Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Who you're speaking with and you know who's in the room in case you don't recognize people. It's always good to know who is listening, at least that we can see. So I'll start off. I'm Theresa Wood. I'm from Waterbury, and I also serve Bolton, Uniscore, and Huntington.

[Rep. Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: Anne Donahue from Northfield and representing Berlin.

[Rep. Daniel "Dan" Noyes (Clerk)]: Hi, Dan Noyes, representing Wilkett, Hyde Park, Johnson, and Belvedere.

[Rep. Brenda Steady (Member)]: Brenda Steady, Westford, East Melton.

[Rep. Doug Bishop (Member)]: Doug Bishop, Colchester. Good morning, Zon Eastes. I'm from Guilford, and I also serve Vernon.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: I don't know. It's Nicole of Parkford.

[Rep. Jubilee McGill (Member)]: Jubilee McGill, and I represent Ripport, Middlebury, New Haven, and Woodbridge.

[Rep. Golrang "Rey" Garofano (Vice Chair)]: Rey Garofano. Oh, sorry. S6 and S6 injection. Nice to see you all.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: And Laurie? Laurie Morris, committee assistant. And then we go right around the outside of the room, and then we come back to the witnesses. Amy Johnson, from our headquarters.

[Megan Spiegel (Chief Financial Officer, DCF)]: All nine one from fiscal.

[Rep. Jubilee McGill (Member)]: Melanie Marple, senior advisor to the Commissioner of Department for Children and Families. Cady Kieran from Action Circles.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Great. The floor is yours. Thank you so much. And if you wouldn't mind introducing yourself for the record and folks, do have their, if you want to refresh, we do have their presentation on our website. Thank you. And welcome. This is your first time here. Yes. Welcome. And you have sort of gotten baptism by drowning or whatever that, coming in just before the legislative session. Certainly there's no issues going on in DCF. So, know, I'm sure it's been smooth sailing all the way for you. But we welcome you here and appreciate the tasks that you have and all of the people that your department impacts across the state. So thank you for taking on this big responsibility.

[Megan Spiegel (Chief Financial Officer, DCF)]: Thank you.

[Sandy Hoffman (Interim Commissioner, DCF)]: My name is Sandy Hoffman, and I'm the Interim Commissioner at DCF. I'm Megan Spiegel. I'm the DCF CFO. And why don't we have the folks who are online from DCF introduce themselves?

[Miranda Gray (Deputy Commissioner, Economic Services Division, DCF)]: Good morning, Brenda Steady, the Deputy Commissioner for the Economic Services Division.

[Aryka Radke (Deputy Commissioner, Family Services Division, DCF)]: Good morning, Eric Hiradke, Deputy Commissioner for the Family Services Division.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Go ahead, Lily.

[Lily Sojourner (Director, Office of Economic Opportunity, DCF)]: Good morning, Lily Sojourner, Director of the Office of Economic Opportunity.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Lisa?

[Lily Sojourner (Director, Office of Economic Opportunity, DCF)]: Hi, I'm Lisa Rivers. I'm the Director of the Office of Child Support.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: And Heather?

[Heather McLean (Revenue Enhancement Director, DCF Family Services)]: Good morning, I'm Heather McLean, the

[Heather McLean (Revenue Enhancement Director, DCF Family Services)]: Revenue Enhancement Director for DCF Family Services.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: And Tyler.

[Tyler [last name unknown] (High-End System of Care Director, DCF Family Services)]: Good morning, I'm the High End System of Care Director for DCF Family Services.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Thank you. Thank you all for being available in case there's a phone a friend needed, I guess.

[Megan Spiegel (Chief Financial Officer, DCF)]: I don't know if

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: you were listening to the last bunch, we always have a lot of questions. So thank you for being here. The floor is yours.

[Rep. Jubilee McGill (Member)]: Great, thank you. So as you probably know, that DCF's mission is to foster the healthy development, safety, well-being, and self sufficiency of Vermonters. We provide benefits, services, and supports to approximately 200,000 Vermonters every year. That includes children, youth, families, older Vermonters and people with disabilities. Megan's going to go through DCF's budget, but I can tell you it's organized into 13 appropriations, make correspond with our debt IDs or programs, economic services, family services, child development, child support, economic opportunity, and disability determination services. And then I think Megan will go through the fund sources and go through the

[Megan Spiegel (Chief Financial Officer, DCF)]: BAA. Yes, I can start walking through the ups downs, if that's where we Yeah, need to go for it. Okay. You will have received our ups downs. I also sent a spreadsheet, which I have been informed is microscopic. But if you make it bigger, should be able to read it. And it has short narratives of each of the lines on the upstands, and the colors correspond to changes in-depth.

[Rep. Brenda Steady (Member)]: So

[Megan Spiegel (Chief Financial Officer, DCF)]: I'll start with admin, which is our first appropriation. It's B316. And so the first line on there is just a net neutral revenue realignment between our different appropriations based on where we can earn TANF revenue and where we can recognize maintenance of effort through the use of state dollars. So this is just to maximize our federal revenue and be able to buy down our work participation rates and maximize ability that we have. Then there's a $50,000 up for an income verification system. ESD has been using one that was available free of cost that is no longer available. ESD has to procure a new method of verifying income and estimates that to be about 50,000 annually. This represents the annual cost of contract with an external earnings verification system or EBS. Can I just interrupt for

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: a So for people on committee who are trying to follow along, she's referencing the spreadsheet, not this presentation? So if you want to open the spreadsheet up, you'd be able to easier follow it along. And

[Megan Spiegel (Chief Financial Officer, DCF)]: so basically, we need to be able to verify income, to be able to administer our benefits and ensure accurate eligibility. So this is the cost to get licenses to use to the earnings verification system. And then the last one in admin is the ADS service level agreement and just a net virtual transfer from AHS to DCF. It's DCF's portions of the increased costs for the ADS service level agreement for state fiscal year 2026.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: We neglected to ask our friends at Dale about this, but do you get specific So I recognize that that's a bill back essentially. But do you get any kind of specific documentation about what that is made up of? So is it additional staffing at ADS? Is it based upon the workload? Like, I know that they're working on several DCF projects. What's it based on?

[Megan Spiegel (Chief Financial Officer, DCF)]: I would refer you to AHS on that. They're the ones that get the information. As you can see, they're transferring the money to us. They probably have a lot more details than I have on the background of it. Some of the work that we do with ADS is billed in a bespoke manner, which is like a direct billing. And other approach for it comes through the SLA. So I think AHS could probably explain that to you better than they could.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: We just have

[Megan Spiegel (Chief Financial Officer, DCF)]: a question.

[Rep. Jubilee McGill (Member)]: What's the SLA?

[Megan Spiegel (Chief Financial Officer, DCF)]: Service level agreement. That's the agreement between the agencies and ADSs. Okay, thank you. Anything else on ESP or admin? Okay. Then I will move to family services division, B three seventeen. It's the yellow one. Representative. I'm sorry. You're wet. I think I'm making space.

[Rep. Jubilee McGill (Member)]: Okay,

[Megan Spiegel (Chief Financial Officer, DCF)]: family services, the yellow on the spreadsheet. The first line out there is just the opposite of the first one in admin, swapping of the revenue between FSD and admin. So that's net neutral. Then we have the NCSS transfer. This was funding from DMH that came to DCF and our build, our fiscal year twenty six budget build, but was accidentally put into CDD rather than FSD. So we're just moving it to FSD where it belongs. The next line on there is the transportation contract pressures. FSD transportation contracts have increased substantially year over year. You will remember that we had an increase last year. This is an additional increase. We're attempting to right size our budget to align with our agreements that we've written. There are not that many transportation providers in the state, and so our ability to control those costs is fairly limited. And is this

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: all with sheriffs, or is this sheriffs and others?

