Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: For about the next forty five minutes or so. We had previously scheduled H594, but the witness needs additional time to prepare his testimony. And so we've allotted for that. This morning, in terms of change of schedule, next forty five minutes, we're gonna start to take a look at some of the documents. I'm gonna ask you to turn to the the appropriations committee web page on your iPads or computers because that's where we're gonna find the documents that we need to look at. And if you look at look at under Adam Gresham, we'll start to see some of the summary of what the governor presented in his budget yesterday. So that's what we're going to look at this morning. And then this afternoon, the witnesses, around age five ninety four, have asked for additional time to prepare their testimony. And so at 1PM, we are going to be hearing from Katie around the constitutional decisions around residency and to answer some of your questions, Representative Steady, and anybody else who has other questions about that. So Katie will be here for us this afternoon on that. And that's this afternoon. That's at 01:00. And actually, Laurie, I'm going to change that. I'm sorry, I change the agenda. Might change that to 01:15 for your schedule instead of one? Okay.

[Brenda Steady (Member)]: Madam Chair, the other H594 items remaining under billable March? Yes.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Okay, so what we don't have, obviously, is individual department information. But I just wanted to walk through, because this is not something that we generally spend a huge amount of time on because we just kind of delve deep into the individual departments. But the governor's sort of overview, I think, important for people to look at. There are copies around the building in print if you want to have a print

[Doug Bishop (Member)]: copy of it. Is this what's labeled as budget FY 2027 budget summary?

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: And then there is, right after that, budget language. So We're going to look at budget summary right now. And we have a couple of members of committee who are following other issues for our committee right now. So, Representative Noyes is down in appropriations because the Department of Disabilities Aging and Independent Living are there giving testimony as a follow-up to the our budget memo. The appropriations committee has asked both DCF and Dale to come in to give additional testimony. So Dan is monitoring that downstairs. And representative Garofano is across the way in ways and means because they're taking up pre k and the excuse me, intersection of pre k with Act 73 and a report that JFO worked on over the summer. We'll be hearing that as well. She is monitoring that next door. And a couple of other members right now are doing personal things that they needed to attend to. And I don't know whose gloves those were. They were left last night. Anybody know who's gloves they are? No? Okay. Okay, so let's open up, and we're kind of doing this on the fly. I'll be honest, because yesterday we kind of heard at the last minute that our witnesses needed more time to prepare for five '94. So we were hoping that they would be prepared today, but we want to allocate that time to them. So I'm going to lip as we go. All the beginning part is sort of like understanding where the trends are heading. You see some graphs in there. I think that for people who are interested in taking a look, it shows up as page 10. I think that it's important to understand that's where the total base revenue sources in terms of our general fund. Remember, we have general fund, we have federal funds, we have special funds. The idea of a special fund is our opioid abatement special fund. That's a special fund. And we have other. So there are different sources of funds for state government. And as you heard the governor say, the overall state budget is over $9,000,000,000 with a B, and a good healthy one third of that is in federal funds. And we have transportation funds too as well, but that's not something that generally passes our way. So that will give you a sense of the different sources of funds that are directly transferred into the general fund, as you look down through those different sources of funds, things like when the attorney general sues a company or sues and has a settlement, those settlements, after the expenses for the suit are settled with the Attorney General's Office, those come into the general fund and are appropriated by the General Assembly. So then you will see on the following page, on page 10, you'll sort of just as a reminder, right at the bottom of page 10, you'll see that the governor is looking at unreserved for property tax relief, dollars 105,000, essentially. Part of that is from the BAA, and part of that is a carryforward from FY '25 Act 27. Okay?

[Brenda Steady (Member)]: 105,000,000.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: So 105,000,000.

[Doug Bishop (Member)]: I'm somehow on the wrong page.

[Zon Eastes (Member)]: Page 10, it's printed on

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: the document. It's printed on the bottom of the document, page 10. Oh, okay. Yeah, no, it's there. Alright, thank you.

