Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: Good morning. This is the House Appropriations Committee. It is Tuesday sorry, Thursday, 02/12/2026, almost 10:30. And we are continuing our tour of the '27 budget and delighted to have folks from Building and General Services with us. So welcome, if you'd like to introduce yourselves. And do

[Rep. Eileen Dickinson]: we have a few now?

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: Okay, so paper copies are having been posted on our web page. You can introduce yourselves and just orient us to where you are in the presentation.

[Wanda Minoli, Commissioner of Buildings & General Services]: So good morning. Thank you, Chair Xu and Wanda Manoli, Commissioner of Buildings and General Services. And thank you for having us in to go over our budget. We did provide a PowerPoint presentation as part of, I think, the larger budget submission, and that is the document that we're going to, work from.

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: Are putting two things in or one? Is it because I have 179 page presentation. And so is this part

[Wanda Minoli, Commissioner of Buildings & General Services]: of that 179? So Madam Chair, if I could turn to Cole Barney, who is my policy planning legislative protector. No, I was good. Cole, do want you to answer the chair's question?

[Cole Barney]: Yes, so the suites and patients are in the same slides that are in the budget book. Okay. Okay.

[Wanda Minoli, Commissioner of Buildings & General Services]: So, then, Emily, please introduce yourself.

[Emily Kascicki, Deputy Commissioner of Buildings & General Services]: Good morning. I'm Emily Kascicki. I'm Deputy Commissioner of Buildings and General Services. I've been in that role since December '24. So just over a year. And I've really enjoyed it. And I was previously at BGS, one of my first permanent job in state government, former Commissioner Opowski, and Wanda was there as deputy. And then I spent ten years at the Department of Financial Regulation. So it feels like a homecoming to be back at BGS in

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: this role. So I don't think you've been in our committee before, have you? Think you I sat here.

[Emily Kascicki, Deputy Commissioner of Buildings & General Services]: I was here.

[Wanda Minoli, Commissioner of Buildings & General Services]: You didn't present.

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: Okay, great. Well, welcome and to your new roles as well.

[Wanda Minoli, Commissioner of Buildings & General Services]: Thank you. So I and members of the committee, Emily and I are going to present together. We'll be really transitional with going back and forth. I just always, as I had shared, I think it's a great opportunity, especially when you're in the role of a deputy or another position to come in and present a budget because that doesn't happen that often. So this year, it's a new landscape for Emily and she's doing a great job. Okay? And oh, cool. Thank you. He's sharing. So I'm so perfect. So to to get going, we've talked about this before, but, you know, our mission is to provide facilities and general services required to all agencies and departments to include their missions and partnerships, within state government and with Vermont businesses. I always like to talk about buildings and general services that were the core to the delivery or operation of state government, be it postal, print, maintenance of your building, purchasing property, designing property, all of that sits under the house of building, under buildings and general services. And I think sometimes we're either recognized for our custodial and maintenance or for design and construction. And there's a host of other things that we do. We strive to be responsive and committed to delivering those essential services and customer service. Next slide.

[Emily Kascicki, Deputy Commissioner of Buildings & General Services]: Sure. One more piece, I think one of our mottos is serving those who serve Vermont. So that is really how I think about our function. Are service department, we are helping you, the executive branch, the judiciary and what they need to do to provide services to Vermonters.

[Wanda Minoli, Commissioner of Buildings & General Services]: So this is just a high level overview of our organization. And I know that in the budget book, there's the detail, but I just want, we just wanted to give you a quick overview. And, under the commissioner's office, I have legal counsel. Greg Harris is, an AG, that is assigned to BGS. The curator's office, we have a financial director, And we have a financial director that helps us, helps my division directors move their money to their contract, getting bills paid, helping us build partnership with finance, and that overall responsibility sits with them. Then, and we have the policy and legislative affairs, and we introduce coal to you. And then this is just the high level, and we're going to talk about these divisions, shortly in this budget presentation. Any questions? So the proposed budget that we're bringing forth to you allows us to maintain staffing and operation in our key focus areas. And I won't read these to you, but I'm just going to highlight few. We maintain and operate 3,000,000 square feet of state owned building space throughout the state of Vermont. And that's correctional facilities, state office buildings, information centers. It's, you know, it's a host, again, of all of the needs that people have. Judiciary, that's a piece of it. We provide security, safety and security. We are not an armed law enforcement. We do security through policies and protocols. And some buildings, we have security attendance in there. Also do assessments of building, through that security program, and I feel like I'm missing something, Emily, in the program.

[Emily Kascicki, Deputy Commissioner of Buildings & General Services]: Oh, environmental Thank you.

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: Thank you.

[Wanda Minoli, Commissioner of Buildings & General Services]: I think we do all of the solicitation procurement for contracting that's set forth in Bulletin 3.5. We operate all of the information centers, or we have public private partnership agreements, or we have contracts with certain chambers to operate those. We do the planning and construction. We have a centralized print and postal, and we'll talk about it a little bit when we get to that. I think sometimes people think our print shop is a print shop. And I think what's really important, you know, where we're just sort of printing copies and and whatnot, the this service that we provide, especially with IT infrastructure, FruitShop produces all of the of the DMV registrations. Everything's sent through files now, just like the legislative body. Everything is sent through files, and they do multiple secured printing. They do general printing too, but the business has really changed. Any checks that we issue go through our print area, again, in a very secured manner. So their business model is really serving government in a new and an efficient way. And I'm just bringing that one up because I think sometimes it's just perceived that they're kind of at the copier, pushing the button, and they're not. So and there's more to come. I'll move on. So this is we when we put our budget present presentation together, we we've while we have three forty eight FTEs at the time we did this in December, we had 22 vacancies. Our overall budget increase in FY twenty six is 5.5%. We provide the chart because the, I like to see the breakdown of where, you know, our percentages, where our funding comes from. You can see the majority is the internal service fund, which is 77%. We get interdepartmental transfers, which is 4%. And I'm going to go back to the internal service fund. The fee for space program is about 85% of that internal service fund.

