Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: We're Okay, here we are again. House Appropriations Committee, Wednesday, 03/18/2026. It's 11:30, and we are switching gears to talk about age five fifty eight, which are related to Medicaid school based services programs. And we have a proposal to ultimately bring this into the budget. And we have Jared Kornheiser from Ways and Teams to tee it up for us. We have all the staff to really help us understand this. So welcome. Thank you. Hi, Emily Kornheiser, Professor

[Rep. Emily Kornheiser (Chair, House Ways and Means Committee)]: of the Crowleyboro, Chair of Ways and Means here on H58. Much like you, I have a lot of other bills in my head right now, so I'm going to do my best to get in this one for a moment. So as I am sure you all know, school district supervisory unions provide Medicaid billable services to youth in the school system in various ways and have for a very long time. Historically, that program has been administered by the Agency of Education because it's schools. As you also probably all know better than I do, all other Medicaid services are go through the agency of human services. They have a very comprehensive system for it. They're in very regular touch with CMS. All those things. There has been a multiyear conversation between the agency of education and the agency of human services about moving that Medicaid billing from the Agency of Education to the Agency of Human Services in order to create a more efficient and effective system. Under the current law system with the Agency of Education, school districts, the way we've been describing it in committee, is experiencing a great deal of friction in their billing process. It tends to be very paper based. In some districts, in some circumstances, it's actually, cheaper for them to not bill Medicaid than to bill Medicaid and get reimbursed. The collaboration between AHS and AOE to move to the point that they require this legislation is fantastic. Really grateful for all of the work that AHS has done to sort of bring this to us. In moving the administration of this Medicaid services to the Agency of Human Services, Some one, some financial resources are freed up. And so in our amendment from ways and means and in the bill as you received it, the amount of administrative costs going to HS is lowered from current law. And then there is a fairly complicated reimbursement system that was in current law that we are trying to change, to make it much more straightforward, where some of the money that comes back from Medicaid goes for administration, the amount that HS requested. Some of the money that comes back goes into the education fund in order to essentially go to all districts. And some of that money goes back to districts directly to reimburse them for the costs that they built. The dollars that they can bill Medicaid for on the front end when they provide those services and send them to AHS are, as you know, very tightly controlled by CMS and very tightly controlled by AHS. How they can use them? How they can use that money the first time when they first bill. When that reimbursement comes back, under current law, that reimbursement was also very tightly controlled in how districts could spend it. But they've already had it controlled on one end, and they're just being paid back for that tightly controlled money. And so we removed the controls on the reimbursement side because they've already had the spending of it very tightly monitored. And at this point, it's just sort of their money that they're getting back. And so those are the change that's sort of the work that we've been doing. Staff, of course, can tell you way more details about it. We're really excited about it because it means more money for the Agency of Human Services, more money for the education fund, and likely much more money for districts, and lowered administrative costs, a lowered administrative burden, frankly, and greater CMS compliance. The whole thing feels just like a delightful win win across the board. It is a new process, and so there is very reasonable, warranted nervousness from the field, the education establishment, who have experienced a lot of change, as you might be aware, and are expecting a lot more change. And so we added in some language about sort of checkbacks and some more reassurance that the change would be what's best for would leave everyone better off on the other side. And that's my whole story for you.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: Thank you. And the intent is to put this in the

[Rep. Emily Kornheiser (Chair, House Ways and Means Committee)]: budget as opposed to having a separate bill. That would be lovely. It's a very necessary thing to do, and it's very much in your bailiwick.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: Okay. So we're going to hear from Legis Council on joint fiscal, and I appreciate you coming down. Absolutely. I'm going to pop back upstairs. Send me a text if you need anything. Yeah. Okay. Great. Thank you. See you later. Happy to passing. Okay, Jen

