Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Good afternoon, everyone. This is the Vermont House Committee on Commerce and Economic Development. It is Tuesday, 02/24/2026 at 01:03 in the afternoon. So we're back from the floor and caucuses and lunch, and now it's time to continue our discussions on our budget letter appropriation. And just so everybody knows, we've taken off seven thirty eight seven thirty three for this afternoon, and we moved the h five twelve markup and float to three forty five. So that gives us now till 03:30 or 03:45, depending on if you want a break or not to get this budget letter done. So so, again, we have our legislative council with us, Rick Siegel, together. I think we signed off on just gotta say we didn't.

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: So it's already in here.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: I'm working on my technology here. I think it was Yes. That's right. I'm sorry if you could have a note

[Abbey Duke, Member]: when I hear it.

[David "Dave" Bosch, Member]: Got the stupid. I know.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Gonna turn off my alerts. And alright. So

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Okay. So Rick Siegel with the office of letters of counsel, and I am just going to I'm gonna summarize what we've done so far or just straight to where you left off?

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Just where we left off.

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: And I still I have not had a chance to work on this at all since I last saw you all, so this is gonna be organized in a hopefully better way. But for now, we are in the part of

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: the letter that does not have items in the budget currently. These are requests that the committee is making. So the advance Vermont, the 600,000 that they're asking for the request is actually for my future VT and graduate with a plan. So they wanna develop another another part of my future VT with providing, and I think that's where the hiring of more FTEs to go around the state and work with seniors that are, I think it's not just seniors, but students in general to come up with a plan for graduation.

[Herb Olson, Member]: I mean, I'm very supportive of that. Have we finished discussion of that or

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: are we moving? No, I think we can, there was two parties to it.

[Herb Olson, Member]: Yes, correct. If I can just comment, I think it's a critical piece. It fills a real gap between what DOL is able to do and what the agency of education is doing. And while I'd like to see somehow, at some point, it integrated, in the meantime, it's a real need, and I think it needs to be supported. I think it's a very high priority. I think the idea of using some of the reversion funds from DOL is a good idea, but one way or another, I very much support that request.

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: Agree with you for me.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Those people's thoughts on number one, using reversion dollars that DOL is sending back to four of the $600,000 request. Okay. That makes sense.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: Yeah. Me too.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: And and like Priority. What's your priority? Herb thinks high. Everybody there? I would have to go with Herb, but I think,

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: you know, one of the

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: things I've been looking for is do we have any redundancy? And this is one the few places where we really don't. There's no one else doing this. So I think this should be a very high priority. Okay. High priority. Everybody good with that? Is Jonathan on? Yeah.

[Jonathan Cooper, Member]: Part of what I'm trying to understand is whether this is a program that is more or less assisting all of those, the state colleges, the university, the agency of education and VDOL, etcetera. And if it's like a purpose built organization that's meant to address that, or if what we are funding is a program of a nonprofit organization that isn't entirely dependent on state resources, do they have other revenues? That's where I'm trying to understand more about who the entity is. I think the work as described it is important. So I can definitely be comfortable with high priority designation.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: So Advance Vermont started under VZAC years ago, and then it's moved out of VZAC on its own with state resources and other resources as well. They been able to get other grants. So it's not entirely funded by the state. It's one of the resources, financial resources that they have. Thanks, Mike.

[Herb Olson, Member]: Yeah, my sense is that it was started to fill a gap, and if we don't fund it, we'll revert to having a gap.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: There's been a gap for a number of youth waiting for to come online, where it still isn't fully capable yet. And the investment that the state's made into my future VT is not for not that information at some point when JobLink does go live on a new system, can incorporate what my future BT has been doing all these years.

[Speaker 7]: Is that the plan when jobs coincide? Was that generally? Yes,

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: I believe it is.

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: I

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: know that I've heard that from Tom, and I think DOL has said that in the past as well.

[Speaker 7]: Yes, we don't want to lose that, those years worth of

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: data. Okay. I think when we started talking about state colleges, UVM, VZAC, I think we can make one line is that we support the governor's 3% increase in their budgets. And I don't think we have to delve into all of their programs. I think that if we do, that we support the governor's budget and support the 3% increase in their base It's a base Okay.

[Herb Olson, Member]: I just had a question, Fran. It might be different under a different item.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: It seemed to me that the That's under arts, Forest Parks and Recreation.

[Herb Olson, Member]: It just seems related to me. Yeah.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: But it's always been funded through Forest Parks and Recreation.

[Speaker 7]: Is your concern that we have all of these job training programs spread I think part of I also share that concern, but I also think the Office of Perforce Development is working on. So let's not forget that that's running in the background as we're continuing to do the work.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Yeah, I hear that, and I would agree if somehow a lot

[Kirk White, Ranking Member]: of these sort of disparate things, they might

[Herb Olson, Member]: be funded in one agency or another agency, So, well, have high hopes for the board.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: That's a good point.

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Clarification on the 3%. You said UVM, is there

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: a category at the board? No, it's the budget. It's it's the base funding for UVM, Vermont State Colleges, or Vermont State University, and VSAC. Right. Figure out how how to award that. Yeah. I think you could put the higher ed, and then I think you could say the governor support the committee supports the governor's recommended 3% increase to base funding for UVM. Or yeah. You can try to give a little bit of reference. Okay. A cap agency.

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Priority or no? Yes.

[Speaker 7]: Question potential related, not related, but hireability, since

[Abbey Duke, Member]: they also deal with pathologists, I guess

[Speaker 7]: you meant those to human services and not to us.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: I gotcha. Thank you.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: I mean, we can certainly put in there we support our ability here.

[Speaker 7]: I think so. They lost their allotment money, their federal dollars.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Federal dollars?

[Speaker 7]: Yeah, they lost $7,000,000 of

[Denise Smith, Executive Director, Vermont Council on Rural Development (VCRD)]: our struggling, and they do a lot

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: of critical work, development staff. They came in to talk to us just on ADA awards, but they really haven't come in to talk to us about their budget. Yeah. Okay. TAP agencies. No. We heard think we did receive an email from you as well. We requested some more information.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: Yeah. She did.

[Jonathan Cooper, Member]: Were there some big jumps in this one this year?

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Yeah. Yes.

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: Yeah. It's 1.15 o total.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: That's in their base. Right? Right in their base?

[Abbey Duke, Member]: It's the new replaced.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Up in their base?

[Abbey Duke, Member]: Mhmm. Yeah.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Okay.

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: And it's half $1,000,000 on financial coaching, half $1,000,000 on micro businesses, and 150,000 for Vida. And they said they'd come back to us with weatherization, but I don't know that we ever talked.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: The other documents was this was the total. Mhmm. Yeah. But some of it's

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: in the budget and some of it's not.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: I see. I think this is what's in the budget. So it's in the spreadsheet. The total was just over 2,000,000 Is it the budget? Is it dollars 0.1

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: That's not in

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: the We're looking for an increase for

[Abbey Duke, Member]: I guess we want to talk about the total.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Well, I think we can support base funding. And I think the base funding was a 3% increase as well, right? Last year. But they're Well, they already had, I think, and the governor recommended it's a 3% increase.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: Yep. But what they were seeking

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: But then they're seeking additional one time dollars, or are they seeking Base. Base increased base funding?

[Abbey Duke, Member]: Let me pull it up and double check. Make sure I pull up my spreadsheet.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Because they're looking for increasing financial coaching, coaches, counseling support, and micro business development coaching. So they're looking for right now, they're at a point three FTE in each agency, and they're looking to go to a one FTE in each.

[Jonathan Cooper, Member]: I recall being a little unsure about the rationale, like, if the demand was such that that jump in FTE would be required. Right.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: Here's the civic numbers. Yeah. What was the name

[Jonathan Cooper, Member]: of the witness or the witnesses like or at least Sharpe.

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: If you look at it. Liz Sharpe from the seventeenth.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Thank you. The

[Abbey Duke, Member]: slides in there show the exact numbers. If you look her up by name, she sent additional data dated February 18. I think the demand is there. They were supporting more people than they were funded for.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: The current state funding levels, $173,100,000, 34,000 per agency, provides a point three FTE for financial coaching.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: Which supports 45 people.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Yeah. 45 people or two twenty five for the whole network. And then 493,003 and 50 $3.35 to $98.06 per agency, which implies a point nine FTE, which is 75 people per agency or three seventy five people through the network.

[Monique Priestley, Clerk]: I'll just say when my time at Center for Women Enterprise and my time doing business planning through the space on Main, these were the most this is where I referred everybody who needed any type of business help and financial help. And often, the financial coaching was the barrier to people being on good stable feats to start the business. Then they often needed little tiny micro grants to actually start the business. Yeah.

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: As we're talking about regional supports, capstone's doing a really great job of providing regional

[Abbey Duke, Member]: assistance. Yeah, I agree. I think there's tremendous value for the money spent for those programs. They work in tandem. Right. And

[Monique Priestley, Clerk]: unlike some stuff that tends to be one region over the other, something like this is every single region too.

[Speaker 7]: Yeah. They also do a great deal of health, some far off rural communities and

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: do a lot of support.

[Jonathan Cooper, Member]: It can be tough to get to some of those five locations. I know that. I mean, it will be good to speaking in my southwestern corner of the county, I'd love to see that barrier to access it because transportation is such a major issue at the scale. I wish there was another way to make sure that you see that distribution be a little more even. But the need is certainly there. Don't disagree.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Can somebody pull the budget up so that we have so we can take a look at what governor's budget I think it helps if you have one person pulling budget up, another person, if you get Abbey, has somebody else can pull up their ad schedule, no request.

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: You can do that on the appropriations committee page.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: It's the easiest way to find it.

[Herb Olson, Member]: Okay. Simple.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: What's what's the additional?

[Abbey Duke, Member]: Four for the. So that No.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: They're total. So they're looking for

[Abbey Duke, Member]: Let me do a little math. So, for all three, in total, they're looking for an initial 1.152 It's broken down. So at

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: VDP, they're they're I don't know. Support for even base funding.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: Yeah. Where would you know, the money come from. Find points.

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: We have financial coaching and micro business so that that helps happen.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: Any more money in that labor decision?

