Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Jean Hamilton (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: Stand on. Yes.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Stand on. This is Senate Appropriations, January of the session, first day of the Appropriations Committee for this year. I thought we would go around a little bit. If people have any comments that they want opening comments that they want to say. I will start I'll read in reverse that the chair of transportation did for Ian did. So I will start.

[Richard Westman (Member)]: I spoke if you didn't answer that.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: I think you also spoke in the middle. Several times after each person. But I came up with the three C's that I want our committee to keep in mind. Our constitution, our constitution has this line in it about not having expenditures, unless there are more beneficence to the community than the individual to monitor. I thought there was a line in there about not taking money out of people's pockets unless it's I couldn't actually refer to money out of pockets, but I couldn't find it. But there's a line in there that does say that the legislature and those that are spending money and raising taxes should make sure that any money that we're spending is better for the community than it would be in the individual's use. I think that's an important thing for us to remember. Our constituents, not only the things that our constituents need and ask us for, but also just that we're showing that we have a functional government and that government can helpful and that they can trust in the process and their legislative elected representatives to do the right thing for them as far as the constitution, but also the needs that we have out there and the wants that people have and they're kind of striving for hope for Vermont's future. Think that's something that's very important as we build the budget. And then in our community here in legislature and in this committee, I thought we did a good job last year of having a committee that worked well together, that it was good and when we disagreed and were disagreeable, realized that we were very efficient in our work and still had a decent pile of it. So I want to make sure that we're continuing to build that community in common. That's the main thing is those three Cs, the constitution, our constituents, and the community are on priority. And I think there's a lot of talk this year about it's going to be a tough budget year. I think mainly that's going to be a result of the federal spending is so in question, and we have a grant, we don't have a grant. We just got this new rural innovation health grant, which is going to be helpful, but who knows, it could be taken away. We have several lawsuits for several funding programs a process that may get settled and we

[Richard Westman (Member)]: get the money and we don't

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: get the money. The Feds may extend the Affordable Care Act, they may not. Those are going to be unknowns, but they're big dollar numbers and we can't backfill all of them. But I think we'll have discussions about are there some parts of our healthcare system that we will want to or we need to. We will go through some of the BAA stuff today just to get started on that, but also I've asked CFO to come in at the end of the week to remind us what we did last year, what was in the budget. If you remember, we set aside $110,000,000 for federal YES. We only spent seven of that, and so it's important to look at what we did last year we prepare to look at the budget adjustment and what the governor's proposing and as we prepare for the 'one hundred seven budget. It looks like revenues are about what we expected them to be. We're not going to have the one time funds that we've had in other years, but I'm still fingers crossed that we're not going have a precision, because then that would be very difficult, because then we have to go look at the budget and say, what are we going pay down? But we still could. We don't know what the economists are going to do. We're going find out in next two weeks. Right? A week from Friday. A week from We'll see if they're gonna they think they they're seeing signs that the economy is slowing to the point where they're gonna change what they think our revenue's gonna be for for this year as well as see what their projections are for '27. So that'll roll out. We'll we'll kinda go over that later this week. So the rest of this week is gonna just getting started on the budget just to invest in money because I think the the effort is to get that out soon as you so those are my opening comments. And so I'll just go around if anybody has any other opening comments or questions that they have. Senator Westman?

[Richard Westman (Member)]: Do you wanna start with me? Yes. Of course. Get it out of the way. I would say my thinking in the budget and the budget process this year, it's really gonna come down to what's the want and what's the need. And I think we'll have to be focused on what Where are the real needs? I was it's a little thing, but in the fall, as we ran into a whole bunch of the problems with EBT cards and and the it looked like the money wasn't coming through and all that. Directly put money to the food bank and they gave directly out to all the food shelves across the state. I, a little bit, smiled because this committee had three times, because our initiative in the House had fought us early in that, but figured out a way to direct money directly back to the food shelves. Have basically unpaid staff, no overhead, and are directly facing the people that need the money the most, and learn to do a lot of thinking around that. What's the want, what's the need, and how do we most efficiently get money out there? So for me, that was an example of a precedent that this committee around this table meant that I think is vital for me. Food and keeping people warm are top of my list. The next, the other piece that I'll be booking in August, it's one of the few times that there have been issues out there where every fund in state government now is having issues. The T Fund is, as you well know, is, I would say on the verge of disaster. We're looking at projected double digit increases in the yield fund, and we put you talking, And the general fund is somewhat been used as the punching by everybody. The only reason we haven't dealt with transportation before this is we've had surplus general fund money come over to save us the last few years. And the general fund now is not going to have that capacity because we're facing particularly areas like Medicaid cuts in that. So all three funds and the relationship between those funds, I think this committee is going to have to take the lead of all of them to, is there a way to better think the relationship between all of them?

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Thank you. Senator Norris? Thank you. While the chair of transportation kind

[Robert Norris (Member)]: of smokes on my thumb and there's little let that go anyways. We're face a very tough session between the launch and the needs, and there's there's plenty of both, but one of my from our three and one of my larger concerns is I know that we've addressed, you know, our pretended to address the homelessness and health and all the stuff here, but I have a large concern as the three of you probably can relate to is on our transportation. I know we're getting waste to a lot of different areas, our roads, highways, and our infrastructure has fallen apart. And I don't think that we can afford to lose that 200 plus million dollars to beds if we

[Adam Greshin (Commissioner of Finance & Management)]: don't put that matching on this. But I

[Robert Norris (Member)]: think that's the key. And and, you

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: know, there may or may

[Robert Norris (Member)]: not be, depending on this committee's recommendations, some folks that may not get they used to get it. So we say, but no matter where you're going, you have to go the roads, you have to go, put bridges, whatever else. If you don't have those in in so not in dire straits, then we need to we need to address that situation. We need to fix that. And it's not something that's gonna come easily, but we can't just throw 220,000,000 out the window because we came up with a 30 or $33,000,000 to match the federal. So that's one of one of my my key points here. But until we get the state of the state or the the budget address here, There's a lot of concerns, I'll leave it with the trace of chase right now about our highways and infrastructure is really in the back of my mind.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: I think when I talked about constituents, having passable roads is something that constituents feel like is a basic level of government, we can't do that. They start questioning all other parts of government.

[Jean Hamilton (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: Yeah,

[Anne Watson (Member)]: considering the difficult budget environment that we are in, I'll just say, it reminds me of a little bit of when I was mayor of Montpelier during COVID, and we had to have a budgeting process in which we had to make really difficult choices just to keep the lights on. And it sort of brought a new level of scrutiny to what was a want versus a need. And even when we say, you know, these are the things that we are used to saying our needs, we had to cut even from there. And so, when I think about the level of potential difficulty that we may be facing, in my mind, becomes this sort of triage of, like, what is most important that we keep funded and go out from there? Because to a degree, we may all draw the line in a different place for what is a need. So, able to prioritize the parts of government that are critical, I think, pretty important. And having said that, I am very interested in keeping an eye to the future and what where we're headed and how the money that we are spending sets us up for more expenditure in the future or for more returns in the future. So, my vision for Vermont in general is a place that can feed itself, that can house itself, that can transport itself. So, wanting to keep holding that vision of where we want to go, I think is important, especially when times are really difficult, and making sure that we're continuing to at least try to make the investments that are going to give back to us in the future. So that's it for me.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Thank you. Baruth, we're just going around any priorities or opening comments.

[Philip Baruth (Member)]: Okay. So I talked this morning about this committee and the general fund and how it interacts with the ed fund recently, which has become a little alarming to me, the extent to which, one way that I think about it in my mind is we have 119 districts, we're all setting their own budgets, their voters passed 90, then typically we're buying the rate down from there. So it's as though we have 119 liberal appropriations committees that are appropriating money out of our general fund, and we're, you know, we're allowing that to happen by making that transfer. But at a certain point, it has to stop because I think when we're done with all of our needs and, you know, the supplying the agencies with the money that we've agreed on. We have sometimes, like, a $100,000,000 left in money that can go to extreme needs in a 100 different areas. If we not only don't have that, but we lose 200,000,000 of the rest of the budget, everything starts getting impoverished. So, so that's my number one priority is trying to make sure that we're moving to a lesser net spending, lesser place versus the general fund, less money going to buy down the rates. And I think we can only do that by asking more of our school boards in terms of cutting in budgets, among other things, like reference based pricing for healthcare or renegotiating contracts, etcetera. And that's a systemic thing, but then in terms of my areas of the budget, there are still two long term projects that I have my eye on. Is Vermont State University, making sure that we don't say, okay, we we bridged you. We got you to your new branding endpoint, and now we're gonna let you go with with no help. So I am looking for what we can do still for them in terms of transitioning them into a completely unified system.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: And then the

[Philip Baruth (Member)]: other one is childcare. So I think that in some ways the best thing we've done in the last four years is that childcare bill. We've protected it the last two years, and we've, certain ways, been able to make a little more robust the money that's going there and make sure the uptake is keep going up so that we have more centers, more slots, more kids and families being helped with the payroll tax revenue. So I've got my eye on those two things, but overall, it's thinking about the problem in the Ed Fund. I mentioned the transportation fund this morning as just one example of what we would otherwise do for the transportation fund without delay, we may not be able to do because of that couple 100,000,000 or 100 or 150,

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: whatever it turns out

[Philip Baruth (Member)]: to be, that we need to buy a drink down. That's my stuff.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: And you brought something for senator Westman to eat. Actually, these

[Philip Baruth (Member)]: these donuts were bought by my sister, and she specifically told me to bring them into a purse. So if you don't eat one, you're insulting my family.

[Robert Norris (Member)]: So I'll have a donor. I

[Richard Westman (Member)]: just make a comment. We only balance the T Fund because the general fund was generous to us.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Similar situation.

[Robert Norris (Member)]: So not to go on, I think what Anne said about prioritizing our needs is important. I mean, we're gonna have way more needs than we have revenues to keep up with those wants. I think prioritizing those are really crucial. And I won't repeat, I agree with everything both of you guys said too. But I also think we ought to take a really close look at COVID era programs that need, I think in my opinion, a good scrubbing and they, you know, they were, they were designed with error funding and COVID related funding to be temporary. And I think we're continuing those programs just taking dollars. I don't know how long they can do that. So I'm not saying to do away with all of them. I'm saying take a good look at Good thing to look through these.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Sarah Lyons?

[Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: Boy, I think everybody said everything. The concern about basic needs is pretty important. Maslow's hierarchy looks at food and heat. So we do need to pay attention to what people need on a very basic level. Beyond that, for me, the budget should reflect what you were talking about in terms of the sense of community. Vermont has always been reaching out to help neighbors, that's who we are, and we don't want that to be lost when we're debating a We can't, and then finally, other area of concern that I have is that we make knee jerk responses and reactions to what the federal government is doing or an episode, an event, and that we continue to make decisions in a broader context. We're not, you know, if we were to make the decision about fully funding SNAP or fully funding all of the support that folks have lost from their healthcare premiums, we could take all of that and then we also take money and put it into reducing property taxes. We need to do that in some ways. We need to understand what the effect is and rather than simply making a decision at one point in time. Doesn't mean I I don't like any of of those but you can dress it up but you can't. Anyway, so no, I think we all have a sense of the importance of transportation, no question there. We know how important it is to look at our local needs whether it's our food bank or other areas. It's not an easy time. I'm concerned that because the federal government makes a decision about what those priorities are for forcing people who Medicaid to have a work requirement without regard for their ability to do work. We don't need to just follow suit on that. We need to have a very broad conversation about what individuals need to support the community and vice versa.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: It's great to have you from the health and welfare here because health care costs are like Gonna be a mess. Okay, so just other quick things before we hear from Commissioner Gresham. This is just an annual thing about the reports that we get. You can look at that and check which reports we care about or don't care about. Our committee, the budget recitements are the same and else emailed it to you in case you forgot what parts of the budget say you're in charge of. And we're gonna start off with Commissioner Gresham to talk about the Budget Adjustment Act right away. I said before you were your Minerva Ruth that on Friday we're gonna have a session with JFO to look back what we did last year and how things have changed since we were last year. But we're gonna start off with testimony around the VA. So welcome, Commissioner. We have Yes.

[Adam Greshin (Commissioner of Finance & Management)]: Commissioner too. Yeah. The The votes.

[Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: I'll look at it. No.

[Robert Norris (Member)]: Happy to day, everyone. Good afternoon. Afternoon. Yeah.

[Adam Greshin (Commissioner of Finance & Management)]: Have the VA here that is going meet all of your priorities. Listened to them, I said no, that's it. So

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: one of the sorry, Richard. I think the commissioner's handouts or BA stuff is online. If in general, if we want, just as we go through this session, talk to Elle about whether you want paper, if you only want paper for some things. I think some people got a handout, we'll just kind of have to work one on one with Elle on whether, she's not going to print everything out unless we talk to her about it.

[Elle (Committee Assistant)]: Do you want one? I have one extra copy that can be shared amongst me for anybody who need, then senator Baruth has one

[Richard Westman (Member)]: that you can choose to share.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: It is on our

[Elle (Committee Assistant)]: And it's off the sound of it.

[Richard Westman (Member)]: Which one? Oh, my.

[Adam Greshin (Commissioner of Finance & Management)]: So anyway, thank you for listening to us. We presented this very document and language December 16 or so in the house. So we're very happy to come up with you and present it here. Just starting with some context. So we began the process of the budget adjustment by, as we always looking at our revenue, what do we have available? There are some years when we have very little available, so it's a very neat document. There are many years when, as you probably remember, we've had a lot of revenue available. This year, we begin with approximately $121,000,000 And majority of that is from resources. You folks remember the emergency board seems like a while ago. Looked a while ago. It's back in July when they upgraded the forecast for the fiscal year 2026 since the budget that you folks passed and the governor signed was based on a revenue outlook that was $77,000,000 lower than that when the $77,000,000 upgrade came, that immediately becomes available to revenue. There was also about little under $13,000,000 left unallocated on the bottom line, which is unusual. Typically budgets allocate all revenue or it goes into the the kind of waterfall construct where it goes to the balance reserves and pensions. This year, after the budget passed, I believe it was after the budget passed, the government vetoed a couple of bills, H91, most importantly, would have a $10,000,000 set aside. You guys set aside money for that bill, which never became law. So that was there. There were a couple of small corrections that added another $2,500,000 So almost $13,000,000 adding to the $77,000,000 And then as we do every year, there are some reversions. So we're banging on or we're getting about $21,000,000 of reversions. And those are appropriations from prior years that are no longer And

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: that 77,000,000 is not doesn't deal with any of the money we set aside in our contingency. That's not touching that in this bill. That's in addition

[Adam Greshin (Commissioner of Finance & Management)]: to that. So I mean, again, it just kind of illustrates what kind of world we were in where you guys remember appropriate. I think it's a $118,000,000 of contingency appropriations. All of those were billed. We had, I think, an additional $2,000,000 still left lying around. They went into the balance reserve and the pensions. And then e board meets and they say, well, that plus another $77,000,000 we're anticipating in fiscal twenty six. I mean, this will all seem quaint, I think, in the next few years or possibly in the forecast, but it just seems bizarre. So in that, we have about $121,000,000 to allocate.

[Richard Westman (Member)]: This bill makes net

[Adam Greshin (Commissioner of Finance & Management)]: $48,000,000 of additional appropriations, which is reduced to 46,000,000 by 2,000,000 of net transfers into the fund. So there's more money you'll see when we go through the transfer section, say from, I believe it was sports wagering or liquor and so on. So there's some net transfers in that balance out those net 48,000,000 appropriations. Also, the way, that's a net 48,000,000. There are more appropriations than that, but there are some money saving or some appropriations where we reduce spending authority because we didn't think we need it all. On a net basis, it comes to 48,000,000 of additional appropriations. There were $2,000,000 net transfers in. So that's a total of $46,000,000 of additional general fund uses. And taking that, subtracting it from $121,000,000 available leaves roughly 75,000,000, 74.9, I think, on the bottom line, after all adjustments are done. In the language section, you'll note section 50, You'll see what the governor proposes to do with this. I think you've probably all looked or heard we are setting up, we are temporarily reserving this money and fencing it off to use for property tax relief. So the the way that works, the mechanism is we reserve it, and that allows it to and then we carry it forward into the following year, and then we own it. So that sum of just under $75,000,000 is what we have left over into all appropriations and stuff. I would note that this BAA, again, kind of harkens back to the good old days when all of it was, was a series of accounting measures. There's no policy in this. This is a clean budget adjustment by that. I mean, we didn't want to put any initiatives in here. And again, in past years, we've done that because we've had a fair amount of revenue, and some of it was kinda we wanted to get right at it, but in funding, also, as they could be accepted or not, but we have So reserved just under 75,000,000. We know we have an education funding challenge, as I heard earlier, and we also have an unsettled refugee house. So you can, you know, with those kind of two comments, can anticipate that the budget that the governor will deliver a couple of weeks from now will probably be pretty leniently by that.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Can Can I ask a question on session 50 on the the education fund part? The the Yes, sir. Unreserving that 13,000,000? Yes, sir. Is that the add off to help buy down use that money to buy down the property taxes? Or what is the impact of that? 13,000,000 on reserve education put apart. I assume that's also part of the There is an ellipse in the manifest. Do you know

[Adam Greshin (Commissioner of Finance & Management)]: what I'm talking about? I do not. Is that in the languages? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Page 36. Oh, page six. Top of page 36. Oh, top of oh, okay. So that is oh, actually, top of page 36. This is So no, that is a kind of a classic. Like to say that, and you'll see that in the spreadsheet we've gone through. That just indicates that we're all human in the case that you make mistakes. So there was 13,000,000 set aside in not the current year, but the prior year's budget that was part of a surplus they had that the body and the governor set aside, agreed to set aside for the following year's property tax relief. And it was set aside by reserving, putting it in a reserve.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Okay. And It just started The

[Adam Greshin (Commissioner of Finance & Management)]: way it works with reserving is you have to unreserve it in order to use it. So it was never unreserved. So when we went to, you know, grab it to offset property taxes

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: So did you We couldn't. Did she just didn't So we

[Adam Greshin (Commissioner of Finance & Management)]: just left it there, and then in budget adjustment, what we're doing was unreserving it. And what we did is we actually reduced we took it out of the the balance, the stable decisions. Okay. So this is repaying. Okay.

[Philip Baruth (Member)]: Mr. Chair, yes. In that same section, it says the first 74 plus million of any fiscal year end 2026 general fund balance otherwise subject to reservation in the balance reserve and prior to any childcare contribution reservation shall instead be reserved for 2027. I'm just wondering about that. What what are we talking about in terms of superseding a child care contribution reservation? I'm I'm unclear on this.

[Adam Greshin (Commissioner of Finance & Management)]: So you'll see later on, also in this language, actually section 53. The you're right. The new construct. The new construct being proposed to handle a particular technical problem with fourth quarter childcare contributions. Yeah. And so a reserve is being set up to accommodate that problem. And so it's a new construct fee being proposed to that. To take a quick look that. So what we so the the issue, senator, believes is that childcare contributions are withheld from payrolls. In the fourth quarter of a particular fiscal year, the withholding is taking place along with the other tax withholdings that are taking place with the payroll process. However, the absolute amount the the actual amount to to be deposited in the child care fund is not known until the subsequent November of the next fiscal year, because there's a reconciliation process that the actual returns, you know, well, the withholding takes place automatically out of out of payroll. The the returns are not due until the the subsequent quarter. Mhmm. So the actual amount going into the fund isn't an an Yeah. At the time of the close of the fiscal year. However, the the mechanisms was originally set up to make the deposit at the close of the fiscal fiscal year into the fund, but that amount's not known until the following November. So we had to work with the Joint Fiscal Office this year on a one time basis to come up with a workaround to to ensure that the excess because it all sits in the general fund until that subsequent tax re the returns are filed, and then the reconciliation's performed, and then there's a transfer from the general fund to the child care fund. However, what would have happened this year, we found, at the time of closeout, was the surplus in the general fund would have simply been swept and gone to the pension reserve funds. Right? There would have been nothing left. There would have been nothing left, you you see, if if you just follow the mechanisms in the big bill. We had to work together to come up with like a one time process to estimate the amount and reserve it, ensure that it was reserved so it could ultimately be transferred to the childcare fund. We propose in the Budget Adjustment Act, recommended by the governor, to set up an annual construct of making this estimate and making this reserve. That's the reserve that's being referred to there. It's a new reserve, it's a new thing. Got it. And we've worked with your legislative drug test law office to try to make this happen. From a practical standpoint, what we did was we called up the tax department and said, how much do you think is the fourth quarter amount, you know, the, let's say, essentially April 1 through June 30 amount of payroll tax? And they came to us with an estimate and we temporarily reserved that, and then on July 1, we unreserved it, so it was still there in the general fund. But we're try I mean, that was kind of I mean, it was, I think, the best thing you could do, but we just felt uncomfortable making those estimates, and I think you guys felt uncomfortable with us making those estimates in a vacuum. So we're trying to essentially make something close to what we have with the consensus revenue points, you know, that we work with the general fiscal and and the legislature to figure out what's a reasonable amount. And over the years, this will be fairly easy to update it. We just had no data. Sure. You know, we couldn't look back.