[Megan Spiegel (Chief Financial Officer, DCF)]: It's sheriffs and others. So sheriffs is just one of the many agreements, several agreements that we have. Sure Erica and Heather can provide you with more details on the types of transportation that we do, but I know it's just all sorts of transportation, getting kids to school, getting kids to medical appointments. There is secure transport as part of that. It's basically a time we're transporting kids in our custody.

[Rep. Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: Representative Donahue asked a question. Well, not a question, just a little placeholder for future discussion. We're still awaiting the promised last May, April and May report on secure strands, trying to put that was promised then. Can talk about it. I don't want to get into a whole discussion, but

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: deputy commissioner Rackie might have an update on that.

[Aryka Radke (Deputy Commissioner, Family Services Division, DCF)]: Wasn't quite able to hear you. It was an update on We we did not ever receive the promised report on secure transport breakouts. Oh, okay. We do have a breakout for all of the transportation, needs, and it does indicate that really secure transports is a very small part of the transport transportation need. And I see Heather has come on to provide some additional detail.

[Rep. Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: I don't know if the chair wants to take more time now. We I wanted to footnote it because we haven't forgotten it. We're waiting. We'll

[Rep. Jubilee McGill (Member)]: share it with you.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Okay, thank you. Somebody's making a note, I'm sure, someplace amongst other people. All right, thank you.

[Megan Spiegel (Chief Financial Officer, DCF)]: Okay, so the next two lines are the substitute care caseload utilization and the subsidized adoption caseload utilization. Every year we look at each of the different those two caseloads, and we project forward using three years of trends for cases and cost per case. Cost per case fluctuate based on the caseloads and the composition of them. And then caseloads obviously fluctuate year over year, so we project forward. We're seeing a reduction in the number of children in our substitute care caseload, which is causing a reduced need for that caseload. We are seeing an increase in our subsidized adoption. So those two are going in opposite directions. I

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: have a question on that. So overall, I see the reduction, but I also see a significant increase in the out of state residential caseload. And obviously, is something we've been talking about here quite a bit for the last well, ever since Woodside closed, frankly. And we're gonna want more information about that coming up as we talk about secure residential and we talk about intensive programming. And I know the department's been working on this for a long time, but just as a heads up, we're gonna want an update on the efforts to establish programming in Vermont, residential programming in Vermont. That's been thwarted in the last few years. So heads up for the budget presentation.

[Aryka Radke (Deputy Commissioner, Family Services Division, DCF)]: Thank you. Heads up noted. And we actually, the youth insecure residential out of state has decreased significantly over time as well. But absolutely looking forward to giving you more granular detail on our plans to even reduce it more.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: So what is the Okay, since you said that, now I have to ask, why does it say out of state residential caseload increase at two thousand eight and sixty six per month and number of three?

[Megan Spiegel (Chief Financial Officer, DCF)]: So the number of cases has gone up by three per month on average from what we budgeted at last year.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Okay.

[Megan Spiegel (Chief Financial Officer, DCF)]: The cost per case has increased significantly, and that can be a reflection of the the needs of outside of Right. I so

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: I I get what is written here, but I would just that seemed to Contradictory. Be contradictory to what deputy commissioner Radke was saying about it decreasing?

[Aryka Radke (Deputy Commissioner, Family Services Division, DCF)]: The needs may have increased, but the actual overall number of youth has decreased from, like perhaps ten years ago, 200 kids being in residential to now 83.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Okay. Well, ten years ago is an interesting fact, but we're really looking at it looks like in the short term that the numbers are actually increasing according to this request. Not compared to ten years ago, Deputy Commissioner.

[Megan Spiegel (Chief Financial Officer, DCF)]: We can get you the data. I will say it's not necessarily an increase based on last year's case. Let's increase based on where we budgeted. So we may have budgeted incorrectly. Okay, that's helpful to know. All right, thank you. Okay, so

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: that's the two sets. That's efficacy altogether. And so just to double check on the sub adoption, because we have lots of flurrying numbers around that in the last couple of years. So when you talk about the increase per case, the dollar amount per case, that's not like a cost of living increase or a COLA increase. That's based upon you have certain subsidies that are based upon age or level of need or whatever? Is that what that's

[Megan Spiegel (Chief Financial Officer, DCF)]: That's the composition of the caseload that impacts the cost per case when you're just dividing it by the number of cases. So we budget for any sort of increase in rates that have happened over the past couple of years. And so again, this is compared to the budget, not compared to actual So it's just a change in the caseloads.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Okay, thank you.

[Heather McLean (Revenue Enhancement Director, DCF Family Services)]: If I may, I will clarify that each individual subsidized contract that we have with adoptive parents is based on the actual needs of the child. So as you were saying, it's it is based on so cost per case is determined case by case based on the special needs of the child who is being adopted. That fluctuates over time based on the population.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Great, thank you.

[Megan Spiegel (Chief Financial Officer, DCF)]: So the cost per cases that we represent here are averages based on the totals. So then moving on to the child development division. The first two lines, again, so everything in CDD is basically technical adjustments. We had two lines that came from DMH to CDD in last year's budget for NCSS. One was for the developmental services, and the other was for children's integrated services. The amounts were swapped. So this is to correct the swapping of the amounts. And then the last line is to transfer the developmental services portion to FSD. For

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: alphabet soup folks, NCSS is Northwest Counseling and Support Services up in St. August.

[Megan Spiegel (Chief Financial Officer, DCF)]: So then, that CDD, we've got nothing for the Office of Child Support, which brings us to AABD, aid for the aged blind and disabled. And we have a few adjustments here. The first one is the payment for our admin, and it's sort of tied to the ones below it. We have to pay the feds a flat rate. It's about $15 per payment to administer these benefits on behalf to individuals. And so we budget based on the number of payments we think we're going to be giving out. As you can see in the next two lines, we have a reduced caseload. And so that has resulted in a drop in the amount that we're paying for admin as well. Okay. So the reduced caseload, but the cost per payment increased. Is that what that is meaning? Yes. And also we project, so every year they increase the amount that we have to pay them. It's usually very small, just a few cents. And so I also believe that we budgeted like 2¢. Our projection of the increase was like 2¢ per payment more than what they actually ended up increasing it by, which isn't that much, but it does compound over thousands of payments. Sure. Okay, thank you. So then moving on to general assistance, we a reduction, we have an increase in our support services caseload. This represents the caseload that supports our burials, physicians, dental, and abortions lines. The global commitment portion covers positions in dental. So that is decreasing slightly while the burials and abortion is decreasing slightly somewhat. And then we have the personal needs and incidentals or PNI caseload adjustment, and that's reduced based on where we budgeted. And that is supports for groceries, room and board, home rent, etcetera. And that's general assistance.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Yes, Representative McGill.

[Rep. Jubilee McGill (Member)]: Last year we had talked a bit about the general lack of awareness about these sets of services that are available to folks. I believe the technical commissioner, she's on, had talked about preparing and starting to do some outreach and education about it. In preparation for the legislative session and the fact that I often work with a lot of service providers, there still seems to be a lack of understanding and knowledge that these types of things are even available to the people they're working with. And so I was just hoping we might hear an update about that, because I'm wondering whether it's a lack of need or lack of awareness. And I've had that same share concern about cutting these dollars that can provide some really essential services and resources to folks.

[Miranda Gray (Deputy Commissioner, Economic Services Division, DCF)]: Thanks, Eric Magill. And I was prepared for you to ask this question. It hasn't been lost on me that we do want to make sure that we are educating people. I think with a shift of how we're serving more folks who are eligible for GEA assistance to over the phone that we probably aren't going into what else might they be eligible for, just because really majority of our time is spent trying to find places for people to stay. So it is, as I said, not last on me. We just spent a good part of our summer and fall really having to focus on the changes that were implemented into SNAP. So we will get there, and I can work on a timeline for some time when I come into what we might be able to do as it will also, I'm thinking a website, right? So like a place where people can land to understand what is eligible, what they could be eligible for, or at least partners on how to direct people to us.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Thank you. So oh, okay. Go ahead. Go ahead. I'm just gonna say before we move off general assistance, I'm I'm sure Deputy Commissioner Gray is expecting a question from me. But go ahead, Representative Bishop.

