Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Good afternoon. This is the House Appropriations Committee. It's Wednesday, 02/25/2026. It's just after 01:00, and we are going to take up another bill, H542, back related to terminating testing of schools in Vermont for polychlorinated biphenyls, PCBs, as it's known as. So we have Representative Conlon, Chair of House Education, to give us a quick run through of why we have this bill, and then we'll have Ledge Council walk us through it, and we have folks for the fiscal note as well.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: So welcome. Thank you. I don't know why you have this bill. It was a House rule because there's no appropriation in it.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: There used to be though, but that's why we kept the bill.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: Okay. So H542 essentially puts an end to the requirement that schools test for PCBs. On the books currently, there is a 2027 deadline that all schools, independent, recognized public, have to test all of their buildings for the presence of airborne PCBs. The history of this is it goes back to 2021, sort of late in the game of a very unique legislative session when we were all online. In the last day or two, this testing requirement was slipped in there into the budget. And it was done without a lot of testimony really on either side, but it really never came to the house. But many of our concerns with it became realized over the years. But so it came in in '21, it also required the health department to come up with standards by which airborne PCBs could be measured. They did that. The program was born, and then it was funded when we were flush and had a lot of available federal dollars. And so the legislature appropriated about $32,000,000 toward it. 16,000,000 went directly Well eventually to Burlington to help them remove their PCB contaminated building materials from the from the destruction of their high school. And the rest was used for the testing program as envisioned by the Department of Health and the Agency of Natural Resources. That money was to pay for both testing and remediation if a school was found to exceed the levels created by the Department of Health in Vermont. So that started taking place. Schools were found to be above the action levels that the state created. That kicked into place a whole need to remediate. But the short story is the money's gone. The 32,000,000 went away probably by the end of FY24. Last year, probably by the end of FY25, last year, with that money gone, the ANR proposed, and it was included in the budget, to move about 9,250,000.00 from one of their environmental contingency funds to be used toward continued remediation work and testing work at schools that had already been flagged. That money has about half left. It's pretty well earmarked for one school in order to get them to a point where their airborne levels are below the state average. And what testimony has come to us has shown that all of the affected schools now have done enough mitigation between sort of hardcore millions and millions of dollars worth of work and the use of charcoal filter fans to a level in which that they can operate fairly well, remain under the levels and not require further testing. So H542 essentially says, ends the testing as a mandated program, which therefore takes the deadline off the books. It says that the state will continue to pay for the ongoing needs of schools that have been tested and have been found to be above the action levels and are going through remediation, mitigation. It says that if there is no state funding available for those schools, that they are not required under state law to continue to do that work, that any remaining funds be devoted only to those schools that have been flagged for work and that it not be used for further testing of schools that have not been tested yet. And then it asked the agency of natural resources for annual reports as to sort of the status of things, how much money should be appropriated in order to continue to work. It also makes clear that this applies only to the program that was created in 2021. It does not apply to current regulations around testing for contaminants in a building that you are going to renovate or deconstruct. That's about it in a nutshell. Again, there's no money appropriated here, and this is not about the science behind the testing, this is simply about the fact that we have a deadline that testing needs to occur on the books. We have also on the books a pledge that the state will pay for this, but we have no money. So it's to sort of end that conflict. We did not get a lot of pushback from the Department of Environmental Conservation on this. They had some thoughts about what might happen in the future. We decided we'll let the future unfold later. What was your committee vote? Were, that's a good question,

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: eight three.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Great. And it didn't go anywhere else, it just came straight to us. Correct. This is what happens sometimes. There was ever money in the bill, I mean, there's no more money, we get to see it again. So do you have a question, Wayne? Any

[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member)]: discussion? What was the discussion with the potential candidate? Nothing to get voted no.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: I think that there are people, I mean, for one thing, we have teachers on our committee. And so I think there is still concern that the state has created this program. The state has the Department of Health has said airborne PCBs above the level that they created pose a health risk. And I think that they were concerned that that that we are not getting in touch with that health risk.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Any other questions? Just Dave? Oh, Dave and then John?

[Rep. David Yacovone (Member)]: Yeah. I just wanna understand it somewhat better. Are there many schools that are above the level that just don't have the money to remediate?

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: There are, according to the agency of natural resources, there are schools that have been flagged, but that the mitigation to date and plan for the remaining 4 and a half million should get all of the schools that have been identified down to a a level that is below the school action level. Okay. And but but there are lots of schools that have been tested if that's A lot of schools. How many schools have not been tested? I'm not sure. That is probably the a better question for them, for the Department of Environmental Conservation. I don't know the number. I think maybe half and half. Ledge Council made a better sense of that. Half, half and half, but not. That's right.

[Rep. John Kascenska (Member)]: Those were a couple of my questions as well. But then the timeline for this, mean, I what's been discovered to date, the remediation going on to finish that? Yeah.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: As far as we know at this point. What they'll tell you from the DEC or what they told us in testimony was that with the remaining 4 and a half million, which is I think basically earmarked for Green Mountain Union High School, all of the work that has gone on at all of the identified schools should have them all at levels where the school can still be utilized. Is there a timeframe

[Rep. John Kascenska (Member)]: for that or is it still kind of

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: don't think there's a timeframe for it, yeah.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Maybe, do have more you wanted to ask? How,

[Rep. David Yacovone (Member)]: for lack of a better word, deadly is this PCV or PCP? PCB, PCP definitely deadly.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: I can't engage in that debate. I'm not a scientist. I'm not a public health person. We have had testimony previously about this. What I will say is that the program in Vermont is 100% unique to Vermont, that the levels that we have differ significantly from federal levels, but there are reasons why. And that no other place in the country and perhaps the world has taken this on in the way that Vermont has. So I can't I can't really get into the debate over whether air testing of airborne PCBs and all of the factors that go into that is a fair representation of what's dangerous and what isn't.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Our vice council may have more to say about that. Wayne?

[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member)]: Yeah. So I I see that in here, it's on or before January 27, the day will be a remediation plan but it's getting into this now. So the discussion we just had, the EPA levels are at a high level, it's about, action levels are about three to six times more stringent than the EPA standards. So my question is given that and given that you're going to have a plan and this health department has said that's the one that has determined these action levels. I don't see them.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: So why don't we have Michael Brady come up and talk about the bill part? I think Peter's really here to set the table as to why he put together the bill. I've gotten notice that your vote might have actually been nine-two. Nine two. Okay. Okay. That makes sense?

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Either 92 or 83.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Okay. Well, I

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: I phoned up. I would go with what you'd have confirmed. Okay.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Okay. Which makes sense if you said that because I know you have two school educators on your committee. Okay. So thank you, Peter. You're welcome. Stay wherever you need to go to. Let's get Michael Grady up here to talk

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: about Let's just grab for a

[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member)]: few minutes. Yeah, thank you.

