Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. Ela Chapin (Member)]: Alright.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Good morning, and welcome to the House Environment Committee.

[Rep. Ela Chapin (Member)]: This

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: morning, we are going to be discussing and voting on h seven seventy eight, an act relating to DMC. Do we have a new version of Representative Chittenden?

[Rep. Ela Chapin (Member)]: We have a new version. Safety time. Yes. Right there under the twentieth.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Right.

[Rep. Ela Chapin (Member)]: Their only changed language is about what was requested by Green Mountain Power's representative who was here yesterday to just acknowledge that some of the state owned dams have hydroelectric facilities run by private enterprises. In that case, the owner operator of the hydroelectric facility would be consulted as with other relevant entities that it's in the list, including with municipal officials and search and rescue and emergency responders.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Right. So

[Rep. Ela Chapin (Member)]: It's twice in the bill on page the end of page two and at the end of page four. And nothing else changed from yesterday. Great. And director, Eric Florand of Department of Emergency Management, sent me an email this morning saying it looked like everything he was expecting. And as long as he was just concerned that the appropriation might get taken out, but he said, I heard language would go in saying we don't have to do this if there's no appropriation. And I just said, yes, that's how it will what will transpire in operations. Yeah. What we expect to transpire in operations.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Do members have further thoughts on this bill?

[Rep. Kate Logan (Member)]: Representative Blogie? Thank you for your work on this, Representative Chapin. Thanks.

[Rep. Ela Chapin (Member)]: I love that our committee has five EMTs. I just want to acknowledge. I feel like this was the right space for the snapshots. Representative Morris and representative Austin and others just really highlighting how important this is even though it's still low likelihood to end up and all the different parties that need to be integrated in the training. It's forward looking. It's long range. We're working overtime to improve the safety of our dams and the resilience of our communities around them. And appreciate all the work that the DAM Safety Division is doing, and we will learn about next session, I presume, all the rulemaking will transpire this year that will also relate to this.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Great. And the word division I think Vermont Emergency Management is a

[Rep. Ela Chapin (Member)]: division So, of the anyway Thank you. Sorry. Yeah.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Alright, members. I just have one question. Sure.

[Rep. Michael Hoyt (Member)]: So you did make the note that completion of the pilot is contingent upon the appropriations.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: It's not

[Rep. Ela Chapin (Member)]: in the zone now. Okay. That's what is appropriations is doing with any bill that comes to them that has an appropriation in it. It's They'll add that contingency line.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Yes. They'll make an amendment. Okay. Great. Alright. Is there a motion to approve this draft version four one dated 02/19? I'll make that motion. Great. Representative Pritchard has moved. Is there a second by representative Logan?

[Rep. Ela Chapin (Member)]: We can be representative Tagliavia, I think.

[Rep. Michael Hoyt (Member)]: And

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Kristi, representative Morris is using one of his vote remotely chipped, so clerk will note that. And so is there further discussion? Seeing none, clerk, will you please commence to call the roll? Okay. Sarah Oscar, yes.

[Rep. Sarah 'Sarita' Austin (Clerk)]: Ela Chapin, Representative Chapin? Yes. Okay. Representative Hoyt?

[Rep. Michael Hoyt (Member)]: Yes. Representative

[Rep. Sarah 'Sarita' Austin (Clerk)]: Weber?

[Rep. Larry Labor (Vice Chair)]: Yes.

[Rep. Sarah 'Sarita' Austin (Clerk)]: Representative Logan? Yes. Representative Morris?

[Rep. Kristi Morris (Member)]: Yes.

[Rep. Sarah 'Sarita' Austin (Clerk)]: And representative North?

[Rep. Rob North (Member)]: Yes.

[Rep. Sarah 'Sarita' Austin (Clerk)]: Representative Pritchard? Yes. Representative Sapowitz? Yes. Representative Addison?

[Rep. Michael 'Mike' Tagliavia (Member)]: Yes. And representative Sheldon?

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Yes.

[Rep. Sarah 'Sarita' Austin (Clerk)]: That's 11. Yes.

[Rep. Ela Chapin (Member)]: We'll report the bill? Great. Does anybody else have Roxanne,

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: I think will be reporting the bill.

[Rep. Michael Hoyt (Member)]: Thanks for your work on this, Ela.

[Rep. Sarah 'Sarita' Austin (Clerk)]: Yeah. Thanks. Thank you, Ela.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Alright. We have a few minutes before our first witness, and I think what I would like to do is walk through the budget letter, just start that since we have time for it. I guess I want to just update where we are. We can hear from a redemption center who wanted to testify Reaching out to the retailers, representatives, the small brewers representatives. I don't know if anyone will come in. Apparently, they're split on it, so we're trying to get testimony there. So we're holding the vote on the bottle bill redemption PRO for another bit to see about further testimony. And then I hope we could wrap up our budget letter, or close to wrap before noon today.

