Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Good afternoon. This is the House Appropriations Committee. It's Tuesday, 03/31/2026. It's 01:30PM, and we are convening for just a few minutes to talk a little bit about the week and the month. So we are getting ourselves planned and prepared for that. First of all, again, thank you, everybody. We had a great budget, and it got through the House, and it's in the Senate where we will do our best to keep it a great budget. You may be hearing from people, but thank you, everybody, for all your hard work. So a couple of things. We will have some more bills coming to us. This week, on Thursday, we've arranged to have the capital bill come to us. It has to go to ways and means first, and then it's going to come to us. And so we'll take a look, we'll just vote it out on Thursday. We'll get the overview. And that should be pretty easy. Big money stuff, obviously, was already put in the budget, but we'll give the rest of the bill. So that bill needs to come. So then we will have done the capital bill and the transportation bill and the budget, so all the big ones from that standpoint. Also, regarding the education bill, it's still in house education. They're going vote it out this week. It's going to go to human services, who is doing pre K work, which is going to be added to the bill. And then it'll go to ways and means, who's going to spend a little more time than human services is on the financing part of it, and then it's going to come to us. So I'm thinking that that'll be sometime next week, but I don't know when at this point. But that's the path. In the meantime, the Senate put together sort of a CTE bill, for in quotes, because it's mostly about findings, which they have now sent over, which is kind of the plan, I think. But it's now in house commerce, and they are working on the CTE part of it. So that's the other piece of things that are happening. So I don't have any other really secret intel about what's happening. I just wanted to let you know what the general path and timeline is. It's just really complicated, as we all know. And getting any three people to agree on what should happen, never mind a committee that now has 10 people, never mind an entire body, I don't know what the path is. Wish I knew, but anyway, that's the plan, the education bill. So, Mike? Are

[Michael Mrowicki (Member)]: we going to dig into it a little bit, or what?

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: We're going to be out to turn it around pretty quickly, maybe the same day we get it. So what I would suggest, I'll keep an eye, you all keep an eye on when it comes out of house education. We may all have caucuses or something to talk about it as it moves along, but we should all be taking it upon ourselves to be reading what comes out of each committee. Pre K may be the least controversial when people Well, that's the

[Michael Mrowicki (Member)]: piece that I'm concerned about. I see early education as a very different entity than K through 12. I'm going to be frank, twenty years ago I think our agency of education was something to brag about and since then we have had such a brain drain and leadership I don't necessarily agree with, that I would be really concerned with pushing that too far into that without making sure they're ready for it.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Well, know that Human, House Human Services has been working on this for quite a long time. They are pretty ready to do something. So I would suggest that you talk to somebody in that.

[Michael Mrowicki (Member)]: I've been following, I think as much as anything, think they're calling for a study about that transition, but I'm really leery right now about that, just putting that on the table.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: That's fine. I think there's all things that we're all going be weary about with putting it on the table. So we'll be asked to be looking at the money part and we will probably be asked to let's get this to the floor. So we'll I don't know yet. It's too early, but I just wanted to let you know that. Yeah, one of the things

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: way back when they were formulating this thing with the early childhood and the early education. Of the members of the education committee explained to me that he saw it as the biggest problem was that human services and education were both involved trying to formulate it, is responsible for it, and if there's nobody, if everybody's responsible for it, no one's responsible. Exactly. And so they never really could come up with a clean proposition to figure out who is in the Department of Education, Agency of Human Services. Agency of Human Services being this monolithic, this polyglot of everything under the sun anyway. That was part of the problem. I think he was correct. And the little bit that I know about it, and then there was private versus what do you do with the public, and it was like there were constantly conflicting issues with it. So, don't know how we go, where that goes or how, like I said, wrapped, but I bet that it's not going to get better.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Well, we hope it is. I think of think who's reporting, Bennington reporting that. Is that Ray? Think it's Ray Garofana that's going to be reporting it for housing services. But if you have questions or want to see drafts, perhaps you can go to their website, but if you need to talk to anybody. So that's where that piece is happening. The education, governance, and whatever is all in house ed, and then the financing and all of the pieces are going be in ways and means. So it's gonna get to us. We'll be the last one before it goes to the floor, but there's a lot that's gonna happen. So I have

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: a procedural question. If there are appropriations needed for study needs or procedures,

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

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: How does that happen? We've already passed the budget.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Right. I don't know if they already have other funding sources that don't have to do with the budget or not. For sure, for measure is very well aware that we spent the money. We've already spent Yes, yes.

