Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Good morning, Thursday, 05/14/2026 here in House of Transportation. We're taking some testimony on some of the senate version of the T Bill, particularly while last year we had authorized or passed and appropriated, I think it was $600,000 for a volunteer recruitment program that was for last year. This year's budget or this year's T Bill was requesting another $300,000 And we as a committee are looking to say, we appreciate, Ross, your really quick response to be here today. What did we do with the money last year? What did we accomplish? I know you mentioned it earlier in some testimony, but I guess I didn't realize we were looking to extend that into this year. And I'm particularly curious whereabouts in the state we spent it, what vendors we used, and then sort of what the proposal is. What do you need to do for this year with that money? And then, I guess, is that going to be an ongoing expenditure as opposed to what we thought was a one time expenditure? Well, thank you for joining us this morning and see if you can help answer some of those questions.

[Ross McDonald (Public Transit Program Manager, VTrans)]: You're the context, Mr. Chair, Ross McDonald, Public Transit Program Manager. And it's true. Last year with the 600,001 time funds, T funds, for volunteer recruitment. And what we did is we used the MTI program, the Mobility and Transportation Innovation Program, to use that competitive granting process to outline specific scopes and to track those specific dollars for the section 24 of last year's T Bill. And the awards and the applications came in that were fairly disparate. They were either for some vehicles, for some staff to use a right sized vehicle for lower costs. There were marketing plans. There was more outreach or staff that was being brought on to do the boots on the ground outreach in addition to the marketing plans, media, materials. Even RCT is working with all the other providers and their volunteer coordinators to do a video because the process of getting a volunteer driver is arduous and long, and you're always dealing with expectations and the reality of that role. So Bobby from RCT has put together a video so that people who are interested in potentially becoming a volunteer driver understand a day in the life of a volunteer driver and the process, how you get trips, how you pick up folks, the training involved. I'm also very happy to say we have one more volunteer driver coming on next week, and it's Michelle Boomauer. And she's been going through the process with RCT. And I asked her, How's it going? And she goes, Well, the paperwork took an hour. Said it's a six hour driver training in the PASS assist training, which tells you how to treat, de escalation, those types of steps, but it's super helpful. We have some board members around the state who have retired and become volunteer drivers, and that really does help us inform the way we manage So those all told, what we did is we put together two year scopes, not one year scopes, because it takes a while to get going. And we don't wanna just blow through the dollars and then not have an ability to provide, bless you, to proceed with ongoing efforts once you build the plan. And so, we're working through those, and those will continue through next year. So that will be for the $600,000 for the volunteer recruitment. Now yesterday, when I heard that I was invited, I sent out the email with the exclamation point, Hey, let me know where you are with your volunteer drivers. Last time I reported, we had 196. When we started last year at this time in June, July, we had 158. So we received some, but half of the providers were able to get back to me. And there's been some really good increases. Now we get some snowbirds that come back and they like to drive during this time of the year versus in the winter months. So that helps with our numbers. But I don't have the final number for you, but those who have reported from yesterday, we're seeing a bigger uptick. And so I'm hoping we're around 02:30, 02:20, something like that. And I'll report it out once I get those numbers to this committee. So we received the dollars, we used MTI to vet the scopes, we awarded as best we could. And as a result, we have more volunteer drivers. That's a success in our world here. When we were in discussions, and I really wasn't part of these discussions with the Senate. They've been speaking primarily with VPTA members, Vermont Public Transportation Association members. And the request was, well, with these volunteer drivers, that's great on the demand side or on the capacity side and the supply side of the trips to bend the cost curve down. But the other side is the demand for those trips or the mobility management opportunity. And for years, we've been providing some mobility management dollars to GMT and upon request and some other providers where they work with the folks who use the services and the trips most. We do have maybe not an eightytwenty position, but a lot of a big percentage of our trips are done by a small percentage of our clients. And so how do we work with them and combine trips and reduce the number of trips, but maybe incorporate more trip purposes in one trip. And Section 28 of last year's T Bill also charges to work with the Hospitals and Healthcare Association. And those efforts were also for some fruit and some really positive conversations. That is the mobility management of better communications is one thing. Let's put some posters in the hospitals and doctors offices to try to promote volunteer drivers. But can we also work with their schedules and say, Hey, dialysis in this area, let's do three days if they need public transit and put more people in those seats rather than to serve seven days a week or six days a week for dialysis. Those efforts are ongoing and we've extended that effort to require all of the transit providers to come up with a Section 28 plan for FY '27. And we retained Steadman Hill, who is collecting and organizing those efforts for all of the regions. And since my last presentation here in February, March. I'm happy to say that we've extended our conversations from UVM Medical, the big player in our state, to Dartmouth Hitchcock or Dartmouth Medical at this time. And there's been a nice response from them as well, their willingness to consider transportation options. When I started twenty years ago and developed Go Vermont and these types of things, I'd go to a doctor's office that was a big destination and ask for some of this type of coordination. And I was told we don't do that. We can't afford that. It's all about the doctors and their capacity. That wasn't the case last year. We have a lot of people understanding the various pressure points, and they know that a lot of services that aren't being met are potentially due to transportation issues. So we have the right conversations going on. So that's mobility management. So for $300,000 what would mobility management look like? It would look like a more robust momentum or level of effort to address the demand of our demand response services, including Medicaid. And we know that the Medicaid program is suffering from higher costs as well. So if we can work with our providers and use more hours, more efforts for the mobility management, that would be our next step in trying to address the challenges with demand response. And as you know, demand response trips were about $24 pre COVID. They're over $54 now per trip. So volunteers, that's one thing. Reducing trips is another. And that's what mobility management could provide to us. Another dynamic in place potentially is a consolidation of call centers. Right now, one of the best things about our braided system with Medicaid and our O and D program and recovering job access program is that there's one call center for each region. And you contact them and we see who are you eligible for these trips or these funds. And then they kind of match make from there. Well, those call centers undergo oversight reviews from VTrans as well as Department of Vermont Health Access and VPTA. And we're having those issues where this call center is doing most everything right, but they're missing some of the verification pieces. Or the other folks aren't answering the phones the way they need to be in terms of percentages that are not being put on hold. Those types of things. There's a discussion about a universal statewide call center. It's something we've, from an agency perspective, thought it's made some sense in the past. We've studied it. We've looked at it. I'm curious if VPTA could apply for a of those funds to help with those one time transfer costs to not have five or six call centers, but one call center. There has to be a reduction in admin overheads management and a compliance pickup. Once we get it right there, we're good to go. And we're not whack a mole oversight in other areas. And so that's another area that could be used for this mobility management funds that has kind of revealed itself over the last several weeks. I wouldn't want to suggest exactly how those funds would be used because using the MTI program, it's gonna be most important to hear from the providers themselves to see what they see in terms of their regions and their ideas and the use of any of those dollars if they come to fruition.

