Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: Good afternoon. This is the House Appropriations Committee. It is Thursday, 02/26/2026. It's just after 1PM. And we have Chair Wood back with us from the House Human Services Committee this time to talk about their committee letter. So welcome. Nice to see you again.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: Thank you. Thank you very much. Do want me just to dive in? Has the letter. Auretically, I guess. Yeah. Okay. Great. Well, first off, thank you. Thank you for the opportunity to share our thoughts and process that we use to develop our recommendations. I think, as I noted in my cover memo, that we certainly recognize in FY, as we're moving into this new fiscal year, that the state's economy is shifting and onetime dollars are drying up and that we needed to be mindful of that in making our recommendations. In doing so, we really did prioritize the basics of food, shelter, and safety for those individuals for whom we have responsibility and pass human services. As we sort of talked about, began the discussion this morning, we made different priorities than the administration in a few areas. And in those areas where we made different priorities, we found sources of funding that included what the administration was hoping to spend the money on. So some of our offsets are from things that are already in the budget, and we have offset them and chosen to prioritize, for instance, in DCF prevention. And it doesn't mean that we are eliminating some things, but we are reducing some items. So I just and as we go through, I'll point those out to you.

[Nolan Langweil (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Great. Thank you.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: The other thing is that while we are not recommending any cost of living adjustments for any community providers, we recognize that that really means that's a cut. Because essentially, in order to provide the same services and deal with the rising cost of inflation, we recognize that that's a tough decision. But frankly, we could not find offsetting cuts for the amount of money that that would require for the providers in our system. So you will not see any recommendations for any COLAs here. But I just wanted to acknowledge that that doesn't mean that that's okay. So the other thing that we have done is to point out a couple of areas where they were not items in our committee's jurisdiction, but they definitely impact individuals and recipients and Vermont citizens who are within our committee's jurisdiction. So, the, House Human Services Committee noted that the administration had eliminated 1,500,000.0 in the Department of Mental Health budget that was allocated to designated and specialized service agencies. Now, those funds, they were for reach up recipients. And they were actually transferred Those funds were transferred from DCF to DMH several years ago in order to fund essentially mental health services and getting people access to reach up and also dealing with their mental health issues. And it specifically is funded case management and other interventions for mental health supports, essentially prior to them becoming sort of officially eligible. And it is something for which, honestly, there had been no discussion. And we felt that that was a critical support, and it had been funded by DCF. And so we are making that. And there's more than 400 individuals that will not receive services as a result of that. And that's a current level service. So I know as you have worked through the budget, you've seen many adjustments to current level services, in order for the budget to be presented, as you've seen it. An additional cut in the Department of Mental Health budget is 650,000 for the Community Resource Center in Chittenden County. And that is operated by the Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity. You can see the data there at the bottom of page one and on to page two of my memo that talks about the services that they have provided. These are particularly vulnerable individuals for people who are homeless. Essentially, they've been accessing these services through a program that CBOEO has operated since the pandemic. And it has had a bit of a varied funding journey, originally funded with federal funds and some funding, I believe, from the city of Burlington through their federal funds. When those went away, the COVID era funds went away, the funds were provided by the Department of Mental Health. And you may recall, because there was a lot of discussion about this last year, and it was on the sort of chopping block last year as well. And the department, I believe, came up with some funds to continue it through till the end of this fiscal year. It's a critical service in Chittenden County. And so if people think that the issue of homelessness is already bad in Chittenden County, this is going to make it considerably worse. And you can see that there's 2,100 unique individuals served. And this is a place where people are safe during the day. It's not a nighttime it's not nighttime or overnight, but they're safe during the day. They can get a hot meal. They can get mental health supports. And I just feel like it's a critical thing. But it was not in our jurisdiction, but I felt I would be remiss if I did not mention it.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: So we have a question, too. Yeah. Did the department do you ever speak with anybody from the Department of Mental Health about why this cuts?

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: No, we did not. I did highlight it for the healthcare committee.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: Yeah. And it didn't come up in our conversation with the Department of Mental Health when it wasn't listed as one of the things. And I think that's because it was kind of hard to find. But anyway, thanks for highlighting this. I share your concern about it. And I want to go back to page one. You mentioned, we sort of skipped over it, and maybe it'll come up later, but the housing proposal, the housing initiative that they're calling, and I know you're working on a bill, and it's going to be within the same budget. So will you be recommending that we just take all of those housing things and keep it we would account for it in the budget, but we would keep all the money together in the bill. Yes.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: And DCF has identified, it's in a few different places in their budget. But we did get a spreadsheet from their CFO, Megan Smetan, and I think Nolan has a copy of that, that outlines FY 'twenty five, 'twenty six, and then 'twenty seven proposed for their spending both in general assistance emergency housing and OEO programs. And so that is all shifting in 'twenty seven to different things, including staff positions. They show that history. So we do have a spreadsheet that shows that total dollar amount. It's 80 some million. Yes, 82 or something like that.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: And I think, Bill, and some of us have a copy of that, but I'm not sure all of us have a copy of that. So we should.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: Yes. You will see when we get to the chart that we did not make any recommendations. We said this is pending action on a bill that's still under consideration.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: Okay, great. And that you're hoping to get out by crossover on the thirteenth

[Rep. Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: or something?

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: Yes, ma'am.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: Just checking. I know

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: there's Yeah. Things we I would be remiss to say that I'm not guaranteeing success of that bill. And I so need to, I guess, alert the committee to the fact that if we are unsuccessful in that bill, we will need to have policy in the budget as we have had for the last few years, which I think will probably raise some of the same concerns. Of the things, I'll tell you one of the sticking points right now, I will say upfront is that the administration's proposal removes the adverse weather conditions as it has been, which is essentially December 1 to March 31, and wants to revert back to one day you're in, the next day you're out, maybe two days later you can come in, and the next day you're out, essentially based upon the temperature of the day. It's it's it's not something that my committee will agree to. And it's not something that we have been doing. It is something that was done prior to COVID. It's very intensive, staff intensive to operate.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: I think so. Very.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: They're asking for 21 positions in their proposal. And frankly, I just don't think it's humane during winter months to be putting people through the ups and downs. And we don't house everybody who's homeless in the winter months. I want to be clear about that. But we do it within the budget that we have. And so I'm just putting that out on the table because it's going to be an issue in the bill that we have under development, and it will be an issue in the general assembly's budget. So if we don't have a bill, that same issue is going to come to the table in the budget. And so I just think it's fair for me to alert you to that. Yeah. Thank you.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: Tom? How

[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: much is budgeted for 21 people? Do you know?

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: For the 21 staff, it's 2,100,000.0, I believe.

[Rep. Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: So that's people that they're not going to be reassigned from many positions. These are, I believe, 21 people to be limited service?

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: They have been limited service in the past, and they're wanting to make them permanent.

[Rep. Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: And their bill work where? I'm sorry. The

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: proposal is in economic services.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: This is part of what we've asked JFO to do is to get us the list of all the positions because they're taking everything from the physician pool. So, they're saying there's no new positions, maybe technically, but we don't know. So, it isn't showing up. Usually in the budget, have a section that has all the positions because those are new positions that are not in the position pool. So, at the moment, they're taking everything from a position pool, but they're scattered throughout all the agencies and the departments. So we don't really have a handle on all of them. There's 12 here, there's 21 there, there's six here, and that's what we're going to get a handle on. So JFO's working on that.

[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: Yeah. So, no, I'm going to ask. Okay.

[Nolan Langweil (Joint Fiscal Office)]: More to come.

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

[Nolan Langweil (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Electronic services with I'm sorry, I didn't hear you, Department Children

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: and Families.

[Nolan Langweil (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Thank

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: you, and I want to thank you for pointing out about how humane the censor that it isn't. And I hope that would guide us here. We have child abuse laws in this country because we had animal abuse laws first, and it was the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Guilty of Animals that brought the first suit that led to child abuse laws because we had a policeman saw a child get beaten and there was no law against it. And they said, you can't beat your horse, but you can beat your kids. And I hope we can treat all humans more humane or as humane as we treat our animals. Thank you for pointing that out.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: Okay. So I just felt it was I wanted full disclosure that what will be an issue in the bill is also gonna be an issue in the budget. So it's gonna be an issue wherever it is that we land. Okay. Okay. And then finally, we're not really sure what's happening with Sash. We've heard that it's budgeted someplace. We couldn't really tell. In Dale, the administration is the administrative costs for Sash appear in the Dale budget. Those are funded. Administrative

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: costs are funded?

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: Administrative costs are funded in the Dale budget. I think it's $5,100,000 in global commitment for the actual services out in the community, we've heard different things. And I just wanted to highlight it for you because Again, that's not in the

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: health care committees. Heard about it from Chair Black this morning. But I did not know that the administrative costs were actually already in the budget. So they're funding the administration of it, but not the people who do the work.

[Rep. Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: Okay. And then?

