Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Troy Headrick, Ranking Member]: Welcome

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: back. Welcome, folks. This is House Corrections and Institutions Committee. It's Friday, January 30. It's our 10:30 meeting. We are continuing our work on the Governor's proposed capital budget adjustment. We're dealing with Section three, which deals with the agency of human services, and it deals with our correctional facilities. There's a number of facilities here. There's some budget adjustment items for some of them. And then some other ones, I would just like to have a little bit of updates. So so we have with us buildings and general services. I'm gonna turn turn it over to Joe. Joe, if you could, show yourself for the record. Good morning. Good morning.

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: Joe Luneau, director of design and construction with the division general services.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: Let me pull up the. While Joe's doing that, the first item is on line 20, which is CHVAC systems, professional facilities. We have put in quite a bit of money over the past few years. In FY '26, we put in 4,000,000. FY '27, we're saying 1,000,000 bonded. The governor has increased that bonded amount by at least 8,000,000. And also added a million plus in cash. There's a lot of moving pieces.

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: Okay. Wonderful. First up is the statewide planning, design, and construction for HVAC systems and upgrades at the correctional facility. This is a project that's been in works for a while. We now have enough funding in place that we are working on design and soon, temporary air conditioning. And also then, hopefully, this during the summer, we'll be working on the permanent systems in two of our facilities. Those two facilities would be the Southern State Correctional Facility and the Northern State Correctional Facility. We are hoping that for temporary air conditioning, we'll have Southern State Correction Facility, Northern State Correction Facility, and Northeast Regional Correction Facility online with temporary air conditioning. Southern State is complete already. We are working now on, Northern State and Northeast Region.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: And when the Northeast Region is Saint John's?

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: Saint John's. Yes. So when

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: the Newport and St. Jude to be completed?

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: Or temporary. They're working on both of them, their contractors working right now.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: So they'd be up

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: I'm hoping that this summer cooling season, they will be in place.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: So the temporary means that there's certain spots within the facility, like the staff rooms, break rooms?

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: In Southern State, it's in the there's a meeting conference room space in the nature of the buildings, only the the incarcerated individuals. And those are the rooms that are going are temporary air conditioned.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: Is that in the living units?

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: It is in the living units. And in Newport and Saint Johnsbury, we're doing the dining halls in the gym. These areas are open to both staff and the incarcerated individuals.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: So for Springfield, it's not the dining hall or the gym. It's just those conference, those small rooms in

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: the Troy? Give me the summer. What's happening in the summer? So all three facilities should have temporary AC in place. And we have contracts in place, construction manager that once the design is done, the equipment arrives, that we can start construction. Due to the long length of time to get this equipment, we are looking to reorder some of our equipment as soon as possible. The deadlines keep changing on us as how quickly you can get some of these units. And so it could be after mid summer, after summer when the actual equipment shows up. We will do all the work in advance to get that in place. So when the units do come in, we log into the roof or wherever they're going on the site and then connect

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: So they could well

[Troy Headrick, Ranking Member]: I'm sorry. Once they're here, it's not gonna be a very it's it's gonna be a fairly quick turnaround?

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: It should be. Yes. Okay. So you

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: might not get first Springfield and Newport for the full facility. You do Springfield first and then Newport, or you're

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: Corrections put them is looking for the order is Springfield first, then Newport, then St. John's Square.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: So if you get the equipment in late summer, early fall, you would install it, and it would be fully operational by the end of this year? Yes. So the summer goes by without it this summer, but it will be up definitely next summer. Would Newport be definitely up next summer as well in '27?

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: Yes. It may. We are looking at with the additional requested funds of 1,000,000 in cash, $1,050,000 in cash in '27. Believe that we can get through both Southern State and all of Newport with full air condition. This we don't have the actual cost of the equipment or labor yet. So it may change, but we will do as much as we can. So in Newport, what we would look to do is get all the piping in place and everything else that we can. And then if we can't buy the unit at this time because we're short of funds, that'll be the next item up for the explaining. Or we get real creative looking at what we have out there for funds for starting construction in Saint Jonesboro.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: So I'm looking at your chart here. It doesn't track. Uh-huh.

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: Now some I do not have enough data.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: Looking really weird. What is in the governor?

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: We will take what can the governor's recommend.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: Oh, you got ace now in your lower.

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: There's another top lane space there. They fall again.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: FY '27 put in a million last year. The Governor is proposing an additional 8.426. Am I reading that right, I hope?

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: Yes.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: So then, with an additional 50 in cash.

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: So

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: you have $9,000,000 here being added.

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: And $9,400,000 in bonded funds, and then another $9.50.

[Mary A. Morrissey, Member]: Right.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: So the it's not f y twenty six cash or 9.426 on your chart there. It is f y '27 bonded. Yes.

[Troy Headrick, Ranking Member]: Here's the line off.

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: Yeah. Let me see if somebody can fire me.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: But the total still add up.

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: I'm not

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: gonna do math in public. I've done math. So the 1,000,000 in cash helps you will get you through Springfield and Newport, and that will be completed.

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: We believe based on what our contractor has given us for an estimate, yes. We believe both can be done.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: And then the additional 8,000,000 in bonded for f y twenty seven. What does that get? That's a lot.

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: Both facilities are very expensive. This all this funding that we have, the cash and bond money in twenty seventh will get us Springfield and Newport. It will not get us Saint John's birthday.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: So that extra 8,000,000 in bonded dollars from what we put in plus the 1,000,000 in cash gets Springfield and Newsport completed.

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: Yes. Based on our estimates a couple months ago.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: So we How much is it costing to a facility?

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: I don't have that with me, but it's the engineering and the temporary work was not that much. So if you're looking at 29. Could be 9,000,000 apiece. Each facility is different, though, but I mean, that's without going back and actually looking at the estimates and everything, couldn't tell you exactly.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: I mean, I'm just looking, I know we've put in 500,000 FY23, 300,000 FY24. A lot of that was we'd scope out the buildings, figure out what was needed. And then at FY twenty five, we talked about really looking at those common areas, maybe doing those first, or at least get that through the system. And we've been adding money, 4,000,000 and bonded 26 and now a big slug 27. You've expended 8.7 total. So that's gone for design documents. Well, that's gone to figure out what's needed. Yes. And design documents and doing those temporary spaces in Springfield and Newport and Saint Jay.

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: And construction managers. And construction managers. So their preconstruction services are also included in that 8,000,000. In reality, they're also that's part of construction?

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: Yeah. So there's 11,600,000.0 left, and that will go to complete

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: Springfield and Newport fully. From our last estimates, yes.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: And those will be online by the end of this calendar year. So next summer in '27, it'll be fully operation for folks. They'll feel it then. They won't feel it in the winter. Let's hope.

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: Questions? And

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: then if you don't get that full amount, what happens?

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: Newport doesn't get done.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: 8,000,000 additional is a lot. Nothing on saying anything. Downsing it out, folks. Just to say When we do markup, when we do markup, you know the consequences, whatever we do. Anything?

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: Moving along statewide ADA compliance, and this is in three facilities, Southern State Correctional Facility, Northern State Correctional Facility, and Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility. And we're primarily doing work at all three. Southern State is by far the one that can have most of the work that is complete. Northern State is split up of two phases, one in exterior and interior. The exterior work is 98% complete. They have to come back because of finickiness part of sidewalks is the pitch in them, and then so the cross slope edge to edge has to be just right on. And as you on the bottom left photo here, it's a little bit hard to get some tents. So they come back and put in a patch to make that cross look correct. And then on the inside, they'll be starting work soon on that. And with that Northern State is not as bad. There's a lot of items at Northern State where the sink is off a half inch in height. Dispensers are off a little bit, but they're also gonna be creating accessible cells into the units. That's the same with Chittenden also. About 60% of the work at Chittenden is done. All the exterior work is done. There's access paths paved paths now in Chittenden. That's the upper right photo. Areas to access around picnic tables, or sitting areas, through volleyballs and courts, some of that has to be hardened in order for the potential wheelchair individual, the likes of that to be in that area. Then on the left, you see the showers. So similar showers that are being installed have got high and low heads and or high head with an adjustable arm. The problem with the adjustable arm, which were in the showers here, is the incarcerated individuals get creative. Mhmm. So we thought we'd give it a try, because that is the least expensive method, but it failed. So they'll be going back in and installing fixed heads.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: You're gonna be fixed.

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: So you have a showerhead low and showerhead high to accommodate both as opposed to a wand that you can move on.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: I don't understand a wand, but I can also they're fixed. How do you deal with ligature with this?

