Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: It's a page that I thought I would. Will the senate please come to order. Our devotional exercise will be conducted by reverend Tom Hardy of the United Congressional Church of Bethel. Welcome.

[Rev. Tom Hardy]: Good morning.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Washington District)]: Good morning. Good

[Rev. Tom Hardy]: morning. I like that. The congressional church. Okay. Yeah. It was good. It was good, lieutenant governor. Good morning. It was good. Well, happy Valentine's Day and happy last day to the pages. I bet you're all bummed out. Alright. So I'd like to do this morning is just spend a really brief moment on one of the things that affects how we all approach what we do, and that is that is what we believe. And as a, what I like to refer to as a hopeful, or perhaps maybe I would say, yeah, I'd say hopeful agnostic, that kind of affects the way I believe. It doesn't affect the philosophies I teach, doesn't affect the theology I learned. It's informed by all the history of the actual history that I know. So I wanted to just lay something out there today, and that is what we believe counts. Whether we believe or not counts. Whether we believe in things like infallibility or whether we believe in all powerful beings, those count. And here's the reason they count, because they affect our worldview. They affect the decisions we make. So I would ask that each and every one of you, when you're spending time thinking, that you do some real critical thinking. Because if you believe in some supernatural power that can enter into the laws of the universe and tinker with physics, which means we wouldn't be able to fly, then you let yourselves off the hook. Because if you believe in that kind of a deity, it means you're not on the hook. But if you believe that whatever this non dual singularity that we refer to is cannot do that kind of supernatural thing, you're on the hook. It's up to you to do it. There's a reason ten thousand children die of hunger every day. There's a reason that things like that happen. There's a reason that we see these things. And the reason is us. So when we pray, let's pray deeply because prayer changes us. It doesn't get us something. That something it gets us is insight and wisdom and knowledge and allows us to look in the mirror even deeper and see what it is that we need to do to bring about compromise, to bring about change, and to bring about what is good for all of our fellow Vermonters near and far, rich and poor, black and white, all of those dualistic things we think of. For there is no dualism. It's all a continuum and we need to do our part where we are on that continuum in our life, in our history, and in where we are in the world at this point. So my prayer for you is that you begin to understand those deep nature of belief and its effect on your lives and the lives of others. Amen. Thank you.

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: So now we're gonna K. We're gonna take a brief recess to honor the last day of this wonderful group of pages. In for your help. Come on over here so they can get a picture with. I'm gonna shake your hand. Siobhan Berman. They know they're stopping over there.

[Senator Philip Baruth (Chittenden Central) — President Pro Tempore]: You wanna tell them

[Rev. Tom Hardy]: about that?

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: Yes. I told the so the pages are supposed to go into the cloakroom. I told them prior to this, so they, think are all headed in the right direction. Will the senate please come to order? Are there any announcements? I have one announcement to make, and that is today, the conservation districts are here in the State House and have a stream table set up in the lieutenant governor's office. If anyone would like to stop in and check that out, it's a great display of what natural streams do in the environment. Are there any announcements? Seeing none. Orders of the day. You. Senator from Chittenden.

[Senator Philip Baruth (Chittenden Central) — President Pro Tempore]: Thank you, mister president. I would ask that we move to s two zero nine and then back to the top of the cap.

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: We have s two zero nine for third reading. Are there amend any amendments prior to third reading? Please listen to the third reading.

[John H. Bloomer Jr. (Secretary of the Senate)]: S two zero nine, an act relating to prohibiting civil arrest in sensitive locations.

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: Question is shall the bill pass? Are you ready for the question? If so all in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed nay. No. The eyes appear to have it. The eyes do have it and we've passed S209. We have on the calendar for action h seven ninety, which passed the house February 30. It was referred to the committee on appropriations with reports it is considered the bill and recommends that the senate propose to the house that the bill be amended as it appears on pages 104 of today's calendar, and that with such proposal of amendment, the bill ought to pass. Listen to the second reading of the bill.

[John H. Bloomer Jr. (Secretary of the Senate)]: H seven ninety an act relating to fiscal year twenty twenty six budget adjustments.

