Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Okay. Hey. Welcome back, folks, after a brief floor session. Okay. We're picking back up with our budget adjustment discussion. We left off on Vermont Legal Aid and any potential recommendations. We had a proposal on

[Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: the floor

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: just to refresh people's memories because I know it can come in and go out as quickly as it happens. So they requested $635,620 through budget adjustment. They were looking at 235,000 of that to be a 3% increase, a COLA increase essentially for base years for three fiscal years. That is something that we will not be considering. Any of the COLA increases were dealt with in the budget. And if they didn't get one, that means the decision was made not to give them one. So we will, I'm sure, take it up again in the FY 'twenty seven budget process. So that brings us back down to the request for two full time attorneysstaff. PLP, Remind me what that means, PLP. Property project. Property law project. Okay. And So you can see in their services summary at the top of that page what they have been providing in terms of that service. Okay. So they are looking for two attorneys there and $100,000 for staffing the helpline funding, for increasing staffing to the helpline. And you can see on the legal helpline, the increase has been substantial between the last three years, doubling in the last three years, and anticipated to continue to increase as the federal changes come down and impact people on a personal level. So I think that Doug had put on the table a proposal or a thing to consider, which was one staff. So that'd be 150,000 and then the helpline funding.

[Unidentified Member A]: I'm sorry, what was that? What would the amount be of the helpline funding?

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: 100,000. 1,000, thank you. So the total would be 250,000. That's about that proposal on the table.

[Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: I support that. I work outside the legislature. I had to work with some of my case managers and the people they support to ensure folks I mean, these instances were all so that they could stay housed and not reenter homelessness, which would have cost our state a lot more money than the time that's part of the attorney's time. And when you add that all up, I feel it's a lot more efficient use of our resources than allowing these people that they're assisting to struggle and to ultimately end up in really more dire situations that will impact our budget in larger ways going forward. So

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: I'm trying to understand their FTE summary. Can somebody help me understand? It's at the top of their second page. It says that in FY '26, they're looking at 11.8 staff. In FY '25, they had 12.6. FY '24, 12.7. So I guess I'm asking you, Doug, is your proposal just to restore them to what their previous was? They appear to be asking for more than what their previous was, if that's the program that we're talking about supporting. I'm asking Doug a question.

[Doug Bishop (Member)]: I guess this raises an additional question for me, to be honest with you. They gave us some numbers about the loss of the I'm sorry. And I'm not seeing it on that chart. So I don't know if that's a different program, but they talked about a fairly significant and I don't know if they were going further back in time than what we see on that table or if it's for a different program, they referred to, I have a thought.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Go ahead.

[Zon Eastes (Member)]: I think that I'm wondering if this is the PLP program only, not their entire staff would be my guess. So that's

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: what we're looking at. That chart references there.

[Zon Eastes (Member)]: They had been talking about at one point they had 19 lawyers working in the firm. Don't think we might be little confused that that loss they were talking about was 10 lawyers down.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Yeah, we're not going to replace the people who are working under ERAP. I get that.

[Zon Eastes (Member)]: I'm just trying to justify or not to make sense of what that big gap they were talking about, and it isn't In

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: that, yeah, gotcha.

[Doug Bishop (Member)]: Yeah, I guess I'm not yeah, nine attorneys, two paralegals, and which programs they worked for. I'm not sure if it was ZRAP or it was other programs.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: So I'm going to offer an alternate view of this, and it's not because Okay, hold on just a second.

[Zon Eastes (Member)]: I can say one more thing and that's that Doug's recommendation of adding one staff member back would get them a tiny bit higher than they were in Yeah. Fiscal year twenty four.

[Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: Yeah.

[Doug Bishop (Member)]: And so it's it's it's actually

[Golrang "Rey" Garofano (Vice Chair)]: Which kinda what I think Theresa was asking, like, is a recommendation to kinda get back to.

