Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Lt. Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: Senator from Chittenden.

[Senator Philip Baruth (President Pro Tempore, Chittenden Central)]: Thank you, mister president. Just to give senators, an idea of what we would be doing today in broad order. So at this point, we'll move to the budget followed by assuming we have time H949 in Louisville at which point if we have time we would move to the top of the calendar which would be H940 for third reading. With that Ms.

[Senator Thomas Chittenden (Chittenden)]: President

[Senator Philip Baruth (President Pro Tempore, Chittenden Central)]: I'm hoping we can move to H951 and after waiting to making appropriations for the support of government.

[Lt. Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: Orders of the day. We have on the calendar for action h nine fifty one, which was passed by the house on 04/22/2026. It was referred to the committee on appropriations, which reports it is considered the bill and recommends that the senate proposed to the house that the bill be amended as it appears in the addendum to the senate calendar of 04/22/2026, and that with such proposal of amendment, the bill ought to pass. Affecting the revenues of the state, the bill was referred to the committee on finance, which recommends that the bill ought to pass in concurrence with proposal of amendment as recommended by the committee on appropriations. Listen to the second reading of the bill.

[John H. Bloomer, Jr. (Secretary of the Senate)]: H nine fifty one, an act relating to making appropriations for the support of government.

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

[Senator Ann Cummings (Washington), Chair of Appropriations]: Thank you, mister president. So similar to the Cox and Roll presentation, I'll try not to be too repetitive of that. I will be giving a brief remarks of the big picture, and then I will go through parts of the budget that were assigned to me, and then we will go through all members of the committee assignments in in order. So you can hear what the different different committee members kind of worked on. During our process and and as we made these decisions. We will be, I think, mainly going using the addendum and the web report changes as we go through. At least that's how I'm doing. So the big picture is it's a balanced budget based on those four budget principles of it's a balanced budget staying with our means, meeting basic needs of Vermonters, saving for an uncertain future, but at the same time making investments for an economic development so that we have an economic engine to help us meet those future needs. So with that, I will go through the the the the the parts of this budget that were assigned to me. I had the least amount as the chair, the chairs per audience to assign at least, but I still had 10 of them. I had the agency of administration, I had the tax department, building general services, the governor's office, the legislature's budget, CFO's budget, the lieutenant governor's budget, the state treasurer, and all the pension and labor stuff because of that, the attorney general's office, the department of finance regulation, the secretary of state, the Vermont Veterans Zone. So just give an example of just those all those 10 sections of government. Other folks, I think senator Norris has the most sections of government that they'll that they'll be going through. So I'm gonna go through the web report for the and I'm not gonna go over everything because we don't wanna be here that long. So I'm just gonna go through things that I thought changes to those sections that I had that I think were important. So right on the first page of the web report, page one, you'll see the tax administration. The house gave the tax department a $135,000 for the changes to the homestead declaration from act 73. So this is our our process of getting to the second home tax basically. So this is a this is an example of a change made from the governor's. Since we agreed with the house. There's no further changes that you'll see on this report. But I thought that was important to mention. The sergeant at arms next one down B128, the same page $60,000 requested for the increased security of the single point event entry. We had we added that. The state treasurer had lot of requests. We didn't fund all of them, but one of the things was to switch healthcare retirement funds. Right now they were OPEB. These were being managed by the treasurer. And our current treasurer has some background in this, was managing it, the fund is getting to the size where he would want a professional manager. And that's what VPIC does with all the other pension funds. So this moves money from the treasurer's moves the obligation to manage the OPEB funds from the treasurer's office to VPIC, which is the Pension Investment Council, where they're professional fund managers managing their money instead of the treasurer, which you don't know who's going to elect the treasurer. This is shown as savings on page one. And then later you'll see on page three at the top of the page, the the BPEC position being funded. There is also a position at the top of page two for the treasurer for an additional position within the pension division of the treasurer's office because we have more going on, more more people in the pension system. This is a position that helps state workers as as they navigate the all of retirement. One third d one thirty two on page two is also a change to the treasurer's office. This is another position with the house that had 11, another position on unclaimed property. The unclaimed property division in the treasurer's office has grown quite substantially. There's more and more unclaimed property with more digital accounts. It's easier for people to forget that they bought 10 Bitcoin, you know, $19.99 or whatever, and then they forget about it, and it required to go to the every state has this this unclaimed property. So it's there's more actions. There's more fraud attempts, more more, people trying to take that money, but it it's not theirs. So they needed another petition. It's funded from the money that's generated. It's not general funds. So we thought that was important, we're hoping that it actually brings more money to the general fund from the unclaimed property. Because after, like, ten years, if the money hasn't been claimed, it's still obligated if you have unclaimed property, and I recommend everybody to go to the website and type in your name to see if you have any. But even after ten years, even after they've reverted to the general fund, it's still owed by you, so you can make a claim at any time. So the b one thirty three on page two is some changes that I already talked about about the OPED funds. That's moving those around. Some of the this this payment for these decisions coming from the trust funds themselves. Down at the bottom is the the VPIC of the Vermont Pension Investment Commission. They are getting a new position because they have to take on this new responsibility of managing the

[Senator Virginia “Ginny” Lyons (Chittenden Southeast)]: the funds.

[Senator Ann Cummings (Washington), Chair of Appropriations]: You'll see the ethics commission that we talked about before on on that page, b one thirty six point one. You know, we we did create 30 new positions, and so it's not that there's not value in the ethics commission, but we were we were keeping in trying to keep to that number of 30 positions, which is what the house did more than the governor did. And so it was one of those tough decisions of all the different positions that we had to fund about which ones we were gonna fund. You'll see the renter rebate of b one thirty eight from the finance amendment. This is an example of how this gets shown in the budget. That's on page three. On page four, the attorney general. This was something that I thought was really important. This is money to to have a position in the AG's office for a home improvement specialist. This was a limited service position and we we made it permanent, included the funds in the in the base. I think it paid a lot, but this makes it a base position. The person is actually saving Vermont money by helping navigate home home improvement fraud and disagreements when a contractor and homeowner can't agree on. I think this person has been reported to be very helpful for Vermonters in those situations. We wanted to make sure that was in a in the base funding and not one time every year. So that's what that is. On next one I want to point out is on page six, secretary of state. There is a grant for the van of the Vermont Access Network. This is the the cable to access TV stations around the state that money flows through the secretary of state. This is an increase of this amount, and the Senate also have put in the money for the child care licensing program that bill s two zero six was was passed. That that was worth pointing out mentioning. So there's several pages about, AHS and public safety that I didn't have, so I'm not gonna go over that. So each member is gonna go over their sections, and, unfortunately, it's not gonna go in order. So we're gonna jump around the addendum and and the web report a little bit. So the next one I wanted to bring up was all the way on page 19 under the agency of administration. Just some of the good work that the that the governor funded that the office of racial equities continues their ideal program, which is an acronym that you'll see there, $110,000. The last year of the truth and reconciliation commission, $900,000. We'll be getting that report this year. And then you'll see this 1,300,000 change. It looks like the senate took it out, but you'll see in the note there. This is money from the Northeast Kingdom Floods from last year where we applied for FEMA and FEMA denied it. We appealed to FEMA. FEMA denied or appealed. So we're making those disaster relief, making those towns whole with this funding that the the senate position is that it should go through the AOT budget because most of this work in these towns was culverts and roads. So it made more sense to go through AOT, and that that was a request from administration. Another change, page 23, the secretary of state. Every two years the sector state needs one time appropriations to run the elections so there's $450,000 for them to run the elections which are getting more complicated and and more, you know, like, threats to election security. There's also some money we put for the Vermont Access Network, VAN. There's money in there for the access TV. There's also money in here for the community radio program that van has with, I think 11 different community radio stations around the state. And then something we did last year that's that's the house continued and we agreed with is the local civic journalism awards, which act as celebrating our local journalists and also supporting some small amount of financial support for local networks, whether they be TV, radio, or print that are really covering local civics, so like select board meetings and planning board meetings and the development of new board meetings, as well as just what's happening at the local school board. So this kind of not national news, it might not even be state news, but trying to keep a really healthy journalism ecosystem in Vermont. And this $50,000 is matched by the Vermont Foundation for another $50,000 to provide a little more money to these settling news

[Senator Richard Westman (Lamoille)]: outlets.

