 government operations and it is Tuesday, April 7th. So committee, yesterday we listed a number of issues that had come up around the Wyndham County delegation had a meeting with Drew from rescue over the weekend. And a number of issues came up from there. And I put those together and sent them out. And I hope everybody who is here today with us got a copy of those issues. They were kind of listed in three categories, supplies, personnel and funding. So I think that, Drew, if you just wanna give us just a little bit of an intro here and then we'll go to the three categories and start looking at the suggestions and what we can do. You're, I can't hear you. Are you talking? I have to unmute myself first. Yeah. So the major issues that I was highlighting over the weekend and you persist are funding and the funding shortfall due to not only the preparation aspect of COVID, but the drastic decline in the number of patients transported by endows and what we're anticipating to be a significant cash flow crisis coming in the next several weeks for especially the nonprofit or the private services not as much of a concern for the municipal departments, but certainly for the smaller nonprofit and kind of the regional nonprofit models. The second component that we're looking is the staffing not only for the immediate COVID response, though that is a concern and we had some, we might address there, but make sure that we have access to education to help all the void of personnel that we anticipate having directly following this kind of first phase of crisis response. So those are the major issues. We also were looking at having difficulty in getting PPE for service providers and first responders and the other issue was loss of personnel due to an actual crisis. It seems like some of those issues have actually since maybe resolved or partially resolved since our discussion on Sunday. So I'm thankful that we've already seen kind of some relief in some of those areas. So it might be helpful if you would tell us which areas seem to have resolved themselves so we don't have to go over them again if they really have resolved themselves. Does that make sense, committee? Yes. So it sounds like the string of emails today that EMS personnel that are currently on active duty orders will be returned to their EMS units, which should solve that problem and we're very thankful and appreciate that, especially here locally. And word that we got this morning from the EMS office was that they are, they do have access to PPE and she'd be able to supply ambulance service providers with a month of PPE in the very near future. So it sounds like we've made some progress on that issue. The health department. Yes. Yes. Drew, with the personnel, with the National Guard, the EMS people coming back to their EMS squads or teams, will they be being paid as National Guard members or are they coming back as private citizens again? I mean, I assume based on the email string that they will be just coming back or ranks as first responders. I think we do have someone national guard on the line, but I do believe that coming back just as first responders. Yes, we have the adjutant general here with us. Would you like to respond to that? Yes, ma'am. I sent that email to everybody earlier. We've been quite diligent in getting with our members and making sure that they are coordinating with their employers. First responders, medical providers, paramedics, anybody who is working in civilian practice, if their services are needed there, we don't bring them on orders, but we do defer to them coordinating with their employers. So that linkage has to be there. So we're counting on our members to be honest with us when they're telling us that they're not required as critical personnel. But if any providers have a need and that information is not accurate, just let us know and we will end the term of orders and put those folks back into civilian practice where we're probably better served having them anyway. Thank you. While we're, well, we have you here with us and then you might have other things that you have to attend to. Is there one of the things that came up at our meeting with the Wyndham County delegation was whether there was the ability for the guard to deploy people who are unemployed, who have currently have lost their jobs because they had jobs in other areas that aren't considered essential to bolster up the EMS system by being drivers or other non-medical people. Is there that possibility? That has some potential. We would have to get that through a d-land, a disaster land ticket. So if a EMS service or hospital or any provider is looking for that type of support that will go through the state EOC, ma'am. And then we would be able to take a look at the ticket and source it appropriately. So that it would be up to the individual EMS services to ask for that. Yes, ma'am. So if it comes from a town manager or a mayor or select board, if there's a need within that community, police chief, fire chief, if that need is there, we would in essence triage that request through the state EOC. We're kind of the last resort. So there may be other folks out there that can facilitate that, but we're here to support. And if that request comes through Director Borneman up to us, we will take a look at it. So you mentioned municipalities, but most of the ambulance services are not municipally run. They are private non-profits that the municipalities contribute to. Could the non-profit ambulance services also make the request to SEOC? I don't know the answer to that question, ma'am. That would be, I can check with my judge advocate general to see what any of the subtleties are with that. And somebody within the Department of Public Safety may actually have that answer. Commissioner Shirling might be able to help with that one. Okay, we'll find that out. If he gets to us, we take a look at everything. Okay, we'll find that out. Thank you. Are there any more questions for the adjutant general before, because I don't want him to have to sit here through our whole meeting if we don't need him. Although we are also happy to have you with us. Happy to be here, ma'am. Allison? It's good to hear your voice. Greg, I'm just curious, you have activated everybody, but not everybody is sent out on detail yet. How many are actually deployed now? We are just a little bit over 200. A majority of those between the Air and the Army National Guard, for instance, our civil engineering squadron with the fighter wing was mobilized and placed on orders to help stand up that 400 bed site at the Champlain Valley Exposition. That's nearing completion. And then we'll take a look. We keep people on as long as we need them, obviously sensitive to funding. But we're always here on standby so we can bring folks on as needed and based on the requests. Facts. Thank you. Any more questions for the adjutant general? I'm sorry. Drew? Oh. Thank you for the quick response and I will send out through our association a notice letting the ambulance services know that if they do need that additional staffing that it may be available through a direct request through the SCOC so that they have provision. And I'll check with Commissioner Schirling to make sure that how it would happen if it would go directly from the ambulance service or if it would be a town that would have to request it for the ambulance service. Any more questions? Thank you. Any more questions, committee? Thank you. Thank you so much. Have- Thank you all. Be safe. Okay, be safe. Keep your members safe. Yes ma'am, take care. Okay, thank you. All right, so let's go back to then where you were leaving off, Drew. So you are, I think you're getting PPEs about a month's supply worth. Yeah, and I'd ask Jim Finger if he could just comment on that because he was the one that was kind of leading that discussion this morning. If that's okay with you. Yes, please. Jim? Hi there, this is Jim Finger. I talked to Dan just a little bit ago and he got more information back that says we're on the top of the queue but the order they had coming in did not come in so they can't say we'll get the 30 days supply now. Okay. Apparently it's just a matter of time. Meaning it just might come a little later or then I don't know if it's coming at all or what's the feeling you get from that? His email just said that we're on the top of the queue that they had anticipated it coming. Maybe that's them calling. Unfortunately, this is changing by the minute. Okay, I get that. Okay, so you will, you're on the top of the list. So okay, that's at least good news. So when it comes. That's what it sounds like when it comes. Can I ask a different question about supplies? One of the things that you talked about was the decontamination materials for your ambulances and that what you're having to resort to tends to be a little corrosive. And so a suggestion, Laura Sebelia was gonna look into that through BDCC to see if there were any local people that could do it. But, and Allison Clarkson had a suggestion about the distilleries because they're making hand sanitizers. Would that be an appropriate product? So local distilleries are making alcohol. We've tried utilizing that. Jim Finger actually found that some of our school systems have available decontamination techniques. So that's another resource that we're attempting to borrow. So we're trying to get creative in some of these solutions, but as far as purchasing, the supply chain is still not widely available for decontamination supplies. But we are, again, working at coming up with creative solutions. I think Jim's find at a local school with a huge resource that we didn't know was available. You might also, that's a great idea. You might also check local colleges that have closed down because they probably have, I know a lot of them cleaned out their kitchens, but I doubt very much that they cleaned out their cleaning closets. All right, any questions on that one, committee? All set. Or comments, doesn't have to be a question. All right, so is there more about supplies that we need to address? So just to make you aware, so supplies, and this is not unique to EMS, this is healthcare everywhere. Not only is it cleaning supplies and PPE, but we are also finding shortages on other things, IV supplies, medications, and it's nothing that we can do about that. Metered dose inhaler is being one of the concerns right now, but it is an ongoing problem and the way it's manifesting in EMS is increased costs. As we're attempting to buy, we're paying unfortunately way more than we need supplies. And in some cases, if we run out, we'll be able to replenish those supplies. And that goes for the hospitals and nursing homes and everybody else as well. So