Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Good afternoon. This is the House Appropriations Committee. It is Monday, 03/23/2026. It is almost 01:15 in the afternoon, and we are here to get the final documents of the FY27 budget all cleaned up by our crackerjack joint fiscal office staff who worked hard over the weekend to get us something lovely. So the plan is that JFO will go over all the parts and pieces we need to know, and then we will go offline for a couple of hours, and everybody's going to go and read things. And everybody will be around from JFO if we have questions. Is this the right number? I forgot this language, etcetera, etcetera. And then we'll come back. We'll give everybody about two hours. We'll see how we are at the end of this. And then we'll come back, and we will answer any final questions and have our final vote. And then we will be done. And just so you know, for the rest of the week, I think it's going be at 09:45 on Wednesday morning. We're going to have a caucus of the whole to talk about the budget. Usually what happens is not much, except me saying some things with the highlights. But we will also have our office hours down in the well of the house after judicial retention, which we did last year. And joint fiscal staff will be there with us. We'll have copies of things. And we had a lot of people coming up asking us individual questions. Mostly, said, Emily, James, Chris, can you answer this question? But they'll be there to help answer those questions. So that is the plan, and that will be on the floor, Thursday and Friday. Please look at the presentation order I gave you, and particularly make sure that town, I have your town correct. I already have one. I found out that Lindenville is no more, so it's Linden. I'm just going off the website, and it's not right. So anyway, take a look, make sure that that's all right. I'll give that to the speakers, so that as well as what everybody's budget categories are, so when people start asking questions when it's on board. And then on Friday, we will have the third meeting, and then we'll go home. And we shouldn't

[Martha "Marty" Feltus (Vice Chair)]: count on

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: do you have advice for us about the length of the budget presentation? Could you read my email? Oh, yeah. Well

[Martha "Marty" Feltus (Vice Chair)]: Just feel a little aggressive. So

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: a few of you, and you're one of them, have longer presentations. So you all would get Most everybody should be around four minutes, maybe five minutes. Those of you that have some big meaty things, maximum seven minutes. And the other thing I said in there is that people typically speak 125 to 150 words a minute. And slower is probably better. And so when you think about wordage, your word count as you're writing things up, take a look at that. And that will guide you into how long you're actually spending. So after you've written things down and you see that it's eleven minutes and you really only need to have four, then you can fix things up. But we really want to hit the highlights. You don't need to hit every single thing in your budget areas. If somebody has a question about insurance, I'm making this up. They can come ask. But I think that they're probably not going They wanna hear about all the other stuff. So whatever the real highlights are, what you

[Martha "Marty" Feltus (Vice Chair)]: should focus on. Marty? In the past, I have found it helpful to do just the highlights of what you think is important to tell. And then at the side of the sheet, I put a bunch of other little notes regarding the topic that you think maybe somebody might ask you about. So, you have those notes already there and you don't have to

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: shuffle through all your papers or try to

[Martha "Marty" Feltus (Vice Chair)]: remember what it was. So, kind of my experience has been kind of have general idea of what you wanna see, the high points. But then also have available some other little notes that you can refer to if you need to about some specific things that people might ask about. Yeah, that's good advice. Yeah.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: And you've done this a few times.

[Martha "Marty" Feltus (Vice Chair)]: Everybody does. I mean,

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: just found that helpful. Yeah. Any other thoughts or tips, Mike?

[Michael (Committee Member)]: Yes, thank you. Just a point of reference. Last year, there was a little bit of a discrepancy about referencing page numbers.

[Martha "Marty" Feltus (Vice Chair)]: I mean, yeah.

[Michael (Committee Member)]: And initially, I had the page numbers from the bill, but I think it would be I I think the suggestion was from the floor to be referencing the page numbers in the calendar. Right. Probably that

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: would be the case. And I think this will be an addendum to the bill. So we'll use that addendum.

[Michael (Committee Member)]: Okay.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: And if you want to get it printed in eight and a half by eleven, so it's not the little booklet thing, Tony can do that for us. So would people like that? Because I get Autumn, we can make sure that happens for the addendum, so everybody will

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: have the big copy. That'll come out Wednesday? Notice Wednesday or Pardon?

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yeah. I'm looking at Tom. He says, yes. I'll go with Tom.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: Our house is I think it's likely.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Alright. We'll go with I think it's likely.

[James (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Yeah.

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office)]: The addendum would be posted tomorrow, I believe.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: Oh, notice. Notice.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: It sits on notice for two days or something.

[James (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Yeah.

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office)]: First reading tomorrow. Right? So

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Oh, for note yeah.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: It starts

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: That's right. It'll be first reading. It'll then it'll go on the notice calendar, and then it'll be Good.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: I just

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: wanted to have time to line up.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: Yes. Page numbers with whatever the.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: As soon as we find it, we'll make sure everybody, yes. It won't be Wednesday night for Thursday or anything like that. So that's a good point, Mike. Thanks for remembering that that happened last year. So we'll literally get everybody on the same page.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: I have the easiest page to get on.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So I think that's it. We think of other things, just bring them up as we go. But in the meantime, let's go over what everybody has from joint fiscal. So Grady, you're up first, I see.

