Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Kathleen James (Chair)]: We're live. Alright, welcome back everybody. It is House Energy and Digital Infrastructure. And we are back at 03:30 on February 10 and our 03:30 witness was not able to join us. So I thought we'd just take a few minutes and talk about our budget work and then we could be done for the day. And I could we could also we'll also make sure that everybody has the bill that we're voting on tomorrow, actually. Okay. So the budget so I wanna make sure that we know what we need to do for our budget letter. So our budget letter is due to house appropes a week from Friday. And what I'm envisioning, we don't have really specific concrete asks like some of the ones we had last year. We had last year, we had committees, you know, or agencies and departments coming to us and saying, you know, will you please write in your letter that you approve this or that? So we were taking testimony on specific requests. This year, we're more in oversight mode. We're reviewing, you know, the budget areas that are under our oversight. And think reassuring the House Appropriations that we've taken testimony, that we understand any changes, and that we either have an opinion or have a recommendation. So, the areas of the budget that we need to make sure that we understand and can write a little summary of are B105, that's the Agency of Digital Services, B two thirty three, the public service department. B two thirty three point one, that's the community broadband board. And then two thirty four, the public utility commission. So I haven't gone back and pulled together, you know, all the testimony and all my personally, my thinking on this. I haven't had time to really dive in. But we have taken testimony from PUC. They came in and presented their budget and talked about their budget and gave us an overview. So And we have that testimony we can go back and look at. And I I don't think we need to have them back in, but folks should find their testimony and take a look. And I'm gonna try to pull together something organized for us to look at with plenty of time. We've heard from the Community Broadband Board. I know we have them in to talk about their budget. We had DPS come in to talk about their budget. And we've been working on the EDS budget.

[R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: So

[Kathleen James (Chair)]: in my mind, at least this is where I think we are, PUC, we need to look at a summary of what we've learned and make sure there weren't any specific asks and make some kind of a, you know, recommendation. Vermont Community Broadband Board, I don't think we need I don't think we need additional testimony. I think we're at the point of, like, summarizing and giving our thoughts. And same with DPS. Agency of digital services, I think it might be helpful to take one take take that final round of testimony that we're hoping to do today and hear from JFO. Because JFO has also been meeting with ABS and meeting with commissioner Gresham and learning about these changes and making sure they understand these changes. And I think that they could come in and tell us what they've learned and they could also talk to us and they've offered to talk to us about something that Lisa was saying at the at the very end of our testimony with the ADS, which is that there are standards in place around these contracts and around bill payment and around deliverables that aren't changing. And so I think it might be helpful to all of us just to hear about those. So I'm feeling like the last actual testimony we need to take unless I've missed something is to get JFO in here. Then an assignment I'm going give to myself is to look back through all the testimony we've taken so far. See if there are any specific asks. And I was going to try to pull together a document for everybody that had here's what we've learned so far, here's what they're asking for us, or here's what we need to think about, put some links in there. Thank you. And get that out to the committee to look at with plenty of time so that we still could take testimony and all sign off on the committee letter and not have it in late. Does that sound like a plan?

[Unidentified Member (possibly Christopher Howland)]: That's next Friday. It's due. Next

[Kathleen James (Chair)]: Friday, it's due. So I'm feeling like I need to work on some sort of document for us all to look at, like, pretty PDQ here so that we don't run out of time.

[Unidentified Member (possibly Bram Kleppner)]: So

[R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. I

[Unidentified Member (possibly Bram Kleppner)]: I would like to voice support for something that's I'm guessing it would be extremely difficult for us to do, which is feel like we have to have an understanding of these IT projects. And, you know, the spend, and I feel like that's that's us. And and it's interspersed throughout the budget, throughout the building. And I'm not sure how we would do it except for asking the other committees if they have IT projects to let us know about them. I don't know whose job it is to do that in a kind of comprehensive way. It's not ours. And I think this is part of the problem that I'm seeing when I this reporting that we're having in this. There's no way to look and see IT across the enterprise, like the projects, which I think is problematic. And so

[R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Even though I'm utilizing the Apple dashboard?

[Unidentified Member (possibly Bram Kleppner)]: So does that tell us how much money is being appropriated this year?

[R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Tells you the total cost of the project.

[Unidentified Member (possibly Bram Kleppner)]: Does it tell us how much is being appropriated this year?

