We haven't taken testimony. House Education hasn't taken testimony. And so putting what to us is a new program and budget adjustment doesn't seem to make sense to me. They still have a chance in FY 'twenty seven in Section C to have it be for this year. So that was my thinking of those two things. Keep one, defer the other.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: And the thing is, for this amount of money, how come it doesn't come out

[David Yacovone (Member)]: of the education fund? There are programs that come out

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: of the administrative budget for the education fund. That's not unusual. It's not like it's in the wrong place, but it's new

[John Kascenska (Member)]: for us. If we had testimony on it, they could decide where it should come.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: I think it's coming from the right place, but go ahead, John.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: So this is new and not supplanting something they've been currently using for training teachers.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: No, so remember the purple, the little purple lines in the spreadsheet that James handed out, Gershell? No, it

[John Kascenska (Member)]: said no. I saw that.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So there were two big things that he did, and Adam talked about it this morning. He talked about the sustainability courts for half 1,000,000 and the 700,000 for the reefer bond. So on this sheet, what I'm proposing is that we keep the won't see it here because we would keep the 500,000 for the accountability course, but we would defer the 700,000 and not include it, and then we can deal with it in the

[Martha “Marty” Feltus (Vice Chair)]: budget. I just find it confusing to say that the source is not doing the re Vermont, isn't it the source is just the additional re versions.

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: Correct.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yes. But that's where it came from. So, I wanted you

[Martha “Marty” Feltus (Vice Chair)]: He to all wanted to put it there and we're saying, no, we'll take those reversions and use it here.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Right. I didn't, I felt like this was less, I didn't want to be appear sneaky and I just wanted you to see we Okay. Thinking into Okay. We can pretty this up in other ways too. But anyway, I want you to know what I was thinking.

[Martha “Marty” Feltus (Vice Chair)]: Yeah, no, I understand.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Okay. Moving

[James Duffy (Joint Fiscal Office)]: on, there have been

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Lynn, sorry.

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: Yeah, so okay. He had two things that the governor wanted. One was this children's literacy thing. Right. And the teacher's chair. Right. Right. And the other was the accountability court. Is that already in the PAA?

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: No, were new. Even over that purple sheet this morning, those were two new things that he was proposing in the budget adjustment that were not in the budget adjustment.

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: So is that part we go to one time appropriations the accountability are you on the purple? Well it's in the purple but I'm going paint this one here that we just said

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: yes so you won't see the the accountability court on here because I'm proposing just leaving it in the budget.

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: The budget budget or the BAA? The It's not in the BAA now, we're going to add it to the DAA

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: we're going to

[David Yacovone (Member)]: keep yeah

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: I mean we could we could put them in here too we could put them both in here both the 500 we could put reversions we could have done this a different way

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: now I'm just confused as to where the when I understood it, you can actually prove something wrong. The governor Yeah. Are not in the BAA now or they are?

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: They were not in the first BAA that the governor gave us. Yes. They were in the second BAA, the revised one that we got this week. So for the governor.

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: With all the bracelets. Right.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yes. That purple thing, you'll see those are the two. He added two new programs. He added two new programs in the revised budget of African American family. And I am proposing keeping one of them and not keeping the other. By not keeping the other, we have freed up that money to use for other things that we talked about. Are we all good on that? The accountability for

[John Kascenska (Member)]: it is an ongoing thing, but this

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: It was one, well it's still one time, and it's I know,

[John Kascenska (Member)]: but we did, they were

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: working on it, right? Yeah.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: The accounting report that funding that's in the BLA right now is for the current Chittenden County Accountability Docket, fact, billing those expenses this rate, and for the mistakes of some of these companies. This 500, that's ending at the end of next month. So this funding needs to be earmarked to expand that program, because it's been big sign of how that gets all out.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So if Routland decides they really want to participate, then there's some funding available. If eight counties decide they want to participate, there isn't enough funding. But that's for them to figure out. But have to be willing. They're not saying it's going to happen here. They're saying if you're willing, then you come to us and then here's

[John Kascenska (Member)]: the money.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Are we all clear as mud on this now?

