Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: We are not.

[Unidentified Committee Member (possibly Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons)]: It's the House of Senate Constitution on h nine fifty one. We will be arrested from our break in Constitution.

[Mr. Nixon (Legislative Counsel/Staff)]: I have one thing if you want

[Unidentified Committee Member (possibly Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons)]: me to start by the communication link, which I can just give you through. Need to sign up. No. Need to sign up. Okay. I can also email too.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Thank you. Do you wanna tell us a little bit about it?

[Unidentified Committee Member (possibly Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons)]: It's basically making sure that the pilot project is in line with the work in the design and concept of statewide systems so that it isn't just a one off project or a project that doesn't meet all the system of systems requirements that are statewide. And that takes the advantage of the statewide LMR, your system that's gonna be built on all the towers that the police have in that case. Give some tasks from the Department of Public Safety to to verify several things before they give the money. Okay.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: And have you talked to Department of Public Safety? Sent

[Unidentified Committee Member (possibly Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons)]: it to public safety. I just was on the phone with one of the fire members of the task force. I thought he was on that email list, but I guess it was a wrong email. So I told him about it, and it was, I'd say in the direction if you wanted to go, but I don't know exactly what what he wanted. Stopped just

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: One of the task force people or one of

[Philip Baruth (Member)]: the Yeah. The fire no. One of the task force. The task force. The the fire chief from the town file. Okay. Correct. Right. So that's that. So we'll take a look at it.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Yeah. I've been talking. Yeah. Yeah. I've talking. Yeah. And we won't be signing this because this makes it look like it's the whole video probably.

[Unidentified Committee Member (possibly Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons)]: Yeah. Yeah.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Or if it's one. Yeah. That's it. We're done. We just had to sign that. Yeah.

[Unidentified Committee Member (possibly Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons)]: Don't know. Yeah. I didn't talk to him about why he did that yet.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Somebody was optimistic and enthusiastic about this.

[Unidentified Committee Member (possibly Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons)]: I think maybe he hadn't done an amendment to a conference report yet.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Yeah. I will review this. That would

[Unidentified Committee Member (possibly Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons)]: be great. Yeah. We can happy to talk about Okay.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: People. Great. And then we gave you a spreadsheet yesterday with various

[Mr. Nixon (Legislative Counsel/Staff)]: So we started to look at the food.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Yeah. Right. I think the other spreadsheet if the food one wasn't done.

[Unidentified Committee Member (possibly Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons)]: The food one, we're gonna have to get back to you.

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

[Unidentified Committee Member (possibly Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons)]: We actually haven't Matthew talked about this one. I'm I'm not expecting big differences, but we haven't talked about it. So hopefully next time we meet Okay. We can get back

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: to you. Alright. I'll go to spreadsheet and the food. Okay. And send this back to the other one. There were a couple of little line items. I I I know that I'm gonna we're gonna hand out some language to go over and ask a gradient to go over it for us. But before we did that, there were just a couple of, you know, sort of stray line items. It's line number 30. It's just at the bottom of page five. The opioid abatement special fund language, etcetera. We're happy to agree to the senate version on that. My mother is sick. It's just kind of a straight line. And then we are in a language. There's information to support the parent child centers, but actually bigger than the parent child centers. So we'll see that. But we also, on the other hand, would like to remove the like, 138. Yeah. She gets 138, which is the how was it?

[Unidentified Committee Member (possibly Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons)]: 135.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: 135. I'm sorry. I wrote the wrong number. The statewide behavioral prevention program, nobody in the house has done heard anything about it, and that seems like a next year thing for not putting the budget for this year. So we'd like to take that out to remove that language. Yeah. Well, we need to talk about that. Yeah. We can talk about that.

[Unidentified Committee Member (possibly Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons)]: We'll talk about So that'll be one That's perfect.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Yeah. I'd I'd say that the house feels better stopping about that. And we're trying to offset every other intent message that you're gonna hear about once we get the language related to the parent child centers. So I think we're at language and also joint fiscal, I think, has information on five thirty eight spread through here. So I don't know which we wanna do first. I don't care if you're ready to do one, but Sure.

[Philip Baruth (Member)]: Same sheet that you've seen before, just as a new date.