[Representative Candice White]: Representative White. Thank you, Ross. A couple of questions. You just remind me which ride programs fall into this category? Is GOFR part of this? It seems like there are lot of different ones, so just remind me. And then my other question is, the universal statewide fall center sounds like a really good idea. I'm wondering, the state has gotten those rural healthcare transformation funds, a lot of money, and I know that spending those this year, the programs had to be part of the proposal, but potentially getting into next year's proposal, maybe there's some money there that could help with that expense addition. Absolutely. Conversations with Jill Mazza Olson, who's overseeing that program.

[Ross McDonald (Public Transit Program Manager, VTrans)]: You can imagine when we saw those funds being released, I was on the phone. And we spoke with Brendan Atwood, the policy director at AHS, and then Senator Westman brought together Ms. Olson and BPTA ourselves and him. And we had a meeting about what are some scopes that we could fit into. They went back and said, Well, at this point, it's kind of baked, but in future, let's have that discussion. So, with Brendan, what we've discussed is a transportation working group with AHS and V TRAIN. It's really public transit and AHS Department of Aging and Independent Living, DIVA, Vermont Department of Health. We work with all of them anyway, but to bring us all together could just ensure that we're on top of any options and or opportunities. And so I think that's maybe going to be a way in the future. We're not disappointed that the RHT funds weren't made available to us at this point, but I think we may have a way forward. And so that's one of the things. When we talk about demand response, we really have two parts of transit. We have the fixed route buses going along those routes. And then we have demand response. Public transit started as a demand response program thirty five, forty years ago because of our rural nature. And it continues to be a big, big part of our transit program. And then a few years after that, the VPTA members were contracted for the Medicaid program or the Non Emergency transportation program or NEMT. That's now about a $20,000,000 demand response program in addition to the $6,000,000 O and D, older and persons with disability program from transit. And we also have a smaller $400,000 recovering job access program. Those are the demand response or dial a ride services. And those are the expensive ones. We're just one on one calls to get one person to where they need to go. Hopefully, we identify other people to get on that vehicle. But that's where the money is. And that's where some efficiencies we hope can be achieved. We lead the nation in percentage of volunteer drivers providing those trips. So to continue to find the lowest cost option, we can be It's understood why we'd want more volunteer drivers. We're getting fewer volunteer drivers looking to provide trips because of gas costs. And so some of the providers, let's say RCT is working with a gas station to give out gas cards or free coffee and those types of things to help support those entities without them providing income or getting compensation up to income because of volunteer reimbursement doesn't impact your W-nine and it's not counted against disability payments and other income that many of our volunteers receive. So that's where we are.

[Representative Candice White]: So it's a non emergency Medicaid? Medical transportation. Medical transportation. The recovery job access and is it the Dale?

[Ross McDonald (Public Transit Program Manager, VTrans)]: Older Adults and Persons with Disability, or what we call the O and D program.

[Representative Candice White]: Okay, thank you. And so Gopher is not part of this?

[Ross McDonald (Public Transit Program Manager, VTrans)]: Gopher could be part of this if they wanted to subcontract with TBT as they come into Washington County. And so if we say, Hey, here's the Washington County Demand Response Services. If they don't have enough capacity or if there's a lower cost option, we would expect for them to have those discussions. And TBT has had those discussions and just potential working together. What we don't want is what we had during the pilot process, which is two call centers kind of competing for the same dollars without the coordination efficiency, one call center type vision that we had started that pilot with. It didn't go that way. So we pulled some funding before the three year pilot so I could redirect those dollars to the regular O and D program. So, but they stand at the ready to partner with TBT as they come in to replace GMT. So we do have subcontractors, SSTA in the Chittenden County area. Some folks use taxis or a Golden Cross ambulance service for late night discharges from hospitals, those things. So that's where Gopher would fit in. They wouldn't be a direct recipient from us at this point.

[Representative Candice White]: Representative Pouech.

[Representative Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Yeah, and then Ross and Ross. Ross, thanks for coming in. I think for our committee, it'd be good to go over the legal requirements to get people to these like Medicaid whatnot. If you would just go over that, Kate, there are legal requirements to do this. And then again, the savings for a ride, I guess, between a volunteer and having to have a cutoff bus or something make that trip.

