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[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: I think I'll go for two or five. You're live.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Hey. Welcome, boys. This is House of Rutland's and Institutions Committee. It's Thursday, January 15. It's a little bit after 04:00. We're just gonna have a committee discussion in terms of trying to tie up split ends. And also I want the committee to kind of give some direction on what their thoughts are on a couple of issues so it can help us on schedule it. The first thing I want I wanna figure out what do we wanna do with our Fridays in terms of working in the afternoon. We don't have anything scheduled tomorrow, which I'm fine with.
[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Mhmm.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: But once the capital bill comes out next week, we're gonna have to start working. So what's I don't wanna work late on Friday afternoon, so I'll In put that right
[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: the
[Brian Minier (Member)]: past, we have worked through lunch, and we're done by one or 01:30. But I don't know if that's good for everyone.
[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Sounds good to me.
[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: Friday. Yeah. Absolutely. Everyone's gonna be Yep. Get your back on
[Brian Minier (Member)]: that.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: But you said work through sometimes we've taken lunch, a half hour lunch, and come back. Does do folks have commitments at noon at 12:00 on Friday?
[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Not on Friday.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: No. We could take a half hour lunch on Friday, come back at 12:30, and be done by 01:32 at the latest.
[Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: That's great.
[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Is that that would be a week from tomorrow?
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yeah. Because it's
[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: not Tomorrow, we don't have any.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: We had something scheduled with Agatha and kicked her in this afternoon because we haven't had her. So does that work for folks? I don't wanna work here late on Fridays.
[Brian Minier (Member)]: Let's keep it to and, again, you don't have to go by me. It's the committee. But to the 01:30, just working through, if there are things that come up, maybe change to what you were saying.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: You're saying work through lunch? Work through lunch.
[Brian Minier (Member)]: Just because
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: it always sounds in the cafeteria, but But
[Brian Minier (Member)]: it always seems that once we split up, it's hard to get it. It's hard
[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: is what she said.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Right. That's No. But the cap for some of us that need to eat before we go home, the cafeteria will be pretty well closed by 01:30.
[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: Could we not do a working lunch where people just bring in? Well, I know we don't because we don't eat lunch. Or you can even do I know. You can even do, like, an 11:30. So you're getting there before there's a lunch. That's I'm excited. We have
[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: an hour at 11:30.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: That'd be fine.
[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: So we can fly
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: three, twelve. People get
[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: I like that idea. You do 11:30 lunch.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yeah.
[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: We're back in here.
[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: We're new. Be quick twelve.
[Brian Minier (Member)]: Twelve. Yes.
[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: And then wherever.
[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: And you're getting ahead of the Mongol Lord. That's good job, Joe.
[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: I love the idea.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So we'll do that starting next week.
[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: Producer for the bill.
[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: I have some line
[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: for this.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Capital bill next week.
[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: So we
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: got that. So today but today, Kevin and Shawn sat down with Trevor. Can you report that's dealing with Gina with BGS. That is almost $8,000,000 request for WellPAC. Did you folks figure out all those moving pieces?
[Kevin Winter (Member)]: And I think we got a
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: pretty good handle on it. So what is it?
[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Combination of invoicing that came in towards the end of the year and didn't get processed.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: That would be $3,000,000?
[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Yeah. He didn't have specific numbers, but, yeah, to that order of magnitude. And the systems have not been fully debugged, so there were late entries.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: The IT system? Yep. Correct.
[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Which caused it to be not available to pay last year or calendar year, and that's why it's popping up now.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So is it the DOC IT system, or is it WellPath?
[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: It's the automatic system, the automated system that there there's a learning curve that he said.
[Kevin Winter (Member)]: I don't understand. It's a That's a specific It
[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: wasn't I think so.
[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: That's how you're saying that.
[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: It wasn't was it the automated billing system? I had myself. I heard You didn't get into specifics.
[Brian Minier (Member)]: It's a specific thing. You said
[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: the system's been starting
[Kevin Winter (Member)]: to bounce out, and that's why it was delayed. Can wait. I'd
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: like to know what system we're talking about. Well Or is it a PSE?
