Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: How much

[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: money do you bring me, Lillian?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Okay, welcome folks. This is House Corrections and Institutions Committee. It's Tuesday, February 10. It's our 01:00 meeting. And we are starting the week with hearing from BGS in terms of their general fund budget request. We are the committee that works with BGS and our House Appropriations Committee has asked us to weigh in on the proposed FY twenty seven general fund budget. And as you're well aware, appropriations has sort of got a different focus in terms of looking at the governor's budget. They sent out a memo to all the agencies and departments back in the fall, trying to get a better grasp of all their moving pieces, and not just looking at in terms of what's going up or what's going down, trying to get a real feel for the delivery of services to providers. So that will be our focus in our questioning. Effective are the programs? What could change to make them better? Or are there some programs that we should get rid of that aren't functioning or producing outcomes that we would like? So Deputy Commissioner, come on up.

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: Emily, welcome. And if you could identify yourself for the record. Good afternoon. I'm Nikki Sickey, Deputy Commissioner of Buildings and General Services. For the record, flying solo today, I will do my best. And if I don't know something, I will have to follow-up. And I wanted to introduce Steph Fuller here with us today. She is our new financial director. So she is new to that role here in BGS, but she is not new to BGS. I think she's How long have you been? Twenty five. Twenty five years. She's been at financial services division within A. O. A. Up until she came home to VGS recently. But she knows VGS the back of

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: her hand. Good. Been there for a while.

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: So we're really excited to have her in this role and help us be strategic with our budget.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So Emily, if there is this document, it's going to pull it up.

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: And we'll just run through it. A lot of this won't be new to you. We put this presentation together geared towards the Appropriations Committee, so we're less familiar with BGS. So we might not need to spend as much time on some of it. But just to highlight our mission, vision, and values. And really, I just summarize it as our mission is to provide space and general services that support state government. It's more than mowing lawns. It is much more than Because a lot

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: of people still call you buildings and grounds.

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: Yes, yes, they do. But as you'll see in this presentation, and as many of you already know, we do a lot more than mowing lawns and custodial, although that is very important.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So BGS is really the hub of state government in terms of the ability of our state employees and state government to deliver services to Vermont. If we didn't have BGS, there would be no function of state government, basically. That's one of

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: our I think it might be our motto is serving those who serve Vermont. We're really in that on the ground service level, how do we help agencies and departments do their work? And then also extends to all visitors and Vermonters who are using state government, who access our facilities, all of the above.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So I'm wondering before you get into the specifics here, could you just give some examples in terms of what BGS does provide for our workforce as well as for homeowners?

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: I mean, sure. Our core functions go from general maintenance of our buildings, property management. So in lease space, we help take care of the leases and make sure that landlords are providing services under the lease that will give a healthy working environment to state workers. We are responsible for state security services, and that provides protection to state employees and also visitors to our facilities. And we do environmental health and safety work, making sure that our buildings are safe. We work closely with WOSA, that the environment is healthy. There are no contaminants or mold, for example. And if there is, how do we remediate that? We operate the fleet and provide savings and efficiencies to state government in managing the fleet program. And I could go on and some of it's detailed, but those are just some examples. But when I think about it globally, it's again, providing services and trying to provide excellent customer service to state government, but also all over by providing efficiency, cost savings across the board. That is our mission to provide good service in an efficient and effective way that hopefully in the long run will provide safe working environment for state government and for point

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: of cost effective. So I think many members of the community just think you operate the buildings, but it's a lot deeper than just the buildings. Yes. You also have risk management. And do you still have that? Because you had that for a while. We did. That's moved over to AOA Central.

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: But we work very closely. Risk management. We do work very closely with them because a lot of times events are things that we become aware of. And we report that today by risk management.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So it's much more than just providing a building for our workforce. I just want to put that on the table.

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: And that's I mean, one example, too, is Office of Purchasing and Contracting. That's under BGS. That is not a building related function, but it is a critical function for state government. So every product that is purchased like, could be paper, be

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: anything that's used in state office building, all the cleaning supplies, all of that. But also, you also deal with purchasing of furniture for state office buildings or if a department's going out to bid. It would be BGS is involved in that. Now if they go out to bid for a service, are you involved in that? Or is it just more concrete things that they are purchasing that they would go

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: out to bid on? It can depend. So generally, construction, depends how you think about it, but that would flow through us. Some services will flow through us, commodities. And it really, again, it can range from, like you said, paper office supplies up to salt contracts, for example. And many of our contracts are also available to municipalities to access. And again, the goal is to provide cost savings in our procurement process. And you also ground the surplus property too. So when an office is being transferred or the furniture is kind of being replaced, the furniture goes to surplus property for municipalities or for monitors or nonprofits to have access to it. Yes. We have a state surplus program as well as a small federal surplus program where we work with the federal government to dispose of federal surplus as well. Kevin?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: On the old chart,

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: is there literally an individual for each one of those functions, or are some of those combined under an individual?

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: Some of those most of them combined. So commissioner, deputy commissioner, legal counsel, financial director, and policy and legislative affairs are all one person, some of whom are here in the room. But then all of the rest are led by one person with multiple people under them. And some of them are quite large groups, as we'll get into in more detail. Okay, thanks. How many thinks that BGS takes care of all of this? Right. And so that's, I love looking at this org chart and just seeing, again, the scope of what we do. It is never dull. It's something different every day. But again, so we have the commissioner's office, which isn't a division, but we view ourselves as unit that is sitting at the top and helps guide the work of our six divisions beneath the planning, property management, design and construction, just led by Joe Luneau, you know well, safety and security, government business services, which has those subunits below it, and BICD, property center, fleet management services, postal services, surplus property, operations and maintenance, which is the largest division. It makes up about two thirds of our employee count, and then opposite purchasing and contract. So it is quite a variety.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: Emily, do those do all six of those people it's only because I don't know their names. Do they come and speak to us here? I know Joe does, but does operations and maintenance

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: He doesn't come in as often. John Heber is the director. He's a long time BGS employee. There have been times, I think, that he's come in.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: Yeah. Was just wondering if they all come to but is that coming to us, like money wise?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: No. This is all general fund.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Gotcha. This is

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: not the capital bill.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: Okay.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: This is the big bill.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Okay.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Where what I said at the beginning.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: I know.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: House Appropriations Committee go to the policy committees. They have oversight of their departments or agencies for the policy committee to weigh into our appropriations committee on their general fund budget request.

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: But John Hubert sometimes interacts capital build projects. As the director of operations and maintenance, in a previous testimony, I think it was last week when we walked through our major maintenance process, the managers in John's division identify those maintenance needs in their individual districts, which then flow through our major maintenance sort of priority list. So, and I mean, safety and security, I know director Bill Metzels, he was in last year to talk about his program. So some of the other directors, again, you don't see as much as Joe, but they can and do come.

[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: Thanks.

