Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: All right, this is Senate Institutions. Today is Thursday, 04/16/2026, and we have quite a few items. We're working on H-nine 52, which is the capital construction bills. And first we will hear from Chad Bigger. Hope I'm saying your name correctly. If I'm not, we will fix it. Who's the executive director of Recovery House and we've you've been in this committee previously. So I'll assume that you know us. Unless you

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Member)]: want to

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: introduce ourselves, but we're kind of in a hurry, so you know us. Let's keep going.

[Chad Bijay (CEO, Recovery House, Inc.)]: Oh, that's fine. Thank you, Madam Chair, thank you committee for having me back. For the record, my name is Chad Bijay. I am the CEO of Recovery House Inc. Coming back to talk about a request for some funding related to capital improvements for our facilities. I want to walk folks back through which facilities, which programs fall under our umbrella of Recovery Housing. I'd like to remind folks too that we, despite our name of being Recovery House, we don't offer recovery housing, but we specialize in inpatient substance use treatment. And we do that at three locations primarily. That would be Serenity House in Wallingford that operates our highest level of care, high intensity medically monitored withdrawal management. We operate at the Grace House and McGee House locations, both in Rutland and those offer low intensity clinically managed substance use inpatient treatment. Additionally, at our Grace House location, we are offering public inebriate programming as a community safety program where law enforcement interacts and we hopefully prevent folks from having to be incarcerated. And I have great news in that we have launched a virtual public inebriate program screening program for the rest of the state as well. I will note too that our three residential programs, although centralized in Rutland County, do serve the entire state of Vermont. So we have clients coming to us from all over every corner of Vermont. We've been doing this since 1972. And I think it's important to also note that our buildings have been doing their thing since the late 1800s. So we have a lot of deferred maintenance items that have been kicked down the road. And I, in my role now, am trying to pick up that can that's been kicked and I'd like to make some repairs that are necessary so we can deliver another fifty years of service to Vermonters. We play a critical role in serving Vermont, although we are not a state entity, 99% of our clients are on Vermont Medicaid and we are reliant on state funding in order to operate. With state funding, there has been very narrow margins over the years and years of loss and these maintenance items that I'll mention in a moment are things that we've pushed to the side as we've focused on client care over the years. So my request today is for funding related to capital improvements to the amount of $220,000 Within that $220,000 we would look to repair the Serenity House attic and slate roof, renovate a bathroom, cover baseboards that are in disrepair, replace some vinyl siding and windows, and hopefully get some heat efficiency, develop more office space because we are logistically hindered by our office space situation Install down a generator because the Vermont winters are not so kind to our source of electricity. And when electricity goes out, I do come down to the building to install a temporary generator for the night. Working on the Grace House kitchen, replacing cabinetry and fixing a front entrance to the McGee house that sustained damage when a vehicle, not ours, but a vehicle crashed into it some time ago. So there are there are some items that we'd like to tackle. I think these items are going to help us in sustaining our future and providing good care in our facilities for fifty more years.

[Senator Robert Plunkett (Vice Chair)]: Okay, good news. I'm sorry, how much were you asking for?

[Chad Bijay (CEO, Recovery House, Inc.)]: $220,000.

[Senator Robert Plunkett (Vice Chair)]: And and that that was a laundry list of things for 220 I I did you get estimate or for all did it didn't seem like what you asked for would cover what you just

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: What the money that you asked for

[Senator Robert Plunkett (Vice Chair)]: wouldn't cover what you said you needed.

[Chad Bijay (CEO, Recovery House, Inc.)]: I have estimates from local contractors who are willing to do the work and a few of these items on the list we can do in house, but the materials cost is proven to be difficult.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Member)]: Thank you.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Okay. So yeah, you've given us compelling testimony already about just how valuable what you do is your work. Do you Do you talk more about the virtual screening program?

[Chad Bijay (CEO, Recovery House, Inc.)]: Absolutely. So we recently launched a virtual public inebriate screening program, which is designed to allow for public inebriate screenings to take place with law enforcement, either on scene with an individual who is intoxicated or at a barracks location, preventing those who are intoxicated from having to go to an emergency room for a screening in order to be incarcerated. So the goal is to keep intoxicated people out of jail and right now for most of Vermont, The process is for individuals being picked up by law enforcement to go get a screening at the local hospital and then and then go to the local jail for incarceration for the night until they are sober. Rutland County and Addison County are the current exceptions to that as we've sustained our public inebriate beds throughout and we've been offering beds in lieu of incarceration. The state has also been working on developing and implementing integrated crisis beds between DSU and DMH. And those integrated crisis beds are going to expand the safe bed capacity across the state at different agency locations, so that there's a third option when we're conducting these virtual public inebriate screenings. So in theory, any law enforcement officer in the state, and there is a little bit of a rollout at this point, but any law enforcement officer interacting with someone who's intoxicated would call us. We would conduct a virtual screening, laying eyes on the individual and assessing for medical need and mental health need, and we would refer them to either a safe bed for the time being while they're monitored and receiving some sort of referral service potentially. The hospital, if their medical needs are great, and the jail, if they are combative or resistant to the other options. That rollout has been a work in progress for a while and we've been operating as it launched about a month ago.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: That sounds very helpful to both individuals and to the prisons. I had it, first of all, I thought it might be like a computer program, but it's basically access to you and your staff. Is that a better way? Is that accurate?