[Rep. Daniel "Dan" Noyes (Clerk)]: This may be something just to help educate me. I'm trying to look at this GA, the first line, the support services caseload adjustment, and it looks like an increase of 476,000 but it says projected need is lower than budgeted. I'm just a little confused as to whether that's an increase or decrease and how it's going to impact the total.

[Megan Spiegel (Chief Financial Officer, DCF)]: So the increase is to the general fund portion, and so that's the portion that supports burials and abortions. And then we're seeing a slight decrease in our global commitment, our Medicaid funded portion, which is the part that supports physicians and dentists. And so when you put those two together, the total need is slightly lower than general fund need.

[Rep. Doug Bishop (Member)]: Okay. But increase for what's the increase for the burials, including for the burials? Do you know offhand what percent more does that then and to what was budgeted and how much of an increase? If that's not readily available, that can be a follow-up.

[Megan Spiegel (Chief Financial Officer, DCF)]: I mean, I can get that just for a second. If I can get into my files. So for GA, GAC. Burials, we budgeted at 63 cases per month with an average caseload of $720 an average cost per case of $722 per case. We are seeing 64 cases per month and a slight increase in the average case

[Rep. Jubilee McGill (Member)]: for

[Megan Spiegel (Chief Financial Officer, DCF)]: the cost.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: So before we move off general assistance, can you give us an update on I'm looking at the December general assistance emergency housing report. Can you give us an update on what your expected expenditures will be through June compared to budget?

[Megan Spiegel (Chief Financial Officer, DCF)]: We can get that for you. I don't know if I have that handy at this exact moment. You're looking for the projected emergency housing? Yeah, the GA hotel program, full unquote.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: I don't know if the deputy commissioner might have a handle on that.

[Miranda Gray (Deputy Commissioner, Economic Services Division, DCF)]: I think with Megan, we'll need to get back to you for what that latest is. But happy to do so.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Okay. That would be helpful to have by Friday morning.

[Megan Spiegel (Chief Financial Officer, DCF)]: We can get that for you. Thank you. Can we move on to reach up or does that

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Yes, no, I'm sorry. Unless anybody else have any questions on general assistance? Okay, thank you.

[Megan Spiegel (Chief Financial Officer, DCF)]: Okay, so the next line is the reach up caseload pressures. We have a consultant who projects our caseloads for reach up going out two years every year. And then we apply historical trends for the cost per case to that to get an estimated casework pressure. So we are coming in under budget for our reach up caseload. So there will be savings there that we are realizing in this.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Help me to understand this a little bit more, because I know the budget is based upon the projections from these consultants as well. So are you saying that they have further reduced the so do you you get a how how does that work? Do you get sort of, like, month to month kind of or do you ask them more than one time a year? Or how does that work?

[Megan Spiegel (Chief Financial Officer, DCF)]: Well, we no longer have the contract consent of the consultant. But in the past, we received four projections of a year, a year at the end after each quarter. And in each projection, there would be caseloads projected forward for two full years with a caseload projected for each month.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Okay, all right. And so are you going to be utilizing a different method in the future, or you have a different contractor?

[Megan Spiegel (Chief Financial Officer, DCF)]: We're still looking into that, whether it's a procurement or internal projections. The contractor we had been using retired. Gotcha.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Okay. So because we had seen a reduction in the budget for '26, and so then this is a further reduction. Anecdotally, it doesn't feel like that's what Vermonters are experiencing. So, it's hard to match that with this. Know if anybody has any information about, are there different parts of the state? Are there different sources of referral that aren't referring as much? I'm just wondering, have you done any data digging to see if this is a trend, if it's something sort of picking up on Representative McGill about lack of information, about the assistance that might be available? There any I guess this would be for reach up folks. But is there any information that you can provide about this other than just a number? Did we get back to you on that? Yes. I was gonna say Miranda popped up. I don't know if she was intending to or not.

[Miranda Gray (Deputy Commissioner, Economic Services Division, DCF)]: I was. And I was actually just gonna say what the commissioner had said of, I'm happy to talk with my team and to just see if nationally, if it's the same trend, so we can look into it a bit more and then get back to you.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Okay. I appreciate that. The confluence of a lot of different things happening, and we're trying to make sure that we're understanding the impacts of things happening at the federal level, things happening at the state level, the stress that families are under, and whether or not we have sufficient information out there for people and connections with the referral sources, with home visiting programs, with all of that kind of thing. So it would be helpful to know if there's any more detail. Representative Garofano. Thank you.

[Rep. Golrang "Rey" Garofano (Vice Chair)]: Just curious, and we can talk about this further later, but is there any mechanism at ESD to Because I think we've consistently seen this line item come in with savings every year in BAA and in the budget, but for as long as So I can is there any mechanism or any thought to thinking about reinvesting them back into the Reach Up families? Because if you're constantly coming in under, and maybe we're not reaching as many people, but at least the people that we're reaching, can we increase? Because knowing how, with the ratable reduction and how little money they're getting, have you thought about creating some infrastructure when there are savings to kind of put that back into the families? Because costs aren't going down. These are super vulnerable families. So just wondering if there's any mechanism to think about that or implement something like that. When there are savings, doesn't get swept to go somewhere else, at least it stays within the reach up budget.

[Rep. Jubilee McGill (Member)]: I think I would like to talk more with the team about it. Thank you.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: It's sort of a perennial question here, Sydney. I'm hearing that. Because I forget the exact, it's roughly 50%, but the ratable reduction is there. And then we're also basing it on outdated, years old information. So there's two levers to pull there. And one of them being reducing the rateable reduction and the other being updating it to current year costs, which the legislature has done on a periodic basis. So those two levers, especially if we're seeing sort of year over year, this kind of thing. And I appreciate that. It sounds like you're thinking like maybe you could do a more accurate job in a different way. I don't know, but this is what we've seen in the last few years is this sort of consistent budget is a budget. We understand it's an estimate, but with super vulnerable families and knowing that we are under providing what we say it takes, it seems as though that it's keeping it within the reach up instead of it going to the bottom line would be a preferable action.

[Megan Spiegel (Chief Financial Officer, DCF)]: We'll add that for the last two years before this year, we have seen reduced caseloads, but we did have an $8,400,000 up in our caseload pressure in 'twenty four. It does go both. So Fluctuate. Yeah, we expect

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: it to fluctuate. Okay, thank you. Go ahead, Representative McGill.

[Rep. Jubilee McGill (Member)]: Would it be possible, it would be nice to see kind of like over a longer period of time those caseload fluctuations. We usually get a year max of data. It would be cool to see those trends over a longer period of time.

[Megan Spiegel (Chief Financial Officer, DCF)]: I think we are preparing that for our budget book that we're going to be submitting, but we can also try to get that trend lines before that, too.

[Rep. Jubilee McGill (Member)]: It would be great

[Rep. Golrang "Rey" Garofano (Vice Chair)]: to have that information publicly on the website. So you could go and look at what the trends have been for the last five years to kind of, we have the information that you give us. Just having the snapshot of the one year can be limiting in our decision making. So it'd be really helpful to have that information so we're not just kind of cramming it all in this five month period, too. We can in our session when we're thinking about future legislation or policy that the information is available. Okay, thank you.

