Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. Golrang "Rey" Garofano (Vice Chair)]: Welcome back to House Human Services. It is Thursday, January 29. We are going to continue conversations on our homelessness bill, H594. And we have a witness, town manager of Shelburne, Matt Lawlis. Take the hot seat, Matt, welcome.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Thank you.

[Rep. Golrang "Rey" Garofano (Vice Chair)]: Yeah, and since you have not been here, we'll do a quick round of introductions in those rooms. Thank you. Alright, back to introduction, sorry for that quick interruption. I'm Rey Garofano, I represent Assid Exemptation. I am Chittenden, I live in Bridgeport and also represent Middlebury, New Haven and Cambridge. Wonderful.

[Rep. Esme Cole (Member)]: And Esme Cole of Hartford. Nice to meet you.

[Matt Lawless (Town Manager, Shelburne)]: Hi there, miss Grant. Doug Bishop of Colchester. Hi there, Doug.

[Rep. Golrang "Rey" Garofano (Vice Chair)]: Brenda Steady, East Milton, Westford. And Donahue from Northfield, then also represent Berlin. Nice to

[Matt Lawless (Town Manager, Shelburne)]: meet you. You for having me.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Oh, we

[Unidentified Committee Member]: do it really.

[Rep. Golrang "Rey" Garofano (Vice Chair)]: Hi, I'm Carrie Noyes, I'm Bill Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Great,

[Rep. Golrang "Rey" Garofano (Vice Chair)]: thank you all so much. So Matt, welcome. Do you have a PowerPoint you're gonna be sharing?

[Matt Lawless (Town Manager, Shelburne)]: I have a couple of notes that I wrote down in remarks, but no pictures.

[Rep. Golrang "Rey" Garofano (Vice Chair)]: And have you sent those to me? Okay, you have the floor. Welcome.

[Matt Lawless (Town Manager, Shelburne)]: Thank you

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: so much. It's great to

[Matt Lawless (Town Manager, Shelburne)]: be here. Thank you for having me. It's a lovely room. I appreciate your your principles there and the view and all of that. So good afternoon to you. Thank you for the invitation and opportunity to speak with you today. My name is Matt Wallace. I served as town manager for Shelburne. I live in Winooski and moved to Vermont three years ago when hired for the town here. My prior public service was owned in Virginia, where I worked for ten years in several city, county, and town governments. I'm also pursuing a PhD at UVM studying sustainable development policy. So the complex issues before your committee are of great professional and personal interest to me. The town of Shelbourne places a real high priority on housing and human services policies as related issues, and we wanna be a part of Vermont's housing and human services solutions. Our community has enjoyed recent growth and increased diversity, which we celebrate, And we work to invest in the welfare of our whole community while also responding to the challenges of affordability which face every town in the state. Last night, I watched the testimony of Rutland's mayor, Dungis, and I've compared notes with him through VLCT on several occasions. I generally agree with him that your age five ninety four is a step in the right direction. From the impact to our first responders to our efforts building homes, Rutland and Shelburne have more in common than you might expect. Our library in Shelburne also shares many features with Essex Junction, and the library testimony you heard the other day also sounds very similar to our experience. Shelburne's progress on housing issues deserves some general praise. We faced a serious slowdown in construction in the previous decade, which caused housing costs to rise to unaffordable levels for too many people. Some of this problem was self inflicted as we made it too hard to build the necessary homes. Lately, we've scored some wins on this. Last year, Champlain Housing Trust dedicated Bay Ridge, a community of 94 homes on a formerly blighted motel site. Those homes used the full spectrum of funding sources from congressional directed funds to waivers of our town fees, and they're now nearly fully occupied at a wide mix of income levels, including one of my town office coworkers and his growing family. Other housing successes in Shelburne include the completion of a 12 unit supportive building run by Howard Center, another 12 unit market rate building right nearby at on Route 7, the settlement of a litigated development approval for 63 homes, the sewer area extension for 350 homes, and the active construction of another 30 unit project now underway. Most notably, just yesterday, our select board voted final passage for a complete overhaul of our zoning bylaws after a three year project of research and outreach. The bylaws have a suite of changes which exceed the mandates of act 47 and act one eighty one. We allow four plexes by administrative approval, abolish parking minimums, and provide several options for inclusionary housing to assure affordability without deterring investment. Our select board seeks a practical balance of market solutions which advance a clearly defined public interest. This context brings us to the motel program, the subject of your invitation and your bill h five ninety four. The bill aims to reduce state spending and increase accountability and the quality of case management for the program. The tiers and continuum of care match my understanding of best practices with the goal of appropriate services for those in need and safe housing for all. I commend the bill for maintaining primary responsibility with the state department of children and families where it legally belongs. Shelburne and similar Vermont towns can support public safety and some related services, but are not constitutionally or practically able to be primary providers of public housing and social services. The concerns I share regarding this bill are mainly practical, not ideological. The bill prioritizes vulnerable populations continuing recent practice. Children has seen this change to be fairly effective in town, protecting motel rooms for the elderly, parents with children, and people with disabilities. However, this policy has tended to concentrate the clinical needs. Our rescue chief reports that the motel population is now on average more sick, including some psychiatrically complex and aggressive patients. He advises that some motel residents would be better served in subacute rehab rather than a motel. The five motels in Shelburne comprise 13% of our ambulance call volume, and the insurance reimbursements for these services tend to be minimal, creating a cost for the town general fund. Within the $10,000,000 of your program funding here, some provision for this type of concentrated local service liability that only some towns carry would be really helpful. It would also help to include medical and security resources in the staffing of any future shelters or motel conversions. I think another practical concern is the stated staffing ratio, 25 to 35 participants per case manager. In speaking with the motel operators in Shelburne, they tell me that they rarely see caseworkers visiting. The twenty twenty five point in time count was 3,386 homeless people, suggesting maybe a 100 case managers needed. Our public agencies are already chronically understaffed, so I worry that the needed social workers just can't be hired and trained quickly enough. The program shouldn't be set up to fail. I have a similar concern about the rapid two year sunset of the motel capacity from about a thousand currently to 400 or less. Two years is not much time to increase Zhip supply, expand shelters, and repurpose the motels. It's difficult to complete private or public construction projects this quickly, even in the best of circumstances. So I might suggest that a more gradual transition may be more achievable. Finally, the budgets appear low for the scale of the need. Unless the 3,000 number of participants are traced to a much smaller level, $10,000,000 might not be enough to pay all of the case managers plus facility expenses and contract services. The $7,000,000 biennial total for motel conversion also seems very low unless it's expected to leverage many other housing funding sources. Having visited all of Sheldon's motels, believe they need substantial investment. Their physical condition is tired, to put it mildly. The motel's renovation and repurposing would be fairly complex redevelopment projects. The consent of the current owners, local and state regulatory approvals, and rapid construction could all add cost and uncertainty. So to conclude, the town of Shelburne is a proud partner in the state's housing and human services policies. We are increasing supply, building at every price point, and helping to care for our most vulnerable neighbors. Our public safety and other services have supported the motel program operations for years now, sometimes at risk to the health of our own staff. I commend the overall intent of your age five ninety four, but I caution that it might move too fast with too few resources to succeed as written. Rather than fail, maybe it's wiser to provide adequate resources and time for the project to succeed. Thank you for your time. I'm happy to discuss it further and kept some other notes about some of our other town operations and anything that might be on your minds. What can I help with?

