 the Senate in total spent $18.2 million more in this section than as it came out of the house and we'll just walk through the sections that were changed. Sub A didn't change at all. Sub one, the amount of money to the Joint Fiscal Committee. This went up from $500 to $600,000 and as you may recall from Adam's technical letter, he was proposing that this money instead of being appropriated, Joint Fiscal would go through the Secretary of Administration. That wasn't well received, but we did because this money is coming into Joint Fiscal and would be transferred out to the various staff legislative units, Ledge IT, Ledge Council, Sergeant in Arms. We did allow that, you know, the normal process is that the Secretary of Administration basically finance and management approves the transfer process. So we did acknowledge that in the language and so that's the change in number one. Number two did not change. Number three is new and I think you've taken testimony on this. This is the $2 million to the Agency of Natural Resources, both Forest and Parks and Fish and Wildlife that they need for the Portalettes and the Sanitation for having those public facilities at those Fish and Wildlife areas and at the parks. I thought that was 2.1. Am I remembering wrong? Maybe, and I may be getting it, there's a lot of things flying around, so I may be getting it confused. Check on that number. I thought it was $2 million, Bob, but you could be right. We'll just check on that number. Yeah, whatever. Yeah, thank you. No, it's important. So Kitty, I'm looking at ANR's sheet from when they testified on it. It does have $2 million as the bottom line, but there's a couple places where it's, you know, that Bob might be remembering the point one, but the total ANR request was exactly $2 million on her testimony. Okay, you know, I think we, I think we did it. I think we did it at the same time we did colleges and they were 5.1. I'm sitting here. I think that's where I might be getting it. So it's no, no problems. I'm sorry. So $2 million? $2 million is all right with me. Yep. And it's a number that they asked for. Thank you, Bob. Thank you, Diane. All right, Stephanie, should we go to number? Number four is the Vermont State Colleges. This is the largest increase. It's about $7.4 million higher than when it came out. The 5.1 remains the same for the refunds for room and board. The remainder, I consented to Theresa. We got the State Colleges, we asked them to go back and, and because their initial summary of costs was a little bit, each, each dean at each college was sort of didn't, they weren't sort of consistent in their application of thinking about the costs. And so they went back with a little bit more direction. And we have that it came on Friday, just a little bit before the committee started, and we can share that detail, but that's the source of it. It's the largest chunk of that 7.4 is the distance, distance learning piece, along with supplies and, you know, facilities, adaptation pieces, but we can send that along with the detail. I'm sorry, Stephanie, I didn't mean to cut it. It's okay. That's okay. For the detail, Peter has, I think, sent out to everyone an email. And I know Stephanie's on a bit of a time crunch to get done before 9.30. So Peter will have all the detail for number four and number five that he can. Sure. And number five is about a 3.6 or so increase. And that did not change. You know, there's the, they have distance learning pieces. They have facilities that have, you know, alterations, supplies and equipment and masks and sanitation. And UVM also had a significant chunk of storing student belongings. And it's not just a storage class, it's a, you know, cataloging and making sure that they know which room stuff comes from and things like that. And then setting up a time in the summer for not, there's far away students, but they're regional students if they want to to come and try and take, you know, pick up their stuff because they got caught with going, closing down campus while kids were on spring break. So they didn't get to return. The state colleges didn't have that issue. And then no change in number six for VSAC. Number seven is a significant new ad. This is EMS Ambulance Services and it's $3 million. And this one, it's not a request from the agency for this money. It was a request that was made several times by Senate, Senate GovOps committee hearing from ambulance services and concerns about the ambulance services. A small hand, there's about 180 of them, only about five of them have accessed any funds through AHS for the prospective payment piece. And they had asked for the $900,000 of training and education money and $3 million was their estimate of what they thought their issue around revenues were. And so the characterization of this one is that the committee was very concerned, you know, if there was a lot of fragility in ambulance services and they didn't seem to be as, they seem to have not much administrative strength. And so one of the things that came up is whether or not they've been able to access the federal CARES money that's available to providers because they just don't have administrative capacity. And so that was the reason for putting the $100,000 of technical assistance in there. And C, which is the $2 million number, was lodged in AHS to make stabilization grants, and they would, the ability to determine what size by what, you know, you wanted to recognize both that it, you know, if there was a need for grants to go out to stabilize entities, they could do it quickly and sort of without a lot of administrative burden on the agency, but they would sort of determine how you calibrate it to the size and need of the, of the particular EMS service. And so it was, it was acknowledged that it's not, there wasn't a lot of data to be able to be looked at from either the health department or the association itself, but acknowledging that there's a concern for this very important, you know, emergency provider that may need to be there. And so that was the, the thinking behind adding this funding here. And maybe this is a good time to, well actually I'll wait until I'm at the end of the, because another