Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Betsy Weiss (Interim Executive Director, Vermont Legal Aid)]: Good afternoon.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Good afternoon. This is the House Appropriations Committee. It is Monday, 02/02/2026. It is nearly 03:30PM, and we are delighted to have with us Vermont Legal Aid, which also includes the Office of the Health Care Advocates. So we have a few folks here, and welcome. Have you presented in our committee before? I have So I know Fisher's been here before, but why don't we go around and introduce ourselves? Then you can introduce yourselves and start with your presentation.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Thank you. Great.

[David Yacovone (Member)]: Good afternoon. I'm David Yacovone from Morristown. I represent the Lamoille Washington District. Welcome.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: Good afternoon, John Kascenska from Burke. I represent Towns, Essex, Colorado District. I'm Mike Nigro, represent Bennington and Powell. Thomas Stevens from Waterbury representing the Washington Chittenden.

[Leah Morinka (Attorney, Medicare Advocacy Project, Vermont Legal Aid)]: Marty Feltus from 11 representing five towns in

[Betsy Weiss (Interim Executive Director, Vermont Legal Aid)]: the community. Robin Scheu from Middlebury.

[Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member)]: It's only from Burlington.

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: Trevor Squirrell, Hunter Hill and Charico.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: Wayne Laroche, Franklin, Berkshire, Huggie, Richter.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Is Mike on the screen share? Okay. So Mike from Putney And Dumberton, and then Lynn Dickinson who's from St. Auguste Town for the rest of the committee.

[Betsy Weiss (Interim Executive Director, Vermont Legal Aid)]: I'm Betsy Weiss. I am Interim Executive Director of Vermont Legal Aid. I'm Kylie Kuiper. I'm the State Long Term Care Ombudsman at Vermont Legal Aid.

[Mike Fisher (Office of the Health Care Advocate, Vermont Legal Aid)]: And I'm Mike Fisher, the health care advocate.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Welcome to all of you. Now we have lots of pieces of paper, so you can orient us and tell us what you want us to know.

[Betsy Weiss (Interim Executive Director, Vermont Legal Aid)]: Very good. So we decided I would start. So, I just wanted to talk a little bit about Vermont Legal Aid as a whole. Of course, the healthcare advocate and the state long term care ombudsman are offices within Vermont Legal As a whole organization and along with our sister organization, Legal Services Vermont, we provide the core of the state's free civil legal assistance efforts, and we have served in that role for almost sixty years. I'm here today to speak to our budget request for state fiscal year 2027 and to the proposed elimination of the appropriation that funds the Medicare advocacy project known as MAP.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: And that was the Department of Health? DEVA. Okay, they were in last week and told us that, so it's now we're going hear the other side of it. So, okay, thank you.

[Leah Morinka (Attorney, Medicare Advocacy Project, Vermont Legal Aid)]: The MAP

[Betsy Weiss (Interim Executive Director, Vermont Legal Aid)]: program has been at Vermont Legal Aid since it was established by statute in 1989. Since then, Vermont Legal Aid has been awarded long term contracts by EBA to operate the program. The purpose of MAP is to ensure that dual eligible individuals, those are folks that are on both Medicare and Medicaid, receive the Medicare coverage to which they are entitled. When MAP finds a provider who is billing Medicaid for service when instead it should be rightfully billed to Medicare, MAP works to recover those health care costs to the state. With the massive federal cuts to Medicaid in H. R. One, otherwise known as the Big Beautiful Bill, securing federal Medicare dollars for Vermonters critical healthcare need is now more important than ever. And I would like to now tell you about some of the accomplishments Vermont Legal Aid has had in years that it has been met a contract. Since 2000, recovery

