Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Morning. This is the House Appropriations Committee. It is Tuesday, 02/24/2026. It's 09:30 in the morning, and we are going to talk about the FY twenty seven budget with our Deputy Fiscal Officer, Emily Byrd, who will join Fiscal Office. So we're going to get spreadsheets and good stuff like that that she'll go over with us. And I will just mention that budget adjustment that you all know the Committee of Conference signed it unanimously on Friday. The Senate is suspending rules and taking it up forthwith forthwithing it to us. So I'm not sure whether we're going to have it on Thursday or Friday on the floor, but they're going to vote on it this morning. It's possible Emily may get called up if there are questions. It's not really that complicated. And Grady and Amy are up there. So if they recess, we may recess if she has to go up and deal with that. So that's the only thing that we're thinking about. Otherwise, it should be on the floor. I'll find out today whether it's Thursday or Friday and let you know and find you as well as the viewing audience. When it's a committee of conferences, it's a straight up or down. It can be debated, but the vote is yes or no. There's no amendments on it. We will get that done before we leave for town meeting.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: It'd be

[Michael Mrowicki (Member)]: nice to have that off our plate. Emily- We can jump out meeting, we did something. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: We'll have things to say. So Emily, we'll turn it over

[Emily Byrd (Deputy Fiscal Officer, Joint Fiscal Office)]: to you. Morning. Pretty exciting to start talking about twenty twenty seven more with the spreadsheets. They aren't huge yet. They're still little. Maybe the next iteration we'll have to have more on them. But I'm trying to join the Zoom. And then I forgot to bring my prop. Okay. So the spreadsheets that I have for you are really just the sort of high level overview of what the government recommended in FY twenty seven, all of the changes. That's

[David Yacovone (Member)]: me. Is

[John Kascenska (Member)]: that better? Okay, good.

[Emily Byrd (Deputy Fiscal Officer, Joint Fiscal Office)]: All of the changes that has been proposed, sort of ups and downs, ins and out at that very high level. Most of this information is straight out of the little budget, we call it the little budget book, the summary document. There's a couple pages in there that kind of walk through, like, here's all of the changes. It's sort of restating that information in a slightly different format that will be the starting place for the work that you all will do on the 2027 budget. So with that, I will share and hand out. And so I've got five spreadsheets. If we get to all five, great. If we get through three of them, and that's enough for today, then great. Everybody's doing. Now everyone's doing. Yeah. But before I get too far into the weeds, right, With JFO, myself, James, Amy, Grady, everybody is trying to get more knowledgeable about each of the individual line items in the gov rec. But I haven't been here. You've probably heard it, you and James have heard the most testimony about it in terms of what these are. So it's more of a reminder of what they are and in the questions you all may know more than I do, James will be able to help answer or we'll dig into things more. So the spreadsheets should look familiar, hopefully. They are the same. I changed the colors a little bit, so they don't have the same piece you grabbed last year. The colors will look different, this is the same format as last year. So we're going to have a house column. And as you make decisions, we'll fill in the house column on this spreadsheet. And there's going to be two sort of main spreadsheets again, there'll be one for the base budget and one for the one time appropriations. That way the two will look at the two separately and make sure that one time revenue goes to one time expenses and base revenue is going to base expenses.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: And sometimes we use base for one time expenses, but we don't use one time for base expenses. Correct.

[Emily Byrd (Deputy Fiscal Officer, Joint Fiscal Office)]: Correct. Okay. So I'm going to hand out a second spreadsheet right away. So the first line at the top in the green box, this is like supposed to represent your typical base budget stuff. Right? So I'm going to hand out a spreadsheet that talks through line one. So the base with typical changes, I'm guessing this is the only time we'll have to go through this line in detail, but wanted to make sure to walk you through how we came up with that number before, like, as we walk through it. So, I will start with line one, which has a supplemental sheet. I will note that next time there's the supplemental sheet. And there's one line on here that I do need to do more digging on. But to the extent this is what sort of grabbed from what the governor has.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: I come all the way around over here.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: I've highlighted a week's set of copies.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Oh, we do now. Tom, you have one? Okay, we're good.

[Emily Byrd (Deputy Fiscal Officer, Joint Fiscal Office)]: I have an extra piece. I'm going

[John Kascenska (Member)]: to keep it just for now. I can write notes on it.

[Emily Byrd (Deputy Fiscal Officer, Joint Fiscal Office)]: So we typical changes. But this is like the base budget. This is the normal, like, bread and butter of state government. Start with so when we start to build the '27 budget, the first thing we start with is the '26 budget. So what were the base appropriations in '26? What did it cost to do everything pay for state employees, salaries, all of our typical grant programs, all of that that equaled $2,300,000,000 So and then from there, we sort of calculate what the other changes would be to sort of restate the '26 base, if you will, so that in line five. So what we do there is on line two, and this is the one that I need to talk with with finance management a little bit more about. It's related to the cannabis control board, and how they're shifting from utilizing the special funds, utilizing the general fund. So we got to make that change in the base to reflect that statutory change in terms of what funding stream they're going use. So that's about $4,000,000 Then on line three, you'll request Can

[John Kascenska (Member)]: I ask a more clarifying question Because after you just give us a quick review of how the proceeds shift from the cash register to the state and what the original intent of some of these funds were? Or I don't know if that's too much just for this review, but I'm just curious to know exactly what you just said. I don't know. I don't understand that.

[Emily Byrd (Deputy Fiscal Officer, Joint Fiscal Office)]: I think that will be a longer conversation. Let me I don't want to misspeak right now. So let's You

[John Kascenska (Member)]: can noodle on it, and we can try to arrange because

[Emily Byrd (Deputy Fiscal Officer, Joint Fiscal Office)]: it's a funny and I can't remember. I'm trying to keep it all straight in my head. I need to talk to Ted at JFO, but there was excise tax that went into the special fund, and then it all got redirected. And then the spending from the cannabis control board, right? This is where I'm like, there was then the thing for

[John Kascenska (Member)]: me is that the original intent to me back when, I mean, maybe in a slightly naive way is to say that there was going to be money that was going to be used for societal issues beyond recovery that this fund would be available to use for. And so it's kind of this target of that I know of a couple agencies that are going and we can use CCB money and I just want to be clear on what the possibilities of this are and I don't want to see it just move because I don't understand it into some other place that makes it either untouchable or if the decision has been made by either some other committee or the administration to use it in a way that either works with or works against what was originally intended for this money. It's something that's happened countrywide, where we know it's not a cash box compared to Colorado or something like that. But I want to make sure that if we have funds that can be used for things that are not covered in the governor's recommend, that we have access to them for what they were intended. And I just that's I don't want to spend the next three months thinking that, oh, there's money there. Well, it's just

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yeah. So who can we get in, Jacob, on your talk about this? Ten's probably about ten.