[Zon Eastes (Member)]: Took me a minute to begin that out. Yeah,

[Doug Bishop (Member)]: the I'm here, but I don't know. Alright,

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: that is

[Doug Bishop (Member)]: page nine. Okay.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Right there. When I refer to page numbers, I'm referring to the page numbers of the document, not the page number that shows up on your computer.

[Doug Bishop (Member)]: It's one off because they kept

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: the cover page. It is one off. They kept the cover That was my problem. Okay? So, do you see where I am speaking of down there at the bottom, 104,000,000, one and eighty thousand? And I think it's important for our committee to understand that that's what we call one time revenues. It means that they're not recurring. They've happened one time. It means like the thing called a reversion. That means that it was not used by the department that it was appropriated to, and they are essentially sending it back to be used as a one time revenue. Does everybody understand the concept of one time revenues? Unfortunately, this is my bias, so I'm putting that out there as a bias. We have unfortunately used one time revenues for ongoing expenses, both as it relates to education and as it relates to a concern in this committee, shelter operations, for instance. Emergency housing. We've used several million dollars in one time revenues for expansion of shelters that we know are going to need ongoing revenue sources. So those are things that we have to be on the lookout for as we undertake our budget negotiations. And Lori has been diligently scheduling people for budget testimony, and the health department is going to be the first department that comes in. So again, we'll be looking at what does it mean in terms of one time revenue versus ongoing revenues and expenses. So

[Zon Eastes (Member)]: it's one thing to have these one time dollars in the budget, but is there a process for how those one time dollars get appropriated to various departments, various agencies? It starts here with this. The governor has recommendations. That he just says, let's use this much of it for this.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: And his recommendation is to use it for property tax relief. That's his big recommendation. And the the general assembly will have our own recommendations about how to use one time money. And last year, we reached agreement with the governor that some of that was used for property tax relief. Again, ongoing expense, but we used some one time money. And then we also set aside money to deal with the unknowns of the federal policy changes.

[Zon Eastes (Member)]: And

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: that's what the legislature did last year. And so we have our say, just like ongoing.

[Zon Eastes (Member)]: One more question. Yesterday you suggested that $15,000,000 could be used for the property tax relief. We'll hear 1.49. Does that it? Do we understand that there's about 9,500,000.0 other dollars that we're looking for to see how that might get used?

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Well, we're looking at the whole. Yes. We're looking at the Sort of flagged it. Yes. Yes. If as we're looking through yes. I I understand the question now. Yeah. As we're looking through the budget, we want to know how the governor is proposing to use that other 9,500,000.0.

[Zon Eastes (Member)]: It's likely to be. It's possible to be in areas where it's be.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: It totally is possible to see in other areas. So for instance, you referenced $2,000,000 for shelter development, and we have to see if that's one time or if that's ongoing. Sometimes development funds, remember, can be one time because you're incurring one time costs, but you need to understand if we agree with a one time cost, that means that we're agreeing to fund the ongoing expense in a succeeding year, which I think we have questions about. So let's keep going down on the very next page. Okay? So again, you're going to see what the governor calls the base appropriation starting point. And that brings in revenue from the Cannabis Control Board. It brings in other revenues, as you can see that are referenced there. But the total is the $2,350,000,000 And then you see, and this is in very high level summary helpful when people ask you questions, constituents ask you questions about like the whole of state government, what is state government doing about X, Y, or Z? This is a place where you can go and say, okay, well, the governor has recommended $28,400,000 as an increase in salaries and wages that are generally covered by the collective bargaining agreement with Vermont State Employees Association. But that's not all. So there other agreements that are made, and there's, of course, exempt salary employees in there as well. So out of that, we're saying $28,400,000 is going towards the increase in salaries. Again, the next is increase in health benefits for the employer contribution, and then the employer retirement plan contribution. These are all things that are costs that impact all of state government.