it's just a part of this pandemic. Are you in the queue for those materials as well as the hospitals? So I asked the health department to find out if any of that material is available through the National Strategic Stockpile. As of right now, none of that type of stuff has come in as part of a stockpile, but they were looking to see if any of the, kind of the medical supplies are available kind of outside of the local supply houses. So you have the Department of Health on top of that one looking for you? We've asked them to, and that was last week I haven't heard whether they've had any luck with that yet, but I will be following up with them. I believe Shayla is with us. Are you Shayla? I am here, yes. Okay, have you any more information about that? I have nothing about that, but I would not be the person to know that. So if Drew has put in a formal request, we have a full tracking system. We have hundreds and hundreds of requests coming in for all sorts of different things from all sorts of different providers. Is, would it be wise for, I'm thinking about the 80 different ambulance services that are out there approximately, would it be wise for them to make a request through the, whatever that, the advisory council is called, rather than 80 separate requests, or are you doing that already? Drew, I'm gonna let you answer that. I don't know the answer to that. So right now, every individual service is making their own requests for supplies and services. There's really no kind of EMS coordinated effort towards the supply or the response planning. Is that something that would be helpful to the department of health so that they could deal with a large one and somehow you could see to the distribution instead of them dealing with 80 different requests? Yeah, that makes sense. Cause that would make a lot more sense. I don't know if you have the wherewithal to be able to do that. So I spoke to Dan at length this morning and some of the information that we've been getting from ambulance services across the state, he was unaware of. I know the health department has been very much engaged in other aspects of the response and some of the information that's been passed onto areas of the EMS office if not necessarily gotten to his attention yet. So we're speaking about things like financial implications and just kind of how significant those might be as well as some of the personnel concerns that stuff had not actually reached him directly yet. So there seems to be at least a little bit of a lag in some of that communication, which is somewhat understandable considering what they're going through up there, but I think we take a more active role in organizing EMS services and their needs and getting that message to the health department, especially the smaller services I think are struggling with being able to get their needs out. You know, when I'm talking to services about their levels and we have some services right now that are currently borrowing personnel from neighboring departments because they've had enough people out sick that they can't serve their areas and the health department is currently unaware of that. So I think there's a breakdown in that kind of the preparation and planning somewhere. How do we solve that? I'm trying to solve that by gathering and providing information. There's no formal system that I'm aware of. The fire service in, I know as part of the briefing has done a survey, countywide survey on staffing, on needs that they're including as part of the daily update that comes out of the SCOC. I know here in Wyndham County on the fireside, the services are reporting to the Dispatch Center every day on staffing levels and challenges and that's coming out as a daily brief for all services so that they understand that, you know, and Dumberston Fire Department may have 10 people that are out sick. So if there's a fire in their town, they automatically know that there's gonna be a staffing issue and send more additional resources than they typically would. I don't believe anything like that currently exists in EMS. I don't know that we're actually querying services to find out, you know, where they are in the process of thoughts, whether they're struggling, whether they're on the verge of collapse. So other than people reaching out to their neighbors, I don't know that we have much coordination going on. Allison. So I'll add it in. Hey, wait. Anthony, would you move your hand? Oh, because I thought you were frozen and I was afraid I wasn't seeing you if you wanted to ask a question. No, I'm just intensely concentrating. Okay, sorry. Allison, I just wanted to make sure. I love it when you intensely concentrate. It just goes to the need for mutual aid for EMS. You know, both, I mean, it just strikes me that in this entire, all these areas of need on personnel, for example, that you aren't speaking with one voice for all 80 departments to the National Guard, for example, so that you can identify needs and speak broadly for the entire system, the entire system with supplies and the entire system with funding. It does strike me that that's one of the needs that we could help with or, you know, that is really being exposed as a major need at this period. Yeah, I agree with that. It does seem like it would be a lot easier if you could speak it with one voice, it'd be more powerful too. Yeah, I mean, Greg Knight can't have 80 different departments calling to ask for, you know, a potential unimproved, you know, National Guardsman who could come and be a driver. I mean, it needs to be one voice saying, we need 10 people in 10 different communities doing whatever. It's too much of a patchwork for it to be effective, I think in that regard. So does that bring us to the need for the mutual aid? I mean, it's kind of the other end of it, but it is the same issue. And how we address that. And I realized that the Department of Health is so overwhelmed right now that asking them to put some kind of a system in place might be a little beyond their ability. But when we talked about it before, Senator Clarkson mentioned that the towns, or I guess it was Senator Bray that mentioned that the towns have a municipal aid, mutual aid kind of agreement between towns. And we wondered if that could be used as a template to start that and perhaps somebody from an EMS service could be contracted to work with VLCT around how to implement that. I don't know if that makes any sense or not. So please throw out ideas, everybody here. And it is that template is posted on our website for today under the documents. And Senator, this is Gwen Zakoff. Can I just talk about that really briefly? Hello. Yes, please. So that template was put together about four or five weeks ago, maybe a little bit more. It was brought to our attention, I guess it would have been February at this point from Chittenden County on town managers mainly that were concerned that they didn't have mutual aid agreements for services outside public safety. So this actually kind of started from something that related to wastewater treatment operators and sort of making sure that they were able to cover each other in cases of having personnel shortages. So long story short, the template that we put together was written really broadly, really openly, really all encompassing to allow communities to cut and paste and figure out an appropriately sized agreement for their community. So it's much bigger and much more robust than it's probably necessary nine times out of 10, but it's a starting point. So with that said though, however, just the way the laws and statutes and the corporate entities that exist, whether they be governmental or non-governmental, this is written under the umbrella that they're municipal incorporated entities, whether it be solid waste districts or municipalities all around. I am not so sure how much tweaking would need to be done to make it work for non-profit entities. That's a little bit above my pay grade, but that's sort of where, at least for the template that's in front of you, that's where that came from. The issue of bringing in non-profits creates some just more confusion because the laws around both are very, very different. So I don't know how helpful that is, but at least that's where this whole mutual aid agreement sort of came in from discussions in the Senate Natural Resources Committee. So hopefully that at least helps to explain that part of it. Well, and Gwen, it's Allison, the request, we already had their municipal mutual aid agreements and then there are fire department mutual aid agreements and many of those are non-profits, aren't they? I mean, some of those are independent and stand on their own and are not arms of the municipal government. Yeah, yeah. And again, that's why it's written so broadly. And I believe that you have to have basically legal counsel to basically make sure that everyone is taken care of at the end of it. These are generally things that can't be done sort of a weekend. And especially when you're talking about two separate types of corporate entities. So it would be, it would be bigger minds to look at the, how they're put together and the heads of agencies, whether it's a town manager or a select board speaking on behalf of municipality or someone who's running a nonprofit, they would both have to have both of their interests, both of their interests met, which becomes a little bit more confusing. Chris, did you have a comment? Yeah, I just, hi Gwen. Thank you for the sample contract again and which I was hoping might bootstrap something for someone working on it. Is there, do you know for non-profits in the state of Vermont sort of a VLCT counterpart like the Vermont Association of Non-profits that might be looking at this more broadly? Yeah. Maybe the chair- I can't speak to that. Yes, there is, there's a, I can't remember the name of it, but I get their newsletter weekly or daily or something. Does anybody remember what their name is? Do you mean the common good? Yeah. Common good. Yeah. Yeah, common good. Right. And they're the sort of nonprofit boys. Right. So maybe they already have counsel and with an eye on EMS, they could help, you know, do the rewriting that would tailor it to EMS needs. That's a great idea, Chris. I think that's a terrific idea. Sheila, would you, oh, excuse me. No, it's just, I'm trying to remember. It's Laura, you know, Mark, Mark's wife, Lauren. Lauren Glenn Davidian. Lauren Glenn, I knew there was another thing before Davidian. Right. Thanks. Okay. Will, so Sheila, would you, oh, Drew, I'm sorry. That's Jim Finger. I just wanted to make sure, you know, that we have mutual aid in the ambulance services across the state. It's actually part of our license even. That's not the kind