Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Carrie Stahler (Vermont Foodbank)]: Welcome

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: back, folks. After a brief break, we are picking up on budget testimony, and next we're going to be hearing from End Homelessness Vermont. So thank you for coming forward. I'm just reminding people that we have each witness has fifteen minutes, and then we take a different two to three minutes for questions afterwards. So welcome. Thank you.

[Brenda Steady (Executive Director, End Homelessness Vermont)]: For the record, I am Brenda Steady, the Executive Director of End Home Vermont. End Home Assist Vermont is requesting $611,625 and FY '27 budget for disability focused case management, service navigation, technical assistance, which includes prevention and concrete support. For Vermonters experiencing homelessness with complex medical needs and disabilities, we need this funding to sustain what is for many Vermonters their only option for these services or for these sports. You all know that End Homelessness Vermont is a lived experience led organization that we are a trauma informed housing first based services and we help people experiencing homelessness with and housing insecurity across Vermont. We work primarily with people with disabilities and our clients living with significant disabilities and medical complexities. Because of this, they have unique needs when being exited to outside in communicating with economic services, in housing case management, in permanent housing, and more. We are the only organization in the state that provides a specialized service, and it has proven to be a successful model. I want to talk a little bit about peer led support. Peer advocates bring in irreplaceable understanding of the systems, barriers and experiences that our clients are navigating. And that means that ensuring that they have the training tools and resources necessary to do what that work at the highest level. It is this model and the relationships that make it possible that drives our success with people who are less well served by traditional approaches. In 2025, you've heard this before, but I'll say again, we answered more than 3,000 hotline calls and responded to hundreds of referrals. We were in front of the Human Services Board more than two fifty times while representing people with disabilities and fair hearings as non attorney advocates. We supported more than two fifty people with ongoing support in assisting them with emergency housing closer to three hundred and five hundred people ongoing in other capacities and work providers across the state to create a team approach. Here's a snapshot of some of the people that we're working with, and this is not a full picture. We work with at least 45 families with children, at least 50 Vermonters older than 60, many older than 70, at least 65 Vermonters that are older than 50, and at least 20 Vermonters age 18 to 24. People with disabilities that we work with include at least 15 people on oxygen, at least 17 living with schizophrenia, and countless people on wheelchairs and with significant mobility challenges. When we went to count, it was a very high number, and I did not want to give you an inaccurate one. We are also working with many clients who just had surgery, need surgery, have severe heart conditions, psychiatric disabilities, cancer, people in recovery, children with disabilities, and the list goes on. We can get you a breakdown of the demographics if the committee would like. I have shared a little throughout this session what success looks like, but I want to share a little bit more. Just yesterday, we supported a family in their first days of homelessness, a mother about to go into labor, but she is in labor, two small children, one with nonverbal autism and one with severe asthma, and both adults living with disabilities. Through no fault of their own, they missed their hotel check-in due to transportation issues and received what's called a period of ineligibility, which means thirty days without hotel access. This was their first call to emergency housing. Through a fair hearing process, an emergency fair hearing process, we secured housing pending, keeping a mother in active labor and two children with disabilities from being outside. When we met our client, Heidi, a new client referred to us or not new, but referred to us by another provider due to her complex needs. She was having multiple seizures every day. When she exhausted her eighty days of emergency housing, she was sleeping in a car through the hot summer. Her health deteriorating. We found her an apartment through one of her landlords. We frequently one of the landlords we frequently work with. We worked through a very tight budget with her coordinated support with her sisters, and connected her to services in what was going to be her new area. She moved into permanent housing late last summer. Since then, her landlord has moved her into a larger apartment because she's doing so well. And we continue to support her ongoing disability needs, and her seizures are now less frequent. You have heard many of these stories this session, including Ernest, Darren, and Joy. You can go back in other testimony, all of whom had been told they were refusing services. But the truth was that they needed to be heard and they needed more specialized services. They are all thriving and in housing now. Can also look like someone who could not engage in services due to their disability connecting with our peer led support team who meets them where they are and taking their first step toward accessing choices for care or other services. In our work, successes are both big and small. In the last fourteen months, we have housed 80 people with complex needs with only two returning to homelessness, and one of those has already been rehoused. That 97.5% housing retention rate shows our success. This funding is this $611,000 $625 is critical for our peer led direct services. It's what we need to sustain them, not to grow them. These funds will provide disability focused case management for medically complex clients, service navigation and coordination from crisis through housing stability, technical assistance, and concrete supports. The tangible resources that prevent catastrophic outcomes when there's when there is not enough, more of our clients will have more wonderful outcomes instead of some of the negative ones you've heard over the years, like Heidi's, Ernest, Darren and Joy's, and so many others. Without this funding, Vermonters living with disabilities and complex needs who are experiencing homelessness will have even less of the support than they need. We have been running a statewide program on a fraction of what most providers receive, and the outcomes speak for themselves. Without adequate funding, we could sustain our services, support many more positive outcomes and continue to be as rapidly available for Vermonters who need the support as we are today. This will enable us and this is just by our regularly growing rate. This will enable us to answer 3,500 hotline calls, provide light touch support to 2,500 individuals, provide ongoing disability services to 600 people, and provide intensive case management to 300 with the highest level of medical needs and disabilities. With my testimony, I have included a budget breakdown, a letter from our sponsor, and some more information about fiscal sponsorship, as I know that is new concept for some, as well as our registration with the, Secretary of State's office. Fiscal sponsorship is a formal arrangement in which an I just want to tell you a little bit about fiscal sponsorship. Just realized I just dove right in there. Fiscal sponsorship is a formal arrangement in which an established five zero one(three) nonprofit provides administrative and financial oversight for a project or organization. This allows the fiscally sponsored organization to receive tax deductible donations and grants, including state and federal government funding, just as a five zero one(three) would. It is a common and well established model used by organizations across the country. It is also worth noting that as an organization whose role includes advocacy on behalf of people living with disabilities, we have not had access to some of the funding streams available to other providers. This also impacts our ability to leverage other funds. We continue we have continued to work to do this work anyway because the need is too great and the outcomes too important to step back from. The work at End Homelessness Vermont saves lives and gets people into permanent housing, two of the central goals of this committee's work on homelessness. Again, End Homelessness Vermont is requesting $611,625 in the FY twenty seven budget for disability focused case management, service navigation, technical assistance, including prevention and concrete supports. We are we have been running a statewide program on a fraction of what most providers receive, and the outcomes speak for themselves. I ask the committee to support this request. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today, and I'm happy to take any questions.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Thank you. Okay. Open it up for questions from Camuto members. Thank you for providing the additional information around the fiscal sponsorship and what that entails, well as the documentation from the Secretary of State's office. And I realize that's a little bit unusual, but there's lots of conversations that happen in the hallways around this building. And people just have continued to raise questions about, I guess, quote, unquote, the legitimacy of the organization. And I appreciate you kind of hopefully putting that to rest.

