Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Good morning, everyone. I wanna start off this morning a little bit differently than we normally do. The first thing that I saw on my phone this morning was an emergency weather alert text about extreme cold weather coming this weekend. And so we're heading into another weekend where people are gonna be at risk. And this morning, I would really like to take a moment a moment to recognize the lives that we've lost for people who have been homeless and for the workforce and volunteers out there who have been working so diligently to try to save those lives and to try to help people. So I just want to take a moment of silence while we acknowledge that. Thank you. I'd like to welcome this morning the Department for Children and Families team for part two of their budget testimony. We hold up your book, I hold up your book, and we see all my little tabs in it. We appreciate, and I know I said this once before, but I want to put it on the record in this room, all the work that went into it by everyone who participated in putting it together. Thank you very much. It's really helped us dig to into some of the details and also have a broader understanding of some of the things that maybe we don't spend as much time on that we see in the book. So we obviously have a lot of questions. You've kind of gone through the basics of the budget. And I just want to check-in with you to see if there's because we can spend a lot of time on questions. I'm just letting you know that. Just trying to check-in with you. Sorry. I'm just trying to get to my committee's web page, and it doesn't want to go very quickly. Is there anything in particular that you have that you want to share? Are you just going to pull up your ups and downs? Is that what want

[Megan (DCF Budget/Finance Lead)]: to do right now? So I think the last time we were in here, we got through admin, And so that's a choice of our 13 appropriations. So we were going to start with FSD and just kind of work through. Okay. Oh, sorry. Megan's speaking. Sorry.

[Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: In terms of the presentation itself that we have planned, representative Steady and I had sent some questions with the if this is in the presentation, fine. If it's not, we'd like to hear the responses. So since we didn't really hear any responses, I assume they're also part of your presentation.

[Megan (DCF Budget/Finance Lead)]: Who did the questions go to?

[Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: To Commissioner Reyke. Deputy Commissioner Reyke. So

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Representative Donahue, we're actually going to them go through the ups and downs in relatively quick fashion. And then we are going to kind of go rewind and we're going to take each sort of major division and ask and hopefully have answered questions.

[Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: And we can start with family service. Well, just meant as part of the presentation is what we had asked about. If it's Yeah, talking about the sort

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: of programmatic question and answer period. Why don't you go ahead?

[Megan (DCF Budget/Finance Lead)]: Yes. And I don't know if I was planning on starting with family services and then skipping just a few residential treatment because Janet is in housewives and means testifying right now. So I'm then coming back to CDD. Okay. That's fine. Okay.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: So for committee members, we have this spreadsheet on our webpage. Yes.

[Megan (DCF Budget/Finance Lead)]: So starting with family services, which is B317, skipping past all the regular assessments, salaries and fringe, The first item is the TANF revenue realignment that we've talked about in admin. It's a three part net neutral move of funding between admin, FSD, and reach up to align our state funds with where we have the most opportunity to maximize our maintenance of effort, and then our federal funds where we can maximize federal funding. Then Megan, can you make that just a touch bigger? I think you have

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: room on the screen. Nelly's driving. Oh, yeah. Nelly. Alright. Someplace in between there. We We still want to see the whole thing on the screen. That's the

[Erica Radke (Deputy Commissioner, Family Services Division, DCF)]: Yeah,

[Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: it could only get marginally bigger.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Yeah, well, that's close. Yeah. So

[Megan (DCF Budget/Finance Lead)]: the next line item is the social worker class action. And that's just we had a class action last year for social workers that just brought them off a pay grade, and so we have to fill that into our annualized budget this year. Skipping past the ISS and that true ups, the revenue, which is net neutral, going to grants out. The first line item is our private non medical institutions or PNMI inflation factor. That is the adjustment based on inflation for the rates that we pay for PNMI institutions. That is calculated annually by ADVA rate setting. We have a net neutral transfer. And then we have the transportation contract pressure. I know we've discussed this a lot in BAA. It's the same line item from BAA. Can I ask

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: you about the PNMI? I know that nursing homes are statutorily required. Are the PNMI facilities statutorily required?

[Erica Radke (Deputy Commissioner, Family Services Division, DCF)]: I don't believe they are, but I need to double check.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Okay. I would appreciate if you would double check that because honestly, if if it's not statutorily required, it's gonna be on the list of things that we consider just because nobody else is getting I shouldn't I shouldn't forecast, but I doubt that anybody else is gonna get a cost of living this year. Let's just put it that way. Oh, do you mean that the cost of living is statutorily required, but the institutions themselves are still No, not the institutions themselves, the cost

[Megan (DCF Budget/Finance Lead)]: of living. Yeah, that was in statute a few

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: years ago. Okay, that's my question. All right. We think it's second. A question Okay. And answer. Thank you.

[Megan (DCF Budget/Finance Lead)]: So then we have our substitute care and our subadopt caseload and utilization. Again, similar to BAA, we're seeing a downward trend for our subcare caseloads and then an upward trend for our subadopt. And that basically means our subsidized care, our subsidized adoptions, have more children that are in permanent placements for families, and then we have fewer children in our custody. Then we have the post permanence program, which is a 25% reduction we are posing here. This would reduce the eligible population to only those families whose adoption was facilitated by DCF. And this would represent a loss of services to families who adopted a child outside of the DCF process and would be a decrease in funding for NFI, Lund and Easter Seals.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: So essentially, they're mainly increased than last year?