of mutual aid you're thinking of the fire departments go town to town to town. Yeah. There are 12 communities and that takes me 30 minutes to get to the next ambulance service and to their territory in 45 minutes to their site. We help them out all the time. The kind of mutual aid that we're talking about now for personnel, there's not enough in the whole state period on most times. So it's not that we don't have mutual aid. We do have mutual aid. We do it all the time. Now that was the other finger. That was Drew's finger there. I saw Drew. So yeah, and that's what I wanted to clarify was so for the kind of daily operation of EMS, it is very common for ambulance services to respond and deal with surges in other people's area. When I brought this up, I was speaking specifically about aid that would be needed if an area was either overrun with calls as a result of the pandemic or unable to onto as a result of personnel shortages or people being sick. So we don't have a Vermont plan for how to stand up an ambulance service in an area that their service failed. So hypothetically speaking, if we run out of funds here in Brattleboro, it's very straightforward at rescue. We close our doors and there's 15 towns without ambulance service. There's not enough mutual aid anywhere to cover the call volume that we have in Brattleboro. And there is no plan in place to provide us with additional trucks, provide us with additional personnel. So the plan I was speaking of was more this disaster planning aspect of if and when we have the surge of COVID patients and if and when services are feeling that stress due to people being sick or they financially collapsed because of the financial issues. What does that look like? We don't have anything in place. There's no plan that would address those needs for the community. So what's the solution there? Anthony, are you? No, I just said, Jesus Christ, it doesn't sound good. So what do we need to do here? What kind of a plan do we need to put together and who needs to be part of putting it together? And Shayla, if you wanna chime in too here, that would be helpful. Hi everyone, Shayla, we serve in the health department. So I think there's a couple of things. One, I sent out a link. I know this is not a silver bullet of any type but there is funding through DEVA right now for all sorts of different providers who are suffering sort of basically because of the lack of loaded miles for EMS is essentially what it would be. It's gonna be different for each provider type and each situation. So it's not like a set formula for how that money is handed out but definitely encourage EMS providers to apply for that funding right now. The health department is supportive of ensuring that EMS services do not go under. I mean, that would not serve the public good or public health. And so we're definitely interested in finding creative ways during this crisis to ensure their continued viability and are working on that. We're also working, we have a couple of different ways right now up for those who are EMTs and first responder folks who are in the sort of training pipeline that are gonna like stuck in that pipeline. So there's a couple of different ways that folks can get through that. We're not ready right now to say that there's a, we're not ready to just do a fully online EMT license. We still feel pretty strongly that even in this circumstance, we need people to have some of that hands-on training and testing and so while we're not ready to stand up an online EMT program that's all online, that would happen right now, we are interested in doing at least the didactic part online so that once this crisis is at least less acute and we are in a place where we can bring people together and gather people again, that folks can have done some of that online training and then just need to do their hands-on pieces. So we are interested in exploring that further. Dan had some conversations with Maine. I guess they have something that they're looking at in that department as well. And then I guess the last thing is again, this understanding, I mean, I think I don't, I'm not sure what would be better and I can talk offline with Drew about whether it would be better to group everybody's needs together or if it's more efficient to have it be individual because I don't know how those shipments go out. If they go out regionally, then having a group is actually not gonna be super helpful because it would go to a region, not to a service provider type, but I can circle back with Drew on that. Brian, did you have a question? Well, I saw earlier today that the governor has now submitted a request for federal disaster help and some of that was earmarked specifically for emergency operations, emergency medical care, anything like actions taken to save lives. I'm just reading the press release. And it provides a 75% reimbursement to state and local governments and some nonprofits. I don't know whether anyone knows whether that would be helpful in this situation or not. Nolan, do you have any idea of that? I think no. I don't know anything about that. Okay, this was Shayla again. So I think that that type of funding is, that exploring those types of funds is a really good place to in addition to some of the other federal funding that is or will be coming in. Okay, so I don't wanna follow up one thing on the personnel here and I'm about the people in the pipeline for training and then jump to funding. We, is there any plan or any ability to involve the ski patrol people because they are pretty well-trained and they currently don't have any snow? Right. So that is a great question. So right now, ski patrol can apply for our first responder license. So not the EMT license, the one below that. And normally they would have to take a test. What we're looking at doing right now is providing them with a provisional license without the test for the duration of the crisis. So then post crisis, if they wanted to keep that first responder license, they would have to take the exam. So I know that EMS is looking at that at the health department right now to see if and how to roll that out. But I think that they are trying to move forward on that process. Do you need any legislation to do that or can you just do that? We can just do that. Okay. Can we encourage you to do that? I think they are actually like doing it. I think it's just a process, okay. Okay. So I guess what we need to do is get the word out to all the ski patrol people. That they can get that provisional license. So we can do that through the ski association. I'm not sure if Jim Harrison is with us or not. Molly Mojar is. Oh, Molly. Oh, good. I didn't realize that. So Molly, how about that? Hi. Hi. Nice to see you. Yes. I've been in contact with the presidents and general managers from all the ski areas, of course. Our ski patrollers are not currently working, but they obviously can be in touch with them. We did get a request from Dr. Chen from AHS already that came out to us Sunday night. And I forwarded that along to the presidents and GMs to that out to their local patrollers. Many of the patrollers, as you would guess, are already engaged in the medical profession or are engaged with their local EMS. But we have encouraged them already to volunteer. And I'm certainly ready and able to get any other communications out through the presidents and GMs to get to those folks. Good. Thank you. Anything else on that? Anybody have any comments or questions or? Drew? I had also spoke with Dan this morning about the allowance to allow first responders to be the primary attendant during the height of this pandemic. I don't know if that has gone anywhere, if Shayla has any information as to where that is in the discussion. They're still discussing that. That is more, they have not made a decision on that yet, but they are looking into whether or not to do that. If they do do it, just to be clear, it would have to be still under a crisis scenario. So it couldn't become standard operating procedure even during the coronavirus crisis. It would have to be like at individual cases, but I think they are looking at that, Drew. What do you mean individual cases as opposed to generally during the corona crisis? Like it sounds like they wouldn't want it to be that they only had first responders operating trucks like for months on end, but like Thursday night, they don't have any MT and you've got a first responder going out in that kind of instance, allowing for that, but they have not made a decision on that yet. Is that helpful, Drew and Jim? So I think that it could be very helpful for services that are struggling to get any providers out on the road. There's a lot of first responders that work with ambulance services that are typically driving, providing care on the scene but not the primary service. And if we could lift those restrictions, especially during the kind of the peak of the pandemic, I think it would open up a lot of resources that we currently don't have. I could look at the numbers, but I think we have like 200 or 300 first responders in the state that would then be able to be primary care tenants in ambulances if we were to open that up. Thank you, Allison. So, Drew, it also sounded like the National Guard, I mean, if you could again act as one voice and each day let the National Guard know if there was additional personality, like we need a driver, we need five drivers tonight, we're down, whatever, that it sounds like they could be used in that capacity too, they could be deployed specifically to help in that kind of a fashion. Yeah, I agree. The information I got today on the call is the most specific information that I've heard yet about whether National Guard resources could support local EMS. And it sounds very favorable. And I will get the information out to services saying that they can request that from the SEOC. I know the other question that we've asked and Ray Walker, EMS office was specifically looking into the availability of MRC volunteers through the volunteer website, be local and available to drive. And as soon as we get that information back from him, I'll get that out to all services as well. But again, I think it would be really hard for Greg Dyne's office to be inundated with 70 different requests. I mean, it makes some sense to have all those requests, needs identified in the morning and funneled through one voice to the National Guard or to whomever would then be dispensing help in whether it's, you know, no matter what it is. So in that case, what I heard from him is those requests all go to the state emergency operation and they would be a single request through to him. So it would be each individual community resource and then combining them at