[Senator Ann Cummings (Washington), Chair of Appropriations]: The other one I wanted to bring up is office of the treasurer, again on page 25. These are one time appropriations. Scott talked about one end claim property. They're voluntary. They they do a volunteer program, helps people do their income tax. There's an income tax assistance program, $150,000. And then I thought it was just as important as $50,000. We gave the treasurer's office to study moving all public employees into the same health care plan. All municipal workers are in one plan, all state workers are in another plan. If we were to maybe merge those and have a bigger pool, we could help lower health care costs. So before we do that, this $50,000 will look at what are the savings, what's the best way to do that, what are the what are the possible benefits and possible costs of of doing that. The other one, see if so that was all the things I wanted to bring up in the web report for my sections. So let me see in the addendum. I thought there was a couple of things I wanted to make sure that people knew about. I already talked about the contingent trend contingency fund or the contingency transactions on page 61,

[Senator Philip Baruth (President Pro Tempore, Chittenden Central)]: so

[Senator Ann Cummings (Washington), Chair of Appropriations]: I won't bring that up again. The the money that we're putting aside for next year on page 64, I already told you about that. The on page 71, this is something I didn't talk about, and this is you won't see in the sheets because it deals with money that was expended before. So this is section b 1,100 on page 71. You'll see existing language that was $11,000,000 with of general fund is appropriated public safety safety for our regional dispatch funding. There was a task force. There was a bunch of work done, though, those that have been on government government ops. I've talked about this a lot. That $1,111,000,000 dollars, most of it had been spent. The task force came out with their proposal this year, spending most of it. There's 2,500,000 that that we're appropriating here to follow the state plan and do the first part of a statewide simulcast dispatch system. This $2,500,000 to a $3,500,000 project in the Central Vermont region. They already have a million dollars. They've already gone to bid. They thought they were gonna get some of this grant money a year ago, so they're kinda shovel ready with with a simulcast system that will reach all the way to portable. We've had an issue with if you're on the scene, a fire scene, or a crime scene, and you're on your portable radio, you can't contact dispatcher. You gotta go back to your vehicle. So this will allow you to make contact dispatchers from your handhelds. So it's a first step in in funding. What we really need is a statewide simulcast synchronized dispatch system. But but since it's existing since it's money from an existing appropriation, you don't see it in the the other sheets. There I had mentioned this briefly on page 78, the state employee compensation study language. That is something different and I think an important as we look at the growing gap we have between executive pay and classified pay, because they each get the same percentage. But when you're adding percentage to somebody making $200,000 they're growing faster than average state employee that's making $58,000 or whatever the average is. So we've had this formula in statute. So the difference between the highest and the medium is getting greater over time, that delta is growing, not because of any kind of conscious choice we're making to pay them more, but because the formula is being applied to different numbers. And as you know your math, you apply the percentage to a larger number, it's gonna be a bigger dollar increase. So this just looks at that issue and asks HR to say, should we be doing it differently? Is there something we could do differently in that? And as the we we gave them money last year to do a whole reclassification of the state system, the Willis system that we use. I think we're the only one of two states that still use the Willis system. And this this study will kinda help as we're looking at reclassifying our whole pay structure for state employees. How would we maybe do this formula for the exempt executives at the same time. So, mister president, I think I also talked about the effective dates. That's an important part with the with the positions for this contingency that we're only gonna fund these positions if we don't have a downturn from July 30. That's a distinct thing that we haven't done before. So with that, mister president, I am going to yield to other members. So I'm gonna start and yield to the junior senator from Washington.

[Lt. Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: The senator from Washington yields to the junior senator from Washington.

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Washington)]: Thank you, mister president. I'm going to be speaking to portions of the budget that cover the State Labor Relations Board, Vermont Community Broadband Board, Fish and Wildlife, Department of Environment and Conservation, Forest Parks and Recreation, and the Land Use Review Board, and then there's a few pieces of language that I'm also going to be covering. There's somewhat scattered throughout. Starting with D135, the State Labor Relations Board, you would see that the Senate has a reduction in personal services there that is in relation to a bill that created a position for a mediator. There had been federal mediators that folks could access in case there was a dispute, and that position has been eliminated federally and so there was a bill to create a state position for a mediator, but our understanding is that there are private mediators that can be accessed for disputes like that and so the Senate Appropriations Committee chose to reduce that position, so that's down there. The Vermont Community Broadband Board, this is actually just a technical correction. It would appear as though we have a down in the ARPA capital projects fund of, 300, 38,000, but there's a corresponding up in federal funds, and that is actually just a clerical error that is being, fixed there. It was in the wrong fund. For Fish and Wildlife, there's a couple of changes here worth noting. One is that had been a down in the positions for Fish and Wildlife, but then it turned out that there was federal money for that and so there was an up related to that position. Additionally, there, and this is related to language that is in the miscellaneous tax bill, there had been a proposal by Fish and Wildlife to create a new type of license for accessing the fishing access points. There's language in H933 that rescinds that ability to create that license fee, but the Fish and Wildlife was anticipating that they would be earning $50,000 or so this year from that new license, and so just to keep them whole, there's an addition of $50,000 to make up for the loss of that money. That was from the House and that's unchanged from the House version. Moving on to Department of Environmental Conservation, A few things to note here. There were a couple of new positions. It looks as though the Senate just concurred with the House, but we did make some changes. The House had two positions for the Flood Safety Act. They had several positions that were requested at the time the bill went through and they were not all funded. So this adds two to that that were previously not funded. Therefore, environmental analysts, particularly for river corridors, the Senate changed that, reduced it from two positions to one position for the river corridors in the Flood Safety Act. However, we added a position related to S218, which is the chloride bill. So no net change there, it's just a shuffling of what those positions were for. In the one time portion of Parks and Rec, there again, it looks like we agreed with the governor there, but there was again some shuffling of money. The house had some one time money for VOREC grants, which is outdoor recreation. We ended up reducing that by 300,000, but then ended up increasing serve, learn, earn by $300,000 so again it's awash relative to what the governor had recommended, but some shuffling of money there. Then again in the one time section for Department of Environment and Conservation, you'll see, an increase of $200,000 that is for, chloride bill had some contract work that needed to be done to, set up the program and so that's in the one time funds there at $200,000 The Land Use Review Board had some one time funds associated with it as well which is in relation to S-three 25. You may recall that there were a couple of appropriations in there and only one of them got funded. There was one appropriation for outreach to engage more with folks about how this ought to look moving into the future so that was kept in here at $100,000 There was another portion of the bill going to eight zero two Homes that was not funded. So that is the portions of the money that I wanted to speak to, but there is some language also. The first part is in the E sections, E131.1, which has to do with the state PACE reserve fund. You may recall that we had a PACE bill go through the process and as I was doing my due diligence on that researching residential PACE which already exists, discovered that there was a state PACE reserve fund which was specifically associated with residential PACE. That money was created at the time that that bill passed, it was at $50,000 and then hasn't been touched since then as there hasn't been a need for it. And in fact, for residential PACE, there's only been about a dozen projects that were over a decade old and that program is no longer being tracked. I think of this as like we're looking for loose change, we're looking in the couch cushions for money, so that is being swept back into the general fund. In EU 700, this has to do with the Lands and Facilities Trust Fund. There was a request from ANR to increase the amount that they are allowed to spend from that fund from 5% to 8%, so beyond just the investment that they have, they do have other inputs of money going into that fund so they felt comfortable that they'd be able to maintain that 80% spending, but we did put in some belt and suspenders type language in there to ensure that money does not end up going down, so we added that provided that the fund balance does not go below the prior fiscal year's ending fund balance to ensure that they're not digging into the remainder of that fund beyond what was available in the prior fiscal year. In E700.1 and E700.2, those two pieces go together. This has to do with recommendations regarding from the Climate Action Commission and the Volkswagen money that we were allocated to transition to reduce carbon pollution from vehicles. As that money is winding down, Vermont had some regulations to specify that the money could only be used for electrifying vehicles, though nationally that money was allowed to also transition to a cleaner diesel. And as the money is running out, there was a worry that we wouldn't be able to spend all of it if that provision remains in place. And so this language allows or removes that restriction that it's only for electrifying vehicles and allows then for clean diesel to be used as part of that money. Then E702 is from the Department of Fish and Wildlife. This is language to study a potential equipment replacement fund and so we'll be hearing about that in the next fiscal year to see if it would make sense for them to create an equipment replacement fund similar to what we're doing for public safety because as public safety is exploring or has that for creating that for radios and for guns, the wardens for fish and wildlife also use radios and have need for guns and cars, etc. And so there's a thought that if that construct exists for public safety, should we have similar construct for fish and wildlife? And so this is just a report to see if that, would make sense. So those are the questions that I am reporting, and I am going to yield to the junior senator from Franklin County.

[Lt. Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: The senator from Washington yields to the senator from Franklin.

[Senator Robert Norris (Franklin)]: Thank you, mister president. The areas I'll

[Senator Thomas Chittenden (Chittenden)]: be covering will be ethics, court diversion, criminal justice training, liquor and lottery, cannabis control board, military, department of corrections, department of public safety, state attorneys and sheriffs, center of crime victim services, judiciary, defendant general office, and agriculture. But fortunately, many of those areas have already been covered. The ethics commission has been obviously talked about in in great length here. Court diversion, there's been no change. The governor's recommend. Criminal justice center, no change there. Liquor and lottery is is no change is fine. Cannabis is good. Military is there's no change here with the exception of I might want I might wanna make mention that there were six new maintenance positions added to the military at a cost of $150,000 out of the general fund because 75% of this is funded through the federal government. So I just want to make mention of that. So I will start on page 17 b two zero two, the Defender General's office. Basically, back during the COVID times, the Defender General, because people were kind of isolated, you really couldn't go out for training or whatever else, sought to make it better for the state, he voluntarily gave back his $80,000 to corporations because he couldn't do any training anyways. Obviously, that's been a couple of years ago, so he's been asking for his training money back. So what we did was what the house did was they allocated $350,000 of which $50,000 of that can be directly pointed toward training. The other $300,000 can be used for contracted services and and case related administrations. So my next section is two zero four judiciary. This was a bit of a the cost for security for the court systems in and throughout the state of Vermont has has risen exponentially. And, there was a an original figure put in

[Senator Robert Norris (Franklin)]: of $75 per hour.

