Meetings
Transcript: Select text below to play or share a clip
[Rep. Eric Maguire (Member)]: It's time to train party. Thanks to train party. I know that's always good. It's not
[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: so many. Okay. We're Welcome back folks to House Human Services. We are going to do a couple of things. So first is we're going to tick up age five seventy four, we've just decided, which is a bill about epinephrine use in childcare and pre K. So apparently, there's a small statute change that needs to happen in order to enable childcare providers and pre K providers to be able to administer epinephrine. And obviously, that's an emergency situation. Representative Hartwell has been asking about this. And I think that they're gonna have a miscellaneous Ed bill that we can sort of tack that onto. But I said before, we just sent over because we have that, and so they want the language so we can transfer it over. But I would like for us, because it deals with childcare and private pre K as well, I would like us to take a little bit of testimony on that, probably from the Department for Children and Families, primarily just to make sure that they are okay with that and there's nothing that's gonna be an issue. Laurie, if we can maybe fit them in sometime in one of the places, Friday afternoon, age five seventy four, to see if we can get them in to talk about that. So that's the way things happen. All of a sudden, people are realizing the end of the session is coming and it's the end of the biennium, and we don't have next year until all new bills come in next So it's where bills start to look a little bit like Christmas trees, as they say. They get little things tacked on here and there. And I think this one is one that people should be okay with. So I don't think we should have a problem with that. And hopefully DCF won't have a problem with that. Okay, so activity down in the Senate. Does anybody have any I think there was some activity going on. I think Eric, you've had some activity down there since we last talked.
[Rep. Eric Maguire (Member)]: Yeah, that the report bill.
[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Rare Disease Advisory Council? No that's me. No that's not you.
[Rep. Eric Maguire (Member)]: 93? When I was on it, you
[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: came down.
[Rep. Eric Maguire (Member)]: Yeah, we brought it. We both have data reporting and registry disclosure. Oh, okay.
[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Which was actually your bill, right?
[Rep. Eric Maguire (Member)]: Yeah. Was he was sponsored as reporter.
[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Oh, okay. I forgot. I did you both.
[Rep. Eric Maguire (Member)]: Yeah, I had a previous engagement. Yeah. That's what I was seeing the reporter.
[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Okay, so that doesn't did that you, were there any issues or anything? Okay. I do have a meeting with Senator Lyons at 03:40 It is great. And so, obviously sort of top on our list, think they're moving along around 06:60. Yeah, was on their agenda today. We have a discussion with her about 09:38, 06:57. She had told me she was gonna move the Rare Disease Advisory Council along. That's on the table tomorrow. Yeah.
[Rep. Eric Maguire (Member)]: I presented on 05:34.
[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: On 05:34? Remind me what 05:34.
[Rep. Eric Maguire (Member)]: Oh, you
[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: were in Did there seem to be any issues?
[Rep. Eric Maguire (Member)]: Yeah. No. They said it looked good. I mean, I just went through it. They had one of the people from community action give some input and didn't seem like it was a problem. They asked me for my floor speech, so I set that
[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: down. Okay. That's interesting. Well, I offered them.
[Rep. Eric Maguire (Member)]: Oh. They were like, Yeah,
[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: we want that. Oh, okay. So I sent it to
[Rep. Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: That would be helpful. I used to send requesting that. I always offer it, but I do. Always offer it because it helps the committee kind of understand what was The
[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: background. That's
[Rep. Eric Maguire (Member)]: a idea. Off they go. So they didn't seem to have any questions that didn't seem to me like they weren't gonna move it. I don't know your list.
[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: All right, that sounds good. Have we heard anything about 09:38?
[Rep. Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: Like Eric's on an agenda for tomorrow.
[Rep. Eric Maguire (Member)]: Oh, that's right. There's Yeah. My pop down there too.
[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: I can go. Yeah. We should both go. Okay, good. Do know
[Rep. Eric Maguire (Member)]: anything about the status of S206? I already responded for this. Licensure, early childcare licensure.
