Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: Good afternoon. This is the House Appropriations Committee. It is Tuesday, 03/10/2026. It's 01:00 in the afternoon. And we have with us President Trump, the president of the University of Vermont, welcome, and Wendy, who also works with the president, to talk about the request from the Higher Education Endowment Trust Fund. So welcome to both of you. Thanks for coming back. We appreciate it. Thank And thanks for you to make the effort to come all the way down here. I know Zoom is also an option, but it's always nice to see you. So if you want to introduce yourselves and then our fellows, your story. Thanks. I'm Marlene Trump,

[Dr. Marlene Tromp (President, University of Vermont)]: president of

[Wendy Koenig (Executive Director for Government Relations, UVM)]: UBM. I'm Wendy Koenig. I'm the executive director for government relations at UBM.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: All right. So I don't know if you have a presentation or what you've got.

[Dr. Marlene Tromp (President, University of Vermont)]: If I may, I'll talk through a few things. Thank you so much. I'm so grateful for the opportunity to come before you today to speak about the $15,000,000 to assist in the completing of the multipurpose center. And what I really wanted to do is give you some sense of why it's a priority for us and what we think it will do. We believe this center will serve students and serve the future of Vermont. So you all have probably heard of the demographic clip. That demographic clip is the shrinking number of students in high school, which is going to impact students in college as our population as a country has created a sort of funnel where we have fewer young people than we had before. So we're not replacing one to one anymore as a country. We have fewer young people. Now, that's been especially true in our state, which has created a lot of challenges, I know, for our legislature to resolve. For us, that means how do we bring in those students to UVM? And that is partly our motive to make sure that in this incredibly competitive market for those young people, that we have the kind of facilities that our students expect. Our enrollment at UVM grows Vermont's young innovators, thinkers, and families to help ensure the future of the state's well-being. For every Vermonter we graduate, we graduate two out of state students who stay and work and live and raise their families in Vermont. So we're helping to amend that challenge the state has of having this upside down demographic. But in order to recruit those students here, we need to provide them with the kinds of facilities that they expect. So that's one piece of the goal for the multipurpose center. We also know that the state's support will inspire our philanthropic donors. We've been very successful in raising funds for student aid. That's nationally the area that draws. So if you look out over higher ed nationally, that's the area that draws the most donor support. And we were named by Princeton Review this year a top 20 public university for financial aid for students. Now, that's partly because of our Vermont Promise scholarship, which, as you probably know, allows us to give our Vermont students, and that's through our own general funds, tuition free experience if their families earn less than $100,000 a year. So we opened the doorway to access for Vermonters. And my goal in our we've just completed our strategic plan. My goal in our philanthropic campaign, which we'll be developing next, will be to make sure that we meet all unmet need for Vermonters at UVM. So that'll be one of the fundraising goals for that financial campaign, so that our best and brightest don't face a financial barrier at the institution. Capital funds, however, are more difficult for us to secure, and the support of the state has inspired the philanthropy of our donors. So the Tarrant family and the Davis family have made generous commitments to this facility as well. And they were inspired by the commitment of the state. They heard the governor's State of the State address, and they came to me and said that they Chuck Davis said he would match what the Tarrant brothers were providing out of their father's estate. And so we're waiting for the closure of that estate right now, but it will be a significant contribution. But we also know that our donors want to leverage other funding in order to be a part of something bigger, and they appreciate and value the commitment of the state to this facility. So we built a plan to reach out to those folks to try to grow that funding. And raising the support philanthropically will allow us not to go back to our students for any additional funds to support this, which would increase their fees. And that was a hope that I had when I came on board and this project had been uncompleted. And it will allow us to provide that support without turning again to them. And we have people who want, in our philanthropic community, who want to help make that possible. But without those state dollars, for many people, the project is just dead. For many of those donors, the project is dead. Significantly, and this is something that means a lot to me for reasons I'll mention in just a moment, the project is a profound economic driver for the state. It will become one of the largest indoor venues in the state of Vermont. It can bring concerts, nationally significant performers, meetings, conventions, family entertainment. It can provide a venue for K-twelve for state championships, as well as camps and trainings. That's tax revenue for Vermont, and it's opportunity for economic development. There's a ripple effect from that kind of commerce that happens when you have a venue like this. And I had the privilege of overseeing a facility like this in my last presidency. And we had everything from we packed lunches for people who had food insecurity. We had Disney on Ice. We had concerts. We had meetings. So we provided the whole range of those kinds of things in that facility on our campus. That's the vision I have for this facility as well. Now, really intimately relatedly, this is a project that can help us fulfill our land grant mission. So the land grant mission was conceived in the state of Vermont, that public universities through land grant would serve their states. And my goal as president of UVM is to ensure that we are doing that as an institution. So I'm committed to elevating that land grant mission and our completed strategic plan. We really focused on that. And I think what this facility can do for the state is a critical part of that vision. I want to talk about the source of the funds that the governor has proposed. I understand that he chose this funding mechanism because that fund, the Higher Education Trust Fund, exists for the betterment of higher ed, and it doesn't impact general funds at a time when there are challenges around the general fund. You all, as legislators, are trying to really navigate some complexities in this fiscal environment. And I know it's a departure from how those funds have been used for the past, although they are dedicated to higher ed. And we believe this one time investment is an appropriate use of those funds because it will allow us to make such an impact on the state. And the Higher Ed Trust Fund has just received an exceptional windfall and that we will still, even with this funding, it would still preserve the $11,000,000 to the corpus of the funds for future dividends to support student aid. So it won't force us to reduce the amount of student aid that's coming out of the Higher Ed Trust Fund because there was such a windfall to that trust this year, and it's just one time dollars. Now, I know people understand UVM is very successful and well resourced, and I understand that. We are proud that those resources support our students, support our employees who contribute so much to Vermont and the programs that serve our state. That's extension, but that's the health programs that we do. That's every part of the university reaching out across the state. And most of our funds support students, employees, and programs. It's just that simple. And I want to make something very clear. Our endowment, which a lot of times people look immediately to, is dedicated funds. So whatever those donors gave that money for, maybe a donor gave money for cancer research, maybe a donor gave money for student scholarships, That money can only be used for those purposes. So we can't take those funds and use it for any other purposes. They can only be used for the purposes they were donated. And I aim to ensure that our whole institution, not just Extension, not just health care, serves our whole state. When I interviewed deans for the College of Business, when I interviewed deans for the College of Nursing, I said, you have to be in alignment to come and work here. You have to be in alignment with my vision of that land grant mission, which is that every part of the university touches every part of the state. And we only hired people who were committed to that. Without this kind of investment, we will not only be at a competitive disadvantage, which reduces our capacity to bring those young people into the state, who are helping to fuel our economic growth and well-being. We are facing challenges in a federal environment, and lack of state support in a time of lack of federal support could certainly undermine the economic and growth engine that UVM is for our state. The Princeton Review named us this year the number one public school in the country for making an impact, And our students do just that. We want to make that impact in Vermont and around the state. So I want to thank you for the opportunity to talk to you about this project. And I hope you will consider this request to keep the university strong and moving forward for Vermont and Vermonters and for our future. And I'd be happy to stand for any questions. Thank you.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: Thank you very much. I wonder if it would be helpful for us maybe to get a little bit of the history because this project started before COVID. So a little bit of a timeline might be helpful for us

