Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Good afternoon. This is the House Appropriations Committee. It is Thursday, 02/19/2026. It's 02:30 in the afternoon, and we have with us Hardy Mrow, Deputy Commissioner of Finance and Management, and we have three topics that we've asked them to come speak about, the emergency rental assistance program, vacancy savings, and then the administration's request to use $15,000,000 of the Vermont Higher Ed Endowment Trust for a currently non allowable use, but related to one of our universities. So hopefully that sounds familiar, Hardy. Welcome.

[Hardy Merrill (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Finance & Management, VT AOA)]: It does. Thank you, Madam Chair. For the record, Hardy Merrill, Deputy Commissioner, finance and management. I've I've I've got three documents that I've shared with the committee. I'm gonna start by using as a guide for my testimony. There's a five page document. It's titled Budgeted Vacancy Savings at the top of page one.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: I was like, could you put that out, Autumn?

[Rep. Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: It's like this. Reminds me

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: that I was just the only one who's not logging in. This always happens to me. If there's three things, get to thank you. Page

[Hardy Merrill (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Finance & Management, VT AOA)]: one is essentially a copy and paste of an email I sent to representative Squirrell yesterday. Yesterday, he sent me a message saying a committee chair, you know, asked me how vacancy savings is is calculated. Is it a point I think it's a point of time. That's what I told him. Am I right? And so I responded and said, well, I wouldn't characterize your response as, you know, particularly accurate. And then I provided all of this text here on page one in response in my attempt

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: to So I redivert and redirect? Just it's all what he'll explain to us.

[Hardy Merrill (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Finance & Management, VT AOA)]: I'm gonna explain. I just thought since I'd taken the time to type this out for representative Squirrell, I Right. Repurpose it.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Get up. Get your minds work.

[Hardy Merrill (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Finance & Management, VT AOA)]: Repurpose it for the rest of the committee. And so what I'm essentially trying to explain in this missive is that there is not a set any set formulaic calculation to arrive at vacancy savings numbers. And I also wanted to convey that the the budget submissions come to DFM, and DFM may challenge or may question or require departments to justify their vacancy savings their budgeted vacancy savings amount, if it appears to be much out of line with historical actual experience. However, it's it's generally not, you know, DFM dictating a certain amount, and it's definitely not DFM dictating a certain amount based on a formula, nor is it DFM requiring any certain formula or or set set calculation method to be used by departments. And the reason I'm kinda stepping through this, there's still some misconceptions for people who've been in the legislature for a long time, I think. Talking to some people, you know, that I work with, like some around fifteen, twenty years ago, I think there were, as part of budget instructions, specific guidance is offered, like assume 5% for vacancy savings, and that would be expected to be put in. I wanted to just make it clear that that is no longer the case. There's not a specific direction provided other than the text I copied and pasted from our budget instructions, which is in the indented section with the two paragraphs, you know, where we explain in instructions, it should reflect the best possible ex estimate of savings both for salary and benefit costs combined, resulting from positions that are not expected to be filled for part or all of f y twenty seven. And then we added another paragraph. If vacancy savings budget submissions appear to be inconsistent with your department's historical trend of savings related to position vacancies, please be prepared to justify your assumptions during during budget review. And it is a topic that we are typically discussing in our, in our annual meetings, which last at least an hour with every appropriation across across state government. That being said, there are tools that we there there is a point of time information that is available to departments as they embark on their budget development process each fall. And the budget system takes data out of the VTHR system at the time we are opening it up for people to do their budget work. And some of the information it shows is in the position summary report. It lists all positions. And you're familiar with this report because it's received as part of your package. And it lists all the positions and it lists the salary and benefit costs associated with that position. Now what we don't provide as part of the governor's recommend are the actual names of people in positions. That's not a piece of detail that's required by in the form of the governance governor's budget report. However, departments, when they're doing their budget, do have this report, and so they can clearly see whether positions have a name or not. And if they don't, it essentially says unfilled, and it's still got an amount there. But they can see all their currently vacant positions, whether they are a department of five positions or 200. So it is something that that is viewed by everyone as a point in time, and it's available in the budget system. And that is one of the things, for instance, a DFM analyst will look at to compare to what the what the the budget what the request is Yeah. For budgeted vacancy savings. There are other tools that we'll use as well, including looking at for salary costs, look back in history to see, okay. Here's the budgeted salary expense, but here's the actual. And if you look at that for a few years and it's always running under, that may prompt you to also look at VTHR historical data, look at actual numbers at various times of the year of vacant positions, and perform this analysis, and it's a back and forth with the department. But I think some of the questions and discussion if I if I saw from notes from committee are, you know, what's the, what's the process and is yet them dictating? And and so because

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: I've heard from I know that we we have heard from at least two organizations that have to put their budgets through you that they were They felt, I don't know, force may not be the right word, but in order to make their budget hit your 3.7 mark, which we know not every agency does, they were told they actually were going to have to let people go because of vacancy savings. They were fully staffed, or they were whatever, and they were told use vacancy savings to make a balance, and that would require letting people go.

[Rep. Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: And I'm not going to name names. I

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: can think of two.

[Hardy Merrill (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Finance & Management, VT AOA)]: States attorneys and sheriffs, one of

[Rep. David Yacovone (Member)]: them that we that we could talk about?

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Not the name names.

[Hardy Merrill (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Finance & Management, VT AOA)]: Okay. Maybe I'll address them in my in my remarks. Okay. I wanna first, make clear, and I can do this in in no uncertain terms has it ever been conveyed by DFM to any of the departments, at least I'm speaking for the last five years when I've been present personally in every budget meeting. It has never been conveyed that you cannot fill you'll you'll be required to leave positions open, you can't recruit, and you can't hire because of a vacancy savings number.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: That's never Then you have to let people go to make a vacancy savings number.

[Hardy Merrill (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Finance & Management, VT AOA)]: What's that?