the SEOC. Yeah, I was just wondering, okay. Yeah, so I think that in this case, there is a system for requesting help and receiving it and what the National Guard was saying is that in many cases they are the last resort and there are other, you know, folks who could be sent out by the state operation, emergency operation center. And so that there is a system set up for that for again, all different types of providers including EMS. So one of the things that we heard, and I don't know if this is still true or not but one of our delegation is, has listed himself in the, I don't even know what it's called, the governor's volunteer line or core, whatever it's called. And we were told that EMS is not, does not have access to that. Is that still true or if it is why? Does anybody know that? Doesn't make any sense. That makes no sense. Do we know if it's- I'm not sure what you're referencing but I can go back to the state EOC and get you information on who has access to which resources. Okay, yeah, I don't, because one of our delegation said that he, well, he has listed himself as a volunteer but he's never been called, but we were told that EMS did not have access to that, to requesting volunteers through that list that the governor is keeping. Yeah, again, I'm not sure about that. I do know that the State Emergency Operations Center has a method for each type of provider and each, you know, like, I would to get those resources to kind of all the different folks requesting them and I think there are algorithms for that. I don't know what they are and I'm not sure if I can get them for you but I will try. Some volunteers might just be willing to come in and decontaminate the insides of the ambulances. They don't have to. So anyway, Chris Campani, you had a... Just, I have an email here from the Vermont Organization, Organizations Activist Disaster from Phil Coaling with Sir Vermont and the VOAD, can you hear me? Yeah. Okay. And it just says, hi VOAD partners. I'm sorry, I couldn't attend yesterday's meeting. Many of you have seen that Governor Scott set up the govvermont.gov volunteer portal as a way to recruit Vermonters to the response effort. The response was tremendous and many needs are being filled, especially on the medical side. At the same time, there's a list of about 1,000 people who are unaffiliated who would love to help. If your organization needs some people, either with a specific skill set or in a particular place, please let me know. Sir Vermont is the conduit from that list to non-profits and organizations and we would be happy to try and get you what you need in service and stay healthy Phil. So just sharing that communication. So it sounds like the list is getting, it sounds like at least Sir Vermont is seeing it. Okay, so Drew. Sorry. Drew, I think that you were the one that said that you don't have access to that or is that still true or? So I don't know where the email that we're just hearing came from is something that I've never had across my desk and the other services that asked the question have never seen. So we seem to be breaking down on our ability to communicate. If that exists, that's great. And if you could send it to me, I'll make sure it gets out to all the services. So they can use it. Chris, can you forward that to both Jim and Drew and they'll get it out to everybody? I don't have their email address that's got forward it to Gail if she can send it out to the list. Okay, perfect. Is that okay, Gail? Okay. Can I hear? Yes, Chris. It's just one person's experience, but this past weekend as a, it's been whatever 17 years, something like that since I had an active EMTB certification. But I thought, well, I could probably do something helpful. And so I went on that web portal from the governor's site to sign up in some way. And there's no, you can sign up for state, like I don't have the proper name. They are the medical reserve core. I think it is. And it does, you don't end up seeing EMS services listed you see state level medical reserve core groups. Like for me, it's Addison Rutland County. So I was happy to go ahead and complete it, but I don't think that it didn't seem as though it was designed to let me reconnect to the EMS system. So maybe we can make a suggestion that they actually list the EMS system on there. Yeah, that would be great. I don't know who administers what, but it looks like it's the Vermont version of a national program and registry. Oh, well, maybe we can send a note to both Erica and maybe Kendall, because I'm not sure who's charged. Guys, this is Shayla again. So I think that's where I was offering to explore that and get that information back to you. Because again, I know that there is a system. I just don't know what that algorithm is. I do know that it is also regional and that's probably why it popped up like that. But again, I'll get you more information on that. Good, thank you. And maybe when you get that information, if you, so that it doesn't take a long time, if you can just send it to Drew and Jim and send it to, well, send it to the committee. Also, that would be great. And may I ask if Chris, if Chris Campany would be kind enough in sending that email if Gail could send it to us, I'd be curious. I'd include that in my columns. I hadn't seen that govermont.gov or whatever it's called as a portal for volunteers. I somehow missed that. I'm surprised that any of us have missed anything. There's so little going on. Well, I... Yes, no, I've missed many, many things. Yes, Becca sent out a list to us asking us what our fears were professionally and that was my biggest one was I am afraid I'm missing things that I really should be on top of. So anyway, any more issues about personnel or are we kind of on the road? Do we need any legislative solutions or are things beginning to work themselves out? Drew? Make sure that we have funding going forward to support you. Yeah, funding, we're gonna address funding now. Excellent. Okay. So I just wanna say that I can't see every, I can only see nine people on my screen. So when, if somebody that I can't see, like Shayla, if you have a comment and you need to say something, please just interrupt. Other people can raise their hands, but if you're on the phone or I can't see you. Are you on an iPad? On your iPad? Yes. You just scroll over, just swipe. I know, I know, but there are people who aren't pictured like Betsy Ann and Molly, and Molly is there as just a little person. Now there she is again, and Shayla, Gwen, and Pat Malone. Pat, do you have anything to say about personnel? The only thing I've been thinking about is once the heck department unsuspends education, gearing up so we can get people that are completing courses online to get them the opportunities to take care of the skills parts of the course and the preparation for the exam. So we're working on some solutions for that. Okay. Any questions about that? Molly, were you gonna say something or? I just wanted to say that if somebody, the proper person wants to pass along the information about the provisional licenses, to me, I'd be happy to send that out to the ski areas and get that out to folks. My email is molly at Evermont.com. Hey Molly, I'll be sure to do that. This is Shayla. Great, thanks Shayla. Great. Okay, so let's move on to funding. Just now that we've taken care of the big issues, just this little issue of funding. So I think my phone keeps, let's call her, I'm pretty soon my message machine is gonna go on. So Chris, our question to you was, would they be eligible for FEMA and is there a workaround on that? I'm gonna see who this is. Take it away. Okay. So this is beyond my... You have to mute yourself, Jeanette. There she goes. She did. There she goes. Okay, so I am not an expert on this, but I forwarded it to Kim Kanerichi. She's the Vermont State Public Assistance Officer at VEM. She's the expert. So I'd let her know that you guys were discussing this. And she replied back to me and I'll forward this to Gail as well. So she can forward it out to everyone. So this is for the FEMA reimbursant for the pandemic. She says, yes, EMS are considered a nonprofit and can qualify for public assistance funding for COVID-19 emergency protective measures. The program would pay for only overtime labor hours, however, as well as equipment time and PPE purchased by proper procurement. I have more information C attached. So I will send that to Gail so she can send that out to everybody else. But if you want the expert to talk about this, it'd be Kim Kanerichi with VEM. And Shayla and others might have insight too as far as how this has been applied. I will note that I was contacted about this by the Wyndham County Sheriff. I don't know if Department of Public Safety or who would be the logical entity maybe to organize information calls or webinars with groups of folks, so say the EMSs or the county sheriffs or the municipal police, but it might make sense for that kind of thing to happen. If it's not happened, I don't necessarily have visibility into, you know, we're mainly working with the town. So I don't necessarily know what's been done for other groups of responders. So those kinds of things could be happening and I'm just not aware of it. You're muted, Tinnit. You're still muted, Tinnit. The bane of her existence. Am I unmuted now? Yeah. You know, people have been trying to mute me for years, and they've finally found a way. So Nolan, my question was, do you have any words of wisdom for us? And we know you have wisdom, but do you have any words for us? Or money. Really, we want money. Money, money, money. Bag the words. No, we need words about money. Yes. I guess all I would say is that, I mean, I think Shayla and, as I Chris down there have sort of laid out a lot of the potential. I think it's, I mean, it sounds like I've been working or listening to other healthcare providers and there's money talk, there'd be time at how the flow and workforce and other stuff, but I haven't heard anything about the impact on EMS till now. And it seems like there seems to be some questions about what is considered essential, not essential, but whether they're gonna get any kind of federal funds or I think the answer is I can continue to look into it. What Shayla was talking about earlier, one of the things about Medicaid or Diva, that seems like that would only be specific to Medicaid reimbursements, which I think is about a big piece of their business. Nonetheless, it's probably something to look into. I mean, I think it deserves further exploration. I don't have any answers now. I think it's a great question. I wish I had more wisdom to give. I'm sorry, I don't yet, yet. Yeah, okay. Shayla, do you, Allison? Well, I mean, they are all, I mean, many of them