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Thank you, Madam Chair. Grady Nixon, joint fiscal. So this is a brief document with just a couple of changes. So we'll go through those quickly. On page one, you'll see some changes to the fund transfer section. Obviously, this does not include the entirety of that section, just the relevant tweaks. For context

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Speaker on.

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office)]: I see.

[James (Joint Fiscal Office)]: I'm sorry.

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office)]: I'll mute my wizard of Oz voice.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office)]: you'll see for context here, the transfer to the CIT Information Technology Internal Service Fund. That number didn't change. I'm just providing it here so you understand what's being referenced. You have the language directing interest earned on the Tech Mod Fund in FY 2324, and '25 to be transferred to the general fund. And then, over the weekend, this was discussed with the chair, and, joint fiscal included this here, which is just directive language to the Department of Finance and Management to report on the amount transferred to the general fund from the Tech Mod Fund in that subdivision d one. And then also on the fund balances of the Tech Mod Fund and the CIT Fund after the transfers in this section were made at the end of FY or at the beginning of FY twenty seven, I guess.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So we can keep an eye on who the balances are and not Right. So surprised. Right. So that should be a good seat there for them to do. Related

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office)]: to this on page two, this is a

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: new

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office)]: section E105.1 which would direct the agency of digital services to work in consultation with the department of Finance and Management to provide a written plan to the relevant standing committees on how to reduce the deficit in the CIT fund, including any recommended changes to revenues or expenditures from the fund. And the report would include information on revenues to and expenditures from the fund, and the fund's balance at fiscal year closeout for the previous ten fiscal years, and estimates for fiscal year twenty twenty seven closeout.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Again, it sounds like a lot of time, but it's also from the beginning trying to understand what's happened. They should be able to get that underneath you. They just add one year and drop it out of your seats. On your area, Marty. They are, they are, but they're good things that we need to do. Yeah. And

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office)]: on page three of this document, the committee saw language relating to the state ethics commission position on Friday. This is an update to it. So this would specify that of the general fund appropriation in fee 136.1, which is in the amount of $150,000 up to $140,000 may be used by the commission to fund the staff attorney position being established in section E100. And then you'll see that the language now specifies that that staff attorney shall prioritize the commission's obligations in providing education, training, guidance, and advice to persons subject to the state code of ethics and the municipal code of ethics. And then in the subdivision two, this just specifies that any remaining spending authority of that $150,000 appropriation may be used by the ethics commission to fund operating expenses. So equipment, computers, desks, what have you.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: I had some phone calls over the weekend with folks from the others commission who needed more clarity. And you all saw some emails anyway, I think. So I chatted with girl students, the board definitely, to get something. I think it's more clarity, it's broader, and attorney isn't gonna be sitting around, which is what I think they were so concerned about. Right, exactly.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: Someone chased me down in the parking lot as I was leaving. Yes. I referred it down to you.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Thanks. I knew who that was, yeah. Yeah. And anyway, so I had a few conversations over the weekend, I think we're pretty straightened out at this point. I think they're not as used to how some of this stuff works as other people are. Think making it clear is not a bad thing to do anytime. So I think that's a lot clearer for everybody.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: Also, I did get an email from someone. Was quite an extensive email.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yes, I was Will. That's who I talked to. Anyway, it's all settled. I think we're in good shape.

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office)]: And on page four of this document, the final edition would be, using the same language that the House Committee added to the Budget Adjustment Act, which just specifies that the grand list and litigation assistance appropriation in b one thirty nine is notwithstanding the pilot fund statute funded through the pilot fund. So, the for context, the miscellaneous tax bill took the statutory changes to allowable uses of the pilot fund that were originally in the gov rec budget. Those sections were removed from the budget because they're now being carried in that bill. This language would just guarantee that regardless of anything that happens with those statutory changes in the budget bill itself, that b one thirty nine appropriation will be an allowable use of the pilot fund.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: And that's the $70,000, the standard language we're just transferring to the

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: pilot restriction of this will speak to

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: the 3,410,000

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: and B-one 139.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: So as Greg mentioned, this is a public spenders. This is a global not with standard. Once the statutory changes are made in HNI, we won't have to do this global model standard. Right.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Great. Any questions on any of this? None. So that's what's new since Friday. Good. Not bad. Not too much. Thank you, Grady.

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Great. So we'll incorporate those

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office)]: in the graphs. Yeah.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Who is next? Emily and James. Let's try to do positions first.

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Let's do we're gonna do positions first.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Do we like a position specific thing or just have a sheet available?

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: We just have a sheet available.

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Okay. Yeah. So we for the record, Emily Burns from the Joint Fiscal Office.

[James (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Exactly joint fiscal.