[Emily Byrd (Deputy Fiscal Officer, Joint Fiscal Office)]: And I'll Ted and I will chat later today about, like, what to bring forward in terms of sort of the we've got issue briefs or reports. We've got stuff on that

[John Kascenska (Member)]: we've got. Up to date piece of it is just that I understand, again, I please noodle on or we'll get that. Can we do that?

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yeah, by breaking it down. Okay.

[Emily Byrd (Deputy Fiscal Officer, Joint Fiscal Office)]: I think what's challenging there is, right, there was one in the past, part of it was directed to the general fund, and now once it's in the general fund and it gets spent, right, then it's in the wind. The stream, yeah. Anyway, so yeah, we can do more and more in-depth cannabis fund, where it's at, where it's going.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: I just have a lot of history with the notwithstanding of the world with the property transfer tax over many years.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Right, and I know we've been doing 30% going into prevention. That's all, that's the only part I know that's actually assigned. But it'd be good because we passed this in what, 2019 or something like that? Yeah, it was 2019 or 2020 and a lot's evolved since then. There was a lot of,

[John Kascenska (Member)]: I don't want to say promise, we don't make promises in this building really that are pulled up. The statute allows for other things to happen, we just don't, we don't say that it was money intended for, but I know the conversation was pretty broad about where this money could be used or what are the guidance principles of, know, so I just want to be clear on that

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: We'll before we get somebody in

[John Kascenska (Member)]: to talk about it. Great, thank you. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, okay.

[Emily Byrd (Deputy Fiscal Officer, Joint Fiscal Office)]: Okay, we'll keep going on to line three. This was, you'll recall at the end of last legislative session, we were, legislature ended up sticking around for more than the eighteen weeks that you're typically budgeted for. As a result, we added $1,500,000 to the legislators. We put it in the base appropriation for the general assembly, because that just simplifies making sure everybody gets paid all of that. But we did that knowing with eyes wide open, then that money was going to come right back out when we built the FY27 base. So that's taking this money out of the adjusting the '26 base accordingly for that. And then similarly, based on the appropriations that were made in Act 73 to the agency of education for positions, there was 150,000. That was really a base appropriation made in that bill that was added to the base.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: I think it must have been one position.

[Emily Byrd (Deputy Fiscal Officer, Joint Fiscal Office)]: I think it was like a chart of the funding of one position that that reflects. I can go triple check what that is. But anyway, so there was an adjust adjusted the base based on the appropriations that were made in act 73. So then that so those four trans three transactions adjust the 26 base to get you to a new starting point. So then from there to get to what I'm calling the typical changes in FY27, to that we add the increase in salary and wages. So that's the annualization of the pay act. So we have to add in the new salary and wages that were adopted. Health care costs are increasing for state employees. So that's sort of a crop, you've seen that in everybody's budget that's come in. Same with retirement costs, those are tied to salary and wages. So if salaries go up, the costs of retirement for the state goes up. Also, internal service fund allocations. So ADS is called out separately because there's a lot going on with ADS, as you've heard from several from ADS and finance and management. But the other internal service funds, fee for space, the vision internal service fund to operate the state's financial system, totally drawing them blank on other ones, but there's the Department of Human Resources, Internal Service Fund, etcetera. There's increased general fund impact associated with the operations of those special funds. That's $3,000,000 And then the last one, that's sort of our typical increase is the increase in property tax assistance. So that's the homeowner and renter rebate anticipated increases. So those are just sort of business as usual, operating normally. These are the increases that have to get annualized to sort of give you that new 27 starting So

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: this reminds me of the ups and downs. And so I would like to know what the total salaries and wages are after you enter '28, and the total health benefits are. Across state government? Across state government, the total retirement. I don't care about the service fund, but also the total that we give in property tax assistance. Thank you. Lynn? On the increase in

[Eileen Dickinson (Member)]: the property tax assistance, that's like a, To me, it looks like that's considered an inflationary increase. Does this ever go down?

[Emily Byrd (Deputy Fiscal Officer, Joint Fiscal Office)]: It depends on

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: the tax department adjusted every year based on what they see. So for example, in budget adjustment, we actually had a decrease in one of the ones and an increase in the other one. So it was at that zero. But we have, it has been less than it's been budgeted for in the past.

[Eileen Dickinson (Member)]: Seems to me like people either will earn more or they will pay less or

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Well, and fewer people in some ways have qualified because we haven't changed that $47,000 circuit breaker in what, twenty years or something like My constituent coffee this Saturday. Yeah. So it made me go down.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: Just write that as reference.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: The circuit breaker. If you make under $47,000 you don't pay any property tax. I think that's what it is. And then it's graduated income sensitivity over that up to, I

[John Kascenska (Member)]: don't know what, 125

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: or something. But by 01/2025, you're down to like, you may get $100

[John Kascenska (Member)]: off of property tax.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: But the most you could have is 8,000. That's the last I remember is that 8,000 was the maximum that you could get back in property tax.

[Michael Mrowicki (Member)]: This is the homeowner rebate. The homeowner rebate.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: To 2%.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: Is what? Is it don't that people 47 don't pay or is it capped to 2% or is that a higher number? Maybe capped at

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: 2%.

[Eileen Dickinson (Member)]: Maybe capped at My understanding was that way back when we got the rebates, when was the rebates? Pre Act 16. Anybody remember any

[John Kascenska (Member)]: of that?

[Eileen Dickinson (Member)]: The issue is that there was a whole bunch of people who never really what they did is they paid they had the form, same form we use now. They paid their property taxes, and then six or eight or some months later, they got a rebate. Basically, paid little to nothing. This was for grandma Jones who lived in her house fifty years and was living on social security. And it might have been that $47,000 was their cutoff or might have been lower than that. But that existed already. And then when they went to the Act 60, those people didn't pay any taxes. So it was all rebate people from the previous formation to pay anything.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Chris Root, do you have any information you can share about this since you're sitting here?

[Chris Root (Tax Department staff)]: Would just say that this is a pretty big and complicated conversation that you might want to have the tax department in for a half hour to an hour to go through the ins and

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: outs to But look at different

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: that increase was related to the rider credit.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: That increased cost. You remember that the homeowners are putting our rebate cost by down at PAA. That's the super service rate that you mentioned. Right. The rider credit I thought a little bit and that's the one that matters. I'm looking at that calculation and people are changing the eligibility requirements. Right. You're making a little bit more generous change to get a little bit more aid to folks. So the net of that was at $800,000 but there's so many different programs that sort of interact and then the front of everything else happening in education. If you all have an hour.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: I think we'll do this in April. I just wrote that down. Autumn, hopefully you guys are all taking notes on what we can do in April and this can be added to the list.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: Yeah, because this is a conversation that's in a state of flux with everything else.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yeah, and I knew it well when I was on Waste of Things, but that was a few years, six years ago. Things have changed since then too, because they change things. Changed. It's been thirty years. Yeah.