[Leah Morinka (Attorney, Medicare Advocacy Project, Vermont Legal Aid)]: for

[Betsy Weiss (Interim Executive Director, Vermont Legal Aid)]: the state has exceeded what BLA has received from the state for this work by roughly $3,400,000 A couple of the other significant accomplishments for was the success of a class action lawsuit MAP helped to win with the Center for Medicare Advocacy in Connecticut. The named plaintiff Glenda Jimmle was a resident of Lincoln, Vermont. In a 2013 settlement, Medicare agreed that it would cover maintenance, nursing, and therapies for people with conditions that would not improve, people with conditions such as ALS or Parkinson's or paraplegia. The settlement in this lawsuit expanded Medicare coverage for millions of people across the country. The lawsuit's titled Jimo v. Sibelius. MAP appeals have been critical in getting Vermonters access to better health care in facilities and critical home health care paid for by Medicare. Over the years that BLA has done this work, there has been a large shift to Medicare billing for home health care, resulting in a reduction of Medicaid billing from home health of $2,000,000 from ten years ago. Home health care avoids expensive longer stays or even readmission to skilled nursing facilities. And just to say a little bit more about that, that occurred, we believe, over time that Matt was finding again and again that home health care was billing Medicaid when they should have been billing Medicare. Over the years, through those cases and through that education, that billing shifted. So I would argue that that shows that there's been cost avoidance by the operations of this program. We were therefore very surprised when we learned last week that the governor's budget proposes to eliminate MAP, especially because we were awarded a new five year contract in November after a competitive bid. In November? In November, yep, '25. We just, the new contract term began January 1.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: How did you find out that your contract was getting

[Betsy Weiss (Interim Executive Director, Vermont Legal Aid)]: canceled? We were alerted last week. I guess, Mike, maybe you can take that.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: I didn't. Did you hear it here?

[Mike Fisher (Office of the Health Care Advocate, Vermont Legal Aid)]: We've heard it here. Yes.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So they didn't tell you? No.

[Betsy Weiss (Interim Executive Director, Vermont Legal Aid)]: Well, while it is true that the contract price has exceeded recovery in recent years, there are multiple reasons for this. At the onset of COVID, we were directed by DIVA to cease recovery efforts for several months. Recovery from skilled nursing facilities remained difficult with the ongoing disruption of COVID in the years following the pandemic. The Genesis bankruptcy of the nine nursing homes that they ran in the state affected nine facilities, resulted in mass freezing over $200,000 in potential claims. We sought advice about whether there was anything we could do about that from the attorney general's office, and we were told there is nothing we can do. Medicare Part C plans added a whole additional layer to billing appeals. The first appeal was to the Part C plan. The second was to Medicare. Both appeal processes had multiple levels, making it nearly impossible to successfully appeal wrongly denied claims. And as you know, they are no longer Part C plans.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Part C is Medicare Advantage for people who don't know what Part C is, right? Yeah.

[Betsy Weiss (Interim Executive Director, Vermont Legal Aid)]: Which brings me to what Matt is working on right now with Veeva to improve recovery. In our bid last fall, we acknowledged the challenging landscape of declining Medicare reimbursements and proposed solutions. These strategies are currently being implemented, such as meeting with DIVA staff to discuss ways to improve data collection and provider education, holding a training just last month for DIVA's provider relations staff to train on Medicare coverage standards. Plans for multiple training sessions with healthcare providers on the importance of proper Medicare documentation requirements for successful appeals. It's harder to bill Medicare than it is to bill Medicaid. So providers need education and training or help to properly bill. Why is it harder? Leah, who works in the program, Leah Burdick, attorney format and our ELP, I there are multiple, I know there are multiple layers, redeterminations, multiple layers, but So my name is

[Leah Morinka (Attorney, Medicare Advocacy Project, Vermont Legal Aid)]: Leah Morinka, I'm attorney Medicare at this project and duties appeals. The levels of appeal for Medicare for these types of claims are like, their documentation requirements are very nuanced in particular. There have to be certifications, have to be doctor's orders, a person has to be considered confined to the home, they have to be in skilled care. All of those things have to be documented and in order to win an appeal to get coverage, all of it has to be very clear in the medical department. So, sometimes when you're attempting to provide evidence to a judge, even after you get through all the first levels of appeal, the judge is looking at what is in the medical record, what can they use to determine the coverage can be worth. If providers are not giving us the evidence we need because they don't understand Medicare coverage requirements, we cannot win cases.