[Ross McDonald (Public Transit Program Manager, VTrans)]: Thank you. Yes, when we look at the 5,311 transit demand response programs, it's not an entitlement. There are no guarantees. We do the best we can, and we generally make those trips. When we look at the NEMT program, it's far different. There's CMS guidance and requirements where each trip needs to be verified. Each client needs to go through a process to ensure that there is no car in the household that could potentially give them that trip. And so the admin overheads per trip for Medicaid ride is a little different than the OND program. And that's how we get to that $54 a trip box. And a lot of that is the admin to ensure that we can get those funds generated for the NEMT program. Recovery and Job Access is again running through V Trains and Department of Health. We share the non medical or the non federal match for those trips, for those in recovery, those seeking a job opportunity. And again, we have a little bit more latitude on those trip purposes. And so for us, those are challenges that VPTA is facing. And Jamie can talk about that and Caleb and anyone else providing the NEMT, they're concerned about the level of admin per trip. But that's what our providers are also facing. So what was the other?

[Representative Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: I was just saying what the requirements are to provide this transportation and then the advantages of having a robust trained volunteer group. And I know we've, at COVID, a lot of other things that volunteers have really dropped off.

[Ross McDonald (Public Transit Program Manager, VTrans)]: We had over 300 and then before COVID, we're at a little over 200 now. And after COVID, had about seventy in the state. And so it's been some big ebbs and flows. When we look at tobacco and napkin calculations on a volunteer driver driving three or four days a week versus a cutaway with a professional driver, it's a difference between 10 or $20,000 for every volunteer we have in savings. Depends on trip distance, those types of things. But when we talk with our providers, when we all try to calculate the value of a volunteer driver, a 10 to $20,000 efficiency is generally the consensus. How do we get more? It's been really nice to have these funds and these specific efforts to track through invoicing and through the reporting.

[Representative Kate Lalley]: R. Burke? Excuse me,

[Representative Candice White]: I love that Bobby's worked for you

[Representative Kate Lalley]: in the movie, so he's He encouraged people, I'm sure.

[Representative Candice White]: Do sometimes two people go up to go, or can you put two people together who are going to same place? And use one grabber?

[Ross McDonald (Public Transit Program Manager, VTrans)]: Well, we can, and we do. And a good example would be the dosing treatment for folks in recovery. We have vans of fifteen, twenty people going to the one resource in the morning so that we can clear the demand there. We've been working with hospitals on dialysis. That's a really good example. These people have to be there for several hours. Can we deliver three, four or five people at once rather than three or four or five vehicles and volunteers. We need that capacity otherwise. And so that's been the kind of the low hanging fruit where we've seen significant improvements. Grace Potter? Grace? I forget the name in the Middlebury. Middlebury. Cottage. Thank you. And TBT. Sorry, did

[Representative James "Jim" Casey]: she spot

[Representative Candice White]: him down?

[Ross McDonald (Public Transit Program Manager, VTrans)]: I'm sorry. Yeah. It's the Middlebury Hospital and TBT have been really working together with their schedules feel free, Jamie. And so they've been thankful to have those discussions. And as I mentioned, the people with the Hospital and Healthcare Association, Devon and Karen Bastien from UVM Medical, they've been really running toward this, as well as VPJ and Elaine Haitko, their executive director. We've got some work to do. We don't need a section in T Bill to continue those efforts. What we needed is that T Bill was to force those conversations, and now we can take it from there and develop annual plans. That is absolutely the expectation. And with those requests of numbers of volunteer drivers, I asked for an update on their Section 28 plans, and everyone had something to talk about, not least of which was, seems like Dartmouth and UVM Medical are kind of competing about who can agree to do more and up to and including having them have a license of our scheduling dispatch software and take a look to see when they could actually schedule some trips and help us coordinate some of those things. So that's an expected pilot aspect in '27 that we'd like to test.

[Representative Kate Lalley]: One more thing,

[Representative Candice White]: having a centralized call center, do people need a knowledge of the local geography, or would that be?

[Ross McDonald (Public Transit Program Manager, VTrans)]: Exactly the discussion, Is, hey, if we have a call center in Middlebury and they know the area, they know the towns, they know the communities, that will take some time. But when we look at one state of 640,000 people with a couple thousand clients, we're hoping that, and with better technologies and IT and those

[Representative Candice White]: things, that

[Ross McDonald (Public Transit Program Manager, VTrans)]: we could pick up that local knowledge. And it doesn't mean to say that that one statewide call center wanna have people kind of specializing in certain areas as well. Like, okay, in Bennington area, there's an issue. This person is picking up the phone from Bennington. Can they help us with some of that demand management or mobility management piece? The reason we haven't gone forward with a statewide call center is exactly that we have the local knowledge. We have our own contracts in place that we don't touch, those types of things. That's the conversations that we're having through VPTA. Seems like Caleb Grant, the president of VPTA is looking at a lot of those types of efficiencies with us up to and including, he just signed an HR agreement with SSTA. SSTA has a great HR person. He lost his HR person. Let's combine. What about using the same financial software? So we're not paying for $50,000 $60,000 softwares around the state. There's one with five or six licenses. Those are the things that we don't have the luxury anymore of saying, well, our providers prefer this, nothing we can do. We really do need to hone in on some of these broader efficiencies or back office type efficiencies. That's what I'd like to really be pushing the providers to continue to embark and engage on over the next couple of years. We need to sustain our successful roots and our successful services, we have to do everything in our power to show that we're holding up our end of the bargain for finding efficiencies as possible we can.