[Jennifer Carbee (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So again, Jen Carvey from the Office of Legislative Counsel. We will put this bill up on screen and make you look. This is age five fifty eight, an act relating to the Medicaid School Based Services Program. And I think you've gotten the idea of what the bill is doing from the chair, which is great, Section one adds a definition of supervisory union that means the same as in the Title 16 and includes a supervisory district. Section one provides legislative intent that the state maximize its receipt of federal reimbursement for medically related services provided to students who are eligible for Medicaid and that Vermont's school based Medicaid program comply with all federal requirements and says, as the state Medicaid agency, the agency of human services will have sole responsibility for determining and maintaining program compliance. It says the agency of education is responsible for coordination of the school based medical assistance program with statewide education policy and objectives and for communicating with the supervisory unions. And it directs the Agency of Human Services to adopt rules to identify the services that are available through the school based medical assistance program and set forth the requirements for supervisory union participation. And the rules must include state and federal requirements for Medicaid reimbursement, participation in a random moment time study and an electronic health record system, Medicaid cost reports, provider enrollments and trainings, service documentation, Medicaid eligibility, and other provisions necessary for compliance with the Medicaid program. So, Jen, just to stop

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: there for a second. Are any of these rules in effect now? Are there some sort of rules in effect at AOE now?

[Unidentified Committee Member (House Appropriations)]: This is

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: out of cleaning them up.

[Jennifer Carbee (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I'm not sure when they see that when we get

[Unidentified Committee Member (House Appropriations)]: to This

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: ensures that we're going to be in compliance as we switch going. So that's really the most important thing.

[Jennifer Carbee (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: The bill requires the Agency of Human Services to support supervisory unions by funding and providing the technical elements of the program that are needed for federal compliance, and it requires that supervisory unions who are participating also participate in a random moment time study and electronic health record system as directed by the agency of human services to enable Medicaid billing of the direct health care services and Medicaid administrative claiming activities. Section two establishes but really sort of moves a special fund that there is already a special fund you'll see in the next section that is in the education statutes. This is creating the school based Medicaid reimbursement fund in Title 33 in the Medicaid statutes to receive the federal reimbursements for medically related services delivered to and pursuant to the Medicaid School Based Services Program. And monies would be transferred to, received by the state under this section would be transferred to this special fund to be administered by the Agency of Human Services and fund receipts allocated in accordance with this section. So this is where Diva will pay 55% of the federal reimbursement monies generated by the medically related services delivered in each supervisory union under the program to the supervisory union.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: What page?

[Jennifer Carbee (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: 20% of the federal reimbursement monies generated by the services will be available for the administrative costs of the agencies of education and human services related to the collection, operations, and reporting of the school based medical assistance programs and statewide programs. Directs the agencies to enter into an MOU, setting forth the processes by which the reimbursement monies available for administrative costs and programs would be allocated to the agencies. It requires the secretaries to expend monies from the fund only as appropriated by the general assembly, and it transfers the balance, any balance remaining in the special fund at the end of each fiscal year into the education fund. Section three reduces the percentage available for administrative costs by the Agencies of Education and Human Services from 25% to 20% beginning in fiscal year twenty twenty eight. You'll see that the dates in the effective date section.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: Okay. So 25% now and then in

[Jennifer Carbee (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: 25%. Right. 25% starting in October year, and then next July, it would go down to 20.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: October 26 to June of twenty seventh exactly.

[Unidentified Committee Member (House Appropriations)]: Okay and what Wayne and so this money coming back this is our money coming back and we're just parsing it out where we want to put it When you say our money, the feds don't have any any strings attached to this. This is money comes back. It's not not being directed any place by federal laws coming back to the phase.

[Jennifer Carbee (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Largely with the caveat that I'm still trying to confirm with the Agency of Human Services the extent to which there are any restrictions based on Medicaid funding programmatic changes at the federal level. But I believe I believe that's accurate.

[Unidentified Committee Member (House Appropriations)]: Because there's reimbursement money from the program.

