Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Alright. We are live.

[Rep. Matthew Birong, Chair]: Alright. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to government operations and military affairs. It is Friday, February 6, and we are picking up our first order of business with H67, an act relating to legislative operations and government accountability. It's a piece we did a lot of work on last session and getting into last session. And so we're over the pretty off session at the beginning of this year, folks were trying to work out some concerns. And so what we're doing today is hearing from the deputy state auditor and others who worked on this. Tim, how are you doing, Tim?

[Tim Ash, Deputy State Auditor of Vermont]: Good morning, everyone. Tim Ash, deputy Sling Auditor. Hope you're all having a great beginning of the session. Thank you for joining us live and

[Rep. Matthew Birong, Chair]: in person. We usually have you on the screen.

[Tim Ash, Deputy State Auditor of Vermont]: I expect that you've solved all of the state's problems. We're It's working. It's It's working. February 6, having you

[Rep. Matthew Birong, Chair]: It's a work. All out of you, but we're on it.

[Tim Ash, Deputy State Auditor of Vermont]: You know how it goes. Dreams of the first week of the sessions. You know?

[Rep. Matthew Birong, Chair]: It sucks. Hope gets narrowed.

[Tim Ash, Deputy State Auditor of Vermont]: So so I'm gonna some of what I say will sound eerily familiar to last year when I came and spoke to the committee. So, hopefully, it's a bit of a refresher, kind of stage setter for what the committee will work on. So just go hitting the rewind button a bit to the former government accountability, which has the unfortunate had the unfortunate moniker, GAC. GAC was a intended to be a committee that would provide kind of an important oversight function of the global effort of state government to address the major problems of the day. And it it came out of the results based accountability framework, where people were focusing attempting to focus the state's programmatic efforts, big picture outcomes. You know, are children healthy? Are, Is employment high in all the regions of the state? Different high level metrics like that. In practice, the committee never really found its legs. It often found itself bogged down in semantic discussions about the difference between an outcome and an output, lots of things which didn't really feel, as oversight y as the committee's intentions had been. And so focusing on population indicators and things which is has its uses seem to be divorced from what most legislators who were appointed to the committee were hoping to achieve, which was to say, we want these things. Are we actually evaluating how our state is performing to deliver those things? And that wasn't really happening. It wasn't clicking. And so after years of the committee struggling with energy levels and desire for people to even serve on it, I believe it was 2022 that the committee was eliminated, which is a very rare thing for the legislature to eliminate one of its joint committees. But it eliminated the committee, and it was at the same time, the legislature said, we don't wanna give up the the vision of having a meaningful oversight function in the legislature. So they created a summer committee called Summer Gack. And Summer Gack, actually had some really fascinating meetings. And to the extent those videos are online, there are at least a couple of them were which which really point the way to what I think the promise of a government oversight committee, or a government accountability committee could be. The specific one I would point you to, and I'll I'll email you if you haven't seen it. The presentation from folks from New Mexico, the legislative staff there, was just really eye opening about the kind of ongoing support and intervention that could happen in a positive, productive way to stay on top of the key priorities of the legislature and hold the administration accountable, not with the goal of making them look bad, but making sure that the results that were intended when laws are passed or the budget is produced actually occur. So that summer GAC committee, did recommend the reestablishment of a new government accountability committee, with a focus that would be more on government performance and less on these somewhat more conceptual theoretical gains, these these population indicators. That was four years ago. So each year since, and this committee has really been a leader in trying to find a path forward to reestablish a meaningful government accountability function in the legislature, and different hurdles have been hit. And I think, it's it's not worth revisiting them and accept that I think some people were worried that it would be a committee that would be too politicized, that the that the inquiries would be ones that were meant to go after this governor or a future governor, or a particular commissioner or secretary. There were some who thought that the language which contemplated possibly having subpoena power was bit of a power too much power perhaps to be delegating to this committee, which was really supposed to be focusing on government performance. And so I think that set off some red flags. And then some people, think, were just a little confused, like, well, we have a joint fiscal committee in the off season. They're supposed to be monitoring the money. What would this group really do? From the auditor's office point of view, we think that a government accountability committee isn't the only way to achieve the objective of kind of monitoring government performance, but it is definitely an appropriate one. There are other alternatives. For instance, every committee could be asked to be more mindful of staying on top of the bills they pass, that, that the expectations of deliverables are met, that the money is used and creates the results that were imagined. Every committee could be could be doing that. Every committee in the past has been asked to do it. And the the, follow through has been spotty. There has just not been the consistent application of these kinds of accountability tools. So you might have one or two committees every biennium that are overachievers. They really believe in that follow-up work and accountability work. And then other committees naturally kinda drift to the newest problems in front of them on their desks. So asking every committee to to to buy into this mentality is appropriate. That would be one path, but it it has not succeeded, but there's still hope in the future. You could task an office like the auditor's office to do some of this follow-up work for you. We do that in our own way at our discretion today, and there may be times where it's appropriate for the legislature to ask us to do that. That would probably require some resource discussions, but that's another option. And then the third is reestablishing a joint committee. From our point of view, joint committee, if it's gonna be done, has a there's a couple key considerations. From from from our point of view, it should be made up of legislators. The reason is because this is a legislative oversight concept, a legislative accountability function, and commingling that with the executive branch starts to diminish the idea that this is the legislature monitoring and keeping tabs on the executive branch. It's not to say that this is meant to be adversarial to the executive branch, just that this the whole idea is you're keeping that branch of government check. So, hopefully, it's a collaborative process, but we would recommend that it be made up of legislators. Then there's the issue of what will this committee do? And, you know, I think that past, I mean, fiscal committee and others probably worry that lines will start to get blurred, that a committee that has open ended accountability opportunities might start treading in areas that other existing committees already have. I don't think that has ever been the intention. So the process of deciding what this committee does its deep dives on is really important. I think the probably the best thing you can do is have that be something that is generated through the standing committees themselves. So that standing committees have identified things that they want this designated government accountability committee, if that's the name for it, to take a look at, and that there's buy in right from the beginning. No one's gonna say, well, who who asked them to look at this? You know, who do they think they are? Why are they, like, stepping in, you know, in areas that are outside of their authority? So establishing a process where things sort of, I guess, things don't funnel up, but establishing a process where the ideas sort of slowly filter up so that some of these high impact areas are getting the extra level of the view that they I also think it probably makes sense to do this on a time limited basis, at least for the beginning. Right? There's enough question about, well, do we really need another joint committees? Statehouse is crawling with joint committees, stay all these things. Why do we need another one? Well, the solution to that might be, give it a couple years, see how it goes. And if people like what they're seeing, it'll it'll be almost, an automatic to make it permanent. If people say, you know what, if we gave it another shot, it just didn't work out, we need to find another tool. That's where maybe, you go back to some of the other options I mentioned at the beginning. But that's one way of maybe alleviating some of the concern that this would be like a runaway committee and also give people a chance to evaluate whether it's producing the kind of results, that a standing committee really doesn't have the ability, to do on its own. I will, I think, leave it there, and see if people have questions just because we don't, because I know that the bill as it was drafted last year is not really probably likely to be on the table, it would be in some different form. So I don't have something specific to like point at. But those are just some thematic table settings, that I hope are useful. Oh, that is helpful. That is helpful. Questions from the two? Or comment on like the direction based on the,

