Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: Little oranges and some things that we have breakfast at eight here. At least something to well, keep us alive. Uh-huh. And, yeah, it looks good.

[Katie (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It looks like you're live. It looks like you're live.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: We are now live and it is Thursday. It is Friday, January 9. Oh, how could I forget it's Friday? And this is Senate Health and Welfare Committee. This morning we're going to review some of the bills that we had last year in the human services area. Yesterday we went through some of the healthcare bills and the healthcare transformation process, so today we'll look at others with Arlington Council. And before we do that, I just wanted to ask the committee to over your time off, or maybe on Monday when you have, are looking for something to do, very helpful to go through the bills that we have in the committee, they are online, and also Callistus has that nice Excel spreadsheet on our webpage with all of the bills listed on. Look at the bills that you are most excited or interested in, the topics you'd like. Really do it by topics because there are some bills that relate to one another. And we'll go through that on Tuesday. We'll take a little bit of time just to sort out the bills that you particularly would like to look at. Just pick a couple. I've got a couple I'm going to start with and then we'll go from there. I do think that ultimately we'll be able to have sponsors in and go through the bills with our council and know what's in each so we can make good decisions. That's it for that one. So that's homework. I'll be doing it. I'll be doing it and see how it goes. And that's it. So, Katie, thank you for being here. Yeah. Thank you. Good morning. Question. One clarification.

[Sen. Martine Larocque Gulick (Vice Chair)]: So the H bills that are up there, those are bills that have actually been, cooled through the house and are now over to us.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: That's right and just FYI with little exception, the new age bills will probably sit there until after crossover. So I would focus on the senate bills. There might be an H bill that comes to us that needs to be acted on quickly. Like if the vaccine bill gets here we wanna act on that quickly. And the H bill that I was talking about, February, the psychologist prescribed a bill would want to look at that. The house is very interested in having us pick it up. So that one. There may be another age bill that we pick up before crossover, that's basically S bills. Do you have any questions? That good? Alright. Alright. Any other questions? Alright, thank you. Great, Katie. Thanks. Yeah, thank you. So I

[Katie (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: guess we'll pivot from looking at bills you have on the wall to bills that you worked on last year. Okay. So I'm gonna share my screen.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: There we go. Okay. So,

[Katie (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I'm going to walk you through some of the bills that this committee worked on last year. These are more human services related. I think you've already met with Jen earlier this week to talk about some of the bills you worked on last year that were more healthcare oriented. Okay. Okay. So, the first bill was a bill that started in the House that became Act nine, H two fifty nine, an act relating to preventing workplace violence. And Representative McFawn was the person who was working on this along with representative Barry Cortes. This requires hospitals to implement security plans for preventing workplace violence and managing aggressive behaviors based on results of a security risk assessment. It requires hospitals to use a workplace violence incident reporting system, a data system, to document, track, and analyze and evaluate incidents of workplace violence to determine whether there are any patterns and how to systemically address any patterns that are emerging. Also, it excludes from certificate of need requirements hospital expenditures to implement this required hospital security plan, and it also requires hospitals to report costs of implementing the security plan as part of the hospital budget review process, and it requires the Green Mountain Care Review Board to take costs into account when establishing the hospital budgets. So that the cost of developing a plan would be part

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: of those calculations. And just to add a comment on this one, this is a continuation of work that we started the session before and jointly working with Senate judiciary where we had learned about some really awful events in our emergency department. So that began a discussion on that. Then I was fortunate enough to talk with a nurse from, I guess, Copley, Coppers area who was very interested in having this go forward. Combination of working together really produced a good bill. We probably should get an upgrade from the hospitals at some time. I was gonna say that would be great. Yeah.