[Betsy Weiss (Interim Executive Director, Vermont Legal Aid)]: And we have plans for quarterly meetings with DIVA to review data quality and progress. And now between cases opened in 2025 and last month, MAP is currently pursuing over 1,100,000.0 in Medicaid recruitment. Finally, we do not believe the state has complied with the statutory criteria for NVMAP. The statute requires two criteria be met before the Commissioner of DIVA is permitted to end the contract for this work. Those criteria are: the amount of the state's share of recoveries during the preceding year did not exceed payments and the commissioner determines, based upon information from the contractor, Us, providers, Area Agencies on Aging, and others affected by the program, that it is not accomplishing its goal of protecting dual eligible individuals from improper denials of Medicare coverage. So that's at 33 VSA section 6,703. In addition, it seems unlikely that plans currently exist to bring this work in house given the newly awarded contract, the lack of a commissioner's determinations, and the level of expertise that is needed to do the work. The team of attorneys and paralegals assigned to MEP at BLA are experts in Medicare and Medicaid law. By losing MAP, Vermont would lose its billing watchdog. It is easier for providers to bill Medicaid. There's good reason to believe that providers will increasingly bill Medicaid instead of Medicare. We therefore are asking this committee to keep the funds in the budget necessary to continue that. We would be happy to report back to the committee next January on our progress.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: I have a question, and I'm wondering if you can submit that to us too. Yes. That would be helpful. Go ahead, Mike.

[Michael Mrowicki (Member)]: It's been a little while since I've worked to make it related to this subject, but Medicare, is Medicare still a significantly better payer for most providers than Medicaid?

[Betsy Weiss (Interim Executive Director, Vermont Legal Aid)]: I don't think that it is, but Medicare, if I say anything wrong, Leah, Medicare provides a set of services for people in home healthcare, and upon discharge into a nursing home from a hospital, that is a higher level, better level of service.

[Michael Mrowicki (Member)]: Right. So I guess and I just partly ask it with a little bit of surprise because it seems like for the most part, it would be in the best interest of providers to be to be ensuring they're billing Medicare. I think why they wouldn't be taking a more active role. And and I'm not sure and maybe this is a question, but if if MAP is mostly working with smaller providers that just don't have the resources or if it's

[Betsy Weiss (Interim Executive Director, Vermont Legal Aid)]: Everyone. They're looking at billing data throughout the provider system. So, home healthcare agencies, skilled nursing facilities, and other providers.

[Mike Fisher (Office of the Health Care Advocate, Vermont Legal Aid)]: And can I just add, just in case anybody's not tracking, a reminder that Medicare is fully federally funded and Medicaid? So this is saving state dollars when we can get a claim covered by Medicare.

[Michael Mrowicki (Member)]: Certainly. Yeah. And then certainly understand why it's beneficial for the state.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: You

[Michael Mrowicki (Member)]: know, again, like I said, it seems I my assumption would have been that it

[Unidentified Committee Member]: would also be beneficial for providers as well.

[Betsy Weiss (Interim Executive Director, Vermont Legal Aid)]: If Leah wanted to say something, is that okay?

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Go ahead. Oh yes, of course.

[Leah Morinka (Attorney, Medicare Advocacy Project, Vermont Legal Aid)]: So I think part of the analysis is that Medicare pays later. It doesn't happen as quickly for certain health care

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: employees. It can

[Leah Morinka (Attorney, Medicare Advocacy Project, Vermont Legal Aid)]: take longer to work through the system. So, providers get paid faster in the bill pay. So, they want to do it that way. When we tell them, part of our system is we're trying to collect food, quality, reliability, demand bill. We tell them, we don't have an option. We determine that this might be eligible for Medicare coverage. You have to bill. They listen to us. They bill it. Sometimes Medicare covers it. Sometimes we say, oh, this was an improper denial. So that's why often we see that they're not getting Medicare right off the bat.

[Betsy Weiss (Interim Executive Director, Vermont Legal Aid)]: Wayne, go ahead.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: So Medicaid doesn't require as much documentation. Is that That's fair.

[Betsy Weiss (Interim Executive Director, Vermont Legal Aid)]: And if you file for an appeal, get to go immediately to the Human Services Board and your appeal is done. Whereas with Medicare, there are something like four levels of appeal, redeterminations and reconsideration.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: So the flip side is given the scrutiny that some states are getting into programs these days, is there any potential liability that we have, either one of those programs, given the nature of the providers maybe not always doing things the way they might have been done?

[Betsy Weiss (Interim Executive Director, Vermont Legal Aid)]: I don't know whether I completely I don't think that there is more liability to Medicaid or Medicare by anything that the MAP program is doing.