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: All of them are ligature resistant. They're designed that way. So a hand wand would be an issue, but they're also breakaway for those. But with the actual showerheads themselves, they are ligature resistance. They're sort of a It's Chair drop,

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: No, what we're talking about?

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: I know we've used the term, but can you re describe it, Joe? It's really about making the place safe because individuals are very creative, both in mental health facilities and correctional facilities and the likes of that, of how they can provide a point to tie something off of, to hang themselves in the likes of that. So the showerheads are made. So if you tried to hang a towel on or something like that, it would slide off. There are hooks that are breakaway hooks that some of them are spring loaded. So what happens is if you're hanging your towel and whatnot, the hook is up there. But if you have a lot of running like five pounds of pressure on it, it just falls. You put the towel off and it gets jacked up. So there's multiple things. The handrails. The handrails are not what you typically see everywhere else where you can grasp it all the way around. There is a plate underneath that to prevent you from pushing, monarchical clothing or cow through there. So that's what the ligature resistance is. It's when you really go see it, the top of doors, you'd never think of a door, but a door, an open door, become a point of ligature. So you have to do something along those lines, door handles, like so that.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: Anytime we're building a building that deals with any folks being housed there, regardless what it is. It could be a correctional facility. Could be a mental health hospital, it could be a step down residential facility, any of those, juvenile justice for juveniles involved in the justice system, all of that construction has to incorporate literature. Items that are dealing with folks that could use it for self harm. Yes. So that increases the cost. A lot of folks compare the cost of what we're doing with construction in the home, and that's not equal. Or an office space. It's not equal because you have to put in. By college, you've gotta put these protections.

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: Because the folks There are different levels. There are different levels, so it's not every single unit has this, so they have different levels. Now for those types of facilities where, you know, they won't do all of that, of doing everything.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: And the part of this, we really have to be cognizant. Folks are sent to the state hospital, or sent to a correctional facility, or sent to a juvenile facility for justice involved. Are under custody of the state. And we have a responsibility, and they are under our custody. And we're we have to take care of It's an important piece to remember when dealing with the buildings.

[Mary A. Morrissey, Member]: I'm gonna

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: put that out for folks to think about. So I don't you don't think about that in your after your late wife. You don't think about that. But we are responsible for those folks under our custody. Questions?

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: Next up?

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: Yeah.

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: Next up, we have statewide correctional facility safety and security upgrades. These funds here are more for POC. The fact that they're the ones who are selecting the projects that BGS will complete. So some of those items are they will need an additional camera for the likes of that, and the the camera system will want to now change the lock at a different door, increase fencing on the perimeter, suicide prevention efforts, compliance with prison rape elimination act, otherwise known as PREA. And getting back to the suicide stuff and like that, individuals are very creative. So something happens and we have done ventilation gross that they paid for in certain areas because if you're very good, you can figure out a way in that small pretty six inches of a hole to get something through and around and do it. So there's ways of doing it. Not all of our facilities are old, some more than others. And at the time, they just were not used. There were plenty of other ligature points. Stuff like that, that is what when DOC has a need, there's kind of fee for space. It's not a line item. It's not major maintenance. This is where they get to say, We'd like to do this in one of these facilities. And this is where the funds come from.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: And this is system wide. And there tend to be smaller projects.

[Unknown Committee Member]: Yes. Yes. So just just for information, I guess, that implies to me that there are times where there are individuals in a room and they are not being monitored by correction.

[Leonard Traxton, Chief of Operations, Vermont Department of Corrections]: As if they were, for our own network.

[Unknown Committee Member]: We're protecting against them hurting themselves. And if someone is in there, theoretically, there would be at least a warning to keep them from hurting themselves.

[Leonard Traxton, Chief of Operations, Vermont Department of Corrections]: Yeah, absolutely. I just would state my name is Leonard Traxton. I'm the chief of operations for Department of Corrections. And if I'm understanding your question right, please repeat it. If I didn't, are there times inside of a correction facility where any incarcerated individuals not directly supervised by an officer again losing? That's yes. Not everybody's in that state of crisis. Most, you know, thankfully that this is not an occurrence that happens at large. But to Joe's point, there is creativity that can go on there if someone is in crisis and not actually indicating that they want help in our older facilities. They may find different ways to commit self harm that we hadn't thought of before. As soon as we do know that someone's and we train to kind of pick up on those non medical cues, we have procedures and protocols that are put into place right away to observe them in the way that you're talking about. But until, everybody's kind of an iceberg, unfortunately, for us, and so we have to use the training and the skills that we have. And then there's, when we figure that out, the abatement work that Joe was talking about on these older facilities where you never would have thought a ventilation panel could be used that way. Unfortunately, you learned that it could be, and then we have to make a request to make a change.

[Unknown Committee Member]: And that makes sense. Just

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: Yep, thank you. Yep.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: And that really leads to a conversation that we should have as a committee, whenever our schedule works, to really go and visit a correctional facility. And I wouldn't go to Chittenden because a lot of people focus on Chittenden. I would recommend either St. Albans, Newport, or Springfield. Because people really need to go into a facility. I think we all have ideas of how they operate, what they look like. And it is not what we see on TV. It is not what we can imagine. It's a very, very different

[Mary A. Morrissey, Member]: setup. And

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: it's a good opportunity to see how folks who are incarcerated spend their day and what staff has to do and what it feels like to have a door lock, slammed behind you, and you're in a salary court, and you can't go through that next door until it's unlocked. And then you go into living units. Would really recommend at least the committee take a day and go to one of the facilities.

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: I don't have

[Troy Headrick, Ranking Member]: last bienniums. I don't recall how much you go through in this line item statewide, correctional, silly updates. You got close to $3.80 in there on expended already. Can you are you gonna go through that $2.25 on top of the $3.80 that you've got left in there?

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: It's hard to say. The last 5AM there were no funds.

[Troy Headrick, Ranking Member]: Okay. They'll

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: some old money, but they went through it. I don't know why there were no funds requested for that at the time. But, again, they we were adding to it because they do have a lot

[Leonard Traxton, Chief of Operations, Vermont Department of Corrections]: of needs that are coming.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: You wanna find out what they've done? I really haven't had that. I'm looking at f y 24 and '25. Accessibility upgrades. We didn't have anything. 2425. It's, like, according to at this cash. I don't don't think we did anything, Troy.

[Troy Headrick, Ranking Member]: Thank you. You've got a

[Leonard Traxton, Chief of Operations, Vermont Department of Corrections]: pretty good

[Troy Headrick, Ranking Member]: list. I see this as, like, deferred maintenance.

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: Almost. It's more on this the security side than it is deferred maintenance. But it's sort

[Troy Headrick, Ranking Member]: of less. Things pop up that need security attention. We add it to the to do list.

[Leonard Traxton, Chief of Operations, Vermont Department of Corrections]: And Yes. Yeah. And I I that I can confirm that. It can pop up sometimes reactively or urgently, so it's hard to always forecast it. And then depending on what it is, if it's something that's technical, the cost of that has changed over our memory of it because now it requires running some sort of computer line or something like that to feed the camera that we really just need in this one spot. Do you have, like,

[Troy Headrick, Ranking Member]: a work order system that's

[Leonard Traxton, Chief of Operations, Vermont Department of Corrections]: We absolutely do have a

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: work order system.

[Troy Headrick, Ranking Member]: So what's that list look like now of things undone in this category? You don't have to tell me items, but is it robust?

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: I mean, I I think that's the WIM system is which is controlled by BGS, so they could speak to

[Leonard Traxton, Chief of Operations, Vermont Department of Corrections]: it at some point better than but it's it's a it's a it's a protocol built into the kind of week to week operations at every facility, which would be a review of work orders that they put in. Where are we at with those? I know that all facility management works closely with their kind of local BGS person to kinda keep tabs on those things as they go. And it's a bit of a war of attrition, some of these facilities to present. To Emmons' point is they're kind of like old battleships, and you're constantly trying to just keep that thing afloat, and it takes a lot of that deferred maintenance funding and then support from the protocols also because good security is seldom convenient. Know,

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: speaking about ligatures and things like that, it's why

[Leonard Traxton, Chief of Operations, Vermont Department of Corrections]: certain things can't be allowed into a facility that general civilians would think are an overrated. So it's a kind of coordinated effort. Thank you.

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: And, like, when we're doing the door control project, which coming up next, we're picking up a lot of that stuff with the new cameras we were putting in. I mean, with the funds that we had when corrections is aware that, you know, here's a spot that doesn't have a camera that should, you know, maybe it's gonna be required. That gets added into that scope and not this. So these are the the more not that there is no it's not a major maintenance, not a fee for space item. I don't know they just had it in incarcerated individual who just decided now there's that little gap, and that's where they can get through. So there is a little kind of thing where you're doing the opposite path. Thank you. Questions? Thanks.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: Let's keep going.