[Megan Spiegel (Chief Financial Officer, DCF)]: Okay. Are we all set on reach out? I don't see any other questions. Thank you. So nothing in LIHEAP,

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: which brings us to the Office of Economic Opportunity. Just before we move off, LIHEAP, I know there's nothing here, but just a general question. Given all the sort of stuff that's happened at the federal level, and I know that Vermont was issuing our payments in anticipation of federal receipts, and are we receiving the federal receipts? Are things smoothing out?

[Megan Spiegel (Chief Financial Officer, DCF)]: Yes, we did receive a federal award for LIHEAP. I don't know if Miranda wants to speak to that more, but I will say that

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: we've received the award. And our families or applicants, are they receiving Can you compare what they're receiving this year on average to last year? What's the average benefit? Do you know that, Miranda?

[Miranda Gray (Deputy Commissioner, Economic Services Division, DCF)]: I do. Just give me one moment. We did receive the majority of our award on November 26. Okay. You threw me off. Wasn't expecting this question. Cher?

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: That's my job.

[Megan Spiegel (Chief Financial Officer, DCF)]: You do

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: it well. Well, and of course

[Miranda Gray (Deputy Commissioner, Economic Services Division, DCF)]: It's going to take me more than a second.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: If you want to go up,

[Rep. Jubilee McGill (Member)]: then I will come back.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: I'll come back to that. Okay. Thank you. And I'd also be interested in whether or not you've had any increase or decrease or if it's relatively stable in terms of the number of fuel dealers who will participate in the program, that would be helpful if you had a sense of that. Thank you. Yes, go ahead, Representative Bishop.

[Rep. Doug Bishop (Member)]: With respect to Laheed, you mentioned we had received the majority of the funds in November. Was it anticipated that we would not receive the full amount in November? And if so, is the balance on track to the best of your knowledge? And then part two, if I'm following the national news correctly, the office the federal office administering LIHEAP was basically wiped out. Whoever is administering that or getting the funds to states now, what might we anticipate going forward as far as how smooth or challenging that may be to get those funds?

[Miranda Gray (Deputy Commissioner, Economic Services Division, DCF)]: So the first part is easier maybe than your second question. So we did receive 90% of our funding and that is what we anticipated. We always get the majority in the November timeframe, sometimes October, and then we will get more in the spring. Sometimes it's March, other times it's April. So we are on track and feeling confident that we will get them. In terms of, we have been getting communication and do people that we can reach out to when needed. So I'm not overly concerned at this moment about not being able to engage. This was, the money was in both house and set aside of the budget. There does seem to be, although there was concern that there could be a reduction once we started to see things move again, this funding seems to be a priority for the federal government. So we will, of course, continue to monitor closely, but at this time, I'm feeling comfortable at least with these funds to be okay.

[Megan Spiegel (Chief Financial Officer, DCF)]: Thank you. Thank you. All right, next. So then we'll move on to the Office of Economic Opportunity. The first line on there is a from it's a net neutral swap from grants out to personal services. We have funding to support two limited service positions that need to be moved to personal services. These positions were previously funded with one time general fund housing appropriations. And the increase to the amount of funding and agreements that OER is being tasked with administering really requires the ongoing support of these two positions.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Okay. You're taking money from grants that would have gone out to our community partners and using it for staff at OEL. Is that right?

[Megan Spiegel (Chief Financial Officer, DCF)]: To administer the grants to the community partners.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: I understand that. Yeah. But I just want to make sure that I'm understanding. So were those taken from the pool? I'm not recalling additional request for authorization for additional positions.

[Megan Spiegel (Chief Financial Officer, DCF)]: So they were part of the limited service positions that were appropriated for the increase to the housing program several years ago. Every year we ask to extend them as long as we don't have a permanent housing program in place. And so these were physicians that were supporting housing in ESD, and they've moved to OEO and they're continuing to support housing in OEO. But their one federal, one time general funds have exhausted, and we really can't administer grants to community partners without staff to do that.

[Rep. Brenda Steady (Member)]: Represent a study. Does your office still use a lot of temporary services like Experian to fill these positions?

[Megan Spiegel (Chief Financial Officer, DCF)]: It is not my knowledge that economic opportunity does that,

[Rep. Jubilee McGill (Member)]: but I think Maybe we can turn to Lily and she can explain how the program I was expecting her to pop up in the box.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Yeah. Are you there, Lily?

[Lily Sojourner (Director, Office of Economic Opportunity, DCF)]: Yeah, thank you so much. So again, Lily Sojourner, the Director of the Office of Economic Opportunity. These are not contracted positions like this. These are limited service positions. We have housing program officer positions that work in the capacity to provide crucial monitoring and administration of other quality assurance measures, such as performance measures that we get quarterly and annually to ensure the appropriate administration of the program. So this is capacity that will allow us to maintain critical functions, such as habitability inspections. As we've had shelter the number of shelter projects grow, we have to inspect those annually. We also do programmatic monitoring, so that's ensuring that programs are adhering to our standards around eligibility and other important elements that really kind of help ensure that the funding is supporting the activities that we're intending into, and also to make sure that folks in these shelters have their rights maintained. So for instance, we look at things like, do you have grievance policies in place? Do you have appeals processes in place? So really checking to make sure that the guests have a safe experience and that the funding that we're spending is going to the intended eligible purposes?

[Rep. Brenda Steady (Member)]: So the people that actually do the housing, they used to be all temporary services from Experian. So now they are actually contracted state employees?

[Lily Sojourner (Director, Office of Economic Opportunity, DCF)]: So I think that was what Megan was referring to in terms of capacity at economic services, and those are functions at economic services. This is in terms of administering the Housing Opportunity Grant Program. So the grants and oversight of shelters and other service providers who are doing activities such as coordinated entry, housing navigation, housing retention work. So that's the activity that we're talking about with these positions.

[Rep. Brenda Steady (Member)]: So these are two separate issues. The people that actually get on the phone and call the hotel?

[Megan Spiegel (Chief Financial Officer, DCF)]: Yeah. That's an economic service.

[Rep. Brenda Steady (Member)]: That's a whole other okay.

[Rep. Jubilee McGill (Member)]: That would be that's where I got confused.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: That would be in economic services division with deputy commissioner Gray. Okay. And this is the Office of Economic Opportunity with

[Rep. Brenda Steady (Member)]: other Okay. Sales Two separate things.

[Megan Spiegel (Chief Financial Officer, DCF)]: Okay. Thank you. Don't know if it's helpful for context, but the amount that we've expended on HOP Awards has grown 3,300,000.0 in state fiscal year '21 to 24,500,000.0 in state fiscal Wow. So what was the difference? Tell me again. 3,000,000 to 24,500,000.0. And that's for what? Our housing opportunity program.

[Rep. Jubilee McGill (Member)]: In how many years? That's

[Megan Spiegel (Chief Financial Officer, DCF)]: state fiscal year twenty one to twenty five.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: So, Lily, it was helpful to hear that. So when somebody says grants management, that sort of sounds like paperwork. But what I heard you say is that these are folks who are in the field. They're folks who are providing technical assistance to community partners to assuring that the client rights are being respected and all of those kind of things.

[Lily Sojourner (Director, Office of Economic Opportunity, DCF)]: Yes, that's correct. Thank you.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Okay. So I don't necessarily see an issue with the content. I'm just, I guess, wanting to be assured that the right procedure was followed. Because when limited service positions are authorized, they don't get to automatically be converted to permanent classified without a request of the legislature for an increase in positions. And unless you went to the pool or I'm just trying to understand what happened with regard to the technical aspects of converting them from limited service to permanent classified? We aren't converting them to permanent classified. We're not I'm converting them.

[Megan Spiegel (Chief Financial Officer, DCF)]: Is to just swap the funding source for the limited service position.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Okay. So if you have a permanent source of funding, then will you be requesting? I guess maybe I'll ask that question. Will you be requesting two permanent positions since you have now identified a permanent source of funding? Or are you funding them one time? Because some of the money in HOT is one time.