[Kathleen James (Chair)]: But we didn't do that last year. So I'm struggling to understand what's materially changing. Like, we look at an ADS budget last year line by line that had every dollar for every project. We we looked at the UpMo dashboard, which is where all these projects were rolled up and presented to us. And so to my mind, as long as because how we how we did our oversight last year was that we looked at the ADS annual report. We looked at the dashboard. And I couldn't agree more that like that. That dashboard is that is our key tool in my mind. Like, that's where we look and see, geez, running behind, over budget. We relied on JFO to show us the projects they were working on or that they were flagging. And we held oversight hearings throughout the session on big ticket items that we knew from the EPMO dashboard, but we also knew just from being here in the building and from working with Lisa Gobin, which big projects were moving forward. And we tried to take systematic testimony, not on every project, but, you know, on, I don't know, we heard from the Secretary of State, we heard from Vidal, we heard from DMV. So, I guess I'm struggling to understand. Unless the UpMode dashboard doesn't work anymore, it can't be updated. And I think that's an area of real concern. I'm struggling to understand how our work is gonna be any different.

[R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: I was talking to Adam after we had him in here and commented that hundreds of millions of dollars we've got in projects stacked up over the next several years seems like the big number that we ought to be worried about. That puts on the at my desk or his response was, well, it actually is the big, the big deal from his point of view is the 100,000,000 or so that we're spending every year on project, on IT, on ADS and IT generally. And I took that to me, well, guess, actually, regarding wasn't that money yet, but that includes the spending on each of the projects year by year. So $100,000,000 a year is a pretty big number. And having a handle on that number is really important too.

[Unidentified Member (possibly Bram Kleppner)]: Who's got a handle on the number?

[R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Well, the White House. And

[Unidentified Member (possibly Bram Kleppner)]: and that's my that's my point, madam chair. And I I am not saying that we are pulling short. I I and I'm not even saying that we have the time, but I'm just worried. I'm I I don't think

[Kathleen James (Chair)]: I I came away from today feeling like there's gonna be better ability to We know. To to provide, know, some controls on those or to get a sense of, you know, the deficit spend model. Like, that doesn't work. You know, to have that internal service fund going deeper into deficit every year, you know, from 1,500,000 to 7,000,000 to 13,000,000 to 25,000,000 because ADS is performing services that the agencies can't reimburse for. That's alarming to me.

[R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Are we worried about oversight of these projects?

[Unidentified Member (possibly Bram Kleppner)]: So Budgetary. Like, who who So ADS

[Unidentified Member (possibly Richard Bailey)]: works with whatever agency there is Mhmm. To formulate what they want, and it goes out for RRSP.

[Unidentified Member (possibly Christopher Howland)]: Yeah.

[Unidentified Member (possibly Richard Bailey)]: Once the contract I mean, if you don't want me

[Unidentified Member (possibly Christopher Howland)]: to talk, I won't you.

[Unidentified Member (possibly Bram Kleppner)]: No. No. I mean, I I mean, I understand this. I don't think sorry.

[Kathleen James (Chair)]: Yeah. I wanna hear hear your thought process.

[Unidentified Member (possibly Richard Bailey)]: Once that is awarded, there is an assigned employee of ADS, whether it's contractual employee or an actual employee of ADS, that has meeting after meeting after meeting with whoever is in charge of the project or the next, for that agency. They constantly look at it. They constantly look at expenditures. And ADS does oversight on that if they question you hard if there's something not going right. If you're showing that you're going above what their levels of expenditure are, they're gonna question you. In my interpretation, the oversight of that money is still in place.

[Unidentified Member (possibly Bram Kleppner)]: Who who is providing oversight? ADS. So who's providing oversight of ADS? That's urgent. That's the question. That's the problem I'm having. That's the problem I'm having.

[Kathleen James (Chair)]: Well, and I it interestingly, I I see what we're hearing about this budget change as DFM is gonna be providing greater oversight of ADS as well. I I know we have a role, but

[Unidentified Member (possibly Bram Kleppner)]: Yeah. I mean, the the I I see what they're doing around the internal service fund, and that makes a lot of sense to me. Right. So just to make to maybe be very specific and to have really taken us far off course here, it is the projects and understanding what the administration is prioritizing to spend on IT projects where and how and who in the legislature has oversight of that, Cause we don't.

[Kathleen James (Chair)]: Well, yeah, we do. Don't make those decisions. We have the same oversight role as we've always had.

[Unidentified Member (possibly Richard Bailey)]: Right. And instead of everything being out of this committee, the oversight is going to each individual agency's committee of oversight.

[Kathleen James (Chair)]: And here. And JITOC.

[Unidentified Member (possibly Christopher Howland)]: You can ask GFO for a list IT projects across agencies. Right? They should be able to pull that up for us. Is that Yeah. Access to all that. Right?

[Kathleen James (Chair)]: Yeah. But yes. But we can ask. But I think that sure. We can ask. I'm not I don't know if they have. You mean in the new budget?