piece of the technical letter that you don't see here, I just want to talk about with the committee. And that's about how we understand where we're at with any of the CRF appropriations that we make. Thank you. So any, any questions on this one? Number seven, the EMS funding. I do not take questions, Dave. I didn't see your hand. May I apologize? I'm just waiting on this section. And I sent a note to House Healthcare on this. They just wanted an opportunity to review it. They had had language in 8742 that was stripped out as being non-COVID related, I think, at the time. But I think they want to look at that in the context of this, which is certainly not unreasonable, though this is a one-time provision. Stephanie, and if I may just quickly, Stephanie, it sounds like the two million was a guesstimate, an estimated placeholder. Yes, that's an estimated placeholder number. Yeah. And I understand given, given the lack of information, but the anecdotal need, they need something. It was just a sort of, there's 180 of them. If there were, if, if, if they all needed $10,000 in stabilization grants, that's $1.8 million rounded up. That's, that's as technical as that estimate got. I reviewed all the information from Senate GovAx. In any event, I mean, I'm comfortable with this, but Bill Lippert's committee will, will have a key role in this, I think, if that makes sense to you, Katie. Yes, absolutely. So in number A, where they may have a question that the training money for the EMTs was pretty clearly the education money health department seemed to indicate that because we do have guidance that frontline, frontline emergency workers are sort of de facto CRF and the education piece health department indicated for paramedics would happen all before December 30th. So that was the, the sort of, we were concerned about the timing and the date of that. And when the health department indicated that that could happen all in December 30th, it was included just for information. Thank you. Mayda has a question, Dave. I think we need to also circle back with Senate House GovAx too. As this came out of Senate GovAx, it must have had some different pieces that they were looking at outside of the healthcare realm. Thank you. Yep. Mayda. And my question was, knowing that this has been a system that's been under stress, severe stress, even before the pandemic. And this is one time money here, which I support, I want to say, but then moving forward. Am I wrong in thinking that it's reasonable for folks who are on the receiving end of this one-time money to be looking for, if not in all, at least substantially, in part, in substantial part, a continuation of an increased level of funding? Well, I would say that the health department acknowledges that there are significant challenges to the system. There are some very small providers. There are ones that are supported by a town entity, a municipal entity. And so there is thinking going on around that. Both the health department and the association I think are very welcoming of the idea of technical assistance. I would say that the agency, because they view, even though it's a small amount of money, trying to stand up and find that technical assistance is more of a burden on them just to try and execute a contract. That's why we actually included the Department of Financial Regulation in that section. Because the agency itself is under so much stress, and even though it's a small amount of money, the burden of actually managing a contract to help 180 agencies, or maybe it's less than 180 if the town ones actually have administrative capacity. But it was an interesting conversation to have that even though it's a small amount of money, it was viewed as a pretty significant burden to try and stand that up quickly. But it was an idea that was welcomed, I think, certainly by the association. The health department indicated that those agencies really could use some technical assistance. Okay, thank you. Are there any other questions on this section? So we'll follow up with both GOV-OPS and Health Healthcare. Thank you, Dave. And now if you scroll up to 8, 9, 10, and 11 and 12, those five make up the justice system pieces. And number 12, there's no change to the judiciary piece. But 9 and 10 and 11 were, there's documentation that was submitted to the, I have it, and it was submitted to the Senate Judiciary Committee. And from state's attorney, from defender general, from crime victims for costs, these are costs that they think they'll incur by June 30th. But state's attorney and defender general in response to the change that remote processes and the way that the judiciary is going to be conducting business post COVID along with some, trying to build some capacity to also address the backlog within state's attorney and defender general. Crime victims was also asked to look at, and their list is relatively modest for it's pretty much direct cost pieces. I do have to say that the pieces that are for the next round, I have questions, especially in crime victims, where there's one of the things they included is probably not going to be includeable under CRF. I wanted to double check the state's attorney to make sure that something around case management hadn't already been budgeted. But I was feeling, the numbers here through June 30th in those lists all appeared to be CRF eligible pieces. If we scroll up to number eight, I just want to be clear about that one. So the agent, the department of corrections did not make a specific request. They have talked about the change in how they're doing community supervision that has sort of come about as a result of their response to the pandemic. The judiciary committee also heard from the attorney general's office who did not make a request for any resources, although they did mention that the fees in the diversion program have fallen off significantly. And so in order to sort of maintain as much community capacity in DOC, this number was not a requested number, but a number that with conversations that I had of saying, if we had to have you help the version to keep that capacity up and what you might be able to have out in the community, my understanding is this is a