[Megan Spiegel (Chief Financial Officer, DCF)]: Would that be for next year's budget?

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: That's why I said, will you? So I guess we'll wait and see. We'll ask that question in a couple of weeks. Okay. Okay, we can move on from that.

[Megan Spiegel (Chief Financial Officer, DCF)]: Okay. So then there's a line on there for $127,000 of global commitment to support the permanent supportive housing programs. This is the amount that's needed for the community transition services. We've been utilizing one time funding that AHS had up until now, but we keep funding moving forward. So this is to fund that in our budget. Now that ARPA is ending. And then the last line is shelter investments. OEO, as you know, has been utilizing one time funding and increases in their base funding to fund and create new shelters throughout the state. And so this is additional funding needed to retain and maintain and continue to expand those services.

[Rep. Jubilee McGill (Member)]: Me.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Lily, can you say a little bit more about this $2,000,000? Did you make more grant awards? Were the awards per shelter bed more expensive? What because we we did increase the the HOP budget in FY twenty six, as as Megan pointed out. There was that's been steadily increasing over the last few years. But I'm just I guess I'm just wondering about the sustainability of this in BAA, if this is or, again, is this maybe a question to be asked in a couple of weeks as well? But can you describe a little bit more about what this $2,000,000 was actually used for?

[Lily Sojourner (Director, Office of Economic Opportunity, DCF)]: Yeah. I think this has to do specifically with some of the upfront initial expenses that are related to launching shelter programs. So support for things like renovation, which can be significant upfront costs to take existing buildings in Vermont and kind of convert them to the standards that would be required to have an emergency shelter operate there. And so those are, I think, primarily what we've been looking for. And then I agree, we'll continue to talk about shelters in the budget as we expand and have responded to the initiatives and efforts of our community providers to try to meet the need that they're seeing in the community.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: So I'm gonna see if I understand. So in the FY twenty six budget, you did budget for shelter expansion, which would include those expenses that you just talked about. Are you saying that for the ones that you planned, they cost more? Or are you saying that you expanded more shelter beds than you were originally planning? Or is it some combination?

[Lily Sojourner (Director, Office of Economic Opportunity, DCF)]: Probably some combination, but I think the larger driver is more the latter of just having more opportunities to create shelter capacity than originally anticipated.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Okay. It's actually in the monthly report. Okay. All right. We'll talk more about shelters in budget. All right. Did anybody else have any questions on OEO? I do, actually. Okay. Go ahead, Representative McGill.

[Rep. Jubilee McGill (Member)]: Thank you. Lily, you had mentioned kind of first, just when we were talking about that first line item and just kind of got my interest about how you're monitoring performance outcomes and measurements things. And I'm just wondering, we never really get to see that info. And I think it would be really informative of our work, especially if we're going to be looking again at our system. So I'm just wondering if somewhere along the line, if there's some way to share that in some way with us.

[Lily Sojourner (Director, Office of Economic Opportunity, DCF)]: Yeah, thanks. For Family Supportive Housing and the Housing Opportunity Grant Program, and we intend to do this for the Permanent Supportive Housing Assistance program, we do publish annual reports, which are available on our website, and we can follow-up and share those links for you all to make sure you have them. We do regularly review those performance measures to make sure that they're really capturing what we want and that we're respecting the time of providers it takes to gather them so that it's a really meaningful experience for everyone. We are convening an advisory group this year with our Housing Opportunity Program providers to look at the measures because they have not been updated since pre COVID, and we feel like some of them are a bit out of date. But absolutely, we can share those links with you so you have them.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Thank you. Just one other question before we leave this area. HUD So had issued or I guess rescinded their notice of grant award. And I haven't seen, I don't think that they have reissued that. And this is with regard to the continuum of care and some of the changes in policy that they were gonna be implementing. Do you have any updates on any of that? Or Miranda, either one of you?

[Lily Sojourner (Director, Office of Economic Opportunity, DCF)]: Yeah. There is a court order and yet HUD also issued a new notice of funding. So we are anticipating either additional clarification from the court, or we are anticipating that HUD may appeal the latest court ruling. This happened right before the holiday season a few weeks ago. In the meantime, the local applicants are preparing applications this month in case they do need to be submitted, but it continues to be an illegal process as we have, again, the court ordered injunction, and yet the fact that HUD did issue a new notice of funding. So we anticipate the legal process will continue to unfold. But in the meantime, applicants are preparing so that if for some reason there is the need to respond to HUD's notice, Vermont will have applications ready.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: So what kind of impact is that having on operations now?

[Lily Sojourner (Director, Office of Economic Opportunity, DCF)]: Funding would start a gap in funding would be created at the earliest July 2020

[Megan Spiegel (Chief Financial Officer, DCF)]: So

[Lily Sojourner (Director, Office of Economic Opportunity, DCF)]: we have time to see a little bit how this plays out. Those grants don't all have the same start and end dates, but the earliest that they would end is 06/30/2026. And so again, the July 1 would be the impact. So nothing current, but obviously something to keep a close eye on for that impact in that state fiscal year's budget.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: So one of the things that was a concern for us is that in the original notice, some of the activities that we actually spend quite a bit of the resources on here in Vermont were eliminated as allowable activities. Or I don't know if eliminator is significantly reduced, but has there again, maybe this is going to be in the '27 budget, I don't know. Has there been any kind of communication with the folks who are receiving these resources in terms of, I guess, what I would say plan B kind of planning, like if somehow the HUD appeal somehow is upheld and we aren't able to spend those resources as we have been spending them, which is on rapid rehousing and things like that, which to me makes a whole lot of sense. But just wondering what kind of planning is happening in case the states lose, essentially.

[Lily Sojourner (Director, Office of Economic Opportunity, DCF)]: Yeah, absolutely. And this is a little bit of a unique dynamic because the state in this case is not the applicant

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Yeah.

[Lily Sojourner (Director, Office of Economic Opportunity, DCF)]: Directly to HUD. There's two collaborative applicants that represent Vermont, and the state DCF were actually like a competitor in the initial local review. So we are preparing our own submission, and there will be a local scoring process, and then each of the applicants submit their final set of applications to HUD for HUD's review. I can say that both of the collaborative applicants have taken steps to prepare with communities and try to mitigate the impacts. They provided a lot of guidance. Think certain projects have explored if they can make programmatic changes or alter their programming to meet the new requirements or be more competitive. So it's a little bit tricky right now in terms of the timing, because right now we're sort of actively in a local procurement process that, again, the state is a competitive applicant for. But again, those discussions are definitely taking place so that as we have more information, we can determine if and how we need to respond.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Thank you.