[Representative James "Jim" Casey]: Hi, Ross. I'm just back to the money. I'm just trying to get a better understanding of this $600,000 trying to figure out the cost effectiveness of it. It seems like we put $600,000 out there, you know, and we gained, what, 22, you know, just call it 20 volunteer thrivers.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: And

[Representative James "Jim" Casey]: then Representative Pouech asked, you know, what if you had a bus here, what would those savings mean? He said 10 to 20,000. So if you just did simple math, the 20 times 20,000 on the high end is 400,000. So we spent 600,000 to say 400,000. It just seems like a bad vessel. I'm trying to understand the numbers. The 20

[Ross McDonald (Public Transit Program Manager, VTrans)]: isn't the number. The number right now is we started at 158 last year, and now we're well into the 200.

[Representative James "Jim" Casey]: Alright, it's like

[Ross McDonald (Public Transit Program Manager, VTrans)]: 60. So now we're at 600,000 and it's 600,000 next year. So how are we using those new volunteers to get the word out? And having more volunteers means more of a network of advocacy, but duly noted. And if we weren't to get ongoing increased volunteer capacity and trips, then yes, those dollars could be seen as kind of a wash. But we're thinking that these are years and years of additional

[Representative James "Jim" Casey]: voluntary Assuming, yeah, retain them, but it seems like the turnover goes up and down a little bit. It's not

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: like a steady number

[Representative James "Jim" Casey]: throughout the years.

[Ross McDonald (Public Transit Program Manager, VTrans)]: We would have to track that, right, and see over the seasonal changes and see what that looks like. But for now, we are thankful to see an extra 60 volunteers around the state. And we're just in our eighth month of the scope of a twenty four month scope. And so we're hoping to continue to increase those numbers with the 600

[Representative James "Jim" Casey]: And has that been depleted? So it hasn't been depleted, and I think back to our part where we have you in, that the Senate has found more money in the corporations bill. What was the number? 3,000. 300,000. Yeah. So I guess what's your balance, and what do you anticipate doing with this other 300,000?

[Ross McDonald (Public Transit Program Manager, VTrans)]: Yeah, if we worked with those who use the system most and the destinations where we go to most, And we're able to consolidate, coordinate, then those trip costs would be fewer trips to serve those people and for those destinations. And if we're spending 20,000,000 from Diva non emergency medical and spending, well, it's 6,000,000 of FTA funds plus another 20% from locals. So we're talking 7, maybe $8,000,000 on other demand response trips. It wouldn't take long to get to a $300,000 savings. Is it gonna be savings? Is it gonna be a reduced increase in costs in trip demand? We have an increase in trip demand. We have to deal with that demand and see if we can find more efficient ways to provide those trips. And it could be more of these community shoppers where you'll have a vehicle run two times a month through small towns to pick up people who want to go shopping for that month rather than going to get the six or 10 people from those towns a few times a month with several vehicles or several drivers. That's a type of

[Representative James "Jim" Casey]: Yeah, don't mean to cut you up, I but understand that though, but like, again, just simplistic, I mean, there's only so many posters that you could put up at Doctor. Cortez offices promoting this program. And so I'm just like, another 300,000, you know, I understand the problem that we're trying to do, but like what more are we gonna do that we can't do now with the money that's obviously still left on the bottom line? I'm just trying to justify the 300,000.

[Ross McDonald (Public Transit Program Manager, VTrans)]: Me too, mister representative. And for us, I think it would be important to understand, like, we do have some opportunity with the universal call center. We do need to spend more hours talking with those folks who are using the system the most and with the destinations. And those coordination meetings and to get to their schedulers and their managers to agree for the schedulers to take these considerations in place are time consuming. So does that mean that some staff would be afforded more hours? Would they hire part time people to do that type of work? Would it allow for dispatchers to dispatch less so we can do more mobility management? I don't know. And we'd have to report back out through the MTI program of these are the applications we received for the 300,000. These are the disparate activities like the volunteer recruitment. We looked at the language and said 600,000 for volunteer coordinators. Well, we didn't really adhere to that language as well as maybe some had anticipated because we didn't want to keep it just like, hey, let's build up some admin that we can't continue or sustain in the future. You tell us how you'd like to spend your money. You tell us how you'd like to get more volunteers. And they go, well, we have coordinators, but what we don't have is a marketing message. Or we have some volunteers, but not enough. We'd like some vehicles and use some RAVs without wheelchair lifts to bend the cost curve on those trips and hire a lower hourly person than a CDL driver. And so that it's kind of a right size the driver and the vehicle and those types of things. So that's when we were talking about, well, do we need more money for volunteer recruitment? We have two year scopes. It's working. Let's see what that looks like this time next year. And then when we talk about, well, where's the opportunity then if you're covering volunteer capacity? The answer would be this mobility management. Probably thought there's something there. Better interregional coordination. We have so many of those vehicles coming up through the counties to Burlington or Dartmouth. And we're not picking up enough people in other people's regions. Those are the types of things that we'd like to continue to study. I could see VPTA coming in with request for a position just to do mobility management for everyone. They go, Give us your 10 people who are costing the system more than the rest, and let's work with them and have that being kind of a centralized mobility manager from VPTA, not to speak on their behalf. I haven't had those discussions to date. We weren't sure if this is gonna make it.

[Representative James "Jim" Casey]: Yeah, I'm sure too.