[Chad Bijay (CEO, Recovery House, Inc.)]: Yes, yes. So for a while now we've been the only non hospital entity doing these screenings for Rutland and Addison County in person. And we'll continue to do that in person in that area. Logistically, it makes the most sense as we are very close to both the Marble Valley Correctional Facility and the hospital. But these remote areas in Vermont where law enforcement picks up someone who's intoxicated and has to drive an hour to the hospital and then potentially two hours to the closest correctional facility, we're going to save a lot of time for law enforcement and we're going to save a lot of emergency room visits.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Yeah, which is hugely profitable. Mean, that's a lot of expense there. So do you charge for this?

[Chad Bijay (CEO, Recovery House, Inc.)]: So this is grant funded, so it's not And fee for

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: you must do it in the middle of the night because a lot of that stuff happens in the middle of night.

[Chad Bijay (CEO, Recovery House, Inc.)]: 20 fourseven.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Okay. And do you know how many of you've done so like what is the I guess you said you've only rolled it out two months ago or so?

[Chad Bijay (CEO, Recovery House, Inc.)]: About a month ago. And right now we're in the we're in the phase of really getting the word out to all of law enforcement in the counties that the rollout includes, which currently is Chittenden, Lemoyle, Franklin and Grand Isle. We do plan to go over to the Northeast Kingdom very soon. I think we've done less than a handful, which we know that number is going to certainly increase. I think the yearly trend for public and Eovirate screenings is about 2,500 per year.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: For the whole state?

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Member)]: For the whole state.

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

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: do other folks have questions? What agency do you work with them? Is there a state agency that you work with for your operations? I'm just trying to figure out because generally in the capital bill, don't find private groups on their own when we go through a state agency to make that happen. But is there an agency that you work with, a state agency?

[Chad Bijay (CEO, Recovery House, Inc.)]: So right now it's the Department of Health Division of Substance Use Programs.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Okay.

[Joseph Aja (Director of Engineering & Construction, BGS)]: It's been.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Right. I think we have a health area probably.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Member)]: I can

[Joseph Aja (Director of Engineering & Construction, BGS)]: see human services.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Yeah, human services. I mean, that's where a lot of our money that's been presented. It does seem very relevant to present. All right, well, I think this is worthy of conversation with the committee. Let's have the conversation now. I think that would be better and then we can if we have questions for Chad. To me, the service that they provide is really valuable and that was before we heard about this. The integrated crisis. No.

[Senator Robert Plunkett (Vice Chair)]: Remote. Virtual. Virtual public in the

[Joseph Aja (Director of Engineering & Construction, BGS)]: grid screen.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Oh yeah. Virtual in the integrated screen. Is that an official term somewhere? Probably. Just keeping people out of emergency rooms and keeping them out of prisons is saving us money as a state. So I see it now. Use this.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Member)]: I don't why you talk about that without talking about everything at the same time.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, can't. But if there's anything specific that you wanna know, now's the time.

[Joseph Aja (Director of Engineering & Construction, BGS)]: Think you told her to

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Member)]: put me in my opinion.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Okay. All right. Well, thank you. Thank you Chad for your work and, we'll let you know if we need any other information or if we're able to fund some.

[Joseph Aja (Director of Engineering & Construction, BGS)]: Sounds good. Okay.

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

[Chad Bijay (CEO, Recovery House, Inc.)]: Thank you. I appreciate it.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Super. Right on. So, Laura Trigerman, you would like to sit in the witness seats. So now we're looking at historic preservation. And this is something that I asked for because you'll recall, so you won't recall because you're new, but in the previous year we increased the funding during the process for historic preservation and conservation grants. And to my point, unfortunately, we had to reduce the proposed increases. And I would like to support these similar increases and Laura is here to explain what these grants do and let us know if there is capacity for the projects that would be funded if we did increase the value or increase the amount. Great. Thank you for the record. My name is Larger Schmidt.

[Laura V. Trieschmann (State Historic Preservation Officer)]: I'm the State Historic Preservation Officer, and one of the many programs you'll receive are building communities grants. That includes the historic preservation grants and the farm preservation grants. These used to be what the governor calls the deli grants. Just come in for this, that. Putting them all together has been really helpful because we can ensure in our office that best preservation efforts are being undertaken, our expertise, our advice, to ensure that Remodka's money is going to the right place and all of these buildings continue to serve us. The historic preservation grants are for municipalities and nonprofits. It was started in 1986, and since then, over $7,000,000 have been granted to six seventy six community buildings. And I don't say projects because sometimes we get projects that come back to us every few years. Oftentimes we are the last funder in to just get a project over the bump. We then maintain a five year easement on it. So anything that's happening to it needs to come to our office for review. I rejiggered some of the charts that we've been sharing with you over the years so that you could see the number of applications for the historic preservation grants, the amount of money that we're awarding, percentage of that that's allocated, and then how much money is remaining that's not being asked for. I would say these projects, even what we award, cumulatively are bringing in a million dollars in construction, employment, economic stability for our community. And I think we could do so much more. It's really difficult to say no to some of these projects, and they keep coming back. And it's not that their projects are inappropriate or inadequate or that their applications are put together badly, because we actually have formed with BGS and with the Arts Council that also have grants under Building Communities. We do a presentation to show potential funders how to, I mean, applicants, how to put together their applications. So, those repeat customers that we're seeing are ones that just aren't getting funding needed. So, typically,