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: Up next is the Marble Valley Regional Correctional Facility door control system. And this is coming up next as soon as the Northeast Regional Freshener facility and Caledonia Work Camp are complete. The funds here that we'd be looking for is to complete the design. As I've mentioned in the past, that Marble Valley and Northeast Regional are roughly the same buildings. All we did on the drawings was change the name for most of it. There were some code changes and different upgrades. There was a cost issue for some reason. In Marble Valley, we had full air conditioning from the day it was constructed. Saint Johnsbury, that was cut out of that construction project.

[Leonard Traxton, Chief of Operations, Vermont Department of Corrections]: So we saved the buck. Yeah.

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: So this would be the next one in line. Seven states Northern State was first, then Southern State, and we're working in St. Johnsbury, and then we're going to Dublin. It's just the next one up and rolling.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: Doors take a beating from what you mentioned in previous testimony. Mean, are living situations 20 fourseven. They are metal doors. They're not wooden doors. They're metal. They get slammed a lot for a variety of reasons.

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: They're designed to slam. I understood when we were at CRCF. They have to shut They are. Because it sounds like

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: These are to the cells. These are to the cells.

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: Alright. These are just walking through

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: the You're not talking to the You

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: want the door to close behind you. Yeah. You do. And that sounds like too when it does. It's a little unnerving, actually.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: Is this all just for the the Sally ports, or is it also for the individual cells as well? Door Individual cells also. So when you have a lockdown, offender goes into their cell. Do they close the door? Does the door automatically close? So the and during a lockdown, are they locked? The cell doors locked?

[Leonard Traxton, Chief of Operations, Vermont Department of Corrections]: Well, let let's use Marble Valley as an example since we're on that. Yeah. The the doors do not kind of swing close on themselves. What will happen is most folks, and sometimes it's just habit, on the reasons for lockdown protocol, they are pretty orderly and will secure the door and then staff will go through and do a check and make sure any unsecured doors are secure. It's just a part of the standard operating procedure.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: Do they automatically lock when the doors close?

[Leonard Traxton, Chief of Operations, Vermont Department of Corrections]: Correct, they do. Once they're secured, they automatically lock.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: So, when they're in there overnight sleeping, is that cell door locked?

[Leonard Traxton, Chief of Operations, Vermont Department of Corrections]: That is, except for in the Alpha Unit in Marble Valley, which That's the location of our honor door and pilot partially for that reason.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: They can come and go.

[Leonard Traxton, Chief of Operations, Vermont Department of Corrections]: Correct. They they could. But then, of course, we have unit rules and monitoring, and we, you know, interact with folks to make sure that we control that pedestrian traffic, traffic, whether it's inside the unit or through inter unit inside the facility.

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: Shawn?

[Leonard Traxton, Chief of Operations, Vermont Department of Corrections]: Just quick clarification. You called it an honor dorm unit. Honor Dorm Unit. Honor Unit. Honor Dorm Unit.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: It's part of the it really came about with the PRINT. Part of it came about with the PRINT research.

[Leonard Traxton, Chief of Operations, Vermont Department of Corrections]: And there It started down at Southern State. They piloted it. They did a really great job of, you know, kind of zigging instead of zagging and trying something out. And we found, I think, great success down at Southern State by having a unit that honor dorm is one term, but it's mostly self governed. It has facility staff support and lots of meetings, but for example, the folks living in there, they have to keep a locator when they leave it, like you might see in an office. And I will tell you that theirs is usually more accurate than the ones the officers are saying. And I get it because it's a tough job to be one person at watching 50 people go. But if you're just taking care of yourself, it tends to be, you know, it's it's a quieter unit at Southern State. It there is more privileges, so folks really kind of take some ownership over it. And what we decided to do over the last couple of years is say, you know, what is it about Springfield that makes them unique? Can we look at trying this, piloting this in other spaces? So Marble Valley was the next space that we tried, and, you know, it's one of those things. It it takes some village at first, but it's self sustaining, and Marble Valley now has, honestly. So, I can talk forever.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: It tones down the level of anxiety in the whole facility.

[Leonard Traxton, Chief of Operations, Vermont Department of Corrections]: I would agree, and also it also allows you to consider doing tiered responses or tiered movement facility that it's incentive fee that you can graduate into an honored dorm. So there's a lot of benefits going on.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: And it gives incentives to those folks who are incarcerated that there is something they can achieve, whereas a living situation is not as restrictive and they're more autonomous, but they're more in control of their own life.

[Leonard Traxton, Chief of Operations, Vermont Department of Corrections]: Yeah, mean, I say, just as folks tend to, in a way that they're more empowered to feel more empowered, they act, and it's a much more collaborative approach to unit supervision.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: And it helps in the security of the facility. It helps with our correctional staff because it's not such intense supervision. Yeah, exactly.

[Leonard Traxton, Chief of Operations, Vermont Department of Corrections]: I'm gonna come see you sometime.

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: That's sent down in Southern?

[Leonard Traxton, Chief of Operations, Vermont Department of Corrections]: That is it. Well, there's one at Southern, which is which is the first one. It comes up in Harbour Valley, and Chittenden has

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: been piloting one to Japanese. Yeah. We saw that, and that seemed really wonderful as well. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we were walking around. They were walking around us. It was, like, really and it was lovely. It felt like I was in a store downtown.

[Leonard Traxton, Chief of Operations, Vermont Department of Corrections]: Well, I mean, I've been with the department since 1997. Once upon a time, you

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: It was. Yeah. So this guy was talking if

[Leonard Traxton, Chief of Operations, Vermont Department of Corrections]: you had suggested that.

[Troy Headrick, Ranking Member]: It's good to prove that not that from a perspective. It

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: wasn't on. Yeah.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: You need to have mechanisms. DOC needs to have mechanisms to ensure the security in the facility and mechanisms to help the folks who are incarcerated there to have something to achieve. And it helps the day to day operation of that facility for our staff and folks who are incarcerated. They need tools and that one tool may not work for one offender that may work for another. And those, I mean, sometimes the public has, well, why do they have a TV? Well, you know what? They have to earn that one way or another. It's not automatic, but it gives them some incentive. Hey, I saw a person across the hallway from me have a TV. Why can't I? Well, you earned it one way or the other. So Those are those little pieces that play into the culture of a correctional facility. We think they're being gobbled. But in reality, they had to earn it one way or the other. And that could be not getting any major DRs, are which disciplinary reports or being put into close custody or that took the time. They just abide by the rules in the facility. Quite often what you will hear from DRC, I hope you back me up on this because I've heard this for years. We tend to think of when someone's incarcerated and their behavior is equivalent to the crime that they were convicted of. So the more violent the crime, the more heinous the crime. We think they are the hardest persons to supervise in the facilities. And what usually happens, those are the easiest folks at times to supervise. And it's the ones that may not have created those most violent crimes, but they're constantly in trouble. And they are classified in DOC based on their behavior in the facility, not their conviction, not their crime. So we may think that the most heinous crime, murder, sexual assault, they ought to be in a high custody, maximum custody situation, but they may be a model person that's living there that's buying five games. They don't need to be high supervision. Now I hope I can be backed. I mean, that's what I've heard over the years. Yeah,

[Leonard Traxton, Chief of Operations, Vermont Department of Corrections]: would back that. I think what allows that to draw a line back to PGS is as long as we have good, solid exterior perimeter security, everything within there, you have the ability to actually be behavior based. The front door, the double fence, and all these kind of security leading projects that we do, whether it's enhanced lighting and cameras, all that allows us to really allow for the proper management of behavior, incentivized and or containing behaviors as they rise and fall within that space that is a tightly controlled perimeter. So it's the marriage of good, solid, strong security with good, solid case management, people management on the inside, really dealing with the individuals. I would attest to my fifteen of my years were in the uniform, and some of the more heinous or shocking crimes were those folks were not, anecdotally I would say that was probably the worst day and their behavior didn't follow suit inside the facilities. There's lot of different dynamics where some of our younger incarcerated individuals, I've I got three boys, and they weren't incarcerated for me, and they were a handful. Right. And at a certain time in their life, they were really a handful, and as they aged out, they started to So kinda I kinda draw a little bit of a similarity there inside of a correction facility. Sometimes just groupings and impulsivity and all these other things, boredom, etcetera.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: And the other thing too that I've heard over the years from DOC is for sex offenders, that they are the easiest population to supervise because they're quiet. They don't do anything. I mean, they are the easiest ones. And according to the public, they're up on the level of being the most difficult to supervise and torrents, but when you start talking about how the sex offenders are incarcerated

[Leonard Traxton, Chief of Operations, Vermont Department of Corrections]: By and large, under the incarcerated setting, folks with the offense profile are easy to engage with and they're compliant and they follow rules. And to some degree, within the incarcerated person's life, they're incentivized to be good because they don't want to be in an uncomfortable way. They can be targeted by other incarcerated individuals. So being visible, being compliant, those are all things that also help them.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: There are lot of little nuances to the population. That's really important for us to understand that so that when we get into policy of corrections and even construction, it's a whole gamut. Really have to understand the psychology and the social give and take within an incarcerated facility, because it's not as we imagine. It's not. It's a whole different world. And the goal of corrections is security. They have to make sure the staff is secure and the population is secure. So, that's my rant for the day. It's all yours, Joe. All right. We have door patrols.