are their own little nonprofits, right? So in that capacity, they are eligible, I would think no one, for some of the, some of these forgivable loans, conceivably, I don't know, particularly the bigger ones, if they were set up as a nonprofit business, they are eligible for the PPP loans. What do you think? Yeah, I mean, I think you're right. I mean, I think they'd be eligible for the same things than any other nonprofit would be eligible for. I think what makes the industry complicated is you have some that are private nonprofit, some that are municipal. Right. And to have different access to different things because of that. Like municipalities may get access to that, somehow the 1.25 billion that's coming in, and that will go out to some forms of grants to municipalities, and municipalities will in turn probably put some of that money towards their EMS. May or may not, it's unclear, some may and some may not, but when it comes to nonprofits, the question is whether any of that municipal money will be used to give more money to the EMS providers that they contract with. And I don't know the answer to that. Oh, I'm sorry. The only thing I would say is that on that money, I know that legislative leaderships have had conversations and are trying to figure out like what is the legislative role in that? What can we add in tent language when it comes to the federal dollars? And I don't know the answer to that. I understand that my understanding is legislature will have some role in how that money is spent, but at the same time, I think there's a sense of allowing the administration to have flexibility so they continue to move fast. I think the dilemma that it runs into is the same dilemma that I'm hearing for other issues, whether it comes food shelves or designated agencies or nursing homes is the same thing about how are we getting the money out from that bigger grant to the different priorities? The only answer I'd have on that is talk to the legislative leadership about your priorities, figure out when we figure out what the legislative role is to make this a priority. I don't have any other answers until we have a better sense of what the legislative role is in terms of getting that money out other than potential oversight. And I think that the other committees are struggling with the same questions. Brian and then Drew. Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to point out, there's two sources of potential funding here. One of them is the CARES Act, which is at 2.2 trillion and Vermont's getting about, I can't remember the exact number, but a substantial amount of money. 1.25 billion. 1.25 billion. And then the second piece is this federal disaster declaration, which does call out EMS things, nonprofits that would be eligible for reimbursement include nursing homes, laboratories, and hospitals, emergency care facilities, and fire and rescue emergency services. So there's two different situations here. I don't know Chris from the Wyndham Regional Commission called out specifically that there's probably gonna be earmarks for some of that funding, but maybe it's for personnel, maybe it's for something else, but maybe no one could at least look and see what the differences would be between the two potential funding sources. But I do think there's money there. Well, I mean, I think you're right. I was talking about the, what I was just talking about was that CARES Act money. Yeah. And the answer is, like I said, it depends on how it's dispersed. And I don't know how the money's gonna be dispersed. I don't know how decisions will be made and what the legislative role will be in that. So I mean, you're right. And I think there's still questions that haven't been answered. Yep. So I'm gonna go to Drew, but I would ask a question about when Drew answered or has his question. Would it be better for the emergency, the ambulance services, the EMS system, to actually put together some kind of a coordinated package of funding needs and put it forth that way instead of each one trying to figure out what they might need. And then we as legislators could actually support something like that if we saw it instead of 80 different places trying to compete for that money. So I'll go to Drew and then Anthony. To muted. Okay, I'm muted now. You're good? No, we're fine. Okay. So when we were looking at the kind of the financial needs of ambulance services, and I know a lot of services have already looked at and applied for some of the federal aid that exists. I think with every other business in the country applying, I know personally our applications have been in, but we don't know when that, or if that funding will be available. Some of the Medicaid, I think you guys got an email this morning about some kind of Medicaid prepayments that might be available. I just think it's important to understand that ambulance services were on sheep to ground before we could do a pandemic. And the cash reserves of many of our services was not going to start. So the concern that I have for our organization, the concern I have for, that I reached out to are relatively immediate. So we've lost, in some cases, more than 50% of our transport volume over the last month. So based on the payment cycle, that means that services right now, their bank accounts are not doing too bad because we're getting paid for those calls that we did six or seven weeks ago. But what we're going to see is a 50% or greater because a lot of the patients we are going to see now are not being transported, so we don't get paid for those. So a 50% or greater sudden drop in our cash flow at the point in time where we anticipate the highest expenditures due to the COVID crisis. As we look here to increase our staffing to maintain enough ambulances for what everyone tells us is coming, we're looking at increasing our payroll at the same time where we're losing greater than 50% of our total cash revenue. So it's a pretty short timeline between now and when services are gonna be really struggling to cover their expenses. Then you have the second half of that, which is the long-term implication of the lost revenue and the increased. So there's a short-term immediate need to make sure services have the money to pay their staff and buy supplies and then there's a long-term making sure that these services are on sound financial footing when this is over. Hey Drew, could I ask a quick question center of Drew? Yes, please. Your payer mix, like how are you guys paid? Medicare, Medicaid, private insurance, or through contract, like what's the, when you, for in terms of like patient flow, what's your payer mix? So it varies obviously around the state depending on the community you're in. So in our area, about 30% Medicaid, we're about 40% Medicare. We have a few private insurance, the rest is uninsured. Okay, the reason I ask is cause I know that some of the other providers have been in touch with Medicaid about potentially getting, I don't know if this is an option or not, but getting prospective payments to get their cash flow going. So to get payments for expected payments up front. Now, there are much different reimbursement schedule, but that may be an avenue to look at the different payers and see if there's any kind of perspective payment sources you can get. I mean, unfortunately with the fee for service, that tends to be problematic, but that may be an avenue. I know some of the other provider types are looking at. You might consider that as well. Or we may, or legislators could talk to Medicaid about that. I don't know, just... I think that Shayla said some time ago that they were working with Diva to try to figure out some funding changes here. So hopefully they're... No, that is, they are eligible for that Medicaid program. And it might even be that it's not necessarily prospective payments. It might even be grants for some organizations. It's not a uniform system, I guess. So definitely worth it for folks to apply to it. And true, my other... Thank you, Shayla. And my other suggestion would be there's a potential for a COVID-3, another federal bill. I call them COVID-1, COVID-2, COVID-3. There may be another COVID-4. And I would highly recommend reaching out to Leahy's office about... When they've been talking about the different providers, they've been here from FQHC and mental health and substance abuse. Maybe they haven't heard from emergency responders. And it may be worth reaching out to your congressional delegation and saying, hey, we're on the front lines and we're not getting any money. And Leahy is the second ranking member on the Senate Appropriations Committee. So that might be another avenue to sort of get potential future federal dollars. Just a thought. Anthony? Well, I don't have any particular words of wisdom. I find myself a little more frustrated by this conversation than I usually am by the conversations we have. Only because it seems like there's a crisis going on inside the pandemic that is sort of low key. And I don't know if people are meaning people outside this group that's talking about it are really aware of how dire the situation is. I think what you said before, Jeanette, about having sort of one sort of plan in a sense that brings everybody together and lists what the needs are, is really important. But then there's a part of me that's not, maybe this is just me, I'm not even sure who we would send that to. I mean, we talk about legislative leaders responding, but there has to be, well, who in the administration is supposed to be responding to EMTs? I'm just not sure. And I could be just, maybe I'm just missing it, but I mean, I hear a Department of Health, I hear financial regulation. I just don't know, like if we had this letter that said, this is a dire situation, here's what's needed now. And even going back to what Nolan said, I think the federal stuff is good to think about, but it's not going to happen anytime soon. I don't think. So my question is, should we find a way to put something together into, let's say a letter for lack of a better way of putting it, that we put out to sound the alarm. And then the second part of that is like, who would we send it to? Who's in charge? Is anybody in answer to that? Right. Well, I have to say that I was very, I was very surprised when I don't know if it was Drew or Jim that said that much of the stuff that they had, or maybe it was even Sheila, that stuff that they had been sending up to Department of Health had not gotten yet to Dan Basti. And I find that, that a little disturbing because he's the person that runs the MS office. Am I right in the, and so he, of all people, it seems to me should be on top of an aware. So I'm a little concerned that he hasn't been getting the, yes. I don't