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: That's still different than you have to let people go in order to make a

[Hardy Merrill (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Finance & Management, VT AOA)]: That hasn't been conveyed either. I can tell you what we have conveyed. That's can tell you what what we actually what we actually did, for instance, with the Human Rights Commission last year was if they were not achieving the vacancy say and this is, of course, a very small department. Yeah. It's a small amount, but with a staff of only five, that's material. So as we're getting through the year and they're concerned about running out of funds, we simply provided them the money through the pay act request process. So we've got a $25,000,000 appropriation to the secretary of administration for distribution for for payroll purposes. And so there is that's one lever that can be pulled. That's in some cases, there are other levers that can be pulled. Instance, if it's a a an internal service fund department, an excess receipts request could be used. That would be legitimate because you could anticipate that, yes, we we this is necessary. We need to keep paying these people. If we run into deficit in the fund, we'll need to increase our charges to departments next year, but that would be a legitimate, use of an excess receipt. There are various methods, and I also wanna call out, I think there's in particular, which has been a bit disappointing to me, some misunderstanding in our communications for some years now with state's attorneys and sheriffs, where where I have personally made the comment, which I remember vividly explaining we are not asking you to hold open any prosecutor positions. In fact, this is very it's very much in line with the governor's strategic priorities

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

[Hardy Merrill (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Finance & Management, VT AOA)]: That we have all the prosecutors we can we can hire. And if if you find that you do not have adequate spending authority and you're able to hire, that is a that is a wonderful problem to have that we can help solve. And I'm sure we could probably, the pay act process, provide the spending authority to get you through the year. And then now that we're in a different position in terms of vacancies, we can budget for the next year at a level that funds all these necessary, you know, positions. Yeah. And and that's that's absolutely the case. And I'll say on you know, I provided this five page worksheet that I really don't wanna go too into the weeds on. Yeah. Going through. But if we look on page two of this, what you'll see is that under state's attorneys, for example, they they have at the time a few months ago when we opened up the budget system, they had nine vacancies. And the first highlighted column, which is like the dollar value of vacancy positions, that's like $1,180,000 if those vacancies remain. They're only but the budgeted vacancy savings, which I know I did hear in their testimony, they're asking to have that bought back. They don't wanna have any budgeted vacancy savings, but $330,000 compared to their actual vacancies and what they've seen for really for for some years now in terms of, unfortunately, it's very hard to hire certain positions. You know, we think that is a realistic number, and in fact, far more will achieve. I'll say on state's attorneys, for example, they had a large amount of carry forward left at the end of fiscal year twenty five, close to $700,000. So if the vacancy savings, the budgeted vacancy savings is eliminated, I think the expected outcome is probably going to be another large amount of unspent carryforward at the end of the year. And that's fine. That can be addressed, you know, if necessary. But our goal is to, you know, we are trying to shoot for accurate budgets and amounts for budgeted vacancy savings. And the reason is, really, if you go to the last page of the five page worksheet and you look at the bottom line, you're gonna see some really big numbers. So the budgeted vacancy savings that's in the governor's recommended budget is $81,000,000. So so if we didn't have any budgeted vacancy savings, right, we would have to come up with $81,000,000. And and but the other thing I I note is, again, this is just a point of time. But at the point in time of kicking off the budget development cycle here and when we imported all the information in the budget system, the actual value of the vacant positions is a $104,000,000. So we're not we don't appear we're we're certainly not exceeding on a statewide basis the amount of actual vacancies at this time. It's somewhat more it's some somewhat more conservative, at least the state on a statewide basis. And if you go through each appropriation in five pages, some are up and some are down, and there's stories behind each of them that I probably, you know, don't have time to go into. I could talk briefly about some of the largest ones. I mean, you'll see

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: You'll see correctional circles.

[Hardy Merrill (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Finance & Management, VT AOA)]: You'll see in DOC, there's a their their budgeted vacancy savings is a million dollars greater than what's shown in the pension summary. A big part of that, madam chair, is due to the fact that they're they're not only paid straight salary, and this this only shows the straight salary. There are the shift differentials and all those other things that pile on. So in fact, if you have a vacancy in corrections, you're saving not only the base salary, there are other amounts that I think you may be aware of from recent recent collective bargaining agreements. So I do think their budgeted vacancy savings is not necessarily really out of line compared to their current vacancies because there's additional

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: turnover, you're gonna have more vacancy savings even based on the number of positions. I used to manage 500 people, and I had to deal with this myself in my budgets at the bank. And if you have turnover, the same position turns over three times, you've got to budget it for one position, but it could be three times. That's that's true also. That will

[Hardy Merrill (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Finance & Management, VT AOA)]: Another really big one is state police. And now you'll see state police is significantly they budgeted significantly less vacancy savings than their current amount of vacancies this fall. However, I think you may have heard from Commissioner Morrison's testimony, there's some optimism. They're actually filling the academy with more recruits. We actually do expect in that operation, we're hopeful that in fact, in the future, the but the vacancies will be less than what they are at this current point of time. And so the f y twenty seven budget is optimistically reflecting that, that we will need to spend more on wages than the current amount of vacancies in that outlet. I didn't wanna get too far in the weeds, but I wanted to share I thought it was a good answer to, you know, representative Squirrell's question. There is sort of a point in time snapshot. It doesn't always tell the same the whole story. But and it's interesting, I think, to compare on the bottom line, the total value of vacancies in the state right now and compare that to what we're budgeting in the budget and the governor's recommend for '27. And keep in mind, this is all funds. This is all funds.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Do you have the governor's office in here too? Executive office, there is on page one. I remember the Yes.

