Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Finish it. Say before. Live? Yeah. Hello, folks. This is House Corrections and Institutions Committee. It's Friday, March 27. It's about 01:00 in the afternoon. We have a new draft, the capital budget. It's 3.1, and the goal is for us to vote this bill out within the hour. But we're gonna be reading it line by line, so we know what the bill says. So, John, welcome. There you go. I know you've gone through all the sections. We also have a new spreadsheet for everyone. Track four. As well, version four of a spreadsheet. As you all well know, I went down to a corporation this morning with our amendment, unanimous. They had some questions on a couple of items, on the allocation piece. But outside of that, it's pretty straightforward. So John, thank you. Perfect. You can have Scott with us too.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: John Gray office of Plaintiff's Council. Yes, I will screen share. I do have to leave at two. I will be I'm

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: done by then.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And of course, you can vote without me, but hopefully you're done by then. And the cash is happily resolved in the budget as of this morning. That is good. Very quick fix to that.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Thank you.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So let's start with section one on page one, letters of intent. And section one sets up the aggregate figures for the total of the bill. We have the updated new total, 122,000,000, third modded sections, and then some updates to the FERC appropriations.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So, that 1 $200,000,000 plus That's not that does not include the cash. Correct. That is just bond.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So we jump next to our bond funded project authorizations in section two, and nicely, two of this bill is amending section two of the underlying capital. So that's nice. On page two, we spoke about this before, the Segway three acre parcel stormwater plants in FY twenty six dropped from 1,500,000.0 down to 1.1.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So what I'd like to do is make sure that the people of you are tracking, this is just another set of eyes, a few of you are tracking the dollar amount for that. And this would be in the bonded column for FY twenty seven.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: This first one's FY twenty six. Section two of

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I'm sorry.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: The next piece, we are still in the same section, but FY '27 now. And so major maintenance could be up from 8,500,000.0 to 9,013,413 and 18¢, applying that kind of surplus to the interim methods. The next piece is repealing the 1,100,000.0 in FY '27 for three acre parcels from our clients. So you have that reduction in FY '26 to 1.1, and then you have a complete zeroing out in FY '27. Just a textual change to the 50 k appropriation state house replacement interior finishes that previously historic interior finishes to ensure that it captures authentic carpets. Correct. Historic?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: You know, originally, the language was carpets and drapes. Then set

[Unidentified committee member]: Might have worked. So now we could apply that and say there's no hard

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: That's why we had historic finishes. Yeah. That ends up limiting what BTS can do. Correct. Paul, if you see anything, feel free to weigh in.

[Unidentified committee member]: We could tell Wanda we switched it back to carpets and bricks just for fun and home.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: No. It wasn't them that, Brian. Some of our colleagues had a problem with it. Next

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: is a reduction in the appropriation for 120 State Street HVAC, steam lines interior renovation, that's down from 2,000,000 to 1,000,000.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yep. That's the

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And then we have the state house entryway upgrades, design documents including and delivery truck access, which was a request yesterday, 1,300,000 bonded.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: They can get through design documents. I mean, by the time January comes along, I don't think they have to worry too much. They get into construction documents. Right? Okay. Scott?

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I'll put it

[Scott (staff analyst, likely JFO/BGS)]: back in Scott when we're doing fiscal. Just so the committee knows, this current version, version four with the green at the top, this is one of the two, actually one of the three changes I've made was that language. All of numbers are still the same, so don't worry about there have a lot of differences between version three and version four. If this is one

[Unidentified committee member]: of them, that language does change on this new spreadsheet.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Checks the delivery.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It doesn't include delivery, but that's We missed that, Scott. It says truck access.

[Unidentified committee member]: It says truck access.

[Scott (staff analyst, likely JFO/BGS)]: I can add delivery if you'd like. The spreadsheet?

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: The spreadsheet is not the law, just to be clear. Yeah.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: Was gonna say, let's throw

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: it all out. That's the echo.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I must say it's some level of change. Truck

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: tells you that it's delivering something. I don't if you do anything.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Not like there'll some parking truck.