[Dr. Marlene Tromp (President, University of Vermont)]: to understand. Sure. Maybe you can give the initial data.

[Wendy Koenig (Executive Director for Government Relations, UVM)]: Sure. So we started discussing it many years ago, but it's approved by the board in 2019. We began construction on it in later part of 2019, beginning of 2020. We did demolition on the site, which is on the Athletic Campus. And then when COVID happened, we have stopped construction. So we stopped construction. And when we were able to think about constructing again in 2021, the price had increased so significantly that we were not able to move forward at that.

[Dr. Marlene Tromp (President, University of Vermont)]: And so the hope now and there were people who had committed funds. But when the project was stalled, it really broke faith with a lot of people. Now, that wasn't anybody's fault. The pandemic forced us to stop construction. And the costs escalated as everybody saw. So many costs escalated in the wake of the pandemic. The costs escalated, and there wasn't already a solution. But with these donors stepping up and with the state stepping up, we believe that we can close the book on this project and then have this amazing facility at the state. So what do you anticipate the entire cost of this project to be? 101,000,000 from the point we're at right now. More? And how much did you spend already? About $75

[Catherine Benham (Chief Fiscal Officer, Joint Fiscal Office)]: $75 So

[Wendy Koenig (Executive Director for Government Relations, UVM)]: $175,000,000 project total.

[Rep. Martha 'Marty' Feltus (Vice Chair)]: Other questions, Marty? Well, this 15 would be added to what's been pledged by your other documents that you talked about. And how close does that get you? Depending on

[Dr. Marlene Tromp (President, University of Vermont)]: the amount that comes out of the estate, probably somewhere between 15 and 20. It could get us up to 45. And we're in conversations with a lot of other donors who've really been inspired by the governor's support. We're in conversation with a lot of other donors who want to see the project completed. They understand its impact. And so we have a plan with the goal being to close the rest of the gap with philanthropic funding so that we can preserve the rest of our mind to provide those scholarships and repair some of our other facilities, academic

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

[Rep. Martha 'Marty' Feltus (Vice Chair)]: You have the capability of, if you got to a certain point in your fundraising campaign, believe this perhaps, to go ahead and continue construction while you continue fundraising? Do you see a path to go ahead and starting the construction and even perhaps finishing the project but having longer term pledges that will help you cover that cost over time? It depends on how people commit. If people commit to the fund to funding outright, let's say, for example, somebody gave us a

[Dr. Marlene Tromp (President, University of Vermont)]: $10,000,000 gift out. That can allow you to move things forward. But if somebody gives you a $10,000,000 gift over five years so that it depends on how people commit. So we're working really quickly and we've already been reaching out to these donors because is that we can wrap up the fundraising and begin. And then have that plan to be able to

[Rep. Eileen 'Lynn' Dickinson]: pay the construction as it's happening. Did you have a question?

[Rep. Martha 'Marty' Feltus (Vice Chair)]: In terms of seating

[Rep. Wayne Laroche]: capacity to have large events, how big? About 5,000. Anticipate having large events like that? Yes, absolutely. Do you think that will generate a significant amount of money?