[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: Also getting clarification on that too because he doesn't have it yet. You mean he by Trevor? Trevor and and the appropes doesn't have that yet. So he's waiting to hear back. So we will get updated from him. This is very vague to me. So I need I would like to know. Yeah. Know.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: What system are we talking? Is it the IT system on DOC's side? Is the IT system on WellPath? Or is it a new system of submitting invoices in general?
[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Yeah, he wasn't specific. He just said that they didn't get paid last year. They were expected. And therefore, that's
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: But they're paying their employees. True. Because it's paying staff, Wellpast staff. So they're paying them. So they're filling a hole. Is that what they're doing?
[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. So That's what it sounds like. Yep. And in testimony, we saw and it would not be the per head cost went up about 6.4% from year two to year three. We're in year three right now. So
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yeah. I see I know where you're headed, but I got some information from
[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: We plug in the headcount change, and does it account for the $8,000,000 or not?
[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: No. It totally does. And that was the second thing we talked to him about was the 4,550,000 was well past staffing contract and the amendment due to increase in population over 1525.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And that accounted for the whole increase.
[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: Correct. Let me restate that. They said.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yeah. But you gotta get into a deeper was the original
[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: contract in mass? About that.
[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: He said it was they he told us that it was due to the the the extra people. No. It it's it's the the it's go ahead.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I mean, the the concern that the chair of appropriations had, she could not fathom just there's, like, two a 150 more people in the system. Why is it costing $4,000,000 more?
[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: So
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: so we get back to the average daily population Mhmm. Numbers.
[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: If we got a murky answer on
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Well, I out I happened to
[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: go to my
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: poll. And I pulled out testimony that we received in '24, Just a year ago.
[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: Last year or two years ago.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Two years ago. And where is our data that we got today? Right? This is the data we got today.
[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: Yep.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So if you folks have this in front of you,
[Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: this
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: is what I find so interesting. This is the 01/25/2024, and the director of DOC it's Tibias, whatever her
[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Aviva. Aviva. Aviva.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: She's now in this position. So it was Max Titus. Titus. Titus. So this is what they projected. For year one, cost would be $34,000,000 This was 33,800,000.0 Year two was $38,000,000 This was 37,000,000 Year three was $40,000,000 This is $39,000,000 They were basing this on a per member, per month cost of year one, February. Year two, $2,476. And year three, 2630 this is two years ago.
[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: Same exact numbers.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: The same exact numbers. Now they were using, it was based on a twelve, twelve fifty population. Now I don't know if that was based on their average daily population, but that's the number they're using now is 1,250 for their average daily population. So these numbers track. Right. And this was done in nineteen twenty twenty four in testimony before us. So the numbers track. So if they knew that it was gonna be almost 40,000,000, why is there a $4,000,000 increase in BAA? Is it that they weren't fully funded to begin with?
[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. The the con it's the contract was written at twelve fifty, average population. Yeah.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And I'm not sure if it was. This one, my notes, is based on one twelve fifty population for the per member per month.
[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: And what was our actual population for this fiscal year?
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: The average daily population is not the same as the actual population. We are right now at fourteen, fifteen hundred. We're not at that doesn't calculate the the actual number of folks. It's more of an average of a month. There's a lot of people that come and go.
[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Yes. And the testimony is that our billing is based on the average daily population, not the total population.
[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: Right.
[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: The average daily population.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Which is lower than what your actual population is.
[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: So 12 but the contract is written in an average daily population. The twelve fifty.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Right. And the notes that I have from '24, when they testified, they their per per member per month was twelve fifty population. So it's the exact same numbers they gave us today, and they knew this in '24. So why are they asking for a $4,000,000 increase halfway through f y twenty six?
[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Mhmm. And and explain the part of the increase is because of the per head increase that was in the contract is discerned because everybody knew that number in the and it would have been built into the budget. Right? I hear. Precisely. So you're talking about eight over four, basically. So that's what that's that's 20%. That's 20% increase.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So is it that when the budget was coming in the last two fiscal years, they didn't fully fund what they had
[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: I gotta say. Bad.
[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: That's what it's had before.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Guess, it's not.
[Brian Minier (Member)]: Right? We've gotta get our arms around this so it's gonna keep snowballing.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Is any of that presented to Trevor?
