Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Okay, good afternoon. This is the House Appropriations Committee. It is Tuesday, 03/10/2026. It's just after 03:00 in the afternoon, and we're back as a committee to talk a little bit about the budget. We've had some bills. We have more bills coming. And I just wanted to chat with you a little bit quickly about the budget process and prioritizing, because it's actually going to work a little differently this year. And it's one of those things where everything changes from minute to minute. But last year, the process was that we had the governor's wish list, and we had everybody else's wish list. And we said, if you want to get something on everybody else, you have to take from the governor's wish list. There's not a lot in what the governor has at the moment this year. So what I'm proposing that we do this year is we're going to still have spreadsheets. James will be here with a little bit of an updated one, and we'll get pretty much final ones tomorrow. But I want to get you started thinking about it today. We'll also have a spreadsheet, which hand you, so don't leave today before you have all this stuff. What I'm going to ask you to do is prioritize from 0 to $5,000,000 if that's what we have. Because I'm still not sure what exactly we're going have. Okay, so up to $5,000,000 what are those priorities? I assume those would be your first priorities if we only have $5,000,000 then 5,000,000

[Rep. Thomas Stevens]: to

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: $10,000,000 and then 10,000,000 to $15,000,000 And that's as far as I'm willing to look at this. That might still be pushing it, but at any rate, that's what we're going to do. Three chunks of $5,000,000 each. If you only have 5,000,000, how do you want to spend the money? How would you propose to spend money? If we have 10, assuming the first five are still your first five, what are your next 5,000,000? And then if we have 15, what are your next 5,000,000? And I'd like to get this back from you either Thursday afternoon or Friday morning, but we're gonna have time for you to do stuff. So, like, you don't have to be up till midnight to do this, but we'll be in the building and we'll have breaks. We have bills that we're looking at, but we aren't filled up. Our days in this committee looking at bills are not filled up. So we'll have time to do this. So we'll keep checking in and see how people are doing, and we'll be around for questions. But that's kind of what we're thinking about for how to go about it this year.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens]: Martin? So we're thinking about five, ten or 15, above what the governor

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yes, has unless there's something that you think that there is in there that you wanna pull out of the governor's, you're welcome to pull out of

[Rep. Thomas Stevens]: the governor's as well. But assume that the governor's budget there and he's calculated what the revenue is and what the expenses are and the reversions and the transfers and all that. And got along with bottom line.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yeah, well, spent all the money. The one time money that he's got, we also do have the one time list. So you could pull stuff off the one time list as well and say, don't really want to do that. Because that's actually part of what we should be looking at anyway. There may be things on that one time list that we are not in agreement with and would rather not spend the money. There just isn't a lot on that part of the list. Right. So that's fair game. Actually, the whole budget's fair game. It's not just this part. And we can still look for reversions. We're all checking out some of those. I will say the Dispatch one, we're not going to do. There was one for Dispatch for $10,000,000 But basically, what I told Jason ago was that if it's still there next year, we're taking it. There's other pieces, other reversions, other reversions that are still fair game. So if you have suggestions for ways to get more funding from reversions. James has been looking at a bunch of them, and some of you have been talking about them with people too. Those count as money that we need as well.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens]: Okay, but the governor's budget also assumed that we would reserve the $75,000,000 He assumed it for education. He also unreserved 30,000,000 as part We whole

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: will assume that 105,000,000 is being used. It's being used. That's not part of What we can play with. Right. Okay. That's not part of what we can play with. There's been sort of an agreement Love my pay grade around that. So Dave?

[Rep. David Yacovone]: I didn't mean to interrupt you. Would I do financial? A couple of things.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Would

[Rep. David Yacovone]: it be helpful to people if we all just took sixty seconds and said, here's what I'm thinking right now and why? So we had the benefit of everybody's thinking. Or do we just go our own way with our own thing?

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: And Okay. Second? What's your

[Rep. David Yacovone]: And then second, I brought this up before, so I apologize if I'm wearing out my welcome, but I haven't been told to stop yet. I keep going until

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: It's time.