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: Next slide. I won't read them all, but really, this budget supports our key areas of focus. And these are, I think, by our division, some of our key functions and goals that we work on in the year. So that's, at a high level, these are our focuses, and this is what the budget supports. Next slide, our funding sources. I think the DGS budget is complex. It is made up of primarily internal services funds that is largely the fee for space program. So that is what agencies and departments as tenants of state owned space pay for their space to cover our costs and maintaining that space.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So that fee for space comes out of all departments and agencies and state government, and that comes out of the general fund? It comes out

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: of the general fund, except if an agency or department is in leased space, then it will go to the property management fund.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And it's out of that lease payment that that department or agency is making.

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: Yes. So BGS will, for leases, will actually pay it directly and reimburse. So again, commissioner's office in six divisions, we have three forty eight employees full time equivalents. As of our last count, we had 22 vacancies in various states of hiring. Overall, there's a 5.5% increase over the 2026 budget. And we'll walk into the individual divisions and where you're seeing the ups and downs.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: What are some of the pressure points that maybe you'll get into this? What are some of the pressure points that you're seeing in these certain categories?

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: So for the most part, increases are being driven by employee steps, insurance costs, COLAs. I mean, that is generally what you're going to see. There are a few other areas where there are pressure points or things that we're watching. Some of that in primarily in the fee for space program, like we're really Commissioner Manoli and I working with staff and then our partners at AOA have really been taking a close look at that and making sure that we're keeping that cost as nimble as possible for the other agencies and departments who are paying into that. And we're seeing pressure in some areas by utility costs just increasing. And we don't have a lot of wiggle room in how to manage that. But that is more expensive. Building maintenance is just more expensive in general. And that's where we're seeing some increases. So a service call that might have cost less a couple

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: of years ago is now costing what it costs. And we don't always have a choice on whether we do it. So the costs increase, which means spending will need to increase because the cost is increasing. Kevin?

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Sure, all 22 vacancies are important. Are any of those such a significant bottleneck that it's important for us to understand? You've got a vacancy that you just can't fill, it's critical, and it's hurting some kind of function.

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: We actually ran into that and hopefully have a good solution for it now recently, where we were having a really, really hard time filling our skilled trades positions. So master plumber, master electrician, HVAC specialists. And we ended up going for a market factor adjustment, which is process through the Department of Human Resources and the Secretary of Administration. It's quite a lengthy business case that you have to put together to explain why you're having such a hard time filling those positions and how we're not competitive with the private market for those skilled positions that require special credentials. And then there's an adjustment applied to that salary that makes it a bit more competitive. And fortunately, we have been able to fill, I think it's two of those positions since we've done that. And we're hopeful that we'll see more of that. But that's an example of where we've really been struggling.

[Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: What did you call the

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: process again? Market factor adjustment. Joe?

[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: Are there ongoing analyses of things that are performed by some of these FTEs that could be sublet out? Like, for example, are we looking at how much it costs to mow the lawn with staff versus subletting it out on on some kind of regular basis?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: That is

[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: Can I just use that as an obvious Yeah? Example?

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: That is something that we do look at and assess, and there are areas where we do contract out. And one example of that that we can talk about in more detail is security services. So we do have uniformed security officers, mostly concentrated here in Montpelier, but they do go other places. But in some more remote locations where there needs to be a security presence, oftentimes with human services offices, we will contract out. Our primary contractor is Securitas. And so I think there can be a tipping point of where it might make sense to have state employee in that spot. And that's an area where we can look at, I think, more closely of where we can contract out, where we can do it ourselves, and what's most cost efficient. But all that to say, yes, that is something we do assess.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: Sure. Any reductions in forces, budget level? No.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So of those 22 vacancies, how many of those would be within your architectural part of the department for getting ready for some of our projects that we've capital built? Or are they more trades folks in terms of plumbers, carpenters?

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: I mean, it's across the board. I know just off the top of my head, and I'd have to pull the list up to speak with absolute specificity. But I know, for example, we have openings in postal unit that we're currently trying to hire for. I think we have some security openings as well. In terms of design and construction under Joe Ageup, we recently filled two project manager positions that we're excited because those two were actually quite difficult to fill. Those are working on energy related projects. There is a program chief position that's open and has been for quite a while. And that's the only one I can think of off the top of my head in designing

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: construction. Yeah.

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: On transportation, looked through to see if it was answered, but I'm just curious, and I should know, what kind of projects do you get money from transportation platform?

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: That is for the information centers. We operate the welcome centers and information centers along the highway. Really proud of that program. And that's in coordination with transportation.

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: In other words, it is answered in there because it sort of said, and I was like, had a brain cramp.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I was like, what's an information center?

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Yeah, I call them restaurants.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I used to build them way back because the T fund didn't have the capacity to do it. So we picked that up in the capital bill and now it's gone back. But we do operate. So if you stop at one of the rest areas, those are BGS employees who are there, and we do maintain the building. Correct? Yes.

[Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: Many terminals are still open? Because there's been some.

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: There is one that's been down since the twenty twenty three floods. So the Montpelier Visitor Center is still closed. I can't think of any others that have

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: been closed recently. I on think about fifteen years ago, closed on mysterious. That

[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: was thirty days ago.

[Stephanie Fuller (Financial Director, BGS)]: Thirty?

[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: I got off the committee.

[Stephanie Fuller (Financial Director, BGS)]: No, it wasn't. I was here, so no, it wasn't. Oh,

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: twenty years ago.

[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: It's a big one, thirties. They tried to close Georgia. Well, Dean was still the governor.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Georgia is in the

[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: southbound and

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: northbound. I'm feeling the two of you will debate this later.

[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: The answer is probably false, though.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So BGS has their little tentacles out there all over the place, which people don't realize. They just think it's putting up bricks and concrete and mowing a lawn. And I don't think when COVID hit, when COVID hit and everything was closing down and everything was going remotely, BGS was in the thick of all of that. Even though the buildings were being closed, you still were working in terms of how do you provide governmental

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: services to homeowners while everything is shut down. Yes. And I wish we had included it in this presentation, but one of my favorite documents that we have is a map. It's really for our O and M districts. And it just shows all of the facilities in the state that we provide services to. And you can see, we're not just here in Montpelier or Waterbury. Our operations are truly statewide, and that's why we have that district approach with operations and maintenance. But it really is spread out, and even one in Massachusetts, for the biggie. The biggie. It is really statewide. And I think that's a goal that Commissioner Manoli and I talked about, is wanting to get on the road more to visit staff all across the state.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Brings her back to the days of school construction when she was operating that program.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: One more I know. Human relations, HR, is that sprinkled throughout these or is that separate from your?

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: It's separate. So that's under the Department of Human Resources, which is within the agency administration. But it is a separate

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: department. The

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: way we functioned, I've been tagged with most of our HR functions. So I am learning a lot about that. And we have some partners that work closely with us. I have a weekly standing meeting with HR where we go over issues, high level things. And we appreciate their partnership. They work well with us. But we don't have a dedicated Okay. Person in So commissioner's office, this, again, is a small group of us, six FTEs. There's a small decrease over the FY 2026 budget. And that is really due to shifting how we pay for one employee out of the commissioner's office budget. And that is a former BGS employee of principal assistant who's currently working for the chief robbery office.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I was going to say, is that Eric?

