Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Good afternoon. This is the House Appropriations Committee. It's Wednesday, 04/01/2026. It's just after 2PM, and we have been referred the capital bill. It's in our possession now. We've heard a bit of it last week that was put into the budget and now age nine fifty two on its own. We'll hear the rest of it and take a vote and let it move on its way. So we have lots of people, everybody we need. So whoever wants to go first. John, maybe from Lunch Council, if you want to start?

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. So good afternoon, everyone. John Gray, from Lunch Council. I don't know if others want to Scott

[Scott Moore (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Moore, Joint Fiscal Office.

[Representative Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions)]: Representative Alice Simmons, chair of House Corrections and Institutions.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: I think we have a couple of your committee members here also as needed.

[Representative Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions)]: There will be more coming in.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Okay. Well, everybody's welcome.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: So I'm gonna screen share with you. As the chair noted, you already got a preview of this, including, I think, the primary section that you guys focus on when it passes through, but now you have the full of the bill. Just for orientation purposes, as you know, the capital bill, like the funded, it includes a Budget Adjustment Act. That's what you see this year because the capital budget is passed as a biennial act. It covers both last year and this year. And so the form of the bill that you have this year is the Adjustment Act, which means that each of the sections are amendments to last year's past capital build. The structure for the bill in the whole, in the past, many years ago, the capital build was exclusively funded through general obligation bonding. But as you know, we now have the cash fund that we talked about last week. And so the first portions of the bill, sections two through 16 deal with the bond authorized projects, and then we have cash sessions as well, which we talked about last week. If you tallied up the total bonding authority that is set out from the act, which we will come to that section in alignment with the CDEC recommendations, you would get a figure that is lower than the total authorizations. And as you know, that's because there's multiple funding sources. The one is the general obligation bonding, one is cash, but another is reallocations. So taking former appropriations and then using them to defray expenditures of this act. I'm not gonna speak too much about the individual line items, but if happy to flip through. So section two is your classic BGS section, setting out changes from last year's capital bill to the line items there. Let me know if I could stop on any particular thing, but I'm just gonna The

[Representative Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions)]: best thing I can go through this. I can go through the spreadsheet.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Maybe, John, if there's some policy things that wouldn't be in the spreadsheet, that's probably what we should have you focus on.

[Scott Moore (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Then I

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: will if you don't mind me scrolling quickly

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Right ahead. We'll just shut our eyes until you get to rerun it.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: I'll also pause it, but I kind of want to, so here we go. Reallocations, this is one of the funding sources I was heading before. We next come to your cash sections in just a second. Yes. So your cash funded project authorizations, these should be familiar to you from last week. These are what were set out in that floor amendment on third reading pass. So the policy sessions start just after this piece, and again on page 14. And the first two sections come from the Department of Environmental Conservation. These are related to private loans or for private water systems. These are offered by the Vermont Economic Development Authority, and this is an update to expand existing language to provide advantage loan terms to these, what you see here called eligible mobile home park water systems. And you can see the defined term here, but this is a privately owned nonprofit community type system that serves a majority of the users who reside in certain kinds of mobile home parks, those that are nonprofit owned or those that are resident owned and that are registered with the Department of Housing and Community Development. This is a particular kind of water system. And under existing law, the non underlying language you're seeing existing law, Vermont Economic Development Authority can extend loans for the purposes of this is the revolving water loan fund.