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: Well, if not, there's more to come. The Northeast State Crusher Facility Caledonia Community Work Camp, that door control system. We are working right now on our final estimates with our construction manager and going out to bid soon for all the sub trades to start to work on that facility. So once those prices are fixed, we'll know a lot more of of where we stand here with the additional point that we're receiving and what's in and what's out. But that project will start to begin, and I'm not sure of the completion date once a year because it's a it's really a smaller facility than Saint Johnsbury, Newport. So it's very well gonna be completed in a year. But I'll know a lot more once the bids come in. We need a contract executed to go for work.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: So this is for both the Saint Jay facility as well as the work camp?

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: Correct. The work camp, I believe, has, like, five doors. Yeah. I don't what I don't know is if we're gonna be adding doors. I just it's going through my mind roughly walking through the facility, how many up doors there are right now under control.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: How many beds, again, in the work camp? 50? 100? Never remember.

[Leonard Traxton, Chief of Operations, Vermont Department of Corrections]: I'm gonna say it's 50 each side.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: Yeah. So it's a 100.

[Leonard Traxton, Chief of Operations, Vermont Department of Corrections]: Deserve the right to be totally wrong about that. It

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: might Right. I think it's 50 would suck. How many of those beds are used?

[Leonard Traxton, Chief of Operations, Vermont Department of Corrections]: I can check out our daily head count. I

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: think most of them have them both. Yeah. Have.

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: It's not all.

[Leonard Traxton, Chief of Operations, Vermont Department of Corrections]: With our head count opportunity, it is now, we've had to really use every nook and cranny.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: And they're set up like a bunk beds, like a And bare it's an open room, they don't have any individual cells. We worked quite a while ago to use those beds for folks who had reached their minimum. And they used to be called b ones where they reached their minimum, they were eligible for release, but they didn't have appropriate housing. And instead of taking up a hard bed in our facilities, we said, well, can't we convert put them in the work camp? Is that still being done? No.

[Leonard Traxton, Chief of Operations, Vermont Department of Corrections]: I don't think it's being done with that kind of rigid regimen. We just we have too many other Our detainee population, for example, has gone through the roof, so we've done some assessments on behavior and found the low level detainees that might be an overflow space for them on one side. I think B-1s are throughout at least our regional facilities. It's really we're oversubscribed on beds, to use the term that I've heard thrown about, and so we've kind of had to clean this dirty shirt approach at points when it comes to that. But in a perfect world, I think, yeah, you would want to have folks that are simply there for lack of housing, be in the most kind of low custody space. Then, of course, there's the reentry component. You're looking, perhaps, when you're in St. John's, there's a bit of a barrier in that whole sequence of reentry work to be doing it from one to one.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: And last year in the appropriations bill, there was language. Folks remember, there was language. The DOC would look at possibly converting that work camp into a substance use treatment area. That report just due sometime in February. We gave you an extension on the date. That was the administration's directions last year. Don't know if it's gonna be the same direction this year. We'll see. But that language, we worked on that language with our colleagues and groups, and it was in the big bill. People remember that. Mhmm. Mhmm. So we do have a 100 beds in this work camp that is minimum, minimum security per se, because the structure of the work camp was that the folks who had a short sentence could go away out of the facility on a daily basis and do projects for nonprofits or municipalities. And there would be a crew from the work camp that would go to, like, a municipality to paint their town hall or to a nonprofit entity to maybe do some addition in a building or renovations in the building.

[Troy Headrick, Ranking Member]: Super data?

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: No. But they did, but they got a day off their sentence for every day they served. So if they had a two year sentence, they were out in a year. And that was the structure that was set up in the nineties to help the flow of folks through our facilities. What's happened is the folks who come in now, not the same caliber in terms of risk and severity of crime that was Most of it was misdemeanors. So over time, and we're very clear on who will go to a work camp. So over time, the population that would be eligible for the work camp has gotten less and less and less. So this facility was built specifically, there was a 100 beds. This was the first one that was built in the nineties for low risk, low severity and crime folks. So we're pushing through. They got a day out their sentence for every day they were there. If they violated, then they would get put in a regional facility. So we don't do that now because we don't have the population that will qualify. Unless we extended, who could go there. But we haven't done that. So this is to do the door controls really in the Saint Johnsbury? That is correct. Minimum medium security facility and really looking at those four or five doors. And do you anticipate you're going out to bid soon, and then you'll know more of the dollar amount?

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: That is correct.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: You're not sure if the 6,700,000.0 is gonna get you through everything? That is correct.

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: K. Next up, Saint Albans roof. There's no additional funds in the collection in slide '27. We are working with contractor to get the contract executed. The some of the roofs up in Saint Albans are a Tectum style roof and try they were able to, back when we were installed to nail through this Tectum. There's an issue that in today's world, they have some concerns and do not warranty the roof. So we're working with a contractor right now to say, okay. Let's once we get better weather, to go up and open up part of the roof test to see the actual condition of the tectum. And there's a hard gypsum type cement surface on top of that. That if that has failed, that will not stop us from putting the roof on. And one of the areas that was leaking, we did find that it was broken up a little bit. So we're gonna the design of it is to go back over the roof because we're adding additional insulation. So we're gonna put tracking it down, and that will have no impact then on that material. But the contractor's concern doesn't wanna sign a contract at this point in time because of that. And we had in the contract additional materials. It's a long lead item. So it's not like, you know, if we ordered enough, what do we do? So we're gonna go through a, really a test to see what we can find out, order a good estimate of the materials, so we'll have it on-site when they start. And as that progresses, the contractor, they have to stop because we've got out of war. There'll be other roofs to work on, so they won't be set an item. But if you look at the drawing behind me, the site plan that shows the grayed area, we are doing, you know, 10 roofs at that facility. So it's a considerable project.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: How many of those how many of the roofing that you're doing or project to do is involved with the booking area expansion? Because that's also happening up here or not.

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: We are holding off on the booking area for now.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: For the roofing?

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: For the roofing, that is correct.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: So, for folks who weren't here before, there is a whole redesign of their booking area, and it may extend into other areas as well. We have put in, and I think that we may have put in more than this, in FY24 and '25, we put in 2,600,000.0 for the booking area expansion. That's for planning, design, and construction. I think we put in some a little bit before in FY twenty twenty. I think we did something because it came up then. We were on Zoom. Remember this first came up. Has that project been changing

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: It's progressing. It's in design phase. We've completed our our programming. You're gonna be moving into schematic design. Part of the problem is is the tight area that you have up there and trying to meet the needs of corrections and having a drive through Sally push. Then when you lay things out, the easiest way to lay it out was just more square footage to make the whole thing look. So we're reevaluating that at this point in time. As to less square footage, how could we make it work? The drive through part of a Sally Port is a wonderful thing, But due to that higher cost, it wasn't perfect. It was at an angle to pull in and pull out. So maybe that reworking of the site and everything else, we only go through a regular garage sale at Sally's Port. You pull it in back out.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: So when you say drive through, the officer drives in and then can drive forward to leave.

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: To leave. That is correct.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: Grouch doors on both sides. Yes. How many booking sales do we have there now? Five? Yeah, Kristen Gilbert at the commission service. We have five. So Northwest, this is St. Albans, putting through booking five cells. They're putting through folks who are coming from Franklin County, Upper Northern part of the state, as well as all the folks from Chittenden County. Because when we converted Chittenden to the women's facility, those men were transported to St. Albans, but any male that's arrested around Chittenden County, Madison would go to Rutland. But around Chittenden County, that upper end, Memorial County, they are shipped up to St. Albans to people. So all the detainees, folks who were arrested in Chittenden County, Memorial, Washington County, Northern Texas, will go up to St. Albans to go through that booking area to be booked. And then, also, your ICE detainees are coming through there, as well as your federal marshals, because we do have contract with the federal marshals for federal crimes that are committed in Vermont, but folks who are living in Vermont. They come through that booking area too. So, how many folks do you put per cell sometimes? Or five? Multiple,

[Troy Headrick, Ranking Member]: for sure. The space is smaller than this room. You have a body scanner in there now, which takes up

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: the space for five. The space.

