Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Speaker 0]: Morning, this is the House Appropriations Committee. It's Tuesday, 03/17/2026. It's just after eleven a. M. We are going to be hearing age nine thirty five, an accolating to emergency management. This bill is fairly lengthy and it has quite a number of appropriations. We'll hear from Legis Council first and then Chris Root from Joint Fiscal. And we have Ref Hango and Ref Liron here from, we did or we will, from House Gav Ops to talk about stuff from the committee perspective. So take it away, Tom. Thank you.

[Tucker Anderson, Legislative Counsel]: Well, good morning, Tucker Anderson, Legislative Counsel. You should have in front of you H935 as introduced, unless the committee has other desires. What I'll do is just give you the kind of 50,000 foot beat of what's happening with some of the programs, then go right to the appropriations. That's great. Thank you, and we're

[Speaker 0]: going to hold our questions until you're done talking.

[Tucker Anderson, Legislative Counsel]: Starting from the top, Section one establishes the Ready Response Grant program, and essentially what this is doing is giving grants through the Division of Emergency Management to qualified nonprofits that operate food shelters to ensure that there is shelf stable food and water available in case of an emergency. In section two on page three, the Technical Rescue Grant Program is established. This is a grant program that is limited at maximum awards of $5,000 to individual applicants, 25,000 in a given year for purposes of equipment related to, for example, swift water rescue during emergencies. Sections three through seven, eight, all the way to section nine, I believe, of the bill deal with various emergency and fire response provisions. Takes you all the way to section The disability stuff in section four that I'm seeing. Yes, disability inclusion as part of planning at the local and regional level by the emergency response committees. The next programmatic change that comes into play here is in section 12 related to public safety communications. That's on page 27 and the public safety communications task force. And the majority of what we skipped over, I think 14 or 15 pages of it, is updates to the, town forest fire warden statutes. In that section 12, there is the authorization for the Department of Public Safety to use funds that were appropriated in 2022 as modified by an act in 2023. And at the time, that was for the Public Safety Communications Task Force to carry out certain pilot projects. And funds were directed to be held and reserved and issued based upon certain benchmarks for that task force. Within those acts, there was specific language that said that if funds were to be released from the reserve in the future, the general assembly would have to come back and authorize the use of those funds. And that's what this section does. And house government operations, when they reviewed this, said that this was a starting point for your committee to consider whether this language was appropriate or not. So first, subsection A, General Assembly authorizes the use of the monies that were held in reserve pursuant to those two acts in 2022 and 2023 for the Department of Public Safety to procure and implement a multidisciplinary computer aided dispatch system, so we'll call a CAD from now on, for Public Safety Communications, subject to the following: Authorize the use of the monies previously held in reserve by the Department of Public Safety, subject to each of the criteria that I'm going to work through now. We're on line 13, page 27. First, $2,250,000 shall be available for immediate costs associated with establishing the multidisciplinary CAD and five years of software licensing fees, provided that the department issues requests for proposal and signs contracts for services on or before 01/01/2027. So hard deadline to accomplish those contracts beginning of next year, and that's the perviso attached to that first 2,250,000.00. $190,000 immediately available for cybersecurity, expanded use of RapidSOS, and geographic information systems. That's in Subdivision 2. What is RapidSOS? Fantastic question for some of the specialists in the area who know what this dispatch related technology is. Okay.

[Speaker 0]: Thank you.

[Tucker Anderson, Legislative Counsel]: Subdivision 3500000.0 shall be available incrementally. The increment is not spelled out specifically. It's just called out that it will be available incrementally. Over two years to implement and expand the land mobile radio network to include a statewide conceptual design. Alright. Subsection b, this relates to the existence of the Public Safety Communications Task Force and the reimbursement and pay that members receive. Something that I noted when I went back through the acts is that none of this was articulated in the budget bills that created the task force. So first, the task force is given authority to continue in existence until 02/15/2027. The task force shall meet as necessary to advise DPS on executing task force recommendations and final design plan related to this multidisciplinary CAD. Notwithstanding a specific subdivision in 2023 Act 78, members of the task force shall be entitled to per diem compensation and reimbursement of expenses under 32 VSA section ten ten. In that budget bill, there was a specific per diem that was given to members of the task force. It was different from the general reimbursement and daily pay that is established under 32 VSA ten ten. The payments shall be made from money as appropriated to the Department of Public Safety. And now the item of the day, the appropriations. In section 13 on page 28, Moving from line 12 on that page down, the following sums are appropriated from the general fund, FY twenty First, dollars 70,163 to the agency of administration for purposes of supporting the creation of state emergency and all hazards response and preparedness materials in 15 languages, including English and ASL. These were described in the proposal as evergreen videos that will tell people what to do in case of an all hazards event. And the I have been asked why the number is so specific. There was a very, very specific down to the penny budget request here, and I rounded it up from the pennies.

[Speaker 0]: Thank you for eliminating the pennies. National trend.

[Tucker Anderson, Legislative Counsel]: Subdivision 2, dollars 7 and 20,000 to DPS for the urban search and rescue team.

[Speaker 0]: There's nothing about that in this bill. It's just a request. Okay.

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell (Clerk, House Appropriations Committee)]: Thank you.

[Tucker Anderson, Legislative Counsel]: Dollars 25,000 to Department of Public Safety for the Technical Grant Program that was the program in Section two of this bill 540,000 to the Office of the Secretary of State for purposes of supporting Vermont Access Network current operations and programming not linked directly to an operative provision within the bill. And finally, 1,000,000 to DPS for the Ready Response Grant program administered by Vermont Emergency Management, that was the grant program in section one

[Speaker 0]: of the bill. Right, which we heard about last year in the budget also. There's a request for that. Right, so any clarifying questions for Tucker because we will have committee members talking about how did you come up with this kind of stuff but do we understand the legal part of it? Okay, I guess you need to go somewhere else. Thank you very much. If there's amendments we'll be back in touch with you. I think this is Marvin's bill, right? Probably your bill. Okay. So we'll be back in touch with you as if and when things are needed. Well, you very much. Appreciate it. Chris, do you want to come? Are you just here listening? Are you

[Chris Rupe, Joint Fiscal Office]: Sorry, but you're on shell mass. Hit the plank.