[Leah Morinka (Attorney, Medicare Advocacy Project, Vermont Legal Aid)]: Any questions on MAP?

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Tom, do you

[Leah Morinka (Attorney, Medicare Advocacy Project, Vermont Legal Aid)]: have a question?

[Unidentified Committee Member]: No, I think just reiterating that there seems to be a massive difference of opinion.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Well, contract in November, we're talking three months ago.

[Betsy Weiss (Interim Executive Director, Vermont Legal Aid)]: That's right.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: A five year country.

[Betsy Weiss (Interim Executive Director, Vermont Legal Aid)]: After a competitive bid.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: You found out because they were told us in our committee. I mean,

[Unidentified Committee Member]: we were told is that they didn't feel that the return has been sufficient

[Michael Mrowicki (Member)]: to

[Unidentified Committee Member]: justify the expense.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: And

[Unidentified Committee Member]: what I'm hearing is that even if that would be something that you could only determine some months into a contract or years into a contract rather than two months.

[Betsy Weiss (Interim Executive Director, Vermont Legal Aid)]: Well, in our contract, there are provisions that if Diva does not think that we are performing in accordance with what they consider to be the deliverables that they want from us, then there is a performance improvement plan process right in the contract. That has not been

[Unidentified Committee Member]: They don't have like a ninety day out on the contract or anything like that.

[Betsy Weiss (Interim Executive Director, Vermont Legal Aid)]: I think the performance improvement plan gives us a ninety day opportunity to improve their performance.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: They must have an escape clause. Like, do they do they have to give you ninety days notice before they cancel? What do they

[Betsy Weiss (Interim Executive Director, Vermont Legal Aid)]: have to do? Standard state contract on its on its first page, which is the the standard contract, is that it has a thirty day has the typical thirty day termination

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: notice. Okay.

[Betsy Weiss (Interim Executive Director, Vermont Legal Aid)]: Within the contract, it gives us the opportunity for a performance improvement plan. I'll I'll note there has been no communication to us thus far about our performance. Okay.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: That appropriation is how much? 500? The

[Betsy Weiss (Interim Executive Director, Vermont Legal Aid)]: contract amount, so the contract now, since it's on a calendar year, so the contract amount is 5 and 20 or $529.05 29. That sounds about 5. I could look at that. I think it's 5.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: I think it's not.

[Betsy Weiss (Interim Executive Director, Vermont Legal Aid)]: That's how got it. But yeah.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Okay. And that's on a calendar year. It's a

[David Yacovone (Member)]: calendar year. Yeah. Yes. Thank you. Can you tell us how many claims you appeal annually? And is there a lot of claims that we just don't have the staff capacity out there that could also be appealed? Do we leave a lot on the table?

[Betsy Weiss (Interim Executive Director, Vermont Legal Aid)]: Mean, Leah, do you have numbers on that? I think

[Leah Morinka (Attorney, Medicare Advocacy Project, Vermont Legal Aid)]: twenty twenty five, we have cases. What we have currently, we have an expert paramedial who's been with the math since its inception. She remains less in creek. She's worked in math for forty years. She's an expert paralegal for all of these types of claims. She assists with reviewing the data that we get from Diva about all the different claims. And then we also have me as a fine attorney, including the claims and final appeals reviewing cases. Then you have also a medical part time attorney who's new to the training on those documents processes. So, do our very best with all the three of us to review each case that gets assigned and merit because not all of the remember what I said before, Medicare has very specific standards for what they will cover, what they will not, and the nuance of all of that. Some are not right. Some claims are not appropriate. I know if we should just follow a standard. But we review every single one that we get from Diva. So it's we touch on the more. And then the advocate is trying to fill in their marriage.

[David Yacovone (Member)]: So, I can just, so Diva filters them and decides which ones you should chase?

[Leah Morinka (Attorney, Medicare Advocacy Project, Vermont Legal Aid)]: No, no. So, he's painting us the data on everything.

[David Yacovone (Member)]: Okay, so every claim you have. And what I'm trying to discern is whether there's a lot more opportunity for savings here, but if we only had the staff to do it.

[Leah Morinka (Attorney, Medicare Advocacy Project, Vermont Legal Aid)]: I think it would be fair to say that that would be served at the state.