[Megan Spiegel (Chief Financial Officer, DCF)]: Anybody else have anything on OEO? Okay. Don't have any proposed changes to weatherization budget in the VA. So then I would continue on to the secure residential treatment budget. There's one adjustment there for 1,900,000.0. After state fiscal year '26, DCF will fully utilize all the one time funding that we have received for our secure treatment facilities. We do not have a permanent secure treatment facility yet, but we are operating Red Clover. We also have a new short term crisis stabilization facility in Windham in State Fiscal Year '26 that's, I think, called West River. And then the combined need for those two facilities is about $8,000,000 Our budget is only $3,700,000 We have one time resources, but even with those resources, we are still 1,900,000 short. And so this is to allow us to fund those two important programs while we continue to work on securing a permanent facility in the state.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Just before Representative Donahue goes, can you maybe elaborate a little bit more? Because I'm having a little trouble following. So we've never reduced the base budget for the operating expenses at Woodside. We did. Yes. You did reduce the base budget

[Megan Spiegel (Chief Financial Officer, DCF)]: by 2020, I think it was. Okay. Okay. Alright. Alright.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: So I'll take the back. Go ahead. So I have one

[Rep. Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: really simple, easy one, and then I'll stop once. So I'll

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: get the simple

[Rep. Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: one out of the way because it doesn't mention this here. I mean, the West River has been kind of in the works for several years with slow progress on the rehab or whatever. And it's been described as being staff secure, not physically secure. Is that distinction still planned as a staff secure or is it physically secure? Is still staff secure. Thank you. The bigger question is the whole money flow. And I guess it would be extremely helpful if the really basic chart that we had asked for last year and try to sort out last year's budget money flow could be extended to include what happened with that follow the money and where the need now. I don't know if people are remembering the chart. My memory isn't great. It was only a third When of a we looked at it at the time, we had significant questions and our team, also, know that the Appropriations Committee point person on this budget item shared that concern and basically saying, the money isn't here, there isn't enough money. And the response we had sort of was, we're going to ask for that in BAA, which we didn't feel is necessarily appropriate for BAA when we knew ahead of time that we were short funding. So I think it'd be very helpful to see exactly what went where, why the gap has come before us now, and what that's looking like. And maybe the what it's looking like he can't get to yet, but if we can bring the chart up to date up through the BAA ask, it'd be very helpful.

[Megan Spiegel (Chief Financial Officer, DCF)]: Yes, I definitely have that updated, and I can send that to you. I will say that part of what we're working with is a lot of unknowns in terms of changes in where we're planning on building facilities or what facilities are available. And so last year when we were budgeting, we didn't yet have any stable numbers on West River. So this is really taking into consideration West River now and having that as part of our budget, and that leads to

[Rep. Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: the $1,900,000 asset. I would suggest that the three point Clearly, I assume red clover costs a lot more to operate than West River. First of all, it's larger, it's locked, it's not staff secure, and it's significantly larger in terms of numbers of kids. So 1.9 versus 8,000,000 is not a West River expansion. It's more than West River. Well, do also have one time appropriations of 4,600,000.0 that we will be utilizing this year, and

[Megan Spiegel (Chief Financial Officer, DCF)]: then we were able to carry forward some money from last year too.

[Rep. Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: So that one term funding reliance obviously is going to bring up future issues because we're not going to close these and we're not going to have a new, brand new permanent secure residential facility open in time for the next fiscal year.

[Megan Spiegel (Chief Financial Officer, DCF)]: Yes, '27 is a separate conversation. Yes.

[Rep. Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: Well, I'm really talking about '28. Yeah. We're planning one time money again when we know this is going to be an ongoing expense for longer than. Yeah.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: I think what you're hearing is concern about the use of one time money for what we know is ongoing expenses. It's just not one piece of it. Represents that each. How

[Rep. Brenda Steady (Member)]: many beds, how many people to each one serve?

[Megan Spiegel (Chief Financial Officer, DCF)]: Three at West River, four at Red Clover, is that right?

[Aryka Radke (Deputy Commissioner, Family Services Division, DCF)]: Yes, that's correct. It's a three bed program with West River and then four of course at Red Clover at this point.

[Rep. Brenda Steady (Member)]: So that's expired? Age group?

[Aryka Radke (Deputy Commissioner, Family Services Division, DCF)]: Is it 12 to 18 Tyler or 10 to 18 at West River Haven?

[Tyler [last name unknown] (High-End System of Care Director, DCF Family Services)]: I believe both are 12 to 18, both Red Glover and West River.

[Rep. Brenda Steady (Member)]: 12 to 18. Thank you.

[Megan Spiegel (Chief Financial Officer, DCF)]: Then we don't have any proposed changes to DDS, our disability determination services. And then we have one request for a one time funding in BAA. It's $150,000 for necessary IT work that was required to make our hotline compatible with updated data server requirements for our child abuse hotline.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: We have a disability determination question. I'm sorry, that's

[Rep. Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: not a question. It's just that when we have the opportunity to throw out a little kudos, as we did earlier too, I think it's nice to be able to do it for totally other reasons. I was doing the check on social security determination decisions with the federal website with different states. And they indicated that it differs a lot by the length of time, differs a lot by states depending on the efficiency of state staff. So in Vermont, the average time for a response if you were to file today would be between May and July. In South Carolina, the average time if you were to file today would be next December through February 2027 before you would get a response. So doing something right.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Yeah. That unit has come a long way from several years back, where

[Rep. Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: they weren't quite as long as what you were just talking about. Interestingly, Maryland is the same as South Carolina. New Jersey is the same as Vermont. That takes.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: You never know. Yeah. Okay. Any other questions?

[Megan Spiegel (Chief Financial Officer, DCF)]: We have

[Rep. Jubilee McGill (Member)]: a few minutes. Okay. A recent topic in our committee has been DCS practice of using youth's survivor benefits to help pay for their care when they're in the care custody of the state. I'm sure you know there's been some federal direction on that. So I'm just wondering if you all have had conversations, what your plan is, what the timeline looks like, any information you can share. We are having those conversations.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: We might see something in the FY27 budget.

[Rep. Jubilee McGill (Member)]: The budget? Yeah, some.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: All these teasers. I know, aren't they? Meghan, about how much is that? Do you know for Vermont? Can you tell us how much that is?

[Megan Spiegel (Chief Financial Officer, DCF)]: I don't have it off the top of my head, but I can get it in a second.

[Rep. Jubilee McGill (Member)]: Under 900,000 for the whole, but it has to be broken down further. Is Heather still on? Heather

[Aryka Radke (Deputy Commissioner, Family Services Division, DCF)]: isn't on, but the last data, she shared with me was about 560,000, but she said that number was a little squishy there. It may be a bit higher. She's working on a report to send up with some additional details, but we are absolutely interested in trying to provide that money back to youth that are on Social Security. It's we're looking at it.

[Rep. Jubilee McGill (Member)]: Okay, great. Thank you. I look forward to the details. Couple of weeks.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: All right. Any other questions on BAA or stumpers that you might want to hit them with? I don't know. Okay. Thank you all very much. Appreciate your responses and presentation. And we look forward to having lots of discussion in the twenty seventh budget process. Thank you to everybody online as well. Thank you.

[Megan Spiegel (Chief Financial Officer, DCF)]: Okay, committee.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Tomorrow, we're going to be hearing from community partners who have needs associated with budget adjustment, but for whom were not represented in the BAA from the governor's office. And so we are hearing from everything from long term care to United Ways to AAAs, homelessness providers. We're looking at a whole bunch of different things, honestly. And we have the take a look at the updated agenda because the one that was printed out for you has been updated since then. So there are additional witnesses coming through that. We'll also be hearing just to there was I think I mentioned it yesterday, but the sort of two technical things in the Dale budget. So JFO will be here. Nolan will be here to sort of just elaborate a little bit and answer any questions that you might have about that. So again, those were not represented in the governor's request. I think that you all will come to the conclusion that they should have been, but we'll hear a little bit more about that tomorrow. And then just one thing I remind want folks, we will be coming back at one, but we will adjourn so that we can be in our seats downstairs by 01:45. So we'll make sure that people are able to do that. So are people's any clarifications or questions that they might have about what they heard this morning? Because we'll be moving to make some recommendations to appropriations. We're gonna have a medieval discussion about that on Friday. But if there are other people you need to hear from or other questions that you have about what you heard this morning, now would be the time to bring that up. Yeah, go ahead, Doug.

[Rep. Doug Bishop (Member)]: In the failed presentation, they gave us a total in the neighborhood of 30,000,000, but then there was the 9,600,000.0 in choices for care. But with the notation that it was being taken care would carry forward. So I'm a bit confused as to is it 21 or 30,000,000 more. That's a great

[Rep. Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: question I was going to ask We've run out of time, so I pulled

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Well, I actually asked him that question. I asked him if it was carry forward. And they identified, this is the part that is confusing to me. They identified not in choices for care, but they pulled it from several other places to essentially make that up because they weren't notified until the, essentially, the end of the fiscal year that there was a billing problem that was six months old.