[Philip Baruth (Member)]: I do so if I'm understanding correctly, this is just it's not preferring to use for the 74 plus million. It's just reserving it for for the next fiscal year. And then it's going to be distributed to CCFAP and other monies will be distributed according to the the standard language for how that money is Right.

[Adam Greshin (Commissioner of Finance & Management)]: Which is new standard language be now be proposed. Right.

[Philip Baruth (Member)]: And and my question is, last year, you remember there was the uptake on the payroll tax wasn't the same as the amount. So we had in a onetime basis, we have used that for other things. Do you remember what I'm talking about?

[Adam Greshin (Commissioner of Finance & Management)]: So last year yeah. We opted there was more revenue than was needed to execute the program. Yes. Right. And we moved that money to other

[Philip Baruth (Member)]: And so I'm just wondering. This is unconnected to

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: that. Okay. Because that we talked about last year, setting up a reserve instead of spending that money putting reserve, is a different kind of reserve. This is just more of an accounting

[Adam Greshin (Commissioner of Finance & Management)]: This is this is just based on those fourth quarter receipts and ensuring that they're preserved in the general fund until such time as the exact amount is known to transfer to the child care fund, which will be after those returns are filed in the subsequent quarter.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Thank you. Do have a comment?

[Anne Watson (Member)]: Yeah, would just say we worked with the administration, Emily Byrd at the Joint Fiscal Office to come up with the language, and it's purely a mechanical thing to make sure that the revenue that should be dedicated to the child care special fund gets to the

[Adam Greshin (Commissioner of Finance & Management)]: child care special fund. Yeah.

[Anne Watson (Member)]: And we're working on like a

[Richard Westman (Member)]: walkthrough for how it's that we could do here.

[Adam Greshin (Commissioner of Finance & Management)]: Okay. Great. Mean, we're gonna have to go through language anyway, this is why we keep I mean, the other thing I would say on this is if when we make an estimate, if we guess too high and we reserve an amount that's too much for what ultimately the payroll tax comes in, then in a sense, we're kinda robbing the balance reserve and the pensions because that money would have gone. So we're we're setting up a mechanism to essentially pay that back. Yeah. Similarly, if we get too low, you know, we may have to reach into these other opportunities to restore. So, I mean, it's little things that probably aren't worth spending a ton of time on, but it's, I mean, it's, I think, a reasonable way to, the most reasonable way, tax, when they come in, you can ask them. I believe they're looking at either soft, I think software that will allow the designation of payroll tax versus childcare tax, I believe. I think there's still some challenges with that. But anyway, in the perfect world, that we'd be able to tell almost immediately when revenue is remitted from, say, a company, and we would know how much is payroll tax, how much is paid before, but so far that remains a good Okay.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Well, for going down, jumping ahead. That's fine. That typically is this committee's want.

[Adam Greshin (Commissioner of Finance & Management)]: So what we've done in past years is the deputy and I have tagged you going through. Typically, I don't think you guys have wanted to go line by line, but we're prepared to do that. Just going down the spreadsheet

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: when we I don't think we need to go line by line, but if there's anything you think you should highlight, and then we'll take a closer look. I looked at it, but nothing really jumped out of it for me as a question, but we can always have you back if we can look at something that quest to you.

[Adam Greshin (Commissioner of Finance & Management)]: Well, we can highlight what we think and you know, to the extent that you have other questions we can go for. So starting at the top, there's a net neutral shift from the homeowner rebate appropriation to the renter rebate appropriation. And so that's net neutral on a general fund basis. That does it for the general government section. Within protection, we've got some increases in judiciary, sheriffs, and public safety, large state police. It's a fairly small amount of the state police increases related to the net costs related to Burlington initiative. That's only about $100,000 The balance is over time, you know, related to the regular current services operations.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Is And that over time, beyond what we expected it. Like, how how big of a difference is that? Is that just

[Adam Greshin (Commissioner of Finance & Management)]: Well, there is it is, and it's it's in part related to, you know, vacancies. So if you had position vacancies, you're gonna need to pay existing staff at time and a half or 100 of them at straight time. And

[Robert Norris (Member)]: so what is part of that?

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: There's vacancies that weren't expected.

[Adam Greshin (Commissioner of Finance & Management)]: There well, there's I'd ask if you wanna drill into this, you know, more detail, I would have public safeties probably speak more accurately than with precision that I wanna do. Sure. Thanks. I just mainly wanted to highlight the fact that it's a small amount of the overtime that's related to the Burlington initiative. That's the main takeaway I thought this committee might be interested in. It's only about 100 of the 65 total. The Criminal Justice Council is receiving some additional funding to complete a project that's been ongoing for some time, which is a curriculum review and development for the police academy trainings. And this should bring that work to a conclusion. Small amount to the Human Rights Commission, but it may be interesting to the committee that that allows them to continue to operate without a reduction in services, which would otherwise occur based on HUD grant of federal funds that was going away there. So the recommendation is to maintain that current services level there. There's an unusual special fund appropriation for the Cannabis Control Board. It's also reflected later in a transfer of the same amount from the general fund to the special fund. I think it's explained adequately in the sidebar. It's related to an appropriation made actually in 2022 Act 'eighty three. It was a bunch of adjustment acts. It was an $850,000 transfer to support costs associated with the lab setup for the cannabis Control Board, and the transfer was made into the fund subsequent FY23 big bill language provided for funds remaining, basically all the excise tax would go into their regulation special fund, and then at the end of the year, the balance remaining would be transferred to the general fund. So what happens is, in this case, the legislature transferred from the general fund into the special fund for this future lab work so they could fund all that fit up, and then it got, by this other mechanism, transferred out into the general fund, and now, a couple years later, it's time to actually complete the lab fit up, and the funds aren't there, so we're making a transfer back from the general fund. I just wanted to take a minute to explain that unusual situation there. And that takes us through protection, unless there are any other questions on that section of the page. If not, I'll turn it over to Adam for the of the matter, which is human services, which typically is the most highly featured agency in the budget adjustment. Thank you, Artie. And there are a couple of dozen different maneuvers. Mean, there's enough in here to keep Senators, Lyons, and Westman busy for the rest of the session in case that But, you know, in total, there's $33,000,000 of net appropriations. There's some savings that offset, so there's more appropriations, but on a net basis, about $32,000,000 total use of the general fund. Plus, as party will do later on, it's another 11,000,000 one time, we'll get into later. So that's a fairly substantial amount of additional general fund. I would note, however, that their total base general fund is about 1,400,000.0. So in that context, it's a little over 2% on that. Again, I don't think it's worthwhile to go through each one, but let me just do it thematically. And I believe the folks in human services will come in here, and this will actually go along very well, and so they will present too in more detail. But, you know, the biggest thing, which is typical, caseload pressures. You see that in the midst of the whole mixing bowl three, B-three zero one. You see the federal funds and general funds being put out to, but in the various appropriations you see the global commitment amounts. So for example, in D307, that's the big Medicaid program, Diva. Dollars 33,000,000 pressure relative to what was in the original budget, there's additional $33,000,000 all funds, about $14,000,000 of general fund requirement. Similarly, caseload B334.1 within data, you've to get choices for care and nursing home emergency financial relief payments, a total of just under $27,000,000 all at once. What number is that again? B 334.1. And there's another 12,000,000 general fund. So when you have the Medicaid pressures and the choices for care or nursing home pressures, there, in total, you got about 26,500,000.0 of additional general fund. So, and you know, again, it's substantial. The PNMI, private non medical institutions, there's pressures there too. You see that in B-three 14, albeit quite a bit smaller. And then if you look down in corrections, B-three 38 and B-three 39, you'll note, I think under case load pressures, the well pad, which is a healthcare provider to corrections, an amendment that is required when caseloads, when headcount basically, in our correction facilities goes above a certain number, fifteen twenty five. So that that kinda triggers an additional payment to WellPath. In this case, you'll see 4,600,000.0 extra general fund.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Is it just 4.6 if you get one over that number or that Okay. Ratio?

[Adam Greshin (Commissioner of Finance & Management)]: That was the exact same question that they asked me in the house, and I said, I'm gonna defer to the folks who don't. But, yes, if I were to answer that question, I'd say probably, but I I can't. I mean, that would be a guess. There's also, I would note in corrections, some

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: bills that

[Adam Greshin (Commissioner of Finance & Management)]: were not paid in 'twenty five, 'twenty six, three 200,000.0 of those came that into late session, and it was pretty tight close last year or so. Within Corrections, there's a fair amount of caseload and other pressures there. Under what I would call software pressures, you know, there, you see in B306 and Diva, there's about $2,000,000 of additional IT cost, which includes Gainwell, which is behind the MMIS system, and the Medicaid Data Warehouse, MDWAS, that's a Deloitte payment, as well there's some scattered Oracle licenses that require additional payments. So, you know, again, this is not unusual, but it is just showing some pressures that were not anticipated early on. And then there's what I would call just the cost of doing business. Mean, and you could include software in that, but for example, in B315 there, you see the large increase for travelers. You know, they have done, I think, a commendable job that they can talk to you about, about finding additional staff, their vacancy rates actually are lower than they have, but they're still elevated. You'll note that in FAR, that is offset, that increase of just under 5,000,000 general fund requirement for travel nurses is partly or mostly offset by an increase of $4,000,000 in vacancy sales. There also you see in the three fifteen. So, you know, the one is not quite, but almost paying for the other. With higher vacancies, they need more travelers. But the travelers net net are more expensive than the jobs that are vacant. So net net, it's a loss. You see some additional payments for transportation contracts that can be more than we thought in B317 for D6, 1,000,000, and B314 for DNH for about 3 and 27,000. In B-three 27, the secure residential treatment facility, just under $2,000,000 that's the Wyndham facility, and that's for sheriffs.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: And then just some random mean the other 327 is for sheriffs?

