Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Good morning. This is the House Appropriations Committee. It's Thursday, 04/30/2026. It's just after 09:30 in the morning, and we are here to talk about the budget again. It got passed out of the Senate yesterday. Think that one was out of voice vote. And we have the chair of Senate Appropriations, Senator Perchlich, with us today. And I think this is the first time we've asked the chair of Senate Approach to come and sit in the hot seat. I always have people It's come nice to have you come here and have 11 people ask you questions. How long do you have?

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: I just told transportation that I'd be back at ten.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: We can. I'm sure we have a few questions. Anyway, welcome, Senator Persol. And if want to introduce yourself and if you want to start off, then I know we're going to have a few questions, too. Tell us about your thinking.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: Okay. Great. Well, thank you for the committee and Chair Chai for having me in. I think it is a good practice. Hopefully, it's a new tradition to have the senate come and try to explain ourselves for what we've done. I want us to start by thanking both the governor's work to start the budget. I mean, the senate, we don't we only have the budget for, like, three weeks. We obviously take testimony before that, but we really rely on the work that the governor does starting in September and then the good work that the house does at the beginning of the sessions. We understand how much work you put into it and the hours. I don't know if there's a committee that meets more than House of Preparation. So you're the hardest working committee in the legislature, I think. So we understand that, and thank you for your for your work.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: You're not buttering my supper.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: Not buttering your mouth. Know? We would butter. If

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: we were a unicameral legislature, you know, your budget would be the budget. That that would be fine. But we don't have that system, so we have a system where the senate gets to take our crack at it, and then we work together and present that to the to the governor. But overall, I explained to the senate that we kind of took our approach to the budget was to to build a stool. You often hear the three legged stool that you have to have all three legs equal for a stool to work. We have four legs, which you might wanna also call a chair. So the four legs of this chair are a balanced budget, obviously. That's the founding foundation principle that we have to stay within our means. Second chair is meeting the basic needs of Vermonters. This food, housing, health care, clean environment, and also just the functioning of basic government. So we're funding that that base of government so that Vermonters can see their government working for them. Third is saving for an uncertain future. So these are all our reserves, our set asides, the contingencies, and also taking care of our obligations in the future. So a big part of that is pensions, making sure that we're meeting those future obligations, which we didn't as a legislature not too long ago that we're having to make up for. I think also in this area, you could talk about education, like we need to invest in the future. But we also fourth leg that I think sometimes isn't focused on in these kind of opening remarks is economic development. And we need to make sure that we have a strong economy for the future so that we can have revenues to meet these other basic needs and a functioning government. So we did several things that I would put in this economic development bucket that the the house and even the governor hadn't done because we think that's that's important for this for the state government to be a hand in that economic development.

[Rep. Martha Feltus (Vice Chair, House Appropriations)]: I think you saw the stool. I think

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: your balance budget is the seat.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: Okay, yeah. We can build some interesting furniture. And as you all know, I don't need to tell you the tough process. There's a lot of tough decisions have to be made. We didn't like making some of these decisions for sure. But as you all know, though, you have to make these decisions to to get to the balanced budget. And I'd say some of them were probably rushed or not. We don't have a iron grip on everything, but that's part of the process and what we're looking forward to the discussion with the house. So I wasn't gonna go through it because there's just a lot there. So I'm more interested to hear what things you want to talk to.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Well, I know we have some questions. Does anybody want to start?

[Rep. Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member, House Appropriations)]: Sure. I saw the language about funding for new positions being contingent on the revenue forecast. Can you just say a little bit about what you

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: talked about?

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: Yeah, it's an interesting new idea. There was some concern on the committee the future of our economic health in the state. And that positions in particular, if we have those senators that were around last time we had a rescission, we had to lay off state workers, the ones that were said we should do something different than we or we didn't really prepare for that. But you can't prepare for the unknown economic impact. But if there is a rescission and we have to lay off people, would it be better not to hire them in the first place? So that's the idea is we don't wanna hire people that say, oh, well, now we have to cut 15% of the workforce or something like that if it gets to that level. So the idea was to have some kind of this contingency. So if we get to the July forecast, then there is a downturn. The jobs don't go those I think there's seven of the jobs don't go into effect, but that the joint fiscal committee could override that. They could say, even though there was a 1% reduction, we think these positions could go into

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: effect.

[Rep. Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member, House Appropriations)]: Just as quick follow-up, because there are a couple of positions in the treasurer's office that are not funded through the general fund. And why were they put into

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: that mix?

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: I think just for that reason. Because well, you're saying they were put in bed. Yeah, good question. I think we looked at the positions that we created, but I think it's a fair argument to say that they shouldn't be.

[Rep. Martha Feltus (Vice Chair, House Appropriations)]: Great.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: And were there any of those, the Rural Health Transformation grant people? I'm not remembering. I'd be worried about those positions not happening.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: Right. Yeah.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Okay. I guess that's something we'll look

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: at. No,

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: I was going talk about the process.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Oh, okay. I have a question. Some of the things that you eliminated, possibly at least a position and maybe anything else to do with the ethics commission.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: No. Yeah. That would be a difficult discussion, I'd say. Definitely, bearing opinions in Senate on that. I think just there's some turmoil around the ethics commission, some disagreement about the workload and the number of positions and responsibilities without the executive director around feeling and that, well, are we gonna be able to fund all the work that they need to do? The the letter we got from the board was that the house thankfully gave us a position, but they gave us the work that is equal to a position. So it didn't feel like they were really ahead of the game. And so I think for a variety of reasons, kinda felt like there was more work to be done than that one position was a was a place that we could save for other positions we wanted to have. We were trying to keep to the same number of positions. So we stayed even with the house on position. So we basically used that to fund another position.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Okay. And did you keep the language in for the Ethnos Commission that you had put in? There was stuff about delaying timelines on

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: I think we didn't.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations)]: We just took it all out. Okay.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Thank you.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: And I know there was some other language just from the news about house, maybe gov ops is talking about other things. I think it's maybe around that.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Well, that's all about the disclosure form. That's a separate

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: But I heard that they were maybe gonna talk about other issues around the ethics commission, our workload of ethics commission, but I could be wrong on that.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Yeah. Not sure. The kerfuffle has been around the disclosure form, and I haven't, to the exclusion of everything else that I've heard about it at this point. So I don't know. So Tom, and then it looked like maybe Dave had also.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations)]: Senator, just from my portfolio. So there are a couple of questions. First of all, he had put in money for a legal aid response to phone calls. They've had more than doubling of their of their calls in the last two or three years. That was cut. They they desperately needed that position. Also in the agricultural section office position, a business office position to help handle up to $90,000,000 now of federal money that's coming in was is proposed to be cut. And then there's a whole different reconstitution of monies that were being that we had appropriated to programs like Crop Cash, Food Bank, and then money looks like a lot of that was redirected simply to local food shelves, which is probably one of the more more inefficient than giving it to the other organizations, at least in our opinion. I just wanna throw those out, see if you have some clarification on how those happen.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: Yeah. And I have a list of the food shelves. I guess we could have that discussion in conference about the efficiency. I guess the IR committee was thinking it was more efficient to give it right to the volunteer food shelves. That's first line of defense. Do you want think of it that way? Where folks that find themselves short on food go to their local food shelves. So giving it directly to those, I think it was 127 or two twenty seven different organizations throughout the whole, you know, all 14 counties. So the idea was to give right to them instead of to the organizations that then have to funnel it down. But that I think they were we were thinking it's more efficient to do that way, but open to hear

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations)]: that food bank will get the food cheaper food shelves are going be buying the food from the food bank

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: and the the language allows the food bank to give it directly to them and food or in in dollars.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations)]: We'll figure it out. I just want to, I'm just pointing out what's out of out of our you know I do appreciate for to balance that off with some appreciation. I appreciated that the money for the immigration attorney was retained But, you know, my disappointment in overall has been that our budget also did not fully fund services for people who are being need them legal services in particular that need them desperately in the face of what's been going on. And the recent yesterday's Supreme Court decision, while it may not affect us directly, is just another indication that the federal government is not very supportive of people who are

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: not white. Agreed. And I think maybe the legal aid hotline is an example of us moving fast. The immigration attorney kind of felt like we were at least putting something towards that effort. We were finding money for other priorities and that's one of the places we found the money. But the hotline, I don't think we fully understood all the impacts of that. It's hard for us to take testimony on everything as we're moving things around. The ag, had taken out the money for the farm fees. That was something that kind of went back and forth. Then when we put that 253,000 back in the budget, I think that the other position was kind of a casualty of that discussion and not having direct advocacy for that for that. The construct of taking money away from other food groups were open. That was your other discussion. I guess we already talked about that. But, yeah, it was to try to find money for the local food shelves. And that was a proposal put in front of the committee to take it from the other food programs instead of taking it from somewhere else. And we'll have that Did you have another question? No. No. We'll just have a further conversation.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Million dollars for farm for us. Is that your two?

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations)]: Sure. And then in the contingency Right. And I haven't talked to the advocates since we passed the budget on this. S 60 was it's an important program. Yeah. They were requesting fifteen point six and one of the issues that came up directly from the department from the agency was capacity. It's another to potentially start the program means that they need to hire somebody to run the program and we didn't fund it at this point in time. I think we put language in that said, we want to create the system, but we also don't want to fund it until we have enough further conversations next year. So there's just a question of whether or not this is a case. And again, haven't talked to the advocates, so I don't know where they came down on it. But the way that we left it was sometimes putting zero in when the agency won't be able to fulfill the needs that they have. Better than It could be better than, you know, than putting something in, preparing a program that only has a few dollars in it, comparatively speaking. We needed the program won't succeed unless it has millions of dollars in it. Just something to pay attention to.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: Yeah, we didn't talk about that.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: David, could you describe what you may have been able to do in the realm of primary care, if anything? Yes.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: So Senator Lyons, our chair of our committee on health and welfare, presented a construct to the Appropriations Committee to fund the primary care. I think we're fine the primary care case management payments that used to be made. So I don't have a handout that our JFO could show you that where that construct took money out of the budget to fund those primary care payments to keep those primary care physicians supported. And we also, the AHEC payments, changes we made so that the primary care doctor loan repayment should be, I don't know if fully funded is the right word or more funding. But I think those are the two that I'm remembering. Don't know

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: if there's others.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Well, JFO will be presenting too, so we'll get more of the details.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: Yeah. They can show you how that construct would make us. Sometimes, if you just go through the spreadsheet, it's not clear. So if you see both on the food programs, how those what things were cut, fund the local shelves, and on the primary care, what things were cut to fund AEC and the primary care payments. It's good. It at least makes that clear whether you agree with it or not. Obviously, it's different.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: John, did you have a question?

[Rep. John Kascenska (Member, House Appropriations)]: Yeah, just a couple of small items here. GoWriter grant was reduced by half, what kind of conversations you have around. Right.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: What's it, half from the governor or half from what you guys had? I thought we hit 300,000 and you had to 500,500

[Rep. John Kascenska (Member, House Appropriations)]: and then

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: Oh, yeah. I guess I was thinking in my mind that a 100,000 they have in their base. So it got to 300,000. But, you had 300,000 more. Yeah. It was an it was it's a good program. We support the whole outdoor economy. Take it as a position of growth opportunities for the economy. But we're looking haven't. Yeah. Yeah. Agree with the premise. Wanted to keep it in there. We're looking for monies for other priorities. Briefly. That's Some still in there. And that was one. Yeah. Like the server and learn, we'd looked at that, but there was there was more support for that Yeah. As far as things when we're looking for for money to fund other things. So And I just

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations)]: wanna raise one other thing here because

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: I know AOE has been they've

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations)]: had some recent questions here about Vermont.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: Yeah. They said, you folks some information about that. This is. Right. But

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: just curious. Yeah. Think it was some

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: get into it too much. Yeah.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: And I think there was some maybe miscommunications within the administration of AOE and finance management at the beginning why it wasn't in the BAA because I kind of should have been in the BAA maybe, but it wasn't. And there was definitely confusion about it. Yeah.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Well, so that BAA is long gone. And nobody complained about it in the past.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: That's flowed through to the budget because they were like, well, now you didn't do it in the BAA, but don't do it in the budget. Our education committee didn't put it as a priority. I think they were obviously focused on other things, but I think had some questions about the whole program and didn't wanna just sign off on that without oversight.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: But it should have been in their budget. If there's a program they're doing, it should be in there. Like, we didn't change their budget for f y twenty seven. It sounds like you didn't change their f y twenty seven budget.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: So if they

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: didn't put it in, then that's their issue. That's not our problem. That's their problem.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: Exactly. And without our education committee saying, we looked at it, we really want you to add this. We didn't have that. So we weren't gonna we had them in. Yeah. And we're all for literacy. We liked the direction of the program from last year, two years ago when they started focusing on that. But, yeah, like the chair said, they didn't put it in their budget, and the governor's budget used it somewhere else. We couldn't quickly do this.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: Yeah. Adult literacy, initially, is it in there someplace, but it's not the same.

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: That's still new.

[Nolan Langweil (Joint Fiscal Office, Senior Fiscal Analyst)]: Right. Yeah.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: First step check on our bank.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: I

[Nolan Langweil (Joint Fiscal Office, Senior Fiscal Analyst)]: just wanna Yeah, take your

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: you.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Well, have a few more questions. Martha, you can go ahead and answer.

[Rep. Martha Feltus (Vice Chair, House Appropriations)]: Yeah, I noticed that you had a million and a half in for the educational transformation grants as part of September. And I don't understand that because we thought we had that all covered by previous money.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: Yes, there is money in September, is that what it is? '9 Our fifty education committee wanted more money. They thought that for these transition to happen and mergers that be successful, more money. I think they wanted $5,000,000 So we found them $1,500,000 that they could work with to help with the transformation costs.

[Rep. Martha Feltus (Vice Chair, House Appropriations)]: The presumption is, though, that will be built into some legislation that's It would

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: be part of well, yeah, either the Senate Education Transformation Bill or in the conference committee, it gives them a little more money to work with specifically for the merger grants.

[Rep. Martha Feltus (Vice Chair, House Appropriations)]: Okay. But there is no legislation right now that indicates that?

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: Correct. I mean, the money that's already in that bill, this would be additional money to that bill.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: And that's one time? Yeah. You just pulled it out somewhere from one time and cut other things to give them more money. And did you get specifics on how they would use the money at this point

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: or just It was more general, but mainly for the merger grants. I'm calling them, maybe there's a different term that's used, but basically to support the effort to combine their Okay.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: We don't really know how much they need because there's no real one.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: We were just trying to set a little more aside if we found it.