[Michael Grady (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Good afternoon. How would you like me to

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: begin? That's not bad. Why don't we if you remember any more of the history that you think we ought to know, give us a summary and then tell us what's changing. You should have heard the tenor of some of the questions. Sure. Most people on this committee, there were only a few of us on this committee when this happened. And so I do remember it happening. It came from somebody in the Senate who wanted to put this into the budget at the last minute. So we were kind of over a barrel at the time.

[Michael Grady (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay. So in 2021, Chair Conlon noted, there was that session law that was added to the appropriations bill that required schools to test indoor air quality for PCBs by 2024. And in that bill, you allowed for the transfer of 9,500,000.0 from the environmental contingency fund for for multiple uses, but about 4,000,000 of which of that money was going to be for the PCB test and 4,500,000.0 to complete indoor air quality testing by 2024. But in 2025, you move that deadline. In 2022, you move that deadline to 2025. And then in 2022, you set aside $22,000,000 in the education fund that was going to be available but had not yet been dedicated. Julia can tell you more about what that means. And then in 2022 and then going into 2023, you basically appropriated that 22,000,000 plus an additional approximate $10,000,000, $16,000,000 of that went to Burlington for their, basically, disposal. At that point, they had already either pour the building down or remove the PCBs and had to dispose of it. And the remaining amount was available for the indoor air quality sampling program through either ANR or the agency of education. From the very beginning, you have said that the state was going to pay for inspection and was going to pay for remediation that was required due to inspection. Any remediation that was required due to other means, say a school was just going to engage in construction and determine that PCBs were there, that's not part of the indoor air quality program. That is not paid for by the state. As representative common noted, this the program was running out of money because of the of the demand, of the need for remediation. Last year, you set aside 9.5, 9.7, from the environmental contingency fund, 9.5 from ECF, and and another 250,000 from the general fund. That has been reduced to 3.8. 3.8 is what is left according to conversations with ANR yesterday. And almost all of that is being, set aside for one school because of their need in response to finding that they had exceeded the action levels. So let's talk about the action levels. So there are federal standards, they're the Toxic Substance and Control Act, but those standards, generally, if you exceed 50 parts per million, you have to remove those PCB materials from your building, your school, wherever they are discovered. But that's basically the infrastructure, the hard material in a building. The action levels that the state set were for indoor air quality testing. So to designate or to determine where PCBs were released and then to find the source, They had two, sets of of standards. They have the school action level, which would require some investigation and remediation and and basically, hopefully, containment. I say hopefully because containment is affordable. And then they have the immediate action level. If it exceeded such a level that the Department of Health with ANR determined that there needed to be immediate action to either remove people from those areas or to respond and remediate and mitigate right away. Now, those action levels were set, I have a document I can give to you all and why they were set that way, the formulas that they used to set them, and the principles that the Department of Health generally uses in setting endoeritology, or basically health standards in general. You can debate the policy of that as you did debate it when they were initially set for Burlington and whether or not they were way too low, And then they were revised up, but still low. But they are not a one to one to the EPA standards. 50 parts per million doesn't translate to nanograms per cubic meter. And so to say one is so much higher than the other or lower than the other I tried to make that argument to ANR. I tried to tell them, Convert that for me. Tell me what they convert to. And they're like, They don't convert to each other. So you have to take the school action levels as basically an indicator that more work needs to be done. And then you have to determine whether or not the federal standards are exceeded. And so that's how they work together. You can't say one is so much higher than the other. If you did try to convert, yes, the state standards will be much more protected than other state standards and other federal standards. 50 parts per million doesn't convert in a high ground.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Okay. So Mike has a question, and then we

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki or Rep. Michael Nigro (Member; uncertain which)]: When this was in process, I hear comparison to state and federal, was there a consideration to what other countries in the world? For instance, I understand European standards are much higher than The United States.

[Michael Grady (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki or Rep. Michael Nigro (Member; uncertain which)]: saying that you have the federal standards, state standards are higher than federal might not be setting the bar too high.

[Michael Grady (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I do think and I'm not sure who referenced it or asked what is the harm. I do think they have been recognized on the international and US level as toxic carcinogens for a long time, at least since 1978. Other countries have different types of principles governing how they regulate chemicals. The European Union uses a precautionary principle, prove that it is not harmful before it is used. And if it is harmful, they will come up with standards that are generally more protective than US standard. For years, The US standard was not necessarily precautionary. It was show us some data, show us some testing, show us how it might interact with three different sets of sample populations. But it wasn't as extensive as other countries' testing. And that's why you have seen over time some chemicals that have been used for a very, very long time in The US, maybe not in other countries, have been determined to be harmful and then regulated away after they've been determined. I do think the European Union standards were a resource, but when you read this document, it's not what they based it on. They based it on their determination of what they thought was a necessary protective level to prevent harm to those that were exposed. And again, you can debate that. As I just said, there are different principles, precautionary versus what they would call the approvable standard. And so But that's in the past now, right? The standards were set, the testing was started and funded, and there were schools that exceeded levels. There was a question of how many schools need to be tested, how many schools tested positive. There were three twenty eight schools that were in the qualifying group, meaning that they were constructed before 1980. Because after 1980, you can't use PCBs in construction materials or materials. And these numbers overlap, I admit. So the first thing that the agencies were doing, they were doing an inventory. It's like the pre sampling where they try to determine where they need to do sampling. And of those three twenty eight schools, they did 183 schools in an inventory. And of those schools that are they did an inventory, they tested 157 per sample. And of those 46 schools that have PCBs detected over the school action levels. There are still 145 schools that have need inventories, and there's still a 171 schools that need sampling. And there's $3,800,000 left, and there's no money as far as I know that's in your budget right now. And you did commit years ago sitting in this committee when it was the education committee, and you were debating whether or not to give Burlington $16,000,000. There was a statement that it would be committed the state would be committed to pay for investigation remediation, that you didn't wanna put schools, municipalities on to be responsible for paying what came of this program. You don't have that money right now to pay for those remaining schools. And so that's what $5.42 does.

[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member)]: So, you know, and I don't want to debate I'm not gonna debate try to debate the numbers. So even if I move, I wouldn't. But my my question is, in terms of this document, on or before January 1527, we're supposed to revisit St. Louis County. But I don't see that's one of the numbers in there. And given the fact that we have the lowest standard in perhaps the world, I don't know, I haven't looked at all the literature, but certainly in The United States, perhaps they should be part of this discussion because we just spent $41,000,000 We don't know if it did any good enough. Right? So the question is, you know, our standards should be appropriate. Do we have better scientists that work on that paper there than what EPA has? Peer reviewed stuff that they did or not? I don't know. I can't judge that. But shouldn't they be revisited?

