Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Good morning. This is the House Appropriations Committee. It is Wednesday, 03/11/2026. It's just after 9AM, and we're going to hear some bills this morning. The first up is H762, an act relating to County and Regional Governance Study Committee. And we have folks from Ledge Council and Joint Fiscal and the representatives, the Chair of House of Government Operations and Military Affairs. So Tim, do you want to come up and tell us first about the bill?

[Tim Dublin (Legislative Counsel)]: Good morning, committee members. For the record, my name is Tim Dubler, Legislative Counsel. And yes, we have the miscellaneous OPR bill, or H58 I

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: think we're doing sixty two first.

[Tim Dublin (Legislative Counsel)]: Sorry about that. Okay. Let me switch gears

[Scott Ward (Joint Fiscal Office)]: here. So,

[Tim Dublin (Legislative Counsel)]: let's see, I provide the committee with a bill overview, as well as the latest strike all amendment from House government operations is draft 1.2. I guess I'll just provide some general background first, working off the overview. As the overview points out, and so So let me share this one more.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So we have do like me to open the I have just a text document. It's like this. Oh, should I put it with

[Tim Dublin (Legislative Counsel)]: There we go.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: There we go.

[Tim Dublin (Legislative Counsel)]: Hoggling things on and off here.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: So

[Tim Dublin (Legislative Counsel)]: H762, an act relating to the County and Regional Governance Study Committee, is important I'm sorry. It's important to initially note that that's this session law that really is tied to a previous act that is from 2024, Act 118, and really just amends that prior act to extend the life of the county and regional government study committee, as well as push back the time for a report date. Also And kind of modify some minor features of it. For example, how the chair is brought about and reduces a number of co chairs from two to one chair. And let's see. Also kind of tweaks some of the, general powers and duties that we see here. If the committee is interested for any reason, there's a preliminary report put out by the committee last November. And in essence, it explained the work of the committee to date and then also includes some recommendations for the changes I just mentioned that were incorporated into the bill we have in front of us. I believe the bill is for this committee because there are some of per diem that are afforded to this committee. Let's see. It is just legislators, but they are, they'll have 10 meetings, and I believe let's see. There was some thinking that, eventually, the number would kind of reset with this bill. And so the see, you would like, I can kind of pull up that exact routine language, but it is pretty boilerplate. That should be in the strike hole. Me take a look at this. It might be just in the underlying belt. Excuse me.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yeah, doesn't look like it's in the amendment. So we're just looking at the amendment.

[Tim Dublin (Legislative Counsel)]: Yes, and so the number of meetings wasn't modified by the amendment, so that probably

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: won't appear. No, we have Scott here to talk about this. I

[Tim Dublin (Legislative Counsel)]: can pull up Act 118 if wanted.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Well, we should probably just see what the per diem says. That is the perfect.

[Tim Dublin (Legislative Counsel)]: The, right. I'm just double checking it. Yeah. So the amendment subsection f and the three kind of asterisk indicate omitted text. Right. Meaning, it's unchanged, and so it will just kind of appear on one eighteen. Let me pull up one eighteen. You can ignore the highlights here for now, but we compensation reimbursement. This would be under her. We gave the original bill, and this still has its senate number on it, but this is indeed act one eighteenth. And so compensation reimbursement for attendance at meetings during general assembly, that's over the summer. The legislative member of the committee, a legislative member of the committee serving in the member's capacity as a legislator shall be entitled to per diem for compensation and reimbursement of expenses pursuant to regular statute to VSA section 23, not more than 10 meetings. And these payments shall be made from standard to the general assembly. Okay. So that is our standard language. That's good. We haven't

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: seen that for a while. Wayne, do you have a question of that?

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: Well, not about the language. I'm just wondering, obviously they met if they had a report, making progress, how much money did they spend since they were?

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Well, we're going to have Scott come up. Scott, do you want to come up now and talk about the fiscal note? And you're welcome to stay there too, if you'd like.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: I'm curious whether they were productive in the work they did last year.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Well, and then we can have Chair Bayron come up and talk about it. Just imagine it's been a little bit involved in this one. Good morning,

[Scott Ward (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Director Scott Ward, the new fiscal office. The committee did meet one time last fall. If you look in the fiscal note, I mentioned that. We had, as you may or may not know, you are entitled to per diems for these different meetings. Not everybody always takes a per diem, so at the time of the meeting, actually only one person put in four per diem. So we spent about $200 So actual expenses to date, very, very minimal. I just want note, does mention that since we did have one meeting, the bill did have up to 10, in theory we'd have nine, so that would be up to about $15,000 The exact number is estimated to be $14,622 for those of you that really want to get down to the penny, but up to $15,000 would be expected in FY '27. And then the underlying bill, I'll just speak to that as well, did mention that JFO was appropriated with $50,000 to potentially hire consultants. We have not hired a consultant, none of that's been spent. That's still a JFO being carried forward, and we're waiting to