[Rep. Golrang "Rey" Garofano (Vice Chair)]: Thank you, Simon. Sure. First, I want to really commend Shelburne for partnering with the communities and really being a great partner in this crisis that we're all being impacted by. Our former vice chair, Jessica Rumstead, lived in Shelburne, and I know she did a lot of work and really commend your community and your town leadership on the work that you're doing. I have one question, I'll start us off. What is the collaboration of the town staff, or are you seeing any collaboration with AHS, with Agency of Human Services in the hotels and hotels?

[Matt Lawless (Town Manager, Shelburne)]: It's not real structured. So, the closest interaction I had was at those inflection points of discharge, where we were sometimes on short notice, kind of crisis managing and upcoming discharge. And I would work with AHS staff directly to try to understand the counts, impact of that rationing, the demographics of people who were going to hit the streets and helping us understand what change were we going to see on the first of the month that we could respond to. And so in my three years on the job, we've dealt with that, I guess, three times and have, Unfortunately, we've built up some experience with that of what are we gonna see next week and how do we do that. So for me, it's less of a routine relationship and more case by case. And it's not a one on one relationship between our police chief and senior AHS staff. It more works through intermediary. They work with Howard Center, and then Howard Center works with us.

[Rep. Doug Bishop (Member)]: Thank you for being here. And I've certainly seen the construction work going on in Shelburne. I appreciate that. Try to help alleviate our overall housing problems. You touched on some of the testimony that, Mayor Dungeons provided, regarding public safety, and you reflected upon some of the, public safety challenges that Shelburne has faced. She specifically referenced, I think, that the six motels count for 13 Is it six motels? Five. Five? Account for 13% of ambulance calls. But also noting that you're proud to be a partner with the state in trying to advance GA program or other efforts related to homelessness. What resources might the town need or other towns? Colchester is somewhat similarly situated in that we have a concentration of hotels that has taken fire, ambulance, and police services. So can you share more around what supports you think might be helpful to communities

[Matt Lawless (Town Manager, Shelburne)]: in the safety realm? Think about that a couple of ways, depending how far back the chain you want to work. So like, to the extent that we have a real hard time filling all of our police vacancy now our police department hasn't been fully staffed the entire time it got here, and it's it's hard to bring in new police officers. So over to the, you know, the rules for the police academy and making it easier for us to accommodate cadets with families, recruits coming from out of state. It's it's a pretty long employment pipeline for police officers. So those those rules are under the state's control, and and that that's some reform that would help us. Moving kind of closer to the immediate impacts, that lag that I mentioned where we we provide a lot of paramedic level care without reimbursement because the clients are uninsured. That's where most of our rescue revenue comes from. And so if more people had quality insurance that could be reimbursable to rescue, it wouldn't be a tax burden town. So that's a bigger health system for issues. And I allude to the sort of maybe general patch, like if there was a program alignment where you were budgeting for enhanced GA services, you know, instead of instead of just paying the motel, acknowledging that there's an impact on the small number of towns that have operations here, you know, let us be contract partners for you. So if if you're not gonna provide direct medical subsidies to the wraparound services and we're providing that care, maybe provide us a way to be in touch and account for that.