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: Yes. Yeah. So he is still in the commissioner's office and part of our budget, but we're shifting the way that his salary is paid. Part of it is coming from design and construction since he really is working on

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: building recovery issues. So is his salary being pushed to more the agency of administration, or is it still coming through BGS?

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: There's a share. The BGS share of it is, there's a decrease in the commissioner's office budget because we're shifting it over to design and construction.

[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: I made the slide before that, which just showed your global BGS budget. Does it increase a little over 5% from 60,300,000.0 to 63.587? What what what's the primary cost driver or two there? It's an additional lease space?

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: No. It is Fola's steps

[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: yeah. Five and a half percent is a Yeah.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: I think that's I'm sorry. Keep that at least.

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: No, it's Okay. This is just a breakout for the commissioner's office. We have breakouts for all of the divisions. And again, the drivers are generally steps, full as insurance increase, and then some operating cost increases.

[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: Thank you. Sorry about that.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: No. It sounds like your costs have gone up. Yeah.

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: Okay. And so the commissioner's office, again, we view our role as to support all of our divisions, to guide them strategically, and to really oversee the department, our budget, and our people. Design and construction, this is probably the group that you're most familiar with. This is led by Joe. We are lucky to have him. The overall budget is $5,200,000 in the governor's recommend, which is a 6.5% increase driven by insurance steps and POLAs. There are 26 full time equivalents in this division. And generally, they're responsible for designing, planning, and constructing, and renovating new and existing state owned space. They also assist other agencies departments that have jurisdiction over their own infrastructure. And then you'll see for each of the slides, include some performance measures that the respective divisions are focusing on.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Last question, COLAs. Is it multiple cost of livings or is that one percentage that is applied to It's one. 1%.

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: And that is not a process that BGS controls.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Yeah. Do you happen to know when it was? Or is? It was two and a

[Stephanie Fuller (Financial Director, BGS)]: half last year, I think this coming year, two in July, two in January, and

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: two in July, the fall in July, three

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: in fall. About a little over two each year.

[Stephanie Fuller (Financial Director, BGS)]: Well, coming year. It's gonna be three. Well, two in '20, one in '26, or July '26, which is '27. One in January, and then one in July.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So there's three separate times that PROLOs are put forward.

[Stephanie Fuller (Financial Director, BGS)]: It's coming, yep, in '27 and '28.

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: And that's not always the case, No. That's being staggered this year.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: And salaries are adjusted three times a year? No, I'm not understanding.

[Stephanie Fuller (Financial Director, BGS)]: We'll get an adjustment in July and then an adjustment in January '27 and then an adjustment in July '27.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: So

[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: that's what was bargained?

[Stephanie Fuller (Financial Director, BGS)]: And I think

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: the total is 7% over the two year contract. And I'm going back to Joe's question. Is that what was the bargain with the state employees in the contract? So how does that play out in the pay act? I do not know. How does that play

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: out in

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: the pay act? Will the pay act be negotiated be passed this year? Isn't the pay act on the second year of biennium?

[Conor Casey (Member)]: Yeah. Should be. It should be. Yeah. If they're they just finished negotiating recently, that option.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Now are any of the COLAs are they federal COLAs as well that you're impacted with? Or is it just what was negotiated with the state employee contract? I believe it's just the state employee contract. And what are you seeing as increase in insurance? Is it insurance of buildings? Is it health insurance? Is it workers' comp? What are

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: you seeing? For this, it's health insurance and then just benefits that state employees have available to them. Health insurance costs are rising generally. And so again, that is something that just is a cost driver.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So the recommended budget of the 5,200,000.0 that just goes to your design and construction depart division for engineering. Is some of that for your architectural and engineering? My line item. So we use the fund, goes back and forth between the big bill and the capital bill in terms of which pot picks up your architectural and engineering costs. They were affiliated with our capital projects. And it runs about 3.8. Now it's probably about 4,000,000. Is that included in that 5,200,000.0?

[Stephanie Fuller (Financial Director, BGS)]: It is. And that's their operating budget on this other side.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So

[Stephanie Fuller (Financial Director, BGS)]: this side is their operating budget.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: That does not include their salary. And if it's the next slide, it's how they pay. And that's their salaries and benefits. So that would be their wait a minute, say that again. So they're two different Okay.

[Stephanie Fuller (Financial Director, BGS)]: Yeah, this one's their salaries and benefits where we track their projects It comes out of the general fund.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So it was 3,900,000.0.

[Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: What do you need for her

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: to say? Yes. Can you just identify yourself for the record?

[Stephanie Fuller (Financial Director, BGS)]: Stephanie Fuller? So

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: for the committee, there is a cost that's associated with our capital projects. There is in house architectural and engineering that's done for some of these projects. We don't contract out for some of them. There is a cost cost to that, which is the $3.93989000.000. We used to when the general fund gets really tight, we and the capital bill have picked up that amount. And then a few years back, we said, we don't wanna keep bonding for this. We want this to go back to the general fund.

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: So

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: that freed up 3,900,000.0 of bonding capacity in our world by shifting it back to the general. So of the 5,200,000.0, 3.9 of that is for the capital projects, architectural and engineering costs. Got it. Kevin and then Shawn.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: I don't want to sound like I'm playing gotcha. I just don't understand how there can be a 6.5 increase with budget year, and yet COLA itself is around seven. And you got increase in insurance and other costs. I don't understand how that formula works. I'm looking further on, and I'm seeing 3.8 increase, 3% increase, 5.4. It's all less than what COLA is. And we're not reducing We

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: can't budget the COLAs. Sorry?

[Stephanie Fuller (Financial Director, BGS)]: We can't budget the COLAs. They're not budgeted.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: So the COLAs are not included in the numbers we're looking at?

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: So first, COLAs don't apply to the entire pie here. There's multiple costs built into each individual division's budget. Salary, COLA is a part of that, but it wouldn't be an apples to apples. So it is part of the increase, but it's not going to represent, like you're not going to see a 7%, for example,

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: to a 7%. On top of everything, I understand that applies to the

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: salaries. And so like here, there's 26 FTEs. They each get a COLA, which will equate to 3% over a year. Or if we're talking for this budget year, it's 2%. So for those FTEs, it's 2% that we're budgeting for this year.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: I misunderstood. I was hearing that there's two or three COLAs within a year adding up to about 7%. And when I'm seeing a total increase of 6.5, and that doesn't even account for the insurance and other increases. It just didn't

[Stephanie Fuller (Financial Director, BGS)]: Yeah, the next COLAs will be over two fiscal years based on when they get settled.

[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: Thank you.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: So when you took over when so I just wanna get this. I'm trying to wrap my head around this. So when you were

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: Paying the 3.9

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Yeah. On the street.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: With general funds. Right?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: We were paying it was general, but general fund got really tight. We were in a deficit situation. And so that amount of money for architects and engineering for related to capital projects Mhmm. That shifted over to the capital bill to pick up.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: Got it. But that's not best practices because you're really bonding for for for payroll. Mhmm. And that's what you don't wanna do. Correct. Okay. Just long term. That's I'm just trying to

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And it was done for probably six years.