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Okay, so the money's already been appropriated for this bill, there's no new money, and have the proof to do it. Great, that's pretty simple. Matt, would you like to join us at the table? We're not going to snag that from them. I'm actually very interested in this study, because we are like 1,000,000 states without the two governments standing. Hi, if you would introduce yourself and tell us why we're here at this.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair, House Government Operations and Military Affairs)]: So, I'm representative Matt Byrong, chair of House Government Operations and Military Affairs. And yes, h seven six two is setting the table for the continuation of work that was put in place in 2024, a regional governance study committee. So the cuts and bolts of this, I'm sure a lot of people are aware because it's a long standing conversation, is how to take things like county resources, municipal resources, state resources, and other moving parts to help them figure out how they can work with more continuity, less bureaucratic hiccups, and also find ways to help smaller communities and municipalities have access to resources, grant programs, maybe some federal money that's coming in, things of that nature through the utilization of say like an RPC or something like that, trying to create more continuity for those. So there has been a known for a long time that some of the smaller communities don't get to the table as rapidly as the larger ones. So we're trying to help recalibrate that, equalize that with this. Now how we got here. Right? Due to the previous election cycle and some shifts in committee assignments at the chair level, three of the members were vacated from this committee two years ago ish eighteen months ago, whatever it was. And so it took a little while to get those positions put back in. More notably, one of the problems was it was both of the co chairs because the previous language required that the committee be co chaired by the government operations chairs. So with both of those positions being vacated and reassigned to myself and Senator Caledonia, was a lag time. So the continuation of the work is really important.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: It

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair, House Government Operations and Military Affairs)]: has really stalled out due to a lot of moving parts. And this is just setting it up for the work that we intended several years ago.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Any questions? Go ahead. So

[Scott Ward (Joint Fiscal Office)]: given all of that,

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: scope appropriate to be Now with personality and time that you can bring to bear, project too big. I mean, is there something there that the RPCs are already dealing with?

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair, House Government Operations and Military Affairs)]: So to that question, so like the yes and no. So I worked with Senator Harrison on this language because she was one of the returning members from the committee. I was one of the ones who was put on the committee as a result of that turnover. So she and I worked together. That's why the legislative intent is here now, because that was vacant from the previous act. And also, we tried to hone in the charges and duties a little more. This is a massive scope of work. That is also why the language has been existing for two years as opposed to one with a report deliverable probably next fall. But we wanted to leave the structure of the committee in place for one more year in case there was no session. These recommendations were delivered because I I I wanted to be very conscious to the scale of this workload.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: So you're very supportive of work, but I was gonna say, the only big issue that I see is having this scaled at the appropriate level so that the work can be done by a small committee with 10 meetings, right? Well, think it's too big. We're not going to get anything valuable out

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: of it.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair, House Government Operations and Military Affairs)]: Well, I think that there are a tremendous amount of interested parties at the trade association level and other levels that they have been very candid with me that they are there to help us be a resource for the committee so that that support and input is there. And then also, the GFO spoke to the fact that the money that was allocated for support in consultants still exists. So the tools are in place.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Great. Any other questions? Yeah. John, go ahead.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: The membership of the current community still be

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair, House Government Operations and Military Affairs)]: in place here? Correct. Until it is It's taken for consistency's sake. Correct. And then it'll dissolve and then be restructured. And that is one of the things that's one of the vital aspects of this is the committee is set to dissolve June, July, and then this sets it back up moving forward. So we're trying to create continuity.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Okay. So thank you. I'm not seeing other questions. Pretty straightforward. Couple of minor changes to clarify things and extend the dates so that we can actually get done. So, that's a plan. And no new money. I'm just waiting to hear. Texted Connor to see if there's this whole thing about Friday, Tuesday versus waiting a day and having it be next Tuesday, Wednesday. Don't know what they're planning. So, we may be voting on this, and we also have not warned that we're going to vote. So we only have to give us a few minutes. So it may be that this afternoon, we'll just vote out a bunch of bills once I hear. So thank you all for coming in. Some of you are staying. Scott, I think you get to be dismissed.

[Scott Ward (Joint Fiscal Office)]: No, but I believe I'll be back tomorrow on the Saturday. Okay,

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: not done yet. Yes, Matt? Madam Chair, are you doing H588 next? I believe so.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair, House Government Operations and Military Affairs)]: Okay, so I'm gonna run upstairs and check on my committee. I was not scheduled to be here with rep Nugent for five eighty eight. But I don't know if you want

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: to somebody, it's fine.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair, House Government Operations and Military Affairs)]: She's the reporter of the bill, I would like her to be here, but I might hang out if they're good with what they're doing. Might hang out.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yeah. Certainly, however you want do it, if you want to send her down, but we're gonna we'll probably just keep going and starting on this and

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair, House Government Operations and Military Affairs)]: Understood.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: If she's a few minutes into it, I think.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair, House Government Operations and Military Affairs)]: Excellent, let me go figure that out and get you back to your tests.

[Tim Dublin (Legislative Counsel)]: We'll have more of you soon.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair, House Government Operations and Military Affairs)]: Yes, enjoy your Abacus, I

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: shall return. Okay. Oh yes, so this we're gonna start at 09:30, so maybe we can let Ted Barnett know that we're starting camp, But we'll just start and then he can come. Okay. Look, we have an overview page for this too.

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: Think that's a Dublin signature. Do you use over reviews?