[Speaker 0]: Please, you are welcome to have a friend come sit with you.

[Chris Rupe, Joint Fiscal Office]: Well, hello again, everyone. Chris from Joint Fiscal. There is a fiscal note posted under my name for h nine thirty five under today's date, and we'll go through some of the aspects of that are of a fiscal nature at a high level. And Ted has really been more of the in the weeds with the public safety communications task force that's described in section 12. So when we get to that point, I will turn it over to him so I don't butcher this complicated topic. But, the bill contains a lot of provisions related to emergency management. We're only gonna focus on a few of them in the fiscal note that are related to money. Section 13, in case you didn't wanna skip ahead to the end of the bill, is where all the appropriations live. And, the bill appropriates just over 2,300,000 from the general fund in f y twenty seven for five specific things, some of which are mentioned further in the bill. A million dollars for a newly created Ready Response Grant program that we'll discuss in section one. 720,000 to support the urban search and rescue team, which the rest of the bill is silent on, but you all remember this coming up in prior budgets in in the past. $540,000, to support the Vermont access network. Again, this is not mentioned in any real length elsewhere in the bill, but this is a program that has received funding through prior, appropriations acts. The $70,163, for the, emergency response and preparedness materials in different languages that Tucker had just mentioned with that super specific dollar amount that he rounded up, and $25,000 for a newly created technical rescue grant program that we'll mention in the bill. There's also some changes to the authorized use of funds previously appropriated for that public safety communications task force. Makes minor changes to the per diem compensation for the task force members. I think it lowers it from it was a $150 in the prior language, and this applies the standard $50 per diem. So this is a really a de minimis fiscal issue, but it's a fiscal issue and it's in the bill, so we mentioned it. So section one creates a new, ready response grant program within Vermont Emergency Management that would award an annual grant to an eligible food bank to source, store, and distribute shelf stable, ready to eat foods and bottled water at times and in types and in quantities for a written memorandum of agreement with BEM. There's a lot of verbiage in the bill that really gets into the weeds about how this program is envisioned to function. But, for your purposes, the section one creates the grant program, and section 13 appropriates $1,000,000 to fund that grant program in f y twenty seven. Section two creates another grant program and an associated working group. This is the technical rescue grant program, which would be managed by DPS. This program would assist Vermont fire departments, EMS agencies, and technical rescue agencies, with the improvement of operational readiness and investments in the types of specialized equipment, gear, and training that they require. There would be a maximum grant award, to any applicant of not more than $5,000 in a given year and, a limit on the number of total grants in a given fiscal year issued through the program at $25,000. Section 13 also appropriates $25,000 for this program in f y twenty seven. There's also a technical rescue grant working group established in section two to review the applications and recommend grant awards. That working group would be comprised of five members, including two legislators. Since some of those members would be entitled to per diem expenses. You know, the the the legislative members would get an expense, through the general assembly budget. Anybody else who would be entitled to a per diem would be paid through GPS. Obviously, the cost would vary depending on the number of meetings. The bill does not specify a minimum or maximum number of meetings, but you consider that there might be one or two meetings a year here. The cost would likely be de minimis to the respective budget. It's hard for us to quantify, and we don't

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: know what the maximum amount is gonna be.

[Speaker 0]: And the whole program is $25,000.

[Chris Rupe, Joint Fiscal Office]: So For the grants. They're not spending 10 meetings to dispatch 25,000. That, madam chair. K. Section eight has a whole lot of words about town forest fire wardens. My understanding is this is a pretty substantial update to these sections of statute, which go back many decades. Some of the ones that I think are most pertinent are, there's a lot of this focuses on, forest parks and recreation proposing to shift some of the appointing an oversight authority for town forest fire wardens more to the municipal level. And as part of that, you know, the the town select boards would maintain, well, I should say part of this is part of the bill would explicitly designate the chief engineer of the fire department that preserves that that provides protection to a town to be the town's forest fire warden. That person could then appoint deputies to help issue, permits for open burning and things like that. The select boards would be in charge of setting the salaries for these officials, which that's currently the case for the town forest fire wardens. My understanding is many of them serve without compensation. But as part of this shift in responsibilities, section eight does propose to remove language that requires FPR to pay town forest fire wardens a pretty nominal amount of money, $30 annually for fulfilling their requirements of, you know, managing issuing the open burning permits. A $30 per diem for attending trainings required by the commissioner. My understanding is they don't require these trainings right now. And a $10 annual payment for each fire report they submit. This is gonna have nominal savings to FPR's budget. I think they mentioned in testimony probably 12,000 to $15,000 That's well within the realm of

[Speaker 0]: They get paid for reporting forest fires? Apparently. But I don't

[Chris Rupe, Joint Fiscal Office]: think anybody is getting rich at these rates now.

[Speaker 0]: No, they're not getting rich. I'm just surprised that we even pay people to report any rate.

[Chris Rupe, Joint Fiscal Office]: There's a dollar associated with that, so we mentioned it.

[Rep. Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: Sorry, there was a typo when you said fulfilling. The word here said fully. Oh

[Ted Burnett, Joint Fiscal Office]: yeah, it does.

[Chris Rupe, Joint Fiscal Office]: I'm gonna go ahead and throw Grady under the bus for that. That's the kind of

[Rep. Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: wouldn't ask you to throw anybody under the bus

[Chris Rupe, Joint Fiscal Office]: because I appreciate that correction. That's the kind of thing spell check doesn't pick up, and our eyes start to laze

[Speaker 0]: over correctly. Yeah.

[Rep. Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: I tried that word in spelling bee,

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell (Clerk, House Appropriations Committee)]: and it wouldn't

[Chris Rupe, Joint Fiscal Office]: work. My fingers were not moving as fast as my brain when I was writing this at 11:00 at night. There's also language in section eight that stipulates how municipalities could get reimbursed for forest fire suppression. So there's language here that allows municipalities to get reimbursed for all or a portion of their costs if they're fighting a forest fire on land that's not owned by the state, but that would depend on the availability of funds to do that. So it doesn't require an appropriation. It's more permissive. There's also language in here that stipulates that if the forest fire does happen on land owned by ANR, then the state may reimburse the municipality for some or all of the costs, subject to some criteria. You know, the commissioner would, set that reimbursement rate. Nothing in the bill, explicitly sets the reimbursement rates or explicitly appropriates funds. Any reimbursements that would happen to municipalities for suppressing forest fires on ANR lands would come from the appropriation for forest fire suppression. So this is a lot of verbiage, but it doesn't explicitly require you to find any additional money in the budget.