[Doug Bishop (Member)]: We know if those lost HUD dollars, the 1,275,000.000, are PLP related?

[Brenda Steady (Member)]: I don't know.

[Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: It sounds like they are shifting monies around, so money that used to go to TLP is now going to other mandatory legal services such as involuntary mental health treatment. So it's

[Brenda Steady (Member)]: kind of not a one for one,

[Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: but they're having mid shift within their own functioning.

[Zon Eastes (Member)]: Yeah, it looks like their mandated services have only increased. Yeah, that's what you're saying, Well, other things have gone down.

[Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: Yeah, and so they've had to adjust with that.

[Doug Bishop (Member)]: It's brilliant counter thought.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Yeah, it was.

[Golrang "Rey" Garofano (Vice Chair)]: We already voted.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: It's not really a counter proposal. It's just a counter thought that the way I read this is that they're suffering from a perpetual lack of inflationary increases, and that has forced them to continually reduce stock in order to be able to balance their budget essentially.

[Zon Eastes (Member)]: And meet mandates. The mandates seem to

[Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: be And,

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: yeah. Well, they're covering the mandated ones, but that's it's forced them to significantly reduce the general legal. HS would say they're paying for the mandated services. For me, I definitely support the organization and I support the work that they provide. But I don't see this as an adjustment, which is remembering what the BAA is supposed to be doing.

[Golrang "Rey" Garofano (Vice Chair)]: That's That's where my mind was that this sounds like a budget discussion, because it's not going to go away. Even if we fund them this year, we're going to have to be right back in the BAA, we're going to be right back here having some conversation in a couple of weeks about the budget. And it feels like a very short lived band aid to a larger systemic problem. And I would encourage us maybe in the budget to think about maybe requiring some regular inflationary increase that is tied to an index that we've done with other programs that so we're not constantly doing this with various essential programs that serve the launchers. But that would be more of

[Zon Eastes (Member)]: a budget discussion. I

[Doug Bishop (Member)]: think the discipline you suggest is probably a good course. I'm happy to pull back on that. Suggestion I made, I think, as Ray has just said, we'll be revisiting sooner.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Well, you made a suggestion other people have supported that. So let's just take a straw poll on the support. Well, I want to be fair to people who might want to express that opinion. So the proposal was to fund one, half of the staff requested. So 150,000 there and 100,000 for the helpline. So a total of 250,000. So that's the proposal on the table. So can I just see by a show of hands those people who would support that?

[Doug Bishop (Member)]: Reversing course of my

[Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: No. No. It's okay. Okay. I'll explain my perspective here. I kind of Yeah. I've done a little bit before, but I just don't see this as inflationary. I totally get that it is obviously a perpetual problem, but I see that argument translating to pretty much every other cause we've talked about. And it's particularly this HUD issue, which that 1,200,000,000.0 that I'm really focused on right now.

[Zon Eastes (Member)]: Think I agree with you in the sense that it's not, when we're talking about an adjustment, they are having to adjust this. It's not a budget adjustment from what we knew before because the world has changed. From their point of view,

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: it is an adjustment. This impact we knew before. Wasn't as recent as some of the ones that we're experiencing now. And I do we're on this committee because we care about Vermonters and we care, not that nobody else does,

[Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: but I just mean

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: we have a particular interest in this. And we are going to be faced with a lot of hard decisions. We are not going to be able to replace lost federal funding in every single case. And we're going to have to really think about how that plays out. And so I wonder just to consider this in the FY 'twenty seven process and see how that stacks up against all the other things that we're going to have to consider. So I see that that motion didn't pass, or that didn't not pass, but there wasn't full support for that. Does anybody else want to put anything else on the table? My recommendation is that we not fund this at this time, but that we consider it in the FY27 along with whatever else that they might be bringing forth to us. Because they haven't even talked about the disability law project, which is, I know, facing significant strain as well. I would support that proposal that you just made, that