[Zon Eastes (Member)]: Now these are increases, sorry.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Those are increases. Over. So we don't know

[Zon Eastes (Member)]: what the number is by looking at this.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: It's in each department's budget. And then looking at ADS for people, that's Agency of Digital Services. So we saw in BAA big increases in the Agency of Digital Services allocation out to our policy departments. And our sister committee is going to be looking at the agency of digital services budget, because it's a big increase. We are, I mean, we know that state infrastructure is in need of ongoing updates. And especially in the human services area, we see the impact of not having updated technology. But I think that there's a need to understand these better, for sure. That's not going to be our responsibility. Okay. Just kind of skimming down through there. So another thing I'm not going to refer to the pension related stuff. Those are all things that's baked in, set in statute at this point in time, would require some change in statute in order for those to be changed.

[Esme Cole (Member)]: I do have one question about the global commitment match. That's right where I was going. Oh, sorry. Thought we were No.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Okay. Nope. So go ahead with your question. Yeah. I mean, this is interesting in the context of the big landscape. We're getting less in federal dollars, but are they requiring more that we match in this broad? We'll hear from Nolan. I'm not sure, but I heard Chair Shai from appropriations say that the general fund, it's Medicaid, just to remind you, a state and federal shared program that our match rate was the state share was going up, I heard. I thought I heard that in a conversation, so I need to understand that better and will understand. If that is true, then just to maintain the same services that we have out there, it would cost us more money in state funds, just to maintain. And that is something that goes up and down based upon a formula set at the federal level. And it has to do with poverty levels and the economy, and there's a bunch of different elements that go into it. We're just told what it is. We don't really have any say in what it is. The minimum that it goes down to is 50%. So, no, that's not true. Take that back, rewind, I don't think that's true. So right now, it's roughly a 40 five-sixty five split between 45 state funds, 65 federal funds. But even a tenth of a percent is big dollars, because we have hundreds of millions of dollars in Medicaid funds. And this is an evolving topic, because even though some of the changes in HR1 at the federal level don't go into effect until after November. They are in effect for FY 'twenty seven, our state fiscal year. So they start to become in effect. And so I'm sure that AHS has been doing a lot of work trying to understand what are gonna be the implications of that for our Medicaid program. And what I'm speaking to are the changes in work requirements, the need to essentially reapply every six months, the need to have additional documentation. And in places where that has been instituted at the state level previously, they did see a drop in the Medicaid utilization, this drop in the numbers of people covered by Medicaid. There's lots of things influencing this, and some of the actions that we take here will have an influence on that. For instance, you've seen in your inboxes a couple of

[Zon Eastes (Member)]: weeks

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: ago, there's a request by community agencies for folks to do in-depth explanations to individuals covered by Medicaid who are on their caseload so that they understand what the requirements are to retain their Medicaid. Yeah, Esme, It's going to be impacted by caseload, but then it's also going be impacted by changes in what we call the FMAP. Okay. So that's a big one. That's $26,000,000 And I think you heard the governor speak to an increase for higher education. You can see that there on that line item, dollars 4,100,000.0. And then there's at the bottom there, 7.3, which looks like a bunch of miscellaneous up and down different things. So in terms of what the initiatives that the governor referenced in his speech yesterday, some of them, I'm not sure if he referenced them all, but did reference some of them. Yeah.

[Doug Bishop (Member)]: Just going to go back quickly to that prior list. I guess we'll have to ask more, the whole, the new appropriation to the Cannabis Control Board to cover the gap between fees and operating expenses. And I mean, that's the area where after school programs, I'm just wondering what the- Prevention programs,

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: at that.

[Doug Bishop (Member)]: Prevention programs, if that means that's being cut and yet there still isn't enough to pay for operations or how that plays in, I think will be important in terms of after school.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Yes, I agree. And we will hear about that in the health department's testimony, I'm sure. So, health department folks. The way the law is set up is that they get to cover their expenses first out of revenues, and then up to a certain amount and percentage then goes to prevention and then other things. So,

[Doug Bishop (Member)]: if they're not able to cover those,

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: we've lost. Yeah, no, it's a good point. Okay, so then the next section is the Governor's Initiatives.