[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: Well, Trevor, yeah, we talked to him about that. And he told us the per member per month is not $26.36, but it's now $24.50.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Well, she said it was lower, but that's what they just presented to us.
[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: Well, that's what he said to us as well, that it's really
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: lower. Yep. She said, but it was offset by a higher number of your average daily population.
[Kevin Winter (Member)]: The the way I understood it was it was a delay in invoicing. The invoices weren't paid last year. They're now being paid. They're under underspent last year.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: But that's for staffing. But this is
[Kevin Winter (Member)]: He didn't get specific on what it was, but he's saying it's not new money. It's old money that had not been paid out because of the systems errors and and delayed invoice. Nothing nothing surprising. He did not seem surprised at all. Pointing is what he was saying.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: But that was for the 3,000,000. Does that also play into that additional 4,000,000? Because that's for something else.
[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: Yeah. It's We've gotta get different things. No. I I understand that.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So who can we we gotta really get going into this.
[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: He he did not I mean, he explained both the 3,000,000 and the 4,000,000.
[Brian Minier (Member)]: This basic accounting that Yeah. This has to be somewhere where it shows how we got to the 3 or the $4,000,000 and what exact numbers? You can't just throw out
[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: Well, she said it today. Haley said she could explain more of it as she was walking out the door.
[Brian Minier (Member)]: Well, then then he's gotta get them anything to do that. Yeah.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So we've is pets help
[Brian Minier (Member)]: us to increase in. Abiba? I was in trouble. Abiba.
[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: If it was built for that
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: We would get her back in because she's really the finances or a financer. Okay.
[Tate (Legislative Counsel)]: Because you don't need a
[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: He to ask questions. He needs answers.
[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Yeah.
[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: Who's he?
[Kevin Winter (Member)]: So Trevor. Okay.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: But the chair of
[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: I don't what this is. To dig deeper. Benefits of benefits of of state of all Yeah. I mean,
[Brian Minier (Member)]: that's million
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: dollar request. Yeah. Well,
[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: would send You gotta ask WellPath.
[Brian Minier (Member)]: That's
[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: correct. It's like with the food and other things in
[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: the
[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: facility, there's fixed costs that are already baked into it. A lot of this, I feel like WellPath already has fixed costs and the fact that he could
[Brian Minier (Member)]: But show us on paper what exactly are you doing?
[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: Two
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: years ago, the exact same numbers
[Brian Minier (Member)]: that was It's not positive. It was not positive. Yeah.
[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: I've got my notes open from that same day, max titles, January '4. I don't have detailed notes on this, but they were talking about potential damages, contracted monthly liquidated damages. And there's a mention of holdbacks, that they can hold back five percent of each invoice.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Is that due to staffing one, or is that paying for
[Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: What did you say
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: about my can they order the back? Hold Hold
[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: backs could be instituted on each invoice of 5%, but that doesn't seem like that would tally up to to the and I don't have great news here. Taking their calls. Percent of 40,000,000. 2,000,000. Well,
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: let's reach out to Hailey and say we need we need a budget business person to come in. We need to do that next door. Yes. So we may have to bump
[Brian Minier (Member)]: something in. We also have to have an understanding of what its computer system is going supposedly not working. I mean, this is
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: You took a picture of that. Can you show tape so he knows it's it's in the appropriations, their budget adjustment for the state budget for f y six. This is crazy. It's not connected to our BAA, and there's two items there. Can you send that to
[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: I can send it.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Send it to Tate.
[Kevin Winter (Member)]: And then we also talked about the 225,000 hotel stays for DCS.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yeah.
[Kevin Winter (Member)]: And he says, oh, yeah. And they're working double eighteen hour or sixteen hour shifts.
[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: They're gonna you know, rather than driving home, they're gonna be
[Kevin Winter (Member)]: in a hotel. So that was another one.
[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: Yeah. He was like, yeah. But it was also he thought it was sheriffs and stuff too. Right? Yep. So it was this sheriffs
[Brian Minier (Member)]: They're coming over there.
[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: Going down. They're driving from Brattleboro, and they're going up to the Northwest facility to pick somebody up and going back down, and they can't they've gotta stop. They gotta they can't drive again.