[Katie (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Next is Act 16, H. Two eighteen. We worked on it, and act relating to fiscal year twenty twenty six appropriations from the Opioid Abatement Special Fund. As you know, the Opioid Abatement Special Fund, each year there's a certain amount of funds that are available. In statute, we have specific ways to use that money related to prevention and treatment for opioid use disorder. Last year, I think was the first time that there was a standalone bill appropriating these funds. There was some conversation that it would be easier to track moving forward if there was a standalone bill each year with the appropriations in it. And so, this made a number of appropriations, so I just picked out a few. 1,900,000.0 fund 26 outreach and case management staff positions within the provider network. There's language that it's the hope to continue using this fund for this purpose. Similarly, 1,400,000.0 to fund recovery residences certified by VTAR. 85,000 to fund syringe services, 50,000 to train Vermont judges on issues related to opioid use disorder and strategies for use in dockets statewide. So this is four on a list of about 16 or 17 different appropriations related to opioid use disorder. Other changes, this bill didn't just have appropriations, it requires the Opioid Settlement Advisory Committee, which is the committee that receives all the requests, the funding requests related to this fund, and that of hears all the requests and makes recommendations as to how the fund should be spent. It requires this advisory committee to base its annual recommendations for expenditures from the special fund on previously reported outcomes and measurements, and to include within its recommendations a corresponding citation for authorized use of the Special Fund. So let me sort of back up and talk about both of those things. One element in the bill was asking for more data reporting and measurements related to previous expenditures from the bill. And so this is asking the advisory committee to actually refer back to this data collected and the measurements before making new funding decisions. And then, as I said, all of the allowable uses for the fund are in statute. So what that last phrase is saying is if you are making a recommendation for how to use this fund, refer back to the citation so we know what authority you're relying on to spend these funds. And then lastly, requiring the advisory committee to elect a vice chair from among its non governmental members. Right now, I believe it's the Commissioner of Health who serves as chair, and the conversation up in human services, if I remember correctly, was trying to identify somebody who was not a member of the administration who could speak on behalf of the group, there was nobody necessarily who had a title to do that. So by creating a vice chair from non governmental members, there's somebody who can present that voice when they're presenting to the legislative committees.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: So just a comment on the Opioid Settlement Abatement Special Fund. When it came to us, it goes through the attorney general's office. It's the result of the lawsuits against Settlement. Yeah. Settlement. Whole settlement fees. And there were guidelines that suggested how the funds would be dispersed. We took the, I was going through the guidelines I met with the governor's office and others and decided that, I felt, I think we all felt strongly that there should be both the executive branch and the legislative branch in the decision making process. So that resulted in this committee. Because it's an appropriation, and the money has to go through the legislature anyway and through the budget, then it starts in the house in the same you know, so this bill always starts in the house. We might have one here. We don't we probably won't this year. And then the the advisory committee really makes decisions. They this year, they had a very difficult time with, you know, many applications for the amount of funds that were available for the year. And so a lot of people didn't get funded. Their guidelines for decision making are things like harm reduction through substance use disorder, eliminating harm reduction, capital expenditures, operating expenditures, because you see it's a short term fund. How many years? Like five or ten years?

[Katie (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Originally it was somewhere around ten

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: Every year it's a different amount coming in. It could be two million, it could be 5,000,000. And so there's a lot of work that goes on with that committee. They look at requests for proposals that go out, then they go through those and make decisions about who gets what. So it's good. So when we sometimes the bill gets flopped into the budget, but recently it's been a standalone bill and we'll get it in committee and you can have folks talk more about that and get maybe a committee member to talk about it. So get a sense of what's going on because you're gonna hear people saying, well, the organization in my district didn't get funded and I and I it should have been funded and then if you sort through it you find out well gee they were asking for operating funds and that doesn't go because then you have to continue to do that over time. So there's a lot of nuance to that sort of process there.

[Katie (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I was just going to add as you were speaking and reminded me that there are legislators serving on this advisory committee. I think a senator and senator. Who is senator? Ruth is on.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: She was on at the beginning and want to stay on. It's a lot of work. It's representative Maguire in the house. Oh yeah, he's from Rutland, Eric, and he does, he's very much interested in substance use counseling and recovery residents in And Rutland

[Katie (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: the other thing I was gonna add, and I'm sure you'll do this, is you'll likely wanna hear from JFO and I'm positive that I will misstate it. So you'll have to hear it again from Nolan. But my impression from him is that the fund was has been sort of front loaded. So the biggest amount of money has been available at the beginning of the fund, there'll be smaller amounts of money as the fund winds down. And he has those projections of what's available each year, but it's not anticipated to be as big as it initially was each year moving forward. Theoretically, there might be more coming, but

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: I can say that other Okay.

