Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Okay, welcome. We are in the Senate Committee on Institutions. Today is 04/14/2026. And we have three items that we're going to look at regarding the capital build. One is the Orleans Natural Resources Conservation District capital project. The second one will be the entryway project and that's the entryway of the State House. And the third item will be the veterans home. They've been

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Member)]: renovating for a few years

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: now and doing a good job of it. We'll get an update there. So we'll start with Berlin's Natural Resources Conservation District and Sarah Damsel themselves is here and we have a couple of other folks who will be joining I believe. So Sarah, if you would identify yourself and let us know what you want us to know. We did hear about this project last year, but if you can give us an update,

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Member)]: that would be great.

[Sarah Damsell (Orleans County Natural Resources Conservation District)]: Yeah, I don't believe that it was really something that we discussed last year, but I did come into your committee, I don't know, month or a half ago and spoke about the project. So, yeah, I wanted to come today and I think our partner from Nico is joining us. I think she's having trouble finding the link potentially. Then the other partner in this project is the Barton Fairgrounds and the president of the Barton Fair or the Orleans County Fairgrounds. He owns EM Browns and Barton, which is a very busy hardware store. And so he unfortunately wasn't able to join us today, but I was able to submit our letter that we have signed with him just stating the commitment of both of the organizations to move forward on this project. And of course, he's happy to try to engage as best as he can running a small business like that. So, yeah, so I wanted to come to you today just to express our unwavering commitment to secure the necessary resources to purchase the house from the Orleans County Fairgrounds to build a partnership to enhance community impacts in the Northeast Kingdom and stabilize our operations and continue our vital conservation work in Orleans County. And we're fully prepared to execute this as efficient as possible with the dedication that the funding requires. Our current office situation kind of highlights the need for a permanent solution. Our organizational stability was first compromised last year when DOGE happened and then was significantly compromised when the shutdown happened. Conservation districts, hopefully as you know, were created alongside the USDA in the 1930s. And so traditionally, we were co housed with them. And during the shutdown, because we're not federal employees, we were basically at a loss of an office. And we have a staff of seven folks, and so working from home on a pivot like that wasn't feasible. So we were able to land ourselves at pooling grain, which is where we are now. And then during that time period, my board made the hard decision to transition us out of the USDA office, mainly for the reason of the federal instability. And so kind of that's where we're at. And we yeah, we so right now we're moving out of Pullen. We have an office space, an expensive office space in Newport, which is great and really nice. But the appropriations of this would allow us for more of an investment in a long term effectiveness of delivering our work as well as partnering with NECO and providing the Orleans County Fair Association some vital energy resources and also some capacity for that organization to sort of come into the current century. So, yeah, I have provided a one pager with our request. We are looking somewhere in the neighborhood of two seventy five, I think is what we had submitted, and I have been working with some realtors to look at some comps. I also have secured an estimate from a contractor on how much it would cost to fix the house. The house has not been occupied for twenty years. It was donated to the fairgrounds in the 1980s. And at this point, it's an asset that they would like to offload and be able to use that income to continue to invest in other areas. Then also just having us on the grounds would provide a lot to their organization. Yeah. Any questions or

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Anyone have questions?

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Member)]: -But you don't have a purchase and sale yet, correct, with the fairgrounds and no terms or conditions other than you've done a lot of homework as far as to what it would cost for you to move forward.

[Sarah Damsell (Orleans County Natural Resources Conservation District)]: Right. Yeah. I've done a lot of homework there and I've been in close contact with Art on that. And yeah, it's a little bit of a chicken and egg on like a purchase and sales for us to move forward and investing in something like that without having some indication that we might have that funding. So yeah, we have not moved forward on that.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Okay. Do you have something?

[Scott Moore, Finance Manager, Joint Fiscal Office]: Well, I was wondering about the one pager because I've

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Yeah, I'm looking at I don't see the one pager.

[Scott Moore, Finance Manager, Joint Fiscal Office]: Who did you send the one pager to?

[Sarah Damsell (Orleans County Natural Resources Conservation District)]: I believe Meg from Action Circles was going to send it to your committee. I know that I have sent it to Russ. I don't know if Russ was able to dig it out. But sorry, I can definitely send it right after this. But essentially just kind of goes through basically what I just said there that the intent is to have three organizations in that house to have a shared space so that we can really support each other to maximize resource of the fairgrounds. And I think the three organizations would be a really nice fit for each other. Nico being really community minded, working with a lot of low income and elderly folks, then also doing a lot of flood resiliency stuff. Then the work of the district doing a lot of conservation work around soil and water quality and community engagement. And then of course, the fairgrounds and the opportunities that present themselves there just from the grounds themselves, the barns themselves. There's a commercial kitchen there. The office itself has a community meeting space. Obviously, there's plenty of community meeting space there. It could really serve as a really good sort of flood resiliency ground zero spot for emergency response and things like that with Nico's work. So, the one pager basically breaks that down and then lists some information about the house, you know, the year of the house, and some other details in terms of like square footage of the building. Yeah.