[Hardy Merrill (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Finance & Management, VT AOA)]: So it's actually very close to Right. In that case, it's very close to the current vacancies. And I think I may have explained the positions that are vacant now. He's we simply are planning to keep them vacant. So that's very close to one to one right there.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: The ADS is not, I'm looking at the top, they both are budgeted more vacancy savings than by, you know, it's like almost $3,000,000 I

[Hardy Merrill (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Finance & Management, VT AOA)]: did notice that significant delta as well when I printed this out before I came over. And I can't off the top of my head

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: You got all these up.

[Hardy Merrill (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Finance & Management, VT AOA)]: Delve into that one. Well, you know, and the the a lot of the reason is we really focus on general fund in our analysis because the sort of the special I mean, it's sort of up to the department whether they you know, they may have kind of managed their own fund. ADS, although there is a general fund component in the gov rec this year, there's still primarily an internal service fund. And frankly, that had not caught my eye before. So I have a bit of a question mark myself on that one.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Sure Marty will be asking you about it.

[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member)]: If we'll just go back and take a look at your state's attorney's example then, so essentially what you're telling us is that if they if we had the proper number of vacancy savings and something happened but they didn't have enough money, there's going to be an opportunity for them to rectify the There

[Hardy Merrill (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Finance & Management, VT AOA)]: would be an opportunity for them to make a pay act request To

[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member)]: pay act.

[Hardy Merrill (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Finance & Management, VT AOA)]: As they do every year. Right. And they could ask for an enlarged amount, and I'm quite confident that we would be able to accommodate that. I can not to go too far on a tangent to talk about pay act, which is that could be an hour long topic in itself. But I I'll speak just very briefly to why I'm confident there's capacity to make up for certain special situations like this in when a department needs maybe more than just the collective bargaining agreement percentage, and why I feel we can accommodate that. And that is, especially during the past couple of years, we've, in finance and management, taken a pretty strong initiative with the carry forward review request. If you say, okay, to departments that have leftover carryforward at the end of the year, we'll say, okay, we'll let you keep this, but we're also calculating your pay act if they're saying, let's say, $100,000 and we wanna keep this carry forward, we'll take a look and we'll say, well, we're calculating, our analyst calculates that your Pay Act need is going to be $250,000 next year. So we'll let you keep maybe $500,000 if you have a good use, you can justify for the other $2.50. But for $2.50 of that, we're carving it off. Even though it remains in their appropriation, they can't spend it until we release it at pay act time. So what I'm saying is, we're sort of self funding to the tune of, I don't know, 5, several million dollars. We're sort of self funding Pay Act needs to carry forward, which means the pay act appropriation, which is just based on assuming, you know, all the collective bargaining wage pressure, and it's and it's not assuming anyone's self funding their general fund pay act. That gives us the flexibility to be able to accommodate special situations like the ones we're talking about if if a a human rights commission or a a state's attorneys requires extra funding because of greater you know, because of not meeting what was budgeted for vacancies. Does I hope I didn't lose anyone on that train of thought.

[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member)]: Well, just to be clear, say they got carry forward, they needed the extra $300,000 or something. You're saying, okay, we're going to carve out this $300,000 We're not letting them let you have it now.

[Hardy Merrill (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Finance & Management, VT AOA)]: That's right. Until Time of Pay Act. Until spring, yep, like eighth.

[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member)]: We will then release that capital. But if they didn't have any carry forward, they might be able to then go to Pay Act and we might be able to provide funds out of it.

[Hardy Merrill (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Finance & Management, VT AOA)]: Every general yes. And so in terms of general fund, every general fund department does make a typically make a pay act request, unless they've got really severe vacancies. There was actually a remarkable few few years ago, states police, which is a huge general fund department, they actually didn't have a pay act request for the unfortunate reason that their vacancies exceeded their increases due to collective bargaining. But that was an anomaly. Usually, people do have pay act requests, and and I'm explaining that we create extra capacity in our ability to, quote, unquote, dole out pay act from the secretary's $25,000,000 pot by making certain departments, if they have the resources, sort of self fund their pay act.

[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member)]: You're not just giving them a blank check to be able to use carry forward. They have to check-in and get authorization.

[Hardy Merrill (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Finance & Management, VT AOA)]: That's correct. In other cases, though, representative Laroche, they may have $500,000 available, but we will not carve it out and make them use it for Pay Act, and we'll give them the entire 500,000 for a different purpose depending on what their needs are. They've got an IT project that has got cost overruns and has to be complete. You know, they come up with some justification that maybe so so it's not always we don't always carve out any anything for pay act out of what they have. But if possible, if it appears that there's capacity there, yes, we make that effort, and it adds up to statewide over the general fund several millions of dollars.

[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member)]: Beginning of the fiscal year, you may have decided through their budgeting process that they can just use the money as they need it in terms of carry forward. But in some cases, you're going to say, okay, you

[Hardy Merrill (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Finance & Management, VT AOA)]: may That's correct.

[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member)]: Reserve it. You have to come to us.

[Hardy Merrill (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Finance & Management, VT AOA)]: And when we reserve it for Pay Act, that's what creates capacity. It's actually a real good thing we did this, was it last year or the year before? I mean, we had to send corrections. I mentioned already they've got some special compensation arrangements that were negotiated that were not foreseen in the budget. We had to send corrections $10,000,000 right? In order to keep the thing afloat because of some of the things I mentioned in terms of increases. Fortunately, we had the capacity. The pay act appropriation was not calculated to accommodate that kind of payment, but because we had done some of this proactive reservation of carry forward, that helped create the capacity to sort of dodge a bullet, if you will, on that one with corrections. So I'm sorry I got a little off topic, but I wanted to share is there are various levers we can pull to ensure that despite vacancy savings may perhaps not being achieved, and a department could could may not be able to fund the positions they have, we have levers we can pull to make that happen and get through the fiscal year.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So I'm wondering, though, since you brought it up on page three, Human Rights Commission, the Human Services Board, a bunch of ag things. There's a lot that have no money for vacant positions because they're fully staffed, and yet they have budgeted vacancy savings. So why wouldn't it just be zero? There's a whole bunch of them on that page.