[Speaker 7]: No, it was, well,

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: it was almost 2,000,000 in total, but

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Yeah. Which document you came from? It's just that.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: All of that appropriations are animal.

[Herb Olson, Member]: Any suggestion as to which of the appropriations documents we should be looking at?

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: Oh, sorry. Go to

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: The committee page.

[Herb Olson, Member]: I got FY 2027. Yep.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: '27 budget? Yeah.

[Herb Olson, Member]: And then they divided

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: It's got

[Herb Olson, Member]: a commerce, and then it's got a bunch of other stuff.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Sorry. Move up to the back. Which one? Number one.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Oh, number one. Okay.

[Speaker 7]: And then it's the Edye, is it the one on top of Nixon?

[Jill Sudhoff-Guerin, Vermont Medical Society]: Yes. Okay.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Pull it up too.

[Amy (Community Action Agency/VCAP representative)]: Devices for the person.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: I think this is what you're looking at. Right?

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: Yeah. But it's also stood in a spreadsheet.

[Speaker 7]: Oh, there is a spreadsheet?

[Abbey Duke, Member]: That's what you

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: I'll let you guys do that, though. So we're talking about this from k. Summary.

[Speaker 7]: That's the slide deck.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: And budgets.

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: I don't know, but it looks like this.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: I can find it.

[Herb Olson, Member]: It's just me. No.

[Amy (Community Action Agency/VCAP representative)]: It's all of us. Oh,

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: I saw that on the front page.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: I've seen it pulled up something. So you let him drink this.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: It's up. You're at the. I at just pulled this one from don't know. We're actually f y 2027 budget summary. I don't know if it's right. It's got green bars.

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: Thank

[Denise Smith, Executive Director, Vermont Council on Rural Development (VCRD)]: you.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: All. Yeah. You couldn't find that. I had to go to the. But

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: this is the one from there once.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: I pulled up. Looked under Robin's name, and I don't see it. Is that a disappearing email?

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: Now that I just installed that brain power to figure out what we were doing, where are we? We

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: are on the part of the letter where the VCAP is where you're kinda looking at. The 3% increase in base funding is where we are stuck,

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: I think. Share my screen again.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: Found the web look through the junk fiscal office page.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: If there's another document that was from appropriations.

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: That's what I'm still looking for.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: Here's the. Has this is. Gotcha. That's. And it is weird. See, because it's like, this is where you can get, like Yeah. I'll send the link out to. And then the challenge is, like, more

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: the full

[Abbey Duke, Member]: can see whole book.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Yeah.

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: Dan gave it to us about

[Abbey Duke, Member]: We just if we look at the caps, where what budget is that?

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Okay.

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: That'd probably health care maybe.

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: You all reached out to Pat Sitterton at JFO. Might be helpful to have JFO here to answer questions. Because I'm

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: not a budgie guy. Have words for this.

[Herb Olson, Member]: You're feeling a little inadequate right now?

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Well, yeah, not helpful to this aspect.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: I know those are being very helpful right now. I'd like to know who sent us.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: Okay. Is this yes.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Shouldn't be this difficult. Right.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: And that, I was trying to get into it. There isn't really a decent search function. And so you have to know where to look.

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: And we never done an answer to a lot of public partners.

[Monique Priestley, Clerk]: I just sent you the letter to us on the fourth. I don't know if that's the right thing that you're looking for.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: We got something that had a link in it.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: PDF has a link in it?

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Does it? Mhmm. I think that's it. It's just me not finding any progress. Dave was

[Monique Priestley, Clerk]: The force. I just emailed it to everybody. There's two links at the top of the letter.

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: But isn't that the standard letter in the center?

[Abbey Duke, Member]: Link, have you just so information. That's what I'm saying. Like, I I'm.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Yeah. There a Alright. What do we so Amy, do you know that for the cap agencies, their budget was Governor's recommend was a three percent increase over

[Amy (Community Action Agency/VCAP representative)]: their That is not my understanding. No. My understanding is it's level funded. Level funded? And it's they're asking basically for $500,000 for micro business, 500,000 for financial coaching, and 100,000 And that would represent, for micro business and financial coaching, would represent a staff person, basically the equivalent of a staff so that they could meet the demand.

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: We did follow-up with you.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: We have another question.

[Herb Olson, Member]: That looks about almost 900,000 more than the revenues were going to, with combining the two?

[Amy (Community Action Agency/VCAP representative)]: So the total request for the three programs was $1,150,000 Last year, the CAHPS received the 148,000 in VITA, but it was one time money, so it wasn't carried into the Governor's budget this year. And the other lines, folks here, correct me if I'm wrong, the other lines have been level funded for years, they're just sort of historical.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Okay, so micro business is at $5.81?

[Amy (Community Action Agency/VCAP representative)]: Statewide.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Statewide, and financial coaching is at $5.28? Statewide. And the VITA is at 400?

[Abbey Duke, Member]: Financial

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: coaching is at 130.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: So, we're the one third type person. Yeah.

[Amy (Community Action Agency/VCAP representative)]: So, this is the total

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: that we're

[Amy (Community Action Agency/VCAP representative)]: requesting, including the base funding. I'm sorry, I didn't see what you mean by that.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: At. Well, these numbers here are FY '26.

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: It's

[Amy (Community Action Agency/VCAP representative)]: in the presentation that Liz Sharp said. Yeah, we have them. She put the base funding and then pressed the red box on one of the slides. Yeah, think this slide.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: We have that slide.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: So maybe it's easier if we put

[Abbey Duke, Member]: Numbers. Sorry.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Base funding in first for this year, which is so do you have that up?

[Abbey Duke, Member]: I do. I do. So So micro business is Fiscal year '26, the base funding was $4.93 $3.35. And they're requesting an additional 500,000. Current base $4.93 $3.30.

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: So we want

[Abbey Duke, Member]: We want 993,335.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Yeah. Alright? Yeah. For fiscal year twenty twenty,

[Abbey Duke, Member]: And then, VITA requesting $550,000 which is an increase overall $2,000 increase from fiscal year twenty six and 150,000 increase in base. And then financial coaching requesting 670,300, which is a $500,000 increase.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Sorry. I got ahead of you. That's okay. What's the difference? $67,300. Yeah.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: It's a $500,000 increase. So, Governor

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: included that $2,000 increase on VITAB and none of the other increases. The base funding was there. Think that

[Abbey Duke, Member]: I'm not allowed to say. Next.

[Amy (Community Action Agency/VCAP representative)]: Last year, the legislature added $148,000 in one time money. The governor kept the base the same and did not include the one time. So, the explanation is they asked for $150,000 last year and

[Abbey Duke, Member]: then the $148,000

[Amy (Community Action Agency/VCAP representative)]: So it would be $2,000 over the total they got last year, but only the base was included in the governor's budget. He did not include any extra on the face.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: So then what's the total request that VITA is asking for?

[Abbey Duke, Member]: It's the $505.50. $5.50.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Total request. And that k. What was what was the base budget for last year? Vita?

[Herb Olson, Member]: Was that the $3.98?

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: Yes. $3.98. Yes.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: $3.98 was the base last year.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: I think this was. And

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: so the base funding is 400?

[Amy (Community Action Agency/VCAP representative)]: Think the governor is with the $3.90.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: $3.90. Okay. But but so we're in the ballpark anyway. Right? Okay. Alright. So we got the right figures. Oh, I think you can pull the 3% in base funding is not there. So that's not the request? No. Yeah. Okay. The increase is in base funding for okay. Alright.

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Is Vita Tax the right thing to call it?

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: The t is tax.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: Yeah. I

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: think it's volunteer income tax assistance or something like that.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Alright. So now we know what we can talk about. K. Any ideas where we can find money?

[Abbey Duke, Member]: I think that's questions.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: That's all. What's okay.

[Speaker 7]: What about the reversion? I

[Abbey Duke, Member]: guess it's not exactly workforce, though. We're solving it maybe. Next week.

[Speaker 7]: Well, let talking

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: about and stuff.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Well, I mean, this is what they're asking. What are what are we supporting? Money come from?

[Herb Olson, Member]: Yeah. When did that 3% come from? Was that something that some of Well, I mean,

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: in some of the budgets, governors like this increased the budgets by 3%. 3%. But that's been in agencies and departments within state government. A lot of things, funding as well, or decreasing. Right, that just speaks

[Herb Olson, Member]: to my mind as something that applied to some programs, whether it's an agency or nonprofit or whatever, that's kind of what the administration at least thought was a reasonable inflationary increase. And I guess to begin with, I would say, well, why don't you apply that reasonable inflationary increase to folks that something beyond the agency,

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: maybe it should be born. I think we are, micro business hasn't been increased for a number

[Herb Olson, Member]: of years. But I mean, that's

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: an issue.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: I would really like us to be able to support this. I get the issue of where's the money gonna come from, But I think this is some of the most impactful work, anti poverty work that's done. There's a very clear economic benefit. Each dollar that goes to these three programs, I think, results in economic, more than a dollar of economic benefit for the people they serve.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: That's right. The committee supports this request because

[Abbey Duke, Member]: Yep. I mean, I think that the economic argument is there for the

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Say it again.

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: Alright. You're doing a great job. Mean,

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: I

[Abbey Duke, Member]: would say that these three programs combined produce significantly more economic benefit than the dollars we spend on the programs. And it directly supports anti poverty efforts and helping people get out of poverty. Mean, just alone, I was struck by the really impressive return on investment for the tax preparation support. Mhmm. And I was heard on the radio this morning about, these Trump bonds where you can't you can't apply for a Trump bond where you get a thousand you know, baby born between '25 and '28 can get a thousand dollars in a savings account kind of like a baby bond. But you can't apply for that unless you file federal income taxes and you have to file a special form. So it's an opt in anyway.

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: So just add the return on investment is significantly higher. It's preaching to the choir.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: I know.

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: It's higher than?

[Abbey Duke, Member]: The return on investment is high. It's very high.

[Jonathan Cooper, Member]: We want to be clear about how high it is? Do we we have clarity on on how high it is for the people that will be reading this letter?

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: Well, if it's $5,000,000 on, almost 5 and a half million dollars in tax refunds and credits back to the community, that's only on the advice tax piece of it. Yeah.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: That's reference.