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: So question about that. The fee for space includes the rent and it also includes cleaning and maintenance. Is that right?

[Wanda Minoli, Commissioner of Buildings & General Services]: Trash removal, electricity, heat, everything to operate that building. So we put all of those costs into the fee for space and it's done by regions as well.

[Emily Kascicki, Deputy Commissioner of Buildings & General Services]: It would be occupancy costs in state owned space, not released space. And yeah, general operating costs, including minor repairs, general upkeep. If there was a more substantial repair needed, that's where it might go over to the capital bill side if it was large. Yep.

[Rep. Eileen Dickinson]: Right.

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: And so we own the buildings. There's no mortgage on the building. So the rent could essentially be free. But there's clearly costs that are I mean, electricity, you know what it is. The cleaning, you know what it is. So how do

[Wanda Minoli, Commissioner of Buildings & General Services]: you figure out the sort of rental? Because it's and so I wouldn't, it is the cost of operation. We're not charging rent. So we take the cost, and we look at a two year average, and, and that cost of, what was the cost of heat? What was the cost of electricity, water usage? What's the cost of staffing? And that's how we come up with that rate for the facility. And this was an analysis that were done years ago, years ago. And it is, it's very difficult to do it by building and to sort of to put them into regions to gain efficiency because the cost is distributed amongst more than it is if you just do building by building. This month, I just want you to know, is our most expensive. I don't have the rates in front of me. I'm not sure if you do. And that's because we have the state house, we have the elected officials. There's much bigger buildings that we're occupying state government in and operating.

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: You feel like you're fully recovering the costs or you're making money on this?

[Wanda Minoli, Commissioner of Buildings & General Services]: No, we don't make money. It's an actual cost. So, no, we are not making money. Absolutely not. One of the changes that we've seen, and we're going to talk about it a little bit in our budget, is that we actually had to do an adjustment. I got my ears mixed up black at the, we had to do a transfer of funds. Yeah, this past fiscal. This past fiscal year and what was to the program. So we had a little bit of a deficit and that was really around the cost of, believe it, the cost of electricity was significant. And what was driving that is we hadn't aligned to some of the rate changes. So when we're using less, sometimes costs go up. So, you know, because I think people thought, well, if the building's empty or not fully utilized, then there should be a savings, but we still have to operate that building. We, you know, if we have 30 people going into a building and, you know, using that building, the cost to clean it, the cost to operate it, the cost to heat it stays the same.

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: Yeah. No. And I get that. So I when you bring up Montpelier, you know, we had the flood, and some buildings are still not occupied. So

[Wanda Minoli, Commissioner of Buildings & General Services]: who are you charging fee for space for unoccupied buildings? So first of all, they may not be occupied. And we only have a few unoccupied buildings that are historic, that are on the historic. We have three. One is the Auditor's Building. One is what was the information, main information center building. And the other was the, health care.

[Rep. Eileen Dickinson]: What is that?

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: Reman care was Otherwise,

[Wanda Minoli, Commissioner of Buildings & General Services]: every building has been occupied. So what do you do when you have

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: costs associated with three buildings?

[Wanda Minoli, Commissioner of Buildings & General Services]: Who pays for that? So everyone who's assigned to this region. It's distributed by region. And those buildings, I will tell you, I don't have the cost, but we have minimal in those buildings because of the condition that the client

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: a tour company. Yes. Okay. Okay. So John and then Wayne.

[Rep. John Kascenska]: So you have a special fund, which is a small sliver of the big budget here. What is that used for? What's that dedicated to?

[Wanda Minoli, Commissioner of Buildings & General Services]: Go ahead, Em. The 479,150.

[Emily Kascicki, Deputy Commissioner of Buildings & General Services]: Yeah, special fund that one example is at our information centers. The coffee program is free coffee by donation. So when someone stops by, they're taking a travel break. They can donate money to help cover the cost of the coffee program. And then yeah, and the brochure program. So that's what comprises Yep. That

[Rep. John Kascenska]: That's the brochure program, too.

[Emily Kascicki, Deputy Commissioner of Buildings & General Services]: Brochure and coffee.

[Rep. John Kascenska]: And of course, maintenance for taking care of the building long term. It's close to the capital. That's not in this country.

[Wanda Minoli, Commissioner of Buildings & General Services]: Correct. And I think that's so we get money in the capital bill for major maintenance. In the capital bill, if we have a project that has a significant need, like a replacement of a heating system or a roof replacement, we go through the capital build as that that's as a line item. And then we get in the capital build, we have major maintenance. And those are items that do not go beyond what fee for space is for, and that goes into the major maintenance. So not every repair, every upgrade is actually charged to major maintenance. We try to minimize that and utilize major maintenance fund. Okay. So I think I'm going to move on from the chart. I don't unless there's specific, I think we've sort of talked about all of these. Go

[Rep. Eileen Dickinson]: ahead, Emma. Do you want

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: to take the next Sure.