[Rep. David Yacovone]: My kids do the same thing, and I my count, we have $409,000,000 in reserves, various accounts. We were told back in January, was $329,000,000 as of July 1 in the reserve accounts. To my knowledge, nobody's taken that, but for the sake.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yeah, thought it was $3.12, but whatever. Then we have the 50,000,000. Yeah.

[Rep. David Yacovone]: And then we have 30,000,000. And then the other 30 is gone, think. So when I add all those together, I get I came a little bit above 400. And in my mind, wanting to be responsible, I said to myself, if it's $4.00 9, if we use 9 in a in whatever way we felt was appropriate through this process, we'd still have 400,000,000 there. And, we are in the longest economic period of economic expansion in our history and eventually there'll be a recession. Who knows when? We'd still have 400,000,000. And whether we had 400 or $4.00 9, I figure we're just about as well off. So I keep thinking that, gee, we have capacity for those who are uncomfortable touching any of it. And I'm talking about touching what I think is a relatively modest amount, 5 to 9,000,000. Is on the table or has it been The ruled that

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: reserve that we have, we really much we don't I mean, but leaving aside the typical reserves, the caseload reserve, 23.57 reserve, the budget, the rainy day fund, the stabilization reserves, don't touch those. Going to have to be like, I don't know what a cold day in hell is, but it's not something that we it's very difficult to get we're not ever going to touch the $27.53, because that's we're saving up to pay those funds. We just don't do that. And the $50,000,000 that we set aside from last year has been appropriated to the general to the keyboard. That's where we use the $6,500,000 of SNAP when the government and that's specifically for federal issues. The first $30,000,000 that is still there is also for federal. That's appropriated to the General Assembly reserved for federal funds issues. So is it possible if there were enough votes to unreserve some of that $30,000,000 and use it for something else? Mean, if this body, if the General Assembly decided they wanted to unreserve it, we could unreserve it. We have the authority. We have the power to do that. I would just say that we are in year one of a four year administration. And those are all to be used for federal funds, too. We're in year one of a four year administration. Things have been happening. I don't know if we're still at war or whether we're not at war. It depends on what time of day we've talked about. So we don't know what else is going on. So those were reserved for a reason. So I guess where I'm going with this is unlikely to use some of that. That's what I'm thinking. I don't know if Joint Fiscal has any other thoughts on the other reserve funds.

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: But

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Emily, when you say we don't really take from the reserve funds as most cases do. It's very difficult to. Is that right?

[Emily (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Yeah, Services case over service sometimes bounces around

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: ever so slightly just based on

[Emily (Joint Fiscal Office)]: calculations around what's needed, cover the Medicaid tail.

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: Right.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens]: Of the rainy day fund and the stabilization reserve, would have to be intentionally on reserve.

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: Right.

[Rep. David Yacovone]: We have that authority.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yeah, we have the authority.

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: 2008, rainy day fund, 2008, that's when that came into play. And we needed it.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: And we needed every ten years, yeah.

[Rep. David Yacovone]: And of course, I'm talking about, in the margins, I'm talking about something that preserves that.

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

[Rep. David Yacovone]: But takes a little

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

[Rep. David Yacovone]: To perhaps go a long way. Yeah. I feel like a friend I was talking to a friend, he said, it's like being on the Titanic and not throwing out all the life jackets. You know, these things that are broken and breaking, and you've got some capacity, but you save it for a bigger storm.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Well, I would wager, and I think we've seen from the joint the the revenue forecast, that FY '28 is gonna be harder, a lot harder than FY '27 and '29. So we are heading into stormy waters, and we may need those life jackets for future fiscal years at this point.

[Rep. David Yacovone]: I think I've heard that every year since 2016. Not during COVID. These things Save one for COVID. Yes.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: But I Well, but in those other years, we had the federal government supporting us on a lot of these things. So what's gonna happen in f y twenty eight? The provider tax is starting to go down, and we're gonna lose

[Rep. David Yacovone]: I understand.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: How many millions of dollars is that? Well, 85 over a few years. I don't know how much we're losing the first year, 30. I don't know how it would. Many millions. Great.