[Brenda Steady (Executive Director, End Homelessness Vermont)]: Yes, I think so. And if anybody would like, I can go through, I don't know where I'm at with time, but I can go through a little bit about fiscal sponsorship or a little

[Amy Johnson (Vermont Care Partners)]: bit about each of the documents

[Brenda Steady (Executive Director, End Homelessness Vermont)]: that's necessary. And also each budget item has more

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: of a breakdown as well that we provided. Thank you. So questions from committee members. Yes. Go ahead, representative Bishop.

[Rep. Doug Bishop]: It seems like you feel particular niche and that you referenced the referrals. Can you tell me roughly how many organizations or how frequently do you connect with clients through referrals of other organizations?

[Brenda Steady (Executive Director, End Homelessness Vermont)]: I would say that the majority of our connections to clients are actually a referral from another organization or from police or probation officers, sometimes corrections. And just across the state, there's many, many hospitals. We get a lot of referrals from hospitals and medical providers for people who are their needs are just not being met and they are repetitively ending up there. And so we have a referral process. I can get you an exact number. We require, it's one of our requirements in our referral process is that the provider referring us isn't just dumping them on us. They can't disappear. They have to actually engage as well so that we can have an important team for the navigation. And that's how we've been successful. And then when a police officer or a state's attorney or if someone of that nature refers us, then what they're usually attempting is trying to prevent incarceration for someone who clearly has a disability, and that is the problem that has occurred. And so they're working with us sometimes for a voluntary commitment, which is something that you rarely hear me talk about here, but there are cases in which that's critical, or they're working with us. And for example, we've worked with the Springfield Place in coordination with Rutland Mental Health and Rutland Regional Hospital and us to work with a client to get them to a stable place where they would be able to both be sheltered safely and safely for others and housed.

[Rep. Doug Bishop]: And the nature of the population that you serve, does it require a longer tail end, if you will, of connection and services, even if you get someone either in a hotel or permanently housed? What's the relationship look like after those events?

[Brenda Steady (Executive Director, End Homelessness Vermont)]: It depends a little bit on a couple of things. If they have some barrier that's related to their disability, for example, we had a client who was denied by Burlington Housing Authority to be considered for their low income housing. And she had been denied because her mother had had an eviction and she also had a disability and couldn't get through the process on her own. In that case, she came in to work with us starting in November, and she was housed by April because we were able to work with the Burlington Housing Authority to overturn that decision and address it. But for example, with somebody within a wheelchair, the number of I believe it's just over 200 apartments that are wheelchair accessible in our whole state. And so oftentimes we're working with a landlord to ask them to fill retrofit the apartment and then working with other providers to come up with the funds to support the retrofit so that it can be an accessible outcome. Or if it's somebody who perhaps could end up out of the wheelchair with some physical therapy, for those folks, we are usually talking years in homelessness because there isn't actually accessible apartments. And for some, they're quite young and in wheelchairs. And so the idea of going to a nursing home or assisted living is not really at all desirable at 40 years old.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Other questions? Okay, thank you very much, Brenda. Appreciate it. Okay, next we're gonna be hearing from Karen South with.

[Rep. Esme Cole]: It's just like shit.

[Carrie Stahler (Vermont Foodbank)]: If you wanna bend those around, it'd be for copies of our. Are you gonna right out. Yeah, it's a little slow.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: We're up top and at the very end of the hallway, so internet connectivity is not very sticky. So squirrels longer here. We don't have people handing out paper very often. I don't like paper.

[Carrie Stahler (Vermont Foodbank)]: Had the paper.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: I thought,

[Unidentified committee member]: why not? Thank you.

[Carrie Stahler (Vermont Foodbank)]: That's not what I want to show you, but it is it is good. We're getting it.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Now you agile. Oh, the magic.

[Carrie Stahler (Vermont Foodbank)]: Oh, it started in the middle. Okay. All right. Now that all the technology is set up, I'm Carrie Steady. I work for Vermont Food Bank, and I live in London, Vermont. And thank you all for giving me some time to be here today. I'm here to talk to you about Vermont Food Bank's $5,000,000 total request for FY27 budget. And in particular, I want to talk to this committee about $2,000,000 of that that will go to support our network partner organizations and communities across the state. There are two other portions that I'm happy to explain, but are not necessarily part of what this committee would need to consider. I just want to make sure that the time I have here is spent on the piece that you all should be thinking about and that you have time for questions. So I will go relatively quickly because I know most of you are familiar with what we do, but I do wanna make sure that we give you a little brief reminder. So the mission of the Vermont Food Bank is to gather and share quality food and nurture partnerships so that no one in Vermont will go hungry. In 2025, that was about fourteen point five million pounds of food. We are the only food bank in the state. Sometimes that terminology is confusing. We work with food shelves, food pantries, meal sites, schools, hospitals, shelters. Those organizations, if you think of it from the perspective of a retail store, those are your downtown retailers for food access. We are the warehouse distribution center behind them that helps make sure that each of them can get access to the food and refills that they need. We operate distribution centers in Barrie, Rutland, and Brattleboro, but serve all 14 counties of the state. Here are just some impact numbers from 2025, that 14,000,000 pounds of food number. We work with a lot of Vermont farms to get food from farms into our food shelf partners and out through our direct distributions. And right now there are about two seventeen of those formal network partners. Those are the folks that I'm going to be talking about supporting here today. And generally, we estimate that about each month we serve 70,000 people across the state. That is an estimate. I have talked to this committee before about the challenge, collecting specific data. Some of our partners are excellent at it and have a lot of detailed data. Other partners are really not collecting as much or struggle to report that data, and I'll have a little bit more about that in a second. I also want to bring to your attention some general Vermont data that's recently been released by the Public Assets Institute's State of Working Vermonters report. This chart was actually shocking to me, and I've done this work for years. The fact that 56,000 Vermonters live in poverty each year, sometimes I wonder why that 70,000 people a month number isn't budging. And this is really why food and affordability are deeply connected. Most people would prefer to buy food at the store. Need a new chart. Need a new chart.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: I do. Cool. Yes. We have twenty twenty six numbers.