[Eileen Dickinson (Member)]: I think it was the only thing we had. We didn't have all these other things. May actually have lowered it or maybe raised. I don't know what they did. But the point was that these people basically, and most of the people who got it, because we had a budget that was going to September trying to get our budget passed at city school. We had a lawyer who was offering these forms to people, you know, come to the open house. They said, Oh, I filled that out. I didn't know that had anything to do with my property taxes because I got it six months later.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yeah right there's a whole yeah there's lots of issues.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: It would be handy to know at the appropriations committee what tax benefits people have an updated of the because we always say, you know, the social security and veterans stuff, you know, it's all been talked about is, you know, reducing it. And I'm not saying you can't have that with this, but it's just an understanding now of people 47, they're on it would just be nice to know.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yes, so it's on the list. All right, let's continue. Great. I have

[Michael Mrowicki (Member)]: a comment related probably to what you said, because I also see a hit here, the salaries and the health and the retirement. I would be curious at some time whether right now is appropriate or not to know when our last contract was and what are the terms of that contract with our employees, in terms of raises or whatever to pay act and what these benefits are and the choices people maybe have. I don't know if in terms of the health benefits, because obviously when we're looking at all of our individual budgets, if you happen to look through that position thing, you'll see a salary and benefit then column. And sometimes that benefit is, it can range anywhere from $20,000 to $80,000 It can be what kind of package they have. So I would just be curious about the details, what that contract is, so that we'd

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: know what contract is. And there are three contracts, I believe, is that right? Two of them were settled just now. The third one, or a few months ago, and the third one is either pending or about to be or just settled. They didn't all happen at exactly the same time.

[Emily Byrd (Deputy Fiscal Officer, Joint Fiscal Office)]: Yeah, so there was a new state employee contract negotiated this fall, winter. We have just started having conversations about the next Pay Act bill, which will be introduced in Govox, I believe, when it's ready, and then we'll hit this committee. But the, yeah, we can do a, like a high level overview of what the, you know, dental, retirement, EAP, long term disability, those sorts of things, what those are, generally what those rates are, and then, yeah, the contracts

[David Yacovone (Member)]: and stuff.

[Emily Byrd (Deputy Fiscal Officer, Joint Fiscal Office)]: So in this, we should probably have another conversation about Pay Act specifically. What is unique? I don't know what the right adjective is about the way that the state does its budgeting for salaries and benefits. So on this sheet, this, the increase in salaries and wages that you see in everybody's base budget is the annualization of the rate increases that went into effect on July 2025. So they are the set. So we know the budgets that you see in front of you are based on what the salaries and benefits for the employees of each department and agency are going to be on 06/30/2026. The separate pay act appropriation that you make in the pay act bill covers any increases associated with the contract that goes into effect on July 1. So it's a little funny in that we know in FY '27, there's going to be will be a 2% rate increase for the contract that is settled, I believe, on July 1, and then a second one in January. But those costs associated with steps and COLAs that will occur in FY '27 are dealt with through a separate appropriation. They're not part of the department's base budgets.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: And not part of our budget.

[Emily Byrd (Deputy Fiscal Officer, Joint Fiscal Office)]: They are, and we'll get to best that's my number two.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Okay. Got it.

[Emily Byrd (Deputy Fiscal Officer, Joint Fiscal Office)]: So the first thing is you have to take you have to pull in last year's pay act and annualize everybody's salaries and benefits in the base budgets to reflect last year's contract.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Go ahead, Tom.

[Emily Byrd (Deputy Fiscal Officer, Joint Fiscal Office)]: It is not intuitive.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: And is that what it

[John Kascenska (Member)]: shows up in our ups and downs? Yes. Right? So we get the ups and downs and it shows increases in all of those seven bps. That's those are the actual numbers per department.

[Emily Byrd (Deputy Fiscal Officer, Joint Fiscal Office)]: Yes, that's yeah, that's the per department. This number reflects the aggregation of all the general fund increases associated with each individual department.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: So when and this is, I guess, for you, Madam Chair, well. So when the administration says target your budget increases to three percent, in essence I mean, and I know that some divisions are nine, some are two you know, I mean, there's a lot of moving parts to get to a 3%. But can I make a broad assumption that a 3% represents, or a big chunk of it represents, increases in salary and benefits?

[Emily Byrd (Deputy Fiscal Officer, Joint Fiscal Office)]: Yes. Some years

[John Kascenska (Member)]: I'd say broadly because I'm in some college, but many people are.

[Emily Byrd (Deputy Fiscal Officer, Joint Fiscal Office)]: And I can't remember off the top of head what the budget instructions specifically say. Some years the budget instructions say increase your budget by 3%. And you have to cover your annualization of pay act within that 3% increase. Some years it says 3%. And, you know, and the pay act, but that you don't have to include pay. I believe this year it was 3%. But you have to that 3% has to cover increases in salaries and wages and any other inflationary impact.

[James (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: That's a key piece. Right.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: I mean, it's and I know it's different coming out of COVID where there was a lot more money to spend with stuff, but that's a key piece of understanding for me. Say that sometimes it's absorbed and sometimes it's not. And if this budget proposal reflects that it's taking in the 3% and not really allowing for anything else. It kind of explains why we got what we got. Yeah. John. So there may be a year when the contract's not agreed to yet, but this so happens after July 1. So, for that, would that be accounted for somewhere

[Emily Byrd (Deputy Fiscal Officer, Joint Fiscal Office)]: I think typically, they start contract negotiations in the fall, typically, so I don't know of a time where there wasn't a contract by July 1. I think at that, I think if they get to the spring, it's they start arbitration and mediate and all of that. That's settled before the Yeah, before the fiscal sometimes that's what would be the, the pay act may not be settled by the time the legislature shows up, because the contracts aren't done yet. Sure. But so sometimes it's the pay act may be, you know, starting GovOps early in the session and sometimes it may be late. It's always the second year of the biennium, they do a two year contract. So what's been negotiated this fall will cover this year and next year's. So those

[John Kascenska (Member)]: are all two year duration. Yep.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: We move on? Yes. Okay. Cool.

[Emily Byrd (Deputy Fiscal Officer, Joint Fiscal Office)]: Okay. We're going to jump back to this first spreadsheet that I handed out for a second. Okay, so we just talked about line two, which is great. That's the pay act amount. So that's the amount needed to fund the bargaining agreement that goes into effect on July 1. So the 2027 salary and associate and salary related benefit increases. And I say that because in the retirement is tied to salary, right? Health care is health care, retirement costs are going to move as salary moves. So that's salaries and salary related benefits in that. So

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: these numbers don't match. This pay act of 28.91 doesn't match with anything on the And it won't.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: Okay. It won't.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: I will not turn myself inside out trying to figure that out.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: Yes.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: It's gonna take your numbers.

[Emily Byrd (Deputy Fiscal Officer, Joint Fiscal Office)]: Yes. And it's because, you don't have to trust me. And it's the difference is on this first sheet, these increases are the annualization of the 2026 collective bargaining agreement. This one is the implementation of the 2027

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: collective bargaining agreement.