[Speaker 0]: And we had money in the budget adjustment this year around wildfires. One was for

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: a helicopter. It was only a burgeoning. But yeah.

[Chris Rupe, Joint Fiscal Office]: Another really obscure provision in here was section nine. It repeals the uniform fire prevention ticket. This is a provision on the books that, from my understanding, is almost never used because the process is a little unusual. It goes through the criminal division of the superior court. The fines are or or the penalties, rather, are really, really low, And, it sort of awkwardly relies on fire wardens who are not trained in law enforcement to be writing criminal tickets. So the bill proposes to repeal this provision that nobody really seems to be using. There's other ways you can get at going after these types of behaviors without having to have this particularly onerous obscure avenue of doing it. Section 12 gets to the public safety communications task force, and I'll defer to Ted on this. But the language here does not appropriate any additional money, but it really speaks to changing the authorization of uses of monies that were previously appropriated or held in reserve due to prior budget bills and, allows this money to be available for DPS to procure and implement a multidisciplinary computer aided dispatch system for public safety communications subject to the following criteria. So 2,250,000.00 would be available for immediate costs associated with establishing that computer aided dispatch system along with five years of software licensing fees, with a requirement that DPS issues an RFP and science contracts with these services by January 1. Another $190,000 would be immediately available for cybersecurity, expanded use of RapidSOS and geographic information systems. And then 4,500,000.0 would be available incrementally over two years to implement and expand the land mobile radio network to include a statewide conceptual design. I've pretty much exhausted my knowledge on this topic, so I'll defer to Ted to sort of walk through the other pieces that I missed and sort of where we are at this point.

[Speaker 0]: Thank you. Yes. Phil, listen.

[Unidentified committee member]: It's Ted.

[Ted Burnett, Joint Fiscal Office]: Sure. Ted Burnett, joint fiscal office. So a big this has been a very long conversation, but to start us with act 78 of 2023, which created the Public Safety Communications Task Force to oversee and manage all phases of the development, design, and implementation of the statewide public safety communication system. So it created the task force. It also made changes to $11,000,000 originally appropriated in Act 185. It gave the task force $1,000,000 to pay for consultants and pay for DMs for folks from the task force. Their deliverables were to generate a system inventory and assessment. That means figuring out where equipment is in dispatch centers all across the state, understanding the resources that are available in the dispatch system. And that report was due 09/15/2024. I provided hyperlinks in the fiscal notes so you can review those. They're quite long. Maybe some if you're having trouble winding down your brain at the end of the night. So there is also they were required to come up with a final design plan that was due 12/15/2024. That document has various options for a construction of a statewide public safety communications network and has some recommendations on implementation of that network. Within X78, the task force was able to request up to an additional $1,000,000 from JFC. In July 2025, they requested $517,000 and some dollars and cents that would support the work of the task force through fiscal year twenty six. The work done by the task force ran longer than the deadlines. This was substantial lift to get information from dispatch centers across the state and contract with folks to work through the overall plan. And so this work was supported through fiscal year twenty six.

[Speaker 0]: Question for you, So there was three bullets. There were dates that things were due. Did those happen by the due dates? They did not happen by

[Ted Burnett, Joint Fiscal Office]: the due dates, but they are now done.

[Speaker 0]: They are all done now.

[Ted Burnett, Joint Fiscal Office]: They are all done, yes.

[Speaker 0]: In

[Ted Burnett, Joint Fiscal Office]: addition, X78 made available $4,500,000 for pilot programs. It is my understanding that there have been no pilot programs to date because task force did not want to recommend any pilot programs while they were still trying to identify what a future state might look like. And then there was a remaining $5,500,000 that was held in reserve. And so, that's a bit of history to get us to the point where this spending outlined in the bill had to be reauthorized, all the previous spending amounts in 'seventy eight, the time period on those have lapsed, so it's reauthorized. And now that there's been quite a bit of work done, this is seen as the initial work that can be done. I will defer to experts in the field, but to start to make systems more interoperable and augment what folks are able to do at dispatch centers before imagining a more changes to the governing network, public safety communications.

[Speaker 0]: Right, so there was 11,000,000. It was over two different We had the two different carry forwards that we've seen in our report. So this is money that is proposed to be being spent from those carryforwards, but not all of it is being requested. So the final 5.5 is staying in the carryforward at this point in this proposal. Do I have that right? It's a

[Ted Burnett, Joint Fiscal Office]: bit bigger than the five. So of the $11000000.9600000.0 is left, and this bill would spend just shy of $7,000,000

[Speaker 0]: So what about the remaining 5,500,000.0

[Ted Burnett, Joint Fiscal Office]: So this would pull from that 5,500,000.0. So it's a little bit The $500,000 that was requested by the task force in the summer was a piece that came from the 5.5. And so there's, in total, 10 there's four point five and five point five. There's a little bit less. There's about $6000000.9.5, depending on if you're looking at actual spending versus what is authorized. And so the bill of that collective four point five and five point five spends 7,000,000.

[Speaker 0]: So that's where I'm a little confused. The numbers aren't adding up for me. Because on the previous page, have 2,250,000.00, 190,000, 4,500,000.0, and then we have 5,500,000.0. And I haven't taken out my calculator to add all those up, but I'm not getting to eleven or I'm not getting to 5.5 left. So I'm a little It

[Ted Burnett, Joint Fiscal Office]: is not the most transparent collection of numbers. I will agree with you there. So it is helpful to think of two pools. So in the bill, if you add up the 2.25, the 190,000, the 4,500,000.0, you end up at 6,940,000.00. And of the 11,000,000 in Act 78, a little less than 9,500,000.0 is left after the 1,000,000 that was originally authorized for tax force expenses and then the additional 517,000 that was authorized to them. So it's helpful to put everything that was in Act 76 in one pool and then helpful to put all the requests in this bill together and subtract the amount that's in the bill from what's left of the 11,000,000 from Act 78.

