Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office staff)]: We are live.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Yeah. We're live. This is center appropriations February 10. We are trying to close out the budget of jeopardizing the fiscal year if you want them to stay. And we have here with us to work through the spreadsheet of things that we didn't close out. Mhmm. And it made a couple small changes from yesterday or yesterday's Friday's discussion.

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office staff)]: Cool. Do you want me to go through the big spreadsheet first or go through some of these other little things? I'm just close out things like transfers.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: You can introduce yourself for the record, and then you can decide which what you think is best. Great. Where do wanna go?

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office staff)]: Sure. Emily Burns in the office. Why don't we do, like, this it's now Tuesday to, like, warm up. We'll do the transfers and the direct apps.

[Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: Patrick?

[Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Clerk)]: Yeah. I'll do my pen.

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office staff)]: The sheet that you have in front of you is just a high level overview of the transfers and the direct applications in the FY twenty six budget. At the top in blue, these are transfer changes. The ones with the boxes checked that are grayed out, those were things that were in the as past '26 budget that are not changing in the budget adjustment. This is like, so you have a full accounting of everything, but these are the ones that are grayed out are not changing. The two at the bottom, so rows ten and eleven, were the two that were proposed to be changed in the budget adjustment. So the governor on line 10 recommended transferring about $1,600,000 to the criminal history records check fund.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: From the general.

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office staff)]: From the general fund because there is a structural deficit in that fund. So I believe that's something we've talked about and agreed to, but that's here in account for transfers. And then same with line 11 was a general fund transfer of about $67,000 to the pilot special fund. I was determined that that was not necessary. So that was in the governor's recommend, and then the house did not fund it, which is why there's negative 70,000 in the House, difference from the Governor's column for the House, and then it's zero in the Senate column, because I believe you're incurring with the House's proposal.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: And that was also the general fund. There was a transportation fund part of it, but that doesn't show up in this?

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office staff)]: This is just the transfers from the general fund. So that's, yes, there's a transportation fund. That's all the transfers.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Okay. Pretty straightforward. Does anybody have any questions on them? I assume we can just close those out. Not talking about transfers.

[Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: Great. I'm gonna talk to them ever again. I'm sorry about that.

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office staff)]: Okay. Then down below that in orange, have updated direct applications. So this is money in special funds that's being transferred into the general fund. Two, again, same as above, the two that are grayed out, those ones aren't changing from what was passed in the FY twenty six budget. The following five are changing, and they're mostly going up a little bit based on updated estimates and more information. So the gov had updates to what's coming from the Cannabis Regulation Fund and the General Fund, changes in the

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Department of the Direct Financial Act to the General Fund.

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office staff)]: To the General Fund, so coming out of the Cannabis Fund to the General Fund. From the Department of Financial Regulation Fund, so this is the SHARP insurance Regulatory and Supervision Fund, the Securities Regulatory and Supervision Fund, and the Captive Insurance Fund. It's a net because there's actually a little bit of general fund going to the Captive's Fund, but a lot of money even from the other two, so they increased that transfer by $2,000,000

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: And it's just because they had more information later in the year.

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office staff)]: Correct. Some of these were updated a little bit after the revenue downgrade happened to get the budget back in balance in January. Increase coming from unclaimed property. There is a reduction in the amount coming from sports wagering just based on how people are betting and what's coming in from that, and then an increase from the liquor control fund. So there's about $4,900,000 worth of additional direct apps as compared to the budget as passed. The House accepted all the changes that the governor

[Richard Westman (Member)]: put forward, and then the Senate will accept all those students put forward.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Any questions on the direct acts? Nope. Nope. Great. Do not. We will close those direct out things out. We talked about it in Central Fund. Should not be an issue there.

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office staff)]: Alright. The next gene we'll talk about for the provergence.

[Richard Westman (Member)]: I should get this out. Sure.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Okay. So we just went over these things, the transversions direct that we've talked about before, but it slows those out.

[Richard Westman (Member)]: Do have any money in transportation? No.

[Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: Happy birthday. I missed you.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Why did it

[Richard Westman (Member)]: Oh, just look at that.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Why did it why was it in the?

[Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: Before. Yeah.