[Katie (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Next, oh, when I mentioned the Christmas tree yesterday, here it is. So, Act 22, which was S-thirty six, an act relating to the delivery of payment for certain services provided through AHS, services for persons who are incapacitated, and human services work proceedings. So three separate topics in one bill, I've split them into three slides so we can sort of take one topic at a time. So the first topic has to do with residential treatment for individuals with substance use disorder. This committee spent a lot of time on this particular portion of the bill and actually left this committee with just this part of the bill. And a lot of the conversation on this committee was making sure that individuals could receive, the level of care they needed for the length of time they needed, and not, maybe having their care stopped because they had reached a certain number of days. So, the language in the bill required AHS to provide coverage for medically necessary high intensity medically monitored residential treatment episodes, so that's the highest level, and medically necessary low intensity, clinically managed residential treatment episodes when prescribed by a healthcare professional, employed by the residential program who is practicing within the scope of the professional's license, and the residential treatment program is participating in Vermont's Medicaid program.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: Is that levels four or five?

[Katie (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah, yeah. I might mispeak, so I don't want answer, but it was the higher level.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: Yeah, that was

[Katie (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: a good thing to look at. So medically monitored where the folks may need to go through detox vacation before they can start receiving other services. So that's medically monitored. Requires that coverage of these residential treatment episodes be for the entire length of stay prescribed by the professional. And it requires HS to conduct a review of the Medicaid payment model for residential substance use disorder treatment, which was submitted to the general assembly last month. So that's the first topic.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: Actually, you know what, we should look at, that's the report that we are gonna look at before we take up the recovery bill, which is the are you talking about? S-one57? Yes, 157. Yeah, 157. Got it. Okay. Okay.

[Katie (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So next. There, the bill doesn't use this term, but colloquially this language has been referred to as the public inebriate language. This is language that has been the the population addresses individuals who are intoxicated and they are held somewhere, like in a, usually a correctional setting overnight until they are no longer intoxicated and can be released to the community or referred for services. There was language that was enacted, I want to say ten years ago, twelve years ago, that said individuals really shouldn't be at a correctional setting, they should be in a treatment program. They should be held overnight in a treatment program or a more Therapeutic. Yeah, more therapeutic environment. Therapeutic. That language, even though it was enacted, it never took effect. It was, there was it was the date, the effective date was pushed out every single year for ten or twelve years because there were not the facilities, appropriate facilities all throughout the state to be able to provide that service. So last year, the decision was made just to repeal the language, and then there were a series of reports required or presentations required to see what the various departments were doing to sort of provide more therapeutic options, both in a correctional setting and in the community. So, so look at this. Oops, I didn't scroll down.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: So Yeah. And I'm sorry. I don't oh, wait. I think it's answered right there. Okay. Other drugs. I was wondering if the inebriation fees was solely was exclusive to alcohol or if it Yeah.

[Katie (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: No. It's broader. Okay. It used to be.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: That's the old days. Yeah.

[Katie (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And even though we called it public inebriance for, I would say, decade, that's always how I had heard it referred to when I went to look at the statute to repeal it, that freight is never used. It refers to persons who are incapacitated. So that's the language we used. So it eliminates our appeal that would have prohibited individuals who are incapacitated due to the use of alcohol or other drugs from being held at a DOC facilities, meaning they can be held there. It requires the Department of Health and Mental Health requires their existing plan for this population to expand services and programming for individuals who are incapacitated due to the use of alcohol or other drugs, to prioritize Chittenden County, including a submission of two presentations to the General Assembly by February 15. Meaning if you would like these presentations, you probably have to schedule them. You won't be just receiving a report on these topics. Well, when we take up, again, when

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: we take up the recovery bill, we'll get that update.

[Katie (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay. So the first is a joint presentation from Health Department and Mental Health on efforts to expand services and programming for individuals who are incapacitated due to use of alcohol or other drugs. And second is a presentation from DOC on efforts to reinstate the practice of connecting individuals who are in a correctional facility due to incapacitation from alcohol use or other drug use with appropriate community based recovery providers. So that's the reason have

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: to have both, we have that whole update for both DMH and DOC. Acronyms?