[Rep. Martha Feltus (Vice Chair, House Appropriations)]: Also noticed that you pulled the million dollars that we put back into the CIT fund to help that deficit and you removed that.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: Yes. It was an easy place to find money to not fund that. Then we

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: You they take it. We

[Rep. Martha Feltus (Vice Chair, House Appropriations)]: also took the Tech Mod Fund, which we did. But I noticed at least in one

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: version The contingency. We put half of it.

[Rep. Martha Feltus (Vice Chair, House Appropriations)]: Half of it in the contingency. Administration

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: would rather us not do that. I mean, rather us not spend it than put our spending in the contingency, but we disagreed with them on it.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: Wayne,

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: did you have a question?

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: I said you could.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: I wondered if you wanted to talk briefly about the contingency list. Do we know anything? We left here, we knew we were not counting on any contingency for anything.

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

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: mean, my understanding is we're just slightly ahead. So Yeah. I don't think we're gonna have the full contingency list. Right. The idea was, like, we also underestimated what we had last year by quite a bit. So you never know. So we thought we heard a lot of advocacy for the Farm Security Fund. So we added that in there. We heard advocacy from the administration about the Tech Mod Fund in particular around the ERP project and how more money is going to be needed for that. And so why we put some money in there for that, the Farm Security Fund. And then the 30,000,000 is the same language that we had last year for some of the money to be Is

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: that the same 30,000,000 just being further carried forward? Or still It'd be an additional 30,000,000.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: It'd be an additional 30,000,000. And then there's the $5,000,000 for the

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Human services case

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: Case load reserves.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Are we thinking it's gonna need to This be

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: goes to the same this was proposed around the same discussion around the position contingency trigger. Like, if there is a downturn, if we have rescissions, if the forecast is lower, then we might need more money from the caseload reserve to support Vermonters if we really have to scale back. Or maybe that'd be another place for funding if the federal government continues to scale back and we skip the full ramifications of the cut to health care subsidies, things like that.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Two others from me. You added 2,000,000 to the rural industrial development program and 12,000,000 to EZF. So tell us about your thinking.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: Okay. The real industrial program, it's s three twenty seven, which was the economic development bill in

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

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: senate. It went and moved the house commerce. They put in some language to kind of revive the industrial development programs. There's still a little bit money in there, but because of the way the program is set up, heard from folks that it could be more used if we change the parameters.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Right. So we changed the allowable uses, expanded the allowable use to federally impacted.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: And we wanted to add money to that to first for other programs that could make use of that.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Even though there's already still $2,500,000 in the program without adding more to it.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: Yes. Because we're particularly looking at programs and not ashamed to say one of them would be in Montpelier for the Federal Building,

[Nolan Langweil (Joint Fiscal Office, Senior Fiscal Analyst)]: an

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: old post office that's just a key building for the downtown economic health. There's opportunity to do housing behind there and just control that building. It's not going to be cheap just to get control of it because the federal government is not really being the best partner, as you might imagine, and they're not telling the city what the environmental contamination is. So there needs to be an evaluation of the building. Right. But you need to control it.

[Nolan Langweil (Joint Fiscal Office, Senior Fiscal Analyst)]: They won't let them go in

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: and do that now.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: And they won't let them look

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: at the environmental reports that were done. We have some information from some of the contractors that did it that could tell them that there are PCBs and asbestos building materials, but they won't they don't know how much. Right. So that's that's a concern there. And then we also heard about the Newport project that there's an interest specifically in that project, and we didn't think there we thought adding more money would be able to get the program going with the new rules and at least have some more money so that those projects

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: can There is plenty of money to do both of those projects now in the contingency funds, the development side. There's already $2,500,000 still in there, so they could use that money instead.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: Well, I don't know if it's enough money. We can talk more about that. And then there would it would mean nobody else that was wanted to change to the program to get that. But if

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

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: But that's

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Nice program just to develop during COVID and your programs that are going away. Yes. And then the 12,000,000, that's very tough.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: The $12,000,000 Yeah. So the Senate construct is they asked the governor for $20,000,000 The governor put in $15,000,000 The Senate construct was like, okay, if we kept $15,000,000 but $12,000,000 for the multipurpose complex on the campus. And the the Freedom and Unity grants that you put in instead of taking those from the general fund, also taking that from the higher trust fund. And then also doing the housing project at Johnson that you're told had difficulty getting into capital bill, putting it in there as well. So it's another project that funding.

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: That's how

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: you get to the fifteen year.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Did you have anybody from the Higher Ed Trust Fund board come in and talk to you about?

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: I am the member of the Higher Ed Trust Fund Council committee. Interested. But it is. So yeah.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Like, the treasurer didn't come in and talk about it?

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: Not specifically about that I remember.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: And did

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: you talk to

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: the other recipients of the money in the fund, the scholarship money from

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: Not on

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: colleges or Essex?

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: Not officially on camera. Like, ESAC came in talking about their budget, and maybe but I don't think they spoke about this. We did talk to them separately, but we didn't have them officially testify. I can remember.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations)]: So regarding both the rural thing and

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: then a quick question about

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations)]: the education money too. Noticed that the there's language that changed the rural money from essentially a loan that needed to be paid back or given back and it's being changed to a grant. And the question that I had for the attorneys yesterday was, for this week was when you change something like that, how does that change the contract? Did you change did you take testimony on how it would change if I make it if I sign a contract that I'm receiving money that I'm supposed to pay back and then all of a sudden I'm being told that it's just a grant and I can keep it. I know through and these may not be parallel but I know through the BHIP program if you take a loan it's one thing if you take a grant it's considered income. You don't have to pay taxes on it. So I'm just curious to know whether or not there's going to be any impacts, positive or negative. I mean, it's easy to think that if it's just a grant, I don't have to pay it back. That's a positive impact. But if they have, they also get a tax bill at the end of that, that's a negative impact or it's not expected. So I'm just curious. And then I guess the same thing goes, same kind of legal question goes, the trust fund is meant to force scholarships. Did you provide language in this document that allows us to be taken out and be used for other purposes?

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: So on that point first, so we did have an outstanding language in there necessarily. If you're going to take it out of the higher interest fund, you have to not withstand the language. It says that you can't take it out for anything that's other than the scholarships and also the language about only taking out 5%. So we do have an outstanding language in there. The other thing I forgot to mention, which I think gained this whole idea of legs because at the beginning there wasn't, I would say, enough support for it. But part of the main construct is to take part of the cannabis excise tax and pay back the higher interest fund, the 15,000,000. The language at one point, it was to say, just pay it back and then end it. That 20% of the excise tax goes to higher trust fund continually. So it would also increase the amount of money for scholarships going forward.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: But it takes it out

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: the

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: general That's just taking it

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: out of the general fund.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: It's just a decision to

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: paying it back with general fund. Everybody wants the cannabis tax.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations)]: Or using it for social equity programs or wherever.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: So we're taking away from the judge. It would be like if we had $15,000,000 in the general fund, we would just use that for the payments, but we're taking it from the higher trust fund and paying it back from the general fund. I totally understand that.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations)]: The other question was on Change from a loan to

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: Oh, right. So it would be retroactive, at least my understanding of the language that was added in house commerce. But at least what I was advocating for is a grant. I don't know if there's a way to say if you could pay it back because nobody wants to pay it back if they didn't have to. But the entities that we're talking about, at least that I was told that would be participating in this would be development corporations. So I don't know if they pay taxes. So I don't know if this is like I think the program is more seen for rural economic development authorities would get this money. So I don't know if they have the same tax implications than like a developer of a project. But no, we didn't talk specifically about the impact of counting the grant as income if the grant goes to somebody that pays income tax.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations)]: And the other piece, we'll continue.

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: I mean, we probably have

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations)]: some time to figure this out. Yeah. Mean, because the other piece of this is when we give money using the property transfer tax as an example, and I think this goes to the use of a cannabis tax as well, while there is always notwithstanding language that, oh, we can take this cash and use it any way we want, at least with the property transfer tax money, that money, if you accept that money, you are required to have some form of perpetual affordability in order to keep the housing. You're using taxpayers dollars to subsidize housing, and therefore we want you to and I mean, even VHIP for all of its good stuff. I mean, it only has a limited amount of memorability. So if we turn these things into grants, if we give kind of like the VHIP question, right, or the VEGI budget, if we're giving money to a corporation, what's the benefit to the state besides the initial development? Is there some way that this is always going to help the taxpayer help the corpus of the state in the same way perpetual affordability does for housing the state money?

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: That's a great question. Yeah. We definitely support making that part of the program. We did add similar, add language to the UVM money that it had to beat the prevailing wage requirements that are in the capital bill. Since it's not in the capital bill, we made sure that was added. But for a housing project that is used for the rural industrial development money, then having that permanent affordability would be

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: something that seemed to make sense.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Tim, there's a quick follow-up on Well,

[Rep. Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member, House Appropriations)]: Mike doesn't. Go ahead, Mike.

[Rep. Michael Nigro (Member, House Appropriations)]: Thanks. I just want to share my perspective on that 12,000,015 whatever. One of the things I have been surprised at over the last year or so when I talk to high school kids is the number of students

[Rep. Michael Nigro (Member, House Appropriations)]: that aren't even thinking about college plus the deposit.

[Rep. Michael Nigro (Member, House Appropriations)]: And I hope

[Rep. Michael Nigro (Member, House Appropriations)]: I would love to see more money directed towards scholarship for Vermonters, and the idea that we're going

[Rep. Michael Nigro (Member, House Appropriations)]: to take 12 of that for UVM, which is only 30% Vermonters, feels like we're getting off track here.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations)]: My perspective on that.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: Yeah, and I think that perspective is shared. I think that the difference here that made it something that could pass was of the extra money, the Windfall estate tax that went in, that was something like 20 something million. So even with taking the 12, you're still ahead of the payments that will be made for scholarship next year. So we're not taking a step back. Definitely would be more if we did take it out. And then this will be paid back. And if it was to continue, the caveat there is taking it for the general fund, it would be more money for scholarships in the future years after three years, because you'd pay back the $15,000,000 then it would be growing after that. So I think that's why, although there were people, I think, voted against it in the senate because of this, that brought the majority around.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: Just as a follow-up, that buildings are nice, but as a pun, for people who have an edifice complex, maybe more important than godliness.

[Rep. Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member, House Appropriations)]: I just wanted to

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

[Rep. Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member, House Appropriations)]: to go back to the language, but would you talk about, I'm assuming this is an outright appropriation of the twelve month line. Did you talk about kind of parsing it out based on the fundraising efforts of UVM? Not

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: officially, but it's something that, yes, has been discussed, I'd say. The idea has been thrown out there as when is it needed? What's the best way of doing that? But the way the language is just clean and appropriate.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Any other questions for Selena Perchland? Go ahead, Jay. This

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: is a comment. Okay. It's spinning up in this comment about education. I do find it also troubling that New Year's only 25% of month students. I also find it troubling that this is entering into the discussion on schools eventually here that we're spending a tremendous amount of money on the lowest performers in the schools. And I think in some places, statute is a lot of us says we shall not give any extra money to your high achievers. We're never going to have high achievers being able to go to those colleges if we don't have that performance in those schools. So I'm concerned going forward that we do spend the appropriate amount of money across the board, you want to call it equitable or whatever, should be equitable so that those high achievers actually have the tools and have the experiences in school that will enable them to be able to go and perform at a college level. Agreed.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Right? Basic question. Okay. Great. Senator Persich, thank you so much for coming in. We think we'll see you again. I know we will. But thank you to your community.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: Thank you.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Stay safe while you can. Thank you. And so joint high school. Start with Emily, who's some of you joining.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: Bringing Amy with me. Okay. I did a hilarious thing today where my kid who had been sick for three days managed to get to preschool. So that was a win, but I managed to bring the wrong computer to the office. She got to school. That's the win of the

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: day. Pretty

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

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: Amy is gonna help me drive. But she what a booy app. Just

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: think it's funny. It's friends.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: Yeah. If you wanna watch an Elmo video, I can bring that up.

[Rep. Martha Feltus (Vice Chair, House Appropriations)]: Can't help it.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: Budget. But anyway, for the record, Emily Byrne and I baby Pope with me from the joint fiscal office. I apologize. I have to run at 10:30 for a meeting, but Then you'll

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: come back. It was so good. I can

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: come back. And Grady can walk through some of the language changes. He still have questions about those details, but I'll start with some of the spreadsheets. Senator Perch like walked through a lot of things. So probably makes sense to start with base changes. And I will just touch on the things that the Senate changed.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: Just a flag. So

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: there was nothing that changed with the Pay Act or anything sort of on the top side of things with the base. So that is the same.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: I do have a question on that, because we did all hear about all the And I know Anthony is going to be working on that. Is it too early to ask how that's going? Are we sort of covered on that?

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: It looks like we are not done having conversations with the administration. Okay. Looks like we should be covered. We are still working on it.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: All right. Great. Thank you.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: To be sure. But I think they We're not worried. Planned for it. No, at this point.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations)]: No. Okay.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: So the first thing that changed on line 10 with the sergeant at arms, we added $60,000 to put funding for the single point of entry in the base budget. You all know that that is a change that has been made that was not contemplated in the original build of the sergeant in arms budget. So that adds in funding for contractual help to help there.

[Rep. Martha Feltus (Vice Chair, House Appropriations)]: Is that just funding what they're doing right now, or is this a continuing?

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: This is to fund what they're doing right now, but in January. They were covered for FY26. For FY26.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: This is paying for FY27, just while the legislature is in session.