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Member)]: we're we're

[Laura V. Trieschmann (State Historic Preservation Officer)]: leaving more than half of the projects on the table, And that's really unfortunate. The barn preservation grants was started in 1992. This is the oldest barn preservation program in the country and has been modeled by a number of other states. It's over $5,000,000 that have been awarded so far, five zero four projects devoted to the repair and restoration of historic agricultural buildings. These are not just barns. They could be something related to the maple industry. They could be silos, smoke houses. About 12 ago, we saw a lot more wedding barns, event barn conversions, and those were eligible. These grants are for nonprofits, municipalities, and anyone, really, a farmer. We've seen less event barns, so that I would say the vast majority, if not the majority right now, of the grants that we're awarding are for active agricultural properties. And again, I put together some of the charts. So, you can see, like, this March, we awarded 20 projects out of 29 applications, 35% of the funding, and we left 157,000 not awarded. You'll see kind of funny numbers that go from COVID where we had a lot of asks. And even though we got a bump up in 2022 from 250,000 to 300,000 in funding for both of these programs. We recapture money from projects that came under budget or were not able to be completed. There's required fiftyfifty match. And they can ask for up to $20,000 for both of these grant programs. So if they're asking for 20,000, they have to put 20,000 into it, and often they're putting a logbook. Sometimes we get grants for just a few thousand dollars and sometimes we get them for $20,000 We recaptured a good bit of money. I think during COVID people were thinking, oh, this is great. Let's get this project going. And then they bit off more than they could choose. So we recaptured a little bit that we've been able to get out the door. We push out the oldest money first because we don't wanna be giving it back. That's just what you're saying. Because there's always projects in need. So I'm I'm really proud that we're able to work with the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation and our star, Caitlin Corkins, who goes and visits all of these buildings before, during, and after the projects to really talk to people and figure out what meets the needs for them and what meets the criteria for these projects. We wanna make sure that it's replacement in kind, that it ensures best uses, and again, we also work very closely with BGS and Culture Arts Council to make sure that something might fit their grant programs better than ours. And also per statute, you can't get a grant from You can only get one grant out of the building communities grant. So you can't get something from BGS and Arts Council and us in the same years. So we need to share information to make sure we're giving the best to promoters. Thank you. And I've worked for an organization that was a recipient of these grants and Caitlin was just so helpful because there's a lot of detail because everything needs to be done according to the federal government. We want to make sure that the best preservation practices are put forward, but we also recognize these are living, breathing buildings and they need to be safe and they need to be useful. You know, so we do sometimes take into account that windows may not be restored and it might be best to replace them. But we work to make sure it's best replacement that we can find out there. Definitely. And great economic development strategy too. Absolutely. This is where people want to come to Vermont and see these beautiful burns. Yeah, I love to see town halls, town offices, town houses back into use. A perfect example in Stratford with the townhouse, they took the cupola off, put it down on the ground, restored it, and a few days later put it back up on top. The crowd that got to see it come up and down, as well as the restoration, it was really great to see these projects happening. Yeah.

[Joseph Aja (Director of Engineering & Construction, BGS)]: Yes. So it looks like from the the charts you have to fully fund every request, it's about double what you get now for each grant, so about 600. Is that correct, or is it, if you had more, would you get more?

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Yes, we could absolutely get more.

[Joseph Aja (Director of Engineering & Construction, BGS)]: No, I mean, you get more applications is what you

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: I don't think so because we didn't see a great increase when we increased it from the twenty, two two hundred and fifty thousand to 300. We have seen increases because it was at 125 about twelve years ago, which we couldn't do anything, like, And

[Joseph Aja (Director of Engineering & Construction, BGS)]: the other question I had oh, you said that it's for municipalities, nonprofits, then you kinda said it was for everybody.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: So the historic preservation grants are for municipalities and nonprofits. Right.

[Joseph Aja (Director of Engineering & Construction, BGS)]: But the barn is for everybody? Barns are for everybody. Yeah. No matter who's wanted.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Yeah. We've had a neighbor who put in an application for someone that had a working farm that was just like, I just can't do So they put it in. And we don't have an automated system for submittals because we wanna make sure it's accessible. So, sometimes we get applications written on paper. You know, we do what we can to help people.

[Joseph Aja (Director of Engineering & Construction, BGS)]: And you said it's more than just barns.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: It's agricultural buildings. Agricultural buildings. Mhmm. So what's an example? It's not a barn. Oh, like a strip house? Yeah. A silo? Yeah.

[Joseph Aja (Director of Engineering & Construction, BGS)]: Answer questions for you. I'm thinking about the Everett Mansion now and then with them, so I don't think they all either.

[Senator Robert Plunkett (Vice Chair)]: I'm sorry. Did you say anything about your mansion? Everett Mansion. Oh, Everett Mansion. I'm sorry. I think that.

[Joseph Aja (Director of Engineering & Construction, BGS)]: Yeah. Know. I I was like, no. Not my man.

[Senator Robert Plunkett (Vice Chair)]: I okay.

[Joseph Aja (Director of Engineering & Construction, BGS)]: I I could be thinking about my the lab data garage. Alright.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Member)]: I was just checking. But,

[Joseph Aja (Director of Engineering & Construction, BGS)]: no, there's just, like, a

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Member)]: lot of smoke about drinks and

[Joseph Aja (Director of Engineering & Construction, BGS)]: then it's like this is

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Yeah. And I think this process the process you follow is really good because it's not a deli anymore. It's professionals of, you know, of historic Right. Yeah. It goes to you, not to us.

[Joseph Aja (Director of Engineering & Construction, BGS)]: This isn't the counter. You're the counter.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: And and we're vetting each of these. So every project that gets an award is eligible for the state and national register. We vet them first. And it's wonderful that we have all those in the state, and it's critical to protect them. Did you have something to say?