[Carrie Stahler (Vermont Foodbank)]: Great. I'll come over and take pictures. I'm going to let public assets know because I drew this from them. But I think that 56,000 person number was really surprising to me and is something to think about. The other piece of this that comes from a variety of sources, including our own joint fiscal office here, is that so many households, even if they are earning more than that, are living below the level at which they can meet their basic needs. And this is a little confusing to look at, but the Xs indicate not meeting your basic needs. And so 50 of single adults, More than 60 it looks like maybe more than 70% of households with one adult and two children. So some really, frankly, stark numbers, and these are based on twenty twenty three numbers from this sort of variety of sources at the bottom. So this is really specifically jumping to Vermont Food Bank numbers, and this is our network partners, individuals served by month. Generally, about 60% to 80% of our partners report each month. So this is not a complete picture. But what this chart does show us is that people are coming in and out of this system. The flexibility required of our network partners is extreme. To be able to serve 20 to 40% more people in a given month and then drop back down. And really, to be able to be responsive to those needs is a challenge. The best way that we are at this point able to be responsive to that need is through food purchasing, which is why we are asking this committee to consider monetary support, because you cannot be this flexible without additional resources in the system. There is not enough donated food consistently. Which brings me to where our food comes from in our system. We receive federal food. About 80 of our partners are part of the Emergency Food Assistance Program, which is USDA food. Maybe 50 to 60% of our food comes through food donations. Those are very wildly variable. Sometimes we will get a truckload of macaroni and cheese. Sometimes we will get zero truckloads of macaroni and cheese. And the rest we make up for with purchased food. One of the biggest items that people ask our food shelves for is fresh food. It's very risky to purchase fresh food with your limited dollars. Fresh food spoils. If you have children who are picky eaters, they may not wanna try that vegetable. If you are on a specialized diet, you only have a certain number of days to eat that vegetable before it goes bad. We end up filling that gap with purchased produce, whether that's from Vermont Farms or from other sources. We also purchase staple foods. Here are just a few more details, and this is a slideshow that you have on your committee site. A few more details about the breakup of donated food versus federal foods. Right now, we're at about 25% purchased food each year according to the last numbers from 2025. Oh, and here's the chart. Look, food chart. You can see how the purchased food line has been increasing since 2018. That is both due to demand and to a shrinking quantity of donated food available in the charitable food system. And then this food goes out in a huge variety of ways. We sort of tried to simplify it. Some of the federal food goes out through the Commodity Supplemental Food Program for older adults who make 130% of the federal poverty level or under. That program is currently maxed out for the state of Vermont at about 1,500 or so participants. The federal government tells us how many participants Vermont can have. Our network partners representing those two seventeen food shelves and meal sites across the state. We hold about 25 Veggie Van Gogh events across the state each month. We drop off produce at stash sites so that people don't have to travel to get those produce boxes. We operate backpack programs and actually a variety of youth programs that are not just those backpack kind of programs. I heard that you had testimony earlier about benefit assisters. We do also have benefit assisters on staff for Three Squares Vermont. I'm just gonna move ahead to our specific request. So this is the breakdown of the full request that we're asking for. It's $2,000,000 for our network food shelves and meal sites, dollars 2,000,000 for Vermont or Steady Vermonters, and then $1,000,000 for emergency and disaster response that we call Ready Response, which also is essentially a long term planning process to support those partners who see those disasters in their community more regularly and find the best ways to support them in those moments. The 2,000,000 specifically for our network is primarily in the past has functioned to support food purchasing that goes to those partners at no cost to them. Most of our partners have monthly deliveries that they receive from us. Any free food goes in that monthly delivery. They can also come to our facilities and pick food up outside of that monthly delivery. And so many of them are actually doing that for the free food that's available to them, whether that's donated or purchased free food. I think one thing this committee is really familiar with is the November pause in SNAP benefits due to the government shutdown and the $250,000 that the state released in that moment, which was really incredible. That money was able to be passed through as grants, and that was a really great experiment. We had not been able to do that before. The way that contracting worked with DCF allowed us the flexibility of getting that to our partners rapidly. And so I do think with the full $2,000,000 we could consider how a grant making process might work, but it would really depend on those DCF contracting rules that were put on hold during that moment,

[Rep. Esme Cole]: which

[Carrie Stahler (Vermont Foodbank)]: is why this has primarily gone out as food in the past. And then you know John and you know me, and Sarah Kevlin is the other partner who works at Kube Bank with me who occasionally lives in the building. Just wanted to make sure you saw our faces and knew who we were if you have questions. And that is the end of my slideshow. All of this information is in the handout that I have provided to you. I'm happy to take your questions.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Thank you very much, Carrie. I appreciate it. And thank you for the Food Bank's quick response in November in terms of helping out all the partners out there. It was, when I guess emergency hits, somehow we figure out how to make government more nimble than it normally is. We

[Unidentified committee member]: gained quite a bit of money. How much did we give? A couple million?

[Carrie Stahler (Vermont Foodbank)]: It was $250 in

[Brenda Steady (Executive Director, End Homelessness Vermont)]: November. And

[Carrie Stahler (Vermont Foodbank)]: I will say, while you're right, Chair Wood, this system works a lot better when we can build in any predictability into it. Yes, that would be nice, right? Other

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: questions. Food on an emergency basis is not a good policy. All right, I think you've been pretty clear. Thank you. And I'm presuming you've made the same presentation across the hallway.

[Carrie Stahler (Vermont Foodbank)]: We'll be doing that this afternoon. Okay. Right. Great.

[Carrie Stahler (Vermont Foodbank)]: Just to, could you kind of outline which kind of request is going to which committee? Yeah, happy to. Thank you. So the full $5,000,000 we're talking to House Appropriations about and the nuances of it. We are talking to the House Agriculture, Food Resiliency and Forestry Committee this afternoon about $2,000,000 to fully fund the Vermonters Feeding Vermonters grant program. And that is a program that was passed by the legislature last year and lives within the agency of Ag Food and Markets. So it is really a function of their budget. And that was not in the governor's recommend this year. This committee we're here to talk to about this network partner piece, which has traditionally flowed through the Department for Children and Families. And then we have also met with House government operations and Senate government operations about that Ready Response disaster money because it would need to go through Vermont Emergency Management in order to connect with the emergency management statutory responsibility to provide food access in emergencies.