[Zon Eastes (Member)]: And

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: you can see some things there that may impact your local communities. Pilot is the payment in lieu of taxes. So if you have state buildings or state lands in your catchment area, in your district. It looks like there is a reduction of $3,400,000 in that. And those are generally based upon it says fund reappraisal. And I'm wondering if there's been some reappraisal of the lands and the buildings that have occurred there. But again, that's that looks like a reduction out to local communities because that pilot payment those pilot payments all go out to local communities. So the city of Montpelier, the town of Waterbury, if you have state forest and lands, it's all it's all in there. So there's been some reduction in there. It looks like there's some investments in the military in terms of maintenance positions, cemetery issues. The governor spoke to eliminating farm operation fees. I'm not sure exactly what that is, but I'm sure our sister committee across the hall will dive deep into that. But instead he is replacing those fees with general fund of that $343,000,000. Then you see some of the stuff that would directly impact us. Okay, so the Department for Children and Families housing plan, and that's $10,000,000 in funds. So those are things that we obviously are going to be delving deep into. The 10,100,000, as you can see, recovery shelters, case management. I'll be interested to hear about medically vulnerable hotels. How the hotels feel about being medically vulnerable. Not sure. I'm also very interested to hear that. Yeah, yeah, well, here we go. +1, 2345.

[Zon Eastes (Member)]: We're done.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Yeah. So we need to pause momentarily. Folks who are on live, we just lost our quorum because people needed to step out for a minute. So we will recess until we have a quorum back. You, Lord. Oh, forget that. Now we have a quorum bag. People need to step out to take a phone call or work on other things. So, okay, we're back. We never left. Okay. So the next few things definitely impact what we do in this committee. And as you can see, their base changes. So that is important to note, their base changes. Do you see that heading up there? The other thing is, this is a new one, Dale Opioid Recovery Employment Program. It's new to see it here. I can tell you with certainty that they requested that money from the Opioid Abatement Settlement Fund, and it was not recommended by the committee. It was seen as valuable, but not something that rose to the top. So the governor felt differently about it, and is including it in his budget. Pre trial?

[Brenda Steady (Member)]: Yeah. That's to

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Yes. Hire ability is the state's vocational rehabilitation department or division. Yeah. They did a pilot project. The pilot project was funded. We took testimony on it. They the They wanted expanded to expand the sites, I think.

[Brenda Steady (Member)]: They did some expansion.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Yeah. So we'll hear from them during the budget testimony for sure. The pretrial supervision, governor spoke about that in his State of the State. The Corrections and Institutions Committee will be taking a look at that. Green Mountain Care Board, there are positions established in '25. So this is the state chair of those funding. And then something that we haven't really seen in a while, and that's the Agency of Education Base Funding Increase for Education Transformation. This is specifically for they're asking for it in base. It's base funding for limited service positions. So what that signals is that they expect those positions to continue. Yeah, you have questions on your face?

[Esme Cole (Member)]: I guess, yeah. I mean, it does feel a little ironic, but maybe that's obviously my personal take just because education was supposed to reduce a lot of the admin stuff. So I don't know, that's just my immediate reaction. For

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: those of us who have been around through various iterations of the agency before that Department of Education, they have suffered a lot of staff losses in AOE. And this is my own personal opinion that I believe that if there is going to be a transformational change in education, that they are currently understaffed. This, frankly, may not even be enough. Totally. Because it's not that many positions. It's a lot of money, but it's not that many positions. Yeah, go ahead.

[Brenda Steady (Member)]: Can I ask if you could help at least me better understand, reference limited service positions, the type of different positions that the state has and what that means?

