Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. Golrang "Rey" Garofano (Vice Chair)]: Good afternoon. Welcome back to House Food and Services. Today is Thursday, 04/02/2026. We are going to have some general discussion about our S-one

[Rep. Eric Maguire (Member)]: 157

[Rep. Golrang "Rey" Garofano (Vice Chair)]: bill this afternoon. We do have a witness at 02:30. And I also wanted to just have a little bit of a discussion about our UPK language that ended up in the Ed bill that was just passed moments ago, almost. So let's start with that. Madam Chair shared, I don't remember if that was there yesterday, that things kind of evolved in this week from where we were going and the work that we had done did not make it into the education bill around UPK. And what we left the Ed Committee yesterday feeling very strongly that if we're not going to get the language in, we want to make sure that we get our intentions known and kind of putting everyone on notice that this is where we're headed in the future. And because the funding mechanisms are still needing to be worked out and we have that piece in the JFO study, we felt not great about it, but we felt it was a compromise to say, we'll just add intent language and address this at a later time. And then as I've reflected on this today and have had some conversations with colleagues, it also makes me feel satisfied that by the time whoever comes back next year and the legislature has another look at this, I think the administration is going to have a lot more information and just the collaboration that's been happening between AOE and the department will just even be stronger, and we'll be able to do a lot more than what we were able to do this year, which would have been a really great step forward, but I think we'll be in a much stronger position. So the language, Theresa sent it out this morning to everyone. So I just want to give folks an opportunity to look at it, ask any questions if you have it. What we ended up doing is creating a section that talks about the inequity for UPK. So we created a finding section around UPK and cited all the things that were kind of in our memo to the education committee about access and availability of slots, and then added a section around legislative intent. And that is basically what we were kind of hoping to achieve by our language that we're saying, like, to be addressed at a later date, but will definitely be something we take up in future years, hopefully next session, next time. Do folks have any questions or comments? Eric, looks like you're here.

[Rep. Eric Maguire (Member)]: No, I'm just reading under the findings section, only eleven percent of eligible children are enrolled in pre kindergarten services.

[Rep. Esme Cole (Member)]: Full day, full day.

[Rep. Eric Maguire (Member)]: Full day in Essex County.

[Rep. Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: Is that a full day or is that in the UP The

[Rep. Golrang "Rey" Garofano (Vice Chair)]: Essex County one is, yeah, that is only 11% of children in Northeast Kingdom in Essex County.

[Rep. Eric Maguire (Member)]: And that's probably

[Rep. Golrang "Rey" Garofano (Vice Chair)]: why That's one of the lowest, where enrollment is really low. That's not to say that slots aren't available. So we had two different pieces of testimony. We had testimony from Building Bright Future that talked about enrollment and how many kids are actually accessing services. And then we also had testimony from First Children's Finance that talked about slots. And they had a table that had all the different counties and what the capacity is. And that's number four. So that's really talking about slots and what's available. So there's disparity in enrollment and in capacity, what's available. So both those things need to be addressed in a sense, because something Theresa and I have talked about and would wonder it is, in areas of the state where the enrollment is really low, are people even aware of the benefit? Do they even know that this is available to them And our school districts and that's part of the problem of not having anybody in charge of this, is our school districts finding the families that could benefit from this and matching them up with a provider. Because I think there might be slots there, there might be capacity there, it's just enrollment, or are families choosing not to enroll their kids? So those are all things that I think the Department of CBD with BBF and ALAE are going to be working on as far as gathering more data on the landscape in this year that will help us kind of understand better why those numbers are the way they are and how to address them in the next iteration of this.

[Rep. Todd Nielsen (Member)]: Can you just describe the process that

[Rep. Eric Maguire (Member)]: that we go from here, then what happens next? I don't really understand how it's gonna be done.

[Rep. Todd Nielsen (Member)]: I mean, this is committee bill?