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: And then we have some significant concerns regarding the high end system of care. That's how it's referred to in DCF for youth in custody who may have had some issues with law enforcement or behavioral issues. And Representative Donahue has really been dogging this for at least the last three years. And I've included a copy of her memo to the committee so that you can understand the depth of the concern that we have. And we are taking of a bold step in saying, we really feel like we need to understand what we are committing to in the long term. And that was a question, frankly, we asked of every department where we saw things happening. We asked the same as the Department of Health with regard to recovery residences. So we're very happy to see that in the Rural Health Transformation Grant for the development of these new residences. We've been asking, so do you have a plan for their continued operation once that because that doesn't fund continued operations. Do you have a plan for continued operations once you've developed all these new recovery residences? We haven't gotten clear answers about that, I'll just be honest. They have smart people working there, so I'm sure that they're thinking about that. But as a body, I think we need to understand what we are committing ourselves to in future years that is getting locked in this year. And

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: it may sound like not very much this year, but it turns out to be five times as much two years down the road.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: Operations tend to be, I guess, more expensive, depending upon what it is. That's where we, coming back to the high end system of care, the contract that DCF has right now for the place down in the Sheriff's Building down south is $4,000 per day per child. That is more than inpatient psychiatric care

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: at Brattleboro Retreat. Isn't it Brattleboro Retreat 2,300? It is, something like that. 300, yeah. Yeah, dollars 4,000 a day per child.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: Per child. And that's with an organization that the state of Pennsylvania canceled a contract with because of concerns over treatment of the children. So we have a high level of concern And about I'm not exactly sure what we can do about it, frankly, but we really feel like they should be renegotiating that contract. And we feel like we need to have an understanding of, so do you intend to continue this service if you have a youth campus someplace? And we haven't been able to get the full picture. And this is not without trying to get the full picture. We had language in the budget last year about it. And there was language the previous year. We're still trying. And I think it's not only a policy decision, but it's a real significant money decision because it is extremely expensive, and they've had difficulty getting bidders. And you know, we do hear from other witnesses, and we're upstairs taking testimony right now about this, you know, that there is a belief that there's a better way to do things. And I think that everybody recognizes that we needed some level of support for youth who used to be at Woodside, that we are sending too many kids out of state now. And we're just not sure that we hit on the right package that's affordable for us in the long term. So that's the that's the last thing that's in the package. So now let's just turn to the chart. So shoot, I didn't do it in color on my printer.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: Oh, mine's ours is a color.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: So you will see, and this is just organized alphabetically. So the Department for Children and Families, the Child Development Division, there are a number of changes here, that we are concurring with. But the biggest one, which I'm sure you have already noticed, is a $6,200,000, bump into the child care financial assistance program for child care financial assistance from the general fund. So what that is telling us is that to date, at least, that there are insufficient revenues in the child care contribution to cover the expenses of the program. And I might recall for you last year's budget was attempting to transfer money out of that fund. And we fought against that. And this is one of the reasons. The program had not been fully implemented. We've been through now one full year. It is doing the things it was intended to do. We have doubled the number of kids. We have 1,200 new slots that have opened up and more still in development. And the program now is an entitlement, which it did not start out to be. That's not how it left our committee. So that's a $6,200,000 increase into the program from the general fund. Some of these other things are decreases. So you'll see the Strengthening Families program is being cut by 1,100,000.0. There are funds available through funds from Act 76, which is the child care bill, as well as the child care capacity grants. They're reducing those, and as well as emergency financial relief for child care providers and eligibility agreements. Efficiencies were used a lot in our budget testimony from the department. So you probably have heard the same thing through it. They found some savings through efficiencies. So we are concurring with those, recognizing it's keeping the program whole. It's making some reductions in some of the services. But we do not feel it will have a negative impact on the providers or the staff. We received a request. Is not in the turn to the next page. Sorry, the pages aren't numbered. I just realized that. We received a request from Parent Child Center Network for $1,880,000 I'm sure you heard from them during your budget testimony. It was a variety of increased expenses. And we are recommending $180,000 just for the concrete supports, which is the direct support for families at risk. So things like helping them get a winter tire so they can get to their work or examples like that. It means real tangible stuff. Exactly. Exactly. And so, again, we've highlighted the place that we would take that from, school aged childcare. So we are providing you a source of funds for that.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: That neutral to the general fund. Exactly. Got it. Thank you.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: You see, we do that in several places. There are a few that don't have it. So, I think- Yeah, I know, I understand, but- Spoiler alert. It's great

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: when people can figure out a way to make that happen. Wayne?

[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: What was your thinking on

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: Times are tough for families right now, especially low income families. And we could not find our way to funding the full 1,880,000.00. And because part of that was for COLA increases, and I kind of I did a chair thing, to be honest. I said, we're not doing COLA increases this year. And part of it is for something you'll see me talk about a little bit later, benefit assisters, which I know that you've heard some testimony about. So that $180,000 will be direct financial support to families. It's a variety of different things. It's not any one thing. Concrete supports is something that's a term of art in the parent child center network and in community action. I want

[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: to hear your thinking on reducing the childcare for putting it into parent child centers to be lashed down for one being quierobi over the other.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: Well, we're moving from 2,000,000 to 1.8. So we're not eliminating. We're just taking that 180,000. And it's not going to result in any decrease of access for school aged children. Move on? We're good. Yeah. Okay. The Family Services Division. So again, we saw the department focusing on the high end system of care that I was just talking about a few minutes ago, the very expensive high end system of care, and pretty much kind of decimating prevention services. And from a policy perspective, that didn't make any sense to us Because obviously we want to prevent child abuse from happening, and we want to reduce the reliance on those high end systems of care. How do you do that? You do that through prevention. And so the Nurturing Parent Program at Prevent Child Abuse Vermont was slated for a $194,000 cut. And we restored that funding. And again, we reduced line item you can see there, which is the high end system of care by that dollar amount. And then Nolan can describe to you that part of that is GC and part of it is general fund. So it's not like a one for one kind And of we were also just barely told that the River Valley, which is the new program in Southern Vermont, may have carryforward. So we believe that this can be done without any harm to anybody.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: Because that's the part of the high end system of care. Exactly. Yes. They should be fine.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: Okay.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: And you'll see the same thing in the next line item. So they had proposed cutting $2.90, almost $294,000 out of post permanency program. That impacts the Lund Center, Easterseals, and I can't remember what the third one is. NFI. Thank you, kind

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: sir. Remind me

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: what NFI is, National Northeastern Family Institute.

[Nolan Langweil (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Okay.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: And so, again, we are saying that, we should restore that full 293,000 and that, it would come from the high end system of care line item. Again, a mixture of GC and GF there. And again, DCF has told us that they may have carry forward for River Valley because it has not opened yet. Marty? Do you know what the full amount of the post permanency program was? If this Well, I guess I

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: can figure it out. 25 percent was the two ninety three?

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: Well, the way DCF described it is that it was a cut to the non DCF custody, kids who had been previously in DCF custody. In looking at the actual numbers, it didn't turn out to be that. So I can't tell you, Marty, but I could get back to you about what the full amount of that post permanency is. This essentially million on the exact Yeah. I'm not sure it's 25%. That's that's what they said, but I'm not sure that that's exactly what it is. And this is the money that it's essentially almost the same amount, I just recall, from last year. We put that money in. Remember, there was a big discussion about I remember going round and round about this with Emily Byrne and how the money was allocated and was it because there was money that was left over from the previous year. And there was a whole shebang about how it needed to occur, how it needed to be presented in the budget. And this is essentially the money that was added last year. Yeah. And then we did not object to the post adoption consortium cut. To be honest, I don't know what the consortium is. And then on the next page is something that we feel very strongly about, and that is the supervised visitation. So, we're looking for and this is not something that was presented in the governor's budget. We're looking for 249,000. And this also involves some mechanics. The Center for Crime Victim Services has in their budget 137,500. They have written to us and indicated that that money should be transferred, to DCF because it really is the Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence that sort of manages this and not the Center for Crime Victim Services. So they are okay with that. Director Coleman, I have a memo from her about that that I can forward if you'd like. So that's just a transfer, okay? And then there's 249,300 that we are recommending. We asked for a report on this last year. We heard the results of the report this year. And we have this desert in the middle of the state, Washington County, Orange County. I don't remember if it was part of Lamoille, kind of in the center part of the state that where there is no supervised visitation available. So it is very difficult for noncustodial parents who are under typically have a court order for supervised visitation. Very difficult for that to occur without these services. And we also have lost some services because this has been underfunded for quite some time. So what this is recommending to do is that it will stabilize the six existing sites, and then it would start to fill in that gap in the center of the state where there's no programs that exist. And it would open two programs or two sites where children and family could have supervised visitation. And we are recommending this to come from a source that we have tapped previously, result of tobacco settlement funds, quite some time ago that have been sitting in the judiciary for CHINS related, services. We feel this is an appropriate use of those funds. And we have you'll see we have language about that.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: I'll pause you for a second, and then I'll get you there. Noah, do we know how

[Rep. Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: much is in that special fund? It's Jim's special fund?

[Nolan Langweil (Joint Fiscal Office)]: There is money there.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: Okay, yeah, just we always like to know what's in special funds. That'd be great. Wayne?

[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: Talking about supervised visitation in prisons, right?

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: No. No, supervised visitation is so when there is a custody issue in the courts and there's been allegations of mistreatment, maltreatment, whatever, against one parent. DCF has children. DCF has some of the children, not all of them. But the court orders supervised visitation. This happens in the community.

[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: Understand what it is. I didn't know because supervising visitation is another

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: Oh, in the court. Yeah. This is not in the court system at all. No, not in the court system. Okay. Ready. So then we're moving on to economic services. This is where we're going to kind of breeze by economic services because we are going to deal with this in our bill, which is still under consideration. So that's really all I have to say about

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: Are that first these are the governor's recommended decreases? Yes. The 7.1? Yes. These are still a little TBD based on your bill.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: I can say that we are concurring with the things that are not the 7,450,000 GA. Okay? The other ones, we are okay with. And and then we come to another item that was not in the governor's budget, and this is one of the items for which we have not identified a source of funds for. And my I'm just gonna bring us back to what I said that our committee focused on, which was food, shelter, and safety. And this obviously comes under the category of food, and that is Vermont Food Bank. And I know that you were seeing requests from other parts of our general assembly, and they've pretty much divided up their total request of $5,000,000 which we support in total. The $2,000,000 that they're asking from our committee is direct food purchasing for community partners. So as you know, they're the distribution site that helps to keep the community partners, your local food shelves, your local food banks, local senior centers all over the state. So the $2,000,000 is direct food assistance to communities. And we also are reporting that we support the Ag and Food Resiliency Committee's request and what hopefully was in the emergency food distribution, which should have been in the government operations. Yeah.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: So yes, we have heard that the 5,000,000 total, two, two of them. So you're supporting all of them?