[Scott Moore (Joint Fiscal Office)]: So this is to

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: provide compliance with state and federal regulations essentially. And so these loans, you can see the conditions here on page 15 in existing law, typically, the loans are not to exceed thirty years, that's what you see in sub one. They're to be secured by assets determined by the Vermont Economic Development Authority. Under three, you have to establish a dedicated source of revenue, and then under four, the treasurer sets the rate of interest for these loans. And what you see at the end of the sub four, which again, other than the stylistic change that you note there, is not amended by this language. Under this section, the interest rate set may be less than the prevailing borrowing rates available to similarly situated applicants for private lenders, but not less than 0%. So, floors the loan that can be extended. The reason I call out this term limitation, the thirty years and the minimum interest rate is because sub five, which is the piece that is being touched here on page 16, provides an exception to those rules. So at the top of page 16, and this is where the new language is going in, a privately notwithstanding subs one and four, a privately owned nonprofit community type system may qualify for a forty year long term at an interest rate plus administrative fee to be established by the secretary of natural resources rather than the treasurer, that shall be not more than 3% or less than minus 3%. So longer term length and lower interest rates available, currently what you see in the proviso here is that this is available to applicant systems that meet certain income levels and annual household user cost requirements. The change that is being included in the capital is to expand these loan terms to the eligible mobile home parks water system. So again, this is an existing authority for VIDA to do this, leveraging the Secretary of Natural Resources, it's just expanding that eligibility to allow eligible mobile park water systems. The other piece that's tied to this is that under subdivision C, the secretary certifies the loan term and interest rate to VIDA, and I'm going to read this without the new language just to set up what the problem is. In no instance shall the annual interest rate plus administrative fee be less than is necessary to achieve an annual household user cost equal to 1% of the median household income. So, while there is a minimum interest rate set in sub A, this provides kind of an additional condition that it needs to be no less than is necessary to achieve an annual household user cost equal to 1%. So, another practical floor is set for that. And the carve out that you see here is that that condition is gonna apply to all the loans that we're going through this program, except those that apply to the eligible mobile home park water system. So the simple way to describe these changes is you've now extended the most advantaged loan terms to these eligible mobile home park water systems. I don't know the incentive effects, but that is what the law is.

[Representative Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions)]: Okay, many questions.

[Scott Moore (Joint Fiscal Office)]: What's the point of the minus 3%? I'm happy to jump in. So we had this question waves of means this morning, and reached out to the secretary of natural resources and asked the question, what does this mean? How does this work? And essentially, the negative 3% is a way for loan forgiveness to be in there. And they said, quite frankly, the negative 3% is kind of a vexing and generally unfamiliar term. And their current usage is to actually say like a 25% loan forgiveness versus up to negative 3% loan forgiveness. So my understanding is it's old timey language to use the negative 3%. I can explain. The idea behind it is it's loan forgiveness for I understand.

[Representative Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions)]: Thanks. When we initially put this law in place, which was probably, I would say, was in the late '90s, is really to help the disadvantaged communities, your lower income communities, your water districts, and your fire districts as well, to access the drinking water revolving loan fund. And it was based on the income, median income of either that fire district or that municipality or even the mobile home park. And, if they were below a certain income, we really wanted to help the, rate payers. And when you did a plus three interest down to a minus three, the minus three, interest rate was equivalent to a 40% grant. And that's what we had for regular municipalities. In our drinking water revolving loan fund, as well as our clean water revolving loan fund, we also had the capacity for them to achieve a 40% grant, and we wanted to do the same thing with these fire districts and water districts and nonprofit mobile home parks for them. So that's the history of the initial spread on the interest rates.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: On page 17, section 12 is authorizing the state historic preservation officer to solicit grants in addition to accepting them. As I understand it, there are a few other state agencies that also have this similar solicitation ability. As you know, generally folks do not have the authority to solicit. Section 13, Little River State Park lease. This is granting in FY '27 the commissioner of forest parks and recreation authority to enter into a long term lease with the Vermont Hutt Association for use of the structure of the Little River State Park. And then it sets out specific lease term conditions, renewal for additional ten year terms after a twenty year term, setting the fee or fee formula, conditions on use, insurance, provisions for termination, sort of standard contractual terms you would want it addressed in advance of executing. Page 19, this is, in previous capital bills, there had been extended authority for the commissioner of PGS to transfer to the town of Springfield portions of the Southern State Correctional Facility. This new section is replacing earlier extended authorities which were for different purposes. This is to transfer to the town of Springfield, property consisting of approximately 23 acres to be used for municipal purposes, including economic development as an industrial parcel. And again, you have a set of contingencies that have to be met for that to happen, including obtaining state or local zoning or subdivision approvals, negotiating updates to an ongoing agreement to establish responsibility for how you're gonna deal with access roads, water, sewer service lines, how are you gonna mitigate the impacts of the Springfield community, and ensuring that the transferred property doesn't include any brownfields as part of that transfer. In addition to the transfer authority itself, there's kind of a check-in. The town has not begun developing that transferred property for purposes of economic development. By the March 2030, the town would consult with BGS to examine alternative uses. We have a set of repeals tied to this. The first, Subsection A, this is repealing the previous extension of transfer authority. It's basically being supplanted by this one. And then Sub B is saying, you have until 07/01/2030 to transfer the property. If it hasn't been transferred from the state to the town of Springfield by that point, the authority would lapse. And essentially, if you wanted to do this, you would need a new extension of authority. Lastly, section 16, this is language you'll be familiar with. This is already included in the budget. This is the check-in on the Green Mountain Youth Campus, ensuring that you receive regular reports during adjournment, trying to get that annual operating budget, and then prohibiting any expenditures by DCF or BGS in FY 'twenty seven until either you receive joint fiscal approval during the off session consultation with the chairs of the institutions committees, or if the session has returned, the general assembly could authorize reception of the Senate. So same as what's in the budget.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: It is. Okay.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: It's it's the exact same. Great. I'm gonna call back to one of the cash pieces. The final cash authorization had been, or maybe the penultimate cash authorization, had been 3,000,000 for Wi Fi installation at state correctional facilities. Part of those efforts, this has been an ongoing project, the Commissioner of Corrections and the Chief Information Officer of Digital Services need to report their procurement on that progress of installation. The effective date is on passage.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Travis, did you chat with ADS,

