 Thank you, Teresa. We are now live on YouTube, so our meeting has officially begun, and this is the afternoon committee meeting of House Appropriations, and before us at the 1.30, not the one o'clock hour, but at 1.30 we do have the Department of Labor to go over the budget. And so what I would like to make sure that the Committee of Jurisdiction who has joined us the House Commerce Committee is with us to hear this testimony. I want to make sure that you know that the budget that we're seeing today is the changes from the proposal in January. So the Governor's proposal in January is intact except for the changes that have been made in individual places. So if you don't see a change and there was policy or money from the January proposal, that is still on the table. And the restated budget also can include changes to the quarter year budget. And so there's a lot of moving pieces here that I want to make sure all committee members realize that what you're seeing before you is not the whole budget. We still have to look to see if there's recommended changes to the quarter and what still exists from the 21 budget in January. This committee will be going over all the language on Monday morning at 10 o'clock with Matt Riven, and anybody is welcome to join in either via YouTube or you can contact Teresa for a link. And on Thursday and Friday of next week our committee will be doing public hearings to hear from the public about the entire 21 proposed budget from the administration. It's at five o'clock on Thursday and one o'clock on Friday and Teresa will make sure that all legislators have that link so that you can hear their concerns and the support that they have for pieces of the budget. So with that I'm going to welcome Commissioner Harrington to the committee and I'm looking around and I am going to let you introduce your team and if our comments could initially stick right to the budget and the policy related to the budget. No with the Department of Labor there's probably going to be lots of desire to ask lots of other questions on other issues but before we get off on any CRF funding or anything with UI or PUA I want to get through the budget and the policy related to the budget and then we can open it up as time is available. And so we have you here today. We have you scheduled until 2.30 and then we'll have 15 minutes of joint conversation with the Committee of Jurisdiction. And with that, Chair Marrott, did you have anything you would like to add? Thank you Madam Chair. No I don't. I just would ask my committee members to probably refrain from discussing with the Commissioner anything having to do with UI and any outside of the budget because we are planning on having the Commissioner in next week with our committee. So that would save some time and we'll have a good two-hour discussion with him and his people next week. Thank you. Excellent thank you. And any CRF funding, if it's new CRF funding we will want to hear about that because that may be included in the budget or it may move as a separate bill. I'm not sure how that's going to happen but Commissioner you would have it within your budget detail if you had a proposal for any additional CRF funding I believe is the administration did include it in one package. So I am going to turn it over now Commissioner Herrington welcome. It's nice to see you. Nice to see you Madam Chair first and can you hear me okay? We can thank you. So thank you for having us here today. As part of my team I've got DOL's Chief Financial Officer, familiar probably to most of you Chad Worsniak and he can drill down into any of the numbers. I think overall from our budget you know we were asked to present something with a slightly reduced general fund amount of 3% and we were able to identify that as most of you know you know we are I think approximately 85% federally funded. There's only a small portion of our overall budget that is general fund and we do have some special funds and interdepartmental transfers. Most of the special fund money is related to workers compensation. So when we look at at general fund we identified I believe it was about three or four key areas in which we reduced some of the funding request and we can talk about those in more detail if you want. They are administrative services which is just overall services for the department. The ICANN project which is a workforce development initiative in conjunction with the economic services division over at AHS and wage an hour and earn sick time unit simply due to some vacancies in that area. We were able to save some funds there and then finally in our administrative subsidies and budget allowances which is at the bottom of the page and I'm actually on the more detailed page just because I think that breaks it out more for you folks. So we can talk about any of these. My guess is that you may not want to go through line by line but we can certainly talk about any of the ones that are of interest to the committee. Okay let's stop there and the reductions that you're showing in the general fund were the targets for the 3% that were given to you from the administration is that correct? That's correct and I'm going to open it up to committee members please from commerce or from appropriations. Are there any of the reductions here that anyone would like to have more clarification on or detail on? Mary I don't have do you have your hand up as you can't raise yours as a co-host so I'm going to go to Representative Feltas and Mary text me if you have a question. Thanks my concern is just regarding that very first one when you said workforce development that's something that picks up our ears can you tell us a little bit more where that decreases coming from and why? Sure so the the overall ICANN project is a grant funded project the specific line you see there were administrative dollars set aside to help administer the program there's a significant reduction in the ICANN grant and so that federal grant that and that's part of an interdepartmental transfer from AHS is I believe is almost being reduced by by more than 60% and so our reduction in the administrative dollars there simply are specific to this downsizing of the grant in that effort. Okay thank you. So the reduction is is just so you know admin it's not services or