[Rep. Esme Cole (Member)]: Thank you. Yeah, it's great to hear about some of the progress with things being built, even though I know there's been hiccups along the way as there has been across the country. Curious about the ratio in terms of, I don't know if it's possible to measure in units, but in relative price points for what's being built. So what ratio of affordable to, I don't even know if military exists these days, to the beautiful homes?

[Matt Lawless (Town Manager, Shelburne)]: I had the same thought. I was wondering what were we doing proportionally? And it was about a year ago, I took this to the Burlington Continuing with Care Coalition and I gave them a housing pipeline update. And at that point, a year ago, we had about 400 in pipeline and about 100 of them were more or less subsidized. So we were achieving 25% affordability mix.

[Rep. Esme Cole (Member)]: 25% is subsidized? Yeah. Yes. 75% is

[Matt Lawless (Town Manager, Shelburne)]: not. Was market. Okay. And I was including in that different kinds of programs, like the 12 units of Howard Center that are adults with disabilities fully supported by Howard. The Bay Ridge CHT, their owner equity programs. Some of that is immediately off the street homeless recovery. Some of it is owner equity, home ownership for our subsidized tenants. So I was really proud of that wedge and level of inclusion. What we've gotten in our zoning ordinance is a little bit less 10%.

[Rep. Esme Cole (Member)]: Okay. Another question, if it's okay. I have a specific thing in mind in Shelburne. So I know that flashy, all the lights with the car wash.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Oh yeah.

[Rep. Esme Cole (Member)]: I know that project got some plaque. So I'm thinking about the story behind that and like what came up. Maybe I'm remembering hearing correctly that it may have been a housing potential there, but instead it was a really nice flashy car wash that was like taking up huge real estate on a really prime area of transportation. So curious about this story and if there are things we can learn from that.

[Matt Lawless (Town Manager, Shelburne)]: That particular scuffle was before my time. But what I heard was that there was a multifamily approval that had a complex development process and it didn't make it through. And approval never happened, never came to pass. And it was administratively much easier to do the buy right use of the car wash. So for the property owner, how can I get the best return on my land? We made it easier regulatorily to build a car wash than to build an apartment So

[Rep. Esme Cole (Member)]: that's where we want to dig right in.

[Matt Lawless (Town Manager, Shelburne)]: Just making that in the public interest. Absolutely. And the new zoning update that we've done just come a long way with our stat. That's auto oriented strip mall job. Businesses have a little bit less preference in our legs now, and there are more administratively simpler housing options. And the state has met us halfway there with things like Act two fifty exemptions for certain type of projects in that area. So I think we're we're hand in hand aligning our policy with our vision. It's

[Unidentified Committee Member]: I don't know. It's Ed.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Thank you so much. Could you talk about your work with older Vermonters and any ideas you may have or what you see in how we can make sure that they have access to services around housing? Just your input on that cohort of older girls.

[Matt Lawless (Town Manager, Shelburne)]: It's an important point connected to what your colleague from Colchester was saying about the rescue caseload. Our rescue caseload to the motels is 13% of that call volume. The reason it's 13% in Shelburne is because our ambulances spend most of the time going to our elder resources. We have a cluster of elder care and nursing home facilities at multiple income points. Know, Wake Robin is our largest employer, and then we have Shelburne Bay and others. So that's kind of an industry cluster in Shelburne, and it contributes a lot to our quality of life, the caliber of volunteerism that we have. So we lean into services for our elders with the rescue department, with parks and recreation, food shelf. I'm glad we have the GMT transportation access that we do. And even in encouraging volunteerism, I'm so fortunate to have elders with experience and time on their hands to volunteer in town. I appreciate that. Does that cover the basis of some of we're talking about?

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Thank you for the very age positive framing it that way, I really appreciate that. But also, just like in context of the work we're doing on this bill, do you see how we can better serve older Vermonters who find themselves in GA housing.

[Matt Lawless (Town Manager, Shelburne)]: You've got the priority for elders within that. You have sort of a segmentation of the tiering of of eligibility, and and it's important that elders are there. Then making sure that the facilities are appropriate because we're we're working with motels that were built in the, you know, seventies before ADA. It's some are, friendly for elder residents and some are not. So it may be important to keep an eye on as you're trying to stretch that 7,000,000 of conversion in the biennium as far as you can. If you're having to make doorways wider and put in elevators, you're gonna go through that money pretty fast.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Thank you. So

[Rep. Doug Bishop (Member)]: we've been talking about Vermont's ideas on this. Let's throw out Vermont's ideas for a moment. You worked, you said, for ten plus years in Virginia. I don't know if the communities you worked in were addressing homelessness, at least to the extent we are here. If they were, do you have any ideas from your experience in Virginia that you think we might want to look at? And then separate question from that, but also from your experience in Virginia, is there anything being done in the affordable housing realm that you don't think is on the radar or sufficiently on the radar?