[Megan (DCF Budget/Finance Lead)]: Don't know, it was post permanence last Yeah.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: I'll wait till we get to the programmatic stuff. Sorry. I'm breaking my own rule now. Sorry. Just remind me,

[Megan (DCF Budget/Finance Lead)]: kick me or hit me. The nurturing parent program proposing a 50% reduction, and this reduces the program that provides parenting classes to eligible households. These funds are administered by Prevent Child Abuse Vermont. We then are proposing the elimination of the Post Adoption Consortium program. This is a program that has been underutilized historically. Last year, we only spent $2,000 out of the $200,000 budget, so we're just proposing that we use that to meet our other obligations. Then we have two line items for Family First Prevention Services Act, or FFPSA, that we're proposing cutting entirely. These were two programs that were established a few years ago to help us meet the requirements of the FFPSA, which would allow us to draw in more 4U revenue. However, the main thing preventing us from being able to draw in the 4U revenue right now is the CCWIS system not being in existence. And so even with these two programs, we wouldn't be able to draw in that additional revenue. And these two programs have never really been operationalized for a variety of reasons. And so it wouldn't be a loss of services to households in Vermont. And so given all of the difficult decisions we had to make about the budget this year, we felt like places where we aren't negatively impacting service provision already in existence was a better place to take cuts. So the first one is the aftercare cut, which would provide services to youth who have exited a residential placement, just regular check ins. And then the other one was prevention services, which would be services to prevent children from coming into air custody. So that's family services. I was going to skip to secure residential treatment.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: That's fine. That's fine. That's That's same budget team.

[Megan (DCF Budget/Finance Lead)]: So that's actually the second to last appropriation. So it's $3.27. Thank you. And there are only two items there. One is an ISF that's very small, and then the other is the crisis stabilization funding. So we're proposing adding $1,000,000 to our budget to support our crisis stabilization program. In State Disclosure 27, we will be operating both the Red Clover facility, which is a temporary facility, secure treatment, and then a short term stabilization treatment facility in Windham, known as West River Haven. And so we are proposing funding the West River Haven, since that's a permanent facility, out of our base budget and continuing to request one time funding for Red Clover, which would amount to $4,000,000 So that is the secure treatment plans. Do we want to keep going through it? We could go back to CBD and just plug through it

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: if you have questions. I think that's fine because we're going to get to the programmatic questions and we can wait until Janet comes back. CBD is getting past the regular stuff.

[Megan (DCF Budget/Finance Lead)]: And then we have a few The

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: number just because it's $3.80. Thank you.

[Megan (DCF Budget/Finance Lead)]: So we a small travel savings proposed as part of our we were really looking in all the couch cushions. And then we have, in our grants out section, we have a revenue realignment, which again is just realigning revenue between our various major operating buckets, personal services grants and operating to make sure we have the federal funds and the general funds where they're being utilized. The second line item is the childcare revenue adjustment. Similar to BAA, we have to send $2,500,000 of the childcare special funds to tax. It was appropriated in both locations last year. It shouldn't have been. So it's a down in the special fund for us, we have to backfill it with a general fund. And then we have a couple net neutral moves to make corrections to last year's budget, just the next three lines. Then we get to the child care special fund shortfalls. So we have been aligning our special fund spending authority based on how much the the state economists are projecting. So last year, you may recall, we adjusted it based on the state economists' forecasts for the special fund. This year, those forecasts have decreased, and so we are kind of doing the opposite. We're reducing our special fund spending authority and then increasing the general fund for the program. Then we get to the programmatic adjustments. So the first line item on there is the Strengthening Families Programmatic Cut. This is the elimination of a grant program for family supports and childcare programs targeted to Sunset as funds were equitably distributed were not equitably distributed, and additional funds are available via Act 76 investments that provide the same services. So we're proposing ending that program. We are also proposing a $100,000 reduction to the child care capacity grants. This would leave $900,000 remaining in that budget. And since we have a very large one time award for our preschool development grant, Birth to Five program for state fiscal year, year calendar year 2026, that's also available to offset this. We then have our Emergency Financial Relief Utilization cut. This is funding that supports the emergency needs of child care providers at risk of closure. The remaining budget is aligned with what was actually dispersed in state fiscal year '25, which was $156,000 Then we have the childcare eligibility agreement efficiencies. This is a reduction in funding to grants for our 12 community childcare support agencies, or CCCSAs, based on the usage of that budget. It was doubled in state fiscal year '24, but we haven't been utilizing the full amount. They haven't been drawing it down from their grants, so this is a reduction just to align with that. And there remains 2,500,000 in this line. And then the final line item is the Children's Trust Fund program. This is the elimination of contribution to the Children's Trust Fund's annual grant making program for a variety of child serving programs. There's federal funding authority still in that line, but the federal funds haven't been available for several years, and then it's the reduction of the state funds as well. So that's CBD. OCS there's only really one line in OCS that I would call attention to, and that's the judiciary cooperative agreement state contribution reduction. This is a reduction in general fund provided to the judiciary to offset their non-4D eligible family court costs as DCF is taking on a larger part of the costing work, and so this is really to offset those costs for DCF. Then we move on to the aid for the aged, blind and disabled. We have two lines here similar to BAA. There's an up this time for our admin. This is based on increased per payment costs that we have to pay the federal government to administer the program. And then as we have shown in our slideshow, if you remember, there's been a decreasing trend in caseload, so we do see it down in the caseload line as well. Which brings us to general assistance. The first line item is the elimination of the Social Security Specialist Agreement. This is an agreement that provides support to the GA eligible households in applying for Social Security benefits. The analysis of the data did not demonstrate that there was a substantial increase in applications for or approval by the SSA as a result of this agreement. We have an increase to our support services caseload budget based on utilization last year. And this covers the costs of dental, burials, abortions, physicians, and pharmacy costs. Then we have a slight down for our personal needs and incidentals. Recognize that analysis needs to be done on this program to understand the cross over between populations in the various housing programs and how that impacts the P and I utilization as we move forward towards our new version of the housing initiative. And then the last line item is a very large reduction to the general assistance transitional plan. And so this is removing of the base funding for the hotel motel program. We proposed that as part of our housing initiative that it will be funded with one time funding in, say, fiscal year twenty seven. And so this allows for that additional base funding to be invested in other components of the housing environment, and this retains limited funding for contracted hotel rooms in ESG based GA appropriation. Moving on to three squares, we just have the $2,000,000 of federal spending authority that we're asking for here. This is just based on the utilization that we've seen come in through our EBT programs. And this, as a reminder, is just the cash out portion of the EBT program. And then moving to Reach Up, we have a $3,300,000 caseload adjustment reduction. And again, this is based on the caseloads that were projected by our consultant, as well as the average cost per case projected back and trending out for the next year. The next line item is the First program cut. This proposes the elimination of the Reach First program, which provides short term targeted support for households as part of a diversion strategy. This is a program that was meant to divert people from Reach Up and only a small number of households are served by the program. We can absorb the costs within the Reach Up budget. On average, there are 15 cases per month, so it's a relatively small group of people. We then have a reduction to our pregnant and parenting residential beds. This reduces the maximum number of DCF contracted beds at Lund by three beds to a total of 23 beds remaining. Lund has not had more than 22 beds utilized by DCF at one time for more than a year. So we feel like this still provides us with a little capacity there. I'm sorry, were you repeating that one part? Yes, so we were contracting for 26 beds, but we've not been able to use more than 22 over the last eight months. Last year, you said? Or last how many years? We pulled data from the last eighteen months, I think. Okay, sorry. Thank you. So the Social Security agreement pad similar to the GA program. This is the elimination of the agreement that provides support to reach eligible households in applying for Social Security benefits. Again, we're not seeing a huge connection between those people who utilize these services and the percent that were approved by SSA. And then we have a Reach Up Housing Agreement cuts, and this is the elimination of grants to provide housing case management and supports to the Reach Up households. Our housing initiative proposes some fairly large increases in case management, and we think that we don't really need to be operating two separate programs, that those services for this population can be achieved via the other case management investments that we're proposing. And then for LIHEAP, we just have one line. It's the increase of our federal spending authority. I know there was some concern about LIHEAP's appropriations this year, but we did get our regular award, our award is larger than our spending authority. We've been requesting additional spending authority the last few years via the process. But this is just to build it into the budget to remove that extra step. Then we get to the Office of Economic Opportunity. I'm gonna skip past salaries and fringe. We do have the two limited service positions that we saw in BAA. These positions really support a lot of different supports for the programs that OEO oversees in their grants. And so it's really important that we have that capacity, especially when we're investing such large amounts of increased money into the emergency housing or the shelter expansions in the coming year. We then have the annualization of our permanent supportive housing program. This was supported via federal funds last year, which have expired. So we need to backfill it with GC, which is partially federally funded. We have our cold weather shelter. This was funded via one time appropriation in state fiscal year 'twenty six, but we are building it into the base for state fiscal year 'twenty seven. We have the base impact of the one time housing opportunity shelter expansions that we're working on in 'twenty six once they'll be operating in 'twenty seven, so that's the 6,200,000.0. And then we have the offsets for the positions. And then that gets us to the emergency housing, the housing initiative portion of OEO's budget. And I don't know if you want to skip that.