[Michael Grady (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I think that's a policy decision for you all. I will say the Vermont Department of Health has always had a more precautionary approach, whether it's soil action levels or PCB air sampling or hazardous material. They've always had a more precautionary approach than The US, CPA, federal. And that's a policy that they defend pretty vigorously.

[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member)]: I've defended it. I've been to a number. You can probably remember some of the issues with health and managed to overcome some of those eventually. Should be, in my opinion, we should be looking at things in a realistic practical sense. We need to be protecting the public health and certainly protecting the health of the squirrels. At the same time you can't ask for the impossible to be done and even if you spend all the money that the state has attempting to achieve an impossible goal that becomes foolish. So not having the science, again, we've visited as part of this, I think is derelict of duty.

[Michael Grady (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I think that's a policy decision. If you want that to happen, you can make that happen.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: So we're not going to relitigate the whole policy. Why don't we go quickly? We're already running late. Let's go through this quickly, and then we can have Ezra tell us that there's no money it.

[Michael Grady (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Right. Well

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: But so this is kind of unwinding and cleaning up based on where we are now? Is that the Correct.

[Michael Grady (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Is basically shutting down continued affirmative new testing. And you will see that on page one to two, except as provided in in a certain a subsequent subsection, the agency will stop doing indoor air quality testing in public schools and approved recognized schools. They shall cease testing for PCBs in public schools and approved recognized schools and shall terminate any scheduled or ongoing testing for PCBs in schools. So that's the stoppage. But with h two line nine through 13, where they have previously completed testing, and the school tested positive for presence of PCBs at a level that requires continued testing, testing for PCBs at the schools shall continue. So you exceeded an action level. The state's not walking away from that. You continue to test. If ANR and it's going to be funded by the state, And if ANR completed PCB testing at a school, prior to the effective date of this act and the school tested positive for the presence of PCBs in excess of school action levels, the state, consistent with previous statements, legislative statements, shall pay for the cost of investigation, remediation, and removal of PCBs at the school. And then if, as a result of the ANR testing, a school has deposited the for the presence of PCPs, you're now at the page three of the bills introduced, the school shall not be required to initiate or continue remedial measures if the state is not fully funding those interim measures. And the most viable and effective form of remediation is the replacement of a school building that tested positive for PCPs. And federal law does not otherwise require you to remove those PCPs immediate. Because you can't circumvent the federal law here. If you're over the 50 parts per million in your testing, you're gonna have to remove the PCBs. But if the school is not being funded, and the best way to remediate is school construction, there's no further testing, investigation, remediation, or removal. Now page three, line eight, any funds that remain from those previous appropriations in 2021 and 2023 and then last year or any other appropriation, that money shall no longer be used for testing for PCBs and shall be used instead for the cost of investigation, remediation, and removal at a school where A and R conducted testing and the school tested positive for the presence of PCBs in excess of the state's school action office. You're now on page three, line 16. If the state lacks sufficient funds for their commitment for investigation, remediation, and removal, they report to you and submit to you the amount of funds that are necessary or that the general assembly should appropriate to ANR or AOE to sufficiently fund investigation remediation and removal. So if you pause and there are schools that still need investigation and removal, then the agencies have to report to you about how much you need to appropriate to finish that investigation, remediation, and removal. And then page four, lines five through 15, notwithstanding the state's commitment to pay for investigation remediation removal if the PCBs were discovered, in excess of the state levels and it was not in response to indoor air quality testing was part of a planned renovation or construction project, the state isn't paying for that. State is not paying for when you discover, the school discovers PCBs due to some other action besides indoor air quality testing. But that does not apply to the 16,000,000 you already appropriated to Burlington because it's already been encumbered. Page four of line 16, on or before 01/15/2027, ANR after consultation with AOE and other interested parties submits to you a long term remediation plan for the remediation of PCB contamination in public schools and approved recognized independent schools. And then beginning 01/15/2027, annually they thereafter, they report to you basically with the status of indoor air quality testing for PCBs in public schools. The status of the testing, number of schools tested, number of schools that are made to be tested, the remedial measures taken, remedial measures that need to be implemented, the amount of state funds expended for testing investigation remediation or removal, and then the amount of the funds that remain at ANR or the agency of Ed for testing or for grants, and then an estimate of additional funds necessary to complete all the investigation remediation and approval. ANR has been producing these reports that show, say, the schools that need action, the general overview of the status of the program. You are asking for more than this, but this is a good start in response to what you just said. Okay.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Great. Thank you. And now I'm going to ask Esra to come up. Good

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: afternoon. For the record, Essex Holden, Joint Fiscal Office. I'm sharing my screen, if that's okay.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: That's just fine, and welcome to Joint Fiscal Office and to our committee.

[Essex Holden (Joint Fiscal Office)]: So H542, fiscal impact of this is So H542, as you heard, this bill would terminate ongoing testing at ANR or PCBs, indoor air quality testing. And so, there is no appropriation included in this bill for testing. And so, if this bill were to pass, since there is no appropriation, there's no fiscal impact because there is no currently an FY '27 money appropriated. So if the appropriations were made, then that'd be

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: You'd You'd be back with a new fiscal note. Great. That makes it pretty easy. Anybody have questions for us or Dave, go ahead.

[Rep. David Yacovone (Member)]: So the fact there's no appropriation means we're not responsible for anything. So if tests start coming in, somebody's gonna be reporting to us whether they're high enough and there needs to be a remediation and what the cause is.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: So I'll let, I think Michael Grady is the right person to answer that, but I do think we've stopped the testing at the state level. It's only what's already been done, we've stopped it. Is that correct, Mike?

[Michael Grady (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: That is correct. There will be no new air sampling of schools. Schools have already been sampled and they've exceeded the action levels. There will continue to be investigation remediation and the state will run unless the state runs out of money then that school is paused from investigation and litigation

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: unless that will be the federal law of the virus. So the schools that have not been tested to date are not going to be tested under this rule, under this rule?

[Michael Grady (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Now, some schools might affirmatively choose to test on their own, but they're taking this.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: They're on their own with that whole thing, yeah. John?

[Rep. John Kascenska (Member)]: So some schools may monitor at

[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member)]: some point in time to

[Rep. John Kascenska (Member)]: see if anything's different than what

[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member)]: the research can test the results are.

[Michael Grady (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: They could, I mean if you exceeded the action level already and you have response remediation hopefully you were able to contain it or it's a small enough room or that you could seal off and prevent public access into it. That would be ideal, but if you needed more than that filtration, man, renewable significant material, that That is, if you did that on your own, discovered on your own, that's on you.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: We're going to wrap this up, Mike, and then try to be done. Yeah.

[Rep. John Kascenska (Member)]: Was there testimony taken about,

[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member)]: I don't know if you would call

[Rep. John Kascenska (Member)]: it the shelf life or the timeframe of degradation of PCD?