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Member)]: It's about that with the square footage.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: So I

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Member)]: just emailed you guys the one page.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Okay. Okay. Okay, good. Just a second to look to find that. Sure. Emails.

[Sarah Damsell (Orleans County Natural Resources Conservation District)]: Yeah. And so interestingly, because it while you're looking that up, because it was gifted to the Fair Association, it is completely separate parcel from the larger parcel of the Fair Association. So it's on a 0.6 acre parcel all onto its own. And it's on town sewer and all of that.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Yep. And then there's a is there a price? You said it was 275 is what you're

[Sarah Damsell (Orleans County Natural Resources Conservation District)]: That's what we were requesting and that was kind of where Art and I felt comfortable, in terms of like what we would, you know, buy that purchase the house at. And then there is a significant amount of restoration work that's needed. Like I said, it has not been lived in and it has a significant amount of deferred maintenance.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Member)]: That's part of that February, right, Sarah?

[Sarah Damsell (Orleans County Natural Resources Conservation District)]: February.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Oh, includes

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Member)]: That includes all the work that you're talking about, right?

[Sarah Damsell (Orleans County Natural Resources Conservation District)]: Yes, yep. It originally did include all of that, yep. And it's been a little bit of an evolution in terms of how all of that, you know, came together. But we do have an inspection report that was done. So we hired an inspection company to come in and provide a a report for us. And so we do have an extensive report on all of the work that needs to be done in the bid that I got from the contractors based on that report. And then we also got a mold estimate on the house or like a mold report done on the house. And so the estimate from the contractor includes the remediation work on some mold issues largely related to the fact that it hasn't been lived in and there's been like some condensation problems there. So, yeah.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: And you're looking to have this you're requesting this funding for this current year, right? Or current budget? We are. Okay. Yes. Go ahead.

[Senator John Benson (Member)]: Is that $2.75 reflected anywhere in the spreadsheet?

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: It's not. No.

[Scott Moore, Finance Manager, Joint Fiscal Office]: So I wanted to make sure.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Yeah, that's good question. Alright. So have your other folks arrived or

[Sarah Damsell (Orleans County Natural Resources Conservation District)]: It doesn't appear that she has So, yeah, I can try to text her really quick, but it doesn't seem like

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: for whatever reason she's able to oh, here. And our plant may not be available. Oh. Sarah, you know that. Okay. And, and our community assistant did send a link to Audrey. Oh, good. Oh, good. Okay. And is this, is the zoning all fine?

[Sarah Damsell (Orleans County Natural Resources Conservation District)]: I don't believe Barton has zoning.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Member)]: Yeah. It does.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Okay.

[Sarah Damsell (Orleans County Natural Resources Conservation District)]: So that would be something that, I mean, whether they would, if we are there, whether they would consider that a commercial space versus a residential space or what they consider it now, to be honest, I'm not sure.

[Senator Robert Plunkett (Vice Chair)]: Okay.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: And it does have water and sewer, looks like?

[Sarah Damsell (Orleans County Natural Resources Conservation District)]: It does. Yep. It's hooked into the town system. Yep.

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Member)]: Yes. And you're looking to if this comes in fruition, you're looking to do this in a month and a half.

[Sarah Damsell (Orleans County Natural Resources Conservation District)]: When I originally wrote that timeline, we were in discussions with the fairgrounds to lease the building and they were going to fix a good portion of the mold issues that had been identified. And they were willing to do that essentially during this timeframe, during April and May. And then we were going to move there under a lease agreement starting June 1. But that wasn't able to come together. I think they probably would rather just buy have it be purchased from them. And so yeah, our timeline would look a little bit different. And I think we would be looking at like a larger project to do the work on the roof.

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Member)]: So do you have a, I guess a new timeline? One of

[Senator Robert Plunkett (Vice Chair)]: the reasons I ask is with all of these projects, it's really, we're asking about the timeline of it because there's, overall there's not much in the budget to go around what we I'm have in the not sure how much there is to really move around right now. So the

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Member)]: real question is, is this going to be used or is it something where

[Senator Robert Plunkett (Vice Chair)]: anything? Where next year we could look

[Scott Moore, Finance Manager, Joint Fiscal Office]: at it again and that

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Member)]: it could really you know hit the ground running as soon as it's released. I know you said it's kind of a chicken and the egg thing, but I don't think with us we're going to be able to say here is the money and don't know if you're going to use it. So if that question makes sense, please answer it.

[Senator Robert Plunkett (Vice Chair)]: If not, let me know and I can try to rephrase.

[Sarah Damsell (Orleans County Natural Resources Conservation District)]: Yeah, I guess if you could rephrase it. Thanks.

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Member)]: When are you going to use the money if you get it?

[Sarah Damsell (Orleans County Natural Resources Conservation District)]: Oh yeah, if we got it, yeah, we'd have to work this winter to basically get a contractor in there to do all of the, you know, the laundry list of things that were identified in the inspection report and to replace the remaining portions of the roof that have not been replaced. So that would have to happen this winter and we would have to come to an agreement with the fairgrounds to make the transaction this winter. And so we could move in there this time next year if we were able to get a contractor lined up potentially this fall or next spring. And the contractor I got a bid from, he's on the board of the Fair Association and he lives right in Glover. And he likely would be the one that we would work with.

