Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Marcy Hodgdon, Chief Financial Officer (Vermont Attorney General’s Office)]: So

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Oh, yeah. Definitely tell him I said I

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: We don't lot. Too.

[Christopher Kaufman Ilstrup, Executive Director, Vermont Humanities]: Oh, yeah.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: So this is live. Senate appropriations, Tuesday, February 24, ten days after Valentine's Day. And we are going through the FY '27 budget request, and we have the Attorney General's office with us today. Attorney General, let you introduce yourself and give us your presentation.

[Charity R. Clark, Vermont Attorney General]: Sure. I am Chair De Park, Attorney General. I'll also just introduce folks in the room. Deputy Attorney General Rob McDougall, Chief Assistant Attorney General Sarah London. We have our, CFO, Marcy Hodgdon, and our Financial Director, Cathy Cyr, and Will Ferrell, who is the director of our Community Justice Unit, which oversees the court diversion stuff. We always want to have her on hand. I know that you all probably know these folks, but just in case and for the record, they're here to help me as we go through the slides. The first slide is a very nice overview and I'm gonna assume that they Okay, here we go, yes. The pie chart, I love a pie chart. And the I'm gonna start actually with the right column, not the pie chart. We have 147 positions managed statewide. However, there is somewhat of a conflict, not somewhat, it's fairly complicated how that lays out. We have only 93 positions on the AGO payroll and 54 positions are embedded in agencies and departments across state government. So this might look like we have tax attorneys who are technically tax attorney employees. We hire, we supervise, we work with the client agency on that. Wanted to just frame that for you. Can I just ask, is that normal? Do other states do it that way? It really is such a variety. I mean, we have states there are states that they don't provide any services to state government. They just do the kind of work where the client is the attorney general and consumer or whatever. So we have it probably is unique. Every state is kinda different.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Because there's some agencies that have their own attorneys and some that have your attorneys.

[Charity R. Clark, Vermont Attorney General]: Yes. But only the attorney general or her assistant attorney attorneys general can, go to court unless we do some paperwork and pull someone in. So a lot of times when you're seeing lawyers and and the rest of state government, they're not necessarily going to court. They're performing more policy or analysis And so it makes sense to us because we were there, but it is kind of complicated and it works well. One of the things that I think works well is it's nice to have a collaboration, which we really do have between the Attorney General's office and the administration. Technically they're independently elected people and then obviously right now we have two people who are different parties and yet we're working great and we serve the client agencies and have a really, I'm like really proud of the collaboration. The more dysfunctional they are in Washington, the more braggadocious they are about the mods and this building too, I'm always bragging about the state house. So I think it works, but it is kind of complicated for sure. Okay. Thank you. We have two separate appropriations we're gonna be talking about. The main attorney general work is across these divisions, which I can unpack each one. But I think they are somewhat self explanatory. And I know you guys are not new, so I don't think I need to belabor it. The second is the Vermont Court Diversion Program. The reason why they're separate is because that is a program that's really giving grants to local community justice units of what they call, they're called different things, but they're sort of justice or community justice units. And it's a separate, it's not like they're our employees, it's grants that we fund and we are kind of the umbrella supervising sort of grantor agency. So that's why there's two separate appropriations. Let's turn to our pie chart. And I'll get to the punch line now, which is that we are asking for the governor's recommend plus $85,000 for the home improvement specialists that you all created in 2022, a position that I will walk through has been incredibly successful. Hi, Senator. Nice to meet you. Delicious lunch. My apologies for being a plate here. Oh, no worries. So as you can see, the giant portion of the pie is the general fund. Then we have interdepartmental transfer. That is money that we get from, and the divisions are over here on the right. The civil division gets money from risk management. The civil division is defending lawsuits that when the state is sued, that's who defends the lawsuit is civil division. So we're getting money from a different department from risk management. GCAL, our General Counsel Administrative Law Division is in a similar boat, but we're sort of billing the client agency and we're the lawyer to that client agency and that's interdepartmental transfer. The yellow pie is for the federal revenue. We have primarily two. The Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force is a federally funded law enforcement agency that exists in the attorney general's office. I know that you are familiar because we always like to bring our dogs with us. We've seen dogs who detect basically the off gassing of electronic storage devices that criminal defendants might be holding child sexual abuse material on. Medicaid fraud unit is the other place where we have federal revenue. Medicaid fraud unit is required if you wanna get Medicaid dollars. Well, obviously we want those. So we have to have one of those units. So the grant program really. We pay for a portion and the federal government pays for a portion. The next pie is the gray pie. That is the tobacco fund. Recall that in 1998, we settled with major tobacco manufacturers and we get a ton of money. To get all of that money, we must diligently enforce a statute that you all created back then. And I'm not gonna get into the mechanics of it because it's much too complicated. But long story short, that's money that comes to us from the tobacco fund. The special fund is consumer settlements. So we have a Consumer Protection Act that gives the Supreme General authority to enforce. We will go through some of this, but we get money through that consumer protection work and it's this special fund where that exists. So that is all of our funding sources. I am gonna turn the page if there are no questions. This is a nice snapshot of where we are, what our requested increase, etcetera is. So on the right, we have our green box that summarizes the increases. So we have the These are things out of our control, right? Pay Act, retirement, health insurance. Our case management system, dollars 335,000 is I wanna just take a moment on that one. We have a case management system. It is also used for our constituent services and for the consumer assistance program. When I started at the Attorney General's office in 2014, so a long time ago, It was already dusty. It was only like a year or two old and the manufacturer who sold it to us was letting us know that they were no longer gonna Soon they were no longer going to be like servicing it if something went wrong. We still have that system all these years later. It's inefficient and clunky and very buggy and problematic. A lot has changed in technology in that time. You had invested $2,000,000 for us to begin the process of researching and creating what the next case management system is gonna look like. It's a miracle we've gotten by with what we have had and nothing bad has happened. So we're grateful for that investment and would ask for this continued investment with the case management system. I think Is

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: this part of that following up on the 2,000,000 or is this

[Charity R. Clark, Vermont Attorney General]: Yes.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: This is actually

[Charity R. Clark, Vermont Attorney General]: Well, this is like the next phase. So we use that money to, you know, work with vendors and figure out what was gonna be best and how we were gonna be able to most efficiently and affordably have a case management system that works. Hi, Senator Lyons. How are you?

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: I'm well, good to see you. Apologize for being legislative time.

[Charity R. Clark, Vermont Attorney General]: Yes, we are on page two of the slide deck.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Are you working with ADS on it? Yes.

[Charity R. Clark, Vermont Attorney General]: We are working with ADS. Speaking of ADS, our operating increases, the net increase internal services funds. We don't control that. Part of it is because ADS increased their cost to us.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Did they increase their SLA or their

[Marcy Hodgdon, Chief Financial Officer (Vermont Attorney General’s Office)]: I'm looking at mostly. They increased both. There was a restructuring of their funding for this year for '27. Right. And so our increase was rather exponential.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Because some people saw some agencies saw a decrease in SLA, but an increase in upfront payments. You saw both the new reasonable.

[Marcy Hodgdon, Chief Financial Officer (Vermont Attorney General’s Office)]: Well, we do because we and states, trans and sheriffs, and the two entities, they get charged for our space that we didn't share with

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Okay.

[Charity R. Clark, Vermont Attorney General]: Alright. Let's look at the summary here on the left hand side of the page. As you can see, personal services is people and that is by far the largest chunk of our budget is people. We have 147 people who work at the AGO. We also have operating expenses, of course, and the increase is explained over on the right hand side. And then the grant is for a, I can't remember the Prevent Yeah, the Prevent Child Abuse grant. By the way, I should mention personal service is going up 9.7%. What we will see later is we have been very fortunate to have hired some great lawyers of late who were formerly employed by the federal government and found themselves either without a job or wishing for a different job found their way to us. Some of them are very excellent and therefore more experienced and a little more expensive. That's been a blessing. Like everywhere, we had a lot of people retire during pandemic and after the pandemic. And so it's been really nice to get stores of one of the variety of experience. Like you want the lawyer who's only two years out of law school, but you also want someone who's like twenty or thirty years out of law school. So that's been really nice.

[Stephen Perkins, Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society]: How the

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: new position that we approved last year work at the Solicitor General?