[David Yacovone (Member)]: I have always felt that we should be, if anything doubling or tripling this, there's many opportunities left that we can't can't adequately chase. That's how I would achieve the savings in Medicaid as opposed to eliminating the program. I'd work with this for some time.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Other questions about this particular item? It sounds like we have some more digging to do. Yeah, go ahead.

[Betsy Weiss (Interim Executive Director, Vermont Legal Aid)]: I could go on with the rest of our budget request. Is that what Sure.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yeah. I was trying to figure out, is your time in with us, so let's do that. Yeah.

[Betsy Weiss (Interim Executive Director, Vermont Legal Aid)]: So, moving on to our appropriation request, as I stated, DLA and LSV, Legal Services Vermont, are the only providers of a range of core legal services throughout the state. We offer free legal advice of representation to low income Vermonters from four offices located across the state. We operate a statewide legal helpline providing quick legal advice, information, and referral. We maintain a website that guides Vermonters on how to solve their legal problems on their own that gets over 600,000 hits per year. We field 26,000 requests for legal assistance every year, and last year we directly assisted, to some degree, 18,000 Vermonters. We provide full representation to approximately 2,600 to 3,000 cases per year. Despite the overwhelming need and increasing demand for legal services, this will be our third straight year that we have not received an increase in our appropriation from the agency of human services. Level funding is hitting us especially hard because of significant federal funding cuts and annual inflationary increases to our costs, especially in health insurance premiums. In state fiscal year 2025, Vermont Legal Aid lost little over $4,500,000 in federal funds, 1,275,000 of those funds were from HUD that for nineteen years had funded our housing discrimination project. A little over $3,200,000 in funds were from the Emergency Rental Assistance Program that funded our Housing for Everyone and Homeowner Legal Assistance projects. Admittedly, that was pandemic funding, but it obviously still had repercussions. The HUD funding was not pandemic funding. The HUD funding was funding that we had been receiving for nineteen years. Those losses and level funding meant the painful loss of a total of 11 staff between Vermont Legal Aid and our sister organization Legal Services Vermont. We lost nine attorneys and two paralegals. An increase in our state fiscal year '27 appropriation would compensate us for inflation, restore two staff attorney positions in our poverty law project, and provide more funding for our helpline. The poverty law project provides general legal services and is being squeezed as a greater percentage of our appropriation goes to mandatory legal services such as involuntary mental health treatment cases, protective services cases, and Act two forty eight cases. Specifically, are asking for $535,620 an amount that will compensate us for inflation and fund those two staff attorneys who did things. Now, to explain that a little bit more, we have a contract with the AHS that requires us to do four things. One is to represent people subject to involuntary treatment, involuntary hospitalization, involuntary medication. The other pieces are that we represent, we are required to represent people with developmental disabilities in protected services cases, and they're also required to represent people with developmental disabilities who have been charged with crimes that go on to something called Act two forty eight. But in addition, the fourth item that we're supposed to do is to provide legal services to people that are covered by the Social Security Block Grant. So, those are the folks that we serve in eviction cases, housing cases, benefits cases. So, the point I'm trying to make here is that when we get level funded year after year, the amount of funding that goes to those mandatory services increases, and it squeezes out those other core legal services.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: So, you've talked to the agencies and administration about this?

[Betsy Weiss (Interim Executive Director, Vermont Legal Aid)]: I did speak with Secretary Samuelson. She was sympathetic and complimented our work. And she said that essentially I'd come to her, I came to her in October, and it's been essentially that I'd come to her too late. So, lesson learned from us, for us, that we need to be speaking with the agency sooner. But, I did have that conversation, and we did go through this.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: I'm adding up all the different things, you had said Vermont Legal Aid $5.45, 600? Well, part of our That was one of the numbers. Did I get that number right?

[Betsy Weiss (Interim Executive Director, Vermont Legal Aid)]: $535,620.05 30. Okay.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: And then, I'm just reading some of your papers. The Vermont Ombudsman, oh, is there something that has all of that? I guess I didn't get that. I didn't get that one. I got six of the seven and that's the seven appropriation. Okay. Total is 1.4. Right. Okay. Alright. So, I can get that. That's fine.