[Adam Greshin (Commissioner of Finance & Management)]: Yeah. That's the secured residential facility. But is it the 1.99 is all for sheriffs? No. No. So Wyndham Facility is a facility set up in Wyndham County Sheriff's Office Building, so it's not Yeah. Really It's it's just it occupied it's we're Mhmm. Yeah. It occupies the same building, and it was referred to, I think, colloquially as the Wyndham Sheriff's Facility. Okay. But it's not this isn't a cost like paid to It's not a safety. This is a this is the operating cost of I think it's something like four beds. It's it's what the operating cost associated with those.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: It's not operated by the sheriffs? It's not. No. Okay.

[Adam Greshin (Commissioner of Finance & Management)]: Thank you. You'll also see, just to point out, there's a Planned Parenthood in New England. You'll recall that for fiscal twenty six only, it's not clear whether this will be true on fiscal twenty seventh, twenty eighth, since fiscal twenty sixth Medicaid funding was for organizations that provide medical procedures for abortions and the like. So we, this is a little over $1,000,000 of back though that you'll see in there.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: What number do have?

[Adam Greshin (Commissioner of Finance & Management)]: That's B307, 309 for claims and B306 and 312. It's kind of spread out. Also in here, final note on the b 300. There are some revenue offsets. Mentioned to you that there's a $4,000,000 vacancy savings that is substantially, though not entirely offsetting the need for more travel nurses, that's in DNH, in B315. In corrections, there are, we believe, some GC, global commitment eligible costs, about $2,500,000 predominantly healthcare related in B-three 38. That's new with correctional spending. Some caseloads within DCF reach out and some care are lower than we anticipated. So that's about $2,500,000 I say. And then, a similar way, buying case quotes, buying is a program where people with disabilities can buy into Medicaid subsidize their Medicaid payments. So that came in about $2,300,000 or B-three zero seven. So there are some savings here that are offsetting the increases. And then if there are no other questions within B300, I would skip to the B500 I just wanted to point out. Have a short

[Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: question around Gainwell, and I don't know that you can answer it or not, but what what kind of oversight is provided to determine that the ask for reimbursement is consistent with what's actually needed given? So I've heard in the past that there's been increased funds, more funds than necessary going in.

[Adam Greshin (Commissioner of Finance & Management)]: So I would make sure that when the folks come in from needing services, they have

[Richard Westman (Member)]: That would be great. Nursing homes. We've done some adjustments to rates, and this number is not over 20,000,000. It's 14. Where are we gonna because now it's been four or five years that we've done emergencies that are significant like this. When do we it's 14,000,000.

[Adam Greshin (Commissioner of Finance & Management)]: When does it stop being an emergency?

[Richard Westman (Member)]: Yeah. You know, we're like five years into emergencies. You're talking about the EFR payments. Oh, you have emergency, yes, the nursing home emergency relief fund. It's been around like five years and it's been, you know, this is lower. This isn't 20,000,000, but it's, you know, it's practically the biggest adjustment and has been every year for four or five years now.

[Adam Greshin (Commissioner of Finance & Management)]: So I think you'll, I think the answer would be when we stop having financial problems with our institutions, like the missing homes of our, the NMI institutions, then that would go away. And perhaps emergency is a misnomer. Many of these institutions are in financial trouble. So when that goes away, that money goes away.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Right now-

[Adam Greshin (Commissioner of Finance & Management)]: Does that

[Richard Westman (Member)]: mean that we, you know, when does it not say that our rates are too low and

[Adam Greshin (Commissioner of Finance & Management)]: Well, know, as you pointed out, we've addressed, now we haven't maybe gotten to the point where they're receiving what they need, but we've addressed, you know, we've had what, for the past three years, four years, I don't remember. So the answer is I don't know. But when we stop having financial

[Richard Westman (Member)]: And I, you know, this is not a criticism. I get that, but it, you know, it just is like every year it's an emergency and it's not a million or two. You know, this is 14, you know, we've had years in the last five years where it's been 20. I look at it and go, at what point?

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: But we don't really have any option.

[Adam Greshin (Commissioner of Finance & Management)]: Well, think that's part of the problem. The facilities

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: know we don't have options, they're just always gonna come in for emergency relief. At least that's the concern that I heard. Now we're just like, they see the state as this bottomless bank account that they can all withdraw on. When do we when could we put constraints on that without forcing them to close? Because if they close, we'd be in a worse situation.

[Adam Greshin (Commissioner of Finance & Management)]: Well, one example, ultimately, is the retreat. Right? So there's an institution where the state went in, worked with them to straighten them out, to stabilize them, put a lot of restrictions on the money they received. We have, you know, we have agreements with them. So, I mean, do we have the horsepower to do that with every institution? We just don't think so. The retreat was kind of a classic, we needed to do the fail. Anyway. We can ask Dale. Think when they, they'll have a more perhaps articulate response for you, but I don't think it'll be

[Richard Westman (Member)]: substantial. It's not. It it it's I asked the question because it's just been going on and and, you know, this is a little, 14,000,000, this is a little lower than it has been. You know, it just is like, is there a way that we could do better? I think it's a fair work.

[Robert Norris (Member)]: Okay.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: What's next?

[Adam Greshin (Commissioner of Finance & Management)]: There's before turning it back over, there's a a one line item in the B-five 100 section, five zero eight nutrition. There's the agency of medical education

[Richard Westman (Member)]: believes that's a leading authority.

[Adam Greshin (Commissioner of Finance & Management)]: Percent. So we are reverting a million dollars to the bond. You can see that in

[Robert Norris (Member)]: the 05/2008. Okay.

[Adam Greshin (Commissioner of Finance & Management)]: And I don't remember if I can address natural resources. Yeah. There are further questions, obviously.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Uh-huh. Go ahead.

[Adam Greshin (Commissioner of Finance & Management)]: So in the natural resources section, relatively smaller adjustments, but there's a $210,000 reduced spending authority for fish and wildlife. That's related to a game warden request for review. There was budgeted into FY '26, an anticipated one pay grade increase. The RFR process resulted in two pay grade increase for game warden. So the additional amount required to to meet that obligation. Those all

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: game wardens or just somewhere somewhere in a different

[Adam Greshin (Commissioner of Finance & Management)]: Game wardens, I believe, are there's one class for And they're, like, 34. And they were and about this much was built into the FY '26 budget as an anticipated increase, but the RFR came in higher, and this is the balance required. In Forest Parks and Recreation, about $100,000 is related to wildfire fighting efforts, which were unusual, unanticipated expense.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Who do we pay the health we

[Robert Norris (Member)]: don't have the health care.

[Adam Greshin (Commissioner of Finance & Management)]: Well, it's overtime, is the majority of that. 70 a little over $70,000. We did also pay them in Mountain National Forest crews

[Robert Norris (Member)]: that were that were Probably there,

[Adam Greshin (Commissioner of Finance & Management)]: you know. And burst out. That's only about 14,000, but that was on National Forest lands, and then there was an additional amount related to some helicopter deployments. So

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: That's like renting a helicopter. Like, we don't own any helicopter.

[Adam Greshin (Commissioner of Finance & Management)]: Don't believe so. We have to go into storage in more detail.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: We got the truck.

[Richard Westman (Member)]: We got the truck.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Hopefully, they bought the truck. I don't know. Is

[Richard Westman (Member)]: this a trend? You were talking about helicopter pad here in this morning in transportation. Are you looking for a helicopter now? Maybe.

[Adam Greshin (Commissioner of Finance & Management)]: So that does it for What do you want? Natural resource. Oh, there's also a small adjustment on land for those interviews for view board, which is operating expenses primarily related to office setup for that expanded population. On the page six, we got the one time appropriations begin on page six, I believe. What is that? Stateful dissemination.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Page seven of the PDR.

[Adam Greshin (Commissioner of Finance & Management)]: So, to to look at one time appropriations, there is The largest adjustments here are related to the Department of Vermont Health Access. So, as commissioner mentioned a moment ago, the Bridal Burglary Retreat, So our alternative payment model, unified reconciliation payment, is indicated here a $7,900,000 Again, I guess silver lining to Senator Westman's point is it's been greater in prior years, but that's what's required to continue to support that service. And that just that's that's just a simple bed count. That's not a It's a little more a white line. That's simply a bed count. They do a census. They determine how many to know.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: And you just don't know before. Right.

[Adam Greshin (Commissioner of Finance & Management)]: So it's all And they have to make it reconcile the payment for the site. Yep. So that's the the reconciliation payment. Mhmm.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Is it a lot more, or is it all is it is it been that way the last few years? $8,000,000, seven point No,

[Adam Greshin (Commissioner of Finance & Management)]: it was over 12. Barely recently, that number comes to mind. It's been, guess, to put it succinctly, the reconciliations haven't gone, resulted in a return of funds to the state. They've all gone in the other direction. Also, Department of Vermont Health Access, a $2,700,000 one time appropriation related to Vermont Health Connect software that's required upgrades essentially to migrate to a cloud based platform to remain compliant with security and connectivity requirements the Federal Data Services Hub. So that's the second largest adjustment here. I did want to mention, Commissioner Gresham stated that there aren't really any policy, related appropriations here. The million dollar appropriation for the Land Access Opportunity Board, which is really for new granting programs, well, that could be construed as a new policy item. The Land Access and Opportunity Board had originally proposed to use carryforward funds, carryover from FY '25, which had been appropriated for the administration and support of the board to, which were not needed in FY 'twenty five due to carry forward from the prior year for administration and support of the board. So they wanted to use those remaining funds for a different purpose than administration in support of the board, and well, they, you know, had a compelling argument to put these funds to good use. We couldn't support the carryforward and use of those funds in a manner inconsistent with the appropriation language. So we proposed that we could revert the funds. They're part of the $21,000,000 reversions amount in the BAA, and instead reappropriate a one time appropriation for the purpose proposed by the LAOB Act. See you there later today, they can explain more about that. So while this reads as sort of policy related, it's not new money, and it's really legislatively authorizing the use of funds that had already been carried forward by the board, so what's happened there? The other adjustments are relatively small. There is, I guess I would point out there is an appropriation to the judiciary relating to the Chittenden pilot court, so 139,000 there, and state's attorneys, a smaller amount, 36,000, also related to the Chittenden County pilot court. So that is, those are the costs associated with that. Think that I wanted to highlight.