[Troy Headrick, Ranking Member]: So you have kind of the main space and

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: then cells going off of it. There's a body scanner in

[Troy Headrick, Ranking Member]: there now that takes up about a quarter

[Melissa Jackson, CEO, Vermont Veterans’ Home]: of this room, maybe more.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: And then you have the five cells in this space with the how long does someone stay in the booking area usually?

[Leonard Traxton, Chief of Operations, Vermont Department of Corrections]: I think it depends on their status and sometimes whether it's your medical condition or legal status. For example, someone who's a prerogative misdemeanor in order to, again, good security is not always inconvenient. They haven't been thoroughly searched, so they could have dangerous contraband on them. We don't thoroughly search someone to say an uncloned search when they're prearranged misdemeanor, so they would have to go if they came in on a Friday, they might be in that booking area until they are able to be arraigned at court and hopefully released in order to keep any potential contraband on them from kind of getting into proliferated around the rest of the complex. Someone, I just did a walk through to assess our language access recently at Northwest. Intake of an ICE detainee takes about one to two hours, and then they've really operationalized and streamlined. That includes the medical portion of intake, and then they get them into the dedicated living unit that they've established for our ice detainees. That could be a different timetable at different facilities, where at Northwest, they have to be, by a large margin, the busiest booking area in our state. And so they really figured out how to do a lot with the area of space to include collaborating with our medical staff to make sure that the process is optimized and can streamline shuffling spaces to make sure that folks that can get past the booking area are past the booking area, so that only folks that are left are maybe constant observation or prearranged. SOP for booking is we don't want people to be in booking unless they have to be in booking because of how tight it is, and that's everywhere. The smallest Marble Valley to the largest and important.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: I just want to put that on the table so folks can process that one. Anything else on the roof?

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: Moving on, the state correctional facility, the sprinkler system upgrades. This is mainly in A2, but we do have pressure issues. This is basically on the dry type system. So there's a wet type and a dry type to oversimplify the stump lifts. Dry type is just that. Until an actual head goes off, there's no water in the pipes. The head goes off and it takes only seconds to fill that pipe. But what happens is yearly, we're required to test it. So you gotta flow water through that pipe and then you drain it. In some situations, you don't have perfect pitch. So you end up with pipes like this with a hole in it. Takes a while, but when it lets go, then it goes. And so we have a lot of that. And then I as I said, there's also compressors that have to run constantly to be keeping the system dry. And so this is going to be evaluating that and replace pipes, depressors, and the likes of that.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: That's fine.

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: Is the is the wet one better than the dry one? Yes.

[Leonard Traxton, Chief of Operations, Vermont Department of Corrections]: Yeah. So we're trying to get rid

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: of all the dry systems? Wherever it gets cold, though, it's gonna be dry. You know, they used to be that there was a relatively high level of gallons of antifreeze that you could put in for, like, called an antifreeze loop. So you had a loop in there. It was filled with antifreeze and mixture of water like a radiator, power radiator. However, they found out that antifreeze is flammable. So, you know, for the first couple of minutes, you're fed into flames with that. So they've reduced the amount of 80 degrees that you can have. So we're doing a lot more dry pipe systems. But just over the years, pipes move, and you end up with a low point here and there for one reason or another. Or they just doesn't the fish isn't strong enough for it to drain.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: So this is a new appropriation for f $5.27. That is correct. And what are you gonna do with a half million?

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: We have to go and inspect all the areas of their beds, so we'll hire sprinkler engineer to come in and do an assessment and then plan going forward on how much we could replace and whether or not we'll need additional funds or not.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: You're not gonna get into any design, documents, or construction. It's just to evaluate, just to, you know, do an inspection.

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: It's minimal, it could get us through design and construction. If it's worse than we anticipate, I'll move back in June. That way, you'll be back. Back anyways to give you an update.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: We'll be back either way because We can't wait.

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: But now?

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: Alright. Alert.

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: Next up? We're back to door controls. Then, provided that in this case, the situation is we have been labeling the sites. Yes. We have been labeling the sites and doing door control. So this rounds it out as to its door controls, statewide door control. So we're now able to you know, we run short in Saint Johnsbury. We'll be able to take some of this money towards the Saint Johnsbury site as opposed to starting, in Marble Valley, or we can start using it in Marble Valley because, yes, we got our money that we needed in St. Johnsbury after the bid, and then we can get started on Marble Valley. And then if there there's drilling facilities left, it is whether or not you know, we I know we're not gonna be able to use this funds to move on, but I think going forward, would be door control so we can keep this moving. And door control is more than just door controls. There's a fence perimeter system. There's video cameras, the likes of that. And then there's the what you gotta fix because of this.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: So the 2.7, it's new, and it's bonded dollars, is going to go to complete the route loan in Saint Jay work?

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: Yeah. Yeah.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: It is right. It's cash on.

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: Let's give it a mic.

[Mary A. Morrissey, Member]: Yes, sir.

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: No. That's quite alright. One on one. Oh, wow.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: It's casual.

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: Yes. It's quite hard.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: If you don't if you don't have the 2.7, can you finish Saint Jude?

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: Until I have my bids in for Saint John's jewelry, I can't answer that. So whatever money that we may need to finish Saint John's Dory, if the bids come in higher than we anticipated, we will use these funds. If not, it will go to Rutland. So instead of putting another million, million and a half at Saint Johnsbury and hoping for the best because that's in this is in section three, we can't move the funds. So this way, under door control, it gives us that. That's That's it. Last up, Newport, Northern State Correction Facility, the boiler replacement project. So we have the chunk boilers that are in the main building. So the incarcerated individuals actually were taken over roughly three to four lengths chunks and put them into a boiler. Boiler used to be a coal fired boiler. They modified it for wood. And it's in place since the day was opened. It is becoming more difficult for both professional officers and finding the incarcerated individuals who wanna step up and spend, you know, how long they were in there, but a good probably eight hours on a shift, you know, and throwing wood into the toilet. They're also getting old. So what we're looking at doing is constructing a building to house a wood chip boiler. So what do we have throughout the state and other locations? Now, the difficulty that we're running into right now is on this plan that you see here, the orange picture is where the boiler house in storage would be. All these other little squiggly ones that you see onto the left hand side going to looks like a tractor trailer, is just that, trying to lay out how you can back this 18 wheeler into the facility to offload. The hard part is, is we have driveways and wetlands and retaining ponds. So this was the last rendition that I was involved with. They are now working on maybe having to relocate the wetland ponds to make it accessible. So that facility is hot water. So all we'll be doing is having pumps pump water to the boiler house and then back to the facility. So we do have to run a trench from wherever this new building goes back to a two, which is roughly the, center right hand side of the building. Intent also is to put it outside of the secure yard. That way our maintenance staff can easily have access to it instead of going inside the facility. The same would for the roofs.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: Looking at this, I know we've been talking about this boiler forever. And you said there's 3,500,000.0 in f y twenty five bond, and I'm not seeing that in our spreadsheet.

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: Maybe it's cash.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: Oh, I'm looking. I know that we Probably one We had 600,000 in our cash, in FY twenty four, and we pulled that.

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: Now it's bonded, Ronnie, because if I remember, we had bonded and cash. And I think we moved it to bonded all bonded phones.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: Why?

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: 2025?

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: Is that why 2025 is that that may not be the final spreadsheet for that. It's 2627. Can you help out at all, Scott, on that? Because I may have the Oh, that would be the

[Troy Headrick, Ranking Member]: All I have is my notes

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: Wait a minute.

[Troy Headrick, Ranking Member]: From last

[Leonard Traxton, Chief of Operations, Vermont Department of Corrections]: year from '25.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: Maybe looking It may have been in the Oh, it was in the BGS one. It wasn't a corrections section. It was in the BGS section. 3.5 bonded.

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: Madam chair, that's what I would have said.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: Yeah. I was looking was looking sections.

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: I don't pick the sections.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: I know you don't pick the sections. That's where we were getting back and forth back then. So there's 3.5 on this. Are we gonna finish this project this year with a 5,000,000? 5.1?

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: I don't think it'll be completed this year because we haven't resolved where the building is going to go and what those impacts are. If I do have to move the stormwater ponds, that could be expensive.

[Troy Headrick, Ranking Member]: When will that be resolved?

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: They're working on that. I don't have a date.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: That would be included, the move of that stormwater pond would be included in this

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: It would not include it in this brush day, in this estimate.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: But it would be on our nickel and not ANR.