[Scott Moore, Finance Manager, Joint Fiscal Office]: Okay.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Mhmm. Alright. It'd be helpful to have a copy of that inspection report and Sure.

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Member)]: Check that. And

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: does it does the inspection report have an estimate of the cost of items?

[Sarah Damsell (Orleans County Natural Resources Conservation District)]: It does not, but I can provide you the contractor estimate that was provided to me if you would like to see that.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Okay. Just wanted to say, I heard mold and that is an issue and it can be all, I mean, once you have mold, there could be a huge number. It could be very expensive, it could not be very expensive, but Yeah. So we did get Yeah,

[Sarah Damsell (Orleans County Natural Resources Conservation District)]: we did get a mold assessment done and the results of that assessment, which I can also share with you, that professional didn't feel like the mold was so much that it was prohibitive. A lot of the mold is a result of the condensation due to the fact that nobody was living in there and that it was cold a lot and that there's a sunroom that gets a lot of passive solar and had a lot of condensation. And so the significant amount of mold is there. And then the other piece of the mold is due to the compromised roofs. And so if those two remaining sections of the roofs get fixed, all the folks that I've spoken with agree that the mold would be fine. Just need to fix those portions of the roofs, remove the bit of drywall that has the mold and then if somebody's living in there, you know, the and I can send you the report, the mold professional felt like it wasn't a compromised building space for folks to be in and to be healthy and safe.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Great. Thank you. Senator Benson has question.

[Senator John Benson (Member)]: Yeah. Heard you don't have a purchase sale agreement, which actually it's not uncommon to have one that's contingent upon receipt of funds and so forth, so it's really not, my opinion a chicken and egg because you can build that into your, your purchasing sale agreement. And knowing that funds are tight and understand what you're trying to do, It would be good if we had some kind of document that indicates that the fairground is going to sell you this property because right now we have your word that that's what's going to happen if you're asking the state to commit a quarter of $1,000,000 to something on just a verbal statement. I think we should

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Member)]: have Yeah, I do have a

[Sarah Damsell (Orleans County Natural Resources Conservation District)]: signed document that I sent to Russ that includes their signature, the fairground signature and my signature saying that we're both committed to the process and that was sent to Russ a couple months ago. Yeah. And unfortunately, he couldn't be here, but I hear you.

[Senator John Benson (Member)]: I just think we should have some No.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: I totally agree. Totally agree. Alright.

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Member)]: So are we ready to go to Audrey? I think we are.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Hi.

[Audrey Grant (Co-Director, Northeast Kingdom Organizing)]: Hi. My name is Audrey Grant. I'm one of the co directors of Northeast Kingdom Organizing, or Nico. I can just start giving my testimony, if that works for folks.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: That'd be great.

[Audrey Grant (Co-Director, Northeast Kingdom Organizing)]: Awesome, thank you. So I'm submitting testimony on behalf of Northeast Kingdom Organizing. We are a coalition of individuals, families, faith and community based organizations that have come together to organize and advocate for justice for the people and places of Vermont's Northeast Kingdom. Most folks know us in the in the kingdom in our work in Barton. So we organize the Barton Hub. This is a community meal and food pantry where I'm sitting right now, which is kind of Nico's office. We serve 20 to 50 people on a Tuesday and a Thursday, and then our food pantry sees around 20 households a day. And it's posted at the Barton Memorial Building. So we have a rental agreement with the village trustees that we can use this space, but it is not our space. It comes with a lot of limitations because the hub is also Barton's emergency management space. So if there was another flood, this is where they would house folks, etcetera, etcetera. We've built a really strong relationship in Barton with multiple different organizations, including the Orleans County Natural Resources District, but also Feline and Friends, which donates monthly to our food pantry. And the CNC, the grocery store next door, collects items for a food pantry as well. And Nico's grand plan for the next year is to build up these resilience hubs. So similar to the Barton Hub, all of this work really came out of flooding. We saw that the most marginalized Vermonters, low income folks in rural Vermont were completely forgotten in our flood recovery work. So Nico was able to, in 2024, mobilize 600 volunteers to muck and gut around four fifty homes across the kingdom. And from that, we've really learned a lot in terms of our organizing, how to do flood relief effectively, and also how to work with municipalities to work on building your emergency management plan, etcetera, etcetera. I say all of this to say we have really strong connections and also no real place to call home. As I said, Nico does a lot of work at the Barton Hub in the Barton Memorial Building, where I am now in our food pantry. But this isn't a private space. The village rents it out to anybody. We don't have access to this space all the time. And so community members come rent the space, and our pantry is not locked. So all of our equipment is in here. We also don't have a lot of storage. So for flood recovery stuff, a lot of our flood resilience stuff for Barton is not in Barton. It's in Orleans, even though Barton also saw the majority of the flooding. And so this potential partnership between NECO and the Orleans County Natural Resources Conservation District and we already have a relationship with the fairgrounds. We've hosted block parties and concerts at the fairgrounds. And we also sponsor a car in the Demo Derby every year during the fair. This is like a natural partnership for us in order to expand, having an actual office space that we're able to manage and trust that it is secure. And then also the potential of, you know, providing capacity to the Orleans Fairground Association, and also being able to use their space in a more creative way, and help them build up the fairgrounds and the demo derby, which I cannot stress enough. I think this is just such a natural kind of collaboration between the three organizations. I kind of brainstormed the ability to do large scale trainings for flood relief work, being able to provide spaces for us to store equipment during the off season. Floral Hall is basically like a big garage, and we could even do indoor trainings and provide other kind of resources around disaster resilience. So yeah, I just think like this is such a natural opportunity. And it would be so great for Nico to have an office space. Because we've been kind of like a I don't know, been meandering around the kingdom for a really long time. And even though Barton is in the center of it, we're planning to build out. But we really need a place to call our own. So thank you.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Thank you. Yeah, I remember I was on a different committee and we learned about Nico and it was very effective in helping residents and just finding residents who didn't necessarily want help and didn't want to be seen as people who needed help. But it's good and I'm glad that you've become not just a short term organization. Yeah. And it does seem like a really good pairing of organizations with same values and operations. Really what this committee needs is just some more just details. The boring part, how are you going to actually buy it? What is the fare going to charge? What's the situation in the quality of the building? How reasonable are your estimates? So, yeah, go ahead.