[James Duffy (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Moving on, there have been discussion in committee earlier this week about potential funding for recovery centers in the committee's recommended VIA. So you'll see under potential uses of funding below, there's a point to get $210,000 potential preparation to recovery centers that has a corresponding source on the top half of the table, 210,000 from the substance Misuse Prevention Special Fund. And speaking with you, Madam Chair, the potential applicable sources for that.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: That's a match. And we kind of agreed to that yesterday, that was enough money in the Substance Misuse Fund to cover $210,000 And I know that Mike Nigro has some comments that he would like to make about this particular thing. So Mike, you're on.

[Michael Nigro (Member)]: Yeah. Well, for now, I was just going to ask the substance misuse prevention special fund, and I don't have this right in front of me because I'm working on my tablet. Did Nolan say that my memory is that was very close to the amount in there, but that the fund actually had a little bit more?

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: The fund had $228,000 in it, and we were going to take two ten dollars

[Michael Nigro (Member)]: Got it. Okay. And obviously, it's a very small amount. Was there any reason to leave the small amount in there still?

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: No, all it was was that was half of what the original request And so, whether we could take it all and use that, I don't know. We haven't talked about that.

[Michael Nigro (Member)]: Fair enough. Thank you.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Okay. Thank you for noticing the hand. It's harder to see your hand when we are sharing the screen, but it's good that you put it up because Tiff's watching. Okay. All right. And then the next one we know about too, right?

[James Duffy (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Yes. I believe the committee has discussed this a little bit. This is the

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: You said so much.

[James Duffy (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Said the OPREX proposal transfer $70,000 from the general fund to the pilot special fund. Should the committee decide to not go in that direction and retain that $70,000 in the general fund, that would be $70,000 available for use for additional BAA proposals.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: And so we agreed to that yesterday too of not making

[James Duffy (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Yes, was closed out yesterday. Yes, so you all have already agreed to decline to make that transfer in your committee recommendation.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Okay, and then the one time appropriations, some of these we pretty much already agreed to, and some of these are new that I threw in there so we could have a conversation. So I think we've done the Section eight, talked about that numerous times, And we've talked about the pension. And so do you want to go from there, James? Sure.

[James Duffy (Joint Fiscal Office)]: So I believe the committee heard directly from Tri Valley Transit regarding deficits they incurred in fiscal year twenty five and fiscal year twenty six.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So I'm going to pause you right there. It was Jim of Tri Valley Transit speaking for the Vermont public Transit Authority. So it's for the whole state. And I've just been we've all been calling it that because that's where he came from. It's for the whole state.

[James Duffy (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Right. And so this relates to a contract that Diva maintains with the Public Transportation Association of Vermont or Vermont Public Transportation Association to provide non emergency medical transportation for Medicaid enrollees. They have issues, longstanding issues with insufficient reimbursement costs associated with the non emergency medical transportation program. So this committee heard from PDTA requesting an $800,000 appropriation through the BIA to make up for FY 'twenty five and FY 'twenty '6 deficits from the NEMT program. So JFO has reached out to AHS, and we have confirmed that that $800,000 appropriation would break down further into $330,000 from general fund and $570,000 from federal funds totaling an $800,000 appropriation from global commitment.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So we haven't agreed yet, but we're showing you what it would be.

[James Duffy (Joint Fiscal Office)]: I know this is highlighted. We just heard from AHS in the few minutes before I came into the chair, they confirmed this.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So we can unhighlight Okay.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: So they're going to leverage federal money? Yes.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yes, quite a bit.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: So we have $900,000

[David Yacovone (Member)]: So $330

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: leverage is $570,000 I

[James Duffy (Joint Fiscal Office)]: think that'll yeah, I'll just make a correction. Federal funds component would be $470,000 not $500

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Ah, somebody's trying to imagine.

[James Duffy (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Total will be $800,000

[David Yacovone (Member)]: Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: Catch John. Especially on the farm. Oh, yes, go ahead.