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: That is correct. Just a curiosity question, where did the original wood chunks come from? When it first opened up, the facility took actual log lengths, and the grassrooted individuals blocked it up, stacked it, removed it with the boilers. Now, again, not running around the train stalls anymore, that they now bring it in in a trunk line. So there's a contractor for that. So it's not clearing brush on the side side of the roads, that kind of wood. It's

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: The cement?

[Leonard Traxton, Chief of Operations, Vermont Department of Corrections]: Chunk of it.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: Yes. Not clear brush. No. We do have a contractor that needs.

[Leonard Traxton, Chief of Operations, Vermont Department of Corrections]: Yeah. Sure.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: The vendors don't leave the facility. No. I understand. Yeah.

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: We're We're crew. Yeah.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: So what are you gonna know about the pond? Stormwater pond?

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: I don't have a good idea on that. I would hope in the next month or two, we have a good idea where we're headed, but I'm not sure.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: So your that cost of moving that pond is not included in the five

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: It is not. And you see there are two ponds.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: There's two ponds, which you need to move. Both ponds or just one?

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: Don't know that yet. And there's lodge. Oh. The lodge is in the pond.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: Just the other one. No.

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: It's not where we show the building. So we start moving around the site, it could run into ledge. How long have you been seeking the determination for? For what? Or Whether or not the storm ponds need to move. That started probably in December. And really, what we've been trying to move the building around because part of that is also maintaining the truck trap in place and keeping it outside of the perimeter. So in this drawing that we have here, the bottom and the right hand side actually become the perimeter. But it just isn't enough to get the 18 wheeler to back in. There are some other drivers out there who could pull this off, which can always be dependent on getting the good drivers. And this is the main road coming into the facility. So you have all of the people who are coming to the facility having to make it up that road. So for somebody to be jockeying around in an 18 wheeler could slow things up. It's also part of the perimeter road. So you don't wanna be parking that for a long time.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: Is it up on a hill too? Is it

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: No. This here is would be right next to the existing truck track. So the truck trap would move forward a little bit, forward meaning to the right hand side closer to a two. And so because you wouldn't need the truck that's so tight. But these are the things that we run into. You would think it's easy because there's plenty of grass that you can see there. However, when you see the green note, red note up to the right hand side above what looks like the drive, all utilities are running through there. Of course, they are. The solar are high voltage and that's, you know, in concrete.

[Leonard Traxton, Chief of Operations, Vermont Department of Corrections]: So No less.

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: It's not something you can just easily move five feet to gain. And then when you even if you could, you'd be looking at a shutdown for the correctional facility and shutting them down for any length of time with no power is not a good idea.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: Yep. You're gonna have a lot of problems.

[Troy Headrick, Ranking Member]: Yeah.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: A lot of security problems. You're getting so busy making things up to do it.

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: If you remind me why we're going to wood chips Making a something. There's just not enough staff to operate chunk wood. So we'd go to oil.

[Unknown Committee Member]: Propane, number two fuel oil. Why are we doing this?

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: Wood chips again? Life cycle cost. Wood chips are the lowest.

[Unknown Committee Member]: For operation That includes all this reconstruction of

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: It does not include all the reconstruction. So But but otherwise but when you look at it, it's it's still less expensive than propane and oil. Really? Yes. We I know I don't know for this facility, but I do know here in the Montpelier heat Plant when we looked into that, fuel oil had to be number two, had to be down around a dollar a gallon in order to beat wood chips. I mean, these when you go to wood chip, you're not looking for the high end trees. Right. When you're using you yes. You know, you know, can burn pine. Pop is a hardwood, so it does. We don't want pine. But otherwise, you you know, you can take the section of the tree that you can't use for lumber, and it's either firewood or junk, and that's what gets chipped up. I hate with wood. I just curious with all the still all the rearrangement costs, whether that really is cost effective. Yeah. Good. It is.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: So you're gonna know probably in a month or two, a little bit more. Oops. I'm sorry, Mary.

[Mary A. Morrissey, Member]: Is this project even realistic anymore?

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: Yes. We have not given up yet until we if we can't solve this, yes, then we're going to be looking at something else. But it's still at the point of coming to a revolution that we believe can work.

[Mary A. Morrissey, Member]: And how many years have you been discussing it?

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: We have been discussing it for a while. We haven't gotten to the point, we were doing programming and deciding, which is the best way to go. So during that programming, we investigated, you know, drilling four seventy welded on property for and stuff like that. So that's where we're now at, is getting down, laying it out, going, here are some issues, and resolving it now. I mean, could say that we could put it right there, and it's up to the truck driver to make it work. But just knowing how things go in the future, this is a fifty year plus plan. You know?

[Mary A. Morrissey, Member]: Are we going to see it in our lifetime?

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: Yes. Hope that we resolve this in the next couple of months and they complete the design and get it out to bid for construction. Okay. The next year

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: dealing with this, Mary, when we were on Zoom. I know. I said, okay. Anything else?

[Mary A. Morrissey, Member]: I know where we transition I know, girl. You're from.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: That's all. We're running late. Okay. That's almost now.

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: That's in DCF too?

[Troy Headrick, Ranking Member]: New state of the facility?

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: No, that's DCF. DCF. We'll schedule that one separate Because they're still BGS is still kind of working on RFPs on that one, I want to get a time frame of when you know a little bit better. So let's shift gears. I think you'll see. Kristen, I'll connect further up with you. And you're back in here next week on Supervisory So, the vet's home. I'm sure they've been waiting, unfortunately. Melissa, thank you for being patient. Thank you. Thank you. Right, spreadsheets. Are you moving or are you walking outside? Was

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: not prepared for this, but Melissa's got her slideshow all together to take the lead, I'm just back up.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: Section six, folks. And we can have some updates on the airfield.

[Mary A. Morrissey, Member]: So I know we can tell. Ben or Ben.

[Melissa Jackson, CEO, Vermont Veterans’ Home]: Give me two seconds. I'm trying to get ahold of Greg, who's home, to see if he can join us in case you have specific questions that I can't answer.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: Okay.

[Melissa Jackson, CEO, Vermont Veterans’ Home]: Alright. Would you like me to just start by going through my PowerPoint? We're ready.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: Why don't you get started here?

[Troy Headrick, Ranking Member]: I'm going start

[Melissa Jackson, CEO, Vermont Veterans’ Home]: my PowerPoint starts by providing you an update Melissa,

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: could you identify yourself for the record No, that's fine.

[Melissa Jackson, CEO, Vermont Veterans’ Home]: Melissa Jackson, CEO of the Vermont Veterans Home. With me currently is Steve McLafferty, our Finance Director. And hopefully I will be having Greg Cruzan, our Environmental Services Director, join us. If not, will take any specific technical questions back and we'll get answers for you. So starting with current projects, we have the resident furnishings, which had $230,000 appropriated. We have spent $96,000 We are in the process of ordering wardrobes, which is going to be a substantial purchase. B And C Wing do not have bedrooms with closets, so they have built in wardrobes and dressers. So we need I think it's almost 60 of those. So Greg

[Troy Headrick, Ranking Member]: is in

[Melissa Jackson, CEO, Vermont Veterans’ Home]: the process of ordering those, and that will take up a large chunk of the remaining money that is there.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: Remaining money of how much? Because we're not seeing this in our spreadsheets here. Because this is from previous appropriations.

[Melissa Jackson, CEO, Vermont Veterans’ Home]: It showed up on a letter, Iris C. Hold on. Let me

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: get too many here.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: I just left the Oh, it's refund.

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: That's Email.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: The balance

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: currently is about 133,000, like $1.33 $2.28.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: And that is from what?

[Melissa Jackson, CEO, Vermont Veterans’ Home]: That was money that, I forget from what year, the governor gave us for furniture. It's several years old.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: Several years old. Several Several. Is it good to go back? Some of us remember what happened in the past and some of us got so many moving pieces.

[Troy Headrick, Ranking Member]: Is that the FY23, furnishings and security?

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: Yeah, FY23, 02/30. FY24.

[Melissa Jackson, CEO, Vermont Veterans’ Home]: Yes, that money.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: I have 230,000. That's why 24. That's that money.

[Troy Headrick, Ranking Member]: Just confirmed there's one thirty three left currently.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: Correct. Okay.

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: $1.01 $33.06 $6.02 and 33¢. Yeah.

[Troy Headrick, Ranking Member]: Right. And I'm just gonna monopolize this for a second because this is all repo. Did you just, I was handing stuff to the chairs. Did you talk about how much of that you anticipate going out?