[Emily Kascicki, Deputy Commissioner of Buildings & General Services]: So the commissioner's office, this is not a division, but our smallest, a small unit, six FTEs. You have three of them right here with you today. And so the overall goal of our unit is to provide leadership to all of BGS to ensure that our programs are managed efficiently, taxpayer funds are invested wisely, risk is managed appropriately, and that we have a customer service focus at all times. So not a lot in our budget. The recommend is about $1,300,000 which is a 1.4 percent decrease over FY 2026. And the reason for that is because we have a position in the commissioner's office that the principal assistant position, which is currently working in the recovery office. And we still have a portion of his salary within BGS while he's working on flood recovery. We've moved that in this budget to the design and construction division out of the commissioner's budget. Really, the rationale being the focus is on buildings and infrastructure recovery. So that's why you see decrease in this. Is that Eric? Yes. Design and construction. This is the division that works mostly on those capital bill projects. It is led by director Joe Age with 26 FTEs. These are engineers, architects, and project managers who are responsible for designing, planning, constructing, and renovating existing and new state owned space. This budget recommend is about $5,200,000 which is a 6.5% increase. The main drivers of that increase is just insurance steps and COLA. And then again, that move that we described earlier for the existing position shifting over there.

[Wanda Minoli, Commissioner of Buildings & General Services]: And I, if I can, I know this has come up in some other areas? I know this committee knows this, but our COLAs and insurance rates are set through the budget instructions. And I think, you know, and I just want to say, because I know there was some discussion the other day about how are we calculating it? What are we doing? What we get it in our budget, this committee is well aware of that. So and it then it's distributed.

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: So do you have particularly big measures we've done now?

[Wanda Minoli, Commissioner of Buildings & General Services]: So we have yes. Where do I want to start? So first of all, the whole major maintenance, and again, that's our focus. We've had some lag in our major maintenance that we've gotten the capital bill right now. So working with Director Asia, we've realigned. I think that things weren't happening as quickly because of the flood in Montpelier because of all of that. So there was sort of like this the money really wasn't moving. This year, we've advanced, last week or two weeks ago, I think we have less than 2,000,000 in our major maintenance budget to get us to the end of the year. And, we haven't been in that place for probably ten years, eight or ten years. We are working, my team is working, on the recovery of Montpelier. You know, we are a part of the planning group with the Secretary of Administration, with Doug Farnham. BGS is at the table. We have several people involved in that because once a decision is made, those projects are going to be handed over to the Department of Buildings and General Services to see. We've been engaged with judiciary on prioritizing and looking at the need for the Newport Courthouse. We have a lot of work that's going on in corrections around the mechanical systems and the HVAC system. I mean, the list really

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: I cuts expect to go on and on, and it sounds familiar from when I was in maybe ten years ago. But are there new projects like new buildings or new construction changes that are

[Wanda Minoli, Commissioner of Buildings & General Services]: Depending on where we so Newport Courthouse is the priority, the replacement of the Newport Courthouse. We we don't have land yet, and we're we're exploring options, but that would be a big construction project coming down the road. It's been on judiciary's priority list well over ten years. We are working very closely with the agency of human services. We have the replacement of the youth facility, and that we have reissued an RFP. We have a letter of intent signed with a developer. We've located a site. We're actually meeting with them this afternoon. We're doing our introduction and laying out how we want to move forward. And we have the woman's correctional facility, which is still in in the planning. So, you know, and part of our world is planning, getting money to move these things forward. So I could just keep going through the list.

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: That's fine. No, I just wanted to get a sense of some of the things.

[Rep. John Kascenska]: Newport no, St. John's Berry Poor Helps project was ongoing a couple years ago. Was it St. John's Berry got all completed? I

[Wanda Minoli, Commissioner of Buildings & General Services]: don't know about a couple of years ago. I I know that what I know today is that the priority was Newport and the priority was Barrie.

[Emily Kascicki, Deputy Commissioner of Buildings & General Services]: And we just completed a big project. We did a major renovation of the Windsor County Courthouse in White River Junction. They rent temporary space for quite a while, and they just moved back in and restarted court operations earlier this month.

[Rep. John Kascenska]: And that was maybe it's Windsor. They're using the building across the street.

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: Yeah. That's it. Yeah. There's Essex County as well. I saw in Essex County perhaps last year.

[Wanda Minoli, Commissioner of Buildings & General Services]: Yeah, think that there's some additional money in the capital bill this year for that one.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens]: While we're talking about buildings, things that I heard somebody refer to it operating at government speed.

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: The speed of government.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens]: Yeah, so the liquor warehouse has been talked about for a bazillion years. And again, I'm not arguing for anybody's priorities, just that's been in the hopper as well. And also, which came up during COVID, in addition to the State House. And so just curious to know where where in the forest, the projects, those

[Wanda Minoli, Commissioner of Buildings & General Services]: I'll be happy to and so to to make this connection, so we either through the property management, because it may be a lease or looking at some type of development agreement, we'll manage that, or if we're building it on our own. So the departments of lottery and liquor, we have explored leasing space for they so they can consolidate and come together and bring the warehouse as well as they're in space on the Barry Montpelier Road. We are still under discussions with that. We've looked at locations. Sometimes they're not the right location. But when it's also a lease, we have to look at cost and we have to do an analysis. And it has to be affordable because some leases, you know, you have to explore, does this make sense? Is more affordable for the state to actually build and own? Leases typically are considerably higher, I want to say, you know, anywhere between 40 and 70 percent of what it costs us in fee for space.

[Emily Kascicki, Deputy Commissioner of Buildings & General Services]: It all depends on what it looks like. If we were doing a build to suit lease, new construction, that would be much costlier than if we could find existing space that might work. So we're still exploring with that. And so on the State House, you know, because

[Wanda Minoli, Commissioner of Buildings & General Services]: of the constructions under BGS, we work very closely with the sergeant at arms. We have hired an architect to work with her on her scope of work and the mission. There was a so there is a proposed design. It's schematic. There was a request in the capital bill for a little over a million dollars to move this proposal to construction documents because it's based on a three year phase in because at this location, which costs us more money because we can't do major construction while you're in session, right? So we have to phase everything in. I mean, there's some stuff you can do inside, but it's also, you know, the timeline and the scope of work is based on over a period of time so we can accommodate all of the visitors and the users, etcetera. So that one is there. I did receive a communication. I think we're going to be scheduled next week, I believe, the sergeant at arms and and BGS to go into house institutions and to talk about that request.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens]: I just wanna I I think you know this is the code room.