[Scott Moore, Finance Manager, Joint Fiscal Office]: Just to

[Senator John Benson (Member)]: add to that was, you know, the question was brought up whether they had zoning or not, Russ said they do. We should know that this building for use is a permitted use or conditional use or not allowed. Right. Should know that. And, you know, it'd be nice to have some indication from the city whether the services there are adequate to serve what you are proposing to do. So in other words, you know, your occupancy is office and your water and wastewater, that they have capacity to serve the building, so that what we don't find is we appropriate the money and there are some big obstacle that you're not aware of that prevents you from actually carrying out what you want to do.

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Member)]: Right. Yes. Thank you, Madam Chair. First, I want to commend you on being fully committed with the beat hearings that you have, Audrey, so I I appreciate that. I I think we're talking about kind of the beginning of it and getting through all the the logistics of it. I well, the other thing that I think it'd be important that we know is how much more efficient that you will be if this all comes to few which you know, we can get all this done and say we appropriate the money, and and then if you're still kinda stuck in the mud of doing the same thing that you've always kinda done, then why do we do it in the first place? So knowing the after this happens, how much more how much more efficient you'll be would help us tremendously. Yes.

[Sarah Damsell (Orleans County Natural Resources Conservation District)]: Yeah, and I'd be happy to provide that. Think from an annual budget perspective, I think would be way more efficient. Think having office space that's ours in a central location where we can partner with the three organizations. And then similar to what Audrey had mentioned, for us the opportunity to work with the fairgrounds to utilize their space to store. We have conservation rental equipment fleets of like large pieces of machinery that we would house at the fairgrounds. And so right now they're at like a variety of farms around the kingdom. And so having all of our rentals right there in one place would provide a lot of efficiency. And also just having a place to provide community engagement opportunities at the fairgrounds with all of the variety of workshops that we offer. There's a lot of efficiency to be gained there as well. But yeah, happy to provide, you know, outline that a little bit more for you.

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Member)]: Thank you very much. Appreciate it.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Yeah, thank you. That would be helpful. And then updating your one pager also with understanding that the timeline obviously needs to be updated. I

[Senator John Benson (Member)]: got one more. Obviously trying to be negative here, we're just trying to make sure that we covered all the bases and this this is a wise investment of state funds. So assuming that you answer all of the questions and we move forward, now you own a building. That means you are responsible from that point forward on maintaining the structure. And so I'm just curious, have you got a plan that you're going to be able to deal with the upkeep and maintenance without coming back and asking us for additional monies down the road?

[Sarah Damsell (Orleans County Natural Resources Conservation District)]: Sure. Yeah. I mean, I think what we would be looking at is just working on our business structure on how we do our billing. So right now we, you know, work on a billable rate and we have an overhead admin price structure. And so we would work in deferred maintenance, ongoing maintenance costs into that versus right now our annual $35,000 rent that we are gonna be paying. So we would take that expense out and then rework our annual budgets to make sure that we are building up that kitty so that we can do that continual ongoing maintenance is how we would approach that.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Good. That sounds practical. So just getting back to the information, something from the town. So it's Barton, right? It is. So, you know, we asked about the zoning and the utilities if they're adequate. If you just ask the town to generally provide information and presumably support, there might be things that we haven't thought of that the town aware of.

[Senator John Benson (Member)]: Yeah, the town

[Sarah Damsell (Orleans County Natural Resources Conservation District)]: manager is on the the fairgrounds board. Yeah.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: So I'm sorry, just one second, sir. Senator Ingalls was saying if the zoning officer would be included in that town assessment, was just presuming that that would happen, but that's what we shouldn't presume. Yes. So and then so we missed what you said just recently.