[Martha “Marty” Feltus (Vice Chair)]: I just wanna clarify to the group that according to the person in my local area, who's part of this, he endorses that we do this, but he warns that they are in deficit for coming here as well. So this is an issue people are facing.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: They are consistently a deficit. This is another example of another theme of underfunding. Underfunding, right.

[Martha “Marty” Feltus (Vice Chair)]: Not getting the right reimbursement.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: This is non medical transport, this is not ridership. This is people taking you to your Medicaid appointment because you don't have a car or can't get there. They're not reimbursing for that.

[David Yacovone (Member)]: I never got an email in, but I

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: know the issue by now.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So it's not about people taking the bus to commute to work.

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: No, but they have had to reply to the number of people using it, so that has been another issue.

[Nolan Langweil (Joint Fiscal Office)]: For the record, I don't like this one. So when I spoke with Jamie, he also mentioned that part of the problem is with some practices closing, a lot of people have

[John Kascenska (Member)]: to drive farther to get to their appointments and that's been driving up the cost and it cost them more to take people farther.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Sure, so if they're closest in Middlebury and they have to go to Rutland, that's a lot farther, that's 70 miles around the Okay, that's what that is.

[James Duffy (Joint Fiscal Office)]: You all also heard from the Vermont Food Bank during BAA public testimony or public hearing?

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So I threw in a number. I threw in 250,000, and

[David Yacovone (Member)]: that's what I did.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: That's not a decision. That's just throwing it in there for us to discuss.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: We'll start that discussion

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: now or Or in a few minutes. I want to get through all this and then we might I don't know if people want to take a quick break and whether we have to do any other chatting before we all get back together to talk about it or not.

[James Duffy (Joint Fiscal Office)]: We've discussed the recovery center piece already. Bridges to Health was another BAA request that you all heard. This is support for their transition from UVM to Vermont Free and Peril Clinics.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: I think we kind of agreed to that one. Yep, agreed to that one.

[James Duffy (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Next is Vermont Cares. You all heard from them during public hearing about the requesting $400 or $45,000 rather. Think the additional $45,000 beyond their

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: Right, because

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: they've been level slices for,

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: Well, really is in part because of the cost of supplies has gone up significantly and then the closing of the teams, providers.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So I think we reached

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: their caseload. Right, and I think

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: we agreed to that one too. Continue, James.

[James Duffy (Joint Fiscal Office)]: And then finally, you all heard from folks requesting $30,000 for Meals on Wheels supplemental funding for Meals on Wheels as a VA request. I believe that was also discussed yesterday.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yes, and I agree to that one also. That's a statewide It goes to the Vermont Center for Independent Living, which does a statewide program for disabled. For the disabled 68 or something. Anyway, it's a very specific population. They're the only ones who oversee that for the whole state. So we agree to that. So where does that get us on the bottom line?

[James Duffy (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Brings you to a total of $3,000,000 for total uses, and that leaves about $360,000 on the bottom line, accounting just for these potential one time appropriations.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Right, and all of this is one time money, one time appropriations. We're not doing any base in this. So that's what we're looking at for that loan. So I want to have James talk about the two base possibilities. And then I think if people have other questions or concerns, and then we can maybe take a break and do some thinking about this.

[David Yacovone (Member)]: Are they in your email too, Jane?

[James Duffy (Joint Fiscal Office)]: They are, yes. You might have to expand. Sometimes if there's two attachments, they condense as an interline if you expand it. That's fine. Thank you. Okay. Mike,

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: do you have this other one in your you have both pages in your email? Okay.

[Michael Nigro (Member)]: Yes. Thank you.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Okay, great.