[Jonathan Cooper, Member]: Is it 20 to one, ten to one? Yeah, I'm just like, that might be a good quick calculator thing to say.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: A high multiple, a very high multiple in return of investment or something like that.

[Jonathan Cooper, Member]: Is this was that's based on 400,000 or

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: no? I'm just trying to

[Abbey Duke, Member]: Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So the tax return, just the tax refunds, we're talking 13 to one.

[Jonathan Cooper, Member]: I mean, it's not fully funded by legislative dollars, but I think I presume, but I think I or is it? Because that would be

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: They fundraise.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Okay.

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: I don't know where they use the fundraising.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: Speaking to both VITA, VITA receives money for their employees through the state, and we get a very small amount of the reimbursement that was IDA.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: The majority of the money from state?

[Amy (Community Action Agency/VCAP representative)]: Our agency gets $5,000 from the federal government. Oh, yes.

[Herb Olson, Member]: 5,000

[Abbey Duke, Member]: from the federal government.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Think we can we they ask us to come down. We can explain that.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: Yes.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Especially on the VITA program. Okay. Everybody good with this? Mhmm. Yeah. Good.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: All business technical exchanges.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: I don't think there's anything in small business, technical assistance. If anything comes out, it'll be Senate Economic Development Bill. The HCB. Is there a number?

[Abbey Duke, Member]: What I wrote down was just the 40,400,000.0, which is in the governor's budget.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Most of it comes Statutory.

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: Government recommended statutory. Yep. And that's they didn't have anything there.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Yeah. That's wonderful. Yes. So that's what I have as well.

[Herb Olson, Member]: My note, I mean, this is a really longstanding good program. My only question would be about the allocations. They have a split, I think, between conservation, preservation and housing. Maybe that's not our purview. Certainly seems that housing is a huge, huge thing right now.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: Is that split is that split statutory? What's that? Is the split based on? The statutory says roughly equal. So.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: If they were up to 60, it can all go up to 70 before. It's That's what I Right?

[Abbey Duke, Member]: That's what I So there's a but it could go

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: up and solve

[Herb Olson, Member]: the issue. And honestly, we haven't had probably enough testimony about that allocation issue. It's just the thought I had in mind.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Is the 40,400,000.0, they've pulled statutory share that the statute says they're supposed to get?

[Herb Olson, Member]: I think it's a percentage of revenues from the transfer tax. Yeah.

[Jonathan Cooper, Member]: That That percentage was 37,600,000.0 for FY '27. Okay. Just the transfer tax. It was $36.04 in FY '26 because they had that reduction of just under half 1,000,000.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Yeah. And so now this year, the governor's recommend is 40.4?

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: Which they said was the full governor is recommending the full size.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Okay. So I think we take the request out and say we support we support the governor's recommended budget for the HCP, And we can take those. Yeah.

[Jonathan Cooper, Member]: Yeah. Because there was some a little under 3,000,000 from the capital bill.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: Yeah. Mhmm.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: That's what got

[Jonathan Cooper, Member]: to that 44.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: K. And priority is high?

[Abbey Duke, Member]: Yep. I'd say so.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Okay. RPCs.

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: You have to request support for the governors. Correct?

[Abbey Duke, Member]: Yeah. Their base, which I think was a 3% increase Yep.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: To 7,800,000.0. Good. Or we can say the same thing here. Is that a request for think that would be like that. Send increase.

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: You know, clean this up.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Yeah. It's just to get it down. High priority. Everybody good with that? Okay. And tab.

[Herb Olson, Member]: I can't remember what the technical assistance program, I remember we had some testimony about some plans,

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: but it wasn't always clear

[Herb Olson, Member]: to me how those plans were gonna be.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Somebody's behind you that can explain that to you. When we get to the Okay.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: Yeah, that's VCRD. There

[Jonathan Cooper, Member]: was, I think, as I recall, a statewide assessment of municipalities based on the community need that was giving a standardized metric and MTAP was made a pot of funding that was meant to be made available to municipalities that would have limited staff capacity. And so so your biggest towns with robust staffs wouldn't be eligible for that to assist them in in community development stuff at sort of small scale one off.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: K. So I went to VLCT and I think then out to the RPCs as well. Okay. Circular and earn. So they've asked for an increase of half 1,000,000 to their base funding.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: And I looked it up last year. They got half 1,000,000 base two fifty one time.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: So their their base again is 500? Or did they get it? They got a 3% increase. I think it was 500. They're asking for another 500. So we change that. Which base funding increase the 500 in in the base funding. They're ask yeah. They're asking for another 500 in base. Right? I don't know that we're gonna find base, but

[Abbey Duke, Member]: Yeah.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: No. They're basically yeah. The committee supports $500,000 increase. I'm thinking that we find that 500 and, again, in the reversions. Yeah. But it would be one time funding, unfortunately, but

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: What about this extra bullet point last year?

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: Do it again, I think.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: They are working, having those conversations, but it doesn't hurt to I'd say the committee continues to suggest you're something. Well, I think the committee continues to work with the executive director. I think we could say that.

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: That you work with

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: here.

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Can you walk in?

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Yep. Everybody good with that? Priority? Five. Each? Next. Three degree promise is I think what they're looking for, what's sitting in house education right now. It's in the funding formula in the higher ed.

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: And I think funding of freedom and unity gets us pretty darn close to trying to go here. That's just

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Yeah. This is a diff There's that is Yeah. Isn't But there's no request right now. The request is sitting in front of you. But I think we can take that at home.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: And frequently, we need to be

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: used at CCB. Well, the CCB is part of it.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: Yeah. They don't pay either.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Do we have anything from the

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: Arms Council? They didn't come to us. And I think the governor budget would have their full request this year. I

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: think the Yards Council gets a match.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: Yeah. It's a match.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: I think we do wanna say that

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: Yes. How much is it? $1,000,033. $3,155.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: So could you say support governor's recommendation?

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Support the governor's recommended budget. Let's put number 1,000,000.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: 1,036,155.

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: That's not including Symphony Orchestra, Historical Society.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: That's it. So we recommend that match federal funds. You support it by request. There's no request. The second part. Right? Great film. K. That's what I removed. But

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: Somebody's asking for that this year. Anybody understand how tight the money is?

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Working No. No. This is film database.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: Yeah. Working

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: lands coalition.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: They're requesting 1,500,000.0 base, 3,000,000 one time.

[Herb Olson, Member]: Gavin, it's recommended Oh, wait.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Recommended

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: But 1.33 and a half in one time and half could have it wrong.

[Herb Olson, Member]: Have a

[Abbey Duke, Member]: total of 5,000,000, but then I 3.5 and three and one point five don't make five, so we're both wrong.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: We did get something from them.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: Let me see if we can double check. Denise? Yes.

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: We're asking for 1,500,000.0 in base, so adding a half 1,000,000 to the base,

[Abbey Duke, Member]: the governor's recommend is a million right now.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Okay, so we can put governor's recommend is 1,000,000, request is another half 1,000,000 in base. 3.5 in one time.

[Denise Smith, Executive Director, Vermont Council on Rural Development (VCRD)]: So you were all ready.

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: All room. 1,000,000 in governor space, add left is 3.51 times. Good work.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Is that correct? Yeah. I

[Amy (Community Action Agency/VCAP representative)]: mean, reprogrammed,

[Abbey Duke, Member]: but where does the money

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: I think we can meet the looks like it's less Yeah.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: K. Do you wanna place a priority on it?

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: K. Do you want the if funds are available language that was used last year? Yes. Priority.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: I don't think you wanna put a priority in. I think your funds are available. Kinda says it all. Yeah. Now tax credit program, they're asking again for another

[Abbey Duke, Member]: 6,000,000.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: They're increasing to 6.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: That's what

[Jill Sudhoff-Guerin, Vermont Medical Society]: we heard. Oh, let me

[Abbey Duke, Member]: find it. It was Karen Duquet. This is one of the ones I found when I went back. Works great. It's kinda doesn't.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: If you can take the tech hub out, we could let's we did that last year. International trade, already dealt with that up above.

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: Yeah. They're asking us to double the downtown tax credit to 6,000,000.

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: There may have been more last year that

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: I mean, I've gotten the latest copy that's that we used.

[Herb Olson, Member]: There's a 3,000,000

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: look for it. Yeah. Yeah. It's been 3,000,000 for quite a while. So the request, the downtown tax credit program is increase increase of 3,000,000 over

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: 3,000,000. It's in the bucket. Yeah.

[Herb Olson, Member]: Can't recall where this particular program fits into all the other tax credits for development. And my recollection is 01/1981

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: had a lot

[Herb Olson, Member]: of them or, you know, different ones. Is this one of them?

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Or Downtown Dike's credit program is for downtown designated downtowns and village center.

[Herb Olson, Member]: And village center.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Yep. So it can be facade upgrades. You get a tax credit for that different things.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: This says

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: It upgrades are Yeah.

[Herb Olson, Member]: I get it.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: Just need tax credits and other parts of the estate. In 2025, dollars 3,300,000.0 in tax credits supported 34 projects in 23 designated downtowns, and village centers generating 70,000,000 in

[Kirk White, Ranking Member]: improvements in infrastructure.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: Right. That's the sound of

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: It's an infrastructure, really an infrastructure improvement program for a downtown building center.

[Jonathan Cooper, Member]: And I think that where we might find Brownfields being sort of not as well funded in the coming year, the down the tax credits that have to do with facade improvements and rehabilitations to structures that already are standing might be might be nice to push that up a little bit, but I certainly expect there'll be more demand than there is supply. The the community investment board is the entity that reviews those applications that go to the DHCDs, you know, community program.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Where would you like to go, committee? Support the request. Is that a priority? High.

[Speaker 7]: I will say one of my communities in particular is a huge fan of the program. I think from my understanding, correct me if I'm wrong, often gets a lot of requests. Gets more more requests. Than it can handle. So I think it clearly is one of those pots of money that does its job well. But the question about where do we get an extra $2,000,000 I don't know if there are other reversions that would be handy, but

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: Another question is they use the money to pull in federal money. Is the

[Abbey Duke, Member]: federal

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: money there still? There are all kinds of questions Yeah, that you can look

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: I can't do appropriations, full job fraud.