[Katie (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay, so that was part two of that bill. Okay. Part three. This is the Human Services Board. So we already talked about this yesterday when we were talking about the various reports that are doing for this committee. We chatted a little bit about how Human Services has a bill on their wall related to Human Services Board proceedings. In the course of working on that bill, they decided they needed to pause and gather more information before they could move forward. So, this is the result of that. These are the two reports they requested to gather that additional information to move forward potentially with the bill that's on their wall. So first report requires HS in consultation with the Human Services Board, Office of the Attorney General, and each of the agency's departments with cases before the board, any community service partners, and individuals with lived experience as appellants before the board to submit a report by December with various recommendations on board proceedings, including a proposal for attorney training for attorneys presenting before the board, and a proposal on resolving potential appeals prior to reaching the board, so that more appeals would settle out before they are heard in front of a hearing officer. The second, the lead reporter is the board itself in consultation with AHS, each of the agency's departments and cases before the board, office of the attorney general, community partners, individuals with lived experience as appellants before the board, to submit a report addressing a proposal to improve understanding of board processes and accessibility to appellants. There was a lot of conversation in the Human Services Committee as they worked on this, that it's very confusing for a layperson to appear before the board and not understand how the board works or what should be expected. It seems like a lot of folks were caught off guard that it of is a courtroom type setting. So, there's a proposal to improve individuals' preparation for appearing before the board.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: Educating them. And then there wasn't a recommendation about the professional education, except Oh, yeah. Culture needs to be.

[Katie (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Part of that was a proposal to exchange periodic feedback as part of continual community quality improvement process. So, among practitioners, hearing officers, more conversation about how to improve the process. So, I would anticipate, I don't think you've received those yet, but I would anticipate You already did? You did? We did, yeah. Oh, okay. I didn't think, oh, you did. The 07:15. Okay. I didn't have them linked.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: I did. Well, they asked to have it submitted later, I think. I I can't remember what

[Katie (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: they remember seeing that, but I remember they weren't linked yesterday,

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: but Jen thought at least one

[Sen. Martine Larocque Gulick (Vice Chair)]: of them had come in.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: Okay. Yeah. I think that's it. One and then, So that is the end of Act 22.

[Katie (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Act 42, H. Four zero one, an act relating to exemptions for food manufacturing establishment.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: This was a fun one. Guys should have been here. One. This of you, Dennis. You should have fun. Pickled.

[Katie (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I just

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: wanna say. And the secret recipe. My husband's favorite recipe now is pickled. Okay, Katie.

[Katie (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Sorry. There we are. Sorry. You had to

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: we studied this.

[Katie (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I'm glad you were trying to. You're getting the flavor of it.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: Yeah. This bill had to

[Katie (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: do with how we classify producers who are kind of producing in their own home kitchens small quantities of food that doesn't exceed a certain monetary amount for sale, maybe like at a farmer's market or small scale production. The interest was to allow a a greater allow these people to grow their business without a license from the health department. There that was already allowed, but this allows somebody to earn up to a higher monetary cap without having to obtain a license. Because this underlying statue is, I don't know, it was a little bit convoluted the way it was organized. It became it sounds so straightforward when I explain it that way, but it wasn't very straightforward. So, we had to create a new category of food manufacturing establishments, which were cottage food operations, which refers to the home kitchen or auxiliary kitchen of a person's private property where the cottage food products are produced. We also added a definition of cottage food products to mean items sold by a cottage food operator that do not require refrigeration or time or temperature controls for safety. The definition had a whole list of examples of the different type of products that would fall into this category. And then we exempted this new category, cottage food operations, that have annual gross receipts of $30,000 or less from the existing requirement to obtain a license and pay a fee to the Department of Health. So baked goods, right? Yeah. Granola. Oh yeah. Pickled vegetables.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: Pickled vegetables. You can afford in a can. Then, this

[Katie (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: continued to require food manufacturing establishments that were otherwise exempt from the licensure and licensing requirements to submit a licensing fee filing. So even though folks don't have to get a license, they still have to file a document with the department to let them know that they're operating and this is where they're operating, this is what they're producing. And in addition to that already required filing, there is the additional requirement that as part of submitting the filing, the food service establishment has to attest to completion of a training requirement created by the health department and rule. So health department sort of described that there would be a food safety video type training that individuals who aren't obtaining license would have to watch and sort of check the box if they have reviewed the food safety information prior to starting their

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: job roles. Those rules have gone through. Yeah. I just read, I read them, but I don't know whether they've gone through health part yet.

