Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Hey, this is the House Appropriations Committee. It is still Friday, 01/23/2026. It's about 03:15, and we are waiting to hear on the Section eight language. Let's counsel some of their way over, but in the meantime, if you want to pick up the gray out sheet that we talked about yesterday, there's a few more things that we just need to check off. I'm looking at the second page. Think did we agree on the daily grants? I'm at the top. The OEO were changing. They yes. They said yes on '61, and we've agreed on 59 with the new numbers. So those two we can close out. 61 we can close out. And then when we get down to the line 76 to 84, This is where the purple things were that the governor proposed in the new. And you'll see that I think we've now agreed to keep the accountability courts, but we are not going to do the Green Vermont program. Okay? And then pension is in there as well. So that's that section. The next section in transfers, We have not talked about the criminal history records check fund. Anyway, we were thinking about whether we should leave that under fund, in deficit, and we've agreed to not leave it in deficit. However, I've asked Grady's draft language about this to have them come back with a plan of how they're going to fix this so they're not always in deficit for how to He's working on that, so you won't be surprised when you see that language I've asked. And then we already agreed to not do the pilot special fund. That was the $67,000 whatever, general fund. I think that's everything on that back page.

[Lynn (Joint Fiscal Office staff, last name unknown)]: The only thing that I might check is three zero one Global Predominantly.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: That's right, that's the very last thing and that will be based on all the other things we've done and we've done some more stuff today and they'll plug the number for us. Yes, that got closed out yesterday. Question? Yes, Lynn. Okay, so you want to take the criminal history records check fund and not keep it in deficit, want We're going to pay

[Lynn (Joint Fiscal Office staff, last name unknown)]: it.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: We're to pay it. Leaving So it as is? As is. If we wanted to keep it in deficit, would have snagged that $1,060,000 and used it for something else. But we're letting them, we're going to back We want a plan. We don't want to keep doing this. And then the pilot, we just did the pilot special ton stuff that we've done. So this was that we had agreed yesterday, this was the AOT not having to pay back the general fund of 6,007 thousand dollars yes we're closing that out but the other pilots so if we go to are we doing all the other stuff on the pilots that you've recommended that does he have a yes there's one more there's one more thing that's on Adam's spreadsheet when he came in. Yes. So Adam's spreadsheet has all the details of global commitment. Emily, do we have to go look at all of those things? It definitely disappears. Did we have to look at every one of those global commitment things on here, or did we because if we pass them we're okay?

[Emily (fiscal/committee staff, last name unknown)]: The individual degree methods?

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yeah, we need to just look at that again? Do you need something from us on that?

[Emily (fiscal/committee staff, last name unknown)]: Beautiful. Thing that's made for that effect line, wait seven fifty three or a lot.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Right, so if we checked Check the same. I guess we did. If we checked off the big ones, then all the little things are in there, and I think we've checked off all of these things.

[Emily (fiscal/committee staff, last name unknown)]: We're still looking at the that one to be inspected, we've already checked off this. The which? I would say, my parents get

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: We're looking at Gretchen's which shows

[Emily (fiscal/committee staff, last name unknown)]: We still have stack of pi commands for expression.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Okay, yeah, so there's one of the things that was on here, but on the last page, the original one. Okay, so on page eight of Adam's spreadsheet, on the very back page, we closed out the one at the top. We agreed that the AOT did not need to pay back the 'sixty seven-seven 61. But we did not talk about, and sorry, it's my fault, the one below it, the pilot special fund, whether AOT from the T fund needs to pay back, and that's 292,000. They're still in deficit. When Chris presented the pilot money this morning, he assumed that we were not making the T fund pay his back, and they were still fine. So I'd just assume not make them pay it back. Same argument. It's $2.92. So $2.92. So we would not do that transaction. Okay. And I think that was everything on the list. Is there anything else? Anybody? We just did it and I mentioned that we're grading you're doing language to have a plan okay so is there anything else that any of you guys at JFO think we're missing I'm not hearing it. If you want to go do whatever you need to do, I mean, stay here. Hopefully people are doing whatever they need to do. And Cameron is now here to talk about Section eight, so we're going to switch that up. Cameron, thanks for waiting as we finish all these pieces up. Come take a seat at the table. Let's see. And Autumn is handing out a copy for those who want it. Thank you. Know. Thanks.

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Adam Chair, would you like me to bring it up on the screen or are you okay with the handout?

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Well, there may be people who want to see it. Mike Nigro, did you post this already? It's posted, Mike, so you should be able to find it on our web. You got it. Okay, good. All right. So if you don't mind putting it up on the screen, that would be great, because then our viewing audience likes to see where

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: we are sometimes. I will simply need the Zoom link. My apologies. Give me just a minute. It gives us

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: a second to take a look at it. So you did some other language for us, too.

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Yes, ma'am. So as I wait for my computer to cooperate, for the record, Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel, I cover housing for you all, the legislative branch. So this is in my portfolio. What you have is some orphan language that I drafted up. So this is draft 2.1. As you will see, there's no bill number or anything like that. And there's no section numbers as well because this will be inserted into your Budget Adjustment Act by your JFO team. But there are two sections to the bill. You will see the first is amending a section that you all passed last year on budget. This was $50,000,000 appropriated to the agency of administration to be transferred to the emergency board pursuant to 32 BSA 133 while the general assembly is not in session. And you're adding some language here to specify that the general assembly may designate these funds for other purposes and notwithstanding any provision of law to the contrary, the funds can carry forward and remain available. So my understanding is if you have any specific questions that may be better answered by JFO, but you've designated these funds to the agency of administration for this purpose. They're now back in session. We're amending that to say we can

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Now the general assembly can take over.