[Charity R. Clark, Vermont Attorney General]: Yes. He's wonderful. He's new ish out of law school, maybe three or four years, but he's absolutely wonderful. He's an incredible writer, total team player, and he also sang Messiah over Christmas. So he's a

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: a wonderful

[Charity R. Clark, Vermont Attorney General]: member of the community in addition to being a great lawyer. Yeah. He was another federal. We we got him. So that has been really wonderful and he's been such a great addition. Thank you so much. That's been really, really helpful and he's great. Spending sources, which I kinda already talked about, but we are laying out what the changes here. So you can take through and see the general fund, the special fund has a large increase, I will, well, can, I guess I can talk about that now, but we have a slide on that later? So I can go wait.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Can I ask you again about the, the prevention of abuse in Vermont? Yeah. Reset 25, is that just one time this year or is it the BU always?

[Marcy Hodgdon, Chief Financial Officer (Vermont Attorney General’s Office)]: Prevent child abuse, that's an annual through the ICAC for their subrecipients from us.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: And you said I always spend $20,000?

[Marcy Hodgdon, Chief Financial Officer (Vermont Attorney General’s Office)]: $20,000. I

[Charity R. Clark, Vermont Attorney General]: know you I know you all are very experienced, I don't want to take more time than is needed. If I'm going too fast, tell me. If I'm going too slow, tell me. So let's turn the page so I can just have like a little bit of a brag. We'll brag slides, my favorite slides. I'll begin by the topic that so many people ask us about and write to us about all the time, and that is the work that we've done to protect Vermont and the constitution from federal overreach. It says 41 lawsuits since we submitted this, we filed an additional lawsuits, 42 lawsuits in the past year and a month that we've had to challenge unlawful and unconstitutional acts by the Trump administration. We are now winning. It's I think as of the tariff decision on Friday, it's probably 95% of the cases we're winning. Either we're winning the entire case or we're winning a preliminary injunction that the court has decided you're likely to succeed and the harm is great. So we're gonna put a pause on whatever the action is by the federal government and the case will proceed. So the case is proceeding, but we kind of have a status quo then. We, in addition, and important for you, it's not only is this good for democracy and for the constitution and for Vermont, we also are able to bring back, keep the dollars flowing tens of millions of dollars into the state. Those are grants that are appropriated by Congress, as you well know, is a legislative branch who gets to, spend the taxpayers money. And the federal government had tried to pause that or stop that in many cases, and most of our cases involve that kind of thing, a grant that is being stopped by the federal government. So we've been able to bring tens of millions of dollars back to Vermont. Now that isn't always the state of Vermont, it might be the University of Vermont or another entity, but we have been able to bring tens of millions of dollars back, which is great. Because the, Supreme Court last year found that you can't, only in narrow, narrow circumstances can you have this nationwide injunction, when we do get those preliminary injunctions, it's important that we are a party to the lawsuit because only the parties to the lawsuit are entitled to the injunctive relief and getting the grants flowing. Now, the president maybe foreseeing trouble in the midterm elections has sometimes pretended as though it's a midterm, or it's a nationwide injunction and has nonetheless kept the money flowing to the Republican AG states as well. So it's been a lot of this dynamic. We also have ongoing enforcement cases. And some of these have been ongoing for a very long time. And many of these are of the consumer variety. Recall that I mentioned the consumer settlement funds. So we're hoping to, down the road, we will be successful and more money will be coming in. However, these lawsuits are multi year lawsuits, they're not on the FY year. So the fossil fuel company case is one where we use the Consumer Protection Act to allege a greenwashing theory that they're telling us their products are more environmental than they are. PFAS manufacturers have been going on since, I wanna say 2019 maybe, where we sued the manufacturers of PFAS. That is going to trial, I believe next year. We're getting close to the end of that one. The opioid work that we're doing is ongoing. I don't think I filed any of those cases, but we have now, it's gotta be $100,000,000 total. A lot of those are structured settlements over fifteen, twelve years, time, but that's gonna be a lot of money coming in. You guys are familiar with that process. We also sued Meta and TikTok under our consumer protection theory. And those cases are, we've survived motions for summary judgment or motions to dismiss, but they're still very nascent in their journey. Monsanto is, we sued for PCB contamination to Vermont's waterways and also schools. We will be on a schedule where we're doing certain schools at a time. There's obviously a lot of schools. So that'll be kind of piecemeal and that's not until next year. It's more of the factual basis. So the trial will have a factual basis on each of the schools. So that's why that's structured the way it is, every school being different, of course. I mean, this is not a secret, but of course we prefer to settle. It's much more expensive and in some cases risky to go to trial, it's much better to say, okay, your case is good or your case is not so good and how can we resolve this? So most of our cases settle, which is why we even call the fund like the settlement fund instead of the we went to trial and we won fund. So we are normally settling, which is a good thing. These days like ninety five percent of cases settle, it's not efficient to go to trial. So we always hope that we settle and we have reasonable minds on both sides to say how can we resolve this. We also sued the biggest pharmacy benefit managers in Vermont, which are CVS and Express Scripts for saying that they're reducing the cost of pharmaceuticals, in fact they're driving the costs up. That's another ongoing one. And then repeatedly we've been pursuing cases against vaping companies or salespeople for the illegal online, the sales ban, you can't sell tobacco products online including vaping products. So just some of the work that

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: we're doing. All these on vaping combined with other states?

[Charity R. Clark, Vermont Attorney General]: Not all of them. Some of them are in coordination with other states. So the opioid manufacturers that work, Meta, we sued here in Vermont in state court, just us, but other states were also suing in their state courts. The PBM's case is just, it's here, but then it got removed in a process. So it kind of is a variety. Yeah.

[Stephen Perkins, Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society]: So, excuse me, so of

[Christopher Kaufman Ilstrup, Executive Director, Vermont Humanities]: the 42 cases that

[Stephen Perkins, Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society]: your office has taken action against,

[Christopher Kaufman Ilstrup, Executive Director, Vermont Humanities]: how many of those are actually cases that your office brought and how many of

[Stephen Perkins, Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society]: those are actually filing him as brief on this?

[Charity R. Clark, Vermont Attorney General]: 42 are all one cases that we brought. Amicus briefs, we've trialed over a 100 of those. So amicus being like the friend of the court brief that we are a party but Vermont has an interest in the outcome and so we kind of let our opinions be known and we join other states usually in that work as well because we

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: have a similar viewpoint. The 42, you're not the lead.

[Charity R. Clark, Vermont Attorney General]: We might not that's right. Like we might not be the ones who wrote every word. In fact, we often are not the ones who wrote every word and we are benefiting greatly from the economies of scale of having California and New York and huge states and lots of lawyers working on this. But of course, if Vermont is a party, we need to have Vermont's viewpoint. We're doing an oftentimes we're working either with nonprofits or other organizations or the administration on factual information that we need. Sometimes we have to file like a signed statement declaration, you know, alleging the the facts as as they are. But yeah, we have really greatly benefited from the collaboration that we have with other states. I can't imagine the workload of having to do all of this ourselves. And we recently have a new AG. There's one election in off year in one state last year, Virginia elected a new AG and that AG is a like minded AG to the work that my office has been doing and so now we have more lawyers because Virginia has joined our coalition which has been wonderful. The next slide is so we just talking about our when we're going after companies and individuals who are bad actors. Now we're defending Vermont. So this is another role that we play, especially in our civil division, that's what they do. But the solicitor general that you mentioned also helps with that work because they are constitutional experts. And often when we're defending these cases, it's because we have, like, a great piece of legislation that someone thinks is unconstitutional, and so our constitutional experts are involved. So laws recently that we have, that were passed and we defended the large capacity ban in the waiting period, Climate Superfund Act, and then the private school tuition funding statute, which was challenged. We also recently are defending the Secretary of State in a federal election lawsuit because Secretary Clinton Kansas declined to turn over the voter rolls as she should have done. So we are happy and proud to be defending her for doing that. So was definitely the right thing to do.

[Stephen Perkins, Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society]: Are those all four of those, three of those, there was four ongoing?