[Senator Thomas Chittenden (Chittenden)]: Obviously, we in appropriations thought that was a bit of a stretch. They've gone from 54 to 57, so we agreed on the $60, per hour increase or a total of $60 per not a $60 increase, but the house put in $250,000 for that. And in the formulation that we had, which was supplied by our our great GFO staff, the $75 an hour is gonna come up to, like, $1,900,000. So we agreed upon a $60 fee, which the house put at $2.50, and we, put in $476,000 in it to cover our courts throughout the state of Vermont. 02/2005, the state's attorney's office is the governor asked for a vacancy savings. The house put back in their vacancy savings at 330,000 plus dollars, and you'll see a trend as I go through this. Basically, what we did in appropriations was we halved everybody's vacancy savings with the exception of, I believe, the Human Rights Commission, which we fully gave them their their vacancy savings along with

[Senator Ann Cummings (Washington), Chair of Appropriations]: I don't know if we've

[Senator Thomas Chittenden (Chittenden)]: been reporting on that or not. I want to steal anybody's thunder here. Another position I believe. So basically in the state's attorney's budget, excuse me, we took a 165,000 plus out of there. We gave them back 50% of their their vacancy savings. Two zero six one, which is the crime victims advocate, basically the same thing. The house put in a 147,500. We cut that in half. We took 85,000 plus dollars out of that particular line item. B207, which is the sheriff's, the house once again gave them back their vacancy savings, and we have that also by $69,617. Center for Crime Victim Services, which is B220, if you're following along. There's a couple of different things that took place here was, one, the house put put in in a $100,000 for them to continue their grand administrations project. We took it out. We have since revisited our decision there. And because there was a a direct allocation of $450,000 going through the crime center victim services to the Vermont network, we you know, private company conference, but we took the $100,000 back out and put it back into the Grand Administration Services. They also had a $137,500 taken from them, but not really because we've put into DCF because it was kind of a net neutral with an increase to the b three seventeen on the general base if you're following along. And then next would be b two twenty two, agricultural food markets administration. There was a position that they wanted that they really wanted, and unfortunately, we were unable to fill that position. So we took 111,000 almost $112,000 out of their request for that position. B three thirty eight corrections and correctional services. There was really nothing that transpired here. House went along with the governor. The senate went along with the with the house. There was there was $850,000 that came into place during the course of this. What that was our pre trial supervision program, is going to third year now, has an allocation of $650,000 into the base. Obviously, the program over in the Northeast Kingdom or close by wasn't being worked as as best as they could. There's two cases going over there, so they took it and moved it to Chittenden County. And what was happening, we were duplicating, the base monies going into that. So, the house took out a $1,805,850,000 dollars out of that, and of that $450,000 was allocated toward, the Crime Center Victim Services. The other $3.50 went toward, the defender general's office to account for that $850,000. So it was just a shifting of money, shall we say, but the house did take it out, put it back into the general fund, and then made the appropriations. B 1,101, Agency of Agriculture and Food Markets. Basically, this has to do with NOFA and the cash process, so on and so forth, and we've gone over that. We reduced funding for NOFA by $375,000 and reduced funding to the food banks, feed of Vermont by $29,090,000 dollars. But the chair explained as to how that came about and what went on with that. So having said that said that, due due to my report being half done by the chair, I appreciate that. I will now yield, mister president, to the senior senator from Lamoille.

[Lt. Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: Senator from Franklin yields to the senator from Lamoille.

[Senator Ruth Hardy (Addison)]: Nice job.

[Senator Richard Westman (Lamoille)]: Yeah. The only senator from Lamoille. So My sections are first the health department and in the web report the health department can be found on page nine. I'm only going to run through the changes within each of my areas. The biggest change within the health department was our move to get money into AHEC, which is recruitment of primary care doctors for the most part. And you'll see there's about 667,000 that is moved into that. The House moved some money in. They didn't fund exactly what they thought they did. That's where you'll find the AHIC money. And I might say these are sections three eleven, three twelve and three thirteen. You'll also find here bridges to health, a $350,000 addition, the Senate, that's the health care for migrant workers. You'll also see in these sections, the money for the free and referral clinics, which is split 462,000 federal and 462,000 general fund. You'll also see in here, we added language for substance use and disorder residential treatment. We had money set aside from last year to and we add that in as a use of the money that we had set aside for last year. And what you'll also see in these sections is a number of shifts that are funding shifts from general fund to special funds in this area. My next area that I have in the budget is B3.18, which is on page 11 of your web report. That's child development in the Department of Children and Families. There's really no change here, but we do move all of the school based Medicaid funding to DIVA in the Department of Vermont Health Access. There is 1,700,000 that you'll see moved to the Medicaid fund here, and it's a special fund change, but there's really no change in policy. My next sections are in the Department of Aging and Independent Living, Dale. It's on page 12 of the web report. It's B329, three thirty, three thirty one, three thirty two, and three thirty three. In 03/29, you'll see a new position. It's a disability coordinator position. And then we move in this section, you'll also see a shift. We move from general fund to a special fund opioid and the opioid special fund. The reason this gets moved to opioid special fund is that there is employment recovery monies in that section. In B-three 30, it's home and community based service. There really is no change from the house, but there is a new housing coordinator position here. In B 331, you'll see the funding for the deaf blind and support services. A number of us received a number of calls about this. It's $150,000 What had been cut here was the phone services for the deaf and blind, and this restored that money. So it restored really the phone services for them. In B332, there's a technical correction and you'll see movement of funds to the opioid special fund here. In the three thirty three, you'll see the increases to our designated agencies In that section in B three thirty four. You'll see rate increases for traumatic brain injury in the increases. In the base waiver amount. In B334.1, this is all rate increases for the AAAs, residential care, personal care services, home homemaker services, respite care services. You'll see increases for adult days, choices for care, and adult family services. It's a little unusual in the way they did the calculations across the board. But when I say rate increases, these rate increases are slightly more than 1% this year. So it's not huge increases. The next areas of the budget that I had were in the Commerce Agency. All of the funds that are increased here are in the B1100s and those 1100s are the one time list in there. You'll find money manufactured homes here, the rental assistance program, there's a million dollar increase there. You'll see monies for first time homebuyers, and what you won't see, but it's in here, is the $4,000,000 for the Vermont Housing Improvement Program, VHEIP. That's all within this area. Except for the 4,000,000 in VHEIP, these are all one time funds in the B1100s. You'll also see in this area in in b 1,100 g moneys for the office that we have in Montreal for the international development fund with the Canadians. You'll find money for the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary commission. You'll find money for the rural industrial development program, the small business development centers, and the law school small business center. Something that is not in the web report because there's really no change between the governor and the House and the Senate is in B811. That's where you'll find the VHCB. And what is of note here is they have been appropriated what is statually statutorily required within this area. As many of you can remember for many years, we've not withstood the statute, but this fully funds the HCB to what they were statute totally required to do. In the back of the bill in the E sections, the 504s from 504.1-504.5 is all of the language for adult basic education. I think this is third year or maybe fourth year but at least three years that we've been dealing with trying to move to a new formula is finally institutes the new formula for adults basic education. Hopefully we can stabilize the programs within adult basic education. And we heard no complaints from anyone about this, which seems like a miracle. E312 is the AIDS language and the money to organizations like Vermont Cares. This is standard language that we put in every year. E313 is the substance misuse prevention language in the back of the bill in E313. And it deals with school based programs and it moves the school based programs on prevention programs in this section. And finally, in C106, which is language in the back, it's housing assistance language. We set aside $50,000,000 last year to deal with federal changes. This would add as a service housing, the housing assistance program into that area. At this point, I will, yield to the senator from Chittenden South, senator Lyons.

[Lt. Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: Senator from Lamoille yields to the senator from Chittenden Southeast.