[Unidentified committee member]: Anyway, we'll can drive down the line.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: He drives the truck.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I'm gonna skip over the aggregate figures.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: We've got We're gonna have faith in you folks.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay. So page three, section three of this bill, I'm ending section three of the underlying. The first updates are to your FY '27 bonded. And so for statewide planning, design and construction for HVAC upgrades at correctional facilities, you have 9,426,254 and 21 sets.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: 8.4? No.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: A big increase.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: You usually don't see that. Plus we have cash.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And this is what was in the government, I believe.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Is already on top of

[Unidentified committee member]: It's all it's all HVAC.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: No. But it's already on top of four I think we already have about 4,000,000, 5,000,030 in the bank.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: They're moving.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I know. I know. I'm glad we're doing it. But who would think it would be this high cost? Which facility does can someone remember what facility after Newport? Is it Saint Jay and the I work

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: can get it for you.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I think it's Saint Jay,

[Unidentified committee member]: but I think I there's I

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: couldn't remember if it was Rutland. Chittenden's already air conditioned. Think it's not. I think Rutland is. Yeah, Rutland is. So, it's same, Jack. Next,

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: we jump to section four. Again, this amends section four of the underlying act 33 from last year. And your update for the f y twenty seven bonding for roadside historic site markers. In f thirty three, we had 25 k. That's now been amended upward. We have 45 k for roadside historic site markers in f y twenty seven, and we are accepting four. So some of the cover. We jump next on page four to the Vets Home, the section six, the underlying bill. So if it's helpful, I'm guessing that it's more helpful for me to call out the section from the underlying bill than amended than it is to call the in this act, at least until we get to the policy sections. So I'm just gonna keep referring to the section number in act 33.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: That's what we're doing, folks. We're amending the bill that we passed last year.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yep.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: That's what we're doing.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I can say both. Yeah. We're in section five of this bill, but we are amending section six of the underlying the Fed's home.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So when people see on line two, section five, twenty twenty five action results, number 33, that's our capital bill of last year, which is a two year budget. So, we're amending that two year budget bill.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: In Subsection B, this won't show up in the spreadsheet just because it's not just a textual point, increased flexibility to move funds across your FY '26 and FY '27 figures. Just increased flexibility within section six, and the actual update to the appropriation is that in FY twenty seven, one point two five million for sewage system and elevator upgrades.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So let's read into your first thing here because I know some of it's from last year, but it's all connected.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. In FY '26, you have 710 k for replacement of air handlers, 340 k for expansion of laundry facilities.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And they can move money around between those two items. We did that last year. So where it says section 22. And then the amount that's appropriated in c, which is a 1.25. So, when it says transfer any unexpected balance, project balance between amounts between one and two and the amount appropriate in subsection C, Are we also saying they can move money around with A one and two with C?

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes. It's complete. It's complete.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Know I'm the one that explained it and that's what I was trying to

[Unidentified committee member]: With with one caveat that the way that reads, one and two would need to be, I think, completed, right, the unexpended project balances.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I don't know that they have to be I think your point is just if you haven't expended some of the rights. It doesn't create a priority amongst FY '26 and '20 It just says you have a section, we appropriate these for FY '26, we appropriate these for FY '27. You have flexibility across all of the funds within this section.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I'm trying to recall the conversation working. Yeah. Because I'm moving the laundry to A Wing. We took money for 1.25. We took money from the elevator upgrade, had a half 1,000,000 bonded, and then we bumped that up.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: As I understood it, it was to create maximum flexibility.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yeah. The air handler. That's right. Because they're waiting for the Replacement. Replacement and all of that. Just wondering. Are we clear on this section, folks? Yes.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So next, section six of this bill, but in the underlying act 33, section 10, which is your clean water initiatives. And you can see the changes on page five, these are consistent with the gov rec and these maintain the exact FY '27 appropriation you'd expected last year. That's what you see at the top of page five is we're striking out the 10,000,000 appropriation in FY '27 to ANR for clean water implementation projects. It's now replaced with specific sets of grants. And so that's what you see below, and they all tally up to 10,000,000. So it's the same total. And the actual updates that you see consistent with the gov rec in subsection g online seven, one point five million in f y twenty seven to agency of agricultural food and markets for water quality grants and contracts. Yep. No. Keep going. Yeah. In f y twenty seven to ANR for DEC for clean water state revolving fund, get $1,000,577,600. Also, through ANR for DEC for municipal pollution control grants, 3,922,400. The figure that I have mistakenly listed is 2,000,000 in the first draft. In FY twenty seven to ANR for Department of Forest Parks and Recreations for water quality improvements to forest access roads, you have 200 k. And then to VHC fees, the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board, 800,000 for agricultural water quality projects, 2,000,000 for land conservation and water quality projects, could tally up to 10,000,000. It's the pool of your updates to section 10, the clean water initiatives.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Don't have the total.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Because it it did not change the are you asking about why the aggregate figures aren't shown?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: The