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: I tend

[Tim Dublin (Legislative Counsel)]: to, especially for larger office bills. Just to reintroduce myself, Tim Dublin, for the record, Legislative Council. So you should have a bill overview, which, despite being an overview, is six pages long, which speaks to the breadth of bill that's summarizing. This is Accolating the to Professions and Occupations Regulated by the Office of Professional Regulation or the Miscellaneous OPR Bills, the usual shorthandle for this. This is the potpourri of

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Like a miscellaneous OPR bill kind of thing? Yep. Okay.

[Tim Dublin (Legislative Counsel)]: So perhaps just to read off the condensed purpose section here over a view just to give you a sense of various aspects of professional regulation as Bill is touching. And then I should also initially note that there are two amendments, one from House Ways and Means, which has to do with fees for massage therapy establishments. And then there's another one before House health care, which has to do with pharmacists being able to prescribe, basically, open medications. Yes. And off the top of my head, I don't really think there's any explicit expenditures of corporations in this bill. Okay.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Well, and there is Ted. We started a little early, Ted, but we're glad you're here. It's just starting to go through the bill. So why don't you talk to us about what

[Tim Dublin (Legislative Counsel)]: the changes are and the purpose here? So this bill will start off by making some changes in Title III versus Title 26.

[Scott Ward (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Title 26 is where we

[Tim Dublin (Legislative Counsel)]: have the particular chapters for each regulated profession. And Title three is under the executive branch and controls general powers for the Secretary of State, under which OPR is positioned there. So some of these are just changes that would apply to all of the regulated professions under OPR. So it will first explicitly enable OPR to rescind licenses and instances of administrative error, nonpayment, or withdrawal from an interstate compact. It will enable OPR to enforce attempted fraudulent or accepted procurement or use of license right now. On the books, it's just the actual committing of that conduct. It will require professional regulation board members to be adults. Interesting that

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: I saw that. Was there a question? I mean, we shouldn't assume, obviously, but that

[Tim Dublin (Legislative Counsel)]: was interesting. Apparently, were applications to join Pull Fork by Myers.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: Wayne? So my question was just before that, so if they can rescind, is there a field process or do they have a process for

[Tim Dublin (Legislative Counsel)]: This will create a yes, a field process for that. It will there's a few different kind of iterations which can play out depending on how long the individual has held the license. So it's a little bit it's more expedited if the license has been held. I think it's less than x days if it's been held within But that additional process to support either way, there is no appeal process. Let's see, it will correct terminology for license denials for foreign applicants. And it will create additional combinations of education experience as prerequisite for accounting licensure. This is where we shift gears into sections in particular to certain regulated professions. It will create a limited academic dentist license. It will remove the requirement for advanced practice registered nurses or APRNs. Their license renewal documentation of completion of APRN practice requirement. It will enable OPR to create temporary policies to supplement psychological licensure educational requirements That will be notwithstanding any contrary rules already. There's provision in there to compel OPR to adopt permanent rules to address the issue. It will eliminate the advisory committee on midwifery that reports to OPR and the Commissioner of Health. It will also change the license renewal requirements for midwives, that is removing the requirement for them to have to submit individual practice data to a discretionary and create a discretionary decision that can be made by the director whether or not to require them.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: I think we did the advisory committee because we were standing up on the program, and they needed to be helped. Somebody else may remember this one, but I actually remember that coming to our city a few years ago in here, we had this advisory committee because they were standing it up, so it's nice as good at the end to say, Okay, now we're done.

[Tim Dublin (Legislative Counsel)]: The bill will also modify the definitions of practice of funeral service to include the disposition of conveyance by cremation, alkaline hydrolysis, or natural organic reduction. It will require OPR to report on the possible professional regulation of speech language pathology assistance. Speech language pathologists are already regulated. This should just be concentrating assistance. Really a sunrise review report. And it would require the registration of massage establishments and expand on operational requirements and related unprofessional conduct realm of massage therapy. And again, this is where we have some, where the amendments addresses additional fees in that realm, and then also another amendment has to do with pharmacists prescribing for COVID drugs.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Could you tell me what the definition of a massage establishment is? It's not like one person doing it in their home or in a civil office. How is it defined?

[Tim Dublin (Legislative Counsel)]: Follow-up the language of the bill, so I believe we do not know the definition. Okay. So we have, and this will be on page 22 of the strike all amendment, let's go about it. In section 18, this will modify the current definition of the Bob's 26 VSA 5,401. Establishment means any location where the practice of massage or the practice of bodywork is regularly engaged in, or B, that represents itself to the public by any title or description of the service incorporated by the words touch professional, bodywork, massage, massage therapy, massage therapist, massage practitioner, massages, masseur, masseuse, energy worker, other words identified by the directors.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So it is an individual? It's an individual renting a room out of a building?

[Tim Dublin (Legislative Counsel)]: Yes, there's a situation where it could be, although it's important to point out that individuals will be licensed independently. It's a traditional thing. Although there is a sole proprietor exception that's pointed out here for having to pay the fee or register, or maybe it's both.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So if you're a

[Tim Dublin (Legislative Counsel)]: sole proprietor, you're not an establishment? Let me find that. I think it's really phrased

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: under exemptions for having Oh I see on page 24 that's an exchange. Provided solely by a single massage therapist body lifter. There we go. That's an expansion that was done by Bellox?