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Member)]: No, I just thought today, enlightening that address here. Absolutely. And then

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Did write that. Some sheep around. So Oh, to make a.

[Joseph Aja (Director of Engineering & Construction, BGS)]: Actually, that's a good question.

[Senator Robert Plunkett (Vice Chair)]: Oh, because

[Joseph Aja (Director of Engineering & Construction, BGS)]: that's a state building. I assume none of the state buildings would

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Member)]: be eligible Not a lot.

[Joseph Aja (Director of Engineering & Construction, BGS)]: Whatsoever. Yep. Yep.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: And that's very small money for state buildings too. Well, it depends. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We've got our major maintenance.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Member)]: Yeah. You have your other for that.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: But but we need to ask.

[Senator Robert Plunkett (Vice Chair)]: 1.1.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Member)]: Know? Okay. Alright.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: So I am advocating to have some additional funding just for those, too. So, if anybody in the committee is looking at other, funds in that area, now it's time to

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Member)]: kind of ask it this way.

[Joseph Aja (Director of Engineering & Construction, BGS)]: How underfunded is the major fee that's about? You can answer that however you want.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: It's very unfunded.

[Joseph Aja (Director of Engineering & Construction, BGS)]: Okay. Yeah. It's it's

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: We estimate about a million and a half each year.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Member)]: Yeah.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: And that's not for major projects.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Member)]: That's paid. Right. Yeah.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: That's just for maintenance. As we start checking things off the list and getting ahead of them and have a stable maintenance process, it would be less. And then are you talking about the maintenance of the historic System or general seven maintenance.

[Joseph Aja (Director of Engineering & Construction, BGS)]: 37 under section eight working

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: on the. Right. Major maintenance at historic sites. How is that going? The vast majority of the money we have now for our major projects is coming from federal grants and the donations that we just got for the parent void house of 550,000. We have five major projects going on this summer and next year. But, again, trying to get ahead of that deferred maintenance and a little bit of funding. And they well, let's just repair what we can Right. Has caused more problems that we're trying to get ahead of. Right. We've seen the pictures of the water, like, the water is not supposed to go. And then someone had a question about the constitution house. Is that still going well? Yes. Yes. The biggest delay, I would say, related to that is whether the building should be elevated or not because it is in a floodway. So, we've met with AOR's flood managers. We're on regular conversations weekly with FEMA. We did have, I think, like, $100,000 from FEMA on that, but now we're looking for the engineers' reports on whether it should be elevated. And if it's not, then how we flood proof it? Do we infill the main block and let the rear additions flush and, you know, how we address all of that. Because we don't wanna get ahead of ourselves to fix something that then will be impacted if we're elevating. Right. And the plans for the, for this summer, for the events, are those still going forward?

[Emily Sicke (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Buildings & General Services)]: We're trying. I'm not

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: exactly under what kind of condition it will be in. And what we're going to be doing is opening room by room in the main block. Okay. I think that's what you said. Yeah. Alright. Sure. Thank you. And then actually just one thing. I'm glad you brought up the major maintenance of historic sites. So these are items that BGS or some other state agency does. The historic preservation and foreign preservation are obviously different because it's funding to the owners of private buildings. So I think they each have their area and they're both valuable. Yeah, it's a really great partnership. Anything else? Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. O'clock. We have Joe and Derek. I don't know if they're coming in person or if they're

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Member)]: No. Sounds like they might be in the home.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Okay. If you don't mind.

[Joseph Aja (Director of Engineering & Construction, BGS)]: Someone's up. They're there.

[Unidentified representative, Vermont Judiciary (State Court Administrator’s Office)]: We're still live.

[Joseph Aja (Director of Engineering & Construction, BGS)]: We're still live. Hold on.

[Unidentified representative, Vermont Judiciary (State Court Administrator’s Office)]: Hello. How are you doing? I'm good.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Hey. We're live and pretty much on time, so thank you all for being here. So glad. Yeah. It is really nice after lunch. Good. So we called you here, asked you to be here for multiple reasons. So the next item that we're going to discuss is the Newport Courthouse and we have BGS and we have the court administrator. So who would like to go first to us some information on that?

[Joseph Aja (Director of Engineering & Construction, BGS)]: We can sit at the head of the table at the same time.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Okay.

[Joseph Aja (Director of Engineering & Construction, BGS)]: Maybe that's the best way to do this.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Member)]: Cookies? Yeah. Yeah. Oh, do you have

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: to say, please.

[Joseph Aja (Director of Engineering & Construction, BGS)]: Everybody take two. Alright. What are

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Member)]: your mouth your mouths are closed.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: My final line.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Member)]: I'm good.

[Joseph Aja (Director of Engineering & Construction, BGS)]: How are you, Nancy?

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Member)]: Probably good to see you.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Alright. There we are. Okay. So it's line one twenty six. And what the house did was remove the cash fund funding next year. But the bonding is still there. And so that was a $750,000 reduction. That's correct. So we want to hear about that, but then also just generally, the status of the project, how's it going?