[Rep. David Yacovone]: Thank you. Just wanted to bring it up, I have a more clear understanding now. It's unlikely.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yeah. That would be it. And with the first the other one, I am agnostic if people wanna go around and say what they're thinking of, but people may also wanna think about it before they go and say what they want, which is kind of what I'm sensing from the rest of the room.

[Rep. Eileen Dickinson]: Yeah, I'm not prepared to do or something like that.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: I'm not even. I'm not either. So, we're going to get an updated So, you have this. That was from yesterday, dated March 8228. James is handing out an updated purple top one. This is the one from the treasurer and the Secretary of State and the what did you call them?

[James (Committee Staff Analyst)]: Instrumentalities of Government.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Instrumentalities of And

[James (Committee Staff Analyst)]: then the advocate requests as well.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Are they on here as well? No, that's a different one.

[James (Committee Staff Analyst)]: The one I'm passing out will have our instrumentalities of government, for lack of a better word, and our advocate or outside of government requests from the public hearings.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Okay, from the public hearing.

[James (Committee Staff Analyst)]: And then from oral testimony that we've received as well.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So I'm

[James (Committee Staff Analyst)]: passing around just the pink and green one for now to start.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Which takes the place of this one?

[Rep. Eileen Dickinson]: What we thought that yesterday.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: No, this is the committee one.

[James (Committee Staff Analyst)]: Yeah, and then I have a separate table for the committee about how to start. I met with James Duffy joins the school office.

[Rep. Eileen Dickinson]: Apologies. We didn't even want to get one of these.

[Rep. David Yacovone]: This is a different one than the second one you just gave me.

[James (Committee Staff Analyst)]: One table has been passed out so far, and that is the table showing above gov rec budget requests from departments, agencies, other state offices, as well as advocate and external to government budget requests.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Pink on the left, green on the right. Correct. And

[James (Committee Staff Analyst)]: these are all things you've seen before. Also beginning on page two, you will also see requests received from your fellow legislators through the legislative public hearing. Apologies for the overrun.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So what we don't have on this is the bills.

[James (Committee Staff Analyst)]: Yes, the bills are coming to you all tomorrow.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Right. And do we have and we don't have the committees. We have an old committees one.

[James (Committee Staff Analyst)]: I have an updated committee one for you. Having sat down with AHS this morning to talk about the Health Care and Human Services Committee letters, I have not yet updated the committee recommendations to include Health and Human Services. That being said, it does include the two small suggestions from House Ways and Means as well as health care, which I don't think you all had yesterday. So if you'd like, Madam Chair, can it's not the final committee recommendations, but I do have

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Once everything is time stamped and dated

[James (Committee Staff Analyst)]: Okay, great. I'll go ahead and pass that around.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Pass those out, but no, we're going to get another one. And none of these yet have all the bills that are coming up. We have a tracking that the clerk puts together for us. And so tomorrow, James is going to come back with updated spreadsheets that'll also include bills.

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: Wayne? I'm sorry. We're going to have a big sheet like last year where the governor's recommended? What are these? Well So

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: last year, we had these spreadsheets. And then we also had the governor's wish list, which had he had a lot of one time money, which we don't have this year. We already have those spreadsheets that Emily gave us before meeting breaks. We have the list of the one times. We have the base. We have the transfers and reversions. So all of those documents, you actually already have.

[James (Committee Staff Analyst)]: And so for you all tomorrow, Madam Chair and committee members, you will have one stakeholder handout. I promise it will be one. And it will have all of those five buckets. The governor's one times, the committee recommendations about govrack, government instrumentality requests about govrack. As the information has changed, the formatting just becomes too cumbersome to keep on one sheet. The final version that you all receive tomorrow for your prioritization exercise purposes will have everything in one package for you.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: And we're also going to give you if not today, tomorrow, your own worksheet that'll have zero to five, five to ten, ten to 15 with a formula at the bottom. So at the moment, it'll say zero. You can write them in, but when you type them in, it will add it up as you go along. So you'll know when you've hit your 5,000,000.