[Speaker 0]: We have approximately 3,000,000 left from BLO.

[Ted Burnett, Joint Fiscal Office]: You mean after the spending that is proposed in this bill? This proposed spending, yes. Yes, after this proposed spending, yeah, subtracting I'm not great at mental math, but 9.5

[Speaker 0]: minuteus 6.9. Yep. So, we're talking about is 2.9.

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell (Clerk, House Appropriations Committee)]: Great, yep.

[Speaker 0]: And so, did I just, I guess I'm, so I added up the 6.94, which is on the first page, and it's five point 5, and that gets me to 12,000,440. So, it's already over budget by a million $4.40 if those numbers are not overlapping. The five and a half

[Ted Burnett, Joint Fiscal Office]: is held in reserve. The four and a half for pilot programs. There weren't any pilot programs spent. So the total amount that's available for dispatch related funding was $10,000,000 of which the task force used their authority to use an additional $517,000 of that for work through fiscal year twenty six. So really, the available amount of resources from 78 is The 5.5 is subsumed pool. And so the amount

[Speaker 0]: There's five point there's a 5.5 available somewhere. That's where I'm finding we're not holding 5,500,000.0 in reserve at the end of all this. Correct. Yes. That's what it's missing. What are we holding in reserve? Any of it?

[Ted Burnett, Joint Fiscal Office]: So it would be the balance that's not spent out of the proposed. So it would be approximately two

[Speaker 0]: point Okay. $92,900,000.0 actually will be held in reserve. Exactly.

[Ted Burnett, Joint Fiscal Office]: And we can put together a summary table

[Rep. Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: for the committee to That

[Speaker 0]: would great.

[Ted Burnett, Joint Fiscal Office]: Yeah, think it'd be really

[Speaker 0]: This thing was a challenge when we were both underbrokes, but this thing got created right, five, six years ago, whenever it was. So that would be helpful. I know I have questions, but probably the questions I have are not for you guys. So why don't we finish up the rest of the proposal here? That's it, madam chair. Section 13 is the rehash of the appropriations that we

[Chris Rupe, Joint Fiscal Office]: talked about at the very beginning. Yeah. Okay. Just before that, in section 12, we mentioned the per diems to that tax.

[Speaker 0]: 2,355,000.000 of new money, and the dispatch thing is all money that we had in carry forward that we didn't

[Chris Rupe, Joint Fiscal Office]: Yeah. That's correct.

[Speaker 0]: We're clear on that part before we get committee members up to explain other details. Yeah. This Section 13, those monies are all news monies. That's right. Correct. We're talking about the dispatch service, we're talking about money that was set aside five years Right, absolutely. Right, and I still have questions about that, but it's not new money from a stat standpoint. It's whether we want to release the money is the question that we're going to have have to ask. Okay, so you're welcome to Don't go away, but you can sit over there. Repango and Rep. Byron, do you both want to come?

[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair, House Government Operations & Military Affairs)]: Madam Chair, this is hurling

[Speaker 0]: on the know. Actual he sees their stuff. Is that clingers?

[Rep. Matt Birong (Chair, House Government Operations & Military Affairs)]: The gentleman's like clingers monkey bread. Plug, not to plug a small business on YouTube.

[Speaker 0]: So if you would like to introduce yourselves, and then we'll probably have

[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair, House Government Operations & Military Affairs)]: a bunch of questions for you to ask. Representative Lisa Hango from Franklin five. I'm the vice chair of government operations and military affairs.

[Rep. Matt Birong (Chair, House Government Operations & Military Affairs)]: Representative Matt Byrong, Addison three, chair, house government operations, military affairs. And, madam chair, we have multiple bills on the floor this morning with some amendments. So if I receive a text message, I will

[Speaker 0]: I understand.

[Rep. Matt Birong (Chair, House Government Operations & Military Affairs)]: The New York.

[Speaker 0]: We have people reporting on bills, even if there's no money that came through our committee. So there will be a lot of to ing and fro ing this week, and we understand. Yes. Okay. So do you guys want to talk a little bit about this whole dispatch thing first? What you want to So, some of my questions when I was reading through We obviously have to approve releasing the funds. So the $2,250,000 for immediate costs associated with establishing the multidisciplinary dispatch is there an actual plan? I'm looking at page 27 of 27. Great. Thank you. So

[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair, House Government Operations & Military Affairs)]: they are prepared to issue RFPs. They've been studying this for a really long time, as you know. And they're prepared to issue RFPs on this, which the process of getting the RFPs back will take some time, up to my understanding, maybe a year or more to get the RFPs back. So this is something that they would like to start working on immediately.

[Speaker 0]: So I guess when we set this thing up back in whatever year that was, two or something, The idea was that public safety would be coming with a plan for how we would do dispatch going forward. And is that going to happen? Yes. And that's the plan I'm thinking that we weren't going to release money until there was a plan for how we were going to reconfigure things.

[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair, House Government Operations & Military Affairs)]: My understanding is they are still working on the plan. The plan is a work in progress as they incrementally improve the infrastructure that they currently have. Because my understanding also is if they were to start from scratch, it would be something like a $36,000,000 project, and they're not going to do that. So they're building on what they have now, and you'll see there are things like upgrading the land mobile radio system and immediately expanding the use of this rapid SOS system that they already use and geographic information systems. So at first, yes, it's frustrating at first glance that there is no plan. But I think they are really on the right road to developing a plan. And it is going to take multiple years to implement. So by releasing funds incrementally to them to get the work done in the interim and to help especially rural Vermont communities who right now have not a lot of capacity or capability to receive signal will be very instrumental in helping those local communities' responses to emergencies.

[Speaker 0]: So would part of that $2,200,000 contract be for whoever they signed with to develop the plan that they were supposed to develop but we haven't had developed yet?