number that could work, that they, it's in the ballpark for them, even though they can't make an official or did not make an official request. So that summarizes the justice system pieces. I'm sorry, that's my phone. Oh, that's your phone. Okay, Stephanie, then that's fine because you need to be on with us. Chip, do you have some questions? I know you're going to work with Maxine and the Judiciary Committee. Do you have any questions that you need to ask Stephanie about conversations in the Senate committee? No, so that I'm glad to see it here and in trying to sort of jibes with what I've been getting as I've been going back and forth with most of those folks. The one thing, Stephanie, that maybe you could help me with is when I talked to Dick Sears, he said that they weren't doing anything as you point out here for diversion in the BAA because that seemed to be particularly about revenue loss, fine revenue loss. And so he didn't think it was appropriate for CRF funding, but that they were thinking of considering it in the Q1 budget. Was there any discussion about that? There was. Senator Sears wasn't in last Thursday in Senate appropriations. He had a personal thing he had to be at. But the conversation in Senate appropriations was the concern that we do need to have capacity for diversion. And so even if it's not a that was part of the thinking of the money into DOC, that it was in their interest to actually keep up the capacity in the diversion programs. And so that's why within the money that's in DOC, they would be allowed to transfer over to maintain diversion capacity. That's the that was the thinking around that in case it was needed in the June timeframe. Okay. And that addressing sort of the longer term issue might be something we would do in one of the later budgets? Exactly. Okay. And I had recognized my own fault for forgetting something that Mariah has brought up to my attention a couple of times, which is that it's not just diversion, but the criminal justice, I mean, community justice center. We're going to see they're in there. So that's good. Did they, so I know diversion had sent a, or well, I had sent a letter to Senate, I mean, Senate judiciary, have the community justice centers communicated sort of the the level of their need? I'm not aware of it. It's just that we know that they're funded through DOC and that it's a little unclear, you know, as we come out of this and resume operations across the system, it's unclear exactly where the need to bolster those systems will be. But the idea was to place some dollars in corrections, which would be the place that would have the interest in maintaining those community capacities and the ability to transfer those dollars out to do that in response to the system starting back up again. Okay. And I know I said no when they were Kitty asked me if I had any questions, but I do have one more. Legal aid and that and the access to justice coalition broadly, I know they have indicated some need on their part. Was there any discussion about that? There was not that I'm aware of. I know that legal aid has sent a request regarding particularly around evictions specifically. And I know that on the Senate side, that's being sort of making sure that that's that's included in any conversation around housing in whatever sort of if there's an economic recovery package that's multi component, or if it's a, you know, if we just do separate bills or or CRF pieces later, but that that was the extent of my knowledge on legal aid request. Okay. I'm waiting for a email back from the access to justice coalition and I might have more information, but thank you. Okay. Sure. Mary, your hand was up. Are you all set or you're all set. Okay. It's Stephanie. We can then we just did the technical in section 37, which is at the very bottom of this this two page document, three page document. It's we just did those technical changes that were requested from the administration that the state treasurer is this early in here. Yes, upon approval of the secretary of administration so that the state treasurer is not just making a transfer on her own, there has to be sort of a two step to making that transfer. It's in the middle of the paragraph upon approval of the secretary of administration. And then the last thing I wanted to say was the letter from Adam did say, you know, had suggestions about, you know, if money is not expended it reverts. And so the conversation and this is an important piece for and I think it will be in the quarter one bill, the little bill is sort of a global section around CRF that does several things that sort of sets the expectations for recipients of CRF money, you know, that it is potentially auditable and the expectation that they maintain records to demonstrate that it is CRF eligible, etc. Also, working through when when unexpended monies need to revert. So since we're working against this December 30 timeline, you know, we, we probably want to have some specific dates stated by which, you know, anything that's been appropriated but unexpended, we have to, you know, as much clarity as we can have about whether or not it's reasonable that the amounts remaining will be expended by that date and if not reverted and then the process around anything that's available for reallocation how that happens. So that's a, that's an important concept to keep in mind. It's, it's not a fully fleshed out, you know, exactly how we'd write it, but we want to have, we want to speak to the, the, the issues that were raised with those comments about when does it revert from the technical letter, and we're working on that. And so that won't be inclusive in the BAA, but no, as far as the entities like any money that EMS might get if it hasn't gone out the door or the state colleges, how do we get that same message to the groups that were operating dollars or granting dollars to. So we're, we're going to, it's going to be global to anyone that does receive a CRF dollar. And so I think we would want to make it incumbent on any of the agencies that are granting out any of the CRF dollars, you know, like AHS would, would let EMS know. I'm not particularly concerned about EMS, but you know, when, especially