[Ross McDonald (Public Transit Program Manager, VTrans)]: I see

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: that. But, yes, Representative Lalley is up and then Representative Wade.

[Representative Kate Lalley]: So I think I'm getting the picture finally. I just wanna see if this is what you're trying to tell us. You've got a system, there are many complexities, you're coordinating many needs and there are sort of moving targets in terms of what you need to be able to deliver as policy such as the healthcare transformation emerges. You know, maybe a, yes, polite way of saying it, it's just a lot of cat herding that has to happen. And this takes time and change is difficult and So all is that somewhat fair to say?

[Ross McDonald (Public Transit Program Manager, VTrans)]: It is, and if we need to spend more admin per trip on the NEMT program, that's less admin to do the mobility management. So these funds would allow us to hear from providers, try to deal with that demand. No question, more people in empty seats, fewer trips for people who want to combine trip purposes, more interregional coordination, and then that continued outreach with section 28, which is truly mobility management. That's not a funded program at this point other than the regular admin efforts. So this could boost those efforts.

[Representative Kate Lalley]: So this is an investment in getting that delivery system right?

[Ross McDonald (Public Transit Program Manager, VTrans)]: I like the idea of the one time funds to see what it looks like. We've been talking about it for years and years and some of the proprietors go, well, if we can do it, we do it. Because you say that there's some effort, some options here for mobility management to bend the cost curve down, fewer trips for folks, multi filling those empty seats. This will really ground truth our abilities to move the needle. And the 600,000, even though we're at this point, just kind of not even a year through it, if we're picking up 60 new drivers a year, we're in great shape. And it's a reasonable ROI on this one. I'm not sure what mobility management would mean at 300,000, but I certainly would know that the opportunity would reveal itself through that investment.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Commissioner White's office is not represented now.

[Representative Candice White]: Thank you. My question is just following up on Representative question on the money. You had mentioned, Ross, that there's a consulting company that you mentioned that you were working with. Did I get that right?

[Ross McDonald (Public Transit Program Manager, VTrans)]: Spending Hill is a company that is just helping us organize and track the Section 28 plans for us.

[Representative Candice White]: And Section 28 is working with the health care.

[Ross McDonald (Public Transit Program Manager, VTrans)]: You got it.

[Representative Kate Lalley]: Okay. So

[Representative Candice White]: they've been retained to facilitate those conversations.

[Ross McDonald (Public Transit Program Manager, VTrans)]: And then you track the disparate activities to collate that in quarterly reports so we can see, hey, they're doing this down in Southeast Vermont. Have you looked at this RCT? And so we're just kind of using that to synthesize these activities and to try to call out what's working, what's not.

[Representative Candice White]: Okay. And what kind of curious about their do you have a multiyear contract with them? What is the cost of I think

[Ross McDonald (Public Transit Program Manager, VTrans)]: that one's a $12,000 contract. That's

[Representative Candice White]: pretty small in the terms of $600,000

[Ross McDonald (Public Transit Program Manager, VTrans)]: Stedman Hill does it all for us. Must say that Steve Bobble. He's been working with us for twenty five years. Harvard grad. He knows all of the finances, all the players policies. He does our title six work. He does our national transit database reporting. So he's a tremendous resource for us. And so he did the Section 28 report for VTrans. And the next step was, hey, what do you need to stay on this project and organize and keep these things together? We also track his hours pretty closely. So it's not a year contract. It's a $12,000 contract. I'm hoping to get much more than a year from that. But because it's new, we will continue to

[Representative Candice White]: just kind of test the scope in those activities, the outcomes. So When you look at that $600,000 is it fair to say you've got a small consulting contract? You talked about you might have purchased some cars, some equipment to better put the cars for the passengers specific.

[Ross McDonald (Public Transit Program Manager, VTrans)]: And we did hire some staff. Did some coordination. So if they needed a coordinator, that certainly was able to afford them the opportunity, marketing materials, recruitment fairs, renting the tables, the space, the joining organizations.

[Representative Candice White]: And right now you said, so you talked about working towards this universal statewide call center, but right now you've got 10 different areas or how many different-

[Ross McDonald (Public Transit Program Manager, VTrans)]: We have seven providers right now. Five, we're going to six when GMT Rural is no longer. And then they all have call centers. Advanced Transit doesn't do demand response services. Their demand response is only the ADA. So they only have one person taking those calls for their small area. They're 73 in New Hampshire. And so we're really looking at TVT, Marble Valley and Rutland area, SCBT, GMC and RCT. And if those folks could all bring in one call center, it'd be really interesting to see what efficiencies could be brought from that process. No decision has been made, coordinator, not a regulator. And so we're here to support and enable. I can't make that decision on behalf of the providers.

[Representative Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Yeah, I just, comment, appreciate Ross coming in. These are the most needy Vermonters looking for rides to doctor's offices, or they have no vehicle, they have no bus service, need to get to a grocery store twice a month or job training. And it's built on volunteers and all that needs to be coordinated. And so I think this is, as we learn more and what really is gonna work, but looking to coordinate and with medical providers who can now say, realize their patient not only needs medical help, they have no transportation and without coordinating that, they're not gonna be able to get to their next visit. And so to incorporate that, we did hear some testimony and I think maybe it was at a meeting I was at, we were discussing with UVM, how they see this as meeting the needs of their patients. So this seems like reasonable investment in the size of the transportation budget and the public transportation budget that to see how we can really make this work even better as the demand increases. I feel