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: Recognize the senator from Washington District, senator Perchlik, for the report of the committee on appropriations.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Washington District)]: Thank you, mister president. There's several handouts. I'm trying to provide you all the kind of information to show you all the work that the committee does when we go through the budget. I'm not going go through all of them, but this will give you reading materials for your Valentine's Day weekend. You could cuddle up with your Valentine and read web report. Very exciting reading. So I'm gonna go through these documents, one one by one first. So the first one I'm gonna go through is this, what we call the highlight, the still two pager that has color at the top. The table at the top gives you the FY '26 budget. So just to remind folks what the budget adjustment act is just that we're adjusting the budget that we passed last year. So it's it's like an amendment that we would do of a bill during the year, but we do it the next year after it passed. Because as you can imagine with something as large as the state budget, there's a whole bunch of little things that can change. There's new facts on the ground that'll change, the revenue can change, the work that the departments can change. So it all starts with the governor in kind of late summer in the fall where they go out to all their agencies and departments. The governor has, you know, a whole team of folks that works start working on the budget in in in the fall. They they work until they develop the budget that they that they send to us. And then the house spends all their time on it, which they have all day to work on it, and they make changes to it. And then we get it, and we do kind of the final review, I think, of it as so the table at the top just gives you some some numbers, big numbers of the the changes that were made to the FY twenty six budget that we all passed. And then below in some of the transfers, some changes to the revenues, and then the total amount of $2,850,000,000 for the general fund. And then this table also reminds folks that a lot of the budget adjustment is about the general fund, but there are some changes to the other funds, the transportation fund, education fund. All other funds, those are the hundreds of special funds that we have. And then the unduplicated total is because we we appropriate money into the global commitment to medic Medicaid, expenses, and then we then we also spend it out of there. So we talk about unduplicated funds. So the whole budget is that $9,100,000,000. The this this this document gives you some overviews of kind of what we're on. I'm not gonna kinda work through all of them, but if you have questions, but I'll I'll highlight some of the base approach appropriation adjustments at the bottom of of the front page of this. These are some examples of the things that we would just normally do in a budget adjustment. $870,000 for state police for overtime cost. You know, we didn't we can't predict what the overtime cost will be. There was a lot more overtime. Even though the state police are doing a good job of getting more recruitment and retention, there's still a lot of openings. You know anybody that wants to be a state trooper, you should encourage them. This this this this is an example of something that can happen three times when we pass the budget and then we come back. We need $870,000 to to cover that cost that we already spent. $180,000 for the state's securities and sheriffs, transport deputy similar. 14,000,000 for global commitment for the for Dale, Department of Disabilities Aging and Internal Bridging for financial relief for nursing homes. This is to keep our nursing homes from from closing. $390,000 for the Department of Mental Health for traveling nurses at the state hospital. Another thing is knowing they ought to be a nurse at the state hospital, but if we can stop using with many traveling nurses, that would be a saving. Department of Corrections, 4,600,000.0 for their so both of basically, we more prisoners and the health contract is a pretty big change. You'll also see a change there from from some more prisoners that we're sending out of state. We had we had some cost to summer wildfires. We haven't had a lot of wildfires in Vermont, but this last year, we had some that weren't we didn't really budget for. An example of our changing climate. There's there's a on number eight on page two, I wanna highlight the shift of 3,400,000.0 from the general fund to the pilot fund. This is money that we used to spend out of the general fund, but we're now gonna spend it out of the pilot special fund to help down for the grand list reappraisal and adjustments. I might mention that several times. Caseload adjustments is $34,000,000 from Medicaid caseload. And then we have one time appropriations. Examples are the accountability court, which you might have heard of in Burlington. There were several adjustments that had to be made because that was something that the the governor announced after we had passed this bill. So there are some expenses that needed to be covered that could be covered under normal instances. There's an important one, this $3,000,000 number two, because of federal funds that the education department assumed they were going to get for some from staff and for teachers, and that would help pay the teachers, the employer contribution for pensions. Because that money didn't come in, we had to pay more to meet our ADAC or our actuary defined employee contribution for the pensions. Why not buy $3,000,000? So we had to find that $3,000,000. Other global commitment for department of department of health. This is for this is number three for medical transport, non emergency medical transports. This is something we also heard in transportation. I know health and welfare had a hearing on it, of the real need to be able to provide particular seniors, people that don't have cars, access to their medical appointments. This is non emergency, so it's not an ambulance. This is give somebody a ride to the dialysis appointments and things like that. I'll I'll meant to highlight number seven. There's a lot of talk on this money that we've provided to the food bank to fund the agency of agriculture's for Montrose feeding for Montrose program. So, there's a lot of need for hunger programs in the state. And then down in other number one, this is what people will call payment reform. There's other sections that I'll talk about, but this might be something where you have your designated agencies in your districts might have talked to you about this because this this is a big deal for them and for the state about how we fund the services that are done in all of our districts. For for me, for example, this is Washington Washington County Mental Health up in Burlington might be the Howard Center. And we we adjusted how they're they're getting funded in in the bill. So that's the highlight sheet. I passed up this worksheet, this take, you know, Excel spreadsheet. Just so you can see, it's a little easier to to follow in here kind of what happened. So you'll see a column for the governor's recommend changes, then what the house did and the difference, then what the senate did and what the difference was. And you'll notice there's not a lot of differences. This is very different than last year, and it's much more what the governor had called a clean BAA. We really just made the adjustments that were necessary coming out of the governor's budget process. Couple things that even that the house changed were recommended by the governor that just after he had made his his BA or other tweaks that we need to make. And you'll see very little change that the that the senate had made. But this this this document shows all these changes, shows you the transfers and the revenue, and at the very bottom, it'll show the balance. And there's the $74,000,091,910,000. That is the money that we're setting aside. The governor had news but it's set aside. He talks about it specifically for property tax buy down. The language that we have in the in the bill that you'll be voting on allows it for property tax buy down or other things depending on how things happen in the '27 budget. So that money is on the bottom line because we're assuming it's gonna be used in '27 budget bill. Could be for property tax buy down. We're we're we're including a whole list of things that it could be used for depending on how things shake out. I think the anticipation is that all or most of it would be used for that, or we're leaving that open if there are other emergency needs that we have. I'll just point out that you'll see on this worksheet, it starts well, there's a line number just from the Excel document, but then there's these numbers like V139, which is on line 11. This is a reappraisal and look listing payment. That's at 3 point some million yeah. 3,400,000.0 that we're moving from general fund to pilot funds. That's B139. So if you wanted to find it in the web report, which I'll go over next, you would look for B139. So it's on page two of this web report, And it's on page six of the bill, the agenda, if you're looking at that. And then it's also on section 51. So you it's it's helpful to know the difference between the budget section, which is these a numb a letter and then a number, and then the sections of the bill. So I'm not going to go through all these because I'm to go through the the bill, but if you have any questions as you look through those, happy to answer. It's pretty straightforward. We did end up with this tiny change from the house of the governor of just $10,000 So that's what that is. The web report is is an exciting read, but it is very helpful because it has basically everything in the whole state budget. The the worksheet that I just showed you is really just all the general fund changes. There is some language about the transfers on here, but this document shows you actually everything that's happening in in the BAA. And if there's a change from the governor's recommend, there will be a little box underneath it. So you'll see the very first one about legislative council. There was a change that the house made that we agreed to. So there's a little box explaining what the house change was. You'll also see on page two, b 139 is that one I've talked about before, the 3,400,000.0. The b 139 shows that that $3,400,000 is being shifted from the general fund, and then you see it being put in to the special fund. Coming out of the general fund, then we're appropriating it from the special fund for the purpose of those reappraisal for the towns. I think I can give you another another highlight I wanna do, page 10 of this web report.