[Rep. Golrang "Rey" Garofano (Vice Chair)]: This is a committee bill, and this committee bill will not change the underlying UPK statute. So what was passed in Act 166 will not be changed as a result of what's happening here. The intent of Act 73 was for us to improve access and to figure out the funding mechanism. The funding mechanism piece will be dealt with in the JFO, in the work that the contractor is doing for the JFO. And then the access piece will be dealt with by a future legislature. But because the intent is here, it's making sure that a future legislature will address it, that this is our intent, that this will be addressed in the future. So there will have to be language in a future bill. As we're working on the education transformation, there's gonna be a bill around education and what needs to happen next. So we'll have opportunities in the future in the next biennium.

[Rep. Todd Nielsen (Member)]: So the intent here, this would come to the floor and get voted on and the floor, it won't go to the Senate though.

[Rep. Golrang "Rey" Garofano (Vice Chair)]: Well, the bill will, the whole bill will.

[Rep. Todd Nielsen (Member)]: This will become part of Act 73?

[Rep. Golrang "Rey" Garofano (Vice Chair)]: This will be part of the bill that was just voted out that went to. Education committee just voted Yeah. It's language that's inserted into that.

[Rep. Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: Oh, I see. Okay. That's

[Rep. Esme Cole (Member)]: the way.

[Rep. Golrang "Rey" Garofano (Vice Chair)]: This year's ad bill.

[Rep. Todd Nielsen (Member)]: Okay. So the education committee said okay to this? Yes. Oh, I see. Okay.

[Rep. Golrang "Rey" Garofano (Vice Chair)]: And now it's gonna go to those games and then where I would

[Rep. Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: like Alright. Finish that Can I ask a question about the about finding number five, which in part is less than 5% of Vermont's pre qualified pre kindergarten providers provide a full day of four or more hours of pre kindergarten education? Is that a

[Rep. Golrang "Rey" Garofano (Vice Chair)]: That's first from New Year, the NIEBR. There was a big map that they had that showed most states offer it's mostly four year olds that are getting full day, more than four hours a day. But still, Vermont is way under for three and four year olds, where we're not offering full day.

[Rep. Todd Nielsen (Member)]: Full day is okay.

[Rep. Golrang "Rey" Garofano (Vice Chair)]: Full day of four hours of work Roughly, per

[Rep. Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: yep, was that downstairs we took the testimony?

[Rep. Golrang "Rey" Garofano (Vice Chair)]: No, I'll send it to you. It's on our web page.

[Rep. Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. I'm trying to recall the date finder. I guess I should look up.

[Rep. Golrang "Rey" Garofano (Vice Chair)]: If you look in our witness list

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

[Rep. Golrang "Rey" Garofano (Vice Chair)]: Gigi was the and it's just g and a g. I was spelling it g I g I. It's her presentation from, and it's, I think, the map.

[Rep. Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: Thank you.

[Rep. Golrang "Rey" Garofano (Vice Chair)]: March 11. Any other questions? Okay, so, next, let's spend a couple of minutes talking about, Esme, I think you want to talk about witnesses for 01/1957. So, I know this morning, mean, the testimony was great this morning from DCF. I felt like they gave us, am I talking about the right bill? Yeah, the work group, right? This is the

[Rep. Esme Cole (Member)]: Oh, sorry, problem bill number. 239. Yeah, 239.

[Rep. Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: 239 is

[Rep. Golrang "Rey" Garofano (Vice Chair)]: the Oh, 239 is?

[Rep. Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: That's the

[Rep. Golrang "Rey" Garofano (Vice Chair)]: working group. The working group. Yeah, office is probably 02:30 So that's why. So do you have ideas, suggestions?

[Rep. Esme Cole (Member)]: Yeah, I mean, love the direction TIER was going this morning with, especially like, physicians who feel more in a more targeted way with this particular population of people affected. I think I'd have to sit with it a bit. I didn't know we were going have this conversation Oh, right that's fine. But yeah, so like one thing I wanted to do was make sure that we are being strategic in areas of overlap. For example, like the document I worked with the group about the other working group with the other federal funds.

[Rep. Golrang "Rey" Garofano (Vice Chair)]: The Children's Justice Course.