[Hardy Merrill (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Finance & Management, VT AOA)]: To be honest, I don't have at my hands transcripts from each of these meetings. Each of I'm these just wondering, because with

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: whole lunch here, it's not like there's one. And I'm just wondering how that would happen if they're fully staffed, that they would then have vacancy savings.

[Hardy Merrill (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Finance & Management, VT AOA)]: Well, they could be. They could be. This is how I mean, they're submitting a budget. They need to meet a target. Yeah. And they choose the way to put together their budget to meet the target. If they are choosing to book vacancy savings as opposed to making an actual cut to something else, that's something they can put forward. And in these cases, it was these budgets were accepted, and they have been part of Yeah. The governor's delivered budgets. Right. If they are in a position where they do not they may need to make a they need to to meet as a business, they may need to make a business decision next year. I can't tell whether you know, again, this is all funds, so I'm not sure on the funds. And in particular, in ag, that's a lot of special fund there. They may, for instance, in ag, they've got some special funds that have we have in the past executed when they've had additional fund balances, and they've you know, they they move things around between a lot of different they've got a lot numerous different special funds. They move things around quite a bit. I can't, you know, I can't Okay. Do a a budget presentation on each of these.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: And I'm not asking to. I just didn't know if there was any sort of theme that you could bring up. But, Dave, you look at it. You have a question.

[Rep. David Yacovone (Member)]: I just wanted, did you say the total value of the vacancy savings was 81?

[Hardy Merrill (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Finance & Management, VT AOA)]: Yeah, what's in the budget is on the last page of this five page worksheet. So what's actually put forth and in the budget for budgeted vacancy savings across all funds is $81,500,000.

[Rep. David Yacovone (Member)]: So I must not be the following chart. So if the average position's worth 100,000, that's accurate, that's, you divide that into 81,000,000, that's a lot of positions that have to be vacant all year long.

[Hardy Merrill (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Finance & Management, VT AOA)]: So the number of actual vacant positions of

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: 862.

[Hardy Merrill (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Finance & Management, VT AOA)]: As of the point of time of a couple months ago is 862. And that actually equates to a $104,000,000 of salary and benefits value. So we're budgeting for something less than that. So we

[Rep. David Yacovone (Member)]: need to have 700 plus positions unfilled at all times in order to come in into the budget. Correct? Am I right?

[Hardy Merrill (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Finance & Management, VT AOA)]: Actually we don't want to have the positions unfilled.

[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member)]: Well, how do you get to see the higher results? So you hire somebody in the middle of fiscal year. So we have half the fiscal year, they're not there. You get a position, but you get a vacant savings for half that. Sure. Get that. So a bunch of that must be intermixed with other things in those numbers.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: There is some amount of turnover, but the state has also had a fairly large number of vacant positions

[Rep. David Yacovone (Member)]: over the course of the last year. I always write that churning.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: It's churning, but then, when we were looking at opening some joint fiscal met, where we were hearing the transportation agency's decision, at the time, there were either seven ninety nine or eight ninety nine open positions then. So this eight forty two is tracking that. But it's still a lot of open positions where things aren't getting able to get done because we don't have those people. Right. Yeah, need to provide. I know, I'm sorry. I'm realizing we can all It's an hour longer. It's really like, just the budget hinges on it. I mean, it seems that the budget we can't make the budget unless we keep a big chunk of state positions vacant. Well,

[Hardy Merrill (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Finance & Management, VT AOA)]: Well, we'll see if perhaps job market dynamics will change. But currently, these positions, most if not all, are actively being recruited. And they're

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: But we don't have the money for them. I mean, you pointed out, we would still

[Hardy Merrill (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Finance & Management, VT AOA)]: have So the hard part is, I guess, we don't know which ones are necessarily gonna remain unfilled, which ones will get someone to move in and and which ones won't. So we don't feel it's prudent, for instance. We we do think, for instance, there should be more state troopers. So even though there have been a large number of vacant positions, there we don't see a benefit in abolishing those positions so that they can't be filled sometime in the future.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: There's always gonna be open positions. We we know that. This is almost 10% of the workforce. Not quite. 9%.

[Hardy Merrill (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Finance & Management, VT AOA)]: Yeah. So it's it's well, it's it it it's yeah. It's It's the number here, you know, on the report is 8.7 in terms of the total positions in the budget loaded in the budget system, and then the number of vacancies. It's a lot. Okay, I'm going to

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: move us on. Get you back maybe in April. We'll have a much longer discussion about this,

[Rep. Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: but I want to some of us have another meeting together, so we wanted

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: to finish up with we have ERAP and then the 15,000,000. So

