Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: So we're back live. It's the House Appropriations Committee Tuesday, 05/19/2026, 10:45AM. And we're still talking about S193. And we've asked Chair Emmons from Corrections and Institutions to talk a little bit about their part. We want to be sure that while this appears to make a lot of sense to have a plan, that it's the right order in which to do things, that general assembly, the human services doesn't go ahead and sign contracts or commit to spending money without I don't know what the right phrase is. Without a general assembly Legislative input? Right, or something like that. Were you Wait, Nolan, do you have a

[Nolan Langfeldt (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: So the pushback bill said is that you don't want to damage their ability to do RFPs. You don't want to put the money in this budget because then they're going to RFP that amount of money for the budget versus the competitive there's a weird balance that happens. Right. You say we're going to appropriate $4,000,000 and all the bidders are going come in formulas, right? So right in that balance

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: So I'm not suggesting we yeah, but I think that we don't want them to go ahead with signing contracts without conversation with us first. And I'm not sure how to save that.

[Rep. Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: Could there be work? If you go to the very and I've got page 27. I don't know if you've got There is a check-in that the agency has to do with the joint justice oversight. And that is at our August and November meeting. I'm just wondering you could work language in that, that the justice oversight needs to make a recommendation to the legislature in terms of whether to go forward with this plan or not. I don't know. The other piece I'm kind of wondering is at the very beginning of section seven on page 24, the feasibility plan force has to be submitted to your committee, my committee, and for approval. We haven't stated for approval before any dollars could be extended. That's on what page? That's on page 24, section 7a. On or before January 15, Agency of Human Services needs to submit their plan to your committee, my committee, and judiciary. And I'm just wondering if we could work language in there that no money shall be expended until approved by the general assembly in 2027. I don't know.

[Katie (Legislative Counsel)]: Those are two sections for us to further address. I

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: see there's sort of some levels going on. I want to defer to our alleged counsel, but you're kind of getting the idea of what we're looking for. And what are you thinking about how we I'm can go about

[Katie (Legislative Counsel)]: thinking maybe adding a subsection in section seven that says along with no funds will be extended to advance the contents of the fee for the plan until the general assembly has an opportunity to legislate and act legislation next Could fiscal

[Rep. Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: we tighten that up with maybe Joint Justice Oversight Committee making a recommendation? So there would be two parts. So in the Joint Justice Oversight section, at those two meetings,

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: we could add and that they shall make a recommendation to the general assembly.

[Rep. Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: Representative Squirrell was on that committee, and I'm on that committee. Representative Wood is on that committee.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: I would bet Cheryl Lewis.

[Nolan Langfeldt (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: And who?

[Rep. Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: And That's right. I didn't see I'm like, there's one other person. And then on the Senate side, you've got our counterparts in the Senate. So it's all those committees who are involved. That group

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: could make a recommendation to the General Assembly, and then no action until whatever Katie said about no action.

[Rep. Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: That's what I've done, thank you.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: That feels better to me that we have some sort of Okay, did you get those two parts?

[Unidentified committee member]: Can I ask a quick question?

[Rep. Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: You may. Is the concern

[Unidentified committee member]: that, and maybe Nolan would have some feedback on this too, they just saying they might need money to conduct the feasibility plan

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: or is it more? No, we've moved on from the conduct the feasibility plan. This is the contract. They've created a plan and now they want to sign a contract and they just do it. And then they come to us and say, by the way, we need $4,000,000

[Unidentified committee member]: Just want to make sure that's where it was and not that they were saying, hey, this feasibility plan is length might need money for that.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: Well, that's a separate issue they'll have to come back to us with. There's no money in here.

[Rep. Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: So could they actually go ahead and do that before they've promulgated rules in terms of how the facility is going to be?

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: Do a feasibility plan?

[Rep. Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: No, to actually put in money and start entering a contract with an entity. Because in section five, we allow them to adopt rules to implement this section. And they can't start adopting rules until 01/01/2008. So would that kind of limit them in terms of entering into a contract to go forward? I don't know. I'm just putting that on the table.

[Katie (Legislative Counsel)]: So there's no we'll maybe run fire in this. And the idea was that the feasibility would come back in January and there'd be another piece of legislation starting in January that would start filling in the blanks for some of the missing pieces, like rulemaking. So it's not that they can't start rulemaking until 01/01/2018. It's that you haven't decided what would require in rulemaking yet.

[Rep. Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: That's why we held off, because this bill came over from the Senate. They could start rulemaking immediately. Right. So we took care of that.

[Nolan Langfeldt (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: No, rulemaking to me is different. That's how you run the facility versus signing a contract bill, Right. I

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: would agree. I'm sorry, I'm confused about the money that we're talking about, because nobody's going to come forward. We wouldn't be ready to actually propose a facility and enter into a contract with a developer before January, correct? I mean

[Rep. Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: we don't know.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: You know, I thought that the money at issue here was just for this feasibility study. So we're talking about two different things here. Forget the money for the feasibility study right now. They'll come back to us if they need money for it. What we are talking about is long term. We have had situations where HS has entered into a contract first and talked to us second. And so we're trying to avoid that, that we want to know about these things up front. I think that's where we're trying to head. And so we're talking about having they're reporting twice to joint justice. And so joint justice can make a recommendation to the general assembly by January or whenever. And then the second part was that no, what was the second part you said?

[Katie (Legislative Counsel)]: There would be any spending to advance the feasibility prior to affirmative legislative action. Correct. Right. Yes.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: Right. So that we're anticipating future stuff and not trying to play catch up at the other end. They're trying to do it at the front end. And then Marty. What we want

[Rep. Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: to do is to put money for the feasibility for some parameters of feasibility study into this, and then build the long term needs No, from next no. It's the fear they're going to go ahead and actually enter into a contract to either build a facility or contract with someone to operate it without legislative input. That's a concern. Yeah. That's totally different. They can do that in house.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: And Marty and then John.