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office)]: I think too, with your permission, you've got a lot of spreadsheets. We've gone through a lot of these spreadsheets already. I think, like, we don't need to go through the reversions again or all that stuff. So we'll just have them over here if you wanna grab them and trust check them with the bill or do what you want with them. There are few we'll walk through. We were talking about the position spreadsheet. I don't know if you want us to walk through positions again. Has anything changed since Friday?

[James (Joint Fiscal Office)]: We've made some adjustments to titles based on discussion on Friday. The spreadsheet will now reflect the positions that were moved from here. Yeah, let's

[Martha "Marty" Feltus (Vice Chair)]: We'll go through this one. Do

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: we have copies of the record, Yes, they're being printed. Oh, they are. Wonderful. It's the kind. It is. Need one for my set. You'll have to get it on the computer screen.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: Thank you.

[James (Joint Fiscal Office)]: You all saw this on Friday, the change that had been made since you last saw it. Under the Labor Relations Board, this position was previously shown as an exempt stat attorney. After hearing, I think, some feedback on that position, it's now classified and is a mediator position as opposed to stat attorney.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Which line are we at here?

[James (Joint Fiscal Office)]: So that would be on page two, and it would be the only exempt.

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Oh, I Yeah. Or sorry, it

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: would be the only classified position. Which is page one and page two here. It's at the very bottom. Starts at the 11. Yeah.

[James (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Let's just take it from the top, actually. I'm sorry. So you can go back to page one that this direct people up in here. Labor relations board. That is one, two, three, four. We should pulled our fifth item down. Page one. Page one is the one with classified positions at

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: the top. The one you see behind the B1. Classified

[James (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Yes. Starting at B111. So changes on this page since you last saw it on Friday. Labor Relations Board had previously been shown as an exempt staff attorney. It is now a classified mediator position. I believe the request from labor relations was that this be a mediator position title. And after doing some research into the proper classification for that position, it's now marked as classified. Okay. That's one change from Friday. Next is the ethics position. Actually, let's do human rights commission position, which is a couple lines down. Yeah. This has been updated in the spreadsheet to be a staff attorney investigator. It had previously been labeled as a paralegal. This has also been moved to the pool per the committee's discussion on Friday.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: Okay.

[James (Joint Fiscal Office)]: And the only other changes to highlight here are the positions that you all had moved to the pool on Friday. You all had moved to move seven positions to the pool. These included the Human Rights Commission staff attorney, two positions at the secretary of state's office, the tax business analyst at b eleven, the Dale Disabilities Housing Coordinator, and two environmental engineers at ANR. We have reflected those changes in the spreadsheet. So those positions have been moved to the pool with the exception of the two secretary of state positions, the RIM specialist and the business administrator. As secretary of state's office positions are not pool positions is my understanding from talking to Amy Povone, the CFO. So now five positions have been moved to the pool to reflect the committee's deliberations.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Is that the same with the treasurer for unclaimed property? That couldn't come from the pool either?

[James (Joint Fiscal Office)]: I don't know that. You all had not decided to move that position to the pool on Friday.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Seven other ones that were.

[James (Joint Fiscal Office)]: I am not clear about whether treasury positions can be moved to the pool. But if there's interest from the committee in in moving two additional positions to the pool to make up for those secretary of state's office once we can do a little more digging into proper classifications here.

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office)]: But I wouldn't move more to the pool unless you know that there will be more positions in the pool. So there's a balance between like, if you ask for them to come from the pool and the pool is empty, then the administration has to go off and find positions within the executive branch to

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: put in the pool. I think we had gotten the seven, yeah, from the probation and parole officers. And that's where we used the seven. Correct. That's true. There may not be extra positions. So maybe we'll just leave it where it is then. This does not reflect limited service positions that are being converted to permanent, page two.

[James (Joint Fiscal Office)]: No. And we did not make any changes to the decisions. The community didn't make any changes to the limited service conversions on Friday. So these are as you saw them.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Where are the VHIP positions that were converted from limited service to base? Well, if the governor was doing the 4,000,000 for base, shouldn't they have put the positions in the base too? They are in the base.

[Martha "Marty" Feltus (Vice Chair)]: James, can you

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: and

[James (Joint Fiscal Office)]: I I'm can not familiar with any VHIP language in the government pertaining to position creation. There is the 4,000,000 being moved to base, but I'm not recalling language in the GOPREC language to authorizing positions for VHIP. But we will touch base.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Okay. That's horrible. Have a bridge to go over that. That's exactly what I'm talking Tom, did you have something too?

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: Well, generally phrase something like, there's x number of positions in the pool, And the pool we we also had a discussion last week about how we, the general assembly, can create positions. And you just implied that there's no positions. I'm just getting a little confused here based on if we said that we needed to create a new position because there's no positions left in the pool, which are positions that aren't currently being filled, that may not be filled or that are just there because they haven't been filled for some time. What am I missing in between what you stated and the conversation that we had last week.