[Unidentified Committee Member (possibly Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons)]: And a

[Philip Baruth (Member)]: different heading, but the same beautiful colors you come accustomed to. And so I just gonna I don't know you want me to walk through, but the first thing I can start with is quickly orient you with it. Mhmm. On the left side, you have 09:38 is past the house. In the middle, you have nine thirty eight is past the senate. On the far right is delta. And then going down, they can see it's based general fund, one time general fund, federal funds, total breach. The only big difference between what the house that incentive was emergency housing. They took 500,000 out of emergency housing for both motels and moved it into a to create a new appropriation for the community resource center at CBOEO. Otherwise, both house and senate stayed true to the sort of goal of trying to stay within the boxes and the appropriation that were done by the governor's recommendation. So if there's anything else you want me to say, I can look at which sections it could work off. But but

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: the goal is to put the specific numbers in the budget in the right section where you can send it because you hadn't done September and just put general amounts, and now we wanna be specific in the budget. Yeah. Spread that out. We've been working

[Unidentified Committee Member (possibly Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons)]: on that.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Right. Yeah. So that's that's what you want. Okay. So we can do that for you. Yeah. Sometimes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that would be great. Yeah. Great work. Well, thank you, Philip.

[Unidentified Committee Member (possibly Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons)]: Now, Mr. Nixon, are you ready? Do you have a screen? Yep.

[Mr. Nixon (Legislative Counsel/Staff)]: So this is a number of house proposals. Well, if you could be a hold and help explain as

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: How do I do this?

[Mr. Nixon (Legislative Counsel/Staff)]: I can Maybe you can Maybe I'll hand it

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: to

[Unidentified Committee Member (possibly Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons)]: think you that would in better.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: I was thinking it was gonna be stable. That's. So

[Mr. Nixon (Legislative Counsel/Staff)]: if this is the first proposal, we have to stay.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Oh, is it is that for every oh, this is oh, sorry. It's not I'm still confused here. It might be fine. We

[Mr. Nixon (Legislative Counsel/Staff)]: didn't collate it, so that way

[Unidentified Committee Member (possibly Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons)]: each. Okay. So we have extras?

[Mr. Nixon (Legislative Counsel/Staff)]: That way they really speak for themselves.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Oh, great to see. So

[Unidentified Committee Member (possibly Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons)]: I'll defer to. Well When you'd like to

[Philip Baruth (Member)]: We can start right now. Great.

[Mr. Nixon (Legislative Counsel/Staff)]: So this first proposal, would be a minor amendment to the one time appropriation to end homelessness Vermont, for a grant. This would add in the language to continue providing statewide to the explanation of services that End Homelessness Vermont provides. And then, the legislative intent section that would be added to the bill, this expresses findings from the general assembly relating to Vermont's homelessness population, and, again, the intersection between this grant and the Vermont Homelessness Response Continuum in h nine thirty eight, and then services that and Homelessness Vermont provides, and then expressing that it's the intention of the general assembly in that sub b that the grant be to support that organization's continued statewide work.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Okay.

[Unidentified Committee Member (possibly Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons)]: All these folders. You take a look at it. Okay.

[Mr. Nixon (Legislative Counsel/Staff)]: So this proposal would add language to the current section e one zero five point one relating to the deficit mitigation report from ADS in consultation with the Department of Finance and Management relating to the CRT internal service funds. This would add two more reports, one from ADS on estimates, resources, and uses of service funds, compliance with new procedures, and any advantages of a revised budgeting approach, and then one further report from finance management on IT project expenditure tracking.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: This came from my work with ADS and our budgeting committee trying to understand the restructuring of ADS in terms of the financing, breaking it up into three individual funds, and how they all fell through and then you add them back up. They do make sense, but in the beginning it was confusing. And so both the committee, the the energy and digital infrastructure committee as well as special committee felt it would be useful to see a a six month review of how things are working so far and how they are able to track expenses in a better way so that they know the charges that are going out and the expenses that are coming in. So, if you can track them. Validate that approach. And then the last one was a request from the Energy and Disability Infrastructure Committee in the house that with this change of structure, we are moving cost of an IT project directly to an agency that's working with them. And so they wanted to be able to track all the expenses that might happen with that particular project. So they were to they have already discussed this with the administration to figure out a way to attract those expenses so that within an hour for example, they know, well, we spent this much on software and we spent this much on personnel, took their time off their regular work to work on the IT project instead and maybe we have to go over the consultant. And anyways, then they could track all of those expenses related to an IT project, not just purchasing software. So it's by funds. So there's like different funds depending on the part of it. Yes. Okay. Yes. On how you get that. Yeah. Right. Because some of it, you know, they can maybe charge off to their federal funds if they're getting grant money in order to do something or some of them they can't do the job. But the idea was to get a broader idea of what this whole specific IT project might possibly be, not just the initial purchases. So it's just about the money, the outcomes Not really, it's just a way of tracking the expenses. Because they're putting it out to the agencies and they could just disappear, we never know what's happening, and then suddenly it's $10,000,000 here and there. You know, have that. Thanks, Mark. The

