 All right. Let me begin by thanking the governor and back a ballot for being with us. Jill Kowanski is not going to be here. And most importantly, I think we all want to thank the nurses and all of the health care providers in Vermont for the extraordinary work that they are doing during this pandemic. They are working night and day. They're under enormous stress. And they are, in fact, in this unprecedented moment in our history, in terms of public health. They are true heroines and heroes, and they are saving lives every day. And I think I speak for the entire state in expressing our gratitude to the nurses and the doctors and all of the health care providers. Like almost every state in this country, Vermont has faced a nursing shortage for many, many years. That shortage has been significantly exacerbated by the pandemic. And we now face, as other states, a crisis situation. The simple truth is that patients are not getting the quality care they need because there are not enough nurses to provide that care. That is true in our hospitals, our nursing homes, and almost all types of health care facilities. Today, we have approximately 15,000 nurses in Vermont. The reality is that we will need to put into our workforce some 9,000 additional nurses in the next five years if we are going to fill the shortages we currently have in addition to replacing those nurses who retire from the profession or leave for whatever reason. If we are going to provide the high quality health care we need in Vermont, our goal should be to have about 25,000 nurses at all levels by the year 2027. There are a number of reasons as to why we have a nursing shortage today. First and maybe foremost, we simply do not have enough educators in our nursing schools. The very good news, and this is good news, is that young people want to become nurses. And virtually every nursing school in the state of Vermont receives more applicants than they can accommodate. People want to enter this enormously important profession. Second, the problem is not just a shortage of nurses. Let me go back and say the bad news is that despite the number of applicants coming in, our nursing schools are turning away people who wish to enter the profession because we lack the educators and that is pretty crazy. Today in our five nursing schools, UVM, Castle Dunn, Vermont Tech, Norwich and Northern Vermont University, we have approximately 75 full-time nursing faculty. To graduate the number of nursing students we will need in the coming years that nurse educator faculty is going to have to expand to at least 125 full-time employees. The main reason we lack nurse educators who often have a graduate degree is for a very simple reason. We pay them abysmally. Today, the average salary in Vermont for a nurse educator is about 65,000, significantly less than what that person can earn in the clinical field. In other words, to become a nurse educated today is to make a significant financial sacrifice. The salaries for nurse educators must be significantly increased. And what is even crazier about having to reject potential nurse students because we don't have enough educators is the fact that today we are spending as a small state $75 million a year on traveling nurses. And these are often out of state nurses who will work on the contract at a medical facility for a short period of time. These traveling nurses receive salaries that are many times higher than our local permanent nurses receive. In other words, instead of spending money to educate nurses who will be part of a long-term sustainable workforce, we are spending huge sums of money on people who come into the state and then leave. Further, we have a problem in terms of an adequate number of hands-on training positions in medical facilities around the state. It takes significant clinical staff to adequately train a nursing student outside of the classroom, and these preceptors today are not fairly compensated for their services. Thirdly, it is important, I think, that we provide some immediate steps forward by creating loan repayment programs and scholarship programs to incentivize Vermontis and people from out of state to fill out the gap that we have right now. So here's the bottom line. We are now spending $75 million on short-term traveling nurses who don't stay in the state. We're not spending a fraction of that educating our own to become part of a long-term permanent and sustainable workforce. So I look forward to working with Jill and Senator Ballant and the governor and the Vermont delegation in Washington to do everything we can between the federal government and the state government to get the resources that we need to train the nurses that are absolutely essential to provide the quality care that we desperately need in Vermont. And with that, let me thank Governor Scott for being here, and we have worked together. His staff, my staff have worked together for the last couple of months, and I look forward to continue working with them. Governor, thank you. Good morning. Thank you very much, Senator Sanders. A little disappointing this morning. We had it outside so we get a chance to see your mittens, but that's not going to happen. I want to thank your staff as well for all their work with my team over the last several months. We have appreciated the strong partnership and collaboration on this important issue. It's also good to be here with Senator Ballant, just a day before going back into session, because one of the most important topics this year, I believe, will be how to support and grow our workforce. The five years I've been Governor and years before that, you've heard me talk about our demographic challenge, which has led to a shrinking workforce. The problem existed long before the pandemic, but COVID made it much, much worse. One sector that's been hit, especially hard, has been in health care and human services. And I don't need to tell you just how critical this workforce is, especially nurses. And I'm not just saying this because I'm married to one. But I've seen with my very own eyes the significant stress this sector has been under. With support from Senator Sanders and our congressional delegation, we've worked hard to stabilize it over the past two years. We've used funding to prop up hospitals, cover pandemic-related costs, issue hazard pay, and maintain staffing levels needed to support outbreaks in long-term care and residential facilities. Even though Vermont's nation-leading pandemic response has put us in a place where we have one of the lowest hospitalization rates in the nation today, and throughout the pandemic, the lack of staff has significantly contributed to the system being under stress. And because of