[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: So that's a long time.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It was at least six years. Alright. We kept pushing back, and then gradually over time, the money then went back to the general fund.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: Okay. Got it. Makes sense. Just clarity.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So that happens quite often in this building. If one fund is really having trouble, like the T fund sometimes, we've ended up picking up things that could be be bonded dollar eligible. Can't be operating, but could be eligible for bonded dollars. We've done that with the t t fund before. We used to build salt sheds because they were under a lot of pressure, we used to build the salt sheds. We did some clean water initiatives with Better Back Roads. We've done that in the past. And with appropriations, our general fund has been in a deficit and they've looked to us to help, we've done that. And vice versa, sometimes we've looked at the general fund to help us in the past. If the general fund was flush, they would help us. And in fact, when we built the last correctional facility, that was all done with cash. There was no bonded dollars for that. When we did a large tech center, expanded that, that was 14,000,000. Done at the same time, we're building a correctional facility for 24,000,000. That was all done with cash because we we didn't have the bonding capacity, the general fund was flushed. So those are how we operate in the building and adjusting our budget.

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: Moving on to information centers. We talked about this a little bit at the top. I really love to champion this program that we have. They are designed to provide the traveling public with safety breaks, shelter from adverse weather conditions, clean, well maintained facilities, travel ambassadors who staff the centers, free coffee, which is a popular feature of those centers, but by donation, and free wireless Internet access. But we also have a marketing mission that I think the centers do really well at. They partner with local businesses and artisans at each location and do really phenomenal displays to highlight some of the businesses in the local communities. And then they also have advertising and brochure program, again, designed to encourage people who are stopping by an information center on their travels to go out and see what Vermont has to offer. And we do accounts of visitors and you'll see there's millions of visitors who visit our centers each year, which is great. There are 28 FTEs. There are also agreements that we have with five chamber of commerce for some of the centers. So for those five centers, the chambers provide the staffing under contract with us. They really just stand in the shoes of the state employees in those locations and do a great job at that. So the cost drivers that we're seeing for this program, the governors recommend being about $5,900,000 with a 3.8% increase. The drivers being, again, insurance steps at COLA, as well as an increase in the cost of those contracted services with the chambers at those locations. And like we touched on earlier, we are down a center currently with Montpelier. The location was flooded. We don't currently have a plan for what we're going to do to replace that.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: Are the investors paid at these places?

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Yes, they are.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yes, they're state employees.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: Okay, I didn't realize that.

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: Okay, the 28 FTEs in our employee staffed locations are our state employees. And then the ones that the chamber staff, they are employed through those chambers.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: But they are all paid. And we do the maintenance. Yes. So then it's What

[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: does the operational tasks look like for those that are contracted out with chambers versus those that BGS runs directly? Are they

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Is it more cost effective than us running them directly? It's not what you're

[Stephanie Fuller (Financial Director, BGS)]: It's a.

[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: That's in the next page. It's a question.

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: No, I'm sorry. Steph was just telling me which line item to look at. No, we'll have to follow-up, I think, with the breakout. I mean, I'll just say, I haven't directly done an analysis on cost effectiveness of contracting out with chambers versus the ones that we run directly, I will say, do a phenomenal job. But I haven't done a comparison. We can follow-up.

[Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: Has there ever been any comparison done at all?

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: I don't know. There may be that I'm not aware of.

[Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: Because I know ours is run by the chamber in Bennington. I would be very interested to see what the difference is. They do do a phenomenal job, but it would be good to compare.

[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: And with my pillier done, how many are we operating right now?

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: 15. 14. We have 15 total, but only 14 operational right now.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And how many of those are contracted out? Five, six?

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: Two of them most and are phenomenal. They were built and designed beautifully. Feel like they're essential.

[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: You just go there for the coffee, Shawn? Yeah.

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: In the bathroom. Every once in a while.

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: I recently visited Bennington as part of the Governor's Coffee Day. Our last one was down in Bennington. And then I got to talk to some of the chamber staff who were phenomenal. It's a great facility. I don't like to play favorites, but I always stop by Guilford. My parents live in Western Massachusetts. And on my way back, I stopped by, and I'm visiting that facility. Is that one contracted out or is that That state. So which one's the contract? Did you get

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Bennington? Bennington? Williston.

[Stephanie Fuller (Financial Director, BGS)]: Winston North And South, Georgia South, and Albert. What

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: was the other one? North?

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: Albert? No. Right. Three before that.

[Stephanie Fuller (Financial Director, BGS)]: Got Yeah. Williston North And South, Bennington.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: Williston North And South has trucks and cars in it all the time, time of day, you know, so they're they're definitely they're they're they're used.

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: Subtly. Yes.

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Very convenient. Yeah. Well built organization.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Anything else on this? The

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: next, postal services. The Postal Center provides state and local entities with access to postal and courier services within state government. It provides very Montpellier and Waterbury complexes with mail and parcel security screening and delivery tracking to promote a safe work environment. The focus of this unit is customer service, providing centralized postal services. And they also do the pink mail program, which is sort of interdepartment mail. So I will share that we are seeing some challenges right now with unreliable mail delivery. That has been something that the leadership of this unit has been raising to the commissioner's office. There are days where very little mail will come in for across state government, and then the next day we'll have huge deliveries to sort through, and then also just some concerns about timing and frequency of pickups. So that is just something we're monitoring. We have shared concerns with USPS. So is that unreliable mail services within state government, or is this mail coming in through our federal postal system? Coming in.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Coming in. Federal postal system. Yes. And mail going out through our federal postal system.

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: Correct. So drop offs and pickups, essentially. And is that because well, your postal is centered up in

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Waterbury. Middlesex. Middlesex, yeah. So are you using the Waterbury post office or the Montpelier post office? Which one would be delivering mail to the Middlesex facility? They generally use Montpelier. So that's the issue.

[Stephanie Fuller (Financial Director, BGS)]: I'm not sure since COVID, I mean the last blood, if they're still using Mont Belier, I would Yeah.

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: I mean, regardless of what USPS one you use, it's been a problem for the last couple of years. It's just a very different organization, let's say.

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: Yeah. And there's a lot of mail that the state sends and receives that's critical and time sensitive. And so that's really where our concerns lie. So all the mail that comes in, like say folks who are purchasing, renewing their car registration or submitting their income tax forms,

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: all of that, they do that by snail mail. That goes through our postal service. Then you distribute that out to the respective departments and agencies.

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: Yes. And we do have some efficiencies, too, where we send out the mail. So for example, if the treasurer's office is sending out checks, we will collect, process, get that on its way. But then there's a beautiful relationship with our print shop, where sometimes we are printing out communications that then need to be sent out to Vermonters. And so we're able to one stop shop, print it, package it up, and send it through our postal center. So that, I think, is a real example of efficiency. So one example is when folks who are

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: on Medicaid and then they have that on a yearly basis or possibly now it's going to be every six months, there is a form that goes out to the recipient that they have to fill out financial form. So would you be printing out that financial form on behalf of Diva?