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Essentially, there's three basics. There's temporary, no benefits, you work for an hourly wage, you don't get paid holidays, you don't get paid vacation or sick time. There's limited service, which oftentimes comes with grants. So if we get a big grant and there's positions that are directly associated with a grant, you'll request limited service positions. This has to go through appropriations. General Assembly has to approve those positions. And if it's in the off time, well, actually, anytime the state accepts a grant, it goes through the Joint Fiscal Committee. And if it requires limited service positions, they're approved at that level. But with limited service, you get paid vacation, you get sick time, you get health insurance, but you're not a permanent classified. So you don't have reduction in force rights, which we call RIF rights. So if there were a reduction in the state's employee base, then limited service positions don't have access to essentially bump a person of lesser seniority. And then there's permanent classified positions. So that's the majority of the state workforce. And those individuals are covered by various negotiated agreements. VSEA represents the largest share, but not the only. The state police has their own bargaining unit. And I'm not sure who else, but there's more than one. But the VSEA is the biggest one.

[Brenda Steady (Member)]: Limited service station folks,

[Zon Eastes (Member)]: do

[Brenda Steady (Member)]: they have access to the retirement?

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Don't know the answer to that question. Anybody, do you know David? Yeah, I'm not sure about retirement, to be honest with you.

[Brenda Steady (Member)]: Are those positions that walk a little bit of a line between base and one time?

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Because generally one time is something really for only a year And usually a limited service position, especially associated with a grant, is going to last more than one year because grants generally last depending upon the topic. So it can be for a set period of time or a no defined time on the end. But there is a review of limited service positions by the Department of Human Resources each year, and they ask departments about what it should still be that designation and what's the plans and all that kind of stuff.

[Brenda Steady (Member)]: Seems like it could increase the challenges that already exist in hiring.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: But you really have any choice. If you don't have base funding, hire a classified position. And if you don't have legislative approval, you can't hire. Which is, remember, in DCF, they were seeking to add two positions in the HOT program. And we said, while we agreed that these positions may be necessary, you've got to go through the proper procedure to get them. You can't just do it.

[Esme Cole (Member)]: Yeah. And kind of on that similar vein, and I know the education committees will be looking at this deeply, like you said, Chair, with the understaffing sort of of the agency of education, those are real positions that were budgeted for. So I'm a little bit confused about why we're doing, and they were not filled and declared vacancy savings. So I'm a little bit confused why we're creating new positions for even though we had positions available that just weren't being filled.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: So I know. I think that's sort of a perennial question is the vacancy savings and how does that play into hiring and requests for new positions. And I think that there is some people have some questions sometimes about whether vacancy savings have been used essentially just as a backfilled budget to make a balance. And sometimes you're instructed in the budget documents a certain percentage to actually budget for vacancy savings. All employers have vacancy savings at some point in time. And it is highly variable depending upon the economy. And we are seeing some shifts in the economy. So I think that that's something for us to pay attention to when we see individual departments' budgets. Yeah, for sure. Okay, and then you see some one time. I'm not sure I would necessarily call these policy changes, but you see one time. Again, a lot of that has to do with our committee, emergency housing. So we'll be looking at what's the difference between that and what was budgeted in FY '25 '26, excuse me, it's just '26. We see temporary secure youth treatment facility. That's Brenda and Anne's area. I don't know what B 1100 is other than it's one time. I I think it's probably a bunch of miscellaneous ones that add up to 4,700,000.0, but I don't know that. Police radio replacement. And you see a transfer to education fund. And this is the governor spoke about starting to fill the hole in the transportation fund. However, I have to say that that is a structural hole that requires base funding. And what he is proposing is to take money out of the Ed Fund and put it into the T fund, but just on a one time basis. It doesn't do anything to address the structural deficiency of 30 something million in the in the transportation fund. And I don't know if people followed, but the Joint Fiscal Committee needed to act in the off session. There was a rescission in the agency of transportation. So there were some reductions in force and some reductions in appropriations in the agency of transportation in the off session. So there is a real issue in the agency of transportation. But just to be clear, what's being proposed right now is to transfer money from the Ed Fund into the T Fund, essentially. And then you'll see, as we saw further up, a transfer of 105,000,000 for property tax relief, again, one time. So that gives you a high level of where some of the investments are going, some of the changes that are being proposed by the governor. Oh, there's the B1100. You can see that line, what that is made up of on the next page. And again, there's emergency housing, treatment facility for youth, startup for new shelters. He referenced 2,000,000. This says 6,000,000. We'll figure out what I think one was for specifically around folks with substance use disorder. So we'll be taking a fine tooth comb to all these proposals and be taking a hard look at those. So the rest of it, you can sort of look through on your own. I'm going to now switch to, if you would go back to the Appropriations Committee and open up it called? Governor's recommended budget language. So this is just to familiarize. We're not going to go through this all because there's pages and pages of it, 34 to be exact. But this is a heads up that I guarantee you that human services stuff is in this. I haven't read it all yet because we just got it last night. Excuse me. So when we're talking to departments and when you're meeting as your budget teams with your state representatives, you're not only looking at numbers, you're also looking at this document, okay, to see if there's any language that is being proposed. And let's just take a quick look. The first part is all standard.