[Rep. Martha Feltus (Vice Chair, House Appropriations)]: Okay. Okay. So this is, all right. But is it intended that will there be $60,000 every year in the base budget for them for this? Yeah. But this is not the longer term construction project.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: This is just for the security guards that are at the door right now. The next change is in the judiciary. This is an increase to the amount of money set aside to pay the sheriffs in the judiciary. You had added $250,000. The senate added an additional $480,000 to bring the additional increase for the judiciary up to a little over $700,000.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Before that, they removed the mediator position and the ethics position.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: I'm sorry. Yes, I should have flagged those. The mediator

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: about the mediator and why they removed that,

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: but so can do that later.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: The ethics position. Yep, those two positions were removed.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: It's line twelve and thirteen.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: Correct. Twelve and thirteen. Correct. Line 17. This is the judiciary one that I just spoke about. This brings the, it's approximately $60 an hour for the hourly rate for the sheriffs at the judiciary is that amount of money. The amount that the house put in was a little less than what was asked for in the budget adjustment. So it actually would have decreased the hourly rate. So this brings it to 60 an hour. The next three lines on lines eighteen, nineteen, and 20, the senate, house had reduced the vacancy savings targets at the state's attorneys and sheriffs and the victims advocates down to zero. They brought it back up by 50%. So there's still a 5050% of what was in the original GovRec target for vacancy savings for that those three, entities. The next line, on line 24, the grants administration funding at the Center for Crime Victim Services. This is, the $100,000 general fund amount was reduced. There's still money being transferred into the Crime Victim Services Fund. The amount that's appropriated to go directly to the network was also reduced. And some of the funds that go in some of the money that's going into the special fund will be available to the center to use for grants administration is the change that they made there.

[Nolan Langweil (Joint Fiscal Office, Senior Fiscal Analyst)]: And it doesn't allow for use out of the special fund? Yeah.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: Yes. That's in deficit?

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: It may be in deficit. There may be some additional analysis on this change that may be helpful for you all.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: And I guess I should say it goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway. Just keep an eye, particularly on your own, so that we get to a committee of conference, assuming we vote to have one, that you'll all have to be doing that research around your items.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: So then we go to line 26. Senator Perchlek spoke about this. This is the reduction of the additional administrative services position at the Agency of Agriculture. On line 29, at the Secretary of State's office, another 2 and $70,000 almost $300,000 to support the implementation of S206, which is the licensing of childcare workers, which I know is in the House. Yeah.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: It hasn't passed yet. And if it doesn't pass, then that money will be available. So that's something to keep an eye. Whose would that be? Child care worker? Is that well,

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: it's Secretary

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: of It's all Mike. It says child care and secretary of state. Okay.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: You can

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations)]: chat about that. Okay.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: So then next change is down in line 38 with ATEC. So this was mostly a small technical change. There was not quite enough money initially added into the budget for the loan repayment program. So this fully funds the loan repayment program, for AHEC. It provides the match at, AHS central office. On line 40, this is, funding to the governor's budget, and then as passed by the house, had, prescription co pays going up to three or to $4 and $8 This buys it back down to $1 and $2.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: And so I didn't realize that that was state money that was going into the so this is general fund money. I'm looking at no one's house. It's Okay. Okay. But we're saving Vermonters money by doing this. Yes. Mhmm. Okay.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: On line 41, this is, sort of two things are happening here. One, the house had we had put the money for two one one in the DCF budget. It's a matchable event, so it was moved to the AHS central office, but then it was also reduced by 50%. So only providing half of the additional ask for two one one. The next one the next two are related on lines 43 and lines 44, the Bridges to Health program. So the first line in line, 43, we had the house had put it in the DIVA budget, but it should have been in the health department budget. So it moves in line 44 to the health department, but then the senate also adopted a 150,000 reduction to the

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Bridges to Health

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: appropriation. So that's what's going on there.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: So both those are Department of Health? That's the place?

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: Yes, it should be at the Department of Health. We had put it at DIBA incorrectly originally. Oh, okay. They cut it by 150. Then they reduced it. In line 45, this is a technical change. This, per the administration needed to be in,

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

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: substance misuse appropriation of the health department, not public health. So that's a net neutral with line 47. And then online where am I now? Free and referral clinics, that didn't change. On line 49, this is the other half of the two eleven change. So this was what the House had put in. This is it coming out so that it can move to the AHS central office on line 41.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Where's 211?

[Rep. Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member, House Appropriations)]: It was in the kind

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: of main DCF It was in the DCF admin, I think.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Okay. But you've been the one following it, right? Or Dave and I both have.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: Okay. Great. So moving now to

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Central Office. Yeah. But I think I want the people that have been focused on it just spending time

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations)]: on it.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: So you guys keep going on that. Thank you.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: Okay, then we're on to the next page. On line 56, the Opioid Recovery Employment Program, the Senate decided to move back to the Opioid Fund. Is a

[Rep. Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member, House Appropriations)]: can I just say something The about whole point of the Opioid Settlement Fund is to try to move things to base? If they seem to be working, the thought was that these things should be in the general budget and not funded through the opioid settlement.

[Nolan Langweil (Joint Fiscal Office, Senior Fiscal Analyst)]: The Senate was aware of that, but in the tenth language that in the future it should be based on this.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: That. But they didn't want to be based funding this year.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: This year, yeah. Correct.

[Rep. Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member, House Appropriations)]: Because they needed the money

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: as part of the PNP outlay.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: Part of their culture.

[Nolan Langweil (Joint Fiscal Office, Senior Fiscal Analyst)]: Yeah. They're aware of the ambient language. Okay,

[Rep. Martha Feltus (Vice Chair, House Appropriations)]: thank you.

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: All right.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: The next one, jump down to line 71. This is an additional position to fund S-two 18, which is relating to the reduction of chloride contamination in state

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: waters. That assumes that the bill passes. Yes.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: And this is right. You all have all the H bills. You can account for the H bills in your budget. The Senate, as they pass bills, has to start creating a list of things that you're gonna fund in their budget. Because if they pass it over here and it goes, it's gotta be in the budget. So there's a couple of places where things are both in the base and in one time that are accounted for that you'll see throughout. Then on line 72, sorry, yeah.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: I'm sorry before this.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Okay, go ahead.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: Emily, on line 62, was the amount of money that was in the

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: FY '26 project, right?

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: Correct. So this one we had is $8.50. Exactly. We talked through the way that it has to show it. So the governor added $200,000 So we had it as taking out the 150. But to where, like, this is more of a technical presentation type correction from JFO, where it's showing that the governor added 200. You take out the 200, and then you take out $6.50 on top of that to get to the total point 50. Yeah. So it looks a little it looks different than how you saw it, but the numbers are the same.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: Yep. So how does that show the budget?

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: It shows up as the base budget for corrections is $850 less, dollars 1,000 less than what the governor had requested.

[Nolan Langweil (Joint Fiscal Office, Senior Fiscal Analyst)]: So where did the $200,000 us?

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: The 200,000 was new, right, in the governor. So we're showing it here as a new governor to add. So it wasn't showing up on the last version of the spreadsheet. So then OUS zeros out that 200, which gets you the first 200 and then takes away another $6.50, which gets you the $8.50. You can almost do it better in the difference from the gov column where you have negative 200 and negative six fifty. That's your eight fifty.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Oh, on the line above it, you have to look at both lines. Yeah.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: Look at both.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: That's the eight fifty.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: Yeah. And that was just yeah. To correctly reflect that there was a new 200 an ask of the new $200,000 not taking out $8.50 from the bank. Right. Very weedy. But we can't help ourselves. Okay. Jumping down. Where were we? Line 70 Flood safety. The house had included two new positions for flood safety. The senate only included one. And then we jumped down to a very small change in line 78. This is related to the reserve calculation, so how much you need to put into the stabilization reserve in FY '27. Recall that the stabilization reserved is based on prior year appropriations. You'll see this more on the reversions sheet, but there were a couple of revert there were three reversions that the house had booked. In talking with finance and management, those reversions were one reversion, we changed the amount of and then two reversions were from current year appropriations. The right way to do that is not to revert the money, but to actually reduce the appropriations in the C section. What that effectively does is save a little bit on the reserve calculation. Because if you're spending less than 2026, you don't have to reserve as much in 2027. So that is So $40,000 Oh, $40. All

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

[Rep. Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member, House Appropriations)]: I was middle of my friend here.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: My friend. He's seen it way back when, It was $40,000

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: So and then the very last thing that changed in the Senate version down on line 97. So this is based on H nine thirty three, the miscellaneous tax bill, which has not yet passed the Senate. But the construct, as it came out of Senate Finance to Senate appropriations and is currently on the floor, reduces the downtown tax credit by, half $1,000,000. So the total downtown tax credit is $3,500,000 instead of a $4,000,000

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: that was passed in house construct.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: It was another half 1,000,000 revenue. Correct.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: So when all is said and done, when you compare how much base money is being used for one time funds, the Senate has a little bit more than the House

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: going to. So you're saying the 28.47 is base can be used for one time. Correct.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: And so one thing before we move to the next sheet that I will note that you will also see on the base sheet. So there's $4,000,000, that was added to the renter credit as part of the con the yield build construct that passed out of the senate. I think it passed second reading yesterday. It'll be third reading today. But the senate only moves a 100,000,000 to the education fund. And then the house had 104.9. The senate has 100.9. The $4,000,000 difference is added to the renter credit as a one time increase to the renter credit to help renters with property tax increases. To simplify things for the tax department, we put the money in the base for the renter credit just so that they have one big pot of money to spend the renter credit out of rather than have a separate appropriation for them to utilize. But the intent in the language and in the bill and for all purposes is that it's a one time increase and that it will be out of the base budget in FY 2028. As such, it shows up it is a B section appropriation, a B, but it's not it shows up on the one time sheet. So it's a little confusing, but just to keep it clean in terms of what is really one time and what is really base.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: Okay. Okay. That's base. I

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: will fly through the one time sheet if that works. I'll be a little late to my next meeting for this. Okay.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: Where where are you going now? Sorry.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: Oh, to the base sheet. This one.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: One sec. Excuse me. There's two one secs. One is everything, and then this is general fund one sec. Well, should ask you, do want

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: me to run through the general fund? The one on eight?

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations)]: If we go.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: Yes, I'm gonna go back. I can come back.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: No, we're gonna go fast.

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: Which one?

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: I can do

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: whichever one you want me to know. But that's just due to the sun, and

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: this one that has the gray out. She's got it up, so that's the best.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations)]: Okay. It

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: should be

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: It's general sun one time as opposed to all the ones from other places.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: Okay. So on line one, as I alluded to before, there were some changes to the reversions. They're booked as reductions in prior year appropriations as opposed to versions into FY '27. So there's a small change there. We We can look at the reversion sheet when I come back. What that ultimately does is changes the amount that gets carried forward from FY twenty six into FY '27. There's a little bit of a difference. And again, it's probably best if you look at the reversion sheet to go through that. But it's mainly attributed to the program at ANR, and I can't remember what it's called off the top of my head. The emissions repair program.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: The other one, they won't die.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: Yep. The house had proposed taking the full appropriation back, conversations with the agency of natural resources. There has been some spending this year, so not the full appropriation isn't available. They also have two contracts that are out The I believe the house conversation was to have ANR cancel the contracts. The senate was a little bit more let the contract sit, but that's something you can decide during conference. And then on line five, again, in the universe of couch cushion exploration, the Senate reviewed the state PACE reserve fund. I don't wanna get too far over my skis in terms of explaining it, but there is a fund that was created when the PACE program was created in case there were any loans that were defaulted on. There weren't very many loans issued, and it's been around for a while. And so far, no loans have been defaulted on. The senate decided that that fund isn't necessary anymore. And in the event that there are one of the I think it's 12 or 14 loans that are out there defaults, then the general assembly can appropriate money to deal with that at that time. Yes.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: So that effect will go away or just It will go away. Yeah. So I don't need to know the acronym.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: Well, don't know. We did. We heard about

[Rep. Martha Feltus (Vice Chair, House Appropriations)]: it with This is probably the residential. Right. There is. Yeah. Property assess I don't know. So it's the one where you can invest in energy improvements and run it through your property tax bill.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: Right. No, it's $60,000 You don't need to know.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: Provider stabilization. Yes. So where are we? Provider stabilization. This was reduced a little bit. So there are a few places I will try to flag them that were part of Senator Lyon's construct to fund the primary care payments. So this is an area that they reduced funding for the primary care payments. Lines 12 through 16. So the House had broken out specific line items related to H-nine 38. H nine thirty eight is not done in Senate Health and Welfare yet. So to simplify it and to sort of leave space to reorganize during conference if needed, based on whatever happens with nine thirty eight, all of the $21,000,000 is appropriated.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Under shelter development.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: And it's not, I should have changed that explanation. It's not just shelter development. It's when Grady walks through the language, he can show you what the language is. But it's But highlights everything and points to nine thirty eight, I think. Because that's just problem with the shelter development. Piece of the budget that will have to be reconciled with that bill.

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

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: And all is headed up.

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

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: But the none of the money the amount the total amount of money hasn't changed.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: It hasn't changed.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: Both in the base and in, the ones I've

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: She didn't draw from there.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: Okay. So the next change on line, 27 is the local food shelves funding that senator Perchuk spoke about. Line 23 is the legal aid helpline, again, that he spoke about that was

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: removed. That was line what?

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: 23. 22, 23. Yeah. Then the next change on line 25, the reductions to the Meals on Wheels program. This was part of the construct to move funding to the local food shelves program. Line 27 in the AHS central office, this is the general fund, And then it also has the federal fund match for the primary care payments that Senator Perchuk spoke about. Line 28, additional funding for post permanency adoption, mostly at the the Lund foam. I believe Easterseals and NFI are the three entities that do post permanency adoption. Line 29, this is the BOREC grant reduction senator Perchuk spoke about. So this would be a there'd be as it passed the house, there was $600,000 for VORAC, including the 501 time plus 100 in the base. This cuts it in half to $300,000 total for VORAC. I'm 34.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Yes. This is the deli counter. We used to call it in corrections. Want one of those, I want some for this. It's not in anybody's request. A personal request by a senator to put something in, but I'm not sure what it is, He said, I'm giving them $25,000

[Rep. Martha Feltus (Vice Chair, House Appropriations)]: I think it's like a resale shop, a thrift shop that does The proceeds go to some terrible endeavor, and my understanding is they are trying to build a new building and need $400,000 to help them.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Building communities grants to do exactly that, and that's where they can get the money. So anyway, we'll be talking about that. There's other places to get that.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: Before we go out to that kind of Meals and Wheels change there. Yeah. The fact that those Meals and Wheels people talk to the shut in people a lot is a big service. Yes. Taking money out of that and just giving it to a food shelf doesn't provide that same kind of level of interpersonal health that Right. People

[Rep. Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member, House Appropriations)]: The difference in food appropriations between our version and the Senate's, version had 1.9 and the Senate version 1.3. So it's not even equivalent money that was just shifted. It was cut significantly.

