Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Jane Stetter (Budget Director, Green Mountain Care Board)]: We are live.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: We are a court Senate appropriations.

[Scott Giles (President and CEO, Vermont Student Assistance Corporation)]: We are

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: March 24, we're going through FY '27 budget request. We have the crime victims. What am I calling yeah. Crime victim services with us this today this afternoon. So welcome. I'll let you introduce yourself for the record and give us your presentation.

[Jennifer Pullman (Executive Director, Vermont Center for Crime Victim Services)]: Good afternoon, senators. My name is Jennifer Pullman. I'm the executive director of the Vermont Center for Crime Victim Services. Good afternoon. My name is Carol Brochlik, and I am the director of finance and administration.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: We

[Jennifer Pullman (Executive Director, Vermont Center for Crime Victim Services)]: have a very informal presentation. Sent on the documents, but we are not, of the level of PowerPoint. We're very small. And so we did send out our documents and our ask is very straightforward. And if it is sufficient for the committee and for the chair, we would like to frame what our ask is, provide some context for that ask, and then be available for questions. Does that sound?

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Well,

[Jennifer Pullman (Executive Director, Vermont Center for Crime Victim Services)]: as some of you may know, the Center for Crime Victim Services is established as a state agency or one of those quasi state agencies in statute under 13 VSA 5,003 and '61. So we, again, are a state agency. We have mandated responsibilities, but we are not state employees. And that does have implications in terms of our ask and our expenses in how we are funded. Our request is very simple and it will be what's reflected in what comes over to you from the House unless there's major changes on the floor. We had asked for a 3% increase in our base general fund budget, which amounted to $49,500 That was our 3% that we received and it was in the governor's recommend. We'd also asked in that initial request for an additional $100,000 to our base because as we'll speak about, we provide over $2,000,000 of grants out to programs and state special funds and general fund dollars that we do not receive any administrative support to provide. That's been over a decade that we have done that work for free basically. So, we were looking for a simple 5% that's less than what we would get at the federal level and less than actually we'd be entitled to under regulations, which allow for 10%. We're asking 5% to help us to continue to do this work that's been unfunded. That was an additional $100,000 that has passed out of the House Appropriations Committee. It was the 49,000 that was in the governor's recommend, additional 100,000 that was passed out of House Appropriations officially yesterday, will be on the floor. The only other piece that we'd asked for, and you'll see that when it comes over, is that there's language in the budget that was passed out of house appropriations that would enable us to transfer the $137,500 that we receive to provide grants to supervised visitation programs in the state over to DCF. Right now there are very few programs. There are six programs and they have to report to both DCF and to us. For us, that doesn't make sense. It's an additional burden on us, but more importantly, it's an additional burden on the sub grantees. This would streamline that funding source so they have one reporting place, they have one set of reports, one set of site visits that they have to go through versus two different entities. That language is in the budget. We support that. We think it makes sense for efficiencies and just in terms of what the mission of the respective agencies are. All of that is going to unless again there's something dramatic on the House floor, All of that you will see when it comes over. We support what's in there. We are asking for nothing more.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Okay, so the $145.03 57, the total back? The

[Jennifer Pullman (Executive Director, Vermont Center for Crime Victim Services)]: $1.37 5 to DCF and 100

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Bill, your total request, $1.45. This is in your budget and then on it. Yes. Maybe you've changed it since then. Now your total request to the question was 145.

[Jennifer Pullman (Executive Director, Vermont Center for Crime Victim Services)]: We did reevaluate and make a slight uptick to our base because we reevaluated the amount of funds that we were providing. Instead of the 95, and you'll see this in the overview, which looks like this. At the end, we had 102,000 and house appropriations put in $100,000 and we're grateful for that.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: I had a question for you because you guys came up in another presentation and I wanted to ask you if this was the criminal justice council had mentioned you guys in the restorative justice diversion program, alternative pathways, that you're on a council, you as the executive director of crime victim services. And that the way they couch it was that you're providing these outside voices to shape training outcomes for the Justice Council that creates the training for law enforcement. I just wanted to know if that if you felt that was inaccurate that you're being a member of this council was providing you felt like your voices were being heard as they're designing new training. Does that make sense?

[Jennifer Pullman (Executive Director, Vermont Center for Crime Victim Services)]: Yes. I think I I understand the question, and I do feel that we are heard on that council. I have a designee, she reports to me regularly, but I do feel that in conjunction with the network who also has a seat that we do have a voice. Feel like it's heard. We provide training at the Police Academy for recruits. I don't have any concerns about whether or not we have a valued place at the table. I

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: just thought I'd ask you since you're coming in. Any questions? Yes, I don't know. Yes, hi Jennifer. What the total that the house actually awarded? Ordered,

[Jennifer Pullman (Executive Director, Vermont Center for Crime Victim Services)]: well basically they stuck with the recommend, which was the $49,502.73 that the governor, allocated with that 3% on the small amount of general funds we get. Then they added $100,000 to our base.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: $100,000 to your base to put you at what in your base?

[Jennifer Pullman (Executive Director, Vermont Center for Crime Victim Services)]: I'm going to defer to Carol for that exact number. I know we don't receive very much. Most of our base, while, I'm giving Carol time to come up with that exact number, most of our base is, straight pass through. So we roughly receive about $2,000,000 in base. But what's important to note about that is that very little goes to operational support. Most of it is straight pass through to the network programs, to CACs, to supervised visitation programs, and even to prosecutor positions. When you look at that 2,000,000, very little goes to our operations. I know you hear from other state agencies that say, we have to deal with health insurance increases, rent increases, you know, IT. The part that's troubling for us is that since we're not state employees, we can't join in those more cost efficient, larger plans. So we basically have to go it alone. So we bear those increases. We've asked many times, of the state, can we join you? Can we join in this? Can we join in that? But we can't. So when you hear about increases that other state agencies have, we still have those increases, those expectations. We just don't have the ability to join in with larger agencies. We're a 19 person organization.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Okay, and just a quick follow-up. How is your victim's compensation on sitting right now?

[Jennifer Pullman (Executive Director, Vermont Center for Crime Victim Services)]: We're deficit projected deficit of $509,000

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Just $509,000

[Jennifer Pullman (Executive Director, Vermont Center for Crime Victim Services)]: just $509,000 But the one good piece, I guess good piece, and Carol always figures it out somehow, but, that is the one special fund that allows us for some ability to be reimbursed at the federal level. And again, I see Carol's unmuted herself, so she's probably going to say stop talking, Jen.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: No.