[Betsy Weiss (Interim Executive Director, Vermont Legal Aid)]: I'll find it. The total to restore MAP funding provide us with an inflationary increase, fund two staff attorney positions, help fund the struggling helpline, and provide some funding to the immigrant minor guardianship project is what brings us to a total of $1,400,000,000 and some. Dollars 1,440,620.

[Mike Fisher (Office of the Health Care Advocate, Vermont Legal Aid)]: And then you'll also see a request from each of the VOP and the HCA.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So, that's what I was wondering. VOP has two seventy five and that's not on this list, and you have four fifty and that's not on this list.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: And then, tenant representation may have to

[Betsy Weiss (Interim Executive Director, Vermont Legal Aid)]: Appropriation. Go ahead. On this document, it indicates that HS currently funds you at 2.6. So, you're asking for 1.4 on top of the 2.6? Correct. Point six exactly right. Yes. Yes.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: But no, MAP funding comes from DEVA.

[Betsy Weiss (Interim Executive Director, Vermont Legal Aid)]: MAP comes from DEVA. But

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: it wasn't part of the 2,600,000.0.

[Betsy Weiss (Interim Executive Director, Vermont Legal Aid)]: That's Yes. Correct. No, I'll start.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Math is not part of what of the 2,600,000.0. So, what we don't have on here is what they're proposing for '27. This only goes through last year, and '27, you just told us you Level lost funding. Minus the $5.29. Right. That's how we get. So, this is FY '26. Right. And that had the 05/29 in it, and they've now calendared.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: No, the 02/1929 will put down the 02/2006.

[Leah Morinka (Attorney, Medicare Advocacy Project, Vermont Legal Aid)]: Correct. They

[Unidentified Committee Member]: just got a contract in November there.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: But some of the previous contract was in here.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: No, this is what we passed as as as, fiscal year '26 last

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yes, I know. But but if they just got a new five year contract

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Did they have the contract before?

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yeah, the contract before. They've had a contract for sixty years or something, you said. I mean, well, we've

[Betsy Weiss (Interim Executive Director, Vermont Legal Aid)]: had a contract since 1989.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: '18, '19, okay, forty, thirty six years. Whatever it is. Okay. So, part of that MAP contract, the old contract, is in the 2,600,000.0?

[Betsy Weiss (Interim Executive Director, Vermont Legal Aid)]: 2,600,000,000.0, let me see, Restore Met funding. Well, I don't think the 2,600,000.0 is just the AHS funding that we've been receiving at the same level for the past three years now would be four years. The part of our one point so that's not we included it. I'm sorry, we included the $529,000 that would restore a MAP in our total ask. Right, for 27? Correct.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So what I'm trying to figure out is if you had a MAP contract before, how much of that was in that 2,600,000.0?

[Betsy Weiss (Interim Executive Director, Vermont Legal Aid)]: It

[Unidentified Committee Member]: It looks like that's Right? What you were holding up was

[Leah Morinka (Attorney, Medicare Advocacy Project, Vermont Legal Aid)]: just for

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: But that for '27 would go down. Right.

[Leah Morinka (Attorney, Medicare Advocacy Project, Vermont Legal Aid)]: So eight up to 1.5.

[Betsy Weiss (Interim Executive Director, Vermont Legal Aid)]: Think they're also talking about the elder based funking. I'll just read off the paper here.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: I think there's some double counting.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: '27 number has had put forward by the administration. That's I'm finding. Which may be 2,100,000.0.

[Betsy Weiss (Interim Executive Director, Vermont Legal Aid)]: But if this total should

[Mike Fisher (Office of the Health Care Advocate, Vermont Legal Aid)]: we work on taking these numbers out?

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So because because the other part is that that's on a calendar year. So we're and we're still in f y twenty six. So your f y twenty six is gonna go down if this contract gets canceled because it started in January. That's right. So, you know, half a year is canceled. So that would be February and, you know, '7, February 14005 or something like that. 01/4500.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: This is the other thing we all want with where I would propose to put them on legal services.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: We need to see it all in Rather than it's all over the place. From column A and one from column B.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Yeah, yeah. I don't know what number it's gonna be at the commissioner aggression stuff. Continue on if I So don't

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: do you see what I'm saying is I just want to be sure we're not double counting and maybe you need a revised 26 under the assumption that this is canceled or how much

[Betsy Weiss (Interim Executive Director, Vermont Legal Aid)]: of I see what you're saying. See what

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: I'm saying? Because I don't want to double it. It doesn't look, you're not really going up as high as it looks like you're going up if that MAP contract is already in for FY twenty six.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Mike, Right. What's your line? E300. What is it? E300.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Oh, you're in the central office.