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Yes, ma'am. You can repurpose these designated funds as you need to or as you deem appropriate.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Emily, do you want to say anything more about that? I don't think so. What we understand is the intent is to use that $50,000,000 that's already appropriated is to designate some of that to be used for section eight housing funds. This just a split into the next section which is all of that money appropriated $5,000,000 her $5,000,000 goes with purpose and then we just caught that. That appropriation specifically is would be subject to the carry forward language that's typically in a budget that allows the secretary of administration to determine what gets reverted at the end of the fiscal year and it's just that it carries forward until we explicitly decide to go there. Okay Great. Thank you.

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Okay. I am now being able to share my screen. There we go. So for those online, it was the first section on lines one through eight that we were just discussing there. So now I'm going to move to the second section, which says, of the amounts appropriated in that section, as we were just referencing to, dollars 5,000,000 shall be utilized by the agency of administration in fiscal year 'twenty six for the purpose of assisting a housing authority to avoid termination of US Department of Housing and Urban Development Section eight Housing Choice Vouchers that would otherwise be lost as a result of reductions in federal funding. My understanding is the committee has some context here as to what the issue is. So I'm happy to try to answer any questions. Some of them may be best directed at the housing authorities themselves. But that's what the purpose of these $5,000,000 are for. You have in the subsection B here, funding may be made available to a housing authority for one of the following purposes. One, to maintain a current housing assistance payment in use or to prevent the retirement of a housing assistant payment currently in use by the housing authority. So this is not to bring on new families or not to bring on new vouchers. This would be to maintain a current voucher that's in use to prevent the retirement of a voucher that's in use because of reductions in federal funding. Or now we're moving to the top of page two with prior approval from HUD to provide funding to a housing authority in order to prevent the termination of assistance to current House of Choice Voucher participants. So as I see it is you're maintaining someone who currently has a voucher in play, or if they no longer need the voucher, instead of retiring it, you're able to keep it in use. Or under the two, if the funding dries up and a voucher has to be terminated, you can use these monies with HUD approval to prevent the termination of that voucher that's in use. And then under C here, you're requiring that any housing authority so keep in mind, you have the state housing authority, and then you have multiple municipal housing authorities to request the funds. You're requiring that the commissioners of any housing authority have to vote to do so. And then under D, you have the agency of administration must establish procedures to validate that such expenditures conform with applicable HUD requirements and ensure access to the funds is made available to all housing authorities across the state. There was a concern I put this in because, you know, you don't want one housing authority just asking immediately and taking all of the money. You want there to be access to all housing authorities across the state to be able to access some of these dollars. Subdivision E is simply referencing housing authority, the same definition as they're defined, to make sure that we're including the locals and state. And then a carry forward here, unexpended appropriations carry forward subsequent fiscal year remain available. So that's the language that you have. And happy to jump into any questions if there are any, or discuss some of the legal issues if you have any questions.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So we wanted to be sure that we weren't going to harm the housing authorities by doing this. And we wanted to be sure that the agency administration could check on that so that wasn't just because we could mess things up in our language, but then they also have the ability to check on that. And I know that the housing authorities have been the closest, particularly in Vermont, state housing authority has been very involved in this, and so they've seen law and they're comfortable with the language. Have the authorities have an attorney who looked at this, and I think he probably will post the attorney letter, but the attorney basically said, this sounds good to me in legalized language. Right, that's sort of what he said.

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: So just to be fair, it is not a 100% guarantee that these funds will be available for this purpose. There is some federal HUD guidance that may call into question the use of the funds in this purpose. But what you have is you have the language right there in D1. Before monies can be expended, agency of administration has to validate that any expenditure will comply. So I think you have the protection in that agency of administration will validate this. But there is still a question of whether it will

[Emily (fiscal/committee staff, last name unknown)]: be able to be used ultimately at the end of the day.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: And if it turns out that it absolutely cannot be used, then we will revert it. Right, right, we learn about reversions, we'll revert it and then reappropriate it as needed. That's the cleanliness. But if we don't do it, then we are most certainly going to lose staffers and terminate folks. So, feel good about the protections we have. We also may learn more as we know the government is now passing budget things maybe, it looks like. Maybe we'll know by more by next week. When it's in the Senate, they may learn more, and then there may be changes based on what we know as opposed to the Senate or Both, both. A what? Both Senates. Yes, that's true. Both Senates. Local and nationals. Federal. So, everybody good with this? We understand this?

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Yep, it's good.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Okay. Thank you for jumping in. We're one of many people who help us out and have to learn all this stuff and try to do these good things. Really appreciate it.

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: It's been my pleasure. And the timing worked out perfect. I left House General about ten minutes ago. It Great. Was

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Thank you. All right. Thank you so much, Karen.

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Yes, ma'am. Have a wonderful weekend.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: You too. Great, so I'm going look at Dave Orr. So we're going to be basically waiting for language and file numbers or something, Emily? Yeah, so we should just go offline to this point and wait for whatever we can get from you guys. And then what we'll do is we'll take a straw poll, once we have really pretty much probably the language and maybe there's some other spreadsheet, but I'll talk to these guys. And we'll do a straw poll vote, because I think we've now made all the decisions we're supposed to make, unless they say, oops, we forgot one. And then we'll take a straw poll, and then

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: we'll

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: be done until