[Rep. Sarah 'Sarita' Austin (Clerk)]: Do we prioritize?

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Yes, we do. I think in fifteen minutes, we could probably walk through the letter.

[Rep. Kate Logan (Member)]: Yeah. And then to answer your question, Representative Austin, typically, the way that we have it formatted right now is by agency of natural resources secretary's office overall, kind of general funding, and then by department. But it typically is the committee on appropriations would like us to prioritize the requests in the letter so that we'll have to reorder the letter.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: So where can we get the letter and then also get it kept? I emailed it to the whole committee this spring. Great. Did that work? I'm not on the You're

[Rep. Ela Chapin (Member)]: not on our committee distribution list? Yeah. No. So Okay.

[Rep. Kate Logan (Member)]: I'm trying to log into my account Yes. Right Could you share it with us?

[Rep. Ela Chapin (Member)]: It's been emailed to you. Thank you.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: I got a share invite,

[Rep. Michael Hoyt (Member)]: which may

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: or may not work for me. It should work if

[Rep. Kate Logan (Member)]: you're logged into your legislative account.

[Rep. Ela Chapin (Member)]: Okay. I'll download it. I'll send it

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: to you. Oh, yeah. Or I could just

[Rep. Michael Hoyt (Member)]: I mean, you were about to do.

[Rep. Ela Chapin (Member)]: You could do.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Yeah. Let's do send.

[Rep. Ela Chapin (Member)]: Mhmm. Alright. I just got it, so I

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: will post it. Oh, it should be added.

[Rep. Kate Logan (Member)]: Would you like us to present it? Sure.

[Rep. Michael Hoyt (Member)]: That would

[Rep. Ela Chapin (Member)]: be great. Okay. Do you want to do the first section?

[Rep. Kate Logan (Member)]: And then I'll do these

[Rep. Ela Chapin (Member)]: first section, and then you

[Rep. Kate Logan (Member)]: can do those question mark areas.

[Rep. Michael Hoyt (Member)]: Yeah. Well, all of these question marks, but

[Rep. Kate Logan (Member)]: I updated them because I had the information that was

[Rep. Ela Chapin (Member)]: not present.

[Rep. Michael Hoyt (Member)]: The question marks were intended to indicate that we need to discuss those.

[Rep. Kate Logan (Member)]: Oh, I thought the question marks meant that you had questions about them.

[Rep. Michael Hoyt (Member)]: Oh, yeah.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Just that

[Rep. Michael Hoyt (Member)]: it was put forth as a

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Oh. Proposal Oh, yeah. Discussion. Yes. Everything is a Everything is a discussion. Everything is a different topic.

[Rep. Kate Logan (Member)]: Nothing is a is a suggestion from us. Everything is a just kind of reporting back what we've learned. And then you did you add the LERB? I did not.

[Rep. Michael Hoyt (Member)]: I did not have a second for the LERB, but I

[Rep. Ela Chapin (Member)]: can't do that. Yes. We can set you up

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: for the LERB. I'll take care of that.

[Rep. Michael Hoyt (Member)]: Thank you. Why don't you go ahead and

[Rep. Kate Logan (Member)]: start sharing? Well, that part you wrote that is kind of reviewing the savings

[Rep. Michael Hoyt (Member)]: from Oh, the first section.

[Rep. Ela Chapin (Member)]: Oh, not the first paragraph.

[Rep. Michael Hoyt (Member)]: Yeah. The very first paragraph. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. This so dear chair, Chai House Committee on Appropriations. Yeah. So all of this language is just literally verbiage, word for word, told right out of secretary Moore's presentation for us that gives kind of the overall picture of what's happening, because there's a significant reduction in funding current with the Agency of Natural Resources this year due to the winding down of the BIL IIJA funding. And I put in parentheses ARPA. Is that is that really the correct way to to do that,

[Rep. Kate Logan (Member)]: Eric? Another source

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: of AI. It was addition there are all sources of data.

[Rep. Michael Hoyt (Member)]: So maybe it should say a slash, another slash.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: And ARPA.

[Rep. Kate Logan (Member)]: And ARPA.

[Rep. Ela Chapin (Member)]: Yep.

[Rep. Michael Hoyt (Member)]: Yeah. Okay.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Since we learned about slashes this year That's right.