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: There can be, where we enter into agreements to print documents for other agencies and departments and are mindful of whatever protections apply to the information, and then print it

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: and send it out. And then when the person fills out those forms, if they do it again in paper form and mail it back in, it goes through the postal system to be distributed over to for them to open. Mhmm. So if there's a delay in getting mail

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: and the delay isn't coming in to you folks, then that could jeopardize the recipient getting their information in on a timely manner. Yeah, exactly. And that's, the program is really proud of, you'll see in the performance measure percent of valid mail delivered same day. That is mail once we get it. So what we have control over is our process. We don't have control over the USPS process. But once we get it, we do a good job of making sure it gets to where it needs to go within state government. In terms of the measures, you'll see, again, the number of incoming pieces of mail processed. It's been decreasing. There's still a good volume. And same thing with pink mail. You really saw some dips, especially after COVID and floods. But we are thinking that it'll bounce back now with more people in the

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: office environment. Those people were home. But even they were home in FY24 and FY25, so why such a drop this current? Well, we're only halfway through. Not sure. We're a little bit more than halfway through the current year. But that is a pretty substantial drop.

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: I actually am curious about that drop right there now that we're calling it out. That might be a follow-up item.

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Because even if it was half the year, it's already It'd

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: be February or 01/1990. That might be a typo.

[Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: I thought it was just the same. Could go tight.

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: Yeah. But there's nine FTEs in this program. So this, again, is part of the Government Business Services Unit, which is managed by Deb Farrell. She's a manager. She's been at BGS for many decades. So

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: if folks remember way back, there was the issue with anthrax.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Yeah, we had it through.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: BGS was at the forefront of this in the Postal Service doing screening, security screening for that. There were times, let me tell you, this brings you way back to civil unions. There were a lot of threats coming to lawmakers through the mail and our mail had to be opened up and checked because there was a lot of threats being made to us And BGS, the postal service, wasn't, thick of that one. They went all of that. Greeting our scanning our mail and even opening it up at times. It was really suspicious. So there's a lot of suspicious now coming

[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: through

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: to us to attack us.

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: And then just budget number, nothing really to highlight here, except for the 3% increase driven by insurance, stuffs and COLA. So no other major programmatic changes or changes in how we do business driving an increase. The print shop, I just gave a little preview in explaining how print shop can interact with postal. They share a location in Middlesex. The goal of this unit is to provide state government with economic and convenient access to digital printing, finishing, and also leasing out copier services for offices. Their goal is to provide a quick turnaround on state government printing needs. They do legislative printing. So some of the hard copy things that you have is to buy the print shop. Their goals are to avoid duplicate costs associated with printing, to provide state agencies with information and tool to use the program most effectively and then meet the ongoing print needs. So they provide printing again, in addition to the legislators, they provide data printing for DMV, for tax, for labor and any other print needs that might exist. And they actually, I think something I didn't know about before I came back to BGS is just how they're able to do some really advanced printing, like posters, some of what you see, again, in those information centers, some really glossy, attractive graphic design print jobs they're able to do as well. So they do a great job.

[Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: Again, just as a question, have you ever compared it to contracting it out, what the cost would be compared to having your own division or business service?

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: I'm gonna have to follow-up. I mean, not in the last year since I've been back at It's

[Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: just kind of a question I'm asking here as to comparing outside of government to Midway. So I'm

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: sure it's probably at a lower cost, but it would be good to see. Yes, we will try to follow-up with that. I'll see if there's been any past analysis done. And I will say one of the advantages too, just in terms of efficiency of having our own print shop is time responsiveness. We have control over what gets printed when and the ability to prioritize. But yes, we will definitely follow-up about a cost comparison. So I really find it interesting that it seems like there's an increase year to year in terms of how many

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: documents, how many items are printed. And we are such an electronic society and everything seems to be done electronically. And I'm just curious, why is there such an increase in so much printing?

[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: Because of the bills from court specific members. Right.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I mean, there's a lot of printing that happens for the Department of Motor Vehicles for your tax and labor across the board for your agency of human services, all of them. But why is there an increase? Because everything has gone so electronic.

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: So it would be interesting. I haven't looked back to see what did it look like ten years ago. This is just the last few years. So it'd be interesting to see if really there's been a drop over time and we're seeing a bit of a pickup again, especially as we come back from COVID and we have more in person presence that might be part of it. But of course, there are some things that have to be printed, right? Like, again, checks, important communications that need to be mailed. So that could be part of it too. There might be more communications that are going out mailed to Vermonters. I don't know exactly what it is, but we can look into it.

[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: For all the projects in general, are there some kind of productivity metrics? Like, we're getting so many pieces printed for FTE. Or, like, was there 18 FTEs twenty years ago? Or any sort of, like, utilization metrics? So, I mean, is there somebody putzing around six hours a week because they got nothing to do? And it's not specific to this particular department, but to all departments, are there? How is that measured? And staff productivity.

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: Yeah. Mean, I will say, just as a general principle, VGS employees are busy and that we don't have a lot of excess capacity. Specific to the performance numbers, again, a lot of our operations are, you can quantify it. So here, how many pieces of paper were printed and processed? How many pieces of mail did you process? And we can tie those back to the number of employees and their time. So that is an area we can do a comparison. I don't, again, at least I haven't been involved since I've been back at BGS and sort of quantifying the output of individual employees. And I'm not aware of a time that's been done. Again, we do have performance measures in fulls that we set and measure. They're usually not broken out per individual employee.

[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: Like, for example, what would it look like if you had to get this work done with 10 FDAs? Is that impossible, or is that not something that's pondered? I don't know what the historical number is in this department. We just happen to be on this slide. I have no axe to grind with the print

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: shop. Yeah. Yeah.

[Stephanie Fuller (Financial Director, BGS)]: Well, I

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: would say, in particular, the print shop employees are quite busy. And I do know we reduced one of our night shifts because of staffing constraints. But I would say, generally speaking, we evaluate positions, especially when we have a vacancy to ensure that it needs to be filled. And there are times that there's a process with AOA, with the HR, where we review a position and say, does this need to be filled? Can it be swapped? Like that kind of conversation. We went through that exercise recently for two positions that have been vacant for quite a long time. And one of them was, oh, you know what? We really need this position and we can articulate a need and justify it. And for the other, we were able to say, you know what? We actually, we don't need to fill that one and we let that go. So that is something we do on an ongoing basis. Our general posture isn't looking to see if we can cut positions. That's not generally what we've been doing actively. I mean, my sense in working for the past year at BGS has been the positions that we have are needed, and we haven't had that exercise.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Shawn, Kevin?

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: This is more probably for Steph. But just help me with this, Steph. It's it it so the on the budget for the copy center, which is one behind here, you you've got the health insurance classified employees as a negative 24,000.

[Stephanie Fuller (Financial Director, BGS)]: That's the changes from last year to this year.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: Gotcha. So it's less. So that went down from the year before.

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: And that can be based on like an individual employee changing changing their coverage. They might have had a family member drop off their plan. Something like that can impact it.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: But that 24,000 symbolizes all the people working in that copy center?

[Stephanie Fuller (Financial Director, BGS)]: Yes. It would be everyone, not just one individual, but it could be whoever.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: Right. Okay. Because then I looked at the one for the fleet management and went up $80. I'm just trying to wrap my head around how those numbers are, you know

[Stephanie Fuller (Financial Director, BGS)]: Somebody may have taken didn't have the health state health insurance company

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: took it out. They got married. They got married. I'm Okay.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: So it's just those ups and downs like that. Alright.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Thanks. Yeah. Yeah.