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: total number. Yep. So the total would list 10,000,000 for FY '26, and it would list 10,000,000 for FY '27. Because you removed a $10,000,000

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Are you

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: preparation subsection e, It was contemplated in last year's act, act 33, that the FY '27 bonding was 10,000,000. And now what you've done is you have the same total figure, 10,000,000. Instead of being one line item, it's these several line items that tally up to 10,000,000. So we don't need to amend the totals because Act 33 already correctly reflects a 10,000,000.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So just add on to that section 10. On

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: page six, section seven of this bill, amending section 14 of Act 33, which is your judiciary, which is to say that any, just for context for the proof, any of the sections that you don't see amended here remain exactly as they are in act 43. So those have the standing appropriations that they had in last year's capital bill. We're jumping forward to the judiciary section, and what we have here is an f y twenty seventh BGS for the judiciary for the Newport Courthouse project, 1,720,818 and 84¢.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Weren't specific in terms of what that 1.7 is gonna be used for because and, Cole, you already have authority to purchase land there in Newport. So yeah.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So that takes us out of our bonding sections where we were doing bonded appropriations. We jump next to the reallocations. And I do have an update from discussing last night that led to the amendment on the floor this morning. As you know, I started in committee yesterday to duplicate as the typical process, the cash appropriations in the budget. That's what you saw in the amendment this morning in the past. But one of the things that GFO drew our attention to is the use of the word reallocate as used for cash as against as used for bonded. You're going to see highlighted here reversion. There's no substantive change to any of the sections here. This is just technical cleanup to ensure that we use the language finance and management likes used for these pieces. And so when we talk about the cash pieces, instead of saying reallocating, we'll say revert. And I will just offer that in the future, in part because this is a rush, I may in the future separate these out into two separate sections just for ease of reference, reallocations being exclusively bonded and reversions being exclusively cash. And then we would just talk about cash reallocations and sorry, bonded reallocations and cash reversions. And in part, we'd also make it clear of a tie to deferring expenditures to sections two through 16, which are bonded, deferring expenditures in section 19, which are cash. So there might be some greater tightness in the act, but given just the rush here, and it really is just a technical change, I've just swapped in revert. So that's why you said it a

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: bunch of world downstairs to use reversion. They don't use reallocations.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So this is the full set of new reallocations and reversions. In subsection a, we're talking about pieces that were previously appropriate to BGS.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: If we had this in the previous draft, the problem was solved.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes. Appropriated to That language is in the previous draft.

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

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: This is not a substantive change either. This is a stylistic change in talking with Grady at JFO. You can think of it as when we come to further subsections that speak about reallocations from other departments, the way we phrase it there is the following sums appropriated to the entity are reallocated. So this creates stylistic conformity across the different subsections, but it is not a substantive change.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: But the capital bill is appropriated.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. What this is saying is previously appropriated funds to BGS are reallocated. The polycoms that were appropriated, you could read that in to BGS are reallocated. These are all bonded. These are all bonded. It will be clear. You'll see it highlighting when we get to the cache sections. And I do include some cleanup from language from last year because we did in two instances, or the committee did in two instances reallocate cash last year. So the issue could have come up at that time, didn't. It really is a technical thing. It's pretty clear what the appears. So the first reallocation you see and consistent with the gov rec here at the bottom of page, East Cottage, 431.9 And 08 Dollars On page seven, I will just call out some of the difficulty that comes with tracking fees where you see of the amounts rather than amount, of the amounts appropriated, and we have the call out to the 2019 capital bill. We're picking up various projects. So this is multiple line amounts in section two c. And in aggregate, what you have from that 2019 capital bill is 1,624,241 and 12¢. But whenever you see that in the lead in language of the amounts as a per it shows up the amount, pulling out multiple line items within a section. So that's how you can know. You can also just see it in the parenthetical callout. That's a way to know that you're a multiple line item or you're you're pulling from multiple. Subdivision 14, we have 393,854 and 32¢ from the 2021 capital bill various projects. Those would be within your BGS section, right? Section two b, state buildings. Subdivision 15, we have $97,890.12 reallocated from the women's correctional facilities in the 2021 capital bill. Actually, also have Cash Luneau speaking to this, and Representative Donahue helped to foreground Oh, she was talking about the youth stabilization.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It's Gina. And let's hope that's another question we get on the woman's facility.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Why did we where did that 97 come from?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: That was in the governor's It's

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: part of the governor's We took it out. We don't know where it was at that level.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: We've been putting money in so far a while on this.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: This would have been '21. Yes. We

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: put money in. Did some funky stuff.