[Charity R. Clark, Vermont Attorney General]: I think the large capacity ban one is on looking at Rob.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Yeah. Lot of them have briefing already and we're waiting for a ruling,

[Charity R. Clark, Vermont Attorney General]: but all four of those are still active. Yeah.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Okay.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: So we started, it was during

[Charity R. Clark, Vermont Attorney General]: the flood, so 2023, we started, I remember because we were not in our building, we started working on a strategic plan I'm really excited about where we're being much more with the chief performance office, which is they're amazing, really excited about being able to have measures and things with the work that we're doing. So this is some calendar year highlights that track with the work that we're doing for our strategic plan. So we wanted to just throw those down for you for some information that might be useful about kind of the numbers on the work that we're doing. It's truly like a grab bag. This is not necessarily the most important or anything, but our General Counsel and Administrative Law Division reviewed thirteen eighty eight grants and contracts, which is a lot. We also, ITAAC unit we mentioned had three thirty five investigations and 115 search warrants. The dogs I mentioned are very useful in the search warrants. You can see that's a lot of search warrants. Having a dog with you who can smell out the evidence is a lot quicker than having just people who are looking for it. We had 8,000 constituent contacts made by the Consumer Assistance Program. Eight fifteen inquiries from the public were received and addressed by the Civil Rights Unit. Civil Rights Unit mostly handles employment discrimination. They have a hotline that people can call and explain, I think, I'm being discriminated against. Fun fact for you, the number one category that's most commonly complained about and dealt with is, I don't know if you want to hazard a guess, it's gender, if it's race, it's actually disability that is the most common. And then a recent example of a criminal case, we got twenty seven years to life sentence secured in an aggravated sexual assault with a child case after a three day trial. So just some highlights from 2025. Our next slide is the request I mentioned that's in addition to the governor's budget. So it's $85,000 If you recall in 2022, I remember because this is all happening, like, right as I had to leave my job and run for office, you all passed a home improvement registry bill, which was great. The governor vetoed it because the amount $10,000 was too high and he wanted something lower. And I think in the effort to try to meet everybody halfway, this position was created. When we were advocating, by the way, for that bill vociferously. And if you'd asked me then, I cannot believe how effective this position has been. And it was truly something, I mean, the beauty of compromise because it was kind of a brainchild of like, wait, what if we did this? We created this position, the man who had this position was a paralegal and a contractor, so he's absolutely excellent. What he's doing is essentially mediating between a home improvement contractor and the homeowner. Sometimes it's the home improvement contractor who's not getting paid by the homeowner and more often than not it's the person who's home, it's the homeowner who's needing help. He has recovered a shocking amount of money in my opinion, dollars 1,200,000.0 from 194 home improvement complaints in basically a year and a half's time. So that is a tremendous amount of excellent work we're really, really proud of. It's a position that is at this point, a limited service position. We don't have the money. Think last year we had the money. We don't have the money this year. We need the money. I would just say this is money so well spent, especially when we have a situation in which we can avoid litigation either by the homeowner in civil court or to some degree even criminal court, which we are prosecutors are very busy all across the state. So this is just great work, especially when you consider it's a new position. So people weren't even necessarily aware that this position existed. I predict that as time goes on that number is going to get higher because people are aware of the position and the opportunity to use this free service to resolve their dispute. The second position is So

[Christopher Kaufman Ilstrup, Executive Director, Vermont Humanities]: you said 85 the total?

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Yes. Benefits there. Mhmm. So we're you're not paying this person.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: And you said 1.2?

[Charity R. Clark, Vermont Attorney General]: Yes. Over a year and a He must

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: be doing about 100,000 a month now.

[Charity R. Clark, Vermont Attorney General]: I mean, depends on the job. Probably some of the work is a lot of money and some are smaller, but 194 home improvement complaints tells you you have 194 Vermonters who are probably pleased with the work that's being done in a short amount of time.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Can you, I don't if you can say what conversations with the governor's office was on this? What first was it just kinda like an oversight or was like you asked for it and they said, no. Don't we think that decision should be eliminated.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: I don't know. Hi, senator.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: How are you?

[Charity R. Clark, Vermont Attorney General]: I'm well. I'm not sure that I know the answer to that. Marcy might not be there. What do you think?

[Marcy Hodgdon, Chief Financial Officer (Vermont Attorney General’s Office)]: No. We

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: asked for it last year, and you all gave us another

[Marcy Hodgdon, Chief Financial Officer (Vermont Attorney General’s Office)]: one year appropriation, and extended the monthly service, And we asked for it again this year and they didn't even address it. Right. Just to get our targets and that was not perfect. Okay.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: Second

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Is that position,

[Stephen Perkins, Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society]: he's embedded in the CAP program?

[Charity R. Clark, Vermont Attorney General]: He's at the consumer systems program at UVM. Yep.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: But that's all he does?

[Charity R. Clark, Vermont Attorney General]: Yes. That's all he does at CAP.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: Okay. CAP He's

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: the only one at CAP that does that?

[Charity R. Clark, Vermont Attorney General]: Yes. I mean, everyone at cap has the skills, but he is the one assigned to that and he is the expert of that. And I think he's getting known in the community for that as well. Just as a refresher on the consumer assistance program, in my opinion, and I think I'm right about this, the consumer assistance program is far and away the place where Vermonters interface with the attorney general's office. If they have interfaced with the AG, it's at the consumer assistance program. 8,000 contacts a year is a lot. When I talk to groups, I always, and it's about, I happen to know the scams or some other issue, I say, Who here is called the Consumer Assistance Program? Always people answer, I could raise

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: their hands.

[Charity R. Clark, Vermont Attorney General]: Mean, it's just, and I know that you all, with your constituents, because I, we, every time I like hype the the consumer assistance program, like two weeks later, all legislators like, remind me. So it's a great program with a handful of people. Some of them just referred to somebody that

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: was fighting with the propane dealer again.

[Charity R. Clark, Vermont Attorney General]: Propane especially. Yes. We have we have propane experts.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: I told them that. They said they'll know all about it.

[Charity R. Clark, Vermont Attorney General]: Oh, yeah. Because the rule is is really good and and very protective. So, yeah. So Gabriel is there. He's doing a great job. The next position you'll see it says zero, we have the money. Recall that you all passed an excellent restorative justice bill we loved and Will was very involved with. Again, the governor vetoed that saying that I didn't have the money and I did have the money and I wrote a letter and letting you know that no, that was fine, but I was going to need a position to help us run this statewide expanded program. This is that position. The woman who has filled it is very experienced and doing a wonderful job. We would love to make this a permanent position so we don't have to have this conversation every year. It is necessary to operate the program, which is an expansion to statewide. It also recall transferred from the Department of Corrections to our office, except the Department of Corrections money couldn't flow to us. I understand it's because that person who was there did other stuff as well. And it's important for geographic justice. But so one of the many reasons why we supported the bill in the first place, but we do need someone to like operate the program. So that's that. I'm feeling I'm starting to feel like I'm taking up too much time. So I don't know, just move me along. Okay. So this next one, we got some data for you that we thought you'd enjoy. Is the home improvement specialist by county. So you can find your county and see how you fare with the number of people every year and the number of dollars. And we can see that, I mean, it's kind of a chipping in not surprisingly is a lot of money and a lot of people. In 2025 though, they really, there's a lot of people. So just some information for you to walk through if I thought that you'd like that. Okay, the next slide is base reductions and funding increases. So we want to just unpack this a little bit for you. The first under base reductions is a software called CaseMap that is a very useful tool, but considering the amount of use it was getting, it was not worth the expense to us, so we were able to eliminate that expense. We also reduced the travel and communications costs. The funding increases we have, the general fund increased 9.2%, which we summarize on page two. I mentioned that there's some side boxes on page two that are helpful, case management system and the salaries and such. And then the consumer settlement fund spending authority increase. So I had referenced this earlier and we have a slide on this, but I'll just preview it for you. The consumer settlement funds, we obviously get a lot of money every year for the consumer settlement funds. This year, the governor's office has ok'd on us taking more of that than we normally do to kind of plug a budget shortfall, not a budget shortfall, but a lower amount of money that we normally were bringing in. Part of that is because I mentioned these consumer cases are take a long time, it's not like every year. So on average, it's a higher number than what we have this year. So we're kind of in a low year than we were last year and hopefully next year or the year before will be like up a lot. So there's that. And then the interdepartmental transfer increase I mentioned, that's increased due to the Pay Act and the salaries and benefits increasing. So I'm going keep trucking along unless there's questions. All right, so major areas of We're on page nine now. Major areas of increased expenditures. Have the Some of these I'm saying what I've already said. So just truly tell me to move on to the next slide. This is boring. The benefit rate increases I already mentioned, the annualization of pay act I already mentioned, and the case management software I already mentioned. The ADS internal service fund, you would ask Marcy about that, and that's something else that we've increased. The decrease is we had vacancy savings from increased payroll costs, which is great, and we discontinued the case mapping software that I mentioned. Now we have the slide where we really unpack things. This is where I look to Marcy to guide us.