[Unidentified Member A]: we do not have funded since this time. And want to lean also on the rationale that you just mentioned. Yes, these are tough times. There are adjustments that are being made, but it seems like some of these are looking to be supplemented for lost federal funding. I agree with all of these premises. I'm not against them. But we've to be rational and practical that we cannot supplement every agency's loss I of think we should learn from what happened, because we're a little bit in this situation in regards to the hotel program. We chose to continue to run something based off of federal funding and we kind of put ourselves in a little bit of a predicament and we try to supplement state money for March.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Okay, so can I see a show of hands who would you've got No,

[Esme Cole (Member)]: I just wanted to continue? I mean, I think that in the budget, do need to really also talk about the healthcare work that they do.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Yeah, it's broad. I mean, it affects

[Zon Eastes (Member)]: The healthcare it affects advocate is a still

[Esme Cole (Member)]: needed, especially as our changing landscape with healthcare.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Yeah, advocate is pretty well funded. It might need to be more as we look to the changes in Medicaid and all of that kind want to

[Esme Cole (Member)]: include it because it's the same agency.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: It's the same agency. Yeah, they do a lot. Mean, do a lot. Okay. Alright. So we have End Homelessness Vermont request for $100,000 in terms of the support that they provide to individuals who are homeless, at risk of homelessness, specifically for those who have significant complications with regard to disability. And that request was for a $100,000 in budget adjustment. Excuse me.

[Brenda Steady (Member)]: Now, how would that

[Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: be paid out? Because

[Brenda Steady (Member)]: En Homelessness Vermont is under Vermont kin, so the money would go to Vermont kin and then they distribute it?

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Well, I think that's a very good question, Brenda, because En Homelessness Vermont does not have a specific grant with the state. And they do rely as a fiscal sponsor to that. So I don't want to say definitively, but if that were to happen, then I believe that that's probably the way it would go. There have been what I would call special circumstances where specific organizations are listed. That money goes directly to that organization in the budget. They don't like to do that very often, but in specific circumstances that has happened. We worry about how the money got there.

[Brenda Steady (Member)]: We have to check with which council though, just to see.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: They will give us their

[Brenda Steady (Member)]: opinion. Only nine ninety is Vermont Kin that was filed November 2025. And the last one was whatever. And homelessness, Vermont is under their umbrella. I guess Vermont can win. I don't know, we'd have to ask for a council, I guess. Yeah.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: So I think that one of the things that I want to recognize is that this organization does do something that honestly nobody else does right now. And while I'm not sure it really qualifies under budget adjustment, because it's a new request, I felt it was important that we hear from them to understand the complexity of the cases that they deal with. Because I suspect we'll be hearing about this during the '27 budget process as well. So what are other people's thoughts?

[Brenda Steady (Member)]: I'm in I'm in agreement for next budget to discuss it. Because like you said, it's not a budget adjustment because it's never been that.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: It's not an adjustment. I did want people to be exposed to the, like I said, the complexity of the work that the organization does. And there's literally hundreds of people who would be facing more dire states than they already are without this organization's assistance. And time to time, I think they operate a little bit differently than some of the other organizations we're more accustomed to. But I think that's okay. Organizations that are run by people who have lived experience have, frankly, more sensitivity to the issues that people who are going through it right then face. I appreciate that.

[Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: I think what makes them so successful in working with this population is that they are able to be nimble and adapt to each household's unique needs. One of

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: the things I very much appreciate is that every person is looked at as an individual. And it's not just like, Okay, well, here's X, Y, and Z. It's like, Okay, what is it that you need? And they figure out how to do that in some pretty creative ways, I guess I would say.

[Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: And they've forced that cross silo, cross departmental peace conferencing and communication that we talk a lot about is lacking in our system. So just when I hear the updates and things, that's one thing I especially appreciate is they're doing that really successfully.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: So I would recommend that we further consider requests when we get to the FY '27 budget. But because there is no appropriation for this in the '26 budget, it's not really an adjustment. Are people okay with that generally? Okay. Okay. And then the last one that we are on is 211. It seems like a new request to me.