[Rep. Matthew Birong, Chair]: I mean, I think it's valuable, like, you know, it's a laying out three options from your mind. I think the one that I I would actually like to look at a little bit is how to utilize your office in a capacity. Right? You suggested that, and I understand it would be more resource required, but, you know

[Tim Ash, Deputy State Auditor of Vermont]: If if the committee if this committee advanced a new version of a joint committee, there's nothing stopping us from playing like a consulting role, you know, kind of being there to help with questions about, like, well, how to really determine whether the program's delivering the results that it was intended to do. I mean, we're not the only ones who are capable of that, but that's sort of like what we do. So we can we can certainly do that beyond any committee. There may be opportunities where the legislature says, you know what? We have this, you know, big initiative that we're passing. You know, I think back to the child care a few years ago, which had a lot of big moving parts, dollars flowing in different ways, trying to build capacity of facilities, trying to get scholarships to people who build the workforce. There were all these moving parts. If we could go back in time, I think that one actually did have some built in accountability and report back. So that was actually, I think, kind of a a star student in that regard. But just using that as an example, that could have been an opportunity to say, the auditor's office, we don't really have the capacity to be tracking and bird dogging all of those moving pieces. Can you tell us on this date how much of the things we wanted in these areas have actually occurred? Like, you do the verification for us. Not asking you to come up with new ideas. Just be the verification team. And so there might be instances where that's above and beyond what we're discussing here, totally appropriate. We've been asked to do that sometimes in the past, not frequently, but that's that's one of the skill sets. And then we our 12 auditors are really good, and they are just the facts. So sometimes people see the headlines and they think, oh, auditor's office has wagged a finger, you know, or or have been finding fault. What our auditors actually do is go out and evaluate facts and then put them on a page and say, this was supposed to happen. This is what happened. And then people reach their judgments from that. But but our people are no one doubts the the the veracity of what they put on that page. So that's that's a resource that we're there for, you know, in all the areas that you guys think about, even if it's not on this committee, you should just keep us in mind and always drop a a line if we could be providing some thoughtful assistance.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: I was just wondering if you had thoughts, because I think having been in a lot of committees that some function well and some don't. And I think I'm wondering for this one if you have thoughts about narrowing the scope at first to some concrete projects, whether that's developing a tool for the legislature, like a checklist that looked at legislation before it gets out the door. Have we built in evaluation tools? Are they the right tools? And are they measuring what we want to measure type of thing? Or is this supposed to look at one area of government? Just some ways so it feels a little bit more concrete, maybe?

[Tim Ash, Deputy State Auditor of Vermont]: Yeah. I think that's a good it's a great question. What I would recommend is it's sort of two things happening at the same time. I think that in order to justify the committee's existence, it has to be looking at some specific things that people are particularly interested in, things that have broad interest from the legislature beyond partisanship, you know, beyond house senate, but but but big issues. So I think you have the the committee has to have a process to determine what it's gonna look and it can't be everything. It has to be a subset of all the priorities of the building. How you evaluate those things becomes that checklist toolkit, and I think that trying to put that in a bill is gonna be probably a fool's errand. Better to lay out kind of the rough parameters of that, and then let this committee see if they can figure it out. And then have the committee itself be evaluated after it has a couple years of track record to determine whether its assessment tools and way of judging have been fair, useful to people. Because I I don't know that you've people in here have different tenures in the legislature so far, and I had my tenure. And one of the hardest things was always when you pass a bill that you put a lot of blood, sweat, and tears into, and a year later, because you haven't heard anything, you think everything's probably going swimmingly. And then you find out either they didn't do it or they did it in a totally different way than what you had expected or they did it just not at the level of with the level of aggressiveness. Just they didn't put their, you know, muscle into it. And so the tool is meant to say, how do we really get at that those questions? How do we know that there was the follow-up we expected and that things didn't drop off? And it's very easy for the administration, like the legislature legislature, to get distracted with other things because things are always coming up. So the idea is to have this way so that the administrative agencies say, oh, you know, they've chosen our our area as the thing they're looking at for the next year. We can't let it go. We can't, you know, we can't take our foot off the pedal. We have to be ready to be judged on how we're doing. So short story is I think you have to have some specific topics that have been identified or a process to pick them. And then on the other side, you have to have the the sort of how you're gonna evaluate it. But I would not recommend trying to spell that out in a bill. It'll it'll tie you up in knots. People will fight over every word, but it'll miss the bigger picture, which is, are we making sure the program's doing a good job or not? Doing what we wanted.

[Rep. Matthew Birong, Chair]: Yeah. I mean, I guess, like the core of, the the desire. Right? Like, making sure that the legislative intent, the charging duties are being met at the dollars that are being utilized for positive outcomes for the purpose of an X, right? And so, I mean, one of the things I've been personally noodling on with this one is, you know, the application within the bill itself, whatever you're moving, of having more stringent, like required check backs or the utilization of sunsets. So you're forced to come back and review the legislation and do all of that if there's a mechanism within the bill itself to force that review process.