[Nolan Langweil (Joint Fiscal Office, Senior Fiscal Analyst)]: The

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: other one is just a dog with that, it's the first generation home buyer program that we didn't fund in this is in for $100,000 right? What line is that? Three. 33. Oh

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: yeah, that doesn't get done.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: It doesn't seem like a

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations)]: lot of money for

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: a program

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: that I mean first time

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations)]: I know that I mean we funded a program in the past.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: I think it was funded It somewhere funded East Ladies Tax.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations)]: It was a FHFA program, but I don't know directly.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: We had 350,000 for downtown, right James?

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: There's a separate for the miscellaneous tax for

[Nolan Langweil (Joint Fiscal Office, Senior Fiscal Analyst)]: the an

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: expansion of the tax credit for the down payment assistance program. That's different

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: program than this.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations)]: That program, that phrase first generation homebuyer program is not new. It just, we didn't address it at all.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: I don't know where that came from. Okay. You guys can take a look at that. Okay.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations)]: All right.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: I will keep going. Line 27, the twentieth anniversary funding. This is a technical change. We had it in ACCD. It needed to be in economic development, so that just moves it to the right department. Line 38, funding for the Rural Industrial Development Program. Senator Perchlich spoke about this. This is adding money to that fund. Line 39, additional funding for the Small Business Law Center at the Vermont Vermont Law School. And in line 40, another $150,000 to the Small Business Development Center.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Yeah. And so I think the law school had expected to get something from the Feds. Somebody will look at that. Guess this is all yours, Tom. And then it didn't come through. But I don't know why the SPDC didn't ask for the right amount to begin with what's going on there. So those are two. They're both good programs. We just don't know why they showed up if you didn't ask me.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: Okay.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: So line 41, this is the unfunded disaster relief up in the kingdom. The House had funded this by doing a transfer to the I can't remember the name of the

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: Resilience Fund.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: Per conversations with the administration, they requested that it be a direct one time appropriation to the agency of transportation out of the general fund for this purpose.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: And is it clear how it's supposed to be used so AOT doesn't use it for other things?

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: I think you should look at the language. It's more language.

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

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: right. We'll have grading to that. Just want to be sure it's going from the premises. We intended it to go through.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: In line 42, additional funding for non emergency medical transports, dollars 300,000. There was 600 ks in last year's budget. Line 43, AEDs in schools. The House had given it to the health department for the technical letter. And upon further review, the Senate moved it to the Agency of Education, which we reviewed the underlying bill related to AEDs, and it talks about the Agency of Education implementing programs. In line 44, additional funding for the language justice project, which is a bill which is contemplated in S two forty three.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: See that over here? Do you know where that is?

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: I believe it's in health and welfare. Health

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: and services.

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: In the last year.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: I also this may be the wrong one, but I thought this was something that where there was money in the office of racial equity that they could use for this purpose.

[Rep. Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member, House Appropriations)]: There was translation money that was in that office. And we need to confirm that, though, with the office.

[Rep. Martha Feltus (Vice Chair, House Appropriations)]: What And is language justice? Well, so for example,

[Rep. Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member, House Appropriations)]: when COVID happened, this is a small project that provided, instead of written translation, they used WhatsApp to get news out fast to lots of different communities in lots of different languages. And it was really effective during COVID, during floods, and has been held as a national model. Anyway, I think it's a really important addition to because people aren't always going to go to a website and know where to find, you know, the information and

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: I think I may like the task, I may not like the title.

[Rep. Martha Feltus (Vice Chair, House Appropriations)]: It's translating emergency services or not necessarily because they used it in September the emergency management bill they tried to tap into this as well. Right. Or public service announcements in Swahili and all these other languages. It's a nonprofit organization that's called the

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: So that's what it is. It's the name of a it's not a program. It's the name of the organization. I didn't get that.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: There might be funding. We can find something else there, but people will look into that. Okay.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: Okay. Moving on to the next page. Line 47. Senate reduced the funding for the CBOEO shelter by 50%. In line 49, the senate added a $100,000 to start up a new adult day programs, I believe, in Washington and Rockland Counties. That's that's new. Line 50, Senator Perjic spoke to this one, but there was a reduction in the funding available for NOFA Vermont's Crop Cash, Crop Cash Plus and the farm share programs. And this was part of the construct to, move money to the local food shelves. Same with line 52, the funding for Vermonters feeding Vermonters was also reduced to increase the amount of funding available for local food shelves. And then also on line 57, a small reduction to the child and adult care food program appropriation, from the House to move, provide additional funding for Okay. Fall now. And line 58, this is the second half of the transaction of moving the AEDs and Schools appropriation from the health department to the agency of education. On line 59, the Senate did not concur with the House on the funding for BCRD, municipal technical assistance. That's removed. And then on line 60, we talked about this. This is the other half of the transaction of moving the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary funding from ACCD to DED, but it's a net neutral change. In line 61, this is an additional funding for the biomarker testing.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: That's a bill that's in house health care. And if it doesn't move, then we'll have that money available. It's $25,000

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: Correct.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: Line 62, the Freedom and Unity grants at the Vermont at VSAC, excuse me, is moving to the Higher Ed Trust Fund, as Senator Pershak talked about. And the next change on line 65, this is related to s one ninety, and this is, doing a having the treasurer do a study on creating a public employee health benefit authority to put public employees all in one health benefit plan?

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Did we ever hear anything about that? No. That's X-one 190. It's still a health care. Yeah. I see what's happening. But I know they kept, I don't know where it is, the money for the amortization study committee that I know I have to be on, The 75,000 to the treasurer, right? So is that on the one time somewhere? I'm just not seeing it.

[Rep. Martha Feltus (Vice Chair, House Appropriations)]: It's maybe down here in the East. It

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: wasn't in the bill.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: 64, yep.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Amortization study.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: There's That stayed in. Oh, there it is.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Okay. I just hadn't seen it.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: Alright. Okay. Jumping down to line 66, Department of Environmental Conservation. This one is related to s two eighteen, the chloride bill. This would be a one time $200,000 for contracts related to training, I believe.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Right. So if that bill doesn't pass, then that money is also available. Correct. Line 67,

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: funding to the land use review board for s two three twenty five, relating to act two fifty. I think this would be for public engagement around what's going on in that bill. Line 68, to the fish and wildlife department, additional $25,000 for the fishing derby. Oh, and that should be in green, not in red. You didn't add that. They did. Fix that. And then the last line on line 69, this is what I spoke about before. This is the $4,000,000 one time rent to credit that shows up in the B sections.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: And then we have all these other

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: one time bills. The Senate did not include funding

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: age 67.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: For age 67. Or the data brokers. Or the data brokers, yep. They put some money in for seven forty. Yep. And this, I believe seven forty was still in Senate Natural Resources when the budget left. So the appropriation for that will travel in h seven forty if the senate decides to appropriate funds for this purpose. But it's set aside in case they want to.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: So the bulk of the increase of the senate's budget is in this renter credit, $4,000,000?

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Well, no. Because that was the money that we were transferring to the education fund. It was 105.9. And in the Senate, they transferred 109 or 104.9. The other 4,000,000, so it's all the same money. It's not new money. It's that from that 100 and 5, 04/2009, like.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: $7.40, I thought that was

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations)]: for two ongoing positions. So why is that one in one time?

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: No. There was also for positions and there was something else. Which I can't remember what something It's else

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: one time costs related to contracting, we set up the database.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: So it's just, yeah, and then presumably they would be thinking the next year they'd fund the positions, but this is the same. I'm not sure whether you could do one without the other, that would be an interesting question to ask. Who would have had seven forty?

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: It

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: was energy and digital infrastructure.

[Nolan Langweil (Joint Fiscal Office, Senior Fiscal Analyst)]: I don't know.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Okay, so maybe we can just check with Somebody can check with Chair James and see whether this even works. Did you have something on that?

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: Oh yeah, just know Scott Moore did some analysis related to this so we can follow-up with any

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: Okay, yeah. And sort of

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: the question is, does it even make sense to do one or do you have to do both? We have a couple of those questions. Reported it out, okay. Thank you for

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: the team's

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: support here. You reported it out, you were right on that.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: Okay. I'll talk. So we're $7.40, now we're down to H, $9.35. The half million for the Ready Response grant program at the Food Bank. Senate did not concur with the House to fund that.

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

[Rep. Martha Feltus (Vice Chair, House Appropriations)]: haven't passed the bill yet, though, either. Okay.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: And then line 80, H955, related to education transformation. Senator Perchlich talked about this. They still have the construct that was passed by there was a little bit of language tweaking, technical language speaking to that section of the budget that you had that

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: we To ensure that we had the money that we set aside at $9.55 as

[Rep. Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member, House Appropriations)]: we left the house. Yes.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: And that the money that was in the budget sort of redirected money that was appropriated in Act 73, sort of reallocated it. And then this additional 1.5 is available to the Senate as they contemplate September if they determine they want to appropriate more funds.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: We don't really know what it's being used for yet.

[Rep. Martha Feltus (Vice Chair, House Appropriations)]: Right, and then the original money, there was still a balance left over. Yeah, we so. Supposedly, Kimmel had said, Yeah, we have plans for that, but it hadn't been allocated.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: So I don't know. That's my understanding. There's like about- Necessary. Yeah. I think the Senate is working on figuring out that. I mean,

[Rep. Martha Feltus (Vice Chair, House Appropriations)]: the whole education thing is something we have to Exactly.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: Okay. So the next change H.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: That C. Was was that was the bill? We got the high risk stamps?

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Yes. We kept it all in. They they yep. The gas

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: limit. Okay. The

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: safety didn't change.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: Okay.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: The one that did change was flood safety or flood whatever. They reduced the position.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: It was one twenty one. Okay. Yeah.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: Okay. And then that's all the other bills. So that's all of those. And then dropping down to the line 84, there was there's still half $1,000,000 moving to that fund. The senate decided to change the name of the fund to be radio equipment and firearm replacement fund, because they have to replace all their firearms at the same time just like radios. So the conversation was that they should utilize that fund for both of those replacement needs. There's also language in the budget directing the Department of Fish and Wildlife to review and determine whether or not they should set up a similar structure for their radio equipment and their firearms.

[Rep. Martha Feltus (Vice Chair, House Appropriations)]: We already have a separate firearms replacement. Please. Brady?

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: In act 27, there was a directive to develop a capital plan for firearm replacement, but there was no special fund created.

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

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: next change is on line 86. So this was mentioned earlier by senator Perchlek, but there was no additional money put into the communications and information technology fund, to buy down that deficit. And then in line 87, this is the money that you all transferred for the unfunded disaster relief. And as we spoke about before, this transfer went away, but then there's an appropriation made up above to the agency of transportation for that purpose. On line 88, just to call this out, the senate con current construct, miscellaneous tax bill hasn't passed yet and neither has the yield bill, but does not has the same construct as the house did in terms of changing the purchase and use tax and the meals and rooms tax, which means that that $10,000,000 transfer does not need

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: to happen. So that's not

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: in either version of the bill. And then in line 89, this is where you see the reduction in the transfer to the education fund, and that $4,000,000 reduction is what's utilized for the renter credit.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: But that's where it gets there.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: So when all is said and done, the Senate had about $67,000 left on the bottom line.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: There was something that we were concerned about after it left here that we didn't have money for, but it was on the bottom line. It was at age 67? That was age 67, and they took it out.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: You had money for age 67. Was it the educator? There was something in the

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations)]: It was

[Rep. Martha Feltus (Vice Chair, House Appropriations)]: something I felt. It was another 75,000 report.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: There's money for It's covered.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: That's right, the additional But it was 75,000

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: Yes, $75,000 something else. I think it was in the transformation. It was JFO to study pre K stuff. Add that to the waiting study that

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: we're That's Is that still in the bill? Is that in

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: here somewhere? It's not in here somewhere. I'm going to add it when we get back. It's a house. Okay. I think well, yes, we should add it. I just the web report. And then I don't know what the senate is gonna do. Right.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: They try to pass into somewhere. Not sure. All right. I know you need to go.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: The good news is, because I overstayed my welcome here, the meeting is over. Oh.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: I in I didn't get in trouble.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: My phone stopped receiving tech. Like, today is just my tech day. You got messages. I don't know. Today is paper day. I couldn't open my phone. So Alright. Anyway, I can keep going through stuff if you want. I can go through

[Rep. Martha Feltus (Vice Chair, House Appropriations)]: Yes. Yes.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Going through spreadsheets. But we

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: just went through all of the general fund changes, so I'm going to not touch on the general fund changes, if that's Okay. I'm just going to talk about the other funding changes, which should be pretty quick. Can track them all. Oh, no, that's easy to track. So it should be straightforward. So line three Can you tell me just what's on the sheet you're on? It's the one time summary sheet.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: One time summary.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: Thank you.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Federal funds and stuff like that.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: There is one we did have to make one change that Brady bought this morning due to the amendment on the floor of the senate yesterday. So if you want, we can make new copies of this one that will be Finally, which amendment that was? We had an amendment to add a 3,000,000 appropriation out of a pilot special fund for the agency of transportation. Chris left, of course, road stuff. On Highway. Staying on Thank you. Okay. So that was added on the floor yesterday. We've added it to the spreadsheet. We added it this morning. So we can print you new copies of this one.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: Okay. If

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: you want that.

[Rep. Martha Feltus (Vice Chair, House Appropriations)]: Yeah, that'd be good. Autumn?

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Yeah. Thank

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: you. We posted the new one on the web.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: Okay. But

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: starting at the top, on line three, this is the unfunded disaster relief change. So this comes out of that special fund and then shows up as a one time in transportation online. 47.

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

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: next other fund change that's different from your version is on line seven. This is the global commitment appropriation for the primary care case management funds. So with federal matching funds, it's $3,700,000

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: So this of that is the per member per month thing that we used to get when there was One Care. Is that what I mean? Go ahead, Clear it up for me.

[Nolan Langweil (Joint Fiscal Office, Senior Fiscal Analyst)]: For the record, Nolan and will join fiscal office. So

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: the one care thing is going away. Yes.

[Nolan Langweil (Joint Fiscal Office, Senior Fiscal Analyst)]: And so, in one care, it's like, we don't want them to exist to the sole purpose the payment. So what the House finished, what gonna do is reconstitute a payment that used to exist on primary care case management that long ago got folded in, it could be paid, the AHS already has a mechanism in place

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: to do it, it's patched. So it

[Nolan Langweil (Joint Fiscal Office, Senior Fiscal Analyst)]: would be trying to get it per member per month out to communities without using the PAC. I'm sorry, without using the ACO? Without using the ACO.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Right, so it's replacing the ACO payments.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: Sort of, yeah.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: So the mechanism already exists, so they don't have to create a new one.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: No, but the money didn't exist. The money went away. They got used to it. We never had these payments until one care got created.