[Mr. Nixon (Legislative Counsel/Staff)]: next proposal, this is language that's already in the Capital Bill Community Conference Report. This this updated language relating to the high end system facility for youth, the Green Mountain Youth Campus. So this would be duplicative of the language in the capital bill, just belts and suspenders. I think this the committee heard about this earlier in the week, just to ensure that this language, relating to these committees goes to both bills and that's seen. I think the concern from the conference on the capital bill was just ensuring that this language was visible.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Just putting it in the budget.

[Philip Baruth (Member)]: No. Since it's. We

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: had a different language, and it it would have prevented BGS from going forward with design work. And so, this new language enables it to go forward with the design work, but before making any commitments to building, or to operations that they come not only with the decline, but also the, operating budget. Okay. Next slide.

[Mr. Nixon (Legislative Counsel/Staff)]: The next proposal is a report from AHS to the committees on appropriations as well as the House of Human Services Committee and the house or the Senate Health and Welfare Committee relating to community based organizations, community partners, and service providers that are currently identified in title 33 of the Vermont statutes, but are not included in budgetary inflation increase reports, required by 33 VSA one twenty five or five zero six, which relates to us substantively similar reports for PAs related to services at DCF and Dale. This would direct AHS to include a list of those entities in identifying the statute, and pass budgetary information, an estimate of the cost of providing similar rate increases, and then any statutory language or including that similar reporting language in statute. So this would, be a revised construct for placing the language that currently relates to parent child center that we're gonna talk about.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: So then we talked about it. This is some umbrella thing. And, like, umbrella thing is all those those that are stashed totally. They're stashed.

[Mr. Nixon (Legislative Counsel/Staff)]: So this would be replaced?

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Yes. Yes. So pieces would be included with that, obviously. We also aren't leaving out other people that we find out later that the. So, actually, I think

[Mr. Nixon (Legislative Counsel/Staff)]: The next proposal, relates to amendments two thirty three b s a 17 o three. This relates to statutory reporting requirements vis a vis changes to snap. This would direct DCF to report to the chairs of the House Human Services and Senate Health and Welfare Committees, as well as community partners under contract with DCF to provide outreach services, federally authorized retailers operating in Vermont, and then any interested stakeholders, and JFC if the general assembly is adjourned, to any substantive changes to, laws governing SNAP. DCF would have to, in that reporting, identify anticipated impacts on the administrative burden or cost to DCF, community partners, or authorized retailers, and then, again, make further changes, say not less than ninety days prior to any implementation of a substantive voluntary change, the department shall provide, or shall convene a meeting with those partners and interested stakeholders relating to changes.

[Unidentified Committee Member (possibly Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons)]: Was there any language like this in there?

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: No, this is new. It's made to be statute. Is statute that you Changes on the statute. Yeah, right. To make Go ahead. Activity at the federal level, we just wanted to make sure that community partners were involved in hearing about and contributing to conversations about changes, either in the administration of the SNAP grant or federal changes. Then there's a thing that the state can choose to do, but And need to do some this was worked out. We had some of the advocates in the room representing the community partners and the DCF and Senator Lyons.

[Unidentified Committee Member (possibly Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons)]: Yeah.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Well, and last fall, I think, was an example of why we able to have some success. Right. Exactly.

[Mr. Nixon (Legislative Counsel/Staff)]: The next proposal, these are technical corrections that the committee already heard about relating to the language support and supervised visitation program funding. So the language erroneously cited an appropriation in b three nineteen was corrected to b three seventeen. And it used the language distributed, the technical letter flag that that should be granted rather than distributed. And then in sub a, you won't see the change here, but the senate language had language relating to the remainder of funds being used to support the start up costs for new sites. Because the language is explicit about directing the entirety of that amount to the existing community based supervised visitation sites, the proposal would be to strike that language related to the remainder.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Because there's no remainder. Sorry.

[Mr. Nixon (Legislative Counsel/Staff)]: This yes. This language, relates to foreign.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: This is form language that was that was, worked out between Dale and, the DAs and SSAs that were in conversation over the, winter. And there is language in

[Philip Baruth (Member)]: the village based on the

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Right. Every time we changed it, we thought we had it right. Yeah. But it wasn't quite right. And now I think we finally have it right. It's that everybody is not born with it.