[Jennifer Carbee (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Reimbursement money from what the the supervisory unions spent and then they on the services. And then the state is receiving the federal match, federal reimbursement of those funds. Section four is modifying the existing provision in title 16 around the school based Medicaid services program, and it's actually taking, at this point, taking most of it out and and, just going with legislative intent. So it expresses the intent under existing law, intent that the state maximize its receipt, and we're modifying the language to match up with that new language in Section 1A, maximize receipt of federal reimbursement for medically related services provided to students who are eligible for Medicaid. Further, the intent that each supervisory union identify special education and other students eligible for Medicaid reimbursement and to the extent possible, it's updating the language to say submit Medicaid compliant cost reports and service claims. And it keeps language expressing legislative intent that the Agencies of Education and Human Services work with local school districts to maximize reimbursements, including services to non IEP students. And then it takes out the language. It would it would repeal the language in existing law, establishing the Medicaid reimbursement special fund. So there's a different special fund now entitled going into title 33, and it has the way the monies are allocated under current law, which would be struck and replaced with the new language. But under current law, the supervisory unions receive 50% of the reimbursed funds, and there are certain parameters around how they must use those funds. There are some additional provisions about what happens if the Medicaid reimbursement funds exceed $25,000,000 then there would be some additional amount going into an incentive fund. All of this language would come out of the statute. Also, repealing language requiring the supervisory unions to use the funds to pay for the reasonable costs of administering the Medicaid claims process, and districts and supervisory unions use the funds for prevention and intervention programs. Again, this is all struck through, so I won't go into too much, but it's changing the way this works. And under current law, up to 30% of the Medicaid reimbursement amounts are available for administrative costs of the agencies in administering the program. And we have a similar provision, putting anything unspent in any remaining funds into the Education Fund under current law, as is in the new language. Section five is the stakeholder engagement language that Representative Kornheiser mentioned. This directs the Agency of Human Services to collaborate with the Agency of Education, Vermont Association of School Business Officials, Vermont Council of Special Education Administrators, and school district officials in implementing changes to the Medicaid School Based Services Program in accordance with this act, including providing structured opportunities for input during the phased implementation process to address challenges and risks in a timely manner and minimize disruptions, and focusing on geographic diversity to ensure that implementation is responsive to regional variation in needs and capacity. Expand on that sentence a little bit more, please. This was language that was requested. So I don't have a whole

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: lot of There's

[Jennifer Carbee (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: There's a lot of concern around More

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: urban areas than rural areas?

[Jennifer Carbee (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I don't know what the specific concerns are. I think that just recognizing that there are a lot of differences in staffing and program implementation across the state

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: and Certain capacity to deal with this, imagine. Right, I think

[Jennifer Carbee (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: that may be some of that as well. So the needs are different, the capacity is different, the number, the volume is different. And so,

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

[Jennifer Carbee (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Right, so recognizing that there may be different needs for support.

[Unidentified Committee Member (House Appropriations)]: This has all been done at supervisory union level in the past.

[Jennifer Carbee (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I believe that's right. I believe it has been supervisory union and still will be supervisory union.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: But a lot less paperwork. I mean, I was struck, I hadn't realized until Chair Kornheiser said that some schools don't even bother to do it because the paperwork is so hard. So this eliminates that and they can actually get reimbursed

[Unidentified Committee Member (House Appropriations)]: without Same issue of having six different of this and five different of this. This clears this up.

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

[Jennifer Carbee (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Good. Finally, the effective date, the act would take effect on 10/01/2026, except that reduction in the percentage of, administrative, cost monies available to the agencies of human services and education from 25% to 20% would take effect on July 1, morning twenty seventh. Why October? Why not? That was the date requested by the agencies. I think they're still working through some, specifics to be ready.

[Unidentified Committee Member (House Appropriations)]: That's the federal. That's all.

[Jennifer Carbee (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Right. It is the federal it is the federal fiscal year. I don't know if that's part of it. But the bill, as introduced, had July 1, and the agency of human services asked for that to be changed to October.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: Julia, do you want to talk about this also? Yeah, I think that Emily's going to

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office)]: do the oh, whoever would like to

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: come over and talk about it, that would be great. Is there something we should have? Because I just have the bill. Anything else, Emily,

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office)]: that you should There's to Autumn, and I don't think you need it printed again, not because it's a big secret.

[Unidentified Committee Member (House Appropriations)]: It's not

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: overly complicated. So is it Autumn or popping up? Yeah.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office)]: So for the record, Emily Byrne, the joint fiscal office, you may recall in the budget, as presented by the governor, some of the changes as contemplated in this bill were already proposed. So there's a big shift in the AOE budget. The actual grants to the school districts are coming out of AOE's budget. They're in Diva's budget. Some of the administrative costs are moving around. But the net impact to the budget is, from governor's recommend with this bill, zero.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: Like that. At this point I see you have a presentation.