[Matt Lawless (Town Manager, Shelburne)]: They're more in common than you think. The whiz, housing affordable housing developer in the Charlottesville Metro, but Charlottesville is very similar to Burlington. Sunshine grew up in Vermont, and and the borders kind of came up on NCHT and then brought that attitude to an amazing Habitat organization in Charlottesville. And so they're they're in touch in policy. But it is a it's an area where the housing market is under less pressure. So some of your your market rents are lower. So that does get me to the supply and demand argument, that if your housing supply is greater, your vacancy is greater, the costs come down, and you can live more affordably. So before I moved to Winooski, I rented on the Main Street in the Virginia town, my rents were $809,109 50. And as a town administrator, I was feeling pretty good about that. And so the sticker shock of, yes, I'm paid a little bit more here, but the housing cost has tripled. It stinks. And you all know this, it affects the entire workforce. So the ability to recruit public servants like paramedics, police officers, and town managers. But if it's unaffordable for me, it's unaffordable for our entire workforce. And I wanna represent that, everybody who's trying to do this, including the care providers. So this challenge of, you know, can we can we get a 100 outstanding social workers to help with this system when we don't have a great talent pipeline for them, we don't have places for them to live? This is hard.

[Rep. Doug Bishop (Member)]: Can I ask a follow-up? So you touched on the challenge of people who work in a town living in that town to a degree. My understanding is with that project that opened on Route 7, the CHT driven project, that there was an opportunity. Was there an opportunity for children employed individuals to sort of get first dibs? And if so, how did that

[Matt Lawless (Town Manager, Shelburne)]: Not an explicit first dibs, but we made sure that the flyers were well out to our staff in advance, where I was able to give a job verification reference to CHP. So I did that. And what we wound up with was, yeah, one town employee there who lives next to a state trooper, and the next door is one of my wife's coworkers at Windham School. And that's a lot that we're pretty proud of.

[Rep. Golrang "Rey" Garofano (Vice Chair)]: Thank you so much, Matt.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Yeah, thanks for having me. Yeah, it's very helpful.

[Rep. Golrang "Rey" Garofano (Vice Chair)]: It's on Zoom. On Zoom, okay.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Matt, I'm sorry I didn't hear your testimony in person, but I will go back and listen to it.

[Matt Lawless (Town Manager, Shelburne)]: Oh, thanks so much. Appreciate it.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: I want to give a shout out to your representatives from Shelburne who made us aware of some of the stuff that you've been dealing with and appreciate you coming in today.

[Matt Lawless (Town Manager, Shelburne)]: Good

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: afternoon, Jess. Nice to see you.

[Jess Kirby (Vice Chair, Opioid Settlement Advisory Committee)]: Hi, nice to see you too. Hi, Representative Wood. Hi, committee. Thanks for having me.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Of course. So committee, we are now switching gears and we're moving to H-six 60. Okay. And we are going to hear I'm just going to refresh people's memory a little bit. Last year, when we did our opioid settlement bill, One, we had a separate bill for the resources devoted to the opioid settlement special fund, and we're gonna continue that this year. We voted last week to take six sixty off because it's a short form and to put the guts into it. We'll be we have a wrap. I don't think it's it's okay to post it. Okay. Thank you. I'm sorry. Didn't tell Laurie it was okay to post it. So last year in our opioid settlement bill, we realized when we were trying to get sort of like the committee, so the committee's representation of their recommendations might be different from the departments. And so we enabled there to be two sets of recommendations. And we also was specific about the appointment of a vice chair who was not a member of the administration so that there will be a spokesperson for the committee independent of the departments. So those are changes that we made last year in the bill. And so Jess Kirby is I'll let you introduce yourself and your role on the committee. But I just wanted to remind people of that background from last year because we do have differences this year. So Jess, you have the floor.

[Jess Kirby (Vice Chair, Opioid Settlement Advisory Committee)]: Thank you. Thank you, Chair Wood. So yeah, my name is Jess Kirby. I was voted to be the vice chair on the Opioid Settlement Advisory Committee this year. Am also, And the seat that I'm in, is an appointed seat by Howard Center Safe Recovery Program, which is a seat, designated for a person with lived experience with opioid use, disorder specifically. So I'm definitely a person who's been impacted by opioid pharmaceutical companies. I started using actually OxyContin like a lot of people and things progressed for me from there. But I take my appointment on that committee very seriously because I've experienced a lot of harm related to opioid use. And I'm in long term recovery now and have been for a very long time. I'm a professional in the community now working with people with opioid use disorder. Currently, working with people who are currently struggling and helping people through that entire recovery process. I work at Vermont for Criminal Justice Reform. So I have professional and lived experience, you know, that I think is relevant to this committee. I was glad there's only a few seats that are designated for people with lived experience on the committee. And that's the seat that I'm in and also Vammar. And but the legislative language does say that people with experience should be lived experience should be prioritized even above those, like whenever possible. Those are just the ones that are, you know, designated specific. But so I was voted in as the chair. So I think what I'm here to do is just kinda give you guys a rundown of kind of, like, what's happened with the committee this year and some updates. Does that sound good, Chair Wood? Is that what you're hoping for?

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Yes. That and the the recommendations specifically that the committee made.