[Rep. Ela Chapin (Member)]: We took calls on the hands.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Right. So

[Rep. Michael Hoyt (Member)]: you want to read through Okay. I'll just read it. So thank you for the opportunity to provide a comment regarding the y twenty seven budget. I'll help you find our recommendations. We agree with the governor's state fiscal year '27 recommend of $299,600,000 for the agency of natural resources, which includes the secretary's office, DEC, GIFW, and the letter. Notice it doesn't include four parts of Ryan. Yeah. Because that comes through Ag. The ANR '27 budget includes an overall decrease of $42,100,000, which is about a 12% overall decrease compared to previous year,

[Rep. Ela Chapin (Member)]: due to the

[Rep. Michael Hoyt (Member)]: winding down of one time funding. It was allocated just the one time from federal government. Practices. So there was another quote not in Secretary Morton's presentation, but in a presentation from the Department of Fish and Wildlife that indicated that the DFW does not anticipate significant federal reductions or grant eliminations. And actually, it said in both years, I said, by 2016 and 2017, but it's figured since we're focused on just 2017, I only left the 2017. So, in other words, I don't anticipate any further pullback of the money. So significant budget changes include and, again, this is all right out of secretary Morris' presentation to us just to kinda give you a flavor of where the money is being moved from or at least what major categories. The salaries, wages, and benefits are actually increasing by 6.8%, whereas everything else is being reduced significantly. Primarily, you know, short term employment type folks, contracted people, third party services being reduced by 11,600,000, which is 26.9%. And again, these numbers are all right out of her presentation. Decrease in internal operations, you know, top of your paper, the plans and leases, and all that kind of stuff. About 7% decrease and a decrease in copy for total? 900,000.0 of Beginning? 20.6%. So you can just kinda get a flavor of where the reductions are. That doesn't necessarily directly translate into an ask from us to the appropriateness community, but at least it gives an explanation of why there's such a significant reduction. It's not like we're pulling back. That's just the way the funding's working from the public government.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Do we have a sense of the increase in salaries and wages, that's just cost of living and health insurance going up? Exactly. Inflation. We're not actually

[Rep. Michael Hoyt (Member)]: adding Not adding much. A good point. I probably could have added a sentence in their own lives that there this is not an increase in FTE.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Right. I

[Rep. Ela Chapin (Member)]: thought there was a decrease yeah. I'm so curious.

[Rep. Michael Hoyt (Member)]: One thing that we could note, and I didn't put in here, is that there are 58 vacancies. I'm counting for about I get that number. I'm going to tell my head if you look it up, it was up $1,600,000, I think. That doesn't even sound like enough.

[Rep. Ela Chapin (Member)]: How many of those are limited service?

[Rep. Kate Logan (Member)]: Related to I all this funding do that's

[Rep. Michael Hoyt (Member)]: have the whole report. I don't know

[Rep. Ela Chapin (Member)]: if you need to pull it out right now, but I feel like adding some description about what's really happening in terms of FTEs would be helpful. Know that there was discussion about limited service positions that were open, were gonna run out, and they weren't expecting to fill them because it's related to the ARPA and projects that are winding down. I think we want to explain why generally the things are decreasing and all of these federal funds are going away over time, and yet the salaries and wages are increasing.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Yeah.

[Rep. Michael Hoyt (Member)]: Securing that. I do have the data for that. I just didn't explain how much it would be.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Great. Well, yeah, I just think it helps us in understanding a lot of the

[Rep. Michael Hoyt (Member)]: things we've been talking about, trying

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: to set ANR's staff capacity, what we can expect of them.

[Rep. Michael Hoyt (Member)]: And the 58 vacancies, it was a mix of just difficulty filling engineering positions and things like that. It's hard to find people. They're But actually, their vacancies report was pretty interesting. It's pretty good. So I'll take I'll pull some data out that.

[Rep. Ela Chapin (Member)]: I think, particularly, I'd love to make sure appropriations knows and that we get reminded what the FTE plan was under the current year budget? Does this represent an increase or a decrease

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: in FTE?

[Rep. Ela Chapin (Member)]: Decrease. Especially permanent FTEs in the agency. I guess that would I don't even remember if we did that very specifically, but personally, I'd like to understand. Okay.

[Rep. Michael Hoyt (Member)]: That specifically isn't a thank you to it for our policy.

[Rep. Ela Chapin (Member)]: Right. Oh, we're different. I mean, that's just we

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: have that if we have that easily, I think that would

[Rep. Ela Chapin (Member)]: be nice to include.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: And they end up going away when they're not filled at some point.

[Rep. Michael Hoyt (Member)]: Yeah, so that was a specific question that I did ask, is that the vacancy savings is baked into the budget they're asked. It's not like that's another area of whole bunch of money that's being asked for but not planning to be spent because there's this kind of roughly 8.5% just continual year after year after year 8.5% vacancy rate. But they've lowered their ask to 2,900,000. It's assumed Has that baked in that they're going to be at a vacancy rate. Yeah, right. I asked that question specifically.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Right.

[Rep. Ela Chapin (Member)]: Kate, are you Alright.

[Rep. Kate Logan (Member)]: Yep. Okay. For general funding for the Agency of Natural Resources, there is request for the greenhouse gas reporting program, a top 10 priority, in the 2025 Vermont Climate Action Plan. The agency said that they would need new base funding in the amount of $500,000 for two new FTEs and for ongoing annual costs for platform maintenance and third party verification. That is and I I didn't add it in here, but that is related to h seven forty.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: That's in the energy and digital services.