[Representative Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions)]: this is when Ali came in to testify? We tried to have them come in and testify, and they said that they weren't prepared to come in to testify and that doing anything would be premature at this point. Last year, our committee, as well as House Energy Committee, ADS. In conversations with ADS as well as DOC, we sent a letter to the Broadband Board recommending that the Broadband Board provide money to ADS and DOC to do this. That was denied. There was no money appropriated. So, our committee feels quite strongly that our correctional facilities need access to Wi Fi. We did do the hotspots. As I stated when I was here before, we did that with COVID money. So we've done that preliminary work in our facilities. But this is really impacting the operations of DOC by not having Wi Fi. It's impacting security staff, and it's impacting folks who are sentenced to living in our facilities, limiting access, particularly to Community High School of Vermont. Community High School of Vermont right now is offering a lot of classes. But because there isn't a Wi Fi capability, the instructors physically have to go to the facility to do that.

[Scott Moore (Joint Fiscal Office)]: So is this pushback of some sort, or is there a lack of money or resources?

[Representative Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions)]: Pushback from us or push back from ADS? ADSN. I can't answer for them. I just know we attempted to have them come into the committee to testify, And they said that putting any money in was way ahead of any planning they have done. But it was our understanding last year that there had been some planning done and work with DOC. So the committee really strongly feels we need to get this going. Yeah, I just had one question. We heard a lot about the cost of transporting folks to court hearings, etcetera. And I'm just wondering if it's envisioned that this Wi Fi capacity would enable folks to go to court essentially through Wi Fi? Well, right now, we do have remote arraignments, and they do occur. It's on their own little network. We already do remote arraignments for folks who are incarcerated, so to cut down on the amount of transport costs and pressure on our sheriffs. So we already do have that capacity, but it's in a certain network. But in order to have broader internet access and broader Wi Fi, they just don't have that capacity. So we have video agreements right now, but that's through their own network.

[Scott Moore (Joint Fiscal Office)]: It's

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: kind of tangential but it's thinking of this in terms of access to the outside world essentially with Wi Fi and being able to do things that you should be able to do. What is the current population of folks who have served their terms but can't get out into the public for because of lack of housing or lack of other things and where are they in the system? And how do they operate within those buildings if they can't be released if they've already served their term? Are they still considered prisoners?

[Representative Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions)]: They haven't served their term. I want to be When real a person has reached their minimum, they are eligible to be released. They have a maximum, they still are serving that maximum term. So, when they reach their minimum, they're eligible. It doesn't mean they're automatically released. They could be released on furlough, or they could be paroled by the parole board. So we used to have quite a few folks that had reached their minimum, would be eligible for release, but due to lack of appropriate housing, were being held. Probably about, I would say it's a good five years ago. Well, it was a little bit before COVID. COVID kind of skewed everything. But prior to COVID, it was pretty normal that we'd have about 150 folks held past their minimum that could be released, but for lack of housing. That number has decreased quite a bit. I don't know what the total number is. I know we've asked DOC, I think it's minimal, like 20 to 50 at the most for that.