programmatic efforts that are going to the public. Marty did you have a follow? I think since you went off you okay Representative Kimball. Thank you Madam Chair Commissioner Harrington thanks for the presentation I'm just wondering looking at your budget and looking at what it was in fiscal year 2020 you projected a decrease for 2020 or the original budget for 2021 was a decrease but you're looking at basically bringing it up to where it was in the previous fiscal year so just wondering and that's looks like it's all in labor so you're anticipating all of people so you're looking at anticipating a decrease in staffing for this coming year but then this new budget is showing an increase in that staffing back to the previous levels is that am I reading correctly? Yeah and check and to my my guess is if what I'm looking at here is actual and the increase is in the federal fund money for UI administration. That is correct. So if you look at the budget development agenda form that's on the screen there you'll see the federal line has some dollars increased in there and most of that is well actually all of that is in response to COVID and the different programs. Some of that is implementation not a hundred dollars for implementation but the majority of the dollars that we've received were to run the program and obviously we need people to do that so that's why you're seeing the increase the federal dollar increase and the increase in the line items of personnel. That's what I thought. Thank you. Are there other questions? I'm looking I don't see representative Hooper. Thank you and hi it's nice to see you Chad and Commissioner. Can you give us a little more detail about the federal money that's coming in? I you know unless it's just to say it's an increase to help with the UI and PUA administration I am is this separate dollars from the CRF money is one of my questions. Do you want? Sure go ahead. Yes, thank you. The dollars that you see here are federal dollars that came to us directly through our unemployment insurance regular add-in dollars so the 1.8 is in addition to our normal UI add-in dollars and that was given to us almost at the beginning of the COVID crisis within the first month we received that 1.8 million and the other dollars that are listed there are dollars that we had to apply for for the implementation of the programs themselves. None of these dollars are CRF dollars these are all through USCOL proper. Thank you and have you received CRF dollars also and how much? We did put in an ad for CRF dollars through 6.30 and I don't have that number off. I can get it. I think I can certainly lead through some paperwork and get that for you in the next few minutes. Okay and I assume you'll have additional requests into the current fiscal year for that money. Yes ma'am. Yes ma'am. Yeah and I don't know what the next two acronyms mean the FPUC and the PEUC implementation I don't recognize this. So the FPUC is the $600 federal program that ended at the end of July federal pandemic unemployment compensation. The PEUC is the additional 13 weeks of unemployment. So the PEUC is pandemic emergency unemployment compensation and that was the additional 13 weeks that individuals got on top of their 26 weeks of unemployment. So it's an extended benefit. So you've got 1.5 million for PUA implementation and then some administrative money. So the PUA implementations money that went straight out or I don't understand the difference. Everything so everything you see there is administrative dollars. It's not benefit dollars. So that was everything admin overhead technology anything other than benefits. And again you're just listing them probably because they called them two different things but the PUA implementation and the FPUC implementation are both administrative dollars. Is that what you just said? Yes. Okay thanks. So those are the three the four in that line right there. So the UI admin is traditional UI. The PUA is pandemic unemployment assistance for self-employed or otherwise ineligible individuals and then the FPUC was the $600. The PEUC will be the extended benefit. My guess is eventually there might be one for LWA for the loss wage assistance program but I have not received those funds yet. Okay thanks. And if I can keep going. So this crosswalk is in addition to what you proposed way back when and another world in time in January where let me pause there and make sure that that is correct. So these are additional dollars that have come to the department from USDOL since our last budget proposal specifically though with regards to the general fund we're actually asking for a decrease of 162,335 from our original ask to this new revised budget. And so and this is going to be hard for everybody else who's not looking at the crosswalk from January but in that you propose an increase in technology infrastructure of 828,428,000 some additional VOSHA money and 300,000 for your relocation assistance program and you are continuing to propose that and these are all general fund dollars. Yeah so everything that was proposed in the original budget remains and simply what's before you today is are the changes to that. I wanted to make sure that that was abundantly clear to everybody. I'm a little surprised to see that you're believing that it's the relocation assistance program should continue. I would think that the pandemic would have kind of brought that to a staggering halt. Well I would say that as we look to recovery that program becomes even more critical to our recovery efforts and growing Vermont's population you know whether it's to meet the needs of the states but also to meet the needs of the employers those did not go away. I think certainly you know the first half of this current budget year has been very different but we're trying to keep an eye on future focus as we are looking at overall recovery efforts. Okay we may want to have a further conversation about that. I feel like I'm dominating the conversation here. I want to let others in. Representative Rolf I think you have a question. You're listed as Representative Watson. Yeah well I'm changing my name so I apparently a part of the process for changing my name is using it. Now I can do that. Thank you. Thank you Madam Chair and thank you Commissioner. So I feel like