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Sure. So the presumption in the governor's budget was that there will be positions in the pool, right? Because they created a whole bunch of positions using the pool rather than asking the general assembly to establish new positions. So when those positions sort of shifted, you all said, okay, so we know the governor has sort of had come out and said there will be a certain number of positions in the pool. So we might as well utilize those positions rather than create new positions. But then the total number of positions you're requesting to create is higher than the governor signaled in terms of positions in the pool. So you've got to create you've to use the pool and create some over and above. Does that make sense?

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: Right. The way that you had stated just a couple minutes ago is that there was a limit to the new positions.

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office)]: To there's a limit to the new that you can create from the pool.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: Okay. But we couldn't. That's fine. So we're using up the pool positions or assigning. There's no limit on who we assigned. There's just a position. Yeah. And then it doesn't matter if it's going to HRC or if it's going to HP.

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office)]: That's I think, yeah, what you're sort of directing is like, to the extent there's positions in the pool, use those and then over and above create positions. I think there have been in the past, I'm trying to remember there were some budgets in the past where I recall the general assembly saying create these five positions, but create but don't establish new positions, get them from the pool. So then what the executive branch has to do is then go out and find those those positions to create the new ones. Right? So that's the tension. Hopefully that makes sense.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: Okay. Yeah. No, that's fine. I just think it was just a little short. It took me a little journey to get there. Thank you.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: I have it on good authority. It is a joke. One second, Lynn. Hi, Adam. He's watching. VHIP did not. They didn't ask for VHIP physicians. I was just confused because it did say in the ups and downs, it says VHIP staffing, new base at SFY twenty twenty seven, two and forty So, just So, that's what I got from finance and management. That asked for VHIB positions. So that's why they're not showing But up on

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: they asked, asked, and you should be

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: limited service to permanent because they wanted to make sure that it was, they could hold on to the people who've been administering the program. Okay, so then they should be, somewhere. I've just sent you to just the ups and downs that

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: Physicians already exist, I just mean.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Exactly. Right, but a lot of these are converted from living service to, and the governor did that in his budget on this page two of his physicians, but these are not on that. So that's the question I think we're asking is why are they on here? So I'm sure I'll hear from Adam. It's not something

[Liz (Committee Member)]: that I bought when we talked on Friday. Okay,

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: more to come, I can tell. Okay, Liz. Okay, you said there were five from

[Liz (Committee Member)]: the pool. I have on my notes from each Friday that the B-one 111 tax, that business analyst is from the pool.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Is that still from the pool? It's still in the pool if

[Martha "Marty" Feltus (Vice Chair)]: you look at your chart.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: James put columns for pool and new. So the tax, Human Rights Commission, Dale, two at ANR are all from the pool. So do you want to continue with the positions?

[James (Joint Fiscal Office)]: That's it on positions. We can move on to base change next.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Okay, so yes hang on, this is from Adam, it's going be an update, yes then John, I'm sorry. Are limited service positions already, they are, you know, we're fine for now, may revisit next year. So, they are not being converted. Okay, I just was confused by why they weren't in the ups and downs that way, but that's alright. That's what I'm getting. We're beating up this limited service. They are already limited service positions. Right. Was my question. So

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: we don't So

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: this knows your position. They're going to stay the way they are for the next year in the budget. That was my question. Okay. That your question, John?

[John Kascenska (Member)]: Yes, it was. Yep.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Okay. Done with positions for the moment? Okay. Next. Switching. Thank you.

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office)]: This one should look familiar. So I walked through every single line on Friday. I don't know that you need me to do that again. But we have highlighted in green the things that have changed. So we did find a little bit of money on Friday or not on Friday, sometime between Friday and today. Found a little bit of money.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: I've got, well yes, feeding one down here because Chitt gave me hers and she I only counted five because I didn't think you'd leave one behind. Okay.

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Okay. Anyway, so there were two places that we discovered some money. The first one is highlighted on row nine. We can give Chris credit for this one. So in those changes shifting the OPEB consulting expenses over to VPIC, the treasurer's office utilized general fund to do that, dollars 105,000 of general fund.

[Martha "Marty" Feltus (Vice Chair)]: And

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office)]: in H567, you're gonna shift those costs over to the corpus of the fund, basically. So VPIC will utilize the fund to help pay for those contracts on the investment. So that frees up 105 general fund in the treasurer's office. And then the And this is in base. This is base. Yep. And then the other place that we found money, which we'll touch on when we get to that, but for the rate increases at the Agency of Human Services, most of the rate increases are paid for using Global Commitment Match. But there are two very small amounts. One's $34,000 and one's $54,000 When we were double checking the spreadsheet and cross referencing anything, we realized that those general fund only costs were being budgeted twice. And that's line 32? That's mostly on line 32, yes. That number is a little less. And we've put those general fund only expenses in there correct, where they show up in the AHS departments. The general fund only ones will show up where I think it's in mental health and in Dale. So those two small changes, so it was a double count of about a little more than $80,000 but So you'll see when we get to the one time sheet on the bottom line, there's $180,000 which is the combination of those two. Thanks. So real quick, so highlighted in green, just talked about on row nine, that's the VPEC expense. On row 23, now we've got on here the net neutral move of the funding from the Center for Crime Victim Services to the Department for Children and Families for the revised visitation. So it's on line 23 and then the opposite transaction is on line 45. On line 32 is the change for the DASSA and home and community based rates. This is the match for global commitment. And then on line 42 is where you see some, it's about $34,000 that goes to the Department of Mental Health. That's just a general fund expense. And the other one of those is on page, unfortunately. On line 51, it's another a little more than $50,000 for general fund only human community based rates. Then, sorry, to flip back to the other page, on line 44, 47, and 48, we've put in as part of the housing bill, there, H-nine 38. There were some changes to the base appropriations associated with the housing program. So these three lines add up to zero, but this puts them in the right appropriations or adjust the appropriations.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Is this according to that bill. Assuming Theresa's amendment or the bill It's Theresa's amendment. Okay, but it's with both, the bill and because Theresa's amendment just changes by the the The right stuff, not that we have to do it again after the amendment. Okay, perfect. I'm sure this was a big challenge. No, I'm looking at you for fitting this all in, where it all goes.