[Rep. Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. So that would mean that $30,000,000

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: is not actually 20 Right. One

[Rep. Golrang "Rey" Garofano (Vice Chair)]: That's the way Yeah.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: And so I feel like we should probably ask a clarifying question about that. Eric, you have It sounds

[Tyler [last name unknown] (High-End System of Care Director, DCF Family Services)]: like one plus one equals fish.

[Megan Spiegel (Chief Financial Officer, DCF)]: I'm so confused Nobody would be able to

[Rep. Doug Bishop (Member)]: clarify that for us or would Nolan, when he's here

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: I'm just going to send an email to Bill Kelly because it's easiest, just to be honest. So we'll ask for more clarification about that $9,000,000 because the part that I'm confused about is so every year, they're required to do a year end report on choices for care. Mhmm. Okay. So you'll see that in reports. Okay? It it got back in like, I think it's in August or August or September it was submitted. And we reviewed it at the joint fiscal committee. So that $9,200,000 was included in that. So this is the part that's confusing me. So it was already appropriated, and they're they're asking for it in BAA. And I don't know if it's just there's something called expenditure authority. So they already have the money, but they need the authority to spend it, which I'm thinking that might be the case for this. So that's different than asking for new money, if you know what I mean, additional, which that 14,000,000 is additional. So we need clarification about that because it was identified in the choices for carry year end closeout report, that means they carried it forward. So if you carried it forward, I don't know why you're asking for it again. Is confusing. So I suspect it might be about expenditure authority, but I'm not positive. And we were delayed in getting our second group of witnesses in, so I knew there was gonna be additional questions about that one. Any other questions that came up for you as a result of this? I think we've had ongoing concerns about the nursing facility. EFR, we spent a lot of time on that this morning. And there are other states that are limiting that for nursing facilities in New England. So I think that I was appreciative of hearing that they're actively working with nursing facilities. I think Eric's question was kind of spot on when it came to the capacity issue, especially when Angela said, Oh, there's only 23 beds that are a result of insufficient staffing. And in the DCF monthly report, it's where assumptions get you. When they showed two seventy odd, I'm thinking like, okay, that's probably staffing because that's what everybody tells us. It's staffing. Well, only 23 beds with staffing And we're not included in that. And we're not included in this. Right. So the capacity issue and the connection of that with people who are homeless, and it is, it's difficult. And so I actually was glad to hear that they're doing more work with the AAAs to understand that there is a different level of intensity in case management services for some people who are eligible for choices for care. But in SAM,

[Tyler [last name unknown] (High-End System of Care Director, DCF Family Services)]: being as they were mentioning, it's like, okay, they're at the ground level, they're out there. I'm still not seeing that, like the points that you bring up in regards to engagement, that location, I'm still not seeing that.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: That physical, you know, one of the, I think you would hear from somebody.

[Megan Spiegel (Chief Financial Officer, DCF)]: I don't

[Tyler [last name unknown] (High-End System of Care Director, DCF Family Services)]: even know who the providers are in Rutland. Who is it that's providing that case manager? I know it's been contracted out, which was to me that I thought it should have stayed with the providers already in the state to contract out with major

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Well, no, it is. But you're confusing two different things. So choices for care stayed with the state providers, the area agencies on aging.

[Rep. Daniel "Dan" Noyes (Clerk)]: Okay. Okay.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: The services that went to the two out of state national Yes. And that's a mess. Just gonna say it

[Tyler [last name unknown] (High-End System of Care Director, DCF Family Services)]: was But a even still, I'm still not seeing that level of interaction.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: In place in in the field. Yeah. We we can We can have more follow-up with them on that because I know that Dan has been talking with Dale and really looking at that as issues. Had other representatives in the body contact me because there have been a couple of cases where they continually tell us that, Oh yeah, we're doing all this coordination. Then I was like, Okay, this person has been in a hotel for eight months, and now they've used up all their time and they're being exited and nothing is happening. It's a person who was in their 80s and had significant health issues and had been referred to Choices for Care. So it's like, yeah, we figured it out. It got worked out. But I did say to Angela, this seems like a person who's falling through the cracks and it feels like there's a lot of those.

[Rep. Golrang "Rey" Garofano (Vice Chair)]: And to that point though, I wonder, and Angela mentioned something about, sometimes it's difficult to convince people. So I

[Megan Spiegel (Chief Financial Officer, DCF)]: wonder if there are

[Rep. Golrang "Rey" Garofano (Vice Chair)]: tracking data on that. Like, how many people are declining? How many people are being offered and declining? Because I think that would be good data for us to have to figure out what other supports either does that person need to understand this is a better level of care for them and or thinking about the limited resources we have around hotels, motels, when there is a safe alternative, right? Like, how do we encourage, incentivize, try to convince that person? Because we have very limited resources for hotel and motels. And I get that people want their autonomy, and it is great to have it. But if we have a nursing level bed empty that can care for that person, that would be, you know, we're already paying for that, and we keep paying for it in the AFRs every year

[Tyler [last name unknown] (High-End System of Care Director, DCF Family Services)]: because you mind if I respond to that? Agree wholeheartedly because if we're they're on, like, say that general assistance in the hotel, but the scope of care in what they need is

[Rep. Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: this. With

[Tyler [last name unknown] (High-End System of Care Director, DCF Family Services)]: all the respect, it shouldn't be a choice in regards to saying, no, I'm gonna stay in a hotel room when it's been identified that, hey, you need this level of care and placement.

[Megan Spiegel (Chief Financial Officer, DCF)]: Federal law around this too. Yeah. And I think

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: you can't force somebody to do something. Can

[Rep. Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: refuse the hotel room under our current rules, I don't know that people want to do that and say, well, you're on the street. But the current rules say if there is something available, you're not eligible for the hotel.

[Tyler [last name unknown] (High-End System of Care Director, DCF Family Services)]: Yeah. That's what I'm getting at. Didn't mean if you support the maintenance or no, that's not what I'm saying. But if the availability is a better placement, a fit, that's gonna respond to their needs and reduce their risk and put them in a greater position to succeed.

[Rep. Golrang "Rey" Garofano (Vice Chair)]: But also that comes back to that issue of complex care, right? Because I think there's this issue of there's empty beds, but the nursing homes are indicating, and this is probably true, I'm not saying it's not true, that they don't have what it takes, they don't have the resources to But care for if our highest level of care can't care for the people that need care, there's

[Rep. Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: a problem.

[Rep. Golrang "Rey" Garofano (Vice Chair)]: This has been a problem for several So this is the highest level of care. So we're doing something wrong if we continually run up to this and we have empty beds, nursing homes saying it's too complex. Someone who's, you know, I mean, Doctor. Bowen said, like, yeah, coming off the GA program does constitute a complex level of care. But we know these people exist, and we need to figure out a safe place for them to go that can manage that high level of care.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Well, I think it does come back to what Anne said. So the criteria for the GA emergency housing is if those other placements are not available. And so we know that there is actually availability of those other places. It's the The next thing the next. Right. So they meet the level of care criteria. And it takes a while to get through that choices for care eligibility process, because they look at all your bank records and they look at everything. But once that's determined, then yes, you do have an alternate placement. And that would mean that general assistance emergency housing should be discontinued at that point in time when the alternate placement is available. The problem is that you don't have nursing homes saying, yes, this is available for that person. And that's the part where I feel like there's still more work that needs to be done between Dale and nursing homes. In the past, I don't really know how much right this moment, but it's been more of a hands off other than licensing and protection. The division of licensing goes in, they do their licensing surveys and you passfail, you got plans of correction, all that kind of stuff. The only time any action was ever taken by Dale is when they needed to issue a corrective action plan or to close a facility or whatever it might be. Sort of this coaxing nursing homes to take folks that might be a little bit more challenging in the beginning. They might not after a period of time, but in the beginning they might. That is something that Dale has not historically done. And I still don't feel evidence that that actually is being done. I get the relying on the case management to do that, but we really need Dale leadership to take that on with the nursing facility industry, not just relying on individual case managers to do that work. It's a systemic issue.