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: So thank you all for coming in. Committee, we're not going to vote on this today. It sounds like you have a couple more questions. If we can it's we may vote tomorrow on this, but we won't do it today. Thank you, Chair Fowe. Thank you, Mike, the Lunch Council. And we're going to move on to the next bill. Changing subjects completely. We have animal welfare? Animal something. Animal cruelty. Eric, are you going to come and explain it first? I heard

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: many juices.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Why don't you do that? Do we have us just

[Unidentified Member]: start out for this too?

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: All right. Yeah, so this is H578. All right, Eric, introduce yourself and take it away for us.

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Good afternoon, everybody. Eric Fitzpatrick with the Office of Legislative Counsel, Here to speak with the committee about, as the chair indicated, H578, which is an act relating to penalties and procedures for animal cruelty offenses. Same question. I'm not sure what the committee's particular interest is in the bill, so I don't really have one I can focus on that would be money related.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: So I

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: can give you a

[Unidentified Member]: kind of a Very general

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: high level. We do not need to go through the entire bill the way you would in judiciary. Okay. We want to keep it higher level. It'll be on the floor and all that, especially if there's not a particular fiscal note. Sure. 30,000 feet's good. All right.

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Let me start then with a big picture overview of the bill and then interrupt if you have any questions as I'm going along. Or if you want more detail at the end, I can answer some more questions at the end as well. But it is one of these bills where you can describe from a big picture perspective what's going on. So, generally speaking, animal cruelty is a crime in Vermont and can be a misdemeanor crime or it can be a felony crime. Misdemeanor crime means it's generally subject to a maximum period of one or two years in jail, depending on the nature of the conduct. Felony crime in this particular case is gonna be maximum of five or ten years in prison. So whether a particular offense is a misdemeanor or a felony is gonna depend upon there's a a list contained in the current statute of what types of conduct would qualify for either the misdemeanor or the felony. And as you might expect, the more egregious types of conduct, tend to be the felonies, and the, ones that are viewed as less egregious tend to be the misdemeanor. If you happen to be looking at the bill and you are interested in that, I'll just point you to the the list for misdemeanors. For example, is everyone looking at, by any chance, version 3.1, or is it a 3.1

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: is what I can have.

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay. So section two of the bill, which on my document is page two, line 12, that is the list. Then it says cruelty to animals in block caps, and it says after that, a person commits the crime of cruelty to animals. If the person and then you have a list along the and that's the existing list of misdemeanor animal cruelty offenses. So a person commits any one of those listed types of conduct, it's a misdemeanor. So this leads us into what is the big picture of what's going on in this bill. There's really three main things. And the first thing is that the list of the types of conduct that constitute both misdemeanor and felony animal cruelty is expanded. So that's the first thing. It adds some types of conduct to these these lists that you already have in existing law as to what's gonna count as misdemeanor animal cruelty. Happens to be that, a good chunk of these are related to sexual conduct with an ant. You may have seen that, right, because it's as it happens, it's the first thing you see when you look at page one of the bill. Right. And that's the definition section, and that's already illegal. It's already a misdemeanor offense. Again, if you turn to page four, my version of line 11, again, this is all existing law. On page four of line 11, this is that list I pointed out of misdemeanor animal cruelty offenses. What does it say unpaid for when owned? Engages in sexual conduct with an animal. Obviously, it's very important how that term sexual conduct is defined, and that's what's going on in the bill, what you saw on page one. It's expanding the definition of sexual conduct with an animal to include certain types of contact between a human and an animal. So that's part of what's going on in this. Like I said, there's three things going on

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: in the bill. That's part of

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: the first one, which is expanding the definition of what constitutes criminal conduct. The second part of that is, the felony offense. And and this list of what constitutes sexual conduct with an animal is also made a felony if a minor is involved. So that's everything that goes on in the bill. Things person,

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: not a minor animal. Correct. Exactly. That's That's unclear. I know. It's true.

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I should've been more specific. That's right. Because there's two living beings involved in it. Yes. The so, yeah, if it involves a minor, then the other chain that the bill is proposing is to make the conduct a felony, not a misdemeanor, subject to, obviously, a much more significant period of incarceration. So that is really the main of the three things I'm gonna talk about. That's the first. It expands the definition of what constitutes misdemeanor and felony animal cruelty, in particular with relation to sexual conduct of an animal. That's one. Alright. Number two. So in addition to, another there's another, sort of group of tools in the toolbox that a court has if a person is convicted of animal cruelty. There are these criminal penalties which we just talked about, incarceration, criminal fines. But in this particular situation, animal cruelty, there are also other sanctions that the court can impose, and that's under current law. For example, court can say, you forfeit the right to this animal that you just abused. Right? If you're convicted of abusing a particular animal, the court can impose a sanction on you that you lose your right to own that animal. Or not only that, to own other animals that you may own at the same time. That's that's existing law. If it's a felony offense, then the court may impose that sanction for a longer period of time. Other things that the court may do, they may say, all right, you may have to submit to periodic inspections. Even after the, criminal offense has been convicted, you're gonna have to submit for some designated period of time, inspections to make sure that you're not continuing to commit animal cruelty if you if you, own animals. Court might also say you have to submit to educational programs, psychological testing, that sort of thing. So that's all existing law. So what the second major thing that the bill does is it expands some of those tools in the toolbox that the court can order. So not only that you can't, for example, own an animal in the future, you can't reside with or work with an animal. They can expand their ability to impose those sorts of sanctions. Another sort of subtle but important piece of that list of sanctions is that under the current law, the this sort of panoply of other sanctions the court can impose is all discretionary. The court may or may not choose to do that. The bill says, under certain circumstances, primarily if you have been convicted of animal coats before. So, in other words, if it's your second offense or your subsequent offense, then those other sanctions, like we may seize the animal that you that was subjected to cruelty, or we might say to you, you can't own an animal for five years in the future, that stuff that's discretionary if it's your first offense. Your second offense becomes mandatory. Court shall report for sanctions. They shall seize that animal. They shall say, if it's a misdemeanor, you can't own another animal for five years. So that's kind of one another big picture of what's going on. It three weights to this other long list of sanctions that the court can impose if you're convicted of animal crime. That's number two. Moving on to the third big picture thing that's Now we're moving to So I just, actually, let me just add one last thing

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member)]: that's

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: also an important feature I just remembered. It's related to these other sanctions the court may impose. And this is on page, think it's page 12. Yes, page 12. So, it creates a new court process. Let's say that you're a person who has been convicted of animal cruelty, and the court has said, All right, you can't own animals for a period of five years, and you can't work with animals for a period of three years or whatever the court may determine is an appropriate level of sanctions to impose upon you. The bill creates a court process whereby a person can file a petition and be relieved from those provisions. If they can show that, you know, that they're no longer a danger, maybe they can show and that list some criteria that the person can show whether they've committed any subsequent offenses, whether they've success and I'm on page 13 now, alliance six through 13. Are the factors that a court would consider when a person's filing a petition saying, I think I'm a person who shouldn't be subject to these prohibitions anymore. Maybe they've completed conditions of probation. That's a bead. Maybe they've completed cruelty prevention programs or educational programs or psychiatric, psychological counseling. All those things would be relevant to the person wanting to make a showing that, despite the court's earlier order, I should now be permitted to have a pen or something like that. So, this is an entirely new procedure. It's based on a couple of other comparable procedures that exist in current law. It's a new opportunity for the person who's prohibited to have an opportunity to show to the court that they can prove that they're no longer someone who should have those prohibitions,

[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member)]: then they can go forward.