[Marcy Hodgdon, Chief Financial Officer (Vermont Attorney General’s Office)]: Do you want me to go through them? They're

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Just let us know if there's anything in here that's, like, a large percentage or that you know, like, if we go through them, we're gonna wonder

[Marcy Hodgdon, Chief Financial Officer (Vermont Attorney General’s Office)]: The only thing that I would call out is the non the first non Browns Mhmm. Row, which is the other personal services, the $270,000 decrease in general fund. That's the 270,000 that you all added to our base budget last year for those two positions. And finance and management put them into the budgeting software system under this other personal services, so I had to take it out of there, and it's up in with all the salaries and stuff above it. So it's not it's not a real decrease. It's just reclassifying where it should have been.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: You know, did that vacancy savings seem low compared to other That's

[Marcy Hodgdon, Chief Financial Officer (Vermont Attorney General’s Office)]: just the change. Our vacancy savings rate is 7%.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Seven percent? And

[Marcy Hodgdon, Chief Financial Officer (Vermont Attorney General’s Office)]: actually, I'm on the first page and then the second page is the only increase in our operation, which we offset by some decreases is ADF.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Your ABS SLA here is going down.

[Marcy Hodgdon, Chief Financial Officer (Vermont Attorney General’s Office)]: Yes. Sorry. That goes down. It's up in the ABS allocation. Your SLA went down one forty and their allocation went down three forty.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Yeah. That's more similar to others. Okay. Alright.

[Charity R. Clark, Vermont Attorney General]: This has more information about the consumer assistance program or next slide.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: How many people work for that?

[Charity R. Clark, Vermont Attorney General]: Five. Some of them are UBM employees.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: So this

[Charity R. Clark, Vermont Attorney General]: is a partnership we have every other year, we have an MOU with UBM. It's located at UVM. We kinda rent space from UVM, and then they have some position. We have some positions. And if you are a UVM employee, you obviously get a free tuition for you you and your kids. Yeah.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: Yeah. So so there's a

[Charity R. Clark, Vermont Attorney General]: lot of, like, oh, only when I worked there. I was like, come on. I would love to get a master's degree in English for my former professor. So alas, I was a state employee, a proud state employee. So it's kind of a mix. But I think we have we have one lawyer gave.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Is it five total or five

[Charity R. Clark, Vermont Attorney General]: that It's something we share. No. It's five total. And some we have a sharing, so, like, we might pay for a portion and the PBM pays for a portion.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Can I write about the five?

[Marcy Hodgdon, Chief Financial Officer (Vermont Attorney General’s Office)]: I think so. She's Settings to the grad assistant. Lisa and Margaret. Margaret.

[Charity R. Clark, Vermont Attorney General]: And then we have a graduate assistant. Every two years we get a new one and that's great because they work there but they get a benefit and it's just a great program. Very we do a lot with a little there. It's a very in my opinion, very impressive

[Christopher Kaufman Ilstrup, Executive Director, Vermont Humanities]: work.

[Charity R. Clark, Vermont Attorney General]: So we I wanna make a distinguish between scams and complaints. Scams involve criminals who are almost always overseas trying to steal your money. Complaints are against legitimate businesses and you're disappointed things didn't go as you hoped, you feel like you got, you know, built out of your purchase. So our number one complaint is cars, no surprise because they're so expensive. Number two is home improvement. So you can see why I'm so passionate about this position because again, that also is very expensive. And look how much more, I mean, two things are huge. Rest combined are probably just approaching those. Retail is kind of a grab bag of, I bought a blender, it didn't work, they wouldn't take it back. Fuel, propane, huge. Obviously, don't need to tell you guys about propane, but we have a profile that's and a lot is very protective of consumers as it should be because it's life and death and for months, winters, of course. Entertainment, like ticket sales, stuff like that. Services would be as opposed to like a retail product. It's a service that you're buying. Home furnishings, there's special rules on home furnishings as well, many depending on is it PFAS, is it going out of business sale? I mean, there's a lot of rules that we have in the consumer space on that. Banking credit and finance, we obviously do a little bit of that work. The Department of Financial Regulation is doing a lot of that work for obvious reasons. And we collaborate with them on things and make referrals to them as well. Housing and real estate, and then health and medical, that could be like, you know, hearing aids, dentures, things like that. So those are our top complaint categories. I find this really interesting. There's also opportunities for legislation depending on if things aren't going as they should be. Yeah.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Let us know.

[Charity R. Clark, Vermont Attorney General]: So I'm curious about the so you have this this home improvement position. Yeah. And sounds like it's very successful, amazing, interested in that motor vehicles has a higher number of complaints. Yeah. I would you envision a similar position just to deal with motor vehicle motorized vehicles, or is it because of the nature of the home improvements that it needs some sort of like special expertise already or something? Have a unique program for for autos. So we work with with BADA, the Vermont Auto Dealers Association, and so they they obviously are the coalition of the dealers who are the ones being complained about. And so they it's been a good partnership for many years. And so we already kind of have a different mediation program with them. What we what I can tell you about the other categories, unlike motorized vehicles is I would say roughly half the time the business being complained of, we're not engaged with our office. There's nothing we can do if they're not gonna engage in our office. So we just have to, after three months of trying, we think that consumer, we're really sorry, we're gonna have to close this. That doesn't happen with cars because of this relationship with with beta. So that's another reason why there's so many complaints. It's expensive, and also people are getting results. So it's it's different where it's like, we tried and we couldn't they didn't respond to us and there's not a lot we can do. Mhmm. You know, this company bought this thing from in Pennsylvania or whatever is not gonna work out. Mhmm.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Wait. So we'll move you along a little bit. I have a question on on a slide 14 your draft apps. 2026, your projection for FY '27, or is that

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: something else?

[Marcy Hodgdon, Chief Financial Officer (Vermont Attorney General’s Office)]: The 2,000,000 is for '26

[Christopher Kaufman Ilstrup, Executive Director, Vermont Humanities]: that's in the budget

[Marcy Hodgdon, Chief Financial Officer (Vermont Attorney General’s Office)]: and then yeah and then the for

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: fiscal year '26 so it already happened so that's what you you direct that plus 2,000,000

[Marcy Hodgdon, Chief Financial Officer (Vermont Attorney General’s Office)]: it will be by the end of this fiscal year.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: FY27 would be it. I assume there's an estimate

[Christopher Kaufman Ilstrup, Executive Director, Vermont Humanities]: somewhere, another 2,000,000. I

[Charity R. Clark, Vermont Attorney General]: don't think I need to go to slide 13, the enforcement settlements. You guys know that we announced, we settled and then the money might not be there right away. So it's but call anytime if you're if you have questions or wanna know about timing, like, probably some I try to call you guys if, you know, I I call senator Baruth or Speaker of the House to give you a heads up with some of these, but it's not always neat with the timing. Any other questions on slide 14? So this is what I mentioned earlier with the consumer settlement, the one time utilization. In addition to what I talked about the consumer, the Medicaid Fraud and Residential Abuse Unit, not we, every state does this, and I think probably the minority of states do this, but we self fund, so we're eating what we kill or whatever that expression is. You got chuckle from the vegetarian. Am so I'm not afraid I normally use. But we are required if you want Medicaid and we do, we're required to pay for part of it. And we usually fund it ourselves. It's not perfect. And we have found ourselves with a lack of funding to do that. So thankfully, the administration has built that into the budget to give us time to sort out what this might look like going forward so that we can make sure we have a smooth, robust, healthy and for our program, and pay for our program. And that's what our plan is. And then the additional $461,000 is to cover this increase in salaries and the loss of federal funds. Mentioned the increase in salaries. I didn't mention the FTAP grant, Firearms Technical Assistance Program is a grant that we've been getting from the federal government. And one of our very experienced, very excellent, very highly regarded attorneys is in that position. But with the lack of funding, we need to keep her and her job. You had many years ago created the Domestic Violence Fatality Review Commission, the Attorney General chairs it. Obviously I'm not actually chairing it, she's the one chairing it. We give you a report every year as you know, and that is the money that we need to make sure that that position continues without the loss of federal funding. The next slide is just sort of highlights with money that we're bringing in through consumer settlements. I'm gonna focus on the FY twenty six year to date, which is a couple months old at this point, but Juul Labs, this is a consumer recovery related to their marketing to kids. It's sort of another one of those structured settlements where we're getting money every year. Johnson and Johnson was a settlement related to talc. Walgreens, good old weights and measures, shout out to the Agency of Agriculture. And Angie was a website that was saying like, there were certifying professions that aren't really certified. The Airlines Reporting Corp was an unregistered data broker in 2018, they all passed the data broker registry, unregistered data brokers are violating the Consumer Protection Act. So that's where that came from. Baxter Healthcare was the prescribed products gift ban violation. And then Rogue One paving, obviously a smaller amount of recoveries, but that was deception with regards to paving. So that's the And then we recovered $2,600,000 lot of the Every single one of these cases was, I believe, unless I'm wrong about Walgreens, was brought under a previous attorney general. So it takes a long time to recover these. So we hopefully will see recoveries from the Clark administration soon. But where these are from, I think these are all from the Dunnevin administration. We might still have some Searle. We certainly have tobacco. Was Anne's story at Searle. The next is Oh, tobacco. Speaking of, the Tobacco Litigation Settlement Fund is something that we always like to highlight for you. This settlement fund was started in Well, the settlement was in 1998. Every year as you can see, we get $25.22000000. There was a ten year period where we got an additional, you see the top from 2017 strategic payment of $11,000,000 That was because we were on the executive committee. For ten years of the multi state, for ten years, we got like roughly an additional $10,000,000 So it was $100,000,000 essentially that we got because we're on the executive committee, which means we were doing more work and we were leading the efforts strategically, etc. So we have Jeffrey Amsdoy and Bill Searle to thank for that money. You'll see a bump in 2021, 2022, 2023. That is because in the pandemic people started smoking more. And I guess I'm happy to see that the number is down, but that is the reason why people are stopping their pandemic smoking, which is great. I had Mercy run this number because I was curious since this started, we have now the state of Vermont recovered over $800,000,000 through these tobacco settlements. And as long as people keep smoking, basically we will keep recovering money in various amounts. That's the tobacco fund.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Because it's connected to the

[Charity R. Clark, Vermont Attorney General]: sales in Vermont. Nationally. Yeah. And then there's a calculation.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: So if the Vermont just could stop smoking, they're getting money.