[Philip Baruth (Member)]: Which is much appreciated, the court project, court pilot,

[Adam Greshin (Commissioner of Finance & Management)]: exactly what was needed in. And state's attorney issues. I mean, I have a long cooperative with that. That worked out quite well. Was a good two. Impressive how quickly it was involved. Yeah. Really. And involving so many different agencies and branches within the So state good to hear. Sure. Looking at the transfer section.

[Robert Norris (Member)]: Yeah.

[Adam Greshin (Commissioner of Finance & Management)]: So yours. Long section. I got

[Robert Norris (Member)]: a quick question on what we'll refer to as the b three project, the one we're talking about. There's this is this just through the month of February? In Burlington?

[Adam Greshin (Commissioner of Finance & Management)]: I I don't know. I don't know. I think it I know it was supposed to be short term because the amounts that we put forward are they're not gonna carry for a year, but I don't know what the kind of thing is.

[Robert Norris (Member)]: Believe there's some discussion on the general legislative justice oversight being in Vienna. A short project ending somewhere around the February and a report or something supposed to underline.

[Richard Westman (Member)]: I think you're right. Do

[Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: Yeah. I can't remember the I can't remember the timeline, but I think you're very close.

[Robert Norris (Member)]: To measure the success of this program we're looking at more importantly before we spend more money on it. Going forward. But

[Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: it seems like it's working now, so

[Robert Norris (Member)]: maybe we'll have a good one.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Okay, Chittenden.

[Anne Watson (Member)]: Senator Lawson? Yeah, had a question about, it seems in the one time E-four, the agency of Human Services, about the Waterway Office Complex, New York Or P. E, E4. So, B1100, E4. Yep. 285000. So this is for the Waterway Office Complex. Is that associated with the new any new lease that

[Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: was necessary for the return to community?

[Adam Greshin (Commissioner of Finance & Management)]: It is. Think it's yeah. It it is. So the new leased space at Pilgrim Place Yep. The operating costs associated with that space are in one of the operating sections within the eight within the AHS adjustments. Their fit up costs are considered one time in nature, so they are incorporated as a one time appropriation here. Now, AHS could better explain the details. I think there may be fit up costs in both the previously existing facility and Pilgrim Place, but all fit up costs related to the return to office initiative are incorporated.

[Anne Watson (Member)]: And this is, money that is needed to cover, basically existing costs that have is that is that a fair statement?

[Adam Greshin (Commissioner of Finance & Management)]: Current. Current costs. It's just Yeah.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: That you're you're you're you're doing you're spending the money now. Are you waiting to spend?

[Adam Greshin (Commissioner of Finance & Management)]: Believe so. I think maybe the way to to put it would be, yes, if we are going to if if we are spending the money currently, then, we could run into a shortfall by at fiscal year end unless there's an adjustment made to the budget and budget process.

[Anne Watson (Member)]: And and in terms of, like, the on go because the lease is usually ongoing. Right. And so that will show up again, in the budget, would assume.

[Adam Greshin (Commissioner of Finance & Management)]: That will be in the base. That's in the base for, for the FY twenty seven budget, yep.

[Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: I have questions about about that. Well, about, the process, for that. I I guess then. These

[Adam Greshin (Commissioner of Finance & Management)]: are the amounts. Yep.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: These are the numbers. Yeah. We're talking to the number. So

[Adam Greshin (Commissioner of Finance & Management)]: in the transfer section, which is on page seven of the spreadsheet document, there's, I would say, relatively little of interest. I would point out, though, that the first item, criminal history records check fund. So this is a net, essentially, over a million dollar shift. That fund supports the Vermont Climate Information Center, the salaries and benefits from the folks who work there. Their total operating costs are roughly $3.13200000.0. Revenue into the criminal history records check fund is about a bit shy of that. So this is somewhat structural in nature, and we're working on it. Revenues in that fund have not kept up with the additional costs, which is basically just payroll benefits, higher costs. Have actually declined in that fund, and so the source of revenue to that fund is the criminal history record checks come primarily from a perspective of lawyers, so background checks on employees. And this isn't a Vermont thing necessarily. This is anybody applying for a job anywhere in the country that requires a background check. If they have lived in Vermont, they dial up and perform a records check. And so the macro factor here is that there are simply less things for background checks, whatever that says about the macro economy. I won't speculate too much, but there's actually been, along with increasing salary and benefits costs, there's been an actual decline in that revenue. So that's what's going on.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: And that includes fingerprintedness, you're not still part of the same

[Adam Greshin (Commissioner of Finance & Management)]: I would I'm not so sure about that. I think this fund is really just related to those those that

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: depend You have where a fee when you do a background check for fingerprinting, you pay a fee for that, but I don't if that's also going to to this Yeah,

[Adam Greshin (Commissioner of Finance & Management)]: I'm not sure about that, but I know what the drive, I understand the driver in terms of the revenue change is related to the electronic record checks, and it really has more to do with out of state than it does with in state. There's a significant discount to in state background checks. I remember from when I used to work in private business and you have prospective employees, if if if you only had to do a Vermont check, it was very small, and it was the out of state checks that cost a lot more, and it works the same in reverse. Right? So Makes sense. Okay. There are a couple of small pilot special fund transfers, and this has to do with an appropriation made last year for disasters in towns that are not federally declared disasters, but nonetheless, they can cost. There was an appropriation of the big bill last year, section D nine seventeen, yeah, to help towns provide reimbursement for towns that were mitigating cleaning up. It turns out that $1,150,000 corporation was shy. So AOT came to us and asked if they could continue the program, and they suggested and we accepted them writing an excess receipt for additional pilot fund revenues. This was originally funded through the pilot special fund. So we sent them in and we wrote them an excess receipt and gave them that permission, but we told them that they needed to replace that money into the pilot fund. So you see here that there's some replacement for the T fund and some replacement

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: for the general fund.

[Adam Greshin (Commissioner of Finance & Management)]: And it turns out that there were two extra projects that needed reimbursement. One was the town of Poplar, the other was the town of Norwich. So it came out to be about $350,000 more than they anticipated, but, you know, it was a fairly decent uptake for that program. Parties already adjust the cannabis regulation fund and how we inadvertently sweat a specific, you know, $50,000 appropriation for a lab. We didn't realize it was supposed to be set aside. The two transfers in here help, well, clean up that situation by replacing that money into the fund. And then there, you'll see that in unclaimed property and in liquor, we took in more money than was originally forecast, so that's to the good, $1,600,000 in owned claim property and 1,900,000.0 in liquor. We also took in less money in sports wagering, $921,000 less than the forecast. Less than the estimate. So those help, particularly the the inbound, the one claim property, and the third help reduce the cost a bit, net loss to this budget adjustment. And there on the last line, you see there's a little over $21,000,000 of reversions, which also helps to reduce the net cost of the budget adjustment.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Yeah. And

[Adam Greshin (Commissioner of Finance & Management)]: that's kinda it. There's a there's a language document. Has one section you went through in very large detail. But, really, I I mean, most in fact, virtually all of the language is following along what it just went through. But there are a few sections that I think are worth pointing out. You may wanna spend more time on. Beginning with section 50, and that's, you know, that's senator Baruth has pointed out. That's the reserve language whereby we are setting aside the unallocated amount from the $121,000,000 that we had to start the DAA. We used about $48,000,000 of that, and then that was 74,000,000,900,000.0 that we are reserving temporarily, and then carried forward into '27 to use to provide property tax relief. Also, as you mentioned, there's the $13,000,000 for the Ed Fund, and We never on reserve, so we can never use here. Then, yeah, yeah, section 53, we've also already went through that. There there is in section 51 where we're amending the e 100 section, the big bill, that's the section where we create positions. There is one requested change from the land use review board. They there was an executive director position there, which was created as a limited service position, and they are asking or they believe that maybe the intention is to make that a permanent position. Have we

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: made the other ones present and not the executive directors? Is that what we do? I I know not. I know

[Adam Greshin (Commissioner of Finance & Management)]: there are a number of permanent positions, but for reasons I don't understand, they they would be better placed to explain. They want to create it full time for the. I think that's really that's the language. I'm sure you'll read through it anyway, but I think that was the section 54 is the standard boilerplate current board language. And as much as I sorry to admit, that is the end of Yeah.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: It's sad. I never

[Adam Greshin (Commissioner of Finance & Management)]: It's actually in terms of number of patients Yes. Remarkably slimmer Yeah. Budget adjustments of recent years. So Are you suggesting we should add to it? Well, I'm suggesting that the amount of surplus revenue is certainly a different Sure.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Alright. And thank you. Any other questions? Finance and anything else? Thank you for your work on this, and

[Robert Norris (Member)]: we will. You're welcome.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Take another look through it and let you know if you have a new

[Adam Greshin (Commissioner of Finance & Management)]: We had a very long walk to get here. Yeah. You couldn't sneak in that door. I mean, I could practically get a zipline. Right. Might have gotten this to. And then after the long walk around, of course, we have the metal detector. Yeah. Yeah. A ghost search.

[Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: Mhmm. Mhmm. Oh, goodness.

[Anne Watson (Member)]: You have

[Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: a long walk with that too.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: A little different.

[Philip Baruth (Member)]: No. Actually, think we should Oh, you can go

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: out there.

[Robert Norris (Member)]: If we can go out there. We

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: just finished the walk through of the governor's budget adjustment. Senator Westman is nestling in for an interesting conversation.

[Richard Westman (Member)]: I want you to appropriate money for a blanket and a pill.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Maybe parliament is emergency funds get by then.