[Katie (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Have the emergency rules. That was the emergency rule. They still have to do permanent. Oh, yeah. The permanent, I think I take them back shortly. There was a gap. Right. Like a weak gap, so they had to do a second emergency rule to fill the gap.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: Right. So avoid things like botulism and.

[Sen. Martine Larocque Gulick (Vice Chair)]: Legacies. I remember the wrong milk issue.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: Oh, that one. It's it was similar. Mhmm. But this one was not like that. This was a happier time. Many farmers slaughter their own chickens. Oh, yeah. That one too. But this was the concern here was that people want to have their own farm stand and sell things and the limits are now different and Katie can help me here because I can't remember. Know for that $30,000 level it's baked goods and some pickled things that are less attractive to contamination because the pickling gets rid of it. And then the other canned goods that if you go over that

[Katie (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Oh, the monetary amount, then you have to get a license.

[Sen. Martine Larocque Gulick (Vice Chair)]: So if you go over there Yeah.

[Katie (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: You have to get a license. And then there are different types of license depending how big of a producer you are and how much income you obtain from your business. So there are more small producers and there's a different license level for larger producers.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: It was great. Mean, that was a it was a good experience. I think when the it came from the ag committee to this committee. So there was a combination of interest and the sponsor of the bill spent his life in here with us when we went through the bill. And he I talked with him this summer and he said I think he's from Bennington. Was it correct? No. I thought it was Cooper? Cabot. Oh, you're right. It's Cabot.

[Katie (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: He was the reporter, but the sponsor, I think,

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: representative Cooper. Yeah. So, anyway, I I talked with one of them, and he said, now I understand that when you sponsor a bill, you lose the bill. It's not your bill anymore. That's good. That's a good thing to think about. Things change.

[Sen. Martine Larocque Gulick (Vice Chair)]: I shouldn't have thought.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: That was a good bill. Thank you, Katie, for calling it. Love it.

[Katie (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay. Next, Act 54, h two thirty eight, and after the phase out of consumer products containing added perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, PFAS. So you worked on this with Michael Grady. I'm not as familiar with the specific details, so maybe you'll be educating me a little bit here. But that you amended the state's prohibition on the sale of consumer goods containing PFAS to include three additional types of consumer products that have intentionally added PFAS. Heating products, dental floss, and fluorine treated containers. The bill extends the effective date on the prohibition of the sale and distribution of cookware containing intentionally added PFAS to July '28. It requires Secretary of Natural Resources to submit to the General Assembly a report regarding the regulation by other states of PFAS in consumer products, including recommendation based on review of regulatory programs in other states, and whether Vermont should establish a regulatory program for PFAS and consumer products. It requires the Secretary of Ag, Food and Markets to submit to the General Assembly a recommendation on how to address PFAS and foods, but that's not until 2033. Second page. The bill bans the sale or distribution of firefighting personal equipment, PPE. This was

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: another fun one. Yeah. One was because there was a difference of opinion between the professional firefighters and the volunteer firefighters about what they could afford in terms of new equipment and whether we should actually go through the ban initially, and so there was a real good compromise that came out of it. Also the concern about manufacturers doing a buyer sale, no Right. Attended. Exactly.

[Sen. Martine Larocque Gulick (Vice Chair)]: So that

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: would be really cheap to get the PFAS once before they could. And our local folks, the volunteers might well buy that because they could then afford it, but then they're stuck with dangerous equipment. And it was the uniforms around the Right. Also, you know, the shirts polo shirts they wear in the fire those boots even. Yeah. Yeah. Kinda uniform. Not the firefighting equipment. Yeah. Why it needs to be fireproof to sit here in the station, I don't know, but it was a lot of drugs.

[Katie (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So the ban was set for 07/01/1929 provided that the initial prohibition did not apply to the sale or distribution of respirators or respirator equipment.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: Right. Respirators are very difficult to find that don't have PFAP. PFAP.

[Katie (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Oh, I'm sorry. No. No. No. No.

[Sen. Martine Larocque Gulick (Vice Chair)]: I'm I'm surprised by that.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: Oh, we are. We were too, but it's it's the the the lamination, I guess. It's like the KN 90 fives. You know? I think some of them have PFAS as well.