[Emily Byrd (Deputy Fiscal Officer, Joint Fiscal Office)]: I'll figure out a better way to note that in the notes. But it is confusing.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Okay, that's right. Now we know that it's not just us. Okay, thank you.

[Emily Byrd (Deputy Fiscal Officer, Joint Fiscal Office)]: Okay, now in line three, we have the pension increases. So this is on a, if we jump back to this sheet, at the bottom of this sheet, just to be fully transparent. That matches. Yeah, hopefully they all match. If I did my job right, that matches. That's the pension increases. So this is the increased costs in the teachers' pension and the teachers' health care costs. I should also probably note here that this is specific. This $23,000,000 is specific to the teachers' piece. The increases related to state employees are embedded within the budgets of those departments. So it's not called out specifically. It's in typical chambers piece. But the teachers piece at almost $24,000,000 is a significant enough thing you should be aware of. And then the next line are base transfers. I have another spreadsheet on that one. That should also look familiar. This one we'll jump back to a few times, but to start.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: While we're passing things out, it appears that the Senate's off the floor. Yes, it has been fourth Wait. Okay, I texted the audience. Great. It could be Thursday.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: Okay,

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: we all have it. So

[Emily Byrd (Deputy Fiscal Officer, Joint Fiscal Office)]: at the top of this one, so this is a summary of all of transfers. The green box at the top is going to be transfers out of the general fund. The blue box below will be transfers into the general fund. And we'll jump back to this when we get to the one time pieces and the revenue. But for now at the top, we're going to talk about lines one through four. These three transfers are sort of normal, money coming out of the general fund and going to other funds. The first one is for debt service. So we do a transfer to the debt service fund so that the treasurer's office can pay back the debt service to $73,800,000 in FY 2027. The next line is the capital infrastructure fund, also known as the cash fund at $17,200,000 And then the third one is to the Tax Computer Modernization Fund. This is a statutory transfer where a little bit of general fund goes to that special fund so that the tax department can maintain and operate the computer system that allows us to collect revenue. It seems kind of important. It

[John Kascenska (Member)]: does,

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: but it's interesting because it doesn't apply to other I know. It's the olden place. Like DCF database. Anyway, go ahead, please.

[Emily Byrd (Deputy Fiscal Officer, Joint Fiscal Office)]: Yep. So those are the base transfers. That's all we're gonna do at that sheet right now. We'll jump back over here. So that should match 95.46. I realize that's rounding that thing.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Back to the line first

[Emily Byrd (Deputy Fiscal Officer, Joint Fiscal Office)]: four. So now we've gotten through only the top green box, which had three spreadsheets. That's good. Okay. There aren't any more supplemental spreadsheets until later. So that gets us to the 2,530,000,000 of sort of, we call it the starting point, right? It's your sort of normal everyday operations of government. That's

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Right, so those are appropriations, which means they are expenses. Is not the revenue that we have to work with. Correct.

[Emily Byrd (Deputy Fiscal Officer, Joint Fiscal Office)]: And then from there, so, and again, this next orange box that we'll walk through, these are the specific changes to the base budget that the governor called out in that budget summary. There are probably other things within the budget that you will want to call out specifics. So, we will have to, we did this last year as you go through each individual budgets and say, that looks like a policy change to me, or I want to talk more about this reduction or addition that the governor has included. It didn't make this list, but it's something that you all want to review. Or if there's a program within the base budget you want to talk about specifically, we will start to add those to this list.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Base stuff is on the table and we did this last year and we'll have some free time, non testimony time during the week and you can start going through your budgets again. If you find things, last year we told Maria, now we tell James, yes, let's add this to the list of things we should be talking about as we put together the budget.

[Emily Byrd (Deputy Fiscal Officer, Joint Fiscal Office)]: So I'll quickly just walk through all of these, again, not be subject matter expert necessarily on some of them. We can either tag things as further follow-up for JFO and go from there. The first Sorry, there's the I always put an Easter egg in here and I don't know where it is, but I found it. It says 5007 and '67. So that's There it is. We'll fix those numbers. Anyway, the first two lines or the first three lines, I should say, the first five, seven, six lines are the changes in the agency of digital services. I know you've heard from ADS and from finance and management about some of those changes and some of the challenges with IT funding. So the first line reflects the changes in the allocation across state government. So they've changed how that allocation is working, how it's calculated. It's resulted in an increase of $10,000,000 but that's also netted against how they're they've. They've moved things around. So there's some decreases and some increases. The net impact of that is about $5,000,000 and then there's the additional. New general fund appropriation to the agency of digital services for $9,000,000 a net Never had before. Never had before. So a net impact of $14,000,000 don't usually see coupon parties play fair. Okay. So that's a net positive of $14,000,000 of general fund related to ADS and technology and state government. Line seven, the B-one 139, this one should look familiar. This is the shift of the pilot reappraisal and listening to the pilot fund. This is what you all did one year earlier than the governor in the Budget Adjustment Act. But that's that line. The next three lines are new investments in the military department. So there's six new maintenance positions. These are partially funded with federal funds. So it's about $150,000 for a general fund and then $442,000 of federal funds. I believe it's a $25.75 match or something like that. So those are those. Some additional, the Veterans Cemetery Fund, they use a special fund for that. They're proposing to take the payroll costs associated with the FTE that maintains that cemetery and moving that to the general fund, which will free up special fund balance for cemetery. Dave? Yes, if

[David Yacovone (Member)]: I could just back up to the six positions, I'm not questioning them per se, but I just wanted to see what my understanding is. Can we verify that the military in their budget is saying effective July 1, these positions are filled, When in fact, it may not be for ninety days, a normal recruitment, whatever that may be, I'll just say three months. And everywhere in this budget where we see positions, well, Vendiva, has everybody done the same thing? And if so, this is my, I get a little confused here, that's why any clarity would be helpful. They'll assuming they get approved, they'll need twelve months of funding in FY '28. They won't need twelve months of funding in FY '27. Could we, should we choose to, could we consider the value of all those positions at three months or whatever period one month thinks is reasonable? Could we then consider them a one time use because they're going to be needed in '28 when the positions are fully filled. Is that a reasonable way to look at it?

[Emily Byrd (Deputy Fiscal Officer, Joint Fiscal Office)]: You could, we could look at that. I think the one challenge I would flag is that if you use it for one time, then you might be okay. But you start '28 with only nine months of funding for all those new positions if you're a department. So there's a sort of

[David Yacovone (Member)]: But if it's one time, the money that is available.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: Yeah. Yep.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: That's truly I would with carry forward if they didn't.

[Emily Byrd (Deputy Fiscal Officer, Joint Fiscal Office)]: And what we would have to Pardon? We would have to tease out how that interacts with the vacancy savings that they've budgeted. Like, have they already accounted for that in their vacancy savings? Or are they thinking about that as like, well, we know we got three new positions. We have a vacancy savings target.