[Hardy Merrill (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Finance & Management, VT AOA)]: Okay. So the ERAP, I provided a little bit of background history here. I'm assuming the committee may be familiar with the really large amounts of pandemic relief dollars that came to the state via ERAP one and ERAP two was over $350,000,000. A large portion of that on the order of $200,000,000 plus, I think, was flowed through the Vermont State Housing Authority. Administered the VRAP program, Vermont Emergency Rental Assistance Program, that essentially for eligible applicants covered rent payments to their landlords. The second tranche of the ERAP funds, the period of performance recently closed 09/30/2025. It's in the closeout process now. What has been determined is that there is about $6,900,000 of the ERAP two funds that were administered by Vermont State Housing Authority that were spent in ways that are disallowed by the federal program rules. I can't speak to specifically what those circumstances were, and that would involve, you know, perhaps the Vermont State Housing Authority, if you needed to get into the weeds. What where where we come in in finance and management is not wanting to have to remit $6,900,000 back to the federal government based on disallowed uses. So that's why first in 2024 Act one thirteen, section c one ten, there was language put in that you'll see down at the bottom of page two here to provide for this reversion and reallocation essentially essentially swaps of ERAP for general fund. And I'll get into I'll try to explain a little bit better the mechanics of of how that's working. But the key here is, and the reason there's language that was just submitted to update the language, that it referred to only using general fund for this swap process. It did not mention any other fund, and we have a need to perform one of these swaps with some I know it's a long name. The the other infrastructure essential investments and reserves subaccount in the cash fund for capital and essential investments. So that's a transaction in the amount of $1,192,000 that we're not legally authorized to complete until we enact some language that authorizes us to perform such an action on that fund. So, basically and if you wanna see, you know, the detail, again, not sure how far in the weeds we wanna go, but I provided a copy of the actual memo from the secretary of administration, you know, who is authorized pursuant to this language to, propose, adding spending authority in in ERAP too and, and also in in general fund on the back of the page related to these specific appropriations. And so so to walk through essentially, you know, this this can be hard to get get one's head around, but going back to, you know, the VSHA expense some funds in ways that are disallowed by the federal program rules. So now what we're doing is after the fact, and even though it's in subsequent fiscal years, there are, there are ways to create financial accounting transactions to essentially use the ERAP for allowable purposes. And that's why you see so many DCF emergency housing appropriations referenced here. There were act there were state funds, in most cases, general fund, but in one case, from this under cash fund subaccount b, there are cases in which state funds were spent on purposes that would be allowable by the ERAP federal program rules. So we're after the fact performing a substitution of now putting the ERAP spending authority to these various DCF appropriations and what that and then we're simultaneously, freeing up general fund then that can then be, and it's kind of it goes in a big circle. Then the general fund can be sent to VSHA, and then they they it sort of it goes in a circle. I can't remember which is first. It's sort of a chicken or the egg, but they provide the ERAP funds that were disallowed. They they send those back to the state so that they can be used for allowable purposes, and we send general fund back to VSHA, and it's going like that. And that's all fine, and it takes place in the back of the back in the in the in the backroom based on this reversion and reallocation language that was authorized. The only problem is there's one appropriation cited in this memo from the secretary. If you look on the second page, it's actually not fund 1,000, which is general fund. It's fund twenty one nine five three for $1,192,000. And when this memo reaches our desk at the commissioner of finance and management, we say, hey, there's actually a problem. The language doesn't authorize us to do it with this fund number. So, basically, what I've communicated to the AOA financial services division is that we can't complete this transaction until language is enacted. So we've got a chance if it that we may come we may run for a temporary time a $1,192,000 deficit in the ERAP fund. But once this language is enacted, we will send the money to VSHA, and they'll send the ERAP back, and that will alleviate the fund deficit and all the all the better. So I realized this is one of the most challenging to perhaps understand and most boring topics out there.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Not to us, but so I wanna know why the numbers don't balance because you you stated appropriation to 6.9, but you're spending 10,000,000 and the aged secretary seems to have 6,700,000.0.

[Hardy Merrill (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Finance & Management, VT AOA)]: Yes, you know what, if you really wanted a thorough walkthrough, I have seen some of the spreadsheets and correspondence. The chief recovery office has actually taken the lead on this whole putting together these transactions to be executed by finance and management. Because of the fact that it's spanning multiple fiscal years, it becomes it becomes very complicated to track. Yeah. And I think you would probably need maybe fifteen to twenty minutes, but perhaps a half hour. If you're having the recovery office on any other topic, you may want to plan for an in-depth explanation that even if I could provide it, I don't think I could provide it in this time allotted and still address the Higher Education Trust Fund. Okay.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yeah. Alright. So, let's do some digging and figuring out what we need to know, and then we'll

[Hardy Merrill (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Finance & Management, VT AOA)]: The digging I did, and just to to finish, you know, the reason there ended up being an emergency housing related appropriation from the cash fund was 2023 act 81 section seven, which was a complicated maneuver that swept an unallocated balance from the cash fund subaccount, which was based on end of year revenues above forecast. And it was sort of it was enacted in June, and it was sort of a a budget compromise bill. It was a separate standalone bill, and it put 25,000,000 towards emergency housing through 04/01/2024. And that was expended on that purpose. And now what we're doing is trying to go back and swap some ERAP dollars in there for some of those dollars that were spent that would comport with the eligibility rules of the of the ERAP program. Again, this is all about just not returning any millions to the federal government and finding ways to deploy it in allowable ways.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Let's go to the 15,000,000.

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

[Hardy Merrill (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Finance & Management, VT AOA)]: you. Sure. I understand by looking at your agenda, I think you had the treasurer's office visit with you yesterday. Yes. Did they provide so some of what I'm doing is explaining here in this handout the the way the higher education trust fund is funded, the mechanisms, how it's dispersed. Did they go through all that already? Yeah.

[Rep. David Yacovone (Member)]: I've got all that. Yeah.

[Hardy Merrill (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Finance & Management, VT AOA)]: Okay. So I'll assume then I don't need to walk through really the first the first section here.

[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member)]: I'm on page

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: It's on the same one as I'm on page. Yeah. So vacancy savings has this on it?

[Hardy Merrill (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Finance & Management, VT AOA)]: Yes. I Oh, okay. Page indeed. Yes. So there's on on page one vacancy savings. I've got the ERAP background. Yeah. I've tried to explain on page two. And on page three, I've got the Higher Education Trust Fund. The so the first section, I think we can We know how it works. Yep.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: And what we wanna understand is what you want to use the money for and why. Make the case for us.

[Hardy Merrill (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Finance & Management, VT AOA)]: Very good. So the multipurpose center project approved by the board of trustees in 2019, a project that was then commenced in 2020, has seen over 70,000,000, I think it's about 76,000,000 actually spent so far. So besides the design, there was groundbreaking. There's concrete poured at this time and some tens of millions of dollars of steel that are in storage right now, staged. In the previous UVM administration, you know, the president decided that this was really not a priority that he wanted to pursue. There's a new administration at UVM now, and it is a priority. It looks like it would require about another $100,000,000 to complete the project.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: And this is a gym or something? A multi purpose center project. What is that?