[Senator Philip Baruth (Chittenden Central) — President Pro Tempore]: It's on the

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Washington District)]: top of that page, which is the the section numbers on those are d three twenty five. This is a change that the that the the house made. The governor had proposed $2,000,000 for homeless shelters, and the the house took $1,300,000 of that $2,000,000 and wanted to give it to the agency, the housing opportunities for the housing opportunities program. And there you'll see that in the bill how they divided that up. But this is it's in section 81 of of the of the bill. So this is what you can spend your weekend reading. I'll see if there's anything else I wanted to talk to you about. Another just example, Page 16 of this document, b one eleven hundred j, this agency of education is another this is an example of a of a change from the governor's recommend. The agency of education had $700,000 of savings from a program. So the governor reverted it, but then he wanted to spend it on have the AOE be able to spend it on a literacy program called the read Vermont program. We didn't have a lot of time to take testimony on it. The house had taken it out. We basically had this secretary or had AOE in to talk about it and we're hoping that for the it'll be a consideration for the '27 budget. We weren't disagreeing that it's a good use of that $700,000 but we're hoping, you know, the education committee can can take that up and advise the appropriations committee on it if we think that is the best use. But just wasn't a lot of the time to do all that work. So that's a web report. That's on reading that. So now I'm going to go through the actual bill, page 79. So as I said, you know, the bill have section numbers, but the budget also has section numbers. So sometimes it just seems confusing. I'm just gonna be talking about the bill section numbers. So you probably wanna do this for your bill reports, but you probably can't. I'm gonna skip from section one all the way to section 51 because all of that is what's in these worksheets. It's just the dollar changes. But if you see something in there that you're you're interested about, then look at the section number of the budget and then go to the web report or go to the handout, the worksheet, and you'll be able to find information. Because the worksheet, the Excel sheet has that notes column. So either by the notes in the web report or the notes on the worksheet, you might be able to find out what you want there. So section 51 is a series of one time appropriations that we made. The I won't actually go over every single one of these. Some of these are just changes. So for example, a three on page 17 is $500,000 for the accountability court. Four is the $3,000,000 that that I told you about that's for the teachers retirement fund that are are the employer requirements from the actuaries said, you really need to be $3 $3,000,000 more. This language is what does that change, which I talked about. I talked about this, the pilot fund. There's $500,000 coming out of the pilot special fund for for tax to do a property valuation model for communication properties. That's one of the Department of Taxes appropriations. So like other bills, you're looking at last year's Act 27. And so it's underlying, it's obviously a change from what we passed last year. At the bottom of page 17, there's $385,000 for office fit up in Waterbury. This was a result of the governor's return to office program where some departments had so many people working maybe only one or two days in the office With more people coming in, they needed more office space to to accommodate all those new workers coming into the office. The I mentioned this non medical non emergency medical transport that's at the top of page 18. So after that, g is a series of changes to the Department of Health budget for for this year for this fiscal year. Some of these things are just are net neutral changing and kind of where they're from, like the hundred sixty three is changing from the office of racial equity to, health equity department within the department of health now. So So that's not a change to the program, just kind of changing where it's going. A hundred and sixty seven thousand for the Bridges to Health program, that's a that's a program that provides health care to immigrants. Number nine is a change for these recovery centers. So last year, the department health gave a flat payment to each recovery center, but there should have been a formula. And so this these amounts kinda correct what those recovery centers should have gotten under the formula but didn't get because it was sent out as a flat rate. This might have been something you might have heard of heard from any of your recovery centers you have in your district. There's some language on page 19 at the top. We we had provided some funding for a recovery center that wasn't able to use all the money for the building, so we made sure that they could use some of the per per admin. Lower on page two, this is, this is an exam a good example of the budget adjustment act. This $1,000,000 of general fund for the land access and opportunity board. They the the governor's office had reverted that. I mean, they took that away from the Land Access Opportunity Board in preparation of their budget. But then the Land Access Opportunity Board said, no. We we had a grant program. We just released the the RFP. We're gonna be giving out grants any day now. We need that million dollars. So they but they had already taken it. So they asked us to put it back in here. So this is an example that might see as a change, but it was actually on a recommendation from the from the governor that we added that. Some some money at the bottom, 2,700,000.0 for Vermont Health Connect cloud maker migration. The Prattleboro Retreat is is a tremendous partner and resource we have to deal with our mental health needs in the state, and we have a contract where we we at the end of the year, we see how many beds how many bed days were actually used and we have to make up the difference. So there it was used a lot last year, so there was a sizable increased payment that we had to make to to that to the. Number seven in there that something I mentioned 800,000 for the global commitment. So the global commitment, you wanna receive that. That's a mix of the federal funds and the state funds. So this is example when we talk about unduplicated because we appropriated it earlier from the general fund a portion, and then we're also appropriating $800,000 global