[David Yacovone (Member)]: Clients think it may not be insignificant. You look at the whole

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Right, it would be nice to know actually how many positions they're talking about. I know they're taking them all from the position pool, but I'd like to know what all the positions are that they're posing across state government. John? Some

[John Kascenska (Member)]: of these positions, you'll limit service positions too, so starting here and they won't be able offset some intent. So does factor into

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Well, could still be, it may be in the base. If it starts July 1, are they really going to hire 150 positions as of July 1? Right. I don't think so. Right? Dealing

[John Kascenska (Member)]: with

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: a different fiscal year for the military.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: The military's well, but their budget, yes, I understand that. That would be good for you

[John Kascenska (Member)]: to dig into a little bit about what

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: they're thinking about that topic.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: Yeah, just so, again, it's something to noodle on or just to get a clear understanding. We've heard a lot of testimony about limited service physicians. We know that limited service physicians are maybe almost equivalent to a temp in the sense that they're not permanent and set the definite end date. And we've heard about how difficult it is to fill these positions that are limited service. So I'm just curious to maybe have a conversation to understand better what is the theory between funding or accepting limited service positions rather than saying this department needs permanent positions, can't we have them now? And I'd just like some clarification on that because if we're stuck in this cycle of always people saying, what is it like we're trying to buy kind of thing? Or is it like, I want to understand, just like I wanted to understand better the vacancy savings concept of so you get money for limited service positions that you I mean I've heard from people in my portfolio that would want to change the permanent positions in order

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: to meet them. But we need to have

[John Kascenska (Member)]: that permission three different ways.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Well and some of it probably has to do with some of the benefits. So usually three year but they get health benefits and things but maybe they don't get retirement?

[Emily Byrd (Deputy Fiscal Officer, Joint Fiscal Office)]: Limited services get benefits the same as a per position, just the position itself is per limited.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: So

[Emily Byrd (Deputy Fiscal Officer, Joint Fiscal Office)]: they would get retirement as well. They get all the same. They get all the I don't want us to get a term, but we can Amy can come and

[John Kascenska (Member)]: talk about it. She's the expert on it.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: It can be a little bit complicated, you mentioned, within each of the agencies, their philosophy on other current positions may be different than administration's. Right. It's a question probably we should start with administration, kind of what's their policy.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yeah, what the policy is around limited service, yeah. Who has HR, Tom? Yes. It'd be interesting to just ask them what their policy is, how decide.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: Yeah, I'm sure the first answer will be it depends.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Okay, but that's good, then we go from there.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: It doesn't end up dependent because each agency may ask what they want when it gets to the governor's office or the administration. They may put a hold that's allowing that to happen at a certain time.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yeah, I know it's difficult, somebody leaves a limited service position and there's 10 left, it's a lot harder to fill that. But coming into a three year position, I think they generally are able to fill because there's also the hope that sometimes within three years, it'll be made permanent. But filling an empty one with a few months left. Oh yeah. Okay.

[Emily Byrd (Deputy Fiscal Officer, Joint Fiscal Office)]: So that was the It's the military. Military. And the last one in the military on line 10 is the USS Vermont support group. This has been done as a one time appropriation, and the governor's proposing to put it in the base budget. At the agency of agriculture are the next two lines. So there is a new administrative services manager position at the agency of agriculture. And then there is a proposal to eliminate the farm operations fee and then utilize general fund instead of the special fund associated with that fee. Is on line 13 is the cannabis control board. So their new general fund appropriation based on how the changes in statute associated with how the cannabis funds should be used. They're no longer going to utilize the cannabis fund. They're going to use the general fund. Line 14, and this is one of those big lines to dig into, is the increase in general fund match for changes in global commitment. So that we'll work on pulling out sort of what all of those things are from human services, but most of it is changes in caseload and utilization result from Medicaid. But there probably are some other changes to talk about that aren't typical. And Lynn, that one's yours. That says 300S. Is that supposed to be a point one? 300s. Oh, 300s. No, it's Oh.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: Yeah.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yeah, makes sense. But it's mostly, it ends up in the mixing bowl. I mean, it's a The cost, but

[Emily Byrd (Deputy Fiscal Officer, Joint Fiscal Office)]: general cut will be in B301, but the policy conversations and the changes are really all So, have

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: both Ben and Dave and Tiff all talking about those things.

[Emily Byrd (Deputy Fiscal Officer, Joint Fiscal Office)]: B-three 25, this is the housing investments, the Department for Children and Families.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Is that part of the housing initiative? I believe so.

[Emily Byrd (Deputy Fiscal Officer, Joint Fiscal Office)]: Line 16 and B-three 32 at Dale, there is a new program for opioid recovery employment. I believe that's in the Voc Rehab Corporation. B-three 38, line 17, the statewide pretrial supervision program with Department of Corrections. That's Okay. Excuse

[John Kascenska (Member)]: me.

[Eileen Dickinson (Member)]: Is that the pretrial supervision program that is not being heavily utilized?

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Don't know. Trevor can answer that.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: I'm not hearing your question.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: It isn't. The pretrial.

[Eileen Dickinson (Member)]: The provision, you know, there was a big discussion and bigger among other things about the accountability court in Burlington that has been successful versus the pretrial supervision that has not been utilized.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: It's an ongoing conversation. We're giving them.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Is the one, is the one, there was the article in the paper about it. And Trevor's on it.

[Emily Byrd (Deputy Fiscal Officer, Joint Fiscal Office)]: Line 18B three forty five to the Green Mountain Care Board, general fund for new positions authorized as part of Act 68 last year. And the 3,501, line 19 of the agency of education, I know they're in later today, but the annualization of the or making the positions for education transformation permanent. Then the next three lines for UVM, the state colleges and VSAC, they've included a 3% increase for those entities. Line 23 is the VHIP program. The governor is proposing to put $4,000,000 in the base for VHIP. And then on line 24, the $7,000,000 is sort of all of the other changes. So again, I'll say these are the This is what was in the governor's little budget book. This is what the governor has sort of wanted to call out specifically as changes in the base budget. There's probably a lot going on in that 7,000,000 and it's really the net of all of the changes across state government. So as you find things that you want to call out specifically, that $7,000,000 number will, that's the to get us in balance number.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: There's a whole lot of little things in that at some point we should probably see, because if we're fighting over $10,000 we might want to know what's in that.

[Emily Byrd (Deputy Fiscal Officer, Joint Fiscal Office)]: And it'll be across, yeah, everything, everywhere.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: Yes.

[David Yacovone (Member)]: Who would we let know? Would we let James know? Would we?

[Emily Byrd (Deputy Fiscal Officer, Joint Fiscal Office)]: Talk to James.