[Michael Mrowicki (Member)]: There has been buckets of money we sent over there.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yes, haven't. There may be money that we sent them and maybe there's something like that. I'm guessing there's something like that. I don't know what the general piece is going to be or whether it's rearranging something that was already in general thought or what, you know, I really don't know, but it will be coming here. So just read things as you go. So I don't want the first time somebody comes and presents a skill to us to be the first time you've ever heard anything about it. That's my point.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: You might guess I'm skeptical.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: I'm shocked. Well,

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: look at it. You get the different elements of it. You get the administrative element. You get the financial element. You also got laws that we've created in this building that may be

[Michael Mrowicki (Member)]: part of the problem.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: Which I think probably are. If you're not looking at then you get the educational component. What do you want classes to be? How much money do want to spend on those? So you get different major elements that require a different kind of thinking, a different kind of knowledge for each one of those. Until I see a structure set up to acknowledge that and to look at those pieces, I'm skeptical whether we're going get to a real good solution.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: It's very complex, isn't it? That's why all these committees are working on different pieces and they are talking to each other on a regular basis. They're not, even though they're siloed in some ways because they have certain things they have to focus on, they're also talking across committees to make sure they're integrating. Talk to your colleagues, people on these committees, see what you can find out. As soon as I know of any other timing, I'll let you know. But I just wanted to kind of tee everything up so that people are starting to pay. Now that we're done with the budget, we can start to pay attention to this. This will be the next big thing. The capital bill, I think, will be pretty easy. Domain of other bills come through committees, but education is going to

[Michael Mrowicki (Member)]: be a big one.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: Just whatever the capital bill is, the year two of capital bill, they do for the bulk of their

[Michael Mrowicki (Member)]: work in year one.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: So this is billing in or adjusting the dials, and it'll be unless there's something more that they're doing from the corrections standpoint, this part should be

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yeah. It should be the second year, several of us have been on on corrections, and the second year is always a lot easier in terms of changes. Yeah, is. It's their BAA kind of thing.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: They may tell us about some of the major projects that are going forward, but we should know about. Right.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: And we saw some of them related to the cash fund, but then this will be the bonding part of And any other particular policy stuff that they've put in there. So that would be Thursday morning. Their bill is nine fifty two, which maybe that's the last bill. No, might not be, because committee bills can still continue to happen. So there might be more, but that's that one. So those are the ones I know about. Also, we talked about trying to do a deep dive into some topics in April. I'm going to talk to chairs tomorrow afternoon and see if there's some things that we could do a deep dive on because they don't have time or they just can only pick two and they wish they could do this third one. I'll see, but if you all have some ideas too, I have a few.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: Everybody who will see me and said, well, what

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: are you gonna do now? We did talk about those special funds. We talked about the special funds, the opioid and the special, the substance misuse prevention fund. We talked about how the Cannabis Control Board works, an update on that. We also talked about a property tax conversation in April and also about positions. So those are some of the things I have. If you have other things, just let me know and I'll see what else I get if anything from other committee chairs and then we can start looking at something. And some of these may just be a one hour kind of conversation. Don't think positions is going to be that long if we have the conversation about that. Were there any other things, James, that you remember us talking about?

[James (Committee Staff)]: Yes, the circuit breaker conversation with the property tax assistance program. Think that's what we can start with. Updates from DEC on Lake Champlain and Martha Feltus.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Oh yes, thank you. We need to get Doug back in here.

[James (Committee Staff)]: And a couple other special funds.

[Michael Mrowicki (Member)]: Gonna be in criminal

[James (Committee Staff)]: history records, check fund, a couple of Defender General specific funds, all run-in conversation of special funds with.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Right, and we put language in the budget about a special fund. That may be not the time. We'll see what other people come to us with as well. Then And Also position pool. Right, that's what I had too, positions. Maybe we can have somebody come in on positions tomorrow because at the moment we don't have anything till the floor. So it would probably be a good idea to have something in the morning. I'll check the bottom and see if we can get somebody to come in and talk about one or two of these things tomorrow. But we won't start before ten, starting at ten unless we absolutely have to, but not at 08:30. Okay. So I think that's what I have that we need to talk about on camera.