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: We are supporting that. Okay. And as I said, I'm sorry we couldn't come up with a place to take it from. Okay. And then, we are seeing, several different decreases in, the next item, which is essentially reach up. While we're concurring, we need to raise again the issue that these are very low income, sometimes no income, single parents, essentially. And the cost of living has continued to rise substantially, and there has been no adjustment in this line item to bring it up to current dollars in many years. And so I would just be remiss if I didn't say that although we're concurring, we're doing it with a heavy heart because we know that these families could benefit from a reduction in the rateable reduction, which is roughly 50%. So just as a reminder, so, they calculate what it's what we should give, and then they reduce it by 50%. And then it's based on old, outdated information. So it's not even based upon the cost of living for the most recent year and most recent data that's available.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: Is the number they're using housing data from 2000 Yes. And

[Rep. Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: So what is the process for changing that? What do you bang your head against the wall on every year when you think of, how can I make this I mean, this goes on with the federal levels of poverty not changing and whatnot? So I mean, strikes me that if they're going to, on a very surface level, if they're going to cut the money and keep it at the same level as opposed to saying, oh my god, we're using less, but we need to pay more.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: Yeah. Mean, what they're seeing is a reduction in the caseload, which I suspect we'll be starting to see increases in because it follows the economy. And what we would like to do, obviously, is to reduce the rateable reduction and update the data on which the calculations are made.

[Nolan Langweil (Joint Fiscal Office)]: That requires does that?

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: It it would be the general assembly. I mean, it can be proposed by the administration. It hasn't ever been since I've been here, but But we've not had the will in the general assembly to do that. And it's giant hole. I mean, it impacts very low income single parents.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: How many of these people do we know are the are without homes?

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: I don't know that specifically. I think that number is contained on the report we get on a monthly basis from DCF, the number of families who are homeless who are also reach up participants. And of course, we know what the cost of housing is. And there's nearly eight fifty children as of December who are homeless. And that's in this state. And we can do better than that. But we're not.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: Can we update that metric, the language here, twenty five years ago for the current?

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: There's been calculations. Shoot, I'm trying to remember if it was last year or the year before that we asked for a calculation that would reduce the rateable reduction, essentially. And we do have a report from DCF that I think is last year. I'm not asking Yes. If

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: do have and maybe it's on your committee page. I remember seeing it. You must have it in your report section. So I would say, let's take a look at that and then we can talk. Okay, Wayne?

[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: Where are the eight fifty homeless children? Not obviously

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: eight fifty. They are I don't know exactly where they all are. A number of them are in hotels right now. And some Yes, we have some family shelters.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: We don't have a lot of

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: Not enough. Right.

[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: Not very many. I'd just like to have a general idea.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: Well, we also have We do have it by county, because DCF puts together that information. And Rutland County is often the biggest. Rutland County has a lot. Yes.

[Nolan Langweil (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Those have been hotels, because they're the hotels or Or not. Yeah.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: Data, this data is from the coordinated entry assessment process. So we frankly believe it's an undercount because this is people who have gone through the coordinated entry assessment, which is a 25 page long assessment. And that means that you have to be in a place where somebody's been able to find you and do the assessment. So that's why we think it's an undercount.

[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: That's why I was asking, because if we know these ones that we've counted, they either have to be in a hotel or some shelter someplace, or they have to be in some facility that

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: we're we know about it. Involved in. Just don't know where each eight fifty are. I mean, the coordinated entry, they call it the HMIS system, the homeless management information system, all of that data is in that system. And they can provide reports about where you were before you were homeless, where are you now, that kind of thing. I just don't have that off the top of my head. So I raise concerns about that. And I hope that we can do better, frankly. The next is I'm going to just make a brief statement. This is the Office of Economic Opportunity at the Department for Children and Families. Again, this is pending separate bill that's still under consideration in our committee. And I did note in the cover memo that there are no plans in committee to go over the governor's budget or under the governor's budget. So We will the governor's commission. Yes. Okay. So my guess is it won't be exactly as you see it here, but it will be in some of those same areas. Okay. When you turn the next page, that's where you can see the 21 limited service positions, the 2,200,000.0. Okay. There was a proposal to decrease Vermont two eleven coverage by 332,000. And we are, one, I want to make sure that people know that it would no longer, as of July 1, be 20 fourseven service. It will end at 11PM, I think. And two eleven reports that they believe that that is Okay, given the call volume is not very high during that eleven to 7AM period. And so they want to focus on being able to update their IT system and to really have staffing during the six to 10PM time slot that is really quite busy. So we are okay with this decrease because the House Health Care Committee is recommending that it be backfilled with some mental health IT fund that they have over there that they talk to you about. Don't know exactly what it is. Yeah, we heard that. I

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: think our suicide hotline goes to a national number if there's nobody there. Is there something similar we can do with this?

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: They have been contracting with a company out of New Hampshire for their overnight. They're part of the National two eleven. I don't know. When we took testimony, they didn't actually talk about the capacity to do that out because it requires access to the database that's very Vermont specific as opposed to the 988 that is you're there trying to help a person through an emotional issue. So I'm not aware of that, Mike. Sorry, representative.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: Okay.

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

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: Okay. The next thing is, something that is a little out of the ordinary. And, this is a specific request for, peer directed services for people with very significant disabilities, people who are homeless. This is for an organization called End Homelessness Vermont. They had asked for more than this, 600 and some odd thousand. We did reduce it. But this is very specific disability focused case management and placement services for people that, frankly, most of the rest of the systems that we have in the state have given up on. And they've been very successful in finding permanent housing for those folks and getting them stabilized and getting them access to emergency housing if necessary. And we were, frankly, quite blown away by the endorsement from 15 different organizations that came forward in writing and said, this work is valuable. We need this work. And these people are doing good work. And it is life saving is what I want to say. And I think that you're familiar with we have identified a source of funds for this, which is in DCF. They have over $11,000,000 of carry forward funds from FY 'twenty five, a lot of which has been obligated, but not all. And so we are recommending that that be used and tapped to provide funding to this organization.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: And Dave, you have a question.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: Well, I just wanted to back up what the chair said. I had an opportunity to speak to several of the staff affiliated with this organization, and I they know their was very impressed, and I'm not easily impressed in this area. Informed who knew what to ask and could dig deep. Thank you for highlighting this.

[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: This seems to be an attempt to address some of the issues that we've discussed last year about Parkinson's people out of the crisis where they had the services they knew with the bad folks that may be causing the trouble.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: Yes, exactly. And the one thing that I want to stress in this is people who have been chronically homeless or who have significant medical issues, mental health issues, other disability related issues, people who've had amputations and who have been, for one reason or another, not able to access housing, emergency or otherwise, this organization meets them where they are. And when they meet them where they are, they have success. And I'm going to be frank. The administration is not a big fan of this organization. So I'm just being frank about it. But we felt compelled in our committee that with the support and recommendations from these wide ranging other community partners that, given the state of homelessness in this state and the success with which this organization has had, that we felt compelled to bring it forward specifically. And it would need a specific appropriation, which, again, is an unusual thing.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: So I weigh in then.

[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: Jellus, what the objection is?

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: You would have to ask the agency of human services for that. I don't want to interpret what there's Testify that to you. Yeah. I can tell you that there have been some people who said, well, they're not a five zero one(three) organization. They have a fiscal agent. They've provided us with all the documentation for the fiscal agent. They're registered with the Secretary of State's office. So they've provided us all of the information that we felt was necessary in order to meet our due diligence to sort of like the making sure it's a real business. Do you know what I mean? And so in terms of objections, I think that it would be helpful if you wanted to Like

[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: a concern that they might be for profit.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: They're definitely not for

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: profit. Yeah,

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: definitely not for profit.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: A lot of non profits around. Yeah. There's a lot of

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: nonprofits. Lynn?

[Rep. Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: Yeah, I think I was going to ask the same thing. Five zero one(three) means it is a nonprofit. It's registered with the Secretary of State. So they're not registered with the Secretary of State.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: They are registered with the Secretary of State as a business. They are have not gone through all of the machinations to get their five zero one(three) status yet. Their fiscal agent is Their fiscal agent is Vermont Kin. Vermont Vermont Kin, I think is what it's called. It's essentially It's an organization that is a five zero one(three) and it provides support to family as care providers. So like when grandparents raise their grandkids and take custody of their grandkids, it's an organization that's been around and not for a long time.

[Rep. Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: Well, that's a requirement for stigma.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: You have to be a registered business, which they And as a policy, I think for human services, we prefer to contract with nonprofits. So that's why their fiscal agent is a nonprofit. It's called Vermont KIN, like C A N, K I N.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: KIN, I wasn't sure which way it Okay. Thirds of our nursing homes have for profit. Yes, that's a good point.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: Dave, you don't want to get me going on nursing homes.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: Oh yeah, I don't want to

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: get me going there, Dave. Am pretty sure about that.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: I'm sorry, it's a point of reference, Dave. We appreciate that. Okay. So 510625. 511625. Do you have any idea of what the pool of disabled homeless people are?

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: And how

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: much does $500,000 can help?