[Hardy Merrill (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Finance & Management, VT AOA)]: Actually know what? And so foolish me. I came here more prepared to explain about the the the mechanisms of the trust fund, which you've already which you've already learned about and how we would move the money around. It is so it it my basic understanding is, yes, it's a it's a sports facility. It's a sports related facility. And also, it would also provide sort of health, wellness, and recreational facilities for the student body as well. Cause I did see that some of the funds that have been expended already are related to equipment or, know, kind of wellness equipment was one of the descriptions there. So the basic facts are, you know, 76,000,000 spent today, a stalled project. There have been commitments for donations in the amount of about $40,000,000 that have been made, about a $100,000,000 is required. UVM is looking for more some support from the state really for the purpose of securing additional private donations and really bringing them to the finish line and and showing investors that there is, you know, skin in the game on the part of the of the state as well as as well as of private donors. I think that I think since 2020, an explosion in construction costs that we're all familiar with is really what's caused a lot of the need now. And and from the standpoint of of UVM, and perhaps they would be perhaps the best ones to make the case. I know they really made the case to the governor's office and the policy team, more so than with interacting with finance and management, but to really keep the ball rolling on this project and keep basically donor confidence alive in terms of, yeah, we can actually, if you donate money, we can actually get something done.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So when you all did this, made this decision, did you talk to the, well, UVM, I imagine you talked to, because they want it, the Vermont State Colleges and VSAC about how they felt about it? Because they're the ones who are recipients of this. Do you know maybe you're not the one I need to talk to.

[Hardy Merrill (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Finance & Management, VT AOA)]: I know that I don't I know that finance and management has not talked to those entities. I'm not sure what other communications may have taken place with the governor's policy team. What I what I one of the points just one of the numbers related financial points that I did wanna make is if the $15,000,000 for well, first, I wanted to this is actually from the treasury report.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: You get that.

[Hardy Merrill (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Finance & Management, VT AOA)]: When you see Yeah. This chart, it really you know, jumps off the page in terms of this one year Right. '26 that 26,000,000 pop unexpected from the estate tax. And and so if we were to knock this down by 15,000,000, right, the amount of unexpected windfall into the higher ed ed trust fund would still be at the level of the previous higher ever inflow of about $11,000,000 right back in 2011. So I guess there would still be a fairly remarkable increase to the fund balance of the Higher Ed Trust Fund, and the three recipients would still receive greater than ever by a significant margin. And it's kinda hard to calculate. I tried, like, to do on the napkin They would get it. With all the 12 quarter rolling averages of fund balances and everything like that. But my rough napkin math was telling me, gee, based on kinda steady and even we assume even lower investment performance than last year, they could still be seeing, like, 25, 30% increases to their disbursements after the 15,000,000 out of the funds. So I think the thought process here is something of a a rising tide for for all ships.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: But we don't know if anybody's talked to. So, Lynn, did somebody else do have a question too, Tom?

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member)]: I can't ask the question, I'm a little bit angry just listening to

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Okay, so Lynn then Wayne. We went through quite a bit

[Rep. Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: of time yesterday with the representative from the treasurer's office and we went through the history of it, we went through how the thing is structured, And from what we understand, you're only allowed to use 5%

[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member)]: of

[Rep. Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: the allowable income that it is received.

[Hardy Merrill (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Finance & Management, VT AOA)]: 5% of the fund balance, but it can't exceed the amount of investment income.

[Rep. Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: Yes. You you they have roughly $65,000,000 in there. I assume that includes this extra money. The point is that it's supposed to be a 5% and you can't touch the cordless. And there's certain places that that money can come from to take that 5%, which doesn't look like it's going to be $15,000,000 to any one institution, then you have a 2% that you can use to add to an existing endowment that you already have at the institutions. And there are samples that you showed us of the schools that had taken the 2%. They didn't take any,

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member)]: but so

[Hardy Merrill (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Finance & Management, VT AOA)]: the question

[Rep. Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: I have is if you're taking 15,000,000 for this donation, it would also count toward the corpus of this donated money. This wouldn't be You're taking a bigger chunk than most schools would be able The three institutions could take out under regular circumstances. So this year, it's sort of invading the corpus to take out the 15,000,000 for you.

[Hardy Merrill (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Finance & Management, VT AOA)]: Yes. Or another way of looking at it, I guess, as I tried to explain is that this magnitude is so great that instead of 26,000,000 to the higher ed trust fund, let's put 15 to another higher ed related purpose, and it will be the balance of 11, which will still be compared to history, on an on enormous infusion of cash to the but but, yes, you're absolutely right. Yeah. The I mean, that's in in the the current payment, right, based on the formula is something like $600,000. Yes. Right? Yes. And and I'm thinking, again, this is my napkin math trying to do to perform some roughly some complicated calculations. But I was looking at something like, okay. If the three institutions are receive receiving a level of 600 now, then if this recommended plan were executed, including the the the the appropriation and expenditure of 15,000,000, that bait that the remain based on the remaining fund balance and formulaic actions, it would still be the disbursements would still be increasing to something like 800, right, to the three institutions. So Yeah. I think So there would still

[Rep. Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: hasn't been that high, but

[Hardy Merrill (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Finance & Management, VT AOA)]: the point No. It hasn't. And and and now there there are gonna be larger amounts because of, again, the chart and the fund balance, which is almost doubled. It was 36,000,000 at the beginning of of f y twenty five, and it closed at 66,000,000. So it's changed dramatically. And so essentially on the Y, I mean, the UVM was making a general fund ask really, right? Of $20,000,000, and that did not fit. That did not fit into the governor's priorities for the expenditure of General Fund. However, looking at this anomalous event involving a huge, you know, windfall into the higher ed trust fund, it looked like there might be a nexus and a use of funds here that could be recommended as opposed to essentially having

[Rep. Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: No. Answer of no

[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member)]: to you. Yeah. I'm sorry?