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office)]: And then the last number change, and this was just moving from the Agency of Human Services to Degree Mountain Care Board on line 56, the funding for the healthcare advocate. So the general fund will sit with the Green Mountain Care Board, as part of how they bill back for that. And then there's transactions at the agency of human services at a global commitment associated with it. But the general fund initially goes to

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: the Green Mountain Care Board. So that's just no change in the funding.

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office)]: So after all of that, everything else stays the same.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: So

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office)]: after that, your total spending appropriations, transfers, and money to the reserves is 2,600,000,000 After we account for what is base revenue, that leaves $27,260,000 of base revenue that's utilized to cover one time appropriations, slightly less than the government.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: And then,

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Any more questions on the base budget stuff?

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: I'm sure we got this morning.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: For The new changes, some of that was from the miscellaneous tax bill. Yep. The down payment assistance tax credit, expansion of downtown and village tax credit, and the change, the decoupling and the change in the meals and runs with the purchase and use always look floppy things for us. Looks familiar. Is there another part of those too? This is the same. Oh, is the same. It's just the other thing. Oh, you're going pass out anything yet?

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office)]: No, I'm waiting for you to say. Okay.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: This is on the internet. Yes. Yes. Thank you.

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office)]: So this is the base sheet. This should also look familiar in terms of changes on

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: this one. The only thing that

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office)]: one, excuse me, sorry, one times. The only thing that changes on this one time sheet is the amount that's carried forward from the base sheet. So when all is said and done, none of these one time appropriations are any different from what we looked at on Friday, there is the 1.8 sorry, dollars 180,000 left on the bottom line

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: that we found over the weekend. And I talked to some, but not all, of the committee members about using $50,000 for the local civic journalism that we actually forgot about. We got the radio, but forgot the civic journalism piece. Civic engagement. We forgot the but we forgot that piece. And since there is money, I'd like to suggest that we use $50,000 one time for that.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: And that's a match.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: That's a match so that's the community budget right so that so that turns into a 100,000 so are people okay with that

[Martha "Marty" Feltus (Vice Chair)]: adding taking the $3.50 we're

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: not going to take it away from that That's correct. The 180 becomes 130. So we're leaving a little for descent. Okay, so you guys will capture that, however, It it will

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office)]: will show up as a one time appropriation. Correct. It will be on a one time sheet in PD and B1100M3 is where it's going land. We had to guess. Great.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Not seeing any other questions about the one times, because otherwise it didn't change from Friday.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: I mean is it appropriate to tell you the phone call I got?

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yes, I think this is yeah.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: So I got a phone call from the chair of the Trump and Reconciliation Commission, which is in the AOA, so it's a little bit different. I didn't focus on it, but AOAs, not me. They were budgeted for $900,000 The administration had said that because this was a shorter year for them, but the chair called me this morning and said, we need the 1.1 that we've been getting. I told her if there's a little bit we can do about it, just wanted to make it public that there were, we'll finish this year, they will sunset on time. But there, the 1.1 is for salaries and for finishing up their work in total. If something comes available either here or in the center, told them that it's unlikely that we get anything here, but to chase it in the Senate. Okay, so that they're short 200,000 is what

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: you're saying? Okay, so we should definitely let the Senate know about that.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: Yeah, and that is it was just something that they've been in the midst of finishing all of their public they just didn't.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Right. Didn't know the process. Okay. Okay. So we'll discuss that with the Fed.

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Okay. Should there is one I forgot to highlight it. There's one change. On line 21, the legal aid immigration attorney. We had that at the AG's office on Friday. And talking with the AG's office, thought it was more appropriate to put it in AHS, which has the contracts and stuff with legal aid.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: That's fine. In fact, Todd had texted me as we were finishing up, I said, just go talk to you guys and figure out whatever they want to do.

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office)]: He and I connected over the weekend.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yeah, great.