[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Oh, have a text from the chair of that committee. So we're going to, after I meet with Jimmy, I'm gonna try to catch him. So yeah, I've asked, I don't know. I know that they have started to take testimony on it and I want to get a timeframe from him. So, and honestly, if we get through the stuff that we have pending from the Senate, we can start taking a look at the bill as it got passed by the Senate, even though technically we won't have possession of the bill yet, never stopped us before. We're not really supposed to do that. There's rules about what you put on your agenda and all that kind of stuff. Sometimes you just do it without a view. They
[Rep. Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: have you as the sponsor of the bill instead of reporter.
[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Oh, it's a committee bill. Yeah.
[Rep. Eric Maguire (Member)]: And is S-two 43, Vermont Language Justice Project, is that something we anticipate?
[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Yes, we're going to do, yes. However, it doesn't need an appropriation anymore. So to be honest, I wasn't going to do it with an appropriation because there was no money for it. But we've learned that they have money allocated in a couple of different pots, including public safety. Office of Racial Equity. Racial Equity, yeah. And so the answer is yes, we are gonna do that. And Ray has given Laurie a couple of witnesses for us to take a look at there. I will, if you have, when we get to the early childhood education bill, if you have specific witnesses, like if you're hearing from people in your community about this, so like Doug, I think it might be helpful for us to hear why, for instance, they're pretty good sized provider and I think it would be helpful to hear.
[Rep. Eric Maguire (Member)]: Someone testifies downstairs from Hawaii. Do they? Great.
[Rep. Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: I'm not a center based provider in Wollaston, but they're a constituent of mine.
[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Yeah, if you have people you wanna hear from, we wanna hear, I have some home based provider that reached out to me and I told her last year and promised that she could get in to testify. We're interested in all perspectives on that bill. And we will hear from the sort of usual suspects, the department and the AYAC and the Secretary of State's office, and we'll see what the Senate did to that bill. And so we are setting up two field trips, one to the housing project in Waterbury that has DD Housing built into workforce housing, that's right on Main Street in Waterbury, they've invited us there. And the second is for
[Rep. Eric Maguire (Member)]: youth
[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: homelessness services with Elevate and YD, is that like all YDP programming?
[Rep. Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: Elevate Youth has, they're the statewide administrator for YDP. They also house the Vermont Coalition of Runaway Homeless Youth Programs. And then for both of those, have their local programs. They have also, statewide administrator for the youth in transition program. That's through the Department of Health. And then they their own local program with that. And then they operate a basement teen center here in Montpelier, soon to be hopefully one to be in Barrie. They have the Healthy Youth program, Compass. They do a lot of at risk and vulnerable youth. They have whole number of supports and programs they're building out, including they've over at Goddard College, they have a lease for some of the old dorms there, and they operate through top, like a shelter there, as well term house, which is through a partnership with DCF. They're starting to transition some stuff there. So it's just all throughout Washington County, a lot of different programs for you. Great. So we're going to be setting up some
[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: time there. And we've also been invited to local recovery center here, the Bass Recovery Center and Associated Recovery Housing. I don't have that on the schedule yet. Think over, once we get the things that we have going right now from the Senate, so the recovery residents and 239, so S-one57239. I'm hopeful that we can vote those out next week. Esme is gonna report on 02:39 and Doug's gonna report on 157. Two forty three, I don't think we'll be taking a huge amount of testimony on because it's pretty simple. So it would be great to sort of clear the calendar so we can concentrate on the ECE bill because that's going to take a bit of time. And we do have the joint house resolution, which is probably going to be more controversial than people anticipate because the resolution itself is looking to recognize essentially assisted typing for people without speech. And it is not recognized by national organizations or the speech language pathologists. So they have asked to testify on that. And we are going to have somebody who somebody who uses typing to communicate, assisted typing to communicate. And his name is Chris Medina. He's going to be in this suite, right? Yes. And he will most likely have something that because it takes a very long time for them to generally type out their responses or what they want to say. He's going to have some prepared remarks, but he will also be responding to questions that we have. And so I'm just giving everybody a heads up that we will need to take some time with that. And it will take, it's kind of like you doing something and everybody's staring at you, kind of stuff. So I'm just sort of giving people an advanced heads up that some patience and understanding will be necessary as Chris responds to our questions that we have on his experience using typing. We'll also get somebody on that from Syracuse University, which is the place where they've done a lot of research in The United States about this. And in some places it's called facilitated communication, assisted typing. There's other names for it. In Vermont, it is used in the developmental disability service system. It is used in some school districts. But there's controversy around it in the field of speech and language about validation concerns and things like that. But I think one of the things that you'll learn is that there is very strict protocols about training and how that is derived. I've seen this in my previous work, so have some background in that. I don't know honestly if that is something that we'll end up voting out or not, out of committee or not. But we're gonna take testimony, hear what people's thoughts are about it. And it's a resolution from representative Bert and the other members had an opportunity to sign on. I signed onto it. I'm not sure how many other people have signed onto it. So that's what's on the agenda for the next week or so. You know of childcare, home providers, center based providers, we are happy to hear from them. And if you have family members or parents who have utilized childcare who have some opinion about the bill, happy to hear from them as well. I want to make sure we do a thorough job of vetting it because it's a big change in the system. It's a very big change in the system.