[Mr. Nixon (Legislative Counsel/Staff)]: The one thing I would note about this language is that, JFO did legislative council recommended some, final tweaks to this language, that JFO has reached out to confirm are okay. Okay.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: But this is essentially what it is?

[Unidentified Committee Member (possibly Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons)]: Yes. Okay.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Thank you.

[Mr. Nixon (Legislative Counsel/Staff)]: This proposal relates to, choices for care and the budget presentation from Dale. The both the house and senate bills have language, essentially attempting to achieve the same thing of directing Dale, to in its f y twenty eight budgets include home and community based services and skilled nursing facility services under the choices for care program as two entirely separate appropriations. Given the nature of that program, that is technically difficult to implement. So this language would instead request of the department or instructed them to report to relevant committees of jurisdiction from the prior five fiscal years detailed information on expenditures in both of those parts of the choices for care program.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: They do a quarterly report now that's supposed to come to everybody and probably the one that's still in my like that. Oh, no. I haven't. So the and Ginny has probably seen this, and it it has all the it has data about dollar. We may wanna add people or something, but we were getting this intentionally getting this supposed to just going to the board section that people forget about to the committees.

[Mr. Nixon (Legislative Counsel/Staff)]: And then the final, this is a packet of three changes. This is, more of a technical correction from JFO than a house proposal. This relates to two separate surcharges, elected in the human resource services internal service fund. One ultimately ends up, providing funds in the human resource services internal service fund for the state ethics commission, the other for the office of racial equity. Both of those entities' budgets in f y twenty seven and prior budget years rely on funds from that internal service fund. The respective surcharges

[Unidentified Committee Member (possibly Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons)]: were both repealed, although

[Mr. Nixon (Legislative Counsel/Staff)]: the both entities still receive monies from that fund. So this language would, in the first instance, on the first page, extend the repeal for the state ethics commission surcharge until f y twenty eight. On the second page, it would do the same for the office of racial equity surcharge. This section would have to be retroactive to, 06/30/2024 since the repeal already occurred. So this the surcharge for the state ethics commission was effective 07/01/2025, the current fiscal year. So that would be a c section of the bill effective this year. The second section of the more just aligning legislation with past and current practice. And then the final section would be adding the office of racial equity and the state ethics commission to the human resource or human resource services internal service fund as allowable uses of that funds. So this would be tying everything out to make sure that those budgets are actually properly accounted for. What was the surcharge on? So in both of these instances, the commissioner of human resources has a small surcharge to across all entities of state government or so HR. HR already does that for their own services. These surcharges were related to services authored by the audits or regulatory equity in the state. So it's just got a full agreement with everybody else. Correct. It's just making sure that both legislative language actually aligns with the current practice and then just adding them in as well as the sub funds so that this issue doesn't occur in the future.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: So that how is that surcharge calculated? Is it based on payroll or upper employees?

[Mr. Nixon (Legislative Counsel/Staff)]: Original language had a specific percentage amount for each of these surcharges, but that percentage amount, I don't believe aligns with what the calculation ultimately was. I would have to reach out to the administration or human resources to know for sure, but this language would strike those percentage counts so that the actual bunch of them now aligns with whatever the search terms currently is. And they what is the repeal that something that these two entities are not gonna pay us up with 28

[Unidentified Committee Member (possibly Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons)]: or that Currently,

[Mr. Nixon (Legislative Counsel/Staff)]: human resources, implements these surcharges to fund these specific entities. This would extend their appeals until FY '28 so that the budgets that's currently constructed align with the fact that surcharges in effect, but then after f y twenty seven, these two respective entities just simply be allowable uses of the human resource services fund so that the commissioner of human resources can just determine the not funding this to get the charge that will be upon these entities.