[Speaker 7]: So, sometimes you have something to do.

[Jonathan Cooper, Member]: I mean, I think preserving 3.3 is really important and I'd be, you know, more than that's wonderful, but like, this is a tough time. But as you said, Mike, that's their deal. I don't need to do it for them.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Well, I think, you know, what we might say is we continue to support the 3,000,000,000 in tax credits, but we also support an increase because the tax credits have not been increased in a number of years and it's oversubscribed that we would support another 3,000,000 increase in tax credits. Ricky, you got this in it so you can

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Yeah. Yeah.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Right now. Ricky continues support. Using one of those some of that tax credit versus Seagulls Bagels. I would love that.

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: It was it was the song. Yeah.

[David "Dave" Bosch, Member]: Put a personal face on that. My son lives in a building on Main Street in Springfield that just had its facade totally redundant. It's broke up just this past year.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Yeah. And, also, it used to be able to also provide tax credits if you were upgrading. Well, if it does, if you're upgrading an elevator or putting an elevator in, also provides it was providing tax credits if you were wiring your your building for high speed Internet, that type of thing. I don't think it burned out anymore.

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: Okay. Yeah.

[Speaker 7]: That's stuff for ADA. That would

[Amy (Community Action Agency/VCAP representative)]: be Yeah.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: I don't I'd be to put an elevator in too.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Okay. Alright. That makes sense to everyone? Okay. I'm afraid Vermont is there's no I'm aware of the income tax anyway. Or did they?

[Abbey Duke, Member]: We did hear from Vermont Food Bank, but I think that was specifically for the budget adjustment.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Yes. That's right.

[Speaker 7]: That was for from other extreme.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: Yeah. And it was for the budget. It was Yeah. That's for the age of the BA.

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: So we're in this section.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Yeah. Borac. Borac, what's the EC stand for?

[Speaker 7]: Yeah. The oh,

[Abbey Duke, Member]: Borac. And then Borac wanted a 100,000.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: So Borac is in the governor's budget, dollars 100,000. It's one time. Sorry, what were you saying?

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: I said VOREC acronym. I got everything but the C. I think I just listed the C. Collaborative?

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Yes.

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Vermont Outdoor Recreation Economic Collaborative.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: Yep.

[Speaker 7]: Too many acronyms.

[David "Dave" Bosch, Member]: So

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: the request is half 1,000,000 or if you know the governor's recommend is half 1,000,000 in one time dollars. Committee supports the 500,000, but recommends that this should be in base funding. Right? Yeah. It sounds like

[Abbey Duke, Member]: Seems mhmm. Like it's kind of

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: a foundational program. Well, think the issue becomes this on and off again. How can a community who may not have who is putting together proposal isn't quite there yet, but they don't know if there's gonna be funding if they continue to work on it to present it again next year. Why put the effort into trying to do it if we don't know if the funding's gonna be there?

[Jonathan Cooper, Member]: I did not find that argument to be all that persuasive. Don't know how often potential grantees are thinking about that in the moment. Maybe others feel differently. Just wasn't sure.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: I think because I think because there was there has been funding and there was some dollars left last year. There was no funding request, so the governor didn't have it in the budget. But I think one time funding can lead you to that without knowing that you can count on something being here year after year.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: And I would also say, at

[Speaker 7]: least Jonathan, in my community, because we're kind of small, we have applied a number of times, we did finally get one, but it doesn't Depending on where you're at and where your community's at, not knowing that this is gonna be there, because you'll do all the work to get ready to do it, then all of a sudden the opportunity is not there for you and you have to go find something else. And then the other thing I would say also is that it's backbone funding for this whole statewide project of building trails that are multi use. And I think that that's something that's giving a lot back to the state.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: And certainly outdoor recreation is where we can win, right, economically. My understanding too from the testimony is a lot of times there'd be a planning grant and then maybe an implementation grant. So could be a multiyear process. Yeah.

[Speaker 7]: And grants just take they take a lot of time.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Okay. Are we okay with the language? Are you over the

[Speaker 7]: I would say hi.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Was another Just to turn off my screen.

[Speaker 7]: It's the worst typing under pressure.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: It's probably It's not even It's also

[Abbey Duke, Member]: CRT. Mhmm.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Denise, can you give us the lowdown on the half 1,000,000?

[Jill Sudhoff-Guerin, Vermont Medical Society]: Yep. Sorry. Do you want

[Denise Smith, Executive Director, Vermont Council on Rural Development (VCRD)]: me to just say my name? So Denise Smith, executive director at

[Amy (Community Action Agency/VCAP representative)]: the Vermont Council on Rural Development.

[Denise Smith, Executive Director, Vermont Council on Rural Development (VCRD)]: Based on the Virta report, I don't know if you guys had DHTD come in. I can't remember which committee we testified in. We were here, too. Two, yeah. Okay, so DHTD did their report. So that was the evaluation of rural technical assistance. And what they said is that communities need flexible funding, wraparound services, and coordination between technical service providers, including the RPC. So it's not instead of, it's with. And so what we're asking for is $500,000 this year to continue the momentum of MTAFT, which was in the governor's budget last year and didn't make it through. And we're asking just for a portion of that money for this year to continue that momentum and to respond to what rural communities are asking for with that funding. So that's the lowdown on RTA request. And VCRD is doing it because we were willing and able to come in and start doing this. We're also willing to serve as the backbone organization for the technical assistance provider network for this year as we sort out. The report came late. It was not till November that that was finalized. And so that's why we're here doing what's now. But we wanna keep that momentum going from what's happened over the last two year of that pilot with the MTAP funding that was provided to the communities. We've seen a lot of success for our organization alone. It allowed us to work with the community's direct funding for projects that they needed done.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: That was through It

[Denise Smith, Executive Director, Vermont Council on Rural Development (VCRD)]: was a reach Yeah, that was through MTAP. Yeah, the original MTAP funding.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: MTAP, then the money flowed into VLCT.

[Denise Smith, Executive Director, Vermont Council on Rural Development (VCRD)]: Yeah, Vermont Leaks of City and Town Preservation Trust, us, the RPCs. Jonathan, maybe help me out here a little bit, if there were others on that list. Specific private, like Stone Environmental was one of the technical assistance providers that also was able to have more flexible convey for communities. And we used it in a bunch of different ways, either hiring contractors directly for towns, or we

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: would give them the money and

[Denise Smith, Executive Director, Vermont Council on Rural Development (VCRD)]: they would hire the contractors.

[Herb Olson, Member]: Is it in the governor's budget or not?

[Denise Smith, Executive Director, Vermont Council on Rural Development (VCRD)]: LOAB was another one. The players access and opportunities board is another one. It was it's not in the governor's budget.

[Herb Olson, Member]: It's not. And neither is yeah.

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: Would be there's time.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: What was the other property?

[Speaker 7]: LAOB is in.

[Denise Smith, Executive Director, Vermont Council on Rural Development (VCRD)]: LAOB is No, MTAP

[Amy (Community Action Agency/VCAP representative)]: is not

[Denise Smith, Executive Director, Vermont Council on Rural Development (VCRD)]: in the government's budget this year. It was last year at 3,000,000, and it was not funded.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: This year?

[Denise Smith, Executive Director, Vermont Council on Rural Development (VCRD)]: Last year. So a lot of MTAP organizations that had MTAP funding, that funding is sunsetting in December and or June. So that money is all sunsetting.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: So then this money would do what now if there's no funding?

[Denise Smith, Executive Director, Vermont Council on Rural Development (VCRD)]: So what it would do is it would allow us to continue to convene all of the technical assistance providers. It would also allow us to give flexible funding to communities through a grant program that could be administered by DHCD or us. And it would help us have capacity at the technical assistance provider organization. Without this funding, have capacity to be able to provide added technical assistance services.

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: Sorry, you remind me. ARPA money is what funded EDGEOT, temporary federal dollars?

[Denise Smith, Executive Director, Vermont Council on Rural Development (VCRD)]: That, we would have to ask the governor's office for. But are you sure? No. Yes. Yeah, think there's an issue.

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: Yeah. Think that's the issue with any time we have temporary dollars trying to continue funding a program that was funded with temporary dollars makes it incredibly complicated.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Well, I think the reason why we did that too was because of ARPA funding, trying to get that money out the door, making sure that communities had the technical assistance they needed to get all the ARPA funding out the door. But I think what Denise is saying and everybody else is that they found that the technical assistance, the communities found the technical assistance very valuable, especially in small communities that don't have people.

[Herb Olson, Member]: Yeah, absolutely the truth. It's not a small community. And although there seems to be some overlap and sort of technical assistance between a lot of folks, we're not gonna solve that now. And to not have that kind of assistance for some of these small towns, I think would be unfortunate for sure.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: I think the goal

[Denise Smith, Executive Director, Vermont Council on Rural Development (VCRD)]: for this too, I'll just add, is that it's really about coordinating the services so that And there isn't as much overlap, so that we're working together and kind of wrapping around a community.

[Speaker 7]: I guess one thing I'll also jump in and say, agree with you absolutely, Our small towns don't have a lot of municipal capacity to handle all of the sophistication that's ahead of them. I think not funding something like

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: this is gonna hurt our growth.

[Speaker 7]: The one thing I also will point out, and I think I did say this to you, Denise, is that most of the communities, at least the ones that I've talked to, don't know exactly where to go to get the help. So I do wonder about making sure that we have messaging and actually promoting the programs that we do have to communities.

[Denise Smith, Executive Director, Vermont Council on Rural Development (VCRD)]: Navigation came out a lot.

[Amy (Community Action Agency/VCAP representative)]: Yeah. It

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: dropped down to the RDCs, the RPCs, they're supposed to be the boots on the ground a year or two or ACCD. And I'm

[Abbey Duke, Member]: just The LCT?

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Yeah. We hear But I I mean, I I'm just wondering, you know, how much of this money is being spent to provide that the wraparound services that you're talking about that I think that we expect to come from out of the RDC and the OPP and how much of it will be going out to the community?

