 I'm sorry. Hello and welcome. This is September 3rd, 2020. This is the Education Committee in the Vermont House of Education. The Vermont House of Representatives we're all being educated in new ways this year. That's for sure. The Vermont House of Representatives. And today we are gonna be looking at COVID relief fund needs in our institutions of higher ed. And I wanna start off by welcoming Susan Stitely from the Association of Independent Colleges. So welcome, Susan. Thank you. Thank you for having me today and for having two of my colleagues on today as well. And considering our request for 10 million from the COVID relief fund. Phillip, if you could put up, I don't know if everybody, can everybody see or have access to the document that we submitted just so you know what we're referring to? Yes, I have it up as a share now and it's also posted on our webpage. Great, thank you very much. As you know, all the colleges and have suffered a severe economic loss due to COVID in March, the colleges shut down and had to transition to having most of their courses online. Very few students were left on college campuses but some were and we had, they housed them over the summer. Those were the students who did not have safe homes to go to or international students. And as you can see from the document here, it's over $144 million in loss. And we know of course that the COVID relief funds are limited, so we are only asking for what we think is a reasonable amount that you might be able to find in the funding of 10 million to help offset those costs. But I would like to introduce the two people who do most of the talking today. And that is the former president of Norwich College, Rich Schneider. He was president for 38 years and he retired in May, more or less in the middle of all this. But I wouldn't really call it a retirement because we quickly got him on the governor's economic restart team and he's probably been just as busy as ever. He'll sort of set the overall scene of what's going on at the private colleges and what our needs are. And then we have Sophie Hallett from SIT Graduate Institute and she will talk about the particulars for her college and her area. So again, thank you for having us and I will turn it over to Rich Schneider. Thank you Susan. Thanks Susan and hi to the committee. Great to be with you and I wanna say thanks for all that you're doing. This is not an easy time for any of us, is it? And we're all learning new things and all struggling, but we're winning. And we're gonna do the Ramon thing of pursuing and persevering. I'm gonna stay at the strategic level for the committee. You have this two-page document for Susan and I wanna thank her. I've been meeting with the college presidents. That's all of them or their representatives both from the independent colleges, the Ramon State College System and UVM. And we meet every Monday from 12.30 to 1.30. And then on Tuesdays at eight o'clock I meet with all the doctors and health per providers of all of those institutions. And then on Thursdays I meet with the restart committee. So I guess I'm just as busy as I was before and now I'm not getting paid for it like some of you too. But I'm the guy that used to be somebody at Norwich and I loved it there and I love Ramon and we are staying in Ramon. We're actually living now at Lake Dunmore. So I'm calling you from my office at Lake Dunmore and we love it here. Gang, we're asking for 10 million. All of our schools are suffering right now and you have taken care of and I wanna thank you for that. UVM and the Ramon State College Systems. The independent colleges of which there are only 11 left have received no support. And in most of our towns, we are the largest employer. And if you took, and I'm gonna only speak about Norwich right now, if you took Norwich out of Northfield there wouldn't be much left. And you know more than most reps how terrible it was for those towns over the last couple of years pre-COVID to lose five schools. And we're gonna lose another one this year when the New England Culinary Institute closes. But we've lost through closings, Bennington College, St. Joseph's, Rutland, Green Mountain College, Marlboro College and Southern Vermont College. And the reason why we lost those colleges was primarily enrollments. They're small and so any changes in enrollments and we're just not producing the highest like we used to and the other schools of Vermont State College System is having the same problem as you all know as well. But in my 28 years as the college president at Norwich we also lost two before that. Many of you might remember Trinity which was a wonderful women's Catholic school in Burlington that was a wonderful place that took care of a lot of single mom parents that were trying to get re-established in life and then Woodbury. So not only are we suffering from COVID but they were suffering from enrollment issues before. So their degrees of flexibility are really limited and we have really suffered greatly both in the expenses that Susan has showed you and to be quite honest, that's our best guess right now. I think when the dust settles it'll be worse and far worse. And my goal as the person on the restart team representing higher ed is to not to have any others closed post COVID, that is why we need your help because I'm telling you right now they will close a couple of them if we don't get them some help. And that's what we're asking for. There are three parts as you all know more than anyone else to the higher education landscape in Vermont and we all work very well together. We get along, we like each other and we like to help each other. You have UVM which is our flagship institution. You have the state college system and then you have all the 11 which are what left of the private sector. We