[Rep. Eileen 'Lynn' Dickinson]: I think it

[Dr. Marlene Tromp (President, University of Vermont)]: will not just generate revenue for the facility, which will help support the programs that are in it. We believe it will generate revenue for the state, for the county, because people will be coming into the county for those events. In fact, what I've told our athletics director is I don't want people to come to Burlington or come to Vermont and just shop. I want them to feel like they want the opportunity to come see those events, no matter where they're coming from in the region. So we're hoping we'll be able to bring in significant revenue. And that's actually exactly how we use the facility that I run.

[Rep. Wayne Laroche]: And sporting events and sporting events.

[Dr. Marlene Tromp (President, University of Vermont)]: Yeah. All of the whole variety of family events, sporting events, public service events. So I'm a

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: little curious about these events and revenue, because if you have somebody come and you're charging for tickets, Does UVM get the proceeds from the tickets? I mean, where do you see how do you see that working with who's getting the revenue?

[Dr. Marlene Tromp (President, University of Vermont)]: It depends on what kind of event it is. So if it's a concert, of course, there's a significant portion of that that goes to The artist. Mhmm. To the artist and to the, you know,

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

[Dr. Marlene Tromp (President, University of Vermont)]: And then some small portion of that would go for the use of the facility and the staffing and things like that. But but you always hope to generate revenue from that. And concerts are actually one of the most revenue producing kinds of events you can have. Athletics events can produce revenue, particularly things like basketball.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: But but who gets the revenue from those events?

[Dr. Marlene Tromp (President, University of Vermont)]: Whatever the margin is would go to, depending on the event, who the event sponsor was.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: So, if it's athletics, athletics would get that revenue. So, the revenue would mostly go back to University of Vermont. And then you see the other revenue with people coming, then they go out and have dinner, and they stay in a hotel. Exactly. That's how you see Hotels. Other restaurants, but not revenue from projects or the events themselves.

[Wendy Koenig (Executive Director for Government Relations, UVM)]: I think one other important thing that Marlene has mentioned that I would like to underscore is one of the reasons that it's important for the university also is bringing all these people on campus helps us recruit students. I mean, having all these people come to UVM helps them think about attending.

[Dr. Marlene Tromp (President, University of Vermont)]: And helps us ensure that we have I mean, that's one of the ways you drive your economic future is having people get those degrees that help drive the economy. And so I used to be really proud when we hosted Disney on Ice at my last campus, and all those kids and their families would come to campus. Because when you set foot on campus, it starts to change the way you think about college. It becomes your place. And we want people to feel like UVM is their place.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: Mike, no question,

[Unidentified Committee Member]: please. Thanks for coming, both of you. It sounds wonderful, and I don't know that I'm speaking this for myself, in fact, makes sense the group is it's a great project. I think the consternation though is we're looking to pay for this $15,000,000 that there's a sense that this is earmarked for scholarship, for helping direct aid for students to get into school, and that this kind of a movement, We've seen precedents set here around moving money around that then opens doors that don't want to close so easily. I think that's where my concerns are coming from, and maybe other people in community as well, we're moving some money out of a fund that was designated for something else, most especially for students to get into school and pay for it. And given that even as much as everyone's trying to keep costs down, college is an incredible investment right now, and I know when I talk to students,

[Rep. Wayne Laroche]: cost is one of the

[Rep. Martha 'Marty' Feltus (Vice Chair)]: things I've working with

[Rep. Wayne Laroche]: a lot

[Unidentified Committee Member]: of preschool students now to not even think about college. I think that's where my concern is coming from.

[Dr. Marlene Tromp (President, University of Vermont)]: I'll say a word about that, and then I'd love, Wendy, to talk a little bit about that trust fund. I understand. I was a first generation college student myself. My dad worked triple overtime to help me go to school, and I worked three jobs when I was in school. I know how hard it is. And I had a student who a faculty member connected me with who called me recently. And the student basically asked me, how do you do it when you're a first generation student? Because it can be overwhelming. There's so many things that you don't understand or know how they work. And that's why our scholarship programs are so important to us. And part of the reason that we've been able to create such a generous program up until just weeks ago, Yale's program was only for families that had earned $60,000 or less where they could come tuition free to Yale. We had a far more generous program even than Yale. So that $100,000 or less ensures that if a family needs the support, we're there to help them come to UBM. So we've been very generous around scholarships, but that doesn't mean there's not more work to be done. We know we have to lower that barrier. And this money wouldn't reduce the amount of funds going out to student scholarships because of the increase that went into the corpus. But maybe, Wendy, you can talk a

[Rep. Eileen 'Lynn' Dickinson]: little bit about that. Yeah.

[Wendy Koenig (Executive Director for Government Relations, UVM)]: I think that I also understand the hesitation about using the funds in a unique way that it hasn't been used before. I think that the timing is interesting because if there were $15,000,000 from the general fund that people were willing to give to UVM. We would be thrilled with that, but we know what a difficult budget year it is. And I think that we're in a unique spot where the Higher Ed Trust Fund received such a large addition to the corpus that this one time piece of funding would still allow more money for student aid moving forward, even if we take $15,000,000 off the ABN.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: And the Higher Ed Trust Fund goes to three organizations, and you're only one of them. And you would be taking the lion's share of the increase. And the other two organizations wouldn't have access to that.