[Jennifer Pullman (Executive Director, Vermont Center for Crime Victim Services)]: It's fine. The compensation fund is one that, what we use to pay out to victims were reimbursed on the federal level of 75%. So that is the one special fund that we actually do get reimbursement for the money that's spent out to victims. Our restitution fund and DVSB is totally reliant on fines and fees.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Okay, thank you.

[Jennifer Pullman (Executive Director, Vermont Center for Crime Victim Services)]: I mean, certainly our special funds have been in decline for fifteen years. It's not a viable source anymore. That's a larger conversation that needs to happen. It's also a fairness question that's been taking place in different committees as to whether or not people who are striving for a second chance, whether they should be bearing that responsibility. But policies change back in the olden days when people were getting pulled over all the time. But things have changed and that's not protocol or policy anymore. We support that, but it's just realizing that even the localization of DLS and Again, we support that, but it has implications for our funds. They're not going to change. The larger conversation has to be how do we think about improving things structurally. Compensation and restitution are state mandated programs. We have no choice, and we want to, I mean we want to, but we can't decide on any given day we're not going to do this. It's in statute. You all have been real thoughtful about that and we appreciate that.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: I think we realized that ticket revenues are going down along with the surcharges that go with the ticket revenues, which directly affects your your restitution fund. Correct?

[Jennifer Pullman (Executive Director, Vermont Center for Crime Victim Services)]: Yeah. It affects all yeah. It affects all the funds.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Thank you. Okay, any other questions? Okay, that was helpful. Thank you for your work there. Appreciate it. We'll be in contact if we have any other questions.

[Jennifer Pullman (Executive Director, Vermont Center for Crime Victim Services)]: Thank you so much. Appreciate your time, senators.

[Jane Stetter (Budget Director, Green Mountain Care Board)]: Thank you.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: You. I see the VSAT crowd is here, so I don't if whoever wants to come up or

[Scott Giles (President and CEO, Vermont Student Assistance Corporation)]: And why don't you do a login and present or If you want to

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: present, which is advisable, we don't print it out. That might be a good idea. We have a

[Scott Giles (President and CEO, Vermont Student Assistance Corporation)]: little time. We have just a minute, we'll do that. Oh. In honor of our Oh.

[Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: Sixteenth anniversary. This will definitely We

[Scott Giles (President and CEO, Vermont Student Assistance Corporation)]: are celebrating our federal capital stress points.

[Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: Like it.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Federal Capital is cutting me off the stress.

[Scott Giles (President and CEO, Vermont Student Assistance Corporation)]: I'll come around the other side. We had the good fortune of having all three of our major federal grants up for renewal this year. So we're working to arm wrestle those federal governments. But the good news is that for the most part, we've been successful.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Can you see the witnesses on me if I do that? You can. Fine. Yeah. It looks good. Yep. Looks like our camera can you read it? All of all of our. This mine? That's that's ours. I'll rip into this.

[Jane Stetter (Budget Director, Green Mountain Care Board)]: Yeah. Take that.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: So you guys made a big mistake putting it in front

[Scott Giles (President and CEO, Vermont Student Assistance Corporation)]: of me.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Oh, yeah. I'll take

[Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: I thought it was for you. Oh. So now

[Scott Giles (President and CEO, Vermont Student Assistance Corporation)]: You alright? Yeah. You're alright. Good. That's good. Good.

[Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: It's called a stress reliever. Yeah.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: The cat will love it. Here

[Scott Giles (President and CEO, Vermont Student Assistance Corporation)]: you go. There you go. What? Okay. Thank you. Thank you.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Well,

[Scott Giles (President and CEO, Vermont Student Assistance Corporation)]: what is in there if I might ask? Pumpkin records. Oh, that that's the other stress reliever.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: I will Who my name Amy?

[Scott Giles (President and CEO, Vermont Student Assistance Corporation)]: I'll listen later.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Okay. Good

[Scott Giles (President and CEO, Vermont Student Assistance Corporation)]: afternoon. My name is Scott Giles. I'm the President and CEO of the Vermont Student Assistance Corporation.

[Patrick "Pat" Brennan (VSAC Chief Operating Officer)]: My name is Patrick Pat Brennan. I serve as the Chief Operating Officer at ESA.

[Scott Giles (President and CEO, Vermont Student Assistance Corporation)]: So thank you very much for the opportunity to come and present our budget. And there have been a number of developments kind of related to the healthcare forgiving the loan programs that have kind of altered the budget request that we are formally presenting. So we're gonna offer initially a simplified version of our budget request. And then Patrick has been working hand in glove with the Department of Health on the Rural Health Transformation grants and forgivable loan programs that VSAC has administered on their behalf for a number of years using global commitment dollars, which will now be replaced with rural health dollars. So we'll see some changes there. I know this committee is intimately familiar with VSAC's work. I want to acknowledge that we are celebrating our sixtieth anniversary this year. And if you've got free time, we are going to be having an event in the Cedar Creek Room starting at 04:30 with a short presentation, a chance to introduce some of our students who benefited from the programs that you have supported. Is that today?

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Today. Have a chairs meeting at 04:30.