[Charity R. Clark, Vermont Attorney General]: It's still good. We would we would Like nationally there. We would save money from the tobacco fund. We would we would lose my tobacco fund and save money in our home care system. So, yes, please stop smoking. I would love to come here and be like, bad news about the tobacco fund. That would make me really happy.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: And this is gonna continue

[Christopher Kaufman Ilstrup, Executive Director, Vermont Humanities]: in perpetuity or? Yes.

[Charity R. Clark, Vermont Attorney General]: Okay. Yes, in perpetuity. That's right. So mixed feelings about that slide. The next slide is our environmental settlements. You will see these are much lower than the consumer settlements. In part that's because these are mostly farms. A lot of the work that we do, which are referrals from the agency of natural resources, by the way. If you're curious about '26, the St. Albans Creamery was about dairy processing. Desmarias, I don't know how to pronounce that, was a junkyard. So that's where those monies came from, these settlements came from. And you can see the note about usually they're going to the general fund or they're going to ANR. These are referrals from ANR. We do have authority and we do bring our own environmental cases, but this list is mostly the referrals from ANR. So they might send us a tricky case. They have their own lawyers too but The next slide is about M FRAW, the Medicaid Parrotting Residential Abuse Unit. The work that we do with M Prow obviously is protecting Medicaid dollars. However, it's also protecting the most vulnerable for vouchers, people who are in assisted living, long term care type situations. And so in addition to bringing money and saving money, we also are protecting Vermonters and I think that that's really important to highlight. There's a revenue sharing that the MOU we have with the federal government or the DIVA is additional penalties or recoveries less the relator, the whistleblower who brings the case are split fiftyfifty, something to keep in mind. And in criminal cases, these are civil and criminal work done by the Medicaid Fraud Unit, criminal is not something that's driven by recoveries financially. So that's not something that you're gonna really see. It's more the civil settlements that are bringing in.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: Any questions about M FRAW? So

[Charity R. Clark, Vermont Attorney General]: here we have some actual money related to M FRAW, the number of cases. M Brow had, I think, two or three lawyers and then a financial investigator and then I think a regular investigator, two investigators

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: in M Browne.

[Marcy Hodgdon, Chief Financial Officer (Vermont Attorney General’s Office)]: Yeah, two FirstNet and one second. Yeah, Yes.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: So there's that.

[Charity R. Clark, Vermont Attorney General]: So the complex litigation fund, we have this year up to 300,000 projected total utilization that is due to the Climate Superfund case and also the Courthouse News case that I'm sure you've read about in the paper. We are defending both of those. And expert witnesses are a large driver of the use. We also sometimes have counsel that we need to hire to do that. But I would say that expert witnesses are a major item and sometimes mental health expert witnesses, obviously they're highly educated, highly compensated. So if you're wondering about that fund, that's where that's coming from. Then we have court diversion. And I'd love to turn things over to Willa to walk through this. Willa, do you want to come up?

[Christopher Kaufman Ilstrup, Executive Director, Vermont Humanities]: Good

[Director of Court Diversion and Pretrial Services (Vermont Attorney General’s Office)]: afternoon. My name is Philip Baruth. I'm the Court Diversion and Pre Child Services Director in the Attorney General's office. I'll just speak briefly about the work of court diversion or the budget of the court diversion of pretrial services. So last year first I want to thank the legislature and there were some key senators on this committee who really ensured that we received the funding we need to launch pre charge diversion statewide in addition to the position that the attorney general referenced earlier. So this year has really been a year of starting to launch and expand precharge diversion, which had existed in the previous iteration, but not codified under the Department of Collections. Really, before I go further, I just want to also name that through the grants that we fund to organizations, there's a county based organization in each county, We have over 80 people doing this work. FTEs is probably about 53. And many of you know these individuals who are super committed, dedicated, restorative justice professionals. And we sit here and talk about numbers, but it's really the work of those individuals that makes the difference in the lives of victims and really helps hold people accountable and responsible for their actions. We need to focus on numbers, but I cannot speak about the work, the people who do the work. So

[Charity R. Clark, Vermont Attorney General]: this year, our focus has

[Director of Court Diversion and Pretrial Services (Vermont Attorney General’s Office)]: been on rolling out and launching a new program with our partners. For example, we've met a number of times with the Center for Cognitive Services. We meet with the Department of State's terms and sheriffs, the Defender General to really get the input of all the stakeholders from this new process. Really could not have done this work without an assistant director. Kelly Arons was hired at the September. She's coming up on her six month probation. I'm really looking forward to writing that performance evaluation because she's really well received and she's visited all the sites. She's already provided programmatic feedback, both positive and also, like, some suggestions about how to improve the work at the local level. Another area we can focus on is data. We're working with a primary search group to look at the program outcomes that we currently track and how could we what data should we be using? Will you use the same case management system that the attorney general referred to earlier? And how do we should we be having different data? What do these how do we really document the quality of the work being done? And the assistance of primary research group has really been invaluable in those that planning work. I think I would just highlight a few things from Kelly's site visits and affirmation about the value of precharge diversion being really a swift response, swift and direct response, which is particularly important right now in the court backlogs, which is a a separate topic. Really, the value of the ongoing connection and relationship building with stakeholders. I was speaking with Sandra Norris before the hearing commenced about how I had seen that really grow in his county in particular. And certainly, that's true of other places around the state. They have a strong desire to strengthen the victim engagement work that we're doing, really elevate, and I think that's something that ACT 180, which you all passed two years ago, highlighted and brought to the forefront. That Kelly has been a really good insight on how to do that. And then we're just doing some really basic, more bureaucratic, but really enhancing and revitalizing our manuals so that they're useful for other programs. We use SharePoint. We have access to that. We have a really solid group of partners statewide, and we're very appreciative for the support. And the governor has proposed a 3% increase to the appropriation, which is about 138,000.

[Marcy Hodgdon, Chief Financial Officer (Vermont Attorney General’s Office)]: So we

[Director of Court Diversion and Pretrial Services (Vermont Attorney General’s Office)]: look forward to continuing good work next year. Okay. You. Questions. It's supporting work for sure. Yes. Quick question. Do you what relationship do you have with our community justice centers? So we many of the organizations we fund are community justice centers. There's a sort of growing evolution in terminology whether people organizations call themselves community justice center or restorative justice center. Mhmm. Some of them, like in Lamoille, used to be a Lamoille County Court diversion. Now it's the Lamoille Restorative Center. So there's a in most but not all counties, there's one move organization that receives funding from the Attorney General's Office, Department of Corrections, and Department for Children and Families that has some name that people may call a CJC. And there are a couple of counties, notably Chittenden County, Windsor County, and Winder County where there is more than one organization. From Caledonia County, which is County. Caledonia County has it is a little complicated. There's Northeast Community Action, which serves three counties, and then there's also a community justice center in Saint Johnsbury that we fund for Caledonia and Essex County. It's a lovely map. I'd be happy to we're working on visuals to try to make it a little better. Thank you. Great.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Well, we have to move along with other testimony.

[Director of Court Diversion and Pretrial Services (Vermont Attorney General’s Office)]: Anything else? No. That's it. Thank you so much for having us in. And if you have

[Charity R. Clark, Vermont Attorney General]: any questions for any of us, we're happy to come back or write you a note.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Great. Awesome. Thank you. Thanks for your good work. Okay. Humanities and historical society. I was afraid you were gonna get bumped again. Was like Get close. You're gonna I don't know if people wanna go up or just go one at a time. Whatever you wanna do.