[Wanda Minoli, Commissioner of Buildings & General Services]: I remember this being the coat room. But really, you guys got a bigger space than what you Keep different color paint.

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: It's too

[Rep. John Kascenska]: scary. Better lighting and perhaps

[Emily Kascicki, Deputy Commissioner of Buildings & General Services]: In fact, it's

[Wanda Minoli, Commissioner of Buildings & General Services]: called BTS Light. Guess White.

[Emily Kascicki, Deputy Commissioner of Buildings & General Services]: That project that's in development now is really focusing on a doorway, a new point of

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: entry, not additional meetings out over there towards the bus. That's right. Leanne, and then I have a question.

[Rep. Eileen Dickinson]: Yeah, I just want to ask you, as I watch all of these things serving in different committees and watching how the state operates, we seem to have a pendulum we own. Then we decide, no, no, no, no, we're going to lease. And then a few years later, we sit down and say, no, no, no, we're going to own. And whether it's the building in Essex that we bought from IBM or something, and then a few years later, ended up selling it. There is a loan versus the lease, and is this based on economics or costs or is it just what's the most convenient thing or

[Wanda Minoli, Commissioner of Buildings & General Services]: I can't I've You know, I know, I stepped into this role in '24 and I really thought it was '25 when you said '24 today. Said, it hasn't been that long, so I paused it. But there's, I think part of it, I think some of So the preference is to renovate, build and own because it is more cost effective. We've researched this and we've researched it and we've researched it. However, we can't always do that. And sometimes a location that's in an area best serves the the the programs. So I think that part of the pendulum, I believe, that you're referring to is there were a lot of demands on the capital bill, but there were also a lot of demands on some programs and services. So there was a point in time, I want to say over the last five years, if that's reasonable, where in order to move something forward, it may have been more efficient in time to do a development agreement. And that's what they were that's what they were looking at. Right now and and so when we and when we look at lease space, leasing space for small services in regional areas sometimes makes sense. That is more cost efficient than building. And then once we start expanding out into into leases and they get larger and larger, you know, it doesn't make sense. One of the pieces that we've implemented when people come to us with this approach is we're doing a cost analysis. And we're working very closely with Commissioner Gresham's team, where we look at the cost analysis over the term because they have an expertise that we don't, And we talk about that. We have to be at least aware if we're going to enter into a lease that this is an increase and this will be the impact on the budget.

[Emily Kascicki, Deputy Commissioner of Buildings & General Services]: And I think too beyond just the cost comparison, there are factors to think about for particular buildings on leasing versus owning. And owning has certain advantages, right? Like it's our building. We control the renovation. We have greater control over security and safety issues than we might have in privately owned space. It's just a different owner, and we don't necessarily have the same control. We're not the ones in there doing the cleaning, the maintenance, all of those things. But from an operational perspective, again, we might not have the staff again in a smaller office in a more remote location, and it might not make sense for us to staff that up. And so that's where a lease makes more sense.

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: Thank you. You mentioned here the bullet point that you assist other state agencies that have jurisdiction over their own. Would that be like the Department of Labor and Lottery? Might that be?

[Emily Kascicki, Deputy Commissioner of Buildings & General Services]: We have jurisdiction over their property, like the current warehouse there. An example might be The judiciary.

[Wanda Minoli, Commissioner of Buildings & General Services]: I think the question was, we assist people who have control over so the judiciary is a great example of that. They control the building.

[Emily Kascicki, Deputy Commissioner of Buildings & General Services]: We own the building. I think a good example would be historic preservation. So the Battle of Bennington Monument, for example, that's owned by historic preservation. We assist them with the design and work on repairs to that. That is just one example. ANR is another land owning or property owning agency that we can assist them, depending on the project.

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: You briefly mentioned the women's prison, which was an issue ten years ago. I have not yet sensed enough urgency on that project from lots of places. I'm not casting blame, but I just feel like this has been something that's been a problem for a very long time. And so I'm wondering what the timeline is. So

[Wanda Minoli, Commissioner of Buildings & General Services]: I'm happy to answer that. And, you know, I just wanna I think we talked about this last year, you know, Essex was really good to work with. I mean, they really tried. We went to community meetings. We talked about it. You know, we were looking at this, the previous language before I came, it was we were encouraged to look at state owned land first to see if we could utilize that. This land was identified. You know, at the end of the day, we didn't get the change in the use of the property. And but I felt that it was, you know, good work and that we were engaged and it made sense. So we put an RFP together that we're putting out again for land because we have to find land. Our goal is to have it out by the February. And what we're doing differently, and I really want to give the deputy credit for this, is that we're identifying and making it really clear that this is a correctional facility. So we're doing a land search and we're putting very specific elements in it. So because we don't want, what we keep getting is this pot of land, right? We get all of this and then they realize it's for, break. So we're being very specific about that because we want brokers or people who own land bringing forth something that they think is going to be supported or looked at. And so that's huge. That's good.