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: But that's a new piece to the current law. It's part of this other list of of sanctions. So that's sort of completing big picture number two. Big picture number three. This is separate from the criminal proceeding now. So we just talked about criminal penalties and these other sanctions the court can impose. There's also, in existing law, what's known as a civil forfeiture procedure. These exist in the law in some places. For example, someone's car could be subject to civil forfeiture if you've been involved in multiple DUIs. Property that's involved for purposes of criminal conduct can be forfeited to the government, both under state and federal law, it's property that's used for the commission of a crime. So in existing law, there's also a provision for civil forfeiture of animals. And the way it works is if a humane officer, typically a law enforcement law law enforcement officer, has a probable cause to believe that an animal is being subject to cruelty. The officer can go to court, get a warrant for the seizure of that animal. Take the warrant, they go, they seize the animal. The animal will have to be in custody for a while because then they can institute these civil proceedings to forfeit the animal. This isn't the criminal case. It's a different case. It's a property forfeiture proceeding. It's sort of an interesting legal concept, but it's technically against the property, not the person. So the person doesn't have a criminal record or anything like that, but it's a seizure action. So if they can show, excuse me, that more likely than not, different threshold than a criminal case, which is beyond a reasonable doubt, more likely than not, the animal is subject to cruelty, then the animal can be forfeited. There's another situation where I just described the officer goes to court, gets a warrant. If the if the officer personally views that an animal is being subject to cruelty and that it's in a life threatening situation and the animal's life is in danger, the officer can seize the animal without going to court first and getting warrant. That's existing law. That's not added in this bill. And that's consistent with the, way in which warrants and the exceptions to the warrant work rule work generally. When there's an emergency, it's called exigent circumstances. You probably have heard that term. But in that situation, the officer can act first and go to court later. It's the way that sort of timeline works, Jennifer. Excuse me. So what does this bill do to that procedure? The concern, I think, that has happened with the existing procedure is that the there are no time limits on when these proceedings have to be filed. So an officer might seize an animal, but there's no time limit within which they have to file a forfeiture action. So in practicality, what appears to have happened is that these proceedings drag along for quite a long period of time. And if you think about what's happening during that period of time, well, somebody is caring for that animal because it was seized, right? So, it's in the custody of a humane society, an animal welfare organisation, a custody organisation, and that party is accruing substantial costs. Could very well involve major veterinary costs or cost to house, feed, that sort of thing. So I think the concern that's being addressed in the bill is how can we expedite these proceedings, both for the health and welfare of the animal and to reduce the costs of The House Judiciary Committee heard testimony from several animal welfare organizations that these costs were making it difficult for them to operate in some circumstances. Because when you hear certain, like, example, a a cut some horses get seized, that's subject to major veterinary care, that's a lot of money to both treat and house the animal, and for a small organization, can become cost prohibitive. So, what the bill proposes to do is enact some attempt to do some expedited procedures. So the way it works is, under the bill, the humane officer sees the animal, and they have probable cause to believe that the animal suffered to cruelty. They can still do the warrant process. They go to court, get a warrant, and seize the envelope that way. Or they can do it on an emergency basis if it looks like there's a life threatening situation. And then, within fourteen days after that, the person has the opportunity to request a hearing Or another thing that's going on here to sort of address the cost issue is that in addition to the timelines, the person whose animal is seized is required to pay secure upfront to cover the cost of taking basically cost of care, they call it, is custody cost of this animal during the time that this proceeding is pending. So for constitutional reasons, you have to provide that person with the opportunity to make a showing that they're financially unable to make that payment. So if they can show that they're financially unable, they don't have to make it. But the the reason I say that is because within that fourteen day period, the officer seizes the animal. Within fourteen days, the person has an opportunity to either request it I mean, sorry, contest it and request a hearing or say, I don't have the I'm I financially, I'm I'm unable to pay the securities, so I'm requesting a waiver. Under either of those circumstances, the court sets the matter for a hearing. If the if the person does neither one of those things, the animal is forfeited, and so the whole thing is done within fourteen days. So that expedites the time on that way. If the person does say, I want a hearing on this, or I don't have the money to pay security, then the court sets up for a hearing. The hearing has to happen within thirty days. And then following the hearing, the court's supposed to make a decision on an expedited basis as well. So you see the attempt there is to move these proceedings along as quickly as possible for both the welfare of the animal and costs entailed by these custody organizations that are holding on during

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: the meantime.

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And the person can always appeal. If the court does finally say, does find that cruelty has happened, they can order the animal forfeited, but that's appealable. The person can appeal that to the Vermont Supreme Court. And as I say, they can also make a claim that because of financial circumstances, they can't pay the security.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Those are sort of parts of that procedure. Any other? So, established the animal welfare fund. Yes, understand. That already exists. Exactly. And so, funds, security and funds distributions all come from that fund. Exactly. So the way that the bill proposes for that to work, and thanks for that segue, because that's the very end

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: of the bill. So remember I was saying the person, when their animals get seized, they have to pay security. The way it works, the security is paid to the court, the court transmits it to this pre existing animal welfare fund. And then the animal welfare fund, I think, supposed to adopt rules, yes, filed on page 25, as to how that money will get distributed. So in other words, you've got a care organization that they'll be able to have the money distributed to them on an ongoing basis. So they're not running up the costs during the pendency of this whole court proceeding. They'll be able to have their costs set up on an every 30 day basis. They can submit, basically, receipts for the costs. They're So that runs through

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: a fund that we don't have to create. It's already there. Exactly. Okay.

[Unidentified Member]: Ahead, Jason, do you know when that fund was created?

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah, two years ago, I believe. We

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: had a animal welfare officer that had the patience when you worked here.

[Unidentified Member]: Well, it's turned off now. The reason I'm asking, it's now in the Department of Public Safety's budget. I didn't know the background that went with it.

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: That was it exactly. Two years ago, the legislature created the division of animal welfare within the Department of Public Safety, created a position, the director of animal welfare, and it created this fund as well. So

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: this might be your bills, I was thinking it was Trevor.