I'm missing some context and it makes it hard to ask questions without really understanding you know some even some of the acronyms on here and but I do understand this is you're looking at a 3% reduction in your original proposal for the budget. This doesn't look like a ton of line items and I don't know what else we have planned for the day but I do I mean this is at the discretion of the chair obviously but I wonder if it does make sense to go through each one of these like I said it doesn't look like much but specifically I am curious about the $50,000 wage an hour earn sick time decrease. What what what that is and is that being replaced by other CRF funds is that is that a position if you could go into that and also if the chair thinks it's a good idea just to go through each one of these line items I I think that would help. We have the time and so that would be great Commissioner if you just walk through them and give a better explanation or deeper explanation. Sure and I don't I don't know what you have before you but for whoever is sharing the screen you may want to scroll down there may be a secondary page there if not there is a second page that has additional line items on it that was sent out we can resend that if we need to but if it goes into more detail. I seconded one page this is it this is all I have. So I can send you the it's really sat in German, Commissioner. What's that? Yep got it. No I've got it that should be coming your way so that that may shine some light on this for you but specifically to the fifty thousand that that line does not that reduction doesn't implicate or or suggest that there's a reduction in staff our wage in our unit has three individuals in it you know and when we look at administering that program there is occasionally funding available there so we were able to remove some of that just based on the fact that I actually most of the staff in the wage in our unit have been working on UI related issues and so when you actually look at this year the first half the first good section of this year is likely to have a lot of their time billed to claims processing and UI and they've been assisting us there so Chad I don't know if you want to add any more but I think that covers it in terms of the fifty thousand out of wage. So the only thing I'd like to add is that we've lost. Yep I was muted by the commissioner sorry we apologize. So the wage in our program was a standalone program for several years and then I think it was two years ago the earned six time program was also instituted through the legislature and so we had to add some dollars to the wage in our program to implement the work that we needed to do to carry those those duties out and we consistently had some small dollars left you know fifty thousand or so dollars left over in that program at the end of each year and we felt that you know when being asked to to cart out three percent of our general fund budget that would have a great place to take that and try to bring that budget more in line with what is what is reality. So we don't anticipate any programmatic impact with that reduction of fifty thousand dollars in the wage in our program. And I have please say how do we stop the loop. Somebody has more than one device. There we go it's the there we go. So from the wage an hour and earn six most have been working on UI issues here this but would they have been covered by CRF funds since they were working on UI issues. They would likely be covered by UI admin fund dollars so not CRF but probably in that additional funding that you see there we also anticipate more funding coming from USDOL for admin as well. So it would be federal money but but not just CRF. And then I did want to ask oh no you weren't I'll come back because you were walking down through the pieces so can we go back to do you want to continue the sheet okay let's continue on this sheet. So you'll see I think we've hit on most of these though the other one the the one that's in administrative services is a small amount eight thousand a larger amount out of the ICANN the fifty seven thousand the fifty thousand out of the wage an hour and then at the bottom another small amount of about five thousand seven hundred dollars. You will also see at the bottom of this sheet and it may just help identify what our original versus new ask is and that might help as well. So you'll see that our original was five million it was just for general fund five million four hundred and eleven dollars are new as five million two hundred and forty eight dollars for a reduction of a hundred and sixty two thousand three hundred and thirty five dollars. Representative Ralph there are other areas that you would like a fuller explanation on on the reduction in general fund. No no that was really my only question was about the fifty thousand reduction in our wages and I think they both gave a good response and I did just hear you read those numbers but I didn't hear where those those reductions came from and maybe it's not that important but I'll let other folks ask questions. So the reductions that you just heard Teresa if you go back up to the budget document the original budget document this one the the five million four hundred eleven thousand is the top green line and that's where the starting position from January and then the reductions that brought them to the negative to reduce by one sixty two I think those that is that is what he just captured. Yeah no I was he he talked about the service fee cost reductions and the admin subsidies and I heard him say the numbers but I didn't hear what what would like where those costs cuts were coming from. I can I can explain the last one which is where you see ADS and DHR across the board there was a five percent reduction within service funds internal service funds and we have been told that there's no reductions actually for programs or that you know to critical services to people. We've heard from ADS where they have Marty can talk more about this looked at different software and savings in the cloud and and so that is where that five that fifty seven hundred dollar savings comes from and we're seeing that across the board. Service fee costs is is the service fee that that is that's not fee for space is it is the service fee cost or