[Nolan Langweil (Joint Fiscal Office, Senior Fiscal Analyst)]: There used to be a primary care case management years ago, and then it got folded into blueprint payments. Then the ACA came along, and this was a reaction where the Senate heard, they heard from the primary care and said we want to do money for primary care, we know we can't use the ACO, let's try to reconstitute this whole.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: And it's one time, which means every, you know

[Nolan Langweil (Joint Fiscal Office, Senior Fiscal Analyst)]: It was done one time because in the construct they couldn't come up with a way to make it based. So

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: the fight will continue to happen.

[Nolan Langweil (Joint Fiscal Office, Senior Fiscal Analyst)]: Yeah, they just made it comfortable that they use some one time and some base to create one

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: Okay. Yes.

[Rep. Martha Feltus (Vice Chair, House Appropriations)]: We'll see.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Thank you. So that's the total of the primary per member per month? Correct.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: Okay. And some of that's one time general fund, some of it is, well, global commitment or federal or something? Yeah.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: And then on line 21, the global commitment funding for the post permanency adoption services at Department of Children and Families. And the match pieces of that are on line thirty two and thirty three, so you have the general fund and the federal fund appropriated for

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Needed to bring a ruler with me. The

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: legal aid helpline, as we talked about, that was a matchable item. So this is the federal funds and the global commitment funds coming out on lines twenty three and twenty four. Line 22, talked about that. That's the general fund coming out. On line, 27, this is the federal fund change for the Meals on Wheels reduction. This is a good one. On line, '29, there was a $74 incorrect entry, so we fixed that. There's no actual change to the program. This is just somebody's paying attention. But this was online, the nurturing federal funds for the nurturing parental, line 29. We had that we had over appropriated federal funds by $74.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: So by reducing the Meals on Wheels and transferring that to the food bank, we lose federal funding match. Correct. And in the amount of yeah.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: Yep.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: $346,000

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: of it's quite a cost to do it. Thank you.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: Amy raised a great point. Oh, no. That was the. Anyway, never mind.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: We can talk about that later. Right. So we're losing $173,000 of federal funds by this decision.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: I'm sorry.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations)]: I just missed that. So by shifting out what we What

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: by reducing Meals on Wheels. Right. We're reducing a 173,000 in Meals on Wheels income from the feds.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations)]: I see that. Okay.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: And I see all your faces. I'm in there. I got the same face. Okay.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations)]: I'm trying to figure out

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: the nexus between 25 on this other big one time Mhmm. At least down here. Where? Am I missing something? Because we had these when we'd had that discussion, line 25 on the summary of one time general fund, where we had the discussion about action in bills and bills. Now down on page we're looking at now down on lines twenty six and twenty seven, what's the nexus? How Kascens, what's the nexus between these numbers and one back

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations)]: on the other page?

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: The Meals on Wheels?

[Rep. Martha Feltus (Vice Chair, House Appropriations)]: The first page is only the general fund. Right.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: So

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: this one shows all of the one time appropriations, whether it's general fund, federal funds, global commitment.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations)]: Does that same thing apply, I'm sorry, to legal aid stuff? Or is that

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Yes. So if you look at line twenty two and twenty three, we put in 56,000 of general fund and got 44,000 of federal funds to fund the health line.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: 44 goes away.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: No, that's just totally it. That's totally the two.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations)]: Okay. Before

[Rep. Martha Feltus (Vice Chair, House Appropriations)]: it gets to two seconds. Legally

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: It held 100

[Rep. Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member, House Appropriations)]: was split 56 at 44. Thank you.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Yeah, now that I'm marking the subject,

[Rep. Martha Feltus (Vice Chair, House Appropriations)]: I'm getting a new

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: extension. I know, it's what happens.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations)]: We can do it.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: I believe in you guys.

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: Thanks for inviting me.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Yeah, once you transfer out and ate the old Thank you. One

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: for what it's worth, the Meals on Wheels reduction was proposed as part of the primary care switch, which was a federal matchable thing. So while it means less federal funding for Meals on Wheels, it means that you can draw down federal funds in other places. They did match it.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: They did match It's

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: in a different place. Was that

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: their goal? That what they was that why they were moving things around there to use the Sunlight South?

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

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: Yeah that was a question you need to ask is what were they oh yeah

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: well it's all well it's all part of primary care thing for two point whatever those

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: people have said they may not need as much primary care Not an excuse.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: Okay, we're working at $74 we covered that one. That's good. Primary care case management. The spouse

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: had no match. That's the problem.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: We talked about that. Yeah. The post permanency adoption, we talked about the additional federal funds there. Emily, just one second.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Back on the local food shows. If we had given the money to the food bank, would it have been matchable? I don't believe

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: so. Okay.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Just want to be sure that we're comparing apples and apples.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: Have an awful lot of food programs. Someday I think we should have a real inventory of exactly what we've got. How it all comes We

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: may have one if you wanted to see it someday.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: The fast fact. We

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: don't have a fast fact on it yet, but we have a

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: pretty good fast fact on

[Rep. Martha Feltus (Vice Chair, House Appropriations)]: Summary of food programs. Really places. In your local county. Yeah.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations)]: And it's all needed.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: Okay. We will jump down to the next change in non general funds, which is another good one on line 47. So the transportation, central garage, there was a $33 update to that number. We're paying attention. And

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: the other thing that was new, we already talked about the disaster relief to the AOT, but it's a non emergency transports we did not have in our budget. And what is that? That's

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: something the Senate put in last year.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: We did some in budget adjustment,

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: It's transportation

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: from appointments. They

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: don't get paid for non emergency medical transports.

[Rep. Martha Feltus (Vice Chair, House Appropriations)]: So ambulance services, you mean?

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Or emergency squads?

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: Could be that or it could be something different. Different transport mechanisms. I just remember that from last year.

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

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: don't think those are for prisons, they're not even, that's not part of that.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: No, it's not. It's just a little bit related to

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations)]: gas meter.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: If they go if

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: yeah okay and then this has the 3,000,000

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: yeah from the pilot spent fund

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: which was just there's a lot of extra money in there so let's give some money to aot because three people on the committee are from the transportation committee. Yes? People are on transportation appropriations. 30 people makes things more challenging than I think from everybody.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: Think it's appropriate, though. It's going back to the towns for the roads, and the roads are terrible. Oh, yes.

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

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: So the next page is the next other fund change, line 55. This is the total amount for Meals on Wheels. So this is the global commitment funding coming out

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: on the Line 56?

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: Oh, 56. You have a different sheet now with

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Now we have a pilot sheet. Everything's

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations)]: I'm afraid if you're going to tell me about CBOE day shelter programs?

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Yeah, the day shelter they cut in half? We can ask them about that. Well,

[Rep. Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member, House Appropriations)]: I mean I've talked to people about it.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: I know, we just didn't ask you about It

[Rep. Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member, House Appropriations)]: was, as I understand it, part of the search for primary care money.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations)]: What is the emergency on primary care? Isn't there other resources for primary care money that

[Rep. Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member, House Appropriations)]: Well, are different opinions about that. Some say Diva could shoulder that within its budget.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations)]: But this was their couch surfing or couch checking?

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: Cushion. Cushion. Yes. I mean,

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations)]: I've heard about that in the ether, and it's just that that's someplace else. Right. Stressing me out.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: I'm imagining we're gonna vote for in the group conference.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: On line 71, I can speak of seventy six and eighty, these are the three appropriations that senator Perchuk spoke about from the Higher Ed Trust Fund.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Right. And the McClelland Hall, I think, was requested by the state colleges in their budget for the capital bills. Is it a capital bill, or was it just a request to us? Don't know.

[Rep. Martha Feltus (Vice Chair, House Appropriations)]: It was a capital bill.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Well, yeah, they probably told us about it and we said that would be capital bill.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations)]: Is this supposedly supposed to be a quick pro quo where the UVM gets $12,000,000 or $15,000,000 and VFC gets $600,000 Great. Type 178 there for the land use review board.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Yep, you're right. It's not safety then.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: So everything would be sober.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: And can I ask

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations)]: you about 81? I've seen it in both places. Can we is $9.33? Is that the shacky bill?

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: That's the yield bill.

[Rep. Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member, House Appropriations)]: That's the

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: yield bill. It's

[Rep. Martha Feltus (Vice Chair, House Appropriations)]: $9.49.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Miscellaneous. Miscellaneous tax. So this again is 104.9. I think it's supposed to be in the yield bill, not in it's the wrong bill that's being mentioned

[Rep. Martha Feltus (Vice Chair, House Appropriations)]: It to

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: should be in nine thirty eight. 949. Whatever it is. I'll stop. I'll stop with the yield. It's 104,900,000 that we transferred to the Education Fund for property tax relief. Renters were not included in that property tax relief, but they will be affected by what's happening. So the Senate said, let's take $4,000,000 of that 104,900,000 and offer it for renter tax relief renter tax relief on a one time basis. So it shows up in two spots, dollars 100,900,000 going to buy down property taxes and 4,000,000 going to the renter credit.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: And is that constant number?

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations)]: Is that a constant number or is that based on all of the

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: It's it's been the number it's always been.

[Rep. Martha Feltus (Vice Chair, House Appropriations)]: Oh, it's the excess. It's the surplus from last year plus the

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations)]: No, know, but the credit itself to me, is it utilized to that level every year?

[Rep. Martha Feltus (Vice Chair, House Appropriations)]: It's at a they have changed the rate for one year so that renters will get a extra benefit in one Change

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations)]: this so they don't have to apply for it or is that No,

[Rep. Martha Feltus (Vice Chair, House Appropriations)]: don't know that.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations)]: Are they going to know what's going to be there? Are they gonna be able to tap into that credit? Yeah. Way that

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: the people who have more Right.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: I think there was discussion about that in Senate Finance, I don't I watched the testimony that my

[Rep. Martha Feltus (Vice Chair, House Appropriations)]: guess is they just changed the rate and the people that already applied for it will continue to apply for it and they'll just get a bigger benefit.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Mike Nigro can look into that because this is

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations)]: This says it's coming from the general fund, is

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: right that's right

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations)]: so they're saying that the surplus again I think you just said this three times so but to get this straight so there we said 104,000,000 over there they're sending a 100,000,000 so they can write us 4,000,000

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: So it's all it's the same pot of money and there's no new money it's just divided up a little differently than originally intended.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations)]: And it's a one time whereas we're planning on that $52,000,000 a year being a two year.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: Well, we were but

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: the senate did the whole thing is their bill is one year.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations)]: They're taking $100,000,000

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Oh, we have all next year.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: I'm sorry.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations)]: Something to talk

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: about. So there'll be a committee of conference for the yield bill.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations)]: So they're following what the governor's recommendation.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Right. With a slight change of earmarking 4,000,000 for tax.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations)]: Did they talk about the downside of that over well, we don't know.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: They looked at when I heard it, and you all can listen, and we heard it on the floor yesterday, when I watched them pass this fill out yesterday in the Senate, they wanted to have more property tax relief now and not divide it up. So it was going to be 3.8% with this rent or credit, an increase in property taxes versus our about 7%. And they that was important to them to have it at a lower rate. And so they didn't buy it down.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations)]: But did they consider I didn't listen to it obviously, but did they consider the fact that we're so next year's property taxes are still going to be roughly 50% anticipated or more than anticipated. We're not going to have a planned surplus to cover even that. This Senate administration proposal is going to double the increase next year when we won't have any funds to take care of it. If this goes through, the governor and the senate is and us that we vote for it will be raising property taxes

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: The following Yes. Next For

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations)]: No. Well, for the benefit of this year to the penalty of next year.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: That's right. If there will be a clip of

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: a $105,000,000. My question is, are the renters paying are the renters paying any property tax?

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: They pay increased rent because the landlords increase their

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: keep getting the net. They get Most landlords aren't automatically increasing

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Oh, yes. If your property taxes go up by $10,000 on your

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: Think they go down? No.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: It's like gas tech right? All the fuel dealers up the cost of gas before they even had the increased cost.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations)]: Rent is not a commodity like

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: just checking out just hope hoping that's another giveaway. Nope.

[Rep. Martha Feltus (Vice Chair, House Appropriations)]: The increase is applied equally on the homestead on the property that's it's applied equally between homestead and non homestead. So the 3.8% of 3.8% is for homestead increase. But when the Ways and Means Committee plays around the field bill, they have a choice of applying everything to one side or the other or splitting it in the middle. And this year they decided to split it across. So somebody owns an apartment building will indeed have increased property taxes next year and whether they pass it along or not is an issue. And so that's why the Senate said that we want to give a little extra to renters.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: It's not like fully funding all the renter issues by any stretch. No, no, no. It's just No, it's sort of a Just check. I knew you had a question. All

[Rep. Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member, House Appropriations)]: right. Are we done with that sheet? Yeah.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Okay. What about all these other lovely sheets?

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: It is up to you. So we've got Grady here also, if

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: you want to look at

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: any language specifically. So if you wanna specifically go through them. Reversions spreadsheet quickly. Yeah. That one's pretty straightforward. I spoke about it earlier. But the line four and in line 16, these were the two reversions that were flagged by finance as we couldn't take those because their current year appropriations wouldn't revert them. We should just reduce the appropriations. So you'll see in the C section, those two appropriations are reduced accordingly. Sorry, the reversion. Directional

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: services. Money is still there, just that we did it the wrong way.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: Yeah. And it means it has to flow through what's on the bottom line, and what gets carried forward, and then it changes the reserve calculation. Right. Dollars 900,000 change price. You got to do 17. Okay.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: And then the only other thing that was different was they took less out of the emissions repair program than we did. Correct. Okay, questions on that one? Let's see what else we have.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: Reserves, those are the same, so I don't

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: No, that's fine. Contingent, we've kind of talked about

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: This is just a quick summary of contingent appropriations. I should say, April closes, ends today. Today's the thirtieth. They run we'll know later in the month of May how April performed. Right. We can't say either direction it is. Won't be any money to fund anything on the

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: kitchen. Right.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: But it's nice to think about. Okay. And then so then we have transfers.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: The only changes on these, and these are on some of the other sheets, on the transfer sheet.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: Are we off the reversion page?