[Senator Virginia “Ginny” Lyons (Chittenden Southeast)]: Thank you, mister president, and thank you to the senator from Lamoille because I think you covered some of my sections, which is really helpful. I will mention those as we go through. My sections of the bill are in the b three hundreds as well as b 11 hundreds for the one time and then some of the e sections that relate to those sections. I look at the central office diva Dale, DCF, Department of Mental Health, and Department of Health, for different areas. And within that, both the individual needs that are pressing very pressing in our state as well as the organizational folks who help provide services for those individuals and the pressures that those organizations are feeling. I think we all feel those pressures very much, and sometimes we feel like we're making Sophie's choice. Sometimes it's robbing Peter to pay Paul, and that is a continuing theme within the area of human services as we know. So and the pressures are exacerbated by what's happening at the federal level with HR one, the effect on SNAP, the effect on Medicaid, the increased need for state funds for matching that we will have to do going forward, and the child care fund, administrative contracts needing additional dollars, DCF facing the need for shelters, and so on. So overall, I think the administration initially focused on $80,000,000 of pressures facing us. We've we've met met meeting that challenge carefully, and I hope that your senate will appreciate the work that senate appropriations has done to meet the needs of people and the organizations that serve people in our state. So beginning with the central office. Central office is responsible for global commitment and achieving the match that we have through state and federal dollars. We put in we've added slightly more than what the House has requested in that process. We have looked in the central office at our triple As, Meals on Wheels, transportation for other services, choices for care, the intermediate needs and daily living needs, home and community based services, the Department of Mental Health elder care improvement programs, designated agencies, specialized service agencies, and increases for those folks, a $6,000,000 increase for those folks. We, through the central office match, have restored AHEC, as the senator from Lamoille described. We are with our struggling workforce to help our our APRNs and our other primary care docs. We have looked at restoring the co pays for Medicaid to be more in line with states around us, and that's through the match at the central office. So rather than going up from $0 to $4 per drug for non preferred drugs to and 3 to $8 for preferred drugs. For Medicaid patients, we have taken that back in our bill to 0 to $3. It's hard to imagine that Medicaid patients would have the dollars to support the proposal that we received. So moving into, that that really represents what is in B30.301 And then looking at b three zero seven at at Diva, I think, some of that information has already been shared, but it is related to Medicaid match for drug purchasing. We have changed that. There are also 12 new positions that will be needed as we begin to comply with the Medicaid pressures going forward looking at the administration of the work requirement that's come to us. There's also money in three zero seven of federally qualified health centers, the Rutland Health Center, to increase funding. There's also funding for the Northern Family Institute, which is important for providing behavioral health services, for younger folks. B306, and through 309 are very much related to our, the the information that the senator from well Lamoille has all already shared regarding a shift from, of Medicaid dollars to the to DEVA, to the Department of Health Access to improve the efficiency and the utilization of those funds. And there is related language in the e five hundred and five zero two secondtion regarding that. B three fourteen is Department of Mental Health. We concurred with the House for improving, the certified community based, services, and centers, for elder care, increasing funding for our DAs, our SSAs, and mental health services overall. B three sixteen, DCF administration, this relates and it's also in the central office because it is match funding for our 211211 hotline services. We did fund that at 50%. We received, conflicting information at the beginning of the session and then as we went through the bill. So we have it at 50%. I'm sure there'll be a discussion going forward, but this will allow for the evening hours to be covered by the 211 services. B three seventeen, as a family services division of DCF, We concurred with the house for increased supervised visitation, and this is in conjunction with what the senator from Lamoille, not Lamoille, excuse me, from Franklin has indicated about a crime victim services exchange. B three twenty one through three twenty five relate to the general assistance program and what we know is a homelessness, issue that faces our state. And that's and those, sections of or many of those sections of the bill, about 21 to $22,000,000, are currently in h nine thirty eight, which your Senate Health and Welfare Committee is evaluating right now, and we'll hopefully get to the floor as soon as we can. So this will improve, the outcomes for homeless folks and to improve services for those folks who are without a place to live. B three forty five is the Green Mountain Care Board. Green Mountain Care Board, is responsible for funding the health care advocate office, and there's an increase in funding for the health care advocate this year through a process known as bill back, and we included that in the in the bill. And that is also covered through global commitment, so there is a a match that improves that. So overall, your senate did increase the the bottom line for human services, human services representing about, $6,000,000,000 of the state budget, and the house the we the house was over the governors by point eight eight point three, and we were over the house by about point zero two. So we're all trying to stay within a budget that will help people, but at the same time, will not destroy our pocketbooks. It's not easy, and it's sad when you see that some people do not benefit from the work that we do. We also looked at b 1,100, one time funding, added $1,500,000 to the provider stabilization fund. As you know, this is a section. This is money that's put aside for organizations that are not eligible for our extraordinary relief funding, and the there was $4,200,000 left over that is available, and we've added a 1,500,000 to that. Some of the money that, the House included that we did not include was also utilized in our effort to improve primary care. B 1,100 c with DCF section. This is again related to onetime funding related to the provisions in h nine thirty eight. We do concur with the house. The work in your senate health and welfare committee will be to determine how best to use that fund in the categories that we have, and so how to provide funding for folks to move from zero housing to affordable housing. There's also money in here for the local food shelf support, about $700,000, and also the post permanency adoption services. These are for folks who adopt and then find themselves in need of help as they move into independent living. 1100 b 1100 D is the secretary's office, within which is Meals on Wheels, primary care payment, and post permanency adoption. So somewhat redundant with what we looked at earlier. B 1,100 I, Department of Health. There is s two forty three is a bill that passed out of this body, and it includes I shouldn't say body. Out of the senate. It includes a $150,000 for the language justice project that we approved earlier. I will say there are also two other bills that have been through the senate s one ninety and s one ninety seven. S one ninety includes language for our treasurer to look at, nationally to work with others on trying to consolidate, insurance programs so that we have a larger risk pool for our insured, and S197, which also had, given the direction to the treasurer to look at the Northeastern States and to consolidate, in some way to build a primary care program across our our our local our regional area. Eleven hundred J, Department of Mental Health. This is the Community Resource Center, the Champlain Valley Community Resource Center funding. This organization has received one time funding since 2020, and, we have added, again, added, funding for that program. It is a half a year funding, so I'm sure there will be a discussion about that. But the half year funding also allows for us to look at primary care and improve the, payment to primary care providers at a time when they could be left without payment, with a reduction in in payment. And then the we also in that section, Jay, there's the Howard, Center Community Outreach Project, which the senate added back in that was not in the house proposal, and that's an important way of reaching folks in need in the local area. 1,100 is Dale. This is the adult day program. We added a $100,000 for the Washington County Adult Day. These are people who absolutely need some support, community service support, and this, this is, this is critical for them. There's also funding in for Meals on Wheels in that area. And we know that I know Meals on Wheels is a constant concern for all of us. And we've continued to add funds into it, and we need to continue to do that. Excuse me. But we also know that we have assisted community care services. We have triple a's, and we have, others that, provide meals and support for people at home. We have choices for care to keep an eye on folks. So this having, Meals on Wheels is one piece of a puzzle, and so we know that hopefully we can fill the gaps. No. Hopefully, can put the puzzle together. That's that's really, very important, and I I am as concerned as others are about how we can do that. I also had sections e five zero four, five zero four, which is the language on and and funding for literacy programs in the state. It's critically important to keep going. And then senator from Lamoille has already mentioned five zero four point two, which is adult education. There is language in the bill that supports many of much of the work that we've done. One of those areas, that I will mention is on the conflict free case management for our designated and specialized service agencies. The federal government has made a requirement as to how those agencies provide their services separate from, how they provide or how case management is provided. So there's language in there to continue to get at how best, those organizations can work together with, the agency of Human Services. So, with that, mister president, I think that I move to the senator from Grand Isle, senator Brennan. Thank you, mister president.

[Lt. Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: The senator from Chittenden yields to the senator from Grand Isle.

[Senator Robert Norris (Franklin)]: Thank you, mister president. Just to go over some of the sections of the budget that I'm in charge of, Very few of them had a change from the governor's recommend, but I'll list them anyway. Agency of, digital services, department of human resources, OSHA, enhanced nine one one board, Department of Labor, Vermont Council of the Arts, Vermont Symphony Orchestra, Vermont Historical Society, Vermont Humanities Council, Agency of Transportation. So I'll start with section B808, which is Vermont Council on the Arts. And what we did there, there was a house change of $38,645, and that was basically to allow them to match all of the federal funds available to them.

[Senator Richard “Dick” Mazza (Grand Isle)]: So that takes care of that's, section, transportation. So in transportation, that's b, section b nine zero three. We had, some movement. We moved money around there, and I'll I'll explain that. You'll see under personal services, a, senate change of $1,700,000 That is basically a swapping of TIB funds, which can be used for, they have a useful life project use for twenty years or more. Can't use it for paving. Can't use it for, anything without that useful life. So if you've driven the state and you've been around, some of the interstate roads, state roads, even your local roads, you'll you know that we're in dire need of more paving. So what we do in section nine zero three is we swap transportation funds, which can be used for district leveling paving for TIP funds. We take, 1,700, $1,700,000 of structures and bridge funding, and we move TIP funding in to do that, take the place of that and use the transportation funds and and put it into district leveling. It doesn't, accomplish everything we needed to, but it does increase that budget, the district leveling budget to $8,700,000 and it, it will allow us to pave 24 miles of of state roads. And just to give you an example of why we're doing that, in this year's transportation budget, not to spill the beans at all, but we are paving 92 miles of interstate highway and 56 miles of state highway. Okay. We have well over 3,000 miles of state roads. This is not good. So we're doing everything we can in in this section of the budget to help alleviate that, but it's a it's a drop in the budget compared to what we actually need. There's there is also a $50,000 appropriation in there from the general fund, which is a it, reduces, transportation fund. It's not from the general fund, I'm sorry, from the transportation fund. And it's funding for Drive Electric Vermont, which is, again, a very good, use of those funds. Next section is b o 1,100 h, again, a transportation on section. What this we add an extra let me start with the house. They added 1.36 to the governor's recommend. We add another 1.647 to the governor's recommend. The house, the governor's recommend, had an an initial, 1.36, which is basically relocating the central garage. In the Senate, we add the, 1,340,000 for disaster relief, basically communities impacted by the 2025 flooding up in the Northeast Kingdom and all over the state. And it also has $300,000 for non emergency medical transports, which is also very, very good use of transportation funds and sorely needed. Couple more. Department of Labor, small increase there. We added 200 No, we concurred with, the house. It's a reduction of a request of $600,000 to $200,000 for Advance Vermont. That's in section b 1,100 n. And the next and last of my section is b 1,100 w, and this, is a senate change adding $25,000 to general fund money for the, funding for the Lake Champlain International Derby, something we've been, funding for years. It's it's one time. We do it. Had a tendency to do it every year. So, that completes my sections of the budget, that are impacted. And, with that, I'll yield to the senator from Chittenden. Senator Baruth.

[Lt. Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: Senator from Grand Isle yields to the senator from Chittenden Central.