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: Should we build a computer template?

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: It's a template.

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: Oh, that's fancy.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yeah. Well, I like spreadsheets.

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: I've done AI pretty soon.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: I don't not use AI. But for this, we need to actually do our own. And

[James (Committee Staff Analyst)]: so I just thought, Nandru, if you'd like, I could run through some of the updates have been made since we last provided this information. And while we're doing that, please feel free to stop me of any specific questions that come up

[Rep. David Yacovone]: with Are these on our web page?

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: No, they need to be emailed to Dave. Not going to go on our committee page. So these are all dated threeten.

[James (Committee Staff Analyst)]: And I will the digital copy this way in your email.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Anybody need the pink and green one? Actually, we have two extra problems.

[Rep. Eileen Dickinson]: Okay,

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: so we're looking at the pink and green one. Oh, do you want to explain the asterisks also?

[James (Committee Staff Analyst)]: Yes, I will. Previously, I have been notating global commitment items for you all by highlighting the cells in yellow, Only because those items, as I explained yesterday, will require some more verification by the Joint Fiscal Office and working with Agency of Human Services, holding off on verifying each of those individually to have a final number until we know what the committee's preferences are and what the shortlist is of items to dig into. Those are notated now, just to make it less visually confusing, I hope, with asterisks instead of yellow highlights. We're preserving some of our color coding ability here. Under Advocate General Fund Requests, for example, that green table on the right, you'll notice a number of requests over gov rec have asterisks next to the number. That's simply indicating that it's a potential global commitment item. Under the description for each item, it will indicate whether that is gross, general fund, as yet undetermined split that needs further JFO verification?

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So we aren't going to have Nolan and AHS and James figure all those out unless we have a bunch of people who are interested in a certain. So we're not just going to have them go through the exercise On these. On all of those unless they rise to the top. So if they show up on a bunch of spreadsheets as priorities, then of we'll go figure out what it is we're actually talking about.

[James (Committee Staff Analyst)]: And you'll also notice while I'm drawing your attention to that green table on the right of Advocate General Fund requests, I've reordered these since the last time you saw previously. They had, I think, just been in alphabetical order. They're now roughly ordered by budget area and or thematic area where a specific request isn't easily attributable to a specific budget area. So for example, all of the global commitment implicated items are all put together because they're bunched together under what would likely be the B300s. So those are now roughly in budgetary order.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens]: Thanks on line number seven and line number 11 over on the right hand side, the spacing. We can't read what the words are. Can't read.

[James (Committee Staff Analyst)]: On the right side.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens]: All amount. The 274,000

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: All we can see is contract funding. Wonderful. Was that for?

[James (Committee Staff Analyst)]: That's Vermont Legal Aid. Yeah, so those Vermont Legal Aid items. So those were lines.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: That was seven, and then there's also one around line 11, or 1.88 So

[James (Committee Staff Analyst)]: line seven is Vermont Legal Aid that's restoring their MAP contract. Yeah, Medicaid. This the contract that Vermont Legal Aid has held for a number of years.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: That's right. That they just got re upped and then they got it taken away. Okay. Yeah. Okay.

[Rep. Eileen Dickinson]: You said the map?

[James (Committee Staff Analyst)]: Map. Yeah, that's the contract they have to look into billing for dual enrollees to Medicare and Medicaid and ensuring that programs are being properly billed either to Medicare or Medicaid, with the idea being that their cost to

[Rep. Eileen Dickinson]: the state when the proper billing is followed. What's 11 again? 11 is Vermont Parent Child Center.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: PCCs. Have

[James (Committee Staff Analyst)]: a network integrated branch.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: 80.

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: So on the map, amount of legal aid priority, what agency who's administering the branch?