[Melissa Jackson, CEO, Vermont Veterans’ Home]: I don't have the exact dollar figure on the wardrobes, but I will definitely get that to you.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: That was done in FY twenty three. That was done. Is that calendar year? It was in FY24. So, it is up for review on the reallocation. Right. It's up for review. So, when so the 133 will be used. You're ordering the wardrobes right now, and that $1.33 will go towards the wardrobes. Have you gotten a cost estimate on what the work

[Melissa Jackson, CEO, Vermont Veterans’ Home]: I believe Greg does. What I will do is I will find that figure, I will send that to you.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: Okay. Great.

[Melissa Jackson, CEO, Vermont Veterans’ Home]: Then we have our heat pumps, which show up as air compressors on the capital budget. That's the 710,000. We have spent $446,000 thus far. The project is 65% complete. We have hit a little bit of a hiccup. We've installed some units and the past three units we've put in have failed. We have the manufacturer, the manufacturer, the company coming out to look at them next Monday or Tuesday of next week to see what the situation is. Then if they can't determine what the issue is, we will actually have the manufacturer, which is out in Oklahoma, come out and look at the system. Until we figure out why we've had three units in a row fail install, we've kind of put a hold on it. Because up until this point, things have been going along fine, and now we just had had this just strange anomaly.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: So could you go over the number again? Because I I only have the starting figure in front of me. It wasn't in FY24 or '25 that I see.

[Melissa Jackson, CEO, Vermont Veterans’ Home]: Was 7 and $10,000

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: We

[Melissa Jackson, CEO, Vermont Veterans’ Home]: have spent 446,000.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: 476 you've spent $4.04 6. Oh, $4.04 6.

[Leonard Traxton, Chief of Operations, Vermont Department of Corrections]: It's on the second page.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: Yeah. But I wanna know when that okay. When was that 710 appropriated? Oh, that may be

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: cute.

[Troy Headrick, Ranking Member]: That's why 26 bonded.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: Yes. It was? The laundry just?

[Leonard Traxton, Chief of Operations, Vermont Department of Corrections]: For air handlers?

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: It says air handlers. Air handlers. Got it. Yep. Got it.

[Melissa Jackson, CEO, Vermont Veterans’ Home]: Okay. So the next two projects are we're talking about the boiler and the generator. So the boiler project, the RFPs were just scored on January 5, and that's currently in the contracting phase. So no money has been spent on that, but we are moving that project along. The elevator project went out to bid and no one bid on it. So speaking with Sabrina, they're going to be putting that back out to bid very soon. She said the January, which is today. I haven't had a chance to talk to her about how soon that's going to go back out to bid. So and if we don't get any takers, then we're gonna have to talk about what we're going to do because there is an elevator work that needs to be done.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: Right. And we had those monies in the boiler was in FY twenty four, and the elevator upgrade was also in FY24.

[Troy Headrick, Ranking Member]: Feel like we're going refill those two. The elevator, foiling.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: Do we have cash on that? Was there any cash on the elevator? Because you're 1,500,000.0. What I'm seeing on the spreadsheet is just 1,000,000 in bonds. I don't know.

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: Don't

[Troy Headrick, Ranking Member]: I do not see

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: Unless it was a previous

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: I think it was a million 50.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: Elevator. I think that's

[Troy Headrick, Ranking Member]: I do not see cash.

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: It may have Not been on reponed.

[Melissa Jackson, CEO, Vermont Veterans’ Home]: I may have put the wrong number there. I'll go back and look at my notes.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: Yeah. I've got an FY this is an old spreadsheet. This is a spreadsheet from FY twenty four-twenty five. Okay. What I see for elevator upgrade is a million and FY24. Okay. And I don't see any cash. That one was Okay.

[Troy Headrick, Ranking Member]: So now let's start with 1.5 cash in the American unit design.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: That was the A and B, and we reallocated some of that last year. We moved I'm talk about that a little bit.

[Leonard Traxton, Chief of Operations, Vermont Department of Corrections]: Right, right.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: But the elevator itself, we had elevator upgrade in FY24 and FY24. We put in a million in FY24. I don't have FY23. There was

[Troy Headrick, Ranking Member]: I'm not seeing any cash on repo for that.

[Melissa Jackson, CEO, Vermont Veterans’ Home]: And then even my error of typo. I will go back and check my records.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: So I will press okay. So when are you gonna no one bid. So when are you gonna go out again?

[Melissa Jackson, CEO, Vermont Veterans’ Home]: Sabrina said the January, so I will get an exact date from her because it is the January.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: That's today. Yes. It is. '24.

[Troy Headrick, Ranking Member]: It's quite quite literally. Okay. Did you say

[Unknown Committee Member]: you did not have anybody bid? No responses at all? Or they said no bid because?

[Melissa Jackson, CEO, Vermont Veterans’ Home]: Sabrina said we had no responses at all.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: Great. Yeah. But that's usually the term when there's no bids it means there's no responses. That's the world of PGS. If they say that they submitted RFP and there were no bids, that means no response.

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: But Bennington now is very difficult to contractors for us. Yeah, right.

[Unknown Committee Member]: I understand. In my world, when we receive no bids from contractors, they said no bid because. So that's why I'm asking. So we physically didn't get any responses.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: Okay. Here we go. Our favorite, washer and dryers.

[Melissa Jackson, CEO, Vermont Veterans’ Home]: So washer and dryers have been installed. They're working wonderful. The staff love them. One So 150,000 towards them. We spent $96,500 We haven't spent anything on the laundry room yet. The design RFP supposed to go out. I haven't followed up with Sabrina to get the exact date, but I do know that the design is going out very, very soon. So I will get you that date as well. But they love their washers and dryers. So they

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: said Great.

[Melissa Jackson, CEO, Vermont Veterans’ Home]: Remind thank you very, very much.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: Now if we can only take care of that ramp.

[Melissa Jackson, CEO, Vermont Veterans’ Home]: Don't you guys love that ramp?

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: Yeah. Okay.

[Melissa Jackson, CEO, Vermont Veterans’ Home]: So let's talk about the A Wing design. So the A Wing design is done. And as when you guys were here, we talked about how expensive that project is. So costs are going up. And one of the conversations I wanna have with Sabrina, also I'm going to be in DC next week, I want to have with the VA is how much give does the VA have in terms of increasing as costs go up? Normally it's 10%, and that's 10% of just the construction cost. So if you're looking at a grant project that's about $49,000,000 the 65% that they would pay would be 31,800,000.0. So they would give us $3,100,000 in overruns. The state would be responsible for the 35%, which would be 17,200,000.0. So if we do a new cost estimate and it's way off, then we'd have a discussion of, do we pull the grant back, reapply? Greg and I had some initial conversations yesterday about what parts of that project we could potentially remove. Sitting down and having some really detailed conversations with Sabrina and the architect, there are some really nice things in that design that we don't necessarily need. So those conversations need to be had before we come to you and ask for bonding money.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: We have 1,500,000 here. That is that's my head straight here. It's cash from last year. So I just wanna reorient orient myself. When we took the tour, that was the empty wing? Yes. And that would be used for, was that gonna be used for like a dementia memory?

[Melissa Jackson, CEO, Vermont Veterans’ Home]: For memory care. Yeah. And I do know that there's a lot of nursing homes closing in the state. I had a conversation with Dale asking about our availability to take veterans from nursing homes that are closing. Obviously with this wing offline, can't take any other veterans right now.

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: Rushing.

[Melissa Jackson, CEO, Vermont Veterans’ Home]: But I wanna make

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: off what went offline that you can't take any veterans right now?

[Melissa Jackson, CEO, Vermont Veterans’ Home]: So Actually, tied in to It some way over it's the sewer pipes in some of those rooms.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: Okay.

[Melissa Jackson, CEO, Vermont Veterans’ Home]: Yeah. As I explained to Dale, my concern is, we do have there's an isolated in a few rooms, but if you have residents over there and other pipes start to fail, where are you going to put residents if are full? Of course, anything that happens at the vet's home makes news all over the place. The last thing I want to do is place residents in an area where I already know has life safety problems. I can just see it now on the front page of the banner that we readmitted residents to an area that we know had problems and now we have residents living in an area where there's sewage issues. It's just not good. Yep.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: So when are you gonna know, you're headed down to talk to the VA. When are you gonna have some idea on what's gonna happen here with the funding? So

[Melissa Jackson, CEO, Vermont Veterans’ Home]: So I will talk to them, and I'll be back late Friday. I'm gonna email Sabrina when we're done here and see what her availability is so we could talk. So hopefully, next couple weeks, we'll have a good idea of what the situation is.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: You'll know by the February.