it's not fee for space the eighty seven hundred. Both of those uh full of dollars that you're talking about Madam Chair are in response to the internal service fee reductions that so it's a combination of all of that you know the vision charges that that we've received some fee for space the the DI or ADS as you talked about and and things like that. Okay and that includes also the eighty seven hundred? Yes ma'am. Okay thank you and then thank you. Okay are there any other questions Representative Dickinson? Representative Dakin. Yes thank you Madam Chair. I want to go back to something that that Mary Hooper brought up about other funds. I don't have the the scope of detail that the Appropriations Committee has on what was done down for January or what the original budget was but it seems to me I remember hearing about the fact that the Department of Labor did have a software hardware update on their computer systems for information and it certainly was clear they're working with an old system and that from what the Commissioner just said is still in the budget and that's still something going forward that needs to be done looking to the future. Am I correct in that Commissioner that that's what I'm remembering about? So a little bit so let me just clarify make sure we're all on the same page so there have been multiple CRF requests that we have put forward I think most notably obviously early on included things like our call center vendor and some other work that has been done on system implementation and maintaining our age system there was a request for early on about four million dollars to rehab the claimant portal that was the four million that got removed and was not approved and then a more recent request had gone in for a revised number of 700 and 50,000 which was for two software and service implementations that would help us automate and hopefully achieve some efficiencies in our service work directly related to UI. What is in our budget and part of the original budget for technology as Representative Cooper mentioned was 428,000 for technology and infrastructure that was prior to COVID completely that was actually what we identified as an increase from the prior year in terms of technology costs related to the implementation of ADS and the additional services coming out of there. So again recognizing that federal funds at the time were essentially being reduced across programs but our technology costs were going up as a department and that's not a criticism there's been a lot of value in terms of system integrity and system security and and the staff working on those so but you know we were we were at the point where we were going to start dipping into programmatic dollars and actual services being provided to the public to cover IT costs so we put in a separate line item specific to IT and those again are not specific to COVID response or UI modernization they are specific to just the overall needs of technology for the department. Thank you Representative Fagan. Thank you and thank you Commissioner you started down the path of answering question that I have because if you looked at the January budget document that you did put in there was 428,000 dollars all general fund for technology and infrastructure and I presume that's what you were just talking about although I'll let you answer that question you're shaking your head yes so that's good so now what I want to do is I want to ask you about future plans and I know that they are in flux we were part of a consortium that included several states but the last iteration of it was I think Idaho and North Dakota or something like that and that's now no longer in existence we got a little bit but not much and we still have a computer system that to say antiquated wouldn't do justice to the word antiquated so what are the plans for the future and I know that that you know the consortium just ended what two months ago three months ago so you're not very far along but you've got to have some some development processes going on such that you know plans are being developed yeah thank you for the opportunity right before this I was enjoying information and technology asked and they had the same question kind of what is next so certainly our minds for a long time about five years or I'm sure much longer than that but at least in earnest over the past five years we have belonged in to I wouldn't say multiple consortiums just different iterations states have come and gone at the end of last last year and and heading into 2020 I mean it became very apparent to us that we were out of pretty much out of our federal funding available to cover modernization that the vendor or the state that was providing most of the development was still significantly behind or farther away from actual implementation and we had major concerns around the quality of the work and the and the product we were going to get in the end and so that included us the state of Idaho and then also a recent addition of the state of North Dakota and at that time North Dakota shared many of the same concerns that we had but better for them they learned it early in the process instead of late in the process and so we as three states decided to dissolve the consortium you know us do well stopped funding modernization efforts back in 2017 and so no new monies had really gone out to any states for consortium efforts since then obviously I think that's going to change going forward there's been a renewed interest if you will on UI modernization across the country the question will be whether or not us do well and the federal government will allow for states to get funding to implement you know standalone solutions or whether they'll do what they did last time which is only fund consortium work the concern with consortium work is that every time there's a state in there the state is buying for a solution that means all of their needs right and so what we found is that our the other members of the consortium specifically Idaho from from our time in there had had most of the resources had most of the technology and most of the talent because they were the lead state and and so it became a parent that regardless of what Vermont needed in a system we were going to end up with the system that Idaho decided was met their