[James (Committee Staff Analyst)]: So that is a contract that has been historically held by Diva. And for fiscal year twenty seven, the contract is proposed for termination.

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: What were they doing? So Diva was giving out money and they were hiring them to

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: They had a contract with them for sixty years and they just stopped it in November and then cancelled it in January. Sixty years? I think that's what they said.

[Rep. Eileen Dickinson]: On kind.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Medicaid, Medicaid. They came in and talked to us in January about this.

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: I never heard about that one. That's part

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: of it. You did, that's part of what we talked about. Because we were kind of flabbergasted that they signed the contract in November, and then they were told in January it was being canceled.

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: Flabbergasted is sixty years worth.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: I think it was sixty. I could be I could have the wrong number, but I thought it was It's not a bull.

[Rep. Eileen Dickinson]: I don't know. It's just the bull page.

[James (Committee Staff Analyst)]: And the idea behind this many practice long

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: time. It's been decades. It has been decades.

[James (Committee Staff Analyst)]: Representative, the service being provided is ensuring that where possible Medicare, I believe, is being properly billed. The idea of being by billing Medicare because it's entirely federally funded, saves Medicaid dollars. And Diva's justification for terminating the contract going to FY '27 has been that they have not seen cost savings from the contract. Right? That they've paying more for the service than than the savings they receive was the explanation given by Diva in their in their test.

[Rep. David Yacovone]: Appeal Medicare decisions.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Thank you.

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: Okay. So they're legal. So it's a legal appeals. Yes. You know, Diva has their own attorneys, right? So they'll use them now. AGs, so I'm gonna try they wanna do it themselves.

[Rep. David Yacovone]: Pretty labor intensive, and it's a specialty.

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: Specialty.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So all the asterisks are, that's the, unless it's mentioned, which it was for legal aid, which had we broken out the general fund and the total global commitment, most of these, I think that's the total amount, and we haven't broken out the general fund versus global commitment. And part of it is there's not a it's sort of like transportation in some ways. There's a state match, and it depends on what the program is that the state match is. So the match might be nine-ten. It might be fifty-fifty. It might be 70 five-twenty five. So if you're putting some of them in, I don't know, maybe we should just assume fifty, fifty.

[Rep. Eileen Dickinson]: Either that we match.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: If you put that in your priority, so let's say you choose to do the parent child centers as one of your priorities. That's $1.88 Assume 50% of it is general fund for the purposes of doing our spreadsheet. But if six people put that in that they really want to do that, then we'll get the actual numbers. But we have to make an assumption.

[James (Committee Staff Analyst)]: I think that's fair. And what we would do is for the programs that rise to the top of the committee's prioritization list. One, if the global commitment eligibility hasn't been verified already for most of these, it's pretty clear cut applicability. But we'll verify with AHS that it is indeed applicable to global commitment, and we'll verify the global commitment general fund. So

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: the green ones on the right, if you're not sure more about them, these were mostly from our public hearing and written testimony. So that is on our web, our committee.

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: You can

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: go and look at the testimony. So if you want to know more detail, as we've done in the past, we're putting enough down so you can say, oh, yeah, that's Meals on Meals. Oh, yeah, that's whatever. But if you want more detail

[James (Committee Staff Analyst)]: And I also would say, for those items under the green column, feel free to email me as well if you need more detail. Because many of these receive multiple pieces of testimony. And there might be one that I would point you towards that has the most detail about the that saves you some time digging up the committee page.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So at the moment, we have two new spreadsheets that Cover most of it. We'll get the rest of it tomorrow. That's correct. The worksheet for everybody, give we have those?

[James (Committee Staff Analyst)]: Yeah, I did I send that email out? Sorry, I'm sitting in the chair here trying to email you all. I have physical copies for you all, and I will email them digital as well.

[Rep. Eileen Dickinson]: So what you received yesterday, we weren't here. Is that what you sent us in email that we won't listen to things?

[James (Committee Staff Analyst)]: Yes, and so I would say what I'm about to email you will

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: These should be the updated version. These are replacing what yesterday. So just use the ones

[Rep. Eileen Dickinson]: These are here. Okay. Yeah.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: And you can make this bigger on your computer.