[David Yacovone (Member)]: And then he can isolate it if you pull it out. Yep. Thank you.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: So we're gonna be forever on education and transformation, thus need to put them in a position. That's a good point. But then on the other hand, we would probably like somebody that knows what they're doing, which we probably couldn't get anybody for limited term that does.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yeah, I think we may have known this was coming. They are coming in today. We have a bunch of questions we want to ask them, like what'd you do with the 4,000,000 we gave you last year? And there's a few other questions that we have.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: I'll just point out that

[James (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: in our prior testimony, agency that you've taken despite those five positions they're requesting are currently authorized for limited service and are having difficulty filling the positions due to an advanced service in the current that's the justification behind that request for moving them to base, but they will be in at 02:00. And

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: they've had a lot of vacancies over the last few years, so they're pretty hollowed out right now. So they certainly need, I

[John Kascenska (Member)]: don't know if

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: these are the right positions, but they need some help to do what they're doing.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: Given the potential for cost savings, it might be well worth

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: the salaries. We'll be talking to Ben this afternoon. They're coming in

[Michael Mrowicki (Member)]: at two I think? Okay.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: All right.

[Emily Byrd (Deputy Fiscal Officer, Joint Fiscal Office)]: Great. So those are the appropriation changes. The next on lines twenty seven and twenty eight, these are the statutory obligations to fill up the reserves. So line 27 is to the budget stabilization reserve. So by statute, the budget stabilization reserve needs to be at, is supposed to be at 5% of prior year appropriations. So to bring the stabilization reserve up to the prior year appropriation amount, we need to move $9,000,000 into the stabilization reserve in 2027. And then the reserve in the February, this is based on the projected liability of the twenty seventh payroll and the fifty third week of Medicaid that occur every roughly six years for the fifty third week of Medicaid and every twelve years for the twenty seventh payroll. Can't remember up. One of them is coming up. Well, I

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: think the fifty third week of Medicaid is coming up soon.

[Emily Byrd (Deputy Fiscal Officer, Joint Fiscal Office)]: Possibly the twenty eighth.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: But we always yeah. It is what it is. I thought we just paid one of them a couple

[John Kascenska (Member)]: of years ago, but maybe one of them

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: we did and the other one's coming.

[Emily Byrd (Deputy Fiscal Officer, Joint Fiscal Office)]: The fifty third week is either every four or six years, depending on how many leap years are in between. So it's always a leap year. Yes, that's right.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: It's always a leap year, the year of a presidential election. So just so you know, so 2028 will be the next leap year and the last is 2024. That's how I remember it.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: So it'll be a leading number of years.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: That's a fun fact. That's a factoid.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: Could win you a lot of money on Jeopardy!

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Well now you all know it too, so when you all get on Jeopardy! You are free to use that. John, go ahead.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: Just remind us what the 2753 is.

[Emily Byrd (Deputy Fiscal Officer, Joint Fiscal Office)]: Sure. The '20 the twenty seven fifty third reserve was set up. That's that's what that's the Yeah. It was set up to anticipate the liability associated with the twenty seventh payroll and a fifty third

[John Kascenska (Member)]: 50

[Emily Byrd (Deputy Fiscal Officer, Joint Fiscal Office)]: Medicaid payment. Rather than have to scramble and find

[John Kascenska (Member)]: Which happened once?

[Emily Byrd (Deputy Fiscal Officer, Joint Fiscal Office)]: Yeah. Enough money to cover a pay period and a Medicaid payment. Is what would be three? Go

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: ahead to explain something about it.

[Michael Mrowicki (Member)]: Well, happened the year that Mitzi, for the two years, that Mitzi was chair of appropriations.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Because we didn't used to

[John Kascenska (Member)]: do it. We didn't used to do that.

[Michael Mrowicki (Member)]: We used whenever often you'd get an extra $30,000,000 or whatever you had to have. Wow. And she's got the bright idea of somebody putting a bug in her ear,

[John Kascenska (Member)]: I don't know, whatever. That's what they had sent up that separate fund. We're continuing to everybody that that was coming. Right. Right. I thought it had been around for a

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: lot longer. It makes so much sense.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: Did they

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: do it in the BAA? Before that,

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: did they do it in BAA?

[Michael Mrowicki (Member)]: I guess they must have. Well, you

[John Kascenska (Member)]: could have anticipated a year ahead knowing that it

[Michael Mrowicki (Member)]: was happening, but you'd have to put a big chunk of money away.

[Eileen Dickinson (Member)]: I think that was one of those years when we really didn't have a lot of money, and we really had a hard time finding that.

[Michael Mrowicki (Member)]: And maybe that's why she said, look, no, we don't need to do it this way. We need to start saving for this.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Right. It's a lot better to do that. Mean, think about it, if you have your own finances, and you suddenly had to They spent a $30,000,000 expense that you weren't expecting, or $30,000 at this time. Okay.

[Emily Byrd (Deputy Fiscal Officer, Joint Fiscal Office)]: So those are the total changes to the reserves and appropriations. We go to line 30. That's where if there are other bills that

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: come through that I have appropriations see other bills bill after there. 32. 33.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: Sorry.

[David Yacovone (Member)]: And

[Emily Byrd (Deputy Fiscal Officer, Joint Fiscal Office)]: then if we go down to line 36, for the revenue, this is pretty straightforward. But we've got $2,530,000,000 from the revenue forecasted well, forecast adopted by the emergency board in January.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: That was the January 1. Okay.

[Emily Byrd (Deputy Fiscal Officer, Joint Fiscal Office)]: Additional funds from the property transfer tax. So a component of the property transfer tax ends up in the general fund. And then direct applications, so money transferred from other special funds into the general fund. Do you want to jump back to this spreadsheet I gave you earlier that had the face transfers on it. On the bottom, it has a summary of the direct act to the general fund. So most of these are typical transfers to and from the general fund on an annual basis. There's typically about $4,600,000 from the AHS earned federal receipts fund that goes to the general fund. We anticipate about $2,000,000 of settlement funds from the attorney general's office. Line eleven, twelve, and 14 are the transfers from the Department of Financial Regulation special funds, so the insurance regulatory fund, the securities regulatory fund, then the captives fund. It appears that the captives fund actually needs a little bit of general fund. So that's an actual decrease in it.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: A big deal. I

[Emily Byrd (Deputy Fiscal Officer, Joint Fiscal Office)]: think last year, was the same. I think last year we carried them as one big net number, and this year,

[John Kascenska (Member)]: thought it would Yes. Be better to

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yeah. Because I usually think of it as we get about $66,000,000 from DFR.

[Emily Byrd (Deputy Fiscal Officer, Joint Fiscal Office)]: And I

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: think if you add all those up, The that's around where we

[Emily Byrd (Deputy Fiscal Officer, Joint Fiscal Office)]: unclaimed property fund. So there's a component that gets transferred to the general fund on line 13. On line 15, funds from sport wagering. And 16, money for liquor control. Brings us to $1,800,000 coming from other funds transferred to the general fund.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: And just confirm that lottery proceeds are transferred to the education fund, but sports wagering is not. Correct.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Which is why we don't see lottery out here. You'll see it on the education fund, Alex. That's a good reminder.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: It's just it's just whatever it is, what it is.