[Rep. Esme Cole (Member)]: Yeah, and thinking about who's on that list and how

[Rep. Golrang "Rey" Garofano (Vice Chair)]: that could play a

[Rep. Esme Cole (Member)]: role in positive overlap ways, but also who's missing from that list. That's promising. So, yeah, definitely I think what to consider for people, especially with lived experience, is the best direct avenue to get them to the table? And what are the gaps? Which I think there are some.

[Rep. Golrang "Rey" Garofano (Vice Chair)]: One of the things that I've been thinking about, and I talked to the, actually, sponsor of the bill earlier today about, is really thinking about giving the work group some structure on what to look at, because I feel like the underlying statute is really complex and broad. So it does feel appropriate to kind of give some guidelines if these are kind of the things, and these are maybe some of the best practices that I'm looking forward to what DCF is going to provide us as far as what we should be thinking about asking the work group to look at.

[Rep. Esme Cole (Member)]: Also, the crime victims, Jubilee, hopefully, I would love to speak to her more about this, especially hearing that they were deeply involved in the section of the bill.

[Rep. Golrang "Rey" Garofano (Vice Chair)]: Yeah, one of the questions I had that I didn't ask is I would want to hear from them is since they were the ones that were the impetus for the bill, do they feel that the bill is capturing what they had initially? Because the way DCF was talking about it this morning, it didn't seem like how it started. So I just wanna make sure that at the end of the day, they get the piece that they were most worried about addressed and the things that we're looking to review. Yeah.

[Rep. Esme Cole (Member)]: In my rankings for testimony, that would be one that comes, then probably a lot of people would review even before others based on that feedback from this morning.

[Rep. Eric Maguire (Member)]: So I to bring up the call. I appreciate what you had brought up this morning about the timeline. And I think that still needs some consideration. In fact, it started a work group in August with the expectations of a report being provided in January, you're running up into the winter holiday seasons, and then you're asking for them to report back on reviewing statutes and the DCF rules, and policies, and collecting stakeholder feedback, research best practices from other states that cap this stuff. I'd really like for us to maybe consider looking at expanding that timeline. That way they can really do their due diligence and provide some good, strong recommendations and not feel rushed to just get something on paper and submit it.

[Rep. Golrang "Rey" Garofano (Vice Chair)]: I think that's a good question for all the witnesses too, because I think we're gonna talk to, we're gonna have a lot of the members that we're considering putting on

[Rep. Esme Cole (Member)]: the work

[Rep. Golrang "Rey" Garofano (Vice Chair)]: group testify. So one thing that the chair mentioned this morning, which is accurate, is they're not limited to meeting once a month, because they're all working in their professional capacity, so they could move longer, but I hear you, with the holidays between November and December, it might be tricky and challenging I scheduling

[Rep. Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: guess to get a sense of what degree of urgency is there in the field in getting this out, because whatever new time, if we were to identify a new timeline, what does that mean for trying to get introduction of something for the first year of the next biennium? Is that important or can it just as long as we take care of it in the next biennium? Just That's where the Fed order can come in and we'll wind it up to like

[Rep. Eric Maguire (Member)]: April 15 and then the the second half, the biennium.

[Rep. Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: And we could even ask for an update in a presentation in January, February to the committee and then a report later in the year. Just we can kind of think about what's going on.

[Rep. Golrang "Rey" Garofano (Vice Chair)]: Any other questions about that or suggestions? But yeah, if you have specific, as you think about witnesses and who we should hear about or members of the work group, let us know and Laurie know, so we can get people scheduled by next week or so.

[Rep. Esme Cole (Member)]: Do you have a sense of the timeline for when we'd like to wrap up this particular go?

[Rep. Golrang "Rey" Garofano (Vice Chair)]: I don't. Not right away. Okay. That's good. That's a good time. I mean, we're going to be bumping up against the clock soon. I know. We know it's 03:12, so.

[Rep. Anne B. Donahue (Ranking Member)]: Do we have any, switching gears, one fifty seven recovery residents, do you have any sense of timing of when we might hope to?

[Rep. Golrang "Rey" Garofano (Vice Chair)]: Not right away. Okay. So let's take a minute, take a break for eight

[Rep. Esme Cole (Member)]: minutes, and

[Rep. Golrang "Rey" Garofano (Vice Chair)]: then