[Unidentified Member]: Oh, well, I'll arrest that. We'll work that out. We'll work that out.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: We're not gonna vote on this today. Questions, and then we'll get Christie to come tell us about the no money part. Yep.

[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member)]: Most of this has been on the books for some time, right? So I'm just curious, do you have any testimony on just what's the nature of the number of cases per year and the nature of the cases that have been ongoing?

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I didn't hear any specific numbers, but I wasn't there for all the testimonial either. So it's something I could ask about for you, if that would

[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member)]: be helpful. Whether it's a huge number or a small number.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Right, right. This is a judiciary committee bill, so they probably have all that detail. You can ask.

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Sounds good, thanks.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Okay, I am not seeing other questions for you, Eric. Thank you. Chris, do you want to just come up for a few seconds?

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Any other questions or follow ups, just let me know. Happy to happy to help out.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Thank you very much. You bet.

[Chris (Joint Fiscal Office staff)]: For joint fiscal, like I mentioned earlier, there's no fiscal note for this bill because it's not possible for us to quantify or estimate the occurrences of animal cruelty that would trigger the security and and everything else, and it's sort of in the vein of JFO not forecasting, fines and penalty revenue. The reason why you all received this bill is because of the language in section six and seven around the mechanics of that animal welfare fund and the security going in there and then the administrative authority to make disbursements from the fund. So this is not something that we

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: can put a dollar figure on,

[Chris (Joint Fiscal Office staff)]: but you all are seeing the bill and Ways and Means saw it also for similar reasons that there's language around the mechanics of that. Great.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Okay. And, Chris, do you know what the votes were out of judiciary and ways and means?

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: I was not present in judiciary.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: You were doing nine zero two? Nine zero two in judiciary. Ways and means, Chris? 11. Eleven-zero, thank you. You played on that, Robin. Thank you. Okay, 902 from judiciary. Houseways and maintenance 110. Okay, any other questions for Chris or anybody else? We will figure out which of our two members will be dealing with. We will not be voting against this today, but now you know who it is, and when it's time to vote, you'll be ready to go. All right, thank you all very much. Appreciate it. All right, is that it for today? Yes. That's what I have.

[Unidentified Member]: I don't have anything else. So

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: now we have time to go work on the budget stuff. James is continuing to collect information. We found out after two public hearings, was $2.00 $3,000,000 and that wasn't everything. Should have asked what we're up to now. Do you have a new federal? It'll still be in draft form. Oh yes, so more committee letters have come in. Today we got the final one of human services. We got a few more yesterday. So please, everybody should read all the committee letters, even if it's not yours. And then James is going through those to add that to our list, which is this is your chance to work on budget things. We're going to have we don't have that much time at the end of the day. We'll go through our budget exercise when we get back from meeting break. James and I will be making sure that we have the full spreadsheet so we can sort of do this kinds of things we did the last time. The only problem is we're going have a lot less money to do it with.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki or Rep. Michael Nigro (Member; uncertain which)]: Mike? Can I go backwards a little bit? Yeah. I'd like to hear more from education as to why or how they came to this decision to shut the door for the testing. If you want to go have

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: a conversation that's where I'm not going to get them back in to talk about it in But you're welcome to go have the conversation. I really think it's been a huge unfunded mandate. I don't know if you remember how this happened, but there was a particular senator from Burlington who wanted this in here and put this in the budget at the last minute when we were here on the Senate side. Was And not as transparent as one might have hoped. And that was also when we had money from COVID. Know, And many of us could see that there were going to be problems, and guess what? There are problems because of the money and what you're going find. So, that's just a little history of what happened. It was before many of you were on this committee, some of us were on the committee. Don't remember that. Do you remember that?

[Unidentified Member]: I don't remember it necessarily in appropriations. I certainly remember all the discussion about what were the levels going to be and

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: the education committee said a lot of time. It got thrown into the budget and it was not necessarily our choice to even create the whole thing. And now this is where we are. So Tiff has a question. I see your hand, Tiff, for a comment.

[Rep. Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member)]: Yes. Thank you. I miss you all.

[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member)]: I

[Rep. Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member)]: am wondering chair if before we break on Friday, if we're gonna kind of talk about the work ahead and anything that we need to be thinking about between now and when we come back.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Yes. Was that the answer you

[Unidentified Member]: were referring Okay.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: I'll answer that at the moment, but I think we need to make sure that we all know what we're doing. I mean, I can say in general, we're gonna follow a similar process to what we did last year. The trick is getting the spreadsheet, and we're almost done collecting all the data. Because now we've had the legislators in, we've had two public hearings, and the committee letters should be in. So then we'll look at that together. And the other thing that you can do, you don't need to wait, is go through all of your own budgets. And if you see things that you can say, these are optional from the governor's budget from your perspective, we can put them on the list. That's what we did last year as well. It was a lot of one time stuff. And even though we didn't actually think all of it was optional, we could still, if we put it on the list just to say, these are some things. And whether that's base or one time, the way the governor has put us together now So, can start doing that now and giving that information to James as well, because we're going to have that separate spreadsheet of what we're calling the governor's asks. Yeah. Alrighty.

[Unidentified Member]: Yeah, Marty? Are we gonna go through each of the budgets? For instance, Department of Public Safety. And do you expect me to report, well, they have five appropriations and they're 6% over and these are all pretty normal stuff and this is kind of an odd thing and this is okay and this is maybe another odd thing. Do you want that kind of a short little report from everybody about every one of their budgets or We'll probably at

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: least do that verbally and then, yeah. So anything that Let's see, I'm not sure we did it exactly that way last year. Yeah, right. And I know you remember

[Unidentified Member]: You used to do

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: it that way. Right, right. So James, last year kept track of all the things and we would say, put this on the list on the governor's and I can show you the spreadsheet that we had. So we kind of used that as these are the things that we went over that and we said, are there any other things that we could maybe add to this list, which is the list we'd be drawing from to either to cut or to whatever to offset the money that we want to spend on the other side. So, but we will, when we do markup, part of the markup will also be, you know, their budget increase was 12%, you know, these are normal, this is not, you know, so we're going to have some issues around there. Mean, ADS is going be a typically unusual one this year. You know, some them are going to be pretty standard and some of them not, but we'll have that conversation as a kind of thing as well.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki or Rep. Michael Nigro (Member; uncertain which)]: I just remember last year we kind of talked about larger outstanding things, and then we got the markup, it was like we went through each one

[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member)]: of those, weren't you responsible for it

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki or Rep. Michael Nigro (Member; uncertain which)]: or anything? Because we have some notes with that too, at a point in time when that is constructed.