[Ross McDonald (Public Transit Program Manager, VTrans)]: like you remiss if I didn't mention the applications that have come through for FY '27. We always say, well, we don't know what it's gonna look like. We're waiting for the applications. Well, they're in. And we received requests for over $7,000,000 on a $5,000,000 budget, is our O and D program. Using obligated unspent funds, excess receipts, we may be able to get close to 6,000,000 like this year. But when we look at those costs going from $3.04, $56,000,000, this is also a time to look at the demand as well as the capacity to see what we can do to further control the increased costs and demand for the O and D services. And so, it's gonna be another year. I know that we were in front of the Senate a few times. I can't remember if the House, but we're hearing from communities that were talking about constraints that were increasing around the state. And so six round trip trips per month is now or critical care. People were getting more trips than that in the past. And so now, even though we've increased those constraints and asked for statewide adherence to this baseline, even when they used those reductions in trip types and purposes, we're still looking at a requested need that far exceeded our budget. Not that we can't get closer than the budget, but it's a real challenge. Was talking to my director about it this week. We're both concerned about where this program's going in the coming years.

[Representative Kate Lalley]: Professor McCoy? Regarding trips to and from doctor's offices, you took some type of survey through senior citizen centers who may be providing that service to the community. Do you know as a whole how many do, how many senior citizen centers there are, and if they provide this service?

[Ross McDonald (Public Transit Program Manager, VTrans)]: So adult day centers, the AAA organizations, they all participate on the regional mobility committees in each public transit region that does demand response. The RPCs in that area oversee a mobility committee. And that committee includes the public transit provider, the RPC, and those organizations you talk about that represent clients who need trips. Those folks can provide the non federal match for those trips, 20%. We pay 80% of those trips for federal dollars, or they can help us get volunteers. Generally what happens is we use volunteer in kind value for their hours and use federal dollars for the full trip cost. And so we say this trip is $100 but we use in kind to make it $120 and then we can draw out $100 from federal, totally federalizing that TRIF, but it does burn down the federal dollars faster than if we had a cash match for those federal dollars. And so one of the questions that we have with our providers, and we have a OND summit on June on a Friday in Castleton, which is, are there ways to generate the non federal match so we can get more trips from the federal dollars versus just using the in kind and kind of inflating the services by 20 so we can match those trips and cover the full cost with federal. It's an in kind accounting approach, but those are the things that we have to talk about. But to answer your question, your organizations you're referring to are on those committees and are aware of the demands and the challenges we're having. They're helping us in each area manage the budget. And so they say, Okay, here's our budget for the year. It's a million dollars. And after the first three months, they're either hot or they're running a little under. And they adjust on a quarterly or monthly basis even on those trips to ensure that they last for year. It's the most unpredictable element of the program. So are you telling me that volunteered drivers technically aren't volunteer because they're using their own vehicle? Yep. Are they asking for remuneration? They're getting a 72.5¢ mileage reimbursement. Okay. And that's not income. But then in addition to that, we can use those hours to justify an in kind of match to further meet those federal dollars. So 72.720.5%. Yeah, think, yeah, per month? Month. Federal government. GSA rate. Yeah. And so you can use the IRS rate, which is like 24¢ a mile or the GSA rate, 72 and a half cents. I don't think we would have too many volunteers if they were gonna be losing money every Okay.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: The 600, back to the original piece that you're working on with the programs of volunteers, is the majority of this work done around Newport Hospital, the dialysis piece? Is this I know you also mentioned Middlebury, but we got Springfield, we

[Ross McDonald (Public Transit Program Manager, VTrans)]: got Grattenborough, we got Northwest Is

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: this a state? Are we using it statewide for volunteer recruitment, Or is it all happening primarily in one or two areas?

[Ross McDonald (Public Transit Program Manager, VTrans)]: Each one of our providers, for Green Mountain Community Network in Bennington, received funds. And each one of them continually on an ongoing basis are working with their largest healthcare provider, whether that's a hospital or a larger doctor's offices. Dartmouth is a big destination for so many of our regions. But yeah, we spread the money around and we spread the activities around so that we can see who's doing what with which monies for the biggest impact. And so all those hospitals are being contacted and are in these discussions.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: The discussion about a universal dispatch piece. If I recall in the testimony of the direction of one of the reasons having providers focus on their particular areas, obviously the largest folks in their urban area and moving away from some of their rural activity. Some of the success, particularly in the Northeast that we're now trying to replicate in the Northwest, is based on a significant amount of local knowledge, relationship, the management of that area, the providers and the customers. There was plus some technology changes that were significantly better. We're trying to perhaps replicate that now in another area. A big part of that success was both on a really intimate interaction with the people with the needs of the providers in that area. Can we really do that and benefit from that? Would be the consideration. I'm not asking you to answer it, but I'm saying the idea of a statewide dispatch versus what I have heard of this community since I got here that the most successful local programs to getting people to and from where they need to be is based on the local knowledge of that provider and one of the providers that stood out is built on that. I'm worried about whether they can do it elsewhere. I think that's a concern. I know you're looking at it, I wanted to share that, but it seemed like one of the biggest positives was drivers, the company, the providers, and the customers that have been affecting patients knew what was happening. So I'm not sure that we go through these periods of centralizing and decentralizing and almost everything That didn't seem to jive with the success stories that we had heard about why we made some of the regional and urban changes.

[Ross McDonald (Public Transit Program Manager, VTrans)]: The same thing when we

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: had that as you go through and consider statewide move is the right way.