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

[Megan (DCF Budget/Finance Lead)]: have another slide

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: deck for that. We've reviewed all of these, so I don't

[Erica Radke (Deputy Commissioner, Family Services Division, DCF)]: think you need to go

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: through each one. Yeah, we've seen that. That doesn't mean we don't have lots of questions. It just means that we're aware of the dollars that you got in there.

[Megan (DCF Budget/Finance Lead)]: Then we go to weatherization. The only item in weatherization that's not the regular items is the $1,000,000 of federal funds. This is to align with our DOE award, which again, we've been addressing via the last couple of years. And we already did SRTF. So that brings us to disability determination services. The only real item here is there's a $45,000 or $46,000 adjustment for the cost of living increases for the temps that we need to contract with for physician services for the work that DGS does. And that is the budget. There are some one time appropriations. I already touched on the main ones, which are the hotel emergency housing and the $4,000,000 for Red Clover. And then we also have a $6,000,000 one time proposal for shelter expansions.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Okay. Where shall we start? Since Rep. Donahue and Rep. Steady actually had already submitted their questions, why don't we move to Family Services first? And it'd be lovely if we could have you upfront, Erica, just so not going back and forth. There's a third chair there someplace that you want to share. Or there was. And I do want to extend my appreciation for people being here in person today. Really It really makes a difference, I know that it's a hassle, but I really do appreciate it. So thank you all for being here. Good morning, Erica. It's nice to see you.

[Erica Radke (Deputy Commissioner, Family Services Division, DCF)]: Good morning. For the record, I'm Erica Radke, Deputy Commissioner of the Family Services Division. I did see your questions, Rep. Donahue and Rep. Steady, and I saw that he offered us opportunity to have a meeting, and I think it would be better for us to have a meeting and go through them line by line. I did see that there were some issues where you cited a page number in the report and that didn't really correspond to FSD information. So I want to make sure I'm answering the questions that you do have.

[Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: Thank you. I was just opening up the pages aligning with questions, and the first one, it's like, why does it say page 54? There's nothing about that.

[Megan (DCF Budget/Finance Lead)]: So obviously, I haven't looked at all of them,

[Golrang “Rey” Garofano (Vice Chair)]: but that one clearly I'm not sure.

[Erica Radke (Deputy Commissioner, Family Services Division, DCF)]: That's what I'm experiencing.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Right.

[Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: You know, I think, I guess that makes sense. I'm a little confused by why you would say that now and not get back to us and say, I think we should meet so that we could have planned a meeting. Understand. Since we didn't hear back, we assumed as was expressed in the email that it would be part of today's presentation. Oh, okay. I didn't know there

[Erica Radke (Deputy Commissioner, Family Services Division, DCF)]: was an email that said that. I saw this came in Thursday, but I'm definitely happy to go through it in detail with you.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: So I think that probably everyone recognizes that we're doing things a little differently this year and we are hearing much more detail as a full committee, whereas previously you might have just with the team. So I think that there are probably some high level things. So things like really trying to understand, I don't know what your questions are.

[Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: Some of them are high level that I think we could raise that up. Don't others for more detail? Okay, why don't you go ahead and

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: ask those questions? Because we haven't all

[Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: seen your email. Right, I understand. So the page number's wrong, but I think we're familiar with the topic. The line on access and visitation is level funded, and I'm assuming that that relates to the report we had asked for about visitation and inequity among counties.

[Megan (DCF Budget/Finance Lead)]: That's correct.

[Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: So we're just wondering, because we had asked for a proposal around the funding and the planning to make that equitable, So is it correct that maybe you can explain why there isn't any increase there in order to expand into counties that have no program at all.

[Erica Radke (Deputy Commissioner, Family Services Division, DCF)]: Absolutely, and what we've been doing in the report that we issued showed that we are doing a survey to make sure not only that we do get what you asked for, which is to have level funded and equal access across the counties, But in order to do that, we needed to have a much more deliberate process to find out what exactly is the problem, where the needs are, and what because since the counties are so different, some needs are different in a more rural county than one that's more in an urban area. So what we're still doing is assessing that information, and I do know that, I believe it's Jennifer Pullman, was going to present some information in terms of how much she thought it might take in order to make it applicable across the state, and that's information that she'll be bringing to us as well, and then we'll continue to do our due diligence to make sure that we can provide you with numbers that make sense and that are actually grounded in the data. So basically what I'm saying is we are doing what you ask, but we're doing it in a thoughtful and deliberate manner.

[Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: So will that be something that comes to us later in the next month or so so that we can address it, begin to address it this year? Or is that just we're going to lose another year of access for things?

[Erica Radke (Deputy Commissioner, Family Services Division, DCF)]: We're working on it as quickly as possible. And I'm anticipating, given that Jennifer Fulman has actually produced some numbers for us, that we should be able to get it this year.

[Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: Thank you. So the next, on a broad level, I think we recognize it's certainly a very positive thing that we have diverting more children. Fewer children are going into foster care and adoptions are going up. But it seems, again, without going through every line we can talk about later, that the prevention supports that one could infer the reason for our reduction in taking children into custody is because we're doing good prevention. And the reason adoptions are doing well is because we're doing a lot of support for adoptions. So we didn't quite see the planning concept of cutting the exact things that are driving us in the right directions, because it would seem by cutting them another year or two down the line, we're going to

[Erica Radke (Deputy Commissioner, Family Services Division, DCF)]: see a reversal of those positive trends. I understand exactly what you're talking about because we too are really happy to see a decrease in kids coming into custody and then also that huge jump in kids getting permanency through adoption. And I think it is partly due to the preventive services. It's also due to our team really adhering to what we call our structured decision making tools to make sure only those kids that need to come into custody are coming into custody. But when it came to this budget cycle, we did have to make some very difficult decisions. And one of the things that we did was start with those things that are mandated, you know, statutorily mandated. And that is things that where the children are in custody and we're doing that more direct service. But at the same time, although we did have to make some cuts, we weren't making 100% cuts in those areas where we still are doing prevention. We're doubling down with working closely with those programs to make sure we can continue to do the work that we're doing. Some of the prevention we're talking about is with Bard, balance of restorative justice. That's something that's really important to us. And there's other programs as well. So although there has been a decrease in funding that we had to do, we had to make these tough decisions, that doesn't mean that we've lessened our commitment to prevention. We're just doing it with less. And that's something my division does a lot.

[Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: I'm sorry, go ahead. Yeah.

[Unidentified Committee Member (likely Esme Cole or Eric Maguire)]: Can I ask a follow-up along that question, if you

[Megan (DCF Budget/Finance Lead)]: don't mind?

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Yes, then I have a question.

[Unidentified Committee Member (likely Esme Cole or Eric Maguire)]: I guess you referenced it's not 100%. I guess that's, if I'm understanding correctly, it's true globally. But for programs, post adoption programs, bond identified in East Coast sales, seems like their state funding is experiencing a 100% cut with a focus strictly on adoptions for DCF.

[Erica Radke (Deputy Commissioner, Family Services Division, DCF)]: Okay, yes, I was thinking of a different upstream prevention service, but yes, when we were talking about those adoptions, we're limiting it to adoptions that were DCF facilitated, and then those other adoptions that might have been outside of our division, those funds we haven't. We're not continuing to fund those adoptions.

[Megan (DCF Budget/Finance Lead)]: But I would just jump in and say that they were only cutting those lines by 25%. So it is a reduction for NFI London Easter Seals of the post adoption services, post permanent services, but it is only 25%. And it would focus on DCF facilitated adoptions.

[Unidentified Committee Member (likely Esme Cole or Eric Maguire)]: 25 reduction to funds they were receiving, not globally if you roll in DCF post

[Megan (DCF Budget/Finance Lead)]: So we have grants for post pregnancy, and those were to cover the services that were eligible for anyone who had an adopted child. And we are reducing those by 25%. Thank you.

[Unidentified Committee Member (likely Esme Cole or Eric Maguire)]: Okay.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: So in looking at the Families First Prevention again, so one of the things that we know from your testimony is that one of the major reasons that we're not being able to tap into the resources that we could is because of the lack of a functioning IT system that enables us to do that. And we had all afternoon of testimony about that. So we don't need to repeat all of that. I think we have a pretty good understanding of where we're at and frankly, where we're not at. I guess my concern is that we don't see any what we heard in testimony is that we have roughly, it looks like about 50% of the resources that are necessary to establish and complete the full CCWIS transition. We have about between what we've allocated here and what federal funds we can match, about 15,000,000 or so. And I heard the deputy secretary say that it would be probably around 30,000,000 to complete this. Yet I don't see much as we've done in the past, an incremental approach to continuing to, frankly, squirrel away the money so that we are able to continue to build on that. And even, I guess that troubles me because we will continue to lose resources that can benefit Vermont's children if we're not continuing to make those incremental investments, because it will be difficult when you come to the place of awarding a contract to somebody and then we say, okay, now we need $8,000,000 or whatever the increased cost is. So I'm just curious about your approach as something that seems to be so critical didn't get any attention?