[Rep. Martha “Marty” Feltus (Vice Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: Well, my concern was Katie mentioned no authority to advance the feasibility study. I would think maybe we don't want to use the word feasibility at that point. The final plan. Yes. Well,

[Katie (Legislative Counsel)]: that's what it will be.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: They'll come back. All of the years of feasibility study at that point. We'll have a study. Right.

[Katie (Legislative Counsel)]: I imagine when they bring it back to you, they will say, here is your feasibility plan that you asked us to do, And that without you putting more money behind it or approving aspects of it or adopting it and writing it into legislation, then that's sort of the end of the process until the legislature moves forward.

[Rep. Martha “Marty” Feltus (Vice Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: Right, I mean, think we need to receive a bill as a bill of the study and somebody needs to say, yes, that's a good idea. And yes, we wanna do it. And then, yeah, we need

[Nolan Langfeldt (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: $400. Is it

[Unidentified committee member]: really the established plans or implementation of the transit facility itself that you don't want there to be any contract?

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: It may be signing a contract. May be Once there's a plan, once they have developed a plan, we do not want further action on the plan until we get recommendation from joint justice and the general assembly enacts legislation to allow it to go forward.

[Rep. Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: So, couldn't you say that in the introductory on Section seven? Couldn't you tighten up the language as well? No? I think

[Katie (Legislative Counsel)]: we'll let

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: Ledge Council figure this out. And okay, I have John, Wayne, Martin, and anybody else out there? That's what I've got so far.

[Rep. John Kascenska (Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: John? I kind of feel like a conversation speeding away ahead here to the point where the feasibility study may come back and say, this is a really good thing based on what we see elsewhere here, perhaps it might fit for Vermont here. And then permission to move ahead, it's gonna take some time to figure out what it will cost here beyond January, here with the feasibility of your current company.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: The feasibility study is supposed to go through all of that and include all the costs. We don't want them to go ahead and either

[Rep. John Kascenska (Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: Right, know I

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: can't spend money or spend money without legislative

[Rep. John Kascenska (Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: Exactly, that's kind of where I'm going here with this, because that will require quite a bit of debate. Yes, that's Not just within.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: That's right. It's going to be a lot of people who know this better than we do in appropriations would have that conversation. That's our plan. Yeah. Okay. Wayne and then Martin.

[Rep. Wayne Laroche (Member, House Appropriations Committee)]: I think we're really overthinking it a little bit. Why can't

[Nolan Langfeldt (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: you just say the plan shall not move forward without legislative rule? Very simple. Without putting in all types. I would hope that we wouldn't put so much in there that we stall or somehow kill think

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: we have two sentences going in here. I don't think there's a lot going in here. I think it is. I think we're just talking about it a lot. And when Katie sends us a

[Nolan Langfeldt (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: draft amendment, it'll be different, Martin. So I don't see

[Rep. Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: But we could make a recommendation. I mean, they present to us in August and then November, our December meeting, we could make a recommendation.

[Nolan Langfeldt (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: That doesn't come up till January 15. So I don't know that we could have a rule. We're not gonna be monitoring their part on this, but actually make a recommendation before we get to the final.

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

[Rep. Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: Make a preliminary

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: How about give feedback or

[Rep. Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: something would like give feedback. We could

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: To the general assembly.

[Rep. Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: Give an update, something like that. General direction. Yeah. We can we can also meet well, it's not due until the January 1 is when the plan is due. It's the January 1. January. January March 1. January 15. Part of the bill to report. I better get it right. We could give a preliminary recommend. I I would think that something would have to come from joint trust

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: Yeah, I think it would be important. From the legislature. Would you be comfortable with a preliminary recommendation? To be. But they're only If joint justice has enough information by December, we'll make a recommendation. Don't How will the body get the information from joint justice? What we normally do is pre consent a letter to the respective committees and indicate what

[Rep. Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: we heard in testimony and what our recommend would be, or preliminary recommend that they

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: So is that sort of your normal course of business? Okay. So if you promise to do that, we don't have to put that in the legislation.

[Rep. Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: We can do that. That's how we've done it.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: So we're down to one piece, which is the second part, Katie.

[Rep. Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: And you get the line.

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

[Rep. Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: Katie Are you folks the ones that won't be offering that amendment?

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: Yes. We have possession of the bill. So we will offer the amendment as a committee. I'm looking around, the committee seems like they're Okay with having a little bit of a control over that. That seems to make a lot of sense. And so when Katie is done, we'll vote on the amendment and the bill is amended. We'll get it out. When you get the amendment done, Katie, can you let me know so I can pass it by my committee to take a straw vote? Because that's our section of the bill that we worked on. Yeah, well, it'll come you want to do that

[Rep. Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: after we vote it? I can do it when I vote We'll let you know when we

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: voted it, and you can do a straw poll. I think it's going be a very short

[Rep. Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: Yeah, same here, but I Maybe we'll have to

[Nolan Langfeldt (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: wait at Yeah, of course.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: Yeah, we'll make sure you all get it.

[Rep. Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: So is the plan to do S-one 193 today on the floor or tomorrow?

[Nolan Langfeldt (Joint Fiscal Office analyst)]: It'll be on tomorrow.

[Rep. Alice Emmons (Chair, House Corrections & Institutions Committee)]: Okay, that helps my schedule a little bit.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair, House Appropriations Committee)]: Okay, but you can do a straw poll whenever. We'll let you know when we're done here and we'll give you that information. Okay, so we should probably go off live and let Katie