[Senator Philip Baruth (President Pro Tempore, Chittenden Central)]: Thank you, mister president. The only good thing about coming in a couple of hours after we began is that many of my sections have been touched on or described. So I'm going to limit my presentation to the places where we truly differ from the house. But I do want to note that, as has been reported by other senators, we had the Human Rights Commission, we had a request from them for a staff investigator and a request to retain their vacancy savings. We gave them both of those requests. We had the ed transformation money 1,500,000 which was discussed. I think the committee had wanted a little more but we believe that 1,500,000 would move us through this phase of education transformation and then the State University and UVM have got their 3% bump in their base budgets which we do every year. Beyond that our biggest difference with the House concerns the Higher Education Trust Fund and I'd like to just take you through a bit of that history. So UVM has been working for a couple of years on what they call the multipurpose center project. And that is a way of thinking about this center from different angles. It is an exciting economic development project. It is also a sports stadium. It is a performance venue, and it also houses classes for instruction and student services and wellness. So all of that is contained in this. It is on a scale of if senators are familiar with Memorial Auditorium, we used to host in Burlington any larger event at Memorial Auditorium. Unfortunately, Auditorium is now defunct and there is no place at this scale to host an entertainment event, a concert or a very large sporting event. So UVM came to the governor's staff in the drafting of the governor's budget and asked for $20,000,000 toward this project. The governor's team, from reports I've heard, found it to be a very exciting project, but there was not $20,000,000 in the general fund to spend on this. But there was a one time windfall into the Higher Education Trust Fund that dwarfed any other year's revenues into that fund. So just to give you an idea, the Higher Education Trust Fund in a normal year might take in a million dollars, sometimes under $1,000,000. Some years, it's been in existence for about twenty seven years, some years $5,000,000. And in 2011, I believe, there was a $10,000,000 windfall. This is $26,000,000. So if you were to fund the governor's $15,000,000 request in his budget, you would still put more into the Higher Ed Trust Fund than it has ever received in one year. So the governor, as you remember in his state of the state speech and his budget speech, did talk about this project and did come forward with a proposal for $15,000,000. The House in looking it over decided they did not want to go that route. But if you look into the House budget, you will see they put $2,320,000 in for Freedom and Unity grants. Freedom and Unity grants are VSAC grants that go out to students whose families make less than $65,000 and it allows them to go tuition free to a state university. So it is helping our neediest Vermonters, go to college and hopefully leverage their families upward socioeconomic. So it began to seem to our committee as though there might be a way to accomplish what the house wanted to do and what the governor wanted to do with a different sort of construct. So I will describe the construct to you that we finally settled. The $15,000,000 that the governor had in his budget, we divide it up like so. Dollars 12,000,000 now goes to the multipurpose, center project at UVM. The House's $2,320,000 for Freedom and Unity grants is still in there, but now funded not from the Technology Modernization Fund. There was $9,000,000 that the House used from that fund. You heard from the chair of appropriations earlier that that was objected to by the governor because they need that money for computer upgrades. So, we put $12,000,000 toward the multipurpose center, 2,320,000 toward Freedom and Unity grants, and then the State University has for a number of years been trying to build something called the McClellan Project. The McClellan Project is a 30 unit housing pilot, I would call it, on the Johnson campus. It will sit on an existing parking lot and they are hopeful that they can do it in phases on the Johnson campus and then scale it up around Vermont State University property. The thinking there is that along with on the Johnson campus moving some services, municipal services from the town onto the campus, this housing project will allow people who aren't students to live on campus alongside graduate students and their families. So that is a $600,000 ask that they came to the legislature for. We have not been able to find that money, but if you plug it into this construct, that is $15,000,000 $12,000,000 to the multi purpose center, the Freedom and Unity grants and this shovel ready design for the McLellan project. So the only thing in my mind remaining was is it right to take that money in the first place from the Higher Education Trust Fund. Now in my first biennium I was a trustee for the Higher Education Trust Fund so I take a back seat to no one when it comes to preserving that money. So I wanted to know was there a way to make the trust fund whole and to make it healthier going forward. So what the committee did was to take 20% of our cannabis excise tax and feed it directly into the Higher Ed Trust Fund. So this is what that means. Currently, the cannabis revenue goes like this. Any sales tax goes to after school programs. That was the Governor's request when he signed the bill. We honored that request. That money is not touched. So that sales tax now directly supports after school programs. Then 30% of the excise tax currently goes to substance misuse prevention. That was our health and welfare committees ask. That is not touched. What we're talking about now is an additional 20% of cannabis excise tax feeding directly into the higher education trust fund. That's between 4,000,000 and $5,000,000 a year. So if we do that in three to four years we will pay back the $15,000,000 in the Governor's budget and going forward that will be $4,000,000 to $5,000,000 additional into the corpus of the Higher Ed Trust Fund. So from my own point of view, everybody won. You have these projects being built for economic development and crucial housing needs. You also have now in this construct a dedicated revenue stream into the Higher Ed Trust Fund so that needy families in the Freedom And Unity space can continue to get more money. And over at, CCV, they have a similar program for families under a $100,000. So those families would have their expenses for college defrayed more and more as we go forward under this proposal. So the last thing I'll say is that one might look at this proposal in isolation and say, why is UVM getting 12,000,000 and Vermont State University getting 3,000,000? And I just need to give you the broader historical context. If you go back fifteen years, when I came in, there was a very strict, rule of thumb on appropriations that a dollar for UVM was a dollar for the state colleges. And that kept peace in the family, and it allowed both institutions to move forward at the same pace. But problem being, as you all know, if you go back to 2020, the state colleges had what I would call an existential crisis. We were looking at needing to close three campuses. We were looking at essentially the collapse of our state college system. So we have paneled a blue ribbon panel, which I served on, and we came out with a transformation plan that unified the state colleges into the state university and that directed over the next five years hundreds of millions of dollars to, the state colleges, now the state universities. That as you heard earlier on in this session, that worked. The state university is now a thriving operation. This McClellan project, think, is proof of that. They are going through their footprint on their various campuses. They're slating some things to be closed, sold, or demolished, and they are building things that will give them a revenue stream going forward. I think our work on the State University has been highly successful. What this construct will do is direct millions more to them through the Higher Ed Trust Fund. And if you're not familiar how that fund works, every year, whatever is in the fund over 125% of projected revenue goes directly in payouts of equal amounts to UVM, the State University, and VSEP. So they all get a dollar, a dollar, a dollar out of the fund up to 5%. Then if there's more, a windfall in the fund, they might all three of them get an additional 2% per year. So in my mind, this has the potential to be game changing for UVM in terms of economic development and campus life. Vermont State University in terms of much more in the way of scholarships for needy Vermonters. VSAC also has their administrative revenue come off of that. And at the end of the day, Mr. President, I think we accomplished the chair of appropriations talked about the four legged stool. Economic development is very much one of those legs. So we are helping needy Vermonters send their kids to college, and we are creating and enabling one of the most vibrant economic development projects in recent history. Happy to answer questions, after we're done. And with that, I would move back to the chair of appropriations.

[Lt. Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: The senator from Chittenden Central yields to the senator from Washington.

[Senator Ann Cummings (Washington), Chair of Appropriations]: Thank you, mister president. Thank you, everybody, senators for your patience going through this long presentation, but that is what you get when you have a $9,000,000,000 budget. A couple other things I wanna mention. If if you'll notice in the one time sheets, they list all the a lot of the h bills, the house appropriation, just the timing of the bill. They can they kinda have a catch and release policy where they'll if they like the bill, they'll release it to go to the senate, but they'll put the money in their in the budget for that bill. The bill passes, then the monies are accounted for. We have more of a cut, catch and gut policy where we we got them and then send them on to the house. But then later, when we're doing the budget, we put that money back in. The s bills aren't seen on the sheets, but they're when when we funded s bills, they would be in the budget. But I have a sheet here that lists so if you if you have a specific question, like, happened to s one ninety eight to tobacco bill, it'll say kind of whether you funded it or not or what parts that we funded. So I can I didn't hand that out, but I can show you that? I also have a hand handout that I mean, a sheet about all the reserves. Sometimes there's questions about all the different reserves that we have, unofficial and official reserves. I can go over that. And last, I have all of the witnesses we had. We had a public hearing with the house. There was 82 witnesses that presented on at that hearing. That's where we got about $20,000,000 in asks from public and nonprofit sector. In committee, heard from 136 witnesses. This is a gamut from the organization that works with our county fairs and people that run county fairs up to the Commissioner of Finance and Management and all the secretaries and commissioners of all the departments as they presented their budgets. I will not read you all 136 names. With that Mr. President, it really concludes our present patient. The vote at a committee was seven zero zero and we asked for the Senate support of this amendment. You.

[Lt. Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: I recognize the Senator from Chittenden, Senator Chittenden for the report of the committee on finance.

[Senator Thomas Chittenden (Chittenden)]: The Senate Finance Committee reviewed this bill and we did not make any changes to it. And we we supported it on a vote of seven zero zero. Thank you, Mr. President.

[Lt. Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: So the question is shall the bill be amended as recommended by the committee on appropriations? I senator from Ginny.

[Senator Thomas Chittenden (Chittenden)]: Mister president, I was mistaken. It was six one zero.

[Lt. Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: Senator from Addison.