needs and so that's where we became very reluctant to move forward I think going forward there are multiple options whether it's as an individual state by ourselves and identifying sources of funding to cover that certainly it's probably the most expeditious route I think if we if we look at consortium work they just tend to take a long time because every decision needs to be negotiated and so but there is a there are certainly opportunities for consortium work to to date I believe there's only been one consortium that has received federal funding that is actually delivered on a complete project in the end but there have been dozens of failed projects to the tunes of billions of dollars and so that's been been disappointing and I think from our standpoint our next steps are working with the agency of digital services specifically the enterprise project management office and putting together a comprehensive RFI with clear business requirements and then moving from the RFI request for information into the RFP or request for proposal process the RFI will give us the information we need to come back to the legislature to say here's what we have for possible solutions here's what they're going to cost us and here's how quickly they can get it done and obviously those are rough estimates but it'll give us at least a frame for the for the conversation and from there when we select our vendor you know going forward we'll know prior to are we are we doing this alone are we doing it with another state are we doing it with state dollars are we doing it with federal dollars that's all going to come out of that RFI and business requirements gathering process which we actually kicked off just last week so we are moving in that direction thank you one one other quick follow-up so would the RFI generate the let me make sure yeah I am I am with the RFI generate the ability to go to USDOL and say look we have a plan this is what it is fund it please it could I think it obviously has been passed and and there's you know some entanglement in congress right now but the last package that was approved by the house had significant dollars in it for UI modernization so we do expect that there's going to be funding for UI modernization what we don't know yet is what are the strings attached to that money and I think we you know we can come back with a plan and a recommendation once we know you know whether or not the federal funds are appropriate I mean if you without knowing all the details if if you want to my preliminary assessment you know you're going to probably have federal money that's attached to some type of consortium and if we look at a consortium you know we're probably doubling our timeline for implementation because again everything is negotiated from the contract to the MOU to every decision and modification I appreciate the update thank you and just as a reminder the the system is about 40 years old is that correct I believe it actually turned 50 on uh June 9th why the next year thank you yes sir so it may be old and and antiquated however I mean it has served us well even though it does have its issues and it needs to be updated if you think about a 50 year old system what it's done and um compared to where other states with the UI you know we're frustrated but if we could be in worse shape I guess yeah and go ahead and then we have a question from Representative Hooper I think you had a follow-up here Mary or on another topic um yeah so I guess my I I have a series of questions not surprisingly in terms of a follow-up of the expenditure of GF money the 428 um I am so is this the match that we're required to have to do to draw down federal money for it work no because this the 428 was pre-existing prior to COVID and so the 428 was additional costs associated with with IT and instead of going back and again trying to pull blood from a stone you know for instance in our labor market information division they had a reduction in funding for that year in our UI division at the time they had had a reduction of funding to the tune of about a half a million dollars in workforce development there was a reduction in funding federal funding so again we could have chosen to absorb that half a million dollars of the 428 thousand dollars in those programs but we literally were going to either be um you know laying staff off or pulling services and so we we went to both finance and management and the agency of administration and then eventually to to you all and said um here's the situation we're in this is what it's costing us to run our systems um above and beyond what they've they're already contributing from the prior year and so um you know at that point it was passed and and accepted that we could use some general fund money to offset technology costs thank you just to be clear we did not accept that yet that was part of the FY 21 budget that we're considering now not unless you're referring to 20 yeah so that that still is up for discussion so it was yeah it was what was presented in January right um so what you're saying is is that we're backfilling because of the of the decline in federal monies across a variety of programs I I mean we're backfilling but not not because of adult decline in federal the decline in federal monies it plays the part but the cost it takes for us under the ADS model and with the enhancements being made to the department it's costing us more for technology and that's not specific to the any one program or project because we pay for those separately but when we look at operation of our data center that's on site increased cybersecurity increased integrity system integrity and and updating of our systems as a as a whole that's what it's costing us to in terms of that essentially I think represents doesn't that represent our SLA dollar amount roughly with ADS I mean we pulled that number that we calculated that number from somewhere yeah yeah so that was that essentially is the increase in our service level agreement from ADS from one year to the next um I see that Marty has her hand up kitty and I have a question about a different series of questions so I'll tell Marty and then come back to you America thanks okay that that's what I was just wanting to clarify because frankly I don't remember seeing this when we