[Scott Giles (President and CEO, Vermont Student Assistance Corporation)]: And then a reception from five to six. So if you are available, there will be food and drink available in the Cedar Creek Room to come join us on the campus. So I hope you can hope you can join us. Just as a really, really brief overview, I want to do really two things. One, provide you with a reminder of the programs that we are supporting with your support, but to also provide some context for the requests that we are making. I'll make just an observation right at the beginning that I'll touch on that as a result of the reconciliation bill, we're seeing some of the most significant changes in federal financial aid policy that we have seen in ten or fifteen years. And that the programs that you have supported actually put Vermont in relatively unique position to be able to weather those changes kind of well with their ongoing support. So by way of kind of brief reminder, we administer the state grant program for low income Lamonters. We administered the eight zero two opportunity program, which is free. It's tuition free community college at CCV for students coming from families earning $100,000 or less. The Freedom and Unity Grant, which you helped us start last year, which allows students coming from families who are earning $65,000 or less to be able to attend Vermont State University regular tuition programs, tuition free. And then we of course administer a number of interest free workforce incentive programs that you've tasked us with administering. We also administer a broad range of federal or VSAC supported programs. I passed out our stress ball. I mentioned that all three of our federal grants were up for renewal this year. These are grants that we received from the federal government that allow us to provide career and education counseling to first generation low income students in nearly every middle school and high school in the state. I'll say we're kind of excited to be able to announce earlier in the year that our GEAR Up grant, which is the largest of these programs. It's a seven year grant. We were able to successfully recompete for that. Kind of a seven year 31,500,000 program, which will allow us to continue to serve those students. We are getting ready to try and recompete for two smaller grants. One of which is also targeted towards middle school and high school students. And the other is our adult program, which allows us to provide career counseling to adults seeking recruitment. We administer the State five twenty nine plan. We provide financial aid and forms nights both in person and virtually and for nearly every high school in the state. We offer a supplemental student loan program. We administer more than 150 private scholarship programs. And then in addition, we administer an innovative employer funded workforce opportunity forgivable loan program, largely with Vermont Hospitals. This is a program whereby they are able to identify staff that they have who are working in non clinical positions, who they think have the wherewithal to be successful in a clinical physician's training. They provide the upfront money, we administer it as a loan. That loan is then forgiven when that employee works for that employer for a number of years in exchange for the commitment to support the training. I mentioned that, and you will probably hear some version of this from everyone in the higher education community, but higher education very much feels like it's in the crossfire right now. Think the Senator Baruth can talk about what that looks like and feels like both from within an institution and as somebody who's been actively involved in the higher education community from a policy perspective more broadly. But we have seen cuts or changes to federal funding for higher education in nearly every sector, whether it be research or financial aid. And as I kind of indicated at the outset, these are some of the most significant changes that we've seen at least in fifteen years and maybe longer. The biggest ones are in federal student loan policy. And this is something that will go into effect for students that are beginning their educations, whether they be undergraduate or graduate in the fall, this coming fall. So students that are currently in school are grandfathered from the impacts of this. The two biggest changes that will be taking place is that prior to this year, parents were able to borrow from the federal government up to the total cost of attendance to be able to allow their students to be able to attend the school. And the federal government has decided to cap that at an annual level of a little over $20,000 a year from 25,000 with a per student cap of $60,000 So families that were previously able to borrow the full amount of their education will no longer be able to do that. VSAC does offer a supplemental loan program that will be available to students coming from families who have at least a minimum credit score. But the students that will be most vulnerable are those students coming from families that are low income and do not have the ability to borrow in the private market. The place that you're hearing the most about this is in the graduate side, where similarly prior to, starting in 2009, graduate and professional students were able to borrow the total cost of attendance for their programs. They too were given caps of $20,500 a year with a lifetime cap of $100,000 those students that are attending non professional programs and an annual cap of $50,000 and a lifetime cap of $200,000 for students that are attending professional programs. What's important about this, and I suspect that the health committee has heard from nurses in particular, is that the federal definition of professional is limited to a very small number of programs. Medical doctors, dentists, interestingly lawyers, because they had historical kind of artifact in the Higher Education Act, doctors of theology are also included. But many other groups that we widely consider to be professions are excluded from that, which will create a funding challenge for many students that were anticipating their ability to be able to borrow from the federal government in order to pursue those programs. And in particular, the kinds of groups that we're worried most about are individuals that are interested in pursuing what we describe as kind of high credential or relatively low compensation positions. I've spent a good portion of my professional life working with, I was on the Board of Allied Mental Health, licensed clinical mental health counselors are a good example. We require a master's degree in order to be able to get licensed, three hours of supervised clinical training before you can bill. And yet we know that most of them, many of them are working in designated agencies where the wages are relatively low and high debt burdens are not something that they will be able to manage, early childhood education would be another example of that. Will be, you know, things that we'll be monitoring during this will be a couple of kind of broad questions. You know, will higher cost programs and professions like medical schools, good example, be limited to students from families with the means to pay tuition or borrow in private credit markets? And will those, you know, high credential kind of lower wage professions meet new accountability measures that the federal government is talking about putting in place? Now, there are a number of things that we at DSAC are doing to try and mitigate this. So I don't want to leave you with nothing but bad news here. I want to give a shout out to my colleague here Patrick. We have developed using machine learning tools a new phone app that uses AI and machine learning to be able to compare financial aid award letters, which are oftentimes incomprehensible to most families and difficult for students, particularly coming from families that don't have a great deal of experience with higher education or graduate school, to understand what the actual true net cost of a particular program will be. This app will allow you to just snap a picture of your financial aid award letters and it will do all the work of doing the comparisons for you and kind of show you side by side comparisons, which you can also export into an Excel spreadsheet or another document So accounts for somebody who's working with you will be able to use this. Why is it we think that this is important at a time when borrowing is gonna be particularly hard and in many cases, prohibitively expensive? Our goal is to help make sure that Vermonters are good consumers of education and know before they sign up, you know, sign on the dotted line exactly what a program will cost and be able to choose the program that will best meet both their program and their financial needs, which really brings us to our core budget request. So VSAC is requesting a 3% increase in our core base funding. And in addition to this, we've got two items that we want to call out. One, this committee has for the last several years provided over the last decade actually, provided VSAC with the authority to use up to $300,000 of its base appropriations for what we call the aspirations initiatives. These are partnerships that we forge with high schools around the state, Usually high schools that are not participating in one of our federally funded programs, but not exclusively that way. These are schools that have particularly high gaps between first generation student college going rates and second generation student college going rates. And these are schools that are interested in making sure that they are able to develop school wide programs to help ensure that their students have a plan for their kind of post high school years and are given the tools that they need to be able to achieve their career and education goals. Happy to talk more about that. Because of the success of the program and the demand that we're seeing for it now, we're asking that that authority be increased from $300,000 to $400,000 And that's not a request for additional funding, that's just a request for additional discretion. The dual enrollment early college stipend, this committee was the one that actually created this program many years ago. This is a book and travel stipend that we make available to free and reduced lunch eligible students who are seeking to pursue dual enrollment. Oftentimes we make the course available, but when a student is actually leaving the classroom, they may be giving up access to lunch, or there may be a textbook that otherwise would be unaffordable. And this is a key part of how it is that we close the equity gap in participation in this program. But is it per student? Is there a per student? Yes, there is.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: I don't have that number.

[Scott Giles (President and CEO, Vermont Student Assistance Corporation)]: Was relatively small amount. It's relatively small amount, but we can get that to you. It was tough. It's 150. And that number has we've kept that number Sorry, Scott. Before you leave that slide, I'm wondering on the Freedom Immunity Scholarship.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: I know that the House has not passed the big bill yet, but from what I understand, it's together. What have they done, if anything, on Freedom Immunity?