[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair, House Government Operations & Military Affairs)]: Right. So this is what they landed on, this multidisciplinary computer aided dispatch system and the associated software licensing fees that go with the system. And please note that it is intentionally multidisciplinary, so every single rescue squad, police department, fire department can utilize this system. Right now, that's piecemeal. So this will allow everyone to use a similar technology system. So would

[Speaker 0]: we have a system at the end of spending this $2,200,000 or just a plan for a system?

[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair, House Government Operations & Military Affairs)]: No, you will have a system.

[Speaker 0]: Okay. However,

[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair, House Government Operations & Military Affairs)]: everyone's use of that system will depend on a lot of different things, like whether they have an operable tower in their area, because that's another piece to this, that they might need to build a new tower, for instance, in order to have coverage. So this is all part of the big plan that they're working on. There are so many different pieces to this.

[Speaker 0]: Okay. So tell us more about the 4,500,000 available incrementally. I don't know what that means. Is this? And again, it sounds like it's to create a conceptual design. So I'm hoping that we're going to have something deliverable, I mean, thing concrete at the end of all of this.

[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair, House Government Operations & Military Affairs)]: I believe we will. There is another pot of money that hasn't been discussed in this bill because it's not state funds. It's congressionally directed spending. And they are using that money to, right now, upgrade the land mobile radio network. And this money that we would be setting aside, that we're requesting to be set aside would be to piggyback on the work that's being done with the federal money. So that these towers and the land mobile radio system is working together and reaching the rural areas that need to be reached. So none of this is, I think maybe conceptual design was probably an inaccurate choice of words. But all of this money will be used for concrete things, not just thinking about the problem. I know where you're coming from on that.

[Rep. Matt Birong (Chair, House Government Operations & Military Affairs)]: I just want to echo that point. Like, has been a very long and arduous process to get to this point. But functional implementation intangibles, I believe, is the step that we're at. Yeah.

[Speaker 0]: And what do we get for the $4,500,000 because that's really not clear? And how do we know how to appropriate it incrementally, or how do we decide what increments are? I

[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair, House Government Operations & Military Affairs)]: think by requests from the department and the task force who are working together, they will, when they request that money be released, they will say they will have to say specifically it's to be released for. And truthfully, our committee did not get into the weeds of the science and the technology of these programs. Because at And

[Speaker 0]: that's the moment all I'm thinking, though, that we want to understand, they may come to us, but we have to have some criteria for deciding to release the funds. So just we'd like the money, and we're not going to say, Okay, we should be setting up ahead of time. We'll release the money when A, C, D are accomplished. And that's what I don't have some clarity on that yet, but maybe you do. So I'm gonna turn to John with a question, too. Yeah, I

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: think it seems to me, I've read through this here, it seems to me that a large portion of this is trying to improve the communication system within the field to dispatchers and vice versa here to make sure we have the right resources in the right place. Like, did kind of look up the, they didn't use AI here for this, RapidSOS, it does utilize that technology. It brings lots, it's a platform that you can bring several sources of information to a place so the communication can be more concentrated to folks in the field. So I'm just, I'm not an expert in this obviously here, but it's always a challenge in the field, just given what representative Hango mentioned here. Oh, yeah. Across this just I think that's a large part of it. Here are the other parts of it I haven't jumped into here that they're to learn more.

[Speaker 0]: Is this

[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair, House Government Operations & Military Affairs)]: a way to address the ongoing, ever challenging dispatch system we've had for all kinds of things over the past many, many, many, many, many years? We did this in 'twenty two and 'twenty three, and then we put money in there that was put aside, and now this is the next step, and we hope this is the implementation for real stuff.

[Rep. Matt Birong (Chair, House Government Operations & Military Affairs)]: This is a twenty year conversation with a three or four year project where we are at an inflection point right now. Correct.

[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair, House Government Operations & Military Affairs)]: And, madam chair, if you don't mind, the co chair of the task force and the deputy commissioner of public safety, who are one and the same person, sent me a memo that said specifically regarding the $4,500,000 includes planning an deployment. So the time to implement work could begin immediately and take place over the next year. The report that the task force issued detailed a broad need for system improvements to the land mobile radio network, the cost of which exceeds previously appropriated funds. However, existing funds could be utilized to make foundational and incremental improvements in areas of highest need, which in a lot of cases are very rural areas. These improvements would include technical infrastructure projects and the ability to fund local pilot projects to demonstrate feasibility. So if they work in one area, they might work in another area of the state, for instance. The following are details on specific breakdown of LMR, land mobile radio build out. Statewide conceptual design, including site selection, simulcast cell definition, site equipment requirements, backhaul configuration, and frequency assignments detailed design for one or more proof of concept projects and initial implementation of pilot projects build out of up to 10 to 15 sites, including equipment and antenna deployment at existing chosen sites. Why don't you send that to Autumn, and then we will all have access to

[Speaker 0]: that. That's good. I'm hearing more in the way of concrete plans and I will not retain that. So if you could, would

[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair, House Government Operations & Military Affairs)]: be great. That's fine. And I also have a breakdown from him regarding the 190,000 for the GIS system and the $2,000,000

[Speaker 0]: 2,000,000 would be great. Because we have to decide how to determine what's available incrementally. That's unclear as to what that I mean, among other things, that's one of the many things. Sure. Okay. And the balance. Right. I mean, you don't mention the balance, but we know there's a balance out there. And I think we want to have an idea about that might be employed future after you've Right. These So,

[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair, House Government Operations & Military Affairs)]: I want to speak for a minute to the balance. We have tried very hard to do our math. And being a policy committee, we are not a math committee. And we've had the same issues that JFO said, this is a really difficult map to follow in terms of the money and not having been here at the time of original well, we were here in the building, but we did not have anything to do with this policy area or the budgeting process for it. So it's been really difficult for us. And that money that's being asked for is specifically what the task force and the department have asked for. And that's what

[Speaker 0]: we put in our bill. Okay, so Tom and then Wayne.

[Chris Rupe, Joint Fiscal Office]: Just

[Rep. Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: Representative Byron, you mentioned that this is a twenty year process. Mean, this conversation And I can appreciate that these monies are going to be coming from a source that already exists. I seem to recall last year talking about not just communications equipment, but a lot of different equipment, especially with the ongoing saga of ABS and five years software wise and etcetera. So did any of this and I don't need to know all the details of this one, any of this conversation with these organizations address not only what is it going to take to get this up and running today with the existing technology, but you know five years ago the technology was really different.