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office staff)]: You think it's

[Richard Westman (Member)]: nice. Looked up.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: You probably paid her off and something. Then she I'm I'm gonna cut myself a piece and pass.

[Richard Westman (Member)]: She she Yeah. I believe she messed up on that. Right? No. Well, they're supposed to be in charge of all the plate box.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Okay.

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office staff)]: Alright. This next one is another easy one. This is a list of all of the reversions of prior year appropriations that are being reverted in the budget adjustment or were reverted for the statutory authority being given to the Commissioner of Finance Management, where he can determine what gets Or that's not statutory authority, sorry, it's session law, but at the end of typically the budget adjustment, authority is granted to the Commissioner of Finance to decide what gets carried forward and what doesn't. So, most of these, a few of these were in the bill as passed, but most of these were reverted per that authority. So, there's not a lot of jurisdiction, if you will, over these. These reversions have already happened, but to the extent they've happened, they become available sources for the general fund and for the budget adjustment. So, in the original governor recommended budget adjustment, there was an additional $21,100,000 worth of reversions for a total of $31,200,000 worth of reversions. You can see the as past column, what you guys had assumed when the FY '26 budget was passed, and then all of the additional reversions.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: This number's the same that was on the governor's record. He didn't have the list. The governor's recommended the VA just have that 21,000,000. That's the same number? That number hasn't changed.

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office staff)]: Yes, that number hasn't changed. Then if you go to the back, After the revenue was downgraded, there were some additional reversions identified by the governor to balance the budget. These ones, because they were reverted for the authority exercise at year end close, they are in the Budget Adjustment Act. There was an additional $4,600,000 worth of reversions, which brings the total reversions to $35,900,000 in FY '26, which is $25,800,000 over and above what

[Richard Westman (Member)]: was assumed when the twenty sixth budget was built. Okay,

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: sorry, I distracted by

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office staff)]: Got a date.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Yeah. Is there a difference between the ones on the back and the front, or they're just bigger because you have more room? There's no difference.

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office staff)]: There's no difference. The the only difference is these reversions were identified when the revenue was downgraded. So it's, it was after the original budget adjustment.

[Richard Westman (Member)]: So the front for the updated one.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: The back of page two, you updated it. Oh, page two is the updated. That was

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office staff)]: the updated and they were just they were all new ones.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Okay. Yes, there was some. Yeah, I didn't realize that my hitch might get Yeah, that's 67,000 remaining on it. Yeah, I saw that the first time, but I guess it was could have been a few more incentives.

[Richard Westman (Member)]: Did they get cut with the new year's budget?

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: They didn't yeah. They didn't get funded? Yeah. They got zeroed out, so they just cleared out the account.

[Richard Westman (Member)]: I need to see

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: the fact that they didn't get funded. Yeah. Was a good program. There was a couple other programs like that that had a little bit of money. Could have done a little more than it got that. I didn't remember what the secretary of state had for ranked choice vote. You know the second?

[Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: Say again.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Secretary of state had money for the right new exporting out in the 2024 act of '78. I guess that a $100,000 left. Maybe they were gonna do that. That is. Okay. Right.

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office staff)]: That's it for that one.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Oh, this is we're agreeing with all these numbers. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

[Richard Westman (Member)]: The Capitol Police on the $9.78.

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office staff)]: Yeah. That yeah. Donation. Well, they're making a donation to the general.

[Richard Westman (Member)]: Yeah. 99. 99¢.

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office staff)]: 99¢. We did our best to fully spread it down,

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: so we're gonna

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office staff)]: burn the last I've

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: got a lot of paper questions.

[Richard Westman (Member)]: What are they gonna do down there?

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: What is the It's not listed. It doesn't have the department.

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office staff)]: It's the legislature, though. It was from '20 that was an that was that's an old appropriation. That was from $2,052? $39 left. Yeah. This one was in the budget as passed. There were a couple that when we were building the legislators legislative budget last year,

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: we cleaned

[Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: up that 39 and the

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office staff)]: 99¢ that's there. Just gonna hang out there until you actively revert them. So now they are. Completely reversed.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Actively reverted. Actively. I wanna I wanna ask about the forest pathway that I'll that I well, it's 79¢. Well, one and a half year, please. It's 20¢. 20¢. Yeah. They're they're keeping track of the penny. A dollar. Okay.