looked at the the Labor Department of Labor budget in January but it sounds to me and Chad can clarify is this what is normally called from ADS their allocation charges and demand charges based upon your use of technology within the department and this was an exceptional amount or it had because you don't show those separately on your January crosswalk so it sounds to me as if you've just called it differently but it sounds to me as if it's the standard ADS as you say else SLA charges allocation charges and demand charges for the technology that is used within your department and they have a formula for calculating those out last year we had two or three departments that were concerned about charges that came from ADS because there had been a not a reevaluation but a review of many departments and and certain departments did go up dramatically because services were reclassified and ADS did go to many departments and say okay yes it looks like there's a big change here and we need to sit down and fit together and figure out how we we can help you control those costs so I and I don't know if you went to ADS and did that with them or not but I guess what my I'm asking is a confirmation is this just simply the allocation and demand charges that they charge to you not for specific projects not for specific software but just general service charges for your standard operations and if that's the case then we may want to review with ADS to see if there's a way to help you resolve those charges for for a future year so I'll let Chad jump in but my understanding is that yes those are not related to specific projects they are demand charges or service charges but they that only represents the increase in those charges from FY 20 to FY 21 so the the charges as they existed prior to FY 21 are still there's still a portion of each of our programs paying for IT this was the the 428 represents the actual increase for over year over year yes ma'am okay okay all right thank you Mary I think Mary I think I can work with ADS and see if we can find uh get get to the bottom of why there were those increases and then thank you perhaps resolve some of it thank you Marty I appreciated that you brought a lot of clarity to this so essentially we're seeing these increases bulked up in one place but in fact the actual service fee is also embedded in all of the other budgets I believe is what I just heard said and so it would be interesting to know what I'll take this offline with Marty and others thank you are there other questions at this time representative markpot do you know of anything you would like to add or ask at this time for your committee and and we have to remember not to look just at this piece but to look back at at the full um the full proposal in um in january right I have I have nothing at this point um I do appreciate the the other sheet that the commissioner sent um that'll give us an ability to look at everything prior to our discussions with them next week also thank you and so before Mary you ask a couple more questions what I have written down is the consideration of keeping the 300 000 or not relocation efforts um not for this budget and probably no language but for the future peter brought up you know the future it system and and replacing the the 50-year-old legacy system and that uh how is that going to progress which we would work with the energy and technology committee on um and the uh from the january budget the 428 for it work and marty you're going to work with ads uh to understand where those increases are and uh work with mary on those okay mary you have um an additional questions yeah thank you and um it would be wonderful if the commerce committee wanted to take a deeper dive into what I'm going to ask about so I'm referring I I have a everybody else is at a disadvantage I've pulled out the january budget documents and of the 5.4 million in general funds that go to the department of labor 1.3 is in the workforce education and training fund um and my broad questions are were all of the given the disruption that has happened due to COVID were these expet were these programs delivered and are their savings there so for example there's the so-called return ship program for 100 100,000 101,000 there's 75,000 for corrections training and I'm questioning all of those expenditures and whether or not um they were actually made in the wet fund well so um these if we're talking about the FY 20 budget they were utilized for FY 21 you know we're only 45 days into that budget cycle so from from that perspective I can certainly have our workforce development director come and share about each of those programs with regards to how they performed last year and whether all those funds were expended last year but my understanding is um you know that in terms of what you see here um that was roughly the same as the year before we had some additional funds I think um but but overall they were utilized during the prior fiscal year I I'm sorry commissioner I didn't I was confusing in my question you're proposing to have this expenditure in FY 21 I am assuming that some of these services I mean we're a quarter of the way we're into the year and I'm assuming that you're not able to deliver some of these services do you believe that you will deliver them throughout the rest of the year my my expectation is yes again I would go back to our workforce development team they are continuing to provide virtual services at a pretty heavy pace a lot of these were grants so those grant awards would still be provided to community programs and and community efforts so whether you're talking about internships we've already started some of the work on the internship program there's block grants in here there's training within corrections um an additional training grant so um again very little of what you see here is actually administrative dollars what you're seeing here are grant are funds that are typically awarded out and they would still be awarded out this year so I'm intrigued by that and so maybe you could have your workforce director get in touch with me and we can have a more detailed conversation sure please thank you are there other questions from committee members representative ocelevan is that a hand up or are you working on this actually no