[Sen. Martine Larocque Gulick (Vice Chair)]: I remember years ago, two of the fire departments, I believe they they used to put

[Unidentified member or staff]: out certain types of fires with foam,

[Sen. Martine Larocque Gulick (Vice Chair)]: and that had a lot of

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: Well, we we banned that couple sessions ago. So that that's horrible. Yeah. And that's one of the reasons hard to get of the reasons that you see the that you buy, it's Minivan, rugs. Right. We did carpets. We've done all kinds of things. But the What

[Sen. Martine Larocque Gulick (Vice Chair)]: have we done that did set the sides?

[Katie (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: We're working on that.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: That's what I know about. We have an keep I'm getting a lot of emails.

[Katie (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: Oh, yeah. And then we also have done field athletic field cover. The turf? Yeah. The turf. Mhmm. Yeah. Which there's no PFAS in in the turf itself. May as well talk about it. This is fun. But they use it to allow the turf to slide through as it's manufactured, because it helps it move through the conveyor belt. So it doesn't need to be PFAS, it'll be something else that's non toxic, but it's left on even if you rinse off as much as you can, it's left on and then when you put it on the field the soccer players in Boston were coming down with cancer at a very high rate. And we see our firefighters exposed to foam with a high rate of cancer. Well that's why it lands here pretty much as the public health consequence.

[Sen. Martine Larocque Gulick (Vice Chair)]: I think I remember the country landfill having to deal with PFAS. Right. With the leachate. Right. Yeah. How do you what do do with it? How do you treat it?

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: Well, and the facility's working with Montpelier. Yeah. They're working with with Montpelier to figure out how they can pull it out of the leachate and out of the out of the water. The So they want Montpelier not to take it, but Montpelier says, if we take it, we're gonna work at treating it. If we don't take it, it will go to New York. And either way, it's gonna get dumped into a shamfight.

[Sen. Martine Larocque Gulick (Vice Chair)]: Well, see, that that was my concern.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: That's the problem. Yeah.

[Sen. Martine Larocque Gulick (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. That stuff doesn't go away.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: Where were we? I'm sorry.

[Katie (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: That's okay. I'll bring us back. We're on the third bullet. Require that the manufacturer of firefighting station wear provide notice of intentionally added PFAS to buyers until July '26 when the requirements for

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: the sale and distribution of apparel containing additionally added PFAS going to effect. So this is for the polo shirts and the slacks that you would that firefighters would have to wear. It's not sheet gear. And what is it called? Sedation gear. Thank you. There it is. Citation gear.

[Katie (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And lastly, there's a reporting requirement from ANR, the availability and cost of PPE, personal protective equipment, that does not include PFAS.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: So we'll get that before 2029. That is it for Annabel. Yeah, so one of the things that goes on with the toxic chemicals The reason we look at the toxic chemicals is because of health effects. Then we have the Department of Health that's very much engaged in looking at the levels of toxic chemicals that could have effects, so they're involved with this. Then ANR is very much involved because the environmental effects going into Lake Champlain or into the soils or landfill. And then ag agency, of course, also. So if it becomes a multitasking process. I know there's a bill now in natural resources that Senator Watson and I have talked about and worked on with plastics and that some plastics include what's known as DEHP. I was gonna have a separate bill on that. She's putting it in her bill, so she's working with Mike O'Grady on that. There's also a bill that we had Paraquad. And Paraquad then. We'll show. I was hoping we'd come here, but went to agriculture. We'll be able to look at it. Yeah. I mean, it's it's tricky because on the one hand, it's it's a herbicide that, know, is I'm sure somewhat helpful to some agricultural endeavors, but it is also directly linked to Parkinson's disease. And so it behooves us to protect farmers because they are exposed to that chemical and have a high rate of you know Parkinson's so yeah we'll see what happens with that one but it is I'll talk with the chair yeah of the committee maybe share the bill okay thank you