[Jess Kirby (Vice Chair, Opioid Settlement Advisory Committee)]: It would

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: be it would be helpful to know, and we're gonna see it on our our web page shortly. But it would it would be helpful to know if you, for instance, took votes on each recommendation or them as a package and whether it was unanimous or not, you know, that kind of stuff would be Okay,

[Jess Kirby (Vice Chair, Opioid Settlement Advisory Committee)]: sure. So I'll start by saying that this year, probably the big kind of news this year is that quite a few things changed basic based off of, you know, legislative, you know, guidance last year and also with guidance from the ACLU and recommendations that they made about, you know, processes for the committee and policies that should be adopted. So one of the big things that we did this year is we actually created official policies and procedures. So we have those, which is great. And many of those were adopted based off of, like I said, just recommendations from the legislature, that policy about the vice chair, recommendations from the ACLU. So some of the things that happened in terms, you know, that are noteworthy in terms of policies, you know, that we came up with our things like, including a vice chair, there was policies about appointments and terms. We named a specific meeting schedule that can be public. A lot of it's just about transparency, you know, for the public and the legislature. There's some language about increasing committee members' ability to have input on the agenda, and that like the state, you know, you know, the policy that the state should, you know, allow committee members to have input about the agenda and if they want something on the agenda, it should be there. We also started a process of approving minutes and made a policy about that which we weren't doing before. Just kind of formalizing the process a little more and making sure that it's, you know, really directed by, you know, that the meeting is directed by the committee for the most part. I do feel like that's happened, and it feels different this year with the adoption of a lot of these procedures. So, you know, I'm definitely happy about that. So we started approving minutes. We made a policy that we will review our proposal reviewing and collecting process each year. So it wouldn't just like get set, and that's what it is, that each year we'll talk about like, hey, this is the process that we did with, you know, requesting a proposal and reviewing a proposal last year. How do we feel about that? Do we feel like we need amendments to our process? Which I think is really good because, you know, this is still a fairly new process and committee. And I think every year, we have realized, hey, you know, this feels like a gap, or we should really be doing this. And so we made a policy about that. And then one of the big changes, I think, is that we had never done public voting in the past, that we only did it online, the state would, you know, or virtually the state would send us proposals, and we would have opportunity to discuss, but then we would actually vote in private. And so the ACLU's recommendation was to have public voting, like on the open meeting. And so this was the first year that we ever did that, where we went through proposal by proposal, committee member by committee member, you know, do you vote yes? Do you vote no? You know, so that seemed like, you know, a more organized, transparent part of the process too. And I think a lot of people have wanted that committee members and the public. And so we did that this year. And there was some language about transparency, like about proposal submission that like the commit that the state when proposals are submitted, that the state should, you know, share with the committee within five days, and then it should be public, like, if we've been able to review the proposal or not. But one topic, and I think something that we'll probably discuss this next year coming up is especially there's actually been some committee turnover for sure. And the legislature, when they made the original statute, as I'm sure you know, there was some language in there about for the first term that half of the seats would be three year appointments, and half of the seats would be four year appointments. So because of that, at the three year mark, there was a little turnover on the committee. So there's some newer members. And we just kind of all reached out to the committee decided to reach out to appointing organizations and ask them, hey, would you like this seat to be an initial three year seat or four year and let the appointing organization make the decision on that? So that's how that came to be. But going forward, seats will always be four years and people can be reappointed. But one of the big topics that I think has come up is we did not have as part of our policies and our process that we didn't have anything and we realized that we should. When things were funded previously, we were just kind of, you know, it's one year at a time, and we were just like allowing those people, of course, would have the opportunity, you know, people started new programs, you know, to put in another proposal. And so there were some instances this year where some of those proposals this year were not prioritized. The way that we do it is we review proposals, and the first step in the process is that we vote on who we want to hear more from, because of course, there's limited meetings. And if there was 100 proposals, we can't have presentations from 100 programs. So the first step is to review, okay, which do we want to learn more about? Who do we want to bring in for a presentation to learn more about this? And some of the programs that were funded previous years did not get prioritized by the committee to even make it to the presentation process. So what that means is if you don't make it to the presentation process, you're out. Like, that's the way the process has been. And so whoever does not make it to the presentation process will not end up having their proposal be voted for no matter what. And I think when things were just funded a previous year, and haven't even yet been able to come back and tell the committee, Hey, this is what I did with the funding last year that we got. Know, staff were hired, this many people were served, here's our data, you know, here's our outcomes, then I just think I think some community members, including myself, feel like that almost feels like a waste of money to just fund something for one year that wasn't intended to just be it wasn't something that was only needed for one year, like supplies or something that weren't going to be needed again. That it feels like there should be a formalized process for whoever is previously funded that asked for funding again should automatically be coming back and telling us what you did with that money, you know, what was the impact on people with opioid use disorder with this money? So, I know there were some people who were upset and reached out to the committee that they were funded for one year and then all of a sudden don't even get to present their data or share with the committee. We had some outreach from people who were not happy about that. One of them was Caroline Butler. I've recused myself on the voting on this one, but it's a joint proposal between Johnson Health Center and VCJR. And that was not brought to the point of presenting, so no data was able to be shared, etc, about the impact of that. And then also someone came on public comment representing hireability. And her name was Sarah Lauderville, and she came from the Vermont Center for Independent Living. And she was very upset that hireability had a pretty big appropriation the year before that with settlement funds. And it's a statewide thing. Many staff were hired. Hundreds of people were connected with services and are getting ongoing services. And without a word, they kind of just were not prioritized to, or, you know, didn't make it to even be able to share their data about the impact. So she was kind of saying like, isn't this silly to fund a big program like this for one year, and then not even be able to come show you whether or not that's been impactful and we should fund it again. And so, I think committee members, you know, as you know, it seems like people agree that we should probably be hearing about what people do with the money that we're recommending. So I think that will be a change that I at least will propose for, and I think we'll discuss for coming up for this next term, that we should automatically be hearing from everybody that we funded previously to understand what the impact was with the funding. So that's kind of been one issue that was identified.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Thank you. Yeah. We have a question. Actually, one of the changes that we made in the bill, in the underlying statute last year, was about addressing outcomes. And so in order to do that, we would I would imagine that you would have to hear from the people that you had that had received funding. So Definitely. That that makes sense. Yeah. And and I might suggest for things there are four key things that you already know that the legislature agreed that should be funded on an ongoing basis. One of the things you might consider is what the sometimes funds like these are used as for pilot projects or for things that might be a way to try out a different approach or, in fact, for something that could be one time.