[Unidentified committee member]: Here. Yeah.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: No. We did some funky stuff because the center didn't wanna have a line item for women's facility, and then the next year, we kinda changed that. It it got funky.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Alright. Yeah. Consist that's that's from pickup. Right?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Some of it went towards cancels take up. They want to hide them on set. It then had some leftover, and then it ended up Okay. It got really weird there at the very beginning.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: In Subdivision 16618 K from the 2021 capital bill. This is your state building section again. It's the same as the kind of reallocations you've seen in the earlier pieces, section 2C, various projects. 618,000.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: You know, I'll go back to the.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Oh, that's

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Don't worry about it. We're gonna keep working. Yep. You don't need to know. 19,000 compounds. Is that something you guys found?

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Sorry? No. Which picture?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: 97,000.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: We did not find that. No, that was already

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Okay, never mind. Okay. Alright.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Good. Good. Substitution 16 is that 618,000 from the state bill exactly at the 2021 capital bill.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I think we'll be okay with that. Let's just keep going down.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I love that.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Let's just keep going down.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: In subsection b, you have sums appropriated to the agency of commerce and community development. You can see the same lead in language. Sums appropriated to are reallocated to deferred expenditures. And what you have here is 31,320 and 70¢ from the 2021 capital bill for a CCD unmarked burial fund. Below that, we have highlighted language. This is the technical cleanup I was talking about. Act 33, it contained two cash reallocations that used the word reallocate. And so this is truly, you'll see it on page eight, just changing reallocate to revert. No substantive change to any of the cache there, all available to defray cache expenditures. Subsection n, this is a reallocation from amounts appropriated to the vest home in the 2023 capital. This is your elevator upgrade, reallocating 500 k. And those, unlike the other reallocations, and like I said, practically, I don't know if this is especially significant, but this helps to evidence the committee's intent. Typically when we reallocate capital expenditures, say, reallocate to defer expenditures in sections two through 16, which are your bonded sections. Here, because you were trying to tie tightly to the pet's home piece, you're reallocating to different expenditures authorized in section six. Practically, I don't know if it actually matters, but

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: it gets We had 100,000 for elevators. Remember that? We had 100,000 for elevators. They need about 400,000. Gave them an extra 100 just in case they need to pull that remaining 500,000, how we put it towards the sewer project. Right.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Subsection 0 is reallocating 63,413 and 15¢ from the enhanced nine one one compliance print that were first technically, they were actually added in 2018 capital bill file. Section p, this is amount appropriate to ANR or state owned forest and recreational access points. Does that make 3¢?

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

[Unidentified committee member]: So that clearly is here. It could be clean enough.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: You're gonna start to see highlights on page nine. But

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: this is the new page. Page. Reallocation, reversion, sections, cache.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Exactly. And this doesn't change anything from what you saw except a technical change from reallocate to revert. Like I said, in the future, I might create just a separate standalone section for cache reversions, and you could talk about them as separate sections. But I can go through the line items. The first is $119,114.6 from the 2023 capital bill, planning reduced contingency.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yeah. We can go through this real quick.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: 1,000,000 for pulled from the 120 State Street renovations. 450,000 from the West Cottage, 372, 557 and 10¢ from the short term stabilization facility, 750 k from the Washington County Superior Court House in Barrie.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I wanna go back to lines fifteen, fourteen. So how much money do you have right now with the short term facility? You've got about 300,000. Right? I think that's what you already had. Because we put in we put in quite a bit. We put in over 1,000,000 to go forward, and then you folks decided to do a design build. I just wanna know what you've got in hand right now. We can let that know next week, but I wanna know how much you got. Okay. Uh-huh.

[Scott (staff analyst, likely JFO/BGS)]: The DCF destabilization facility does have 372,000

[Unidentified committee member]: cash reallocations in this bill, Shawn did too. Somebody do what you think about 370,000 they're giving back in

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: cash. They already have some.

[Unidentified committee member]: They might

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: have some more, but

[Scott (staff analyst, likely JFO/BGS)]: just so you know.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yeah. But I wanna know what they've got in hand right now. Because that's gonna be important for further conversations.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: $7.50 k reverted from the Washington County Superior Courthouse in Perry. 250 k reverted from the planning and design of the Rutland Field Station. On page 10, we have $995,040 reverted from the EV charging stations in the 2023 capital bill. Those are accounts that were appropriated from the cash funds to BGS.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Whoever was doing this section, we didn't spend much time on why these dollars are being reallocated. We're gonna need to get a little bit more information from BGS on some of this, for the person who's reporting it, As to, like, some of the larger amounts, the 1,000,000 from 01/2020, we probably talked about. It's $7.50 from theory. It's pretty substantial. $2.50 from the ground station while we're going to have to be building it. Why are we pulling it back? And then the EV charging stations, it's all how significant. We're gonna need to do some work on that. I want to be able to answer those questions because some people might start asking, we didn't we didn't help before. We need to

[Unidentified committee member]: Especially BL? Yeah.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: That's almost a million.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: He's gonna be glad that we took

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: him. He'll be like, no.