[Rep. Kate Logan (Member)]: Energy and digital services committee, but we were asked to include it in our letter because it is in the agency of natural resources budget. Yeah. Well, and we share climate mitigation. Mitigation. And it's in their climate office. So I have documentation from the agency, a memo. They actually originally wanted $800,000. $300,000 would have been a onetime cost. $500,000 is the annual cost to stand up the reporting program, And they said that they could get it started with just 500,000, if need be. So I can add the H740 in there if you would like me to. And I'll put it in parentheses. I think what we're

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: doing right now is just let's just go through what we have, and then we have a witness. And then

[Rep. Kate Logan (Member)]: We'll have a discussion later. Discussion later.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Right. Okay. What's in and what's out? Then how do

[Rep. Ela Chapin (Member)]: write those?

[Rep. Michael Hoyt (Member)]: Yep.

[Rep. Kate Logan (Member)]: Okay. So then the conservation districts ask for 336,200 additional base funding on top of their budget of 612,000. And I gave detail here about this the specific breakdown of the total funding that they're requesting. Serve, learn, earn asked for $500,000 in addition to the Governor's recommend, which would bring them to a total of $1,000,000 This would restore the program to 50% of the funding that was provided in state fiscal year 2025. So that's ANR kind of general funding. They go through the secretary's office. For the DEC, one time funding in the amount of 200,000 to implement the initial stages of s two eighteen, the chloride contamination reduction program that's coming over to us from the senate. Then base funding in the amount of $450,000 for three additional FTEs for the Office of Water Programs for the timely implementation of the Flood Safety Act. This was the wording that representative Squirrel recommended to us for helping with stream alteration permitting additional work. Okay. That it should just go to the the office. And this helps round out they gives them one less position than we originally approved them to have in that office there.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Which I think was also originally less than what they said they would

[Rep. Kate Logan (Member)]: originally It was three FTEs less. We originally gave them three FTEs less than they said that they would need in order to implement all of the Flood Safety Act. And then we funded them for 11 positions, which was four less than we said that they were gonna get. So they're down seven positions from what they originally requested to implement the Flood Safety Act, and we're we're asking for three. And then we're gonna hear about the Healthy Homes Initiative. This is one of those ARPA funded projects that's coming to an end, or the funding is coming to an end. But it seems like folks in this committee care a lot about the kinds of things that it funds. So I thought it'd be interesting to learn a little bit more about it because sad that it's not being funded anymore. Because it does really good work, I'm I I think it'd be interesting to learn how how much would be needed to make continue to make an impact with this program. And then I'll pass back to you. You put the DFW and the ANR savings.

[Rep. Michael Hoyt (Member)]: Sure. So the Department of Fish and Wildlife, as far as I could tell from their presentation, there were no additional asks other than this carryforward. And the way the carry forwards were worded, usually carry forward isn't an additional ask, but the way they were worded made it sound like it was an additional ask. So I didn't know if it needed to be included or not. Maybe it doesn't need to be included here.

[Rep. Ela Chapin (Member)]: My understanding of that was that the carryforward was included in the budget, but that should be a simple thing to

[Rep. Michael Hoyt (Member)]: Especially the last one, just the way it's worked. To cover up word pressure resulting from the RFR, class RFR for law enforcement. Class refresher.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: I know what RFR stands for. Funds were appropriated. Oh, we we reclassified two of them in the Budget Adjustment Act. Remember that? It was, like, it was I don't know I was stuff, but that's what we did. We hasn't passed yet

[Rep. Ela Chapin (Member)]: or last year?

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: This year's. We were asked to up they upgraded two people two positions. I don't if it was actual people or people, but to a higher classification. That request for reclassification? Is that what they call Funds to cover the reclass. Yeah.

[Rep. Michael Hoyt (Member)]: So is it additional funds or is it carry that's why I was that's why I included it because it's it was confused. I think it's carryovers, and it wasn't because act one eighty one?

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: I I thought this was law enforcement. That's not one eighty one. Yeah. It's just This is this is for Two wardens. Two wardens got promoted, I think, is what happened. Okay. And so we approved that in the budget adjustment. And so I think they are now adjusting because we said yes in budget adjustment for last year, and now it's an upcoming differential.

[Rep. Michael Hoyt (Member)]: So is it an ask or is it carry forward?

[Rep. Ela Chapin (Member)]: I think carry forward is not an ask. I think it's money that they've already got, and what if we should there, we should make sure.

[Rep. Michael Hoyt (Member)]: Yeah, yeah. Specifically on that last the other two are carry forward.

[Rep. Ela Chapin (Member)]: Yeah, I'll step down.