[Wendy Koenig (Executive Director for Government Relations, UVM)]: Although there is a bill that suggests that CCV gets a piece of it as well coming

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: Yeah, everybody's joking. So the question this is not for you to answer, but one of the issue that I see is that this is a big policy question. And the conversation has not been had in this body, not just my committee, but in the body of what should the Higher Education Trust fund be used for. We have statute of what it is. We had the treasurer's office come over because they're part of the board and explain how it works. But as a body, we haven't said, gee, we got this big windfall. Lucky us. Does this mean anything? How does this mean we should be thinking about this higher interest fund? And that's the conversation that we have not had, which your request is prompting people to have. The question is whether we've given that the due diligence and time that we need to really fully have that conversation, which should be happening in other committees before it actually comes to us. But the governor threw it in the budget as opposed to having a policy conversation. So just to let you know that that's part of what we're struggling with here. Wayne?

[Rep. Wayne Laroche]: So hearing that, understanding that there is another college that maybe entered into weakness and looking for any possibility of of flexibility, I thought of the idea of would it be anything workable if say you were to get a loan from that, like a no interest loan from that, with the expectation that it would be paid back over some period of time so that that fund wasn't So we wouldn't say that we're just taking money from that fund, we use it for that purpose. Was that anything that you could load as a reason to be able to enhance your donations and make the project run?

[Dr. Marlene Tromp (President, University of Vermont)]: I The challenge with that would be, maybe Wendy will have something to say about that too, I think what our CFO would say if she was here is that we'd have to turn to the students and tax the students again. And while 92% of our students, we'd have to turn to the students and tax them again to manage the debt service.

[Rep. Wayne Laroche]: But it's I mean, which is if you it depends on the terms, how big a load that would be. And if you were making money off and play large concerts or something, some of that revenue should be flowing back to the university that would be may be able to help service that over a duration of time.

[Dr. Marlene Tromp (President, University of Vermont)]: What we would hope what I would is that the revenue made the multipurpose center self sustaining. Most facilities at any university cost money because there's deferred maintenance. There's staffing that are required to support it. So what you hope when you make that revenue is that it allows you to break even. We're not a for profit entity. We just want to be able to break even. I understand

[Wendy Koenig (Executive Director for Government Relations, UVM)]: that idea. I think the challenge for us with donors is that the donors that have been talking about making additional gifts to this project are asking to see the state make an investment in the project as well. That's important to them to see that happen. And I think that they're referencing things like money that the state has put into the Vermont State Colleges to help them with transformation. And they want to see an investment in UVM as well for them to make a bigger investment in this project.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: Not seeing any other questions. If we have any, we know how to find you. Thank you for that. But I really appreciate you making the effort to come down here and to fill us in a

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: bit more about the project.

[Wendy Koenig (Executive Director for Government Relations, UVM)]: We really appreciate the opportunity to speak about it again, so thank you.

[Rep. Eileen 'Lynn' Dickinson]: That's great. Thank you so Take

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: care. Thanks very much.

[Rep. Eileen 'Lynn' Dickinson]: Thank you.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: We'll ride into the next bill, and then after that, we'll take a break. Fiscal note, I see you joined fiscal office. What else do we have here? Tim? Do you want to join us at the table? Catherine and Shay, if you want to come or you want to see what you're welcome to join us at

[Rep. Eileen 'Lynn' Dickinson]: the table, if you would like. Or not. Or you can

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: just share. All right, we're switching gears to government accountability, age 67. We heard this briefly last year. Deja vu. Although not quite, because he sent it back to Gob Ops, who's refined it a bit and now is presenting a new iteration of that. So if you all want to introduce yourselves, and maybe we'll start with Tim and Ben, whoever else wants to talk. Great.

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: Thank you very much for having me today, committee members. For the record, my name is Tim Devlin, legislative counsel. And for you, I'm putting up on the screen, I believe, maybe just hand it out. We have the strike all amendment to house bill 67 brought forth by the house government operations committee, and this is an act relating to legislative operation and government accountability. It is five pages long and, in essence, assigns a pilot project to be taken up by the joint fiscal committee. And without getting into the details of that committee, I'll just kinda scroll down and point out what the appropriation is here. So on page four of the bill, we have legislative joint office consultants, and we call them appropriation, section three. So subdivision A, we have committee personnel, and this is empowering a full renewal. We granted the Joint Fiscal Office to enable them to contract support work for the project or to hire a new exempt temporary service position for two years. And then we have the appropriation there on line 19 in subdivision B, where it states, there is appropriated to the legislative joint fiscal office from the general fund in fiscal year 2027 the sum of $150,000 for the pilot government accountability project personnel.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: So that's the funny part. Somebody would like to tell us what the bill's more about? Is that Shay,

[Rep. Eileen 'Lynn' Dickinson]: do you want to do that?

[Rep. Chea Waters Evans (House Government Operations; bill reporter for H.67)]: Yeah, I do want to.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: So excited. We'll have Kascari talk about the joint perspective.