[Joseph Aja (Director of Engineering & Construction, BGS)]: Status of the project, is somewhat up in the air because of we, BGS, have gone out and looked at an RFP to search for land that came up with basically nothing in the downtown area where judiciary would really like to be. And during that time, also, there's a,

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Member)]: you know, the neighborhood is

[Joseph Aja (Director of Engineering & Construction, BGS)]: also working behind the scenes and what to do with a particular property in that county area. And they have talked to us about it. Also, we would be interested if they were be able to pull up a deal and the likes of that. We have also looked at that same property The last time that we evaluated, we're evaluating the receivership wanted a tremendous amount of money for it. So a few properties that had it's the rumors that they're working to reduce that cost, but we've been in limbo since that time. So moving forward, it looks like there's a good opportunity, whether it's on our own or working with another entity to make that particular property or at least to evaluate that property to move forward. And these funds here and the funds that we have already, been doing this the past years would be enough to purchase property and also to start design. Some of the designs that we have evaluated, whether or not we're going to just use it for judiciary, or go back to just several years ago what was at the original courthouse was judiciary's provision of rule and state's attorney. During that phase when we looked at things we've completed is basically those three entities although although they work together it's nice to be separate. So it's having separate entrances. Any property that we look at we would be evaluating that also on how to keep different entrances so you know depends on the property whether you could have three entrances that are separated or not so there's still a lot to do.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Can you go back to where you said there was an offer and it was too expensive?

[Joseph Aja (Director of Engineering & Construction, BGS)]: The receivership on the property by the owner of that had put a price out.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Oh right, so the receiver? Yes, so it

[Joseph Aja (Director of Engineering & Construction, BGS)]: was just, can't remember it was supposed to double of what the actual appraised value was properties. With

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Okay. And so then how did you transition into now a working market?

[Joseph Aja (Director of Engineering & Construction, BGS)]: We've been approached by this entity at a new The

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: new entity is what had that. Okay, great. Just trying to get the sequence. Okay. Do you want to see this, Amanda? It's been teed, but do you want to

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Member)]: speak I think to that again, I will say it on the record, as I've said, with no authority to speak about anything other than the fact, I'm very aware of the history of and all the things that are going on. I have, again, in the last couple of capital bills, if not three capital bills, have always pulled the money out of Newport because I knew that they weren't ready at this point in time. And I think that we are really close to getting something done. Again, with no authority of anything to speak about nothing, but I think that it's go time. I think that it's a great time to put some dollars into this fund and to move forward, and I think that it's a possibility that that's gonna happen.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Good. Well, that's exciting. Good for the state and good for the judiciary. So the House reduced the funding. Do you want to speak on that? I appreciate it, but you wouldn't. Correct.

[Joseph Aja (Director of Engineering & Construction, BGS)]: The funds that were asked for, the governor's recommend certainly would be nice. They have reduced it, evaluating what we have. And if all were 12, starting in July to put paperwork together to start a purchase and sales, get that executed, get a design underway, we would be into the next biennium, and so we'd be asking for the additional funding then.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: So you would have enough funding to do what you need to do in this first year? Okay. So don't go away. It doesn't think everybody has a question right now.

[Unidentified representative, Vermont Judiciary (State Court Administrator’s Office)]: And venture to you. I'm Jay Hetero, Prusson State Clinic Administrator. We support the BGS because and if you agree as Joe said, Brad, the future looking for the downtown location for access especially when there's paucity of public transportation. There are, I guess, we have submitted our business needs for the courthouse, the National Service, in close actually to that preparation several years ago. And as part of the RFP process, I think we've also been getting plans for that. So encouraged by Senator Ingalls, but I get that sense as well from all the crews involved.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: That's great. That's exciting. And how long did you get, how long of a project and time will it be?

[Joseph Aja (Director of Engineering & Construction, BGS)]: I can't really answer that without knowing what the full scope of the project's going to be with the property actually looks like. Make sure

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Member)]: I can have them. All

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: right. Any other questions? I mean this is a big project. I want you to let us know what we need to know to support this.

[Joseph Aja (Director of Engineering & Construction, BGS)]: Right now, that's all I've got for you.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Okay. And we will be happy with that. Okay. Thank you.

[Unidentified representative, Vermont Judiciary (State Court Administrator’s Office)]: We'll do everything possible to expedite the process in terms of updated business needs or other information's made in. And really look forward to collaborating on you. And it'll be fantastic for our owners family to have a modest courthouse.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Definitely. And modern courthouse that will look nice in the because that's a really important site physically. Yes. Yes. Aesthetically. Yeah. Good. Thank you.

[Unidentified representative, Vermont Judiciary (State Court Administrator’s Office)]: Thank you all.

[Emily Sicke (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Buildings & General Services)]: Okay.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: So we have some other capital items. Actually, Joe, if you do not have information on the EV charging stations that are currently in the budget, we can say, you know, you can leave. But if you do have information, please stay. However,

[Joseph Aja (Director of Engineering & Construction, BGS)]: the deputy secretary in this year does. Okay. So she's gonna fill that slot. Okay.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Just didn't know if it would be two of you or one of you. That smile. Thank you. Yes, please. Thank you. Deputy commissioner. Good

[Emily Sicke (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Buildings & General Services)]: afternoon, deputy commissioner. Emily Sicke, Department of Buildings and General Services for the record. If you'd like, I have a slide deck that I can share with more information about our EV charging station program.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: And just for the committee's reference, there was one of the allocations that the, where the money was returned back into the pot was 990,000 just below 1,000,000 for EV chargers. The state is working on EV chargers in different ways. And you know I'm in transportation the other side and then when I was in economic development we worked a little bit with our chargers at ACCD and I just I am aware that there's a need for EV chargers and I was I had questions about why the funding was I mean I know why because of aged out basically But then I wanted this committee to look at what the proposals are for that funding. Did you want to