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell (Clerk, House Appropriations Committee)]: Ten

[Rep. Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: years ago it was exceptionally different than what it is now. I don't think anybody could have anticipated at our level the advances. So is a portion of this planning that's going on going to include future planning which says okay today we're going to open it up and we have this phone but in five years we're going to have completely different technology available to us and this is what we're going to plan for because we see this we've seen this a lot where responding

[Rep. Matt Birong (Chair, House Government Operations & Military Affairs)]: we're reacting

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: rather

[Rep. Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: than saying there's a five year software license and once this starts, we're actually going to start planning the next five year license today because that's not how we usually work and I would like to see us moving faster so that we're not stuck with a lot of unknowns with the people. We're learning that as we all have that computers are more expensive than what we set them up to be. Did any of this conversation include does any of this planning for all of this money include future planning, or is that conversation been had, or is it just focusing on getting it up and going as it is?

[Rep. Matt Birong (Chair, House Government Operations & Military Affairs)]: Short answer, yes. That conversation was had we had testimony from, I believe it was deputy commissioner in TBS, that this is this is a bridge plan right now with figuring out how to support the software and all of those factors as this money does its thing, but then no longer exists. So there is a plan to look more to the future on how to fund this. There's different options on the table. There's nothing granular, but it is recognized that this is bridge money right now to get to that point, knowing that we will have to continually have updated software, you know, updated hardware, things of that nature. That is that is known as realized, and it is on the radar.

[Rep. Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: And ask in complete appreciation making it work in the topography of our state. It's been a real

[Unidentified committee member]: world problem

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: here. Yeah.

[Rep. Matt Birong (Chair, House Government Operations & Military Affairs)]: No, I mean this is incredibly complicated. It has been a steep learning curve. And I think the one thing I can say with confidence, though, is all we're trying to be very proactive and set this up in steps to the words you used. So we're planning and not reacting.

[Speaker 0]: Yeah, Wayne, next.

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell (Clerk, House Appropriations Committee)]: Twenty years ago I was involved. Remember, we had people who had a conversation about radio this year, stuff like that. So the question is and twenty years ago, the problem was different agencies with different ideas. So the question is have you had testimony from the other agency? I want to know that they're all on board and that they're all pulling in the same direction. Because if they're not then there's going to be a sign. So any testimony from anybody else, any other agency?

[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair, House Government Operations & Military Affairs)]: Not specifically that we have invited them in and asked, are you on board with this plan? But the task force was set up specifically to look at a multidisciplinary system that will serve every agency, department, and rescue squad throughout the state.

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell (Clerk, House Appropriations Committee)]: What brought brought membership on the task force?

[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair, House Government Operations & Military Affairs)]: I couldn't tell you at this moment in time who's a member of the task force, but I'm sure I can Google it, and we can go from there. But this task force has been in existence for a while now, and I know that their intent, because they have testified to us, that their intent is to bring in every agency and department that works in emergency or rescue planning to to the discussion.

[Rep. Matt Birong (Chair, House Government Operations & Military Affairs)]: It was a it was a pretty broad stakeholder group.

[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair, House Government Operations & Military Affairs)]: I will add that the report of the Public Safety Communications Task Force is on our webpage.

[Speaker 0]: It's also in the Twin Fiscal Housing from last July, would it be, Ted?

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell (Clerk, House Appropriations Committee)]: It's also in Fiscal the Housing.

[Speaker 0]: Okay. So if we go online, we can do it there. Marty So has this. She had to go report a bill on the floor. So she'll be back in a few minutes. But at any rate, she'll be digging into this more. I'm grateful that she's got this because she was around when we did this the first time. So we have some memory about that part. So I'm going to move to the other appropriations that you have. If you want to talk a little bit about these that really don't, other than the ready response, don't well, a couple of them. Not all of them have to do with emergency management directly. So why don't you tell us your thinking about why these are in this bill?

[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair, House Government Operations & Military Affairs)]: Do you have any specific ones that you want answers to right I'm

[Speaker 0]: just looking at the fiscal note with

[Ted Burnett, Joint Fiscal Office]: the Yeah, I'm looking at the bullets on the back page.

[Unidentified committee member]: There's chart

[Chris Rupe, Joint Fiscal Office]: on the top.

[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair, House Government Operations & Military Affairs)]: So the Ready Response Grant program is specifically dealing in with food and bottled the time of an emergency, like a flood. And in conjunction with the Division of Emergency Management, they would have there would be an MOU between DEM and a food bank organization to distribute Plan for, procure and distribute, sorry, I don't

[Speaker 0]: have my exact notes

[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair, House Government Operations & Military Affairs)]: here, for food and bottled water in times when the division itself would need a day or so to procure those items, the banks generally are prepared to do that. So hence, the MOU with a food bank. We have, and I have sent this to Marty already, Rep Feltus already, we have budget requests from all of these organizations that my understanding was that they did not need to be part of this bill because we named them in our budget memo with language. But if they need to be in our bill, she has the budget requests for these organizations.

[Speaker 0]: So the search and rescue didn't this is

[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair, House Government Operations & Military Affairs)]: the first time this has showed up in anything this year. So tell us about what that request is. Okay. So Urban Search and Vermont State Urban Search and Rescue, the USAR team, that's what they're known as, they are part of municipal fire services and they have requested $720,000 of recurring funding. I mean, like base,

[Tucker Anderson, Legislative Counsel]: it's well, it's currently $5.50 Or sorry, $4.50 base, and then we one timed it last year with seven two seventy. So

[Speaker 0]: they have $4.50 base in the budget right now.

[Rep. Matt Birong (Chair, House Government Operations & Military Affairs)]: And then we were one timing this to get to that sum total. Our request now is to just make that all reoccurring base funding.

[Speaker 0]: So this isn't all new money. So some of this is in the governor's recommended budget now?

[Rep. Matt Birong (Chair, House Government Operations & Military Affairs)]: Check our sheet. Yeah.

[Speaker 0]: But will do that.