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office staff)]: You can ask commissioner.

[Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: And you save this a penny or a penny. Yeah. Okay.

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office staff)]: Okay. And then the last spreadsheet,

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: I

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office staff)]: have the big spreadsheet that we've gone through with pretty much everything grayed out. I also made a copy that has about all the grayed out stuff, so it's just a couple it's much shorter and only one page. I don't

[Richard Westman (Member)]: know if there's a preference.

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office staff)]: I'll do the one. Yeah.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Hang up the page.

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office staff)]: If there's questions on details, we can I'll

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: You can look at your sheet that we checked out from our.

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office staff)]: Hopefully, it'll be easier to

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: read. Yeah.

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office staff)]: Okay, so starting at the top, the gray boxes is just the base budget, and we don't have to start with that. We'll start with line 31. Is last thing that typically gets changed in the budget and on the budget adjustment, but it's the net impact of all the changes in the Global Commitment Appropriation. Sometimes you go through them individually at this point.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: We tried to shut close it up yesterday or Friday, and you said we should wait. Yes. Now we can get on to this. Cool. Great. We're not making any other changes that will affect the global commission.

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office staff)]: Great. So then, this is where they're all hidden. So, on line 69, this is the Meals on Wheels. So, on Friday, you had talked about adding $50,000 to the Meals on Wheels appropriation that the house made. So the house made a $30,000 appropriation. If you add 50, that takes the Meals on Wheels additional grant funds up to $80,000 Recall this was funded through two ways. One, we reduced this will come up on line 98 below, but reduced the $400,000 for Vermonters, Phoebe Vermonters by $40,000 And then there was about $15,000 bottom line. So we've increased appropriations to No. That's the remaining $10,000 of the funds for me. It's from the bottom line. So that's an additional

[Richard Westman (Member)]: 50 meals that we have.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: K. Any questions on that? We're gonna close that out. No. K. Just close out 69. $3.30. I

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office staff)]: had the health department recovery session sign open I don't even remember why.

[Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: You wanted to talk about the distribution. Right. Distribution of funds to each of the organizations, and I think it should leave it as it is. It's fine. Yeah.

[Richard Westman (Member)]: So we're

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: gonna agree with the house. Yeah. On that. Close that out.

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office staff)]: Great.

[Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: We just talked about that.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: We can close that one out. Fixed and cheap appropriations. What was that?

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office staff)]: Yeah. So this one is a net zero. So in the house, you'll recall the this is related to yeah, the title's a little fun. The house, because there's $50,000,000 appropriated for utilization by the emergency board, Virginia, the federal funds were reduced. The house designated about $55,000,000 of that funds for section eight housing. Oh, I see the Needs. The we have draft language to talk about related to section eight housing. I can talk about it right now or talk about only other people language, but there has since been a federal appropriations bill. The amount of money that the housing authorities are gonna get is not yet finalized. There's like a sixty day period between when the appropriations bill passes and your miscarriages. We have a proposed language that would rather than set aside $5,000,000 of that fund, designate that the emergency board, in the event there is a change or a need for Section eight housing vouchers, the emergency board, if the general assembly is out of session, can appropriate funds to prevent the loss of housing vouchers. So it doesn't direct it doesn't create a distinct appropriation for this purpose. You'll recall finance management had said reduce the contingent appropriation and make an explicit appropriation if that's what you choose to do. This makes it a little more this doesn't make it explicit, it says, like, emergency board can do it if needed. And then the the language that says this is how the program would be structured if it existed says if the funds if the emergency board does this, then this is how the the program should be structured.

[Richard Westman (Member)]: Normal housing. Does that would that create any timing issues for any of this money? I'm totally I was convinced that they need the money to be able to maintain the same level of vouchers, and I want them to get their money. If the federal money comes through, that's all well and good. If the federal money isn't there, could we just do a trigger and say they automatically get the 5,000,000? If it's during the legislative session and we've got to run a whole bill through that and that took us two and a half months to get there, does that put them in a bad position? I'm not opposed to the emergency board having control of this. I just don't want them sitting there for two or three months if there's no need to. Right.

[Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: Make I think any sense. The trigger of

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: the question.