[Rep. Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: I also wonder about any other states who've done this. So I'm happy to do some research to find out.
[Rep. Eric Maguire (Member)]: I think we're the first. I think Vermont would be the first to maybe try the licensure.
[Rep. Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: Great.
[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Research company. Yeah.
[Rep. Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: Yeah. Okay. Let me Look to see other seats may.
[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: I think it's an important question. It's a question, we'll hear about this. There's a whole Sunrise Report and all that. There's a process that the Secretary of State's Office uses before they recommend something to move through the licensure. Okay. Anybody else have any other little updates that they are interested in sharing? Or things that you want us to do next few weeks. Our floor time this week and next week is not gonna be too much, but after that, it'll pick up again as more bills start to make it to the floor. And at some point in time, the Senate will be acting and we will probably, I would anticipate we might have a conference committee on ninethirty eight. I don't know that, but that would be the only one that I would anticipate that maybe we would need a conference committee on. Hopefully, the Senate's not going to make too many changes to any of the other stuff that we got going on down there. And who knows? They might not on Line 38 either. I don't know. So we'll see what happens on that. We are also trying to get AHS in this week to go over the report that we asked them and the Human Services Board to undertake after the testimony last year, about how to improve Human Service Board operations. I think, AHS is kind of, I think they're interested in revising the statute. That report is on our reports page, Laurie? Yeah, exactly. Okay. Who is it that's? General Counsel. Okay, General Counsel. Okay, great, thank you. Ray's done a composite table of all the reports that we have received in. Probably add to them. I did back in my foot sessions. It was, yeah. So that would be great because I think we'll have a we may have a bit of time in places where we have and we should be doing some of our oversight and accountability, especially on things that we for. There's sort of like the routine reports that come in, but on things that we ask for in response to something that we did, we should be looking at those and making a decision about which ones that we wanna have people come in and review, which ones we were. Let's check off the box on the ones we've already done because we have done a few.
[Rep. Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: Yeah, I can start putting that list up and
[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: adding to it and then we
[Rep. Eric Maguire (Member)]: can have some committee type to review it.
[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Okay. And then on the general legislators' reports, double check on things like DIVA. Like the nursing home report was under DIVA. Or it might be under AHS and then any of our departments. So the Department of Disabilities, Aging and Independent Living is hosting a meeting on Monday. And Dan and I are gonna go and Representative Jacoboni. And this is in response to legislation last year around payment reform and impacts. If anybody has received any emails, I'm getting emails, I get like at least one a week about the impacts. I got one last week from a family member who despite all of her best efforts is still not getting responses from anybody in the system essentially. And so if you have any emails or stuff like that from constituents who have raised issues around developmental disability services, feel free to forward them on to me if they're okay with that. Because I think it's important for Dale to hear that it's actually, it's the systemic issues that we all anticipate they were going to happen are having an impact on individuals and families, at least from what I'm seeing. There's a lot of finger pointing going on saying they're supposed to do it. No, you're supposed to do it. And it's like, and yeah, that's it. Yeah. Okay. I think that's it. That's all I have. Great.
[Rep. Eric Maguire (Member)]: Thank you.