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: I can get you the exact number from the report that we get in terms of the number The vast majority of people who are homeless have a disability. It's It's quite some sort It's a lot. So this is not going to help all the people who are homeless in the state who have a disability. But I just don't have it with me. I have the data about the number of people who have been served and what this will do. Yeah.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: I was thinking more of a severely medically disabled person if this organization is trying to get them into permanent housing. And hopefully they get into permanent housing, but how many more do

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: we have to help next year

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: that are out there? Right, and this is where the numbers were that eighty two people who qualify were put into permanent housing. Two of them fell off, which is a pretty low rate of recidivism,

[Rep. Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: or whatever you call it

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: there, except one has then since found So the there's only one out of the 82 that is back.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: They've been very successful. And part of the reason they've been very successful is that they continue with follow along case management services. We then don't find people becoming homeless again, which the data that is in our homeless management information system is there's a very high rate, over twenty five percent of people who have been placed into permanent housing then become homeless again. And part of the reason is because they don't have that same kind of continuity of case management and support. And then the organization also, they step back when they need to step back, as people gain their strength and they gain their stability and as they have a never ending influx of new people who are referred to them. And some of our community action agencies refer to them. Some of our homeless shelters refer people to them. So I feel like this, honestly, our whole committee actually voted

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: They're favor of gonna come back next year and

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: Well, what I'm hoping is that in our homelessness array of services in our bill that we can address peer supported options. And I think the research is pretty clear about peer support, whether it's in recovery, whether it's in homelessness, whether it's in mental health, whether it's in other disability services, peer supports are very successful because people have been through it. They've been there. They know. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Moving on to the next section. Yep. Okay. We're now changing departments. We're going to Dale with Department of Disabilities Aging and Independent Living. And this is the other place where we were not able to find a source of funds. But keeping with our theme of food, shelter and security, we are recommending $1,000,000 in general fund for Meals on Wheels. As you can see, nearly a million meals have been delivered in this state on an annual basis. And the average cost is nearly $13.50. One meal? Well, that counts the meal. It counts the support for drivers, the volunteers. There was a whole cost study done for us. Yes.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: 2024 rate study.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: Yes, it's 2024 rate study. So what we have right now is a mixture of general fund, GC, and Older Americans Act money. And you might recall last year, we didn't ask for new money, but we asked for the department to get in to seek global commitment funds in order to match what we had already put in. We made a choice this year not to match it with global commitment because it's under the investment line, Global Commitment Investments. And we have heard some concern about global commitment investments for the future. And so we didn't want to risk putting something in there, increasing it, that's going to get taken away. Yeah. So, and again, this still, as you can see, there's an, you know, across our state, dollars 11,000,000 in Meals on Wheels goes out the door to thousands of Vermonters. And our state contribution to that between, well, state and federal funds right now is $4,000,000 So this would up that to 5,000,000 So there's still considerable amount of fundraising that happens at the local level to support Meals on Wheels programs across the state.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: So this proposal would increase it to 5.16. Exactly. Yeah.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: The next items are things you'll recognize from the BAA, and that's the annualization in the FY 'twenty six BAA to restore rates for ERC level one. And so, this is the full annual rate.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: Those are global commitment numbers.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: Those are that's GC, yep. Know when we

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: could get the actual numbers, the general fund numbers.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: Yes. And the same with the next item. That was for the area agencies on aging case management rate. For some reason, they weren't included when everybody else got the 2% last year. And we put that in the BAA. And so that, excuse me, again, is global commitment. Excuse me. I have some here. Yeah. Thank you. For the prompt to drink my own water. That's a good idea, Teresa. Okay. The next item is home share. I think everybody here is probably familiar with home share. Gave them this amount last year. Exactly, in one time dollars. And so we are proposing, one, it's been very successful, which is good news. Two, it is one of our lowest cost approaches to homelessness in the state. And three, it's serving an underserved area, which is the Northeast Kingdom. And so if we don't do this, essentially what we gave them to start that last year, they would have to stop doing. However, this is where, we're going to see in the next couple of items, you're going to see recommendations to reduce choices for care, by, in this case, dollars 560,000 because HomeShare, as far as I know, is not matchable. So in order to come up with 235,000 general fund, it would require a $560,000 transfer out of

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: global commitment in choices for care. Does that free up some global commitment for other projects or programs?

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: Well, it would federal free up side of it, not the states. It would still need match. Yeah. And you'll see this in the next item as well and the next two items. And we are not doing this lightly, but these are all elements of long term care. And Choices for Care is a long term care service. But some of these things are not within the confines of choices for care. But we're making a policy recommendation that these are just as important. And as you know, the choices for care is several $100,000,000. And we really didn't feel like these relatively small adjustments are going to impact the overall program or any access to services in Choices for Care. So much as we were discussing this morning about, yes, in the governor's budget, they put it all into choices for care and they didn't fund these things. We're saying, we don't disagree. Choices for care is good. But we think that, part of that money should be utilized for these services, much as what we were talking about this morning and we'll talk in a minute about in the health department, okay? So we are recommending, that what we started last year that we continue.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: The ombudsman, is that 110,000 users, should that be GF or GC?

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: They said that they use GC. I didn't verify that.

[Nolan Langweil (Joint Fiscal Office)]: So we use GC for the healthcare advocate. So I'm assuming we can also use GC for- Okay.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: Because they go into nursing homes and choices for care, Medicaid, they're ombudsman for Medicaid services. So if they requested $275,000 we said no, because frankly, part of that was COLA, and we had made the policy decision to not do COLAs. But the $110,000 is specifically for one staff person, and it is really for the extra caseload work that they have been encountering. Probably is not going to maybe it will surprise you, maybe it won't. But there's a When people try to solve issues without having to go through a formal complaint process in a nursing facility, they utilize the ombudsman services. And they quite often can remediate the situation and get the person the support that they need. One of the examples that was shared with us is in one of our for profit nursing homes. The hospice services had ordered a certain level of medication. The patient wasn't getting that level of medication for pain relief in their final days and hours of life. And the reason was because corporate said that they couldn't do it. So family members intervened and they used the ombudsman, they were able to quickly resolve the issue. But that's the kind of stuff that we're seeing. And that's the kind of thing that these people do. And one of the things that they, in order to be efficient, they are locating their staff in different parts of the state. So for instance, I think in Bennington, you're familiar with the relatively new home that has we pay a premium for. I'm trying to remember the name. I can't remember if you can remember the name. I know. It'll come to me after I leave home. But we pay a premium. They are serving people with mental health challenges, people who have moved from the infirmary in corrections. They have served a few homeless people. Shoot, it's gonna drive me nuts. I can't think of their name. They are locating the ombudsman program is locating people in various parts of the state to be very efficient in not sending somebody from Burlington to travel three hours down to Bennington. So we supported the staff position. And again I have a question.

[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: That's Vermont Legal Aid. We got that someplace else in the road.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: So you're saying this is at Vermont Legal Aid? Is that where the

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: This is in Vermont Legal Aid, yes.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: I'll have to look and see. Who's in Legal Aid? Is this a Yeah, go ahead. The Aid

[Nolan Langweil (Joint Fiscal Office)]: is a separate organization. They're separate contracts. So, ACA, the Healthgrabbitator had a contract. Long term care medical would have a different contract. The Medicare one that you saw, that's a different one. These are all mental health has different functions.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: It's not different organizations though.

[Nolan Langweil (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Same organization, but they have individual contracts.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: Right, so they're for different programs. Yeah, different programs.

[Nolan Langweil (Joint Fiscal Office)]: We are That's part of

[Rep. Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: the request that we made to start putting together a chart from James about what all those contracts are and what the monies are so that when we have these conversations about legal aid, we can now check them off but understand

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: That's like no can help with that.

[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: So our agencies are contracted with this non governmental agency for drugs.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: Well, aid is in statute. So they're quasi governmental and Well,

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: whether you think

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: it should be, here it is.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: Okay. So that's why that's only a one for one because that's GC to GC. Yeah. Okay. And then we move down to, this is something that, I don't know if you had any testimony on it at your budget hearing, but there are, a relatively small number of Vermonters who are both deaf and blind. And they require assistance to access their communities, frankly, because obviously they cannot drive, and they need, special interpretation services. If you've never seen it's quite remarkable, actually. So the interpreter is signing. The person who is deaf and blind is touching their fingers as they're signing. I'm like, it's remarkable to me. I could never imagine the ability to do that. So there has been a really small funded program at Dale that has been zeroed out of the budget, dollars 150,000. And again, these are people with very significant life changing disabilities. And, for this $150,000 we are recommending that that be fully restored. And again, that choices for care, the several 100 millions we have in Choices for Care, be slightly reduced by $326,000

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: That's

[Rep. Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: you've for a long time.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: I can't remember how long, but it's been in effect for a while. Yes. A month. Yeah.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: I recognize choices for care is a really large program. For these previous three sections, is there a certain place that that would affect the program? That simply be It's one budget. So just be spread across provider rates essentially?

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: No. It would they build in caseload increase in budget. So it would it's not gonna reduce provider rates at all. Providers will still get the same rates. Nursing homes are still going to get their increases. We're not increasing any of the community providers, I'll point out, but we are increasing nursing home rates. That's all accounted for in the budget. So it essentially makes a little bit less available for caseload increase, if you will. But it's just, choices for care is just one line item in the budget. But we are proposing to change that. That's right. Think we're supposed say that.

[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: Question for deaf and blind, that's not where the entire appropriations, they're getting more money than that, is this just a part of it?