[Rep. Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: That you have access to something that's a bottom line rather than saying, no. It can't come from general fund. It's gonna we could get it out of this.

[Hardy Merrill (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Finance & Management, VT AOA)]: That's right. And, actually, we don't have access to it. There's a recommendation being made to the legislature to, you know, to to not withstand statute and to make a onetime appropriation of 15,000,000 for this purpose.

[Rep. Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: K. One follow-up. Yeah. Go ahead. When is this structured? Because the question is, is this onetime money or is this an endowment? And the way the structure is set up, it's clearly an endowment. It's not structured as the way this fund is set up by the donors, the way it's been It's done in not a one time money, if you're trying to take one time money.

[Hardy Merrill (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Finance & Management, VT AOA)]: That's why it's not withstanding. Yeah, that's why there's a not withstanding.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So you have, you are putting language in to change the purposes of the high rate of trust.

[Hardy Merrill (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Finance & Management, VT AOA)]: Well, no, it's just simply not withstanding. Well, we'll see.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Okay, so I have Wayne and then I have Tom.

[Hardy Merrill (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Finance & Management, VT AOA)]: When it says notwithstanding 16 VSAA section 2,885, that language is required because yes, this would not be an allowable purpose of the fund otherwise. So just like there's notwithstanding language often in the Ed Fund to use it for a certain different purpose or in other

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: funds. Wayne and Tom.

[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member)]: Well, I really think New Nin should make the case to us that's Secondly, why they wanted I think it's going be a hard sell. Whether right or wrong, a lot of people are going to feel that this money deserves to go to lessen the costs, the burden on students so that we get more people educated, right? And building a field house or whatever this is, is tangential to actually getting an education. On the other hand, I commented the other day that the way this looks with the small amounts being taken out of it, I don't think it's my personal feeling is I don't think we should build things that are gonna be for the unborn children. Meaning that every time somebody's born, then they're born and it's for the unborn children and you never end up using it for anything productive. So I believe that money should be used for something productive. So I'm thinking, well, maybe if they came and gave us a good case, it might suggest that they might get a loan out of this fund. That loan might help them with their fundraising, and it would eventually come back to the fund and still technically be used for the education that This we're

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: affects the workforce because of the money that we're using for things. I think we have a lot of strong feelings about this. I'm going to let Tom speak, and then it sounds like we might need to get UBM in. We're going to keep pursuing this, but I think at at a moment in a moment, it's just not gonna be hardy as the best person for us to be talking about.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member)]: On a

[Hardy Merrill (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Finance & Management, VT AOA)]: not on the sales. I not on the sales effort, and I'll acknowledge

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: I'm not a I'm

[Hardy Merrill (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Finance & Management, VT AOA)]: not a salesman. But, again, back to the financial aspects, though, if if not used for this purpose, the 15,000,000 would go into the trust fund, but all it could do would speed to sit there, and only the interest can then be used. So you're getting an enormous amount of principle that can't really be used for anything.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Which is a much larger conversation about what you do when a trust fund suddenly gets $5,000,000

[Hardy Merrill (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Finance & Management, VT AOA)]: rather

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: than just saying, let's take it and spend it here without the bigger conversation of how do we want to use it with it now that it's different than it used to be. So I'm going to let Tom ask this question, and then we're going to go to this construction aid thing, which I see on here too.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member)]: Yeah, I just I haven't heard chicken and the egg thing. I'm not hearing, like, what did what came first? The request for the $15,000,000 from UBM, like, we really need this to do this sports complex as opposed to education for future children, which is what the trust fund was built for and what the excess money was meant for. So you're you're doing you're you're proposing or the administration is proposing a miniature version of what you just explained with ERAP money of, like, I need to change the rules in order to make this happen. And yet, we have a surplus of money that we're all gonna fight for over the next month that the administration wants to put towards one purpose, which we'll discuss in detail as the days go on. But what came first in this in this decision making process to change the rules of an existing trust fund that's been here for a long time. It's not just sitting there. It's doing a lot of work, and that's what trust funds are supposed to do. So I'm just curious at who or what, when, where decided, wow, that really grew. Let's use it for a capital project that we won't see anything or not, you know, it's just we won't we I won't see it. I won't see any benefit from spending that money because I will unlikely go to any event at that sporting arena in the near future. So so what what came first? The idea that UVM needed money and you and the administration didn't wanna contemplate using some of the surplus funds, and so that you saw that this big bump happened. If we took a little bit of that, then it still looks like a greater Sure.

[Hardy Merrill (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Finance & Management, VT AOA)]: Well, I think I can I think I'm

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member)]: I mean, clearly, I'm upset with the idea of what we're proposing here, so I just wanna throw that out there? I'll I'll I'll accept that.

[Hardy Merrill (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Finance & Management, VT AOA)]: I'm coming across a little strong because because I don't like this. Sure. So so my understanding is a a request was made by UVM just as many just as all departments and agencies and many organizations outside of the state make requests. The request for state funds could not be accommodated in the governor's budget priorities for the general fund. This was, eventually settled upon as a possibility to propose that that was amenable to the governor's priorities.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member)]: Okay. So so it didn't

[Hardy Merrill (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Finance & Management, VT AOA)]: it didn't come from I I guess, I I don't believe I don't believe I I think, UVM is just making a request for funding for support for this project. I I don't believe they came up with the idea of the higher ed trust trust fund, for instance, if that's was that your question?