[Richard Westman (Member)]: I need some emergency relief.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: I don't know if this is similar to the update you gave to joint fiscal, and hopefully Senator Norris will be back, when we went around the room, or no, was Senator Ren that talked about ARPA programs and kind of where they are and which of the programs are we continuing with State Fund, which probably is not what you were going to talk about, but that came up. My understanding you're mainly just going to tell us all the money that we had an ARPA that's coming to a close, I think at the end of twenty sixth, or we return it. And so I think that's mainly what we're going to hear from you about, but tell us what you're going to want to talk to us about.

[Douglas "Doug" Farnham (Chief Recovery Officer, State of Vermont)]: Absolutely, thank you for having me, Mr. Chair. For the record, Douglas Farm, Chief Recovery Officer for the State of Vermont. I do have a, I know I'm scheduled until 02:45 and I do have an absolute hard stop at 02:50. But what I was planning to do is to go briefly cover the context of ARPA, just a little recap, to refresh people's memory on the overall numbers, the timelines, the the top level landscape. And then I did send a PDF that has kind of three different tables in it, one that looks at programs that have a blend of ARPA state fiscal recovery and general funds. The next section is just the ARPA funds, looking at what programs are still spending ARPA, and that would be the primary if you're focusing on an area that's that's primarily where any risk lies, where there's still federal money that hasn't been expended and still has to be expended. And then finally, I have the table on just the general fund dollars that were general fund continuations of ARPA programs from an action taken in 2024, in late twenty twenty four.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: So that is, is that a different PDF or that's PDF that you have, that you've sent us that table so we could. So if there was a question about which which are programs are being funded with general funding, we would just find out the table where it's only a general fund. It's still in, right?

[Adam Greshin (Commissioner of Finance & Management)]: Yes.

[Douglas "Doug" Farnham (Chief Recovery Officer, State of Vermont)]: Yes, Mr. Chair. So that PDF is 11 pages long. The first two pages look at those blended programs, programs that weren't have some ARPA dollars remaining and some general fund. And then pages three through nine deal with just the ARPA state fiscal recovery funds. So if you're curious primarily about programs that are ongoing there and what the risks are, where money still needs to be spent, that would be the far right column total unexpended on those six pages or seven pages. And then ten and eleven are just the general fund programs that were originally created by the legislature using ARPA funds. And for various reasons, either risk or timing, mostly the agency of administration was given authority to revert their ARPA funds, apply them to an eligible expense somewhere else in state government that was immediately available, and then return the exact same dollar amount in general funds to continue that program. And last year, the General Assembly passed language that says any of those general funds that were used to continue ARPA programs that are unobligated as of twelvethirty onetwenty twenty seven would be automatically reverted. So there was a bit of a timeline placed on some of those funds. Even though they're general fund, there's no risk of losing those to the federal government. I think House and Senator, I think the legislatures want to keep an eye on those programs since they are multi year programs, which

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: is

[Douglas "Doug" Farnham (Chief Recovery Officer, State of Vermont)]: outside of the normal budgeting process that we traditionally use for general funds.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: And that page, the ones on page ten and eleven?

[Douglas "Doug" Farnham (Chief Recovery Officer, State of Vermont)]: Yes, Mr. Chair. Ten and eleven is just general fund. It's color coded so you can see how much is remaining to expend. And many of those still have a large amount of general fund to expend, which I don't think is alarming, because a lot of those places are focused on spending their ARPA state fiscal recovery first.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: So the changes that also have color coded from the first two pages, that's need to be suspended by '26, or do they also have 12/27?

[Douglas "Doug" Farnham (Chief Recovery Officer, State of Vermont)]: So the last two pages just the general fund?

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: No, first two pages didn't have to '27, but the first two pages only have until the '26?

[Douglas "Doug" Farnham (Chief Recovery Officer, State of Vermont)]: The first two pages, the ARPA to be expended is the fourth column from the right, and that does have to be expended by twelvethirty onetwenty six, so that has less than a year remaining at this point.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: So the last column on the first two pages, does that match up with the last two pages?

[Douglas "Doug" Farnham (Chief Recovery Officer, State of Vermont)]: Yes, it should match up with the last two pages.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Okay, I get it. Thank you.

[Douglas "Doug" Farnham (Chief Recovery Officer, State of Vermont)]: So to take a step back, ARPA state fiscal recovery, of course, the state of Vermont received $1,250,000,000 Just over $200,000,000 of that went to the local fiscal recovery funds and was distributed on a per capita basis to municipalities. The agency of administration asked through as a acted as a pass through payer for those funds, but we do not have any role in the execution of those funds and the reporting. We don't have any actually even a special awareness of how those funds were spent because the towns directly report to Treasury on those expenditures. At a high level, I would say the vast majority of those funds were used in the revenue replacement category, and we've coordinated with Vermont League of Cities and Towns. And we believe that most towns spent those money as well and that there's very little risk or no risk of federal recapture of that 200,000,000. They're on the same timeline to where they have until the 2026 to expend. There may be isolated incidents that crop up, but I think that's all we would likely see is a couple of incidents here and there where a town thought they had something done and hadn't quite crossed their T's or dotted their I's. The other $1,049,000,000 was distributed to Vermont, the General Assembly appropriated it primarily along 70% of that went to infrastructure style investments like weatherization, water projects, housing projects, broadband, and then about 30% roughly went individually focused programs, incentive programs to help mitigate the remaining impact of the pandemic at that time. So primarily what we're spending on at this point is still the 70% of that was dedicated to infrastructure. We knew when the administration proposed some of those programs and when the General Assembly approved them that they would take longer, that they would, in some cases, take the full amount of time to run. Municipal wastewater projects are not quick. Right. They generally take a lot of time planning, permitting. And however, we might like them to move faster, we have to do them properly as well. I'd say in general, the position we're in overall with expenditure of ARPA funds, it's not a bad one. You go to the bottom of page nine, you can see we have less than 100,000,000. We have 96,000,000 of ARPA funds as of tenonetwenty twenty five left to expend. So the reason this is older data is that we don't get the the 12/31/2025 data from the departments until a couple weeks from now. And then we file the report with Treasury on January 31 or whatever business day is closest to January 31. And then it takes us about two weeks to crunch the numbers and put together these tables. So in mid February, Mr. Chair, we I will be able to provide an update through twelvethirty onetwenty twenty five. But we did have a good quarter. Our July to September quarter, we expended $52,000,000 of ARPA. That was higher than our average burn rate in most of the quarters. So you do tend to see in the third and fourth quarter of the calendar year, you do tend to see a lot of our construction season start to hit in the invoicing. And because these are infrastructure programs, we've definitely seen a seasonal flow in the expenditure of ARPA funds. So I'm hoping that the fourth quarter from last year will also be a good one, and we'll get that $96,000,000 down even further.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Okay. So you're not concerned at this point about it seems like a lot of the wastewater program projects are the ones that are over 50% that haven't been spent as of, know, whenever that was, September. You're feeling pretty confident, given that we have a quarter plus four more quarters, that that'll get spent?

[Douglas "Doug" Farnham (Chief Recovery Officer, State of Vermont)]: Mr. Chair, I would say I am still keeping an eye on those programs. I've been in in constant contact with them over the last year to try to figure out, okay, how can those programs move the money a little bit faster? Where are you? What what, you know, what major invoices might be coming up to help your situation? I'm still concerned. Those are challenging programs. If one major project falls through, then you could see a gap open up. After 12/3124, our options as far as reallocation of ARPA became extremely limited. We can only move ARPA money between projects that were obligated before 12/3124. So I don't think that we have any action that we can take at this time, mister chair, but and I think we will get close to fully expended. But I think there is a chance that some of those programs won't hit full expenditure and that we'll have to do some problem solving in the summer and '26 of this year, actually. And the problem with that as well is that because we're closer to the end date, our available obligations that we can shift money to are also shrinking every month. And so I would say I'm not unconcerned, but I think I know those programs are focusing on spending that money. And I know the agency I've also let the agency of Natural Resources know, you know, you're likely going to have to discuss the progress on these programs because that's the major area of undexpanded funds is in in in the ANR water programs at this point in time. Those are very valuable programs. The the large dollar amount that's in with VHCB for housing, I have very little concern that that money will be spent. If you look at it proportionally to what they what they were appropriated, you know, they're they're well on track to expend those funds. So it's primarily those ANR programs that when we were curing, we did reduce some risk in that portfolio in 2024 when we moved around about $250,000,000 of ARPA funds for general funds. We couldn't get to all of the risk in the water portfolio that I would have liked to. We just didn't have the capacity.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Yeah. Yeah, because these are important things that I'm worried about, because we're not going get the money to them for these projects if they don't get them done in time. So maybe the chair of natural resources gets a crack at the whip on them.

[Anne Watson (Member)]: Yeah, I think that would be good. I would love to hear more about these expenditures. But I just want to make sure that I am understanding, if I may. So, this point, we can't be finding any new projects to give this money towards. They have to have been already identified. Is that accurate?

[Douglas "Doug" Farnham (Chief Recovery Officer, State of Vermont)]: That is accurate.

[Adam Greshin (Commissioner of Finance & Management)]: Okay. Can you give more, sorry, Yeah. Of course.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Can you give more money to like, so if there's a project on your list here that's spend all the money, could you put give money to one of those projects? Like, well, here's some extra money?

[Douglas "Doug" Farnham (Chief Recovery Officer, State of Vermont)]: Yes. That is allowed in the treasury guidance until 12/3126. Of course, the 12/3126 is an expenditure period, and it's an oddly extended closeout period. So we need to have the we need to have the dollars spent by the state on invoices by that date. Right. Normally, it would be, well, we have to get the work done, and then invoice can come in for another month or two. So I don't think we'll be able to have any work done in December because we'll need to make sure all of the bills are paid. So there's a little bit of walking it back to, okay, when does the work have to stop so that we can pay the invoices? But, yes, if a project is on the books, we can increase funds to that project. I think treasury is gonna be watching very closely any reallocations of ARPA funds, any adjustments between projects. We know that they have flags to look for that. So as long as there is an appropriate increase in cost and we shift money to pay for that, I think we'll be able to explain that to treasury, and it'll be allowed. We won't be able to shift money just to shift money. Right? It'll have to be linked to something that we can demonstrate to them and prove to them is an actual cost increase.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Okay. Sorry, want

[Douglas "Doug" Farnham (Chief Recovery Officer, State of Vermont)]: And that could be us choosing to cover more of a project than we initially agreed to. That that could be a legitimate change in a grant agreement where, say, we required 20% local match and then like, okay, well, this other project is losing won't spend the money, so we're going to increase how much we'll put towards this other project. That would be an allowable transfer between projects.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: But we're running out of time of construction to do that as we get to do. Yes.