[James Duffy (Joint Fiscal Office)]: These are not one time considerations, but rather adjustments to Medicaid reimbursement rates that would be made through the BAA for Q4 that's why '26. But in making that change would also become base that's it would become F and I '27 base going into the next fiscal year. So that's the distinction between this table and the one that we just reviewed. Madam Chair, I believe you have had some discussion with JFO and perhaps other members of the committee about a gov rec that there was an item in the gov rec that proposed appropriating $14,000,000 $14,500,000 for nursing home emergency financial relief grants that's split between general funds and federal funds. It's subject to global commitment.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yes. Okay. So the two issues that were Medicaid related in the budget adjustment were the 2% for the Agencies on Aging and Triple, but that were inadvertently left out of the 2% increase that had been requested in past year's budget. The cost of that for one quarter, and there's a whole lot of reasons we can't do retroactive, there's laws, federal regulations that don't let you do things. So they're trying to follow the law so nobody gets hurt. So for the last quarter, everybody starts April, May, and June, so the AAAs would be $35,000 in gross money, but $14,510 in general fund money out of the FY26 budget. If we do a base thing, it consumes that we're going to be doing it in FY27. It's not a one time. And so, Nolan was able to annualize that for us, and so on an annualized basis for the AAAs, is that annualized general fund or annualized gross? About $49.04

[John Kascenska (Member)]: $49.04

[Nolan Langweil (Joint Fiscal Office)]: that is annualized, that's my mistake, annualized for us.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Okay, so I guess for both of these, can we find out what the general fund annualized part of that

[David Yacovone (Member)]: is? Yes.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: And same for the one above.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: So the one above that has

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: all those letters of percentages, that's that tier one thing. That's

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: how

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: I remember it. It was the payments to David, help me.

[David Yacovone (Member)]: Residential care facilities were part of the ERC and HAM Residential Care. There are three payment tiers, and one was excluded.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: One actually went down. Their rates went down, there was the tier one, tier two, and tier three based on what they offer. For some reason, tier one went down while the other two went up, and it was never the general assembly's intent to have somebody have money taken away from them, which is essentially what's happening. So we asked Nolan to see, again, that April start for the fourth quarter of FY26, what the cost would be. And the gross is the $267,888 and the general fund is $110,000 but that would be annualized for just over $1,000,000 in FY27. But what we don't know is what of that is general fund and what is that, so Bill will figure that.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: So, on the general fund portion annualized, for the for the ERC-one, it would $4.49, $449,004.50, and then the 140

[Nolan Langweil (Joint Fiscal Office)]: for the delay would

[John Kascenska (Member)]: be 59,000, so roughly 60,000, for a total of about 508,000 general funds. Thank

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: one

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: you. I

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: really think it would

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: be helpful for Rep. Yacovone to just explain, I mean, you know, I'm kind of new to the as well.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: You do. Would I explain where the money's coming from?

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: No. Sorry. Ms. Mary Jane.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: Why don't we get the whole thing and then you can

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: explain all the gene tests. Is that all right, David? Yeah. So the proposal is that there were nursing home grants for extraordinary financial relief of $14,500,000 of which 5,900,000.0 almost $6,000,000 is general fund in the FY 'twenty six budget. If we reduce that by $115,000 general fund and reduce the gross, so we'd be really we'd be taking the difference from the we'd be reducing the extraordinary financial relief grants, which is a round number, by whatever those numbers are total, 267,035 thousand. So 300,000, basically, by reducing the EFR grants by 300,000, that would be the funding source for doing these two things. Yes, please.

[David Yacovone (Member)]: Right, exactly. Yeah,

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: so that's what the thought is. Go ahead. Okay, so we're faking the money to do this from the nursing home's ERF grants and the change of that.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: That's just getting reduced by $300,000 or $70,000 general fund or whatever it is.

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: Oh yeah, right. Okay. And then you're applying it to the ERC-one, which is the tier one payment that did not go through. Right. And the other part is going to the AAA case management.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Now,

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: was explained to me and it took me a while to get understand this is that the last page of what Brady gave us applied to these designated and specialized

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: No, unrelated, that's payment

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: reform not related at all. This one that we got from Teresa was attached to her stuff. That was to be is that the same $1,071,000 So that's addressing the ERC? Yes.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Okay and Mike gets a question and we will let, and so does John. And then we will let Dave explain what all these things are. Okay.

[Michael Nigro (Member)]: I don't know if it makes more sense to let Dave go first. Maybe he'll answer my question as he's All

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: right. We'll do that. Thank you, Mike. And, John, did you have another question before?