[Denise Smith, Executive Director, Vermont Council on Rural Development (VCRD)]: Yeah, I think the majority of this money would go out to the communities directly. I think the thing is RPCs and RDC serve a huge function. And I think there's there's a whole ecosystem of technical assistance providers throughout the state that are also part of that. And I think this will help to augment the work that they do.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: We almost need what we did with SOC Web, and this is creating the office of workforce strategy and development. You need an office that knows, that can go out and that knows everybody that's out there and coordinates all of that.

[Herb Olson, Member]: That was kind of what I was getting to. And how do you do that? And what do you do in the meantime? Kind of thing. Some of the smaller communities, they just don't have the wherewithal to access some of what's out there.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Probably don't know what's out there. Yeah, I know. With the REDI program. The REDI program, I mean, many small communities know what it is?

[Herb Olson, Member]: So, I'd like to see something. If there's money dedicated to that particular purpose, I don't mind having it coordinated by a bunch of different agencies. I'd just like to see that presence there. Summer?

[Abbey Duke, Member]: I definitely see the need, certainly. There's tremendous need for technical systems for these small towns. But I think from a systems perspective, we make things really complicated in Vermont, like the number of organizations, the number of towns. I would rather see us have a focus on how do we simplify is the wrong word how do we make it easier and how do we make it easier to share. It just makes sense to me to have that capacity be in the RPCs and RGCs and also to be really leaning into regional shared services and regional governance. So those are just sort of my questions. It's not a question about the need or the question of the needs of the towns. It's more like systematically, where should we be putting the resources towards and streamlining things and building in that collaboration so it's not like

[Herb Olson, Member]: Yeah, the problem is timing. We're putting together a budget letter right there, and we're not gonna change the system in the next few weeks. And I would mind cobbling together some language like we did with workforce programs a couple of years ago, directed at this kind of an issue. But in the meantime, if we're just looking at the budget number, I'd hate to use the funding to that support something that needs to be in there somehow. Maybe not this way, but somehow.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: I understand what you're saying.

[Denise Smith, Executive Director, Vermont Council on Rural Development (VCRD)]: I think in the Virta report, you've also mentioned that regional Better. So that's all in there. And we're hoping that this might just help us continue

[Speaker 7]: to do the work that we've already started and

[Denise Smith, Executive Director, Vermont Council on Rural Development (VCRD)]: not have to not be able to do it because

[Amy (Community Action Agency/VCAP representative)]: we don't have the capacity to do it.

[Kirk White, Ranking Member]: I think support these really small things. That's what we're really talking about that gap is really the tiny communities. And how we fund that, how we organize that. I think it's also a great idea that we figure out how to coordinate this whole system and get it together like you said, And that sounds like a great project for the committee for next year. Maybe even a study thing for this year or whatever we do that you won't even have to worry about But yes, I think, for example, this is, to me, this program is more important than the storefronts in the downtown, the facades. If I had to choose one or the other, I would choose this over that because those communities have little bit more resources than the itty bitty ones that need the impact. So I don't know if we have to make that call. I don't know how that goes. Well,

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: I I but what I would say is it's not just a designated downtown, but it's a village centers as well. And there's a lot of village most of our communities have designated village centers as well, and that's available for them too.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: I think in some cases, this

[Monique Priestley, Clerk]: money is helping people figure out that they should go for that.

[Denise Smith, Executive Director, Vermont Council on Rural Development (VCRD)]: That's how preservation trustees some

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: of the funding they have, to

[Amy (Community Action Agency/VCAP representative)]: help communities abide by Right.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: What are people thinking?

[Abbey Duke, Member]: This is high for me.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: And should it be BCRD or would it go to BHCD?

[Herb Olson, Member]: I would in

[Abbey Duke, Member]: I'd

[Herb Olson, Member]: okay having it in an agency if they're willing to commit

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: to it. Well, I think they came to it. Yeah. Or to the IPCs, RDCs? Everything flows through

[Abbey Duke, Member]: Oh, the agency

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: which The agency is that would

[Herb Olson, Member]: think tying it in with whether it's RPC or RDC makes sense. I mean, right now they're doing that kind of thing anyway. They actually charge communities for it, it's a feature So kind of that would be, it might lessen some of the fee that they structure they have to charge to all towns in order to get the assistance. Wait. I'm confused.

[Monique Priestley, Clerk]: Are we saying VHCD, but now we're saying planning commissions?

[Amy (Community Action Agency/VCAP representative)]: Is that what you just said to give it to

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: the okay. Okay. Yeah. Was like planners of regional development.

[Herb Olson, Member]: Yeah. There's a

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: good thing. You know, we did NTAP. It went through AOA. Right? Agency of administration. They could get they'll get the money out to BCRD, to PLCT and a host of others to provide the technical assistance that would need to get the ARPA funding out. So I think the thought is that we continue a program similar to that, which help small communities understand where dollars sit and how to access those dollars those and give them the technical assistance they need in order to do that.

[Speaker 7]: And also it seems like part of it is also wanting to keep together this coalition of service providers that have.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: So I think it would be through ACCD and Department of Housing and Community Development to continue or to technical assistance through the various providers in Vermont.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: Don't know

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: if Yeah. That

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: I'm struggling with this because it's a program that, I don't know, it feels like a brand new program. We're popping into the budget without enough information. It's half $1,000,000 to allow a group of providers to have more conversations. Like that just doesn't feel like the way we're using money right now, which should ever be. So this is fiscal concerns. I'm really struggling with this. I know our rural communities need support. I'm just not sure that this is the way to do it.

[Herb Olson, Member]: Maybe the focus should be on assistance to municipalities as opposed to

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: Which is like a program understand before we put it in the budget, right? So that's where I'm just struggling with this. Because we have Vermont League of Cities in Vietnam. Yeah, we have the RCPCs, we have other programs. Mean, about a group of providers that are having things. We were talking about $60,000 to come up with, to work with a consultant to come up with a new program to support, instead of veggie, to support businesses. And now we're talking about almost 10 times that for this. If it's the same kind of collaborative come up with a program thing, that doesn't seem to make So sense to I'm feeling like this is not baked enough for me to add into the budget right now.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: I don't

[Monique Priestley, Clerk]: think it's coming up with a new program versus continuing a program, though, right, that we've been doing for the last couple of years. And just speaking for my tones, it's not just conversations between regional providers. It is actually asking those regional providers, which grants should we go to? We want to accomplish this stuff. We want to do a housing development.

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: We're not sure how

[Monique Priestley, Clerk]: to do it. And often, at least for my regional planning commission and the regional economic development corporation, they don't have capacity in my accounts to do that so often, or having to go to another entity like VCRD often to be the ones who are like, who should we talk to and how do we do this? And that's opened up multiple different funding sources that I've personally applied to for towns and on behalf of multiple businesses and

[Abbey Duke, Member]: municipalities. So why are

[Monique Priestley, Clerk]: we underfunding our Yeah, why aren't we underfunding a lot of things?

[Jill Sudhoff-Guerin, Vermont Medical Society]: I'm not seeing so much more.

[Monique Priestley, Clerk]: Not starting. No, I think that's true.

[Speaker 7]: And I will say that I think maybe this is of Putrax purpose saying, putting this money in keeps that momentum going. Because I agree with you, my accounts also avail themselves of these services and are It's volunteer based, people are not necessarily deeply trained in planning, same as being in Milton or something like that. So having this as a resource is helpful. But I also think the other track is figuring out with all of the technical assistance, because I am hearing this also from my town, is that there's so many programs and they don't know exactly where to go or what the best pathway is given whatever project. So I do think that we need something that's similar to workforce development to see what are the programs in the state, what are they doing, what services do they provide. I think I am also a little bit like me because I would have thought that the murder report would

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: have given us that information. But I feel like we didn't get that totally

[Speaker 7]: from the report. Meaning the Sorry. The sense of who's in the state, what are they doing? Who the technical service providers are in the state. Yeah, not just the technical service providers, but also what funding opportunities are available for towns who need access. Just kind of a bulleted spreadsheet of just And broken

[Jonathan Cooper, Member]: to that question, Emily, can I ask that? Is it also part of the ARPA hangover of we have tons of projects we have to spin up and people that are going be running them and things are going to expand massively for this And, couple of and now we're sort of a wash in, there were like 40 programs, but now we're getting to a point where maybe we're hopefully getting back to like nine or something like an easier number of things to navigate versus like a more complex landscape that's very un Vermont like and the total number of dollars, the total number of contacts, the total number of like outcomes because we had to do all this on this accelerated timeline. And I'm I'm sort of my hope is not my my point is not to gainsay your commentary. My point my hope is that we're getting to a period of a return to something that where a town clerk could have a general idea of the five or six things that are relevant in this instance, like a more right size to our small state and our small towns within that small state. Just a thought.

[Speaker 7]: I think that that might there might be something to it. The one thing that I would put in there is also that the federal landscape is so wonky, but that is also needing an extra amount of administrative bandwidth that our towns and communities don't have. So potentially whatever savings in time and effort we might be getting from having a less complicated system due to ARPA might actually just be a wash because it's that much more complicated. And we have set out some pretty big ticket items that are pretty complicated infrastructure.

[Denise Smith, Executive Director, Vermont Council on Rural Development (VCRD)]: I'll just add that VCRG has been around for about thirty years, and we've refined our community visit process. And when we go, we bring resources with us. We are already doing the navigation piece for a lot of communities when they need things like that. I think this funding would really just continue that work. And most of this funding would go direct to communities in a grant program. I guess a question

[Monique Priestley, Clerk]: I have is, we're wavering on where to put this, if not directly to VCRD. So is there, does ACCD through VHD make sense?

[Denise Smith, Executive Director, Vermont Council on Rural Development (VCRD)]: Yeah, I think so. In my mind. Yeah, we have a grant program through them already, so we could easily be granted after that. If you have to give it to a state agency, that one makes the most sense.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Providing technical assistance for a very small rural community. So I think this is getting away from the thought that we need to have someone convene everybody to understand what's going on to a technical assistance. And I I think we're not continuing to fund MTAP. We will be funding a technical assistance program. So I mean, that's become tackled through AOA.

[Herb Olson, Member]: That's kind of like what I was thinking of. Don't necessarily need to have collaborators, we need to have folks organized and optimized

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: in municipalities.