but I'll just do it verbally I would like representative hooper I would like to be part of that conversation okay thanks bye thank you thank you gene are there any other are there any other conversations are there any other questions I'm madam chair this is I'm sorry yes representative Watson I laugh it when I hear it so this is somewhat of an off topic question on topic but I did get a question from a constituent constituent in regards to um the potential for states to give the $300 stimulus for five weeks to unemployed people in Vermont um and I was so I think that there's a I feel like I'm probably way ahead of the conversation I have no idea what the background is if we have the money to even do this but I was curious if the uh if you all looked into this and and are starting starting to explore options for this and what it might cost to do something like that so this is way off topic feel free to cut me off I'll just respond in brief I if we're talking specifically about the $300 lost wage assistance program which was proposed through the president's memorandum using FEMA dollars we are moving forward with an application to FEMA for a $300 benefit and and looking to expedite not only that that application but also the implementation of that program it's likely the program is not going to run more than three to four weeks before it runs out of money and so it's it's and when I say run out of money I mean literally when when the funds are gone the program ends or terminates and there's not even an allowable use for retroactive payments at that time so it's imperative that we get our application in as quickly as possible and and have a quick solution for drawing down that accepting the grant drawing down the money and issuing benefits thank you that's um I guess that's good news to hear do we do we have a sort of a understanding of when we might know whether our application was accepted so I believe it if if it's not in we're literally in the process of maneuvering through the federal portal um at least we were when I signed on to this meeting which is as you can imagine like all federal things cumbersome so it should be in you know before the end of the day and what we're hearing from other states is that they are typically hearing back in a matter of days um from FEMA so as long as FEMA doesn't have any issues with our application I'm assuming we would hear back probably by mid to late week next week and we've already started the process of of what it would take to implement the program it's not you know it's somewhat simple compared to other programs but nothing is necessarily simple when it's got federal federal monies tied to it so there's certain criteria for eligibility and reporting and and processing that just make make it so there's a lot of hoops to jump through but we've started that process so that we can move as quickly as possible once we know we've got the funds allocated thank you commissioner that's nice to hear again so it doesn't sound like we need any additional capacity to administer that if we were accepted I know but I would just draw your attention so in an upcoming request for CFR dollars you know it would be the administration's hope that we could offer an additional benefit so for those who have followed the LWA program there were there were essentially two options right you could apply for the $300 benefit and it's called $300 included where the state's match is included in that 300 because you can use existing UI benefits as your match and then there's also the on top of where some states if they're doing the on top of most are doing included but if they're doing the on top of they're adding an additional $100 to make the total benefit amount of the supplement $400 that was going to take longer just given the the makeup and and how we as a state administer CRF dollars for that because the 100 would have to come from CRF dollars so we're submitting our our application as a $300 included match benefit but we will be proposing to the joint fiscal committee next week that that they use additional CRF dollars to provide that additional $100 benefit on top of the 300 so we could get people the $400 total benefit either way it would take CRF dollars and we didn't want to slow down our application to FEMA for that make sense thank you commissioner Harrington thank you commissioner representative Yacobo yes I apologize this is probably not about your question but the last question piqued my interest first commissioner thank you for all your hard work and help during this situation I'm trying to determine whether we should expect another surge and concurrent backlog in applications should there be additional federal relief whether it's a 400 600 200 what have you PUA including self-employed or is that system fairly seen what could it be fairly seamless for Vermonters who have been or are receiving a benefits so great question nothing is as easy as it sounds so I don't know whether we'll see another full surge we will see an uptick as many of you know for unemployment as we head into the winter months and we see layoffs within the construction industry in the granite industry those are typical here in Vermont so we do expect a influx of claims at that time likewise I think when you know if if things haven't changed in in the global climate as we move into the winter months and food service has to move inside we may see some additional layoffs come out of that our system from in terms of numbers of claimants can handle it I'm not concerned about that areas where I do get concerned are areas like for instance and the folks in house commerce you know when you when you are laid off within a benefit year you file you stop filing when you come back to the trough if you will you have to reopen your claim and right now there is not a quick and simple method for reopening a claim in PUA but also in UI because in most circumstances when you reopen a claim you're calling our claim center to reopen your claim so we we do have thoughts on how to mitigate that when we come back around and in what will be October and November in most cases and that will include either work with our with our current call center and their capacity but also there may be some changes that can be made to the online application to allow for