[Unidentified committee member]: But that's yeah.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: But I wanna know, we didn't really get into this.

[Unidentified committee member]: That's that's fair. Yeah. The reporter certainly needs to understand that.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yeah. Don't think it'd So we're gonna have to spend some time for that. So when we come back next week on Tuesday, well, it would be really good if we could have BTS come in and just walk us through that. Okay. I'm gonna put it in your hands to take care of it, I need you to get in touch with Jake.

[Unidentified committee member]: Yeah. I don't know who did that section

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: last year.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It wasn't me.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Because we didn't look at this at all.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: We wouldn't have it last year because

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: We wouldn't have it. Oh, that's right.

[Unidentified committee member]: That's right.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I'm happy to do that.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It's been there for three years, so I wanna know why they're What's going on with the project? Again, this is partly craziness of what was built together and partly my fault because this section for cash reallocation is totally different for us. It's just more focused on it.

[Unidentified committee member]: It would be wise to drill down on that before it gets

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: because it could be asked on the floor and we don't have an answer.

[Unidentified committee member]: Well, can see it now.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So we will do that Tuesday afternoon. Okay, Cole?

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: If those were your cash reversions through BGS. The next, what you see in subsection R on page 10, is for, also the BGS, but we have to call out a separate act. They're reverted from a separate act. So you're seeing 1,500,000.0 reverted from the 120 State Street renovation.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So that really hasn't hit that three year mark.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It's authorized in the 2023 and then amended in 2024. Those were some interesting questions, I guess. Don't think any of these have technically hit the three year mark. This is BGS pulling it a year early. Don't know if it the governor pulling it a year early. It's

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Joe was in here talking about this. That's one twenty states.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm just saying any of the cash reversions in section 19, they technically aren't up for recommending until Three years have passed from the end of the Right. July is going be three years. Meaning that these are permissive reallocations essentially, their choices.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So the bill will become law.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So I think of it as establishing different priorities for the cash, basically. It's what we're doing.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Wanna get their hands on it before us. That's right.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Because they would have put it on that next. And then you just see the change to total reallocations also include perversions. We next come to the cash funded project authorization. So we've done our bonded pieces. We've done the allocations, versions. Now we're at cash funded project authorizations. This should all be very familiar from this morning's amendment to the budget, which just set up exactly these pieces. So I would just offer that if you wanted to change anything here, I'm sorry. So I'm just gonna scroll right past it.

[Scott (staff analyst, likely JFO/BGS)]: It's ship right through. Don't wanna know.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I'm gonna set it by that.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Ignorance is full. I don't

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: know about Swayampo, but works.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So intent language in this section talks about the way that we set up the cache section. And then the piece we see in subsection c on page 11, you have your FY twenty six cache authorizations. This just included your sprinkler system installation callout and change to that figure. But the actual FY twenty seven cash authorizations begin with subsection f, and they are all from the same capital infrastructure subaccount and cash fund. 1,281,173 and 60¢ for statewide major maintenance, 225 k for statewide physical security enhancements. On page 12, 3,600,000.0 for the Asaploomer roof replacement, 900 k for the Rutland multimodal garage renovation, 3,000,000 for 32 Cherry Street parking garage repairs, 1,050,000 for HVAC upgrades and correctional facilities, 225 k for statewide correctional facility security upgrades, 700,000 for door control upgrades at correctional facilities, 1,000,000 for the boiler replacement at the Northern State Correctional Facility, 772550 Dollars And 10 Cents for the youth short term stabilization facility. I think that's what rep Donahue was speaking to. And that's