[Katie (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay. Okay. So, we've gotten to the end of the bills that were enacted. There was a one bill that was discussed for a long period of time in this committee and it ended up being vetoed. This was H91 enact relating to the Vermont Homeless Emergency Assistance and Responsive Transition to Housing Program. Acronym is VHEATH. So this would have established a VHEATH program to replace emergency housing provided through the General Assistance Program and the Housing Opportunity Grant Program. VHEATH would have provided supportive services, extreme weather event shelters, and emergency shelter to households experiencing homelessness by or through the community action agencies, and an organization with specialized experience serving households that have or currently are experiencing domestic or sexual violence. The bill would have required DCF and various community partners to develop plans for the implementation of VHEATH beginning in fiscal year twenty six, including a report back to the General Assembly on issues such as proposed performance measures, eligibility for VHEATH services, intake and assessment procedures, funding allocations, and household participation in case management services. The would have appropriated 7,000,000 in fiscal year twenty six to fund the transition from emergency housing through the General Assistance Program and Housing opportunity grant program, that's the HOT program, to the VRED program.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: Okay, that's all I have on that one.

[Katie (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: There are a number of reporting requirements.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: It was I believe this feels like

[Katie (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: a short summary. It's about 25 or

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: 30 page bill cover the transition. That

[Katie (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: one was that one was paid out. And that's it.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: And just to share with you H91, we spent significant time, there were some differences of opinion with the organizations that are providing support. Some organizations were feeling that they weren't going to be left in control of what they wanted to do and some were happy with their level of control over the program really, local regionalization of programs. And then I think the biggest reason it was vetoed was there was $10,000,000 in there to get the program going and have the restructuring for the CDO, the HOB, both the and the program. So there was $30,000,000 in the budget for temporary housing and this would have saved some money. So that $10,000,000 was available. It's still available. We just talked about it the other day in appropriation. So there's still $10,000,000 out there, but it's not been obligated in any way. I was disappointed that this was vetoed and Representative Wood worked very hard in the House on the bill. She and her committee put significant hours into building a new program that would have a distance to providing more shelters and removing the hotel motel program, which we're all about. Yeah. Okay. So that didn't happen. So we met early on. I can't remember. But we the two of us have met with AHS DCF to ask them what are next steps, so I'm hoping that something in the budget will give a clue for next steps and have some language there. So we'll see what happens with that. We are not finished with our work on eliminating the hotel mop pill program or at least reducing our dependence on it because it's very expensive and we're not I think that's bad with supports. The support services, yeah, thanks for that. Yeah, sort of remembering that when you put someone into housing, if they have a co occurring disorder, a mental health issue, or have a disability, you need to also, for their eligibility, to also have support services. So that was part of the bill that got

[Sen. Martine Larocque Gulick (Vice Chair)]: to be covered. Madam Chair, was it all GF funded or was there some Fed dollars?

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: Oh god, don't ask me that, I don't remember.

[Sen. Martine Larocque Gulick (Vice Chair)]: But yeah, so our federal dollars.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: We get the top dollars every year and then we also get dollars for our caps. Yeah. Yeah. Probably caps at their base funding. Strange. Yeah. Yeah. Does Nixon want to ask about that? Yeah. So all of the care in the sports that all of this is going to be so fun. What's my train of thought? Caps. Caps. I know. Caps. Federal funding. Federal funding. Supports. Well, we need the supports. I totally lost my train of thought. Will return. Motels. It'll

[Katie (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: go back.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: This all has to do with trying to get out of the motel program. But every April, March, the channel get back Oh, seasonal GA program. Seasonal when the ability to stay in motels ends, the advocates will be here. And it's not it's not a decreasing population or problem. It's increasing.

[Sen. Martine Larocque Gulick (Vice Chair)]: But it is an expensive if it's more expensive now, and it you should save money by an alternative?

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: Yes, well you should, but to do that, I mean most of these people need other services. Well, and one of the, you know, there's a lot of, there are a lot of details in here, you get into the weeds because then you have what's done as an intake program where you interview the person who's looking for housing and you want to make sure that, oh, it's a person who lives in a bond, resident of a bond or has a connection with a bond, then what are the needs that this person has? And where do we have either the shelter or first level shelter, where do we have the affordable housing?

[Sen. Martine Larocque Gulick (Vice Chair)]: It's

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: not simple, at least. Was it two or four years ago? Jane Hitchell discovered that same social worker, part of their job wasn't to find you housing. Right. Fix that. No, that's still that was part of what we were fixing is that the social determinants of health need to be all in on this one. So alright. Yeah. Oh, so can you can you give us a thumbnail sketch of what the general assistance program or general what general assistance is? I'm pull through it. Sure. Please go ahead.