have to think of these schools too as the businesses in those little towns just like some of our small communities felt the loss of their schools over the last three years. All of these schools are major employers in their area and we have to help them. I'm asking you please give them some support. So we educate over and this is in this memo from Susan and so well-written 14,000 students of which 20% are Vermonters and the rest are coming from all over the United States but many of them stay here. In fact, we have 30,000 alums from our 11 colleges that are residents of Vermont. So many of them fall in love with the state like Jamie and I did when we came as the president and we're staying. And so do they and they start businesses and they hire people and they have a wonderful life here. So it is a very important sector in higher ed and it's the only one that hasn't received any support. There are over 9,000 employees at these 11 schools that is a lot of people. The salaries and wage base is over $280,000 excuse me, $280 million annually. And when you lump all our institutional expenses that's all the stuff that we buy and the electricity and the wastewater treatments and all the stuff that we buy and services it's over a half a billion dollars industry in our state. Pre COVID, we were the third largest industry in Vermont. I don't know what higher ed is gonna be after we're done with post COVID. But gang, we are very green. We are a clean industry. We're vibrant culturally. We bring so much to our state. We have to keep this sector going and vibrant. It brings up great young people which we need desperately in our state. We are a great employer. All of our schools generally provide healthcare some of our sitting back because of budget problems with retirements but most of them treat our employees very well so that they stay with us cause it's hard to find good faculty members and staffers. So that's kind of like the very high level strategy kind of problem we're in right now. We're all paying a lot of money for testing. Representatives, please know that my goal is to make Vermont the safest place to come to college and we are. We are and it's because of people like Dr. Levine and our governor who have said, listen, we have got to do this right. We made our students pre quarantine for 14 days before they came back to school. We're testing them on day zero. We're testing them on day seven. They are actually as a group when you look at them all together safer and more virus free than Vermont residents. And Dr. Levine has taught us all especially after the last Friday's press conference that there is no risk after those 14 days are over when they're quarantined to all our campuses. They are just like we are just as risky now of course behavior is what's really important here so that they mask and we notice up in Killington not a college party but an adult party. So this is everybody in the pot together. We work on this together but it is working. We have rolled out and started school. We're doing very well although none of us wanted to clear victory yet because we don't want to jinx it. And we want to make sure we can get through another three or four weeks and then I'll be happy to come back to you and give you an update and tell you that yeah we really can declare victory. And now we're just gonna go carefully between now and Thanksgiving. When Thanksgiving happens all the schools have changed their curriculums. We are sending them all home and they're not coming back until the spring because we didn't want to send them home and then start all over again. And Lynn you are absolutely right about being worried about when they were coming in but if we send them home at Thanksgiving and in a week they all come back we have to start the process all over again. It's too expensive. These schools are straining just keeping up with the testing costs. Not to mention all the other costs that we have. Many of us including Norwich for example downsize and took less freshmen that we didn't overpopulate the dorms for example. Other schools are struggling to fill their dorms. You're in a very different place for each of the schools and that's why it's great to have Susan right now helping all of our colleges not just the independent ones although she's speaking today for the independent colleges. We are working together as a group. Sophie's on the line with us and Wendy Koenig is usually on the line with us representing UVM. But I have talked personally to the president at UVM multiple times as we work through the strategies for higher ed. So why don't I stop with that? And Madam Chair I don't know if you wanna have questions for me or you wanna hear from Sophie first and whatever you'd like to do I'm fine with. Kate you're muted. Sorry I didn't have my little button handy. I think we'll hear from Sophie first and then it'll be an opportunity to ask questions. I'm sure there are many there may be a need to interrupt. We will have Steve Klein from the fiscal office to speak to us. We may have to interrupt because I know his time is limited. So Sophie please thank you and welcome. We have not heard from you nor has IT. So this is a thrill thank you. Oh well thank you so much Madam Chair for inviting me and thank you also to my colleagues Susan and Rich for setting up framing our conversation this morning and thank you to the whole committee. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you at this extremely challenging time for the School for International Training or SIT and for all of Vermont's independent colleges due to COVID-19. I'm Dr. Sophia Howlett president of SIT in Brattleborough. SIT was founded in 1964 and is an accredited higher education institution within the not-for-profit world learning which was founded in 1932 and also based in Brattleborough. SIT is an active member of AVIC. According to Vermont's Department of Labor we are the largest vocational and training school in the state. We're the largest institution of higher education in Wyndham County and the sixth largest employer according to think Vermont. We believe in the power of diversity the importance of an intercultural perspective and fostering openness and understanding. Through our graduate institute based in Vermont our semester-long study abroad programs across the world and our certificate programs for professionals SIT prepares students to be effective leaders, professionals and citizens. Unlike some of our fellow AVIC members SIT is a non-traditional higher education institution. Most of our students do not physically reside on our campus and our activities extend from high schoolers all the way through our students' professional careers. However, like all of our fellow members we rely heavily on tuition-based revenue to transform the lives of young Vermonters. Our alumni are community leaders helping each day to make Vermont a better place to live and work. They include Rick Burkfield the co-founder and executive director of Food Connects H.B. Lozito, executive director of Out in the Open which connects and empowers rural LGBTQIA people in Vermont and Stefan Gillan, president and co-founder of the Wyndham County chapter of the NAACP and a member of the governor's racial equity task force. As a landmark and quintessentially Vermont organization dedicated to promoting international education, our business model is in the bullseye of COVID-19. As the pandemic began to spread we found ourselves racing to bring home more than 900 students from 36 countries at an added cost of the organization of over $650,000. SIT is no stranger to world wars, civil wars and natural disasters but COVID-19 has been a truly unprecedented challenge. Financially we worked quickly in March to respond to that challenge stewarding our money effectively to prepare for a difficult fall including participating in the federal payroll protection program. But now here we are in September and as we are all very aware good stewardship and an effective business model has limits in our present context. In fiscal year 2019 our tuition-based revenue was $48.4 million. This fiscal year our expected tuition-based revenue is $3.5 million. A 93% drop in revenue due solely to COVID-19 as we are unable to send young Americans on our transformational programs. SIT's revenue losses have been the highest among AVIC members accounting for roughly a third of the total loss revenue. Our consequent restructuring efforts have directly affected 52 of our Vermont staff and we now have 130 employees based in Vermont supporting our mission and programs. Our combined AVIC revenue losses as Rick mentioned amount to over $144 million. And SIT alone is in need of $5.6 million in relief as this crisis extends towards winter and spring. None of us have been eligible for relief from the state before, despite the serious need. AVIC is requesting $10 million in coronavirus relief funding. Clearly $10 million divided among AVIC's 11 members will not solve all our problems, but it will certainly be critical, especially when combined with our ongoing individual efforts to restructure and cut costs. We all recognize this is a time of extraordinary disruption and transition. It's vital for our survival to adapt. SIT is doing just that and at the same time we are guided by our good neighbor policy. We have reached out to Wyndham County at a time of economic devastation to bring our talents and experience home. We have set up virtual internships and are partnering with the Community College of Vermont, the Brattleboro Development Credit Corporation and others to support workforce development here. We have partnered with state and local officials to provide dormitory space for exposed first responders and frontline health workers and offered backup to the Department of Children and Families for daycare and afterschool services. Even as we struggle with serious revenue losses and remain very concerned about the prospect of further layoffs, we continue to look for ways to help our community, even as we look to you all now for a helping hand. Thank you again for the opportunity to share with your committee a snapshot of how COVID-19 is affecting SIT. And thank you for considering urgently needed relief of $10 million for Vermont's independent colleges. And I'm ready to answer any of your questions. Thank you. Thank you. It was also, I really enjoyed hearing about SIT. What I wanna do is hold questions for a minute because we only have a few minutes with Steve Klein from JFO who was going to kind of give us a context. At the moment we have set aside CRF funds for Vermont state colleges. We have a new request from UVM and we have the request from the independent. So Steve, can you give us a little bit idea of what's happening? This is Steve Klein from Joint Fiscal. And I hesitate to speak for the house appropriations because obviously they're going over the money and they can do whatever they wanna do. There is the state colleges originally were budgeted for 30 million in the governor's budget but they ended up using 24.6 I think it was. The current work sheets of the house appropriations have built in money for the two requests I think you're dealing with, the UVM 11 and the 10 for independent colleges. And I, so what? You said, say that again. What I understand is the current work sheets that we're working on with the house appropriations and they haven't been, nothing's been done but I think we, one of the things we have to deal with is that we were given the government, we had 198 million total for available CRF and the governor didn't do anything for