[Stephen Perkins, Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society]: Chris has got a really good wrap up, so I'll go.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Okay. Good. We're expecting a lot now.

[Christopher Kaufman Ilstrup, Executive Director, Vermont Humanities]: That's okay. Secretary Philip Baruth is after she Shenzoll. Okay.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: I am curious before you start,

[Christopher Kaufman Ilstrup, Executive Director, Vermont Humanities]: I think it was you last time brought in some kind of did. I

[Stephen Perkins, Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society]: I brought in a cane. I was going to bring it back again today, but we're actually getting it x rayed up at Central Vermont Medical Center. It was a cane with a bullet in it that was fired during the Saint Albans raid. Wow. Oh, neat. Yeah. It's it's gonna be part of an exhibit that we have coming up.

[Christopher Kaufman Ilstrup, Executive Director, Vermont Humanities]: Bull is still in it. Bullet's still

[Stephen Perkins, Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society]: in it. That's why we were x raying it. We're trying to figure out the caliber of of the bullet. Coffin is working with us on the on the scholarship to Somebody had saved it all. He he donated to the society. Donated to the society. Yeah. 1,900. The gentleman who was using it, it was a retirement gift to him from the railroad he worked for, the the Temple of Vermont Railroad, which is based out of Saint Albans. And he was walking to the bank the day that the raiders came down from Canada and were shooting up Main Street and the cane took a hit, but

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: he did not. Wow.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: It's not a retirement gift you hear about. Can we can we make that? Is there a

[Stephen Perkins, Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society]: pool or anything about double caliber? I have a guess. It's a 50 caliber round ball. That'd be my guess. It's gonna be smaller than that. Is it? Yeah.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: Oh, I was gonna say a

[Stephen Perkins, Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society]: little bit We think it's about 20 caliber, it's probably shot. Pistol. A pistol or they loaded one of the muskets with a scattershot of Oh, yeah. Of some sort. That's interesting. So

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: yeah. A

[Stephen Perkins, Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society]: small bit of what we do. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good example. Yeah. Yeah. Shall I get started?

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Yeah. Introduce yourself.

[Stephen Perkins, Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society]: Sure. Steven Perchance. I'm the executive director of the Vermont Historical Society. Thank you very much for having me. I just wanted to start off. I sent a cover letter. We have all the materials. I'm a little old fashioned today. I'm not going to use the the PowerPoint. You have our budget in front of you and actually have a few more artifacts to talk about in support of the testimony. You heard from Susan Evan Pipour about a week and a half ago and introduced that as the four arts organizations that traditionally receive appropriations from the state of Vermont that we're asking for an additional 10% for all of us collectively. I just said it. I had it written out really nicely. But this is in support of organizations affiliated with federal agencies such as NEA, NEH, and IMLS, which face unprecedented reductions and rescissions from the current federal administration. So you have the governor's recommendation. We are recommending a total appropriation of Vermont Historical Society of 1,370,141 and that's 10% on top of the governor's number.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: With the governor's number, I screwed just the 3%? It was

[Stephen Perkins, Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society]: just the 3%. It's it's like 3.6% because a portion of that supports the fee for space, which is a pass through with the museum here at the Pavilion Building. So it is a little tad higher than 3%. As I said in my letter here, entering an era where understanding and preservation of history is more critical than ever. Vermont historical society is handcuffed by unavailable federal funding, as well as statutory requirements for operations. Vermont statutes did grow more rapidly than 3% year over year. For us, requests for curriculum assistance, classroom education kits, and special programs are at an all time high. Our school visit reservations to the History Museum for this year, 2026, are up 139% over last year. And our flagship program Vermont History Day will break participation records in April with thousands of people at St. Michael's College on April 11. So that is to say that the work of not only us, but the entire cultural sector is more important than ever. I know I haven't spoken before this group for a few years here, but just as a reminder, Vermont Historical Society was created by an act of the legislature in 1838. And there are a number of statutes that govern what the historical society does and how we operate. We were created and ultimately kind of filled that void in a state that doesn't have a state museum or a state historian, or at this point state research library. Those are functions that we provide for for the state of Vermont. In exchange for that, obviously, wonderful support from the state for our operations. There are a number of statutes that also define how we operate. It comes down to funding. A couple of those are around personnel. So we must treat all of our staff as if they were state employees. So they receive all, they're graded, receive all pay increases, they receive state health care, required to be a part of the pension program. So as you know, all of those things are very expensive for a nonprofit to fund. You have only about 50% of our operating income comes from the state of Vermont. So that's kind of the pickle that we're in off just on a year to year basis. Because our personnel costs grow faster than 3%. We build in a 3% increase in appropriation, yet that appropriation is only 50% of our of our operating. So we have to constantly make up for that through fundraising, grant writing, that sort. And we've been very successful in the past few years, but we are looking at a decline in federal support going forward. And also just there's donor fatigue right now for because everybody in the cultural sector, well, in many sectors need that support. So the it's hard for that that philanthropic sector of Vermont to keep up with that increasing costs as well. So that that's kind of what drives our budget year in year out. I wish it was more proactive things, but we provide what we provide and hope to do better and do more. I'm gonna pause there if there are any questions on the budget itself, and then I have a couple of examples to talk about. The core part of our our program that's enshrined in statute and then the outreach and and curriculum part that I think is very important.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: So you have the annual fund, but then you also have the state funding? Yes. What is the difference between the various sources of state funding?

[Stephen Perkins, Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society]: We receive a state operating appropriation. That's the money and then the pay act supplement because our employees are subject to state requirements that we received from the state. So the the annual fund is not state funding? It is not state funding at all. If you're looking at our annual report, yes. Annual fund is what our members and donors give to us on a regular basis. And restricted contributions are similar, but if we're aware that was just for a specific restricted Exactly. If a donor says I I really wanna support this book or this exhibit that they would restrict their donations to that. Those are somewhat fluid and we we kind of add them together to look at the total that we need when we get through the year.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: So you do have just one reserve account? I could reference as a rainy day fund once. I think you referred to it just reserve account maybe in another place. Yeah.

[Stephen Perkins, Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society]: And then in our earlier, we would like to create a reserve account. We do not have one right now and it's actually not built into the the budget that you have in front of you. Are you talking about taking money out of

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: the rainy day fund? We have Or negative 250,000 net income?

[Stephen Perkins, Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society]: Yes. So we have a number of funds.

[Christopher Kaufman Ilstrup, Executive Director, Vermont Humanities]: Senator, I think you're actually looking at the humanities.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Oh, am I looking at your oh, I am.

[Stephen Perkins, Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society]: Okay. Thank you. I was Sure. Okay. We have submitted a reserve fund to the governor, and it was taken out of our budget. So I was like,

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: maybe you've got a Yeah. Yeah. Was thinking it's the wrong one. Okay. Sure.

[Christopher Kaufman Ilstrup, Executive Director, Vermont Humanities]: 250 number is familiar to me. I'll tell

[Stephen Perkins, Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society]: you that. Okay. Yeah. We do show some we do show some deficits. So Okay. You know, with with with just a 3% increase, we will have over a $100,000 deficit that we will have to fill somehow, whether that's from cuts or, you know, rating of some funds. We have invested funds. We have a very small endowment, it's about $3,000,000, and there's a complex way that we take money from that. And then there's special funds, you know, somebody has passed away and left money for publications or museums and stuff that sort of thing. You see that on transfers and down and plus other on our submitted budget. Okay.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Okay. What are your other show and tell items?

[Stephen Perkins, Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society]: Well, I brought show and tell. Rather than bringing showing you pictures, I thought I'd bring actual artifacts to kind of represent the important piece of pieces of Vermont history that we have. We have over 30,000 artifacts in the collection, over 50,000 archival groups. We'll call it that that's letters and diaries and books and whatnot relating to the state of Vermont. And we we take care of those. We have staff that's trained to take care of those and keep them in a specialized kind of controlled building. But that doesn't mean anything. We can't get them out and use them in a way that benefits Vermauthers and more and more that is education curriculum that we're being asked for. So what I'm gonna pass around now, this is what what has been called a slave narrative. It is the memoir of a formerly enslaved man, Jeffrey Grace, who was kidnapped from Africa as a teenager. He was an enslaved sailor during the French and Indian War. He was then enslaved in Connecticut, and then he was a sailor in the continental navy, and that earned him his freedom. And he moved to Vermont. He lived in Pulteney and then Saint Albans and ultimately Georgia, Vermont. He died blind, but he dictated his life story and it was taken down and printed up. There are only two copies of this left. And we have one. It's been conserved and available for researchers to use. You it. May Yeah. That's why we had it conserved as long as you don't have like, you know, ice cream all over your fingers

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: or something.