[Jess Kirby (Vice Chair, Opioid Settlement Advisory Committee)]: Yep.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: But those that are not one time, like the hireability proposal Yep. You know, it they need to have a a source of ongoing funding. Totally. So Yeah. Sorry that they thought that that was gonna be the case here. But

[Jess Kirby (Vice Chair, Opioid Settlement Advisory Committee)]: Yeah. Yeah.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: So, Representative Garofano has a question.

[Rep. Golrang "Rey" Garofano (Vice Chair)]: Thank you. Jess, thank you so much for the information. And I'm really excited to hear about some of the changes that you guys are starting to implement and kind of you touched on this a little bit, Sherwood, but thinking about the priorities of the budgets, the four priorities that we have, the four areas, and then thinking about the outcomes that you're asking for, are you thinking about any process to guide people who are applying it to let them know these are the priorities, the statewide priorities that we're working towards. And then we can kind of have a way of measuring outcomes over time, and then just making sure that you're asking all the grantees, like previous year grantees, to come back with the same, like you're asking the same questions of everybody. Yes. So have, so the committee and us, it comes time to approve the funding request to have like a really easy way to determine impacts and outcomes

[Jess Kirby (Vice Chair, Opioid Settlement Advisory Committee)]: over And

[Rep. Golrang "Rey" Garofano (Vice Chair)]: hopefully have a way of making huge progress toward, you know, we're going to have to study for a while. So kind of working towards these specific goals rather than, you know, one time money here or things that are not addressing, but also letting the community and the providers know, these are the important steps. So we want your applications to address these things. Right.

[Jess Kirby (Vice Chair, Opioid Settlement Advisory Committee)]: Yeah, that makes so much sense. And I think I actually love what you just suggested. And I think I'll suggest to the committee about maybe when when people have a recommendation, and if they do get the appropriation, having that maybe the committee should set some specific areas that we're going to ask for you to collect on maybe that come from those four things, like, so everybody reports on the same thing, you know, that would be really useful. And I think I'll suggest that to the committee. One of the other things that's a little hard with the process is that, you know, when we are making recommendations, say something is fund, you know, is goes through, by the time the committee meets again, is making, you know, is making their recommendations again, sometimes they just barely got their contract from the health department in like October, you know, and say they're starting a program and they're like, we want to hear what you did with the funding, you know, and the funding is like, well, they're like, well, we got the contract, like about a month ago. So we're just starting to hire for it, you know. And so I think some committee members like I've just noticed that it kind of gives people the impression like, Oh, well, nothing's happened with the money. But that's not it. It's just because when we do this, we're voting on things for a year out. So they're just barely, you know, so that is a bit of a problem with data reporting. Almost seems like things like, I don't know if they need to automatically get funded, it seems like get funded twice or like, how do you, like not give funding again to a program that you prioritize, prioritize the year before, without hearing, that seems like it's kind of wasting money just sprinkling here sprinkling there, know, you want to hear what this did, and that can be hard when it's people are just getting contracts and stuff. So anyway, just a note that I'm

[Rep. Golrang "Rey" Garofano (Vice Chair)]: thinking Just to let you know, we have raised those concerns with the department and they have communicated that they're prioritizing the contracting issue because that's statewide, but especially in the health department. We've raised it with the commissioner and he stated that that's one of his priorities. So hopefully those logjams are going to kind of clear up.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Yeah. Sure.

[Jess Kirby (Vice Chair, Opioid Settlement Advisory Committee)]: Yes. Okay.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Yes. So in in looking at the email that we got from the committee Yep. And I don't have the underlying statute right here, but I know we made a change last year that said that that the committee needed to assure that it's the committee and the department need to assure that its recommendations were in accordance with section 47 something B. And I see that you have those, the five things that you just talked about in terms of how you were guide you you were guiding your decision making process.

[Jess Kirby (Vice Chair, Opioid Settlement Advisory Committee)]: Yep. Yep.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: And but those are all good. They're not necessarily the same as what's required in statute. So I guess I would just want to caution the committee that Okay. You have to follow the statute, and then you can you have to then you can sort of overlay, you know, if we're doing in this area, is it gonna meet, you know, one or more of these five things? But you have to follow the statute first.