[Nolan Langweil (Joint Fiscal Office)]: No. It's all, it's just a

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: Okay. Stay mute. All right, now we're moving on to the Department of Health. So one thing I realized after our discussion this morning is that I did not make note of the decrease in the, special fund for the substance use, prevention special fund. So I'm going ask you to make a little note in there that it's not included, but it should have been.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: In Department of Health.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: In Department of Health. So our intent is, as you heard this morning, to reduce the Department of Health's request for increases, in those two areas. And instead, like we have with, like we just recommended for choices for care, we're recommending different priorities. So instead of the big increases for the local prevention, folks and the school based stuff, we're saying that part of those funds should flow to the folks that we said this morning. And then you'll see the, recovery centers

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: were funded out of that last year and they weren't recommended the new Just for the benefit of this community, can you describe the difference between a recovery center and a recovery residence? Because they've been used almost interchangeably and different. So

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: recovery residents or recovery housing, however you want to refer to it, literally some people call it sober housing. It's essentially peers together, living together under a commitment to remain sober. And it's like a peer supported environment. They do get some, depending upon the level, there's different levels of recovery housing. And those different levels require increasing services as you move up through the levels. So at the very basic level, it's just essentially peers residing together. And then as you move up the levels, there are additional supportive services like employment and case management and things like that. Recovery centers are essentially what I would call sort of day program kind of sites. They're only during the day generally, but sometimes they're open on weekends. And they are places where people can go to get referrals for other services. There are places where people can get peer support during the day. I think this morning when we were talking about substance use, substance use and substance use recovery is an iterative process. People go through ups and downs and life challenges along the way. And the recovery centers provide that support to people during the day. And they give them access to resources. For some people who are homeless, it's a place where they can be safe during the day, and to, access the support from, again, their generally peers. And the recovery residences and the recovery centers really are integral to one another. And it ends up providing access to twenty four hour support when you combine them

[Nolan Langweil (Joint Fiscal Office)]: together. So

[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: 7,000,000 decrease now. The Rural Health Transformation Grant may come through, deal with something like that, don't know when or what the timing is going to be. And I assume that if there's no positions, you know, decreasing $7,000,000 that's not affecting positions at the plant, these These are are tuition and grant kinds of things that that money is for, right? Shifting those around, my question will be understanding that, if that's correct, what happens if we do this and the transformation money doesn't come or come straight? Will it affect anybody in terms of longer payments or anything like that?

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: The answer is yes. And the answer also is it is I want to say what they report is that they believe that this will be for the tuition and loan repayment, that they believe that this will be eligible. It is an item. But we also have heard testimony several times now from the, AHS Medicaid director that they are learning new things every day about the strings that might be attached in something that they thought was going to be one way and turns out to be something different, or it didn't quite match up with what the intent was. So I have to tell you, representative, that I think that the jury is still out.

[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: So what reason you're asking is because if we commit to that and if something happens, it's delayed or the strings attached doesn't allow it to come, does something fall through the cracks, would we be better off to postpone this for a fiscal year until we know that we get the money coming in from your program.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: Well, wouldn't be opposed to you putting back in 7,500,000.0.

[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: I don't know.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: I mean, if you're recommending that, I'm not going to oppose it,

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: will you?

[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: No, but you see what I'm thinking. Make sure we don't step in a pothole that

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: we don't want to step in.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: Yeah. And I think that there are two different things here. Want to make sure So that there's the AHEC, okay?

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: I think you heard about it from this morning. Yes.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: And we are supporting the health committee's recommendation to restore that funding. And then there's the loan repayment fund that It's through Yes, I think it is through VSAC that the legislature actually initiated to help deal with the health care professional crisis. And the health commissioner, I cut him some slack. He was like, I don't know, maybe a month on the job when he testified in our committee and was just learning about all of this stuff. And so, representative, I think that the jury is still out about all the specifics for the Rural Health Transformation Grant is all I can say, but that's what they report.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: Jill's coming on the tenth. We're going to hit an update, but Nolan, what do you know?

[Nolan Langweil (Joint Fiscal Office)]: The record is all night open with fiscal, so while there's no front of workforce in the proposal, it's given CF not different. It is different, yes. And I believe, and I'll let Jill from part of it, I've heard that you can't use the Rural Health Transformational Loan Program.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: That's what she has testified in our committee. So

[Nolan Langweil (Joint Fiscal Office)]: this program, if it goes away, it's not being placed by RITB. There's other workforce development dates that are in RITB, but it's not a one for one. It's different.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: Yeah. Okay. Exactly. And we'll have

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: a better sense of Exactly what Mike said. What he said. Okay. Okay. And then, oh, the next one was just a, that was a spending authority issue. It's not any big deal. Actually, probably shouldn't have been in here. And then, the next one we just talked about in terms of, the priorities for in the governor's recommendation. I just realized that number is wrong. It's $3,000,000

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: Is it 1.2?

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: Yeah, their increase is $3,000,000 and change.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: Someone's going to get us a chart of various stuff. We talked about this

[Nolan Langweil (Joint Fiscal Office)]: in the

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: opioid fund and this fund and what the governor recommended and what's being recommended by human services. So we're going to get ourselves over there.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: Okay. All right. I apologize. That dollar amount is not the right dollar amount. I think what that dollar amount represents is the $800,000 plus those four programs that we are recommending in June. But the governor's recommend is $3,000,000 and change increase. And what we're saying is that roughly half of that, we believe, should go to other priorities. And I do want to highlight the recovery centers. They were funded out of the Substance Use Prevention Fund last year. And there was no recommendation from the administration to do that this year. And we think that they are vital to recovery. And so we said that we should continue what we did last year. That's essentially just level from last year.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: With the correct dollar figures, so we don't have to do more of that. So we've had a problem. The budget adjustment. Oh, right, right.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: You'll see we have language.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: Okay, great.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: Yes. Okay, so next we have this other category. I think you've probably heard in testimony benefit assisters, and then I'll be wrapping it up here. This is a cross organization collaboration. And you probably didn't hear from all of them, but there are 16 different community partners representing 46 different organization sites across the state. This proposal is a direct result of HR1 at the federal level. And we didn't have time to calculate whether some or all of this could be matchable, because some of it is about Medicaid, access to Medicaid. Some of it is about access to SNAP slash three squares. So we are recommending that this be funded. And I just want to give you an illustration of what's happening right now in the next few days and why this is needed. So we received notification from DCF, I think it was last week, that they have mailed out notifications to some 2,100 individuals who are no longer gonna be eligible for SNAP, Three Squares. And they have been unable to reach them in time to talk to them about how the paperwork that they need to do in order to continue their benefit. Is exactly what we are afraid of. This is and so while it was predictable, we are actually seeing it happen March 1. So there's gonna be 2,100 individuals who receive that notification that they are no longer gonna be receiving SNAP benefits. They're going to receive that or they have received that. Unless they call in, correct? Right. And so the point is that we can prevent that from happening. And these are a cadre of organizations that you probably were given the list of all the organizations. If you weren't, I can give it to you. But they represent everything from United Ways to community action to parent child centers to ones I had never heard of, to be honest with you. And they came up with a very detailed list of 0.4 FTE or 3.2 FTE. Mean, it's not just a willy nilly kind of thing. The group has worked long and hard on this. And I have to say that I wasn't like an original supporter of the concept, because I felt like this is what the state's supposed to be doing. But I have been convinced, honestly, that the state is investing and you have seen in your budget, they are investing and having to invest in the extra requirements for the state as a result of HR1. So in DEVA, for instance, they're having to add staff because they now need to do things twice a year instead of once a year. And so that exists in all of these areas. But there isn't a focus, honestly, other than what I call normal and customary in terms of outreach to individuals. And those are the people who we need to really be concerned about.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: Or over the same re eligibility requirements for Medicaid apply to SNAP. And as I understand it, there hasn't been any additional staffing recommended under ThreeSport.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: Not that we could tell. And like I said, there's staffing increases across AHS mattered here and there to deal with the increased requirements on state government to meet the requirements in HR1. But is the citizens of Vermont who are going to actually experience the shock? And so I have become convinced that this is a good investment. And since it's directly related to HR1, we are recommending you can decide something different, but we're recommending that it come from the 50,000,000 pot of money that was set aside in the FY twenty six budget. Interesting proposal. Thank you. And then finally, again, this is something that was not in our purview but impacts the people who are in our purview. The Department of Mental Health budget eliminates the Chittenden County Community Outreach Program. We've heard compelling testimony from the Essex librarian, from municipal employees. The Howard Center has provided significant support to those what I would call entities who are now becoming places where folks who are homeless, and get they they come if they need a warm place or they need a place to be during the day and they don't have any other place to go. So the library testimony was actually pretty compelling. And they, without prompting them, we weren't even taking testimony about this particular program. They just kept, talking about whenever we need support, we call the community outreach people and they are there. And so we concur with the House Health Care Committee's recommendation to maintain report, to maintain that program. And that, I'm sure, is the end of our recommendations. However, we have a few pages of language. Okay. Let me just briefly review those with you, because I'm sure that I probably used up more than my time. So choices for care. So I think certainly representative Yacovone is very familiar with choices for care. This is a budget. This is a program that started some thirty some odd years ago. I was at the department at that time. I helped implement the program. It was a magnificent design, still is a magnificent design, that enabled the state of Vermont to utilize the same priority for community based services as we do for institutional based services in nursing facilities. And it was very innovative. And what the premise of the program was, let us reduce That premise of the program is people would prefer to receive their services in their home and in their community and not in a facility, by and large. That has been proven true for a long time. And the premise of the program is if we have this all in one budget, then as the nursing home utilization decreases, we can invest those in the community side and increase the community side of services and supports. And that has been extremely successful in being able to do that. And I don't have the data off the top of my head, but we have taken offline several 100 nursing home beds over the course of this period of time. And we are at the place, frankly, we do not want to lose more nursing home beds. We do have an aging population. Nursing homes are serving people at the higher end of the age spectrum, people in their eighties and nineties, and you've got even some centurions out there. And they are serving people really with more acute needs than they did thirty years ago. And so we don't want to reduce nursing home beds any further in this state. And in fact, the Dale commissioner testified in our committee that we may actually need to increase nursing home beds. The problem with them all being in one budget line item is that the money is only flowing in one direction now. You've seen the EFR payments and the automatic increases for nursing facilities, which I don't want to place them in the jeopardy that we have community based services. Trust me, I don't want to do that. But I truly, believe at this point in time that the facts support that we should be separating these two budgets now, because it is not they need to stand on their own and not have what we need to spend on nursing homes being subtracted, essentially, from the community based side. It leaves less available for the community based side.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: This would be more transparent to do it.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: This would be more transparent at this point in time. And I talked to Dale about this. The business manager at Dale is not particularly thrilled about the concept because he states the obvious. There's still the bulk of the money is going to nursing homes in the choices for care budget. So his contention is that there's more opportunity, if we leave it together, for that to flow to the community side.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: How often does that happen?