[Herb Olson, Member]: I think whether this goes to the Council on the Bureau of Government or Housing and Community Affairs, Someone to do that task of trying to organize everything and provide the assistance. So, like a first development.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Leaving it all up to you. What do you do you want to include this?

[Herb Olson, Member]: I don't need to have it through necessarily through various providers. I'm fine with it going to an agency and having them

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Well, I think you could put a period at the release of this suggestion. Just remove the various provide through various providers at Vermont. Oh, that'd ACCV. Yes.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: I I understand the need, but I still struggle with the systems focus of it kind and of continuing our fragmented way of doing things. And there are some other funding priorities that are more important to me on this list than

[Herb Olson, Member]: I'm just trying to leverage the budget issue to get a system of those.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: I think they're seeing is the volume of representation, right? It's part of it.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: It's like micro business, way more important than my constituents then.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: I think that hits all of us. That hits all of us, yeah.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: It does hit all us. Canadian,

[Monique Priestley, Clerk]: Taiwanese office versus community economic development.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: And this, I get it that it's important. I just see the long term direction I want us to be going is more collaboration. Oh, totally. How do we make things easier instead of just providing assistance to deal with

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: our system?

[Monique Priestley, Clerk]: I mean, I think it does sound like a bill next year for an actual thing.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: So if we can think of this as a Band Aid and as a bridge, I'm more comfortable

[Speaker 7]: with Totally.

[Monique Priestley, Clerk]: That's what I'm feeling.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: If the committee is unified in this, I want to know, and if not, then take a vote on it and then prioritize it. And then I think we need to write further language that specifies what we want to see in the future. Right? Yes. And we talk about this as kind of like a bridge to get us to where we wanna go.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: Mhmm. Yeah. I'd be comfortable with that.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Is everyone comfortable with that idea? Yes. Absolutely. K. And priority. I

[Speaker 7]: can say normal, but my vote is for height, just because this is also about building that stack of assistance that's supposed to be doing the development that we're supposed to

[Abbey Duke, Member]: be doing in the housing that we're meant to be building.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Okay. So in the future, what would you like this committee to do to look at?

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: We'd like comprehensive supports for all of our small towns so that they can fully avail themselves of all of the programs that provide for appropriate development in their region.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: So in the future, this committee would like the agency of commerce to provide

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: for.

[Speaker 7]: Do you wanna say comprehensive support or do we wanna say technical assistance? And. And? How

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: was the name?

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Comprehensive support and technical assistance. So do we want the agency of Commerce Community Development to develop a program or develop do we want them to develop? A framework. Framework. With providers? With the right technical assistance providers.

[Kirk White, Ranking Member]: Yeah, where it says, by the comprehensive, I would like comprehensive and integrated. Mean, my communities find

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: that

[Kirk White, Ranking Member]: regional planning commissions and regional development corporations don't talk to each other very well. And so that's an issue. And then they don't know who they can talk to to get grants. And my regional development corporation is one person overseeing 34 towns, something like that. So she sees like three towns a year, and it's usually the same three every year. And so that whole system needs to be reworked for the small communities of bike. It doesn't work. So ultimately,

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: I want to see

[Kirk White, Ranking Member]: an integrated thing that makes all those pieces fit together.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: If we can have a reference to regional integration, too. Like some kind of you know, we need more shared services shared.

[David "Dave" Bosch, Member]: Yeah. Great. And to feed off what Kirk was saying, my sense is we've been taking testimony over the year plus now is that if a community does then turn to a nonprofit for assistance funding, whatever, there's such a plethora of those that there is no coordination, and there seems to be a lot of duplication and overlap. And, of course, every nonprofit needs money to operate and administer as well. So that's the other component that seems to be a wildcard. Vision everybody. Regional

[Abbey Duke, Member]: vision, bridge towards a regional vision.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Yeah. So in the first line.

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: In your bold.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: In the bold. So this committee supports $500,000 request that will provide a bridge for regional technical assistance.

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: In small or four.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: There we go. Bridge. That's a good word. Mhmm.

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Before. I think four is

[Abbey Duke, Member]: Four might be better.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Because you got in on the other. Yeah. Okay. Everybody give us a hand on it.

[Kirk White, Ranking Member]: You love it.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Definitely. Have a nice hand. Cheers. You say the same thing to me first. Yeah. Technical assistance from a small town, so that they can fully

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: Mail themselves of the programs that provided for

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: you. So I would take the second town out and put they. What else would you put in? Who who is the they?

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: I know I know you mean the

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: town town.

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: I know. But ACCD could also be the they. If this were a statue, we put the towns, but

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: I think here you can just say. So we could say technical assistance so that small towns can fully avail themselves of yeah. You can you can look at it and you're the you're the word man. It's No. That's critical in this format. Provide appropriate. Do you wanna word, man.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: Do you

[Herb Olson, Member]: wanna them to talk to us

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: about what they've come up with? Well, I think that's in the bill that you put in next year.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: Think somebody

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: needs to work with them in the off session. Yeah. Yeah. Figure out where we need to go.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Yeah.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: Go ahead. And we got a regional governance person. Everybody

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: good with that? Okay. Priority. Oh, what about

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: the last seven? It's that

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: you never develop a framework with current technical assistance providers in this committee?

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: Yes. Yes. They'll love that partnership.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Yep. It is a partnership.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: We're trying to learn about these.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: That's kind of what I'm saying. Okay. We could do that. And collaborate oh jeez. And collaboration.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: Actually, do we also wanna put in there that they should work with the regional governing study committee?

[Speaker 7]: No. Can you not do that? Okay.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: So let's remember not let's not forget this, because we are getting an economic development bill from the Senate, and so this may be the place where we

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: Get that working group.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Yes. Good

[Abbey Duke, Member]: idea. Good thinking. Always thinking. Okay.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Priority.

[Kirk White, Ranking Member]: It's a priority for my small family.

[Amy (Community Action Agency/VCAP representative)]: Yeah. Same.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: It's written like this. I I would go along with that.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Okay. I'll try it over. We have

[Abbey Duke, Member]: Do I know You wanna know what's left on that spreadsheet?

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: I know that we have UVM. They ask for a million dollars a year for the next five years on the new cancer. It

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: might be part of the rural the money from the federal government on rural transformation. I think they might be able to cover in that.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: So we should

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: mention it.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Could we mention it? You can put that under UBM too when you redo the university council. It's all completed. I don't know what he's doing. I'm combining everybody. Don't have a whole lot. Request $1,000,000 Why don't you talk about locals?

[Abbey Duke, Member]: We didn't do the $100,000

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: I don't think.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: We didn't. We did.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: The the Board requesting $1,000,000 for

[Abbey Duke, Member]: For cancer research as part

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: of their mobile Rural cancer, what was that? Yep. Rural

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: expanded care in rural communities. They have a mobile unit, but perhaps this could be part of the rural health care transformation.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: Were they a part of that grant?

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: No. The grants, we have to determine what gets, how that $195,000,000 gets used, right?

[Speaker 7]: I thought that was already permitted by the grant application. Most of it is, but some of it's But some of it's

[Abbey Duke, Member]: not. Some

[Speaker 7]: details. You

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: know? Sure. So we should put in suggest committee suggests that the what's the name of that grant?

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: Rural health care transformation?

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Yeah. Rural health yeah. Rural health Health care transformations, federal funding.

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: Would this be included? Maybe, yeah.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: K. What else do we have?

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: Can you go back up to where

[Speaker 7]: we were there?

[Abbey Duke, Member]: Right there. Yep. So we

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: didn't add the we didn't talk about the $100,000 for the entrepreneur fund

[Abbey Duke, Member]: Yeah.

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: For VOVA, the outdoor business alliance.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: Yeah. Through Forest Parks and Rec. Yep.

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: So I have a separate request.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: For how much? 100,000. That was one time.

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Is this for the economic impact study?

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Is that what this is?

[Abbey Duke, Member]: No. This is for the outdoor entrepreneur program.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Oh, okay.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: It's something I think they're already doing. So it's a single system for us.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: It's not Borrek. It's boba. Not a friend or business. It's Alignity. Alignity. Yeah. 500 for. Right? Yeah. Okay.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: Yep. In one time. Five five again. And this is

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: a request for one time as well. And then that's gonna come from, you know, recruiting

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: Yes. No? You're asking if people want it?

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Well, DHL is funding.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: I mean, we could use it six times, so sure.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: You use it a lot of time. You're not asking for any big money items out of the No, for now. Well, because I think the biggest was $600,000 right? We're have to add all those up to make sure

[Jill Sudhoff-Guerin, Vermont Medical Society]: She can work for

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: hundreds of Which is a reversion of BDoll. Well, that's Rick to

[Abbey Duke, Member]: To do math.

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Do math. You will get bad information.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: I went to law school.

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: So do you support the funding as well as the perversion dollars or just supporting it through perversion dollars?

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: I think we so do we do we support the request? That's the first question. Yeah. Alright. Committee supports the request. And the priority.

[Kirk White, Ranking Member]: Even more moderate about this one.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: I think it's very high. I know it's important, but maybe I'm becoming normal. Everything is high.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: Medium. Yeah. A medium pie.

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Is this a stove?

[Abbey Duke, Member]: Yeah. Medium is fine.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Perspective. We'll add up the dollars first before we what's next?

[Abbey Duke, Member]: So NOFA came in for the Farm and Forestry Operations Special Fund for $15,600,000

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: don't know don't if that's

[Herb Olson, Member]: they actually had two requests. The 15, whatever, is connection with S60, I think. Yes. And my thinking would be, we haven't even seen the bill yet, or the house hasn't seen the bill, and that should wait. There was also a separate request though, for their program Cash Crop and Cash Crop Plus. That was 600,000 Is that $500,000

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Buy down of the premiums?

[Herb Olson, Member]: No, that was for It's really a supplement to food assistance programs.

[Amy (Community Action Agency/VCAP representative)]: That is It expands

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: the food assistance money at farmer's markets. It doubles it.

[Herb Olson, Member]: Just a little background, that's kind of important in some of the smaller towns. The food bank only reaches some of the larger tenants, not the huge tenants.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Benefits farmers.

[Herb Olson, Member]: So some of these farmers markets do something that reach poor folks, lower income folks that the food bank isn't gonna reach. So that's my pitch. It's a good program, really is.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: How much were they asking for? 500,000.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: So what is NOFA?