commitment, but we can't count that twice. But this is important work for this non emergency medical transport funding. So then we have agency about agriculture. You'll see that the governor had recommended 500 or we have passed $500,000 for this program last in last year's budget. So we're increasing it to 860,000 for the Vermonters feeding Vermonters, which helps not only our farmers sell food to to local to the food bank and that that would supplies food for those that are in need of more food security. There's some funding here, f f section for the judiciary for have accountability court mostly about the top section is there. That takes us to section 52. There's some downgrades in funds, so the property transfer tax allocations. So the VHCV and others that you'll see on page 21. These aren't a policy difference. These are just mathematical changes because of the downgrade to some of the the revenues. So it's slight changes that that happened because of that. Section 53 are fund transfers. So, for example, the first one there, the criminal records check. The criminal justice council does this this work. They had a deficit of just over $1,000,000 because they had more more costs providing this service and they brought in as revenue, which brought up the question, are you bringing enough revenue? So you'll see a paragraph after that that says, come back next year and tell us what's what's how you're gonna make this a sustainable fund instead of coming to us and budget adjustment every year asking to fill the fund. Should we be charging more for criminal background checks or not? Because a lot of the criminal background checks are done by state agencies. So if we just charge it from them, we're also just gonna be paying it ourselves. So that's what that report is in there. There are some changes to the cannabis regulation fund. This is can't remember if this is the the increase of the funds in that in that account at the end of the year. There's some changes to the substance misuse prevention special fund, but I think this is just again on changes that more money kept coming into the fund. It It was not a change of policy. You'll see it's an increase, but there's just more money in that fund than we anticipated when we broke the bill in, you know, '25 last year. Same with those general fund transfers below there. Those are just kind of technical corrections. People are always interested in this down at the bottom of page 22. These are transfers or what we sometimes call direct apps. So sports wagering, they we predicted it would be $7,600,000 of revenue to the general fund, but it wasn't. So you guys aren't betting enough. It was only $6,600,000 maybe you're winning too much. So, also, how much money are we getting from liquor sales? So we thought it was only gonna be 14.8, but actually Vermonters are buying more liquor than we thought. So it's actually $16,800,000 into the general fund from the liquor liquor control fund. There's some other transfers that that you'll see on page 23. Now some of these are very small, $65 from from JFO, from, you know, money we gave them to do a study that they don't need it. You'll see that $700,000 on this page I talked to at the top, AOE license data management. That was the $700,000 savings. They didn't need it for that IT project that they would like to go to Reed, Vermont, which as I said, we're hoping to to address in the FY twenty seven budget. So this is also something that the governor mentioned in his budget speech down on D in general fund reserves. So we're reserving the $74,900,000 You know, the governor's language, this is a, you know, different language where he said it's only for property tax relief. We took language that we had from reserves that we had from last year and and put property tax relief in the list of things that it could be used for. Education fund change down there, just so you know, was that was we added that $13,000,000 to the buy down we did last year, but we didn't actually make the make the change in here. So, this is a technical change that should have been an act 27 that wasn't. But we we did this, but we didn't put it in the law. So, we definitely make that correction. This budget adjustment, like other budget adjustments, sometimes this has changes to the law or position. So on page 24, this one executive director for the land use review board. This isn't a new position, but this is making it an exempt position as there was a limited service position when we created it. The down at the bottom, this was, took a lot of work, and it's kind of confusing language, but the child care contribution reserve section 58. If you remember from last year's VA and budget we had some disagreements with the administration on how we were dealing with the child care contribution special fund and there wasn't enough money in to do it, or if there was more money than at the time what we do with it. So this is an agreement that we that the administration agreed to. So it's a collaborative work on on just the procedures at the end of the fiscal year on how we make sure that all the money that was put in that was paid from from the payroll tax for child care program gets used for that. So that's what that does. You can read it if you have any questions. And then there's some other just technical corrections, section 59. So section 60, I will do another thing that you're probably not allowed to do is skip from section 60 all the way to section 76. Because all those sixteen secondtions are really just technical changes. You'll just see over and over again, it takes out legislative operations and charges it with joint fiscal or director of legislative operations, chief fiscal office. This is a rearranging of how let's you know, operations within legislative council works, just changing the structure of of of the office. So that's all those pages, so I'm not gonna go over that. So that takes us to page 31, section 77. This is a change that the house made that we agreed with some additional $45,000 additional funding for, HIV and harm reductions through these three organizations that do that work, giving a little bit of more money to meet kind of an urgent need that they have. Section 78 you might remember from last year we put $50,000,000 aside in the budget for kind of emergency reaction to what we thought was gonna be a messy federal budget. We didn't know what the what was gonna happen. So we said here's $50,000,000 to e board to spend if we find that the federal government doesn't fund some major part of of Medicare, Medicaid that we really need funds