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: Have until Thursday, sometime it gets done.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yes, ideally, we get this in. Thank you. Oh, we don't have lines on here. We need lines. But is on a spreadsheet electronically so we can fill in the lines the way we want?

[Rep. Eileen Dickinson]: All right.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: All right. We're covering all preferences here. Thank you.

[James (Committee Staff Analyst)]: The digital copies are in your inboxes.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So ideally, it would be great to get this done by Thursday afternoon, but I'd say Friday morning at the latest. But we'll check-in and see how people are doing. We'll have a final ish updated spreadsheet.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens]: Right.

[James (Committee Staff Analyst)]: And so there is a really helpful crossover bill tracking document from Betsy Ann that's been circulated. So I'll be using that as really the main input into that part of the spreadsheet. I'll just note there will be things on there that you likely have not bills that you have not heard yet, because policy committee crossovers this Friday. You all have until your crossover next week to hear more tests on those bills. So tomorrow, there will be information on bills that you may not have heard from yet when you receive this tomorrow.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: But at least we know what the money is. Exactly. And this is going to evolve, but we need to get started. And this gets you thinking about what your priorities are. And then we'll just flex as we need to.

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: Think we'll go That's it.

[Rep. David Yacovone]: Just send those in a minute.

[James (Committee Staff Analyst)]: Should be in your inbox.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So maybe some things that we

[Rep. David Yacovone]: Yeah, that's okay. I'm sure they'll come.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: If we identify money that will be used to fund something, we would need to indicate that somewhere. So what you're talking about, though, in terms of first 5,000,000, second, third, it's really a general fund of the money. Yes. So those of us who can find other sources of money to pay for certain things Yes. Can indicate that somewhere, though, on the cheaper. Right, if you find a reversion that's gonna work, could have a section at the bottom where you say, I want to take this reversion for $400,000 and spend it on this bill.

[James (Committee Staff Analyst)]: Yeah,

[Rep. Thomas Stevens]: right. I think maybe what Dick was saying is that if she knows there's a special fund someplace that has some balance that she could take $200,000 there to accommodate a petition. So we need

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: to note that as well. Yes, that should be noted as well and that doesn't have to be part of the $15,000,000

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: So we're thinking, discussion we had on the high risk standards. Yes. And therefore there was two items there. So we should deal with those separately.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Well, can, or you can just

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: We have a plan.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So maybe talk to Trevor.

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: But if you have a plan, that means that we don't want to include that in this. Yeah, because it wouldn't be coming out of Yeah.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Well, or Yeah, if you know the money's coming from somewhere else and can come from somewhere else, but you think it's a priority, then it still needs to go on your sheet, just because Trevor knows the plan. But if we think it's important, make sure it's on the sheet somewhere. Because there definitely were a couple the week before we left, the dam safety being one and the mediator being the other that we heard. We seemed to feel like everybody recognized

[Rep. David Yacovone]: this report.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: And I'll keep looking for money. I'll do this too, but I'm also going to keep looking for money, just like I know you are from different professions. That's showing true.

[James (Committee Staff Analyst)]: Me too.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: How about one of those Geiger counters that you know look on the brown? So we sort of clear on what's going on?

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: Slow foggy but we'll sleep.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: We'll get started, and then we'll keep checking in so that we see how this is working. But it is different from last year because the money's different than it was last year. And next year could be different from that. All right. So tomorrow, if this is updated, We start at nine about county and regional governance study, and then OPR, Office of Professional Regulation. And then James is going to come back at 10:30. And if we need to change that, you just let me know. We have flexibility in the morning. And then in the afternoon, we're going to hear the extended producer responsibility for beverage containers. And then we are going to hear the landlord tenant thing on Thursday morning, but not until ten So there are breaks in between for you guys to be able to do this work and ask us all the questions and me to do this work. That's where they got it.

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: Thank

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: you all.