[Tim Ash, Deputy State Auditor of Vermont]: Yeah. It's it's there you know, when I think about account accountability is on everyone's mind. It's a word everyone says that they're in favor of, and doing it takes persistence. And in the past, it's really been moments of inspiration. You know, people suddenly remember, wait, whatever happened to that? And then they start asking, send an email to some administrator and say, did it actually happen? And so you're trying to start to build a culture where it's systematized and not requiring one person to be have that light bulb go off, memory pop back up. The joint IT committee, which was only created not that long ago, maybe six years ago, has been utilized in some effective ways. It's still figuring out what its goal is because it's trying to manage hundreds of millions of dollars about IT projects. It can't look at every single one. But the legislature has designated it to be the one that looks at some of these big IT projects and actually have, like, a lever to decide whether they get to get a second tranche of money in order for the project to move on to its next phases. So this is a little bit different what we're talking about here, but but conceptually, the same lines, is delegating a group to be the on the receiving end of that information and dive deeper, though. Standing. Standing committee. 100 emergent things. Suddenly, education bill drops with maps, and everyone thought the session was gonna be about one thing, and all of sudden, you're over here. So this is about taking away the, you know, that that

[Rep. Matthew Birong, Chair]: chaotic quality Yeah. I would accountability. Yeah.

[Tim Ash, Deputy State Auditor of Vermont]: Yeah. The unsteadiness that that the legislature always has, and having it be built in somewhere. And and I really think giving it a giving it a time limited period, even if at first just to say, like, is it doing something useful? Is it doing something interesting? Is it do adding value to what we all do here? And if it does, what will happen is standing committees will start saying, hey. I want our issue to be the one that gets put on their agenda for review. And if it's not, you'll know it fast. People will say, hate being

[Rep. Matthew Birong, Chair]: on this committee for not doing anything. Fair point. Redwater zones.

[Rep. Chea Waters Evans, Ranking Member]: So when you just said people will ask for their programs to be included in this, when Rep Boyden and Rep Garofalo and I've been working on this for actual forever. I mean, trying to figure out a good path for it. And a lot of the hesitation that we heard from our colleagues, some of it was we don't have the money. We don't have the time. We don't have the staff, which is a real thing to delve into some of these items. And interestingly enough, and you touched on it a couple of times, but I was hoping you could talk a little bit. It seems like a whack a ding question, but like about the emotional aspect or like the fear or the worry that, you know, people keep saying the word witch hunt or like coming after us or like. And and we have been discussing the three of us this whole time, how like we would like it to be a more positive, forward looking, like forward reaching, like improvement situation, not like you were going to take all your money because you did a bad job. So like just your experience in the auditor's office and the legislature it's a unique perspective.

[Tim Ash, Deputy State Auditor of Vermont]: Yeah. It's a fair worry that people would have. And there are ways to mitigate that. And I think the process by which the issues that are going to be reviewed are picked is one of those ways. Right? If it's coming through the committees themselves, that should create more buy in. If the committee composition is balanced between house and senate, you get rid of some of those sort of tribal issues. You could have there you could have requirements that it'd be bipartisan co chairs. I mean, there's there's ways to address some of those concerns which are not re you know, rewriting history. You just just just go with tried and true methods so that people that that gets dialed back a little bit. The consulting role that I mentioned we can be playing for a committee like this could be extended to administrative agencies. Like, there's nothing stopping that. I just wouldn't give them voting or or authorship powers because that's that should be, I we believe, left to the legislature. So if if integrating into that process somehow the very you know, the the programmatic leadership or whatever is a way to make sure that that dialogue is occurring every step of the way and the communication exchange is is happening, that might be good. But there's no question, like so our office, if we put out an audit that says agency x was tasked with doing a 100 things. They did 99 well, but one, they didn't do well. Well, guess what the headline is? Agency didn't do one thing well. And then we're and then people look to us and say, why don't you ever say that people did a good job? And we say, well, no. Like, we pointed out that they got a 99 out of a 100. And when we do it we did an audit just recently, two two. One about the Department of Public Service, one about the Department of Financial Regulation. It was how do they handle consumer complaints when they have issues with either utilities or insurance companies. We found they do a great job. Do you know how many news stories there were? None. This didn't it wasn't not enough conflict, I suppose. Right? So That's right. Right. I under but I understand the worry because agencies don't you know, they're thinking, look. We're trying our hardest. We we we don't want this committee to just get up there and be constantly telling us we're doing a bad job. That's not the that's not if it's sincerely not the goal, that will come out very clearly as people work through this. The fact that we have a chief performance office in and of itself suggests that the executive branch should be understanding the potential positive nature of this because they go around and educate different programs and departments and say, here's how you could be using lean improvement tools. Here's how you could be using better performance measurement. This is how you can be doing these kinds of evaluations better. They're not going there and saying, because you do such a bad job today. They're saying, because we wanna build your capacity. And what what we're talking about in this context of legislative government oversight is to say, look. We all are overwhelmed with the amount of budgetary decisions, policy decisions. We need the occasion to step back from time to time, look at how it's actually going so we can together make better decisions. I mean, that's one of the great advantages of the way the budget works is it is not like the legislature just does the budget. The governor has a role. It's like he can't do it. The legislature has a role. So in the end, whatever comes of this review is gonna be a two part, sort of story. So anyways, I I think that the worries, I understand them, but I I would hope that that so long as the entire presentation is that this is meant to allow us to keep a better handle on how things are going and work to improve things where things have fallen off a little bit. There should be, I hope, good receptivity to that.

[Rep. Matthew Birong, Chair]: Thank you for that insight. Here I

[Tim Ash, Deputy State Auditor of Vermont]: am saying this because, of course, from the auditor's office, you know, like we we want people to be thrilled when we call and say, hey, we're auditing you. It doesn't always go that way.

[Nick Kramer, Chief Operating Officer, Vermont Agency of Administration]: Yeah, I bet

[Rep. Matthew Birong, Chair]: you the nerves. Yeah, I

[Tim Ash, Deputy State Auditor of Vermont]: call it from the auditor's office, silence. That's pretty much every call today. The neighbor group.

[Rep. Chea Waters Evans, Ranking Member]: Well, that would be great if people said, oh, government accountability committee wants to look at our stuff. That's so exciting. Are that's we'll

[Tim Ash, Deputy State Auditor of Vermont]: we'll Yes. Let's we probably shouldn't be naive enough to think how we'll be the but but if the process plays out that this committee has talked about in the past, that would ultimately be people would say, oh, this is an opportunity to really shine a light on the good we're doing

[Rep. Chea Waters Evans, Ranking Member]: Yeah.