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: And for furlough,

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: do you are people furloughed easier if they have connections outside where like for jobs and whatnot? I mean I'm just trying to think of like why else would you need wi fi if you were you know in order to contact the outside world? Would this facilitate people being able to, you know, find a place? We have this stereotype of people landing someplace without a home, without a job, and it strikes me that, I mean, it strikes me that Wi Fi is so normal now that it's it's weird that it's not there. But I'm just curious about what are the processes for folks to qualify for furlough?

[Representative Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions)]: That's a real question. That's an individualized issue per inmate. And based on whether they've participated in programming, why they're incarcerated, what their reentry plan is on a person, There's a lot of layers to your question. So when someone's incarcerated, they can have access to the internet and total Wi Fi like we do, but there are restrictions. And DOC places the restrictions on that, like for phone coverage or the contract with the telecommunications for their tablets and who they can email or who they can connect with for video, that's under a separate contract. But DOC limits who they have access to. They have an approved list of folks that that particular inmate can access, because you don't want them to have access to the victims. You don't want them to have access to who knows what out there. So it's really limited in terms of what the person would have access to. In terms of trying and getting ready to be released, an inmate would be working with their case worker and the local PMP office that they would be the community who would locate. They would work with their case supervisor for the reentry plan. And that case supervisor would be working with that local PNP office. And that's how they put together the reentry plan for folks who are getting close to reentry. And sometimes, at the last minute, that falls through. And sometimes, the person who's incarcerated says, I've got housing. This person's willing to house me. And then the caseworker and PNP will reach out, and maybe that person is not so willing to house the person, but they don't feel comfortable to tell the inmate that they're not comfortable. So they let DOC make that decision. So there's a lot of layers to it.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: You gotta go to her. Wayne? Oh, does

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: Sean? Sean Sweeney,

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: president of institutions, Haley said 50 to 70.

[Representative Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions)]: 50 to 70, so it's edged up a little bit. But our population is edged up too, that's incarcerated.

[Scott Moore (Joint Fiscal Office)]: But the primary driver for Wi Fi has been staff, right?

[Representative Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions)]: A lot of it is staff. And a lot of it is to provide services to folks who are incarcerated, particularly the CCD. Because community college of Vermont to to offer any courses, they have to physically go to the facility.

[Scott Moore (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Not not for the pleasure of using No. Any any projection from ADS about Wi Fi? Just not ready to even.

[Representative Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions)]: I mean, this has been ongoing for a long time. And we've said enough, it's time to really bite the bullet and start doing this.

[Scott Moore (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Thank you.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Great. And you have a huge spreadsheet, and we're not going to go through all the spreadsheet because they're going to do that on the floor. But I would be interested in the state house things.

[Representative Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions)]: Let me just give you a little bit of how the money plays in, just so I mean, you're the money committee. So we have $122,695,000 bonded capacity. Within that, we had a bond premium for FY27 of $6800000.0.58, blah, blah, blah. So, at least 6,800,000.0 is within that 122,000,000 bonding capacity. So we have that. That's for two years. So we've split that up.

[Scott Moore (Joint Fiscal Office)]: $13,000,000 plus the two.

[Representative Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions)]: Right, right. But this year was about.

[Scott Moore (Joint Fiscal Office)]: This year was, yeah.

[Representative Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions)]: And then, in terms of general fund, we have, through the formula for the infrastructure cash fund, we have 17,000,000 new dollars of general fund. On top of that, there's about 965,000, I'm just rounding things off, this on the back of our spreadsheet, of interest that Cash Fund has earned. So that goes towards our general fund piece, as well as this is the first year that we've reallocations, and I know three of you have been on capital bill and that committee, so you know what reallocations are. If you go to the last sheet of the spreadsheet, that page there. And you go down to section 18 and then subtotal cash fund sources, and you go in the gray column where you have that tail highlight, those are general fund dollars that were appropriated and allocated to those particular projects, from lines 191 down to 198. The law says, in the cash fund, if there's general fund dollars for a project that has hit the three year mark and it is not encumbered, it becomes reallocated. It is reallocated and stays in the fund. So we have, in that section, about $5,400,000 of general fund that has been previously appropriated for capital build projects that have hit that three year mark.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So you're talking about 01/1991 to 198? Yes. And there was a