[Erica Radke (Deputy Commissioner, Family Services Division, DCF)]: It's interesting when you're talking about the incremental approach, and we have been working really hard to squirrel money away. And we have been able to do some things in terms of moving some of the money that had been carried forward into a DEF ID to keep it protected. But at this point, it's sort of a good thing is that with the procurement process, as we're getting closer and closer to the end of that, now we're really going to be able to have solid numbers in terms of what we expect a system to cost as well as a timeline. And we do feel that that is the most appropriate time to add on to what they've been scrolling away to what our actual need is. And then we'll be able to make a solid, educated request in the budget. And I think that that was really the thought process behind waiting at this point, but it is clearly our need, it keeps me up at night, I do want that system and I do believe we're making really important strides to get it because it will help not only the outcomes for the kids, but it will bring in additional funds.

[Megan (DCF Budget/Finance Lead)]: Can I just add something to that? Yeah. Because I'm not part of the procurement process, so I had to put the $30,000,000 So I went back and did some checking after House Human Services. And what I learned was, we're in the best and final offer phase, so we don't really want to comment on the offers that we have because that might not inspire them to provide us with a better offer. So I'm going to keep this really high level. But the $30,000,000 was an average over five years. It was an average across all the five bidders, and it was a total for five years. And so some of that was maintenance and operation costs, which we would, three years from now, need to be asking for in our budget. And some of it was upfront what we call DDI, design, development, and implementation costs. But the amount that was in maintenance and operations versus the amount that was DDI varies significantly between all of the vendors. And so it's really hard for us to ask for funding if we don't know how much we need as one time versus base. We don't really want to put numbers out there for either because we don't really want to sway the procurement process at this point. I did want to speak to that $30,000,000 number because it does seem very high, but it is a total for five years.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Representative Lalena, do mind that? I think she's asking about

[Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: the same topic. Right, same topic.

[Janet McLaughlin (Deputy Commissioner, Child Development Division, DCF)]: Thank

[Megan (DCF Budget/Finance Lead)]: you. Hello. I'm wondering

[Golrang “Rey” Garofano (Vice Chair)]: if the department has done a calculation of money that would be drawing down total, not just in this category, but across DCF, CCWIS, we're the system to operate in a way that is envisioned and what that overall

[Erica Radke (Deputy Commissioner, Family Services Division, DCF)]: number If it's large enough, it makes an argument for an investment sooner rather than later. Well, talking in terms of CCWIS and FSD, we have been trying to make our own calculations and the Office of Child Youth and Family Advocate had actually paid for a consultant to come in and try to figure out how much would we be leaving on the table not drawing 4E because of our system, and it's so complex and so detailed that they weren't able to get an actual number either. So I can't tell you we're losing X amount. All I can tell you is I know we are losing money. So it's sort of one of those things because the system is so old and there's so many different avenues you could possibly be gathering for E, there is no real solid number I can present to you today but to that, there are funds on the table.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: I'll represent Donahue and then represent Garofano.

[Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: So in this same area, specifically the elimination of funding, aftercare for youth exiting residential programs. And that was one of the topics we talked about, was it summer or fall last fall with Representative McGill and I. And the discussion at that time appeared to me to be our inability to do that primarily being you list two issues here in the written part, that the requirement to have a judicial review of all placements and case tracking that's not possible without fees. When we discussed it last fall, what I understood articulated and that we discussed was the judicial review aspect where contact with the judiciary indicated they didn't feel they could take it on, And that appeared to be the obstacle. And so we took up on working with that. Believe, Judge Zonnay, I don't know if you've been able to meet yet. There was an effort for him to reach out and meet with you to identify, seemed like maybe a very low level judicial involvement, which might be possible for them. So now we're hearing, I mean, this is sort of first time that CWIS is also an obstacle for this particular program. But would you agree it would still make sense It to would require probably statutory change to address the judicial piece. And while we're also working on CWIS, it would make sense to at least enable judiciary statutorily to have that in their jurisdiction, even if we hadn't worked out the CCWIS funding part so that it would be ready. I mean, am I correct in assuming that this would be a big priority area to try Absolutely. To

[Erica Radke (Deputy Commissioner, Family Services Division, DCF)]: just want to make sure, are we talking about the judicial area where we have kids that are out of DCF custody? These are older children and they're on extended care agreements or is this a different judicial review? This strictly tied to FFPSA, children getting into residential treatment?

[Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: Representative McGill may give a help on that. When I looked at the description of the Families First Prevention Services, which talks about youth exiting residential programs, that appeared to be the same issue we were discussing last fall in terms of that group and the judiciary not having jurisdiction to review those cases and therefore us not being able to access those funds.

[Erica Radke (Deputy Commissioner, Family Services Division, DCF)]: I just wanted some clarity because we've got two issues where we can have a possible district review and one we've

[Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: Yes, we did discuss a different one that was not out.

[Erica Radke (Deputy Commissioner, Family Services Division, DCF)]: FFPSA and entering and exiting residential treatment. I don't think that that would be a bad idea at all if it required a statutory fix. I'm not opposed to that and I will make sure to reach out to Judge Zon East to talk about that. I think we can, you know, it doesn't have to be an or, you can do an and. Okay,

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

[Golrang “Rey” Garofano (Vice Chair)]: I believe Megan mentioned the same two programs, the cuts in the Family First Prevention and the FFPSA, I believe you said these have never really been implemented. So I'm just curious what has happened with the funding in previous years?

[Erica Radke (Deputy Commissioner, Family Services Division, DCF)]: The funding had been there ready for us, but since we weren't able to implement it and nobody was actually getting those services, we did feel that that could be an area that we could make a cut because it's not like we were taking services from youth that had been having it and getting the benefit of it. It's all still tied to us not being able to get it implemented.

[Golrang “Rey” Garofano (Vice Chair)]: So the funding that was allocated for these two programs in previous years fall to the bottom line.