[Emily Byrd (Deputy Fiscal Officer, Joint Fiscal Office)]: So if we put all those together, the total base revenue, 2,640,000,000.00, leaves a difference between base appropriations and base revenue of about $31000000.30900000.0. Those funds are used to cover one time appropriations. So this will carry over onto the next spreadsheet.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So you did not carry the additional property transfer tax into the house. Is that because we have to agree? I should have done that. That should be there, right? Yes. So those two numbers should really be the same? Yep. Okay.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: On the bottom of this?

[Emily Byrd (Deputy Fiscal Officer, Joint Fiscal Office)]: Yep. Yes. Okay. I mean, you could not withstand it or not do that, but I don't know why you would. Right. No. Because you could do you, it's your budget.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: Wait. Where does the $30,940,000 compare?

[Emily Byrd (Deputy Fiscal Officer, Joint Fiscal Office)]: That's the difference between line 35 and line 44. Line 35 is going to be your total base spending. Line 44 will be your total base sources.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So it's sort of uses and sources as opposed to sources. Okay,

[Michael Mrowicki (Member)]: there's only 30,000,000 left to cover the 200,000,000 to precisely see. So far. Well, that's

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: to me, we want to agree with all the things that are up top.

[Michael Mrowicki (Member)]: Yeah, we don't The framework of where we are.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yes, where we are at the moment. And governor used all of that money in his one time appropriations.

[Emily Byrd (Deputy Fiscal Officer, Joint Fiscal Office)]: Yes. I can't remember when or how long you've had.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: I don't know either. Hang on a second. We aren't having the walk through till eleven why don't we go till 10:45 and then we'll take a break? Okay.

[Emily Byrd (Deputy Fiscal Officer, Joint Fiscal Office)]: So you can do that. Okay. So that means I have to hand out another fridge. Maybe we can get through all of them. Alright. This should also look familiar.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: This

[Emily Byrd (Deputy Fiscal Officer, Joint Fiscal Office)]: is so this is gonna be the one times

[John Kascenska (Member)]: spreadsheet. I'm gonna hand out both.

[David Yacovone (Member)]: Gonna hand them both out?

[John Kascenska (Member)]: Yeah.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yep. Because it's the first line

[Emily Byrd (Deputy Fiscal Officer, Joint Fiscal Office)]: on the next.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: Thank you for the larger part. Yeah.

[Emily Byrd (Deputy Fiscal Officer, Joint Fiscal Office)]: As we start, the paper will get bigger as

[John Kascenska (Member)]: you start adding rows. I call this the AARP.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Thank you.

[Emily Byrd (Deputy Fiscal Officer, Joint Fiscal Office)]: Okay, so unlike the So, the base sheet, we start with all of the spending and then show you what revenue is available. On the one time sheet, we go the opposite. Here is all the revenue available for one times, and then here's how it gets spent. So, if it's the first line on the one time sheet, this one with the blues and purples on it, the first line is reversions from prior year appropriations. And those are on this orange sheet. This is a summary of all the reversions that the governor has

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: booked

[Emily Byrd (Deputy Fiscal Officer, Joint Fiscal Office)]: as part of his budget.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: It's not there's when the carry forward report that we have, I'll have to go back and look and see if they actually showed the reversions as well that they're proposed here or not. I think they may not. So you'll have to look at that for your carry forward report.

[Emily Byrd (Deputy Fiscal Officer, Joint Fiscal Office)]: And I am not prepared to speak to these reversions individually, just wanted to give you this is what they all are.

[Michael Mrowicki (Member)]: Right, and

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: those who have it in your portfolio will be checking what some of these things are.

[Emily Byrd (Deputy Fiscal Officer, Joint Fiscal Office)]: So, there's $9,500,000 of reversions anticipated as part of the 27 bill. And then on the next line, the governor is proposing unreserving $30,000,000 that was set aside in the FY 2026 budget as one time funds reserved for property tax relief or other needs identified. So just as a reminder, we

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: had a $50,000,000 a $30,000,000 and a $30,000,000 And the first 50,000,000 and the first 30,000,000 were related to federal funds. And the second 30,000,000 was for a whole lot of other things as well. So that's the second 30 that he's proposing to Undersert.

[Emily Byrd (Deputy Fiscal Officer, Joint Fiscal Office)]: Yep. The next line, line three, are the funds carried forward from FY 'twenty six. This number should look familiar from the budget adjustment conversations. And if you have those old budget adjustment sheets, there was $74,910,000 on the bottom line of FY26 to be utilized in FY27. So that's where this money shows.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: He had wanted the BAA to guarantee it should go to the Ed Fund. We held off and just continued to carry forward to the

[John Kascenska (Member)]: budget where we deal with it. Okay.

[Emily Byrd (Deputy Fiscal Officer, Joint Fiscal Office)]: Then on line four, that number should also look familiar because it's at the bottom of the sheet we just went through, is the 30,900,000.0 from the base that's used for a one time appropriations. Right. That number will change as the as your decisions around base appropriations change, that balance from the bottom line number will change. So, governor has utilized $145,000,000 of one time funds in the FY 'twenty seven budget. We go down to the blue section. These appropriations that are proposed by the governor. On line five, the continuation of the Ideal Vermont program. Line six is the Truth and Reconciliation Commission appropriation. I believe this is the last year of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: That's what I wanted to mention. It's appropriate at one time because it ends in December, I think. Okay.

[Emily Byrd (Deputy Fiscal Officer, Joint Fiscal Office)]: In line seven at the Department of Vermont Health Access, there's $300,000 for costs above other HR1 federal grants. This one I need to do a little bit more. That's not a great explanation. It's related to the changes that happened at the federal level and the state needing to cover some of those additional costs. And then in DIVA, there's $2,000,000 appropriated for provider stabilization grants. Line nine at the Department for Children and Families, dollars 15,000,000 for the temporary emergency housing proposal. Line 10 at Department for Children and Families, funding for the temporary secure treatment facility for youth. And then in line 11, another appropriation to the Department for Children and Families, housing proposal and startup costs for new shelters for $6,000,000 Line 12 to the Department of Forest Parks and Recreation, half $1,000,000 for BOLEC grants for outdoor recreation. Nothing. Remember what the E and C stands for. On line 13, to the Department for Housing and Community Development, funding for the MCRR, the Manufactured Home Improvement Program. And then on line 14, to the Department for Economic Development, funding for the Canadian International Economic Development Partnership. So that is a total of almost $30,000,000 worth of one time appropriations. I'll just note that this list is a lot shorter than it has been in the last several years. So then line sixteen, seventeen, and 18, if and when there are other bills that require one time appropriations, that's where we will carry them. And then on line 20, we have one time transfers. So the governor has proposed to put half $1,000,000 into a mobile radio replacement fund for the Department of Public Safety. You'll recall there's a proposal to move the motor vehicle purchasing use tax. The governor proposed to use $10,000,000 of general fund to reduce the purchasing use tax going to the education fund by $10,000,000 and move it to the transportation fund, and then take general funds and move it to the education fund to keep the education fund whole. And then the last line on line 23 is the governor's proposal amount to transfer from the general fund to the education fund for property tax relief at almost $105,000,000 So total transfers are $115,000,000 When you add that to the in line 19, the one time appropriations before transfers, your revenue equals expenses and the budget is in balance with all resources you must.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So the governor who's used all available resources, This assumes there are no bills that have any money associated with them. We're going to start hearing bills today. Some will be easy because they aren't general fund, or easier maybe. I don't know if that's easy. But will not involve general fund. But like last year, but with a whole lot less money, every time we do something over here, we have to take away something over here, which is why it's so important to look at your carry forward, to look at what is being proposed even in the base, to figure out where the sofa cushions are in your areas, that maybe we can do some things. I know some of you are already thinking in very creative ways, and I know our committees are trying to think in creative ways also about what they want and what they want to do. And maybe there are some programs that they're familiar with that they don't think should be continued that are proposed to be continued. So there may be some money there. I think it was all known it's going to be a hard year, and I think we're seeing it right here in four spreadsheets or five, or however many, And we so far have only $2.00 $3,000,000 in requests. Doesn't include all the other ones that we're still getting. We'll get from committees. Going to get from have gotten James hasn't put it all together yet from attorney general, ethics commission, state's attorneys,