[Unidentified committee member]: So how much from this committee? 2,000,000. 2,000,000. So my question is, if these additional monies are considered by this committee, does that mean we have to find the money in the governor's fiscal year twenty twenty seven budget somewhere out so that we don't cause homelessness and we don't have people leaving Vermont? We really need to be very considerate of others. We're all compassionate. We all want to help people, but we have to think of the people it's hurting that's paying the taxes. It's very important. I just needed to share that because I don't want to see my friends leave anymore. It's getting so sad.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Thank you. Any other questions?

[Deanna Jones (Thompson Senior Center; President, VT Assoc. of Senior Centers & Meal Providers)]: Alright. Thank you, Carrie. Appreciate it.

[Carrie Stahler (Vermont Foodbank)]: Thank you all so much.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Okay, and we're on the food train. So we're going to Meals on Wheels next. Hi, Diana. It's nice to see you.

[Deanna Jones (Thompson Senior Center; President, VT Assoc. of Senior Centers & Meal Providers)]: Thank you. I'm still catching my breath from the parking stairs.

[Deanna Jones (Thompson Senior Center; President, VT Assoc. of Senior Centers & Meal Providers)]: I have a breath every time I come here. When I don't have a presentation to share, I didn't have a lot of time to put this together. And normally I like to speak for my heart, but I felt like this was just so important. I am going to read a lot of my testimony today so that they don't forget anything or mess up any numbers. You start sending it

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: to Deanna?

[Deanna Jones (Thompson Senior Center; President, VT Assoc. of Senior Centers & Meal Providers)]: I have not yet.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Just afterwards, would you please send it in to Laurie? That would be great. I will.

[Deanna Jones (Thompson Senior Center; President, VT Assoc. of Senior Centers & Meal Providers)]: Thank you. Thank you. So I'm Deanna Jones. I'm the director for the Thompson Senior Center in Woodstock. I've been in that role for fifteen years, and I'm also the president of the Vermont Association of Senior Centers and Meal Providers. And so I'm here to represent that collective voice in the thousands of older Vermonters that we serve every day through meals, transportation, exercise, social engagement, home, aging at home referrals, all essential community supports. Senior centers and meals on wheels programs are the local trusted place in the community that connects older Vermonters with nutrition, programs and services, and other opportunities they need to age well. We are helping older Vermonters remain healthy, safe and connected. And I hope you'll understand that a little more even by the end of my talk. Our programs reduce isolation, hunger, hospitalizations, and no doubt reduce long term care costs as well. We are facing a growing crisis. Demand is rapidly increasing while funding is level funded. And that means that we continue to fall further behind as we try to serve more the Vermonters who rely on us. We all know that Vermont is one of the oldest states in the nation. Our population aged 65 and older has nearly doubled over the last two decades and is projected to be one third of the state's population by 2030. The current data shows that there are well over 150,000 Vermonters aged 60, representing more than a quarter of our population. Nearly 10,000 older Vermonters face food insecurity, and more than 12,000 live in poverty. More than 25% of older Vermonters live alone, increasing the risk of isolation and unmet needs. Senior nutrition programs deliver both home delivered and congregate meals. In 2024, 41 Meals on Wheels providers delivered nearly 1,000,000 nutritious home delivered meals to older Vermonters across the state. Meals on Wheels is a core service within age strong Vermont, strengthening home and community based support that allow older Vermonters to age safely in their homes by providing nutritious meals and regular wellness checks. Meals on Wheels plays a vital role in supporting health, independence and housing stability. Dale's fiscal year 'twenty four meal cost analysis clearly shows that the current funding levels fall well short of the true cost of delivering home delivered meals. Without increased state investment, local programs will continue to face unsustainable financial pressure, placing essential services at risk, just as demand for our most cost effective home and community based services continues to grow. At the Thompson Senior Center alone, we are seeing 20 new older adults come through our doors each month. We currently serve over 1,800 unique individuals who rely on our programs, meals and daily nutrition to stay connected and well. Even in my community that is often seen as less in need, just this week alone, we delivered 25 Veggie Bango produce bags to Vermonters who count on them each month. And we're also a recipient of the food commodities boxes to deliver, that was just mentioned as well. Across our state, similar needs are unfolding. In the Memorial County last week, volunteers delivered grocery bags from the local food shelf, a recurring monthly effort to support homebound residents. While we are very grateful that the legislature added state and Medicaid funding to support home delivered meals in 2025, that invested net netted only about 60¢ per meal. Though appreciated, this increase barely keeps pace with the rising food and staffing costs, much less, than the growing demands our communities are experiencing. So let me give you, some numbers according to the meal cost analysis from Dale for 2024. The total annual cost of home delivered meals is 11,100,000.0. Across Vermont, the average cost per meal works out to be $13.43 Collectively, we delivered 986,622 meals. So there's 1,000,000 in state general funds, and this is used to draw down 1,300,000 in Medicaid. And for Older Americans Act funding, there's 1,862,000. This brings our total current funding to Meals on Wheels to 4,162,594. So, remember I said the cost of home delivered meals is $11,000,000 and this brings our funding shortfall to over $7,000,000 We all know just from our own grocery shopping that ingredients that are essential to meet the dietary needs are more expensive. In our site, we're paying $5 to $6 more per pound for the exact same items that we were last year at this time. We serve fresh fruit every day. That's a requirement to meet the dietary needs. And because of the caps on the reimbursable meals imposed by the Area Agencies on Aging to make their budgets, many of us are on track to reach funding limits before the fiscal year ends. And after that, we'll receive no additional reimbursements. So really, in effect, we're receiving less per meal than we were even a year ago. Senior centers and meal providers receive no direct state or federal funding beyond this per meal reimbursement. The remaining gap must be filled through fundraising, local support and service cuts. And we are at capacity for what we can raise. What this funding means to Vermonters, and really this is the most important part of what I have to say, and the people that we serve tell the story the best. These are from notes, emails, and cards that we've received in other sites as well. Meals on Wheels saved my dad's life. The daily check-in is just as important as the meal. Drivers are angels on earth. I waited longer than I should have to ask for Meals on Wheels, thinking someone else needed it more, but I was getting some bad burns trying to cook with my walker and decided to give it a try. It's given me much more variety than I was getting, and the hidden benefit is that my blood pressure has gone down and I'm taking less medication. We're so fortunate to have a senior center in our community that gives us access to any kind of help we need. Thank you from a grateful soon to be 95 year old. Thank you for the flowers that came with the meal. It brightens each day at my dinner table. It's people like you that make life worth living. And we plan our day around meals at the senior center. It helps stretch our grocery budget because we can eat lunch at the center and then have an apple for dinner. Madam Chair and committee, members of the committee, we respectfully ask the legislator to invest a million dollars in the fiscal year twenty seven budget to support Meals on Wheels providers statewide. These funds will increase per meal reimbursements to better reflect the true cost of food and labor, remove or raise caps possibly to providers so we do not run out of funding, and strengthen infrastructure and capacity to meet growing demand. This investment is not just about meals, it's about health, dignity, and independence for older Vermonters. It's a preventative strategy that keeps older Vermonters healthier at home. I think we can all agree that it's in our best interest to reduce hospitalizations and nursing home placements. Vermont Meals on Wheels programs strengthen our community. We did some research about the consumer price index and how costs have actually risen in 'twenty four since our report. Based on the Bureau of Labor Statistics for Northeast Urban Consumers, a conservative estimate shows inflation has increased our costs by 1,400,000. It costs us 1,400,000.0 more to provide the 1,000,000 meals than it did in 2024. If we were to break down inflationary factors on food, labor, operating, and transportation costs, it would likely reveal even greater pressure, particularly in labor and food expense. Additional state funding is necessary to align reimbursement rates with our 24 rate study, stabilize providers facing rising food, labor and transportation costs, prevent waiting lists, and protect a cost effective intervention that supports health, reduces isolation, and helps older Vermonters avoid higher cost nursing home care. We know that Meals on Wheels is a proven investment that reduces health care utilization and supports aging in place. Failing to close the funding gap swiftly shifts the costs elsewhere in the system and undermines Vermont's broader goals around healthy aging and most importantly, cost containment. This is a core pillar in our Age Strong Vermont plan as well. In closing, I believe that together we can strengthen the senior centers and Meals on Wheels programs that are the local trusted place in the community that connects older Vermonters with programs and services and opportunities needed to age well. These are your essential partners in Vermont's effort to support healthy aging, combat hunger, reduce isolation, and preserve independence. Thank you for your time and your leadership and your commitment to Old River Monters, and I'd be happy to have any questions or discussion as well. Thank you very much, Deanna. We're gonna open it