[Melissa Jackson, CEO, Vermont Veterans’ Home]: Yes. Then talk about, obviously, Sabrina has a better understanding of what the capital needs of the state are and where we fit in and all of that. Understanding that there's a whole lot of pressure on your budget for various reasons.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: That's why I always ask for timeframes so that when the committee, we're going to be doing markup beginning about February, February 20, we're start markup. And

[Melissa Jackson, CEO, Vermont Veterans’ Home]: then we have basically an emergency request for our sewer pipe. This is our beautiful sewer pipe under B And C Wing. When you guys came in the front door, this was the area off to the right of our building. This was just a beautiful, beautiful mess. This is cast iron piping. A lot of our building is cast iron piping. If memory serves me correctly, it's orange pipe. It's old. It's starting to corrode. This section of pipe had to be cut open, cleaned out, and put back together. The cost of this is very, very expensive. It would behoove us to mitigate this problem by replacing 7,800 feet of linear cast iron pipe with PVC pipe. One of the reasons the cost estimate is so high is not all of the pipe is easy to access. As Greg was explaining to Senate institutions, some of this stuff has had geothermal stuff built over it and it's not easy to access. What we're trying to do is get ahead of a major catastrophe and coming to you with an extreme emergency replacement bill. But if you have very specific technical questions, can take those back to Greg.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: What is the half million going to get to? Is it going to complete the complete project?

[Melissa Jackson, CEO, Vermont Veterans’ Home]: We initially had asked for 7 and $50,000 and we were surprised that it was at $500,000 but so it would do the vast majority of the project, the half 1,000,000.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: So just for the committee to understand the process, you asked for $750,000 when you submitted your request to the governor's office, you asked for $750,000 to be included in governor's capital budget. And what they put in was $500,000

[Melissa Jackson, CEO, Vermont Veterans’ Home]: We would prioritize those areas that are the biggest need. And that is our memory care units, mainly because with memory care people inadvertently flush things they should not. That's where this picture comes from, people flushing things that they shouldn't, and that's the area that's most at risk.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: So the thinking is at least you could get the, I would assume the thinking is you could get the bulk of the project done with half 1,000,000 and then come next fiscal year, we true up. Yes. Mhmm. For the $2.50. Yes.

[Mary A. Morrissey, Member]: Also, come up as well.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: Yeah. They would be able to get the project going. Mhmm. When when would you anticipate doing the project?

[Melissa Jackson, CEO, Vermont Veterans’ Home]: I'd have to ask Greg how soon

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: we Would could get it it be this summer or was it gonna be more towards October?

[Melissa Jackson, CEO, Vermont Veterans’ Home]: Probably, my best guess would probably be more towards October, but I will verify that with him and let you know.

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: Agent direction, doctor.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: We done with this one before we change direction? When are you planning on going out to bid?

[Melissa Jackson, CEO, Vermont Veterans’ Home]: I think it was As soon as we have we know we have the funding.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: Right. You can't go out to bid till you have the funding. But you won't have the funds probably June.

[Melissa Jackson, CEO, Vermont Veterans’ Home]: So we can get that RFP written. The minute we know we have the funding, we can have it ready to roll.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: Anything else?

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: We're still talking about 30 beds, right, for that area?

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: Yep. And

[Leonard Traxton, Chief of Operations, Vermont Department of Corrections]: I just want to say that's 1,633,000.000 per bed.

[Melissa Jackson, CEO, Vermont Veterans’ Home]: That is correct.

[Leonard Traxton, Chief of Operations, Vermont Department of Corrections]: I just wanna state

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: that. Thanks.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: Is there any federal dollars that could come for this?

[Troy Headrick, Ranking Member]: Oh, it is?

[Melissa Jackson, CEO, Vermont Veterans’ Home]: Yeah. That's the

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: $30.32.831 800,000.0.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: No. You're talking the wing. I'm talking the sewer pipe.

[Melissa Jackson, CEO, Vermont Veterans’ Home]: Oh, yes. I could apply. Definitely. Because any project over $400,000 I can apply for federal, VA funding. So as I've been telling everyone, there is $2,000,000,000 with a B dollars worth of projects on that list. Our boiler project is on that list. The problem is last year the VA only received $185,000,000 so I don't know when the project will get funded, but as I did with our mold project in the past, when the money arrives, of course, it would come right back to the state. I always apply for any project that meets the threshold. I just don't know when the federal funds will arrive.

[Mary A. Morrissey, Member]: Melissa, will Gregoire be able to answer these questions? Is he homesick or what?

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: Yes, he's homesick.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: I can We'll be doing markup, Melissa. We'll be doing when we go start moving money around. We'll be doing that February.

[Melissa Jackson, CEO, Vermont Veterans’ Home]: Okay.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: As I said, by then you will have already visited with the A. We'll have some correction in terms of the A wing that might help know a little bit. May end up giving us some flexibility or may not. We'll have more information. And then we can do a little more digging into the finances and the moving pieces with Greg. Yes. Okay. Anything else on this before we shift gears to repo? Troy?

[Troy Headrick, Ranking Member]: The one remaining item on the letter that we sent you also from FY24, it has got 4,500,000 on the emergency generator. But I don't think you made a comment on that unless I

[Melissa Jackson, CEO, Vermont Veterans’ Home]: The emergency generator is with the boiler project, I believe. So, I will have Steve, not Steve, not you Steve, Greg follow-up because what they were investigating is, and I'll find out where the status is, is for almost the same amount of money as replacing the one generator that needs to be replaced as we can replace the facility with a whole house generator, and I will find out where he is in the process of that.

[Troy Headrick, Ranking Member]: So would that 4.5 be used then for the whole house?

[Melissa Jackson, CEO, Vermont Veterans’ Home]: Yes.

[Troy Headrick, Ranking Member]: Okay.

[Melissa Jackson, CEO, Vermont Veterans’ Home]: Yeah. It was a combination of the boiler, boiler print and the generator would be encompassed within that whole 4,500,000.0.

[Troy Headrick, Ranking Member]: Thank you.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: You're welcome. Anything else? Well, I'm sure Melissa will be back in contact.

[Melissa Jackson, CEO, Vermont Veterans’ Home]: That's right.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: But I can tell you, it gives us, at least for me, and I think there's so many committee members too, for us to have taken that tour in the fall. The big was a big help to us to really understand your requests that are before us and your previous requests. It really gives us a point of reference. And I really, really appreciate that day our lunch

[Melissa Jackson, CEO, Vermont Veterans’ Home]: that It you

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: was a very, very helpful day. I really appreciate it. I think the committee does as well.

[Melissa Jackson, CEO, Vermont Veterans’ Home]: Great, we're glad to have you.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: Anything else before we break for lunch? No. Thank you, Melissa. Thank you, Steven.

[Mary A. Morrissey, Member]: Hi, Steve. We'll be back in touch,

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: I'm And be back in touch with us when you have a little bit more information.

[Melissa Jackson, CEO, Vermont Veterans’ Home]: I will. Thank you for your time.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: Thank you. Thank you. Bye. Okay. So for the committee, we're gonna need a little bit more after lunch. What is

[Leonard Traxton, Chief of Operations, Vermont Department of Corrections]: You are?

[Mary A. Morrissey, Member]: What's his name out there, the last screen you talked to them? Greg.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: Thank you, Joe.

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: Welcome. Thank you for all.

[Mary A. Morrissey, Member]: Oops, I kept on telling you the sweetest talk is not

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: his hands. We take a lunch at 12:30 and be done?

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: Oh, lunchtime.

[Troy Headrick, Ranking Member]: I get yep. Gina's yelling

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: right up.

[Leonard Traxton, Chief of Operations, Vermont Department of Corrections]: We can go until 12:30 and speak up. We just think that's what she said.

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: Like, roll through and then be done

[Troy Headrick, Ranking Member]: in in a half hour?

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: Be done at 12:30. Yeah. That's fine. It's too

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: late. Is it okay if I

[Leonard Traxton, Chief of Operations, Vermont Department of Corrections]: eat my peanut butter sandwich?

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: Go ahead. Excellent.

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: But she's not Oh, we're gonna be better

[Troy Headrick, Ranking Member]: at 12:30.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: Do wanna wait on, know, by the time he

[Joe Luneau, Director of Design & Construction, Dept. of Buildings & General Services]: gets up?

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: He's. Wait. What?

[Troy Headrick, Ranking Member]: I'm gonna give myself a glass of water. Yeah. I was just saying we got a few minutes. Cancel it.

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: Recently. We're on the committee. Hello? Morning. He's got my I will probably

[Mary A. Morrissey, Member]: use this. We've got a little

[Alice M. Emmons, Chair]: bit of reading on this. It wasn't even mentioned. The CS and commitment.