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: I mean, think transparency is always important right up front, especially when you're talking about a

[Wanda Minoli, Commissioner of Buildings & General Services]: correctional facility. Thought there had also been talk of temporarily relocating the women and then completely renovating the existing location. So the preference from the Agency of Human Services is to build a new facility, and that is the preference. One of the things that I've requested that our team do, and I think we talked about this, is that we've got an existing facility that the site doesn't promote the model of what they want to do. But if we can't get land and if we can't do all of these things, what can we do at the existing site? So that's really the question and the exploration that we're doing. Can we build up? Can we remodel? We have received some draft reports. I haven't gone through that totally. And and then what do we the other thing that I've asked director to do, and I have not talked to the commissioner of corrections about this yet because it just happened last week, is I want us to look at what do what what can we do in that facility under major maintenance to make it a little bit better? And when I say a little bit better, I mean, we've identified things that are very concerning. So one thing that hasn't happened is there's been minimal investment sort of in those spaces. So even if we had land today and we had the money appropriated, we're still looking at a three to five year constraint.

[Emily Kascicki, Deputy Commissioner of Buildings & General Services]: Right. They

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: need to get we need to get rid of the mold and everything else

[Wanda Minoli, Commissioner of Buildings & General Services]: is there now. Absolutely, madam chair. So we're looking at that as well. And that's that is that was just added to the list of to dos.

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: Thank you. You're welcome.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens]: And if this is going to be talked about a little bit later, please don't hesitate to pass on this now. You've been asked to put together an inventory of buildings that may or may not be able to be divested and to be used for housing. During my time here, that process has happened three or four times, and it always and what I've learned over the years is it's a lot more complex to identify a piece of land that can be used for housing. And so if you're in the process of that or if you're starting that, just can you just let us know how time consuming that is because we're I think we're asking you for or the administration's asking you whoever is asking for a very comprehensive list of properties and while it's easy to say say in Waterbury you know let's just say before the floods oh why can't we use that? There's a lot of reasons why.

[Wanda Minoli, Commissioner of Buildings & General Services]: So I just I really appreciate that question. It's not in our budget presentation but Emily has been the lead with the ACCD. So I'm going to let her just quickly highlight that. So

[Emily Kascicki, Deputy Commissioner of Buildings & General Services]: the governor issued an executive order to put together this inventory and the main landholding entities of BGS, ANR, and AOT really were the respondents. And most of ANR, they didn't have a big list because most of their property wouldn't be suitable for housing because it's held for conservation goals and recreation goals. So AOT really had the longest list of responsive parcels, potentially responsive parcels. And so the way that the process worked was the commissioner of Housing and Community Development set some pretty basic criteria to identify parcels that are potentially suitable for housing. And so from BGS, that made it so much easier to have that criteria of going through our list of vacant or underutilized properties, which we don't have that many of that would fall in this bucket, and then apply those criteria. And it was like access to existing roadway, parcel size, whether they're existing easements on it, and then municipal water and sewer. And so we were able to apply that checklist to the properties we thought might be suitable. And then we shared those with the Commissioner of Housing and Community Development. From there, the ACCD team is going to be working on reviewing that list, picking out the ones that they think are most viable, using their expertise as housing experts, and then engaging in conversations, whether it's us or AOT or ANR and local communities to see what's possible. And so from BGS, I don't remember exactly. I want to say it was about seven or eight that we had identified opportunities. But there's definitely factors and things to talk about for each site because like you said, they're not all straightforward.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens]: I mean, using the Armory And Waterbury as an example, it's now being used to the winter shelter. And it's also adjacent to property that's owned by AOT, you know, it's probably a brownfield, you know, and so those, you know, all of those things add up to, again, I'm not saying it's pointless exercise, I'm glad you've done it, but it is something that's happened again and again. I just want to be respectful of your time really to keep coming up with this Because it is wherever it's going to be, it's expensive.

[Emily Kascicki, Deputy Commissioner of Buildings & General Services]: And for us, it's a known limited universe. We're not changing our portfolio that drastically year to year. So we have a good process, we think, of when we identify vacant land or land buildings that we don't need anymore and we engage in a conversation with the governor's office and with you all before we divest of any property. And so again, the list that we have, we might see some changes over years, but it's not going to be dramatically different again.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens]: Lost clarification, but none of those properties you've been saying, we don't have the land yet. So I mean, again, it points out how finite the properties that we own are and what the needs are. I mean, you can't obviously you're not going to put the Windham Prison on top of where the Windham Prison is for a lot of reasons. But I just want to make sure we know that just because we think there's land out there, it comes with a lot of strings.

[Wanda Minoli, Commissioner of Buildings & General Services]: Yeah, I really appreciate you saying that. And I think I'm going to just take you back to Essex, right? We went through this exercise and we identified two lots. Size seemed right, made sense. One was, you know, in one area and the other. What and this is something we've changed too. So we just we went with the visual site that made the sense and Essex kept saying, have you evaluated the sites? Meaning have we done some testing? Have we looked at the water? Have we looked at the connections? Because they had a preferred site And we had and I spent the money out of my planning. I get a little lump sum in planning and we explored it. And what we got out of that is the preferred site that everyone wanted actually didn't support the infrastructure, and we had to shift to another site. And I think that just goes to the point that you're making. On paper, it may say 50 acres. But what is in that 50 acres? What can you actually do in that? So

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: right. Let's continue. Okay.

[Emily Kascicki, Deputy Commissioner of Buildings & General Services]: Thank you. I think we'll move to Information centers?

[Wanda Minoli, Commissioner of Buildings & General Services]: I think we should. Absolutely. Government Business Service and then Sure, go ahead, Emily.