[Representative Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions)]: stabilization facility? That is DCF. That is the facility that we are currently working on. And that money was used before going out for an RFP and working with the Gens. And then they pulled that. And now they went out with another RFP. And they just received a bid back at the March. So BGS has started negotiating with that possible developer. They have not used any of this money yet. So it hit that three year mark. It is not encumbered because they haven't finalized any negotiations with the developers, so it's up to be reallocated.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So, can't know where the location is yet because they're still We don't know what the cost of the lease payments would be. So

[Representative Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions)]: if you look on the front sheet of this spreadsheet, you go to section three, line 30, Yeah. There's 772,557 cash to go towards further design and development of that program. So that's the backfill, so that 300 banks. So, I can start you off real brief on what we did in section two. If you look on the The blue column is the bill as we passed it last year. The gray is the governor's proposed budget adjustment. So wherever you see the pale beige, that's what the governor has proposed. In the red block, where it is highlighted in yellow, are the changes that we have made. Do the governor's recommend? And in some cases, changes we have made already that we already put in the meter at FY '26 '27 that the governor did not touch, he touched some of those. One of the big ones, I can bring you to the three acre parcel, line four, and conversations, not all the projects that they had hoped to would be going out in a timely manner. You have five years from the time you receive your permit to get the project done. There are three projects ready to go that come in at about 2,100,000.0. There's already about 5,000,000 in the pot. So we figured that, and the other projects, they haven't gotten their permits yet. So that's why that got cut back by 1,400,000.0, because not all projects are gonna go forward in FY 'twenty seven or even FY 'twenty eight. So that's why we went back into our current FY 'twenty six and FY 'twenty seven budget. And we cut $1,400,000 from that, because they weren't going to get everything out the door during FY 'twenty seven or even FY 'twenty eight, because a lot of them still need the permit. And then 120 State Street. We've been looking at this one. That is the DMV building across the street. There's a lot of steam line repairs and renovations that need to occur. There's a lot of moisture buildup. What's happening with 120 State Street is sort of on hold, in a way, trying to figure out where the state and FEMA are going to come down with I'm just going to use the word with the rehab of sorts, with the capital complex, trying to figure out where 120 State Street would fit in that within in terms of its HVAC system, and do we do a separate building for the whole complex or not? And if we do as a whole separate building for the whole complex for the HVAC system, is that going to incorporate 120 State Street? Or is 120 State Street still going to be its own standalone building within So that we don't know what's gonna happen yet. And they're still negotiating with FEMA. So we cut that back. State House entry upgrades. We've been working with BGS and the sergeant at arms.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Is that for this backstop Yeah,

[Representative Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions)]: what it is is where folks are entering single point of entrance. Finished the schematic design. They're going into more design documents to refine this. It is to do a whole new reentry on the west side. It's at the west side of the building where the single point of entry is. It's to reconfigure that so that you have an entry for the public, but also you have a separate entry for deliveries, particularly for the cafeteria or for items here, whatever we need to operate as a legislative branch. And then the courtyard will be filled in. That's the thinking. Courtyard will be filled in all the way to the arches here. And the main entrance into the building, Once you come in that single point of entry, come down the corridor, main entrance will be the Lincoln Hallway.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Oh, right by us. Come in that way. Yeah, right. Many years before that's going to happen if it's like any chance it'll be fifteen years, so it doesn't

[Representative Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions)]: It about will a $22,000,000 project.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: It's a ways away. Okay.

[Representative Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions)]: So this will get us through a design document so we know specifically what's happening and possibly into construction documents. But it's going to be a 22 mil. They're saying 18 to 19, they haven't addressed parking because they're going to lose parking by the pink lady. So you need to address truck entrance and deliveries. And you also need to address ADA parking because we're going lose parking spaces. So that's why we put in that language. So we don't need to go through the rest of this, because

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: I know you're going to do that on the floor, and this is not really our area. But I'm wondering if on the back sheet, there's anything like the totals, we could just see the grand total pieces.