[Katie (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Before I do that, I just wanted to flag if if anyone's interested that there is a bill on emergency housing that was introduced in the house. That's H five ninety four. It was introduced by representatives McGuire and Wood. Unlike the bill you worked on last year, which was a permanent program that was created, this is a bill that covers fiscal years '27 and '28.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: They did do it.

[Katie (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: To get to your question about general assistance, general assistance is a statutory program. It's, I don't know if it's in DCF or AHS in statute. What is interesting about general assistance is I think we have come to associate general assistance with emergency housing, but in the statutory language itself, it pretty much doesn't mention emergency housing at all. It provides, it's really sort of a safety net that is the last stop for all kinds of services. Like it even has language about covering burial expenses for certain individuals who die indigent. Let me take a look at that statute.

[Sen. Martine Larocque Gulick (Vice Chair)]: So who determines, whether or these individuals get general assistance? How's that work?

[Katie (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: There's an intake process. What's interesting about general assistance emergency housing is that it's not in statute, it's always in the budget. So every year it's almost like a new program because if the language is tweaked from year to year in terms of who is eligible or how the days are calculated, then it's sort of like a new program with new rules that have to be set up every single year. It changes over time. It doesn't look the same from year to year, although last year's and this year's are quite similar. Think it's most We put

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: language into the budget a couple years ago. But the negotiation happens in appropriations with recommendations from our committee and House Human Services, and it gets really And if I remember correctly, Comes out of traditional welfare. Generally, together welfare, you still are SNAP, whatever we're calling it now, reach out. You are a family of children and required children. Medicaid required children. Okay. We probably when you were here, we expanded that. Yep. Assistance picked up people who were poor, didn't have kids. We have a lot of it it traditionally gave you just enough money so you didn't starve to death on the street. It's been a very because there was aid to aging blind and disabled. Right. This kind of filled the crack. And I know, again, it was one of Jane's things to try and help that group. But if we gave them too much money, if they ended up losing their

[Sen. Martine Larocque Gulick (Vice Chair)]: certain natural

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: benefits, and they it's it's the

[Sen. Martine Larocque Gulick (Vice Chair)]: bottom. Okay.

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: It's yeah, know, if you're a traditional beggar on the street, that's what we say back in 2020. Thank you. Anyway, thank you. You're welcome.

[Katie (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I pulled up the chapter really to see what other kind of services are covered in general assistance. So weatherization, fuel assistance, some limited medical assistance, reimbursement for relief from expenditures, rental or mortgage arrearage program falls under general assistance.

[Sen. Martine Larocque Gulick (Vice Chair)]: So does it keep expanding?

[Katie (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: General assistance? I know. There haven't been a lot of sections added, let me see this, 2014. This is probably the most recent addition. So there was an addition in 2015, and that was the rental and mortgage arrearage. But, like I said, general assistance emergency housing isn't dealt with at all in statute. Still in

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: the budget. And comprehensive care is not really, it's in there, but there's no process or program essentially. It's come first come, first served. Yeah. We did the motel program as emergency housing for COVID because your traditional Good Samaritan here, you went in and there was bugs, bugs, bugs, bugs, and it was the ultimate super spreader spot, and so we put people in individual rooms to avoid a major outbreak.

[Katie (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: But

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: the homeless population has continued to expand. And then we had all these people in motels. We had families with children. We have the And we have the working poor. Working. Yeah. Working surgery jobs. And so the the question is now what do you do with them? We didn't have the shelters overnight, or it got really cold during the day, and families were living in cars and kids were living. It was a mess. Yeah. So I'm gonna let's take a break. Let's take a five minute break. This is good. And we'll go up.

[Katie (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Oh, I'm

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: sorry. Just one question.

[Sen. Martine Larocque Gulick (Vice Chair)]: The pods that the little pod, the houses that they developed in Burlington, were they under this program, or were they in the city themselves?

[Sen. Virginia "Ginny" Lyons (Chair)]: The city did it, and it was with the Chittenden Housing Trust. Yeah, so it was a collaborative process. I don't know whether the state funded any of it or not, I don't remember, but it was started at the moment. When it started it was federal money. Yeah. It was COVID money. And then Right. The first COVID money went away, and it fell to the state to what do we do here? Yeah. You're right.