[Unidentified Committee Member (possibly Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons)]: Your mission? I believe so. Okay.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Okay. Good job. Up to you. Okay. Fifteen minutes to print. We'll bring it next time. So we have been talking about the UVM money and also, as you know, that the house hasn't been keen on that, and so we're also thinking about what are some things that are also important to the house. So, in addition to that, we better person than I were in a meeting with the treasurer's office recently, and it turns out that there is just over $10,000,000 additional in unclaimed property between f y twenty six and f one twenty seven. And we have been long concerned about using the money that's in the higher ed and down at the Fund because it goes to scholarships, we don't wanna reduce those opportunities for Vermonters. So, the proposal that we wanna put forth in concept is that we can talk about language because we have things to show you at some point, but we wanna just start now with the concept, would be that we would take the 10,000,000 from the unclaimed property, which is over two years, FY '26 and FY '27. We will have a spreadsheet to show you for this. And then as and put that, that would come to the general fund and then we would transfer or appropriate it to the higher ed trust fund. And then we would also take 2,000,000 from the higher ed trust fund. So that gets the $12,000,000 And we would have an agreement that said that the 12,000,000 would be the last $12,000,000 in. And they would have to raise They've already raised a bunch of money, but that they would raise, need to show us that they had raised $140,000,000 the project is somewhere between 150 and 170,000,000. So we say you have to raise 140 and then you get the 12,000,000, so they're pretty much at the end. And they need to do it within three years, which when President Trump came into our committee and talked to us about it, we specifically said, How long is this project gonna take? And she said, will be done in three years. We also think there's a benefit to three years because I think there's sort of a psychological art to fundraising. And if folks know that they've got this great match and they're debating whether to give, they're gonna be giving more quickly and then they'll just. So, 12,000,000, they would certify to the Commissioner of Finance and Management and to the Joint Fiscal Committee that they have raised $140,000,000 and at which point, the secretary of administration could instruct the treasurer to release the funds to to UVM. That's the broad concept. Know if I left anything out, but that's the broad concept for the 12,000,000. And as part of this package deal, we would like to, put the Benefit Sisters program into the budget. And we would unreserve $3,490,000 from the $30,000,000 that we reserved from last year. It's a statewide program to help ensure that people who are receiving SNAP benefits and Medicaid benefits would be able to continue to get those benefits. The federal government's made it much more difficult for people to do that. We're already finding that we're losing people. And so there, we have community partners across the state that are in daily touch with people who are recipients of these services, and that they could help make sure that they were free up and try to keep people on who should be kept on. So that's the other part of the proposal. We're working on language for that, and I would have that to give you probably well. But that's that's sort of the combo package, you know, combo special. You know how much has been raised to date for the PVM? Yeah. That's my piece of paper. I think we were talking was it is it close to 70? I think that's Yeah. Around close to 70. 63. 63? What? Which one? Shall I tell 63. 63. The rest of the total cost is not a 140,000,000. It's 101 that needs to be

[Unidentified Committee Member (possibly Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons)]: That's the rest. We'll work on that.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Then we'd work on the details. The whole project is nothing more than a 101. We put 78. But so, anyway, that's the intent is that anyway, it'll be the last 12,000,000. And if we don't have the right number that they have to raise and pull before they get, we'll figure that out. But that's the concept.

[Unidentified Committee Member (possibly Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons)]: I'm not sure it's the last dollar.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Right. And it's three years, and it would be kept in the higher end, endowment trust fund, so the interest could still go to be used for scholarships, but that money would be clearly earmarked for UVM. Any questions about that? As of right now, we can talk about We just gave you a lot of feedback. Yeah. What's the total amount that you are suggesting for Medicaid benefits? Oh, for the Benefit Assisted Program? I believe it's 3,490,000 and maybe $635 at the end, something like that. Just under 3,500,000. And we have the list of the specific organizations who already have contracts with various agencies or departments within AHS and who have agreed to do this work. So, have dollar amounts, we have sort of like the HOT program where we have specific, this would be the similar kind of construct. So we will have that language. That's what we've worked on now.

[Unidentified Committee Member (possibly Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons)]: Yeah. We'll at the we'll look at the length of study. I can't remember exactly what we had in the study.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: So that that section wasn't handed out because it's getting revised to incorporate this.

[Unidentified Committee Member (possibly Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons)]: K. Well, thank you for the. Makes sense, and we will hopefully get back to you with the next meeting.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Yeah. Should we be at, like, four or something? Or is that is that what Yeah. We're four

[Unidentified Committee Member (possibly Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons)]: or 02:30. I I don't think we have a lot more to do. So that's four.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Is that enough time to get that 04:00? Two hours?

[Philip Baruth (Member)]: 04:50.

[Unidentified Committee Member (possibly Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons)]: Endeavor to do so.

[Andrew Perchlik (Chair)]: Okay. We can adjust as necessary. Yeah. We know when the house schedule is. The only schedule we have is to go there physical for coffee.

[Unidentified Committee Member (possibly Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons)]: Okay.