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: Off the reversion sheet.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: Thank

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: you. Off the transfers. Yes. To from the general. So we had the the numbers didn't print on this. But the under the onetime transfers, the education fund, we spoke about that reduction by 4,000,000. And then the two couple lines down, the change in the tech mod, or the computer communication CIT, thank you. That's an easier way.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: You put a million in, they took it out. And then

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: the disaster mitigation fund for the Northeast Kingdom, that was moved

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: to an appropriation. So that went to AOT? Yep.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: And then the last change all the way on the bottom, that PACE reserve fund. Yes. 60,000. 60,000 to the general fund.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Those look like all the spreadsheets. That's all the spreadsheets. Thank you. Well, very much. Any questions, let me know. Yeah, I think

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: at some point, I don't

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: know if there's a way that somebody could do a little spreadsheet of where we cut to get the primary care.

[Rep. Martha Feltus (Vice Chair, House Appropriations)]: I have it. Yeah, I'd like that. Could

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: we have that? We don't have a copy of it, so we would like a copy of that, and then we'll have you talk.

[Rep. Martha Feltus (Vice Chair, House Appropriations)]: And also the, I think, there is spreadsheet of the movement of the meals and the food. That was all part

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: of the fine materials

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: too. Yeah.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: We have another one for that. On Wheels. What's confusing is Meals on Wheels was used for primary care, and the other stuff was used for the local food shelves, even though they're both food things. Anyway, at the end of the day, it all went back into the bucket, then it came back out.

[Rep. Martha Feltus (Vice Chair, House Appropriations)]: Do we know remember we had that discussion about the opioid fund and the substance fund? Is that the same as when we had it?

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Although it hasn't come out at the

[Rep. Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member, House Appropriations)]: Senate, right? Did the committee

[Rep. Martha Feltus (Vice Chair, House Appropriations)]: pass it out to Senate? Right. Okay.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: Yeah. So I

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations)]: think I know the answer this, but we talked a little bit earlier today about the cannabis fund. We talked in the past about so I see here on the last transfers, and direct applications chart that you had up is sports wagering with the anticipated revenue from sports wagering and liquid control. We don't put lottery proceeds on here because it's going directly to the education fund. Think and then we have the can I'm just I just maybe this is a question if somebody can just shoot me an email of what the other. These are businesses of the state of Vermont, happened to be vices. I'd like to know how much we're spending on vices and how much were we getting back in return. And I know that the cannabis fund is being split several different ways. It's just not reflected because it's not a general but we talked about a general fund transfer, or we talked about using the cannabis fund perhaps from the general fund to go pay back the college fund.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Right. But that's not in the budget, is it? It wouldn't be year one, it would be after next year?

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: The payback is effective 07/01/2028, right?

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: '27. '27 would be up on '28. '28,

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: yeah.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: So it doesn't impact the general fund in this budget company. That redirect of the cannabis receipts. And just to clarify one thing, the sales the cannabis excise tax goes directly to the general fund. 30% of that goes to the substance misuse fund. The rest of it just goes into the general fund. There's no specific cannabis fund per se, unlike sports wagering, liquor control. Those ones go into their own fund, and then they go to the general fund. Cannabis just goes straight to the general fund.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations)]: We can see what the receipts are, the non encumbered receipts.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Yeah, we can do a reconciliation of what happened with the cannabis fund.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations)]: Because I think that's a question when I hear about the way that we're being proposed to use cannabis funds to pay back, again, we all get caught up in, well, there's this money here. Again, I have a career long battle over property transfer taxes and what they were supposed to be used for statutorily versus where they can be appropriated notwithstanding. I'd just like to get an idea of how much money are we spending on how much money is Vermonters spending on cannabis, lottery tickets, and alcohol, and sports wagering. And what do we what do we see as a return? And where does it go? Because I think there's a fast fact of just saying, just because we sell this much, we only get this much back, but only this much goes to this. It gets confusing to understand the parts of where the money is supposed to go. Mean, anything that I mean, in theory, everything should go into the general fund. That's not how we do special funds. That's not how we use it. We always have a catchall of notwithstanding, which is not what they're saying about paying back the scholarship funds. They're just I mean, they are in essence separating Correct me if I'm wrong. They're taking the money that's going into the general fund and they're saying that that's going to be diverted directly to, which is different than saying it's going into the general fund and then we pay out from the general fund. I mean, I have a real there's a real stick in me in my back about you can't say we're taking cannabis money that's intended for the general fund and using it for a different purpose cleanly. Just mean, exactly Because the

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: money goes to the general fund, and then it has to be reallocated from the general fund to the higher ed trust fund.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations)]: Yeah, people used to say, I'm not putting the property transfer tax into housing and conservation, but we're using that money to use it for other things that are helping the same population. I'm like no, that's not true, you're using general, I mean it's just this, it's a game that we play that I think I would like a clarity just from what we have so that when somebody says we're going to use cannabis money for this purpose, we can either correct them semantically or have an argument about whether you should put it down in language and just say this is what we statutory want these things to do. Battles over that money whether it's LEOB, whether it's for this process, whether it's for anything else, it goes into the ether and people have these arguments thinking that we should be putting Well,

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: they think money is associated with it.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: They say,

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: I'm gonna move us on because we have to hear from Grady too, and you have a question, and we have to go through this

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: out before we go back to lunch. I have a question. I have a comment. So the stick in my back is how much do we spend because mental health issues in the hospitals everything that goes off the side that we're not paying with this money, but we're still incurring as cost to our society and to us indirectly.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations)]: It's all part of the biggest conversation. Why are we in the business of being of selling advice? We do it because on the shallowest level possible, we have income.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: Okay, let's get gradient here. Great. In the language, you'll see the statutory change.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Right. There's some set up stuff that text

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: reporting. Yep. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: you, guys. Trevor, we'll be doing a strong presentation. We need to actively take a vote caller. Okay, Grady, take it away.

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: Thank you. Grady Nixon, joint fiscal. So unfortunately, I don't have the Christmas tree side by side document ready yet. So a lot of the, language removals and, those sorts of things that you would typically see, you know, representing what the house had. You won't see what the senate removed wholesale. Hopefully, by the end of the week, that document will be ready. This will just show you senate additions and changes. And the green is a little hard to see, but the first instance you'll see here in section a one zero one, this was from the technical letter, just adding in four capital appropriations not funded with bond proceeds. This is just language that we had to add because the capital bill was incorporated into the budget. The committee may recall that the capital bill was added on on third third reading in the house, so we just didn't have time to add that language. The same in section a one zero two. Can you give

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: us a page number? I I probably have. Put this document up.

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: Oh, yes. Sorry. So this is just, the senate proposal of amendment. It the unofficial on the bill stage for 1851.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Well, I'm using a, addendum to the senate calendar from April 22. That's what we all have. You use that, and we'll just figure it out. I also

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: Okay, so if you tell us

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: the section we can figure it out from where we are. Great. So that's the second green is

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: The same language relating to just adding in capital appropriations. So that's on line one of page two.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Which is a what?

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: A one zero two.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Okay. It's not page two in this thing.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: Oh, apologies.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: You tell us the section, then we'll figure out the page.

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: On also in a one zero two, again, this is further language added to, this explanatory section just highlighting the capital appropriations are addressed in the budget. And then in section a one zero three, this is the final piece of language relating to the technical language needed to just address the fact that the cash fund appropriations are in the budget. So now in b 1,100, I can just go through this quickly. This is the language that corresponds to what the committee went through with the one time sheets that Emily presented on.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: So this is on page 55 if we're doing the, addendum.

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: So you'll see the change in the appropriation for provider stabilization grants to Veeva. And then the global commitment appropriation for the per member per month primary care case management payments. C one. So, the senate, the house version of the bill, the community may recall, called out specific allocations of that $21,000,000.21180000 appropriation for the homelessness response continuum, shelter development, etcetera. The senate, given the timing of their work on h nine thirty eight, wanted to ensure that the $21,000,000 box was addressed, but the specific allocations weren't called out in the event that they chose to ship those around in their version of h nine thirty eight.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Do we know when they're voting that out? I don't

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: know if it's not here now, but now that I have that question.

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: I believe health and welfare was taking testimony on it this morning, but I'm not sure when they're Okay. Thanks. And so this doesn't change the amount. This just removes those specifically called out allocations. Right. This is language. The house also had this appropriation for a grant to end homelessness Vermont. This just added in clarifying language about the intent of that. This is part of the food movement of food funding. So this is the 697,000 for direct aid to community partner food shelves. And then you'll see here in sub eight, the global commitment for the post permanency adoption services. Following that, you'll see the general fund and federal fund for Meals on Wheels. So these numbers obviously changed given the food support construct that the senate had. And then here, you'll see the general fund and federal fund for the global commitment for the primary care per member per month payments. And the general fund and federal fund split for the global commitment for the post permanency adoption services. In sub e, this is the dollar change for Vorec.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: And we left it at 500?

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: Yes.

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

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: In sub f, DHCD, this is the 100,000 for the first generation homebuyer program and 25,000 for the South Hero Service Committee. In sub g, this is just the movement of that 50,000 for the Vermont two fiftieth, to the Department of Economic Development. So it's not a dollar change, just a change in where it's being appropriated to.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Right. Then the 2,000,000.

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: 2,000,000 for the Rural Industry Development Program, 100,000 for a grant to the Vermont Law School for the Vermont Small Business Law Center. 150,000 to the Vermont Small Business Development Center. And then, here, you'll see the change. So in the house construct, this date for Northeast Kingdom towns impacted by July 2025 flooding, ineligible for FEMA. This was originally in the house construct, transfer from the general fund to the community disaster resilience fund. The technical letter recommended just shifting this to a direct general fund appropriation to the agency of transportation. So the dollar amount did not change here. This just added in actual wording for how this funding would go, how the awards ought to be distributed, and then made it a direct general fund appropriation rather than a transfer from the general fund to the communities disaster and resilience fund. Then you'll see the 300,000 for non emergency medical transportation, and then the 3,000,000 pilot special fund appropriation for state aid to town highway grants.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: That's not in here because that was an amendment on the floor. So that is in, is that number four?

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: Yes, so that is H4

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: million pilot

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: okay this is on the increased

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations)]: municipalities for from the extra sales tax.

[Rep. Martha Feltus (Vice Chair, House Appropriations)]: Local option tax, the excess that's about

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: It's in that fund. In

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: Sub I Department of Health, you'll see the 150,000 for a grant to the Vermont Language Justice Project. And again, to rep Bluemle's explanation of this, this is for the preparation of informational materials to Vermonters, who speak languages other than English in the event of a public health emergency. In sub j department of mental health, you'll see the reduction to the CDOEO day shelter. And in sub k, you'll see the reduction to the global commitment to Meals on Wheels, as well as the $100,000 appropriation for a grant to support the startup costs of a new adult day program in Washington or Rutland County. There's also language, stated that that fund that funding can also be used to support the cost of an existing adult day program to expand its capacity or serve more individuals. So if

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: I may just clarify, just to follow it. So if no one comes forward in Washington or Rutland County, the department can make a decision to transfer these one time funds to someone else who's in need. Correct.

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: In sub l, this is the reduction to the NOFA grant for the crop cash, crop cash plus and farm share programs. And then in sub three of sub l, you'll see the reduction to the Vermont Food Bank, Vermont Speeding Vermonters program.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations)]: Those were payments that were going directly to farmers to provide food or to provide benefits at farmer's markets for people to be able to buy local food, which is again different than the construct of giving money to food banks.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Economic development for the farmers.

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: In sub O, AOE, you'll see the reduction from 182,000, I believe, to 150,000 for the children and adult food care program. And then this is just the movement of the AEDs in schools. So this is not a dollar change. This is just again redirecting where that appropriation goes to to the correct place. Sub p, this is 25,000 to support a study on the estimated amount that health insurance premiums would increase if Vermont were to enact legislation requiring health insurance coverage of biomarker testing. So this is funding for a study in a senate bill. And then you'll see in sub q, the 2,320,000 higher education endowment trust fund appropriation for freedom and unity grants. So the house construct had this amount for this purpose, but from the general fund, not from the higher education endowment trust fund. Then in sub R, you'll see to the treasurer's office 50,000 to support the work of the public employee health benefit authority study committee.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: What bill was that one again, Brady?

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: I would have to get back to you on that.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: I know I can find it in the base of the one time thing. Think I

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations)]: should have

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: done it. It was related to a bill. Correct. S-one 190.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: S-one 190. Thank you. Yes. None of that has been done. So I'll start checking on some of these fields on whether we think it's actually going to go. Because I know I've heard that the government's going to veto a certain thing or committees aren't going to actually go through and stuff. So we'll have a little flexibility. Okay. In

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: sub t, this is the 600,000 higher education and down the trust fund appropriation to the Vermont State Colleges for the McLellan Hall Housing Transformation Project. In sub u, this is the s two eighteen, two hundred thousand dollar general fund appropriation for chloride contamination reduction program. In sub v, this is the $100,000 appropriation to the land use review board for act two fifty related public outreach and engagement.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Yeah. Change that. Oh, but it's going to the land access and opportunity board to do the public engagement for the LERB.

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: So this goes to the land use review board. Right. And then they will do work in consultation with the access and opportunity board. Okay.

[Rep. Martha Feltus (Vice Chair, House Appropriations)]: Bill? Three twenty five, Robin, you're talking about?

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Have an election yesterday morning. S-three 25, by the way, that's the Act 181, it got voted out unanimously, eleven-zero out of house environment. That might be the first unanimously. It was unanimous out of that. It's gonna go today to Ways and Means, and we're gonna get it tomorrow for like forty five minutes. So I would suggest, when you're not looking at the budget this afternoon, read three twenty five so we have, before we

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: have our forty five minutes

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: of reviewing it on Friday. Sorry for that side.

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: In sub w, this is the $25,000 appropriation for the Lake Champlain International Fishing Derby. In sub x, this is the $12,000,000 higher education endowment trust fund appropriation for the multipurpose center project at UVM. And then this language just specifies that any construction that is paid for with that spending authority, adhere to the higher of the prevailing wage requirements in Vermont's statute, for capital construction or the prevailing wage requirements as determined by the US Department of Labor or related federal acts or regulations.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Sorry. This

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: second

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Yeah. Go ahead. I'm

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations)]: sorry. I'm sorry. I'm Fish and Wildlife usually pays for out of their budget, or do they

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: need it separate? It has been in the budget in recent years. It's been a cash fund appropriation as well in recent years from the cash in the decathlon section.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: They should just put it in their budget.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: It's been going on for a long time. Always has worked this way using the capital. Passed through the Fish and Wildlife Department as a pass through. Right? Even if not in part of

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: the budget. Every year, but it really ought to just be in their budget.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: It's been year over year. Who who has that?