[Richard Westman (Member)]: Yeah. Do you want me to Well,

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: we could put it in the FY '27 budget, but if there is a timing thing, it seems like there was support from the house, from the government, and from the senate, but we have not at the full senate, but at least from here, to do the money. So I figured we wouldn't have to do the whole bail process. We could do something quickly to get him the money.

[Richard Westman (Member)]: I just, I think regardless, we want him to have the 5, you know.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: For whatever, we don't know what the right dollar amount is. It's like, this also gives us some time for the conference committee. So if we have more information by the time we're sitting in conference committee, we could change that to, it turns out they do need 5,000,000 or 3.7. The goal is not to, the goal is to, they have to get rid of vouchers and increase the amount of vouchers, then we don't want, we'll use them to I'm do

[Richard Westman (Member)]: in agreement with that, and I would say, I This is gonna go to conference and you'll discuss it in conference and everything. I would just say, I don't want them If we get to the point where they found If they found they've got the federal money, I'm okay with that going away. If the federal money isn't coming through, I'm I'm fine with the construct that the house went through.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Isn't that what you just said, though? The language would be?

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office staff)]: The language would move it to the emergency board. It wouldn't set aside a fixed amount.

[Richard Westman (Member)]: Right. But the emergency board only when the legislature is not setting. Correct.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: It could be in FY '27. It could be in the C section of FY '27, so it happens on passage.

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office staff)]: There is a challenge though I think with the timing. We don't have the final, we don't know what the full impact is of the federal funds. The federal funds isn't going to fund all the vouchers that we've had historically. Question is just the level of, like, how many vouchers do we think will get funded with the federal appropriation as established? Which we don't have the exact number yet for each public housing authority. And then once we know that number, then you might have, like, better, better idea of how much money to set aside for this purpose.

[Richard Westman (Member)]: Just want them to get

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: their money. So it might be more than 5,000,000. I think 5,000,000 also was an S. Because we don't have a limit on the language that you'll see later about what the Eboard would have. But like I said, this opens it up for conference. We'll have more information. I need the money, we'll give them the money.

[Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: Right. And the 50,000,000 is currently e board.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: The e board already Yeah. But we have Yeah. We specifically call it out just to highlight the issue. Okay. So we can Check it. Close that out. And then the

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office staff)]: last one is new. It's for DS payment reform. There's been some conversation about additional language needed for DS payment reform that Brady has. Services. Sorry, disability services, which some people refer to it as the designated agency's needs, right? This is related to designated agency. Disability Services Payment Reform specifically. So this, there's been some negotiations and some figuring out of things that should estimated that's the change in the payment that's needed to make sure that the designated agencies have the cash flow they need to stay afloat is about it's a little over $9,000,000 Yeah. Okay. A little over $9,000,000 of total gross general fund and federal funds. It's about $3,900,000 of state funds. My understanding is in conversations with the agency of human services, they're going to look to either fund it within their existing budget, and if they get to year end and they don't have enough money, that they would look to the human services caseload reserve as a way to ensure that there's enough money to meet AHS's appropriations. I will pull up I should

[Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: have done this before, but will

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office staff)]: pull up how much money is in the Human Services caseload reserve.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: I don't know

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office staff)]: what the scripture I have here.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: This was just for the committee. This was the amendment that's underlined brought on Friday, and This changes that around a little bit, so later on to go to the language, have more details. But yeah, so you won't have to But the DAs that the House funded would still get their funding, which is kind of how they

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office staff)]: But this would So the projected balance in the human services case order, I know, I have enough to get this again. Projected at the 2026 when we passed last year's budget was $91,000,000 And he gets a reserve. So this would if a just can't find any other money in their budget, come close out, it would be $3,900,000. I mean, from a just to cover it. And it is a one time it's a my understanding is it's a one time payment that once they move into Once they more operationalize this program, there will be reconciliations based on actual services provided. It will help with the cash flow needs.

[Richard Westman (Member)]: That's what we got on that.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Good. Cool. Great. And

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office staff)]: I think that's basically it. We talked about the two transfers, the box is checked that are below. I didn't have those ones. But we just talked about those on the transfer sheet. The revenue picture is the same as it was in the governor's update after the revenue downgrade, and then of the and then what the house did. We do all those things because you spend an extra $10,000, oops, you're thousand dollars like higher than the house in terms of spending, but the, the amount reserved, this leaves $74,910,000 on the bottom line to be carried forward into FY '27. There's language in the budget adjustment that says it shall be used for property tax relief, federal funding needs, other items identified. Just the same amount that the governor had.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: So, we're not changing that.

[Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: That's everything on the notes.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Any questions on the numbers, either on this sheet or from our sheet from Friday? Do you have a question on this? I've, okay. Yes. I

[Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: I apologize. Going back to the sheet. Yeah. Can you just I think I need one more time what What all that is. What it is. Yep.

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office staff)]: So these are all prior year appropriations that the commissioner of finance either in the f y twenty six budget has passed. They're in this column. It was already kind of tagged in the budget when we passed it. Or through the authority that's granted to the commissioner Finance and Management in the budget adjustment pretty much every year that says, the Secretary of Administration, consultation with Finance and Management can determine what is carried forward and what is not. If it's not carried forward, it's reverted to the general fund. So these are the list of things that were reviewed by finance management that they determined should be reverted and get reverted for that authority. And so they've already been reverted,

[Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: but it makes its available revenue for reappropriation. So one hypothesis is that these monies were they still existed because they had been unspent or they were not encumbered or whatever. Yep. And so Okay. I think that it's- A lot

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office staff)]: of times the program has run as force and there's $58 left that they can't, they're not gonna be able to spend for.

[Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: Yeah. I I guess my that's usually what's happened. I I realized this is going back to this other sheet, but, you know, thinking about, like, the the brownfields of $2,000,000. Like, it seems unusual that you have $2,000,000 hanging out. So, anyway, they, at least there are some questions. Sure.

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office staff)]: But. Yeah, sometimes I think it's, you know, the program is run for a certain period of time. There's money still sitting there and maybe it doesn't align but for priorities of the administration anymore and for the authority they've they have. Mhmm. They can make that choice.

[Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: So we don't so we don't necessarily have a choice over that.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Well, we could we could just object to the preferred. But it

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office staff)]: you would have to reappropriate it. Yeah.

[Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: Back to that. If you for the same purpose, you'd to reappropriate that same purpose. Yeah.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Well, if we know, we could we could reappropriate it somehow.

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office staff)]: To any In

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: order to get it to those people who haven't used it, we'd have to To reappropriate. Right. If you want to give it back to Brownfields, for example. Of course. Right, but this is FY '26, so they're not, maybe they just weren't going

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office staff)]: to use it. They could

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: have just carried it forward if they were going use it in '27, but maybe they have a different plan. So the finance and management goes out to all of the agencies and says, Look in the couch cushion, and they have all the books that you mentioned. Looks like you have 2,000,000 in this account. Are you really gonna spend that this Sometimes they have conversations between them, We wanna take that money, and they're like, No, We're holding on to it. And then they're like, no. You work for us. Get us the money. Pull all the money. There you go. That's under the roof. I have a similar question, and I apologize if I missed this, but forty six and forty seven, the Vermont Land Access Opportunity Board. So we're reverting a million, but we're also reverting 240,000 from the floor. Is that right? They reverted it, and then they decided they didn't wanna revert it, but they had already reverted it. So you'll we have a million dollar appropriation for the LAOB. But what about the $2.40 for the board?

[Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: I think that's just only. Yeah.

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office staff)]: Yeah. And that is 24¢. This one is not. This is

[Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: not a match. Unlike all the other sheets.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Got it.

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office staff)]: That one for the penny.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Okay, that makes Yeah, so that was an example of finance management looking through accounts, and then they're like, oh, let's revert that money, and then the land tax said, no. Actually, we have a program. We'll just put out this application. Yeah. We need that money back. And then they agreed, but they had already reverted it. Okay. We put it back. They took it, and we put it back. Great. I don't know if you want stay there. Was going to go through some of these things that were on the worksheet. For some reason the worksheet that I had was the wrong one.

[Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: You got the You

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: got the math. Now we got the math on the first one. Yeah. On this worksheet, we're we're doing this. Staging with my. It is that. It's December 16. December Yeah. 12/16/2026. So this is just to These are special funds. We already went over anything that's in the general funds. So if you're looking at the worksheet, there are ones where there's money coming out of stuff. Just to make sure everybody, there's the cannabis control board, the 630,150, this returns money from that special case, which was on Emily's. There's a child development transfer That's a natural, just moving it between What was that? That's B3AT. See how there's if you go over to the comments there, we're moving between request counter. Oh, From the counseling support to family services. And do you have anything else you might

[Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: Just maybe from child development to family services. So it's just real round epic. So it looks like it's currently one.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: We are the to the next one, it's B320. The bottom of that same page. And this is the global commitment adjustment. You could read the notes. It's a $5,000 net for those changes. The next one is B323. You're on the next page. This is an internal accounting correction. Realigning of Dan Verdin's. That's a 135,000 for all. Then B three twenty five, next line down. It's a $147,000 annual payment support of housing, partially funded on base. Yeah, this is kind of refund funding ending, so we're putting general fund needed to cover these costs. We're putting into that special. Next one is B334.1. This is the bottom of that same page. Dale is 2628. This involves the. These are the series. There's several ups and downs in that section. And then there's a million dollars from the speed five zero eight. We had talked about this, but we never really closed it out where nutrition lunch program needed less money than budgeted, so they were funding a million dollars from the Ed Fund, through the general fund. And then there's 500,000 pilot labs. This was this is B1110 one one hundred c. That's the very exact not the last page, but page seven. The number five. Fourth one down in there. No. You guys can see too. So no. Yes. The first one up. The page seven at the very top. That's a good question. Yes.

[Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: This may be just a procedural thing, in B508 about the education fund with the nutrition and refunding million dollars with less than adequate demand, but it's going from the education fund back to the general fund. I just wanna note that it seems a little odd that we might be buying down property taxes to get to the education fund, and here we're reverting money from the education fund. It seems like there could be at least million dollar internal shift to keep the million dollars in

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Okay. Maybe instead of

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office staff)]: It does stay in the education fund.

[Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: Oh, it's not going to the

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office staff)]: it doesn't go at yeah. It just It's not going to No.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: It just stays within Okay.

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office staff)]: It's a reduction in the appropriation of the in the education fund.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Correct. It's just an adjustment. Okay. You. And we have talked about $500,000 that the tax department needs the telephone personal property tax, work. Those are ones that are adjustments that we had in hockey hockey, they don't show up in that general. I didn't think there was anything in there that I didn't care about or was concerned about. Do you have questions, Nope. Nope, please. Okay. So with that, we can go into the language.

[Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: You. That's.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Take it away. Who are you?

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office staff)]: My name is Grady Nixon, JFO. Pleasure to meet you all. So I I have a brief language packet that should encompass all changes, JFO believes the committee will be making. There are a few points in this packet that I'll defer to committee members to discuss the language, as there are proposals being brought forward by the members of the committee. And then there's one that we drafted that, not sure if just drafted it, but I'm not sure if the committee's, or made the decision either way on that one. So first, we have changes to the b 1,100 section On the first page in that highlighted sub five, you'll see, the appropriation itself here is not being added by the appropriations committee, just the language clarifying that this is a one time payment, a one time payment increase. So the appropriation existed. This is the one part of

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Thank you.

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office staff)]: This is one part of that non emergency medical transportation funding. This is the match, and then later on, you'll see the global commitment. So this just addresses, the committee's request to clarify that it is

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: a one time payment increase and also technical letter changes. So this highlighted number five, it's just the non emergency transport. Correct.

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office staff)]: So this is the the change here is the wording of one time payment increase. Okay. On page two, so this proposed change I mentioned before where there had been some offline discussion of, altering this appropriation, which is $250,000 general fund for a grant to establish a new women's recovery residence. The highlighted language is language Jacobo drafted, for those discussions, but I will defer to the committee members on if they would like to take this up.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: You wanna say anything about this, Doctor. Norris? In reference to 50,000? The 50 the the the that we're changing with up to 50 can be Right. It's not we have spoken about this. It's up to 10%. The problem they're running into is they just would use monies toward operational cost on this grant. So we're looking to people to go along with this particular $50,000 for operational cost. I believe we were also looking bring something else up in this just in reference to the other parts of agreement. The money could be used. There's a total of 250,000 we allocated last year. Yeah, the way that Grady wrote this was like, because it's within the program, at UCCD, the Vermont Recovery Housing Program, you can use any money for operations admin. This allows them to use it for activities otherwise at the program. So basically lets them use it for anything. The $2.50 to 200 on the grant would still be restricted by the housing program, which they can use with some of the capital that we talked about before. But this would also allow them to use 50,000 of the grant for activities that normally they wouldn't be allowed using for some of their start up costs if those new women's recovery. So we had given them money thinking they needed to buy the building, but they got another grant. So they don't need as much of the purchases. Right. Yes. Okay.