[Senator Ruth Hardy (Addison)]: Thank you, mister president. I have an amendment that will be passed out, I believe. We just heard a lengthy explanation from the Senator from Chittenden Central about how the budget deals with some funding in the Higher Education Trust Fund. So my amendment would amend those sections of the budget. It doesn't look like much because of the way the budget is drafted, but it would amend if you're looking at the bill, the addendum to the calendar. If you go to page sixty and sixty one, it would eliminate the $600,000 from the Higher Education Trust Fund that goes to the McClellan Hall Housing Transformation Project. That's T, I believe, and subsection T on that page. And then at the bottom of that page, subsection X, which is the funding that goes to the University of Vermont, the $12,000,000 for the multi center multipurpose center project, which I believe is basically a basketball center. So that's what the amendment does, I just wanted to provide a little explanation. The Higher Education Trust Fund was created in the late nineteen nineties by the legislature, and it is a trust fund, an endowment for student scholarships at our public institutions in the state, at UVM, this Vermont State Colleges or Vermont State Universities now, and the Community College of Vermont. It is a way to have scholarship funding in perpetuity for Vermont students that attend Vermont universities. So it both benefits the young people in our state, and it also benefits the institutions themselves because they are able to get students who can afford to to go to those institutions. And it's created as an endowment so that each year a certain percentage of the fund is invested in student scholarships. As the senator explained, about 5% of the fund goes to scholarships per year. And then there's 2% that if there's a good year on the fund, 2% is divided between, I believe it's just the University of Vermont and the State College System to actually enhance their endowment. So it is a perpetual fund that benefits students and the financial health of our public education institutions in Vermont. And it is not to be used for there's statutory and rules that govern this fund, there is a committee that oversees the funds that includes two legislators, and the fund has, as I said, for student scholarships and for the health financial health of these institutions, and what this presentation or this proposal proposes is to use part of that fund for building projects, for a basketball stadium and for a housing project. And while the housing project in particular sounds like a good idea, it is a building project. This is a fund for scholarships for students who are low income students who, without scholarships, could not afford to attend our public universities in Vermont. And as the senator from Chittenden Central did say, there was a quote unquote windfall into that into that fund last year, because part of the funding for that fund or the majority of the funding from that fund, I believe, comes from, the estate tax, and, there was somebody, frankly, who had a lot of money who died last year, and so there was a windfall into that fund for for that reason. And while I know that when there are windfalls that happen, it's really tempting to want to spend those on something else. This is an endowment fund that is invested by the treasurer's office so that we have perpetual scholarship funding for students who are needy. I'm the mom of two current college students. I've spent the last number of years funding three kids to get through college. It is really, really expensive, Mr. President, to send your kids to college these days. And without the scholarship money that my kids got, my kids would not have been able to attend college or university. We could not have afforded it and I am a lucky person to have the ability to be able to send my kids to college. And I want that for all Vermont families who want to send their kids to college. We have amazing institutions of higher education in this state. Many of us in

[Senator Andrew Perchlik (Washington)]: this in this

[Senator Ruth Hardy (Addison)]: building have benefited from that, and we need to make sure that all Vermonters can afford to. The average scholarship that this fund gave last year, I think, was $1,400 which is a complete drop in the bucket. If we have a windfall in this fund, we should be using it to increase scholarships. $2,800, $14,000, we should be increasing student scholarships, not spending it on a basketball stadium. And in addition to that, we have scholarship money that we have student needs in other areas, graduate student needs. We have a shortage of doctors. We have a shortage of teachers. We have a shortage of social workers. We have a shortage frankly actually of lawyers in this state. So there are many other scholarship needs for students in this state that this fund could be used for. So I while I appreciate the potential economic benefits of a basketball center in Burlington, I think it is a completely inappropriate use of this fund And, similarly for that housing. So this amendment would retain the the Freedom and Unity scholarship, transfer, that one time increase in those scholarships. I think those scholarships are amazing, and I'm I'm very supportive of using this fund for increased scholarships, but not for building projects. I think it should if we want to fund the building project at UVM, that is a great thing, mister president. That should come out of our capital budget. That is how we fund building projects in this state is through our capital budget. And so if the University of Vermont would like to make a request to the governor to include it in next year's capital budget, I would be very supportive of that. But as it is, Mr. President, this is an inappropriate use of the Higher Education Trust Fund, and the whole scheme to pay back the trust fund takes dollars out of our general fund. Our general fund is used for incredibly important purposes as we just heard through this budget presentation. And I'm gonna quote the senator from, Lamoille, if I may, mister president. When he came into the, Senate Finance Committee the other day to talk about the transportation budget, he he said that the the general fund is the fund that protects vulnerable peep vulnerable people in Vermont. And I agree with him, and we should not be taking funds out of the general fund to support to ultimately support a basketball stadium in Burlington. So Mr. President that is my amendment. It would remove the funding for both the basketball stadium and the housing project and retain the freedom and unity grants from the Higher Education Trust Fund and I asked the Senate for their support. Thank you.

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

[Senator Ann Cummings (Washington), Chair of Appropriations]: Thank you, mister president. I thank the senator from Addison. She did contact me about this amendment. Since we're starting early in the morning, we didn't really have time to add her into the committee. So I'd like to ask for a quick recess so the committee could

[Senator Thomas Chittenden (Chittenden)]: We'll take

[Lt. Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: a brief recess. Will the senate please come to order? Senator from Washington.

[Senator Ann Cummings (Washington), Chair of Appropriations]: Thank you, mister president. Yeah. Your appropriations committee, talked about this. We had talked about it obviously in committee when we were kinda going

[Senator Thomas Chittenden (Chittenden)]: through this construct, but the

[Senator Ann Cummings (Washington), Chair of Appropriations]: the the committee's decision on the amendment was the straw vote of seven o opposed to this amendment. And I'll just say a couple a couple words. In addition to being the chair of appropriations, I am the senate's designee on the higher ed trust fund at this time. So I'm familiar with with the trust fund and how it works and and how it's supposed to work. The senator from Addison is correct. We are notwithstanding the language in the trust fund to do this, but in the Senate appropriations mind, this was an appropriate use of the money. There there were talks earlier in the session, and this came up at the higher trust fund of folks want to change the construct of how money goes into the trust fund. So you could get around with not doing the notwithstanding by changing the law that says if the excess estate tax goes into the trust fund, then you wouldn't have to take it out of the trust fund. You just prevent it from going there. So you could get away with not having to do with the notwithstanding. I thought this was a little more on honest about notwithstanding and saying for for for this purpose, it it does make sense in this kind of construct. I think a lot of folks were at first concerned about it, but the fact that there was a way to pay it back really made made the difference. And not only paid it back, but continued the the commitment to increasing the scholarship as the senator of Madison County said that we wanna have more scholarships, not less. And this this is a way is to get us there. The other thing we mentioned was that this amendment still would have money coming out of the general fund. It doesn't affect the the excise tax going to the trust fund, So which is part of the whole package that we liked of this. This still would have that impact because this just takes this just amends our appropriations out of the trust fund, but it would still have that that money going into the trust fund. So we encourage the the senate. We we understand the senator from Addison's commitment to scholarships, and we share it. We think this in the in the long run is the best construct, and we encourage the body the senate to vote no on this amendment.

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

[Senator Rebecca “Becca” White (Windsor)]: I rise in support of, the amendment presented to us by the senior senator from Addison, although I do appreciate the due diligence and work of the senate appropriations Committee. I will be voting yes on the amendment because I feel it's extremely important to signal to our constituents that our priorities are in line with the same types of budgetary decisions they're making at their homes. They're not going to basketball games as often. They're not investing in home projects as often because they are unable to afford those types of luxuries as our economic future becomes more and more imperil. I think, unfortunately, while we have heard the argument, a D one school deserves D one accommodations, that we became a D one school and a successful D one school without those same accommodations, where we are winning national titles and championships without robust stadium accommodations. I would also argue that we have a national champion debate team, an internationally ranked debate team, and there has never been a proposal for funding of a scholarship to them. So it feels as if we are prioritizing a culture of sports fandom over real reality. I worry about cost overruns to a giant stadium project that we will hear over the next few years that we somehow are on the hook for because we have taken the unprecedented step of pivoting a scholarship fund towards capital investments. Those large construction projects like stadiums that you hear about in major cities don't often become financially sustainable for those cities. They become places where they have falling down infrastructure in the long run, similar to the large investments we've made in other arenas where we then haven't had the financial ability to maintain it. So I question the cause behind this, although I understand the desire to have good seating accommodations at a sports game. In conclusion, I completely support this amendment because I do not believe it benefits the citizens of Windsor County to have a a funded stadium in Burlington.

[Lt. Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: Are you ready for the question?

[Senator Virginia “Ginny” Lyons (Chittenden Southeast)]: Roll call.

[Lt. Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: Roll call has been requested, and when the vote is taken, it shall be by roll. The question is, shall the recommendation of amendment of the committee on appropriations be further amended as recommended by senator Hardy? Are you ready for the question? If so, the secretary shall call the roll. Those voting yes, seven. Those voting no, 23, and the amendment fails. The question now 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 Essex.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Essex)]: Thank you, mister president. I rise. First of all, I wanna thank the, appropriations Appropriations Committee, for a just a phenomenal job as far as how you report a huge bill. Pretty impressive the way you got through it and got so much information. And, what I'm about to say isn't any, disrespect to the fine work that the committee did. I just believe that at this point in time that we're spending too much money. I think that we're $2,000,000,000 over budget and I believe that our role in in government is to fund government. I'm really bothered. It's been said before. I'm really bothered that there are some parts that we're just not doing what we're supposed to be doing. And I blame everybody involved, including all of us, the governor's office, you know, the the house. But when I look at when we start the budget process and we immediately, fund, transportation light. We immediately fund institutions light. We immediately fund a lot of different parts of government light, but yet keep on supporting other parts of, government that grew during the, the COVID shutdowns and all the COVID dollars that came with the promises that once that money was gone, that those programs and positions would be gone. We haven't done that yet. So we're struggling amongst our own way to fund programs that should probably be here at this point in time. We are government. We owe it to ourselves to fund government, first before we do anything. We need to make sure that as we fund government that we run efficiently. And I think that we're just in too many areas at too many times. Match dollars. If we're gonna get free money from the federal government, we ought to be making sure that we take advantage of that in every opportunity that we can. I have mentioned transportation where we're 30 or $40,000,000 light. We're paving 56 miles a road this year and we should be paving 200. I look at institutions, we have very big things that are coming. The FEMA funds are gonna come, that's gonna have a match. We are potentially looking at a $100,000,000 of trying to find match money within the state to make sure that we fund these FEMA projects. I look at, we have a build a woman's prison that we're looking at nearly $200,000,000 worth of dollars once we get it all figured out. And at some point in time, other than trying to come up with those dollars at that time, we ought to be soaking some of those monies away. I look at school funding with the PCB problems that we have and these ancient buildings that we have, as without a doubt, we're gonna see those pressures come back into our budgets. I'm bothered by the amount of positions that we're hiring. When you are struggling in a state to fund just government in itself, you've gotta be mindful of adding positions. We were able to get through everything that we had in government when we had $14,000,000,000 which I don't think that we spent in the right way, but we were able able to get through those funds and spend at that time. And, we did it without the extra positions. And so in uncertain times, everybody's got to, buckle their belts up and do the right thing. So for now, I'm gonna be a no on this budget. I'll watch it closely as it goes through. Again, no disrespect to the work that's done. I was very, very impressed with the hard decisions that were made with the monies that they've had. My my problem again is that I believe that we're spending as a state $2,000,000,000 more than what we ought to be doing. And, I have to be a no for now. Thank you, mister president.