[Unidentified Member (possibly Christopher Howland)]: It would be good for us to see what projects are being budgeted for the next fiscal year. I mean, the the dashboard has everything broken down by by agency and projects quite clearly, but Mhmm. That's as things stand now, not just the year '26. See, it

[R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: doesn't tell us what's what's being spent this year.

[Unidentified Member (possibly Bram Kleppner)]: Right. Like, for instance, are we making any investments in the child welfare system? Yeah. No. We're not. What do we think about that? Like, it's Bill will say something about that there, but what about other you know, like, is there any kind of oversight about the

[Kathleen James (Chair)]: and Well, and that's what I'm struggling to understand is I what's changing here, and just to repeat what I said earlier, because I might not be being clear, but we did not last year in our budget letter take a look at every single IT project line by line. Yep. How much was budgeted in the f y twenty seven or in the f y twenty six budget and take testimony on every single IT project and render opinions on that because that they they were they were always scattered.

[Unidentified Member (possibly Bram Kleppner)]: They weren't. We were scattered. But did not do that last year. Okay. Did not do that

[R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: last year. Year. We great information.

[Kathleen James (Chair)]: But we right. And I'm not sure if that's

[Unidentified Member (possibly Christopher Howland)]: Would be good to look at. We don't have to take tests on the. So

[Unidentified Member (possibly Bram Kleppner)]: for instance So when Jay comes in, we can ask them that. A wash in federal funds. The committee of jurisdiction got prior priorities from the administration about what they wanted to spend IT on, and the legislature kind of weighed in on that. And I I I recognize that I am absolutely throwing a monkey wrench here, but I'm concerned about the oversight aspect of this. And, yes, we did not do this last year. I don't think we're falling down. I think we're making things better.

[Kathleen James (Chair)]: Well, you're not really throwing a monkey wrench because what I'm envisioning, you know, it's not like this committee is gonna vote to say, oh, the budget's not gonna be that way. We're not doing this it this way. No. It's good. But I I think we all what I'm envisioning is, you know, a couple paragraphs summarizing what we've learned about what's changing and what parts of it we think might be good and what parts of it we think are cons that we're concerned about. Mhmm. And we wanna make sure that the legislature keeps its eye on. Like, it's not like we're gonna take a vote on do we think you know, on oh, we don't want it to be this way, go back to the other way. So, I'm imagining a kind of thoughtful couple paragraphs that says, here's what we understand is changing. These are the areas that we think might be beneficial, and these are the areas that we're concerned about, and we'd like to make sure that appropes and JITOC and HEDTI keep an eye on this. So that's what I'm imagining the outcome is gonna

[R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: be here. Well, appropes in particular is gonna be concerned about the additional spending over last year. Right? Because they have to they they have a much tighter

[Unidentified Member (possibly Christopher Howland)]: amount of money.

[Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: The 14,000,000.

[Kathleen James (Chair)]: I mean,

[Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: we have

[Unidentified Member (possibly Bram Kleppner)]: the Yeah. Of ADS. Budgeting of ADS, it feels like we've got a good handle on that. It's the projects.

[R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. But it but but it's it's how much is being spent this year is what we don't know.

[Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: Also, we might wanna say something about staffing because they mentioned that they're gonna let attrition happen. And I'm just you know, project management is really important with the coordination now on the budget. And so I would not like to see their staff be too lean because that will impact life of success and budget. The ledge

[Unidentified Member (possibly Bram Kleppner)]: made money. My sense from the secretary was, well, we can let these people go because now it's gonna be over at the arm and that yet what we're hearing

[Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: Sorry. What we're what we heard from Lisa. Yeah. That's that's people doing that. Mhmm. Embedded project managers.

[Kathleen James (Chair)]: But that's is that I didn't think that was changing.

[Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: Well, it's just a matter of as attrition happens, like, I'm attrition.

[Kathleen James (Chair)]: Don't know. So, do you think I'm missing the thread on next steps here? Like, I I don't see how we can move forward unless we hear from JFO. I think we'll definitely try to get them in, like, ASAP. And then I think I have to try to take a crack at drafting something, which may be which will be very preliminary, but I don't know what else to do as a first step besides having something to look at. And maybe it's not even a draft letter. Maybe it's just like a working document.

[Unidentified Member (possibly Bram Kleppner)]: I mean, that sounds right to me.

[Kathleen James (Chair)]: That sounds right think to about. Here's what we need to look at. Here are the links.

[Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: And we may have some additional questions. Right? Yeah. Achieving them.

[Kathleen James (Chair)]: Okay.

[Unidentified Member (possibly Michael "Mike" Southworth or Christopher Morrow)]: I mean, my this is outside the budget discussion. Yeah. When we had that joint hearing downstairs of what the system that failed Yeah. There didn't seem to be any urgency to get this correct and and at

[Unidentified Member (possibly Christopher Howland)]: least that's the view by. And it's costing money. Yeah.