[Scott Giles (President and CEO, Vermont Student Assistance Corporation)]: They have provided $2,300,000 in one time funding for Freedom and Unity.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: So that is including the $812,000 increase? Yes. Okay, but they have not gone over your request?

[Scott Giles (President and CEO, Vermont Student Assistance Corporation)]: No. Okay. No, the House Appropriations was very generous. They have kind of provided us, at least in the bill that has been reported out, they provided a 3% increase in our base funding. They have provided us the additional authority for the aspirations initiative at 400,000. There's some additional language that you traditionally put in the bill that allows us to drop to 7% of our funding for administrative purposes, which we have not used and don't plan to use this year, but we wanna retain that authority given the federal cuts that are taking place. We had originally asked for funding for the healthcare forgivable loan programs that you have traditionally funded through global commitment. And you may remember, know Senator Lyons remembers that last year we engaged a conversation about the mental health counseling program that this committee had initiated, but was not funded last year. Those programs now, because of the work that we have done with AHS are going to be included in a slightly different form in the Rural Health Transformation Grant. So one of the things Senator Baruth did was we withdrew that request for the global commitment dollars and focused on the request for free immunity, which free immunity is kind of the next generation of eight zero two opportunity. Happy to kind of share the preliminary results that we've got. But as you may remember with eight zero two opportunity, we launched this initiative during the pandemic, CCV saw enrollment growth in a time when nationally community colleges saw dramatic decreases in enrollment. We saw increases in academic performance. We saw increases in retention. We saw increases in graduation rates, and then we saw increases in transfer rates into other programs. We are in the first year of Freedom and Unity, but we expect that we will see all of the same outcomes from this program there.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Area two is CCD and Freedom and Unity is

[Scott Giles (President and CEO, Vermont Student Assistance Corporation)]: State Farm. Vermont State University.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: And is eight zero two where, what bundle is that? There's 2.3 Freedom and Unity which is an eight zero two.

[Scott Giles (President and CEO, Vermont Student Assistance Corporation)]: I would have to go back and take a look because you included it in our base funding. It's not kind of singled out, but I would say it's in the 3 So 500,000.0

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: off the $27,000,000 base, you said you're not using them per admin. Yeah. What is the percentage? 100% is going to grant?

[Scott Giles (President and CEO, Vermont Student Assistance Corporation)]: 100% is from the students. Sorry,

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: I'm just wondering. It says we're requesting 2.3 and $812,000 increase. Was that base or was that one time from last year?

[Scott Giles (President and CEO, Vermont Student Assistance Corporation)]: We asked for base, but last year you gave it to us as one time and the house has included it again as one time.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Oh, okay. So so we are talking 2,300,000.0 as opposed to building on the base that's on? Yes, sir. Okay. Because it's all one time. Yes. Consider Lyons?

[Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: No, it's terrific to see the progress since the pandemic. Because it was a lot of work putting all that together. As well, thank you for your work on that. Thank you very much for that, thank

[Scott Giles (President and CEO, Vermont Student Assistance Corporation)]: you for the support. And it's one reason when we talked about the changes in federal student loan policy, just as an example, this is one reason why Freedom Community is so important because the students who are most vulnerable to those changes in federal financial aid policy are the students that would be attending Vermont State University coming from kind of lower middle and lower income families. And the fact that with Freedom and Unity, we're able to take, essentially provide them enough aid to cover tuition at the regular tuition programs, means that we are effectively going to be able to essentially eliminate or substantially alleviate the reduction in federal financial aid eligibility that they would be experiencing this year, which is critical to the students,

[Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: but also critical to Vermont State University. There's still money in the medical student initiative fund, incentive fund for those students. So they even though they left out Yeah. RHT, we still have some.

[Scott Giles (President and CEO, Vermont Student Assistance Corporation)]: Yeah. Well and and I will say the other thing that we are excited about with rural health transformation is that because, you know, these function is forgivable loans. When I mentioned one of the things we're concerned about is low income students not having the economic wherewithal to be able to borrow in the private markets. Because these are not credit based programs, you know, are the return to the state is based off of the work that they will do in the state. This means that we will be able to use the Rural Health Transformation Grant dollars to help make sure that, to help address some of the equity concerns that are created, at least in the health professions by the federal pull back from support.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: And can you remind me Freedom Immunity United and two scholarship amounts?

[Scott Giles (President and CEO, Vermont Student Assistance Corporation)]: The amounts for Freedom and Unity are full State College tuition. It's last dollar in, so we are building off of the federal Pell Grant and the state grants. So to some extent, the amount will vary depending on

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: the Once they get it, they get it through eight years ago. Sorry? Like they get it every year, if they get it as a freshman, they're guaranteed

[Scott Giles (President and CEO, Vermont Student Assistance Corporation)]: As long as it's funded, they would be receiving those programs. And that $8.00 2 is the same way full tuition CCB? Full tuition fees at CCB. Two years. And one observation that I'll make about eight zero two opportunity that was one of, I don't wanna say that it surprised us, but from a workforce development perspective, that has become an exceptionally important program, particularly for single parents who are, you know, could kind of hit a wall in terms of their professional opportunities, going back to CCB and getting a credential that allows them to get access a higher paid job. So with that, we'd be happy to answer any additional questions that you may have. We've provided a whole series of additional slides in the appendix, but know that your time is valuable and we wanted to focus on the things that you were, that I think were most important to you.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Do you have a number of what is the governor's recommend?

[Scott Giles (President and CEO, Vermont Student Assistance Corporation)]: Yes, the governor recommended a 3% increase for us. Recommended, but did not include within his budget, the funding for Freedom and Unity, and did not include within the budget, the global commitment budget, any of the funding for the healthcare forgivable loans that we had previously administered. But that was with the expectation that we would transition that.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: So it's really just 2.3 is the only increase on the governorship.

[Scott Giles (President and CEO, Vermont Student Assistance Corporation)]: I think the one thing that I would say on rural health transformation in addition is that originally, I think they had budgeted $4,200,000 as part of the original grant.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: $4.08. Yep. Which

[Scott Giles (President and CEO, Vermont Student Assistance Corporation)]: was what we had spent last year plus I think a small inflator. At this point, the number is.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: We're working with Department of Health, HHS very closely. We have another meeting with them tomorrow. The current proposal is that we would give out $6,000,000 in scholarships across a range of programs which are in your packet in year one, and that would expand to 10,000,000 by year five. Let's do this. Yeah. And with the free immunity, with the extra money you wanna increase the income threshold, the 85,000. Do you know how many students that are thinking that will free me into the program?