[Rep. Chea Waters Evans (House Government Operations; bill reporter for H.67)]: Yeah. I'm Rev. Shaywaters Evans from Charlotte and from Huff's Government Operations in North Harris. I'm the bill reporter and one of the sponsors of this bill. And you might remember last year, we were talking a lot about the previous government accountability committee. We've talked to what feels like zillions of stakeholders, talked to people who really starting from addressing the concerns that you all had in this room about how the previous iteration didn't quite do what it set out to do, how it, the last thing you wanna do with government accountability is spend more time and money on something that doesn't work, Right? Like the opposite of what we're trying to do. So we really tried to hone on in on what our objectives were, who we thought should be involved. We worked a lot with Catherine. And instead of having a whole brand new government accountability committee, that work is being assigned to the joint fiscal committee. Realizing earlier when I was thinking Oh. Robin Scheu. It rep chair I want to tell you that I do apologize because because I spoke at length with with the chair of the joint fiscal committee. That's nice. Yes. Rep Kornheiser. We talked about this a lot. Then And when I was getting ready to come down here and talk to you all, I thought, Oh, goodness, it would have been good to check-in with the rest of the folks on that committee. We

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

[Rep. Chea Waters Evans (House Government Operations; bill reporter for H.67)]: Yes, as you know, this time of year, things get a little hairy. So we were assured she came into our committee and testified. Rep. Kornheiser thought it was work that could be done, that there was time and the will to do it. We are So I don't know how much detail you want me to go into. I mean, we kind of got rid of that part of who makes up the committee, there were all these different people from different But really, the intent of this, and the hope is that it's the legislature checking in on itself, right? So we don't need people from the administration necessarily, we don't need people from the auditor's office. I mean, we need them for lots of things, but to be on this committee, it didn't quite make sense in the end. So it's the Joint Fiscal Committee, and it's a pilot government accountability project. We wanted to walk the walk and say, we're gonna check back in in a couple years. This isn't just gonna be something that drags on indefinitely, and we're gonna make sure it's doing what we said it would do. It does, will require some support from JFO, and that's where the appropriation comes in, and that's why we're we're here. So

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: you're selecting a prod it's a pilot project. Is it one thing that's being reviewed? And then, so how does the Joint Official Committee decide on a project? Just tell us how the whole thing works.

[Rep. Chea Waters Evans (House Government Operations; bill reporter for H.67)]: So this is what's going to happen. So it's going to start in JFO. The CFO of JFO will choose a project. This has all been cleared, don't worry. So we'll consult with It says in the bill that this person needs to consult with the speaker, with the president pro tem, with leadership from the major political parties. And then they will have recommendations and then that person will pick probably in consultation with. Also, as we move along the auditor's office, we heard a lot from the chief performance officer's office. People seem to be all in on getting the work done and giving the data and the performance measures and all of these things. They do some really cool stuff over there. So they will choose a project. One thing that came up when we were talking last year, and it has been brought up multiple times, is that this is not, like, Doge of Vermont. This is not any kind of people keep using the phrase witch hunt. We're not doing that to anybody. We're not trying to find problems and zing people or programs for them. What we are trying to do is simply well, are two aspects of it. One is find a project it would be great even to start with a project that's success. That's something that's been working well and that we have We talked a lot with the people from Building Bright Futures. The child care bill has some of these things built into that legislation, and that's really the other part that we were hoping could happen. And that's something that JFO and this person, hopefully, who they're able to hire, will be able And I think Catherine can speak a little bit more on that in a minute. Will be able to help us build this into future legislation to have, if not a template, but at least to have sort of a checklist or something to help us hold ourselves accountable every single time we create a program or we have initiative to make sure that we're checking back on ourselves and not just with a report or that maybe people don't always read or like a check back, but like a real actual things like, here's what we wanna measure, here's how we could do it, and that this work is all gonna become, in theory, part of the legislative process. And then we're gonna save so much time and money, and everything we do will be successful and achieve the goals that we set out for it in the first place.

[Rep. Eileen 'Lynn' Dickinson]: Questions. Laroche?

[Rep. Wayne Laroche]: I'm skeptical. I mean, wish you were doing DOGE, the whole thing, the whole state government, but that would be an immense task. Yep. So I mean, we have subcommittees, we've got your committee, we have a lot of committees that I was looking at some of them. There's some in the health department, other committees that are supposed to be looking at accountability. So how do we intersect? I mean, this is a huge problem if you look at across all of state government. Actually, you're just picking shoes. How do we get to the real problems that are costing us the most money or producing the least return on investment kind

[Rep. Eileen 'Lynn' Dickinson]: of thing.