[Jean Hamilton (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: Yeah, well,

[Anne Watson (Member)]: then just to make sure again that I'm understanding. So for each of these, the remaining dollar amounts, the projects that have been identified would theoretically use up all of the money. Is that like it's all been identified?

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Yes, absolutely.

[Douglas "Doug" Farnham (Chief Recovery Officer, State of Vermont)]: We were able to fully obligate the 1,049,000,000.000 by twelvethirty onetwenty four. So we had, you know, countersigned agreements for the entire billion dollars, which we were very happy that we were able to do that. Right. There was a chance we were going to lose funds. If we do we do have a dynamic now where AOA has to keep a close eye on programs because if a project is deobligated, if funds are deobligated during a quarter and then they're not reobligated before the end of the quarter, we are nearly certain that Treasury will demand those funds back. So we're allowed to transfer money. But if we we so we're trying to be very careful because we have a timing concern that if we end a quarter with with the obligated funds, then it's very likely those will go back to US Treasury.

[Anne Watson (Member)]: And just to to follow, I I have more questions about specifics here, but I know we have limited time. So I may, let him check-in with you separately offline and or have you in to Nashville's Texas. Right. Yeah,

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: have ANR and Yeah. So I assume like ANR, wet weather and sewer overflow, that $20,000,000 they have projects. It's not like they're still working with the town, but like what projects you want do. They have the projects identified. They just need to get them to help this construction season.

[Douglas "Doug" Farnham (Chief Recovery Officer, State of Vermont)]: Yes, Mr. Chair. I've been working a lot with Deputy Commissioner Cayman over the years on this. All of these dollars have a project associated with them, signed agreements, timetables. My main concern comes in the things that ANR might not be able to control, where something unexpected comes up over the course of a project, it's gonna delay the project. How do we react to that? That's my concern. Not not the town's efforts or ANR's efforts, but the unknowns that might crop up over the course of this year once we break ground on certain projects.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: All right, thanks. Yeah, guess it would be good to know, Senator Watson, if there's something that's getting in the way that we can help them.

[Anne Watson (Member)]: Exactly. That would be useful to know.

[Richard Westman (Member)]: Yeah, Senator Lyons.

[Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: Quick question. Is there any consideration in the guidance for seasonal weather effects? So, I mean, right now may not be the best time to do some of this work. Is there any consideration allowed for that? And then we know we can have problems in the summer.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Right.

[Arnela Martinez (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: So it

[Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: seems like there's a whole year but there isn't really.

[Douglas "Doug" Farnham (Chief Recovery Officer, State of Vermont)]: Right, there isn't quite in my other hat, of course. Most of my hat at this point is on flood recovery as well. So what I do know is that the law, the ARPA law was written very prescriptively. That 12/3126, I do not believe Treasury has the ability to extend it. So it would take an act of Congress to allow Vermont any additional time, which I think in the current configuration of federal government is extremely unlikely. They are able to extend our ARPA capital projects fund, which is separate and is 113,000,000. And I could come in another time or talk about that. But it is that is all going to broadband projects. And they are able to offer extensions with that particular fund. But with this one, we expect very little tolerance or latitude. And that if if we don't spend certain dollars, if we don't have that money out the door by twelvethirty onetwenty six, we anticipate Treasury demanding that dollar amount in January '7.

[Richard Westman (Member)]: Thank you.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Thanks Mr. Farnham for this update and appreciate the years of work you put into these RF funds and tracking them.

[Douglas "Doug" Farnham (Chief Recovery Officer, State of Vermont)]: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the opportunity to come speak with you and I'm happy to come back later. I'm also happy to follow-up with other committees or members on specific questions. For a lot of the programs, I may not be able to answer the the the question directly, but I am able to guide you to the right people across state government for any of these ARPA programs. So I'm a good point of contact if you have any a question about any coronavirus relief fund, ARPA state fiscal recovery, FEMA, or ARPA capital projects. Most one time federal funds I have an idea of at least where to start and how to dig into those.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Okay, great. And just one more question on the spreadsheet, the one between page three and page nine.

[Adam Greshin (Commissioner of Finance & Management)]: Yes.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Are those also need to be expanded by the end of twenty six or are those different?

[Douglas "Doug" Farnham (Chief Recovery Officer, State of Vermont)]: Yes, page three to nine. That is the pure ARPA state fiscal recovery. Those are the funds that need to be expended. So that bigger spreadsheet is just to give you a look at all the programs that are closed out as well, Mr. Chair. Most of our programs at this point are actually closed out and did a great job, finished up, spent the money. So we included all of those in case you wanted to look back and see, okay, how were were particular ARPA funds spent historically? And

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: then, so if there's in the page two through nine, if there's a program that has money expended, it would also be on the first two pages?

[Douglas "Doug" Farnham (Chief Recovery Officer, State of Vermont)]: Yes.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: There are seven. Okay. Thank you. Any other quick questions? Okay, we got you out on time.

[Douglas "Doug" Farnham (Chief Recovery Officer, State of Vermont)]: Appreciate it, Mr. Chair. Thank you very much for having me.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Thank you. So I will move to the land upstairs access board.

[Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: Hi, everyone.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: We were just talking about it.

[Arnela Martinez (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: All good. Thanks, Michael.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Yes.

[Philip Baruth (Member)]: Sure.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: And you have some slides here.

[Jean Hamilton (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: Sorry. I'm just a little here.

[Richard Westman (Member)]: Okay. I

[Jean Hamilton (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: think I'm turning right then.

[Arnela Martinez (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: There we go. I'll get us started for the record. I'm Anne Watson, co director of the Landex Smoker City Board.

[Jean Hamilton (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: Hi, I'm Jean Hamilton. I am the other co director for the LAOB.

[Arnela Martinez (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: Thank you for having us today. We're here to talk about BAA, and we begin everywhere we are, no matter what we're talking about, by sharing our touchstones. We listen generously, and we speak our truth from our heart and mind. We make the way that we work together an example of what is possible. And we trust that we each hold a piece of the puzzle, and that we need each other's pieces to understand the whole picture. Do you all consent to working with these touchstones and mine tonight for our fifteen minutes together? Thank

[Jean Hamilton (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: you. Great, thank you all. So yes, we are anticipating that today's presentation is mostly focused on our adjustment request recommendation for $1,000,000 to be reinstated into our FY twenty six budget. This is intended, dollars 7 and 50,000 of that to put into our beginning developers fund and our partnership with DHCD on Homes for All. These would be pre development seed grants for new beginning and emerging developers. And 250,000 of those dollars to be invested into community grants to support community emergency preparedness. That's what we're planning to talk with you about today. A little, but I don't know, I think you know the background, maybe, on the money got reverted and this

[Anne Watson (Member)]: was always part of our FY '26 budget. We were That's funny.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: That's what I'm gonna ask you. We were talking to guys.

[Jean Hamilton (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: Yes. We were planning to launch these funds and last August we found out, oh, funds, we're gone now, and so we've been working hard this fall to let DFM know that we really didn't have planned for those, and that we're glad that the governor has included this recommendation in this proposal.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: So you would have started these grants, had you had the money?

[Jean Hamilton (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: The DFM did leave us 3 and $50,000 and so that did allow us to kind of kick start some pilot round, we are currently launching. So, we have one proposal round is due tomorrow, and then the next round is due in a couple of weeks. Those funds are an initial $350,000 These next rounds will build right into those and really are the full scale that was intended with our FY '26 budget. We do find that it's helpful for folks to know and be on the same page about who we are as an LEOB, so we are gonna have some little bit

[Arnela Martinez (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: of help, though. Or, if you have any questions and you'd like to target your time very specifically, since we do not have a lot of time together, that's also open to you all as an option. So we could begin with questions if that's helpful, or if you'd like to hear from us more, you know, specifically about, like, what are these grant funds? What is the LAOB? We've we've seen you now for the last couple of years, but we'd be happy to tell you about the LAOB again. And but we also wanna make this really productive for you. Is there something specific that would be most productive for you, seeing as we only have ten minutes together?

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: I mean, think we got the understanding of the budget adjustment, that some of this stuff might be more of what we would hear when we talk about the budget for fiscal year '27. It's, I mean if there's anything that you want to highlight to us, I don't see any questions in particular, but if there's something that you want maybe in preparation for '27 or issues that you're seeing or changes, I know like for example, there was one question of where the LAOB would be housed. Do you feel that's not settled, or is that still a question?

[Jean Hamilton (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: It's not settled forever. It is stable. It's totally stable and functional right now. And really, we are so glad and fortunate and celebratory of how functional it is. So, it's great working with the ACD. We are now about to launch programs, significant programs through the

[Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: Young Service. So,

[Arnela Martinez (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: we went from two to five, and I think we're going to be 11 by the end of the year next year.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: You have all your own, so this grant program you're using this money for is all your own staff. You don't use any of the HCV staff, or like their accounting staff, or anything like that?

[Arnela Martinez (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: We do.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: We do.

[Arnela Martinez (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: Yeah, but we're growing our programs. So, started as two co directors, and now we have an executive assistant and two program managers. We don't have a whole lot of resources. So we've had to be very strategic and thoughtful about where are we going to invest these $3,000,000 that we've had so far too, with the one that was taken away. And with that, we kind of like looked at supply and looked at demand. And then we have a program manager that's kind of like leading one side and leading the other side of how is it that we're going to invest our kind of strategic pieces of resources? And we can talk a little bit about what that is, if you'd like to hear about it or what's most helpful. Yeah, guess just start, does anyone want

[Jean Hamilton (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: to know about kind of back to the beginning of what is the LEOB, who's on our board, what are we supposed to do, is it helpful to cover any of that?