[Unidentified Committee Member (House Appropriations)]: I'm going to

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office)]: put that up. I'm going put the presentation up. Just wanted to say that out loud. I will say, in talking through so one of the things that when this came up and became a thing, one of the things that we talked with the agency of education about and the agency of human services was if this change is going into effect, AOE's base budget still had the utilization of the Medicaid special fund in it. And we're sort of like, well, if you're not running the program anymore, do you need this money? And they said, we still need the money, but we don't need it to come from this fund specifically. And then we talked to AHS and said, would you take the special fund in lieu of general fund? And they said, yes. So we've got some analysis and a proposal to just do a one for one swap with the agency of human services and the agency of education to basically get the agency of education out of the special fund entirely, keep everybody's budgets whole, but just from an administrative perspective to clean up some things. This is a good opportunity to do that. And when we look at it, I've got a few other things that aren't specifically related to this bill, but are related to that special fund for you all to consider cleaning up, for lack of a better term We like to clean. In the

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

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office)]: I tried to flag places in the budget where this shows up just to remind everybody of where it is. Okay. So this will walk through all the changes. So this first one I've got on the screen, this is the one that I just referred to. So in the governor's recommend you see in B309, the increase of $17,400,000 which is the school based Medicaid grants shifting from the agency of education to the department of health access. And to just reflect this programmatic change, that one's pretty straightforward. Cool. I'm going keep going. So then in addition, when we were talking through this with the Agency of Human Services, part of the original school based Medicaid program, there was some stuff without getting into details because I'm not an expert on the details. There was some stuff going on at the Department of Health had a set one program, and then there was sort of school based Medicaid services. And in this shift, the Department of Health also doesn't have to be involved. It's all going to move to DIVA. In the governor's recommended budget in the Department of Public Health, you'll see there's this change related to the Medicaid school based program, move all of this funding to DIVA. When AHS was looking at this and we were talking with them, they realized in GovRec, they included this transaction. And if you look in their ups and downs, it says in B3-twelve, it says, and then ship this to B306. They realized that they forgot to include the other half of the transaction in the governor's recommend. They would like to fix that and include the other half of the transaction. In talking with AHS, one of the things with this change, moving it from the Department of Health to DIVA is that the way the funding mix had to be, there had to be some general fund involved and there had to be, this was straight federal funds. I think it's because of Medicaid admin and over how it worked. Again, not the expert on it.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: So are you taking 75,000 out of my general fund?

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office)]: No, they already did. They already reduced the governor's budget. No. 75,000 that was in VDH that they needed to implement this program was in their budget. They took it out already, but they forgot was the second side of the transaction to appropriate the rest of the school based Medicaid program grant funds in Diva. So this is And it will go in through the special fund now as opposed to through the federal fund appropriation. So this in the darker green below will add to the budget to increase spending authority in Diva for historically public health side of the equation. They said it was a net neutral transaction except they forgot the other side of the transaction originally.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: So is there, we aren't losing any federal funds by doing it this way.

[Julia Richter (Joint Fiscal Office)]: No. The 75,000 is still a match.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office)]: I don't exactly know. I can't recall what the $75,000 look for exactly. But IHS said they don't need it anymore in terms of the big swirl of the IHS budget. It's $75,000 that's not needed for this purpose anymore. So it dropped to the bottom line in IHS and then they re reallocated it. The second piece of changes related to this. So in this third one in blue, this is the one that I spoke about at the beginning, the Getting AOE out of the school based Medicaid thing. You were going say, Emily, there's a third line on here for CDD DCF. What's that about? So again, in the exercise of looking at this special fund and figuring out who had their fingers in the pot and where the money was going, it was brought to our attention that in 2006, and then increased in 2009, DCF was given spending authority from the school based Medicaid program to help support CCFAP of all things. So when talking with AHS about this, they said, You know what else we could clean up while we're working on this? I don't want to call it random because I'm sure that my predecessors and the predecessors of the executive branch at the time that this transaction was made in 2006 and then again in 2000 and and then increased in 2009, it made sense. All of those people don't work in that I'm aware of. And the folks that are here now have said that maybe that logic doesn't apply anymore and we should clean this up. So additionally, so that we had moved all of the spending authority again to the Diva admin budget and replace it with general funds. So we would reduce CDD's special fund spending authority by 1.7 and increase it by 1.7 of general fund. And then in AOE, they have $3,700,000 of the special fund supporting their base budget. We would increase general fund in AOE by 3,700,000.0. And that general fund would come out of Diva's admin budget. So it's a net neutral transaction, but it's going to involve AOE and for reasons unbeknownst to those of us that are currently

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: on Unexplainable to us. So

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office)]: it is what it is.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: I wonder what else we don't know. Right? I mean, it's so interesting, isn't it?