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office)]: I think that was the only one. Okay.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: And so when we see things like shelter development, temporary emergency housing, grants municipalities, cold weather shelters, all those, those are all related to ninethirty eight. Correct. Yes. We can put that in the notes. Probably that would be good because I know other house members are going to want to know,

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office)]: where do I find

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: this stuff from September? So if we could say all of those are labeled, that would

[Martha "Marty" Feltus (Vice Chair)]: be terrific. Just on line 13, there's just a little hypo emergency.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Emerancy. Oh, man. What's psychiatry the big name after? Emergency. I don't know. Yes, I hope so. Thank you. All

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office)]: right. What's that? I am going to unless you want me to, we have the direct apps and reversion sheet, which I can

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: go through, but they haven't changed since Friday. So we can just have

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office)]: them available if people want them. Hope that works. They're online as well. We also have a quick sheet that's got all the other transfers that are in the bill. Grady has walked through the language.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: A lot of times we'll

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office)]: get that. If you want to do a quick look, sure. A lot of these are standard

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Transfer, does that happen?

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office)]: And they're all in the D101 secondtion. These are about transfers and reversions usually happen.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: I'll

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office)]: just quickly run through them if that works.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: Yeah, thanks.

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office)]: So in D101A2A and B is where

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: you have

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office)]: transfers from the transportation fund to the general obligation debt service fund. So that's the debt service fund and then transfers to the downtown transportation related capital infrastructure improvements program. That's a typical transfer From the education fund to the tax computer modernization fund, that's the education fund's share of the transfer to that fund annually. From the clean water fund, the clean water fund, there's the clean water fund, and then there's the agricultural Water Quality Special Fund. So there's a transfer associated with the spending that the Agency of Agriculture will do from the Clean Water Fund. And then there's the Lakes in Crisis Response Program Special Fund that annually gets a transfer from the Clean Water Fund.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: And I think that went up this year. When it originally started years ago, it was 50,000. And then at some point, I think it went to 100. And this might be the first year it's 120. Yeah. Wayne, do you know?

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: Dear world. I don't know about that.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: I think it went up by 200.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: We're seeing

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: 20 dash. I mean, it's

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: not did an alum treatment on Lake Carmine, but they came out of a different fund, I think.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yeah.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: So that would be

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: They're still the only lake in crisis. Right. I just didn't know if you were following it since

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: No. It was

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Your neck of the woods. Okay. So that's fine.

[Martha "Marty" Feltus (Vice Chair)]: Yep, the transfer from the clean water pump for the bottle bill doesn't start yet, correct? Correct.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: It doesn't start until '20

[James (Joint Fiscal Office)]: It might be fiscal year '29.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: '29, I think. '29, thirty, thirty, one, thirty two, so it's a bit out.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: I'd start drinking by then. Right?

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Okay. So then on line 11, we have I think this is just cleaning up some fun stuff from the AG's fees and reimbursement quarter special fund. It's the miscellaneous fines and penalties special fund that's at the AG's office. And then on line 13, we have coming from the insurance reserve fund to the transportation fund. This is insurance funds to help pay for the

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: repair, central garage Oh, yeah. Yeah. Those are also in the bill.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: Okay. That should look familiar.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: You have more spreadsheets. I have two

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office)]: more which we can go through, or you can look at them yourselves. I have one that has just a quick summary of the general fund reserves.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Oh, that one's probably good to see.

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Where things are at when all is said and done. And then the last spreadsheet I have, which again now is like real weedy, I'm happy to go through, but also it's the kind of thing that maybe a good thing to go through another day is just the general fund operating statement. The big spreadsheets effectively are the general fund operating statements. This is just it all summarized

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: or it's invalid. I'd like there's a couple

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office)]: of us who'd like to see that. Sure. So it may be kind of a thing in April to talk I can come in and talk about what

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yeah, think that would be great. I would love to get a little gander out of this afternoon.

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office)]: This is just a quick summary of the reserves at the bottom. I'm just trying to explain what each of them are. But at the end of 2025 and all of the reserves, so the four plus or minus reserves in the general fund are the stabilization reserve, which is the 5% of prior year appropriations. The human services caseload reserve, which is related to, setting aside in case there are mortgages in Medicaid and also to cover the Medicaid claims tail. The balance reserve, which is often referred to as the rainy day reserve, which this actually changed in statute last year. I think it's actually up to 10% of prior year appropriations, I believe. And then the twenty sevenfifty three reserve, which we are all familiar with, cover the twenty seventh payroll and the fifty third week of Medicaid. Then the reason I said plus or minus is because in 2020, there's also just a column for other reserves that are established, which in there weren't any in 2025, but in 2026, this is where the $60,000,000 is where, is from the year end construct where there was $30,000,000 reserved for property tax relief and then another $30,000,000 reserved for property tax relief and federal funds and any other issues that may arise.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: And the 50,000,000 is not part of this because we actually appropriated it to the agency administration for So the that's why it's not a reserve. Thank you for that clarification. Yeah.