[Scott Giles (President and CEO, Vermont Student Assistance Corporation)]: So roughly that would, you know, that would allow about half of Vermont households to be eligible to participate in the program.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: How many participants? Do you know what the increase I think the with the advent of Freedom and Unity, I think we can safely say about seven fifty students this year went to ETSU with general tuition waived. Okay, so like here, but the question is, so it's 65 now and you wanna go to 80, is that 700 students, 300 students?

[Scott Giles (President and CEO, Vermont Student Assistance Corporation)]: Why don't we come back to you with the numbers we're working with around State University on that?

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Some of the spring enrollment is just getting nailed down. Yeah, just figured you had a number from like last year that, but I guess you don't know who did apply because they said, oh, we're over there. There is that whole, like now people are aware of it, which will change the numbers as well. Right. And they still have to do all the paperwork to show that it's the last dollar. Yes,

[Scott Giles (President and CEO, Vermont Student Assistance Corporation)]: I mean, we partner obviously with Vermont State University to make as much of that invisible to the students as possible.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: So what is it that the clear foundation is doing on top of that? Are they doing, is there a thing under yours or their, your benefit or our program through these, is benefiting from that? Right?

[Scott Giles (President and CEO, Vermont Student Assistance Corporation)]: Yeah, the McClure Promise is a slightly different program. What it does, and if you've not heard from them, I encourage you to have the opportunity to come in. This was a program that they developed during the pandemic, targeted towards any student that is doing early college at the Community College of Vermont. Regardless of income, if you've completed early college your senior year, they will pay for the second year of your associate's degree for If

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: you get the first year that early college, they'll pay that second year.

[Scott Giles (President and CEO, Vermont Student Assistance Corporation)]: Yes, that's correct.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: So they kind of don't need 802?

[Scott Giles (President and CEO, Vermont Student Assistance Corporation)]: Well, it's after 802. So 08/2002, so if you think about it, 08/2002 would be paying for those $100,000 or less. And then the core promise then is focused on those students that remain after.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: The data too is the last dollar. Yes. But there's still something left after the last dollar?

[Scott Giles (President and CEO, Vermont Student Assistance Corporation)]: Students that would not be eligible for U2. Oh, because they've raised it to them, but they're naive. Theirs is, you know, I think one of the strengths of the McCormick Promise is there is a free degree promise without regard to income. Ours is not, ours is a pledge that is targeted towards families earning $100,000 or less. So they're covering that group that is not covered by So

[Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: So quick question. So this is always so impressive what you're doing, and I know there are other forgivable loan or tuition programs under other administrative or other organizations. Have you do you reach out to them on a regular basis? Do you work with them? And then are there any that you'd like to see? Would you like to see more consolidation of how all this happened? Mhmm. Uh-oh. I asked Robert. Oh. No.

[Scott Giles (President and CEO, Vermont Student Assistance Corporation)]: It's a great question. Because we've

[Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: been I know it. Yeah.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: I mean, it's we've we've done some exploration in that area and kind of in it from an in house perspective. One of the things that we were able to kind of take into the rural health transformation program that we worked out with the Department of Health is that workforce opportunity program that Scott mentioned, it's more open, which is entirely employer funded, allowed us to see another opportunity for potential funding. So as you look through these details, you'll find out that we are forgiving 75% of these loans and employers have the opportunity to invest in these employees by forgiving the other part of that. We have this interesting dynamic. As we keep exploring other loan forgiveness programs, what we try to do is take the best of all breeds and keep coming back with here's a better model even than last year, here's a better model for the loan. So we keep trying to learn for sure.

[Owen Foster (Chair, Green Mountain Care Board)]: Thank you.

[Scott Giles (President and CEO, Vermont Student Assistance Corporation)]: Yeah. And I mean I think to your question we are reaching out continuously both the obviously Department of Health and the agency.

[Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: The Department of Health is very excited with this. I've met with them and they're very excited. The only area that they're concerned about is is the cuts that went to AHEC and

[Scott Giles (President and CEO, Vermont Student Assistance Corporation)]: Right. The student. Yeah.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: And they've great to work with. You've had a

[Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: good relationship

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: with them. So that money is additional or so like the money you have in your budget now for every loan forgiveness programs, is that free it up somewhere else because of it you're just gonna, is the health transformation money gonna be added to the

[Scott Giles (President and CEO, Vermont Student Assistance Corporation)]: money? No, this is being we had previously we had programs that were funded through the global commitment, through global commitment dollars. That is no longer going those programs will no longer

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: It was all global commitment. I don't know if you had any other statement. Okay.

[Scott Giles (President and CEO, Vermont Student Assistance Corporation)]: Limited. They're

[Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: roughly they're a little over $4,000,000 being cut. And then it's gonna be replaced with the six that move into 10.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Alright. So the state money was in there. Would also be freed up. That is correct. You would just apply it somewhere else to another program.

[Scott Giles (President and CEO, Vermont Student Assistance Corporation)]: We would not, any of the state dollars that will be freed up. We would not see those would be presumably at the department.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: It is a small nuance just because I know DOH and AHS would encourage this distinction. We are not replacing those dollars. We are running a different program. We can't use these funds replace. Any other questions? Any other last comments you want to do?

[Scott Giles (President and CEO, Vermont Student Assistance Corporation)]: No, to thank you. We've,

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: We're very proud of the work that our

[Scott Giles (President and CEO, Vermont Student Assistance Corporation)]: team has been able to do over the last several years, but we could not have done it without the support that you all continue to provide to us. And we are very mindful of the trust that you have given us and are grateful for it. So thank you for that. And obviously if you have any additional questions about any of these programs, please don't hesitate to reach

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: I do have one person if you remember down the early college, I don't know, in your kind of performance tracking, you can do that talking to students that you supported in early college about the value of early college because we now have, seems to be a growing group wanting to get rid of that option. So I don't know if you have an opinion that or about how you feel about it given that your experience with students that have used it.

[Scott Giles (President and CEO, Vermont Student Assistance Corporation)]: You know, I think that our focus, you know, is predominantly on first generation American students around the state because those are the students that we work most closely with middle schools and high schools. And for them, for many of them, this is an opportunity for them to be able to experience and explore educational opportunities that would not otherwise be available to them in their schools or kind of given the economic and the social backgrounds that they come from. Early college is not for everybody. For some students dual enrollment is the, you know, they're really strong, powerful tool. But I have, you know, one of our outreach counselors who herself was a first generation student and is kind of working with

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: the

[Scott Giles (President and CEO, Vermont Student Assistance Corporation)]: caseload, kind of came to me several months ago, so incredibly proud that she was able to help four of her first gen low income students. These are students coming from families with multiple, multi generational poverty are now getting full year of college at Vermont State University. And there are two pieces to this that I think are critically important. One is, you know, the opportunity and experience, but the other part is that they're seeing themselves being successful in the college campus. And if you can't see it, you can't be it. And early college is providing some of these students this amazing opportunity at relatively low financial risk to their families, the chance to see a future that was previously unimaginable.

[Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: Sorry, go ahead.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: I was just gonna add on to discuss excellent comments. Think if I was speaking for one of our counselors, with the workforce demands that are in front of us in the state, right, and the jobs are changing, and the student population declining in our high schools, we need every lever possible to try to get as many students to aspire and to be successful. And so they're big advocates for having programs like this. Start with the.

[Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: Now there are the having young men see, have a vision for going to college. I know everyone's looking at CTE right now, but this is also critical in having a person as a person who has taught so many first generation kids. Mhmm. And then they go off and they come back with this amazing transition. So I think the concern that I've heard is that early college benefits the privileged. And that for me, that's not the reality. So it'd be helpful to get that information out.

[Scott Giles (President and CEO, Vermont Student Assistance Corporation)]: Can pull together some of the information that we have collected. I know we obviously have some data that is collected. I think that it's always hard whenever we're exploring these equity issues, but I think there's always a solution or problem that doesn't mean that we have to deny opportunity to everyone in order to close an opportunity gap or something. And I, as we explore this important issue, I think it's also important to go back to remembering why it was from an educational perspective, not from a institution's perspective, that we believed that flexible pathways were important. And it was part of a belief in a commitment that I think we still wanna share, that education systems should be focused on students and what students, what a student will best need in order to achieve their goals and dreams. And early college was part of that vision. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And hopefully we will see some of you this afternoon. Yeah. Right after the chairs meeting.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: So we will move on to the Green Mountain Care Board. We're off mute. So we're continuing with our FY twenty seven budget presentations. Now we have Green Mountain Care Board. I'll let you introduce yourselves for the record and do you have a presentation? I don't if you have the ability to present.

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

[Jane Stetter (Budget Director, Green Mountain Care Board)]: Just give me a

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: quick I'll introduce ourselves so I'm just gonna do that.

[Owen Foster (Chair, Green Mountain Care Board)]: Chair Perchlik, thank you for having us in. My name is Owen Foster, I'm the Chair of the Green Dot Care Board. I've been the Chair since October 2022. I'm now in my second term. With me today is Jane Stetter, who runs our budget at the board. She will be presenting the ups and the downs and the financial aspects of it. And also with me today is Emily Brown. For those of you that don't know me personally, she was formerly the Deputy Commissioner at DFR until stroke of genius hit me and I stole her. So Emily is the Executive Director of the Board. And we also have Diane Lamoille who runs our legislative work and some outreach work for the Great Mountain Care Board. Our plan today that pleases the committee is for this study to provide the financial aspects of our budget. And we are also here to address any larger picture healthcare questions that you may have. Anything about the board's strategic direction, things that we're working on or any other questions you may have.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Okay. We all have our laptops or computers.

[Scott Giles (President and CEO, Vermont Student Assistance Corporation)]: Yeah.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: But it might be good to have in case the pro temp comes back if he's he doesn't have it.

[Jane Stetter (Budget Director, Green Mountain Care Board)]: I I also have paper copies too if anyone wants.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Okay. If you don't I mean, we don't have to have it. And if it's online, so if anybody's listening and wants to follow along, they can go to our website. You don't have to do this.

[Jane Stetter (Budget Director, Green Mountain Care Board)]: Okay. Great.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: And then Senator Baruth shows up to stand in the paper. Assuming it's the same paper, the same presentation that you sent.

[Jane Stetter (Budget Director, Green Mountain Care Board)]: Yes, it is exactly. And thank you to Ellie for we were originally scheduled for last week and Ellie let me know. I needed to just update our date.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: He does own a computer.

[Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: I know.

[Jane Stetter (Budget Director, Green Mountain Care Board)]: All right, so if we just go to page two we did not have anything for the FY '26 EAA. I know that's moot now but still want to mention that.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: We

[Jane Stetter (Budget Director, Green Mountain Care Board)]: met the FY twenty seven governor's recommendation for the increase for the base budget and we have no requests for funds or language associated with the FY twenty seven budget. So if you go to the next page you can see essentially that the pie chart that shows our mission and also our funding. Our funding, our primary bill back authority is 40¢, well 40% or 40¢ on the dollar general fund and 60% Green Mountain Care Board regulatory bill back fund. We do have two positions. We've had them for just about two years now. They are funded by the evidence based advertising fund and they are specifically focused on prescription drug work. I believe it was 01/1934 and they had

[Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: a two year project, they

[Jane Stetter (Budget Director, Green Mountain Care Board)]: submitted their work and then also some additional work has come on. That's our other special fund that comes in. If you look at our

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: The bill back is for all your regular the hospitals, the insurance company, all of them get bill back or paid bill back.

[Jane Stetter (Budget Director, Green Mountain Care Board)]: Yes, yes. So essentially we charge them for the pleasure of being regulated by us. Like the

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

[Jane Stetter (Budget Director, Green Mountain Care Board)]: Yeah. And there, you know, we also contribute towards the healthcare advocate. That's like a different percentage that's set in statute. So

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: A percentage of?

[Jane Stetter (Budget Director, Green Mountain Care Board)]: Percentage of general fund.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: General fund? Are we in the institution? Like, do send money to the public after they say you're collecting from your review of the entity you regulate?

[Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: Or percentage of what

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: you get? You have to get to them.

[Jane Stetter (Budget Director, Green Mountain Care Board)]: There's two parts. So the first is we do again per statute, bill back for to help fund the healthcare advocates work. That is set at I believe 27.5% for general funds so the state pays less and the regulated entities pay a little bit more.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: So just of their budget so like the healthcare advocates their budget is $100,000 $27,000 would come from the general

[Jane Stetter (Budget Director, Green Mountain Care Board)]: fund and the rest comes this is all part of our budget and has been over time yeah and so what we do is our total that we have we collect is currently $510,000. We do an MOU with AHS. We send it to AHS, and then they can use those estate funds for what they ultimately pay the healthcare advocate.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: So

[Jane Stetter (Budget Director, Green Mountain Care Board)]: if you look at our ups and downs you can you know we met met the gov direct budget. The FY twenty six big bill or budget was a very big budget year for us we received three new positions as part of the big bill and then we also received three new positions as part of Act 68 so really our work now is to integrate those positions and do the work that was laid out for us in act 168 in addition to the regular ongoing act 68 sorry did I say 168 okay I apologize our work now is to continue the work that we're doing and integrate these new positions all positions have been approved and we've hired a number of them.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Good. And

[Jane Stetter (Budget Director, Green Mountain Care Board)]: then the last page is our resources page and I just wanted to quickly run through the adaptive planning reports. Those are the ups and downs, excuse me, those are the detailed reports formerly called Vantage reports. I also have paper copies here and can take you through through them. Our annual report updates that we have and different resources that we have on our website.

[Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: Did you

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: send us the Vantage Reports? The Vantage Reports?

[Jane Stetter (Budget Director, Green Mountain Care Board)]: Yes.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: I don't think I saw them.

[Jane Stetter (Budget Director, Green Mountain Care Board)]: Well, if you're at the resources page, if you double click on the advantage

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: You didn't send them to Al. Did you send them to

[Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: What it

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: I didn't see them on our website, the community website.

[Jane Stetter (Budget Director, Green Mountain Care Board)]: And so they're embedded. If you click the hyperlink, they're there.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Oh, I see. The

[Jane Stetter (Budget Director, Green Mountain Care Board)]: resource. I was trying to follow the instructions just to, like, embed things and make a budget book and

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: All directions. I it's

[Jane Stetter (Budget Director, Green Mountain Care Board)]: completely No. No. No. That's okay. I'm happy to get

[Scott Giles (President and CEO, Vermont Student Assistance Corporation)]: a paper copies of everything.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Sometimes I don't expect those in store. They do work. So yeah.

[Jane Stetter (Budget Director, Green Mountain Care Board)]: If they don't

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: They were green and not blue, so I didn't know they were.

[Jane Stetter (Budget Director, Green Mountain Care Board)]: I was trying to be

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: I get it.

[Owen Foster (Chair, Green Mountain Care Board)]: It's a Vermont

[Scott Giles (President and CEO, Vermont Student Assistance Corporation)]: touch. Yeah. Yeah. It's a

[Jane Stetter (Budget Director, Green Mountain Care Board)]: color for you.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: If one is blue, I thought maybe that would be Don't read don't read that one.

[Jane Stetter (Budget Director, Green Mountain Care Board)]: No. That just means I missed it. I missed making it green again.

[Owen Foster (Chair, Green Mountain Care Board)]: It's the insurance rate review.

[Scott Giles (President and CEO, Vermont Student Assistance Corporation)]: Okay.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Anything else you wanted to tell us or do you want questions or what?

[Jane Stetter (Budget Director, Green Mountain Care Board)]: Questions are great.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: I just had a general question. I think around this time last year, the chair was talking about precarious position we were with with hospitals. I don't know if like the work that we did last year, it's kind of solved the position. I just know if you can give us a update on where we are, because I think we were worried about insurers collapsing and all that.

[Owen Foster (Chair, Green Mountain Care Board)]: I can provide an overview that we just finished the fiscal year twenty five hospital actuals. So whatever their financials were at the year end, we just have that reviewed recently in Blue Cross fiscal year's ended. So we have some updated information on both of those sets of regular entities. Overall, the hospitals had a fairly steady solid year in fiscal year twenty five. It wasn't like a banner financial year. I think system wide it was a positive one to 1.5% operating margin, which given the environment is not bad. There are particular hot flash points where there's real continued financial deterioration and serious serious risk. Those hospitals have very low days cash on hand within negative margins. Not as low as they

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: were last year. And some of them were under thirty days.

[Owen Foster (Chair, Green Mountain Care Board)]: Yeah. No. Some of them remain in that level. Like overall, the system was a positive 1%. It was fairly steady, but there's a handful that remain very, very precarious. Springfield Hospital certainly is up there on that list. I think they have about thirty, thirty five days cash on hand. Brattleboro Memorial Hospital continue to negative margins. Some of the other small ones, NVRH, St. Johnsbury under a hundred days cash on hand. Copley is doing better. So yes, there are still points where we're very concerned about sustainability. On the insurer side, Blue Cross had a very good financial year. They paid off $30,000,000 debt to Michigan. I think they were positive 50,000,000, 55,000,000, which is a big, big jump. Keep in mind when you have solvency at the insurer and at the hospital side, the money's coming from somewhere. And we do continue to see extreme sustainability risk because of our cost of healthcare. So that has not abated. I would kind of summarize some of the key bills last year. I do think that the drug price cap bill had incredibly positive impact without being overly disruptive. Anytime we remove money from the system, it will have it will be a challenge. That bill combined with the Green Mountain Care Board's regulatory decision saved roughly $200,000,000 in healthcare costs. That is how the state of Vermont had the second lowest premium increases on QHP in the nation. We have not been able to say that in a very long Usually, we're the highest. We are still the highest. My current data is we're still the highest in the country, but we're starting to see that level off and flatten and kind of come back to normal a little bit. My goal is to have these changes happen at an appropriate cadence. It's not too disruptive. A lot of the financial savings that we had last year came out of the University of Vermont Health Network. And it was an appropriate place for those savings to come. It was the right decision and it did help us on the consumer side quite a bit. So overall, I would say I'm happy with where things landed in fiscal year twenty five. And I'm hyper concerned that in the coming years, the levers we pull are not always available. We took out a lot of money from UVM last year, is there have that's not always there. Think

[Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: that The hanging fruit disappears. It is. Yes,

[Scott Giles (President and CEO, Vermont Student Assistance Corporation)]: we're gonna have to reach

[Owen Foster (Chair, Green Mountain Care Board)]: a little higher, it's gonna be harder. On the bright side to that conundrum, I think the industry, the legislature, the governor's office, HS, everyone's kind of come to recognize that this is a very serious immediate problem. That's the first step. Right? Like are we all willing to grapple with the realities and make hard decisions? I think everyone involved in stakeholders and everyone proved last year and this year that we are willing to do some hard work. Another incredibly bright step is we're another year into hospital system transformation through Act 167 of 2022. And the Oliver Wyman report that came out, another year's past of time to do that job. Hospitals have submitted transformation plans to the agency of human services. I have not seen them. I don't know if they're going to be sufficient. I don't know if they're realistic, but that step has happened. And then lastly, I would point to the Rural Health Transformation Fund, which was a federal program that we applied for the state of Vermont received a billion dollars in funding over five years. So 200,000,000 a year. So we're at an inflection point, but we've done a lot of work to now act. It's just a question of whether we do and if we do good job taking those steps.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: So Norris, have a question? Yeah. I was just curious if you had a ballpark figure on where Northwest Medical Center fell into that thirty days versus

[Owen Foster (Chair, Green Mountain Care Board)]: The days cash on hand at Northwest. Northwest Medical Center, yeah. Northwest. They were rather healthy. They've always been pretty healthy. So under a hundred days cash on hand is vulnerable or highly vulnerable, give or take ten days. I don't have the exact numbers in my head. Northwestern has typically been 190 plus. So very, very healthy. I think with some of the drug price cap bill and some of the regulatory decisions last year, They've eroded some of that, but probably I think still I'm thinking, I'm just going off of pure memory here. I don't have every hospital's financials in my head.