[Betsy Weiss (Interim Executive Director, Vermont Legal Aid)]: Let me see. The map, so we're in January for fiscal year, state fiscal year 2027. That would be a cut of over $500,000 For twenty seventh. For twenty seventh. Next year. Yes.

[Leah Morinka (Attorney, Medicare Advocacy Project, Vermont Legal Aid)]: Starting July.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Okay. Yes.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Alright, so what I'm hearing from my fabulous JFO staff over here is that the amount and the age of his contract is still the 2.367 for FY27.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Yeah, that's just the E300 line.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Right, that's the E300 line, but this math thing must be somewhere else in the default budget. So then, they're not asking for this in the 300 line. Would be The 5.9 has to be somewhere else. So, it ends up being

[Betsy Weiss (Interim Executive Director, Vermont Legal Aid)]: We're going have to work on this.

[Mike Fisher (Office of the Health Care Advocate, Vermont Legal Aid)]: So, the E300 line has been HCA for a lot of years,

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: since 2011 or something.

[Mike Fisher (Office of the Health Care Advocate, Vermont Legal Aid)]: Or four years ago, the legislature increased legal aids funding. Can see it on there.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yes, we did that in for '24.

[Mike Fisher (Office of the Health Care Advocate, Vermont Legal Aid)]: Included in that section where it has sat since then. That's not all of legal aid's funding. It's just an increase that the legislature gave in that and has carried forward.

[Betsy Weiss (Interim Executive Director, Vermont Legal Aid)]: The 650,000. There's two line items there. There's that $650,000 and then there's the, what is it, about $1,400,000 I think. And that's the other AHS. It was just it's very difficult. Go

[Unidentified Committee Member]: ahead. What we have here from the commissioner, this is their recommended budget summary. So an E-three 100, is listed as funding for the Office of the Healthcare Advocate Vermont Legal, comma Vermont Legal Aid. Of the funds appropriated in this act, so $2,000,406 shall be used for the contract with the office of the health care advocate. So does that represent $500,000 that's missing? No. So two is 1.7 plus for Vermont Legal Aid services, including the Poverty Law Project and Mental Health Services. And then $650,000 for the purposes of maintaining current Vermont Legal Aid program capacity and addressing increased requests for services including eviction prevention and protection from foreclosure and consumer debt. So again, not no numbers here matching up in what we were talking about earlier. Was like we really need to get a handle on all of the funds coming to legal aid from different sources and that live in different places so that we can have a number or a series of numbers.

[Mike Fisher (Office of the Health Care Advocate, Vermont Legal Aid)]: I think it makes sense for us to work with maybe joint fiscal, figure out where all the money sits. HCA is easy, got a line item, but for the rest of legal aid, I

[Unidentified Committee Member]: think it's particularly hard to find. That's just part of it. I mean, again, from my time here, I've only focused on the money that might go to housing issues or housing projects or poverty law project, but not anything related to health care or TEVA or anything else like that. So I would just like to have I asked James last week to scour the budget to come up with a list of what actually legally gets. Right. It's it's not as I'm hoping that it's more useful if we have a whole list Yeah, it is in different parts. Right, it's

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: put all together in one place. Because

[Unidentified Committee Member]: the confusion that can come is just, as you can see, our heads are starting to spin about just the differences in the numbers and where they're going to and how they're getting there.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: And that those two numbers you read, the 1.7 and the six fifty do equal the 2,367,994, so that actually ties. That may not be, but that's not everything.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Right. And then again, like I said, there's the tenant representation pilot program, which they're asking, they're going to ask. And there's a weird thing where we have funding till October or something like that. So there's not a set number there yet.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So that would be good to get that all figured out, all the different places. If we can actually put the budget numbers next to them, like we know this is E-three 100 and where the other ones can be found, and then we can map it out and figure out what we're talking about.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Along with the federal cuts as well, and how they affect the program. So

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yeah, I want to find out where they all sit in our budget first, and then we can deal with the other parts. Okay, Wayne?