additional money for K through 12 education. So legislature had to make that up and the administration did 133 million for economic development. So I think that the, what we've understood from the conversation between kitty and leadership and all is that they did want us to sort of make room for educational needs. And I think we're currently carrying in our budget 36.2 million for the K through 12 education. And based on sort of the estimates that we've seen and that number has been going up and down I think the last few days and that will get us relatively close. And then as I said, I think at this point we're carrying 10 million and this could change eight to 10 million for the private colleges and I think 11 million for the UBM request are on the worksheet. So I can't tell you it's gonna happen but they've made room and I think it's your, it's up to your community to recommend what you would like to see happen on those but I think it'll be paid attention to. So if we, in our review of this we are not sending a shock wave up to the appropriations committee. No, and I think the material has been, has gone to the chair of appropriation. I think the members probably are aware of a little bit but I think that there's a recognition that the importance of both UBM and the private colleges as economic drivers in the state and that the issues that they're facing and I think the committee has been trying to save room to meet those needs. Thank you. And we thank the committee for that. Yeah. The committee is here. I believe Peter Fagan is in the room. Yeah, and he can, he can, I don't, I haven't talked to him so I don't know whether he can find what I'm saying or how to be sure to talk to him first. Kate, if I may, I haven't seen the worksheet yet. It changes every five minutes. So it's one of those things that we are going to be working on this afternoon. And yes, we will take well into account this committee's decision on both AVIC and the additional request from UVM, please. We also understand that we are sort of the intro level and it will go through a number of stages. So we appreciate the opportunity to weigh in on the value of our independent colleges and university and state colleges in the mix. Okay, so there is money that is available at this point in time that is being held. So I'd like at that point then to open it up to questions from the committee, either for JFO, Appropriations Committee or for the independent colleges. I see Representative Larry Coopley. Thank you, Madam Chair. Representative Fagan, no mention of Vermont State Colleges. Is there money already set aside? Yes, we have been able to build a construct that will allow us to fulfill the bridge funding request if we approve it of $23.8 million. I cannot remember, Steve. We've been voting on so much. We may have approved it, I'm sorry, I don't remember, but of $23.8 million in one-time funds. So that request has been worked on. We figured out a way to do it and I think we'd approved if I remember correctly, sorry. We did recommend support for that. Right, yes you did. And that's not COVID money? No, what we did is realized that there's a lot of both health department and transportation department money that is folks that are doing COVID work, excuse me, and in accordance with the COVID instructions from the federal government, they are doing COVID work. So using those instructions, we scrubbed to both appropriations, pulled out funds and applied COVID money to those appropriations and thus was able to harvest our own state funds for use in the Vermont State Colleges. Thank you. We'll be able to do it on the floor. We've got a chart with about a hundred arrows on it going from Hitler to Dither to Yonah. So it's very, very self-explanatory. Follow the dots. Kathleen James. Yeah, and thank you, Representative Fagan and JFO for being here and using my initial anxiety that we have the ability to even be talking about this. Because I do see the value of the independent colleges, not only educationally, obviously, but as an economic driver for these communities and for our state. I wanted to hear a little bit more, if you don't mind, I understand that you were not able to apply for the CRF grants that we previously made available. I wonder if you could talk just a little bit about how you plan to equitably distribute the money to account for the fact that I'm sure some of your members have probably been able to pull down PPP loans or tap into fundraising networks. The colleges on the list have very differing abilities, I think, to raise money or bring in money. It's a very disparate list of members. And I'm just wondering how you will determine how you distribute that money fairly. Thank you for that question. And we haven't had an in-depth conversation about that, but we may look at each institution's financial loss and base that proportionally, but we definitely wanna do it equitably. We know that some institutions are doing better than others. So that is why I did put in the request that the AVIC membership get to discuss this and decide altogether as to what the best distribution is. Can you remind us if there are other independent colleges in the state that are not members of AVIC anymore? There are, well, the Albany College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences is not a member now, but they are not chartered in Vermont, they're chartered in New York. The Center for Cartoon Studies is not accredited. So the way to award any funding would be for institutions that are chartered in Vermont and accredited, and that would include all of the AVIC members. Also, Springfield College has a branch here, so there's some outliers like that that are not chartered in Vermont, but will be not accredited. Okay, so I see that we have our alleged counsel in the