[Rep. Michael Hoyt (Member)]: It's all the way to everything.

[Rep. Ela Chapin (Member)]: Was she zooming? I just emailed her. I'm just going to wait to see.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Okay. We'll keep talking. So, Kristi, you should know that your hand is quite large on the screen. That's better. Okay, so we are So

[Rep. Michael Hoyt (Member)]: I guess the action here, it seems like the first two are clearly carry forward. Don't need to include them here, but the last one was question about.

[Rep. Ela Chapin (Member)]: Should just verify with them on all three if they were already in the budget or not. And then Yeah. I missed two. So And then

[Rep. Michael Hoyt (Member)]: the last section here were things that that we had seen and heard testimony on that might offer some potential further savings if her patient was looking for where money is sitting. When we heard from the GTC on their ARAP program, they shared that there were $878,000 of unspent funds from the original 975,000 that was one time allocated. I think that was in Y24, in the year 2023. And that, in their eighteen month pilot, they distributed a total of $5,000 to three Vermonters. And so hence, a lot of that's still sitting there. So yeah. Just thought they should check into that. It didn't show up as a carryover anymore. I guess that's what surprised me.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: I feel like you we

[Rep. Kate Logan (Member)]: might have a lot of questions for Trevor or for representative swirl still.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Right. Also, we dug into that a little bit more, but we'll Yeah. Get to that in our discussion. Okay. Then your next one.

[Rep. Michael Hoyt (Member)]: And then the last one, same thing, was it was a carryover of unspent money, and that may be a possibility for allocated over us.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Right. Thank you both. So with that, we're gonna pivot back to our schedule, which includes testimony on the Healthy Homes Initiative related to our budget letter. And we welcome Marjorie Clark.