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: It's not. Have you ever seen a nursing home rate go down? No. And we don't want to reduce the number of beds. That's the only other way that that goes down. We do not want to reduce the number of nursing home beds anymore. And if, as the commissioner says, that we may need to actually increase it, if we keep this together, it's not allowing the community based side to stand on its own. It could be at the

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: expense of the community based Yes.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: I mean, that's actually what we have seen. And I think that So I just wanted to lay that out. I think that the time has come to ask them to submit that budget in a way that separates those two out next year. And I did want to highlight for you that we had that discussion, that they wiggled their nose at it. They didn't really like it. But, I can make a very strong case for it. Meal delivery services, we don't need to go through this whole thing, but the essential part of it is we need to find out a little bit more about what's happening with how many meals are delivered, what's been the administrative costs. And we want to make sure that the money, if it's approved now some of these things are only contingent upon whether or not you approve our recommendations or not. But, that it goes 100% to meal sites, not any administration. So we don't want anything being taken off the top for administration by the Area Agencies on Aging. The meal sites don't get money directly from the department. That goes through the Area Agencies on Aging, and then it goes out to different meal sites. So that's all of what that is there. Okay. And then we have our recurring HIVAIDS language.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: So this report, should that say home delivered on congregate meals?

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: And. Report, report, home delivered and.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: And. Thank you.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: Yep. Okay, so then we have the Ryan White HIVAIDS information. And then if you want to flip over to, I guess, which is one, two, three, the third page of language. It says Section E Appropriation Recovery Partners of Vermont. This is where we make a, I will say, a very specific recommendation. So we don't have that occur what happened this year. So we say in accordance with the recommendation of Recovery Partners of Vermont, that's the 800,000. And then you'll see language on the supervised visitation. I'm going to let Nolan explain that, or Katie when she gets back. We wanted to identify what that money was being used for here as well so that there was no Okay. Yes, see that. No question when the money gets to DCF about where it

[Nolan Langweil (Joint Fiscal Office)]: gets Yeah.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: Then you will see our language around the high end system of care and residential crisis stabilization. That coincides with Representative Donahue's memo that she has on the back. Then that's wrap for

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: Okay, and that the work that all of you have done and that Rep. Donahue has done, and I know that Rep. Bluemle has been involved with that as well. More you peel back the onion, the more you find. Exactly.

[Nolan Langweil (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Let's take a look at

[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: the true Section eight, true Section approach to stabilization. You want to shut the whole thing down?

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: What we want them to do is to renegotiate, and we want them to pause on creating a youth campus until we have a better understanding of what the long term costs are going to be, given right now, there seems to be an inability to recruit providers. And to remind people, the former high end system of care was run by state employees, which that had its own challenges. But it has been difficult for DCF to locate providers. And frankly, it's been very difficult for them to cite. You might remember Newberry, and then you remember Virgin's, and now we don't have a site. And so we are saying, since we don't have a site, let's take a deep breath and let's just reevaluate the need for this and whether we should be spending, like, we don't know, for instance, do they want to keep this very expensive program in Southern Vermont at the sheriff's office and do this? Red Clover, which is in Middlesex, is supposed to be a temporary program. Temporary has a different definition to

[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: My point is, do we want to shut down the plant or tell them don't do nothing until you get something done? Or do we just ship them out of state?

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: Well, they're already going out of state.

[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: It seems like we have a crisis in this area of care for these people. We've got crisis there. We're not going to move forward. Well,

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: have moved forward. We have seven beds that we didn't have before. So we have three in Middlesex and we have four down in Southern Vermont. So those seven beds we didn't have before. So that has been in response to the crisis that was created when Woodside closed. And frankly, we have just not been able to get out of the department, other than words, a budget that would let us understand what are we committing to on the long term here.

[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: So in terms of the number of people needing the service at this time, are we taking care of those? We're just shipping them out of state if we don't have a capacity right now?

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: Well, like I said, we have seven high end beds, and we have never come back from COVID to the same capacity for residential treatment as we had prior to COVID. Staffing issues have prohibited current providers from coming back to that. And so yes, there youth being transferred out of state.

[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: So do you know how much greater the capacity, how much greater the demand is compared to what we have for current capacity?

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: Well, campus is, I have to go back and check, representative. I have to go back and check to see. I don't wanna misspeak because it's been a little while since I looked at the campus proposal about how many beds that they were proposing to be in this site.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: We won't ever cover 100% of the folks that are in beds because we aren't going to build beds for all the different kinds of needs. So, some are going to go out of state. Some of the issues here is the extraordinary expense that we are incurring with possibly disreputable organizations on top of it and not understanding what the full scope of the cost is on an annual basis. That's part of what Anne was digging into is trying to really understand what the costs are. So you should all read the memo. We're not going to go over it now, but you should read the memo and then we will be having further discussions about this.

[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: You know what my concern is. My concern is that we don't want to would hate that we stop and pause something too long and not move forward.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: Right. On the other hand, we don't want to be spending $4,000 a day per child in a sheriff's building for beds.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: They spent $2,000,000 on renovating it.

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

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: serves four, so it's half 1,000,000 per bed. But for renovation of an existing building. So, yeah, there's just a lot of questions. And we just felt like it would be prudent for us to say like, okay, let's just take And the Office of Child Youth and Family Advocate has some serious concerns as well. And I believe that DCF is acting in good faith to try to address the issue of serving kids in Vermont. And it's just that if you have It's very difficult. I don't wanna sort of second guess because I wasn't part of those contract negotiations. It's an organization that has some history that's

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: not You can Google so it. It. So more to come on that. Thank you for all the work to you and your committee that you've done. It's always the most challenging, I know, of getting this letter out, but it was really helpful to understand your priorities.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: And we'll do what we do. And thank you for the opportunity to be here. And I certainly am available and want to appreciate the committee's attention. And I do want to, in particular, call out Rep. Bluemle because she's been kind of a twelfth committee member for us for a few times. It's been lovely to have her consultation. It's helpful for us too, to

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: have her be there.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: So thank you. Alrighty, thank you. Thank you

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: so much. We're going to just power through here. It's going be short. Chair Mahali has promised us he doesn't need too much time. Really thank you for your patience. And so we'll talk about the House General and Housing budget requests. Welcome, Chair Mahali. Do I say Mr. Chair?

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: Standing between you and a break.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: That's for a joke, but we'll

[Nolan Langweil (Joint Fiscal Office)]: just keep going.

[Chair, House General and Housing Committee (unidentified male)]: Thank you, madam chair and members of the committee. It's a pleasure to be back, always for me in appropriations, which was my first assignment here. I think what I'd like to do is talk generally about the approach we took in our letter. The letter, I I want to tell you, of an unfortunate attempt on our part to actually make the deadline that was given us, there is an error and there's more information that has to be provided for people.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: We can give a

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: letter and send us a new one.

[Nolan Langweil (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Yeah, all right. Generally

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

[Chair, House General and Housing Committee (unidentified male)]: there are very few types of housing left in Vermont, new or used, that most Vermonters can afford. It's

[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: that simple.