our demographics, as people retire, we haven't been able to replace them fast enough. This is especially true for our nurses, LNAs, LPNs, RNs, and it's forcing us to spend a ridiculous amount of money on traveling nurses to keep the system afloat. As the senator said, we're here today because we're all committed to working together to address this issue. In my budget address later this month, I'll be putting forward initiatives to strengthen and support our existing health care workforce while also growing it. Already in budget adjustment, the budget adjustment that I proposed to the House appropriations in December, it includes nearly $18 million for training, recruitment, and retention for home and community-based providers. For the broader health care community, this week I'll also propose an additional investment of $15 million in the second budget adjustment for retention bonuses, grants to support employers in training and retaining new nurse graduates. It also includes funding to assist with recruiting and relocation of international nurses. Now, I know my team will not have all the answers, which is why working together is so important, and I look forward to our continued collaboration with Senator Sanders, the Speaker, Pro Tem, and other partners. I'm hopeful that this session we can take meaningful action on growing the overall workforce and train people in all levels of health care and to retain them in whatever way we can so that they're here and available to care for Vermonters. And with that, I'll turn it over to the Pro Tem, Senator Ballin. Good morning. I'm really happy to be here today with Senator Sanders and with the Governor. I'll be speaking on behalf of the Speaker, Jill Kowinsky, and myself. This is an issue that we both care a lot about and she wishes that she could join us this morning. We have all been impacted by this pandemic, but medical staff, particularly nurses, have been on the front lines for almost two years now, and they have provided critical care to keep us safe and healthy while often putting themselves at risk. And one of the things that the Speaker and I wanted to convey this morning is that, you know, speaking to Vermont nurses, we know that you have worked long, stressful hours day after day in health care settings across the state. And your jobs were always demanding, but this pandemic has stretched many of you to your limits. And there really are, there are no words to adequately describe our gratitude. You are a vitally important part of our workforce. You keep Vermonters safe, you protect our families and communities, but you also enable businesses and schools to continue to do their important work. And in short, we'd be lost without you. What many Vermonters might not realize is that we have a nursing shortage that predates the pandemic. And like many other sectors across our economy, this global emergency has revealed starkly cracks in the system. We need more nurses in Vermont as the governor and Senator Sanders have already spoken to, and we have to be aggressive in addressing this shortage now. We need to do this for all Vermont communities because when we need medical care, we want to make sure that somebody is there to help us. And we know that many nurses right now are feeling really overwhelmed, working longer hours to cover staffing shortages. And we know it's not fair. And we know it's not sustainable. So this past year, the legislature in partnership with Governor Scott and using federal dollars that Senator Sanders, Senator Leahy and Congressman Welch were able to bring to the state. We worked with the Vermont State Colleges to make an unprecedented investment in higher ed. And we invested millions in supporting critical occupations, including nursing careers. Four million dollars went specifically into our nursing programs and almost 200 new students were able to take advantage of that and hundreds of other returning students. And nursing scholarships through VSAC were fully subscribed. And as as the senator and the governor both have said, it isn't acceptable that we have people who want to be nurses and are not able to get in the career pipeline. And I just want to say about a month and a half ago I was walking in my neighborhood in Brattleboro and a neighbor flagged me down and she said, I am so excited that I'm finally getting to do this thing that I wanted to do, which was to go to nursing school. And those are the kind of moments that legislators live for. And they don't happen very often. So you have to really, really relish them when you have the opportunity. So our nursing program investments that we've made together have been extremely popular and we have to continue to work with the colleges to increase the number of nursing slots available to prospective students. And we need to address the needs of students already in nursing programs to make sure that they can afford to complete the programs. And we have to make nursing careers financially viable for all Vermonters who want to pursue this important work. And I mean both younger students and also incumbent workers who may be looking for a career change, a meaningful career change. This work is vital. We must create clear pathways and provide financial assistance that will make a nursing career possible for thousands of Vermonters. So I have several nurses in my extended family and here's something that I know. This is not my quote, but we don't know who to attribute it to. It just knocks around in nursing circles, which is this. Nurse is just another word to describe a person strong enough to tolerate anything and soft enough to understand anyone. It's my sincere hope that the legislature and the governor will continue to work together to meet this critical need. Thank you. Any questions? All right, you know, the bottom line is you are seeing the legislature, the congressional officers, the governor come together to address what is a crisis situation in Vermont. And I think we are all in agreement that it is absurd to be spending tens and tens of millions of dollars on traveling nurses and nurses. We respect them, but people who come into the state and then leave, while at the same time we have so many people who want to become nurses here in our own state, have become part of a long-term, sustainable work for us, and yet today we are incapable of educating those people. So I look forward to a wonderful partnership. This is a big issue, and I look forward to working with the governor and the legislature and the congressional delegation to make sure that we pull this off and that we create the kind of healthcare system and nursing system that this state desperately needs. Thank you all very much and happy new year.