[Tim Ash, Deputy State Auditor of Vermont]: As well. Like, right, with that, that has to be it's celebrating excellence where you see it and then trying to prove where there's improvement needed. And that so it's a two piece thing. And I think program directors and administrators are would be well served to think about it that way, that this is an opportunity to really highlight everything we're putting at this particular policy area or challenge.

[Nick Kramer, Chief Operating Officer, Vermont Agency of Administration]: But that's precedents And and

[Unidentified Committee Member]: also just kind of a comment, but feel like it's also an opportunity to evaluate, or at the core of it, the quality of the legislation that we're passing. So it's really a check on what we're doing. And is it real world testing with the agencies? And is it achieving what we want to achieve? And are we drafting it thoughtfully in the business? So I wonder if that would be helpful for us as a legislature to look at it that way.

[Tim Ash, Deputy State Auditor of Vermont]: Oh, for sure. You learn lessons as you go. Mean, like the original draft last year of the CHIP legislation, the big structure bill, we were asked to review it. And among other things we pointed out, we said, you know, this would allow for the use of significant funds to create second homes or Airbnbs. I don't think that's what's intended. If the committee said, of course, we didn't attend that. We said, well, before you allow huge sums of money to go off of these infrastructure projects, you might wanna tidy up the language. So the kinds of reviews, especially for longer standing programs, are an opportunity to say, oh, jeez, if we could go back in time, we would probably have included slightly tighter language. So now either we make that change now or the next time we do a program like this, we've got the insight to do it. Rule making is something that our office has opined on, so to speak, where we realized that legislative committees were taking very different approaches requirements. Sometimes committees were saying, you may make rules. Other times they were saying shall, but it wasn't always clear that they were the use of may and shall obviously is this very important distinction. And there were instances where people wanted to require it, but we're using may. Other people were wanting it by a date certain, but they weren't saying shall by a date certain, and they weren't staging these things. So we basically came up with a set of recommendations to LCAR to say you need to work with ledge counsel so that every time rulemaking provisions are going into a bill, you ask the following questions. Do you wanna require it or just authorize it? Do you care when it's done? Do you wanna break it into parts? Like, so the rulemaking provisions in legislation have now been becoming more consistently applied, and that's the kind of thing that could be learned by this committee and then distributed for use by others. Sure. Sorry, I could go on and on. I think of the caffeine or something. I understand the feeling.

[Rep. Matthew Birong, Chair]: Anything else for Mr. Asch? As always, sir, your insights appreciated.

[Tim Ash, Deputy State Auditor of Vermont]: All right, thanks. Good luck. Yeah. No.

[Emma Paradise, Co-Director, Common Good Vermont]: Thank you

[Rep. Chea Waters Evans, Ranking Member]: so much. Thanks.

[Nick Kramer, Chief Operating Officer, Vermont Agency of Administration]: Good luck.

[Tim Ash, Deputy State Auditor of Vermont]: I'll the easy part.

[Nick Kramer, Chief Operating Officer, Vermont Agency of Administration]: Yeah. Totally. Thank you for that

[Rep. Matthew Birong, Chair]: sign off, sir. Yeah. Alright. Moving on to another conversation that we have been navigating for a while on this committee, state grant processes. And so we got Nick Kramer is first up.

[Rep. Matthew Birong, Chair]: How are doing, Nick? Good to see you again. Good. Yeah. Shall I dive in? Yeah. Yeah. Please. Please. Cool.