[Rep. Chea Waters Evans (House Government Operations; bill reporter for H.67)]: Yeah, I would answer that by saying, I think first of all, I don't think tackling it, everything all at once is possible for a variety of reasons. It can't afford would take a lot of time and money to do that and resources that we don't have. I think the answer is twofold. It's not only would we be choosing just bit by bit, right? Like even a little bit of change, a little bit of shift, the way that we look at these things and say, okay, so we thought this was gonna do X, Y, and Z, and it really didn't do that. How can we either shift to get us to where we wanna go and to achieve the objectives we had in the first place? And secondly, I see your skeptical face, but I'm hopeful that the other thing is it's about us checking in on ourselves. You know what I mean? So it's not like all of state government checking on state government. It's not the legislature checking in on a different department or agency to make sure that they're

[Rep. Wayne Laroche]: So I'm trying to say, because like, you know, in the state agency, my agency, years and years ago, were trying to look at accountability measures and success and failure metrics there. So I'm sure that amongst all the agencies, are still some of those efforts are hopefully enhanced from the time I was around going on. So you get to that level, but are you talking just to say we pass a bill today, directs an agency or someone to do something that gets served not running? Are you just chucking back in on initiatives that come out in a certain duration of time? Or are you trying to look at all kinds of things across the state, everything? So

[Rep. Chea Waters Evans (House Government Operations; bill reporter for H.67)]: this particular project that's done with JFC and JFO working, you know, with across with you. They would, you know, be consulting. They're gonna make sure it's in the bill that they're not being duplicative of what's going on in other agencies or in the auditor's office because we don't need to be doing the same thing twice, is that they would just be starting to look at a specific project or pilot or program, something on the smaller side to begin with.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: Probably wouldn't pick all of DCF, for example. Right. No, if I pick the senior, the youth residential program and see if it was it would be isolated like It's something small.

[Rep. Wayne Laroche]: But there's one, hopefully, that would be meaningful.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: Yes. Correct. That's why there's this consultation, including the Joint Fiscal Committee, ooze us, who wants something meaningful, not just

[Rep. Chea Waters Evans (House Government Operations; bill reporter for H.67)]: Yeah. And the hope is So an example is Yeah. And a couple of years ago, we set up the division of animal welfare, and we had I don't know if it's going to I don't think it's going to be here, but we have We're working on setting up that department and working with the new director of animal welfare. And ideally, as we move forward next year and the year after, as we keep continuing legislation to build this up, that would be a great place to implement some of these ideas, some of the things we learn, and work this accountability and work performance measuring into the legislation in the way we create that department.

[Rep. Martha 'Marty' Feltus (Vice Chair)]: So I could see if you

[Rep. Wayne Laroche]: pick one project, a good project, you process and start getting working, you can do this in chunks where you started chucking it down. I could see that maybe working.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: Yeah. That's kind of the idea.

[Rep. Eileen 'Lynn' Dickinson]: It's like you have

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: to start somewhere and we're not gonna

[Rep. Wayne Laroche]: But if you could spell it out, spell it out really clearly so that everybody really, really understands it because in doing so, you also really understand it too. Yeah. What your limitations are that you're not getting into a good quagmire and that you're going to try to get discreet speech.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: Which I think is part of the job of the Joint Fiscal Committee.

[Rep. Chea Waters Evans (House Government Operations; bill reporter for H.67)]: It is.

[Rep. Eileen 'Lynn' Dickinson]: Hardy. Yes. I'd say.

[Rep. Chea Waters Evans (House Government Operations; bill reporter for H.67)]: And coming up with something that's meaningful and that can really give you an idea of how this could work, but without being overwhelming or just being impossible to untangle. So that selection of the first one, again, Catherine and I have discussed this a lot. Believe she said that smaller even than you thought maybe you wanted to do just to get something going. Then hopefully it'll grow over time. That's the hope. Makes me feel better. Okay, good.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: All right, we had a question that I want to have Catherine talk. We

[Rep. Eileen 'Lynn' Dickinson]: had a thing called RBA, reference

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: based Results based accountability.

[Rep. Eileen 'Lynn' Dickinson]: Was looking at population accountability questions, performance questions. It didn't want to know what your effort was. It wanted to know what your results were. We talked to 300 people or we have 500 phone calls and doesn't mean anything. You want to know what the actual results are, how many people were better off, how to better prove the quality of life of your honors. One of the secrets of it was that you really wanted to brainstorm ideas that were not going to cost a lot of money. And that was actually something that was a process. I'm not sure, Catherine may be able to answer this. I'm not sure that everybody that we talked about, talked to about this in our committees. We were supposed to analyze the stuff in our committees based on that. I'm not sure everybody knew what it was we were looking for. I mean, the question I have now, you're trying to determine whether or not what we're doing is something we can repeat in a piece of legislation, the pilot, and you want to look at something that you mentioned that's successful. My question is, why wouldn't you want to learn at something that's not successful, that's been a failure? Because we have those, and sometimes you learn more from your failures than you do from your Sometimes you aren't really quite sure why it was successful, but you do know that there was a huge roadblock or something happened failures. And we have a history, we have a current history, but it's not just this year, of transformation of K-twelve. We have transformation for housing. We have transformation for Act two fifty reform. We were looking at health care reforms, substance abuse and the opioid issues. Mean, ECF and how do we deal with the homeless? Mean, can go up in the list and we just seem to be stuck. So how do you go and think that this legislation is going to go and take us past the RBA and into something that's going be better that we get through those roadblocks and we actually can accomplish something with these issues we're talking about this year.