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: That's all.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Fleet management. This is where Joe wanted to weigh in. Oh, okay.

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: Management services, the goal is to provide efficient, safe, and reliable fleet vehicles in a cost effective manner. We strive to ensure that state travel is done at the lowest possible cost while still meeting the operational needs of our users. We are trying to maximize utilization of fleet, and we also have a mission to increase the use of alternative fuel vehicles, including EV, and their statutory directive to do that. So some of our strategies include use of telematics in vehicles to ensure we have informed decisions, seeing how the vehicles are used generally and the miles that they're being driven. Implementation of automated motor pool system with self-service features is really easy. I use it when I need to travel. I can go pick up keys at the fleet headquarters right here in Montpelier. And then we also inform agencies and departments annually of their high mileage drivers, which means they've surpassed the breakeven point where it's more cost effective to use fleet through a leased vehicle versus reimbursing the employee for their mileage. We're working on sending those letters out right now, actually. And that's just a communication tool. You will find savings if you utilize a fleet car versus paying this employee for reimbursement. So six forty two vehicles in the fleet, 60% are alternative fuel vehicles. There's 10 FTEs in the program. 47 of the vehicles are in the general motor pool. So that kind of functions as a rental shop. Again, capital for a day. I needed to use the state vehicle. I was able to go pick up the car through the motor pool at our headquarters here. And it was really easy. And I had a brand new car, it was awesome. But then there are five ninety five vehicles that are assigned to an agency and department. And it's really like them having a leased vehicle owned by BGS that they then use under a lease agreement. And those are for, I think, some examples of programs that really use those include agriculture. They're on the road all summer visiting sites, ANR, similar, DCF who are out on the road visiting folks. So those are some examples of who are leasing the cars. And then AOT has jurisdiction over their own fleet. Our jurisdiction is primarily over passenger vehicles.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I know Joe was he's really coming. Because I know this is something Joe was really focused on. So you might have to go over some of this information when Joe comes back in. Okay. And then Shawn?

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: When you get to that point where you've identified a high user who manages the department might benefit from having them switch to a fleet, do they ever become then a regular use? Like, do you just give them a car?

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: Well, we notify the agency or department head and say, this is your list of high mileage users, where you pass the threshold for effectiveness, cost effectiveness, and you should consider leasing a fleet vehicle. And those often do materialize into them acquiring a lease for that individual or using the motor pool, depending on the circumstances.

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: And then that person just takes that car for does it become their car, I guess? Or do they have to go

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: It can depend. So you can have a lease vehicle that's assigned to your department that multiple users can use. Or if there's someone who's on the road all the time, they might be a field investigator or something like that, then the car might be assigned to them. And then there are parameters on how they can use it. It is for state business. And then we have parameters, too, on how often you take a vehicle home, all of that. So there are, again, guidelines and rules around how those are used.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: How do you enforce that? How can you enforce that? Is there a check-in regularly in terms of how much mileage they've put on?

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: I mean, how do you enforce that they're not using it for private use? So there are mileage checks. So for example, if they have a leased vehicle and it's similar to like an enterprise, there is a number of miles that you're leasing. And if you go over that, there's an overage. And if it was really significant, then there might be an examination of, well, where was this vehicle being driven? Does this make sense or not? And if need be, there is telematics data. I will say we don't sit around tracking where people are going on an ongoing basis. But if the need arose, we would have the ability to do that.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Okay, so I got Shawn, I've got James, I've got Kevin, and I've got Jeff.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: I know, this is an interesting one, Holly. So the motor pool utilization, I'm assuming that means 50 like that in first number of fiscal year 'twenty four, 54% is the amount, the cars that are being used on

[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: a yearly basis? Daily basis.

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: Yeah, so if we have 10 cars in the lot, on average, we wanna see it out, or that's what we're seeing. And again, I will say we're talking about how do we increase utilization of fleet, make sure, again, that it's performing as it's supposed to. How do we get the word out? And a lot of this, again, returning from a more in home posture or from COVID, some of those habits changed. And so now it's like, let's get the word out again about Fleet, what it offers, and really how And convenient it

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: then the amount of customer cost savings, what does that mean? Because I don't know what it means.

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: I think that's avoided reimbursement for mileage.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: And that's avoided to the state, 58,000 that year? Yeah. Okay.

[Stephanie Fuller (Financial Director, BGS)]: That would be like if I was gonna submit a mileage reimbursement versus taking a fleet, that's what it cost the states.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: Gotcha. I see. And so that so that the thousand 296 number of motor pool rental days are days that we we used it, but we didn't we didn't have an enterprise or something like that. We weren't paying someone else to do that.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: We weren't paying mileage to that person's private vehicle.

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Oh, this is the difference between what it costs for it

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: to pay them. I'm just trying to understand what we're looking at. That's all.

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: But I do. I do actually now I'm looking at these more closely. I do. I do want to follow-up because I don't think that this is a statewide number.

[Stephanie Fuller (Financial Director, BGS)]: No. I don't know what I don't know where that number came from, though.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: The $52.90 because, like, I'm because Yeah.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Right.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: I'm just trying to figure you know? Because if you have set 652 600 I'm sorry. 642 cars, that seems low. That's all.

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: Yeah. And I I what I wanna specify is is this per customer.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: Okay. I

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: get. And I I just need

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: to clarify.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: Okay, that's all. Thanks. I'm not trying to get you. I'm just trying to Now understand the

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: I'm looking at it. That is a good point of clarification. Okay,

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: that's all. Thanks.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yes. James, Kevin, and then Joe.

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Mine is just pretty basic. So somebody has a state car. Obviously, Johnny can't take it to the Red Sox game. That's a no. But is it to the point where Johnny on the way home decides he's going to go to the grocery store? I mean, the military's gonna talk about that stuff. Like how strict is the rules?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yeah, it's on the way home. We're 10 miles out of the way. Yeah.

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: Not having the policy in front of me. No, I Yeah, it is right. There can be a gray area. But I think de minimis, like if it's in the course of your business, if you're stopping by to get a coffee when you're headed When I was going to Capital for a day, I stopped to get lunch. And so that wasn't strictly It was part of my workday. I had to get lunch that day. But was that like going from point A to point B? I think if it's incidental to your state business. So I would Yeah, say no, I mean, it's a great question. But I think, again, if the vehicle is a take home vehicle and you're going home and you need to stop at the grocery store, I don't think that's an area that It's

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: on the way home unless you go 20 miles out of the way.

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: It's on the way home.

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: I think it's personal mileage. They do. Yeah. There are each calendar year, so

[Stephanie Fuller (Financial Director, BGS)]: they get taxed on that. Yes. Personal usage. Yeah. Interesting.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Thank you. Kevin and then Joe.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Once again, I'm not trying to play gotcha, but with four years or three years of experience, my simple math says to get to 50% utilization, you cut your fleet in half. I obviously don't understand the way it works.