[Tim Dublin (Legislative Counsel)]: Yes, requested by the Office of Professional Regulation. Requested by Ophea, okay. And just for people's dose, I'm using the shorthand massage therapist, but under the shepherds, body workers and touch professionals.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Whole lot it's of things. The reason I'm asking is that this registry came about as a result of somebody in my town in Middlebury who was filming people, and they wanted them to be registered. This was a while ago, but massage therapists were not regulated. And it now feels like we're going back to virtually not regulating them, because I would bet that 95% of massage therapists operate independently. And so that sounds like there's been no oversight for most of them, which is why we had the oversight at the beginning.

[Tim Dublin (Legislative Counsel)]: Well, I should say, and I would probably encourage the committee if they wanted to drill down into some of the policy or enforcement questions about this, to have OPR testify. But there are still unprofessional conduct. And actually, this bill introduces some kind of criminal sanctions here for malpractice that

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: a person who's either not registered or registering for committing malpractice or sexual or anti crimes would be public health. Okay, so we have another way to address that is what you're saying.

[Tim Dublin (Legislative Counsel)]: Yes, and I believe the drive behind establishments is that, well, by registering the establishment, then you can sanction them. It's another avenue for sanction misbehavior, being

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: too euphemistic about that in politics,

[Tim Dublin (Legislative Counsel)]: just another avenue

[John Kascenska (Member)]: which to

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: assume its context. In terms of just the term establishing, you could have a tent on its property, you could be an establishment if you're conducting business in this way. It is intended to be broad. Right,

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: but then that last page, 24, which says that you don't have to do anything if you are That's what the consenting. Establishment registration is not required for a location where the practice of massage or bodywork is provided solely by people exempt, whoever that is, but a single massage therapist. And it was the single massage therapist that's been the problem. But you are saying there's another avenue for them to be sanctioned or eliminated, or their practice.

[Tim Dublin (Legislative Counsel)]: Right. So, even if you're a sole proprietor, you don't have to pay or register for establishment. You're still an individual who is subject to the other statutes here, unauthorized practice. No, we have ice cold.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Or behavior, but unauthorized behavior, illegal behavior.

[Tim Dublin (Legislative Counsel)]: Exactly. And so then, let's see, we did add very bottom here. And I should just note, establishment comes with some new regulate empowering the director to of compel the inspection in various ways of these establishments and also for establishments to designate individuals to ensure compliance or other regulations of law and some display of registration things. And then we have more professional conduct here, which is already in the books, but we'll see we add establishment to it. And then here we have the here, just kind of the litany of examples of

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: But they're not an establishment. That's my concern. I wonder if They're

[Ted Barnett (Joint Fiscal Office)]: individuals still have to be registered with OPR. So they may not have the establishment fees,

[Tim Dublin (Legislative Counsel)]: but they're still being regulated by

[Ted Barnett (Joint Fiscal Office)]: as an individual.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: All right, that's what I'm

[Tim Dublin (Legislative Counsel)]: sorry, thank you. Apologies for confusing it, this is just an additional tier of registration.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: So are there separate rules? Do they just OPR create rules in terms of what they can do in the establishment or conditions that need to exist in the establishment or anything like that? Do they create rules like that of any sort?

[Tim Dublin (Legislative Counsel)]: A good question. Off the top of my head I have to look up to exactly what the rulemaking authority is here. Much of it is laid out in statutes as far as the misconduct that either a sole proprietor or an establishment could be held accountable to. As far as what massage needs to entail, I'm not sure. I'd have to look that up and see exactly what the these are already rules that have been adopted so far on the topic or exactly what the rulemaking authority would be or to what extent OPR deems necessary. I don't know off the top of my head, I

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: have to look at.

[Scott Ward (Joint Fiscal Office)]: John?

[John Kascenska (Member)]: This rule is listed on page 24 here. So just reading one, registrations of employment contract in the size of therapists and establishments. They may not have their own establishment, they may be a contracted professional going into perform work. That, so those rules, the rules are actually noted there or at least elsewhere?

[Tim Dublin (Legislative Counsel)]: Yes, thank you for pointing that out. Indeed, let's see. So under section 26, BSA 5,411, on the subsections of the duties of director, we do indeed have rules, and so they are permitted to adopt rules regarding disclosure to each new client before the first treatment about exactly what information needs to be provided. Let's see. And then regarding the display of registrations and information regarding unprofessional conduct, filing complaints with the office, That is the display of those things. If you're a client and going in, you will have a visual notice of the fact that they're registered and how to go about filing a complaint if the client believes it's necessary. And then we have okay. Rules describing the section shall include provisions relating to the manner in which the information disclosed shall be distributed or displayed. Client acknowledgement, development requirement, and Then there are kind of catch all broad grants rulemaking authority here where adopt other rules necessary to perform the duties. And let's see, limited adopt other rules limiting the applicability of this chapter as applied to establishments operated within private homes.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: I

[John Kascenska (Member)]: just thought that covered our questions.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: So it sounds like they have to follow standard deviations which

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: is good. Yeah okay thank you and so hang out there Ted, Ted, tees.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: A lot

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: of tees. I

[Ted Barnett (Joint Fiscal Office)]: may share my screen if possible. I sent there is a ways and means amendment. So there's an updated fiscal note. Those of you who have a printed fiscal note unfortunately have the don't include the full amount of information. Will say the difference in fiscal notes is one So I'll share my screen.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Okay. That would be great. So you have a new one that's not dated February 25. You have one dated?