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member)]: Well, kinda. Yeah. I mean, somebody had to say $15,000,000. We're not gonna spend it out of our surplus in the general fund money because that's not a priority that we're I know what the priority is for that money. Right. From the administration's perspective, whether I agree with it or not, I know what it is. Right. But somebody decided to propose this. I would to cancer rather than it just being this amorphous, well, it's just there. And so that's the goal of our next month is to talk

[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member)]: like,

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member)]: I have no idea what the motivation was except to well, what's in the memo is UVM thinks that if the state contributes more money to UVM for this one particular side project, that that it it might increase that that it won't disappoint the people who have already given. I think that's the gist of the language in here. And I just think that's

[Hardy Merrill (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Finance & Management, VT AOA)]: Fair fair point. And I'm and I'm not the best person, unfortunately, to engage with you on on on, you know, the in terms of the policy initiatives. And I'm sorry. I I came more prepared to explain the mechanics and how this,

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: you know, how this would work In

[Hardy Merrill (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Finance & Management, VT AOA)]: terms of the the funding and and Right. Some of the history and some of the financial aspects that I we could see, which would that there would still for the beneficiaries, there would still be an increase that would be significant in their payments. So those are some basic I facts of

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: also haven't heard whether anybody's actually talked with the state, Vermont State University, or VSAC about this from the administration? And maybe you aren't the one to answer that question for me. But if you're not, who should I ask if they've talked to those I will respond to you.

[Hardy Merrill (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Finance & Management, VT AOA)]: Okay. I because I'm not sure whom in the governor's office actually has the lead on this particular item since some responsibilities have changed. So I'll simply respond to you today, madam chair,

[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member)]: with That would be great.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Alright.

[Hardy Merrill (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Finance & Management, VT AOA)]: Who to

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: talk to. I believe they have not been asked, but I don't wanna make an assumption. I'd like you to tell me before I launch off.

[Hardy Merrill (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Finance & Management, VT AOA)]: Please let me give you the right comment. That would be terrific. I'll ask them to, in fact, contact you if that works.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: And I see you have something about school construction aid. We're going take a look at it, maybe we'll get you back. But a couple of us have to go to another meeting, I think you might too. I'm not sure. I'll give

[Hardy Merrill (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Finance & Management, VT AOA)]: you the twenty second summary, the if you

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Higher Ed Trust Fund

[Hardy Merrill (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Finance & Management, VT AOA)]: Well, what we're no. It's actually proposing so I wasn't sure what you wanted to hear exactly regarding the higher ed trust fund, but there are two pieces of language that have a nexus with the higher ed trust fund. The first is the onetime appropriation we just discussed. And then the the other is, though, is there is language in the governor's recommend that proposes to stop directing surpluses from the estate tax above a 125% of consensus forecast into the higher ed trust fund and to instead direct any such anomalous sporadic surpluses into the school construction aid fund, which is just been created in act 73 and takes effect July 1.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So it basically freezes the higher end endowment trust fund where it is?

[Hardy Merrill (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Finance & Management, VT AOA)]: Other than

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: A little teeny bit from unclaimed property.

[Hardy Merrill (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Finance & Management, VT AOA)]: Unclaimed The property and investment earnings on a large As fund you can see, there are many years when they're

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: And then there's years when Yeah. So it's a second use of the higher ed. That's for example,

[Rep. Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: in a different way. It's a policy.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: It is a big policy.

[Rep. David Yacovone (Member)]: That is. Well,

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: we'll find out. House education should be looking at this as well, and we'll find out who else. Anyway, thank you. Lynn?

[Rep. Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: I have a question. The treasurer's office has its own idea of how to use the unclaimed property, and it wants to raise the amount that it would use. Anything below that would remain, would go to, they almost double the amount of money they put in to this higher education trust fund. They use it for A Vermont month's saves. Saves, yes. It's a graduated five year thing, and they're going to put it into a month's saves. Then by then after the five years, it will show that much more money for

[Hardy Merrill (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Finance & Management, VT AOA)]: Was this part of the treasurer's presentation I have to admit, I'm not aware of that. So I will

[Rep. Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: sounds like it's a competing option to use the $150 as well, but I think we ought to

[Hardy Merrill (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Finance & Management, VT AOA)]: I'll have to get up to speed on that.

[Rep. Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: It's quite a fun a kickstart for my saves.

[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member)]: That sounds like what's in H. 567, which is on the notice calendar. Is that going to come to us? Yes. Yeah.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Thank you. You may not have gotten what you expected when you came, but we appreciate you coming very much and answering our questions.

[Hardy Merrill (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Finance & Management, VT AOA)]: Well, I appreciate your time, and and thanks for hearing about

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: our time. Other questions.

[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member)]: I hope

[Hardy Merrill (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Finance & Management, VT AOA)]: it was some help. We'll get you to contact on the UVM initiative.

[Rep. Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: Yes. That would be great.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Thank you so much, Harvey. Yeah. So committee, we are not done for the day because we have a public hearing at five, so you have a break. Tomorrow at the moment, we don't have committee time, but I think we will. We may be going over, we'll probably spend a little bit of time debriefing what we've heard in the last two public hearings. I wanted to talk to James about getting even a rough spreadsheet, not for posting, but for us to look at tomorrow as part of our thinking about what we're hearing so far for the FY 'twenty seven budget. The committee of conference met today. We just have a couple of language things, and then one other thing we're going to deal with. We're going to meet at 08:30 tomorrow morning from 08:30 to nine, and then at 10:30 or 10:45, and we'll wrap it up tomorrow. So, I don't know yet what we're gonna do. Keep an eye out, we'll send a text. I just don't know yet. I have to go to another meeting.

[Rep. Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: Okay. So, if you come up with something in the conference committee by noon. Are you going to be asking us to stay to vote on it or we'd wait to mark that? I don't think

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: you vote on the committee of conference. It's three or whatever. Committee doesn't vote. No, the committee of conference will vote and then it would just go to the floor for next week. We don't have to worry about There's gonna be no voting committee. My goal is that we're done, there's a storm coming and everything. Thank you guys.