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: what they wanted to not against.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yep. Page $132,498,000 for the state match for Franklin Water State revolving fund, 150 k for the Waterbury Dam And Stock project cost overruns, 400 k to Forest Parks and Recreation for park infrastructure and rehabilitation improvement and three acre of compliance, 200 k for dam maintenance and safety planning through Fish and Wildlife, 500 k for the urban search and rescue facility, 500 to the judiciary for the Essex County Courthouse Connector project, 1,600,000.0, PG and Singer renovations at the White River Junction Port Health, 566,724 to the Vermont Historical Society for climate control unit. And in the pieces that we most discussed, Subdivision 19, which extends across pages thirteen and fourteen, 3,000,000 for DOC to work with the agency of digital services to install a Wi Fi system in state correctional facilities, which is probably designed to address the safety, security, and confidentiality risks of the correction environment. And then 1,250,000.00 for the replacement of the women's for replacement of women's reentry and correctional facilities.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And then the language for the Wi Fi

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: is Report back is in the policy sections, and I will call it out when we get to it. And it has an explicit tie to this authorization. So in the policy sections, we are at the bottom of or kinda midway on page 14. We have our language from DEC, including that predefined term for eligible mobile home park order system. We pulled in the existing statutory kinda vague term, privately owned non profit community type system. It was an intentional choice not to disrupt the way the statutes are currently administered.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I'm saying that.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Well, it bothers me, but if I had it my way, I would just rewrite everything, but I felt so good. Just get frustrated when I think things should be clear.

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

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes, section 11.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: You're good, Chad. It's too hard

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: for like one of the intuitive, one of my neurotic things, which is admittedly a useful skill for this job, so it's not a bad thing. Okay, section 11. I didn't tell all you guys, I did not wake up to my alarm this morning. I woke up at 08:15 and I'm supposed to be meeting at eight to discuss the reversion business. Ready for the hack amendment at nine and I was like, okay.

[Unidentified committee member]: That's

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: a lot of them. This is updating your loan agreements. This is providing advantage to term loans to those kinds of border systems.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So this section right here, because it says the word fees, triggers the bill going to ways and means. As does lease to Vermont Hutts from Forest And Hutts. So the bill needs to go to Ways and Means.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Does that make a cut me?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Well, it's just an extra step. That's all.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Don't expect it to be a hazard.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Have both of us, chair of ways amazing me off guard. We got notice from Betsy Ann this morning. Oh no, Betsy Ann? Got it. Yeah, and I was thinking, I said, what do we have? And then I told Emily, I said, it's gotta be from other language

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Policies. Yeah.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Policy stuff from last year's bill or something. I mean,

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: you can think of that as also a useful we talked before about the routing of policy sections through the capital bill that might otherwise travel elsewhere. I mean, this sort of thing means that even if you put it in the capital bill, it will have to travel through.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Particularly the drinking water revolving loan fund because we fund that. And a lot of times what I've seen happen with other items, even though we might refund it in the capital bill, there's a policy committee that will change that program and not let us know.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And at some point in the future, just based on my reaction to that defined term alone, I would hope that if there's appetite at some point to revisit some of the, or not even change the decisions, to clean up the statutes, I think would be nice.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: That's what we can do in our free time.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: There it is. It is. Page 15, these are advantage terms. Under A1, loans should not exceed thirty years. They have to be secured with assets determined by VIDA. And a good source of revenue. Four, has a stylistic update, really just a stylistic update to reflect common drafting conventions today. The real change is on page 16 subdivision five. We've added in the notwithstanding subdivision one piece because sub one perk of its term length in excess of thirty years, about forty years. That's implicit, I assume, in the way that it was already drafted, so it's just cleanup. The real change is making available this section to those eligible mobile phone parkour systems. And what this section does is it allows these longer term, forty year loan term at an interest rate plus administrative fee to be established by the secretary of natural resources. Natural resources shall not be more than 3% or less than minus three. That's really the thing that kicks it in, right, is you have the floor of zero foot cent elsewhere. These can go lower. Under existing law, the kick in for this is that the applicant system meets certain income level household user cost requirements. But this is saying you can alternatively qualify. You don't have to be that kind of applicant system if you are an eligible home farm water system. You'd still have to meet these other conditions that at least 80% of the residential units, potentially occupied by local residents, and at least 80% of water producers for residential use. This is just pulling in a new water system to be eligible under this section. DEC language with some stylistic tweaks that we've done. Under sub c, there's a requirement that the Secretary of Natural Resources certify the long term and interest rate to VIDA, and it applied an additional floor here in existing law. It's in no instance shall the annual interest rate plus administrative fee be less than is necessary to achieve an annual household user cost equal to 1% of the median household income of the applicant water system. And so effectively, that's a floor to the rate that could be charged because they're saying, well, it should equal this 1% of median household income. And the language that you see here is carving out from the requirement. So except as applied to an eligible mobile park order system, Secretary Shallow certified. So this is saying those eligible mobile home park order systems are not subject to this minimum of 1% of many constraint, meaning they could have some of the most advantage long term.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: But whoever reports this section going on these.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And I can talk with whoever will be