[Ross McDonald (Public Transit Program Manager, VTrans)]: That's to be determined and I don't know for sure, but I do know that those were the discussions and to the points when we had 13 transit providers when I got here. People that, well, we need to just be in this area. We know the area. But we have six of them. And the community outreach, the partnerships, that doesn't go away. It's the call center that the one number for anybody in the state to use is just the intake information. The dispatch offices will probably stay in those regions. And they go, Okay, so we've gone through the verification and all the admin overheads for these things. Here you go RCT, here's your 02:44 trips in two days. You figure out based on that information. And again, what I'm saying is coming and mentally preparing for this testimony is what would we use the $300,000 for? Something like this effort after I speak with VPTA and they're considering this, I thought that would be a good use of one time funds to see what that would look like in a plan or a process to get to a statewide call center for compliance, for reduced overheads. But I could see it also moving through the planning process and people saying, At the end of the day, we really would lose the ability to coordinate or consolidate trips through this process. So we'd have to let a plan stand up and move through there.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: I think Representatives still got our hand up, and Represent White,

[Ross McDonald (Public Transit Program Manager, VTrans)]: and Represent Lalley in front me.

[Representative Candice White]: I think I'm good.

[Ross McDonald (Public Transit Program Manager, VTrans)]: Oh, okay.

[Representative Candice White]: Representatives. I guess I was just questioning the I guess that number being people with their mileage fluctuates with the price of gas, right?

[Ross McDonald (Public Transit Program Manager, VTrans)]: As a lag. And so it takes a while, a few months for that to be adjusted. And when we talk about those cost increases, the volunteer rate has increased by thirty eight percent since COVID as well. It used to be 50¢ a mile, now it's 72 and a half cents a mile, even though it's the lowest cost option. The lowest cost option is still that much more expensive than it was based on the GSA rate.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Representative Lalley,

[Representative James "Jim" Casey]: I guess we'll wrap up.

[Representative Kate Lalley]: Yeah, I am wondering if you guys are using AI to explore how to help us with these efficiencies. It seems like a need for a lot of things in transportation sector, particularly transit. Wondering where you're doing with that and where you might see that headed in the future.

[Ross McDonald (Public Transit Program Manager, VTrans)]: Thanks. I'd say AI has been used and is What we do is when we have our dispatch and scheduling software come in and we pick it, we pull in 400 trips, they will optimize and use their whether it's AI or their algorithms, which are getting stronger every day to show the best way to schedule and dispatch those trips. And then the dispatcher looks and says, well, this looks good. I can't have that person ride with this person. Can't, this isn't gonna work because then they do some manual overrides. But there is that piece that helps to optimize the demand. Also RCT used an AI call center for off hours instead of paying people more hours, more time out of normal business hours. And it didn't work as well as they had anticipated. And I believe they've actually reverted back to the human answering the phone call. But those were well aware of AI, its impact throughout the industry, keep an eye on We're part of a data consortium around the country that looks at AI and specifications and trip tools.

[Representative Kate Lalley]: Yeah, I guess I was wondering about its application on these broader systemic challenges. Like how do you is a regional approach more efficient? Is a statewide approach more efficient? What statewide aspects are more, how do you do that kind of scenario planning so that you can actually maximize the human to human contact, which seems very meaningful to people, and which we are struggling to be able to provide, which seems like a huge advantage with this healthcare opportunity where social isolation is one of the biggest public health issues going. And a lot of data suggests just even a very minimal connection that you can make with somebody buying something in a store or where this is potentially really important. So I'm just kind of wondering about how you envision AI helping with these sort of back office kinds of systemic challenges? I

[Ross McDonald (Public Transit Program Manager, VTrans)]: don't know. Know that a lot of folks are getting the emails, and all I know is what the last salesperson tells me, in terms of how best to use AI for these services. But I would say that right now we're incorporating HBSS or QRIDE indoors. That's a new scheduling dispatch service that is supposed to provide us with better optimization, better coordination, better abilities for our providers to speak to one another in terms of trip planning. So that is on the table and we're just going through those implementations now. Only have one left and then we will try to optimize that system. And then we'll have to learn from that and see where we're happy, where there's some other opportunities. Concurrent to that, we'll be getting those emails from the sales folks telling us they've got a better mousetrap. So we'll try to navigate that as best we can. But you're right that those trips, those drivers, those volunteers, that may be the most meaningful conversation that person has all week. And that is not lost on the volunteer drivers who enjoy it so much.

[Representative Kate Lalley]: I think this is great, but it's something great with the health care. ACCD, So there is tech person at ACCD, I think it's the ACCD, who is working on current reforms just generally at the state level. And we had a presentation the other week at the Caucus for the Latest Economy on what they're doing with that. And it was just asking very simply, chat GPT, how would you organize a better state delivery system just for grins, just to kind of get started. And boom, popped out something right there. I know Vermont is very wanting to pursue this and AOT has a stake in this as well. And we're pretty impressed, as I believe, the state with what Virginia has been doing. So anyway, it seems like a very exciting and interesting area and I hope it will keep us to date on how we can find some efficiencies.

[Ross McDonald (Public Transit Program Manager, VTrans)]: You can imagine, right? Dan Courier is my right hand person. He's an IT professional. He's the man. But we both have gone to Gemini Chatsheet PT and saying, Hey, what would we do to improve rural Vermont, rural transportation in Vermont? And we share that with the planners. And nothing really revealed itself that was something we hadn't considered, but the way they prioritize, the way they capture some of these things, it's absolutely useful. I'm surprised we use AI as much as we do, even looking at rules and regs. They go, the FMCSA requires physicals for these scenarios. But we're not interpreting it the same way. We will bring in AI to just see how they interpret a rule or regulation. So we're using it, and I've got the right person to participate in those discussions. And then he can tell me what to tell you guys. So we'll have him here.