[Marjorie Clark (Director of Compliance, VT DEC)]: Good morning, everybody. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair, for inviting us in to talk about Healthy Homes. I'm Marjorie Clark. I'm the director of Compliance over at DEC. I oversee the Environmental Assistance Office, which includes the Healthy Homes program that I'm here to talk to you about. I joined DEC as the role of the Healthy Homes Supervisor back in January 2023 after working for a couple of other state agencies and migrated over to a director position. I have Kate Jones here today who is the current supervisor of the Healthy Homes program. But I wanted to come and talk to you about it because this has been a program that I've been so proud to work with. Twenty years in state government, this is probably the most impactful program that I've ever done work in and worked with the highest performing group of individuals I've worked with today. But giving you a little overview of the program, Health and Homes was birthed through the American Rescue Plan Act funds that came in, and there was an identified need. DC programs were identifying that people, Vermonters, were struggling with failed wastewater and drinking water systems, and they just didn't have the financial means to take any sort of corrective action or even knowledge of where to begin. So we first advertised the program in 2021, knew there was an issue, but didn't really fully grasp the gravity of the issue until we started receiving applications. And they came in over the thousands of people that were raising their hands saying that they needed help with this issue. So we comprised two programs. There's the on-site program, which helps individual homeowners replace failed or failing wastewater and drinking water systems. And then we also have the manufactured housing program, which helps manufactured housing communities replace and upgrade water infrastructure, storm water, drinking water, and wastewater. The on-site program, we've discovered through this program, average cost of a system is about $30,000 to replace a wastewater system and about $21,000 for drinking water. Depending on-site conditions, we've seen people having systems replaced upwards of $50,000 which quite frankly is out of reach for many Vermonters, especially our neighbors that are on fixed income and low income. Manufactured housing communities, the need is there. Most manufactured housing developments were put in in the 70s and just have deferred maintenance for so long that now the infrastructure is failed around them. So we started issuing awards that covered needs assessments, which just identified what the issues were within the parks. We contracted with an engineering firm do voice and King who. Preliminary engineering reports for parks all around the state, and we also offered awards for technical assistance and permitting so designs and permitting costs. And then lastly, we issued some for projects that were ready to go issued construction funding. That's kind of like high level overview of how the program started and why and accomplishments of the program. And this is where I can't brag enough about the people that I work with. In short years, we took a program that was in non existence and issued 600 on-site awards in five forty three systems that have been fixed in this short time. We've obligated $14,500,000 of ARPA funds to this effort for on-site, and that equates to change in the lives of over 1,400 Vermonters. On-site program is in the process. We did receive a general fund appropriation of $4,000,000 and we've obligated $3,500,000 of that to awards to 100 more households that we're in the process of issuing awards to now. MHCs, 65 parks received awards, and that equates to 6,700 residents in 3,176 units that now have improved water infrastructure. It should be noted that about a quarter of all MHCs applied for funding when we asked. And that, quite frankly, is probably underrepresenting the problem. I think private park owners are probably somewhat reluctant to come to the state and say, Hey, I have failed infrastructure. So I imagine that that is somewhat underrepresented in the inquiries that we've got. Those are all stats, right? I can throw out stats and numbers and talk about money and figures, but what actually has been really meaningful to me is to hear the stories of what comes in. When I was in Kate's position as the Healthy Home Supervisor, I reviewed every application before they went out. And I would take some screenshots of some of the stories that I saw. And I think it's important to hear some of these as we're talking about this program. These are stories on the applications. It's a spring oozing out of the side of a hill. The collection pool is next to the Otter Creek, and sometimes fish get into the collection pool. The spring runs dry in the summer. I got my water tested, the testers told me not to drink the water. The pipe from the spring to the house is not below the frost line, and it couldn't be buried due to rocky soil and therefore freezes. I have no running water, and I buy water at the grocery store and take a shower at a friend's house. The wellness property can't support a family of four. I've replaced the submerged pump three times in ten years due to the amount of silt in the water. I put down a strict weekly schedule for laundry dishes and showers to keep from running out. My wife and daughter shower together to cut down on usage. We try to limit the number of times we flush the toilet to help as well. I've acquired a 65 gallon storage tank, and I fill it up at the neighbors for my animals. The water to our home is sourced from a small brook next to our home. In the 2022, it started to decline into a flow of a small trickle where bathing and laundry were almost impossible. And we went to the laundromat. There were times we left it running in the water. We left the water running in fear of it freezing. We've also had to replace the pump due to overheating from overuse. These were the strategies we used in 2023. But it's difficult to leave the water running in our home as my husband has dementia and would repeatedly turn the water off during the day. Our friends have had to come multiple times to throw our water through the chair. We have a septic design, but we've never had the funds to have it installed. We have no running water and simply dispose of our solid waste into large plastic trash barrels, where it breaks down over two years and we spread it into the woods. These are stories that we're hearing from our neighbors. These are Vermonters who are living in these conditions. So those are a couple of them. In the MHC world, we've heard stories on applications where certain homes in the park are only getting a trickle of water at the end of their water lines and they've been unable to bathe. We've heard stories of kids floating boats and pulling septic around parks. We have storm water drainage issues where ice just pools up around people's mobile homes and we have elderly people trying to get in and out of those homes and not slip on the ice. They're real issues. But the good news is we have helped people and then we get the thank you letters and we get dozens of these from Williston Woods. My husband and I are shareholders of the Williston Woods Housing Corporation in Williston. We'd like to express our gratitude for work in granting us the Healthy Homes Initiative grant for our necessary environmental improvements. It's not often that we as senior citizens experience government actually responding to the needs of aging population. I've lived in Vermont for more than twenty years and only recently have been able to buy a home. As a nonprofit worker who also supports my elderly parents, money has often been tight and my future here uncertain. This program has made an astonishing difference in my ability to improve my home, living conditions, and environmental impact in real time. It's rare to see such programs such as this benefiting low income residents directly, and even more unusual for them to be administered with such efficiency and compassion. Every interaction I've had with this team was prompt and respectful, which made the program's promise of accessibility a reality for me, and I'm sure many others in my community. Thank you so much. Those are the good stories that have come out of it, which takes us to where we are today. We've now obligated all of our appropriated ARPA funds. Those are all out the door. And we're in the process of, as I mentioned, issuing the awards using our general fund money. We're no longer accepting applications or issuing any awards. There's no more funding.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Since we're in the midst of our budget discussion, I'm curious what the so you say you're in the midst of last year you got general fund money? Two years ago. And there's nothing in this year's budget? Correct. Just want to make sure I'm following.

[Marjorie Clark (Director of Compliance, VT DEC)]: Yep. Thank you. We anticipate about 400, a little slightly over 400 homes right now that we're aware of are eligible for the Healthy Homes program. This includes homeowners that didn't receive an award in the last cycle, as well as another 150 new inquiries that we've gotten since fall. Sixty seven of those people have indicated they were impacted by the drought. Non profit and co op parks in the MHC space, obviously, that they all play a very critical role in affordable housing in Vermont. We we are thinking at about 30% of MHCs in the state are in need of water infrastructure projects. Of this morning, when I checked before I came in here, we've received 126 inquiries from parks about water infrastructure needs over the time of that we've been advertising it. So that's where we're at today. I'm glad that I got the opportunity to come in and chat with you about this program. I could take up another hour of bragging about all of the good work that these folks that work in the program have done. My previous roles in state government have been very much a behind the scenes supporting role. And to jump into healthy homes, I got to feel the real impact this program has had on Vermonters. And I couldn't be more proud of the program.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Absolutely.

[Rep. Kate Logan (Member)]: So just to I did not write this down, and it would be helpful information. How many eligible households do you imagine, or do you estimate there are right now, including new inquiries that have come in?

[Marjorie Clark (Director of Compliance, VT DEC)]: Yeah, I believe that number is upwards of 400. But the point to take also is, you know, 150¢ fall. That number grows every day.