[Rep. Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: And one piece of it in terms of the work for when there is an available resource and it's a person's reticence or rejecting it is to recognize that that's probably part of a disability and therefore the time to coax and encourage and work with a person you know should not on its own be oh well you're refusing it. You're gonna use law for yourself.

[Megan Spiegel (Chief Financial Officer, DCF)]: I will get a list.

[Rep. Jubilee McGill (Member)]: I'm not gonna say that. Not the right idea with that But that process does take time and more often than not, it's that the nursing homes won't take them. There are no one with the patient. Absolutely. But to make this be like, that's the huge problem. I just want note that most of the time it's that the

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: nursing home numbers are.

[Megan Spiegel (Chief Financial Officer, DCF)]: I agree.

[Tyler [last name unknown] (High-End System of Care Director, DCF Family Services)]: That's what I'm hearing. Yeah.

[Rep. Jubilee McGill (Member)]: And the data bears that out. Yeah.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: And I think that's, we'll have more discussions about this when they come in for their budget talk and when we look at the, we're going to take a deeper dive into the Age Well plan and enough on that. Because that's the sort of systemic thing that I still don't see evidence of Dale doing with the nursing home industry. Because it's great. You need the one on one stuff with the case managers, but that's not going to change the industry. I get what they're saying in terms of stabilization, but I have no idea where we stand in terms of the cost of nursing facilities in Vermont compared to the cost in other Is it similar to the cost of the rest of our health care system? And if it is, then maybe we should be looking at what some of those other states are doing in terms of limiting the amount of automatic increases that some of these facilities receive. Or differentiating. Maybe we should be supporting some of the smaller ones that you were talking about, Dan.

[Rep. Daniel "Dan" Noyes (Clerk)]: Think what would be helpful for comparison with other states is this question of the vacancy rate, if you will. Because understandably, there is some churn and a certain number of beds that are going to be empty, but how does Vermont scale up? Yeah. And there's some models that have supportive transitional housing between the GA and a nursing home where someone can get those wraparound case management services as they do the paperwork and get to the point where they might move into a more restrictive setting of a nursing home or res care, because it's hard to make that transition without that relationship being established and making sure someone is ready to, but they're not getting the supports in the hotels. And if we had something in between the two, we might have better success of moving people

[Megan Spiegel (Chief Financial Officer, DCF)]: to along that info.

[Rep. Jubilee McGill (Member)]: One of the kind of areas in reaction to what's going on and having to move away from permanent supportive housing, one of the areas our COCs have been talking about is this kind of medical, like transitional housing medical model, especially for our older Vermonters and Vermonters with disabilities. So those kind of conversations are now happening as well, which I think is a huge need.

[Rep. Daniel "Dan" Noyes (Clerk)]: It's a big shift going a hotel room where you're maybe getting care from a home health nurse to a nursing home or to res care where you have

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: And more you don't lose all your own money. No. Don't. But

[Rep. Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: I just wanna say one of the things that you mentioned, which I think in many ways is the right and a good idea, also will contribute to empty beds. And that is the specialty if they're going to say, well, obviously we don't want to make capacity for oxygen every nursing home, we need to. So if there's one that can address that, well then those rooms, that becomes a smaller pool in the sense of who can access those beds and who can be other places. So the more you have different specialties, the more you end up having some vacancies caused by that. And that's obviously not a huge thing.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: It's just something

[Rep. Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: to be aware of that that's a downside of the need. It's a need

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: to do. All right. So to summarize on Dale, at least, I'll reach out to Bill Kelly, ask a little bit more detailed questions about that $9,000,000 in nursing home back payments, essentially. I don't know why they just don't say what it is.

[Rep. Jubilee McGill (Member)]: I say back payments.

[Tyler [last name unknown] (High-End System of Care Director, DCF Family Services)]: I don't

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: know why they didn't do that. What about DCF? Kept hearing all the questions we brought up, we said, well, we'll talk about in FY twenty seven. But are there other things in their budget, their BAA presentation that you need any additional information about?

[Rep. Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: Well, think we're going to get that report and that report is not going to be the one that we ask for, but we'll get it and be able to say that. I mean that came directly out of the extra money asked for in the budget for transportation and now there's even more and that was what generated the question about what's the data, is an impact of having fewer providers a negative impact for kids. And that data was promised in March, April, May. We'll now Have already said

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: they have it? Not.

[Rep. Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: Right. Erica said, already have the report. No. We have it. We'll send it to you.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: No. Okay. So we don't really know what their anticipated spending is on the GA emergency housing aspect of it. I'm just going be honest, I find it not really plausible that they weren't able to answer that question Which question was that? I'm sorry. On the GA emergency housing. We get a monthly report in the December report. We could see how much had been spent per month. But I know that they have projections for the rest of the year. Based And upon what was spent in the first part of the year, I would expect them to be underspending in that area. But we don't know. We'll get that information and ask for that by Friday. So we'll see what comes in from that.

[Rep. Jubilee McGill (Member)]: Yeah, another thing I found interesting, I don't know if the rest of you did,

[Rep. Brenda Steady (Member)]: that we pay $8,000,000 to have seven youth. That's a lot of Yeah,

[Rep. Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: know that was a big issue in last year's budget. Lot of money.

[Rep. Brenda Steady (Member)]: And still coming back for another 1,900,000.0.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: That's a lot of money. I

[Rep. Brenda Steady (Member)]: I feel for the youth, don't take me out wrong. It's a lot of money.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: And it's a combination of staff money, also renovation money. So we don't know how much

[Rep. Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: they're celebrating now. The new, they finished it.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: The way she's talked about it, it sounded like it was still some of both. In any event, yes.

[Rep. Golrang "Rey" Garofano (Vice Chair)]: That's what we need down the chart. Yeah. Yeah.

[Tyler [last name unknown] (High-End System of Care Director, DCF Family Services)]: That's a

[Rep. Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: lot of money.

[Rep. Daniel "Dan" Noyes (Clerk)]: When we get the budget for next year, how much it drops or doesn't drop as to how much it is related to the Right. Upfit.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Yeah. And you're right. It was supposed to be two and then said three.

[Rep. Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. All along they've said two for the Windham. Okay. So I mean, that's I guess that's good if they were able to

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: And it's actually good to have a resource in Southern Vermont. Yes.

[Rep. Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: Oh, absolutely. Wasn't complaining about it. No, no. You never called us on Saturday.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Yeah. And the staffing stuff, you know, it's like, okay, so you have now identified. You're using base funding to staff it now, then I moved on to OEO. But then you still are calling them limited service. Yes, that's not really fair to the employees.

[Megan Spiegel (Chief Financial Officer, DCF)]: I'm going

[Rep. Jubilee McGill (Member)]: to be

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: saying, have identified resources. So that's something we should make note of for whoever's got OEO.

[Rep. Jubilee McGill (Member)]: I have it. To

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: ask about. Because there is you can't just add staff positions in state government. Think probably we all know that. Okay. So get additional so we have two things that are following up on. The $9,000,000 from Bill Kelly at Dale and the GA emergency housing that we're going to get additional info from them by Friday in terms of things that are going to probably directly impact any recommendations that we have. Right? Okay.

[Rep. Jubilee McGill (Member)]: Sounds good. All right. We're all

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: set, Laurie, and have a good lunch. We'll see you back here at one.