[Stephen Perkins, Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society]: You're you're okay. Just be careful with it. That's a very powerful art artifact and something that we use in our teaching. We have curriculum that's designed around that and other materials relating to his story and similar stories. And that's gonna be part of an exhibit and book that we're producing 50 for '2 50 where we tell Vermont two fifty years of Vermont history through artifacts. Another artifact that I just grabbed out of the museum, that's from the other direction. So look really closely at that. That is a powder horn, I have to look at my notes here, that was made by Efren Duel, d u e l l, if I'm pronouncing his name correctly, who was a prisoner of war. He he was from Vermont and he fought in the French and Indian war, and then he fought in the American revolution on on the colonist side. And excuse me. And then he was a POW. He carved or inked this powder horn while he was a prisoner of war. And it shows the map a map of the northern area of the continent everywhere from Louisbourg in Nova Scotia all the way down to New York City, then the areas that he served during the French and Indian War and then the American Revolution. So, it's an amazing artifact. It's an amazing visual artifact. And one of the artifacts that we can use to tell the story of American soldiers in the colonial period and then the American Revolution.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: This is invaluable. It is. It is. Yeah. So when I was growing up, my grandfather had one of these that would sit next to the bed I slept in in the house, And it was carved by my great great great great great somebody, Nathaniel Hayden, who was in the revolutionary war and the French and Indian or French and India, I think he was. But this is unbelievable carving.

[Stephen Perkins, Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society]: It's really spectacular.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: He had very primitive art art on his as well. That's neat. Yeah. I love that. It's beautiful.

[Stephen Perkins, Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society]: And so these are the types of things that we ask students at this, and really anybody, students of life, be inspired by, to think about our history as Vermonters and as part of The United States. And it's the sort of thing that students work with as well. We have a fellowship program for high school students in the summer where they actually work with artifacts and produce small exhibits. Two of our previous we call them Geiger fellows from the person who funded it, wrote essays for the book that we're producing this year. So the 50 essays aren't just by scholars. We also have essays for students as well.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Great. Thank you for bringing the museum. That's amazing.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: This is fabulous. Do the kids actually read sections of this?

[Stephen Perkins, Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society]: Or We do. There's a modern reprint that a scholar did through the University of Wisconsin that that students can work with. But we do it's of our library and you can come to our library at the history center in Barrie and access these materials. Probably not the powder horn, that's in a case in the museum. But materials like this, documentary materials are available to the public to come and use.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: So when was it printed? 1810, I believe. 1810. Still has the s's for the f's?

[Stephen Perkins, Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society]: Does. Yeah. They reuse reuse the saved type to Neat. Use those extra f's.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Yeah. For

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: the birch bark cover.

[Stephen Perkins, Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society]: It's a bark cover. It used to be covered with leather. We had it when we had it restored well, conserved, the leather didn't survive. Yeah. Yeah.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Thank you. Any other questions? What is that made out

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: Horn. Horn.

[Stephen Perkins, Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society]: It's just a A cow horn.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Cow horn. Yeah. And it was a horn, but they

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: You know the pictures of those cows? Oh, yeah. Like, long

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: horn on the lawn. Not quite that big.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: So what part of Vermont was he from?

[Stephen Perkins, Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society]: He ended up in the islands. Oh, he did? He well, originally, when he was in the French and Indian war, he's from Connecticut, but then he he moved to Vermont as much of the migration from the South happened. Yeah. And then after the revolution, he was given land in the islands, which also was very common. That's why they were called the heroes. And so much of those islands, Vermont gave to the gave to revolutionary war veterans. What was the last name again? Duel, d u e l l.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: Do we have any Duel?

[Stephen Perkins, Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society]: I may not be pronouncing that correctly.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Thank you. Unless anybody has any other questions.

[Christopher Kaufman Ilstrup, Executive Director, Vermont Humanities]: He did that too well. So I don't think.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Thank you.

[Stephen Perkins, Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society]: Thank you very much.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: Job. Not very soon.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: I'm gonna sit here for bit. You wanna. Okay. Now we'll basically do it. Thank you. That came out.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: Will you share with us when you find out about the caliber bullets?

[Stephen Perkins, Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society]: I will. Thank you, probably. I'll make a note too. Right? And what Howard said.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: It'll

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: be it'll be a headline for sure.

[Stephen Perkins, Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society]: It'll be a disaster. We're very excited to see the hospital was so excited. We had an entire expert department in there.

[Christopher Kaufman Ilstrup, Executive Director, Vermont Humanities]: They probably don't get to do fun things like that.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: Put it in the Vaz newsletter.

[Charity R. Clark, Vermont Attorney General]: Take one and pass it. Oh, thank you.