when we get to the quarter one bill or the bigger bill, or if we have interim standalone bills that, that appropriate CRF money, we want that, we want to point to that place to say, when you're getting CMS money, CRF money, this is, this is the expectation. And also, you know, the expectations around that timing at the same time, so that we're, we're managing it through the timeframe that we have. I have Peter and Mary and I know Stephanie's getting close on time. So let's do this. Thank you. Stephanie, on Friday I had a conversation with Vermont State colleges and essentially told them exactly what you've just said, but I added one more piece. And I said, if, if the entity that is, that the state of Vermont contracts with to determine that our expenditures as they're going out the door conforms with or do not conform with the coronavirus relief fund requirements. If they don't, then we may actually claw that money back bad word. I didn't use it, put it that way. But everyone understands it, you know, pull it back immediately to ensure that it can be used in accordance with the, the, the appropriate guidance. So are you looking at putting that in there as well? Probably something around that. Yeah. And we're fine with all of that. Yeah. And, and part of writing this section as well, you know, it's the finance and management secretary of administration should have their consultant on board by the end of the week, what it sounds like. And so, you know, we want to make sure they all align together, you know, as we sort of work through this piece of language, but it's an important concept to have all of those included. Thank you. Mary? Stephanie, I'm wondering if there is concern about retrospectively pulling back money. If we didn't warn people in advance that there might be, that there are conditions around how it's used. In other words, everything that we've done in the BAA too, if we're not putting language in until the Q1, will people say, oh, you didn't tell us and we get to keep it? I don't know the answer to that. I would say that the conversations particularly in judiciary and with higher ed have been pretty robust about whether or not things would or would not be right now because the guidance is, you know, a little bit fluid. That understanding has, you know, with the entities that are making requests have been there. The, you know, the bigger concern is that the money that goes out the door to non-state agencies, like judiciary, state attorney, defender general are us, you know, crime victims is one step removed. The DOC is us, but DOC sending out to community pieces would, that's important to understand, you know, less concerned about EMS because they're a frontline, you know, entity that the guidance right now basically says they're, you know, that the Treasury is going to view any money that's going to frontline entities in the timeframe is a de facto COVID issue. Maybe we could put in the intent letter that often goes with bills just that there will be further guidance. Yes. And I assume, I mean, the financing management has sent out guidance. One of the things that struck me when we were thinking about this last Friday is I would expect financing management or Secretary of Administration to actually write a bulletin on it in a sense, you know, because of the nature of what it is as well. That's true. The burdens on them to figure out how to instruct. So, okay. Yeah, got it. And so I want to push that idea, but also the timing of, for our process, the timing of knowing when something that can't be expended in the timeframe becomes available again to be reassigned. Yeah. Okay. And so we'll see that in properly, that will be, as you said, a quarter year. I can see what you're putting it in now, especially the guidance changes. And yeah, I agree with that. Did we change out the word appropriated and put in granted as the administration? We did in the three higher entities. We did that. Okay. Thank you. Sorry, I didn't point that out. But I do believe in the intent language that we can make reference to that information that that needs to go out. Yeah. And it is a conversation. I, you know, you know, I don't know when our next check-in is with finance and management, but it was one of the things on my list to find out if they were going to start to draft a bulletin for any recipients outside of state government for, you know, for receipt of funds. Okay. I'm just going to write a note of that. Any final questions for Stephanie? I think she needs to get to the Senate floor. Thank you very much, Stephanie. Sure. All right. Okay. Thank you. All right. So we should know by now a 15 minute presentation can never happen in our committee. So, so we are at the 930 and we were, we're going to have some committee discussion. The first thing I want to, to bring up so I don't forget it tomorrow at nine o'clock, the governor is going to, the administration is having a presentation on the governor's economic recovery initiative that he put forward. I don't think our whole committee needs to be there, but Linda, a big chunk of it is within ACCD and she will be recovering tomorrow. And so I think that if, if two members from the committee would go and then could report back, I chip you do a lot with rural economic development and, and there's a dairy piece in there in small businesses. I would recommend chip unless somebody else does not, and then I'd like another volunteer that would, would like to, I'll be happy to, Katie, I'll be happy to, and Mary, all right, we'll send three and Mary would like to attend. That means we're going to go ahead with, with some committee items without you tomorrow at nine o'clock. I'll send, I will connect you three with the assistant so that you can get the zoom link. Thank you. So if we could do transportation tomorrow morning, that would be great. Teresa, would Kurt McCormick, or is he, I haven't scheduled for two o'clock today. Oh okay, then we'll keep him at two o'clock today. Um, let's, let's see what else that we would put in that timeline because I don't want to be making any critical condition, critical decisions with four members out, three to the meeting and Linda being one. So