[Lt. Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: Senator from Robin.

[Unidentified senator]: Thank you, mister president. So I understand that there are, still some bills in play, but it it does appear as the chair of the, Senate Appropriations Committee alluded to that, some of these bills that are still in play have been recognized,

[Senator Philip Baruth (President Pro Tempore, Chittenden Central)]: and I know whether they're

[Unidentified senator]: in the Senate or in the House, coming from the senate or the house, and some are not.

[Senator Scott Beck (Caledonia)]: And if I could if

[Unidentified senator]: I could interrogate the, chair of, appropriations committee.

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

[Unidentified senator]: Thank you, mister president. I have, only two questions. One which is alluded to from my colleague from, Essex, and that is in the the bill, are we recognizing or not recognizing the testing remediation of PCBs?

[Senator Ann Cummings (Washington), Chair of Appropriations]: Mister President, we are not.

[Unidentified senator]: Okay. Thank you, mister President. And second, is there any inclusion in the budget to recognize the rebuilding of the or expansion of the or funding of the bonding for school construction?

[Senator Ann Cummings (Washington), Chair of Appropriations]: Mr. President, there's there's not discussion in the budget about school construction other than the money that we put for help for education transformation. It wouldn't be enough knowing the need of our schools, but whatever the education committees and and legislature comes up with around that, there's a tiny bit of money that could be used for that.

[Unidentified senator]: K. I thank the senator and I thank the speaker.

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

[Senator Philip Baruth (President Pro Tempore, Chittenden Central)]: Thank you, mister president. May I inquire of the senator from Franklin?

[Lt. Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: The senator from Franklin is interrogated as a reporter of the bill.

[Senator Philip Baruth (President Pro Tempore, Chittenden Central)]: It's I'm working from the web report just so you can orient, but on page four, section B205, I note that the committee decreased the amount of vacancy savings buyback. And my recollection from the judiciary committee is that the state's attorneys don't have really any vacancy savings, would this require that they eliminate any positions?

[Senator Robert Norris (Franklin)]: Thank you for the question,

[Senator Thomas Chittenden (Chittenden)]: mister president. No. This does not require them to eliminate any positions. In essence, we've simply cut any positions in half through the sheriff's office, and they can they can apply or come back to the pay act or come back during the BAA. They still have half of their vacancy savings. So it doesn't eliminate any positions.

[Senator Philip Baruth (President Pro Tempore, Chittenden Central)]: I so I I appreciate for the two zero seven with sheriffs, but I'm I am wondering about state's attorneys. Their testimony was that they don't generally have vacancy savings. So I guess I'm wondering where the 50% that we are maintaining in their budget is going to come from.

[Senator Thomas Chittenden (Chittenden)]: Oh, b two zero five. I'm sorry. Found it.

[Senator Philip Baruth (President Pro Tempore, Chittenden Central)]: No worries.

[Senator Thomas Chittenden (Chittenden)]: Well, they were listed as $330,000. They wanted vacancy say vacancy savings is through the state's attorney's office and we simply cut that in half. So I guess I'm not sure about the question, mister president. They don't have positions eliminated or they do?

[Senator Philip Baruth (President Pro Tempore, Chittenden Central)]: I can I can rephrase? The state's attorneys testified that they needed their vacancy savings eliminated because they don't actually have those vacancy savings. And so if they are forced to balance their budget on those vacancy savings, they may need to eliminate positions. And so the House, it seems eliminated the vacancy savings as the state's attorneys ask, whereas we are putting 50% of them back. So would that mean they need to eliminate positions?

[Senator Ann Cummings (Washington), Chair of Appropriations]: Well, I guess there's a possibility that, Mr. President, I'm not aware of

[Senator Thomas Chittenden (Chittenden)]: that particular testimony that may have been there.

[Senator Robert Norris (Franklin)]: I

[Senator Philip Baruth (President Pro Tempore, Chittenden Central)]: would certainly appreciate a clear answer and I can reach out to the Department of Seats, Terrains and Sheriffs as well. My concern with our backlogs is that eliminating and the fact that state's attorneys are generally carrying caseloads of 400 or more cases is that eliminating any positions would be hugely detrimental to public safety. So I thank the senator.

[Senator Thomas Chittenden (Chittenden)]: I can certainly have that answer for the senator by third reading.

[Lt. Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: Thank you. Senator from Orleans.

[Senator Virginia “Ginny” Lyons (Chittenden Southeast)]: Mister president, can

[Senator John Morley III (Orleans)]: I ask a question of the Senate Corporations Committee chair?

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

[Senator John Morley III (Orleans)]: On page 29 of the web report,

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Essex)]: the very

[Senator John Morley III (Orleans)]: bottom right, so the total senate budget, I believe, is 9,363,000,000. That'd be correct.

[Senator Ann Cummings (Washington), Chair of Appropriations]: Yep. That's also on the highlight sheet. Yes. The total budget is, yeah, 9,367,000,000.

[Senator John Morley III (Orleans)]: Mister president, I believe there's two different numbers. There's one on the highlight sheet that the chairman's talking about, and that's 9,367,000,000. The one on the web report is 9,363,000,000.

[Senator Ann Cummings (Washington), Chair of Appropriations]: What page of the web report, mister president?

[Senator John Morley III (Orleans)]: 29.

[Senator Ann Cummings (Washington), Chair of Appropriations]: Maybe maybe have to maybe I have

[Senator Thomas Chittenden (Chittenden)]: an older version.

[Senator Ann Cummings (Washington), Chair of Appropriations]: That's not on my page.

[Senator John Morley III (Orleans)]: Oh, this is what was handed out, mister president. I I'm on page 29. The bottom right hand Oh, okay. For the senate It says 9,363,000,000, I believe.

[Senator Ann Cummings (Washington), Chair of Appropriations]: Yes. That is a different number. I don't know So that's the difference

[Senator John Morley III (Orleans)]: is about 3,600,000,

[Lt. Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: so I'm just curious. Yeah.

[Senator Ann Cummings (Washington), Chair of Appropriations]: No. It's a good catch.

[Senator John Morley III (Orleans)]: Can I spend that money, mister president?

[Senator Ann Cummings (Washington), Chair of Appropriations]: Don't tell the senate of domestic you're spending any more money, but I will talk with JFO and I can rectify those, mister president, and and make sure we see where the error is. I mean, sometimes we have these duplicated funds, but these are both unduplicated totals, they should match out. So we will get the answers back.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Essex)]: And one more further question,

[Senator John Morley III (Orleans)]: and I'm going from memory. The global commitment dollars are Medicaid. I believe they're $11.50 waiver dollars and, the governor's recommend may have one budget number. The house budget number may have one in the Senate. We may have one. They're all different, but that just means that we're funding the Medicaid programs differently. Is that right, Mr. President?

[Senator Ann Cummings (Washington), Chair of Appropriations]: Mr. President, I don't know if we're funding a different we're funding different things that are funded with global commitment dollars, so that could be a a difference of the global commitment funds. But that should be properly accounted for as far as the the question of the total. I don't know if that if that follow-up question was about total or or separate question about?

[Senator John Morley III (Orleans)]: Separate question.

[Senator Ann Cummings (Washington), Chair of Appropriations]: Maybe you can rephrase the question just about the global commitment dollars.

[Senator John Morley III (Orleans)]: So I understand it, mister president. Global commitment is basically money from the eleven fifteen waiver of the Medicaid dollars. Am I right in that?

[Senator Ann Cummings (Washington), Chair of Appropriations]: Yes, mister president. That's correct.

[Senator John Morley III (Orleans)]: So in the budget process, I see that the there's a budget from the governor's recommend of x amount, we'll say, of global commitment dollars. And then you also may have a budget number for for Medicaid or global commitment dollars from the house that was passed. And then the senate may have passed a different number. Yes. Those I I'm I'm guessing those different numbers are are because we're funding different programs that are being paid for by Medicaid dollars. Is that correct?

[Senator Ann Cummings (Washington), Chair of Appropriations]: We are funding different programs and so we've between the governor and the house and the senate, funding different programs that are that have global commitment dollars. So if we fund different programs, they're gonna be a different mix, and the number of global commitment is gonna be different when we do that.