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: Yeah, and this motor pool is just those 47 vehicles. So the vast majority of fleet are leased vehicles that are housed in agencies and departments who are going to be using them regularly. Motor needs to go back and explain how the vehicles are district. Oh, yeah. So there's 47 vehicles that are available for daily motor pool rental. And most of them are out here, Green Mountain Drive, where it's like a daily rental. If you have a one day thing where you're going to a meeting and you're going to take a state vehicle instead of your own personal vehicle, I mean, I've even gotten same day rentals. And so we have those cars available. And on any given day, what we're seeing lately is about 50% of them will be on the road at a given time. And we have them in a few other locations. I think there's some in Burlington. There's some maybe down in Springfield. Again, it's not a large number statewide, 47. But they're there. They're available if someone who isn't a heavy user of state vehicle but needs it on the off day. They're available for that. So of the $47.23 are being used at any given time, approximately. So I guess my question isn't so dumb. Why don't we

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: go to half the vehicles if you're trying to get better utilization? I mean, there's a lot of costs associated with 27 vehicles.

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: Yeah. I mean, I think that is a good conversation that we can have with fleet, make sure that the number is right. Where we have a challenge is that day that a lot of them are being used. And I'll go back to, again, Capital for a Day as an example of that. When I needed that vehicle, so many were reserved because there were so many folks going out on the road. I mean, it's great. That's what we love to see. But that's where on a day where a lot of people are out on the road, you need those available. Or, I mean, they could drive their own vehicle and get reimbursed.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Is an option. Schedule ahead. There's both. Yeah. Yep.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Okay. So I do understand the numbers. Thank you. Okay.

[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: But a church isn't built for midnight mass. And And a utilization rate I mean, I I run hundred and twenty five, hundred fifty car fleets. Could be somewhere around 80% is what's viable if you actually gonna hunt for your own beef. But even even 7070% should be a benchmark. I mean, at at 50%, you've got vehicles that are rotting in place. I'll guarantee you're buying batteries every 90 days, and the brakes are rotting because they're just not moving.

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: So I won't oh, sorry.

[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: And and and there are assets that are just depreciating in place.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yep.

[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: It's just it's a and and the second piece of that is you may have 595 vehicles that are assigned to other state agencies, But how are those vehicles' utilizations being measured? How many of those vehicles are just sitting in an agency driveway most of the time? And I'll guarantee you that number's not zero.

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: So two things. One, I think you might have been out of the room, but at the top, I shared that we are actively discussing how we can increase fleet utilization. I think that use had dipped after COVID, frankly. And we are talking about strategies to get the word out about fleet, that really it is the policy of the state that you go with fleet first before you go with mileage reimbursement. So we see a need to communicate one, that fleet exists. Some state employees who have come in more recently might be unfamiliar with it, might be unfamiliar with how easy it is to use and actually the state guidance and requirements around unising fleet. So we do see a need to sort of get the word out and increase utilization. With respect to the leased vehicles, again, we do closely monitor usage. We're able to monitor mileage. We have ongoing conversations with our leasing entities regularly about the vehicles they lease and the mileage that they lease it for, because we don't want them to be paying for more mileage than they actually need. And oftentimes, we actually see that they're using more than they've paid for. And that's when we need to do a readjustment. And that can be difficult when it hasn't been planned for or budgeted for. So I will say this is something that agencies and departments actively work with us on. I can't say all five ninety five are utilized to the max. But what I can say is that they are utilized. We do monitor it. We do communicate with those lessees regularly to make sure that, again, they're not paying for something they don't need to be paying for.

[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: Is it possible to see more granular data on those five ninety five vehicles? Yep.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Mary, did you have a hand up?

[Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: I was just going to say when a number of the state employees were working remotely, how was the fleet taken care of, and did you have the utilization? Are these numbers reflected in there?

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: So these are only performance measures since FY24. I will say that we still operated. BGS didn't stop when more employees went remote. I would have to follow-up with exactly what the numbers looked like in the height of COVID.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So what is the average age of your feet, your fault? Are they two years old, four years old, 10 years old? Do you

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: We have a set replacement and maintenance schedule. Older vehicles often go through the surplus program. Is it done by miles, or is it done by month, by year? I think it's typically done by miles. I would have to and I'm happy to provide more granular data about the program and about these vehicles specifically. I don't remember off the top of my head.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: There's a lot of interest in this. Also, it'd be good to have your maintenance costs and repair costs for those vehicles. And I understand the motor pool utilization. I get where you need 47 vehicles because you got different parts of the state that you have to have covered. I mean, you've got the Chittenden County area, you've got Central Vermont, you've got Southern Vermont, East And West, and you've got the Northeast Kingdom. If you want folks to use a fleet vehicle for a day or two, if they're going somewhere versus their own vehicle, that has to be fairly accessible. They don't need to drive two hours to get to a fleet vehicle that defeats the purpose.

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: And I will share too that sometimes there are programmatic needs for a vehicle that they really need an assigned vehicle. And it might not be based on number of miles driven, but it might be based on other factors. And I'll give an example. Again, DCF employees who are going on the road, maybe they don't hit They the miles use their own they don't want to use their own personal vehicle. Or even within BGS, our security officers have we have dedicated through the lease program vehicles to do patrols, to visit sites. And again, I'd have to look, do we meet that mileage threshold? But I'm just trying to sometimes you might look at it and it might not hit a mileage target, but there is an operational need for that vehicle or advantage to us having it in house. And again, avoid the use of personal vehicles. I would not want our security officers driving their personal vehicle to go deescalate a tough situation.

[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: So it could vary by vehicle class, too. I mean, if you have a handicap accessible van somewhere, Again, it might be a very real lead, but it may also have a very low utilization rate, even though it's a very real lead. But you can't really see that here, obviously. You can see the fleet breakdown?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And how many vehicles do you have that are alternative fuel? Because I know in previous testimony, we have looked towards vehicles that are hybrids or even all electric, but it really depends where that vehicle is going

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: to be used. If it's short trips in an urban setting, you're more apt to use an alternative fuel vehicle. If it's a long trip from north to south, you're more apt to use a gas pedal. So there is a statutory directive that the fleet purchased alternative fuel vehicles and electric vehicles. I can't remember the exact threshold of that. I think right now, 60% are in that category. I want to say the statutory directive is even 75%. That can be, again, a cost driver, but it does provide fuel savings. I'll share that sometimes agencies and apartments might want a more rugged vehicle. Again, the example of a DCF employee who might be going over back roads and wants an SUV, for example, whereas based on cost and statutory considerations, what we have more of is a Prius. So that's where sometimes we have a bit of a tension between what our users want and what we have.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Mary and then Conor? And with the fleet, do

[Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: you have a number of just electric cars?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: We do.

[Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: And how have they performed in this six weeks of low temperatures? Because I know the public transit is having some issues because the the buses won't start or they can't they can't What's the word I wanna use? They can't plug them in to be charged. And so what do you do with that three and how many other things you've got in them?

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: I don't recall off the top of my head which

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: 303.

[Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: How many?

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: Three eighty. No. Not EV alone. Alternative. Alternative three. Yeah. But I'm saying just Right. Just EV. I don't know that breakout. I'm going to to follow-up. I don't think it's high. I know we have a few example ones, and I haven't heard of any issues with the cold, but I'm going to

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: have to follow-up on that.

[Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: Okay, that would be great. You.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Conor.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: Yeah, sure, Emily, I remember like this like fifteen, twenty years ago when it was being rolled out, there was some pushback to the program in cases like I'm a state employee, I've got a Nissan Pathfinder, and you're handing me a Ford Focus, during adverse weather conditions, or maybe some other accommodations. So are you still hearing a lot of that? Or maybe there's different accommodations than they were that long ago?

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: Yeah, I think the example that I'd given of employees who are having to go out in winter weather, and they really would prefer an SUV or something like that. And we're up against sort of our directives, right, to find alternative fuel and cost effectiveness for cars. And that's where we can have attention. We try to accommodate those requests. And I think we are Commissioner Manoli and I, and working with the fleet manager, are trying to explore ways that we can support those requests because it's really important. We want them to have a vehicle that they feel safe and comfortable in. So, yes, I will say I have heard of some state employees wanting a more an SUV specifically. For winter conditions. Okay.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: So this is new to us, and I really appreciate you going over this. Just a bigger picture, just a question, and you may have said it earlier, but I missed it. So this is just the cost of the employees in these situations. Right? So this isn't like so it'd be great to also see what fleet management costs the state as a whole. Right? Or not? Is that something different? Like, do we get to?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Well, that's why I'm wondering what the 5.4% increase is. Is it just the salaries and benefits?

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Well, this is just for

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: salaries for those 10 people.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Also including a purchase of new vehicles, the maintenance of new

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Not is 1,300,000.0.

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: Let her answer here. This is the operating costs. This is the salaries and operating costs per fleet for their own operations. But the way that we cover costs of the vehicles is through the charges for the leased out vehicles, the motor pool, etcetera. So that's built into the rates. Do you have anything to add?

[Stephanie Fuller (Financial Director, BGS)]: No, it's their internal service fund. It's It's

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: like their fee for space.

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: It's like fee for space.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Pay for

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: it with that internal service fund, and

[Stephanie Fuller (Financial Director, BGS)]: we get it back through the revenue of what we charge for their lease or their mortgage.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So if they were to use a vehicle for one day, what is the lease fee to that department?

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: I have to check. I'm sorry.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It would depend on the mileage.

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: I think the motor pool is a daily use. I

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: think there was interest in the committee to really do a little go down deeper into this budget in terms of what is it really costing to maintain the vehicles? What are your repair bills for that? I think also it's what you're seeing in terms of the budget changing on that end, not so much on the employee side of it, but the functioning taking care of those vehicles. Because we all have vehicles, we know that there's costs involved, But are you increasing the fleet size? Or is it if there's increases to the budget, it's more usage of it possibly? That inflation is the cost of ensuring a vehicle is going up. So we'd like to have some comparison on that end. And you also address how often you change the vehicles, but it will be good to know at what mileage do you tend to change them at. Is it 50,000 or is it 100,000? So as you get older, you're going to have more repair costs for that.

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: Am I right that we do recoup some costs by going through surplus per fleet? Yes. We sell the vehicles through state surplus through our auction annually if we sell them. Those costs get

[Stephanie Fuller (Financial Director, BGS)]: if they go back because it's

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: the internal service fund, the costs go back to fleet. But that's not

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: in this budget.

[Stephanie Fuller (Financial Director, BGS)]: No. This is not anything to do with that. Okay.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: Then and then that budget like, I'd love to see that budget too. But if we can

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I think there's a lot of intransecency about here's

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: what we're actually doing? Well, just to know what it just to

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: be more familiar with it. That's all. Yeah. Kevin? I believe you said that there's legislation that targets how many alternative fuel vehicles we should be buying. Since you offered granularity, mean, to see the electric or hybrid versus standard gas would be very helpful, I think, because we're actually telling you how many you gotta have. The EVs are underutilized. We need to change that legislation. They can be. Change that legislation. I mean, that's where we might actually make a difference.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I think it depends on what part of the state you're in too for the EVs. If you're in Chittenden County, you can use that a lot easier than if you're in the Northeast.

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: And

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: I do. Yeah, we'll have some more information on it. We don't have a high number of specific EVs. The vast majority are going to be hybrids. Again, we have a lot of pre assist.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And that ties into what Conor brought up, that if folks are doing a lot of back roads, it's mud season or during the winter, they're going out there, they don't want a Prius. They want a vehicle that can put more clearance and more traction.

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: It's a difficult balance, right? Because with the EVs or the alternative fuel hybrids, we get fuel savings. So it might not be the preferred vehicle, but it might be the most cost effective vehicle. So

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: that's what we're Your cost benefit analysis. So we do wanna do a deeper dive into this. So we're gonna have to keep We're not gonna get through everything today. We'll have to schedule you back beginning of next week because we're gonna have to come back our this may be a good stopping point.

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Did you think that the fleet partner's gonna be this many questions?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: No. You know what?

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: They finally found something we understand.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Oh, we all have vehicles, so we all understand. Yeah. And since it was to

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: think my car is a BGS vehicle.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yeah. They'd said well, I've had people say, did the state buy your car?

[Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: No.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: Didn't even buy your car?

[Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: I

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: think this may be a good spot to stop because surplus property, you did allude to that a little bit. And that may be a bigger conversation, too, because there's a lot of activity that happens within surplus property. Yeah. And then property management

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: our and fee for space program, which is really our largest program with our most employees and a complex organization. And

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: if you can do

[Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: a little deeper dig on those pieces, will they not be this long? If you've got actual figures and things that you can present. Because you didn't really have a lot under these sections that we were asking you more about.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Sure. And we haven't gone through any of your purchasing and contracting either. Right? Right. You're gonna yeah. Because there's questions. We have some questions on that as well in terms of the inflation, you know, some of the driving forces, what are, you know, for the inflation and how frequent are the contracts escalate escalating at all? And what's the procurement timeline? Is that affecting any delivery of folks for different departments or agencies too? So there's some questions there that the committee has with some of that. And I know that the energy audit, you haven't gone into that piece yet either. That's not covered here, but there was a state auditor who had the audit report about the state energy program at some point. Think we want to give them credit.

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: We provided testimony in Senate Natural Resources and Energy last Friday. So I went in with a manager of our energy program and provided testimony on that. We have

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: a slide deck. Let's see if we can. I think we're pretty booked up this week unless there happens to be an opening. We'll probably have to continue this next week, early in the week, early, because we have to make our recommends to appropriations committee by the twentieth which is next week, Friday

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: of next week.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Maybe Wanda will take care of it from there. You did fine, Emily.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Thank you.

[Nikki Sickey (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings and General Services)]: Great, thank you.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: Thank

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: you so much.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: You're up, we get to do DOC next, not today.

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: You for coming, Wayne.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Thanks, lovely. Just like old times almost,

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: I didn't let me ask any questions.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: This is true. Do you folks want to take a quick break, five minutes?

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: Yeah, that'd be

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: good. Okay, take a five minute break. John, did you see my email?

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: I did. Did

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: you have a chance to Yes, sorry.

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Look at some data every