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: reporting this too. Don't write their reports on.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I'm happy to hear that.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Don't know why. You can give them bullets.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: No. No. No. I've heard that I can't write them anything. Nor can I speak to them?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Pull that chocolate paper. So

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: those are your Ds. It forces people to internalize what they're doing. I have had my moments on the floor where I've heard someone verbatim saying what I wrote and I'm like, Oh, I did not know this was going to happen.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yeah, that's what they do. Then they're asked a question, then they can't answer.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It's also flattering for me. Don't know. Sorry. I didn't need to change what I did. Council.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Think I have a recess to talk to the council. So

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: those are your GC sections. You did not include, just to call back, section eight. It was either section eight or section nine, which would have created a large exception from the solution abatement prioritization system.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: This next section, we really make

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Did I lose that? I thought we landed on no solicitation.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I think

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: this was one where there was no decision. It was not only you, Troy. But you lost.

[Unidentified committee member]: This is

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Better than you usually do. Well, the

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: ethics code.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah, and it's more I understood the committee's concern to be more about slippery slope type arguments. But I don't know whether it was what I would do that. And I'm sorry, I meant to talk around what these existing ones were.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I remember Rich Gibson just maybe just wants to lost hope in a little bit.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Got it.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I don't want to talk about the Troy's going be Troy's going to be debating our community.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Mary.

[Unidentified committee member]: Terry gave me, there will be counter hijinks.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: can't answer that. I'm not a part

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: of He's got his directions, he can't do. We got some more minutes.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: We're doing good. Page 17, we jump to Well, I'm not gonna say those because you just talked about it. That's your solicitation piece. Department of Forest, Parks and Recreation at the bottom of this page. This is something that my colleague, Mike O'Grady, spoke to you guys about the Little River State Park lease.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: This is also triggering us volume towards the east.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: The lease piece?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yeah. Supposedly, were we gonna put in a date This meant to be.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: In FY twenty seven authorized to enter a long term lease.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yeah. But did we talk about it's not done by a certain date? No, we're starting at 2027, but it may not be completed for four years.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Well, it's authority to enter into a lease, right? So you need to enter the lease in FY '27 is the way that I read this. In FY '27, commissioner is authorized to enter into a long term lease. I agree.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Enter into then it does not mean that you completed the negotiations and signed off.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I think if you've entered into the lease, I mean, that's the way that I would read it, if you're a party to the lease now.

[Unidentified committee member]: Yeah. At least it would spend entered into it's a Yeah. It's a

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I would say negotiated by those trying to But aren't they in the process of that right now?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: They're they can't do it if given the authority. Oh, gotcha. Gotcha. Now have

[Unidentified committee member]: So they can they can they can agree on terms and

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: then sign it on July 1. Yeah. They they can do things now. Yeah. But there's no

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: They haven't even started talking about the terms.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: They'll be there too.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: My concern is I just didn't want the negotiations to go on forever and ever and not end up in progress.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Well, technically this forces that then, because it needs to be within the fiscal year that they enter.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: '27.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Beginning July 1 year.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yep. So they have until June

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: year. Exactly.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Just want that clear because sometimes with some of this stuff in the past, we've just seen it go on and on with a drop dead date.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: On page 19, the Southern State Correctional Facility language, again, this was signed off, confirmed Manoli. There's no official language in here. Or lived testimony.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I'll tell you when BGS found that person who was in Joe's position at that point, I remember he came into the community, he was so happy to find this piece of property because he said the soil was perfect to build on. He was just so happy because it was all sand and gravel. We don't have to do much excavation. So, well, there are a lot of parties up there.