for. So what this does, it keeps the $50,000,000 The e board did spend just just under $7,000,000 so 6,600,000.0 or $6,400,000 for SNAP. You might have heard in the in the fall, the e board because we didn't look like because the the federal government was shut down. So SNAP payments weren't going out. So we use this language and this money to send out one payment for one month while the government was shut down. This adds additional language for the use of that $50,000,000 that now 43,200,000.0 that's left for any kind of extraordinary public safety costs that are necessitated by federal action in Vermont. So if a municipality has to really ramp up public safety costs, the e board could tap into this money or we're still here in session. We could pass the bill to that effect. The housing assistance section 79, this was a change from the house. The house had put $5,000,000 into housing assistance specifically for section eight vouchers to meet the needs. We're gonna use some of this $50,000,000. It's $5,000,000 out of the $50,000,000 to provide more section eight housing vouchers. And this language that you'll see, you know, starts on page 31, goes to page 32. It's kind of how the money was gonna be spent with from the housing organizations, housing authorities that that that do section eight housing. Why we had the bill, the federal government did pass an appropriation that fully funded this HUD section eight housing program. So we're not sure how much money the state authorities really needed. We there's a likelihood that they'll still need some money and we could either do that in a comp likely conference committee or an FY '27 budget. So we left the language in here about the program because we we we do want to fund these these vouchers if we if we need to because less vouchers we have this year, then there's less money we get from the federal government next year. But we we just kinda wanted more information before we took that 5,000,000 out of that 50,000,000 or the 43.2 that's left because we we know that's a precious fund that we set aside for extraordinary instances and we wanted to keep that available for us before you not spend it without having full information. So down to section 80 at the bottom page 32 is this giving money to tax, allowing the tax department to use the pilot special fund. That switch I talked to the $3,400,000. It was back on in section six. This just is the language that that makes that change. On the on page 33, this b, this section is the Hoff money I talked about. Remember, used that as an example of the house taking the governor had set two aside 2,000,000 aside for for emergency housing, homelessness housing, and the house took 1,300,000.0. They kept 700,000 or just under for the for the program that the governor set up. But then the the house had here's the list of the groups, these 13 grants that'll go out for doing work on homelessness and emergency housing. So it's the same use, but the house and we we agreed that this was a fine way to get the money directly out to the community instead of just, at the state. The section 83 is VA payment reform of the designated agencies, something you might have heard about. This is something that was controversial controversial between the state and how they pay the designated agencies for their important services that they do. There was some language last year. There was some language that that the house had that they said is just placeholder. So our committee on health and welfare, JFO, members from the designated agencies all got together and agreed on this language. It is kind of confusing language, but what it basically does is just sets up how the funding is going to be distributed. They're gonna they used to get more like 80 or nine 85% or 90% upfront, then there was a reconciliation. This changes up to 65%, which is up from what the administration had proposed is only 40%. The 40, some of these DAs couldn't get through their fiscal year. They didn't have enough cash flow. So they would have had to borrow money in anticipation of this state money. So the agreement was 65% upfront should allow them to get through their fiscal year and then do the reconciliation, and this is a one time change do that. And so what we did, the the house had actually put money towards this this effort. We're saying that if the agency of human services could find this money in the budget, they can do that. You'll see on page 35 right above section eight, they talk about that they could take it out of the human services caseload reserve. We have a caseload. We have money reserved specifically for agency of human services caseload. Like, if there's some reason just the uses of five five whatever year, there's more use, more cases than they can dip into the reserves. That's why we have it for their source. We're saying they could use that for the cost instead of appropriating money from the 50,000,000, for example, that you use. So we'll we're we're we'll we'll see how that that goes at the end of this fiscal year. There's some changes to if you remember last year, section 84 on page 35, we had made a change to how hospitals charge for outpatient prescription drugs drugs. This changes that a little bit, just making it clear that the hospitals that are gonna participate in the rural healthcare transformation grant, are are exempt from that and making sure because I was told this is like a technical corrections on on which hospitals are are exempt from that pricing. Top of page 36, eighty six and eighty seven were technical corrections that the administration wanted. The house had made these appropriations, but there wasn't just proper wording around it. So these these this underlining wording was given us to by the administration just to make make it clear that we're all agree on exactly what the money was being used for. The section 88 is the $9,500,000 that we well, I just talked about about the community based service payment reform. If they needed that language, it's there. And then the 89 is carry forward language that we have every year just allows these funds to carry forward into the next fiscal year. We also have language that allows the administration to revert it when they need to next year. And then there's the affection date, which is on passage. So that is Bill. Happy to take questions. Now, also the vote was seven zero zero. We have a lot of witnesses as you can imagine. Basically, any department that was touched by this came to testify. There's 56 witnesses, which I'm happy to share with you. I'm not gonna read them all. Thank you.