[Jess Kirby (Vice Chair, Opioid Settlement Advisory Committee)]: Right. Always. Okay. Yeah. Alright. Thank you.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: And then sure. I'll make sure that

[Matt Lawless (Town Manager, Shelburne)]: goes right.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Why don't we move now to the recommend your specific recommendations? And the department's gonna be here tomorrow to go over their recommendations, which are a little bit different than yours. And Uh-huh. Appreciate appreciate that background about how things have changed and evolved, which, of course Yeah. We would expect them to over time because it was a new fund and it was a new committee, and there have been changes on the committee. And so I appreciate the time that you all have spent talking about process and how to be more transparent and to listen to the feedback from previous grantees and things like that.

[Jess Kirby (Vice Chair, Opioid Settlement Advisory Committee)]: Thank you. Yeah. We're really trying to do that and and listen to the public and you know, because yeah. We just yeah. We take seriously trying to, you know, be responsive to all those things. And so

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: gonna mention to committee members, I just forwarded you the so we have the draft bill, but I just forwarded an email. Thank you. If you look in email, you can actually see the memo that came from the settlement committee. I just sent it just barely. Thank you. Okay, go ahead, Yeah,

[Jess Kirby (Vice Chair, Opioid Settlement Advisory Committee)]: no problem. Thank you, Cherwood. List. So, I'll go through them one by one. But I will generally say that this year is a little bit different than previous years, where there's not as much, harm reduction prioritizing in this one. There's a little bit more recovery oriented, which is always, we need to be prioritizing both of those things. And, but so one of the main topics that we talked about a lot this year was, you know, increasing recovery residences and recovery residence beds, as we know that there's been a lot of loss in them. We've lost beds and increasing those. One of the things that I, you know, was strongly wanting to vote for was the scholarships for recovery residences. You know, I've just worked with so many people over the years who have had barriers with getting in the door because of funding and, you know, barriers with being able to keep up with, you know, paying the rent while they're there. And so I'm really happy that scholarship money was prioritized. And there is quite a bit of money prioritized for recovery residents expansion and to continue funding recovery residences that already exist. So those were kind of some of the things that were bigger chunks of money. But there is so there's a couple different recovery residents proposals that were funded. So there's Green Mountain Recovery Community, there's Vermont Alliance for Recovery Residences, there's also there was another one, let me see. Oh yeah, that's the scholarship. So both of those. Then another one that I'm pretty excited about, I've talked to Doctor. Wilson who's running this and it really needs some ramping up because it hasn't been highly utilized, but it is something I think is really important, which is the prevent initiative, which is about EMS and buprenorphine induction Theresa with through EMS like when someone has an there's a kind of a window where you can help people to be able to access buprenorphine while when they've had an overdose where they won't have to be suffering from precipitated withdrawal, which is a really severe and expedited form of withdrawal that when people experience it once they do not want to try buprenorphine again. Buprenorphine is one of the best ways that we have to reduce overdose deaths. So anything that helps people access that is very important, and I think totally makes sense for the committee to prioritize. And so, but when you overdose there's a window of where when you've had naloxone where you actually can be inducted onto buprenorphine without having the risk of that precipitated withdrawal. And so Doctor. Wolfson at UVMMC, he's the head of the emergency department discovered that. And, you know, or I mean, maybe he didn't discover that, but he knows about that. And so they've created a program where people can induct that way. And hopefully that will help more people that want to get on to buprenorphine, are having those challenges be able to access it. And there are the peer services with the Department of Corrections was also prioritized by the committee this year. That's about, know, making sure that people are connected with recovery coaches in the facility and then upon their release. So I know a lot of people are excited about that one. The outreach and engagement staff for preferred providers, that one was actually I'm really glad that that keeps getting prioritized by the legislature and by the committee, because I actually was in the first year, know, one of the people that was kind of really strongly saying that this is an area that really needs some support, you know, outreaching to people who are really disconnected, people that are really high risk for overdose, you know, people who are lost to contact from the clinics, from their treatment providers, to have people that are specific, specifically that their position is specific to trying to connect with that population, people in treatment, reduce barriers to treatment, doing case management, that kind of thing. That's been prioritized for quite a few years now. And I'm really happy to see that because it's about tangible concrete support for people at high risk of overdose. So I think that's really important. I see you have a question. I see a hand.

[Rep. Brenda Steady (Member)]: Thank you. Go ahead, representative. I would like to see, because I'm a data person, I would like to see the repeats on here. I would like all the data of where the money was spent last year.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: So Yeah. So I have an announcement for you. Yeah. So I think we should be getting I have a draft of something already that was prepared by JFO, but we should be getting a tomorrow?

[Nolan Langweil (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Yes. I'd like to tell you that I will give it I'll have a and a pen and and pen tomorrow.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: So we will have one for tomorrow. You. That was Nolan Langwell from JFO.