[Sarah Damsell (Orleans County Natural Resources Conservation District)]: Oh, I was just saying I've been in constant contact with the town office manager who's on the fair board. She's on the executive board and so her and I have been communicating.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Member)]: She's actually resigned. She's no longer on the board.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Really? Yeah. Okay.

[Sarah Damsell (Orleans County Natural Resources Conservation District)]: Well, I met with her. I okay. So Oh, yeah.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: But she's still with the town. Yeah. She can she

[Sarah Damsell (Orleans County Natural Resources Conservation District)]: can she can help me navigate that and hook me up

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Member)]: with Yeah.

[Sarah Damsell (Orleans County Natural Resources Conservation District)]: If want me to, so that's good. Okay.

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Member)]: Yeah.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Okay. And then and if you're wondering while you're trying to figure stuff out, you can write to us too. If you're not sure if something's relevant. But if you could, I'm sorry, go ahead.

[Senator John Benson (Member)]: I should also make her aware of the

[Senator Robert Plunkett (Vice Chair)]: time frame.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: I was just gonna say our time frame is really short. So Right. We're trying to finish this up, the financial part, this week. So Oh, could very could get something to us.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Member)]: Could be very well that it would go into next year as well. And, Sarah, you and I talked about that as well that, you know, we are looking to ask mister Sealy to re to be willing to reappropriate some monies within the capital bill and that it might be a better time frame because you've just signed a two year lease as well that you've shared with me.

[Sarah Damsell (Orleans County Natural Resources Conservation District)]: No. That's just a one year lease.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Member)]: Okay. So it might be a better it it might even be something that we could get more dedication for you in the capital bill for the next covenant cycle as you and I have spoken.

[Sarah Damsell (Orleans County Natural Resources Conservation District)]: Yeah, I hear you. Would prefer to try to work with you on this session, but I hear you. Yep.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Okay. It does look like a great project. Obviously, everything there's a lot of detail in this. For sure. Okay. Anybody else have questions or comments? Alright. Well, thank you very much. So, hope to hear from you very soon.

[Sarah Damsell (Orleans County Natural Resources Conservation District)]: Okay, thank you very much. I'll get right on it. Thank you. Take care.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Okay, so Scott, are you, how about you take us through where we are? Sure. Probably focus on the ones that are different from the house. But we've done this a couple times. And I wasn't here the last time we you all did it.

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Member)]: No. You you were here the last time. The time before last year.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Okay. So in theory, I'm all about that.

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Member)]: In theory. Well But I I can't speak for you.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Yeah.

[Scott Moore, Finance Manager, Joint Fiscal Office]: One of the things we want to talk about was that for the record, Moore, I've said a finance manager for the joint fiscal office. One of the things we talked about, and I'm sure we alluded to it briefly, appropriations is looking to do a straw full of the budget for private. And one of the biggest things about the capital bill is that it has cash funding in it that the language needs to mirror the language in the budget bill. We talked about this last year as well. So I shared this with some fear Harrison earlier today. What a corporation would love to have is final decisions on cash. That this money would like to do. But you don't have to have the total bill loaded out of credit. As long as you can get them some some information about the cash that we can then stick to, and this will be the cash numbers and we're happy with those numbers. We can still talk about bombing instincts next week. Hopefully, eases a little bit of the fear and hate stuff. Trying to get it all done tomorrow. So there is some kind frame there. One thing I did put together, I shared with Senator Harrison earlier today was just a listing of Senator Harrison. Thank you. That's the Senator Murphy as well. This is just the spreadsheet, but in a different form. So what this does is it goes through line by line by line, anything that had a cash component, and sometimes they had bonding, sometimes they didn't. And it lists them out and it says here's what was financial bonding, here's what was clinical cash, here are the changes that were made. So now I'm gonna walk through this with you guys. It is the spreadsheet. It's just twisted in different ways so you can see things a little bit cleaner at home. Because the spreadsheet does have so many different parts on it. But on the very first page in section two on line one of the spreadsheet, not that it matters for conversation, but the House did add some money to make the maintenance in the funding section. This was, I don't want to say leftover money, after they went through all of their machinations of the bonding, they said, Oh, we have $500,000 that we haven't spent yet. Where should we put it? And they rolled it into the major maintenance. So I guess they say leftover but it was

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Well, that's what we typically do because we don't want to hinder them in major maintenance. Do we have a sense of how close they've come to using all the money in previous years and making payments? Hi,

[Scott Moore, Finance Manager, Joint Fiscal Office]: Dylan. Dylan had a better idea, and I'd hesitate to speak to that and say, Oh, always upset money or, Oh, I was drowned.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Right. And I don't want to ask them for a lot of

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Member)]: But I would say this, Madam Chair. You gotta repo position you gotta repo committee in the house, and they have gone, and they have repoed any dollars that were available. So it's safe to assume that as they're moving forward, their monies that they have right now are monies that they need to perform their duties with. So it might be save us some time not to so much focus on that as some of the other changes that have been made by the house that are in this cash part of it that they may or may not agree with.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Yeah. I I wasn't I I actually don't want to have them have any of the departments give us information that's not absolutely relevant right now. But in the big picture, I would like to know if they normally are able to use at least a good amount of that because that's where we typically put extra money.