[Kathleen James (Chair)]: See what you see me?

[Unidentified Member (possibly Christopher Howland)]: Yeah.

[Kathleen James (Chair)]: Yeah.

[Unidentified Member (possibly Christopher Howland)]: I mean, I don't know. Nobody else did that. Oh, yeah. That was that was Just like, oh, yeah. It crashed. Don't get it. And

[Unidentified Member (possibly Bram Kleppner)]: I guess my my to my point is I don't think we're gonna be able to fix that. Well, I don't know. I mean

[Unidentified Member (possibly Christopher Howland)]: I mean, is is that on the on their on their dashboard? That

[Kathleen James (Chair)]: It it is, isn't it? Hang on. Let's look.

[Unidentified Member (possibly Michael "Mike" Southworth or Christopher Morrow)]: Who's got I know. We're getting outside.

[Kathleen James (Chair)]: Well, I don't think we are getting outside because we have a budget letter to write, and we need to figure out what to put in it.

[Unidentified Member (possibly Richard Bailey)]: So if you go to ADS's website, and there is a thing with legislative reports down on the left hand side, and you open up the 2026 annual report, there's a lot of information in that.

[Kathleen James (Chair)]: Mhmm. And I'm looking at the

[Unidentified Member (possibly Christopher Howland)]: The the CWIS project start date is 2023. Project completion date, 2028, but there's no information about implementation date, money, or anything. Did they say that was because it had not been awarded yet?

[Kathleen James (Chair)]: Yes. They did say that. Because I I remember now, was looking at the dashboard during the hearing, and, yeah, it's because it hasn't been. It's are they in the RFP process? Is that

[R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: I believe that's what they're saying.

[Kathleen James (Chair)]: So to me, I mean, to me, one of the key things that we wanna flag is this EPO dashboard and how how critical it is that that be timely and maintained. It's all you know?

[Unidentified Member (possibly Christopher Howland)]: There's a bunch that estimated completion date was in late of last late last year, and they're still on here. We don't really know whether it's completed or not, do we? Current is different.

[Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: I I took notes during the hearing, and they said it's gonna be two to five years to complete depending on resource availability.

[Unidentified Member (possibly Christopher Howland)]: And they didn't put anything in the budget. So

[Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: 7,000,000 was allocated.

[Unidentified Member (possibly Christopher Howland)]: Last year. Not nothing this year.

[Kathleen James (Chair)]: Right. Because there was just that we know what what's in the budget for Dear, I actually did a great story of it. Did you guys all read that? Anyway, well, those are that's what I see as next steps on the our budget letter. So I don't know when I'm gonna be able to draft that, but I'll try to do it as soon as I can. And I don't know what that means. As soon as I can. But I will try to do it as soon as I can. And then tomorrow, we have another vote. This is a big vote week. Tomorrow, we're voting on the our committee bill, two six zero seven two six, and I sent everybody that language, and that's posted on our website, I believe. Let me make sure. So that's booked tomorrow morning at

[Unidentified Member (possibly Bram Kleppner)]: Nine two seven.

[Kathleen James (Chair)]: Nine. Let me make sure it's posted.

[Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: Yes.

[Kathleen James (Chair)]: It was posted today. So tomorrow on the on the consolidated bill, we're voting on draft 1.3 dated 02/09 at 11:11AM. And this one's it's really handy because Maria marked she highlighted all of our changes. And she basically just went through and made all the changes that we talked about when we when we walked through the bill and worked it out last week. So we had that committee conversation. We walked through the bill line by line. Everybody weighed in and she made all the changes that we asked her to make. And so that's what's posted for our vote tomorrow.

[Unidentified Member (possibly Christopher Howland)]: Where do I find that?

[Kathleen James (Chair)]: It's on if you go to our web page so go to our our committee web page and then click on the bill tab. Let me know when you're there.

[R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Honey 6 0.

[Kathleen James (Chair)]: Yep. 260726. And then once you click on that, you go to drafts, amendments, and legal documents.

[Unidentified Member (possibly Christopher Howland)]: Alright. And

[Kathleen James (Chair)]: then it's that top draft from where you have.

[Unidentified Member (possibly Christopher Howland)]: Draft code.

[Kathleen James (Chair)]: Yep. So that's for Morrow. And Sibilia is also the floor reporter on that one, so she's got a big week.

[Unidentified Member (possibly Bram Kleppner)]: Yeah. And figuring out what we're spending on IT everywhere. Yeah. Okay.

[Kathleen James (Chair)]: I think that's a wrap for today. Alright. We can go off live.