we may move some things around. Meta. Um, question about another piece that the Senate is going to be sending back to us. They also moved out of committee on Friday. Um, 951, each 951, that's the municipal borrowing for the education property tax. And they did make a change to our bill. They took out the whole fund, they took out the creation of the fund and change it to a straight appropriation. It doesn't change the, the, the thrust of the bill. It's, it's changing the mechanism and the treasurer was okay with it. I gather from listening to Senate appropriations that this originally came as a suggestion from the, the administration. But there is that change and it is on the, I believe it's on the floor today a law or I'll notice at any rate along with the BAA. Okay. So you've already checked in with the treasurer and the treasurer raised with, um, with that change in the bill. Well, I will check in with you. You froze, Maita? Okay. Well, Maita, are you? Yeah, I'm back. I'm back. I bounced off. Check in with the treasurer. So I will check directly with her. It was repeated during the testimony on Friday afternoon that the treasurer was good with it. I won't take the second hand assurance. I'll check in this morning with them. And when you check in, would you also do one last check? Um, um, it's not a change to our bill. So I really don't think we need to do this check in again, because we were staying in close contact with the treasurer that we're going to proceed with the end of year construct in the BAA using CRF dollars as we had voted and, and use reserves as a backup. Just if you could run that by or it's no change to the Yes, I will. Okay. Thank you. All right. Um, I do want to talk about, um, Peter, you have your question up. Sorry. Yeah, thanks, Kitty. Um, so, so just a question in regards to that, if they changed it over to an appropriation, um, are we supposed to appropriate the grant that is the CRF or do we sub grant as we are indicating in our BAA, the, the grant that is the CRF? We will get the correct wording on that, whether it's an appropriation or a grant. And then I've never asked this question before. Does it matter? You know, does it matter if you're, if you're appropriating a grant or just grant sub granting a grant? Good questions. We'll follow up with the treasurer. Thank you, Mada. Good questions, Peter. Um, back to the BAA. Um, the pieces that, that we have heard on obviously Chip has to do some circling around with the judiciary committee. Um, Dave is going to circle back around on EMS with GovOps and, and healthcare. Um, the college pieces, um, I think that we knew those were coming. We just came very late in the process. State colleges didn't have their numbers solidified at that point, Peter. And Kitty, what I'll do is I'll send everyone an email with the UVM, um, explanation attached as well. Very similar to what I did, how I did it with Superman State College is I'll be, get that out this morning. Okay. Um, the joint, um, the JFC, the increase from 500,000 to 600,000. Are there any questions there and whose section? Those are all Diane's. Are those yours? Um, if there are questions for Diane to get answered. Does anyone have anything? Um, the SAC was no change as EMS judiciary we did. The, the big one is going to be A&R. And, um, Marty and I just need to get to the bottom of the one-time money and exactly what the agreement was with using one-time money. Boy, I mean in our committee we've preached forever, one-time money for one-time purposes, but I don't know if it was a bridge to something that didn't happen. Um, so are there any specific questions about aquatic nuisances in the La Rosa that you would like Marty to flush out before we take a vote on, you know, the individual pieces in this BAA? I think you've hit it, Kitty. You've identified what was our original intent. And what projects, how much of the projects will be done and, and how much time has been lost to COVID so that the dollar amount, it would that have been reduced anyway. And Marty, also there was a fund balance of $83,000. Um, remember there was a fund balance that, that, uh, A&R had agreed that they would work with the committee of jurisdiction to, to do some projects with, within the La Rosa program. Could you find out about that? That's on the clean water. Right, right. But to do the La Rosa program and yeah, can you hear me, Marty? Yes, I can hear you. What I frankly can't figure out on the aquatic nuisances that there's nothing in the budget adjustment that says they're going to reduce it. The only adjustment in the budget adjustment was that reduction on the clean water fund. And I noticed in the regular budget that they had proposed for FY21 that we were working on, it did have a reduction based on this no longer money coming in from the Irene project so that there was a reduced money and that they sent such that of course there will be a reduced money in the motorboat, but it doesn't show up in any budget adjustment documents. So that may be a 21. They tend to do less because they expect to have less. Right. So that's a 21 issue for nuisance for the aquatic nuisances. Let's just circle back around. I do know that one of the districts received a letter that they were not receiving their grant money. I believe it was in Thetford. Thetford are fairly, maybe fairly, one of those towns in that region that they were not receiving the dollars for aquatic nuisances. And if we haven't put out a 21 budget, I'm wondering what that's being based on. Okay. So if we can just get the answer, you go, Marty. I'll work on those to try to get that answered later today, hopefully. Okay. We can talk about it again. And the fund balance, how the fund balance can offset some of these issues. Okay. If there's any other questions for Mark, make sure to get them to her so we, you know, she doesn't have to contact the secretary more than once. And then other than that, are there pieces of the BAA that anyone has any question with any of the technical pieces? Okay. As soon as we get those sorted, I think that we'll be ready to act on the BAA. Kitty, I have a question about, I guess it's a naming question. So I think the BAA from my point