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: up for questions. Go ahead, representative.

[Unidentified committee member]: What is in the budget of the f y twenty seven proposal for muni funds?

[Deanna Jones (Thompson Senior Center; President, VT Assoc. of Senior Centers & Meal Providers)]: I think it's level funded, which would mean a million in state general funds used to draw down the match. And the Older Americans Act funding is level funded. And that number is 1,862,594.

[Unidentified committee member]: 2,800,000.0?

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Thank you. Yes. It's more than 2,800,000.0 total. It's for budget. More million in state general fund that used to drive down 1.4 roughly in federal funds, and then federal global commitment funds, and then the additional one point, whatever you just said, from the Older Americans Act. So what would the total be?

[Deanna Jones (Thompson Senior Center; President, VT Assoc. of Senior Centers & Meal Providers)]: Total's 4,162,000.

[Unidentified committee member]: And that is Okay, so And you said you need 11,000,000?

[Deanna Jones (Thompson Senior Center; President, VT Assoc. of Senior Centers & Meal Providers)]: The total cost, if calculate our meal cost, it averages $13.43 a meal, and we're serving roughly a million meals, 986,000 in 2024. So that's where the 11,000,000 comes from.

[Unidentified committee member]: So you need another 7,000,000.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: What you said.

[Deanna Jones (Thompson Senior Center; President, VT Assoc. of Senior Centers & Meal Providers)]: 7,000,000 is the gap. No, I'm not asking for 7,000,000.

[Unidentified committee member]: What are you asking for today?

[Deanna Jones (Thompson Senior Center; President, VT Assoc. of Senior Centers & Meal Providers)]: We're asking for basically inflation protection, a million dollars.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Hopefully. Go ahead, Russ. Take a

[Unidentified committee member ('Russ')]: look at you. I thought your your budget was you guys had about $8,000,000 usually.

[Deanna Jones (Thompson Senior Center; President, VT Assoc. of Senior Centers & Meal Providers)]: We do not run the program. That we do not receive $8,000,000.

[Unidentified committee member ('Russ')]: No. No. I know that. I know you're gonna get to do a lot of begging for fundraisers, should I say? Mhmm. But I was under the impression that it was, like, $8,000,000 last year. Did you know something else? Where did I get that number from?

[Deanna Jones (Thompson Senior Center; President, VT Assoc. of Senior Centers & Meal Providers)]: I don't know. That's true. 4, I'm seeing.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: It's 4,000,000. Yeah. I wrote it.

[Unidentified committee member]: It just said 4,000,000 went under 60.

[Deanna Jones (Thompson Senior Center; President, VT Assoc. of Senior Centers & Meal Providers)]: Traditionally, in my tenure in this role, we only received Older Americans Act funding dollars and then fundraise to meet the gap. Two years ago, the state matched with a million dollars in general funds, which allowed us to draw down Medicaid funding. And now that total of all those three things combined is just over $4,000,000

[Unidentified committee member ('Russ')]: So you're fundraising quite a bit.

[Deanna Jones (Thompson Senior Center; President, VT Assoc. of Senior Centers & Meal Providers)]: We fundraise a lot, all the time, every day.

[Unidentified committee member ('Russ')]: Should be that.

[Deanna Jones (Thompson Senior Center; President, VT Assoc. of Senior Centers & Meal Providers)]: It's challenging.

[Rep. Esme Cole]: Thank you. First of all, thank you. I feel so blessed to have you in my neck of the woods and to really have been able to see what you do in the real world this summer. One thing I obviously it is clear, is a major gap and you all are experts at knowing how to stretch dollars. It's incredible how you've done so. The piece of funding that I want to make sure, as we're thinking about filling the gap, puzzle pieces of this is the older Americans Act dollars. I just want to make sure that we, as a legislature, really understand from the service provider's perspective, how can we best maximize the impact so that those dollars are reaching meals specifically, rather than getting caught up in the funneling of the point where which they are directed to be. Are you talking about at the Area Agencies on Aging? Yeah, the process at which those funds are sort of funneled to at the end of the day, hopefully reach you and the things that happen in between and how as a legislature we can support in maximizing that it actually ends up in your hands. Right. Well, I'm

[Deanna Jones (Thompson Senior Center; President, VT Assoc. of Senior Centers & Meal Providers)]: definitely speaking off script here, but I would love to see more transparency and how what funding comes in and how it's needed at each step of the way. I think, I'm the Vermont representative for the National Institute for Senior Centers representing Vermont nationally. And it's done differently in all states, but the general structure is that it goes to the state unit on aging and then is doled out to the area agencies on aging. And then the formula splits it up into those areas based on census. But some New Hampshire as an example has one area agency on aging. They're reimbursing around $12 a meal. We have five and we're getting reimbursed between four and five lower with depending on how many meals we serve.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Yeah, can you talk about this cap thing? I'm not understanding the cap thing.