[Ted Barnett (Joint Fiscal Office)]: It is dated, I think, yesterday. Tenth. Time flies in crossover adjacent times.

[Tim Dublin (Legislative Counsel)]: Okay. It's on the

[Ted Barnett (Joint Fiscal Office)]: committee website. Ted Barnett joins fiscal office. So as we talked about, the main provision of the bill is changes to requiring massage therapists to changing the rules for registering an establishment. And so there are three different groups of massage therapists. I think about this, if you're a solitary and individual practitioner operating on your own, you're exempt from the requirement to pay the establishment fee. Ways and Means added a reduced and amended fee schedule for businesses that have two massage therapists. And so they would pay initial registration fees of $50 and then renewal fees of $75 And then for businesses that have three or more professionals, they would pay $100 of registration minimized and I mean, $275 by annually to renew. Data from OPR indicate that in that first initial registration year, fiscal year twenty seven, that could generate it up to approximately $15,000. And then when folks renew two years later and that would be an additional $40,000. There would be some very small amounts of revenue in even fiscal years if a new establishment comes online, they need to register in fiscal year twenty eight. You would realize that revenue then. We'll note that this is absolutely an estimate. We don't have great data on the number of businesses that have one versus two versus three or more professionals within it, so that's why the language up to was included. So that's the fee piece. The remaining provisions of the bill are quite small. Very few dentists would take advantage of the limited academic And some of them, from what I understand, may be currently licensed out of state, so they're not paying a fee anyway. So not paying a fee to $0, no real fiscal impact. In chatting with OPR, I do always want to note that the Sunrise assessments that OPR conduct, considering whether the regulate profession, are pretty involved. It's a big lift for them to conduct their sunrise assessments or taking it seriously. They want provide you all with the best information of whether it makes sense to regulate that profession. But I do want to note that they do have resources available to conduct that sunrise assessment from their existing speech language pathologist profession within that pool of resources, they would be able to conduct the Sunrise assessment for assistance. And then through dissolving the advisory committee on midwifery, they were paying per diems. Theoretically, that could be a max of $3,000 but they weren't. Folks weren't claiming $3,000 per year. So that's in there. That's probably why you all have the bill. So there we are.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Okay, thank you. Great.

[Tim Dublin (Legislative Counsel)]: Okay, any other questions about this?

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: I'm still having some time.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: And we haven't posted it. So my guess is that what we'll do is when I hear back, and it's today, we'll just do a bunch of votes together. We'll post it so people know. Everybody good with this one? Okay. Thank you. Thank you for coming. If anybody has other questions, Brett Mrowicki is going to have this bill, and know your fellow colleagues on Galaasc. So any questions? And Brett Nugent is going to be doing it for your committee. Great, I think we're all set. Thank you very much, everybody. So we are speeding right along. We'll try to get one more bill this afternoon relating to beverage containers. So I guess we'll see Ted again this afternoon. Maybe we can do that H-fourteen. Is that the one that filled in? Yeah. Yeah, there's another bill. So I'm hoping that Connor will just say, It's fine, let's just get them out. We can vote four bills out today. We'll get them off at Walla Booth. There's some others that I know we have to wait on. And I don't know how many bills we're getting again today. After we do eightfourteen, we have a bunch left still. I guess we're going to do seven seventy two on Thursday,

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: that's tomorrow. The landlord tenant bill. Okay,

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: so then we will have gotten through everything.

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: All right. And then we can do 06:60 On

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Friday? Yeah. Okay, so 06:60 is the opioid supplement. Okay, so you have some more if you

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: share with us about that. Well, I mean, I think Nolan did a good job of filling out the options. You know, I want to talk to Nolan one last time you you know about what I'd like to recommend but okay

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Just to refresh your memory, that was before. Yeah, go ahead. Well, we can talk about that. They'll decide these questions. Okay. Yeah, so should Maybe we should we're not voting on anything, so we can talk about it right now. We have time. Do you have some questions you want to chat about now? Then we need to go come back and have more conversations with the other folks. If you've got questions you want to ask now, let's

[Martha 'Marty' Feltus (Vice Chair)]: do it. My question was still a confusion about, as I understand it, the administration had designed or had recommended the use of the misuse fund to certain applications. And then the committee came in and suggested different applications of those funds. The Substance Misuse Prevention Fund is completely separate from six

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: sixty eight, in that it exists on its own, funds prevention activities and is funded part by cannabis lending. And the Opioid Settlement Advisory Committee and the Department of Health neither considered the Substance Misuse Prevention Fund when looking at options, the proposals that came in for opioid settlement funding.