reopens if you will within the same benefit year well I you know none of these things nothing nothing ever goes smoothly and I just have this vision of uh and the thousands of people again going through what we did in the spring and that's not a criticism it's just trying to assess the situation and prepare for it thank you no and I've appreciated your support representative so thank you you know I with all claims and I think this also becomes a challenge too is when we talk about things like adjudications and appeals you know every every claim every weekly claim gets a determination and every claim could potentially go through the adjudication process every determination on eligibility has a right to appeal um you know so we're also doing our best to make sure we are staffed as best we can in those areas I will say it has been hard to fill even vacant positions we have and find qualified individuals uh during this time um but you know when we're talking about total unemployment numbers of 40 or 50 000 weekly claimants in total um you know that's that's a lot of claims going through adjudications and appeals um so we are we are working on those and trying to think outside the box on how those claims are processed and if there are ways to to kind of mitigate that that process and shorten that timeline that's our ultimate goal without just throwing more bodies at it but we are throwing more people at it whenever possible thank you Mary I think you have the final question and then we are over our time period um I just want to circle around with the policy how we're going to tie up the budget go ahead Mary well thank you I just don't want to leave a misunderstanding about the potential for the additional um unemployment or pua money so very as I understand it the administration has proposed using about 20 using 20 million dollars of crf money to cover the 300 dollar a week cost of providing that benefit and then we are hoping that FEMA will allow FEMA money to put in the extra the the additional 100 I got that wrong entirely it's it's flipped so um FEMA will cover the 300 dollar benefit um we are proposing crf funds for an additional 100 on top of that so it'll bring the total to 400 per claimant per week okay and so to do that match of the FEMA money to provide the additional 100 dollars a week will cost that's the 20 million am I correct in that so yeah so and I mentioned this earlier just to I don't want to over complicate it so states are allowed to use um monies that are already being paid out of the UI trust fund as its actual match for the 300 so in the end the state could essentially say we want FEMA to cover the cost of the 300 dollar benefit because we think we're issuing enough in traditional UI trust fund dollars to count as our match so for instance if you had a million dollars coming out of the FEMA money uh we would have to show that we were paying at least 250 thousand dollars in traditional UI benefits and so based on our modeling we're already meeting the match requirement um but uh you know we we are also proposing that crf money be set aside so that we can issue um an additional 100 dollar benefit to claimants that would bring the total benefit to 400 dollars per week per claimant thank you I got it and the the money that would need to be set up to do that extra 100 dollars what is that amount I think we calculated about 45 000 claimants uh at a four week period um it's roughly 20 million um so at four weeks it comes up to about 4.5 million to 5 million per week yeah thank you that's that's the 20 million so I think we need to close here um how we'll work is we want a memo from the committees of jurisdiction on the budgets don't cite statute don't you don't have to dig into sections of of the bill or sections of language but if um the highlighted areas that are concerned if you could just write back just in a quick email to Teresa and show forward it to the committee and if you have any further discussion which I think you will be having Representative Hooper has this budget and if she could be included in your conversations in in your room that would be helpful and we need a memo backed by September 1st or 2nd we would like to have the budget out by that next by that Friday which I think may be too soon the next Monday is Labor Day but the the latest day would be Tuesday after Labor Day which means we'd have to have all of it done on Friday anyway so it's just proof reading and voting so it's a very fast turnaround time and uh so it would be an informal vote and Mary will be working with your committee on this budget and I'm sure on other other pieces that you're looking at and CRF dollars they may be in the budget level separately but we should handle on all of that at the same time any final thoughts Mike that you have to share no which Mike well don't you uh couldn't you tell which square is looking at Hollywood squares and you're jumping around uh Representative Marcott no I think uh we'll be prepared next week um because we're going through um not just with Department of Labor with the Agency of Commerce um and understanding more also about the grants um that are out there um and and any changes that that we need to make um will be inviting Linda along on that making sure that Mary is invited um to our discussions with Department of Labor next week so um and we'll get you that memo as soon as we can thank you uh Commissioner thank you thank you Chad for coming in and um we look forward to getting budgets done quickly but responsible and um and so that we're prepared for January uh great and thank you everybody appreciate the time uh and I do truly appreciate everybody's support over the past um what what seems like eternity but has only been six months um and I have one task coming out of today so I will loop back with our Workforce Development Director Sarah Buxton uh and have her reach out to both Representative Hooper and Representative O'Sullivan uh with regards to the um workforce development uh what was traditionally the wet fund dollars thank you thank you I appreciate it thank you okay uh House Appropriations Committee members were meeting Monday at nine o'clock Maria is on the top of the schedule so we'll see you all then have a good weekend everyone I'm going to take you off live Madam Chair