[Representative Kate Lalley]: I'd look forward to it. I look forward to

[Ross McDonald (Public Transit Program Manager, VTrans)]: it.

[Representative James "Jim" Casey]: Representative Keyser. I'm sorry.

[Representative Chris Keyser]: This was part of my business for a very long time, distributing maybe 500 deliveries a day through four different outlets. Pardon

[Representative James "Jim" Casey]: my

[Representative Chris Keyser]: And the chair also did a lot of this type of stuff in his prior life. So are your systems scalable? Can you move what you're describing into all your different So you have consistent systems?

[Ross McDonald (Public Transit Program Manager, VTrans)]: We do. And so our HBSS system is for all of our providers, for all of the demand response services. And as those demands and trip purposes and parameters that we put on those programs are baked into that system, it has all the capacity in the world. These folks are in Northern New Jersey doing tens of thousands of trips. But for us, the scalable piece isn't as important as the inter regional coordination of those trips. We're really looking to see where we can pick up folks in other people's area and vice versa as we're moving around the state and reducing those miles.

[Representative Chris Keyser]: I would encourage you to go statewide if you've got your systems in place to be able to accommodate that. We already have emergency dispatch that is statewide, and I understand the way people felt about having that change, and they didn't know where I live. But we've got now the emergency 911 is all in place, we and know where people are on the roads. So I think some efficiencies. Volunteers, you have six different places. In the application of the $300, would you apply it differently depending on the number of volunteers that you need? In other words, you don't have any D and D, Ross, and that kind of thing.

[Ross McDonald (Public Transit Program Manager, VTrans)]: I think that the use of those funds would be determined on the number of trips going to, the number of people who are using the most amount of trips, our frequent flyers for lack of a better term, as well as the destinations that we go to most. And that could mean RCT is working with Dartmouth as well as TBT, because they're going there both several dozen times a day. And so we wanna say to TBT, well, don't work with Dartmouth here. Just work with RCT to bring your respective issues to bear. And so it would be interesting to see if the VPTA members would like to move through VPTA and say, hey, let's get a call a mobility manager to work on behalf of everyone. Or if people are going to start piece parting out and saying, well, we can add more hours on this staff member to do our own demand response at mobile leading management.

[Representative Chris Keyser]: Again, my question was whether or not your volunteers In the Northeast Kingdom, do you have enough volunteers versus you might apply your outreach differently depending on the need for volunteers. So the question is, do you know how many volunteers you need per site?

[Ross McDonald (Public Transit Program Manager, VTrans)]: Well, we know that about 50% of our trips are volunteers. And we know that if it was 70%, we'd save a lot

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: of money.

[Representative Chris Keyser]: Any increase across the system would work.

[Ross McDonald (Public Transit Program Manager, VTrans)]: If possible, right? And then we do have the 16 of those trips that do require a wheelchair lift. That's not gonna work and those types of nuances. But yeah, in RCT, they have the most volunteers because they're doing the longest trips, which give me the most mileage reimbursement. So, you can actually make a little bit of money that way. In Chinon County, you're asking people to do two or three mile trips, not 120 mile trips. So, we don't have as many volunteers in that area. Although SSTA is doing all the right things and they've just had started bringing on volunteers. So we do have those considerations and differences. But when we talk about SCBT, TBT, RCT, those are the big providers going big distances. Anything we can do to get more volunteers will help benefit us in terms of capacity and cost.

[Representative Chris Keyser]: One last question. So do your systems allow you to put in measures of productivity and then measure yourself against those targets?

[Ross McDonald (Public Transit Program Manager, VTrans)]: Yeah, so our providers all need to record cost and miles per trip and by trip purpose. And so we can slice and dice the number of trips, the cost per trip, the percentage of volunteered to provide their services. And that's all rolled up in our group performance report that is published every year. And that we share with some charts with you on that. So those are some of the metrics that we do use. And there's some nuance in there where they go, our cost is gonna be higher because our average distance is this much, or we don't have the volunteers because our distance is this much. Those types of conversations we have all the time.

[Representative Chris Keyser]: Thank you.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Ross, thank you for being so quick to respond and be available and to reach out to your providers so you can give us an update. And thank you very much for coming in.

[Ross McDonald (Public Transit Program Manager, VTrans)]: Thank you. Good to see you.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: As a committee, are moving to our committee work to make sure we're ready for our floor presentation. It went to appropriations yesterday. They scheduled a review of the bill on Friday afternoon. So there's an invitation for right now, looks like a one fifteen or something like that. On Friday, the miscellaneous motor vehicle will be in house appropriation. So you can say they're looking back to be on action calendar or notice calendar, sorry, on Tuesday. So we'll look at Tuesday or Wednesday next week for our bill to be

[Representative James "Jim" Casey]: on the floor. Bill's on Novus calendar.

[Representative Candice White]: We have a token session. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: On a month. So let's make it well, we need make sure we're ready for Tuesday. It's a good chance. We need some meeting for we were thinking Friday, but since I got the invite from April to it's not gonna be Friday.

[Representative Candice White]: We're going to floor tomorrow too, afternoon.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: It's at the same the invitation so something might change. The invitation is for the same time as before. Yeah. So that's we'll see for the when they're gonna look at it. But we're gonna make sure we're ready for two