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: The question is, shall the senate propose to the house to amend the bill as recommended by the committee on appropriations? Are you ready for the question? Senator from Addison.

[Senator Ruth Hardy (Addison)]: Thank you, mister president. May I inquire of the reporter

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Washington District)]: of bill?

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: Reporter is interrogated.

[Senator Ruth Hardy (Addison)]: Thank you Mr. President. Thank you so much for that, really, detailed, explanation of the bill. It's really nice to see a budget adjustment bill that is pretty vanilla in all the good ways. I have a question on section 83 and it's my understanding and as the reporter of the bill mentioned this was sort of negotiated language. It is really confusing and one of the things in section B of this language on page 34, there's a deadline for providing comprehensive financial data to Dale from the DAs, which are all of the mental health organizations in our communities by 03/15/2026. So that's basically in thirty days, and that's concerning to me. I I understand this is negotiated language, but it it's very short timeline. And, also, this timeline, the way it's laid out in the bill is kind of confusing. So I guess my question, mister president,

[Senator Philip Baruth (Chittenden Central) — President Pro Tempore]: is

[Senator Ruth Hardy (Addison)]: does the senator think there will be an opportunity to maybe clarify some of this language, in a conference committee, to make sure that this is, laid out in a way that makes sense to everyone who might be, utilizing and reading the language.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Washington District)]: Yes, mister president. This this language is quite different from the house language, so I'm sure the house, will have comments on it. They've already told me they're gonna ask for a conference committee, so it definitely will be part of what's on the table at the conference committee. I think specifically to the data, it won't be a surprise to the DAs that the state wants this data. It So is a quick turnaround, but I think they're already aware that this has been asked for before. So it's not a complete surprise to get this data. But if that date needs to change, that's definitely something we can work on.

[Senator Ruth Hardy (Addison)]: Okay. Great. Thank you, mister president. I do also have one other question on the next section, section 84. You mentioned this is the change to the the really I think it was act 55 I believe that we did last year about the outpatient prescription medications, dialysis and things like that. That resulted in a huge significant decrease in healthcare costs and also our health insurance rates in the state. It's it's had some ripple effects. It reduced costs for schools and their health care costs and the state, etcetera. And my understanding that

[Rev. Tom Hardy]: is

[Senator Ruth Hardy (Addison)]: this is Brattleboro Hospital that would be exempt, and it's because they're going through some separate project or something, is my understanding. But I'm wondering, there a fiscal impact to our insurance rates or health care costs because of this exemption?

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Washington District)]: Thank you, mister president. I I don't recall hearing about about a a fiscal impact, although I could see why you might think when it would be something that I would have to come back a third reading provide an answer for.

[Senator Ruth Hardy (Addison)]: Okay. Thank you, Mr. President.

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: Are you ready for the question? Senator from Essex.

[Senator Philip Baruth (Chittenden Central) — President Pro Tempore]: Thank you, Mr. President.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Essex)]: Could I ask a question of the chair of appropriations?

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: Chair is interrogated.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Essex)]: Do understand on the first handout that you did the quick fact sheet, which is very helpful on base appropriations online number one, provides $870,000 overtime to our state police, with no question that, with 50 people down as being reported, that the overtime would be there. Could you help dispel a rumor within the building that most of that money went to one community versus just being spread out amongst all the communities that were needing the overtime coverage.

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: Senator from Essex, I would just remind you that you're supposed to speak through the president and not directly to the senator. You're questioning?

