Meetings
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[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Good afternoon. This is the House Appropriations Committee. It's still Friday, 01/23/2026. It's 03:00. And we have had a moment to digest and think about the numbers and had some conversations. And so now we're back to try to get to some final agreement on where we want to go with these things. So do you have some things you want to talk about? You guys have anything you wanted to offer No, or
[Martha Feltus (Vice Chair)]: a couple of us just looked to make sure that we had checked off everything, especially those new items that were brought up that you discussed earlier this morning in terms of the accountability courts, instance, in the Vermont Reads and making the decisions. And I think she's been very clever frankly and figuring out some money.
[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: With it very much the help of JFO. I
[Martha Feltus (Vice Chair)]: know, I know, especially this rearrangement of the monies regarding the nursing homes and the TRC1 and the AAAs, I think using the same amount of money but shuffling it around a little bit makes sense and I appreciate doing that without pulling in more money because I do think we need to be very careful, very conservative on this BAA because we don't know what's coming on the whole budget and we need to save as much as we can.
[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Great, okay. Thank you. Thank you for that. The other thing that, by the way, when we looked at sources of funds at one point, just because I thought of it when you said that, at one point yesterday, we talked about the criminal records check filing, leaving it at deficit per million. And we opted not to do that because we were able to find other sources. It's better to not leave it deficit if we don't have to. So it's So we're going to
[Martha Feltus (Vice Chair)]: pay it?
[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Well, we can decide. Mean, that would be If we don't, that's another million dollars. At this point, I think it's probably more fiscally responsible to do that. I agree with that.
[Martha Feltus (Vice Chair)]: I would rather do that.
[Eileen Dickinson (Member)]: One concern, because I was looking through my old notes, is the fact that I'm not sure what loophole or what mechanism we're using to go and have state money pay for Section eight because it does appear to be something that was the feds don't want us to go and subsidize this for whatever reason.
[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: And I'm just concerned about that. Not that it's not a
[Eileen Dickinson (Member)]: good idea to do it, but I'm just looking at the kinds of things that we are facing from the federal government. And I don't want to have us prompt something that's going to come back
[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: on If
[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: you don't mind holding that thought, we have Cameron coming in probably at 03:30. He'll come in a little earlier if we finish this part up. And talk to us about the language for Section eight. Because we all want to be careful. We don't want to mess things up. So more to come on that. All right. So Okay? We also talked about a couple of things on our end and because there was money on the bottom line from what we were doing, we liked the idea that Michael Nigro proposed, which was to use the $18,000,000 sorry, dollars 18,000, the remaining $18,000 from the recovery center of the misuse funds, and then use 192 of the $3.60 to fully fund them where they were because that was what we had promised them. So that was where we went on that. We thought we would like to do that. The original amount was from Right. So originally they asked for $1,600,000 They were given $800,000 and then they were shorted 420,000 we put in Individually. The total was a short of $4.20 over what they were told they thought they were going to receive from Department of Health, from the fund. And then remember that's we had them come in and they had done it as if the methodology was not the same and all of these
[Martha Feltus (Vice Chair)]: But they weren't shorted. They got the 800,000. As a group, they As a group, yes. But
[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Individuals were absolutely shorted, some had more than they had requested or needed. So anyway, the thought was to make those other ones whole, and that's what getting to the full $4.20 makes And them so the thought would be to use that. And Trevor, did you have your hand up?
[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: Yeah, I did. I just wanted to offer my support for this increase, for bringing that funding up to the levels that we wanted to use. Based on my experience with my portfolio of credit and trust, particularly DOC, recovery centers, Turning Point, have been heavily involved the last couple of years in the correctional facilities, and we've expanded that from the current levels. So they started with one particular facility, it's not expanded. It's extremely successful, And to the extent that we can make sure that the expanded organizations are fully funded, I think it's really important. I fully support it. What will that do to us in '27?
[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Nothing. I I mean, know
[Martha Feltus (Vice Chair)]: I did told them actually, but I'm wondering about perception about what they might expect in '27.
[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Every year it's
[Martha Feltus (Vice Chair)]: Well, don't know, I mean, I've seen a little bit about that, the needs, and the needs will always exceed the lower it gets them. But I think
[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: that this was not their mistake.
[Martha Feltus (Vice Chair)]: This was And state government's I guess I agree with Mike that this is, and with Trevor, that we should make good on this as best we can. And fortunately, between substance use prevention money and what is left on the bottom line, we can do that. Because we really can't afford to lose individual members of that constellation. It's a reasonable thought.
[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: Not with all of it. I think there might be still a little bit on the bottom line, right?
[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Very still a bit on the bottom line.
[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: Might consider the food bank.
[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yeah, I think so. In fact, we talked about the food bank. What if we added 150 to the food bank and made it 400 and it's still still a little bit less than the bottom line after that
[Martha Feltus (Vice Chair)]: we aren't aren't we're leaving 18000 And you know who's gonna scoop it up. Status.
[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Have bank So with that, we're gonna
[Eileen Dickinson (Member)]: give 150 from the bottom line of the substance use, the cannabis money, the excess tax money to Food Bank. That makes it
[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: That makes it 400. And then the recovery centers will fully fund up to the four fully fund the $4.20.
[Eileen Dickinson (Member)]: 10 plus 18. 18 plus 192. And that comes from?
[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: The 18 comes from the rest
[Eileen Dickinson (Member)]: of the substance use of
[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: the 192 comes from the bottom line. So we would end up with $18,000 left on the bottom line so we didn't spend every penny. Okay,
[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: we good? Well we could use that for copying
[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Does JMO have what they need? Can Brady go write language and do stuff about all this?
[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: Four twenty five dollars total
[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: per company centres, 200 using the entire balance of
[Martha Feltus (Vice Chair)]: $2.28 plus 192 and
[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: then add 150 to the food bank. Okay, so we
[Martha Feltus (Vice Chair)]: can tell Grady the language. So if
[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: we can get Cameron in here now and then you all can do what you need to do. Bennington, Brady has any other language he wants to oh did we talk about I think we agreed on that.
[Martha Feltus (Vice Chair)]: I just wanted to make sure
[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: because we need language for that. The agencies on aging and I think it sounds like we agreed on that too.
[Martha Feltus (Vice Chair)]: Yes, think I agree on Yeah,
[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: so we agreed on that as well. So I think you guys have your marching orders on a bunch of stuff now. And we'll get Cameron to come in. Is there anybody else? I think that's it except for whatever Brady's language is for this. Okay. Did you hear from Cameron?
[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: I have spoken to three surgeons. I felt fine. I haven't heard from the piano.
[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Okay, so if we can promise to sit
[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: in
[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: our seats, let's go