[Scott Moore, Finance Manager, Joint Fiscal Office]: And you can see the gov recommendation for that in cash FY '27. One thing to know, FY '26 cash were the changes that were made. Those were the decisions we made last year. There have been no changes made to FY '26 cash at all. By FY '27, the gov rec added 1,200,000.0 to major maintenance of cash. And on that paper I gave you, I said, add it to act 33 because that was the act number from last year.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Okay, thank you.

[Scott Moore, Finance Manager, Joint Fiscal Office]: I did want to give you just the total dollar amount on major maintenance, which is 18,200,000.0, just so you have a big picture idea of what's happening at Invest for all the different sections. Trying to make things simpler to read, but also at the same time, there's a lot of moving parts and sometimes it gets confusing. So hopefully this helps. Line two, there were no changes made from last year, but they have a total of $200,000 in cash from FY twenty six. Line three, statewide physical security enhancements. FY27 cash, the government recommended adding 225,000. The House was fine with that. Line six, I'm just kind of skipping to the cash sentence. FY27 cash, the government added 3,600,000.0. The house was fine with that. That does bring the total bond of cash up to 5,100,000.0.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Let me ask you a question on that one. Is your recollection that that would be used this year or in FY twenty seven? Would that finish the project?

[Scott Moore, Finance Manager, Joint Fiscal Office]: I believe that they said that would finish the project. We can double check the bill to come to the end, like, now or something. And last Thursday,

[Senator Robert Plunkett (Vice Chair)]: it was when you should have all the money through all the cash parts. Yeah.

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Member)]: Okay.

[Senator Robert Plunkett (Vice Chair)]: A lot of it's, there was a chart on his PowerPoint on how they spent it.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Oh, so I'll go find that on our website. Okay, great, thank you. Thursday was not a good day to have to do the other thing.

[Scott Moore, Finance Manager, Joint Fiscal Office]: Go ahead. To the next page, line seven, the government added 900,000 in cash. And this money's really coming from the $23,000,000 in total cash that was added due to the statutes, up to 4% of the prior year's final appropriation, as well as reallocations, as well as interest on the cash fund, etcetera, etcetera. So they're basically spending the money that come in in cash. Line 10, there were no changes made from last year, but there is a cash component for FY '26. Skipping to line 14, same thing, there's no changes in the cash from FY twenty six, so there is a cash component.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: And that project should have been done, right? Uninterruptible power supply?

[Scott Moore, Finance Manager, Joint Fiscal Office]: Great question. It's a joke question. I don't remember what you said last Thursday when it was here, you got this review. Line 16 Cherry Street, government added 3,000,000 in FY twenty seven cash. So far it's just been the government has been adding cash, spending about 17,000,000 with $23,000,000 down. Again, as VGS has said, they treat cash and bond as one week bucket of money. We get into section three, line 21. Government did add 8,400,000.0 in bonded, as well as just a little over 1,000,000 in cash. So far the house has had no changes made for any of this stuff. Jumping down to line 23, the direct added $225,000 in cash. In FY27, the house is fine. This next line is where things get a little bit different. Line 28 in the statewide door controls. There's a total of FY twenty seven cash of $700,000 Now the gov rec was to add 2,700,000 and the house removed the $2,000,000 to grow this line item. And this is 28? Line 28, yes sir.

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Member)]: And what was the reason?

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Member)]: Because they didn't really understand that the, by the time they looked at it, didn't come back and talk to the the VTS that they actually had signed the contract to continue on. They just assumed that the dollars weren't there and they took the monies out, but they do have a contract signed to move forward. So what Joe said that if they didn't put the monies back in, that that project would have to be delayed probably eight months. Sixteen. Yeah.

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Member)]: Alright. And that's the one where we had different It's a safety issue.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: And we had different That was the one. Information provided.

[Senator Robert Plunkett (Vice Chair)]: The house had inferred that they had signed the contract.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Yeah. Okay. Thank you.

[Senator John Benson (Member)]: I'm sorry.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: So that's one that we wanna talk about. Okay?

[Scott Moore, Finance Manager, Joint Fiscal Office]: And if any of these, if you disagree with the governor, feel free, of course. I'm not suggesting that we have to keep it the way things work. Line 29, this is up in Newport. Again, things are a little bit different in that the government had recommended adding 2,000,000 in cash in FY '27. The house removed $1,000,000 from that, leaving FY '27 cash at 1,000,000,000. That's online '29. Again, this is all spreadsheet, but sometimes I think it's easier to see it. Sometimes I

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: think it's No, this is good. This is the one where the call them wetlands but they're they shouldn't call them wetlands but that's that one and then also the where the driveway is an issue I believe. Yes, Senator Major.

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Member)]: Thank you, Madam Chair, and I'm sorry, you may have just asked this question, just wasn't, didn't understand it. And the reason the House removed the 1,000,000,000 from this for the boiler replacement?