[Doug Bishop (Member)]: Legal aid, the issues that they brought to us for budget adjustment. Alright. So if if

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: you go to B 300, B As In Baby, 300, that is where human services starts. Let's just take a quick look at b 300. Page. Yeah. Well, I'm looking for that myself.

[Zon Eastes (Member)]: I saw e three hundred's I got b e

[Doug Bishop (Member)]: 11 under, section B 1,100, I can't find 300.

[Zon Eastes (Member)]: Does it go down? Page 23.

[Doug Bishop (Member)]: It was twenty three Strouds Public Health.

[Brenda Steady (Member)]: It says for B100 through B1000, the sections were transmitted electronically to the JFO.

[Zon Eastes (Member)]: I think it's the E's. I don't know if it's just not here.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Okay. Oh, so it's not here. Right?

[Esme Cole (Member)]: It's not here.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: All right, so I'm sorry, what did you say, Zon?

[Zon Eastes (Member)]: I see a '22,

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: I see a Department of Health. Actually, it starts E-three 100 on page 19 of the document. Funding for the Office of Healthcare Advocate is something that impacts us. Okay. So we did hear from legal aid during budget adjustment of their need for poverty law project. We didn't hear so much about the Office of Healthcare Advocate. To be honest with you, we have to look and see what is this compared to what is currently funded. So while these look like big numbers that could actually be a decrease, I don't know without looking.

[Zon Eastes (Member)]: So these are not yeah. It's an up or down? Don't know. A It's number that's in their budget.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Yeah. Because E 300 on that of the appropriations in section B 300, then there's probably a bigger number. And they're saying of this number, these are the amounts we want appropriated to Vermont Legal Aid for these purposes.

[Zon Eastes (Member)]: I see.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: You see what I mean? Yes. Okay. So you won't see these individual numbers on that budget page, but you'll see a bigger number under B 300. And what this is saying is, that number, when we see that, we want 2,000,000 to go for the healthcare advocate, 1.7 to go for poverty law and mental health, and $6.50 for eviction prevention and foreclosure.

[Doug Bishop (Member)]: But we don't know what last year's was based on this. That's what

[Zon Eastes (Member)]: we need to That's what we're comparing and looking at. Right. And there may be, you're suggesting that there may be a number that's larger than the total of these three numbers right here in the budget. And so we won't know what that-

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: We will need to ask questions. Yes. Yep. And then you'll see a bunch of stuff on global commitment, more than what we really need to deal with. But global commitment gets appropriated twice, essentially. It's appropriated to the Agency of Human Services because the Agency of Human Services is the one who has the contractual agreement with the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services, CMS. And then it is also appropriated in the individual departments where it is spent. So when you hear appropriations talk about unduplicated global commitment, it means that it's not being counted twice. So we'll see it in AHS. We don't really look at that. We look at it in the individual departments. So like in Dale, choices for care, in developmental services waiver. We see it in receipts in Department for Children and Families. So we see it in the health department. Just saying that it's it's appropriated twice. It's all you need to know, but it's not really counted twice. So that is okay. So I'm just looking at this is new language, 3013. It says Secretary of Human Services authorized to seek an extension of Vermont's global commitment eleven fifteen waiver for the period January '28 to December 3132. Why is that important? Because the state's entire Medicaid program is in global commitment, and it is dependent upon a waiver of section eleven fifteen of the Social Security Act for the state's Medicaid program to operate. And the state will need to negotiate with the federal government around what are the negotiation agreements. We have a pretty favorable global commitment right now, pretty favorable to the state. We don't know what that will look like going forward. So the global commitment as it stands right now ends on 12/31/2027. Okay? So that's part of not this fiscal year, but next, but not FY '27, but that's part of FY '28. But it takes, obviously, a lengthy period of time to negotiate such a large contract. And we have never negotiated with this administration for the 11/15 waiver. So it was extended through the previous administration. So I'm sure it will be different because most things are different. May ask one technical