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Member)]: I just have a fundamental question. Sure. That's why the state is paying for EV chargers. We do not pay to build gas stations and there's no reason that Green Mountain Power or any other company that's selling power to the public, wouldn't pay for these in charge and not have the state involved at all. I don't understand why we, the state is paying for them.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Okay, well I can speak to that. It's a different model. The chargers that were paid for so far by the private companies, it's been Tesla and it was in my opinion a really good idea of them to do that. They have a huge amount of capital and they did, probably still do. Their chargers are only for their cars and, and that's been a big, selling point for their, for their automobiles. The federal government isn't The federal government is still actually paying for some chargers. The public has been paying for chargers and accepted that it would be paying for chargers because it's valuable to the state to have fewer gas cars for multiple reasons. Isn't for

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Member)]: our gas tax and for paying for our roof.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Well, that's actually we have a bill for that that we just finished and that will charge the EV drivers and we need to figure out ways to just have revenue from the chargers themselves. The problem with gas tax is it's not indexed and the revenues from the gas tax are decreasing. Even if we didn't have EVs, it would still be decreasing because of the efficiencies of gas cars. I mean, they get more miles than they used to.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Member)]: I would echo with what the senator has said. Have reducing numbers of electric vehicles and the pressure on the charging stations aren't anywhere near what has been quoted. I mean, I stay at a place where there's a charging station and it's very rare to see people charging there, and there's six chargers there. So I do echo center of that concern about that. We don't want them to pull you into the middle. Is that your decision? We go. Old thinking. That is old thinking. That is when we had $14,000,000,000 worth of dollars that we squandered. And as far as what I'm concerned, that is old thinking as far as how to waste money.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Okay, I hear you. I have comments, but I will refrain from now so

[Emily Sicke (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Buildings & General Services)]: that

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: we can hear your presentation.

[Emily Sicke (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Buildings & General Services)]: So, Brian, just to set the table a little bit, this amount of money is not a BGS request for additional funding. In fact, the governor recommended us to reallocate this funding in that we didn't believe we'd be spending it this year on this purpose. Just BGS has certain responsibilities to carry forward state energy policy goals that are set by the legislature. And that includes the way that we carry that out in EGS is through our state energy management program. We have a very small energy team who focuses on things including the EV charging stations, but also efficient use of electricity and other utility costs in state buildings. So that's where we intersect I that can't believe you're right.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: I'm sure available at this. Yeah. No. Yeah. But that's even she would say that anyway because that's why Yeah.

[Emily Sicke (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Buildings & General Services)]: So I I think the EV charging station plays into certain targets that we're expected to meet to support legislative state energy policy goals. So, with that said, I apologize that this is an old presentation from last year when I understood that the committee would like a little bit more information about our charging stations, pulled up an old slide deck. Sorry we didn't update it. No, you have very short notice. Yeah, but, and again, I am not the top expert on this. We have, again, our energy program manager, Brian Sewell, he's not here today, so I will do my best and follow-up if there's questions that I can't answer. But just at a very high level, BGS began doing charging station installation at state facilities back in or prior to 2013. This really began with our fleet program. Just as a reminder, BGS manages the state fleet vehicle program. So, actually do have a legislative requirement to have a certain portion of our vehicles in the fleet be hybrid or EV. And so, thereby, we had a need really tough charging stations for our fleet vehicles.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Ranch and two. What what is that amount?

[Emily Sicke (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Buildings & General Services)]: I think it's 75% remembering from Wow.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: That's a lot.

[Emily Sicke (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Buildings & General Services)]: Yeah. It's high. It's high. So you'll most of our motor pool and fleet vehicles are hybrids as a result. And just to share for background, that's led to some issues with our user groups who maybe are traversing back roads to visit. Like, let's think of a a HS service worker who's visiting families in their roads in the middle of winter. Sometimes they're seeking a sturdier car. So we're trying to hit the right balance with that, but right now we do have a legislative requirement to hit that that jargon with our fleet program. So, since 2018, that expanded beyond just our fleet program to charging stations that are available to state employees, and in some cases to the public on state property. And again, you know, there are other there are other charging stations that may be administered by other parts of state government like AOT. I'm not familiar with exactly their program and where they place them, just speaking to BGS, which were limited to state property under the jurisdiction of BGS.

[Joseph Aja (Director of Engineering & Construction, BGS)]: I'd just ask a question

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Member)]: of the area. So if we put a charging station for state employees, are they reimbursing the state for the power that they basically generate or

[Emily Sicke (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Buildings & General Services)]: from Yes, the charging yes. So we have every, we set a recovery rate. So if you go check out our charging stations, we have a few right here, like Governorate Manhattan Avenue. Those are available in some cases to members of the public as well. You can use your debit card, same thing for state employees, they don't get free use of the charging stations and for our fleet program as well. You use a state purchasing card if you're on state business to use those charging stations. Do you

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: get to decide what rate it is? Does the state get to decide what rate is?

[Emily Sicke (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Buildings & General Services)]: We do. We do set the rate. That is something that we develop at the GS in collaboration with the secretary of administration, and it is also, I'm not remembering the exact statute, but it is we do have direction for what that rate looks like, and it's it's essentially to recover our costs. It is not making a profit. We're not getting that out of it. In fact, we're just trying to make sure that we are not losing money on the electricity or the cost of operation. So we recently readjusted our rate within the last year because we found that there was a gap and needed to increase it to make sure we're covering those electricity costs.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: That's really interesting. So you, well, the state has a, I mean, that makes all sense, but you also have a contract with profit company, ChargePoint. So, their fee would cover their costs, obviously. Then do you put a fee on top of

[Emily Sicke (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Buildings & General Services)]: their fee or? It's a merged, it's a combination of factors, and I would love to follow-up with you with an exact calculation of how we get there and a copy of our rate memo. I don't want to misspeak exactly what their share of the rate recovery is, but I will say again, when we look at it, it is purely to cover our contract cost charging point, as well as our electricity costs, etcetera.