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Washington District)]: Thank you, mister president. We did that was discussed in committee. It is not this was statewide. There I think if I remember correctly, but I would correct it on third reading. If not, or if another member of the committee remembers. I wanna say it was it was around $180,000, which maybe I'm saying that because it's the next line, that's a different thing. If I remember correctly, work that I think you're referring to for one particular municipality was under $200,000 this 870 was statewide. The the the shortage that is the openings or the vacancies that state police have affect the whole state. So this overtime definitely was not for just one municipality. Municipality.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Essex)]: I thank the Senator, thank you, Mr. President. Another comment, it's very rewarding to see that the $50,000,000 that was set aside for emergencies in case a federal government didn't fund is intact other than, $6,900,000, that was, chose to be spent that had we had the luxury of having a few extra days, we probably wouldn't have had to done that because the shutdown was, set down. I would love to have seen this $50,000,000 be dispersed at a time where we do have holes severely in our budgets, such as transportation and institutions, and certainly in the health and human services where we have a great need to fund some of these places that are healing people from the effects of recoveries. But I get that we still wanna hold some of those monies back but I would love to see. We do have, we do have holes, that could be plugged and, it just wouldn't make sense to me that we would use these dollars to plug those holes right now. But thank you, Mr. President.

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: Senator from Washington.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Washington District)]: Thank you, Mr. President. I just wanted to kind of echo the comments from Senator from Essex in that. I think there's agreement on that basically principle that he pointed out. But we thought the budget adjustment wasn't that. We're trying to keep this as clean as possible, but we definitely heard a lot about the needs that we had and how we would rather have this money working than just sitting here worrying about the future. We should be proactive and just kind of solving some of the problems and not just sitting on money. We have our reserves that we need for emergencies, but I think this is that's definitely a discussion that we will have for the FY '27 budget.

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: Are you ready? Senator from Windsor.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Windsor)]: Thank you. I just like, to if I may, ask a question of the reporter.

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: The reporter is interrogated.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Windsor)]: So I just like to clarify. You say set we're maintaining the 74,000,000 the 74,000,000, also in case of need and the 50,000,000. Is that correct? We have both the 50,000,000 satisfied and the 74,000,000?

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Washington District)]: Mr. President, have the 50,000,000 is there, although it's not 50,000,000. It's 42.6 or whatever it is because we did use that money for the 6 point something million for the SNAP benefit. That is still there. The 74,000,000 is still there that you'll see in the bottom line of the worksheet from the general fund. And there are definitely the other reserves that we have normally, rainy day fund and the stabilization reserves.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Windsor)]: Right. You know where my special interest lies, on page, 31. The senator knows where my special interest lies in the housing assistance program. That need was fairly clear, and I'm discouraged and sad to see that you chose not to directly appropriate it. I'm unclear on the timeline. Could you be this is very these section eight housing factors are critically important to us, particularly in this housing crisis. And HUD has this insidious formula whereby they fund us less and get you have to keep asking each year and then but you get less, and therefore, you're you the the formula kind of make keeps it in a spiral down in terms of the number of section eight housing vouchers we are unable to access. Can you tell me why that wasn't considered a crisis enough to actually include, and what's the timeline on that need? Because I thought that timeline on that need was sort of immediate.

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: Senator, I'm trying to dole out the rules equally several several more. Can you can the senator, please? Can the reporter, please?

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Windsor)]: Senator, please answer my question.

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: Thank you.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Washington District)]: Mister president, the there there there was new information. I guess two things is we we agreed the the the importance of the section eight housing vouchers and we wanted to avoid you know have the eight housing authorities getting rid of or cancelling you know dozens if not hundreds of these vouchers which would have been catastrophic for Vermont. But because of the federal funding came through why we had the bill and we heard from legislative council that this even though there was written as a way to try to make it legal there were still some questions about the legality and would HUD really allow states to do this? Because if it was that easy of just adding money one year to get more money from the Fed, it's forcing the Fed to give you more money. There was concern about that. We thought we'd get more information on that issue as well as exactly how much money this Vermont state authorities were going to get. So then we'd know, is it $5,000,000 Maybe it's $6,000,000 Maybe it's $3,000,000 Because of precious resources that we have of this pot of money, we wanted to make sure we were providing the right amount of money and doing it the right amount of way. Definitely something like the issue for the senator from Addison brought up. This is different from the house. The house was very supportive of it, so it'll definitely be something in the conference committee. So the conference committee won't happen until next week. We'll have another week of data. We'll have Vermont Housing Authority in, you know, or we'll be talking to them. They won't provide testimony, but we'll be talking to them to make sure we have the right information. And if we have the information that it is an urgent need and we can do it legally to try to get more money from the feds then we will definitely do that.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Windsor)]: I thank the senator and look forward to the progress you're going make on housing assistance in the conference committee. Thank you.

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: The senator from Chittenden Central.

[Senator Martine Larocque Gulick (Chittenden Central)]: Thank you. May I interrogate the presenter of the

[Senator Philip Baruth (Chittenden Central) — President Pro Tempore]: budget adjustment?

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: The reporter is interrogated.