[Brian Minier (Member)]: They shouldn't have come out of the sheriffs because they can't.
[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: And there's certain responsibilities in the state constitution that sheriffs
[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: have to do,
[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: and therefore the state reimburses for that. That's why they have to pay off. And two twenty. Well,
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: we're going to need more information on the budget stuff.
[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: Yeah.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: That's an $8,000,000 act.
[Kevin Winter (Member)]: We did. Yes. We used to have this hard as we could.
[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: Yes. And he wasn't willing to give us much.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: K. So now we really need to go to to DOC, but we have more background than we did. K. So that works. So that's the first thing. Second thing is, and I know I've alluded to this, but BGS dropped this off yesterday.
[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: Yeah, didn't exist. Anyway, the
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: beginning of this week. One copy for the committee. Anybody that wants to look at it?
[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Depends on the age 50.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: But this is a note that came from Wanda. As promised last session, BGS would expand our space book to include all inventory of state owned buildings and land owned by other agencies. I hope this is beneficial for your discussion on H50.
[Brian Minier (Member)]: Before we bring those UFOs on to the screen.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: If you are considering more reporting on what is no longer needed, please have the agency departments that are responsible for the property be the entities that report on that component. I look forward to discuss. We'll let her know what we're doing with age 50 once we hear back from John. I have a thought on something.
[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: So you're gonna is that right behind your dad's gala? Is that where that 's gonna live?
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I live in the
[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: middle. Okay.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Did you have a check?
[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: I'm talking after this forceman's office tonight.
[Brian Minier (Member)]: Okay.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Space needs, because we really need to.
[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: Yeah. It's the space at the Waterbury Club or the the rented space in Waterbury, right, that we're spending the $3.85 on?
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yeah. And others. There may be I don't know if there's renovations occurring in any of the current facilities. I don't believe so. Read Digger. It's in Digger.
[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: Yeah, no, I got the Digger article.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It's like 368,000? Yeah. I read Digger. For the main budget, when the governor's budget comes out next week, James and I, the chairs and vice chairs had a meeting with all the chairs and vice chairs had a meeting with the chair and vice chair of appropriations to go over they're trying to really approach the formulation of the budget in a different way. They sent out a letter. Appropriations committee sent out a letter. I have a copy of it. They're going to send us these documents electronically, then I'll share it when I get it. I'll share it with everyone on the committee so we don't have it yet. They want different types of questions to be asked when the agencies are putting their budget together and presenting it to appropriations committees instead of just showing your highs and lows. When they come in here, they say, oh, this amount increased, this amount decreased. You don't have no basis to find out what it's all about. So they sent out this memo to all three agencies and departments in terms of the presentation that they're asking these agencies and departments to give to Appropriations Committee. And it's type of organizational overview, your prior year accomplishments, your statutory and legislative requirements, your new funding requests, and new language requests.
[Brian Minier (Member)]: Isn't that somewhat what we wanted to put into our language last year? We talked about having a more robust come back from what they need.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: More robust information. Well, leads into where I'm headed here. So they sent this out to all agencies and departments. When they're formulating the documents, they're gonna be presenting the house appropriations committee.
[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: What date was this? October. Oh, so months ago. Okay.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Okay. So as a follow-up to that, they really wanted to work with standing committees when we look at our respective budgets in terms of what questions really need to be asked to do a deeper dive into really finding out, is this program really needed? Is this program effective? Why are you doing this program? And Robin said, if they come in and just present their ups and downs, stop them right there. Stop them
[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: right there. Wow. I mean, if you look at some
[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: of the various presentations we had, some of those probably met that investment test already. It's like the dry hybrid one probably is.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: No, it's not our bill.
[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: It's not our bill.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It's the big bill.
[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Oh, for the big bill.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Because we we're gonna be looking at BGS requests for general fund dollars. Yeah. And we're gonna be looking at DOC. It's getting into their operational piece. It's not the capital bill. It is our recommendation to Appropriations Committee on the state budget.