[Esme Cole (Member)]: question? Absolutely.

[Zon Eastes (Member)]: What's the significance of pathogens that are underlined?

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: It means it's a new language essentially. Some of this is, I guess what I would call boilerplate that appears on a routine basis. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Department of Vermont Health Access, not our department. Department of Public Health, which is on page 23. So the health department folks will need to take a look at that. This is language that appears pretty, I don't know, since I've been here, I've seen it every year in some form or another around HIV AIDS prevention and services and how that's appropriated out to the community. So that will be something that Todd and Eric take a look at and compare that to what we have currently. And then we see in the very next section, also the health department for said Todd, I didn't mean Todd, I meant Zon.

[Esme Cole (Member)]: Eric is with Todd.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Todd is with Dale and Dan. And health department is Eric Zon. And there have been some questions about how these funds get out and how long it takes for these funds to get out in the community. That'll be something that we need to really figure out a way to address. Then we're Okay? Moving into benefits, those three squares that'll be in Jubilee and Esme's area. And, oh, we owe. Unfortunately, what we've been doing has been governing homelessness services through budget language. We'll see if we can make a change to that this year. Okay? But please take a look at that. And then the HOP, then weatherization also there, and then moves into corrections. School program. Okay. That is something, after school and special funds, that's something for you to pay attention to, Doug. There's a there's a change being requested. Use up to 500,000 for administrative costs, and now they're saying 5%. So I have to see what that actually means. Okay. Okay? And there's a lot about education. Like I said, we're not going go through all of this, but you need to go through and find your department language for each one of your departments. And I would encourage you to look at things that might be in other departments in the Agency of Human Services, just because we don't do Department of Corrections, but there could be something in there that relates to stuff that we do. So I would encourage you to just take a quick look through those and bring up anything. And then also, Katie is going to be assisting us with any language additions that we want to make. So as you're going through your department's budget and not only this language, but I would encourage you to look at language that we have in the current budget year so you can see how it's differing from what it is that we currently have so that people- so that we have a clearer understanding. Like, can tell you right now that the language for homelessness is very different. That what we just saw, that little paragraph, is very different from what we have in the budget right now. Okay. And so these are all things that we need to understand not only what is being presented, but what are the differences. Just like when we talk about and we ask questions, we not only want to see what's being increased, we want to understand what decisions did you make in order to present this budget. Are you decreasing or eliminating any services or any contracts with community providers? Are you increasing or decreasing any access to services that we currently have? Are you looking at any regulatory changes? So I can give you a, for instance, in the general assistance, we'll just use that one again as an example. That would require a regulatory change. That would have to go through rulemaking. So there's lots to dig into here. And can say without a doubt, based upon what I've seen so far, that we will be the busiest committee besides appropriations on the budget. So I hope you're not bored with numbers because that impacts people. And that's what our job is here. Okay? All right. Any quick questions? Okay. Great. And so there's a couple of things available to you. You can check out what's happening in appropriations. You can start to do some deeper digging here on the budget. You can do constituent work. You can be across the hall in ways and means if you're interested in childcare, in pre k, in the intersection of that, because that's being discussed over there right now. Then we will see you back here at 10:45. Okay? Thank you, Laurie. Let's go torment tip.