[John Kascenska (Member)]: Question is I'm gonna ask it anyway. Here's a reduction of 300,000 is because blank. Not not to know, just ignore what's below it here. But reducing this total gross amount by $300,000 because the need does not add up to

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: that currently. And the nursing, the grants? Yes. Those are, that's just a grant program. If people need money, they can apply for it. It's an estimate. It's an estimate. And

[John Kascenska (Member)]: so, in past time, we haven't had people applying that's $300,000 less.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yeah, are there more people applying than we have money?

[John Kascenska (Member)]: We've talked

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: about this before. Yeah, I guess sometimes they have. So, Dave, why don't we have Dave explain the programs?

[David Yacovone (Member)]: Before I do, me, before I get to the underpinnings of policy driving all of this, I just wanted to leave you with a brief thought on the triple a's. Yep. On the previous slide, it looked like there was 350,000 to the good when everything was The way I look at it on the triple a's, from from July 1 until April Yeah. The last quarter Right. Is money they shouldn't get, they didn't get Right. Orally, they should get it, feels like a one time expense to me. So, when I look at one time sources of funds, I'm comfortable making that pitch. For that one time. Because it is one time and then they go on in the base.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: I think we there was a problem with doing that. Okay, then I think there was a legal federal problem with doing that.

[David Yacovone (Member)]: Okay, then I'm gonna answer the question the best I can.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: And then I'll confirm if what I just told you

[David Yacovone (Member)]: is true I'll or stay on my lane.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Go for it, baby.

[David Yacovone (Member)]: The belief is under the whole context of the Choices for Care, which was part of the ACT 160 Shift the Balance initiative in the 1990s, when Choices for Care was formed in the early 2000s, by then Commissioner Patrick Flood and Governor Dean, they went to Washington and got permission. It combined nursing home expenses and home and community based expenses, pretty much into one budget, if you will. And the thinking was, that providers should have a choice, where they want to receive help when they become disabled, based on a series of activities of daily living, their inability to do those things, many of us sometimes take for granted. The premise also was that the more we could help people stay in their homes, it's a lower cost, at least to Medicaid, it's a lower cost, so we wanted to avoid, wherever we could, nursing home expenditures, which have been done significantly. When this initiative was started, there were roughly 50 nursing homes. Today, I think the number is 33. A lot of bed days that aren't paid for anymore, but are in the community. Given that and the policy desire to help people get services at home, they're entitled to both now, if they're clinically eligible, right, if they're sick enough. The system is fragile, we all know that, they all are. If people can't get the transportation for their non medical appointment and they're in a wheelchair, things start to unravel, right, it's all connected, if they don't get their sufficient meals on wheels, they're at risk if they can't get their primary care, all feeds into driving people higher up the continuum of care, the nursing home, or the hospital. ERCs, the residential care homes, have been known for years to be the orphans of the system, paid a very small amount of money. Initially, this is not my quote, but I'm gonna quote one of the members in the policy committee. He said, we're paying them what you would have to pay to have your dog boarded, dollars 47 a day in this tier one residential care home, no wonder so many have closed over the years, and many, many have, though it stabilized this year in the 90s, according to the industry. So, if the lowest tier, the tier one isn't paid sufficiently, the testimony I took when I did the research on this from the folks in the Alzheimer's, was that many of the Alzheimer's folks who are lower level, Alzheimer's, very painful when you have no matter where you're at in the Alzheimer's jersey. But a lot of those folks who need structured supervision, it's very hard now for the residential care facilities to take them, because of the reimbursement. People, the industry, looking for the tier two and the tier three, if they can, of which there are many, there are plenty there too. But what happens is, it's not yet a cause burden to the systems, but it's a very painful struggle to the families, who have to continue the challenge of caring for a loved one at home. They can't get them anywhere. They deteriorate further, and then in time, they become a tier two or tier three, or all the way into the nursing home. So the system relies on enough investments at the lower end to present higher. Does that