[Unidentified committee member]: So what it said?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: He was a happy time.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: We lost the time, Joe. On page 20, accompanying the transfer authority are a set of appeals. The first in subsection a is repealing the previous transfer authority granted in the 2024 capital bill, which was for a different purpose and a smaller acreage, 10 acres. So this is essentially replacing that section. The alternative approach would have been to amend it, but I think it's cleaner to just have it all here. Yeah. Exactly. And the second piece of this is section 14. That's the transfer authority. It's repealed on 07/01/2030, meaning that this speaks to a bunch of different things. But if you haven't actually transferred it by that date, you would lose the authority at that point. And we do have a separate piece here just above that if the town hadn't begun developing the transferred property by the March 2030, they would need to consult with BGS. And again, it's implicit there that it's been transferred. So they would have used the authority and it would not matter.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Good, And then section 16.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Section 16, this is the duplicate budget language. We're giving you off session for this off session, August through December monthly reports, AHS in consultation with DCF and BGS reporting to joint fiscal and legislative justice oversight develop that Green Mountain View campus, and in particular, requesting an annual operating budget. And then the real piece you care about is the more substantive provision here is subsection b. DCF and BGS not to expend any funds for corporate development in FY '27 until one of the following happens. JSC, in consultation with institutions committee's chairs, approves resumption of expenditures after reviewing those reports on operating expenditures, or say a German incident happened, you didn't get joint fiscal approval, you're back in session, the general assembly could authorize resumption spending through. So it imposes a gate, You may have existing spending authority for all sorts of things related to this, and it says, DCF, VGS, don't expend funds in FY '27 until you get one of these authorizations. Lastly, page 21, your report on Wi Fi installation in state correctional facilities. This has the Commissioner of Corrections and the Chief Information Officer of Digital Services monthly reporting during adjournment in this calendar year. Thank you for the correction from 2027 to 2026, monthly reporting to joint legislative justice oversight in consultation with the chairs of institution committees on the installation of Wi Fi and state correctional facilities, authorized person two, and then we have the cash call out. And just note that while this is just says, you know, report on the installation of Wi Fi state correctional facilities, you have some additional granularity in that cache authorization, which speaks to developing a system that is appropriately secure and safe and confidential for correctional requirements. That would Yes?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Do we see a smile?

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: There is no Yes, you do. Sorry. Date. I

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: said, do we see a smile?

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: The effective date is my favorite. It's on passage. And that is it. That is the capital budget adjustment. And you have two minutes before 02:00. I know. Did so well.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Hang on, we may still need them, because I have to get the graph electronically and blah, blah, blah. So we've gone through the bill. Any dangling issues? Any dangling issues on the spreadsheet? We are ready to vote this puppy out. I would entertain a motion to vote her and To grab

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: do something.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Grab 3.1 favorably. Joe has moved. It's been moved. And seconded. We called out the draft decontent on favor of any further discussion. If not, please call the row.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: Representative Casey? Yes. Representative Galfetti?

[Gina Galfetti (Member)]: Yes, with exclamation.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Representative

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: Greer? Yes. Representative Greg Wire.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Not electronically.

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Did you hear me?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yes. Yeah. Loud employer.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Go to bed.

[Unidentified committee member]: Representative Headrick. Yes. Representative Luneau.

[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: Yes. Representative Minier. Yes. Representative Morrissey.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I'm thinking about

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: it.

[Unidentified committee member]: I'll note that as well.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: Representative Sweeney, yes. Representative Winter is

[Unidentified committee member]: absent and chairing them. Yes. Ten-one. Got it, brother.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Ten-one, I want to thank everyone for the work you've done. I'll let the speaker know and pending entry to the bill being done for all, they may send it to Weights and Means today, I'm not sure. What I would also ask folks is, and I know you don't want to look at this over the weekend, I don't blame you, but I'll be working on it over the weekend because I really want to know more behind it. If there's any sections that you really want report on, we're not going to need too many reporters. Again, I give the overview, the full review, and then we break it down. To raise people, to raise the very most beyond me at the very most. So, folks who want to volunteer would be great.

[Unidentified committee member]: I'm happy to.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Just figure out, this weekend think about it, figure out what sections you'd be interested in doing. Don't pick all the easy ones. And we'll talk about it on Tuesday. It's the best. I wanna thank you all. We've put up a lot of work so far between corrections issues, between this, and it feels like the capital bill ended up being really scattered this year, but we'll get through it. And then when we come back next week, we'll finish up trying to get a round of cash, the applications. And we're gonna have some senate bills coming over if we want. Particularly, this might take a lot of work and a lot of background. It's the forensic. Post forensic facility, in a correctional facility. I don't know where that goes. Don't know if it's going be in judiciary or here. They've got to pass it in the Senate. It's been on the calendar for a week and a half. So they haven't passed it yet. So I just don't know. But we're going to do some background work on that.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: You're saying it might land in judiciary first, or it might not come here at all?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It might land here first.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: We're going to see it.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Oh, yeah. Okay.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It's just how

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: the bill's going to be. Just not sure. It came out of judiciary committee.

[Unidentified committee member]: So that would be for individuals who

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: are not fit to stand trial? It's pretty topical. Could be that competency, could be insanity. It could also be that they have a court order to be A great weekend. I think we need to give our staff a round of applause. We're done and let's walk. Thank you.