[Robert Norris (Member)]: You should have one. You should at least have some.

[Owen Foster (Chair, Green Mountain Care Board)]: I think I'm comfortable guessing it's around one hundred and seventy days cash on hand, which is still okay. But the trend lines not what we want.

[Robert Norris (Member)]: So the position from last year at 68, was

[Owen Foster (Chair, Green Mountain Care Board)]: that like seven positions? It was three, the governor gave us three in the big bill. But I think let's

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: say he's getting the answer and having that guess. 10

[Owen Foster (Chair, Green Mountain Care Board)]: MC Northwest Medical Center update, two thirty days cash on hand as of the end of fiscal '25.

[Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: Wow. Healthy. Doing okay.

[Owen Foster (Chair, Green Mountain Care Board)]: The ones under that are Brattleboro at seventy one days, CBMC eighty one. They're a little bit different because they have a parent company at UVM. Copley at fifty six, but they have a parent company too with some cash. Grace Cottage, I'm sorry, 80, NVRH is 92, that's concerning. Springfield was 55, maybe it's a budget that's around 30.

[Scott Giles (President and CEO, Vermont Student Assistance Corporation)]: That's Gifford. Gifford?

[Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: They were in deep trouble now.

[Owen Foster (Chair, Green Mountain Care Board)]: Gifford was at 77 in fiscal year twenty four and they closed fiscal year twenty five with a 114.

[Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: Yeah, they're doing that. So some

[Owen Foster (Chair, Green Mountain Care Board)]: of these smaller hospitals like it can be a big swing, a million dollars can add a lot of cash on hand because they don't have a huge operating expense. And UVMMC is a hundred and forty seven days cash in hand plus a parent company. So like

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: I said, not a horrifying year. So maybe we've so we gave three positions, four positions?

[Owen Foster (Chair, Green Mountain Care Board)]: Legislative gave three.

[Jane Stetter (Budget Director, Green Mountain Care Board)]: Go ahead. You can answer.

[Owen Foster (Chair, Green Mountain Care Board)]: I might make a mistake.

[Jane Stetter (Budget Director, Green Mountain Care Board)]: No, that's okay. And I'm just gonna pull up my map of where we are with everyone. Happy to share it with you too if you want.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: The way you're looking at is more of a general question is because I think we didn't give all the positions that were requested. Correct.

[Jane Stetter (Budget Director, Green Mountain Care Board)]: So well, it's a multipart answer. In our FY twenty six big bill budget request we requested five. We got three but then within Act 68 we got an additional three positions so I'll leave it to you if you want to add anything else Chair Foster.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: You kind of received positions you felt like you needed to do the work that you needed to do. And I'm assuming you would be talking to the Center Alliance Committee, but as far as the regulatory changes needed, do you feel like you have those that you need to make the changes that are necessary to change this curve

[Scott Giles (President and CEO, Vermont Student Assistance Corporation)]: of health care spending or

[Owen Foster (Chair, Green Mountain Care Board)]: health care costs? We do. Yes. So the positions that we received were largely focused on the reference based pricing effort, which is an effort to bring down the prices of hospitals to an appropriate level and kind of equal the playing field across the system. We have those positions, we're deeply engaged in that work. Some of our guidance this year is a step towards reference based pricing. We're going to be in our guidance, very likely recommending a minus 1% price across the system for commercial insurance for hospitals. It's modest, but it's an important step. The other major pieces of work, we're also working on global budgeting, negotiating the ad model still. That is changing rapidly. I got an update yesterday. There's a new administration. We negotiated with the old administration. There's very different views as to what this will be now and we're working on evaluating that. I do as a chair, I think we have sufficient positions for the work. What I would say is though that it's important to keep in mind, we usually have a overview slide that we've spoken to before about what we do do and what we don't do. And I think sometimes there is a confusion as to what we do. We are not the leaders in health policy in the state that's been cleared up with AHS. And so when we make the regulatory decisions, there is fallout, there is change. And some of that change has to be driven and managed through the policy side of things. So if we just clamp down on budgets, it's not a solution. We also need the wraparound solution of the transformation that needs to make sure that we still have a well functioning healthcare system.

[Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: Can't pull one string. Correct.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: You pull a string. Working with HS to do all that. Right?

[Scott Giles (President and CEO, Vermont Student Assistance Corporation)]: I don't work with anybody. Yeah. No.

[Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: We're all working together. That's one of the that's actually one of the keys that has emerged as a result of January, but most importantly, from act '68. And when we, in the health reform oversight committee, brought everybody in and said, we gotta work together. And everybody had I'm really I it's just been it's been excellent. Work. Good. Without with lots of tension.

[Scott Giles (President and CEO, Vermont Student Assistance Corporation)]: Healthy tension.

[Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: Yeah. Healthy tension. It's good.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: That's good. We need some good news in the health care. Yeah.

[Scott Giles (President and CEO, Vermont Student Assistance Corporation)]: Oh, we got it.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Yeah. Okay. I'll stop worrying about that. Okay. I mean, those were my general questions. That's just pretty straightforward. Any other questions? Why it's about health care regulation?

[Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Member)]: It's one ninety's on the floor tomorrow.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: It's weird. Yeah. Any reports in there. Right. Okay. Well, if there's no other questions or comments, any last words you wanna play this with?

[Owen Foster (Chair, Green Mountain Care Board)]: No, other than we really appreciate the committee support and chair Lyons support and set up the welfare of the bill that she's referencing us one ninety. We do think it's an important part of solution to try and get the QHP rates down. There's a provision on prices for the QHP plans that I think is really critical if we're going to moderate those increases. So we're very supportive of the work the legislature has been in the last couple of years.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Okay. Well, thanks for your work.