[Unidentified Member]: Because it's based on the current services budget, which of course is what you did before plus that kind thing. You have any dramatic objection to any of that, and the government recommended it, then that's all okay. But they're asking for maybe two more people to do this kind of thing, just animal control officer is going to require some money,

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: and it wasn't in there before. Right, so you should all have that information so as we talk about it, those sort of things could be highlighted. And then we have JFO to help us with taking the notes, to be sure that we have. The one thing that I'm struggling with is that there are a ton of positions that they say they're getting from the position pool. And I don't really have a good handle on what all those positions are. And I don't know, James, do we have a way to get that information?

[Michael Grady (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: She's a really good grasp on the position. So I was talking to her earlier today. She's happy to come in and talk through how that all works.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Yeah. And so it's not so much how it works that I want to know how many positions and where they are.

[Michael Grady (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Keeping track of positions. We have a position that's going. Which one's bigger question is based on time, it's a little bit serious.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Great. And according to Adam, they're all coming from the position pool. So that's why there isn't that E100 this year, which is where new positions happen. So we're not seeing it. That's part of my frustration with the lack of transparency about some pieces because we don't actually see, so AHS wants 21 positions or 12 positions and AOE. So we're not seeing it because usually we'd have that section. I do

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: have some questions about the physician pool and

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I can't remember if we did take testimony on that

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member)]: last year. Maybe I

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: just We could get a refresher. So we can all get a refresher, so that would be fine to have a refresher and I want the numbers. We

[Michael Grady (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: are filing that information

[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member)]: as well for

[Michael Grady (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: positions outside the government and those are

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: being Yes,

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: great, that's fabulous, okay. Which ones are general fund and which ones are not?

[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member)]: Yeah.

[Rep. David Yacovone (Member)]: Because there's a lot in treasuries treasury that are purely

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: uses other money,

[Rep. David Yacovone (Member)]: right? Maybe others, yeah.

[Unidentified Member]: Right, exactly. Tom?

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member)]: Yeah, we did, I mean, asked about positions from the pool in general. It's almost as if it

[Michael Grady (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: was a caddy shack of, you know, where people

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member)]: could just park positions that they no longer needed and wait it to be pulled out for whatever reasons.

[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member)]: We got a lot

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member)]: of different answers in my memory. And then we ended up using two for the Human Rights Commission because that's all we could find at that time. So it's if we didn't get a clear answer here, like what's the where's the ongoing list and how does it, you know, still seems pretty amorphous about how they decide what, for instance, they said we're not funding, we're taking vacancy savings in the agency of administration, the executive branch, we have 16 positions but we're only filling 10 or 11. Well does that mean that those five, is that a permanent not filling? Right. And is that those five positions are they available to be, you know, so there's just a lot of I don't know what's the nuts and bolts to I determine think they have to be given back,

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: but there's no clarity. There was

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki or Rep. Michael Nigro (Member; uncertain which)]: a point in time we had this summary sheet of, okay, X number, whatever, was three or four. Right, we give one to this request here

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: and two to that one.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Right, well we had a chart of what the governor's report was recommending and the other asks that people had and what the difference was. We had that chart last year. It's a little more confusing this year because if they're all taking from the position pool, we have some of the same things that we had before. I may have that somewhere to show you, James, what we had last year.

[Michael Grady (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah, Yeah,

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: it's probably in hers somewhere, but I don't Yeah, okay. So we know positions are an issue, how that works. Any other sort of big generic things you're thinking about at this point?

[Unidentified Member]: So I think after vacation, we're going to start.

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: We're going to be.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Oh yes, yes, yeah. And maybe we'll start on Friday going through a few things. I feel like we still need a little bit more information about the numbers. I don't know how much of it we can actually say we're ready to say yes to at this point. Yeah. I think we may not be there. But I think once we have the information, it'll be faster going through it. May not have to go through it 27 times before we can do it. Marty, And Mark Mahaly was on this committee two years ago, he used to say, Nothing is decided until everything is decided. It's kind of true. So even when we say you can check it off, it won't be until the very end, I think all agree on it. So go into it with that in mind as well.

[Rep. David Yacovone (Member)]: Doesn't it become a pretty short process though, if there's only, and I'm just ad libbing, there's only 2,000,000 that we've identified that can be redeployed or reinvested somewhere?

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: It's a short process.

[Rep. David Yacovone (Member)]: Yeah, and then a question of somehow what do we think should be under consideration? Exactly.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: If we do it down. So Supposed

[Rep. David Yacovone (Member)]: to going through every department. Right, well, I don't see the-

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Unless there are some things we think they can be cut from certain departments.

[Rep. David Yacovone (Member)]: Yeah, and then you present them. Yes. I understand.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Yeah. But we aren't going to have a big number this year. There's no question about it. And I just, it's what's going be hard.

[Rep. David Yacovone (Member)]: Have a question about You Is it okay to, I'm sorry, didn't mean to, is it okay to recommend a possible cut that's not in our portfolio? Yeah,

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: think for all of us, like when we went through last year and we said, where are the things you would want to cut and where are the things you want to add? That was the whole budget. That was all the asks. It wasn't just your spot. So those conversations have to be beyond because you're supposed to be more of the expert, but you're also not necessarily advocating. It isn't your job to win the Department of Corrections or win the whatever. It's so that we all understand and make the decisions together. Mike? You okay? Okay, Tom.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member)]: Right, so what we have now the way I'm looking at this this scene is we have the governors recommend.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: We

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member)]: have not started work on what we believe the budget should be. So I mean there's elements here that in the governor's budget we may come to a conclusion that we disagree with. That's right. Whether that's taking money from certain sections or finding money as a of it, but I just I felt last year, that's the first time I've been on here, that we were very deferential to the governor's requests for the most part in the big bill. We had a BAA that was vetoed twice. So I just want to make sure that when I'm going through my list of what have been what's been asked, mean that's part of my vacation stuff is to sit there and make my own checklist of what's being asked, what we talked about, and then have the conversation. Don't we can we can apply an equity lens and suggest it by whatever it can be a moral budget however we want to call it but I felt last year that we were very deferential to the administration's requests There's a lot of reasons for that that I don't dispute, but I just want to make sure when we have these conversations for myself that they're going to be open. Not just that we're fighting for, you know, I'm going to fight for funding for particular things that are in my portfolio and you know strongly that I know about that I've done research on that I

[Michael Grady (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: think should be funded.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member)]: And then we'll go from there. Because I guess to hear that there's only 2,000,000 available it's like well right we can can be done tomorrow. Just want to

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Well we have to find we have to find money to do whatever all the things that we want to do whatever those things are we want to do and whether we find it because we cut other programs that the governor's put in his recommended budget or because we find carry forward or we, you know, I don't know what, but

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member)]: Right, it's just going scraping through because when we finished this other day, when we finished all this the other day, I don't know who said it, it was like, yeah the governor spent it all. And so that's his job. That's the administration's job. But again, we're I don't know, are we the primary table setters? The bill is supposed to come out of the house and go through the process that the governor's recommended. I just want to lay that out there that that's something I'm concerned about and I just want to make sure that when we do the work that we're having the open and transparent conversations about what we think are important as

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: we're talking about what can be afford. It's both. It's both.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: And we may not all agree with each other on, obviously, we think is important are where the priorities are at the end of the day, but you can bring up anything you need to bring up.