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Can you talk to them? I'm talking about putting it in their budget I next will. So we can stop having these conversations. Thank you.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: Okay. Section

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: B eleven oh one, this is the addition of the contingent list.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: So

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: the reference to 2025 accident results number 27 section b one zero three a one p as amended by 2026 accident results seventy four seven

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: five is Three times your refund.

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: That is the 70 now $70,900,000, which is part of the $100,900,000 for property tax buy down. So this directs after, reserving and carrying forward those funds and then fulfilling the general fund stabilization reserve, statutory requirement, and the new statutory requirement related to the child care contribution fund, which is 302 332 VSA three zero eight F. Then the Department of Finance and Management shall calculate the maximum number of contingent transactions that can be funded pursuant to subsection b. And then per Emily's spreadsheet, 4,700,000 to the technology modernization special fund, which is half of what is being transferred out of it, in d one zero one. And then 1,000,000 transferred to the farm and forestry operations security special fund that chair Birchlich, highlighted earlier. Then 5,000,000 transferred to the human services caseload reserve and 30,000,000 reserved in the general fund for future appropriation or transfer for addressing federal funding shortfalls, Vermont Medicaid and other human services needs, property tax relief, housing initiatives, or any other uses. Same language. Exactly.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: But we still in in

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: a, we're still carrying forward the 30,000,000. Yes. And where the 50,000,000 what's left of the 50,000,000 is still where it is.

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: Yes. So this this doesn't touch on those. But

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: So those are those remain in place?

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: Correct.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: And then this would be if we a miracle occurred and we had more money, we could do up to 30,000,000

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: Correct. So that

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: all of that same thing.

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: That 30,000,000 in act 27 remains reserved.

[Rep. Martha Feltus (Vice Chair, House Appropriations)]: Yeah.

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: And then the 50,000,000 is in appropriation, so that carries forward. And that language was added to the budget adjustment act.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: And this 30,000,000 language is the same language as the second 30,000,000 that we had last year

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: That is unreserved.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: That that we're now using for the Ed fund. The other 30,000,000 that we're carrying forward was strictly discussing for federal funds, not for property tax. So they don't have access to that 30,000,000 for the 28.

[Rep. Martha Feltus (Vice Chair, House Appropriations)]: But we still have 30,000,000? Yeah.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: That's related to federal funds. Plus the 50. Plus the 50 that the E Board has.

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: But it's federal. It's in federal funds.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations)]: Plus now doesn't have this language where What did

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: they change at the BAA? In in the act 27, there was 1 $30,000,000 reserve with this language attached to it, general use. Mhmm. 1 $30,000,000 reserve specifically for federal funding cuts, and then $50,000,000 appropriated for the emergency board to address any potential funding shortfalls. And the committee will recall back in the fall, about 6,500,000 of that was used. In the budget adjustment, the 30,000,000, that was for broad uses was unreserved, and the other 30,000,000 that is just for federal funding cuts has not been touched. That remains reserved. And where did

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations)]: we put the potential help for BSHA? Because they've still been having it.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: That would probably come out of the $50,000,000

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: if we had to, or

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: the 50,000,000 or the 30 That would be potentially eligible in those areas without a specific set aside. Yeah.

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: The language in the budget adjustment specifically called out that 50,000,000 appropriation for the section eight potential in the c section of the senate bill, there's some language amending that language. Okay. Just technical corrections to make sure that the timeline works given the lack of HUD notice. The housing authorities requested just an amendment to make sure that the timeline would actually be workable for them. K. Thank you. In section b 11 o three, this is the cash fund appropriations. So the senate capital bill includes 1,000,000 for statewide three acre parcel stormwater compliance. And then That's new. Correct. And then increase this appropriation to BGS for the AHS door control upgrades at correctional facilities from 700,000 to 2,700,000. It'll be very well controlled.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: It's really worried about it.

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: And then in k, this is 500,000 for sprinkler system upgrades at the Newport Northern State Correctional Facility.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: They're supposed to be doing air conditioning.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Yeah, they cut that down. Wasn't there 3,000,000 for air it was 3,000,000 for Wi Fi. Yes. Downgraded to 250,000. Exactly.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: So that's where they're getting

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: the money to do these things. But what wasn't there air conditioning somewhere?

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: It's on the capital bill before.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Well, maybe it's it's a cash capital bill, cash fund.

[Rep. Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member, House Appropriations)]: I just have questions about this, too, downgrading to 2 and $50,000 I just don't know, what does that buy? It was originally estimated at 2,500,000 or something. I can't remember what the original number was For the Wi Fi.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: I thought it was 3,000,000.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: It was 3.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: It was 3,000,000. And Trevor's on it. A lot of these are in here, Trevor. Trevor's got a few things to deal with in this budget. Okay, let's continue. We we have to vote this we have to vote on a committee conference, and we should try to hear as much as we can, so agree.

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: Section c one zero two. So this is the change, to reflecting the senate version of miscellaneous tax. This is just the update to that fiscal year end balance being brought into f y twenty seven for property tax relief.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: K. C one zero three.

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: I would note here this is in c one zero three, this is a section, that the committee will better understand the changes when you see the side by side with the house language and the senate language. The senate did make changes to this section that were only omissions. So there was some language that would specifically apply to the senate, education transformation h nine fifty five. Some language had to be removed in the senate construct to make sure that this would not conflict with the senate work on h nine fifty five. Jumping ahead to, senate ad section c one zero six. So this, is the amendment to the budget adjustment language relating to housing authorities and emergency assistance. So as I mentioned a moment ago, this is just striking the requirement that housing authorities notify DCF of their intent to request funds on or before April 15. They do not have access to this information from HUD yet to my knowledge. And, obviously, April 15 has already come and gone. So this adds language specifying that that request for funds or notification of the request be within ten business days after receiving official notice from HUD of its federal fiscal year 2026 funding amount. And then a corresponding date change for DCF to relating to the establishment of procedures stating that that shall be not more than twenty business days after that official notice from HUD is given. Section c one zero seven. This relates to a prior year appropriation to the remote housing and conservation board. I believe the VHCb can no longer use these funds for one planned projects. There's another project that they hope to use these funds for. So this adds in language related supportive housing for Medicaid funded developmental disability services so that they can use that prior year appropriation for a project that they have lined up.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: I remember there were conversations about this after it passed. This body.

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: Section c one zero eight, this was in a request from the administration, that was, we failed to catch this request in the house construct. This, relates to the ERAP cure. So the reimbursement of prior federal funds extended through ERAP.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: Oh.

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: The cash fund was utilized for this purpose. And so this is just language to ensure that that is an allowable use. Section c one zero nine, the house and senate in the budget adjustment added in an appropriation to the agency of administration to ensure that, ADEC was fully funded for the Vermont State Teachers Retirement System. The treasurer's office flagged a concern that a similar issue might occur for the Vermont State Employees Retirement System. So in the budget adjustment, there act 27 as adjusted by act 74, there is a total of 6,800,000 for this. And this allows for that $3,000,000 one time appropriation to be used for either system to ensure that the ADAC is fully funded. Section C 110. This is one of the sections relating to the reversions that Emily spoke about earlier. So rather than reverting this act 73 school district, school district redistricting task force appropriation because it's a current year appropriation. This is just reducing it.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: So what they actually needed. That's how we captured the 80,000.

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: Yeah. Right. Which is slightly reduced, so the number was slightly different. Yeah.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: Okay. And

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: then this is the second section relating to reduction of appropriations rather than reversion. So this is that 650,000.

[Rep. Martha Feltus (Vice Chair, House Appropriations)]: Yep. And

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: then because of that, the human services total is updated as well. Section c one thirteen.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: I mean, to the Central Vermont Regional Planning Commission.

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: Sorry. So section c one thirteen amends this prior year appropriation to allow for funds to be used for the Central Vermont Regional Planning Commission. This was a request to allow for a grant to the Capital Region Communications System, which is Central Vermont Montpelier Barry, to develop their communication system.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Is this money coming from?

[Rep. Martha Feltus (Vice Chair, House Appropriations)]: Is this from

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: the emergency management or not?

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations)]: Is that from that $11,000,000?

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: Yes.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: For public safety for dispatch. Okay. This one's yours, Marty.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations)]: So I take it they had excess funding or they or was this just not

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: The emergency management bill had

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: a had a way

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: to use all that money. Right.

[Rep. Martha Feltus (Vice Chair, House Appropriations)]: Well, it it used a bunch of it, and this is the balance that it says shall be continued to be reserved until we come back to

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: the Exactly.

[Rep. Martha Feltus (Vice Chair, House Appropriations)]: Ask for it to be changed.

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: So there's a separate bill dealing with these funds, and then this is what remained after those changes.

[Rep. Martha Feltus (Vice Chair, House Appropriations)]: Did the senate take any

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: testimony on this?

[Rep. Martha Feltus (Vice Chair, House Appropriations)]: Department of Public Safety.

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: I would have to get back to you on that. I'm not sure.

[Rep. Martha Feltus (Vice Chair, House Appropriations)]: I will be checking as well. Right.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Okay. That's a big question.

[Rep. Martha Feltus (Vice Chair, House Appropriations)]: I was for this in the e section, and it never showed up. It's e section.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: It's a c section. I wonder where that emergency management bill Well, hasn't been acted on yet. I mean, it's still in gov ops. It's still in gov ops. What was that number? Age 69? Nine thirty five. It was nine thirty five.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: Okay.

[Rep. Martha Feltus (Vice Chair, House Appropriations)]: All right.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Tandy, please.

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: D101, the transfer section. So you'll see in sub D here, this is the reduction of the transfer to the education fund. As Emily and chair Chaya articulated, the total number here, that $1.00 4.9, the 4,000,000 is now being used for the renter credit. So this number was changed to 100.9.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Oh, yeah. So that's on page 72, note letter d. Okay.

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: And then in sub nine here, you'll see, this was from the technical letter, an update to the mechanism for the transfer from the technology modernization special fund. It was flagged that the, amount of interest in that fund is known. So, the report back language on the total amount transfer was not necessary. The amount could just be explicitly called out. Okay.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: What is that? That's on page seventy three nine a.

[Rep. Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member, House Appropriations)]: Okay.

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: In the reversion section, so the those two reversions that are now in the c section as appropriation reductions don't show up in this section any longer. And then this is where you'll see the reversion of the Department of Environmental Conservation Emissions Repair program reduced by half. Section d one zero four, this was added by the senate. This is remainness intent language. This just explicitly states that for education transformation funding, it is the intent of the general assembly that any specific appropriations, legislative language, and applicable adjustments be incorporated in a specific bill or added to this act if necessary. In e 100, the position section, you'll see some positions. The senate, of course, did not, create all the positions that the house did, and it created some different ones. So you'll see just the additions here to the office of the state treasurer, one policy and research manager position, and to the office of the secretary of state, one executive officer, and then a permanent exempt staff attorney of the office of the secretary of state.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Okay. So this doesn't show that taking out the ethics commission or the mediator into that stuff.

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: Correct. Yeah. This this document, as it currently exists, only reflects senate editions. It doesn't show senate. Right.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Were those the only two positions they took out of ours? Do you recall?

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: I would have to defer to Amy on that.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Amy can let us know sometime.

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: Scrolling Okay. Down to section e one zero eight. This is language that the senate added relating to compensation study report on exempt employee compensation. And so directs the Department of Human Resources to review and analyze exempt position titles set forth in statute and exempt position titles that are not set forth in statute, how the annual rate of adjustment is determined and applied, and the salary advancement structure for exempt employees compared to that for classified employees.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: I did hear on the floor there was an amendment that didn't pass, but that salaries for exempt employees were raising at a much higher rate than those, if I remember correctly, than those that are classified.

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: I can't speak to that specific analysis, but that

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: I don't know what the analysis I I think that was what was said on the floor. Yeah. I may have misread it, but I think that's what

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: was said. That was what was said. Or

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Yeah. Well, that seems to be possibly where we are now. But we'll find out more.

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: Section e one eleven point one, this is one of two sections relating to that change to the cannabis excise tax. So this amends statute to direct now 50% rather than 70% of the excise tax to the general fund. And then in section e 11.2, this directs now 20% of the cannabis excise tax revenue to the higher education endowment trust fund. And again, these seconds are affected in fiscal year twenty twenty eight. They do not impact the budget this year.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: And that doesn't say until the 12,000,000 is paid back. It just has it has forever.

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

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Okay. And then I guess they assumed that that 20% this year would be about $4,000,000 between 3 and $4,000,000.

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: Correct. I believe the estimate is over roughly three years. Okay. Section E131.1, this is, remove repealing the state case reserve fund from statute. So, the senate bill pulled what remained in that fund 61,000, and then this repeals the fund.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Which fund is that?

[Rep. Martha Feltus (Vice Chair, House Appropriations)]: The PACE?

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: One thirty one point one.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Oh, PACE. Got it. Okay. It's so little up there. Was seeing retirements.

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: And then section e one thirty three, this relates to number changes relating to, cascading from decisions for VPIC. So again, these numbers typically change at each stage of the bill. So the same for section e one thirty four. And then this is where you'll see intent language relating to the one time increase for the renter rebate in fiscal year twenty twenty seven. So the actual dollar amount, you'll see in the base section, b one thirty eight, it increased from 11,500,000 to 15,500,000. This is language just explaining that that $4,000,000 increase is intended to be a one time increase. So sometimes it makes more sense to just increase the base and then make it explicit that that's, not intended to be an ongoing increase, and that was what the senate did here. Section e two zero nine point one. Emily spoke to this earlier. This is just language adding in firearms to this new fund for equipment replacement. Section e two twenty, this link speaks to the $350,000 transfer to the domestic and sexual violence special fund. This states that the center for crime victim services shall distribute $250,000 of that appropriation as grants to member organizations of the Vermont network. Section e two thirty three point one. This is the just a statutory cleanup because the state case reserve fund is being repealed. This just removes a statutory reference to that fund. In section e three zero one, there was a reference to the Medicaid reimbursement special fund, which is being repealed and replaced with the school based Medicaid reimbursement special fund. And in the technical letter, it was flagged this relates to fiscal year twenty twenty seven closeout, because the fund the new fund will have been established at that time. This, language has been updated to reference the new fund rather than.