[Chair, House General and Housing Committee (unidentified male)]: And so we're doing everything we can in our committee to try to address that in admittedly piecemeal ways. But, I mean, frankly, the only housing that's available in Vermont now that can be the average Vermonter can afford is housing that is manufactured housing. And by that, I mean what you think of as single wides, double wides, and, you know, what we used to call mobile homes, if we have a bill on that. Everything else, in order to be affordable to a nurse or a teacher or a carpenter or you name it, needs some sort of subsidy. The problem is we don't have enough money. I mean, what you are going to be much more on top of the issue of how much money can be devoted to housing than I am. But whatever it is, it is not enough. So what do you do when you don't have enough money? What you do is you try to use other people's money. Okay, yeah. Other people's It's absolutely essential. And so one of the ways we thought about when we tried to create priorities, we looked at, it's not just what this program does or that program does, it's how much leverage do they have? Do they bring in private sector or other funds, governmental funds from somewhere else into Vermont or into the effort? So in tier one, which is our highest priority, we just have highest priority and high priority, but the highest priority. We looked for programs that, to start with, that have high leverage. And I'll start right with at the top, although the array of programs in the tier, tier one, doesn't mean anything. In other words, one isn't more important than the other. It's just the order we put them in. Let's talk about VHCb. The $12,000,000 is simply it's nothing more than what these VHCb originally asked for one time funds, and of that 3,000,000 was for disability to continue the disability housing pilot program. I'll just say a word on that, although I'm sure you'll hear more if you haven't from VHCb and others. We have a problem in Vermont in that we but just about a generation ago, we decided to deinstitutionalize people with developmental disabilities and return them to the, quote, community, end quote. What that meant, of course, was their parents took care of them, and their parents are aging out. Like me, I'm aging out. They're aging out, and so we have a real need to house these people, and the study indicates that we could use 600 units of housing, which would cost a great deal of money. If a pilot program, which is much smaller, the $3,000,000 would allow the continuation of that pilot program. But I'm very well aware, as it's said right in here, that I think we all know you don't have twelve $1,000,000 cards to throw at anything. But I include VACB in there right at right there because they are the quintessential example of leverage. For a half $1,000,000 unit or 5 or 600,000, they put in 80,000 or so. Where does the rest of the money come from? It comes from private sources or from federal tax credits. There are two different kinds of tax credits, but one of them is essentially unlimited. It's just they're just sitting there available to us without limit. But we have to put our money on the table. If we don't put our money on the table, we can't use the tax credits. So BHCb's kind of leverage, if you will, which is I think an interesting fact, it's kind of four or five to one. So they put in $80, and we produce a $500,000 unit. I'm not saying you have to give them x amount of money. I'm just saying every dollar we don't have for that is $5 lost for housing. Those units are all kinds of units. I mean, they BHCV funds all kinds of stuff, but they are new units. They do some rehabilitation, but they're largely new units, which we need a lot of in Vermont. V hip is a very different animal. It's almost not don't compare V hip and VHCb. I mean, I don't know why people develop preferences for one over the other. It's like saying I like an apple more than an orange. They're just very different programs. VIP is exclusively, almost exclusively, that they've done a few new units, but they're almost exclusively existing buildings. It's usually small, where the owner of the building wants to put the unit back online, but it's they they wouldn't meet code. I mean, they wouldn't meet habitability, so they need an investment per unit. And what Viib does is throw up to $40 into the unit. I think actually 50, up to $50 into the unit. And if someone wants to make the unit ADA accessible, another 20. But in fact, what they've on average invested is 40,000 a unit, which is not a lot of money. But that does not pay for most of the rehabilitation. Most of the rehabilitation, the landlord or the owner of the building is putting in just as much money or maybe a little more. So the testimony we've received from people who administer administer this program is it's sort of a leverage of about 1.1 to one. In other words, it brings in a dollar 10 for every dollar invested. And it produces a completely different kind of unit. It produces these units in small buildings, small owners, where they're rental and they're rented at what's called HUD fair market value. It's it's the fair market it's about it's much less than fair market. It's it's the fortieth percentile of fair market. It's a it's a number that is determined every year by county by HUD. So these are people who, for five or ten years, are guaranteeing that. And the interesting thing is, it's counterintuitive, one of our fears in our committee is, well, what happens after five years? Do you lose these units as affordable units? And there was just recently the first survey that's ever been done where they surveyed the landlords of the units because it's now five years. So the first units were eligible to flood, to go out of the program and charge real market rents. 97% of the respondents, and most people responded, indicated that they weren't gonna change anything. They weren't gonna change the rents. They weren't they were completely satisfied. It was really interesting. I don't even know what to make of it, but that's I just wanted you to know. The problem with VHIP, which is a big problem, is one time funding versus base funding. I am as aware as I can be without having actually sat on this committee recently that base funding is very hard to find. But I will say we took a lot of testimony on this. I think this program, which has now been going for more than three years on temporary funding, It deserves to be recognized as a permanent fixture in the state, and that means the employees of that, other than the one who runs it, they've been kind of limping along on, limited service contracts. At a certain at a certain point, they're gonna start looking around for something else, and I think there's a good chance that if the program doesn't get itself into base in a more permanent status, that they'll lose their employees and they don't have very bad. So I think I don't think it's an overstatement to say that there is some very substantial possibility, which I can't measure, that this program will essentially kind of cease or shrink to just managing the existing units if we don't find a way to make

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: it permanent. I guess first, Michelle.

[Chair, House General and Housing Committee (unidentified male)]: I think when I was talking to Alex Farrell that the administration is putting this to face now. In their budget. Their budget is just their budget. They're recommending. They're agreeing. That's right. It's in their budget, but I'm just saying I agree with that. I'm just saying Me too. Our committee our committee came around to really felt that this is important. In last year, we didn't put it in permanent. The administration did, and I understand why we didn't. Permanent money is extremely difficult to find. I'm just saying there's a price now. I think this program's kind of linked along for three years. So the other thing that's really important that's in this tier is extension of the landlord tenant rental arrears assistance fund. And I wanna say something about this that isn't on this letter. This is a fund run out of the Vermont State Housing Authority. It's a fund that we appropriated here. I think it was 2,000,000 plus two years ago. It really it's it's directed at helping people who really can make it, but something bad has happened to them, like they got sick. Not permanently sick, but something that is stopping them for three or four months from paying rent. But they can pay rent eventually. This is not the person who just ran out of money and doesn't have any prospect. This is a person who does, but something bad has happened to that group. What this program does is once an eviction notice once eviction begins, it allows tenants and landlords to it it it it if the tenant is eligible and that eligibility means, can they eventually be counted on to be able to pay, then the state housing authority can give them up to several months rent, and it goes right to the landlord. So it's kind of mutually beneficial. Why is this? So are we strongly advocate that program will run out of money in April, so we strongly advocate at least a million dollars for that for that program. Why is it so important? Several reasons. One is in this house we are in our our committee has been wrestling with and just by a vote of eight to three voted out the landlord tenant bill. It was a very hard vote for everybody. It was not a partisan vote. Why was it so hard? It was hard because of situations we cannot control, which is the rental market is unbelievably tight, expensive. We don't have the most highly developed social safety net, yet we have housing is kind of a fundamental need, but we provide housing through the private sector. So the private sector has to function it financially. It has to function financially. If it doesn't, then we start losing it. So the problem is that the number of homeless people is unfortunately slightly increasing, and the more evictions there are, the more homeless we're going to see, and that's very expensive for the state. It means the motel program or something else. It's very expensive. So if we can do anything on the homeless side to reduce the the increase in homelessness because of eviction, it's really well invested money. It pay it's paid back. The alternative is the motel program. So we think this program is a really excellent way to do it. It's aimed at people who can pay rent, but something bad has happened to them that's temporary.

[Rep. Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: I haven't read the latest version of the bill that passed today. Did it include extending the tenant representation program, which was also a program Legal aid. Legal aid. Yeah. And did it did it make it take away the pilot language?

[Chair, House General and Housing Committee (unidentified male)]: That's a separate bill, and it didn't it's not in that in that bill.

[Rep. Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: That It does the same thing that you're just talking about where it's

[Chair, House General and Housing Committee (unidentified male)]: does it's it's similar. Yes. Yeah. It's not in the bill. The votes voted out. Alright. Thanks. The so that's important. We think that's very that's, like, right at the top of the list. The only other thing, madam chair, that I'll say in that isn't in here is something I know you're going to be wrestling with, which is the section eight vouchers. And it is my hope that we are able in the budget to have a a minor a small amount of money flowing to section eight vouchers. The reason is those vouchers pay the difference between what the tenant can afford and HUD market fair market rent. In Vermont, the HUD fair market rent has been going up and up and up, so that the cost of a voucher has been going up and up and up. So even though we got a little more money than we thought from the federal government, the number of vouchers is going down, and it's going down every year. And the federal funding for the next year, for in this case, 06/27, calendar '27, When they decide how much money they're gonna give Rahman at '27, they will look at the number of vouchers that were outstanding and were excuse me, that were in in use in '26. So if we can fund vouchers in '26 to increase the number, we'll get more money in '27 and '28, etcetera. Also, those vouchers, the project specific vouchers, well, if I am a low income housing provider and I want to build low income housing units, unlike any other developer, it has to pencil out. The way so I start building a a spreadsheet, and in my spreadsheet, what am I gonna put in for rent? I can't make the project work if I put in whatever the low income tenant can pay. It won't pencil. I I can't build it. The only way it pencils is if I can say to the housing authority, can you give me 10 section eight vouchers that I'm guaranteed? Then I know I can put in 10 units that will be at least at HUD Farmwork and Rent, and I'll make the project work. So that's happened, and right now, there are three projects that are ready to build, literally done. Talk about shovel ready. I think there's shovels in the ground. But because of this section eight problem, the housing authority has been forced to renege. They've said, whoops. We can't give you the vouchers. So the programs are sitting there. These projects are just sitting there. So it is my hope that in your wisdom, you will find a way around this. The other high priority projects oh, the pro other met is the Human Rights Commission. The Human Rights Commission is suffering like a lot of programs.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: We had them come in.

[Chair, House General and Housing Committee (unidentified male)]: We had them come in and talk. Okay. Well, then you know. I'm not gonna repeat it. We think that there's an unrealistic assumption in the governor's budget, a small one, and we think that we should attempt to address the loss of federal funds. Madam chair, I have listed a number of high priority items, which I don't think need that much explanation. There is only one or two that I'd like to reference at this point. Okay. And then happy to answer any questions. Great. We have to provide some more information on a couple of them. Okay. One, believe it or not, is the home share of Vermont.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: You just heard about that from chair Wood and human services.

[Chair, House General and Housing Committee (unidentified male)]: Well, then maybe I don't need to say anymore.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: But you are agreeing that Maybe not. That you have as well.

[Chair, House General and Housing Committee (unidentified male)]: You know what's so great about that? Are you guys familiar? Well, you heard about it.

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

[Chair, House General and Housing Committee (unidentified male)]: You know, some and and I don't have the number off the top of my head. It's a low income housing program. I never thought of that before I became familiar with them. We worked with you last year to give them funding out of the blue. We hadn't thought about it before. But when I heard about testimony about the program, something like 90% of the people who come into the home are low income people. So not only are they saving money because they're helping the people who are getting older like me and need help doing whatever, they're also helping themselves with a place to live that is incredibly cheap. I mean, it's, again, huge hugely important. I guess the only last thing I'd talk about is the Vermont Labor Relations Board. Have you heard from them?