[Speaker 7]: Northeast Organic Farmers Association.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: It is a great it is a routine.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: And of course, it's how much?

[Abbey Duke, Member]: Thousand 1 for crop benefits to consumers. And it's it's direct you know, and and these are critical, you know, especially

[Herb Olson, Member]: you know, dairy is not there anymore. And that's, so they have all these

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: truths. Probably

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: not the end of crop

[Speaker 7]: cash plus. So put an end in there. Crop cash and?

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: Yeah, crop cash plus. The plus is milk and bread.

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: I'm really close to typing a word I

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: shouldn't type. I gotta be real careful. Oh. It's like this kid come hot. The brain there there one other dude.

[Jonathan Cooper, Member]: Excuse me.

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: That's a really tricky set of words there. You gotta be careful.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: It was

[Herb Olson, Member]: crop cash.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Yeah. Crop cash. Let's see. And farm share.

[Speaker 7]: Oh, farm

[Abbey Duke, Member]: And share.

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: That one I had no problem with. So crop cash, crop cash with us, and farm share.

[Speaker 7]: You want to say anything about the recovery fund, or is that part of The

[Abbey Duke, Member]: special fund.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: I think

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: we need to wait

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: for the legislation to come through before we weigh 60. Need to let the committee do their work first.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: Yeah. I

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: think we passed it.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: Came to the floor. Yeah. We passed it. We passed

[Speaker 7]: it. Yeah. I was like, that got passed last year.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: In, January. That's a lot of work.

[Speaker 7]: Yeah. But it just never got any money put in.

[Herb Olson, Member]: I honestly don't know

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: much How about about the committee sees the value of this this money in that it benefits both farmers and food insecure Vermonters.

[Jonathan Cooper, Member]: I think New Vermonters as well.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: And New Vermonters. Yeah.

[Speaker 7]: I guess all

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Are those New Vermonters also food insecure? Yeah. Oh, it's good.

[Herb Olson, Member]: If you could just try this out if you had a comment. And reaches individuals that might not be closely connected to the normal food assistance programs. I'm trying to get, that's not quite right.

[Speaker 7]: The books that fall through the cracks that might not.

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: It's fine. It provides dignity.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: Yeah, that's fine,

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: it's fine. We don't need to discuss the merits, but it's a super dignified way to give people the ability to have

[Abbey Duke, Member]: wholesome history. So S-sixty is that going to stand at the code you put out of amendment? So pass the House.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Still in play. Still

[Jill Sudhoff-Guerin, Vermont Medical Society]: in play.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Okay, so I think while it's still in play that offer an opinion one way or the other on 15.59 or 6.8.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: Do you

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: support the 500,000?

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Now that we've had you write all that, no.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: And therefore,

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: you see the value, but do you solve the value? Yes.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: Do you feel the value?

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: What are you, everybody?

[Abbey Duke, Member]: It's a great program. I think it's a really good program. I

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: also like that you get wholesome food versus, because so many people using SNAP benefits and those types of programs, they wind up getting the box food that's full of chemicals and nasty stuff.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: I see the benefits to consumer and the benefits to the health

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: virtually, which is really good.

[Speaker 7]: Makes our farmers a good level of your depreciable contracts.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: Here's a couple of things. Things that

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: I have- then DOL, DFR, yeah.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: DOL, DFR, common good, who came in like the first week. And I don't know if we want to talk about adult learning and

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Yes. Yeah. We have to put that in.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: That's what I have left on my list. And I have one more after that. Okay.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: So let's do part of the labor.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: And I have, they requested $44,822,733 a base, and that's in the governor's

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Based on it? I think you're doing need, Rick. I think if you start, like, with the departments at the beginning of the water. Yeah. So I think what we should say is, do we have that language of the reversion through Department of Labor? So we'll send you that, the reversion, so that he would say that this committee has in following requests, is recommending that we use some of these reversion dollars for items within our, you know, something to that effect. Yeah. Where I'm getting at. That makes sense to everybody? Yeah. We're giving the appropriations committee a heads up that various items that we're recommending for funding that we're saying, take these reversions that came from Department of Labor, Here's and how we're recommending. TFR, Department of Financial Regulation. Think we've recommended, we support the governor's recommended. Didn't see any NOI? No, I thought, mean, the private financial regulation makes money for

[Abbey Duke, Member]: I remember in our conversation with them, as we discussed maybe putting a note saying next year they may need to invest in IT. Not this year, but maybe. Yes. So

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: yeah. Yes. How do we write that? So it's kind of like let's put this in the back of our mind that next year, we should be thinking about that additional funding for IT projects at the FR. And that would be for FY '28.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: I'm trying to did they ask

[Speaker 7]: for extra to start softening away for those improvements?

[Abbey Duke, Member]: And then also, green for common good Vermont and then Vermont.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: I don't know. There were some reversions also with the AHEC. Yep. There was 1,270,000.00 in reversions from AHEC.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: Area Health Education Centers, or AGC.

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: This a

[Speaker 7]: new

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Yeah, this is AHEC. Are they part of Department of Health?

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: Yeah.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Are they under Department of Health?

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: Yeah. We're not Department

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: of Health. Yeah.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: Area Health Education Centers.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: There's a reversion here? Yeah. There's three reversions. There's 600 there's one there are total of 1,270,000.00 reversions to the general fund.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: This is what they did.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Okay. Put it So they put bottom two here. What what does the what does this column say?

[Abbey Duke, Member]: This.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: What's the amount? Abbey, what are they They're

[Abbey Duke, Member]: recommending this is all they recommend. They just probably put the things they recommend.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: So they're recommending what?

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: For the pipeline program for the replacement.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: So they're recommending that they that they don't Yeah.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: But they stay

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: But they're recommending the Receptor program. So. I think maybe it's because in the new health money we're getting from the federal government, that it may be in there.

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: Unless it's part of this one.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Maintain That's not through VZAC, though. Okay. The preceptor program was run by ATEC. Okay. But we didn't get any information on that.

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: Prereversions to the general fund of 1,270,000.00. We wanna maintain the early pipeline program.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: 500,000. Then 50,000 for the MD placement.

[Amy (Community Action Agency/VCAP representative)]: Both of these are

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: actually, Herb, the MD placement is primary docs around the state. You wanna know where

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: it is?

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: So both of them are to help primary docs get

[Abbey Duke, Member]: have have been more

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: primary docs in the state.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: That wasn't the maple.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: But

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: I think that

[Herb Olson, Member]: It was just something different.

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: It's the one that they were located in different rural communities. Okay.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: What if so we don't know what they're doing with the 667?

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: Right. Doesn't matter.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: And then there's 667,000 for the That's a loan repayment. That's not preceptor. Preceptor is not a loan repayment. Preceptor was a $5 an hour increase paid for Nationwide Hospitals at UPenn preceptor. That's the one repayment. That's the one that went through the old old commitment. I bet it is.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: There is in there writing.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Find out more about that. I think the first two, the recommendation is not supporting the reversion. Yeah. There's anything else that

[Abbey Duke, Member]: yeah. Elmington, Vermont came in, like, the first week. Yeah. I also noticed they testified on 327 downstairs, so don't know. I consider putting them in that bill. But what they asked for, they've apparently never gotten state funding, And they're looking for funding to support technical assistance for nonprofit business. About half 1,000,000 in BASE and about half 1,000,000 in

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: I didn't get the exact numbers.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: No. Oh, sorry. A quarter of 1,000,000. Half 1,000,000 total. 267,777 in base and 295,665 in one time. Don't know where those numbers came from exactly. The base funding is to help nonprofits build capacity, and the one time is to help nonprofits respond to federal cuts. So some of it had to do with combining

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: make sure nonprofits are Duplicate services.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: Yeah. So a piece of it was about like, they talked about succession. So if technical assistance to help them combine, for example. I mean, it's similar to sort of small business development center, but for the nonprofit sector. You want to put in too much of numbers that they gave us? Please. Space request 267777,

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: one

[Abbey Duke, Member]: time 295665. Two ninety five thousand six hundred sixty five. 295605. Both were for technical assistance. Both building capacity and responding to federal cuts. I don't think it makes sense to be thinking in the context of 03/27, in the context of Small Business Development Center and others.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: SBDC?

[Abbey Duke, Member]: Yeah. I talked to Linda about it. I think they are eligible, but they don't work with many nonprofits. But maybe that's you know, when when we're looking at when 03/27 comes to us, we could talk to Linda about that and and then our mark. It is something that we could incorporate in that bill. I checked. Isn't a there isn't a beyond don't Kirk, there isn't a new draft. It's 03/27 has not been updated. Tomorrow morning. So you're updating tomorrow morning. I mean, my general feeling is that it's sort of in the context of that bill, but I do think there's a need. Especially, I hope I'm. Okay.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: That's the way to go.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: With this with this, Abbey? Yeah.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: We have that conversation when we get to twenty seven.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: I think so. I mean,

[Amy (Community Action Agency/VCAP representative)]: we could say we see there's a need. We will be discussing this

[Abbey Duke, Member]: in connection with the before the seventh, something like that.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: At this time

[Abbey Duke, Member]: I think we'd want more understanding exactly.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Guess the committee is neutral. We'll wait until yeah.

[Speaker 7]: There's another bill that's still legal with their funding?

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Well, it's not their funding. It's the economic development bill from the Senate that we can have conversations with SPDC, see if there's availability for common good to be able to get some grant dollars through them.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: Because the SPDC funding is in that bill, is in the 03/27. I

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: don't know how much of that funding is gonna make it through.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: Something, something. I mean,

[Speaker 7]: I guess the one thing I'll put out is that I do feel like that this is kind of doing what we would hope that a lot of organizations would do as far as corralling this area. And I was just looking back at their presentation and that would at least the $2.95, that's to support 100 nonprofits and a nonprofit task force that would, I think, continue this work. I think it's important, but I understand if it's existing in another bill. Well, it's not existing. Or not existing, but it can't exist. Could exist.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Think are, I think, conversations that we really need to have before we can make a recommendation on whether or not we really always took this little bit of testimony.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: Agree. I think More understanding of Yeah. And then the last thing on my spreadsheet is Vermont adult learning and the formula to allocate funds to regional centers. Yep.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Oh, this is AEL, the education and learning. So

[Speaker 7]: funding formula.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Yeah, you can probably get it from Beth. This is So the funding go ahead. So I think dealt with this last year, the funding formula, asked AOA to have meetings with four providers, with AOE come up with a recommendation. So their recommendations, we heard that last month, three Yeah, three scenarios. Well, so their recommendation was that the funding formula should be 85% for students, 15% of student hours. So my understanding is in discussions with with the chair of education, chair of appropriations that we believe that funding formula for the next two years should be 85, 15 and that the next because every it's a three year contract. So the next contract is the twenty ninth and that that contract would be at 100%. Of

[Abbey Duke, Member]: I remember the challenge was about data collection too, like the That was not an issue, about how it's collected?