of view or my budgets is pretty straightforward now that we've gotten a little bit of an update on what the Senate's done. But some of the spending proposals like the judiciary and the state's attorneys include beyond the BAA, so in the quarter one, spending that they intend to do with CRF dollars. I just wondering, do we, how are we going to, do we want testimony on that? Do we need, when should we bring that kind of thing to the, you know, like when should I bring that to this committee? I'm going to recommend if there's, if beyond 2020, the 2020, the 2020 dollars that they're asking for are going to be reflected in the BAA. Any additional pieces will be in the 21 budget. So for committee members, let's just, I want to concentrate first on numbers eight, nine, 10 and 11. Those were the new pieces in the judiciary. The defender general state's attorney was in victim services, Chip. We want individual testimony or are we comfortable with Chip doing the work and circling around with the committee of jurisdiction on those CRF dollars? What's the committee thinking? Or if Chip, you become, I'm fine with Chip. Yeah. Me too. Mary, your hands up. I just, DOC has, no, it's I'm on number eight, which is an appropriation to DOC with a sub appropriation. It looks like out to the diversion program, which belongs to, I guess, Diane now, maybe it's Chip still. And it's just, I just, yes, and I just wanted to say that the 600,000 is consistent with what I have been hearing from DOC about what they believe their COVID needs are in the community. So for what it's worth, that is consistent with what DOC's testimony has been in various committees in my conversation with the commissioner. And so you don't, you don't feel we need additional testimony on that. So Chip, if you come to a roadblock or questions that you feel need to be flushed out, then we'll schedule testimony. As far as 21, we need to, as a committee work, work, you know, have some time, how we're going to frame the first quarter 21 budget, there will likely be some more CRF spending that in the budget as, as things arise, like as things arise, yes, like the colleges with judiciary, big, large new initiatives. I'm thinking will, will probably not be in this quarter year budget, but would be in either a bill or bills that run on their own. And things that are not ready to move would be considered in August. So there's a couple of different vehicles CRFs being can, can travel on. Okay, that's helpful. You know, we were talking about, you know, doing the Q one budget this week, or at least we had been. And so I just want to make sure about the timing, but that that's helpful. Most of what I'm thinking of, at least the, my budget is really just a continuation of spending into Q one of things they're already doing and largely it's around temporary positions or whatever. Yeah, the timing of the Q one budget, we probably won't vote it out on Friday, it would be early to mid next week. Right. Dave and Peter. Yes, kitty. Do you imagine that any dedicated standalone bills on the COVID spending might roll into the summer, July, August, September, or do you expect those to be done in June? And I raise this because there may be some time sensitive expenditures in order to meet the 1231 spending guideline deadline that takes some work, whether if they went out in the Q one, they might be more apt to happen unless you think these standalone bills are going to move fast. I think that committees of jurisdiction are working with the speaker to determine, you know, one obviously with the governor's presentation on housing, if you need contractors and you need work done, right, factors are so far behind. I think people are well aware of that. And so as things are completed and ready to move there, there's all these vehicles they could move on either a standalone bill, a large bill together or on the quarter year budget bill. You're not concerned then. Okay. Well, I'm always concerned. It's a tight timeline regardless. And you know, I think that there's some hope the guidance will change, but we can't do our work based on the guidance changing. You know, money stopping December 31st or, you know, and getting it up for other uses, we're going to have to move forward like we have been with some of it. Thank you. Peter. Yes, Kitty, this question may be more for Maria than anyone else. So regarding the coronavirus relief fund spending, much of these are best estimates that they can possibly do at this point in time, but there's no way of knowing if, you know, they've overestimated and those and funds may not be expended by end of month June for the FY 20 year. Do those funds automatically carry forward into FY 21? Coronavirus relief funds that we've granted to different organizations, be it the judiciary component or the college component center, they carry forward into 21, even if they have not been allocated, but they will be. No, no, they don't. That's right. Oh, no, no. We've added a small component of complexity to our lives in that we're going to have to revert those funds back and then re grant them. Right. That's right. And that's what Stephanie was talking about, about language in the queue, in the quarter, quarter bill that and having the, you know, the directive go out from the administration, those dollars would have to come back in a timely manner so they could be reappropriated. Yeah, I'm just curious. This is very difficult to get a snapshot in your mind of what we're doing here. My question is when we get done with the first quarter and then I'll ask the same question, I'm sure after the remainder of the year, Bill, but can we get a list of COVID costs, what they were for and how much they are on the side so I can lay the two documents together and very easily with a little subtraction and addition, whatever, figure it all out. Yep, we can. We can rate on the JFO website. There's going to be a link that you can see all the dollars that have gone out of the 1.25, all the dollars that have gone out, all the dollars that have gone out through other federal, other federal. Yeah, but will it list them, will it list them in the Q1 as Q1 costs and then list them as Q234 costs in my terms? I