[Nick Kramer, Chief Operating Officer, Vermont Agency of Administration]: So, for the record, Nick Kramer. I'm the chief operating officer of the agency of administration. Good to see you all again. It's been it was like years, but I think it was just Couple weeks. Couple weeks. Right? It's that time of year. I actually really appreciate it. I'm glad I got here a couple of minutes early, caught the end of Tim's testimony. I I think this is a perfect segue. Right? Cool. Accountability and improvements. Right? So what we're talking about The wheels are turning. Yeah, my comments might be slightly different from the auditors, but that's to be expected. No, I think this topic of grants and state grants improvement, I think, will be not new to anybody in this committee, right? This is something this committee and your colleagues have been wrestling with for a number of years, and I think that that reflects that with all of our administrative processes, the Agency of Administration owns, these are living, breathing documents in some cases. I'm going to talk about Bulletin V a bit today and Bulletin III. V that covers contracts, right? So these guidance documents, but really, like, these protocols, these processes, how we do business are constantly evolving, right? So I think it's appropriate to be having kind of perennial conversations about that. That's something I'll touch on in testimony. So I won't, because I think I've got like twenty minutes, right, Mr. Chair, and then you've got a couple other witnesses for the rest of the room. I'll be brief and won't go deep into the background. But suffice it to say, the topic comes up frequently about state grants administration at a super high level, of course, the goal of grants being to get money out to our critical partners and providers that provide a range of services and benefits for Vermonters that government can't do itself. And so there's always this tension, I think, between wanting to do right by those partners and make the granting process as easy and streamlined and efficient as possible and logical. And then, of course, in some cases, particularly when federal funds are involved, there's a whole set of requirements that the state, the recipient of federal money, is held to that we have to pass along some of those obligations to our subrecipients and such. And then also, again, at a high level, that we are the stewards of public funding. And we have a moral obligation to ensure that any money, that taxpayer dollars that are going out the door are well spent and have that sort of financial oversight. So I just mentioned those themes at the outset, that this is what we're always chewing on. What I'm here to talk about today is a series of meetings we held over the summer. This was not in response to any particular legislation, not as a legislative charter per se, but in recognition that there have been these conversations ongoing. We heard, I think over the last couple of years, testimony from a variety of state grants partners with some ideas for improvement for state grants. And we at the Agency of Administration felt like it would be great to have a conversation, to do a bit of a deeper dive, have that point of connection directly with stakeholders, and facilitate a process where we can listen, we can take feedback, post some changes, vet those changes with our partners, and move forward. So I'm really proud, personally, of the work that's happened over the last six years. I claim personal responsibility for very, very little of it. We have some things, committees heard from some of our grants, wizards and wizardesses that really do like a ton of work in this space, and are these really hardworking, diligent public servants. They have put a lot of effort to what I'm about to describe. So the high level of SparkNotes are we met a couple times over the summer in person with representatives from the nonprofit sector, I think you'll hear from Emma in a little bit, and I won't name everybody in the interest of time, but representatives from the RPCs, I think Charlie Baker is also on the witness list, and VLCT, and we got together and posed the question, like, what's not working? Let's gather some information on what are the pain points in the current grants processes, what are some ideas, some opportunities for improvement, things like that. We had a whole meeting. We had three two hour meetings in person in Montpelier. The first meeting was completely devoted just to listening to stateside. We said very little, gathered all the feedback, compiled a long, long list of notes, maybe asked some clarifying questions. We heard, well, then the second meeting was about us digesting that, reflecting back what we heard, some potential ideas for improvements. And then the third meeting was ultimately about refining those into some ideas for action. But the themes that emerged in those conversations, I think there were a number of them, a number of specific issues. You can get really granular in this space. But we heard a lot about advanced payment and the timing of payments, and that that's, in some cases, as important, if not more important, than the size of a grant that an entity gets. We heard a lot about the challenges of inconsistency across departments. You talk to one department and they do it one way or they have one form, you go to another, and it's completely different, right? And for something like a municipality who might be dealing with AOT and HS and ANR all in the same week, that can be really frustrating. We heard about an ongoing theme of meeting, like I said at the outset, sort of the tension of wanting to be sure we're complete with our information and getting what we need from an audit perspective, but really streamlining whenever we can, right? These are not everybody applying for a state grant has a deep, deep financial background, and even those that do don't want to spend four hours filling out an application with 20 needless pages. Then generally, kind of related to clarity and training, right? What are the resources we're providing as a state government to help steward people through the process? There were other things, you know, indirect rates are a topic that came up. I'll try to touch on that in a second. But those are, I'd say, some of the buckets of things we heard. We are proposing, and this is sort of part of meeting two and meeting three, and then the ongoing changes to address a lot of that. So, the bulk of the work that's happening is in the form of an update to Bulletin V, which is the state grant bulletin. It's not 100 pages, it's pretty close. I don't know off the top of my head. It's not a short document, right, but very in detail. And some of the changes that we're implementing were direct feedback from partners. Some things, low hanging fruit was really easy, like some more guidance about what's a contract, what's a grant. That's something we've heard a lot, that's sort of a murky definition. So we're adding some more clarity there. There's new and improved language on top of what was already new and improved language regarding indirect rates that just happened in the last couple of years, partly in response to conversations that were happening in this committee. So some consistency in how state entities were allowed to calculate indirect rates and sort of clarifying what the process is and how it relates to the federally negotiated indirect rates. There is a whole new section being contemplated on advanced payment and just payment generally and payment timeframes. And that's kind of combined with what I'll talk more about in a second, but we've created a lot of additional optional, these aren't necessarily like mandatory forms, but a lot of resources and materials to help guide folks from all ranges of experience through the process, checklists and informational sheets and kind of pre award, like, have you done X, Y, and Z to help avoid a lot of headache later? Or are you interested in negotiating an indirect rate? Here's a fact sheet to try to do, because that can be a really complicated exercise that sometimes doesn't actually yield the results people want. Here's a primer on how that process works and the types of information you'll need. And just the first blush, is it going to be worth it? Because we've had instances where people go through the exercise of calculating an indirect rate and actually lose money or have spent more money doing the exercise than they gain. So things like that that are sort of designed to be front end, not gatekeeping, but checks to help clarify processes, orient folks towards what are the right components of the grant landscape, because it's complex inevitably when there's all this federal regulations bound up in it, our own state regulations and legislation that has specific requirements. So we've done, the team, I should say, really has done a lot of work to create some additional materials, some additional documentation to help guide. That's all interspersed in this update of Bulletin V. There's a glorious set of appendices that have all kinds of information. They're doing some work on their website to consolidate training resources into a really easy, public facing navigable page. I mentioned one of the points of feedback we heard was a need for standardization across the enterprise. This whole exercise, I think, has been, even from an internal perspective, really valuable. Part of what we did was bring together I was facilitating the conversation, but certainly not a subject matter expert. We had folks from AOT, ANR, AHS, and I don't even remember who all else, but all the major granting agencies in the state and just having folks together in the room to listen directly to partners, hear their feedback, compare notes of like, oh, yeah, this is how we do it. Oh, this is how we do it. We didn't know we were allowed to do it that way. There were gaps. I'll just fully acknowledge gaps in information even within the state in terms of what was kind of allowable under our current guidance. So a lot of these updates are really designed to clarify, standardize, in many cases, we're seeing risk assessments, which is a big piece in advanced payment, right? We would assess if a particular entity can consciently be eligible for advanced payment. Those were all over the place. There were a number of different optional forms. Different agencies had their own criteria. So standardizing that, directing as a state, this is how we do things. In a lot of cases, we're saying, Okay, if an applicant or an entity has already completed this form, this paperwork with this agency, Don't do it again. We're standardizing some of the logging of these things so they'll live centrally, so folks can just pull up, oh yeah, this is the Municipality of Corinth's risk assessment form that they did for an AOT grant. Now they're applying for something in ANR. We can just pull that. So some of those internal efficiencies. We've had a lot of internal conversations. We had internal conversations interspersed with our meetings with the partners. Since then, there's been a whole series of our team at the Agency of Administration getting together all the contracts and grants folks across the state, of which there are hundreds literally into these giant, giant team meetings to workshop some of these ideas, provide feedback onto Bulletin V updates, kind of vet some of the like, well, here's a challenge operationally that we didn't think about in some of those meetings. It's complicated stuff. But we've had this enormous effort of internal outreach and buy in, and I think a lot of folks, what I've heard is that a lot of the folks internally who manage have grants and contracts and are part of the grants administration are excited about some of these changes. But there are things that definitely benefit us too as an enterprise. So I'm feeling really positive about how this has gone. I want to acknowledge, and I think you'll probably hear from partners, some of what I'm describing is still very much in draft form. Bulletin V is a big document that typically when it's updated, it's effective July 1 of the fiscal year to align with the beginning of the fiscal year. That's our target for this update of Bulletin V, but there's a bunch of work happening right now behind the scenes, or I should say internally, to kind of come up with an initial draft. We have committed to partners to sharing a draft before it goes live and soliciting some more feedback to do kind of a final check and make sure we're not missing things. When we did that with sections of things we were contemplating, there were little things like, why do you say, I'm going to butcher this, but like sub recipient instead of grantee, like language things that are just for the folks that are so steeped in this work, you forget, like your average person off the street might not understand. So there's already been points where the external partner group has been really helpful to us. And I guess I'll just say for the interest of time, of the last outcome of this process that I feel really positive about is we've committed I started testimony by saying this is an ongoing thing, we have to keep revisiting this. So in acknowledgment of that, part of what we've tried to do is build more of an infrastructure for dialogue between the state and external partners. So there's a quarterly meeting series now that we plan to keep going into perpetuity. We're managed by our state grants folks, and they bring folks together to talk about training and resources and materials. And of course, as we update Bulletin V, that can be a topic. But just to keep that channel of dialogue open so that folks have an opportunity to engage directly with the state. It's not something we're doing behind the scenes or behind the curtain and then just dispersing, but make this more of a conversation. Obviously, there's always going to be some tensions. There are things I'm sure some partners would love to see that are not possible, or where there are some challenges when you get into federal reporting or state protocols. But I think for the most part, we've made a ton of progress on this issue in the last six months. I mean, it's been since July. And I'm, like I said, really proud of the work our team's done. I'm really grateful for the partners' participation in this. We had what felt like really positive and propulsive discussions. So certainly happy to take any specific questions from folks or elaborate on anything I said. As always, it's a lot of detail for me, a lot of words, but I made sure I got it all out there.