[Deanna Jones (Thompson Senior Center; President, VT Assoc. of Senior Centers & Meal Providers)]: So, and really, I'll send you my annual appeal letter because it explains it in great detail. But we last year served 14,000 Meals on Wheels at my site alone. Our cap this year to be eligible, we can only be reimbursed for 11,000 meals. So last year we served 14,000. This year, our cap for reimbursement is 11,000 And for Meals on Wheels

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: is that being set by the area agency on the agency?

[Deanna Jones (Thompson Senior Center; President, VT Assoc. of Senior Centers & Meal Providers)]: Yes, because it's level funded and everyone's serving more meals.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Okay. Does each area agency on aging use a similar formula when they are working with their community meal partners? I think that's a question best asked to

[Deanna Jones (Thompson Senior Center; President, VT Assoc. of Senior Centers & Meal Providers)]: them. I think there's been a lack of understanding, even as long as I've been here. I've

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: told

[Deanna Jones (Thompson Senior Center; President, VT Assoc. of Senior Centers & Meal Providers)]: you all that I know pretty much.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: One of the things that I guess is concerning to me, and I did see Rebecca come in, didn't see it till just momentarily ago. One of the things that I'm interested in, because when when we put the million dollars in and then when we then made the move to match that with global commitment funds, that was intended to get directly to the meal providers. Because the overhead and infrastructure had already been covered with the Older Americans Act meal money, if you will. So that should have gone directly to the meal providers without any, I don't know, administrative overhead, I guess, if you will. It sounds like we might I don't wanna put you on the spot, but it would be helpful to have information from Dale, Rebecca, as to how that both the GC and the I guess, the Medicaid, how that money, which was roughly a little over $2,000,000, was distributed. There should not have been any administrative costs out of that, I guess is what I'm trying to say, because those costs are already covered by the Older Americans Act

[Deanna Jones (Thompson Senior Center; President, VT Assoc. of Senior Centers & Meal Providers)]: deal. I can really only speak for myself and other senior centers who have shared with me, but it resulted in around 60¢ per meal for us. It meant for a time Meals on Wheels was reimbursed at $6.5 per meal. And then with the cap in place, we'll either have completely unfunded meals at the end of the year, or if you spread that over all the meals, it's less than $4 a meal.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Thank you. Any other questions? Go ahead, Rebecca.

[Rebecca (volunteer, VT Assoc. of Senior Centers & Meal Providers)]: I just wanna state for the record that I worked for VASCANT, the Vermont Association of Senior Centers and Meal Providers. I am now a volunteer there because we have no money. So just wanted to put that on the record that I connect and with appreciate their work of all the Meals on Meals programs.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Okay, you very much, Daniel.

[Deanna Jones (Thompson Senior Center; President, VT Assoc. of Senior Centers & Meal Providers)]: Was nice So much. See you

[Carrie Stahler (Vermont Foodbank)]: Great to see you all. Good to see you again.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Okay, we're gonna hear from Amy Johnson. Morning, Amy. And members, have Amy's remarks on our website.

[Amy Johnson (Vermont Care Partners)]: Always the most nerve wracking part.

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

[Rep. Esme Cole]: Quick.

[Deanna Jones (Thompson Senior Center; President, VT Assoc. of Senior Centers & Meal Providers)]: All

[Amy Johnson (Vermont Care Partners)]: right. Good morning, everyone. Amy Johnson, Vermont Care Partners. Here to talk to you, namely about elder care. I have a lot of slides, I'm going to go as fast as possible. I do want to level set so that you can understand the financial landscape that the DAs and SSAs are facing. So haven't been in here this session. So Vermont Care Partners are your designated specialized service agencies providing mental health, substance use and supports for folks with intellectual and developmental disabilities. And we work across the state. We do good work. I have a mini impact report that I can give you, but I think what's really important on this slide is that we serve over 5,000 people daily across the state. And here's where we are. So you can find your DA and or SSA in your catchment area. And now I'm gonna get into the meat and potatoes of things. I think this slide is really important because it speaks to what's happening in the network right now. So we have a lot of system reform and large initiatives that are happening, such as DSP reform. I'm sure you've never heard of that in this committee. Have CCBHC's changes to on the federal level, tier one and tier or tier three and tier four residential, PIP crisis beds. I'm not gonna go into detail about that. What I will say is all of these things are underway. And whether they're going super well or not, and let's say they all are, even if they're all going super well, they risk instability to our system. And so you have heard about a lot of that with DS payment reform, but there are other things, and these are all happening right now. So I just want to point this out. This is our most up to date information on our days of cash on hand. This is in aggregate. This is the whole network. So you can see I have a key on the side that I can't see, which is probably helpful for me to see. But right now, we are in the vulnerable as a network, so we're below the sixty to ninety days. And what I will say, if you want to break down agency by agency, I can give that, but just for sake of time, what I will say is we have agencies at this point that, as of today, have five days of cash right now. So you saw the last slide, all of that's going on. This is the picture, this is where we're at. So the next slide shows you and so this is not all living in your committee, but I think it's important for you to see what has been cut from the DAs and SSAs for proposed in the governor's budget. There is no inflationary increase for DAs and SSAs or community based providers in this budget. So we are already starting so level funding, as you know, you hear people say level funding is a cut. So we are already starting with a cut, and then we have $4,000,000 of additional cuts to the DAs and SSAs proposed for this fiscal year. Now a lot of these live in your Buddies Next Door's committee. I have piloted. I will talk about elder care. I did throw in a reach up slide. I think there's a little bit of confusion about who's kind of taking the reach up part on.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Community outreach, I just want to point out, is community outreach for homelessness services. And we've heard a lot about that in this committee, the value of that. These are