[Rep. Chea Waters Evans (House Government Operations; bill reporter for H.67)]: Yes. Well, first, yes, I agree with you. I hope that we can accomplish something with it. Second, maybe I might not have been clear. I don't know exactly what I said, but I wasn't saying we are I'm not even choosing. It would be this -You're picking one -Yes, one topic. I said My intent was to say it would be nice or it would be fine if it was something that was successful, but it doesn't necessarily have to be. I think as as the CFO, JFO, I consults with the speaker and with the president, pro tem, and with the leadership from the parties that they will you know, there will be some ideas of things that people wanna look at. And you're right. Maybe it won't be something that that's been a success. Or maybe it's something that's had some success, but isn't quite where everybody wanted it to be or isn't quite accomplishing what they wanted to. I think to answer your question about the RBA and how it goes beyond that, I would say it's probably I think the makeup of this committee and the people who are invested in doing this work have a lot of knowledge and experience and institutional knowledge that may be members of just individual committees. We're all from all over the place. We're a citizen legislature. We've got lots of different skills and lots of different points of view, which are helpful, but maybe not everybody can analyze data or not everybody knows what to look for when they're doing a performance evaluation or something. And that's probably that's probably what makes it difficult for committees to do that work is because people don't have the knowledge or the expertise. Not because they don't have the well equipped, just because it's a specific skill set there. And that hopefully So in order I think the makeup of this committee itself is what would get it beyond the RBI.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: And RPA kind of died. Yeah. So the idea is that government accountability is still important. Yes. And so this is kind of the next iteration that we're doing. That's my understanding of it.

[Rep. Chea Waters Evans (House Government Operations; bill reporter for H.67)]: Yes. And trying to find a way for it to work that is Oh, good. People feel comfortable, that they feel like it's not political, that it's really, truly I think it's something that we all share, which is the desire to make sure that the work we're doing is meaningful and that is helping Vermonters.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: The money that we're spending is being spent appropriately and effectively.

[Rep. Chea Waters Evans (House Government Operations; bill reporter for H.67)]: That's right. That's how

[Rep. Eileen 'Lynn' Dickinson]: we look at it. I don't have the joint fiscal committee looking

[Rep. Chea Waters Evans (House Government Operations; bill reporter for H.67)]: at Yeah. My dad was an accountant and he was a very fiscally conservative man. I used to tell him, you have to spend money to make money. And it would make his head spin off his body. Painted it when I said that. But I did think of it in this context. Is money that we're spending, but hopefully it's really going to get us to a place we're honing in on some things that aren't working as well as we thought they would.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: Catherine, why don't we let you talk about the statutes? Yeah, I can talk through it.

[Catherine Benham (Chief Fiscal Officer, Joint Fiscal Office)]: I'm Catherine Bell, the Chief Fiscal And in the discussion with the committee, we framed this around was we have an IT consultant who I think you all met Lisa Garvin. But initially when we created that position, not Lisa, it was Dan Smith initially, but it was a two year pilot project to come in and analyze, look at IT projects. And we so this is very much modeled on that same concept. Let's try something out for two years. Let's give it a shot. I would tell you what we did. Dan Smith, the very first project he did was a judiciary IT project. And it was a relatively small, manageable one, but what it did was it allowed us to create a framework and a system for how we're going to analyze all the projects. So if you have seen any of LISA or the IT things, they have those blue arrows that show you there's eight questions on every IT project, and it shows you on one page how well they're doing on leadership, on the justification for the project. It's a uniform format to it. And so we chose a manageable, not politically hot topic. We chose very deliberately a project that could bear some looking at, but was not super sensitive or hot. And it allowed us to set up the of the guard, not the guardrails, but the system for how we were going to do future projects. So we continue to use that same format and system for reviewing IT projects. Was Dan Smith for several years, which I think he worked with Dan Smith also. And then also now Lisa Galvin is doing it. So it was a two year temporary position. I think we did it again for two years and then we finally rolled it into our own. So that was the way we tried it out to see.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: It's been really helpful for us to have Dan and then Lisa to help us be our guide. Yes, on

[Catherine Benham (Chief Fiscal Officer, Joint Fiscal Office)]: those things. And there were certainly experts on this. And that's also why in this language, has a consultant or consultant, an employee. That's actually how we started initially with this IT. And I don't know. It sort of depends on who comes through the door and what expertise they bring on this topic to see which way we would go. That's why I wanted the flexibility of the consultant or an employee. One other thing I guess I wanted to say was I was thinking a lot about the all member briefing in the fall. In December, we have in the afternoon, we have a different topic every year. And that topic is actually arrived at through discussion with a lot of different people to find something that would be useful, that isn't going to I don't, as a nonpartisan office, want to get into things that are going to make me being viewed as partisan. So the topic in the afternoon of the all member briefing is a result of many discussions with many people brainstorming about what would be useful and what feels appropriate for that. And I view this very much in that same way. Like, that's why all of that is written in here about how you have to connect with, because I would want to pick a project that makes sense, that people feel comfortable with, and everybody's thought in, is a valuable thing to review.

[Rep. Eileen 'Lynn' Dickinson]: Good questions.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: Yeah. Marty and then Lynn.

[Rep. Martha 'Marty' Feltus (Vice Chair)]: Within our agency of administration, we have a chief performance officer and we have a population outcomes review, and I can't recall all of those things. But I do recall that certainly they relate to our processes and how we're doing. And at one time they produced charts, the arrows that went up and down and sideways and all that kind of stuff regarding our various functions. So have you talked about how this would relate with those areas? Are they totally different? There some synergy there?