[Rep. Kate Logan (Member)]: And what is the average award for that area of the the on-site

[Marjorie Clark (Director of Compliance, VT DEC)]: portion of the program? Yeah, the average award is $30,000 and with available contingency up to $45,000

[Rep. Kate Logan (Member)]: And then how many manufactured housing communities have have you served so far? 65. 65? Yeah. You said you estimate that 30% of

[Marjorie Clark (Director of Compliance, VT DEC)]: Of all. Right. Which I believe, don't quote me on the number, I think there's over 400 MHCs in the state. I will say that the cost estimates for the MHC work is kind of all over the map a lot of times because park owners don't know the extent or how much things are going to cost until they really dive into you know getting some engineering work done. When we look at like what has been applied for for for funding, there is a disparity like Addison County is as reported like $18,000,000 worth of need, but I don't think that that's as opposed to some other counties that are you know. Less than 1,000,000 to 8,000,000 I think that's actually reflective of the really strong nonprofits in Addison County that are able to help parks get those more realistic estimates in.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Do you see an end to a program like this? It seems like a great program. Thanks for your work on it and enthusiasm for it. Some nonprofits have taken a model of we're trying to work our way out of business, you know, the breast cancer society most notably. Is this a problem that will end and there's a finite, or do you see this recycling back through? People will just need upgrades to failed systems and water all the time?

[Marjorie Clark (Director of Compliance, VT DEC)]: Well, there's a life cycle, right? And so I think the reason why we're seeing so much failed infrastructure right now is because we had an influx of parks being built when transportation was being built in Vermont in the 70s and 80s, a lot of these parks were developed for transportation workers that came in and then just have have morphed into something else and there's just been. Deferring maintenance right when when there's choices being made about where to spend money people don't always prioritize what they don't see right like those are like you don't see the problem till it's a problem. I think that's why we see the influx of failed infrastructure in parks today homes, I think it's going to constantly go. You are talking about over time yeah you would have to keep keep on track hopefully parks are learning about how to the importance of not deferring maintenance on things.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: We had a little someone representative Pritchard brought that up. I hadn't heard that little historical note, and I don't know that it would apply to Addison County about the history of our manufactured homes. But you're are you speaking of, like, the federal employees who came in to work on that, like, aid that federal highway projects

[Rep. Ela Chapin (Member)]: in Yeah.

[Marjorie Clark (Director of Compliance, VT DEC)]: There was a UVM study done. I can I can find access to it and send it over to you, madam chair, if you'd like? But there UVM did some studies about the importance of manufactured housing communities within the housing landscape in Vermont and have some more detailed information about that. And that's where I pulled those like, that anecdotal information from.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Sure. That'd be great. Wow. Okay. Representative Austin Chapin, then back to Logan.

[Rep. Sarah 'Sarita' Austin (Clerk)]: Yep. Just looking at this h seven five seven that I think just passed out of housing, which is a manufactured it's an act relating to manufactured homes. And I'm wondering if there's any intersection between the work you're doing. I don't this just was, I think, voted out of housing on Tuesday. So I wonder if there's do you know if there's any intersection in terms of funding or

[Marjorie Clark (Director of Compliance, VT DEC)]: Not that I'm aware of. I'm not familiar with that particular act, but I'm not familiar of an intersection. I know we have worked in the past I've worked with the mobile home unit rapid response team that was working to do it like the infill projects. Had a seat at that table to make sure that, given the knowledge that I had that we weren't necessarily compounding problems by adding homes to parks that had failing infrastructure. So there's been some like partnerships, but not as far as funding goes. Okay. Yeah, I know like ACCD has some some programs that you could talk to them about. Those are, I believe, more on the individual home level. Like, somebody has an issue with their individual home where the Healthy Homes program focused on park infrastructure. And also the CHIPS program. I'm wondering, do you

[Rep. Sarah 'Sarita' Austin (Clerk)]: know if any of these being impacted home communities are trying to access those funds? Because it's mainly infrastructure.

[Marjorie Clark (Director of Compliance, VT DEC)]: Yeah, I'm not aware of what the parks are trying to access other than who's contacted us. Representative Chapin.

[Rep. Ela Chapin (Member)]: I was curious about income eligibility for individual homeowners and if there's ever any matching on any of these projects or if this program was the ARPA funds and then sounds like some state funds from two years ago has been just fully funding everything with a grant? Just curious.

[Marjorie Clark (Director of Compliance, VT DEC)]: Yeah. The way that, and we did have to adhere to federal treasury guidelines when we were using the ARPA funds, the federal the income eligibility was below $5,000 and change total household income to receive the grant and how that was tier one how healthy homes works is we pay the contractors directly. So we don't write a check to the homeowner and then have them go out and hire someone they hire someone the contractor starts working with us, and then we issue payment directly to the contractors when they've completed the system. And a lot, like at certain milestones along the way. We also gave some tier two awards, which was up to $80,000 for tier two, which those folks had to show that they paid for the system, replaced it, and then we gave them reimbursement. So that's how the income levels.

