Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Okay. Good morning. This is the House Appropriations Committee. It's Thursday, 03/12/2026. It is a little after 09:45, and we are going to look at voting on a couple of bills, And then we're gonna get a walk through of age seven seventy two and another walk through of seven forty. So it's a bit more bills day. We're trying to get through as many bills as we can so that we will have more time next week to dedicate to the budget. We won't we'll talk about the ones that we aren't and so I gotta vote on it right away. But we will have several votes today if everybody's ready. Also, wanna just mention that I know you're all working on your priorities, tier one, tier two, tier three, $5.10, 15,000,000 for the budget, and we'll talk later about those being due tomorrow before you leave on Friday. So we'll have those conversations too. But in the meantime, we have H five fifty nine, which is an accolade to the parole board, which we heard on Monday. And this creates a parole board legal counsel pilot project, but there's actually no new money in it even though it looks like there's new money, sort of. So that's why we're able to control the maybe it's time you can explain how this is gonna work, Trevor.

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: Yeah. That's correct. It's not too funny. There's a program called pretrial supervision program that was stood up in FY '25, and there was money appropriated for that and money kind of operation of parole. And they are in the process of filling out positions related to that appropriation. So that was based on, and so that carries forward. There was additional based funding in FY '26, 650,000 that hasn't been used at all, this program. So it's sitting there. And then so that's the 1.2, 1,310,000.00 that's carried forward in the gov rep for FY '27, which added 200,000. It skips at 1.51 as a base going forward program. Pretrial supervision Pretrial supervision program. There's been an agreement between the committees of jurisdiction and administration. This program is not working. It it's sort of a little bit due to the accountability court stuff that's going on right now. So we're gonna the plan the proposal is to keep the six sixty, the original six sixty, so you've hired the positions, and they're gonna repurpose those positions with implication and parole going towards the accountability court. So we wanna leave that alone. The six fifty that's in FY twenty six will carry forward into FY twenty seven as a onetime carry forward. And then there will be an additional 850,000 base that we carry forward. It will be part of f y twenty seven, which accounts for the 200,000. So it's 850,000 that's available base for us to utilize. We have some additional plans about how they might be used within the sphere of criminal justice. Right. I'm not prepared to speak to that just yet. But so there's money. The way this bill is structured, probably not the way I would have done it in terms of how we split it up, but it still works. They're asking to take 25,000 from that carry forward from FY '26 and then take 50,000 of the appropriation that's in the COBRA base for after '27. So that's why we're starting to buy. We're just grabbing those two pieces, putting it together for 75. And we'll do language on the back end to explain what we're doing.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: There'll there'll be language in the budget bill. In the budget bill. That will explain what's happening. Change things. But for purposes of getting this bill out, we just know that there's no new monies. We're not we're not taking from that 15,000,000 that we are looking all at. We're not taking any money from that, so it doesn't count towards what we have to do. Does everybody perfectly understand that, and we can all go tell people what it is? Does the current fiscal note describe all that?

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: No. No. Well, it speaks to us. Okay. Where it's coming from.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yeah. Where it's coming from. Of this has been decided in the last few days about the free trial. Mean, you've read about it in the paper too. You know, there have been articles about this as well. So Mhmm. Everybody's in agreement. All the parties that need to be in agreement are in agreement about that. I think we're good to go on that. Liz? When

[Liz (unidentified, likely committee member or staff)]: you mentioned the $850,000, that's not mentioned in here at all. Is that what is that used for? Is that part of the parole, or is that part of the

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: That's no. That's that's currently be appropriated to the pretrial supervision program. Right. It's in the government budget. Right. K? We're in conversation, folks in this committee and elsewhere in other committees, about repurposing or reappropriating that $8.50 for other things within criminal justice. Such as the accountability court. That's one. Yes.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Okay. Thank you. So part of that money is to go to pay for this. So that yeah. We're not gonna talk about the rest of it. That's just I might explain where the money is coming from and why we don't need to to take out, you know, any other new general fund because it's already accounted for the budget. K? There's a motion, I entertain a motion to approve age five fifty nine. So moved. Amended.

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: As amended.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Thank you, Dave. Second, Wayne. Any further discussion? Hearing none, when the clerk is ready,

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: you may call the roll.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: This was ten zero one, by the way, out of righteous institutions.

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: So? Yes. Representative Bluemle? Yes. Representative Dickinson?

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yes.

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: Representative Feltus? Yes. Representative Kascenska? Yes. Representative Laroche? Yes. Representative Mrowicki? Yes. Representative Nigro? Yes. Representative Squirrell? Yes. Representative Stevens? Yes. Representative Yacovone? Yes. And representative Chittenden? Yes. Seven 0. Thank you.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: And Trevor, you are the I am. Reporter of the bill. Great. Alright. Thank you. That's the first one. Second one is, now that we're in conception of the bill, you may recall that we heard eight fourteen yesterday. I do remember that one about AI and neurological rights. That's got to be the most interesting bill that I've ever seen come through this committee. Wayne, you got a

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: chip? I

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: asked him when he would be available. Yeah.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So this is there wasn't any money in that. Whatever the money was was not Why did you get it in? It's per diem. It was just a few per diem that was gonna be absorbed into Yeah. The Yeah. Do we need any further discussion on that one at this point? That's interesting?

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: Because I'm hoping that it might also that they might find that AI might also help them and diagnose treatment.

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: Yeah. Rather

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: than just keep an AI out of the mix. But other than that, I will support them.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yeah. Well, I'm sure that we're gonna have more of these kinds of bills. So I would entertain a motion to Bill Bottled. Thank you. $8.14, is it as amended or is it?

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: It is as amended.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: As amended. Thank you, Dave.

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: I'll second that.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Second John. Any further discussion? Seeing none. When you're ready.

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: Okay. Okay. Representative Bluemle? Yes. Representative Dickinson? Yes. Representative Feltus? Yes. Representative Kascenska? Yes. Representative Roach? Yes. Representative Nigro? Yes. Representative Swirrell? Yes. Representative Steven? Yes. Representative Yacovone? Yes. Representative Chuck?

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yes.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: Very good.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: And this one appears to be Marty's who only has to explain the per diem. It's not the That's right. I'll stand up and say, ditto. Right. Exactly. That's the good part part about floor reports from the committee. This committee. Unless we have major amendments. So when we actually do the sister state, Tom's gonna have a lot more to say because we have an amendment.

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: So

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: I can't give her a little fin to have to go with her.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: That might be considered a prop on the floor. I know.

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: Can't. I

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: mean, unless Marty normally wore one, then that would be different, but she doesn't. No. No. Right. Okay. Thank you. Those are the two bills that we're voting on at the moment. Oh, and this afternoon, we may vote on the opioid bill. We have more information of amendments. So excited to hear. Yeah. Okay. And now we're gonna switch gears, and we are going to hear H-seven 72, which is the short form of the landlord tenant bill that has come to our committee. So what we're going to do is we're going to hear from legislative counsel, then we're gonna hear from the joint fiscal office, and then we'll hear from the chair of house general who will talk about the other parts that,

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: you know, just talk about the bill from his perspective as well.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So do we have Cameron here? Are we early? Ah, no. Okay. We'll pause for a moment. Okay. Well, why don't we go