know. I mean, I have been talking to him about all these conversations and he's been fully up to date on that. He is the incident commander for the entire COVID response. So like, for example, when I get off this call with you all, I, my job in the health operation center is to call positive cases and contact trace. So we're all doing job that are not our own. So I think there's two pieces there. I want to make sure that we're not sort of. Leaping to conclusions about what everybody does or doesn't know because I don't have that information and I'm, I'm just a little wary of that. And then also I just want to be clear that, you know, he is the incident commander here for our full response. So I think those are, those are two things. The other piece is that, you know, one, one thing that's interesting here, and we kind of run into it sometimes in education is this whole local control, everything's different depending on where you are situation, which is how EMS is set up in the state. And that's not something that we can change this minute. Some places there, like we were just talking about their nonprofits, their for-profits, their towns, they're run by the town, they're run by this, they're run by that, they're, they're very different. They're different sizes. There are different needs. There are different issues. There's different leadership. So it's, it's not a, a uniform system in that way. The health department oversees the ambulance licensing and the EMS licensing. So we license the individuals and the, and the vehicles, right? But sort of how those organizations are set up and run is a very grassroots locally, you know, that's, that's a local thing. The different, the problem with that, I mean, the beauty of that is it's Vermont and that's how we've done it. And it's, and it's been, you know, it has worked as we've been talking about for a while now. It's not necessarily working in this moment. And I think that the other part of this, that's part is for all providers, not just the EMS, all of their funding is so varied. And that's going to be true again with this response. Is it FEMA? Is it the, you know, 2.1. 2.5 billion, whatever, you know, where is that coming from? I think that. The role of. Sort of the, the role that I can try to play. Is try to ensure that Drew gets the information on what is available and can distribute that. Information out to everyone, but it's still going to be incumbent on those individual agencies. In some way. To act on, on those opportunities. And. That's not perfect. And. And I think long term, you know, that is a good conversation to have because that's what we've seen, you know, when we're talking about the training grants and who gets the money for training, you know, we've seen that issue come up there basically where there's this opportunity to apply for funding. And some places have like a. HR system and a grant application process. And some places have. One person who, you know, uses the computer on Sundays at the library. So I think. You know, I think that there's so many moving pieces here, but I guess I'm. I'm committing to you to play the role of ensuring that. The EMS advisory council chair, you know, Drew gets the. Information in terms of what opportunities are. Existing now. So maybe, maybe it would be helpful to. I'm feeling a little frustrated, like just like Anthony is here. So. At all. I'm sure everybody out there. And, and I, I, we need to address the, the kind of crisis that we're facing. I guess we don't. In terms of who we would inform that this crisis is happening. I was thinking, do we inform the public? No, I, we don't want to scare people. I mean, we don't want people to go into a panic because we don't want to scare people. We don't want to scare people. I mean, we don't want people to go into a panic because they think that we're not going to have them because there's nothing that the guy on the street out there can do. Except panic. So we don't want that to happen. I think. I'm not sure if everybody. I agree. I think this is an internal thing we need to solve without it. So I wondered if it would be helpful at all to know. If it would be helpful. If it would be helpful at all to know. If it would be helpful at all to know that ambulance services are municipally based. And could possibly. Apply for FEMA. Money. And that won't help them immediately. But if we can. If, if we know that they might get reimbursement, there might be some immediate money that could. Come. And how many are not private nonprofits. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what I would apply and. So we also have had in the budget. In the budget that we were going to pass. We had $475,000 from the. And I don't remember the name of the fund. It's the firefighters. Fund. And you guys get about 2% of it. Is EMS special fund. EMS special fund. And so would that. If we were somehow able to release that $475,000, at least with that. Begin to help. I mean, it's supposed to be for training, but maybe we need it for other things right now also. Or I don't even know if we can do that. Right. And that'll be a long way off. I mean, through the end of the session. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Well, it definitely won't be enough. With the MS only get an all in with the MS only get the 2% of that amount. We had $470,000 or something in the budget. Or an EMS fill. So that money's available. That is the 2%. That is the 2%. Okay. Yeah. I don't know. But that's still in a proposed bill that hasn't, that hasn't even made it through the Senate yet. No, I know. But Jane is asking where, what, what kinds of money are needed and when they're needed. So I'm trying to drew. So there's another, the 2%. Is a federal grant, which is the. Oh, that's. Personal protective equipment. And out of that. Federal pocket, which is a hundred million. EMS is generally allowed only 2% of that. We have reached out to our congressional delegation. To ask them to, to make a change. So that EMS is eligible for more than. Than 2%. But that's the program that you're speaking of. That, that is what I was. Referring to that. I've. I got them mixed up. So how much does that 2%. Amount to, and. Is that federal money available right now? So that federal grant program is available right now. So it would be. The way it's currently written to be 2% of a hundred million. But that's nationwide for EMS. Oh, it's nationwide. Correct. So that's the current chunk of money. About $7. If we fill out the 45 page application. That's terrible. So it's a hundred million nationwide. And this is for equipment, right? PPE, PPE equipment. Yeah. Like Scotty packs and things like that. Yeah, this particular. Allocation was out of the carers money and it was for. For the N95. Gowns and stuff. But again, it's one of those grant programs that there's such a small amount of money available to you. Non-affiliated EMS that. It's not really worth filling out the application. So how do we solve the. Or how is there any way we can. Solving the issue. I know Shayla's working with diva, but the fact that. EMS only gets paid for transport. They don't get paid for calls. Their call volume is way down. So when they are. When they do their billing for. Correct me if I'm wrong here, but when they do your billing for what you've been doing in the past couple of years, you're going to have to wait a little while here. It's going to go away. Your billing is going to go way down. So your reimbursement is going to go way down. But that's at the very time when we're going to have. Be at the peak. Of the, and you're going to need to be able to make more calls and have more personnel. So how do we, is there any way. We can think of that we can solve this. We can do that. We can do that. For that. For that period of time. From. From now until the end of April, it seems to me that that's the time we're talking about that we really have to. Gear up. And provide funding. Is that. Well, and, and let's know when can I identify. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. Of course, within the cares act, medical umbrella of money. That EMS qualifies for. That's a very short timeframe to roll out funding. Yeah. The other issue is that like, again. The, the low volumes as the same conversation that we're having in healthcare on. Yeah. And. And there are everyone seeing their revenues down. I mean, it's like the drop before the spike into the drop again. And so I, I mean, they're obviously. I don't know how to answer that question. And then they're getting direct dollars through the cares act to help them keep their doors open. Again, I feel like from the cares act, the old, the immediate avenue that I can think of is that money that goes out. Is somehow through that 1.25 billion. You know, I don't know how ensuring that some of that money makes it into. Yeah. This falls into that whole area of preparedness. You know, I don't know how, but I don't know how you. Again, this depends on how it's administered. To the administration. So who would. Brian. Well, I just read. Teresa's from joint fiscal. Her. Explanation of the. Some of that money isn't even going to get to Vermont till almost the end of April. And then it's going to have to get rerouted, you know, through the state agency. So you're really looking at May before. Anybody would get any actual money. So we haven't passed an appropriations bill yet either. And so I don't know, I guess you could let Senator Kitchell know about the need here, but I'm not sure what we can do about it. I'm not sure what we can do about it. I'm not sure what we can do about it. But actually. Moving money from one place to another. And I'm sensing the same frustration. Yeah. It's. Pretty frustrating. In. In some ways, the quickest money that may be rolled out are for the larger EMS. Organizations that are set up as a nonprofit businesses. That could in fact, be able to do that. You know, you know, you know, you know, the pay, paycheck protection program. And that would be, you know, they'd have to promise they re keep everybody on and pay them. And then that loan gets forgiven and becomes a grant. If they can accomplish everything they promise, but that is the money that will, they'll see the fastest. I mean, from what I'm hearing, either that or Nolan magically. With everybody else figuring out what kind, what kind of money will be applied to. EMS. Well, but, but also this diva money. I mean, I know it's not again, it's not everything, but it is, it is an immediate source. And it is available now. And how. And that they would go with through you, Shayla, for that. No, Corey. Nope. Through diva. I sent that link. And they would, they would apply through on the diva page. There's a FAQ and instructions. And, and