[Martha 'Marty' Feltus (Vice Chair)]: They were But 60 includes appropriations from the It misuse does from

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: house human services. Human services recommend something

[Martha 'Marty' Feltus (Vice Chair)]: different. Yeah, right. Okay, so my clarification is, is what they are suggesting to use in the misuse fund different than what the administration had originally suggested to use from the misuse fund? And are they overlapped? Have oversubscribed that particular fund? Yes. And so what are the, the reason I'm asking is that my local group, my local hospital feels that the activity they were involved in is not gonna be funded. And so I just need to know if it

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: had not get funded. Something that's

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: not get funded that

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: the governor had suggested, it's not now covered. It would only not be covered if we appropriate, if we followed Human Services' recommendation to take 660,000 from the Substance Misuse Prevention Fund to fund four things that were recommended by the Opioid Settlement Advisory Committee, not the Department of Health, because they fall into the prevention realm. And Human Services justification was, hey, you had 3,000,000 extra dollars in this year, and you decided to spend it in ways that you didn't even ask us about. And we have real questions about the way in which that money is being spent now and its effectiveness. And so human services recommended just basically taking money out of the line items that are funded through the Substance Misuse Prevention Fund.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So none of your programs got eliminated? The governor.

[Martha 'Marty' Feltus (Vice Chair)]: Well, got a clarification on that.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: That's what I don't know.

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: I can share some information with you that spells out who gets what money.

[Martha 'Marty' Feltus (Vice Chair)]: I don't care under which mechanism it goes. My concern is I was led to believe that certain things that the administration had originally proposed are now not going to be funded. I believe the only thing is-

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: No, just reduced, right? Yeah, reduced, if we accept human services recommendation. Because right now, to my knowledge, there have been no reductions in, in fact, they've only increased the allocations within that fund to providers that the Department of Health has worked with. It would only be reduced if our committee decided to accept the recommendation of Human Services Committee to fund those four projects totaling over 600 ks from substance misuse prevention. Because

[Martha 'Marty' Feltus (Vice Chair)]: been over committed. Right, but then doesn't that mean we're reducing what had originally been suggested by the administration?

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: Well, only if we accept human services.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: But not eliminating a program. It's not eliminating a program. The Substance Misuse Fund, they'd recommended going from one program from $1,000,000 to $1.5 and spending it on the same program. This was saying, don't go to $1,000,000 take your program, but don't increase it by a quarter and Use some of that money for these other things. So there is a spreadsheet which we should have everybody review that no one would Okay,

[Martha 'Marty' Feltus (Vice Chair)]: well, we have the big blue one that no one gave us, but that only outlines $6.60. Doesn't tell me what had been suggested by the administration. And it may be not being covered or maybe it is. That's what I don't understand. Yeah, well, we have. I mean, they

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: didn't even suggest it. It wasn't ever discussed in the budget conversation. It was just an internal decision made by the Department of Health about how it wanted to use that substance misuse prevention and the additional cannabis money. So it never came forward

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: as a proposal,

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: but I have an outline of how the department plans to spend that money. Okay, and I'll share That's that with everybody

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: my question, back to Marty, what tasks were they telling you were not going to get accomplished? Because when we started talking program this, program that, it doesn't really translate down to what the tasks are.

[Martha 'Marty' Feltus (Vice Chair)]: Well, particular group is concerned about something. The state was divided up into four regions they were funded by a $4,000,000 grant two years ago, each region got a million and a half or whatever, and they did various things. They are concerned that that money is not being thoroughly supported. They seem to think it had been under the Kirkland and Feltus budget, taking it from the misuse fund, I thought, and now we're talking about different uses of the misuse fund, not necessarily different uses. So anyway, these folks are worried that their part is not gonna be in you to be supported. So we should go over

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: the spreadsheets and get this figured out. Yes, I

[John Kascenska (Member)]: was on the phone this morning, that's

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: why I got in here

[John Kascenska (Member)]: at 08:59 this morning, just in time. Because I talked to the same person, probably did, my major as well, they had the same impression as well as that the projects and I have information you can go to the rest of seeing that here. Because I said, send me something so I better understand just what they were thinking here and their concern.

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: I think the challenge for our committee is we've taken no testimony on the use of this funding. We're not going to, that's a policy committee conversation because you have to go down and dig, because what evaluation has been done? I mean, we could spend time doing that, but I don't think we have the time. I agree. And so my recommendation to this committee after having gone back and forth and really wrestling with it is to just fund everything that human services recommends through the opioid settlement fund. Is what the administration wants. Then the Senate can take up an exploration of, take a look at it. I've talked with Senator Lyons about her interest in taking that up and looking at that issue, because both Human Services and the Senate Committee have expressed concerns about how the money is being used and whether it's being used very effectively. And it just depends, I think, on how much time they're willing to dedicate to exploring that. But it felt to me like this committee wasn't really in a position to just say, Okay, well, we're going to take X amount from this line and X amount from this line and from I I feel that that's really arbitrary. So I'm already telling you what I want to recommend. It just feels, and I don't think it will make human services very happy. But it's been pretty clear that it just feels very, I'm uncomfortable with

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Making those changes.

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: Making those changes without any, nobody took testimony. They didn't take

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: it on insurance. Do they normally, so I know in the opioid use prevention, whatever it's called, the opioid fund, there's an advisory group, and then there's a whole process, and a bill is created, and we go to human services, they agree with it or not, and then it comes to us. That's the process. On the substance use fund, is there an advisory group normally for that? I don't know. I'll have to find out. So it doesn't go through the same process that the opioid does. It's just given to human services.