room to make sure that that is addressed. Other questions? I want to thank you and I want to thank you for the efforts that I'm hearing, at least Norwich is making in terms of the degree of testing to protect our communities. It's really great to know that people are coming in and are staying healthy, so it's likely if they become ill, it's because of someone they were in contact here versus bringing it in to the state. And I appreciate you continuing to monitor that and we recognize the expense of it. So Susan Stitely, in looking at your list, you've come up with some numbers related to $10 million of funding that are COVID-related, such as reduced tuition, quarantining, PPE, supplies, technology, remote instruction, and where did those numbers come from? Well, they came from sort of below with the losses and looking at where the need is the greatest. I mean, ideally I would ask that the 10 million be given without specific categories that we have to just spend it on and that we can decide where it goes to and what institutions, what their need actually is. But those were the ones that where everybody was up almost everyone was having COVID losses. So trying to put that in an equitable place. Okay, so you haven't actually gone out and had each of the institutions send you a summary? I have gotten some information on where their losses are. So these seem the most reasonable, but ideally depending on each institution is so different, which is why if we can just distribute it and of course track it based on institutions that where their need is the greatest. So we'd Austin. Just to clarify, I thought tuition reimbursement did not fall under what the CRF funds could be used for to replace revenue. Is that correct, Steve Klein in the room? Yeah, I'm sorry, I just went to dark. This is a good question. And I think Jim may have his own view of this. In the context of state schools, it would be, there's an argument that would be plausible because they're not the state itself. But I think we felt very much that there's a risk if you were to use it for state schools. It gets a little grayer as you move to private schools because they're not state entities. But yeah, I think that's going to be in the gray area. Jim can sort of talk more about that than using it for testing for all different types of other costs. So I think that given that the total needs of the schools are projected are way in excess of the $10 million they've requested, they will probably have to work with the executive branch on where they use that money and what are the barriers that they use it for? They're at least gray. So, and it seems there'll be room in there to figure out how to use it successfully. Jim, Jim Ray, did you have? Well, not much more to add. I think Steve's absolutely correct on that. And I think from a legal standpoint, there are reasonable arguments to make that use of CR funds for a lot of student enrollment or disenrollment is ineligible cost. So I'm not saying it's clear cut, but there are good arguments to support it. Kate? Yes. Kate, I don't see it as a problem at all because if you look down at this next box on their presentation, they have an FY20 room and board refunds and evacuations from abroad, totaling $19,648,000. All of that is covered under COVID. So we have no issue whatsoever with this 10-month. I would say the representative's correct. There were so many things on the list that are coverable that I don't think you'll have to go to the revenue issue. No problem. Thank you. I imagine they could find a way to spend all of this legitimately. So Steve Klein, I believe we, maybe Phil, you could bring up the memo from UVM from August 25th. Actually, Kate, I just sent him one that you and I just received from Wendy Koenig that I am able to open. So I'm going to assume he can as well. I'm going to preempt that for just one quick second here. I just looking to the committee, are we comfortable in continuing with this recommendation to provide these funds? I'm seeing heads nodding. Yep. Yep. I'm seeing no one saying no at the moment. So I will be prepared then to write to the committee for the independent policies for the 10 million. Okay. Thank you very much committee. And we thank you very much independent colleges. You give Vermont a good name. And we appreciate the kind of employment that you bring to the state as well. Thank you for your work. Thanks everyone. Thank you. Stay safe. Stay well. So we've got the document from UVM. And this is the updated one, correct Peter Fagan? If he would scan down a little bit, I'll know in a minute. This is updated. Yes. So the only change from this document, please go back to where I said this is updated. You'll see the additional highlighted just above projected FY 21 that says additional financial aid need for academic year, this academic year as of a couple of days ago, $11 million. So this is for students that are coming in demonstrating greater need to be able to actually go to go to school this year. And this is the request from that. The legislative liaison, Wendy Koenig is headed to Ohio because of an issue and she's unable to join us today. I don't know a whole lot more about it than that other than as I said, they have a demonstrated greater need for financial aid for this current semester than they anticipated. And that's it. Everything else on these forms are the same. Okay, great. I was just trying to write to Susan Stitely that what I was trying to do was get a sense of the numbers in terms of the colleges. And I know that I've seen it for some reason I'm thinking it's in the 20,000 but I'm not sure, unfortunately, I can't remember that. So I'm looking at UVM 11,000 and I'm looking at 11 colleges, 10,000 million and just trying to sort that out. Unfortunately, Wendy can't be here. And