there's the challenge with, they're not speaking with one voice. So all 80 independent. EMS squads has to have to apply separately. Yep, that will be true for all of this different funding. And I mean, it's how they bill now. So that, yes, that's sort of what I was addressing as the broader issue that I don't think we can solve in the, in this moment, which is that it is. That every town almost does it differently. So one of the things that just popped into my head was when Shayla, when you were talking about the difference in the, I mean, some places have development. People and a manager that can apply for grants and stuff. And some people have to use the library on Sundays. Is there, there used to be a program called score. And I was just thinking that. The senior core of retired, retired executives. And I was just thinking that. A really wonderful. Kind of volunteer service that could happen by retired. Executives are retired. Grant writers or just retired people who want to help. And so that's what I was thinking about. And I was thinking about, you know, you know, you know, organizations apply for that money because it's going to be very, very difficult for probably 70 or 60 of them to apply because they're small. Does that make any sense? And could we somehow get that out through that thing that Chris. Company was talking about earlier to people to. And that makes great sense. Score was on one of our small business calls that where we did the four chambers on our business call. And they're terrific and they stand ready to help. So there are score representatives for different areas. And I know the one from it's upstairs, but I have the name of the one for our, for the upper valley, but they are ready to rock and roll with, which whatever companies nonprofits, anybody that needs their assistance, that's a great idea. Maybe we could get a list of score. Contacts in the different areas and send it to Drew and Jim, and they could get it out to their, um, the people in. They're on their mailing list to the ambulance services. I don't know if it would help or not, but. Oh, there couldn't hurt. They're great mentors and they could work with each one of those independent. Entities. Drew. So, um, you know, the program that was talking about is a, um, kind of an example of one of the challenges that ambulance services are facing. Um, so that program has been out for, um, I think a week now. Uh, the first we learned of that was. Um, so, you know, as far as, you know, our ability to kind of be part of the healthcare system and kind of manage the crisis. Healthcare system. Uh, we're not getting, um, any of this information. And, you know, I read through. And dozens of emails every day, but you know, when I got that, uh, information from, uh, Dan last night. You know, one of the first things I saw was the date that it came out and the, uh, notice that it's on a first come first serve basis and that we're actually a week behind, um, the curve. So, um, services don't know at this point, you know, we'll be sending that information out. Um, so that they can, you know, start applying for that, but that again was us, um, as of last night. And I'm not sure how we get included in, you know, the healthcare, um, but we seem to be missing out on, um, a lot of the discussions and certainly some of the solutions that are coming out of, um, the COVID response. So I would suggest maybe that, um, you should, somebody should, um, join every single healthcare committee meeting. And I know that's asking a lot of, again, but, um, I think that they, um, are probably one of the first to hear besides, um, the department of health and the administration. Um, am I right about that? Nolan or not? I don't know. Who was the first to hear? I don't know. I don't know. Sounds like you need a lobbyist. No, but I mean, this is not, I, this is Shayla. I mean, I just learned of that, uh, Drew, when I asked about, you know, if there was anything that was happening right now that, that EMS could tap into, um, I think one of the pieces that's happening right now is that in response to COVID things are changing daily. Um, so I don't think that's some sort of systematic oversight in terms of that specific piece. I think that's a thing they're changing daily. I also don't think that because it was last week, there's no more money. I think that, that my sense from the person I spoke to at Diva was people should apply. There is funding. Um, so. You know, that doesn't, I love the score idea. Um, you know, because again, I think that the system that we have, we have to work with the system that we have and the system that we have is. Um, you know, you know, you know, I'm committed to trying to put together as many resources and communicate as many resources as I can to Drew. Um, but, you know, I don't, and I don't want it to seem like. I think that. Maybe overstating it to say that they're being excluded specifically. More than it's just moving really fast. As Nolan said, there isn't clarity right now how that money, the, you know, the care act money is going to be. It's not. It's just such a moving target in this moment. Yeah. I don't want to, and I don't want to, um, downplay how frustrating that is because I, I, it is very frustrating. It's not that I'm not. Suggesting it's not. I just don't think it is, um, intentional. Yeah. I must. Oh. No, it's going to fall up and just be like, I don't, and I, like Sheila said, like, I don't know what the protocols are or how the money is going to be distributed. Like how the administration is going to. Distribute them. And, or what the, or, and we haven't determined what the legislative role is going to be. Some guidance and I don't think it's been. It's all still up in the air. Who determines what the legislative role is going to be. Well, I mean, I think the legislature is trying to figure out what the legislative role is going to be. Here we are. You know what I mean? Like, but, you know, the money's going to come in and then like it's going to go out and. Who decides what? And I think that's. I don't know the answer to that. Corey. Corey. Gustafson is sent us an email about diva money. I feel like in the last day or so did, did you all get that? I don't think so. I remember seeing it. Yeah, you do. Yeah. We, and I'm just trying to find it to forward to. Gail to send out. And just to see if it had anything useful in it for drew. And I, I can't find it. It's my iPad isn't. Maybe if you're on a laptop. Brian, maybe if you could find that, if you, maybe that if we could send that to Gail to send a drew or send it straight to drew. I'll look for it right now. I believe on sat Sunday or Monday. I haven't had anything from Corey. Since January 26th. Well, Corey may not have sent it out directly. He may have given it to somebody else to send it out on his behalf. So it might not be in your mailbox. Corey. It might be from. Senator Teresa or Peter or whoever. Okay. Okay. So if we can find that. So. We're not here if you want, I can just read it. If this is what we're talking about. It was sent out yesterday at 1030 from Peter Sterling. Vermont General Assembly. There was a commentary published in VT digger that may have produced questions regarding Vermont's Medicaid actions. I'm sending you a document provides a side-by-side comparison. And it's from Corey Gustafson. That's it. Okay. That's it. So it's from Peter Sterling. Yesterday at 1030 in the morning, everyone in the Senate. I'm going to read it. Okay. Okay. And it was in response to an article about what Diva was and wasn't doing. Yes. Okay. But. And I just, I couldn't remember. I sort of quickly looked through it. I can't remember if it had. Funding things, but it. It might be helpful for Drew to at least see. Okay. So. As far as I can tell. I'm not sure where we are. But I think that we have some things that we. Are going to do. And. The EMS advisory council should send a letter to Leahy. I think our committee also could send. A letter. Talking about the dire circumstances and the fact that they need to be in. That's not going to be immediate money, but we're going to need money afterwards also. So. Is that, is that a step that we should take? Yes. Okay. You should send it to all three congressional members. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So we'll send that letter. We, I would suggest that the EMS advisory council also send. A letter. Saying the same thing. Okay. We are going to. What else are we going to actions? Can we actually. You could also, you could also do a letter similar to Mike Smith or the governor. Flagging. I think we should do that. I think. The governor has been doing a fine job of not being critical or anything of what the governor is doing. I think the state's been operating pretty well given the situation. But this just seems like something that's falling. Between cracks. And I think it's worth it for us to point that out. We could do it in a way that's not, you know, it's not confrontational. No, no, no. Political. We really want people to know that this is happening. And I think Jim Harrison had, he was on our call. With the Wyndham County delegation. And he was also going to contact. Secretary Smith. He has a good relationship with him and has known him for a long time. And he was also going to, but we could also send the official letter. I think that would be helpful. And Shaila, you're kind of going to work with Drew on the diva connection. I wasn't going to work with drew on the diva connection. I, I was just going to. You know, you know, you know, you know, you know, I wasn't going to work with drew on the diva connection. I, I was just going to continue to funnel information. When it is available. On funding and how to apply for it. From various sources. But, and so there, there is something that's been identified already. Drew could access. Yes. And I will. Find out who the, I'll get a, a score contact for everybody. In every area of the state and send that to drew. And you can get that sent out to your, your people. If that's helpful, not just score, but there's also a ARP. Volunteers. Yeah, but score is real well organized by region. Yeah. Yeah. You might get drew the, the, the score person for the whole state and then each individual EMS for their area could be in touch to get. Yeah, that's what I'm going to do. Yeah. He's got enough to do. I'll find out who they are. Brian. Thank you, Madam chair. Even though it's down the road, a little piece here. I think we should continue to let. You know, I think we should, I think we should, I think we should, I think we should have the desire to find some money and funding for the EMS with regard to. You know, the appropriations go above the budget. I know we were not