[Emily Kascicki, Deputy Commissioner of Buildings & General Services]: So the Information Center division, you're likely familiar with these. I think it's a really great program. We have state owned centers along the highway that were constructed in partnership with AOT to provide services to the traveling public. This is really designed as a rest break, a safety break. We have 15 information and welcome centers, of which five are staffed under an agreement with a local chamber of commerce. But I think another important mission of the information centers to highlight is their marketing and community support mission. And so the centers have really wonderful relationships with their local businesses. They promote them. They have wonderful displays that feature local artists and shops. And then we also have our brochure program that helps let travelers know what they can do when they're visiting Vermont and encourage them to get off the highway and visit How the can measure success for this program? Sure. So we have metrics. We do counts of how many visitors per year, but then we also have counts of our advertising program and revenue. So the number of businesses that we're promoting, that we're working with, that is metrics of success for us. How many businesses are we working with? How many people are stopping by? The feedback that we get, because we do get a lot of comments back from the public about their experience visiting our centers. And then I think that sums it up.

[Wanda Minoli, Commissioner of Buildings & General Services]: I think that's Yes, it does. And on this, and I apologize, I think I had so right now, the we've been about 3,000,000 annual visitors throughout the state, and that started to go up in the last couple of years. I don't have those specific data points, but I think that's really extremely important. So what I'm wondering is you're marketing local businesses. How do the

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: local businesses know whether, or how do you know whether local businesses have gotten business as a result of somebody going to the information center? So I

[Wanda Minoli, Commissioner of Buildings & General Services]: would go to the data piece set here, which is the business promotion. We've actually stayed the same with the numbers. So this is a renewal. They continue We to come can't sell their products, as you know, on the highway, but they continue to invest. There is a waiting list to get on the display because it's, and it's really local art and it's Yeah, I'm

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: gonna stop at the information. So if people are re upping, that's sort of a proxy for they like

[Wanda Minoli, Commissioner of Buildings & General Services]: what they're asking about. Yes. That's where they want to spend some of their marketing dollars. Yeah.

[Emily Kascicki, Deputy Commissioner of Buildings & General Services]: That's great. Thank you. Thank you. So overall, a 3.8% increase in the recommend. Really, this is just increases in personnel costs. Same thing as an increase in our costs for the contracts with the genieverse, but no programmatic changes here.

[Wanda Minoli, Commissioner of Buildings & General Services]: So I'm going to just quickly jump in on postal. This is a 3% increase. We talked about it. And there's nine FTEs. Those nine FTEs actually operate like a post office. You know, they pick up the deliveries in Montpelier. It goes to the central location. We pick up mail. We deliver mail in Waterbury and Montpelier and in Barrie. And plus we process everything. So I know sometimes when, you know, when you look at the budget and you look at the FTEs, it's sometimes it's difficult, I think, for some to make a connection of why it's very efficient. I think today, we are probably operating internally better than some of our post offices. And it is an expected service. And we do two deliveries in certain locations and pickups, you know, like the tax department, this building, the administration, and in Waterbury because there's we still mail and we still receive mail.

[Emily Kascicki, Deputy Commissioner of Buildings & General Services]: And that's we are having challenges right now. Our postal center is concerned about some unreliable service with USPS right now. There are days when we receive no mail for state government, and then the next day we'll get

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: huge truckloads. I think that's happening around the state. It sounds like you're a victim as well. So tell me why pink mail you think is going to go from 90,000 to 550,000. Yes,

[Emily Kascicki, Deputy Commissioner of Buildings & General Services]: I think that's a typo. I actually sent an email right before I came over here. Haven't gotten it in circle. So I believe that is a typo to 90,000. It doesn't make sense, so apologize. Well,

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: you know, we're reading it. Thank you.

[Emily Kascicki, Deputy Commissioner of Buildings & General Services]: And I think a really great segue here to highlight the efficiency of this operation is Coastal and its relationship with the print shop, which is the next trend. The print shop and the Postal share a location in Middlesex. And you can really get a one stop shop in some examples where the print shop will print something that needs to be mailed. And so they can print it and then send it off, package it and send it off. And examples might be a mailing that needs to go out to families that get information from DCF. And so our staff are trained in HIPAA and confidentiality requirements. They receive the information, for example, from DCF. They print it, package it, address it, and mail it off. And it's a big volume of really critical information that gets sent out to promoters. So that's a good, again, relationship that they have together. So again, like the commissioner said, the print shop really can do some sophisticated work. Posters, I won't go into too much detail, but 11 FTEs. They do legislative printing as well. Nothing really to comment on in terms of the increase. It's personnel costs, a recommended 3% increase across these 11 FTEs. Go ahead. Yes. So Fleet Management Services, this is the unit that operates the state's fleet program. BGS primarily oversees the passenger fleet for the state, whereas jurisdiction over their vehicles that

[Wanda Minoli, Commissioner of Buildings & General Services]: are specialized. And safety.

[Emily Kascicki, Deputy Commissioner of Buildings & General Services]: And public safety as well. So the governor's recommend is about 1,300,000. There's 10 FTEs, 5.4% increase, which is made up of increases in insurance steps and COLA. And I think also filling some vacancies. So we're projecting some lower vacancy savings there. Just calling out the most of the fleet program is in vehicles that are leased out to agencies and departments. So they are really owned by BGS, but housed within that agency and department that uses them. I'll give again an example of DCF, where there's a caseworker who's on the road visiting families. And so they're going to have an assigned vehicle. We have 47 vehicles in our motor pool, which is essentially a daily rental opportunity, which is very convenient. I use it. And it's right here in our Montpelier headquarters, as well as a few vehicles throughout the state and other offices. We also have a directive through the legislature to have alternative fuel vehicles. About 60% of the fleet is alternative fuel. Most of those are hybrids. We have 13 EVs.

[Rep. John Kascenska]: So just 13, only 13 EVs.