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: I was assuming that you're with a state agency, but you're a nonprofit law firm independent. Human services is paid by grants. So you're you're just getting grants from human services.

[Mike Fisher (Office of the Health Care Advocate, Vermont Legal Aid)]: So I mean, I think one one thing is worth sort of saying. It's a it I understand it's a little confusing. You have three of us up here. We're all part of legal aid. Yeah. Kylie and I are part of two two parts of legal aid that are statutorily defined with duties and responsibilities and a responsibility to run our projects, the long term care ombudsman and the healthcare advocate. So that's why you have the three of us with three different We housed legal aid. We have independent projects that

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: we're tasked with running. Right, and legal aid is also in statute. So this isn't like I'm just gonna get

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: my head wrapped around the administrative parts of this.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Right. Well, once we figure out where all the money is and goes to, then we can we have a lot more to dig into. Let's put it that way. Sounds like Tom and maybe James will be on the case and with the help of other folks in the viewing audience from Legal Aid who can help us out.

[Mike Fisher (Office of the Health Care Advocate, Vermont Legal Aid)]: Recognizing the time, can I ask what how long would you like us to?

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: I don't know whether we're whether we're kind of at this point done and we get you back. I'm kind of feeling like we need to get organized in how we think about it, because there are all these disparate pieces. And then perhaps some of the written testimony, Betsy, that you read to us, if you wanted to type that up and we can.

[Betsy Weiss (Interim Executive Director, Vermont Legal Aid)]: Sure. And you have more? I

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: think we do it when we have all the pieces because we'll be in better shape in our heads to listen to it also.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Go ahead. I want to finish this, just open up the confusion factor of, you know, just seeing a line that they have 10 different projects from the poverty law project to, you know Disability and A lot of those receive funding that are specific to those particular projects. So if they didn't serve as many people in one particular project, can't reutilize that in a different one. So getting that clarification,

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: I think will help

[Unidentified Committee Member]: us and hopefully the body to understand that it's not just one line item for legal aid and who it's affecting throughout because I can name off at least four different committees that you do work with and probably more. I mean, unit services, health care, housing, judiciary, to start. It just

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Right, you can't move the money around. It's not fungible that way. It's like it's a specific thing, we have no authority to move that around to other places. And I just want

[Betsy Weiss (Interim Executive Director, Vermont Legal Aid)]: to maybe make one more point about MAPS, and that is that losing that funding would be particularly now devastating to Vermont Legal Aid, not only because, and indeed, like lots of our other funds, it can't be used for anything other than MAPS, But what it does do is that it helps us to be able to have a full time attorney like Leah and other staff people in the elder law project, because this, and that's our project that represents people 60, particularly in abuse and neglect cases, improper discharge cases, social security. And so if this goes away, then we don't have full time positions for people. You're going lose a lot

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: more than what is the MAP, is what you're saying.

[Betsy Weiss (Interim Executive Director, Vermont Legal Aid)]: That's what I'm saying. Okay.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: All right, what an afternoon. Thank you. Thank you very much. Will, to be continued, is where we'll leave it for that. We really appreciate you coming in.

[Betsy Weiss (Interim Executive Director, Vermont Legal Aid)]: Thank you. Okay, thanks. And committee, that's

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: it for today. But we will be here at 09:30 tomorrow morning by the Cannabis Control Board. I'm looking at tag, yours. And then, VSAC is coming in, and we may have a little bit of a break. We're trying to build in a little bit of breaks here and there so that you can meet with your portfolio people or just read your stuff and get familiar with it and check up on people. So, we're not gonna necessarily nose to the grindstone till eight to four. I've met

[Unidentified Committee Member]: with Essex twice. Great. We met, like, last month or another year.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: That's right. You're not gonna be here tomorrow.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: I'm here tomorrow, and Ian and I spoke on the phone. We had a Zoom call this morning. Great. So, I'm up speed how we're

[Betsy Weiss (Interim Executive Director, Vermont Legal Aid)]: Okay.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: And I chatted with him on Friday. Next, too.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: I'll be up. You're

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Wait, you're both out tomorrow.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Yeah. Not together. Correct.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: What off the record show?

[Betsy Weiss (Interim Executive Director, Vermont Legal Aid)]: What's going on? I'm here. Why

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: don't we go off live?