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Well, I'm sure in talking with them, Like things were tight in 2006, 2009, I'm sure. And at the time it was like, oh, there are, you know, there's capacity in this fund. Why don't we

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: It's like owning a really old house and deciding you're going to like open up the walls to do a little fixing. What are you going to find? What are you going to find? And the wiring isn't good. And the three bottom is way to put the lights and yeah. Lynn, what is

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office)]: CDD? Child Development Division.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: Was that something to do with special education? Maybe?

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Maybe. I mean, I'm sure.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: It's also where CCPAP is, right? Where the childcare is? It's in child development division. But there wasn't childcare at the time that this was all happening either.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office)]: It was a different program. Right. All different. I mean, and I think, right, twenty years from now, I don't know where I'll be, but we're thirty years from now, I'm sure somebody will say, don't know what they were thinking, but not big. Right.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: It seems like a good idea at the time.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Anyway, we'll clean that up too. Okay. That's part of it. So there'll be a bunch on the web report. You'll see all of these. We'll try to name them all similar. But it should

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: look familiar now. Web report. Right? Okay. That's just like, okay. Yes.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office)]: And then finally, I'll put this one in here. Again, it's not really at all even related to H558, which I know that's why I'm in the chair right now, but figured this was as good a time as any to bring up this other issue that they discovered. And I think this was just they keyed in the wrong fund when they submitted the budget, and it's not the end of the world, but they accidentally put $1,100,000 of spending authority out of the HIT fund for school based Medicaid at diva, and it should have come out of the school based Medicaid fund. So it's effectively going be at zero on the web report because we appropriate at the special fund level, but figured again, and we're in making sure everything's in the right bucket and things are cleaned up. So did the

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: HIT fund think they had all this money?

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office)]: No, don't think anybody even realized until AHS went through so the

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: it one It was not

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office)]: on anyone's radar until this past week when AHS met. Wait a second. That's not right. I think they just had turnover at the agency and somebody it's all fine. They would have had to fix it in the budget adjustment. And I said, let's just deal with it. Let's get it right. So that's in here. So again, this will all be in the web report as technical changes. And then the last piece related to this bill, just just wanted to put this in here. I know I mentioned this earlier. In the governor's recommended budget,

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

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office)]: is language that allows Diva to make the first payment. And I do have to talk to Jen about how this would reconcile with the effective dates of that bill. And I think we may I didn't think of it until Jen was in the chair talking about the effective dates, but we may need to reach out to finance and management about effective dates related to the creation and elimination of the special funds. A little funny to have that happen October 1 as opposed to July 1, but it may I just don't know. So we'll look into that and make sure that

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: Is Steve requested a position for this? I don't believe so, but I should You're talking about the Medicaid? The state The states are going to stay at the agency of education for now. Because they're actually field positions, and they are out in the schools themselves supporting them with this work and in the conversations with the school districts, as I understand it, the school districts are saying, please, we need those people, we need that help.

[Unidentified Committee Member (House Appropriations)]: So just a net neutral, really?

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: So it's very brief on

[Unidentified Committee Member (House Appropriations)]: the floor report. Eva is doing what they yada yada yada, it's net neutral.

[Unidentified Committee Member (House Appropriations)]: There's a

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: whole lot behind the curtain.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office)]: There is a transition period of the program, right? We talk about the Medicaid claims tail a lot when we talk about Medicaid program. So to the extent there will be, they have to kind of finish out the old program while the new program is being stood up. So those positions will also help with the transition and then Yeah, what happens after that? The agencies will have to determine what kind of staffing they need in the future.

[Unidentified Committee Member (House Appropriations)]: I found a bit of a question.

[Unidentified Committee Member (House Appropriations)]: So this not, I'm sorry, this doesn't go to the floor.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: No, the proposal is we're going to put this in the budget. We're not going to have a separate bill. Just makes sense to put it in the budget. We don't have to vote on this. But I'm seeing heads nodding. So that means that we'll have joint fiscal put it in the budget. It's already on my crosswalks from the twelfth. They have talked. Right. So that was sort of the intent on the line, but we kind of needed a bill to get this going, so we'd have the language. And then while we're at it, cleaning up a few other things, so it's good to clean things up.