[Emily Kascicki, Deputy Commissioner of Buildings & General Services]: Only 13, and I did ask, we are not aware of any problems with cold weather. We haven't had any reports of issues My with the

[Rep. John Kascenska]: concern is that if we had vehicles that go down in the course of someone's job, then the salaries of the people that weren't doing something that they were supposed to be doing might fairly quickly overtake your people's saving.

[Wanda Minoli, Commissioner of Buildings & General Services]: Well, I I'm really proud of so you're saying if, you know, if a vehicle breaks, our call center has immediate services. We we do not leave someone stranded. So and we don't have that many incidents. And we so we utilize regional services also to help with that, and we will get that employee up back on the road and operating and in another vehicle. So I think that's that's really important. Again, I think to Emily's point, our 47 vehicles that are in the pool is really small. It is more efficient. We do leases. We do agreements and leases with agencies and departments, and that's where the savings comes in on their budget. And I know Emily used the, you know, the AHS, you know, DCF. We have vehicles. Some of these, you know, are caseworkers that have to travel and go out to homes and do all of that. They have vehicles assigned to them. This is for them to be efficient. This is for there to be a cost savings. I worked very closely. Steve Howard kept coming to me saying, you need to make these vehicles four wheel drive or get them snow tires. You've got to get them better vehicles. We have shifted to that, which is, you know, really, really important because that's one of the concerns. So I just, I'm not concerned, representative, about the service. If there's a breakdown, if you've heard things or have concerns, I would would like to know.

[Rep. John Kascenska]: I haven't heard anything extra. It's just that I kind of concerned about mandating things. Right?

[Wanda Minoli, Commissioner of Buildings & General Services]: Right. No. It's it is it is to be convenient and comfortable, safe and efficient. It is not to be a burden to the users of it. Other questions on fleet? Keep going.

[Emily Kascicki, Deputy Commissioner of Buildings & General Services]: Go ahead, Tiffany. Surplus property. We have a small program that does both state and federal surplus. Most of it is state surplus. This can be anything from excess furniture that needs to be disposed of. We will, for example, collect sharps at the airport and dispose of them. That's a popular program, even vehicles. And so this really provides value across board for entities that need to get rid of certain things for the public who might get something at a discount. And then we get the revenue back for the things that are being disposed of. The governor's recommend is 561,494, three FTEs. And again, this is really just personnel costs. Great.

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: And I just want to say that we're going to stop, hard stop at 11:30. Okay. We're going to stop at 11:30. So we're good. I just think it's

[Wanda Minoli, Commissioner of Buildings & General Services]: really just really quickly, the federal program we're required to do, but we've really changed and we really aligned with the municipalities and we really help communities buy equipment and utilize the program.

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: Yes, that's very helpful.

[Wanda Minoli, Commissioner of Buildings & General Services]: So when you look at the budget and the FTEs that we do this with, I think we're quite successful. Go ahead.

[Emily Kascicki, Deputy Commissioner of Buildings & General Services]: Office and purchasing and contracting, again, mindful of time. I'll try to just give a highlight. Generally, we we have a centralized procurement and contracting office within BGS. There's 16 FTEs. The governor's recommend is about $3,400,000 which is a 10.3% increase. This is personnel costs. And then there's an alignment of funding source for existing positions. So some of this increase is really because we were funding some of the positions on the back end and excess receipts. We think it's better to just capture it upfront in our budget. So that is a shift. So it's now included in the recommend. So any questions on OPC? Okay. Planning and property management. This is the entity really that manages our lease program, as well as providing general planning and support for agencies and apartments in their space. The governor's recommend is $1,900,000 for 11 FTEs. That's a 9.3% increase. This is the same thing as the previous slide of just alignment and the timing of how we're funding those positions as well as increased personnel costs. This is, again, just operating. It's not lease costs included in this budget. Also, our energy program, our energy office is housed within planning and property management.

[Wanda Minoli, Commissioner of Buildings & General Services]: And just really quickly, I know that you've all seen the auditors report. We have done presentations to the energy committees, and we are talking about that. So that is being addressed just for your information. Yes. The big one,

[Emily Kascicki, Deputy Commissioner of Buildings & General Services]: the big one, the first space, this is the operations and maintenance division, which is our largest division within BGS, as well as our safety and security program. The recommend is 41,500,000.0 roughly, which is a 5.3% increase. This is really, again, personnel costs. And then increase in costs, really just generally, of utilities, and then the services for maintaining our buildings. Things are just costing more.

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: What was your budget for this year?

[Emily Kascicki, Deputy Commissioner of Buildings & General Services]: Think FSD is on the

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: line. Jason? It's, well, it's, we have, I think, over here. Okay, that's, I would turn the page. Yeah. $39,004.64. Yeah. Okay.

[Emily Kascicki, Deputy Commissioner of Buildings & General Services]: Then, again, these folks maintain and operate 3,000,000 square feet of state owned space. So I just quickly want to

[Wanda Minoli, Commissioner of Buildings & General Services]: say to the committee, in building our budget last fall, working with Commissioner Gresham, we are really looking at this program. It's the program is right, but we we because we've done the the receipts at the end of the year, we we focused on why are we doing those? What are those items? And are we are we aligning our rates correctly, for example, on utilities? And what are we charging to the program? So we've gone through a very detailed and we've reset a little bit because there are costs that were in fee for space that shouldn't have gone to major maintenance. I just want to share with you. I think that was probably the biggest that was probably the biggest one. So we've been working with our team. We've been shifting. We've realigned when it's a major maintenance item and it should go to that budget, not to the fee for space. You know, so our goal is to close the gap on, additional, costs at the end of the year. And and, you know, it's not going to happen overnight, but we're really focused with finance on working on this. And I've really appreciated the conversations and the engagement we've had.