[Rep. Ela Chapin (Member)]: And in both cases, it's like you're fully funding. Fully

[Marjorie Clark (Director of Compliance, VT DEC)]: funding up to a certain amount, right?

[Rep. Ela Chapin (Member)]: In some cases, homeowner might

[Marjorie Clark (Director of Compliance, VT DEC)]: be Exactly. Able Right, exactly. And that's where our team worked with people. We got them access to the contingency funds, but then also made sure. That the system that they were purchasing like they would be able to afford paying for the rest of it, which in some cases, sometimes they were $50,000 systems and we were giving them 36,000 so working with the homeowner to make sure they weren't signing up for something that they couldn't afford, and also making sure that they could afford the ongoing maintenance. Like if you're talking about a drinking water treatment system, are they gonna be able to afford the system that was getting put in? That was really complex.

[Rep. Kate Logan (Member)]: Representative Logan. Yeah. So one of the way that I became more aware of the Healthy Homes initiative was while we were discussing the three acre permitting requirements and especially the impact fees that some manufactured housing communities were experiencing. So just wanted to clarify whether or not these funds can be used for three acre permit impact fees.

[Marjorie Clark (Director of Compliance, VT DEC)]: Permit fees were an eligible expense for all of our grants and payments. To be clear, have not $4,000,000 appropriation that we received general fund was not enough to make an impact in the MHC world. That was all dedicated to on-site awards. So at the end of ARPA, we only did two rounds of funding with our ARPA funds, but three acre was eligible. That work was an eligible expense.

[Rep. Kate Logan (Member)]: The permitting process went into effect as those projects were being stood up and things like that. So there might have been some.

[Marjorie Clark (Director of Compliance, VT DEC)]: We did we did we did fund three. Yeah, we did fund three acre with

[Rep. Ela Chapin (Member)]: our. Yeah. Thank you.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Oh, this is great. How many staff do you have working when it was sort of fully funded? What does it look like?

[Marjorie Clark (Director of Compliance, VT DEC)]: Yeah, fully funded looks like two people administering the on-site program, two people administering the MHC program, and then our lovely supervisor, Kate, supervising it all. So five five total limited service positions Mhmm. Is what what it took to push out the 41,000,000. I think that can be scaled depending on how many projects you're doing. At one point, we were simultaneously managing 65 projects for MHCs and hundreds of them for on-site. Also important to note, this program, the capacity issues of the people applying for this funding require some hand holding and also working outside of the confines of normal interaction with state government. It's about meeting people at a coffee shop to get their application or filling out something for them and mailing it to them because they have trouble reading. So we read it over the phone, tell them what they're signing, send things back and forth with them, like, in a traditional way instead of saying, Go online and hit the dashboard. It's demographic of folks that need a bit more help navigating through the process. We've had a big focus on accessibility, which takes time.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: I remember hearing about this last year. We did take testimony on nothing else. We do need to wrap up. More representative Logan.

[Rep. Kate Logan (Member)]: Okay. Just, I know that you weren't able to give an average cost of a manufactured housing community project, but I'm curious,

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: ballpark or a couple of or something like that would be helpful.

[Marjorie Clark (Director of Compliance, VT DEC)]: We limits on the grants when they came in. A preliminary engineering report costs about $11,000 to do that. That's just to decide what's going on, what are the options. Construction capped out at $1,000,000 with some contingency. But they're really getting an average wouldn't even tell you a picture because it's just all over the place of what needs to happen.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: These limited service positions, are they scheduled to expire at the end of the year?

[Marjorie Clark (Director of Compliance, VT DEC)]: Yeah, they expire in December.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: December, yeah. Yep. One last question,

[Rep. Sarah 'Sarita' Austin (Clerk)]: Can Kristi you submit your testimony to us? You had some written I had some notes. Could you submit those? Sure. Some data. And just thank you for the work you've Yeah, absolutely.

[Marjorie Clark (Director of Compliance, VT DEC)]: Yeah, we can prepare some testimony for you.

[Rep. Sarah 'Sarita' Austin (Clerk)]: Great, thank you.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: So much for your testimony.

[Marjorie Clark (Director of Compliance, VT DEC)]: Thank you. Thank you very much for calling me in. It's been a glad to come in and and take off the warm up jersey and get to go in the game for a minute. Appreciate you guys.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Thank you. We're gonna take a couple minutes, quick break, and then switch topics. I see you're our next witnesses,

[Rep. Ela Chapin (Member)]: I assume. Welcome.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Do you need to set up anything online? Are you okay. So, remember, let's just take a

[Rep. Ela Chapin (Member)]: quick