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: I would say what do you think, with the time that you have, what do you think is most I important thing that you want to

[Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: think it's helpful to just give people

[Jean Hamilton (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: a little update on what we've been doing and some problems we're seeing. Let's go there. Yeah, think that'd be great. Okay. So thank you all for co designing this agenda with So why don't we start here on this timeline? Okay, great. So this is kind of in a nutshell where we've been since the beginning of the LAOB. So the LAOB was founded in statute in 2022. On this line here you'll see, or sorry, on this above the green line, you'll see our appropriations over time, and then the milestones down here of what we have been working on. I think that some things to point to that are really helpful are that we do have this really great administrative foundation that we've developed with VHCb. From that foundation, and prior to the foundation, we have this really strong functioning board of very engaged, we now have 12 appointing authorities, our board members are highly engaged, we have monthly board meetings.

[Robert Norris (Member)]: Have 12 board members?

[Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: We do, yes,

[Jean Hamilton (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: we have more than that actually because we two positions from each organization, which allows us to really build a deeper bench, basically. We also have three standing committee meetings that meet weekly, and we participate in and host many, many, many community engagement activities over the course of the year. Over here on this side, you'll see that LAOB has also participated in many very exciting and cutting edge working groups, legislative working groups. These working groups, just in a nutshell, have been highly productive spaces for us to really identify where are the gaps that our communities are falling through. And there's many things that we would love to highlight with you, maybe one on one or in your other committees, about what those gaps look like when you look at them through land conservation or housing or agriculture or human services. And one of those big gaps is these conversations are happening in those silos. And yet we know that issues like housing and access to land and access to natural resources does not actually live just in human services, just in farming, just in housing, just in economic development, or just in emergency preparedness. It actually exists across all those things. Silos are a big theme of something that we'd like to move beyond. We have some great ideas. People being left out is also another major theme.

[Arnela Martinez (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: And one of the ways that we are already kind of remedying that is that we are in all of these circles and in all of these places right now, and we are bringing folks together and getting them to think about problems from looking at them from many different perspectives and encouraging these cross sector collaboration to make sure that we're using our resources more effectively and efficiently.

[Jean Hamilton (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: You wanna say anything about community engagement or our values or problems we're seeing?

[Arnela Martinez (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: I think focusing on community engagement could be a nice thing right now. One of the ways that the LAOBE has been supporting all of the different groups, for lack of better word, that we've been working with, is by supporting this aspect of community engagement and helping all of the different sectors do community engagement better. We use a tool called the Community Engagement to Ownership model to help assess. Like, maybe you wanna open it up.

[Jean Hamilton (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: I actually bought copies like this.

[Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: People would like them. Sweet.

[Adam Greshin (Commissioner of Finance & Management)]: Okay.

[Arnela Martinez (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: To help folks success. Like, how is their community engagement right now? Are they just getting feedback and surveys? Or are they actually engaging community members and creating programs and asking questions that meaningfully address the gaps in the systems. I think this is a way that the LAOB is shining in helping us save resources across the system by supporting different administrators in not having to contract the community engagement work. And we will send more. We did not think we know. Yes, and

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: And if people are contacting you, so will you come and do this if this work for us, are you reaching out to them or both?

[Arnela Martinez (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: Every and in all ways. Because we're in these rooms, and then the the systems comes up. Right? We're having a conversation together, and you tell me that you're hosting an event in a month, and that you don't know what that facilitation should look like. And then we're there, and then we work together, and dreaming about what are the questions that you want to answer, and then how can we make sure that your community engagement is robust enough, and supporting community members and participating. And, like, what is it that they would need to participate

[Richard Westman (Member)]: for that?

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Are you working with state agencies, state departments, too? Mhmm. As they work for the environmental justice law that requires them to do something.

[Jean Hamilton (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: Yeah, so I think you all know, because you've written so many of these laws, that all rule making requires a certain amount of mandated community engagement, and so when we sit in those working groups, what we find is that there is a mandatory community engagement component and that it's generally not working very well. So it often feels tedious, it often feels like a box to check, and what happens is we get rules written or laws written and programs developed that don't actually meaningfully, aren't meaningfully informed by the community, and then the programs don't really go anywhere because they're not actually connected with what are the community's needs, where is their momentum, where are their resources, and most importantly, what's actually going to prevent people from participating in this program? Where are the barriers? And so so what you were saying, Arnela, like, really have seen across the spectrum. You know, we've worked with regional planning commissions who invited us in and said, can we make a contract with you to help us with our one eighty one future land use mapping and thinking about, how do we assess the EJ

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: and how Are

[Adam Greshin (Commissioner of Finance & Management)]: you doing contract for service?

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Are you getting paid in your service?

[Jean Hamilton (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: We have done some contracts for services. We have done a fair amount of in kind work that started in casual conversations and then ended up being really significant contribution from the LAOB that was not contracted. Those are expenses that we see in our budget and we would really love to be in conversation with you all of how do we ensure that the state's resources are being used efficiently. You will hear us make the case and argue that investing the 3,200,000 that LEOB is anticipating for our FY '27 budget is one of the most effective and efficient investments you all can make in making sure that land and housing policy actually meets the community where it is. And it actually meets where we need to be. Because right now what we have is hundreds of millions of dollars going into housing and land access programs that are disconnected into multiple different agency silos that are not really effectively listening to what are the problems and opportunities on the ground, and then kind of stumbling over status quo solutions while checking a community engagement box. And this spectrum tool that we passed around is really about how do we create the most efficient and effective and impactful policy by listening to our community members first. That's the point. The most important point is we're never gonna have enough money for everyone to thrive. Being less we act very strategically, very, you know, collectively, and that we really eliminate where are we wasting money. And right now I would say the current community engagement processes, because there is a lack of resources and a lack of skills, is leading to a lot of inefficiency in policy.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Are you doing it just around housing and command access, or are you doing it for other programs? If an agency said we have this health program.

[Jean Hamilton (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: So for example, right now we're developing a contract with the state health improvement plan to do some community engagement activities around the housing priority within their plan.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: So, but would you do if it had no housing component? Like, if it's just like, we have this thing about, whatever, some other health thing, vaccines, nothing to do with land access, we want your expertise in community engagement. That would be a good idea.

[Jean Hamilton (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: I mean, because we would never just say, No. No. We want it back. But we do recognize, we have a lane, and something that is not at all housing. I mean, the truth about housing and land is it connects to a lot of things. So our job is pretty big already without vaccines.

[Arnela Martinez (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: But we are We passionate have offer to support some other person in having the skills to do good community engagement.

[Jean Hamilton (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: Well, she did make

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: me copy you and say, like

[Arnela Martinez (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: We would. We would. Because we don't we see our work as a public benefit to all Vermonters. And we are in service of our community. So, folks come to us and they ask us for support in engaging community members, of course, we want the best possible engagement. We want community members to feel like they can contribute, to be supported well, and this is a public service in the ways in which we see our work, in which we're state funded, and we wouldn't say no. We would schedule it, and we would probably support them in doing it, and we would ask for reciprocity, maybe. If they have the money, we would do it, we would receive it. And if they didn't, we would still do it. But I think it

[Jean Hamilton (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: also speaks to, you know, our job as an LEOB to identify the barriers and inequities in land and housing access. Like when you pull that thread, it quickly goes to some big kind of structural issues. And one of the big structural issues that we also see in our resilience hub work is an issue of deteriorating civic engagement. And part of that deteriorating civic engagement is a lack of knowing how to be a good facilitator, how to facilitate complicated, nuanced, challenging, fraught community conversations. And we see that in the Virgo work that you all will have,

[Adam Greshin (Commissioner of Finance & Management)]: you know, you'll get a

[Jean Hamilton (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: report on the rural technical assistance needs. We see that in all of the LERB work. We see that in, you know, everywhere, everywhere, everywhere. We have a lack of civic engagement. And in that way, we are, a lot of our work, which you'll see in our FY27 is based on building communities of practice. In that way, we absolutely invest in the facilitation skills and the community engagement skills, even at VDA, even when it's vaccines, and it's so far away from us. We are still connected because we need to get better at civic engagement as a state.

[Arnela Martinez (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: And right now, the way that I see this happen, and maybe this is out of line, so forgive me, is that I see us spending a lot of money contracting outside support. Hundreds of thousands of dollars from our state go into contracts with folks not from Vermont to come here and facilitate group process, do community engagement, write reports, and do work that actually, in my opinion, sometimes doesn't honor the skills and what is actually in Vermont and doesn't develop the skills in Vermont to do it. So then it becomes like an investment that we just keep making, hundreds of thousands of dollars that we just keep pouring out without building the skill sets in our state when our administrators, and we hire robust administration capacity almost everywhere. We could all learn to do this better and not have to contract resources. And that's one of the ways that we're hoping with our advisory powers work that we can continue to, like, build the skill sets, grow, and develop the staff that's already here that's so passionate about the work that they're doing. Because one of the things I've learned working is that we have like, working in the state is that we have amazing committed public servants. Like, no question.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Well, that's why I asked that you do contractor service because I think there is a need for it within state government instead of contracting. That's good.

[Arnela Martinez (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: We're also building a team. We have lots of contract facilitators and folks that we have been building skills with and for, so then we can also seed that and send folks in different places that are already here, that are already working and connected and tied to community in ways that are helpful and more effective to do

[Richard Westman (Member)]: the work that we need to do. I

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: see you're seven, I don't think we should.

[Arnela Martinez (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: I know, it's a teaser.

[Jean Hamilton (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: It's up there. These numbers, you know, they're exceeding them now.

[Adam Greshin (Commissioner of Finance & Management)]: Will have Any questions?

[Robert Norris (Member)]: Yes, can I just, don't have it here? What was last year's budget? Was it in here?

[Jean Hamilton (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: Yes, our last year's appropriation, we were in base at 1.63.

[Richard Westman (Member)]: Okay.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Thank

[Jean Hamilton (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: you. Yes. You're welcome.

[Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: Okay.

[Robert Norris (Member)]: And that was and the governor recommended that dollar.

[Jean Hamilton (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: That dollar amount was in the

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: governor's change. So the process.

[Jean Hamilton (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: It did not change. It's not changed at the

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: you so much. Yeah.

[Arnela Martinez (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: Thank you. Please reach out,

[Jean Hamilton (Co-Director, Land Access and Opportunity Board)]: and we would really like to spend time with you all. Let us know when it's works well to meet with you. Great.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Thank you. Okay. Committee, any other questions? Yeah. We have a question on food drawer