[Amy Johnson (Vermont Care Partners)]: all truly valuable. Many of these are full network. Next to each program, you can see if they're individual. But I think, and I want to say this, I think when we talk about equity and equality, there's a little confusion. So equity is not giving everyone the same thing. It's giving communities, each community, what it individually needs. So when we cut something that only exists in one community, that impacts that community. And to say, Well, it's not in every community, so we shouldn't have it. That's problematic. That's not equity. So there are some one off cuts that are really big here, community outreach being one of them. So just to say, no increase for us and $4,000,000 in additional cuts across the network. Elder care. So it's been a few years. I haven't been in here to talk about this. This is a really important program for an aging state. One in four Vermont residents are over the age of 60. It is the fourth oldest state in the country. So what is elder care? Elder care is a really important program that home visits with older Vermonters who have complex mental health and substance use barriers, often co occurring. These are folks that experience barriers to coming in and being provided in office care. So we are going in with clinicians, providing that support directly in the home. And I have a couple of other things here on the slide. Rates of suicide for Vermonters ages 60 to 84 are consistently higher than the national average here in Vermont. Older Vermonters, in addition to someone that might have a mental health or substance use or both, challenge at home. There's also these added risk factors around anxiety, depression, suicide, because of social isolation, financial stressors, the loss of loved ones. My dad said something really compelling to me the last time I was home in Detroit. Folks don't know I'm from Detroit. I'm in Detroit. He said, They don't teach you how to age. And that's really stuck with me. And when I think about people that are homebound, that are older, that are experiencing challenges, and then you have all these other things about what happens when you age, This is a valuable program for Bloomer Monsters. We want to ensure we're supporting our aging population. And, hey, we have this cool thing called Age Strong Vermont. It's a really great plan. And did you know elder care is written into the plan? That's fun. So it a program that we are leveraging as part of our Age Strong Vermont plan roadmap to supporting the aging population. So to me, it's a little bit confusing to have it in our plan and then to propose to cut the program. What we hear

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: from the Agency of Human Services is that they made these decisions as an agency, not as individual departments. So theoretically, Dale was involved in the decision making that mental health made to cut this out And of their

[Amy Johnson (Vermont Care Partners)]: I will say, and I forgot to say this, we did not know about any of these cuts. I know that while the budget's being built, that information is embargoed. But at some point, it's not. We weren't aware of this. And to have cuts without a plan, without a runway, is problematic and, I would say, reckless. And that impacts some of the most vulnerable Vermonters, because that's what a lot of these programs that I had listed on that grid are low barrier programs to very vulnerable people. And so, here's elder care by the numbers. Here are the agencies that provide elder care. That doesn't mean that those are the only communities that get them. Many of these agencies are providing outside of their catchment area as part of partnership agreements. We have 5.7 FTEs and serve about 127 Vermonters monthly. So, that's not annual, that's monthly. So I was asked to throw a Reach Up slide in here. Reach Up is an incredibly valuable program for Vermonters. We are serving a highly vulnerable population. This is a partnership with DMH Nextdoor. They thought this committee might be taking this on. I presented to them. I'll present this to you very briefly. This is a partnership where a person has a reach up worker through economic services, and we're providing the mental health support. However,

[Deanna Jones (Thompson Senior Center; President, VT Assoc. of Senior Centers & Meal Providers)]: it seems what we've been

[Amy Johnson (Vermont Care Partners)]: told is you can just roll this into how your other billable work. A lot of times folks are coming to us and they don't want to go through the evaluation process to get a diagnosis to then be able to bill for services for them. It really is supporting them through wellness workers and clinicians, building that relationship and then helping to plug them into resources when they're ready. Again, that's low barrier. We feel that if this program went away, that partnership went away, we would lose a lot of those people. And I will say some of the members of this committee remember this, That happened with the parent child center a handful of years ago. And that was really hard for all those people that we were supporting through the parent child center network. A lot of those people went into the wind. Years later, we still heard from people that, I don't know who my worker is. So this is a really lovely partnership that works really well. We serve over 400 folks annually through Reach Up, and you can see the agencies that provide it. So again, this is a program that's low barrier for vulnerable Vermonters, and it creates a bridge to higher levels of care.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Is it case management? Need to understand a little bit more.

[Amy Johnson (Vermont Care Partners)]: It is some case management. So the reach up workers are really the ones that are helping to get people into employment and doing that kind of work. We're doing more of that kind of support around mental health, wellness, substance use support without having to bill for it, and eventually being able to plug people into the services that they need to be able to bill. But having that extra funding that allows us to provide that non billable work is really key to building that relationship and plugging people in.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: When you say billable, mean you're talking about billable to Medicaid. Billable to Medicaid, yes.

[Amy Johnson (Vermont Care Partners)]: Thank you. So what we've been told is you can just throw it into your adult bundle. And I just wanna show you an example here, and I'll try and explain this as simply as possible. I know I'll make sure Helen gets all over time.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: I'll just say because you're at five.

[Amy Johnson (Vermont Care Partners)]: It's so five minutes. So, this is an agency that provides both reach up and elder care. That dotted line is kind of that minimum threshold for getting all of your money. And this is three different years, so you can kind of look at the 2025. You can see that this agency is over. These are capped budgets. So if you have a target of a 100 and you serve all 100 people by April of that fiscal year, the rest of the services you're providing are not going to be reimbursed to you. So for this agency, if I rolled their elder care in the reach of people into this, they are not getting money for those people. You don't have money for those people, how are you paying your staff? So that is just an example of how we can't just roll them in. And not to say every agency is this healthy, but a lot of them are, and this is available on the DMH website if you want to see everybody, agency by agency. So same thing with CCBHCs, not everybody's a CCBHC. They've done costing reports. They already have their rates. If they're already CCBHC, you'd have to open it up, redo it. You can't just roll new staff into your costing reports. Plus, there's agencies that might not become CCBHCs or agencies that won't become them until July 1. So that, again, we need a runway for that if that's going to happen. I know I breezed past that, but it's And then I will say, and I would be remiss if I didn't say that for home and community based providers, we are supportive of a 3.5% inflationary increase. You'll hear Helen talk about this as well. But we really want to uphold our promise to Vermonters when Brandon Training School closed. We talked about home and community based care. Every year we're coming back to the table saying we need an increase because the governor and his folks have not put us in there or any other community providers. That is happening this year again. And how are we upholding that promise to Vermonters if we are not supporting those home and community based agencies? So you can see additional information for us personally, how we came to that number. I don't think it'll be so different than the wonderful things Helen will say. And we are what we invest in. If we're investing in all this high end care, that's where everybody's going to be. It is important, but it's not the only thing to invest in. And, seen. Thank you. Should I do it?