[Rep. John Kascenska]: So the site is pushing stuff to major maintenance. Was there significant amount that could be pushed in that direction? Because of course, once it goes to the capital, we're pushing things over twenty years in terms of bonds. So instead of having dictation of things.

[Wanda Minoli, Commissioner of Buildings & General Services]: Yeah. So I think I'm going to maybe you can't, it's we don't bond. First of all, we get cash in the capital bill. The treasurer's office doesn't do all twenty year bonds. Sometimes they sell them in five year increments. You know, it's depending on what the cash flow is. So we do not focus. You know, I would not take we shouldn't be putting a twenty year item in fee for space either, right? So when they're large items like that, that's when they become line items. It's really the scope of work and what needs to be done. And is it truly a cost for the maintenance of that building, or is it a repair? And what we were finding is some repair costs should have been charged. So it's about managing the money and prioritizing the money. I think that's it at a high level.

[Rep. John Kascenska]: Yes. We've got several items to carry forward, but Ben just wanted to talk a little bit about them. You have engineering 7,555 in one lot and 482,039 in another line.

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: Part of the budget request is to ask people about their carry forward. So it's a different Maybe somewhere in what you've got, but

[Rep. John Kascenska]: I'll Show you what we've got. It's just a simple

[Wanda Minoli, Commissioner of Buildings & General Services]: No, I'm sure I have it, but you

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: were just Purchasing is almost $5,000,000 And engineering is almost half $1,000,000.

[Wanda Minoli, Commissioner of Buildings & General Services]: So we did put our carry forward together. Jason Pinard, are you online?

[Jason Pinard]: Yes. I am.

[Wanda Minoli, Commissioner of Buildings & General Services]: Jason. Jason, since I'm fiddling with paper, do you wanna do the summary on this for us? Here it is.

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: Yeah. Can

[Jason Pinard]: we repeat the question? Because I'm unclear what the specific question was.

[Rep. John Kascenska]: Just asking what the nature of carry forwards were in purchasing and engineering. What was the cause and the plan for

[Jason Pinard]: Yeah, think we had, if you go to page 34 on the budget presentation that you guys all have out of page 179, there's a description under each one of those carry forwards as to what the use of those carry forwards was intended for '26.

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: Oh yes. Okay. So

[Wanda Minoli, Commissioner of Buildings & General Services]: Thank you, Jason.

[Jason Pinard]: You're welcome.

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: I get that one. The Flint, that's the small one, and then we have engineering 34. There's 5,000,000 contract obligations. Are you guys have Vermont buys? Yes. Has that gotten any better?

[Wanda Minoli, Commissioner of Buildings & General Services]: So mean, so BT buys is the the contracting system that that we're using. So the business side is under us. It is getting better. We are moving forward. There are some some technical elements that were not implemented when they went live. We've got a plan of moving that forward. There were enhancements that were not incorporated that are necessary, and we're moving that forward. And so and then there are there were bugs, and there still are bugs, and that's a terrible terminology, but I think it's used in the world. And we learn from that, and we have to come up with a plan and move those into our enhancements and address them. It has been frustrating for some. It's a change. There's training. Not all of the elements of the rollout were connected. But we are aware and we are working on it. Okay.

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: So what I'm seeing is, and Jason, maybe you can explain, this is almost three hundred percent of the current year appropriation. So you've been carrying forward money for a little while. Is this 100% obligated for Vermont Fires?

[Jason Pinard]: Yeah, for the purchasing carry forward you're specifically Yes. Talking Yeah, so yeah, was money that was put into the fiscal year '25 appropriation for BT buys for the contract to pay for the system that was carried forward into '26 for those payments.

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: So are you expecting to fully utilize that carry forward this year?

[Wanda Minoli, Commissioner of Buildings & General Services]: Yes, so we went live in the fall and so now yes.

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: The other ones look like they have to do about security at the state house and some of the Vermont buys maintenance agreement. Yes. Yes. And in terms of the security, I know the sergeant at arm We have the equipment we need, we've been told by the sergeant at arms. The security, I thought the part of the security part was having staff, and that was Sergeant at Arms' thing. So I'm not sure how VGS is currently involved.

[Emily Kascicki, Deputy Commissioner of Buildings & General Services]: Yeah. So this is statewide. Really, so there is funding in the capital bill infrastructure. But what we found is that the demand far outpaces the funding in there. And so we are right now experiencing a long list of requests from agencies and departments or things that we've identified that a facility should have in terms of an enhancement. And most of these are like cameras and badge costs, like physical infrastructure. And so, again, we just

[Wanda Minoli, Commissioner of Buildings & General Services]: But, yeah, I mean, to answer your question, the security is under the sergeant at arms and her cost to run that program and her staff. Where we come in is maybe to Emily's point that the sergeant at arms needs a card access enhancement. And that's where we'll partner up. But the large security initiatives, are either gonna have to become through capital bill or through the budget. Understand. Okay. So I think it was a question both. That's why I jumped in. Great. Thank you.

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: Thank you very much for Thank you. Thank you.

[Wanda Minoli, Commissioner of Buildings & General Services]: We appreciated it. We're available for any follow-up questions.

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: And you know Wayne's are contested. So great. Thank you very much.

[Jason Pinard]: Thank you, everyone.

[Wanda Minoli, Commissioner of Buildings & General Services]: Thank you, Jason. So,

[Rep. Robin Scheu, Chair]: committee, we are going to end now, and then we have our public hearing at 01:45. So if you could be in Room 11 at 01:30. I know there's some training that's going on from twelve to one today, so you can't get set up before that. But at 01:30, and then we're going to be joint with the Senate. We have a full yes, our auto will be handing out a spreadsheet that has everybody in order and a place for you to take note