[Rep. Matt Birong (Chair, House Government Operations & Military Affairs)]: Yes, I believe at least the basis, but with it's that was spoken to in our budget.

[Speaker 0]: And you need to find out if what's in the governor's recommended budget, what would be new money? Yes, we have that on the spreadsheet we submitted to your committee with our budget. Okay. I find it like in two seconds here. Just bear with me.

[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair, House Government Operations & Military Affairs)]: So our spreadsheet says it's silent on being in the governor's regiment. So my question for your budget liaison for that program. So I'm thinking that either Chris or James can find out if anything of this is in the current governor's budget request, but you're looking for a total of $7.20.

[Rep. Matt Birong (Chair, House Government Operations & Military Affairs)]: It was funded at $7.20 last year. Fragmented.

[Speaker 0]: I'm thinking if $4.50 was in the base, then it's likely to be in the base again this year. So you might be asking again for another 70. Wayne?

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell (Clerk, House Appropriations Committee)]: So back on the million dollars with food, is there another program in the state that does the same thing?

[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair, House Government Operations & Military Affairs)]: Not this rapid ready response. The food bags sometimes, I believe, but I would defer to maybe members in the gallery from those organizations, that they can do this. The National Guard can also go out and do this in very limited capacity in terms of the selection of food and water that they deliver. But this is something that specifically would need to go out immediately. And the food banks are ready to do that if they know ahead of time to stockpile

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell (Clerk, House Appropriations Committee)]: to So this million dollars create a stockpile? And if it does, then how does it I assume it's perishable because your National Guard stuff is designed to be long lasting. You don't have anything long lasting

[Speaker 0]: Shelf stable is what you're Yes.

[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair, House Government Operations & Military Affairs)]: So in the bill, it's called out as being shelf stable, and hence the bottled water as opposed to filling a big tanker and bringing it.

[Chris Rupe, Joint Fiscal Office]: It's just We're not gonna be buying stuff that we throw away in place. No.

[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair, House Government Operations & Military Affairs)]: And there's a there's a federal statute that that describes how to rotate stock to keep it safe.

[Rep. Matt Birong (Chair, House Government Operations & Military Affairs)]: Yeah. And again, a lot of the work that's being done with these emergency management bills year over year is learning from the emergencies of the past and how to better be situated just knowing that they're coming, real

[Rep. Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: about what we're living through.

[Speaker 0]: This was a request from last year too. Saw, we had a

[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair, House Government Operations & Military Affairs)]: 20 budget request for the

[Speaker 0]: same program as last year. Okay.

[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair, House Government Operations & Military Affairs)]: Did you want to talk more about USAR? No,

[Speaker 0]: I think it sounds like it's similar. It just pushed me to heard it. And then you just added band to show that you're supporting their request. And that includes the community radio for 90 and then 90.

[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair, House Government Operations & Military Affairs)]: Well, what I'm a little intrigued by is this looks like you know, a systems approach to emergency management. And there are a lot of different pieces that feed into kind of public communication. And I was very happy to see the Vermont Language Justice Project name because they have been doing for pennies incredible work to get the word out to immigrant communities in their languages, through WhatsApp blasts, through the means of communication that actually matter to them about floods, about COVID, about upcoming changes to food stamps and Medicaid. So that is a really important resource. Think these things are part and parcel of the same system. I think the question I have is, of this 2,330,000, what has to be in the base? And what is Wonton? And it strikes me that much of it is based on the ask. If we want to be, and I appreciate this question. If we want to be prepared for the 2023, 'twenty four, and 'twenty five floods all over again, then yes, base is the answer. Because if we keep revisiting this every year and saying, Oh, last summer, that's what happened, or Last winter, look what happened, we're not really prepared.

[Rep. Matt Birong (Chair, House Government Operations & Military Affairs)]: And that's just been a philosophical approach for us, is to be proactive, not reactive with this, to learn the lessons of the years that we've I mean, our generation of legislators, normally a generation of legislators gets one big thing, right? What do we have, four?

[Speaker 0]: Including COVID, yes.

[Rep. Matt Birong (Chair, House Government Operations & Military Affairs)]: And like those of us who've been here since before that starting, like we have dealt with some major crisis and it is persistent. It's not as erratic and inconsistent on the calendar as it used to be. So we're just trying to be real about what we're living right now so we can react appropriately.

[Speaker 0]: Do you have Doug Farnham, chief appropriate officer, come in and talk about any of these? Yeah.

[Rep. Matt Birong (Chair, House Government Operations & Military Affairs)]: He was on vacation.

[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair, House Government Operations & Military Affairs)]: He was unavailable when we were dealing with that section of the bill.

[Rep. Matt Birong (Chair, House Government Operations & Military Affairs)]: But he communicated with I believe it was deputy commissioner Batesy, and he coordinated the testimony through the deputy commissioner. So we did communicate it with him. His words were spoken just through another input.

[Speaker 0]: And so, thank you. Jumping down to the 25,000, there's a lot of newly createds in here. Where did this notion come from?

[Rep. Matt Birong (Chair, House Government Operations & Military Affairs)]: Yes. So that is again coming in and around sort of the USAR concept.

[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair, House Government Operations & Military Affairs)]: It is.

[Rep. Matt Birong (Chair, House Government Operations & Military Affairs)]: And what that does is that's one time for $5,000 grants for training and equipment.

[Speaker 0]: And where did the idea of it come from?

[Rep. Matt Birong (Chair, House Government Operations & Military Affairs)]: It was the idea the concept was delivered to us by the folks in the USAAR organization, first responders.

[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair, House Government Operations & Military Affairs)]: And this is specifically for the operations that might be, like, a small swift water rescue team in a small community, even though there's a larger one connected with a municipal fire department a half an hour or forty five minutes down the road. These are local folks that would need equipment, gear, to carry out a rescue in their hometown.

[Rep. Matt Birong (Chair, House Government Operations & Military Affairs)]: Mean, I think of, like, example, something similar to the extraction that they had to navigate on the lake when the ice fragmented and folks got trapped on the other side of the things of that nature, like very out of the box, very technical, but also very dangerous.

[Speaker 0]: And they don't get this kind of training now?