[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Okay. So it's not like if Joe Luneau says we need $300 for a slate, you're not saying which building and how much and why. We don't no. Okay.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It's it's their operation. Like, are they transferring money from postal and printing to their fee for space program or their fleet program? Or are they pulling money from their fleet program into who knows what else, you know, their maintenance program? It's not our budget. It is the general fund budget, state budget. And we are are to look at those those areas of government that we have jurisdiction over. So we work with BGS. So it's our operational cost. And we work with DOC, which is our operational cost.
[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: So
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: it's a whole different level. So they're coming out with a memorandum in terms of what committees need to ask of the folks who come in in terms of your budget. And it's policy it's a role for the policy committee. So they needed to update some of this. They're gonna send us an updated policy an updated summary, and they've been working with Galfetti on this. So preparing before testimony, the agency needs or the department needs to build the baseline of understanding the agency. You need current year and prior year budget documents, legislative reports, if there's any, and questions that we should be looking at is you need to understand the agency or department's mission. What does the agency or program do? Why do they exist? And what problem are you trying to solve? And then use your testimony time strategically in terms of focus your discussion on information needed to evaluate the budget request. Don't spend time on typical annual items such as salary benefits or changes in the internal service fund. These budgetary increases aren't necessarily relevant to understanding the broader policy work of that department So it's really getting into a deeper. So James and I, when finished, I bounced off a thought that I had with James that when we get this updated memorandum in terms of what committees she really asked for and looked to, what I would like, and I'm going to point to people Mhmm. Way to do it. I'd like five members of this committee to sit down with a memo when it comes through And really go through it and look at those questions that we need to ask of BGS and those questions that we need to ask of DOC. Yep. Okay. And then formulate that so that before we bring them in, you folks will share that with the whole committee, and we will have that sheet with those questions. Does that make sense to folks?
[Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: Sounds good. Yeah.
[Tate (Legislative Counsel)]: The more you do it, the more it
[Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: will make sense.
[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Well, yeah, it'll become a template. Yes.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So here goes.
[Tate (Legislative Counsel)]: It's exciting.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Here are the five people, and there's thinking behind this.
[Kevin Winter (Member)]: You're give this template to those who are coming in
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: When I get it. I haven't gotten it yet. They're gonna update it.
[Kevin Winter (Member)]: We're gonna give it to the testimony Oh. Provided.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: To the committee members to ask.
[Brian Minier (Member)]: So we'll be I'm
[Kevin Winter (Member)]: gonna give it to them before they come in so they
[Brian Minier (Member)]: have No. No. Because it'll be even more telling if they can't answer the questions. You don't see me. It'll make
[Tate (Legislative Counsel)]: sense the more you do it. Just Alright. Alice is gonna tell you who's on this. Yeah. Because
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I want Mary because she was on appropriations. I want Conor. I want Kevin. I want Brian, and I want Jeff.
[Kevin Winter (Member)]: I
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: looked in terms of people's experience, people's concerns, and people's knowledge. Sounds
[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: good.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: That's what I would say. Thank you. It makes sense
[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: to us.
[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: And when do we start working out this? As
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: soon as I get some They had to make some changes on it.
[Tate (Legislative Counsel)]: What do
[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: you anticipate it?
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Next day.
[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: You'll have an extra
[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: week.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Then we should meet
[Brian Minier (Member)]: next week.
[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: It's a next week problem. Yes. Yes.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: There's a reason for it. I mean, Mary's been on appropes. I think it's really important to have that appropriation.
[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Makes sense.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Conor's been around the building for I mean, there's you want to know more about budgeting.
[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: You're I'm ordering. You're funny guy. That's what we need. You forgot to step back.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Brian's going to work it all together.
[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: No, I'm taking money for all the closing I want to buy.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: This is to help the committee know what specific questions. Once you get that element and then you think, okay, BGS, these are all the activities that BGS does. And you can sit down with Wanda and find out what are all the things that
[Kevin Winter (Member)]: they do
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: because it's more than the capital.
[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Gonna be.
[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Oh, shit.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Figure out what you need. And then DOC, we have a pretty good we kinda know more of what DOC does than BGS. But, you know, there's a lot of moving pieces there within BGS. I mean, within DOC.
[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Well, they spent over $200,000,000. Yes. You know?
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And I don't know what the total budget and its operating budget for BGS is.