[Christopher Kaufman Ilstrup, Executive Director, Vermont Humanities]: I'll just say these file folders were made before Doge. Just so you know. Some of the things that are in there, you're gonna find familiar. Other things, not so much. And I'll tell you a little bit about that as we go. Thanks for having us. My name is Christopher Kaufman, I'll strip I'm the Executive Director at Vermont Humanities. It has been quite a year for those of us who are affiliated with the federal cultural agencies, the NEA and the NIH, the National Endowment for the Humanities. You're probably aware that we are the sister agency to the Vermont Arts Council, just as the National Endowment for the Arts is a sister agency to the National Endowment for the Humanities. Traditionally, for about fifty, sixty years now, funding has flowed from the federal government to the Humanities Councils in all 56 states and jurisdictions around the country. But in April 2025, two 21 year old Doge employees entered, is this grant DEI into their chatbot and canceled over 1,400 National Endowment for the Humanities grants, including all 56 state humanities councils general operating support grants. We have filed a lawsuit and won a preliminary injunction, but that does not turn our funding back on. It will likely be a number of years before the lawsuit over FY '25 funding is finally settled, hopefully in our favor. We are now in federal fiscal year FY '26 in February, about well, actually late January, just about a month ago, the Congress did pass and the President signed a budget that once again included funding for the NEA and the NEH. But there has been no sign from the NEH that they are actually intending to follow through on that appropriation either. So as of right at this moment, Vermont Humanities has planned and passed a budget for this year that contains zero federal funding for the foreseeable future. I think one of the things that's important that we talk about is that the reason why the NEH exists and the reason why we're here talking to legislature and of course the governor's office is because we believe that democracy should be supporting arts and humanities work around the nation. In 1965, when the NEH was founded during the Great Society initiatives of Leonard H. Johnson, some of the language that was used then is really relevant to today. So I just wanted to read a little bit of that. Congress finds and declares that the arts and humanities reflect the high place accorded by the American people to the nation's rich cultural heritage and to the fostering of mutual respect for the diverse beliefs and values of all persons and groups. And the world leadership, which has come to The United States, cannot rest solely upon superior power, wealth and technology, but must be solidly founded upon worldwide respect and admiration for the nation's high qualities as a leader in the realm of ideas and the spirit. We have done our best over the last fifty one years to embody that directive from Congress. We've been grateful to the legislature for carrying us through for many years with additional support from the state. Not every state and jurisdiction does get state support and we're grateful for that support that you've been offering for about thirty years now. As we like to say, the humanities come to life through our connection with each other. They've helped us achieve a better understanding of the past, a stronger analysis of the present, and a more hopeful vision for the future. The column of words down below is the value set that we abide by in our work, and that we are always looking to to guide us as we do our work around the state of Vermont. We work in six areas, community leadership and civic engagement, Vermont Reads, it's our signature program, our public lectures and discussions which support primarily public libraries and historical societies around the state. Our early literacy training programs for the youngest among us, our community grant making programs, and more recently in the climate resilience and adaptation work for the cultural sector around the state. So in community leadership, we're active in all 14 counties. We participate as leaders and bring that public humanities perspective to many different organizations and coalitions. We are part of with Steve and the Historical Society, the Vermont two hundred fiftieth Commission. We were part of the legislative working group on the status of libraries in Vermont appointed by the House leadership. We are part of the Vermont Creative Network run by the Vermont Arts Council. And we work very closely with secretary Copeland Hansis on her civics programming, including the comic book resources that were jointly produced by Vermont Humanities and the Secretary of State that you find in your packet. And I hope you know that we have thousands of extra copies across the street at Sarah's office or I think with the state curator. If you want to bring comics or maps home with you for town meeting day, please do so. We encourage you to use them. We're also part of the Snellen Center's Vermont Institute for the Public Humanities to that. We work on the Vermont Council on Rural Development and we're on the steering committee of the Vermont Arts and Culture Disaster and Resilience Network, which supports efforts again in climate change, resilience and adaptation, as well as other kinds of disasters like Doge. Vermont Reads is our signature program. It's the thing that you most probably know about. If you know anything about Vermont Humanities, it's where we choose one book every year. We encourage communities around the state to read that book together and to do activities in their community that relate to the theme of the book. This is a picture from an event that happened at the Fletcher Free Library in Burlington during our work with Ken Caddo's Gather. It was a conversation about fair housing issues in Vermont. So we really try and connect the humanities to public policy issues that are important around the state and get people talking to each other in a way that they might not normally have the opportunity to interact. Program has grown really considerably in recent years. The last four years are the top three books in the history, in the twenty five year history of the program. That's Gather number one by Ken Kato. It had 138 community projects across Vermont. The current book, The Light Pirate, 109 community projects across the state of Vermont. We've got four more months to go. And then El Yaje Mascaro, The Book of Oral Histories about migrant farm workers in Vermont was number three. That was our 2022 book. I will say that this is the point in the presentation where I would normally be handing you a book, But I don't have any more books and I can't buy any more books because of our budget situation with the federal government. So I apologize if I ever get my hands on The Light Pirate, I will bring you some. It's a wonderful book. You can get it out of your public library. They might even have a reminder that they can give to you if you like. Carrying on our public lectures and discussions this year, we're really focused on America February and really trying to provide the opportunity both to look back at the revolutionary war period through partnerships with places like the Lake Champton Maritime Museum, but also to look look into the present and into the future. What is coming next for America. So we have a bunch of talks, for example, about how do we apply the Bill of Rights today? The scholar Meg Mott from Putnam. Is that Bill Gates? That is not Bill Gates. That is an empty Anderson. It looks like Vermont National Book Award winner. Tobin. Tobin did one of our young adult residencies with us this past year. He's from Callis. He is astonishingly great You writer. If you haven't read his book, The Astonishing Life of Octavia Nothing Traitor to the Nation, it's a great book to read in its two hundred and fiftieth year about a young person in the Revolutionary War. A few years ago we realized that we were not really providing opportunities to bring authors to middle and high school audiences. Primarily our author programs were for adults, usually pretty gray haired adults. And so we've really put a lot of energy and effort into bringing You authors into residency in schools. Is that aligned to get signatures? That is aligned to get signatures on his most recent book. And just to say, just a brief story on how much I love Tobin and Vermonters. We didn't have any money to buy the book his residency for his students. And he went out and to the Children's Literacy Foundation down the street and wrote a grant himself to get copies of the books for the students that were gonna be at his residency. So that's why the sign behind him says thank you book. And that's been really true all across this terrible year for us, that people have come through in ways really big and small. And we hope you will too. Our early literacy programming is perhaps our quietest programming in terms of its public face. Most people don't know that we do this, but we train early educators, primarily home daycare owners across the state all year long. We are running online programs every month for them. We do two conferences a year to bring primarily younger women running their own businesses together through our Never Too Early program. We also do training for early literacy and libraries for children's librarians. And up in Burlington, we work with the family written to provide training for parents, primarily refugee and immigrant parents with Operative Literacy Principles. And for all of those groups, they get books when they come so that they can take books home with them. And for many families, they might not actually have any budget for books. So getting a book from us at a trainee might be the only book that comes. Grant making is now our biggest piece of work. We run project grants up to $5,000 rapid response grants that you can get anytime within a month for up to $1,000 And partnership grants, which is a three year commitment of up to $10,000 for a smaller number of groups that are very closely aligned with our work. I wanted to just read to you three examples of project grants from this year. Organization called Treleven in Virgins started a program called Fireside Friends. And we made a grant of $3,000 to encourage young people to create graphic depictions of the issues most on their minds, current culture, threats to democracy, environmental challenges, changing self image, and pair that with historical and participatory learning. Here in Washington County, although it's a statewide organization, we funded Up For Learning for a program called Strengthening Youth Voice in Vermont's Democracy. It's $5,000 to engage youth and adults in dialogue, research, storytelling to elevate youth voice, build civic leadership, and reimagine decision making, strengthening civic health and intergenerational democracy in Vermont. And then finally, the Vermont Abernathy Artists Association, also a statewide organization. We funded work to interpret the exhibition War and Peace. This is a two hundred fiftieth grant, dollars 5,000 for an exhibit that explores Abenaki life during the colonial and revolutionary era, highlighting diplomacy, divided loyalties, and daily survival. Abenaki scholars are shaping the interpretive content to share with museum audiences out of the Ethan Allen Homestead Museum in Burlington. Climate resilience and adaptation coming to a close I think. Yeah. This is a picture from a grant that we made last fall in October as part of our fall festival on climate resilience. The festival was called Resilient Patterns. It built off themes in the Light Pirate, is a book about climate change and climate disaster. This was a nature walk at the Sage Mountain Botanical Sanctuary in Orange County, where folks came together, learned about different resilience strategies in Vermont specifically. There is an article by the way in your packet that was in the Rutland Herald just about ten days ago about the Light Pirate and the climate change and resilience work that's happening through Otter Valley High School's Vermont Readings Project. So recommend that you check that out. We're thankful. We're very, very thankful. This is a picture from Getty to the Funnery, which is one of our summer humanities camps. Happens to be a Shakespeare camp. Last year's play was Macbeth. I'll let you draw your own conclusions on that. And that's my information. Feel free to connect with me. As Steve said, launching and as Susan said about ten days ago, we all have been under extraordinary pressure as I know you have been as well. And as I know the state has been as a whole, we know that you can't replace our federal funding. We know that that's unreasonable. It's $630,000 for us just for last year. It's close to a million dollars for this year. We know that that is not something that you can do. We will continue to fight that battle. But if you can see your way clear to a 10% increase for the four cultural agencies, we would really, really appreciate that symbolic step in our direction towards acknowledging the importance of arts, culture, humanities, history for democracy. It's a really it would be a really significant show of support. We thank you very much for your consideration. Would you like me to take any questions?

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: One year was your lawsuit against the cancellation of your grand last year, one of the 42 that the Attorney General was a part of?

[Christopher Kaufman Ilstrup, Executive Director, Vermont Humanities]: Oh, that's a great question. It's actually not. Although Attorney General Clark and her team were really, really helpful. Also, they worked a lot with the Attorney General's office in Minnesota and in Oregon. They ultimately determined that the private lawsuit was the way that we needed to go. Because although we exist in statute, we are not technically a state organization and they can really only defend state government. So what ended up happening is Oregon Humanities filed a lawsuit on behalf of all of us in Oregon District Court. We held oral arguments last August and two days later the judge issued an 80 page decision that really walloped the government. It's entertaining reading. If you want to go check it out, it really goes deep into the history of the National Endowment for the Humanities, and why the grants were unlocked, why the cancellation of the grants was unlawful. And you're

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: not holding your breath to receive the money

[Christopher Kaufman Ilstrup, Executive Director, Vermont Humanities]: any day. Not anytime soon. We're we're we're planning on zero. What I've been saying is, I'll believe in any money from the federal government when it's in my bank account and I've already spent it. So for now, we're self sustaining and we're smaller because of it.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Oh, wait. So the question I was they

[Christopher Kaufman Ilstrup, Executive Director, Vermont Humanities]: could try and claw back.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: They could. Actually spent. Yeah. The question I tried to ask is, do you have it? So you have a reserve fund? Do.

[Christopher Kaufman Ilstrup, Executive Director, Vermont Humanities]: Yeah, so you'll see in the budget that I've submitted that it shows a negative $250,000. Right. That is from our reserve funds, but it's a very specific part of our reserve funds. The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation last year after Doge came forward with a really, really significant over $50,000,000 commitment to give $250,000 to each of the 56 councils around the country. We did not need to use our $250,000 in 2025. So we saved it for 2026. We will not have it in 2027,

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: but that'll make that year quite difficult. That's the extent of your rainy day fund.

[Christopher Kaufman Ilstrup, Executive Director, Vermont Humanities]: It's not the extent of our rainy day fund. We do have more and we do have a cash flow plan that should take us through the end of the current administration with careful budgeting without us ending up broke. But it requires us to be constantly hustling for private dollars coming to you and asking if you would consider a little bit in these times. Great.

[Sen. Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Thank you. Thanks for your work.

[Christopher Kaufman Ilstrup, Executive Director, Vermont Humanities]: Yeah. Thank you for having us. And if you ask Elise to come in, she might bring a cello player. Wow. So consider that. From

[Charity R. Clark, Vermont Attorney General]: us, I

[Christopher Kaufman Ilstrup, Executive Director, Vermont Humanities]: think the orchestra, I think it's the only one you haven't seen yet.