[Rep. Matthew Birong, Chair]: Thank you. Robert Hooper, Evans.

[Rep. Chea Waters Evans, Ranking Member]: Thanks. Well, it's good to hear people are excited about it. This is something we've been trying to make some headway with for few years, I think now. It's been but do you have do you have how much time does it take to execute a grant?

[Nick Kramer, Chief Operating Officer, Vermont Agency of Administration]: Entirely depends on the grant, right?

[Rep. Chea Waters Evans, Ranking Member]: Do you have a span? Is it a day? Is it a week? Do you do it? Is it months? Is it years? Do you do them retro actively? Do you? Yes. You do. Okay.

[Nick Kramer, Chief Operating Officer, Vermont Agency of Administration]: Yes to all of those things. Okay. So I'll let you finish the question, representative.

[Rep. Chea Waters Evans, Ranking Member]: No, I was just wondering. I was wondering about the time and how long it takes.

[Nick Kramer, Chief Operating Officer, Vermont Agency of Administration]: I think it depends on a lot of factors. It depends on the nature of the grant. Are some small dollar individual beneficiary type payment things that might happen very quickly. There are sort of small municipal aid programs, I think, that could happen very quickly. I'm giving examples based on my understanding, but again, classic caveat that I'm not really the subject matter expert. So I think when you say days, yeah, I think there some grants that could probably be executed quickly, right? And nobody would bat an eye. There are some that take much longer, that take a lot of specific information from applicants. Sometimes if there's errors in the application or missing information, there's follow-up required, depending on the nature of the agency, right, and their capacity on the grants administration side, that can really we have agencies where there's really no grants like administrators who occasionally through like a legislative action or something will get charged with getting money out the door, and in that case there can be a real process to kind of build up that infrastructure and that expertise or tap somebody else. And then there are agencies like agency of human services that have entire units devoted to grants. And I always hate giving a not precise answer, but I really do think the answer is it depends. And in some cases, you have months, I think, are reasonable. I've not heard of an instance where it's taken years to implement grant. I think if that happened, they would have been not really an outlier.

[Rep. Chea Waters Evans, Ranking Member]: I have a couple of follow ups. Okay, you just you have different processes for different types of grants or like a. You know, rules about, Okay, if it's this kind, if it's a one year thing, then we're just going to do this quickly and we're going expedite these certain steps? Or does everything kind of go through the same process no matter what?

[Nick Kramer, Chief Operating Officer, Vermont Agency of Administration]: No. So that's a great question, representative. So all agencies and my colleagues could speak to this in far more detail, but all agencies are required to submit a granting plan specific to their operations, which describes this is part of Bulletin V, this is a requirement of Bulletin V that I think it's annually, every agency has to their granting plan. That's an internal thing, describing exactly what you're asking about. Like, here's the universe of grants that we deal with. Here's how they are made, and here's the process through which they're made, whether they're competitive application or sometimes they're directed by the legislature, named recipients. So they kind of walk through all those details and depending on the nature of the grant, if it's a federal pass through grant, all of those vary widely and so the processes to administer them very accordingly. Thank you. I

[Unidentified Committee Member]: just want to say how much I appreciate the effort that you all have made. And I think the idea of partnering with outside partners to work on these processes felt really productive and gratifying to do that with you also from the legislature and the administration. I'm really excited to hear you talk about how can we reduce the need for people to put in their information in different places and make those processes a little bit more aligned. I was wondering if you had thoughts about It sounds like you're thinking of this continuing. Is there anything that we need to do or should do to help support that? From my perspective, representative, and I've only been a

[Nick Kramer, Chief Operating Officer, Vermont Agency of Administration]: part of these conversations for the last year or so, right? I'm new in this role even in the last two years, but I appreciate your comments and totally share the sentiment. Like I've already said, I felt like this was a really productive series of engagements. I'm happy that they, part of the outcome was not like, Okay, we've solved it, but a commitment on both sides to continuing to come together to work through these. So I would say, I'm cautiously optimistic, as with all things, that we're on a really good glide path, that we've built some of the infrastructure to keep taking on feedback and make process improvements and have this be like a live discussion. So I'm not coming here with any specific requests for support from the legislature. I would just echo the appreciation for the discussions we had last year to get here, There's been legislation that's been considered, often happens, in the legislature, right? That's what y'all do. This feels to us, the administration, like an area where we've been really able to kind of lean into our existing capacity and find some time and space to dive into the issue. I think we're on a good path. I certainly would encourage you to ask the same questions with partners. I'm sure they have their perspective.

[Emma Paradise, Co-Director, Common Good Vermont]: I'm wondering if you all are considering or having conversations about developing expedited process for federal grants that may be a little more time limited.