[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: No. ADOCs are, $2.15 or something like around there.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: 215,000?
[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: A million million. I
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: don't know.
[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: It's north of 200,000,000 license
[Brian Minier (Member)]: basic questions we should have. I've been saying for years.
[Tate (Legislative Counsel)]: And I'm not sure if this is the thing. Like the example, one of the many examples we were given, this may be 100% accurate, but just so you like understand, you're looking at the budget in whatever section and you're looking at some rudimentary things that we normally ask about the salary and they're like, oh, salary went up 5% or whatever, and you focus on that. And then when somebody starts getting curious and all of sudden they realize like, wait a minute, there's a pilot program in this entity that's been going on for ten years.
[Kevin Winter (Member)]: It's a
[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: pilot program. We want to
[Brian Minier (Member)]: kind of that
[Tate (Legislative Counsel)]: kind of thing where something could be very recurring. And so once you start looking at things more closely, and we'll be looking Well, our is probably fairly small compared to, like, for human services in in general. But when you start looking at the other things, you look at a section at a time and you work your way through it and start trying to find the inefficiencies.
[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Give us our user guide whenever that comes out next week. Yep. And I think that really, generally when you get testimony, when somebody's you get lied to through a mission, so people are gonna give you the information that supports their argument. I don't think they're actually straight up lying to you that often.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: No, no.
[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: But they're intentionally not giving it all the pieces. In fairness, it's not even always From various perspectives.
[Tate (Legislative Counsel)]: And there's certainly omission, sure. But there's also just cases where people just don't even know. A small part of a budget, maybe people should know every aspect, but somebody in human service, the agency of human service probably doesn't know every single line.
[Brian Minier (Member)]: The other thing is a lot of the budgets, some are made using two and three year old figures. I always have wanted to see what is real time, real day, that you're plugging into formulas, look at a budget as what you're really doing. And I've asked that several times on other committees and say, well, I'm seeing that these numbers are two and three years old, so we're in the hole before we've even started.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: That may be what happened with weapons.
[Kevin Winter (Member)]: We'll find out.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And we've got to get a handle. It
[Brian Minier (Member)]: the offender work program. Right, yes.
[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: For you five. Another 20 points.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: You, some of that is to work through when I get that updated memorandum, and I'll send it out to all the committee members anyway, but you're gonna work at that as your basis and develop what questions we as a committee need to ask.
[Brian Minier (Member)]: Most of their members, you know, in looking at the documents, see something that gets them come talk to the five of us.
[Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: It's a good idea, actually, think. Steptical with that stuff.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: The other thing, Tate has a list of those reports. Yes. And we're gonna have to do do you think we have, like, fifteen minutes to go through this tomorrow sometime?
[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Unless there's something
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Maybe we can work a little bit with lunch.
[Brian Minier (Member)]: Yes. Sure. Absolutely. This
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: is to report to house go by.
[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: So I want to talk about the
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: No. I want to continue these reports. So the other thing, we've had some testimony on victim notification. I want to figure out what are people thinking? Where do we go from here? I've had some brief conversations with Martin Malone. I said, you know, there's the front end stuff to this in terms of law enforcement, state police, states attorneys, particularly states attorneys. So that committee needs to get involved with it. We've got the corrections piece. We really put the task force together last year. The testimony seems there's some kumbaya and then BOC comes back in and says, we got a problem. Allie has sent was going to send to Tate, I think, all the statutes that pertain to their, they're required to notify and how and when she was gonna send a list of everything in statute that pertains to that for DOC. That might be a starting point that we work with ledge counsel to work through that. I just don't know how to approach this. I mean, it's so
[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Well, I thought there was actually a
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: MOU.
[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: To the report that we received coming forward.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: There might be an MOU, but DOC is not concerned.
[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: They might. I have a suggestion. Maybe, you know, Mary and Kevin and I meet with Jennifer again and get, like, a little bit, like, an overview from her. Because she would seems like the one
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: that's driving with DOC.
[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: Well, we'll meet with them too, but I kinda like it was very helpful to meet with her on our own last year. You know?