[Erica Radke (Deputy Commissioner, Family Services Division, DCF)]: Exactly, but there's one program though, the one that we are using for children that are on extended care agreements that need to have a judicial review, I think it may be a couple of times a year. We've actually talked to the Children's Bureau to find a way around being able to, at least squirreled away some money to do a judicial review, possibly using retired judges more of an administrative law judge type function. So we are still going to move forward with that and we've kept some funds to do that and we haven't done it yet but that's something we're able to do because we've found a way around it sort of like you're talking about with perhaps some statutory. Just a follow-up, if

[Golrang “Rey” Garofano (Vice Chair)]: I may. So would it be unusual for that adjustment to come through in the BAA? If weren't using, if the money was appropriated for that purpose and it wasn't being used for that purpose, shouldn't it show up in the BAA?

[Megan (DCF Budget/Finance Lead)]: I guess you could put it in the BAA, but I don't think it's not necessary. It's one of those things where we're not necessarily giving up on it. We were always looking for ways to do it, but it just hasn't materialized. And for that one portion, we did find a way to do it.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Yes, know, I know. Okay, representative Steady had a question.

[Brenda Steady (Member)]: Yeah, I have to ask some questions, but I also want to interpret. I appreciate the thoughtful process you were talking about with us, with a fiscal responsibility budget that you're coming with us, and I'm very pleased with it. So my question is, so am I correct that you're actually doing some good research before you're even bringing this FY27 budget to us?

[Megan (DCF Budget/Finance Lead)]: Correct. I think that you're not going to speak to that more than that.

[Brenda Steady (Member)]: Right. Because I'm trying to get numbers from another budget and nobody's even getting back to me because I want to vote on a good solid budget and I truly appreciate this process.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Thank you, representative Donahue. And I just want to I have to excuse myself at ten for a few minutes, but representative Garofano will be here. We're gonna move to After this, we're gonna move to child development division. I see It's in the yeah. Okay. So

[Megan (DCF Budget/Finance Lead)]: there were

[Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: just others in in our section. One of them that was in this list, sort of specific, Mentor Vermont, where there was an investment last year that came out of the Substance Misuse Special Fund. I didn't see that in the ups and downs. Is that remaining this year? What's the status of that,

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: I guess, was the question. Yeah.

[Megan (DCF Budget/Finance Lead)]: So anything that's we don't know, things don't go in the upstands unless they're changing. Right? So it's not on the upstands.

[Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: It's a level funded. Okay. I I was we're focused on it because it came from a special fund. So there's no proposal to change that as a part of the as a part of the base now for use of that special fund? Because that had been a recommendation from our committee, so we kind of wanted to track where it stood. We can get back to

[Megan (DCF Budget/Finance Lead)]: you on that. I just need to look in those budget detail reports to get

[Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: you the exact funding breakout for that line item. Okay, great. Thank you. Thank you. And the last thing is the question not asked now. Representative Steady and I were still trying to drill down and get some more information in the anticipation of a lot more questions about the secure residential, and there's reference now to two secure residential. But when I asked before, one of them is not a secure residential.

[Erica Radke (Deputy Commissioner, Family Services Division, DCF)]: And that is absolutely correct.

[Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: And yet it's listed there. So there's a lot of drill down on the money and so forth that we

[Erica Radke (Deputy Commissioner, Family Services Division, DCF)]: All right, it's in the appropriation, but Red Clover is our secure residential trust and it's temporary until we get Green Mountain Youth campus. But the West River Haven, the small three bit program in Brattleboro is not a locked facility.

[Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: Correct, but it's listed under that residential. Right, at any rate, I just wanted to say I think perhaps in the meeting we set up even we'd be ready to kind of ask the deeper questions on that. So the fact that it's not drilled down today doesn't mean, okay, that all works okay. There are a lot more questions about that part. We just are trying to get a bigger handle on it and then discuss in more detail.

[Erica Radke (Deputy Commissioner, Family Services Division, DCF)]: I absolutely would ask our admin to reach out to you too to get a meeting on the books. Look forward to talking about it.

[Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: Right, we need that sort of as soon as possible. Thank you.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Just with regard to that, I think that we're gonna wanna know a little bit more about the contracting process that you use. I'm gonna ask the team to drill down on that. We've had some questions from other potential bidders about what was the process because they were not aware of it anyways, of the opportunity and may have wished to bid on it. And of course, then we've seen the news reports about some of the issues. So I'm gonna ask the team to drill down a little bit more on that. And we really, I know it's sort of attempted to do that in the book, but really need to see very clearly what, if anything is remaining balanced and carry forward in those line items. And what is it that we are spending in total going forward? And so, I know that there's been some use of the funds that were used to formerly operate inside as we needed to use them for replacement services, if you will. So I think we need to see that roadmap. We still feel unclear to be

[Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: honest about that, how that roadmap fits together. And just to add to that, I think we have a pretty good sense that the interim status of Red Clover is going to be more than a year. We're at ground zero again on a permanent. And so I think we really need to discuss the question of it being a one time fund line item if we know we're years down the line to doing something different. That's just part of not for today, but questions on the horizon here.

[Erica Radke (Deputy Commissioner, Family Services Division, DCF)]: I appreciate that clarity, and we'll make sure to get those answers to you in a meeting to discuss it in detail. I did want to say though, when you're mentioning contracting for Red Clover and I believe for West River Haven, we did put out numerous RFPs and we did not get bidders. So I wanna make sure that that's up there.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: I knew that was the case for Red Clover. I wasn't sure about the West River Pagan. Yeah. Representative Noyes has a question.

[Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: I think this is in your part of the budget, and that's the aid to the age blind and disabled? No. Is that this? No. Okay. Because the next one was the child. So I thought it might be in

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: the Oh, you're gonna jump around. We're gonna jump around a little bit. Okay. Okay. There any other questions in family services division? After right now, I guess. Thank you, Deputy Commissioner. Appreciate it. So I need to excuse myself, but very capable folks at the head of the table. Take over.