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: All right, questions for people? The reach up one is new to me, I'll be honest. I wasn't aware of that money was going to you. We were told in the reach up reductions was that it was due to lower caseloads. No mention about this at all. So thank you for bringing it to our attention. Any other questions from folks? And I think it's an interesting point that we include in our Age Strong plan elder care clinicians, and then we unfund them. Not we here, but that's what's being recommended. Okay, thank you very much. Appreciate it, Amy. Thank you. Helen, you have the unenviable task of being between us and lunch.

[Unidentified committee member]: I ate a snack and parking.

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

[Helen Laban (Vermont Health Care Association)]: Now let's see if I can as elegantly share my screen.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: So

[Helen Laban (Vermont Health Care Association)]: I'm Helen Laban. I'm the executive director of the Vermont Healthcare Association. That's the trade association representing assisted living, residential care homes and nursing facilities. I am also part of the long term care crisis coalition, which you are about to hear about. We have submitted a broader budgetary letter that includes all of the asks from the long term care crisis coalition, for example, the elder care clinicians program is in there as well. Today though, I'm speaking about the budget request for, as Amy mentioned, a 3.5% inflationary increase across home and community based service providers. And I also wanted to note that at the request of this committee, we did work ahead of the session to collectively, because this basket includes a lot of different programs, reach a common estimate for what inflationary increase would keep us whole. So keep it from being in effect a cut, but just keep us even. And 3.5 is the number. Just to explain quickly on here who we're representing. So again, my members from my direct association are impacted through assisted community Care Services, or ACCS, and Enhanced Residential Care, or ERC. But additionally, the Long Term Care Crisis Coalition represents a range of different services in that home and community based services bucket. And as mentioned, we also coordinated with the DAs, SFAs on that budget ask. This is primarily just to give you the 50,000 foot of why we feel this is very important. So we serve a lot of Vermonters across our coalition within my membership. And additionally, for the long term care services, the primary risk factor in whether or not anyone will require these services from anywhere in the array over a given year is age, and our state's population is aging. Quoting Vermont will be popular here. No surprise, it is the plan for creating an age friendly state. So again, I also have a quote, and here emphasizing, Amy mentioned that one in four folks are currently at 60 or over. Well, by 2030, which is not far away, the estimate is one in three. And here's just another way of looking at it from the Department of Economics. Now, know that demographics is more complicated than just saying the people who were fifty fifteen years ago or 65 now. But by the same token, in this, you can clearly see that there is a large bump up in an older demographic that's shifting its way through, and we see that coming out in projections for our aging population. So not only are we predicting this to intensify in the coming years, we are currently in the middle of this demographic shift. And emphasizing both the connection with the H Strong Plan and just the range of services and needs that are taken care of through these home and community based service providers, we did re review that plan and we are serving goals in every element of that age strong plan. And I have some highlighted here for you. Going through quickly. You can read it at your leisure over lunch. And then again, I know I'm just confirming points that others have made, but yes, we appreciate one time project based investments, special projects. Those are all wonderful. Pilot projects are wonderful, but they don't replace the base funding to ensure that core services remain available. And there is nothing confusing about the rising need for these services. We cannot deny that that's going to continue moving forward. So good news, we agree on the need. I think everyone in Vermont agrees on this need. And over the last several years led by this committee, the legislature has worked to bring those reimbursement rates closer to the actual costs of delivering services. And in some cases, was a very large increase. In all cases, it was an increase over the last several years. The less good news is that flip side of those increases we received meant that there were a lot of years of accumulated losses. It also means that there's a risk of falling this far behind again. It is an investment to get us closer to the cost of services. It's not an investment in expansion, which is in practice what we actually need. And as Esme pointed out, the 2027 budget proposes no increase, which functionally works out to be a cut in these services. So we're going the wrong direction with this. So we are requesting a 3.5% increase. The way we reached a consensus on this is within the various sectors involved in discussing this. Essentially what we did is a little bit more complicated than this, but we looked at CMS projected market backs increases for different sectors, different benchmarks for medical increases, where that comes into our different service portfolios. And in general, the predicted number for calendar year 2026 appeared to be 3.5% is what would keep you functionally even. And so we said, great, 3.5%. And again, that is just simply the minimum amount to be kept even. And so, thank you for listening to this request for a 3.5% increase to home and community based services. We do believe that it aligns with the state's plan for the age strong Vermont. It aligns with what is very clearly a growing need just based on demographics in the state. It's representing a broad range of services that are serving that target population. And so we see lots of alignment with the state's goals and the specific dollars in the ask again are simply the minimum amount to not move backwards. That's all we're asking for. And we feel as if that is a modest and reasonable ask to make. And you do have these slides that are the basic summary of that 3.5%. And as I mentioned, a longer budget letter from the Long Term Care Crisis Coalition that outlines our priority areas in the 2027 budget. Thank you, Helen.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: All right, let's open it up for questions from committee members. Yes, go ahead, Representative Bishop.

[Rep. Doug Bishop]: I believe it was in something that perhaps AHS prepared already question. Maybe no one provided it. But somewhere, were we given the number of what each 1%?

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

[Rep. Doug Bishop]: That number off the top of there.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: I don't know it off the top of my head, but it is something the legislature requested last year to be included in the AHP and CFP and the Services budget. I'll go back.

[Rebecca (volunteer, VT Assoc. of Senior Centers & Meal Providers)]: I can share that with Laurie so she can put it on our site.

[Deanna Jones (Thompson Senior Center; President, VT Assoc. of Senior Centers & Meal Providers)]: Sure.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: I'm gonna ask, because you're probably the person most informed about this, I'm gonna presume that the restoration of the ERC rate was maintained in the Senate version of BAA. Yes, and we do use that as our starting point for this ask, although we realize it's not yet finalized in the BAA, but that's what that 3.5 is off of, is the restored rate. Thank you. Any other questions? Okay, great. Thank you, Helen. Appreciate you so much. So folks will break for lunch and when we get back, we have a few more budget things to take a look at. And I think that what we'll do is really chat about how we see what we've heard from the last two days, where it'll be the end of two days by the time you

[Carrie Stahler (Vermont Foodbank)]: get