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office)]: So in 2025, total reserve in the general fund was 328.2 FY 2026, it's projected to be $300,089,000 No.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: $389,000,000

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office)]: $389,000,000 Thank you. I've been reading too many numbers.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: I don't

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office)]: know how to read numbers. Okay. And then in FY27, there's some fun. We're going to add to the stabilization reserve to true up against prior year appropriations, add to the February reserve. So statutorily, annually, we add to that reserve every year until it is a year when we have to make one of those payments. And then in the second to last column, we see the $60,000,000 going down to $30,000,000 as the proposal to un reserve the $30,000,000 set aside for property tax relief, and then will be transferred to the education fund.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: And in that reserve column, is that where the yield build of the amount that that is reserving for next year's tax, does that end up going here?

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office)]: No, that's on the I don't have a summary of the reserves in the Ed Fund or the Transportation Fund, but you would Specifically,

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: you'll see it on the Education Fund outlook.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: It would

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: be on that. I don't see the reserves at the bottom. And I think it was on the projected outlook that Julia handed out on Friday or whenever it was we talked about it.

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office)]: At the end of FY 'twenty seven, there'll be $375,000,000 projected to be reserved. Subject to change as appropriate. Where they start to change is if you've changed the appropriations to the Budget Adjustment Act, if they go up or down. Or if there is contingent appropriation, it changes the amount of the appropriations in a given fiscal year, which then changes the reserve requirement. So have to reserve against whatever changes in the BAA or at year end, depending on

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: what you did with math. And whatever we end up with in the final budget, the math works out to whatever this is. So

[Liz (Committee Member)]: in the fiscal year 2026, it is projected right now, but does that include the stuff that we did with contingencies, the 309,600,000 after what the BAA and the contingencies? So that includes all that in the budget, and then that's what it comes out to.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Project. Oh, it's updated. Yeah. And we leave

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office)]: it projected until you finalize appropriately, like once the final budget bill is passed, because you can still change the 2026 appropriations up until June 30, frankly, if you wanted to. So we leave it projected until the year closes and then it's efficient. Thank you.

[Liz (Committee Member)]: Last question. You don't have the Ed Fund or the Transportation Fund reserves here.

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office)]: No, I don't. Are they important or something that they just don't change very much? They are equally important, I would say, for those funds. And looking at this now, we're going add them for the next iteration.

[Liz (Committee Member)]: We should be seeing them just to see what they are.

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Yeah, they are on the operating stations and the outlooks for the ed fund and the transportation fund. They don't have The Transportation Fund only has a stabilization and a balance reserve, and then the Education Fund has a stabilization reserve, and then whatever other reserves are created by the General Assembly.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Questions?

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Wayne, you look like he

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: has I'm going back up after you're done.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Okay. I think we're done with reserves, you want us to ask a question?

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: You're asking about the lake, the fund.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Oh, Lake Carmi, yep.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: Yeah, so what it is is they have a fund that they provide grants. For Lake Carmi also now, H113 placed Lake Methamagog into into the lake.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Oh, it did. Okay.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: So you got two two lakes there, and they can give up grants, maximum of 50,000 a year. There's like there's 35% match. They've towns whoever gets money, and they're using it for You tried it on that aeration, Lake Carmel.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Oh, no. That was a big disaster. I was in corrections when that came up. To

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: I said it once it got worked. Tributary monitoring for phosphorus of course dealing with agricultural runoff. They use it for those purposes at local campers associations, whatever, provide the match and do the grants. So that's what that's for, a small amount, apparently they've transferred some more into that program for those grants. I didn't think we had put makeup on that.

[Martha "Marty" Feltus (Vice Chair)]: I didn't think that we had agreed as a legislature to include meant for makeup in that Brexit crisis.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: So it said age 113, I don't know.

[Martha "Marty" Feltus (Vice Chair)]: Well, it's been presented two or three times, but I don't think that's passed.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: You said 2025? I don't know if it passed.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: I'll second. I'll look it up. Don't think passed.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: What I say? H 01/15? Yes.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: 01/13. Thanks. Last recorded action read the first time in January '28 January 25. Sorry. 01/28/2025. Mhmm. And it's still sitting in the committee on

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: the passed it, so they're trying to pass it. Yeah.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Not going to go anywhere because it's been sitting there for a year and a half in

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: that committee. This is nobody from my part of the country that likes the place,

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: That's where it is. It's all like Supposedly that Rep Page led their charge on, which makes sense since it's Newport. Okay, think we've done that one

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office)]: as far as you're going go with that. Can the operating expenses Just

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: because we're all here focused on spreadsheets, but we don't have to go through it in detail. Let's do that after.