[Scott Moore, Finance Manager, Joint Fiscal Office]: I would have to defer to what Joe was saying out there to

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Member)]: say about it. I don't mean to

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Well, and I have a recollection of that. I thought I believe it was that they thought that the project wasn't gonna proceed,

[Scott Moore, Finance Manager, Joint Fiscal Office]: Right.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: And they weren't gonna need the money.

[Senator John Benson (Member)]: Timing as I recall between getting the stormwater permit and the ponds and so forth. But what I heard Joe tell us is, nope. They've got that plan figured out, they're ready to go. And taking the money out will again delay the I

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Member)]: just I I I have serious problems with taking any money out that that that is infrastructure related.

[Senator John Benson (Member)]: Yes. But that's what I remember. Yeah.

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Member)]: No. And now that you said that, it it it it jarred my foggy memory.

[Scott Moore, Finance Manager, Joint Fiscal Office]: I think if I remember correctly, I don't wanna misspoke, Joe, of course, was that this would be out of that. They were gonna have to be million dollars next year, so if you have 2,000,000 this year Yes. And 1,000,000 next year, or my name is still gonna be even more. Yeah.

[Senator John Benson (Member)]: Even just putting the million back in.

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Member)]: So Just how much money you wanna

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Do they have it? An amount?

[Senator John Benson (Member)]: That in the letter that we got, it said that they will need a total of 3,000,000.

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Member)]: Oh, okay.

[Senator John Benson (Member)]: But what I recall, Joe, saying, if you don't put the 2,000,000 back in, we're gonna have to delay this project. But if you put the 2,000,000 in, we can move forward, but we will be back next year for another million to complete the project that's what I recall him saying.

[Scott Moore, Finance Manager, Joint Fiscal Office]: I will talk to him later here.

[Senator John Benson (Member)]: Again, if he's in, we can ask him.

[Scott Moore, Finance Manager, Joint Fiscal Office]: Right. Moving on to line 30, John Reich added 772,000. Tomorrow, talk to John. John the Graves goes through everything. They'll talk about the language portions of the DCF stabilization facility as well. Line 31, the house app.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Yeah. I hold on a second, The John, use stabilization facility. So you all were here for the

[Senator John Benson (Member)]: Now it was presented, yeah.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Yeah, and was there discussion about how that would be used because this is really important that we do this right. We had all the conversations about the competency know it's a different thing but I haven't yet seen language about the quality of the service. I've seen language about how much it's going to cost, but I haven't seen language about the quality of this.

[Senator Robert Plunkett (Vice Chair)]: I don't recall having a discussion on exactly what it meant. I think it was the number of beds that I've I

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: think was 21, something like that, it's a very important service, but it's also something that can go wrong if it's not done. Right. And we wouldn't be the committee of jurisdiction, don't believe of the operations of it, but I think it behooves us to understand

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Member)]: that probably the health and welfare maybe I think. Yeah.

[Scott Moore, Finance Manager, Joint Fiscal Office]: Agency of Human Services is listed in the language department.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Okay, great. So, if we have time, and this might be something that we'd work on after this week, but I just want to flag it for us.

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Member)]: Okay.

[Scott Moore, Finance Manager, Joint Fiscal Office]: This next section, line 31, WiFi installation, deputy commissioner was in last week and she had said that the project had been worked on, they didn't have funding, didn't have funding, now they have some other funding sources that they think they could get. Because they're going have other funding sources, they didn't need 3,000,000 to house the other project. They want to get them money to get the project going. So the house added 3,000,000 to the gov. This was a hard part of this grant. So they added the 3,000,000 there to that.

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Member)]: So this is something that I want to talk about so far.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: This is I mean, we've been at that for years and

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Member)]: What specific I mean, I I

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: We we just wanna make it happen. I'm sorry.

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Member)]: Yeah. No. I I absolutely. I I just think it's the the the funding of it. My understanding, and I I I could be wrong to please anyone who's going

[Scott Moore, Finance Manager, Joint Fiscal Office]: wanna correct me if I'm wrong.

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Member)]: I think the the governor has some federal funding to use for this, and that's why this was

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Member)]: was taken out. Probably that they have monies elsewhere to to go grab from, you know, the home is from the fees that do the the the whatever they call them.

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Member)]: It's the broadband.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Member)]: The broadband people. And that the monies are available that we can legislate without those monies become available.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: But I haven't, we should talk about that more because

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Member)]: And second of all, people, the $3,000,000 isn't shovel ready as far as for them to move forward with it. It's nowhere near shovel ready within these institutions to do that. They're not ready to move forward with it, so they have

[Senator John Benson (Member)]: a lot more work than they need to do. That's what I recall what Joe was saying, is that they weren't ready this year. But the

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Member)]: broadband wasn't Within the facilities in themselves that Oh. I pay work right I you.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Member)]: $3,000,000 worth of work.

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Member)]: I got you. Okay. I know. It may have been the the installers may have been ready, but the actual facilities aren't. I gotcha. Alright. I I missed it.