[Nick Kramer, Chief Operating Officer, Vermont Agency of Administration]: You're saying, representative, specifically with regards to federal grants that are already granted that we might have some awareness of it might be implicated in some of the federal instability we're seeing at the moment?

[Emma Paradise, Co-Director, Common Good Vermont]: A little bit. I'm thinking of the rural health money and we no health time limit.

[Nick Kramer, Chief Operating Officer, Vermont Agency of Administration]: Yeah. Yeah. Well, so I'll take that's a good example to illustrate the trend. So, as this committee is undoubtedly aware, whenever we get a new grant from any source for a new project, the state does not have the authority to unilaterally accept that, right? It has to go through what we say call the AA-one process because that's the name of the form attached to it, but it's a review process that starts with Department of Finance and Management, goes through the Secretary of Administration and the Governor, and then goes through the Joint Fiscal Committee, right, ultimately. So for that grant, in particular, that opportunity, which is huge funding and deeply transformative. That's something we wanted to get across as quickly as possible. If there is an existing process in that case of review, there's like six or seven people that sign off on that. We just moved very quickly on that one in this case because we all knew that this was really important. I think there was even a little bit of a bifurcation as I understand it, and I'm not super close to the details, but part of in order to get that money out the door, there is a request for some sort of initial grant contemplates a bunch of additional positions to help money out the door and support that effort. We were trying to get a couple of those stood up quickly so that we can begin doing that work to facilitate the rest of it. So I guess without getting too in the weeds, on a case by case basis, as we're aware of significant federal funding opportunities, we're time sensitive ones. There are processes internally utilized to expedite things. We request expedited review in some cases from the Joint Fiscal Committee because that's typically their process with that is they have 30 to review it. If not, if they do take no action on it, then it becomes sort of default accepted or they can look at it in a committee at the next time they meet. So there's that kind of thing. We're also I mean, just in case it's useful, Commissioner Gresham has been in before House Appropriations and Secretary Clark talking about our monitoring of federal grants. We have a process over the last couple, last year or so track if we get notifications from the federal government that funding we were anticipating getting or not going to get, and that sort of reports up to the finance and management and the Secretary of Administration, and so we're keeping a close eye on that and then moving quickly to address or, as necessary, initiate a dialogue with the legislature about, Okay, this funding went away. What are we going to do? So there are processes in place to pivot and respond to federal emergent circumstances. Hope that answers your question.

[Rep. Matthew Birong, Chair]: Any further hands?

[Rep. Matthew Birong, Chair]: Seeing none, appreciate the time, the diligence, and

[Nick Kramer, Chief Operating Officer, Vermont Agency of Administration]: the update, sir. Of course. Thank you, mister chair. Thank you, committee, for your time. Thanks.

[Rep. Matthew Birong, Chair]: Up next, mister Baker. How are you?

[Charlie Baker, Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission (speaking for VAPDA)]: Good. Good no. Good morning. Sorry. Rushing through the day. Thank you for the record. My name is Charlie Baker. I'm the executive director of the Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission, but I'm really here this morning speaking to you on behalf of all the RPC statewide or our state association, which is called VAPTA, Vermont Association of Planning Development Agencies. I want to thank the chair and Representative Nugent in particular for the conversations he had in this committee last year. Also really want to thank Secretary Clark and Nick and his team who really, I think, you know, really followed through on the conversation that we had in the committee last year, took this up, has really been, very, transparent and getting people around the table, getting his team. I think Nick probably even undersold how much work is going on in his team and across the state. I think at one point, Nick, I think you told us you had, you know, was it a few 100 finance people from every agency gathered together to kind of review these things? So there's really been a lot of great conversation and some progress. I do think, I believe that it was helpful to the state to actually have some of us practitioners, those that you know, our grant recipients, kind of give them some feedback as they were editing some pieces. And we are really looking forward to the next stage of looking at the next draft of Bulletin V, because that really is this core document that really provides guidance on the grant making process and looking to, you know, make that as good as we can. You know, this is all incremental improvement that we're working on as we go through these processes. And yeah, want to thank Nick again and his team for the quarterly meetings and the commitment to reviewing things with partners. So happy to take any questions. We can talk a little bit about how engaged RPCs are with grants if you'd like, but I do just really want to end with thank you all for bringing this up in your forum and the administration for taking it on from there.

[Rep. Matthew Birong, Chair]: Thank you, Charlie. That's, you know, it's good to get positive feedback on the process that everybody participated in, over the last couple of months. So I'm encouraged to see the enthusiasm. Absolutely. Questions for mister Baker at the moment? Alright. Seeing no hands. No. That just the the feedback alone, I think, did justice to the process. Yeah. Thank you, Charlie.

[Charlie Baker, Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission (speaking for VAPDA)]: Take care. Thank you.

[Rep. Matthew Birong, Chair]: Yep.

[Tim Ash, Deputy State Auditor of Vermont]: Alright.

[Rep. Matthew Birong, Chair]: And Emma. It's been a while. How are you?

[Emma Paradise, Co-Director, Common Good Vermont]: It's nice to be back.