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Thanks. Okay, Wayne?

[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member)]: I think it went up very well last year, the way we could stop. Now just looking at the pieces, we had a big spreadsheet that we should recommend, We had all the asks, where they came from, they were all lined up there. We did our research on each one for ourselves so we could speak to them if they came throughout the course. We're doing well right now. Like this, I assume, went on today, folks behind us have already compiled that in there. And then you've got the budget letters, that's the other piece that's So been once those budget letters should be the last piece, so once that's in there, then we're ready to get the proper operation. That's not going to be That won't be completed before we leave for

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: It may not be. James and I are going talk this afternoon about what we think we can manage and where we can get it. We didn't have it last year before tap eating break. We had it after. And we got through and we were able to do it all. And it was the first time we ever tried doing it. So we should be better at it this year. And we're trying to give free time for unscheduled time so that people can go in and dig into those things. And yes, there may be things I haven't read all the committee letters yet. There may be some things that from committee letters that say, Governor wanted to keep this program. We don't agree. We don't think we should keep that program. We think we should be doing something else instead. So in a way, nothing is off limits, Tom.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: In a way, yeah. And

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: also, there are some things that we probably are not going to spend a lot of time talking about because we know they kind of I don't think we'll talk about pensions. Gonna what? Talk about pensions. I think we're going to fund We have a promise there.

[Unidentified Member]: You know, I've the stuff that I am and those things that probably everybody will say fine.

[Unidentified Member]: Yeah,

[Unidentified Member]: right. They've all asked for a little

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: bit more money and that's probably that's better. But we're not gonna say, let's cut the symphony this year. Those are the kinds of things, right. So, nothing is off limits. And yet, we know that there's still some that will be used on that. And Tip, I see your hands.

[Rep. Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member)]: Yeah, thanks. I just wanted to say that I think Oh my God. I just lost my point. Oh my god.

[Unidentified Member]: I oh. Oh, gee.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Welcome. So we can come

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: back to you, Tip.

[Unidentified Member]: So embarrassing.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: It'll go bad. It

[Rep. Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member)]: shall, I'm sure.

[Unidentified Member]: Oh, here it is. Oh, She's got it.

[Rep. Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member)]: Is working on something that will kind of draw connections between any of the governor's asks and the rural health transformation. I mean, budget was being put together pretty much at the same time that the Rural Health Transformation Initiative proposal was being put together. And so there may be places where we've been asked for money that actually will be captured through the Rural Health Transformation grant. It's really in flux, but I'm hoping that we will know a little bit more in the next couple weeks about Yes,

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: we should have something by the time we come back. Took and I had a brief conversation with Nolan about that. And one of the challenges is that AHS is still negotiating with CMS and the federal government, and that CMS is changing some of it. They're making their own tweaks. And so it's hard to do this cross referencing until we actually know what is going to happen. So some things today may look like, oh, that's great. And tomorrow may look like, no, it's not actually helping the people that we thought was going to help the first time. So that's part of the problem. So I've waned them out.

[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member)]: So the same thing with a congressional delegation. What we heard yesterday about all those numbers, we don't know for sure whether we would because quite a few of them aligned with what were in the budget that could supplant things that are in the budget that would free up money that we could use someplace else. We don't know when it would we need to know more about when that would be delivered and usable because if we're trying to fund something for the whole fiscal year, it turns out that money's going to only be available towards the end of that fiscal year, then we've got a problem, right?

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Well, it depends on what it is. And some of those things can wait. Mean, if we know they have the money and then other things, so I think

[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member)]: Might be backfilled. So it might be possible There's

[Michael Grady (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: no backfill from the world.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: No, not for the transformation, but the conventionally directed spending, AKE or earmark, those aren't going to be negotiated again with the federal government. Those are like done. So

[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member)]: what I'm thinking is that if, say we were trying to fund something for the whole year,

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: and

[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member)]: come to find out that mine going be available till the last half of the year, you might be able to just do less, do general fund money then when that other money comes in we backfill general fund money with the federal.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: If that's allowed. Is it possible when we get back maybe we

[Unidentified Member]: could have Jill come in and give us some updates, sort of like we have Doug Farnam come in and tell us.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Right, that was on my list, that might have been the one that we couldn't remember that I thought about. Yes, I would like to have Jill come in.

[Unidentified Member]: But there's things that, I know things that people are counting on for that, which

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: may or may not

[Unidentified Member]: materialize, but it's 38 categories or something. Maybe

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: we can have her come in that Monday, Autumn the ninth or whatever that day is, that afternoon and have us an update and see if she's ready to give us an update then. We can't wait too much longer and I know guests could change again, at some point we just have to

[Unidentified Member]: We'll make that a Tuesday. We have an on-site board meeting on

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Tuesday morning. We will be here on Monday.

[Unidentified Member]: But there were two of us.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Two of us missed it. Okay. Okay, we need to not have any more trustees. That's so much. That's it until the budget's right.

[Unidentified Member]: To give you an idea that it's an on-site important meeting, but we don't have that practice. We want to make sure.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: I know. Well, I hope you're wishing them the

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member)]: Friday before. But you're

[Michael Grady (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: proud, right?

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Scepter? Alright, we'll do that on Tuesday. Merlap, you know. Merlap sack hair, hair That's your shirt. Wow. Alright.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member)]: There's a phrase that a lot

[Unidentified Member]: of people I will understand that. No.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: I'm dating my parents.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member)]: Parking right next to your rotary joke.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Oh my god, this has a landline. You know, that's the thing now for young for parents of young children is to get a new landline. And there's a company called Tin Cans. It looks like half a tin cans. Tin can, but, like, you'll pick this one, you pick it up. And so the kids can actually, they don't have a screen, don't have anything else, but they can talk to their friends. And then they just put an approved list. So grandparents are on the approved list. If the phone rings, the kids can pick it up, my grandson is five. And you know, it's, oh, and the phone, there's grandparents. Yeah, think it's probably push button, but probably not really loud. No party lines.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki or Rep. Michael Nigro (Member; uncertain which)]: Days of phone rings and three people say,

[Unidentified Member]: I'll get in. That's what they're going to

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: be doing. I love it. Love it. That. The

[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member)]: phone number is 13, maybe 14.

[Unidentified Member]: Right. You know who's asking me. It's just

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: a call. Anything else? I think we are done. And wait, when do we start tomorrow?

[Unidentified Member]: 09:30. 09:30? We

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: are, you know, is going be this easy when we come back. So, we're going to 09:30. Healthcare, Chair Black, fresh back from Washington, the State of the Union.