I wish I could provide more input. I don't have any more. It was a very brief and unfortunate from her side hectic conversation. I don't know what's going on, but yeah. This is the introductory level of where our committee sees the value of education as being an important part of our whole state economy and culture. And obviously these numbers will be ripped apart by a few other committees and groups. Any questions on this at this point? Larry? Yeah, I think Sarita had a question is basically what's the total request from UVM? They have two different requests there but I think that we're just looking at what they were interested in for the first semester. That's correct. So everything else on this list, the total that's just above the 11 million has already been provided. That was actually in the Q1 budget. The 11 million was unanticipated at the time. If you remember when we did the Q1 budget they had said that they were going to have to address the financial needs for their incoming students but they were unsure as to how large it might be. Well, this is how large it is. And so that's the reason why they are asking for these funds. And remember, they have also said that they are holding the line on tuition. It's not going up. The president believes strongly in providing an affordable education and he needs to fill a very large hole because of that. And one of the ways that he would do it would be by this request. Thank you. And I did just answer my own question. I found a document, an earlier document from AVID that included enrollment numbers not including SIT in 2018, it was about 23,000. Helpful, thank you. Yeah, I can get an update on that. Dylan, Jean Batista. Yeah, thanks. And thanks for the overview here. And Peter, thank you for being here and working through this with us. I just want to say that normally I would be the person to get on my soapbox when we have a presentation from the independent colleges and the public colleges where there is need. And I'd be the first to say public colleges, that is our priority. But I just want to call attention to the fact that I think that given if you look at the line items here and the focus on human health and the public health response that we need to ensure is successful for our state as we work through COVID-19, I think that these are very worthwhile and necessary pieces for us to fund moving forward. So I just want to put that out there that while I will be the first advocate next year advocating exclusively for public higher education, in this case, I think anywhere be it private or public where we have human health COVID-19 related expenses, our first priority should be to help. And that means finding to the greatest extent possible the ability to move money. So I'm very supportive of what our institutions need whether it be UVM, the Vermont State Colleges or privates in this moment. And so I just want to set the table with that and share my feedback. I think it's very important that we move this along. Thank you, Dylan. Serena Austin. Yeah, just what was the first appropriation to UVM and then add on to this, the 11 million, what would the total be? Just so I can get a sense of, thank you. Yep, their first appropriation was back in the BAA2 and it total almost $8.7 million in BAA2, all COVID funds. And it was for things like parking permit refunds and room refunds and PPE and cleaning, et cetera. The budget for Q1 included $17.3 million of funding for UVM all due to COVID, testing, supplies, staffing to support instruction, the hardware, software for remote instruction, et cetera. It also included $2 million for the office of engagement at UVM. And this is a group that will help Vermont have a, I liken it to having a true front door where every query, either by a student statewide, any college who's looking for an internship or a business or an entity that's looking to move here or expand here or whatever can go there and they will receive help. So it is an exciting standup of an institution that will, again, help Vermont move forward and help our students do something that maybe they wouldn't have had access to before simply because they didn't know where it was. That came forward with a new president, I believe. That's correct. He opened that out, he ran one at Purdue and so he brought the concept here with him and he ran it successfully at Purdue. So his name is out there already and that's the other reason why I felt it important to if he wanted to lead, to let him lead. So total of 19.355 million in the Q1 budget for UVM. Now that does not include their normal budget of off the top of my head, I'm gonna say 42 million and that hasn't changed in 10 years. Could you scroll down a little bit, Phil? So I'm just looking at 8.211 and 19, 20 around 38 million. Is that correct? 17, 25, 36, 30, yeah, all directly COVID related, 36, 37 somewhere around in there, you're correct. Thank you. You're welcome. And their current request is more than 11, the current request is more like 21, well, something like that. But any rate there, we're looking at just what could be spent with CRF funds, which ends on the 30th, so it would be 11 million. Correct. Larry, do you still have something? Can I see your blue hand up? No, I'm fine, Kate. Yeah, okay, can we go back, remove the document? So Madam Chair, if I may make a request, please, I would be more than happy to report back the results of a straw poll of your committee so that I can get back into House of Appropriations. We're making dollar decisions as I speak. Yes. But I felt it more important to be here, but I was hoping that I could move along, if you will. So we already have a nod to independent colleges. And I didn't actually take a vote, but I had no nose, let me put it that way. And I am now asking about the 11 million for