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

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: Section E three zero six point three, this is language directing the Department of Vermont Health Access to distribute the per member per month primary care case management payments. Section E three eleven point one. This is language directing the Department of Health to consider allocating $1,000,000 in FY twenty seven to support the implementation of a statewide population based youth behavioral prevention program, which would be, I believe, consider allocating 1,000,000 of substance misuse prevention special fund. And so this language itself is not an appropriation. It just directs the department to consider allocating 1,000,000 of that appropriation.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: Oh, this is with having a platform.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: This is the which is the Selena app. Is this something that was in something or other?

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: Is this in a bill?

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: I don't believe so. It

[Rep. Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member, House Appropriations)]: just kind of appeared. I think that there were some reps from the company that were here and may have offered some, I had some conversations with members of that committee, the senate committee. So at any rate.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: So is that a real expenditure?

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations)]: Well Or they'd be taking it from

[Rep. Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member, House Appropriations)]: a I've rarely ever seen that.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations)]: I don't think I've ever seen shall consider. Mean, I could I could understand language shall consider and impose, but not

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: shall count. Okay. Okay. I consider. Now I'm going to do the next thing.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations)]: But it's not coming from

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: general public. It's coming from From

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

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: a prevention fund that is already oversubscribed.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: Oh, wow.

[Rep. Martha Feltus (Vice Chair, House Appropriations)]: Well, I think it's taking up from

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: a month.

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: The language technically doesn't take it

[Rep. Martha Feltus (Vice Chair, House Appropriations)]: from anywhere.

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: It just directs the department to consider allocating an an existing appropriate. But Yeah. Their budget. The language the language itself doesn't actually

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: move Do anything.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations)]: But I'm just is there a punch line to it, grading? Is there a punch line to this language that says, okay. So we'll consider it. Here's this program. We thought about it. Do we make recommendations or report required? Is there a No. So this is

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: been considered.

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: This is an f y twenty seven consideration. So there wouldn't be a report back or a recommendation for their f y twenty eight budget. This would be, if the department looks at the appropriation, how they

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: could allocated. In your

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: account because it's Okay. Getting feedback here.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations)]: So we're going to hold them accountable at some point next year. We'll ask them, did you consider this?

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: Okay. Continue.

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: This section EU three thirteen amends the Substance Misuse Prevention Fund Special Substance Misuse Prevention Special Fund statute, and clarifies that the fund is established for the purpose of funding substance misuse prevention programming, including school based prevention programming. Section e three sixteen replaces the house e three sixteen. This is essentially simplified language relating to the reach up report. So, the committee may recall the house construct used language that was in I'm blanking on the act number, but the act that, about five years ago directed the reach up report. This language, is just a pared down version of that language intended to do the same thing. Section e three sixteen point one is intent language stating that the general assembly intends to in future fiscal years, include the parent child sector network and inflationary rate increases?

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Do we have to worry about that language?

[Rep. Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member, House Appropriations)]: Well, I don't know the history of this. It isolates one set of providers whereas many other providers who are also in statute don't get inflationary increases. And I don't know the background to this, so I can't find out.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: Is it directive, though?

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: This just expresses intent language. Yeah. So this would be a consideration for a future legislature.

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

[Rep. Martha Feltus (Vice Chair, House Appropriations)]: was part of one of the requests in our budget.

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: Section E316.2, this relates to a Medicaid and SNAP needs assessment. So this directs DCF and DIVA to report to relevant standing committees on or before December 15 on a needs assessment relating to HR one impacts to snap and Medicaid work requirements.

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

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: then clarifies that the department shall examine number of individuals and number of impacted households who have become ineligible for benefits due to federal work requirement changes, summary of benefit loss, information on individuals who later regained eligibility, an analysis of the reasons individuals are determined ineligible, and then information on outreach and other efforts undertaken by the departments to support those impacted households. And then in sub c, this is just reporting requirement of clarifying the departments shall continue to report on substantively similar information in calendar years 2027 and 2028. So there's the 12/15/2026 report, and then, quarterly updates from the departments with substantively similar information. In section e three sixteen point three, this is a similar it's similar to the education transformation, germane this language. This is language in the senate bill. The base funding for the homelessness response continuum and related investments was not explicitly called out in the house version. The all of the money was appropriated, but it was not specifically addressed. So this language just calls out the 61,450,000 that is appropriated across b three sixteen, b three twenty one, and b three twenty five.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Which section is that? No. Oh.

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: E three sixteen point three.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: No. It's not in here. That must have been an addition. It's not in the addendum.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: Interesting. It's in Grady's. I know it's in

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Grady's thing, but it wasn't, so was that an amendment on the Yes. Okay. I mean, 316.3, floor amendment. And this is the homelessness. This is about H nine thirty eight. Correct. Okay.

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: Section E three seventeen, this is language updating, the supervised visitation program allocation. So this, the total amount does not change here. It just now states that, the total of 365 7,500 go to the six existing community based supervised visitation sites. Section e three twenty nine, again, is an update to a report that was also in the house construct relating to the DAs and SSAs. So, the language in the house construct was just, adapted from that Oliver Wyman, Green Mountain Care Board report language. This, again, because the language is not intended to actually direct the department to begin the outreach work. The language is updated and simplified just to clarify the life saving here of directing them to begin looking into this. Section e three twenty nine point one, in house construct, this directed Dale to present a separate line items, the choices for care program, home based and community home and community based services and skilled nursing facility services. The term line items we use frequently, but it's not a technical term. So this just updating it to say appropriations. Great. Thank you. Section e three thirty two, this is legislative intent relating to the funding of hireability Vermont. So it states that, the funding for that program is through the opioid abatement special fund in f y twenty seven, but the intent is to fund it using general fund monies in the future. Section e three thirty eight point one, this is language clarifying that $85,000 in section b three thirty eight be for a grant to Jenna's promise for reentry services. I believe Jenna's promise this organization has gotten this grant for multiple years in the past. This is not an addition of new funds. This is just an explicit directive that that $85,000 fee for that purpose.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: Yes.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: So can I go back to

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations)]: creating this one about right there that so this is a one time payment to hire ability through the special fund, And it's just creating intent language, it's not creating an actual mind? It's not baking this in, right? It's just the intent to bake

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: it in. Correct. So in fiscal year twenty twenty seven, this is funded through the opioid abatement special fund and then it extends legislative intent to be funded through general fund monies in the future.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations)]: Right, but it's not handcuffing the next legislature that's doing that. No, you can't. I'm just making clear. That strikes me as like shall consider my pitch. It's intent. Thank you.

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: Section E five fourteen point one, again, this relates to those numbers that have to shift around pending changes. So you'll see here, those numbers are updated and it will be updated again in the committee of conference report. Section e five fifteen, this was a technical letter flag that the dollar amount called out in the language was incorrect. So it was updated by about 9,000,000, and you'll see the corresponding number changes throughout that section. In section e 700, the amendments to the land and facilities trust fund, There were technical updates to this language clarifying that it was the agency itself, not the department. And then it stated that the agency, with the treasurer could disperse a 30% 8% of the fund rather than the current 5%. You'll see later on in this section, the senate, amended it to say up to 8% rather than just 8%. So putting

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: that Distribute up to 8%. Okay. Correct.

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: And then added in language just stating that distribution can only be made if the fund balance does not go below the prior fiscal year's ending fund balance. So a provision preventing that distribution from dipping into principal.

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

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: Section e seven zero two. This is the section that Emily mentioned earlier, just directing the Department of Fish and Wildlife to present as part of its f y twenty eight budget presentation information on the current cost and schedule of radio and firearm life cycle replacement, and then any recommendation for future funding, including the establishment of a decimated special fund similar to the one at public safety that's being created in the bill. Section e seven eleven, the technical letter flag that we had this section, I believe we had it as seven zero three. It flagged that it should be section e seven eleven. And then we can get into this at a further time when, the committee reviews the positions in the senate bill. But, in this house version, this said two environmental engineers. It is now two environmental analysts. I believe that those positions, at least one of them the this section still uses 300,000 to establish two positions, but the positions are for different purposes now.

[Rep. Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member, House Appropriations)]: This is E7E711.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Oh, there's 11. Okay.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: Presume rates are existing.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Tell me, I'm sorry, I was multitasking again. What was this? Is this for Bill or is this the

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: Yes. So one is for S218.

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

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: And I don't recall other one at this moment.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: The other one's the flood safety?

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: Yeah, flood act.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Flood act. And flood act. The software doesn't work, because Okay. We didn't put two in for the Flood Act. And so if the Salt Bill doesn't pass, maybe we can have that transferred. Something to think about. Okay.

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: And then I assume the committee won't see these sections because they were added through amendment. These are three sections that relate to amendments to the pilot special fund and the creation of a new local transportation special fund. Local option municipal transportation special fund. So this language, directs excess pilot fund special fund revenue, once all other pilot payments have been made to this newly established fund, three fourths of that excess amount. And then it establishes the fund, and then adds the references to this newly created fund to the statute for state aid for town highways.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations)]: We can run down this eventually.

[Emily Byrne (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Officer)]: Yes.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations)]: That's new to us.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: This is our rundown that we're getting so far, but we can come back at a I'm looking at the time I have a must go to meeting at 12:30, and we have to do a straw poll before that. But I think we're almost done, so I think it's all going to work out just fine. But I'm just letting you know what the timetable is. And if we need to have folks come back after we've done the stronghold vote, which I just have to have for the floor, we can have them come back maybe this afternoon and talk about any of these things in more depth.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens (Member, House Appropriations)]: Important thing is to get the straw poll out so it goes

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: to the conference. Right, right. And then we can have further conversations. No,

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: we don't. My adjournment pool is too early than that. Be sure to do the adjournment pool, everybody. I'm a little more optimistic than you. Always. Hope springs eternal. Where are we, Grady?

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: So I

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: think we just have

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: three more changes to go through. Okay. In section f one zero eight, again, the committee won't see this. This was in amendment. Apologies that the senate proposal of the unofficial version wasn't posted. It's on, again, the the legislative website for the bill. You'll see in Alright. 108.1. This would add in a subsection c to that statute that's being amended in the prior section for state's attorneys for the pay act. This states that compensation for state's attorneys shall be reduced by 30% for any state's attorney who is not licensed or authorized to practice law in Vermont.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Yes. Now that we have more ongoing problems. We did that with the sheriffs a couple of years ago. And just to remind you that the constitution talks about how we do states' attorneys and sheriffs. And the senate a few years ago tried to change to have a constitutional amendment. It didn't work. It will be up again. We've had how many more problems since the last time they tried it, like six different counties or something. So expect if you're back that the Senate will be working on this again next year. Is there a single county that hasn't got a permit? I

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: would just flag for the committee that this section is effective on passage, which is why even though it's amending the same part of statute, it's separate from that f one zero eight.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: And

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: then, the effective date section. So the new c sections were added to the effective dates. Those are, of course, effective on passage as is f one zero eight point one that the committee just reviewed. Sections e one eleven point one and e one eleven point two, those are those changes to the cannabis excise tax split. Those are effective 07/01/2027, so effective for fiscal year 2028. And then this subsection e states that, all of the positions in the bill excluding the military positions, excluding limited service positions, that those sections are established provided that the official state revenue forecast for the general fund approved by the emergency board at its July meeting has not been reduced by 1%, which, would trigger that statutory rescission plan or more from the estimates determined for the purposes of assuming this current fiscal year's appropriations. So, if the e board July meeting, the general fund, has not been reduced by 1%, then the positions are created. And then in sub two says for the revenue estimate has been downgraded by 1% or more. And the joint fiscal committee then approves rescission plan at its July meeting that does not rescind funding for the establishment of those positions. And then states any position in those sections for which funding has been rescinded shall not be established.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: We're in a different world than we were a few years ago. Grady, thank you. We may ask you to come back and explain things. I think our heads are pretty big, but we've been sitting here for three hours and I appreciate everybody's patience in getting through this. It was really helpful for having changes,

[Rep. Martha Feltus (Vice Chair, House Appropriations)]: but here we are. So,

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Representative Mrowicki, are you going to present a motion for a straw poll for a committee conference?

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: I am, and I just want to check the wording because my proposal is not to agree what we've seen.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: To not concur and request a committee of conference. Okay, is there a second?

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: Sure.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Okay, thank you, Tom. We don't actually need a second. Have second. All right, any further discussion on this? This is a straw poll, which I'll be requesting this, assuming we all vote for it.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: Yes means

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: we want to not concur. Yes means we want to committee conference.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: Yes. Yeah, that's exactly it. Or they don't.

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

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: right, Trevor. Yep. Representative Bloomley. Yes.

[Nolan Langweil (Joint Fiscal Office, Senior Fiscal Analyst)]: May take consent?

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: Naughty. Representative Feltus? Yes. Representative Kascenska? Yes. Representative Mrowicki? Yes. Representative Nigro? Yes. Representative Squirrell? Yes. Representative Steven? Yes. Representative Yacovone? Yes. Yes.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: 100. That's good. That's what I typed up in my in your feeling that that might be the case. Thank you very much. In the first round of announcements, it's going to be asked to be, as the rules pick it up off of notice calendar, And then I will say my piece, and the speaker will announce the committee conference. And I expect that will happen tomorrow at the Senate, unless they're still on the floor. Yeah, we'll on mute. Oh yeah, we're gonna do that today too. Can you all hang out for thirty seconds more when we go to the libraries, Phil? We all in the libraries, Phil. We're We're do gonna

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office, Fiscal Analyst)]: over to.

[Rep. Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member, House Appropriations)]: Thank you, Tom. All right, is there a motion to pass?

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair, Senate Appropriations)]: 32.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Two thirty two. Is there a motion to Thank you, Dave. Second. Okay. Any questions on the library bill? We're all good with that? The clerk is ready.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: Representative Bloomley?

[Rep. Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member, House Appropriations)]: Yes.

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: Representative Feltus? Yes. Representative Sanska? Yes. Representative Roche? Yes. Representative Ruleicki? Yes. Representative Nigro? Yes. Yes. Representative Steven? Yes. Representative Jackson? Yes. Robin Scheu? Yes.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: And this actually is Lynn's. I don't know if I'm happy to just let Nigel know if you copy me on it to say Lynn is out, but she's the reporter, or whatever we have to do. It'll be on next week.

[Nolan Langweil (Joint Fiscal Office, Senior Fiscal Analyst)]: I'll send it to her,

[Rep. Michael Mrowicki (Member, House Appropriations)]: but I'll also come.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations)]: Right, that would be great. Okay. Committee