[Martha 'Marty' Feltus (Vice Chair)]: Department of Health. Department of Health.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: And they have the authority to make those decisions without the donors.

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: Well, that is question actually. That's what nobody

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Because and I trying to

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: those decisions, I mean, it's a special fund and many special funds, we have some role in kind of examining

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: We do with the opioid, but we don't seem to with the substance

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: use I do think it's confusing.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: I'm not sure what

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: we have a certain theme. It's not been as much money. It hasn't been as much money as the opioid settlement fund in the past, but cannabis has up. And so now it's, I think people So now we have to pay attention to it.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Okay. So we kind of have an idea of recommendation is to stick with the recommendation of the opioid special fund and not make those changes. And then if the Senate wants to, they can do it. Okay. But I would still like clarifying Yes, and we should also look at those things. So we know what we're voting on. Yes,

[Martha 'Marty' Feltus (Vice Chair)]: yes. There are ideas. Oh yes, well,

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: will assemble that for you. I've been assembling it for myself.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: We'll all understand more than we ever wanted to know with the potential funds.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: As you can guess, it makes me very nervous when the other committees can't even They all think Are worried about where we're spending it, right? And then they're asking us to submit it to appropriate it, and I'm saying, Well,

[Martha 'Marty' Feltus (Vice Chair)]: it worries me if they have not investigated it as thoroughly as Well, know

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: they have. Fairness to human services, I mean, they've been working on a ton of things. The Opioid Settlement Advisory Committee did recommend these four prevention related programs. And so it came from the Department of Health, for whatever reasons, decided not to recommend that. And the Human Services Committee hasn't had enough time to really dig into that piece. But I know they plan to in the spring.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: Hopefully they can get effective treatment that we can document this actually working.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: You open a settlement fund?

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: Just in general, we're dealing with cuts across both of those funds. Hopefully we can come up with treatments and programs that will actually work. We can demonstrate that they work, that the money we spend is being well spent. And I don't care which one of those funds it comes out of. If we get a sustaining fund and some of the tasks that are being conducted from the other fund turn out to be the ones that are effective, then moving the money around doesn't seem like a big problem to me. It's a matter of how do we get effective treatment.

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: They're kind of different funds in that they have somewhat different purposes. One is really focused on prevention, and the other can be used for prevention, but also treatment. I think that the What I really like about six sixty is there is a provision in there to kind of take a step back next year and really focus on evaluating. So we've been on money for X number of years, and what do we see? What seems to be making a difference? And there are some projects that we've made annual commitments to from that fund. But beyond that, the proposal in June is to not fund new things, but to take the time over the year to get That's the new definitely what you're suggesting, yeah.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yeah, I like the question about

[John Kascenska (Member)]: things being defunded, which doesn't sound like that's the case. Right. No,

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: well, if they would be, if we decided to take money from the Substance Misuse Prevention Fund for these four things, as well as recommended June, then we would be making cuts. We would be basically telling the Department of Health to cut their overall budget by six sixty ks, and they could figure out how to do that. But I think that

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: do we need an amendment?

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: I have one, but I want to actually add some more language. Okay. So we get the idea that we're going

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: go with the the recommendation is going to be to go with what the advisory council said. So that means we need to amend the age six sixty. Well,

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: we're proposing a hybrid of what the Department of Health and the advisory committee Right, but we still need an amendment. Oh, yes. I've got one, but I need to Okay. Add

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: there will be an amendment that we'll assume will come from our committee if we agree with what's going on. I'm just trying to get into process. Catch you. You are providing the details, and thank you.

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: Sorry for all the detail.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Well, this been a little bit of a mess. So we're going to get it straightened out and understand it and then vote something out. So there'll be an amendment that'll come from our committee if we agree with that, and then the bill will go out. So that won't be today, but it'll be tomorrow or Friday. So I'm just going to try to get as much out as we can. And there may be some other bills. I'll take a look at them again that we just say, we want to pass along. We'll do the usual strip the money out and have the contingent if money is available, but get the policy over to the Senate so we get them off our wall. So, we may do that with someone who's like, I have to go look at this, because you saw this before the break. So, in the meantime, James is going to come in at eleven with updated spreadsheets, with all the stuff he has and all the bills and everything else. So we'll go over that. You have your sheets. I think he sent them to us electronically as well, so if you want to muck around with them and do something else, if you have notes that you want to put down below that say, can find money from this area and I'd like to spend it over here, that's different from the three tiers of zero to five, five to ten, ten to 15, you can do that as well. I think he may have found

[John Kascenska (Member)]: some other items that

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: he's added to the sheets.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Oh, I'm sure there are other items. That number is just going to go up.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: But I didn't know when people were doing their little spreadsheet of the five to 10 to 15.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Right, don't spend it all yet. Mean, I want

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: to see them all before the year. Right.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: I think that's probably the for that.