believe so, Maria, right? And there's a column of comments where you can find where they were, where the, yes, that is correct, yes. What is correct? That they'll be listed in the, so in the first quarter, Bill, the one that you just heard testimony on this morning, the ones that are appropriated in that bill will be listed as appropriated in that bill, in the first quarter bill. Separately from the bill, Bill. I mean, yeah, so I can just take a look at them. I don't have to fish for them. There's going to be a long list and it will say whether it was just sent out through, oh, here you go. Thank you. Thank you, Teresa. All right, that's good. Yeah, that's good. Thank you. Okay. Yep. Let's see, I have Chip and Kimberley. Peter, is your hand is still up and Dave? Okay, Chip, Kimberley, Marty. So I'm glad Peter asked that question. I just want to make sure I understood the answer. So money that was, that is being appropriated in the BAA has to be spent by the end of FY20 or it has to revert back and then be December 31st. No, I meant FY20. I meant end of month June. No, you mean for, you mean for like Vermont State Colleges and UVM? I'm talking about the coronavirus relief fund. The BAA is a spending authorization of, and I'm preaching at the choir here, through end of month June. And as such, it has coronavirus relief funds spending in there and we have not, from my knowledge, an insert of language that says these funds are available for allocation and must be expended by end of the year calendar year. So as a result, we either need to do a carry forward language to allow them to continue to spend these funds or we've got to revert it all on one July and re-grant them, which isn't fun. Maria will check on that language. They come with their own set of rules, but because it's within a container that ends on June 30th, we'll just double check that to make sure that they can continue on to December 31. Thank you. Yeah, I'm sort of following along the same line. When we are reverting those funds, my question is, do we have real-time access to the tool that the consultant is building for the agency of administration? Because I worry about timeliness of any dollar amounts that are coming in and going out again potentially. Kitty? Do you have an answer to that, Diane? I think I do. Okay. I'll give it a second. So on section 36, Peter, this goes to what you're saying and what just sparked in my mind too, a little bit of worry about that. And that very, very, that sub A, the very beginning, the last line in that says, these appropriations shall carry forward to fiscal year 21 as needed. Okay, we're good then. Okay, perfect. Now, Kimberly, I don't think that answers your question. Right, because I know that came up with the joint fiscal discussion and it just seems like that's... Well, anyway, that's my concern. If we're sending out this contract with the consultant to build this database and given the fact, and I'm thinking here of potentially CRF monies versus BAA monies, and that if we're trying to craft two appropriations bills that we have or other vehicles that we have some real-time sense of what those numbers are, because otherwise we're going to have to keep adjusting. Well, I think there's a good chance that we're going to have to keep adjusting anyway, but the consultant that was approved to the JFC process that the administration is hiring, their expertise is in this area to make sure that the dollars are used correctly and that they get out the door by the 31st. That would be, I think, part of their main focus, that is their main focus, is the use and efficacy of the dollars so that we're not... So, what are you asking beyond that? I think I'm missing a piece of your question. Yeah, I'm just asking whether the legislative branch will have access to that information on the same real-time basis as will the executive branch. We have, I believe, part of the language was, and Maria, I'm here in JFC, and so is Mary, that the legislative branch can independently use the consultant as a resource. I don't know if the administration is working on a proposal, whether I would assume that that would stay within the administration until they're willing to put another proposal on the table, let's say a healthcare proposal. I don't think that they would share, the consultant would necessarily share the information with the legislature until the governor's made that proposal. Mary, what do you, are your hands up? Are you... So, my recollection of that conversation, and I specifically asked about JFO's access to the information, and honestly, I think Brad was rather offended that I asked the question because his answer was, I talk with him every day. It's not an issue, and we let it go at that. My interpretation of that is, yes, there is access to the information. I'm not disputing what you just said, Kitty, because obviously, they're not going to tell us about their proposals, but we were reassured by the administration that there would be this full disclosure of information was my interpretation. We don't have any writing, it was just a conversation. Other questions? If not, we were going to adjourn at 10 o'clock and come back to the clock to discuss the Older Vermonters Act. Jen and Carby did put together a side-by-side between the nursing home rates and their process and their report back system compared to what the Older Vermonters Act. There's a lot of differences because the pieces have been set up differently. It was a significant amount of time, and I think that we can learn from it, but I don't think that we're going to take on the policy piece to rewrite the home and community-based providers to match the nursing home. We think that we're using it for information, and I'm going to caution the committee that to rewrite it to make the two sides equal is not within the scope of what we do in appropriations. Is the committee agreeing with me on that? This afternoon, we do need to look at that bill and we need to come to some kind of consensus of whether the committee is going to support, and we've got to clean the language up either way. It has to be very clear what the intent of that language is because no one's fiscal note definitely