[Scott Moore, Finance Manager, Joint Fiscal Office]: Yeah. That that they have some more planning to do. They'd like to do some more planning to be sure with them frankly.

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Member)]: I I will say this. That's disappointing. I mean, that's just sad because they're asking for this, asking for this, asking for this. And we're about there, and then all of a sudden, I mean, it's no, like, you know, it's nobody's fault, but well, yeah. It is. Yeah. But and then when when we're ready to do it, that that that's not really. So

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Yeah. And so that's why we need I would care more about it.

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Member)]: No. I I But but

[Senator John Benson (Member)]: I do recall that just following what the senator was saying that they did they needed to do some more planning, but they had monies or ability to do that without additional allocation is what I seem to remember Joe saying. Yeah. Nick Kramer,

[Scott Moore, Finance Manager, Joint Fiscal Office]: Brian mentioned that that they

[Senator Robert Plunkett (Vice Chair)]: have a couple of avenues where they're exploring getting the money. They don't have it. It's not certain, but he was very positive, optimistic about it. Just on the money portion.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Right. So on the money portion, if they do get it, then they don't need to use this. I mean, this this is really important to the staff and the and the folks who are living there.

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Member)]: Right. And and I'm sorry to laugh.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Member)]: No. That's

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Member)]: No. That that was the the thing with me. I actually, from the beginning, is we're not giving the staff the tools that they need to do their job, particularly in in in we're having a recruiting issue to begin with with with corrections. And so Yeah.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: And just to be clear, we they've admitted that it's more of a retention issue. You're absolutely right. No. It's a it but it's but so what that means is

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Member)]: They're getting into the job.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Like, admissions. Yes. And the pay is very good. And so, yes, it's an issue.

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Member)]: Oh, you're absolutely right, ma'am. I'm sure.

[Scott Moore, Finance Manager, Joint Fiscal Office]: I'm sorry.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: No. No. I'm I'm glad that you brought it up. It's helpful.

[Senator Robert Plunkett (Vice Chair)]: Okay. Women's And as

[Scott Moore, Finance Manager, Joint Fiscal Office]: I mentioned, these lines, the lines are just they correspond with the spreadsheet. So if anybody following along, those line numbers I'm saying in the document, they just follow each spreadsheet. Item 32, the replacement of women's reentry and correctional facilities, the governor had not put that into the gov rec. The house felt that this is going to be a multimillion dollar project and putting some more money there to bank it for later in the future would be a good idea. Secretary Clark's letter did mention they are to have about $15,500,000 set aside for that. Our letter does mention that if they have a place ready to go tomorrow, they can use that money first. They're probably going use this money.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Member)]: This is just a feel good thing or whatever and they have enough money to move forward. We could use this money elsewhere with this bill a lot more effectively.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Yeah, so we'll talk about this one.

[Scott Moore, Finance Manager, Joint Fiscal Office]: That's the end of section three. Section four, there are no changes made. The only cash is from FY '26. I did want to point out there was FY '26 cash. No change to be made to act three. Section six.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Oh, this was the one time settlement to incentivize or to support housing directly. So did the house do you have any testimony on how things are going on those projects?

[Scott Moore, Finance Manager, Joint Fiscal Office]: I believe they did. I know we talked a little bit about this is referring back now.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: The three Bs.

[Scott Moore, Finance Manager, Joint Fiscal Office]: The three Bs. I know we looked at how much money had been spent of the grants that they had done. I do believe at the time two out of the three Ds had been given money. The third they were signing a contract or something like when we talked about it back in January, February. I think it might be interesting to have them in to see for the projects.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Yeah. We'll do that after this week.

[Scott Moore, Finance Manager, Joint Fiscal Office]: Yeah. I'm interested I'm probably 26 cash.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: I just wanna make sure that this is happening the way that we intended it to The

[Scott Moore, Finance Manager, Joint Fiscal Office]: veterans home on line 59, there is no changes made to act 33, but it did have a catchment going up by 26. I just want to make sure that

[Senator Robert Plunkett (Vice Chair)]: it was there. Then And we are going to speak with them.

[Scott Moore, Finance Manager, Joint Fiscal Office]: Yes. Line 20, I'm sorry, line 60, the house added money to bonding. This is a little bit of an area which I mentioned before. In the gov rack, FY '27 cash, the governor recommended $500,000 So you have the $500,000 The house removed that $500,000 in cash, but added 1,250,000.00 in bond debt. And the way they got to that number was they reallocated $500,000 from the section, added $500,000 from the cash, and then added another $2.50 for various nationalities.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: And what was the reason?

[Scott Moore, Finance Manager, Joint Fiscal Office]: I don't remember why they decided to do open pit by being gone pigeon, other than, let's see, that was, I had money. Okay. They decided to have more money to, they are decreasing the Gobrek in cats but they're increasing the govrec in buffering.

[Sarah Damsell (Orleans County Natural Resources Conservation District)]: Okay,

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: alright good.

[Scott Moore, Finance Manager, Joint Fiscal Office]: And if you would like to, we can come back to me.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Yeah, let's stop at that point and then just take a four minute recess. We will get back on time since thank you for coming.