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office staff)]: On the bottom of that page, you'll see proposed change from the chair regarding the appropriation to the land access and opportunity board. So rather than including multiple, land access and opportunity board programs, including funds for all two, this would, revise language to say that those funds are for the homes for all initiative and for community resilience grants. So when you

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: do this editing, you're editing the FY '26 bill, so you'd like stuff that the House added, you don't have cross outs, it just doesn't show up.

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office staff)]: Right, so this appropriation was not originally in the bill, So, when you change language that the House added, it doesn't get reflected as an amendment to the House language.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Okay. Yeah. And that just, as a great segue, more aligned with what how the land access opportunity for was planning and using for the resilience.

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office staff)]: On page three of this packet, at the very bottom, you'll see this is the global commitment portion of that non emergency medical transportation funding, so again just altering the language again to reflect that it is a one time payment increase. And then on page four, this is reflecting the committee's alteration of the increase to the appropriation to the Vermont Food Bank that the House made. So the revised number of house bills 900,000, the committee has reduced that and increased by 40,000, so the number reflected here is now 860,000. On page five, I will defer to the president pro tem corps.

[Philip Baruth (President Pro Tempore)]: Yeah. So, I did discuss this language with, administration, and they are okay if we make a single change. So where it now says necessitated by increased federal employments, we settled on by increased federal action in Vermont. So it's changed from what had here? What Grady has here, after federal deployments were changed to action in Vermont. Nothing. Still appearing. Yeah. Any questions? No. I'm Are you prepared with that? Thank you. Good. I just got a quick one here. Is there is this an any amount of money, or is it just 5,000,000, or what what is it? It's it's from the 50,000,000. Yep. And this is adding a possible use, but it all has to go through the e board, and the administration has to bring a request to the

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office staff)]: e board. Yes? So the agency of administration request is covered in that reference to section e one twenty seven point two. So this would be e board action outside of that I see. Context. So in terms of

[Philip Baruth (President Pro Tempore)]: who could initiate this request if we're not in discussion? The emergency board. Anybody on the elections?

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office staff)]: As currently drafted, yes. Okay.

[Philip Baruth (President Pro Tempore)]: And I I think that's how I So I answered your question, Bob? Yeah. Okay.

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office staff)]: On page six, so throughout this language, you'll see some updates to the section eight language that Emily was discussing a moment ago. Again, this is just removing the specific allocation. So it had previously reflected that of that 50,000,000, 5,000,000 would be for section eight. This updates the language to say that in fiscal years twenty twenty six and twenty twenty seven, while the general assembly is not in session, the e board has the authority to transfer part of that appropriation, again referring to that 50,000,000. And then further changes in the language just reflect that. So now, sub b leads in with if funds are transferred for this purpose rather than, citing the agency of administration, same with sub c and sub d. So rather than referencing the agency of administration and assets in sub d, if funds are transferred for this purpose, the designated state entity, which will be designated by the emergency board.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: And you didn't end up need make needing to make any other thing. All of sudden, that was passed to happen. Correct. Okay.

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office staff)]: On page eight, so this, is a wholesale new section. This was in the technical letter. This would just be clarifying that the 80,000 that, being added for Meals on Wheels is for that purpose. James? Staying with page nine, this is technical letter recommended language, just explaining what the $14,500,000 global commitment appropriation is for. So it's states 35,226 to increase payments to area vacancies on aging, 200 and 67,888 to increase payments to tier one enhanced residential care facilities and then the remainder for emergency financial relief. And this is just checking for changes? Correct. As proposed by the The technical letter just recommended adding language explaining what the purpose of that appropriation was. Okay, now it's good. On page 10, so this is a JFO recommendation functioning very similarly to those two previous sections. This would just be explaining that of the global commitment appropriation in section B. Three thirty three of Act 27, 9,500,000.0 shall be for the one time transition funding for the first year of the payment reform.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Okay,

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office staff)]: On pages eleven and twelve, this is the most recent payment report language, so I'll defer to center lines on this. There is one highlighted section at the end that I can explain after some of the lens.

[Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: So this is consistent with what we looked at on Friday, the changes to the language for the are really now supported by both the agency, Dale, and the designated agencies. So it has a minimum base to assume utilization rate of 65% after that has been put in place, then there'll be a report back and some information to help with next steps. There's also a section in here that asks the DAs to provide, to develop a financial sustainability plan, which is a good thing going forward. It's really the same thing that

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: we looked at on Friday.

[Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: It's a language that I think

[Richard Westman (Member)]: and then the funding the grading. So

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office staff)]: in that subsection e on the final page of this packet, this is just language articulating that if funds that were previously appropriated to AHS are insufficient to cover, this, payment adjustment, then the Commissioner of Finance and Management shall tap the Human Services caseload reserve.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Just tap, actually.

[Grady Nixon (Joint Fiscal Office staff)]: Unreserve an amount of funds equal.

[Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: That's a new word. I was like, wow.

[Richard Westman (Member)]: Yeah. So

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: for people who remember, this was gonna come out of the $50,000,000 now, $35,000,000 This is not just saying that this is kind of why we have to keep the low reserve if they can't find money in their own budget. Any questions about that? You can grill center lines. Yes.

[Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: I'm going back to page seven on this, but I'm not sure if now is the right time.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Yeah. Now is the best

[Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: And I apologize. I connected with Cameron Boyd about some language about so it's in the coming back to this question about the distribution of funds for the program. So I did have something patched up, but I I can pass this out. Okay. But it's it's really the only part that I am of what I'm passing out so I've also been in touch with who is working together with the state housing authorities. The only part that I have in this draft that I'm interested is what's labeled number two. It says make funds available to each housing authority proportionally based on the number of housing assistance payments in use statewide as of 01/01/2026. So thinking about ensuring that everybody has some amount of funds proportional to roughly their caseloads. But

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: that's So it's not the same d two? It would be Okay. So it's

[Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: replacing number two. So instead of ensure that on page seven, number two says, ensure that access to funds is made available to all housing authorities across the state. This would be make funds available to each housing authority proportionally.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Disproportionately mean in equal, like, happened in proportion to their

[Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: Yeah. But what they currently have, so to make sure that it's Right. Okay. And and then as I understand it, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, but if it's if somebody does not, need it, then it that could just be Yeah.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Yeah. Does that make sense to you, Grady? Do you have any question? Or just be swapping out D2? Yep. Instead of ensuring access, it makes sure that the sizing is proportional based on those that are participating or going to anybody have a problem with I apologize if you have. Okay. So unless somebody else has another amendment, they want to make changes or questions, we will have Brady make that change and have JFO go create a final bill that we can vote on. Ms. Burn, do you know how long that would take?

[Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: No. I

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: got an estimate when we should come back to vote on the final. I'm assuming there's support for the bill, but we should vote on the fine dispersion, just to make sure. Yeah. Guys can have a problem. Sorry. Oh, section. How old do I live? 64.

[Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: No. It's the same. People are

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: like, but it's a section. I think grandparents are

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office staff)]: Is this a

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: twin bone reference again? Five. We

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office staff)]: had a conversation last year with

[Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: your birthday in April, and we shove her there.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: On the record.

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office staff)]: Are we the birthday of the birthday?

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Okay, you have an answer?

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office staff)]: Give us an hour.

[Richard Westman (Member)]: An hour. Oh, wow.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: That's good. Well,

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office staff)]: you want it right, right?

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Yeah. Sometimes. We'll come back here at 02:10 prepared to vote. Do we have to share with you? Ten?

[Richard Westman (Member)]: Do we have to

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office staff)]: share this meeting? Yeah.

[Richard Westman (Member)]: We don't.

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office staff)]: It'll It'll be be quick quick too. Too. What? It'll It'll be be quick. Quick, I think.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Yeah. So we'll meet just to have a vote. The clerk will be prepared and ready. Get your pen out. Yeah. You can look at that.