[John Kascenska (Member)]: on and on.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So here we are.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: Here we are.

[Eileen Dickinson (Member)]: This is our job,

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: and we'll get through it. We'll get through it, but it's just not gonna be a very easy year. Dave,

[John Kascenska (Member)]: you've got some I apologize

[David Yacovone (Member)]: if we covered it and I missed it. Where does the 50,000,000, the 30,000,000, and the 30,000,000, what's left of it? Where does that show up?

[Emily Byrd (Deputy Fiscal Officer, Joint Fiscal Office)]: It won't show up anywhere in here because it's FY '26 appropriations. So the 30,000,000 is still reserved. So the $230,000,000 appropriations, One of the 30 millions is still reserved in the general fund. The second 30,000,000, the governor has language that unreserves it.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: Yep.

[Emily Byrd (Deputy Fiscal Officer, Joint Fiscal Office)]: The 50. What's left of the 50, right, with the net, the amount that was transferred for snap benefits by the emergency board sits in that one time appropriation until you all revert it or designate it for other.

[David Yacovone (Member)]: Is somebody saving that for something that Well, so- Which is fine, I just wanted to- Section

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: eight housing is one of the things that's come up and we didn't put a specific dollar amount in the budget adjustment, but there's the 50,000,000, that's where the, $50,000,000 is where the money would come from for any Section eight housing that we choose to do, that the emergency board or the general assembly chooses to do. The other thing I would say is, and I'm gonna use an Emily metaphor here, we're in the first quarter of this administration in Washington. So we got three more years. I don't know what that's gonna mean. And so part of our intent last year in reserving those funds was to be able to respond to changes that come out of Washington. And some have come out and some still haven't. So there's a reason to reserve some of that, at least. So, I don't know what the answer is. Don't know what the number is. But I would think it would be very irresponsible for us to say, oh, look, have this $80,000,000 or this $70,000,000 or whatever the heck it is. Because we're going to be in tough times for a while. This is the first year of several. '28 could be harder than this year. This year's looking pretty darn hard. So, I want us to be careful about what we decide to spend our money on. Because what are the unintended or longer term consequences of what we do now? We're always careful, right? Well, all try to be, but this is just a harder year than we've had in the last six months. I do see. John?

[John Kascenska (Member)]: We're hearing from the federal delegation today. Yes. But they've been working Yeah. So that might help balance some things perhaps.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Well, was one of the sofa cushions I thought we could look under. So, you know, I think everybody's trying to be creative and if there's stuff that they're able to do that are close enough, and what's going to be good enough this year? We're going to get

[John Kascenska (Member)]: a lot of not never, but no this year.

[Michael Mrowicki (Member)]: Can you just remind me again, what are the parameters around that? Other than 30,000,000,000 that we have reserved,

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: not what the government has It was also specifically related to federal funds. Was it? Yes. It did not include, so the first 50 was actually appropriated to the agency of administration for the e board to use. The second 30 was reserved for the general assembly to make decisions around federal slab related issues.

[Michael Mrowicki (Member)]: Okay, but it was still related to federal. Yes, they both

[John Kascenska (Member)]: And

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: then the last 30, we said, okay, we think we've done enough for federal for this point, now we can use it for other stuff, including property or housing, property tax relief, and other things that benefit for vouchers. Can add, if you can just repeat the last 30. Wayne?

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: I'm nervous. I've been nervous right along about whether or not we've got it all over our I's and crossed our T's without federal money. Not worried about it, it's 2,000. We have an oddity finding as you know, unlocking the blood. If something were to come down, we will end up having to through it or get back 200,000,000 to $300,000,000 we can suck in pond water.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yep. That's what makes me nervous. Yeah. Well, and the uncertainty that's coming out and where clawbacks could potentially happen or not happen is, I mean, things change on a regular basis. Nolan is looking at the Rural Health Transformation Grant and trying to understand the 38 projects, and those projects are still in flux. They put something down and they're still under discussion with the folks in Washington. So you're looking at it at a point in time, but it could change. So there's a lot of uncertainty and it's hard to develop a budget with that kind of uncertainty. John?

[John Kascenska (Member)]: We have a target date for them yet about, know exactly what those projects The things we've seen happen.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yeah, I think we have the general idea. We don't have the specifics yet. The challenge is that they've to obligate, not spend, but obligate all the money by August 31

[James (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: or

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So something like they don't have a lot of time and they don't have the final agreement with CMS at this point. So they're gonna, know, an obligate means you're under grants or contracts. I think that's what we're trying, it doesn't have to be spent, but it's gonna have to be, you know, that's a lot of work to do in a very short amount of time. It's getting shorter every day. Any other questions for Emily or comments from Emily? There'll be more to come. James is working on spreadsheets for us as we get We have a few more committee letters that come in. The rest should be in today or tomorrow. We'll take some time to look at those this week. We have Chair Black coming in for health care on Thursday and Chair Wood coming in. Maybe they're both on Thursday, one in the morning, one in the afternoon. Is Chair Mahali from House at some point? Yeah, on Thursday. On Thursday's committee letter day. And as we see others come in, if there's some that you think that we ought to have the chair come in and talk about, let me know. I think some of them are fairly straightforward. You could just talk with your portfolio of folks about it. But if there's other big ones, this you can arrange for that.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: Did you see that Sher Black could be a

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: good State Yes, of the yes. Wait. Senator Welch invited Alyssa Black to be his guest because of health care costs at the State

[Michael Mrowicki (Member)]: of the Union tonight. So,

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: it was indigure this morning. I knew it last week. Yeah, but now she has.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: She's been

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So, yes, so we will have representation in the State of the Union. We could see if they scan the audience and we could look at she's looking. She would be a guest of Senator Welch. So I don't know, wherever he's sitting, she probably would be with you. So yeah, pretty cool. Okay, I think that's it.