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: What what's happening in this task force is this preliminary agreements have been made, and then DOC unilaterally makes a decision. Like, pulling that dedicated purse. And this all played out. And this all played out during the fall where the task force was all working towards something. And then a week later, DOC announced that they were letting go of the dedicated person. And we got emails from the state's attorneys and the other folks on that task was really upset. We were heading one direction and that DOC pulls this person out and didn't even tell us. So this stuff has been happening.
[Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: We definitely have to extend the task force that way because I mean, is value having them all in the same room together, I think. But I don't think it's going to happen unless we make them do it.
[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: That makes sense, Carrie. So
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: maybe So that's a
[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: first course action.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Have a heart to heart with Jen, and then I have a heart to heart with DOC.
[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: Yep. We can have the three of us can have a heart to heart with Jen. I don't know if we can have a heart you can have a heart to
[Brian Minier (Member)]: heart with
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: DOC. Same talk. You three
[Brian Minier (Member)]: We've got a new commissioner. It starts here. We're going to Okay.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Alright. You three are on this topic.
[Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: You're a powerful man.
[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Shawn
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: You can't just look at one side and not the other.
[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: Okay.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And what the DOC person says to James in the hallway testimony was we're being asked to stick to statute, but the state's attorneys had nothing in statute that holds them Mhmm. For the reporting.
[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Basically, well, just put all your fingers on the table and speak plain instead of saying the whole thing.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: If you three can
[Kevin Winter (Member)]: meet with
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Jen and you meet with DOC, then we'll go from there.
[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: Okay, I got it.
[Kevin Winter (Member)]: My understanding of what's going on is there's three groups that are involved. They start out in one and then it goes to another and then the third and there's no common database and they're not talking amongst each other. That's why together to coordinate. Exactly. But in the absence of a common database.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: They're not going to have a common database.
[Kevin Winter (Member)]: I hear you.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: They're different entities.
[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: And your concern is this I hear you.
[Kevin Winter (Member)]: You have to communicate the key information, though, from one to the other. And until until somebody makes a new
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: our role. So before you leave Joe, the other big issue was yesterday afternoon.
[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: What happened yesterday afternoon?
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: The ICE. The testimony of ICE. Oh, yeah. That was tough testimony. Now I know one thing that Gina is looking at is, is there a way for DOC to have that app in terms of language interpretation? My
[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: biggest concern right now is the weaponization of space.
[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: The DOC should be given an opportunity to respond to
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: They will yeah. And that's what I wanted to put out on the table. I've let Hailey know about we gotta get they were watching it on YouTube. DOC was watching it yesterday on YouTube. And I said to Hailey today when she came in, we're gonna have to hear from DOC.
[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. I could shock about this for an hour.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And I said, I wanna know these decisions are being made. Is it internally within DOC or is it coming from the 5th Floor?
[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: It's better.
[Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: There was some heavy stuff thrown down, you know, if you're not giving people equal access to justice, you know. I mean, DFC needs to explain that. It's true.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Was concerned about it as well. Right.
[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Well, it makes it really hard to provide service to somebody. So is, you know, Joyce Judy and so on and so forth. It's Okay. Throughout the whole thing. That no. Hers was not ICE. Hers was CCD. Out of state
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Oh, interesting.
[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: State contract stuff. That's I'm sorry. I was in the wrong pew on that one.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So we'll have to have more conversations on that, but we've really gotta schedule DOC.
[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Absolutely. Enrollment. But you would think if they could fix the the language board, that seems like a like, if there could be an exception made for technology.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Gina She
[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: knows all
[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: of it.
[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: She's all over
[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: it. Is the camera still on? Yeah.
[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: It's the executive director.
[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: I had a story about language thing. Absolutely.
[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: Don't wanna do that with immigration. No. French. So
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: that's what I had. I
[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: just wanna kinda
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: get something to recognize here. But those are the issues that I had that we really need all
[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: spend
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: time.
[Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: And the budget stuff actually is an opportunity for us to address some things like the parole board and the separation. That's the stuff we can dig into with that format. It's good.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yeah. Certainly. So we're back here tomorrow after the floor. Okay. Okeydokey.
[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: We can
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: go off of YouTube.
[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Okay. Thank you, Tate.
[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Thank you.
[Tate (Legislative Counsel)]: You wanna look at this quick?