[Senator John Morley III (Orleans)]: I'd like to thank you very much. Thank you, mister president.

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

[Senator Scott Beck (Caledonia)]: Thank you, mister president.

[Unidentified senator]: I intend to vote today for this budget. I do appreciate

[Senator Scott Beck (Caledonia)]: the work that House Appropriations has put into this and all the other committees that have fed into it. And I'm, you know, I'm tepidly excited that the increase this year is one of the lowest increases that we've seen in this building in a long time. But my reservations are it's just it's still a very big number. It's 1,600,000,000 more than we spent in 2020, inflation adjusted. And I think about what $1,600,000,000 could do. And I think about, you know, we could eliminate the homestead education property tax, And we can eliminate the sales tax. And we could eliminate or greatly reduce the income tax for most Vermonters with that kind of money. And then I think about what kind of economy we would have if we reduce those taxes and those amounts and what that would mean for the the opportunity and economic growth in this state. And that growth would lead to even more revenue, And maybe we could use that revenue so that we could have a transportation fund where we had excellent roads and bridges and a capital and a capital bill bill that we had the money to fix our buildings. And so while I I will vote yes for this, and I do appreciate the work. We are we are not on glide path in this state and we need to get there so that we can really open up this economy and get, opportunity to our citizens and also, address their affordability concerns. Thank you.

[Lt. Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: Are you ready for the questions? Senator from Washington.

[Senator Ann Cummings (Washington), Chair of Appropriations]: Thank you, mister president. I respect the the comments from the senator from Caledonia, and I and I agree with him

[Senator Philip Baruth (President Pro Tempore, Chittenden Central)]: for the most part.

[Senator Ann Cummings (Washington), Chair of Appropriations]: And I've also heard some of these from constituents. So just wanna point out of the 9,000,000,000, 3,200,000,000 is federal funds. And that's really the growth that we've seen from 2020 or whatever year you want to pick before COVID is federal funds. So I think this is good at the point of Senator Essex too is like, are are we gonna succeed in in weaning ourselves off those federal funds and not try to backfill it with state funds? But we're still we still have federal funds flowing through the system. There's a lot of money that we're just earning on interest of the federal funds that we have here. And a lot of these federal funds, obviously, all of them have federal restrictions on them. So I would like to the second is a vision of, like, what with different economy that we have, we could take a billion of that and do what we wanted to do with it now what the feds are making us do. But that's kind of the reality that we're still living in. The increase that we've seen since COVID isn't because we've raised the state budget by that amount. It's really the impact directly to federal funds or the impact federal funds have had on spending of Vermont and the kind of the economic development part of that funds that has gone through the economy that's that's created the the increase. I just wanted to point that out for senator. Thank you.

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

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Windsor)]: Thank you. I applaud the work as always of the appropriations Committee. They do a great job and we feed them lots of challenges and opportunities. It's interesting to see what they've had to choose. I guess I would simply like to say, yes, the federal money has grown, but we still leave a lot of federal money on the table. We still are not spending enough to draw down all the federal money that might be available. And I believe that is a piece of the tension that we're also experiencing in this budget. And so while in really tight budget year, we have chosen to restrict some of those opportunities, which is a problem that we face. I would just say, I obviously will I will be supporting this budget, but it is very hard given all the tough choices we had to make in our committees to see some and something I support as an economic development opportunity for us to build a performance venue somewhere in this state that can accommodate the people that used to be able to be accommodated at the Memorial Auditorium. We are desperate to be able to have fabulous concerts for 5,000 people. To do that, though, at the risk of not well, not at the risk. At with with not funding all the things that we desperately need to fund in this state and to have to have to make some of those hard choices. If that was a tough balancing act, and that is one that just gives me lots of concern in this budget. And I wish we had been able fund it out of different pockets. That's, you know, there we are. But I I think in this year, in this very tight budget year, you have actually done a surprisingly great job threading this needle. And thank you. And I will be voting to support this budget.

[Lt. Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: Senator from Chittenden.

[Senator Martine Larocque Gulick (Chittenden)]: Mister president, when I was a high school teacher, I often would ask my social studies colleagues, my economic colleagues, my history colleagues, can you give me an example anywhere in history, anywhere in the world where trickle down economics worked? Show me that just cutting tax is gonna suddenly lead to a wealthier, happier, healthier country. They could never point me in the direction of an example because it doesn't exist. So running a state costs money. Many of us stood up last year and we talked about the fear that we had, the dismay that we had with federal leadership and what was happening at the federal level, that is coming to fruition, and we're one year in. It's gonna get harder. And what I like about this bill is it attempts to keep Vermonters fed, housed, and alive. That needs to be our priority right now. So thank you Appropriations Committee. I appreciate your work.

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

[Senator Scott Beck (Caledonia)]: I'll provide one example. Look across the river, the tax structure and the spending of New Hampshire and their wealth and their income and there's your example.

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

[Senator Ann Cummings (Washington), Chair of Appropriations]: Thank you, mister president. Constituents ask me one question more than any other.

[Senator Robert Norris (Franklin)]: And it is, what can

[Senator Ann Cummings (Washington), Chair of Appropriations]: you do to keep my taxes from constantly going up? And I respond, the answer is very simple. Stop spending. This building has a tendency to say that the only way that we can do anything for people is to spend more money to do it and to add more staff to do it. This bill represented a great deal of hard work, a careful thought, and sound action in many ways. But we didn't stop spending, and we need to.

[Senator Thomas Chittenden (Chittenden)]: Thank you, mister.

[Lt. Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: Are you ready for the question?

[Senator Ann Cummings (Washington), Chair of Appropriations]: Roll call.

[Lt. Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: Roll call has been requested, and when the vote is taken, it shall be by roll. Are you ready for the question? If so, the secretary shall call the roll.

[Senator Ann Cummings (Washington), Chair of Appropriations]: Senator Ruth? Yes. Senator Pat?

[Senator Thomas Chittenden (Chittenden)]: Yes. Senator Benson?

[Senator Ann Cummings (Washington), Chair of Appropriations]: Yes. Senator Bongartz? Yes. Senator Mattos. Yes. Senator Morley. Yes. Senator Dorris. Yes. Senator Pershing. Yes. Senator Pumpkin. Yes. Senator Ron Hinsdale. Yes. Senator Bahosky.

[Senator Virginia “Ginny” Lyons (Chittenden Southeast)]: No. Senator Watson? Yes.

[Senator Ann Cummings (Washington), Chair of Appropriations]: Senator Weeks? No. Senator Westman? Yes. Senator White?

[Senator Philip Baruth (President Pro Tempore, Chittenden Central)]: Yes. Senator Williams?

[Unidentified senator]: No.

[Senator Thomas Chittenden (Chittenden)]: Those voting yes, 23. Those voting no, seven. The ayes have it. And you

[Lt. Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: have proposed to the house to amend the bill as proposed by the committee on appropriations. The 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. Aye. Ayes appear to have it. Ayes do have it. You've ordered third reading of etch h nine fifty one. Senator from Chittenden Central.

[Senator Philip Baruth (President Pro Tempore, Chittenden Central)]: Thank you. That has been a long morning. I appreciate the hard work from everyone. We will have third reading of this bill tomorrow as well as the yield bill and then however many other bills we can go through. So with that, mister president, I would move that any announcements, the senate stand in adjournment until Wednesday, I believe the April 29 at 11AM.

[Senator John Morley III (Orleans)]: You got it. I'm

[Senator Philip Baruth (President Pro Tempore, Chittenden Central)]: looking around for our chief of staff. I believe it is eleven years.

[Senator Ann Cummings (Washington), Chair of Appropriations]: It is.

[Lt. Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: The senator senator from Windsor.

[Senator Rebecca “Becca” White (Windsor)]: Over the weekend, a very important person had a birthday. And while I will not be regaling you with any information about the special Sunday birthday, you are invited to join for carrot cake with pecans in the cloakroom afterwards in honor of the senior senator from Windsor. Happy birthday.

[Senator Virginia “Ginny” Lyons (Chittenden Southeast)]: Oh, thank you.

[Lt. Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: Senator from Chittenden.

[Senator Virginia “Ginny” Lyons (Chittenden Southeast)]: Thank you, mister president. Center of Health and Welfare is actually going on a field trip as soon as this session ends. The field trip is out in the parking lot. I guess that is the Northern Parking lot, and it is the Mont UVM Cancer Center van is here, and it's an amazing mobile unit. So actually, you're all invited to share that field trip with us. And I guess either eat the carrot cake first or bring it along. Please please join us. Thanks.

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

[Senator Virginia “Ginny” Lyons (Chittenden Southeast)]: Thank you, mister president. Senate finance will meet at 01:00. Bring your carrot cake or lunch.

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

[Senator Ann Cummings (Washington), Chair of Appropriations]: Senate appropriations will not meet until 02:00.

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

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Essex)]: Thank you, mister president. Senate government operations will meet at 01:15.

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

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

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

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Bennington)]: Mister president, the education committee will meet at 01:50.

[Lt. Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: Are there any further announcements? Senator from Windsor, I hesitated because I thought you were gonna complain about the president pro tem using his phone on the floor.

[Senator Philip Baruth (President Pro Tempore, Chittenden Central)]: I only used it as a clock. The

[Lt. Governor David Zuckerman (President of the Senate)]: senator from Chittenden has moved that the senate standard adjournment until 11AM Wednesday, 04/29/2026. Are you ready for the question? If so, all in favor, say aye. Aye. All opposed, nay. The ayes have it. We'll stand in adjournment until 11AM Wednesday, 04/29/2026.