[Golrang “Rey” Garofano (Vice Chair)]: Okay, so let's do Child Development Division, which represents a Bishop, and I hi, Janet. Thanks, Steve.

[Megan (DCF Budget/Finance Lead)]: So open it up for questions. Go ahead.

[Unidentified Committee Member (likely Esme Cole or Eric Maguire)]: I guess I'll start with a question that's perhaps more for Negan on understanding the 620,000 for the revenue realignment under personal services. Could you just help me better understand what that means and the language in the book? A little theory, but that is enough for me. It's a number.

[Megan (DCF Budget/Finance Lead)]: It's more of a mechanical thing. You'll see lines up above. There's one in personal services, and then there's one in grants out, and then there's one in operating. And so if you add them all together, it's a very technical thing, but you add them all together, basically what it's saying is that more we have more special fund pitting in those areas and less general fund. And it's just based on how we run our cost allocation plan. It's a very complex software that allocates every single expense to our 100 plus funding sources, and that allows us to draw in the revenue from the feds. And it's a federally approved cost allocation method. And so when we build our budget, we want to make sure that our budget aligns with reality to some extent. And so part of that means that sometimes you'll have Fed funds parked in grants out, but you're actually earning it on people. Or sometimes you'll have special fund parked in operating, but it's really being put in grants out. And so this was just moving things between the major operating buckets to align with where the funding is actually being utilized. And then also, it actually saves us a little GF in the end based on what we were actually earning in terms of revenue alliances.

[Unidentified Committee Member (likely Esme Cole or Eric Maguire)]: And big special fund child care special fund, are there others that this is aligning, or does it mean it's just really aligning?

[Megan (DCF Budget/Finance Lead)]: So the special funds and CDD, the two large ones are the child care special fund, which Janet was just testifying about to house ways and means. And then the other one is the EITC swap. So it's the earned income tax credit swap. And that one's also pretty complex. But at a very high level, we give TANF to the tax department for them to cover the cost of the earned income tax credit. And they send special funds back to us on a one for one basis. And that allows us to earn more maintenance of effort dollars because the EITC can go in the federal portion of the TANF report, but the child care costs aren't eligible. But they are eligible for MOE. So it's just like one of these weird things where it allows us to meet our maintenance of effort requirements for TANF by doing the swap. And so that's $15,000,000 in CDD as well.

[Unidentified Committee Member (likely Esme Cole or Eric Maguire)]: Another, if I can, columns, the the 2 and a half million for the child care revenue adjustment, it's looks like it's to go to the tax department. Is that a cost to administer the child care?

[Megan (DCF Budget/Finance Lead)]: Yes and no. It doesn't go to the tax department. It was already appropriated to the tax department. So basically, when we did our appropriations last year, we put the full amount of the special fund that was forecasted as spending authority in our budget, and then tax already also put $2,500,000 in their budget. So then in the end, when we looked at it, we were like, oops, we put $2,500,000 more than what the economists projected. And so this was just a down to make sure that we're aligning with The Economist projections because tax has 2,500,000 for they have you'd have to talk to them. They have a number of staff that are tasked with administering the child care special fund collection. So I can't speak to the number of staff or any of that, but they haven't It was part of Act 76, and it's an appropriation to them for that.

[Golrang “Rey” Garofano (Vice Chair)]: Questions. Can you this is probably a Janet question. If you can elaborate a little bit on what's happening with strengthening families.

[Janet McLaughlin (Deputy Commissioner, Child Development Division, DCF)]: I'm happy to do that. And hi, everyone. Janet McLaughlin, DCF Deputy Commissioner overseeing the Child Development Division. I appreciate being able to testify remotely. I had surgery on my foot on Tuesday, so I am reclining, but still able to connect with you. For strengthening families, overall, as has been reviewed other times right there, so it's sort of a tough budget year, we did have to make some tough choices, But as we looked around for strengthening families, it's a really important framework related to child well-being and family well-being, prevention of child abuse. And we have built that strengthening families principles into the STAR system, or Quality Recognition and Improvement System, and have developed other ways to provide coaching and training and support related to strengthening families within the childcare system. The strengthening families, the money that has been in the budget for years on this piece with a little bit, I believe, a general fund plus global commitment dollars that had been used for grant making. But it went to about 30 of the thousand childcare programs that we have in the state. And so we really felt like that program needed to be reevaluated anyway, and in this of this type of GER, that was one of the choices that we made as a division and a department.

[Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: Thank you. I I have one more

[Golrang “Rey” Garofano (Vice Chair)]: question, sorry. We've been hearing a lot about fingerprint delays for

[Janet McLaughlin (Deputy Commissioner, Child Development Division, DCF)]: a long time, and I know that's not

[Golrang “Rey” Garofano (Vice Chair)]: on the budget, but just curious if you can share a quick update on what's happening with that and what the timeline is

[Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: as far as managing it.

[Janet McLaughlin (Deputy Commissioner, Child Development Division, DCF)]: Yeah, absolutely. The extended timeline for fingerprint supported criminal background checks in the state is definitely a really serious issue for childcare programs. In particular, we have really specific and stringent requirements, right, for children's safety. They also are federal requirements associated with the child care development fund. And has been an ongoing issue. Last June, we created a multi agency team to work on this with Agency of Digital Services, Department of Public Safety, who actually is responsible for processing the actual checks and running them against the FBI database with the Secretary of State's office, with the Agency of Education, and then also with DCF. And in doing that work, we did identify the fact that we really need to move the state off of a real paper based system into a digital system to really make the system much more streamlined and efficient for everyone. In this past fall, we did two things. One is we put out a request for information. ADS actually put out the request for information on what would, how much it would take to create that modern digital system. And we got information back in December on that, and there's a number of entities that can do this kind of work. These processes are done in every single state and many municipalities. So it's something that there's tools out there that the state can take advantage of, and the timeline doesn't have to necessarily be multi year. We got that information back from the RFI process. We also applied for a preschool development grant, Birth to Five. It's a larger system building initiative for early childhood education in the state. And in that proposal, put in We asked for a million dollars to work on improving this process, we were awarded that grant. So now we're in the place that we're working with ADS to get out a formal RFP in GPS, which will get out a formal RFP for the digital system that we need. Everybody is aware that the funding source that we have from PDG is a one year funding source. It expires in December, and we have secretary level buy in sort of throughout to try to expedite the process as much as possible.