[Rep. Chea Waters Evans (House Government Operations; bill reporter for H.67)]: Yeah. So, yes, we met with Justin Kenny, their chief performance officer, multiple times. He came to our committee and testified in some of his staff. There is I didn't bring my glasses. I'm gonna do this. There was, it does, okay. So if you're looking at the bill, it's page three, section seven, it's line 10, it says the committee shall work in consultation with legislative committees of jurisdiction, the state auditor, chief performance officer and other relevant entities. So it's really worked into the bill that they're going to cooperate with each other. I think a lot of the work that they do, it's fascinating what they do in the Chief Performance Office. It's really interesting. And I think a lot of it ties in to what we're looking for here, but it's not, it's like one piece of the puzzle, not the thing. But it's important information that is, of course, useful and should be part of any.

[Rep. Martha 'Marty' Feltus (Vice Chair)]: I just don't want to see duplication.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: I think using Catherine's example of the using somebody else to be looking at it, not just our ADS So I see it the

[Rep. Eileen 'Lynn' Dickinson]: same

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: way. I do have a quick question. I'm going to go to Lynn. That 150 is that it's a two year pilot. It one fifty is for one year.

[Rep. Martha 'Marty' Feltus (Vice Chair)]: For one year. So we have to do it. Another 100 Okay,

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: so we're not funding two years worth in this? Yes.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: You could.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: But that's not the proposal. Yes.

[Rep. Eileen 'Lynn' Dickinson]: Nice job.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: They all do this, but they have funds first. Caledonia.

[Rep. Eileen 'Lynn' Dickinson]: Yeah, I just want to say that I was on institutions with dance. It was Cynthia Brown. Do you remember Cynthia? Yes, yes, yes. Miss Contrarian, who really said that we could not depend upon the administration after judiciary DMV, tough connect, terrible failures, lots of big failures. And she said, We need a person that does it just for us. So we're not depending on the administration, any administration, for that person to sit down and analyze and give us an idea of whether this thing is feasible, how much it's going to cost, why we need to do it, blah, blah, That's when we hired Dan Smith. He was available. We found this person in Vermont, it was that great. That is now part of your permanent JFO.

[Catherine Benham (Chief Fiscal Officer, Joint Fiscal Office)]: Yes. It's But at least two bienniums, it was a two year. I can't remember when it flipped from a two year to being part of a biennium.

[Rep. Eileen 'Lynn' Dickinson]: It came out of institutions at the time. But her logic was actually very good because we had a terrible record and we brought people in during that year to try to figure out what the heck had happened, specifically the Health Connect. And we had judiciary and some other people come in, but it was clearly, clearly, we had a special committee that was headed, I think, by Mike Spurland, Mike, who was a police chief in Burlington. Yeah, yeah, Sterling, yes.

[Catherine Benham (Chief Fiscal Officer, Joint Fiscal Office)]: Yes, you're right, he did do that.

[Rep. Eileen 'Lynn' Dickinson]: Yeah, there was a group that sat down and looked at how you bought software and what we were doing wrong and why it was so expensive, wasn't working and customization and blah, blah, Anyway, they gave us a whole big presentation. I think that was the same year. This is actually Studying things that fail were actually good. And I think that there's value if you do it right and if you can find someone who can help. It's not the other person, of course, that we heard in commerce, Sue Zeller, came in and explained, what does a chief performance officer do? What does RBA mean? What is this? She came in and went through all the things that they wanted to go up. This was the governor's. This is a governor's position in the administration. But it went through all the things that you want to look at when you have a program. And how did he fit with his six thirty one or two thirty six or whatever that thing that he uses is. And she said, this is how it relates. And it was on a Friday afternoon and it was probably one of the best presentations I think I've ever heard. Really?

[Rep. Wayne Laroche]: Yeah. That's good.

[Rep. Eileen 'Lynn' Dickinson]: You can do that.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: So just so the committee knows, the vote out of your committee was unanimous.

[Rep. Chea Waters Evans (House Government Operations; bill reporter for H.67)]: It sure was, eleven-zero-zero. So

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: we are not going to vote on this today because there's money in it, and that we've got going to take a list of all of our bills and what the money is. So we will see where all of that lands. But I think have our questions answered for now. Wayne, one more?

[Rep. Wayne Laroche]: Just one for you. We're also going to have enough time to do all this.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: A discussion with the current chair of joint physical office. Yeah, I would hope, but we'll discuss it. I have a little research on this one myself. So thank you very much, all of you, for coming in.

[Rep. Chea Waters Evans (House Government Operations; bill reporter for H.67)]: Thank you for your time.

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

[Rep. Chea Waters Evans (House Government Operations; bill reporter for H.67)]: I know you've got a lot going on in here. I appreciate all the hard work you do.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: We got five bills today. Think this is wonderful. So thanks for coming We right appreciate it. So committee, we're going to break till 02:30. And then I'm hoping we're going to if we will come back, we will go live. I'm not sure for how long, but we'll have a little bit of a committee budget discussion. I may have more information. I'm not really sure, but that's We'll enjoy the break and be back