[Jess Kirby (Vice Chair, Opioid Settlement Advisory Committee)]: Awesome. So, I would say that's kind of a summary of some of the things that were prioritized this year. So, you know, some differences this year, some things that are being prioritized again, like, you know, the DOC, you know, one with the peer support, some recovery resident stuff, a lot of recovery resident stuff, the outreach engagement staff, Swinuski Partnership for Prevention, some prevention stuff. So, you know, diversity, but not quite as much as we've seen in the past. You know, prioritization for, you know, definitely people who are really, really struggling, but that is how you know people at high risk of overdose, but that is also, you know, happening with legislative intent, things that have already been funded, know, and that the legislature has committed to, you know, I know that's been through with contingency management, the OPC, the syringe service programs, and, you know, the outreach engagement workers. So those things are happening with, they just happen to be carryover for some of those things. But I so think there's a lot of diversity, you know, when you consider those things that the legislature has already prioritized, plus these recommendations. You know, there's quite a bit of diversity in the things that are being funded. And yeah, so, but, you know, we got less proposals this time, I would say, which, you know, than in the past, it seemed. But, you know, it's hard. We also want to come up with a way of not We don't have a great way of when something doesn't get prioritized to the level of giving a presentation and moving on that Ruth Hardy has talked about this, some Senator Ruth Hardy, that people sometimes just feel like, Oh, these are great providers trying to do great work. They probably have a great proposal, you know, and it's just kind of like, Nope, you're chopped, you know, and you don't want people to feel like that. Know, we want to find a way to like, let people know that not every single thing can be funded or brought to the point of a presentation. So we want to find a way to just be responsive to understanding that it's very hard for people to have these ideas and really want to make an impact and not make it to that point.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Thank you. I have a specific question around several of the proposals that OSAC is recommending that BDH did not recommend. Okay. That that seem to they're not all, but there's several around prevention work and particularly prevention work with youth. And I'm just trying to figure out there's, again, an increase in the money coming from the cannabis funds, the excise tax. And so was there any discussion about that would seem a more appropriate funding source for some of these things. Was there any discussion about that?

[Jess Kirby (Vice Chair, Opioid Settlement Advisory Committee)]: No. What I don't think so. I haven't missed any meetings. What you just said is not ringing a bell to me. I don't think we discussed that. And I didn't know that the committee's recommendation or that the health department's recommendations were different than the committee's. I didn't know that. So, no, I don't think I don't think we did discuss that. Okay. Yeah.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Well and and you might not have even been aware of that unless the health department made you aware of that. Right? And so okay.

[Jess Kirby (Vice Chair, Opioid Settlement Advisory Committee)]: Yes. I don't think I was aware. Yeah.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Thank you. You're welcome. Any other questions for this witness? Thank you so much for being here, Jess. Appreciate your work on the committee. You've stuck with it. And right, and all of your work. Right.

[Jess Kirby (Vice Chair, Opioid Settlement Advisory Committee)]: Yeah. Thank you.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: But it's great to have some continuity, you know, so that, you know, you you recognize the changes that have happened over the last three years. Right. Not everybody will. So

[Jess Kirby (Vice Chair, Opioid Settlement Advisory Committee)]: Right. Right.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Yes. That's great. So thank you so much for all

[Jess Kirby (Vice Chair, Opioid Settlement Advisory Committee)]: of your work. You're welcome. It's what say.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Well, I was gonna say, Jess, I really appreciate your leadership as vice chair through this. You did a wonderful job

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Thank you.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Keeping a few things into place, and I know what time to God rather chaotic. So thank you so much, brother.

[Jess Kirby (Vice Chair, Opioid Settlement Advisory Committee)]: I really appreciate that. Thank you so much. I just wanted to say, like, I appreciate this committee so much. I really mean that, you know, you I really feel like you all, like, truly care about this so much and take seriously these settlement funds so much. And I like, I feel like I'm gonna cry as a person that's struggled. Opioids have had such a big impact on my life. You know, even to today, like I'm, I'm in long term recovery for a really long time, I'm, I'm still on methadone, you know, like I'm a person with living experience, know, I'm technically I'm still opioid dependent and representing as vice chair on a committee like this, like I never thought I would see myself in a place like this. And where I was a person experiencing overdoses to be able to represent on something like this. You all like started the process of making there be a vice chair. And, you know, just making sure that the committee, you know, is really prioritized and respected and have just really taken seriously the legislation about this. And I know that and I know a lot of other committee members know that. And I just wanted to tell you, it just means so much to me. Thank you all. Thanks for having me.

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

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Thank you.

[Jess Kirby (Vice Chair, Opioid Settlement Advisory Committee)]: Bye. Bye bye.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Have great day. Thank you. Okay, committee. So the bell's not ringing, but they're going to be momentarily. So but yeah, go ahead.

[Rep. Doug Bishop (Member)]: Can I confirm something? We have a version of this from Katie. There's some that's in yellow. Would that be the Department of Health's recommendations where they differ?

[Katie McLain (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Sure, can comment that. Katie McIne, Office of Legislative Counsel. So I was asked to put all of the recommendations in one document. So there are some appropriations just from the Department of Health, some just from the advisory committee, some are the same. But where there is a recommendation on the same topic for different amounts, the yellow is the health department.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: And when get the spreadsheet tomorrow, you'll be able to see very clearly what the differences are. And you'll also, to Brenda's question, you'll also be able to see what was funded previously and what was not. And we are gonna hear from the department tomorrow about their recommendations. Okay? Okay, Laurie.