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

[Emily Sicke (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Buildings & General Services)]: So there is a hyperlink on here, which might be hard to link into, but this has a link to our website page about state facilities, EV charging stations, as well as a link to our rate recovery memo. The next slide, locations at state facilities. 44 stations installed since 2023 and thirty of those were after 2018. Most of those are level two networked charging stations. So again, generally speaking, the customers for these charging stations are state employees, fleet vehicles, and then public visitors to state facilities. Someone's coming through to testify at the State House, they need to charge up. You know, there's an opportunity to do that. So, there are level one outlets here on ECON now.

[Senator Robert Plunkett (Vice Chair)]: You may or may not. How is

[Joseph Aja (Director of Engineering & Construction, BGS)]: it determined where they're who's in

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Member)]: the position? Where did they go?

[Emily Sicke (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Buildings & General Services)]: I have that covered in the slide deck.

[Senator Robert Plunkett (Vice Chair)]: So, once again, Joe, shut up.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: No. No. It's okay.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Member)]: And and

[Senator Robert Plunkett (Vice Chair)]: let me get through the the section, and you'll find out everything. I am sorry. Oh, no. So

[Emily Sicke (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Buildings & General Services)]: it the next slide, this covers where we have stations now, just to get a sense of the geographic distribution. So the way that we select sites, I mean, it's a combination of factors. Sometimes it's like, we clearly identify this as high use by the public. We have a high concentration of state employees. Breakker and the Capitol Complex is a great example of that. You know, we know people are visiting the State House. You know, members of the public are here very frequently. We have additional charters across the street in the parking lot. So, like, that's when we could identify. We also build it into our process for new projects. So, for example, there were two charging stations added for the recent Windsor County Courthouse renovation project. So that's like where we're doing something significant, new construction, we will look to roll that into an existing project. So the funding that we're talking about here, the line item is generally to address putting in infrastructure in existing facilities, right? Like it's not getting rolled into a construction project. So we do a survey of state employees. We just send one out to all state employees within the last two weeks to question them about their use of EVs and whether to help identify needs for additional ones. So we put out the survey. If we get responses from a big cluster of people in a certain area that are using EVs and don't have ready access to charging stations in their workspace, like that's where we would set our priorities for future stations. So that's really, and then sometimes we get outreach from a specific site. So for example, we got recent outreach from one of the departments within ANR and they have their own fleet vehicle, which is an EV and they have some employees. So they're aware of it and they reached out to us wanting to know what possibilities there might be. So it comes to us in a variety of ways.

[Senator Robert Plunkett (Vice Chair)]: And could they be non state buildings,

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Member)]: but

[Senator Robert Plunkett (Vice Chair)]: usage by state employees if they go to kind of, you know

[Emily Sicke (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Buildings & General Services)]: I mean, they could do, they could certainly do that on their own, or if they were using a fleet vehicle and needed to stop at a public charging station, you know, they can do that just like they could at a normal, at a gas station, right? The BGS wouldn't use these funds to install a charging station on a non state property Right,

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: so like, we were talking about that a little bit. So, the parking rides, I think there's some state parking rides and there's some state or municipal parking rides, but I believe maybe those would be with the transportation. Okay, so those would have that funding because those are the popular. Right.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Member)]: And so

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: what does net worth mean?

[Emily Sicke (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Buildings & General Services)]: I'm working at Joe to Quantrait. Those

[Joseph Aja (Director of Engineering & Construction, BGS)]: are ones that are actually connected out to the internet so that you can pay as you, as you charge.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Oh, okay. And then are they all ChargePoint?

[Joseph Aja (Director of Engineering & Construction, BGS)]: That I do not know.

[Emily Sicke (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Buildings & General Services)]: So, I can we have only been installing ChargePoint for at least the last five years, but we do have some legacy older stations from NRG and SEMA Connect. Oh, yeah. Well, and then

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: CharterPoint has purchased a fair amount of companies too. Okay. Alright. And do you track how often those are used?

[Emily Sicke (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Buildings & General Services)]: We do. We do have the ability with the networked ones to see, like, usage. So, like, that's not something I monitor, but our energy officer. Okay.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Yeah. So, if you could give us that information. Sure.

[Emily Sicke (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Buildings & General Services)]: If you don't mind. Sure. And I know the question had come up, like generally, how much do they cost? For a level two station, the cost of installation is about 20,000 to 32,000 per station. That's all inclusive, not just the station itself, but also site work, design, permitting, all the associated costs. And

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: that's by the contractor? That does the installation.

[Emily Sicke (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Buildings & General Services)]: Yeah. Yep, and that's something that's coordinated through Director Age's team at construction as well as our energy office. And

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: then the maintenance, I would think maintenance would be part of the charge point

[Emily Sicke (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Buildings & General Services)]: Yeah, so there are annual ongoing costs. We budget four fifty dollars per year for maintenance and repairs.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: And does that include just the contract services too? I mean, because they do billing and

[Emily Sicke (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Buildings & General Services)]: Doesn't actually have been network costs. Okay. Which we average $2.21 per station. That's per year? Yeah. Okay. But so far we've had very few expenses related to maintenance and repair. So we've budgeted that amount based on advice from program partners and in consideration of the warranties that are offered by the station manufacturers, but so far we haven't had

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: a big need for that.