[Emma Paradise, Co-Director, Common Good Vermont]: Hi, everyone. Thanks for having me in today. For the record, I'm Emma Paradise, co director at Common Good Vermont, which is a statewide program of United Way of Northwest Vermont, and we represent the nonprofit sector. And I want to echo all the appreciation that has been going around in terms of this process for the committee, for the agency of administration, for Jordan and Kimberly from AOA, put so much work into developing these documents and improvements. So big appreciation to everyone who's participated and supported this work. We're really encouraged and optimistic that this will lead to real improvements that will improve state grant processes. But I also think that doesn't mean we don't have more work to do or shouldn't continue to monitor for changes or where there might be more attention needed. And so we don't, as it's been shared, we don't have that specific information, the Bulletin V language yet. But from what we've understood so far, there are a lot of really promising improvements that should be included in that. It's been discussed standardizing budget line item flexibility, which has been an issue for many organizations, streamlining reporting, updating the risk assessment processes for advanced payments. And I think this is one area where we look forward to seeing what that actually looks like. We are hopeful that it will lead to increased eligibility for advance payments. If not, and hopefully not just more clarity, though, that will also be helpful as well. There's a lot more guidance and resources that are being developed, including around indirect rates. We're not clear that this will actually make it easier to receive a higher indirect rate, but it will help organizations who may be applying for an indirect rate evaluate if they want to put the resources into negotiating that and calculating it. So I think that is the first step. We also talked about decoupling the federal indirect rate from Bulletin V, given potential OMB uniform guidance changes that may be coming so that we keep that 15% where it is. And yeah, so a bunch of new resources have been developed online. And I think this creation of the ongoing working group is one of the really most important outcomes of this. I think that's a great way for us to work collaboratively to develop new resources and trainings, as well as really just check-in, see how things are going, and identify areas for future improvements. We had our first meeting in January, which included all the folks who participated in these conversations so far, as well as some nonprofit representatives themselves, which I think is a really great addition, just having that firsthand experience in the room. And we talked about some priorities, which included indirect rates and advanced payment guidance as some of our key areas. I will say I don't think that I saw any changes regarding timely payments or contract execution. So while things have been improving there, I think having this group and more clarity around who nonprofits should go to when challenges arise will be helpful in that realm. I also want to highlight that this work still only focuses on state grants, not contracts, which I understand are managed by BGS. And so I think we've learned a lot from this process and are hopeful that we could replicate it with BGS or take similar actions to improve the contracting processes as well. So, yeah.

[Rep. Matthew Birong, Chair]: Just on that piece, have you reached out to BGS or anyone within this conversation of stakeholders to try and

[Emma Paradise, Co-Director, Common Good Vermont]: Not yet, think. Yeah, that is on our next steps list, for sure.

[Rep. Matthew Birong, Chair]: If you need help with an introduction.

[Emma Paradise, Co-Director, Common Good Vermont]: I appreciate that. I may kick you up on this. And so, yeah, I think really happy with how things are going and really looking forward to seeing the Bulletin V updates and having the opportunity to provide feedback while there is still time to do so. So that will happen. I just noticed that the Senate Government Operations Committee has a government accountability bill that would require AOA to report on make recommendations for improvements to state grants. I think it's pulling on language from last year. But I think that if that language were updated so that it were focused more on monitoring and how things are going, I think there could be value in that. So I just wanted to flag that for the committee, and I will reach out to them as well. And yeah, so I'd be really looking forward to providing that feedback. And I also wanted to share a related appropriation request that Common Good is putting forward that would support this work. Have summaries like that, but I can end up with the committee. So Common Good is requesting state funding to strengthen Vermont's nonprofit sector, 02/5665 in one time funding that would help nonprofits navigate federal cuts due to executive orders and policy shifts, as well as 02/7777 in face funding out of support, nonprofit capacity, financial management and compliance, and strengthening state grant systems. And so this proposal has been endorsed by more than 60 nonprofits who are really prepared to work collaboratively with the state and efficiently in this moment of change and really ensure that public investment in our sector has a lasting impact. And I want to focus in on the second piece of the proposal, because this would really support our work with state grants and organizations who receive state funding. And I think that this is one way to support our work with the state. The working group is a great next step, but I think both partners and the state, we have limited capacity, limited resources to actually act on the trainings and resources that that group is developing. And I think this is one way that we can really support this work moving forward. And this would also provide more resources to work with the state on addressing contracting challenges as well. So that section of the proposal really focuses on developing trainings and resources. These could be webinars. These could be a state conference where nonprofits and other grantee entities could collaborate with the state on trainings and building those relationships. I think it would also support improved state partnerships, support our sector data collection, which would benefit both the state and nonprofits and the legislature for having a better grasp on the state of the sector. And then it would also create a technical assistance fund to support nonprofits with state grants in areas such as financial management, training new employees who may be working, managing state funds. I think that is one way that we can really make sure that this time and energy everyone has put into this work has a long lasting effect. And even though we're requesting base funding for that, one time funds could also make a big difference. And then the other piece is really focused on technical assistance for nonprofits navigating challenges related to federal policy changes or funding cuts. And that could be anything from evaluating changes to Medicaid that are going to impact their revenue to exploring mergers or consolidations if those models are no longer sustainable. And so that, I think, is a really timely way that we can proactively support the sector that is providing work on behalf of the government. And it would also create a nonprofit task force and hold cross sector convenings to really identify common areas of need, and that would really inform the technical assistance program as well. And we just see this as really aligning with Vermont's priorities around affordability, economic stability, and protecting Vermonters, And it's going to ensure that all the work we've done will be long lasting and impactful, especially as federal partnerships are becoming so unstable. And so I just wanted to highlight that for you, and would really appreciate your support on that. We've been house commerce and are talking with Senate Economic Development, but hoping to just bring that to your attention as well as it's related. We can take any questions.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Any questions, Charlotte?

[Rep. Matthew Birong, Chair]: The hanging question I have was off something you said that is from you, sir. The updated bulletin timeline on the update if I missed that during your testimony, I apologize if I didn't catch that. We

[Nick Kramer, Chief Operating Officer, Vermont Agency of Administration]: typically make the update effective July 1 of the fiscal year starting the new fiscal year. We're absolutely logical. That's the effective date of the proposed update. We're hoping to have it mostly finalized sometime before then. We'll get very much finalized before then, but mostly finalized even toward then. I mentioned to the task to give it a share if you have some time this spring. Just a couple of months with partners gather kind of the final round of feedback, finalize a month or two in advance. But our only internal purposes, we have to train. Folks have been participating and are aware of, particularly the role and statewide to make sure everybody's aware of the changes as a process.

[Rep. Matthew Birong, Chair]: Great. So, but the intent is to share the draft with a stakeholder group, get feedback in order to make sure everything's dialed in for that.

[Tim Ash, Deputy State Auditor of Vermont]: Okay, anything else?

[Emma Paradise, Co-Director, Common Good Vermont]: Thank you, Commissioner.

[Rep. Matthew Birong, Chair]: Appreciate it. Committee. Alright. I guess that's kind of

[Tim Ash, Deputy State Auditor of Vermont]: a wrap for the morning.

[Rep. Matthew Birong, Chair]: We will be back at And we are going to have a flyby on age five seventy eight that relating to penalties and procedures for animal animal cruelty and the offenses. And so that's something coming out of the judiciary. We're taking a look at it. So that'll be our first order of business. That's what we have. Until then, enjoy your lunch hour.