[Senator Martine Larocque Gulick (Chittenden Central)]: Thank you. I have what I hope are a couple of clarifying questions, and I'm I'm working off this big graph, but on line 18 of the graph, it appears that we might be funding a computer project in Illinois and I'm just hoping you can clarify what is happening there.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Washington District)]: I would have to get back to you on third reading of why this $570,000 more for this public safety criminal justice service computer. Remember them talking about it but I don't remember what the connection to Illinois is if that's just where the contractor was.

[Senator Martine Larocque Gulick (Chittenden Central)]: Okay we're not to your knowledge the senator may not know the answer to this question but that's not where we're currently housing out of state.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Washington District)]: Okay. No, mister president. Our out of state prisoners are being housed in in a facility in Mississippi.

[Senator Martine Larocque Gulick (Chittenden Central)]: Wonderful. Thank you. My next question is on line 48, the increase in need for spending on an income verification system. Is this an increase due to federal changes in requirements for verification of income?

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Washington District)]: This $50,000, mister president, I do not remember the Department of Children's Families explaining why, so I'd have to ask her to respond to that on Thursday.

[Senator Martine Larocque Gulick (Chittenden Central)]: I thank the senator.

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: Are you ready for the question? The question is, shall the senate propose to the house to amend the bill as recommended by the committee on appropriations? If so, all in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed, nay. The ayes have it. And you have approved the amendment. Question now is, shall the bill be read a third time? Are you ready for the question? If so, all in favor, say aye. Aye. All opposed, nay. The ayes have it, and you have ordered third reading of h seven ninety. We now have h 50, an act relating to identifying underutilized state buildings and land. Senator from Windham.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Windham)]: Thank you, mister president. I move that the senate not concur in the house proposal of amendment to senate proposal of amendment and request that a committee of conference be appointed.

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: The senator from Windham has moved that the senate not concur in the house proposal of amendment and the senate proposal to the senate proposal of amendment and that a committee of conference be appointed. Are you ready for the question? If so, all in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed, nay. The ayes have it. On behalf of the committee on committees, the following members are appointed to the committee on conference on behalf of the senate. Senator Harrison, senator Benson, senator Plunkett. Senator from Windham.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Windham)]: Thank you, mister president. I move that the rules be suspended and the bill be messaged to the house forthwith.

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: The senator from Windham has moved that the rules be suspended and the bill be messaged to the house forthwith. Are you ready for the question? If so, all in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed nay. Ayes have it. The motion carries. We now have a sec senate bill for

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Washington District)]: Mister President? Yes.

[Senator Philip Baruth (Chittenden Central) — President Pro Tempore]: We would like to pass over s two eighteen.

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: Thank you, senator. Dan, I believe that completes the orders of the day. Are there any announcements? Senator from Chittenden Central.

[Senator Philip Baruth (Chittenden Central) — President Pro Tempore]: Thank you, mister president. Pending announcements. I would move that Senate stand in adjournment until 09:30AM Tuesday, 02/17/2026. And if I might lead off the announcements. Two, small announcements. One is that with our first class of pages leaving that tells you we are a third of the way through this year. So it is running faster than I think any of us bring to consciousness. That also means we are two thirds of the way through the biennium. So we are headed very quickly toward the end game, and I would just suggest that all committee chairs redouble their efforts to meet crossover. The second announcement, mister president, has to do with, mister president. My rhetorical question would be how much would you donate to see the lieutenant governor shave his mustache? So lieutenant governor will be participating in the polar plunge, the penguin plunge

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: Penguin.

[Senator Philip Baruth (Chittenden Central) — President Pro Tempore]: And benefiting the Special Olympics. And as a challenge, his team has set $2,600 as a trigger for the shaving of the bus. So if you are interested in seeing a hairless lieutenant governor, you can see chief of staff in the Lieutenant Governor's office and contribute directly there or you can go to the Bertie Bits team page on the Penguin Plunge website. Thank you very

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Washington District)]: much, mister president.

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: Senator from Essex.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Essex)]: Mister president, I was just curious to whether, if we raised half of that, could we get half of a mustache? Thank you.

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: Are there any further announcements? Senator from Washington.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Windham)]: Thank you, mister president.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Windsor)]: Senate finance will meet at 01:00, new time.

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: Senator from Washington.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Washington District)]: Senator appropriations will also be at 01:00 so we can try to leave her.

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: Senator from Rutland.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Washington District)]: Thank you, mister president. Senate government operations will also meet at one.

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: Senator from Windham.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Windham)]: Thank you, mister president. Senate institutions will meet at one.

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: Senator from Bennington.

[Senator Philip Baruth (Chittenden Central) — President Pro Tempore]: Mister president, the senate education committee will will meet at one. We'll have a lot of people waiting for us.

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: Senator from Windsor.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Windsor)]: I wish you all, all senators, senators, I hope you have a a really fabulous Valentine's Day tomorrow.

[Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: Are there any further announcements? Seeing none, the senator from Chittenden Central has moved to the senate stand and adjournment until 09:30AM, Tuesday, February If so, all in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed nay. No. The ayes appear to have it. No. The ayes do have it. We'll stand in adjournment till 09:30 Tuesday, 02/17/2026.