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Yes. Sorry for the small font. That's okay. So this is how we at JFO, and it's similar to the Education Fund outlook, one for transportation also. But this is how we keep track of where sources and uses to the general fund. So at the top is where we have sources to the general fund As the changes for the revenue and tax changes, the current law revenue comes from the revenue forecast, direct applications and reversions and other transfers. Numbers should look familiar. That other transfers is that tech mod transfer. So sources to the general fund are the 2,700,000. And then we have ongoing appropriations, pay act, other bills, the one time appropriations, and other bills that are one time in nature give us a 2,500,000.0 of uses, which is $189,000,000 from an accounting perspective, sort of the unallocated piece. So then you do, that's where the transfers come in. So then we have transfers to the debt service fund, to the cash fund, the computer modernization fund, and those other funds, the major one of that $104,000,000 of that is the education fund transfer this year. So the net transfers are $2.00 $3,000,000 And then we have the money going to the stabilization reserve, the money going to the two thousand seven hundred and fifty third reserve, and then the unreserving of the $30,000,000 to the education fund. And so the net of all of those, and of course, all of this is rounded, but the unallocated operating surplus is the $180,000 which rounds up to the point two that you see on the bottom line there. And then at the bottom is the what's reserved in the general fund, which matches the sheet that I just walked you through.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So we can walk through this in more detail, because this is just like how they're reconciled, but it'd be good for us to all get a sense of how this works. We could do that with the Ed Fund outlook too, maybe just sort of go through them so everybody understands something next month. The date at the top

[Martha "Marty" Feltus (Vice Chair)]: for the house, we talked about some changes we made. Shouldn't that

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office)]: be March? It should be March. Yeah. Oh, You know what that is? That refers to it says it's very small letters. Under fiscal year, it says forecast. That's the forecast that's used for that. So then, you know, that's the January 2026 adopted forecast.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: For current law revenue.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: Yep.

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office)]: And then when there's new for like, as we go along throughout the year, when there's a new forecast that it will change to July, and then we'll look at we'll know what the operating statement reads.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: That changes.

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office)]: But that's what that January 26 refers to.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: When is the next 2752?

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: The what?

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: When is the next

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office)]: '22?

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Well, there's two different years. Right? One is '27 and one is '53.

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Yes. There'll be a fifty third Medicaid payment, I wanna say next year. We'll look up, there's a report that finance and management does every year on how much you need to contribute and then when the next projected expense will be. But the fifty third pay roll happens twice as frequently as the twenty seventh Medicaid payment. But it's pretty soon, I think.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: There are little footnotes. Those are my secret footnotes. Your secret, Okay.

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office)]: You refer to other spreadsheets so that we can track everything ourselves. Very smart. Can do it. It does make it confusing for you all. Yeah.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: I know. It's like there's something secret code out of trying to Yeah.

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office)]: There is a secret code.

[Liz (Committee Member)]: A line or

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office)]: It's an AFO secret code.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So we won't bring up this sheet today. We've got enough other spreadsheets and then we have the web report, which we can leave there. We can give everybody take a copy and that's online too, Dave. That would

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: be posted. Thank you.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: And then do we also have a package of language? Oh, look, there's Grady with a package of language. So our task is to read the language, read the web report, check it against what you have and what you think you're doing and questions, corrections, comments, JFO staff will be hanging out here, I think.

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office)]: And the only thing so we are going to go add the civic journalism thing. It won't be in any of the documents that you're reviewing. But it'll be

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: in whatever the product. And then people are already asking me about not in this room, but are asking you about highlight sheets. So I know you know that's what's next. So I'm sure you've been thinking about that in your spare time over the weekend. We're just handing them

[Liz (Committee Member)]: all the spreadsheets.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: I know.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Here. But the question is,

[Martha "Marty" Feltus (Vice Chair)]: just send all those to your budget books. Both of

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: you. Yeah, that we should be writing to our budget buddies tomorrow, probably. So we'll talk about how all that's going.

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office)]: I'm not going to walk through this one. I'll leave this one up at the front, too, with the other ones. So this is just the sum we did this last year when there were $100,000,000 one time appropriations, but it's got all the one times. It has the ones that are out of the general fund and the ones that are not out of the general fund so that you

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Oh, perfect. That's a really helpful sheet as well.

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Which will match the language, except for the civic journalism thing.

[James (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Okay. So there'll be three things up front that you don't currently have. The web report, that summary one time overview, and maybe the stack language for you also.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Adam is saying the fifty third week of Medicaid payment is in FY 'twenty seven.

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Should be FY 'twenty seven?

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: I wonder if he needs FY 'twenty eight. We'll check it out. Because we didn't get it there. I don't think that's in our budget or his budget.

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Well, we Have to unreserve and appropriate if it was this year.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yes. And you didn't see anything in your language that had unreserve and appropriate. So I bet he'll be checking that. I'm sure we'll hear. Okay, so committee, you have your assignment to look at things. If we came back at 03:45, so that gives you a little over an hour and a half. Does that feel like enough time? Why don't we check back here at 03:45? If people really feel they need more time, we'll go live, we'll go off live and come back.

[Liz (Committee Member)]: Yes, before we get the language and the We have

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office)]: the languages, one's behind you and one's next to you.

[Liz (Committee Member)]: Take one for yourself.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Take one for yourself. We're not going to go over it here in public.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: I have

[Martha "Marty" Feltus (Vice Chair)]: sent you an email that last week.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: Thank you. Thank you. Yeah.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Okay. So let's go up live and

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: we'll

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office)]: come back.