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: Yes. Hear we hear from everybody, and I think there's a bill.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: Is that is this the one that has a bill? I think we're

[Chair, House General and Housing Committee (unidentified male)]: hearing It's coming to you.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: Yeah. We're hearing it tomorrow. Okay. We're not making money decisions tomorrow. Hearing The the bill

[Chair, House General and Housing Committee (unidentified male)]: only thing I would say that you might not know is this. They the Labor Relations Board has always had for a long time a mediator. It's not theirs. It was the Federal Mediation and Reconciliation Service provided it for free. That's gone. So there's no mediator position and no mediator that talk about leverage, mediators save a lot more money than they cost. But the other thing that's happening that you might not know is this. We have on our wall, along with 70 some other bills, we have on our wall at least two, maybe three bills that are taking things away from the Vermont Labor Relations Board, responding to complaints and saying that they can be dealt with privately, and when you hear testimony on why this is, it's because the VLRB is so snowed under that it takes months and months and even years to get to a decision. And so we felt like, and that we felt that's not a great idea to take essentially a governmental function and turn it into a private one because when the government does it, you have a coherent body of law that people can turn to as to what's happened in the past with decisions. But if it's farmed out to private arbitrators or me, nobody knows why things happen. But we put in a a lawyer because we feel like they need more skill. I think at this point, madam chair, I would be happy to answer questions with the rest of our material. We will provide a redrafted letter. There's a mistake, and there's some more information needed.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: Great. Other questions for Wayne and then Lynn?

[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: Do you know how long those deviator prescription has lost? Since last year.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: It was part of the federal reduction. Part of the federal reduction. So

[Nolan Langweil (Joint Fiscal Office)]: what happened

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: actually, what happened was the entire service was kind of defunded, and then there was litigation. And as a result, I don't know whether it was because there was a judgment or not, It was refunded to a minimal amount, but many of the people have left, and the mediators were not come back.

[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: So it was ongoing for quite a long period of time.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: Oh, I when I was on the

[Rep. Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: school board

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: in the nineties, a federal mediator would come in. It's been around for decades and decades. Lynn?

[Rep. Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: Yeah, this is really helpful. I've got a couple of comments. One of the concerns I have is that your highest priority seems to be skewed toward renters. Although,

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: actually, not VHCb. They provide a lot of ownership opportunities. They do both. VHIP, I'm under the impression that almost all the VHIP units are rental units.

[Rep. Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: Yeah. Yes. My experience with VHIP, what I see in my communities, there are some things that are like condos, but most of it seems to be rentals, and they're not very big. So the question I have, and they're expensive to build. Everything is I mean, we have one that just opened in St. Albans, Beautiful, nice new building, got all kinds of nice amenities. They're very small. I think the living space for the living room, kitchen area is maybe half the size of our smaller committee room is upstairs. That's getting pretty small. It is pretty small. With a one bedroom, and it's not exactly something that a young family or someone who's moving here who wants to take a job, who has a couple of kids, it's not a place that they can go to. They really don't want to go to it because it's not big enough and it isn't how they want to live. Now, in this building, they cost $578,000 plus per unit.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: That's pretty typical for New Year's.

[Nolan Langweil (Joint Fiscal Office)]: And that's pretty typical, yeah.

[Rep. Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: And so, the number one concern is, the question of course is, why couldn't they build units that were less expensive and provide three times as many, number one. But number two, what do you do if you want to live in a single family home? You didn't really go into the mobile home or the double lives or the modulars.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: Well, MIRR, we do have MIRR, but the mobile home rental program is on here.

[Nolan Langweil (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Yes, yes.

[Rep. Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: But again, which is a start. The other thing is that and I don't know, I haven't looked at your eleven year old tenant bill that you just passed. But it is humorous to be alone financially, emotionally, dealing with the issues you have. I suspect that one of the reasons why the VHIP people who are getting this money and fixing it up perfectly willing to keep it the way it is because they probably don't want to make it into a single family home, and they don't want to go and necessarily take the chances.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: If they've got good tenants, they keep them. I think landlords want good tenants, and even if it's a little less than market, They're happy. They're happy, yes.

[Rep. Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: Actually, sometimes they keep the rents lower, so they keep good people. They aren't really interested in the

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: I think that's true.

[Rep. Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: And I speak from that, just from experience as a landlord. The issue is, one time, So issue is that that doesn't surprise me, that they will keep the tenants, they will accept this, and they will try to keep as many of the tenants in there as possible and help them stay. So I'm not surprised by that. But what else other than a manufactured home has your committee looked at in terms of single family, starter homes,

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: things like that? I think, first first of all, I understand your statement that it's onerous and difficult to be a landlord, and we heard a lot of testimony to that effect. One of the things that's so hard about working in this field is that it's also onerous and difficult to be a tenant, and there's a lot of and sort of finding a middle ground there has been difficult. Yeah. I would like to believe that we have, but I would be the first to admit that perhaps not. I mean, you know, it's very difficult arena. Very that will come. You will have a chance to hear more about that. I think that VHCb coupled with VHFA financing, does a lot of homeownership programs, and they try to meet markets. So very often, if there's a building with, let's say, a bunch of studios, one bedrooms, there'll be a certain number of two and three bedrooms, but it's their guess as to market and what the market is. And as to unit size, I think you'd have to ask more, you'd get more from VHCb But from We're doing a lot in our committee trying to find ways to reduce the cost of housing and to bring it down, and I'll give you one example, because it will come to you. At the end of our letter, it has a separate section. I just wanted to alert the committee of what was coming to come. Right? So I have a section on on

[Nolan Langweil (Joint Fiscal Office)]: what

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: I call proposed legislation. That's on page four. Yes. For your information only. This is legislation that I didn't wanna just blither about, but has money. And one of the one of the we have a bill, seven seventy five, which will come to you. We have a bill that is an omnibus bill trying to enhance financing for housing in rural Vermont, small housing projects. And I'll give you an example of one, which, and it won't take too long, but I think it addresses some of your well, it's relevant. We right right now, one of the more promising forms of housing is housing that's built off-site and is modular, like Huntington Homes. Are you guys familiar with Huntington Homes? There are others. Or panelized. There there are other techniques that are really interesting. The problem is that off-site modular homes are still not cheap. They're faster and they're great for the labor force because you can keep the people employed and they don't have to work to kill themselves at prematurely age in the winter, but they're still expensive. Then on the other side, we have people in all over rural Vermont who would like to build two, three, four, five unit projects. But if they they can't get any quantity reduction because their orders are so small. So our bill contains a housing accelerator that will allow the Department of Housing and Community Development to act as an aggregator and aggregate a whole bunch of small orders from rural Vermont into one big order, and then go to Huntington Homes and say, 40. We want 40 of this type. And the testimony is that will bring the price down, not way down, but if anything helps. The problem is the great thing about that project is that the state doesn't have to pay for those units. It doesn't take taxpayer dollars. It's gonna pay for it by the developer. But the problem is, it's one thing for the developer to say, sure. I'm good for four units, but you're saying to Huntington Homes, how about opening a new line for these 40 units? They're gonna wanna know absolutely that the money is there. They're not gonna do it just, oh, well, you've got 20 little developers out there. So the treasurer has agreed to use part of their 10% from Vermont money to create a credit facility to just backstop that order. That's an example. I know it's kind of in the weeds, but, you know, working with credit facilities and we've also have a bill to increase the 10% for Vermont to 12 and a half percent. So we're trying to make more money available for all kinds of us. Long winded. My apologies, Matt.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: It's complicated. There's a lot, and the state isn't gonna be funding every kind of housing crisis. Yeah.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: I mean, there's no one solution. Yep. There absolutely isn't.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: So thank you, you and your committee, and we'll look forward to the We'll get it. In our comments. And so appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. So, thank

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: you for being our correspondent.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: All right. We have the floor at 03:30, budget adjustments. And I

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: don't know what else is on the floor.

[Nolan Langweil (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Tip? Tip is not the floor.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: The other kind of tip?

[Rep. Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: No.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: Oh, they're singing. They're singing. They all have to be there for the devotions. Thank you for the reminder. Tomorrow, we are going to vote on the animal cruelty bill, the five seventy eight that we heard yesterday, and we'll know who's presenting that by tomorrow. We will talk about age six sixty, which was the opioid bill. Tip has some other things to talk about. We're not going to talk about it today. We've run out of time. So we'll talk about it tomorrow. So we're probably not going to vote on it tomorrow, but there's another proposal, and we won't go into it now, but there may be an amendment. Something for the community to consider. But we are going to hear other bills. The Labor Relations Board that we just heard from, from Chair Mahali, the Sister State program that came from Commerce, we're now gonna be looking at that, and a Dam Safety program. I don't think Sister State has money. I haven't really looked at it. The dam safety does have money. So we'll look at it. We'll be voting. Or eventually, if we vote, we may strip the money out to do that usual sort of thing. So at this point, we don't have anything after lunch.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: That was my question. No votes after lunch?

[Nolan Langweil (Joint Fiscal Office)]: No votes after lunch. Well,

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: we try to meet after lunch when we can, but there's a I have an NCSL meeting from two to three, so I won't be around then. But at this point, we don't have anything. So it'll get to be done after the morning, and then you get to start break. My. Bring home all your stuff. Wayne's already rented an extra truck to bring home his materials. And whether or not I'm in town, I will be available, accessible. And I may not get back to you within five minutes, but will be available then as well. So we'll jab those staff.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: Lynn? I have a question.

[Rep. Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: Yeah. I got rid of this year, the Federal Mediation Service. What happens when you opt for the school boards?

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair, House Human Services Committee)]: That's what we so when

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: we were school boards, that's what we always used was the federal mediator system because it was available and the federal government has gotten rid of it. So I'm guessing that schools are now going to have to pay

[Rep. Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: for that. They might have paid for it anyway. No, they didn't. They split vaccines.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: The federal mediators are homeowner's job. They got paid by the federal government, not by the federal government. That's gone away. Schools, everything. Was a very important part. All right, we are starting at nine. I know you're in shock. It's been 09:30 this week, but nine