[Rep. Matt Birong (Chair, House Government Operations & Military Affairs)]: It seems based on the testimony we took, this would help them access their training.

[Speaker 0]: John?

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: Maybe even some different type of training here. You know, my part of the state and lots of other parts of the state here too, we're seeing more and more people out there doing fun things. Things happen here. I'm gonna try and find them here first. I've had to participate in several of these concerts in my area of state here, which included some challenges with communication here for her, even with, you know, line of sight radio kinds of things. But, if there's doing other kinds of things, then you have to have some training for that one or two things that may happen every three, four, five years.

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell (Clerk, House Appropriations Committee)]: So

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: I think that's part of what I think a lot of rescue team, EMS rescue groups are looking at. We have a fire department, it's all volunteer and backcountry rescue. And for, we respond to the second highest number of backcountry rescues in the entire state. So that was the first group that responds to all Yeah. Many of the others along the state police because they have backcountry rescue teams as well, which I've had to work with on a search and rescue number of persons successfully, thankfully. But those things don't happen a lot.

[Speaker 0]: Right, when they happen, they're

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: You just simply need to have the training in place, PRUs that you can grab and go. And they, over time, go through interdepartment trainings, so they don't forget, they've learned. Right. So they're prepared for that one or two times. Yeah. It's important. But

[Speaker 0]: there is some training already available. That people are doing this training now, because you're getting trained. We haven't had these grants, but people are getting trained now.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: There are, there's more of that happening. Yeah.

[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair, House Government Operations & Military Affairs)]: Okay. And many of the volunteers may have had training in other areas of their careers or their lives, they know what they're doing and they set up a program, a small group in their small community, But this specifically, we were told that this kind of money under $5,000 would make the difference between someone having appropriate gear to wear to keep themselves waterproof or warm, and having ear to rescue someone. They'd have to make that choice. Saturday. The small teens. Right.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: Think And I just said, a lifespan full of this stuff here as well. So I think periodically, you start seeing replacement kinds of funding that needs to happen over time. Great.

[Speaker 0]: Okay, that's a lot in this bill. We spent a lot of time on this bill. Any other questions for Byron or Hango on this? I think Marty will be in touch with you. We have a lot to digest. We're obviously not going to vote on this right now. We'll look at it in the context of all the other things we're looking at. So we appreciate all the work that you've done on this. And we'll be in touch.

[Rep. Matt Birong (Chair, House Government Operations & Military Affairs)]: Thank you, Madam Chair. Really appreciate the time and the focus on this. And as we said throughout this, it's this is a combination of, like, years of process and work on so many different inputs. So It'd be

[Speaker 0]: nice to get further ahead of some of

[Rep. Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: those things.

[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair, House Government Operations & Military Affairs)]: I do want to say in response to, I think it was Rep. Bluemle who said that this appears to be a comprehensive effort of putting a lot of different pieces together. That was our intent with this bill, is that we're trying not to leave too many stones unturned. Thank you.

[Speaker 0]: You very much. Okay, thank you. Okay, so committee, we now have the four ten that we did this year. That one needs 09:40. 09:40, okay. That was the one we saw at 08:30 this morning. Yeah. Yesterday. And this is John's bill anyway, so I'm not going to rid of the fact that Marty's on the floor reporting a bill. This is the one that had no money. James did the fiscal note or the lap thereof and said there was no money. This was

[Ted Burnett, Joint Fiscal Office]: something getting rid of

[Speaker 0]: the what they came to us is the advisory board being repealed. And they haven't been funding anyway. So that's the bill. So I would entertain a motion to approve nine forty as introduced by the Committee on Energy and Digital Infrastructure. So moved. Thank you. Second by Wayne. No further discussion? Sneading up on the quircus berry.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: I'll check. Yeah.

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell (Clerk, House Appropriations Committee)]: Good. Representative Windham? Yes. Representative Dickinson? Yes. Representative Bell?

[Chris Rupe, Joint Fiscal Office]: I'll catch.

[Unidentified committee member]: Yeah. Representative Kascenska? Yes.

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell (Clerk, House Appropriations Committee)]: Representative Laroche? Yes. Representative Mrowicki? Yes. Representative Nigro?

[Rep. Michael Nigro (Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: Yes. Representative Squirrell? Yes. Representative Steven? Yes.

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell (Clerk, House Appropriations Committee)]: Then Yacovone? Yes. Represent Chittenden? Yes. All the old.

[Speaker 0]: All right, and it's fine if it's 1001. I think we're gonna have this happening this week with all of you going up and down for various reasons. This is John.

[Rep. Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: Yeah, okay, so it's not.

[Speaker 0]: If no, I wouldn't be holding the vote over, and yeah, Dave. A quick question.

[Unidentified committee member]: Is this how it's being done? I'll just get a text and say, please go up and report our amendment or do the language thing like we used to with Nigel. Didn't Am I

[Speaker 0]: No, we're still doing the language. If you're reporting, you have to tell Nigel. I'm just saying people are going up to report on bills that are on the floor right now.

[Unidentified committee member]: Okay, will you send me that? I'll send it

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell (Clerk, House Appropriations Committee)]: to you. Pardon? Yeah, I'll send

[Unidentified committee member]: it to you. No, yeah, thank you.

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell (Clerk, House Appropriations Committee)]: You're talking about the first one we did earlier?

[Unidentified committee member]: Yeah, the one with Alyssa Bryant. He sent

[Rep. Trevor Squirrell (Clerk, House Appropriations Committee)]: it to you yet.

[Speaker 0]: He hasn't sent it to you yet, but it's not him. Thank you. And he'll send this one to himself? No, that's not his.

[Ted Burnett, Joint Fiscal Office]: John. He'll send this one to John,

[Speaker 0]: the next one he'll send to himself. Did we get the amendment yet? Okay, so we're waiting on 04:10, which is the recidivism and the money that we agreed to, that we need the amendment for that so it goes to the right people. Right, the coverage isn't. So, we'll delay that vote until Maybe we can do that at 01:00 before I mean, they can still come in and say, this is not gonna take very long. So we can do one 01:05 or something like that, but it's already 12:10. So why don't we go off live and people can have lunch?