[Unidentified Committee Member (House Appropriations)]: I think this is great because concerns of bad right law office take a few of the work.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: Yeah, and this will ensure better compliance and all the other things that we need and less work for some of the schools. I think as Rev Porneider said, it's a win for everyone. So we like that. We don't always get those.

[Unidentified Committee Member (House Appropriations)]: Usually enough,

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: with the open book right here.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office)]: In talking with the Agency of Human Services, assuming the claims level stays the same and the FMAP stays where it's at in terms of, I know there's in the bill, it goes, it's a 25 admin to the agency of human services, and then it goes down to 20. Their administrative costs at this point are under 20%. Not much, but enough that they're comfortable with that change, and that should be fine. But in the universe of it's 20% of a number that's driven by Medicaid claims. So long as the rollout works and folks are making the claims the way that they need to, then there will be a big enough pool that will generate money to cover AHS's administrative costs. Great.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: Okay, I'm not seeing other questions. Thank you very much, Emily. Thank you, Jen and Julia, for your work and all getting it took a lot of people to put this all together. So I appreciate the effort to get this cleaned up. It's getting really captured. We like that. Committee, there are more bills coming out of Ways and Means. That's why Rep. Cornisher had to leave. So a couple of these bills that were in Ways and Needs, they voted out the six fifty seven, which is the unaccompanied homeless youth services. That's going to come to us. We've already heard miscellaneous judiciary. That's coming to us today, but we're going to We got asked to wait till tomorrow to vote on it, so we'll vote on that tomorrow. That was We've only heard this morning that basically has no money, so that's an easy vote. I'll work with the amount of time. Miscellaneous education. Are we still working on?

[Unidentified Committee Member (House Appropriations)]: Julia, I'm trying to

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: Yeah, because that'll be about ways and means. Get get worked out in a amendment. Right, and so hopefully they'll vote it out before the floor so we can have possession tomorrow afternoon. Because if it's an amendment, there's no point in us hearing it until we see what the amendment is because that usually impacts whatever it is we're going to do. And then the data brokers, they're either voting out tomorrow or Friday morning, and we'll get to the So the data brokers one, we may get Friday, minutes after the floor starts, when it's referred to us. So we'll see about whether we want to hear that first and then vote. But this is Autumn's list, we're getting down. All the yellow is we've heard, but we haven't voted on them yet. So take up some. Once we get some of these numbers, we think we know where we're going with the budget, it'll be a lot easier to vote out some of these other bills and get those off the plate. As we have to report bills to the floor, who's going to be the ones? Are you going get a notice, or are we going to get a notice? Or how does that work? I would ask if you've got somebody who could send you a text. Think that would be the best way to

[Unidentified Committee Member (House Appropriations)]: do Patty did that for me the other day.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: Yeah, think Pat does it, Laurie does it, whatever. But we definitely would like you to run up, do it, and come back, because we've got plenty to do here. So I'll be in a meeting at one Marty will run the meeting. Doug Farnham is going to come at 01:00. If we're done with that and don't have anything else and I'm not back, take a break, work any language or other pieces. I'll come back. I'm going to attempt a draft budget like I did last year based on all these conversations that we've had. We'll see how fast we can get something printed up to have everybody take a look at. Hopefully, later this afternoon, we can at least see it. And I'll tell you again then, and I'll tell you now, it's just a draft, but it'll be a place for us to start talking a little bit more, narrowing in on things. So it's not a done deal. It's just my attempt at moving the conversation forward. Okay?

[Unidentified Committee Member (House Appropriations)]: I suspect we'll have some roll calls. Yes,

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: there may be a roll call today. Betsy Ann has the floor going to 6PM tonight, so be glad you're here in this committee. Thank you very much. Think that we will probably be one roll call I don't know if there'll be others I haven't really looked at the calendar but never mind.

[Unidentified Committee Member (House Appropriations)]: We won't be able to go further. It's going be roll call maybe no this

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: is not like spend the afternoon at Bolton Valley area or going down to the bakery no you need to be not open yet. We will go there, that's not the same goal and will be really deserved. And Mike will leave his phone.