going to deal with that right away, but we will have to deal with that before we adjourn. So. I just think it's crucial to have her still understand the need here. I think it's important to have her still understand the need here. I think it's important to have her still understand the needs that we can do right away. Not really. All right. But. So I. We might, we might want to. Send. A letter to. The health and welfare committee and also to. Our Senate leadership. I think we should also send it to our own leadership so that they know. Because I think Anthony is right that there. Except for the people that are here. A lot of people don't. Don't know that this is. An emergency. I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean I don't know, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I don't know that this is. An emergency. Chris. Camping. This is a question. I guess primarily for. Drew and Jim. I don't know you, but feel free to create. This. Is there any, is there like a. Association of Vermont. EMS is that's, Drew. Yeah, Vermont has a annual association that is working. So Jim actually is the president of that association. And as part of that, I help work on the legislative components. Because what I'm trying to figure out and Sheriff Mark Anderson called me earlier today asking about FEMA funding. And I referred him to our staff person who has lead on that. But what I'm trying to figure out is on on Fridays, Vermont emergency management has calls organized with the Department of Health and other agencies to communicate with regional commissions, emergency management, directors and town officials. Is anything like that happening for EMS services that you're aware of? I saw Drew shaking his head. Jim, is there anything that you're aware of like that? Like there's calls every week that we have with the chiefs of EMS fire and police all at the same time every week on I believe it's Wednesday. With the agencies. Yeah, with the commissioner and the Department of Health and give the update. Okay. All right. All right, thanks. Okay, anything else that we can do. Did we lose Senator Bray? No, he's here. Oh, I had, I had to scroll to see you. Okay. Okay. Anything else that we really that we could tackle today? Can we? I know that it's maybe we can have some kind of an. Well, Friday, there wouldn't be much of an update with their. This is Tuesday. But if things, if people have ideas of things that we might be able to do or be helpful with or have an impact on, please send them to the, to us as soon as possible, because it might not be legislation that's needed, but maybe just some pressure from us. So if anybody has ideas or anything, let us know. I, I, I, yeah, I, I think the, those have a score for Vermont is Denise duquette is my vague memory. I'm just, I'm just looking her up for you and I'll try and get that. It's okay. I think I know the score guy down here. Oh, okay. But we'll find it. If you find that, let me know. Okay. So the other thing that you guys should contact local colleges. And if you need help with contacts for the local, for colleges in terms of supplies. Let us know. And I bet we can get you some contact information from our different areas. Chris Bray represents the area for Middlebury. We're going to be talking about college and Marlboro college and world learning. All three. Anthony has, do you have some colleges there? Yeah. Fine arts. Fine arts. Yep. Yep. So if you. Goddard. Goddard's being taken over third location. Right. Right. They're not going to give anything up there. They're not going to give anything up there. They're not going to be going to be. Housing people who are sick. So, but if anybody had, if you need any contacts, let us know. And I bet we can find some contacts for you in terms of. Maybe getting. Rudlyn, you have. Castleton. Castleton. Yeah. They're too close. Unfortunately. Hmm. Well, maybe they have some supplies in their closet. Perhaps. Senator, I have to take off and go to another zoom. I'm sorry. For being with us, Nolan. It's been great. I hope it. Next time. I have to go to, but please be in touch via email. If you need anything else from me. Thank you. Thank you so much. And we realize that you're all doing about 10 jobs. So, yeah, no, I just wanted to. Defend Dan. No, no. It was not meant as a criticism. No, I know. Okay. All right. Thank you. Anybody else have anything. Chris Campani, you are going to send that to Gail. And she can distribute that about the volunteer things. I already did. You already did. Okay. And anything else? Yeah. I've just got the score one contact. They sent in looking at their website. It looks mostly organized around less around regions, but more about specific areas you need mentoring in. So anyway, I've got their phone number for you. Okay. Hold on. I'll, I'll text it. I'll email it. Okay. Okay. I just took it back. Yep. Anybody else. I don't think at this point, there's anything legislatively that we need to do. I will work on a letter. Those two, two letters to those two different groups of people. Secretary Smith and the committee. And then a letter to the federal delegation. And that sounds good. Send it to people and you can look at it and see if it makes sense. And we'll send that off. I'll try and get that done today, Drew. So at this point. I greatly appreciate what you've done. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Our conversation on Sunday until now, I think just the questions that you've raised and the invitations that you've put out to. To the department as well as. Kind of getting us some answers around the National Guard have been super helpful. And we're, we're moving forward more. Because of your conversation and your interest in helping EMS. I greatly appreciate you guys taking the time to, you know, a lot of people looking for funding. And, you know, you guys are going to have a tough. You're out how to sort through that. I will. Certainly send out all the information to services. And continue to communicate with the health department. And I'll send you updates as we. Kind of services and what their struggles are. And we'll be back in a couple of weeks for, for services that we kind of hit the peak of the pandemic. Is anything else. I have one suggestion. I don't know if I know that it was very helpful on Sunday for you to set up a meeting with the Wyndham County delegation. And I would suggest that if, if you have somebody who can do that in the different counties. Or the different, um, EMS districts somehow with the delegations from those that that would be, it would be important so that those people also are aware, because on our call, it was clear that even, even people from our delegation, many of them just weren't aware of how drastic the problem is. So if, if there's any possible, I mean, I think that that would be a good idea. I think that the rest of you senators think that that might be some kind of a. So that your, your county delegations can actually hear some of the same things that we're hearing. Or do you not have County delegation meetings? We don't have them outside of the state house where we haven't had them so much. We are still. And then, and then we had this emergency one with rescue on Sunday. Fabulous. You might want to organize your county delegations. Zach Ralph is organizing our County delegation and I will put this to him. It's, it's hard to find the time, but we have been doing it every Saturday at one o'clock. Who organizes yours? I think that's a good idea. Well, we, we meet regularly during the session also every other Thursday morning. And so John Gannon is our chair right now. We have a, it usually falls to the new person, but John Gannon is our chair right now. And so he just does it. Right. But he's that kind of a person that, which is great. You're lucky you found a person that does that. Yeah. So Brian, have you been meeting in out of session? No. Yeah. And the Windsor County may be the least active delegation and we gather usually once a month. But we have not done out of session and Washington County. Do you ever gather? Once. Yeah. It was sometime last year. I forget when. I was like, I don't know. I don't know. I'm not feeling that you're even worse than we are. So it's a good, it's a good idea, Jeanette. I'll mention it to butcher. He's our chair. Yeah. And I'll mention it to Zach. Well, it just, it's mainly what we address is issues. That are particularly relevant to. The Windsor County. We are all in the Windsor County, and it's an area of the Winnum County. And there are some issues that are very important to wind up County that also affect others. And that's why since Drew is the. I think are you the president of the EMS advisor council or some such thing. That he reached out to us. And. Well, so in Addison County, we have these legislative breakfasts, a dozen of them all session long, but they have been canceled. So because we generally saw each other every Monday morning for 12 weeks in a row, more or less, we use that. But now you're reminding me that we've lost that connection. Yeah, and ours are, we invite people to kind of like Chris Campany came and talked to us once, sometimes it's on the phone, sometimes it's not. But we've invited different people to address us on issues relevant to Wyndham County. So right. And that's what we did too. But your breakfasts are in different communities, right, Chris? I mean, you travel around the county. We're like a vaudeville act. Right. But it's only it's only for you that's every Monday because everybody else is just in there, go to their local town ones. No, it's really no, but people decide on their own. So some people travel wherever it is, other people don't even come when it's in their town. You never. Oh. Okay. And Chris, speaking of it as a vaudeville act, I've heard that people both cheer and boo. Well, yes, well, you know that the booers are more modified. I mean, motivated to show up. But no, it's a very polite, friendly conversation. It gets a little tense now and then, but it's a chance for citizens to show up and ask questions of their legislators on anything. And it's also a chance for legislators to give a brief report out on what happened in the last week, that kind of thing. So some people complain about them. I'm sure I have more than once, but it's it had been 130 of them over the years. So they're actually really helpful, you know, I'm it's a bit of a short story to get up in the dark and drive to one on Monday morning, but it's really great that we do it. It's like, I think it's a worthy effort. Yeah, most of the community meetings that are set up for us, I think are worth the effort. Yeah. So is there anything else Chris Campany had to leave us to go to a COVID-19 meeting?