says this will be increased, and then there was some murkiness in Section 5, whether it was a recommendation to implement or whether it was to come back and implement once we get the information. But we have to decide as a committee at this point, are we going to agree to an inflator or agree to the work that would present the information to a future legislature of what an inflator would mean and what it would cost, or if we're going to strike the whole section? Those are the three pieces that we need to come to agreement on at one o'clock, and Jen Carby is going to be back in, and Nolan will be back in, but is there any other groundwork we need to do prior to one o'clock for that bill that anyone needs to get information on? Madam Chair, I just want to say that Commissioner Hut will also be in the meeting, she's requested to be in the meeting from Dale, so just be aware. Thank you, and we can take testimony if the committee has questions for the commissioner. Mary. Thank you. I was the one I think who asked about the comparison between the nursing home provisions and this, and folks may just, I would suggest people take a look at the comparison. I thought it was very helpful to me in understanding what the expectations were. Yeah, they're very different, and I don't want to rewrite anything, but I wanted to get clear in my mind, and Jen's analysis was very helpful to me in doing that. Thanks. Did that go out to all members? I think it went out to all members, didn't it, the comparison? I just sent it out to everybody just in case, I couldn't remember. Thank you. Thank you. Any other, Dave, I'm sorry, I didn't see your hand. No, that's okay. I just put it up, and I'm going to lower it. You're right. I mean, there's not time or whether it's appropriate or not for us to redo a whole lot of policy work here that the committee down the hall either, they may have intentionally done this the way they did it, but when you look at the language that Jen said, you can see that there's what I call, it's a standard, the rate shall achieve something. They shall achieve a reasonableness and assure a certain level of quality on the nursing home side. That's key language because if you, even if you were inclined to support an inflator, whether you are or not, but if you were, if you inflate significantly inadequate rates, you're really not, you're not putting home and community-based services on par with institutional services, which is the overriding intent. We have, I think the last three years in a row, it's been our committee that's led the effort on providing inflation increases, not the administration, but we've never really said is $16 an hour for adult day adequate. I won't get into, I mean, it's clear it's not, but so we give a 2% inflation on top of whatever, $16 and it doesn't really move the needle at all. Whereas if there were policy language that said rates shall be sufficient of sufficient amount to assure quality standards in home and community-based services set, that's a whole different undertaking. It's an important one, but the committee didn't appear to focus on that. It's not a criticism, it's just an observation. And now we're left with, do we want an inflator or not? So I have strong feelings on this, but I agree with you. Now is not the time to try to do any wholesale changes. Just a question. I'm just, it's struck something with the nursing home inflator. As part of that package, nursing homes pay a provider tax as well. Is that correct? Correct. And was that part of the negotiated piece, and I don't know how many years ago it was done, that we will do this inflator, but you will also pay the provider tax that other entities, you know, some do pay and some don't pay? The tax came after. The tax came after. Okay. Yeah. So that's why when we look at the language side by side, there's other factors that, you know, that we have to consider. We're not just comparing apples to apples with that side by side. So Dave, you put forth more of a statement, nothing that we need to organize for work prior to one o'clock. Is that correct? And so we will hear from Commissioner Hutt and we'll have Ledge Council and JFO in and see where we go with section five and what the intent of the committee is regarding the inflator. Yes, Chip. Save the discussion about my view on the intent of the inflator, what we should do with it for one o'clock. But I think Dave has brought up a really, really important point about if you were to create an inflator, whether it's implemented an hour later, what would you want it to do? And my question is, will we have members from their committee in at one o'clock? Because I think it would be great for them to hear, you know, this is their policy realm and it would be great for them to hear that discussion. Teresa, could you invite, there were two members, there was Teresa Wood and from Human Services. Dan Noise. Dan Noise was there, right. Invite them and if they're available. Was Anne-Marie involved? No. That was a different. At some point, I know that we've been on since for about an hour and a half. I do want to talk about the quarter year bill and how we frame it. And we were, we have a recess at 10 o'clock. Do we want to spend a half an hour now or do you want to, it looks like we could do it after, let's see, adjourn at three. But after the transportation piece is done, we could spend a little time then. When would you prefer to work on it in the afternoon or right now? Peter, which one? Right now. Mark says right now. I need five minutes then. Teresa, do we have capacity within Zoom to be on for a bit more time that we could start the conversation and finish it? Sure. Okay. Do we want to just take a five minute break? Can we do that, Teresa? Just shut off our videos and take a five minute break, grab water, use the restroom. I'm looking, my coffee still isn't out. Is there anyone that this is creating a hardship for as far as coming back on in five minutes just to start doing some framing up of our work for the quarter year budget? So I'm going to, I think probably it would be appropriate for me to stop the YouTube and then start it back up in five minutes. So it is 10.07. Let's start at 10.15.