[Emily Sicke (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Buildings & General Services)]: Okay. And our assumption is that stations will last twelve years for those guys. So,

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: some of these are Getting there, Greg?

[Emily Sicke (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Buildings & General Services)]: Yeah. So the next slide, here's an example of the state employee survey. This is just a snapshot. So again, we just released one. We'll be assessing the results in the coming weeks when that closes. We've done two previous statewide surveys in 2019 and 2023. It's again, really to help us understand current and future demand by location. And then again, there is sometimes a direct connection to the energy office. So then again, we prioritize those based on where we see a demand. We take in some considerations, like if we know something about the site, for example, we wouldn't necessarily put in a brand new station here in Montpelier knowing that there's going to be some complex reconstruction coming down the road, you take that into account, just as well as capacity. And I'll just We haven't gotten as many projects through the door in the last few years based on staffing constraints, both in our energy office, as well as on director Ages' team and other priorities like blood response that have gone through. So that's where, you know, not as many EV charging stations might be moving forward. And that's again, where we didn't see that we could necessarily spend these funds in the next fiscal year, given all of that. And we do have about $500,000 left in funding through the FCCD to support EV charging station in the next year. So, looking at it realistically, we felt that that would be sufficient for what we think we can achieve in the next year.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: That's very helpful. I thought that ACCD money was for like condominiums and, No,

[Emily Sicke (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Buildings & General Services)]: this is allocated to BGS for Oh,

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: so this is just BGS, 500,000. Interesting. Okay, that's, I didn't realize that. Yeah. Because ACCD has a lot of programs just to help folks who don't have single family homes that have charging.

[Emily Sicke (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Buildings & General Services)]: They probably have that too, and then this is just a different.

[Joseph Aja (Director of Engineering & Construction, BGS)]: The funds through ACCD are the requirement that they have though, it also has to be accessible to the public. Okay. So it's not behind any law dates

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: or something like that. Right. And that's consistent with the funding that I'm aware of. With the, just multi family housing. Alright. And let me just ask you again. Is it state sites only or other sites?

[Joseph Aja (Director of Engineering & Construction, BGS)]: You know, state sites. Russ, it's state sites only.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: The ACCD money is just state owned sites? Yes. Alright. Alright. Well, that's good to know. And they have 500,000? Yes.

[Emily Sicke (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Buildings & General Services)]: We have 500,000. You have left of that allocation. Yes. Okay. And so on the last slide, and again, this was from last year, this is where we've identified, some potential, future sites. Again, considerations looking at what we have going on with major maintenance projects, what we think is happening for future construction. I'd add, you know, there are a few more that we could be looking at, but just by way of example, again, we try to work build it into projects, major projects that we're doing. So, for example, if we were, you know, full steam ahead moving forward on that Newport Courthouse or Ferry Courthouse, like we would look to see if that was a viable site. And then we also will even look at our existing entrance court.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Great. Now what about Level 3?

[Emily Sicke (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Buildings & General Services)]: What I understand is that, that is very expensive. And for some of our sites, we're challenged and there would be quite a bit of work that would need to happen, expensive work that would to need to support installation of those. So just given constraints, that's not something that we've pursued.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: If you would just get it, just refresh and maybe you already have, they're getting less expensive because there's more of them and it's always just generally getting less expensive and that's what the state is installing now for the public.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Member)]: Yes, but the rapid charging is because you're really looking for transient folk if we're talking about the state employees that are there all day. That's true. You don't need the right rapid charging stations.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: That's true. That's true.

[Emily Sicke (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Buildings & General Services)]: Yeah, that is certainly part of it. I do know it's an ongoing topic of conversation. Okay, good. And I will follow-up again with our energy office to see if that's something they've continued to look at for future installations. But certainly they're primarily designed thinking that people are going to be parked for a while.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Oh, I understand, but we also have level one in the parking rides. No one ever uses them except sometimes people who put, they have a camper.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Member)]: It's surprising because there's no charge for a level one. It would plug in with a light bulb

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: and you

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Member)]: get free tablet. Right. I don't understand that one either.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Well, there's an easy way to do it that way. No.

[Joseph Aja (Director of Engineering & Construction, BGS)]: I mean Yeah. Giving away the tablet.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Oh, yeah. Yeah.

[Joseph Aja (Director of Engineering & Construction, BGS)]: That's a different issue.

[Emily Sicke (Deputy Commissioner, Department of Buildings & General Services)]: Right. We've had we've been grappling with this situation where sometimes folks will park and leave their car even after it's fully charged and, you know, have a downtime so that it's not accessible to others. We've looked at ways to encourage people to move exoplanetary. On Right.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: And like all of those rules and processes, Tesla has done. But at very high expense. But there are ways to do it. So.

[Unidentified representative, Vermont Judiciary (State Court Administrator’s Office)]: All right, well this has been very helpful. You.

[Joseph Aja (Director of Engineering & Construction, BGS)]: May I add one more that just came to mind on networking? That's also open to web apps. So if you're in the public you can go to an app and you can actually find out that that is a charging station that they can go to.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Perfect. And we just did a bill in transportation that includes requiring that the right or that useful information as in, is it still working? What kind of payment do you need? Because now a lot of them will take credit cards or even the cashless, they're not contactless cards as opposed to having to do an app because that can be really annoying. So we're making requirements that will improve the use of the chargers, the public chargers and the private chargers that are open to the public.

[Unidentified representative, Vermont Judiciary (State Court Administrator’s Office)]: Okay, good. Well, you. This is good.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: So let's take a little break. Ten minutes at the most. Yes. And then we'll talk about updates to the capital plan. Okay?