[Representative Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions)]: Well, the grand total is It's higher than 1.25. Right, because you have the cash. You've got 122.695 plus for total bonded for two years.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Is that column P? Line

[Representative Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions)]: two zero four? Yes. Okay. And then for your cash, you have a total, and that's column S, 36,800,000.0, and that's for two years. What you got for FY24 is 23.4.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Right, and that's what we went over that we put in the As

[Representative Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions)]: get for FY27, twenty three point four. So the total capital bill, bonded and general funds, 159,550,000. And

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: is the, I know when I was in your committee ten years ago, I think we were around $150,000,000 maybe? I know we've been sort of slowly going down.

[Representative Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions)]: We didn't have any cash, so it was all bonded. So we were doing at least $7,075,000,000 per year.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Okay, about 140, 150,000,000.

[Representative Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions)]: Now we're down to about $50.52.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So the totals haven't changed all that much. It's just that how it's being

[Representative Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions)]: used between It's more general funds. Back then, we didn't have general fund dollars. We were totally two year budget, totally bonded. And they were it started out at about $80,000,000 a year, then it went to about 70,000,000 And then as we put in more general fund, they've gone down. So right now, we are at about, I think it's 52,000,000, 53

[John Gray (Legislative Counsel)]: The million per CDEC recommendations were 50 mil a year, so 100,000,000 across the union, which is slightly reduced from last.

[Representative Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions)]: Right, that's the previous one. 52.

[Scott Moore (Joint Fiscal Office)]: That does increase with bond freemium. Exactly.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Right, right. There are other places you could get it. I get that. Wayne, you do have a different quote. Different

[Scott Moore (Joint Fiscal Office)]: We were building Sallie Port, or Sallie Port in town. Is those Sallie Port that we get built?

[Representative Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions)]: It's out of the correctional facility. That's all connected to the booking and redoing the booking, and they are struggling and trying to figure out how to do the design work for that. They're working. There's a lot of issues with the booking area up in St. Albans. It's too small. And we've put in money. I forgot how much money we put in three years ago for that. Forty years ago, we did that. We started putting money into it when we were on Zoom back in 'twenty one.

[Scott Moore (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Then we had the other side of the board issue where we had to keep the different types of people so that they couldn't interact at the other end the day.

[Representative Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions)]: No, they're all into signed documents. It's all in design documents. So I don't know if there's anything else on the spreadsheet that's raising any issues for folks.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: I think we really want to try to focus on what came to us, and that was what was in the budget. So I think we should be all set for that. I'm not seeing any other questions. So I think we have to vote in order to get to

[Representative Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions)]: the floor. That's right.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Well, if you all want to wait around, any other questions from the committee? If not, I'd entertain a motion to approve age nine fifty two as introduced. Don Wayne.

[Representative Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions)]: I just want to say thank you. Yes, a lot of hard work.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Thank you. You did lot of work. We did a lot

[Representative Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions)]: of moving and the money. Yes, I bet you did. Yes.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: I have to know all of you parts and pieces. We appreciate that. We know about parts We've and there. Thank you. All right, if the clerk is ready, let's call the office.

[Scott Moore (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Representative Mowley? Yes. Representative Dickinson? Yes. Representative Kascenska?

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: Yes. John Kascenska? Kascenska? Yes. Representative Roy? Yes. Representative Nigro? Yes. We're only yes. Representative Yacovone? Yes. Representative Shy? Yes. Nothing serious.

[Representative Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions)]: Wayne, did you do this one last year?

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: No, I don't think so. Well, maybe you did make me do this one.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: BTS! You don't have to say much, but it's already in the room. Why don't we give it to him? If you don't mind, I'm gonna tease him. Okay, that's great. Thank you all very much. Thank you all committee for your work. It'll be on the floor,

[Representative Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions)]: I guess, what's today? What's Friday? So,

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: committee, just to remind you of our schedule.

[Scott Moore (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Oh, you're this morning. You make that a lot. Tomorrow

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: is surging. Have anything for Emily tomorrow morning? Okay, at the moment Emily Byrne's coming in at eleven to talk about the operating statement. That's one of the last things she showed us with all of our spreadsheets before you push budget, how we'll actually go over it so we can understand that. If we get something else before then, I will let you know, but at the moment that's 11:00 tomorrow. So we're on at eleven unless you hear from me that we're on earlier. But that's where we are at the moment. Still working on a couple of things. All right, let's go

[Scott Moore (Joint Fiscal Office)]: up

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: live please.