[Golrang “Rey” Garofano (Vice Chair)]: Thank you for that. And so can you did the RFI describe was it specific about how much the system would cost? And would the $1,000,000 be like a phase one, or is the $1,000,000 enough to cover the cost, basically?

[Janet McLaughlin (Deputy Commissioner, Child Development Division, DCF)]: Yes. So the ranges that we got from the RFI did estimate, did range, but there were several estimates that were closer to maybe $500,000 for the technology, and then there's sort of the additional costs associated with implementing it within the state overall. So we think it's close, and we think it will be close. And again, we do have to, you know, get through the, you know, get through the full process to get there, but we don't think it's gonna be a multimillion dollar hole or something like that.

[Unidentified Committee Member (likely Esme Cole or Eric Maguire)]: Unfortunately, your audio is a little bit choppy. I don't know why so, but I just wanted to to verify. You said that and the answer to the last question, the $1,000,000 is hoped to be sufficient, but there's department buy in to ensure that this doesn't stall out or that we're gonna make it to the finish line on this. Because this is as prefaced in the question, this is a long time problem that's really impacting a key segment of our workforce.

[Janet McLaughlin (Deputy Commissioner, Child Development Division, DCF)]: Absolutely. I mean I'm sorry.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: So our secretary level buy in across the departments.

[Janet McLaughlin (Deputy Commissioner, Child Development Division, DCF)]: Yes. Yeah, this has been a conversation with the governor's office, with the secretaries at APS, with the commissioner of DPS, at the secretary level, within AHS and AOE. So think everybody recognizes how important this is, and personally, I have said that I think this is one of the most important investments we can make in childcare capacity in the state.

[Unidentified Committee Member (likely Esme Cole or Eric Maguire)]: Would we think that we'd be on a timeline that if additional funding is needed, that that would be something that would be part of the BAA process next year? Or is that being a little too hopeful with the timeline?

[Janet McLaughlin (Deputy Commissioner, Child Development Division, DCF)]: I think that that is correct, and I think that when we had meeting right in early January after we got in the preschool development grant again at the highest levels, we recognized that we didn't necessarily have exact budget figures and totally full information, and everybody still said, but we got to be full speed ahead on this because it's so important.

[Unidentified Committee Member (likely Esme Cole or Eric Maguire)]: Appreciate the focus. It does help, and I appreciate the focus.

[Golrang “Rey” Garofano (Vice Chair)]: Thanks, Janet. Are there any other questions related to childcare, the CDD?

[Janet McLaughlin (Deputy Commissioner, Child Development Division, DCF)]: Okay.

[Golrang “Rey” Garofano (Vice Chair)]: And we have a meeting with Janet or trying to schedule to get more in detail. And I just want to note also in the budget documents that the JFO has, it seems like there's a lot more detail there. So I really appreciate about grants that are funded and just a lot more detail than I've ever seen. So I really appreciate that with the whole department. Where should we go to next?

[Brenda Steady (Member)]: Dan, what was your question on

[Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: I have a question on the age, blind, and disabled.

[Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: Okay, Let's go there.

[Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: Okay, perfect. So it was underutilized by $800,000 And I'm just wondering who, from what I read from the program, there's like a lot of need in this area. And I'm just trying to figure out like, how does the word get out about this access to this money to help people? Because it doesn't seem like something that should be underutilized. And especially because from what I understand, if you're eligible for this program, you're also eligible for MADD, the Medicaid Assistance for Blind and Disabled, that pays for hearing aids. And I just know there's a huge need for that among older Vermonters. So I'm just, this could be, I can talk about this later. I'm just trying to figure out like, why would that program be underutilized? And then moving forward, you're moving forward with a budget that reflects the underutilization last year when the need for this population is pretty big. So yeah, I'm gonna turn

[Megan (DCF Budget/Finance Lead)]: a question that makes sense.

[Janet McLaughlin (Deputy Commissioner, Child Development Division, DCF)]: For the reference, Marie, sorry,

[Golrang “Rey” Garofano (Vice Chair)]: Doug Bishop, the Economic Services Division, and it's a little bit hard for us to answer just because we don't determine the population, so the Social Security Administration determines we just pay a supplemental benefit that they tell us to pay. So it's one of the programs that we don't necessarily, I'm not determining who's eligible and able to kind of track what's happening. We are trying to see what information we can get from the Social Security Administration to just understand like why is the face load declining, you know, what's happening there? We don't know, but that's where it's a little bit tricky. Like, I don't have the leads. Okay.

[Megan (DCF Budget/Finance Lead)]: I hope that answers your question. That's a good Yeah.

[Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: I just see this population doing this, and then

[Golrang “Rey” Garofano (Vice Chair)]: Right. Yeah.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: It doesn't

[Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: We're not seeing the utilization. Okay. I'll I'll catch up with you about it later. I'm just

[Golrang “Rey” Garofano (Vice Chair)]: Okay. Any questions on the Office of Trade? Just

[Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: kinda going through the budget. Ups and downs.

[Golrang “Rey” Garofano (Vice Chair)]: Okay, and I know Madam Chair wanted to be here for GA and so let's skip that. Any questions on three squares? And I would guess that Rutland McGill would want to be here for research. So you know what? Since we're at a place where we have a couple of members, key members that are out, why we take a break until 10:30? We have you until

[Janet McLaughlin (Deputy Commissioner, Child Development Division, DCF)]: eleven, right? Yeah. Okay.

[Golrang “Rey” Garofano (Vice Chair)]: And then we can come back?