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: No. There are all kinds of questions. This 8,515 is a compromise. I see. But it's the AOA recommendation for You can just write Support the AOA recommendation for the next

[Abbey Duke, Member]: two years. And then know that the organizations have time to plan for the change.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Oh, they didn't recommend funding formula for the next two years. They just recommended funding formula would be 80 fivefifteen. I see. What we're saying is that funding formula would be 80 fivefifteen for the next two years and now in the next contract, the next three year contract that begins in 2020 would be a 100% I see. Of

[Abbey Duke, Member]: student count. Okay.

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: Excuse me. This is 85% student count and 15% time.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: 1%? Student count. Student count. Understanding this would be the same recommendation that Education and thinking. Is that correct? I think you'd spell it out that 85% is count and 15% seat time. Seat time? Yeah. So glad I don't know what that means, student hours. The less I know about this,

[David "Dave" Bosch, Member]: Mike, is there some kind of an automated process for tracking these kinds future requests? Or is it just the collective memory that needs to track them?

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: I'm sure there's going to be eyes on this one to make sure that the funding has a change in the next contract.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: Do you mean the In this Do you

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: mean this specific thing, the adult ed learning, or do you mean the budget?

[David "Dave" Bosch, Member]: Just just in general. We've had a couple of things where we've talked about in the future, we wanna see this. And so Okay. You know? So I'm just wondering, is there, you know, some

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: As far as this goes, we'll know what appropriations does. And then it goes off to the senate, and then we'll see what the senate does. And then in the end, it's just start looking to see where our step, where our recommendations are, that's when we start to have discussions with the probes to see if we can get them in or out. Thank you. Beginning of the proposal.

[Herb Olson, Member]: We're with this item? I think so.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Is everybody good with this? Yeah.

[Herb Olson, Member]: Can I go back to two sections before and the healthcare workforce issue? I think Yeah, so the six sixty seven, I think is for primary care provider loan repayment, question mark, I think. Yeah. And I think there was also something in the primary

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: care loan repayment.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Sorry, think

[Herb Olson, Member]: there's also something in the governor's budget language allowed a sunset for one of the loan repayment scholarship program to sunset. From what I'm told anyway, there's existing money in the fund. So unless you continue to authorize the program I mean that money can be used for scholarships for primary care. And there's money there doesn't seem to make sense.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: What's that? Well, this is a reversion for sure.

[Herb Olson, Member]: Yeah, well, Right, I just think that to accompany the notion of not reverting,

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: you'd have to, what do you mean,

[Herb Olson, Member]: eliminate the sensing? Yeah, eliminate the sensing. I think if I understand it correctly.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: I think we need to find out what that is all about, we just take it out if we don't know what it is, and I'll weigh in on it one way or the other. Do you know, Jill?

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: Jill's a tough parent in the

[Jill Sudhoff-Guerin, Vermont Medical Society]: Lamoille Society. What was the question?

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Well, so there's there's these three reversions. Right?

[Abbey Duke, Member]: Yes.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: And so the $6.67 for primary care loan repayment. Yep. I mean, I guess we don't understand why there's reversions. Why these programs are being cut?

[Jill Sudhoff-Guerin, Vermont Medical Society]: Don't know either. This is just in the Department of Health budget. They are cutting essentially the program and then the 667,000 for primary care loan repayment is extremely important to the state. Just so you know, it goes for primary care physicians, APRNs, certified nurse midwives, PAs, nurses, dentists, and NDs. And unfortunately, some people that are counting on this primary care hormone replacement behavior will not have it. So because you can get it in consecutive years sometimes. In terms of the scholarship, that was a scholarship that was put in in FY22, and you're asking for the sunset to be removed because the way that it works is that third and fourth year medical students could receive the scholarship and for each year they received it, would need to come back and serve in a rural setting outside of Chittenden County in primary care for one year. And so the way that the residency programs have worked, that first cohort is just starting to come back and do their service year. And so we've had 22 scholarships given and potentially have people coming back. And like Herb said, there's enough for 11 more scholarships, and so we feel like this is a vital program, you shouldn't get it before we know the results of the impact of the investment.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: The Medical Student Incentive Scholarship Program? Yes. So remove the sunset?

[Jill Sudhoff-Guerin, Vermont Medical Society]: Yep. So no funding is needed now.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Okay. So we wanna exclude that too. I think that's a program that we worked on in here with our health care. What's the name of the scholarship? Think so.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: Yes.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Okay. Thank you. We're doing a sorry. My battery's about to die, I'm kinda planning Do you have a regular old Dell? I'm like I got a Dell adapter, but I don't know if it's

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: Is your HP?

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: The Yours is USB. Well, it's the newer newer USB.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Yeah. See. Oh. There you go. A back a

[Speaker 7]: back charger? Yes.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: Gonna be fun.

[Speaker 7]: Let's see if it blows up.

[David "Dave" Bosch, Member]: Charging his Tesla. I'm plugged in. Okay, thank you.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Alright. Medical student incentive scholarship program, this committee supports removing the sunset.

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: Yes, they do have it.

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Just currently set for?

[Jill Sudhoff-Guerin, Vermont Medical Society]: 06/2027.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: On the paper that it wrote.

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: You want me to read? You

[Kirk White, Ranking Member]: don't have time.

[David "Dave" Bosch, Member]: Sit down. You want to?

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Are you too? Yeah. Absolutely. You're good with that? Good with not supporting the.

[Speaker 7]: Do you give any justification as to why they were aversion or just is there?

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Health care hear any of that? Do you know Joe?

[Jill Sudhoff-Guerin, Vermont Medical Society]: I just haven't hearing from the Remote Medical Society. So the Department of Health came in. The commissioner did not want the program to go away. It was just a matter of Sophie's choice in terms of needing to do some cuts. We have amazing letters of support, the chair of

[Amy (Community Action Agency/VCAP representative)]: the committee if they're interested.

[Jill Sudhoff-Guerin, Vermont Medical Society]: A great program that really operates on student strength for a while.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Need to partner in care about the kids?

[Abbey Duke, Member]: Yes. Do. Because we have this money coming in to stand it up. It makes sense to continue to

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Is there anything else? Everybody good with what we have on mean, Rick is going to reformat this now. You put that note in the a good ten minute trick. Sure.

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: For AI. See what happens.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Oh, boy. Oh, that's okay. Don't have regulations. That's gonna be in our next bill. Whatever bill the next bill we work on, there'll be a provision in there that Ledge Council cannot use AI.

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: We we we we don't use AI. We have our own governing. Yeah. It's not a good idea.

[Speaker 7]: Anything in there about hireability Or just so you

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: Did they come to us with the request? Did come to us. I

[Abbey Duke, Member]: don't remember one.

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Can we just kind of go summary real quick and spend ten minutes at least? So again, it's going be reorganized. We'll just start in order here. ACCV, you have 4,000,000 for Bhip program based funding. 350,000 for the Vermont Housing Finance Agency Down Payment Assistance Fund, which I think rep Grain sent me language for that specific. I have it highlighted for a reason.

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: That's a long time ago.

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: It was I

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: can't remember.

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Days ago. 800,000 for the mobile home improvement repair fund. For economic development, have 200 for the Vermont professionals of color, including reversion dollars, brownfields, any additional dollars that may be available. This one I have piloted because I must have felt like there was not I believe the Senate economic development bill has this. It does chat. 30,000,000. Okay. Leave as is for now?

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Yeah. Okay.

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: $1.50 for the international business office. And I'll brief format this because you have buried under there 75,000. I have buried. Yep. 75,000 for the Southeast Asia office. Education, 15,000,000 to UVM for their multi use center. Support the purpose, but not the source of funding being the Higher Education Trust Fund.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: And you can stick to be scenarios, cancer. Yeah. The 2,300,000.0

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: from the Higher Ed Fund to Vermont State University for the Freedom and Unity Scholarship. We support that. This one we didn't really we kinda went over it quickly. The VSAC funding for basically 82 something thousand for dual enrollment and need based stipend purposes for flat rate need based stipend or voucher program for financially disadvantaged students.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: I think that's in the budget now. Supportive.

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: And I have VSAC language that Rev Graning emailed me. I have not looked at that, so I don't know what it is.

[Edye Graning, Vice Chair]: It's very close to what you have there.

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Oh, so there's not, like, a different request that you wanna

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: I'll just do this to make sure I look at the email.

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Advance Vermont. We did that this hour or this afternoon. The higher ed funding, the 3% increase across the board.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: Have.

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: The cap talked about that one. DHCb. Okay. These are all we did this afternoon. So mostly this morning I was concerned about, but I

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: think I did much this morning.

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Okay. When do you have me back for this?

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: To availability. Let's see. I've got a April

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Thank you. Someone laughed.

[Abbey Duke, Member]: It was a fake laugh.

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: No, it's clearly a fake laugh. That's a nice laugh.

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Tomorrow after three 03:30 and after tomorrow afternoon, if you want tomorrow. I'm in here for h one sixty at one and two, the right to repair medical devices?

[Michael Marcotte, Chair]: I don't If you can put it together and get it to us tomorrow morning, we may have some time midmorning where we could go over it. And if we're good with it, then we'll just send it on. And if we need to make changes, then we'll get it to you. Sounds good. K. That work for everybody? Yeah. Yeah. So Excellent. Rick, thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Well, thanks for your help. That's good. Why don't a five minute break back here at 03:45 to you and it's 05:12.