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: make any sense? So it's less expensive at tier one. It's the most expensive is the nursing homes, and the more people we can keep at the less expensive places, the less our healthcare costs go up. Did it very quickly. That's because I heard you. You did a great job explaining. Does that kind of make sense to people of how that works? So this lowest tier, least expensive got cut, essentially. And so that's what this proposal is about. And then the question was, where do we get the money from? Especially where a federal match. And so, did a little research and found out that, in fact, we can exchange one kind of federal match for another kind of federal match and maybe accomplish something that we would like to accomplish. What we also have to remember in this, and I do see Mike's hand up, is that this is based, so this is making a commitment for FY '27, which is why I wanted to get from Nolan what the general fund base costs were for 'twenty seven. So that all needs to go into our thinking. I'm going to get Mike, and then I'll get you Wayne. Mike?

[Michael Nigro (Member)]: Thank you. Just wanted to confirm the 2% increase for tier one. Is that based off of what their current lowered rate is? So basically, I don't know how much it lowered. Did it lower by 2% and now we're going to get it back to where it was? Or was this based off the previous level?

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Nolan is going to answer that question.

[Nolan Langweil (Joint Fiscal Office)]: For the record, again, Nolan and Will joined Facebook.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: So a path forward to the product process last year,

[Nolan Langweil (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Diva had done a rate study, and they looked at what it would look like to rebase. And so what was done was, based on that study, it lowered, it even determined that ERC-one would be overpaid. And so they, in the process of getting rates up,

[John Kascenska (Member)]: in other words, offset some of that crap down,

[Nolan Langweil (Joint Fiscal Office)]: lowering the rates for the ERC-one to what their report felt was the right rate, so that's why they reduced it. Now I'm not going say we're

[John Kascenska (Member)]: looking to right rate, it's wrong or that way again, I'm

[Nolan Langweil (Joint Fiscal Office)]: just saying that's what they're studying currently. So this is the amount of money to bring them back to where they were prior to the rate increase. So it's holding them harmless to the rate decrease based on the rates there.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So it basically level funds them?

[Nolan Langweil (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Bringing them back to where they were, something like 3%,

[John Kascenska (Member)]: guessing where they were. Right.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Thank you. Does that make sense, Mike? Are you good on that? Yes, thank you. Perfect.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: Okay. And that's just for that period of time from April 1 to the end Right. Of fiscal

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So the part under the blue section there is just for the last quarter of FY26. And then over on the right side is what the total gross amount is for FY27. And then Nolan said that general fund would be about $449,000 for the ERC-one and about $59,000 for the AAAs for a full year of FY27.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: So keeping them whole, when we get into the budget, don't want to have to take it away from the EFR grants or is

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: I don't know what the EFR grants look like for FY '27.

[David Yacovone (Member)]: I think

[John Kascenska (Member)]: we would just have it in base. Right. Assuming that we're going to keep

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: that That's right. Taken That's Okay. Any questions on all of that? Okay. So I think what I'd like to do is have

[David Yacovone (Member)]: sorry.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Does anybody have anything else they want to say about any of these? Before we go, I think we should take a break and we want to just chat about it and think about it. And these guys are around, AJFO, if we have questions. And then we can come back maybe at 03:00 and talk about this. Is that enough time for people? But does anybody have anything they want to say before we go? Mike, I'm wondering if you have anything you want to say before we go take a little break.

[Michael Nigro (Member)]: I'm happy to hit on the one point that I have been thinking about, which is on the recovery center, which the construct that we were just looking at funded half of that recovery center request. So, I think on the spreadsheet we were just looking at, it was $210,000 request was for 420,000. And, and this is a tough one for me, because, you know, I think, under normal circumstances, I would say, boy, we thought that 800,000 was the right amount for the year. That's what we felt like we could could give the recovery centers. And so I would typically kind of be a little hesitant just to say we should be providing more. But because of the way things were distributed, not as expected to the recovery centers, know, particularly, you know, there are five other recovery centers, of course, that were impacted, but in Bennington, which was most impacted, they are looking at a significant reduction in the budget that they went into the year simply believing they were receiving. So I have to admit, this is one that it's an area of extreme importance to my community. And, you know, I have to admit, I would love to see us fully meet this request, which again, primarily just because I want to feel like I've lived up to the commitment that we felt like we were making when we approved the budget.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Thank you, Mike. Don't go away. Lynn?