[Brenda Steady (Member)]: Oh, that's another van? Two-one-one.

[Golrang "Rey" Garofano (Vice Chair)]: They're gonna come back and ask for the remainder in the twenty seventh budget, So it feels like it should be something that we should consider as a whole year in the twenty seventh budget. Right, so if we do

[Brenda Steady (Member)]: it to one, we'll get it to two. Yeah.

[Esme Cole (Member)]: I just do wanna reiterate that, you know, we're gonna have to figure out the volunteer aspects around

[Zon Eastes (Member)]: And I think two

[Esme Cole (Member)]: eleven would be a good fit. And then as well as we often call on 211 when we have a flood, especially in the communities I've

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Not often. We always do.

[Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: We always do.

[Esme Cole (Member)]: Yeah. So asking them to ramp up as the flood is happening is not super feasible. So in the future, whether with this request or with in the future, we should look to some emergency management partnership on how we

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: I was actually glad to hear them say that they are in discussions with Vermont Emergency Management to get funding from them because that's totally appropriate. And they haven't been funded by emergency management.

[Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: I've also been wondering, as they've been serving as this call center to GA and filling in, if there are other places in state government, whether in AHS, where they can be part of that response. Because I know a lot of times, we're paying a lot of money for call centers in other parts of the country and to have that really where it might make sense, which helps ensure the long term success and stability of these essential functions that are already performing. But that could potentially create better service for Vermonters in other areas of our state government and services we provide.

[Esme Cole (Member)]: Yeah, and I think of ServeVermont also as a potential partnership with looking at AmeriCorps programs and how volunteers are in Vermont, whether through emergency management or just even through the Medicaid stuff. Start on that.

[Doug Bishop (Member)]: Is Vermont still operating in light of the federal decisions So related to

[Esme Cole (Member)]: far, yes.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Okay. All right. So we, again, will this will be considered in the '27 budget discussions. So that kind of brings us to the conclusion of the folks that we heard from today. Tomorrow, we'll take up the department's recommendations that we heard from. The other thing I just have an update on the stuff that we talked about first was the ones who were that we thought were not The implementation did not meet with legislative intent. So the AAAs and the tier one, ERC folks in particular. So Nolan has checked with the department. They say that they cannot do retroactive payments to July 1. The soonest that they could implement a payment would be April 1. So that would reduce the amount that we would recommend. However, he is doing a calculation for us and we'll have that tomorrow morning. So there'll be adjustments to those two things because they're Medicaid. Okay? Okay. Let's call that a wrap tomorrow. In the morning, have the House floor. Don't forget, we're back to budget adjustment and we are going to take up $5.45 and continue our markup of $5.45.

[Zon Eastes (Member)]: What time will that be, Lamo? After floor? Right after floor. Yep. 05:45. Good question. As we go into the budget process, is there going to be opportunity for us to sort of you were talking about the view that we're going to have to take in the big picture. Is there going be opportunity for us to sort of talk about that without looking at specific instances so that we can get a set of priorities that we care about or a sense of values that we're working from. Yeah, I get it. Is that what we're Yeah, for sure. Maybe some advice as we, how we're gonna, you know, I just think it's gonna be a little tough And as we go through I think if we could talk about it a little bit together before we actually start doing it, it might feel better than me. Absolutely. Let's eat this for me.

[Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: Yes,

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: we can set aside some time to do that either next week or maybe the beginning of the following week, just before the governor's budget comes out. So it would would probably a good idea to do it before the governor's budget address. As you're listening to his address, you can hear to see if those if our discussions are in alignment with the governor's budget or if there's some differences. So I'll make a note to Good. Put that on the schedule.

[Doug Bishop (Member)]: Let me see if I have it.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Okay, Laurie. We're all set. Thank