[Martha 'Marty' Feltus (Vice Chair)]: But the five, ten and fifteen is, I'm sorry. Go ahead.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: The five, ten and fifteen

[Martha 'Marty' Feltus (Vice Chair)]: are one time expenditures, is that correct? Because I look at this big long list and there's a lot of things like increasing the state's attorney's office and increasing There the

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: may be some base available, but don't assume there's $15,000,000 of base available. And that's part of what I'm working on, and I may have more information later today about much of that could be based. I'm also a fan of using base for one time, not the other way around, obviously. But if we can use base for one time, then we're saving the base in future years if we need it for something else.

[Martha 'Marty' Feltus (Vice Chair)]: Correct. But just an awful lot of those on the list were increasing personnel or increasing services, which long term things.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: That's right. So I would assume that we're going to have a few million dollars in base, but maybe not all 15. So if there are some really important things in BASE that you we kind of have to do a couple of things that make the budget adjustment we need to carry over into BASE for next year, the AAAs, case management, and the ERCs, or whatever that was. Those two things we did, those will have to go into phase. That's going to be a lot. I wouldn't assume we're going to have a ton of phase, but there may be some phase. Okay, so we will Can I just oh, sorry, Tom? Go ahead.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: Yeah, can

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: I just this conversation about what human service is doing or not doing or what they took testing out, I just want to say out loud, it's not a criticism of their work? I know that each of the things that you just talked about, to meet Representative Wood as my district manager, don't talk often. But we talk frequently about the issues of since Representative Wood has been working on this year's works going back to last fall. You have to I have to bring to you just that notion of to say that it's shorting the governor's proposals. The governor's administration is not working in good faith all the time with this committee. They have received reluctant testimony on all of the issues about how things work, where money should go. The concerns that you have, Representative Laroche, are valid. They've been asked and the answers have not been provided. I think that applies to a lot of the policy committees. So when we're when we say we can't get involved or we can't go too deep, but we recognize in the moment that something was missing, at least in the human services case, I can assure you that that's information that was not given or it was only given reluctantly by the administration and the divisions at hand. So worrying about what the governor wanted or proposed has to be balanced out about what they were willing to share in order to make a bona fide decision on how this money is spent. And I think that's a really important balance for me because I do not want to be in a position of, I want to catch myself when I say, well, didn't do the work. Well, I don't think I I don't want the words that were said here. Nothing was intended to diss or to measure but I really want to be clear that because we come up with questions, because we haven't heard it, we may not know the depth of the attempts to get that information. And so when we say that there's not enough time, which is true, we never have enough time or they never have enough time. I've heard that from every committee this year. I just want to make sure that out loud that we're not The imperfectness of this process isn't just that we don't get all the information. They don't get all the information. And so

[Martha 'Marty' Feltus (Vice Chair)]: And expand that.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: It's not like we just turn the light off and move on. But I just to stand up for the policy committees.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yeah, no, it is true. They in particular have a lot of work because they're working on the whole homelessness housing initiative and that is and they're working with the administration so that they can come together and have a bill that everybody is okay with. It will come to us. We'll probably be moving things from the housing initiative that's been in the budget into this bill and reserving the money. But they are working hand in glove, for example, on that one with the administration to get something out that everybody can agree with. And it's not going to be no side is going to get everything they want.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: And when I talk about things, I'm well aware of those issues through all side sorts of things. I ask questions sometimes for a variety of purposes.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: But I just, what you're asking for

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: is the question that we all try to have. And it is the question I know at least in, you know, listening to Representative Wood's journey since last year about this stuff is that those are exactly the questions. When we talk about accountability, and then we still don't have I mean, I can't question the Department of Human Resources as to whether that's enough staffing or too much staffing or whatever. We're just we're treating most of their stuff as ups and downs. What do you say? Insurance goes up, steps increases, else is there to look for unless they share it? And, but something like that's so intense and big as human services, everybody wants, I think everybody wants to see, maybe I'm wrong, but everybody wants to see the accountability and whether or not those programs rather than treating them as if they're just numbers.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Exactly. I

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: think we can deal more with the asking for the accountability. Mean, so in the agency, you get people that are Yes. Collecting their money in

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Oh, absolutely. We've got

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: philosophical differences. We've got different things coming each way. They can't come in and tell us we need more employees because they have to stick to the government's direct. That's the way that is. That's the way it should be. Because I mean, how can you command and have any command and control if all your employees are running around trying to ask for anything that they can. So all those things are at play. We understand that, and we have to work with it. That's much you might.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: And we are all then it's our job to see how much we can figure out. And it is I mean, any one of us I ran a $3,000,000,000 operation at a bank. I would try to protect the money when they say we have to make cuts. We all will want to protect the money that we have in our areas. And it's our job where we can. That's why we now get a carry forward report. We didn't used to get that in this committee until I started asking for it. Now it's a requirement that they give it to us in joint fiscal every year. So those are the kinds of things that we can do for accountability, recognizing that

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: And we have a push and pull.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yeah, That is part of the job. And I really appreciate, Tom, you bringing this up, because it is important for us all to remember that our committees are also pretty focused on, the committee chairs, on accountability and getting this information and asking those questions. And depending on the people in the departments that you talk to, some are willing to work with us more than others. That's just the way it is. But they're asking the questions, so just don't doubt about it. Okay, you have fun. We will go off live and come back at eleven

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: with

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: James and our