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: We got landlords on the appropriation homeless, the one that is part of the hot money, 1.32. And we also got the language from the two ten, two ten from the recovery center.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: You looking, what are you looking at?

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: I'm looking at the language we got

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: from the that Grady gave us?

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: Yeah it's a list of all the different

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: oh the hop money the hop money and yeah

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: you didn't put that as language it lists the individual Yes.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Oh, with the two ten, you mean. We got two things. We got the hot money and the two ten, and we had the specific dollar amounts for each of them based on two ten. So we'd include that in the language? That would

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: be included in the language.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: And if we change the amount, which is what Mike, we would have to change the language to address And so, Mike, did you have a proposal you wanted us to consider? You

[Nolan Langweil (Joint Fiscal Office)]: I guess.

[James Duffy (Joint Fiscal Office)]: No,

[Michael Nigro (Member)]: guess the two things I would say is one, it's part of the reason I asked about anything remaining in that substance abuse prevention special fund is even if it's a small amount right now, we are kind of getting down to the small amounts on the budget adjustments. So, I thought if there was anything else that could

[John Kascenska (Member)]: come from that, it might be worth considering.

[Michael Nigro (Member)]: And besides that, I know that if we stuck with the current construct for our funding sources, there is some on the bottom line, as well. So, I guess, you know, for me, I would say use as much as possible out of the special substance abuse prevention special fund

[John Kascenska (Member)]: and make the rest up out of general fund.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Okay. All right. So that is something to consider from Mike. Thank you. Tom?

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: And I'm going to speak in favor of trying to find money to increase the BAA appropriation to the food bank. The program that they've built only funded it to a level of $500,000 in the big bill last year, and it's been very successful. And they can use this money pretty much right away.

[Chris Rupe (Joint Fiscal Office)]: But I'd just like to

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: consider it. But it's second, so

[James Duffy (Joint Fiscal Office)]: I'll just throw that off

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: the later conversation. But the other fundamental question that I

[John Kascenska (Member)]: have

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: is, are we stipulating in our work that the money that was proposed by the Scott administration to go towards property tax relief in the big bill. So I believe the number was 75 plus 30.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: In FY twenty seven, yeah.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: Yes. So that money's here now, it's available here now. Are we stipulating that we're not using any of that money for any one time payments to organizations and to needs that have been displayed during it's not like we went crazy here with what's on this list even just I mean no matter what the numbers are. So I'm just curious is that a decision that we've all made or that someone has made that we're going to move that forward and not

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: tap into that? I would like to not tap into that and hunt that until FY 'twenty seven, because there's a lot we don't know. So that was the plan, to not it was never my intent to use that money. It's also not my intent to necessarily put it in and say, absolutely, it's for education front, because that's the 74.9 or whatever. We talked to Grady about it this morning. And he's going to change that language that can be used for ed funding or other things. But the rest of it, at this point, we're not touching. It still feels pretty early in the game of whatever's happening in Washington.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: Because there's instant needs here that are not actually new programs. It would just be enhancing programs that we already I'll leave it there for now.

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: Okay. All

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: right, one more question and then we'll take At it right

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: the bottom of the sources there it says, Do not transfer General Fund to Pilot Special Fund, thousand, $1,870,000 in General Fund. It says, well, that Governor rec proposal defined a transfer of you. That was in the Governor's recommendation and we are not going to do it. That would I gather? Right. Keep that in

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: general fund. It's not a source. A source for us to use and that gets us that 3.41 is what gets us to the pension that we have to do.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: So

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: I would like us to break I'm aware that the end of the day is coming, and we need to get to a straw vote. And I would like to not keep people here really late, but why don't we break for twenty minutes? Be back here at three, and then we can try to finalize all these decisions. That will give our joint fiscal what they need for language. We'll probably have to break again so they can get us whatever language they need or any other things for that.