UVM. Is there anybody that's a no on that? Let me just see you shake your head. Who can't I see? Okay, now let's see really happy faces saying yes. Go for it. There we go. Okay, that's one happy group. So I would say then that the committee supports the 10 million request for the independent colleges and supports the UVM's request for 11 million. I think we just wanna make sure that there's language that puts it back if it's unspent. And as well as making sure that it's the colleges that are chartered in Vermont. Yes. Correct. Yes, chartered in Vermont. And the other one, we're gonna do that as a lump. In other words, if money is not spent by a certain date, we're going to be pulling it back. Right now, we're looking at adding money to help people. It's not food stamps anymore. It's I can't remember the name. It's program. At any rate, that's what we're looking at, but that's the intent. So yes, that will be part of it. Chartered in Vermont, thank you. Great point. That'll be in there. Is that the people? I mean Albany is it's pharmacy school is pretty great. I don't know what to say. Larry. Does don't they have a campus in Williston or Burlington? Albany Pharmaceutical Chester. I think yeah. Chester. Does that show a wrench in there? There's still not chartered in Vermont, right? They're not chartered. Okay. Jim Demerick, could you take a look at that? But I think in the meantime, Peter, you have numbers. Okay. And Serita Austin. Yeah, just like, I guess I just want to ask Peter in terms of, I'm trying to get a sense of, in terms of fairness, in terms of what the Vermont State Colleges are receiving and what UVM is receiving. I'm not clear about the total number of students in the Vermont State College system versus UVM, but I just want to, I just want to get a sense that it's fair that people will perceive it as fair in terms of what they're getting. Well, I think one of the, and I don't know the numbers either, and Representative Gian Battista might be able to help, but you have to remember the geographic spread of the Vermont State College system is enormous, whereas UVM is pretty much cloistered in one area within Burlington, and it makes it a whole lot easier to do a lot of things with one person versus the Vermont State Colleges have five or six CCB campuses along with the four other campuses. So there's just because of the geographic spread, you have additional costs involved with the Vermont State College system. I wish I could, you know, I, as I said, I don't know the numbers of the students, but I've always looked at it in that way. You know, you have to be cognizant of where they serve and how many, not just how many. Okay, I guess I have to deal with the challenge of isolating in a more dense population as it is in Burlington. Okay, thank you very much. We'll get, I'll send you an email, but I think you've got this, so if you need more. I'll be in touch, but thank you very much. Okay, thank you. Take care, and thanks to the committee. Thank you. Thank you. So, okay, so we just spent $21 million, that was good. We can do that quickly. I want to now bring back the miscellaneous Ed Bell and see if we can finish that up. And I think, is Chip in the room now? Did Chip join us? Well, he's supposed to. I think he's going to be joining us soon. I know Phil, he was looking for another, he couldn't find the invite. So. I will send him another. Thank you. Okay, this is 4.2 of the draft, and it's easier. I personally always prefer to look at it on another screen rather than trying to see this, but there it is. This is going to be familiar language. So if we could, I think if we could just sort of hit that the new areas, I think we've already agreed on section one, for example. Let me start with the appropriation sections because they may be more important to you over. Yeah. Maybe, okay. So Phil, if you could just hold on to section seven. Oh, six, sorry, six, sorry. Right here, Phil, sorry, back up to six, okay. Okay, so six, seven and eight are the appropriations language in this bill. We talked about this survey. Section six is the one that allows for the money that had been allocated to similar meal programs to be reallocated if they weren't spent for equipment and supplies, vehicles, et cetera, to support the provision of meals. That's what that's doing. Chaining since you saw last is just, last year after the last seven and eight cross-referenced section 50 of Act 120, which had a $41 million appropriation for K through 12 or pre-K through 12. As amended by this act, actually the appropriation is $68,000. So we just updated that number to reflect what's happening in the next section. It's going to change there. If you go down to sub C, this is new language in green. And this is just language that allows if the $4 million isn't spent by December 30th allows it might be reallocated for other needs of pre-K through 12. Okay, that's all that's doing. Section seven and eight are amending Act 120. So Act 120 had the appropriation for K through 12 of independent schools, et cetera. Now we're amending that to increase the appropriations we talked about yesterday. So we're another 32 million is being appropriated on line 12. And then again, this real lines 18 and below are reallocation funding between public schools, independent schools, et cetera, if there's money still available and spent. If you go on further, the amount of efficiency of Vermont is increasing from 6.5 million to 11.5 million. The amount of public schools is increasing from 41 million to 68 million. And then I put in here and took out earlier in this bill, the reference to these three regional career tech centers. So with this as it says that those three tech centers are defined as basically school districts. So there would be always would get this 68 million dollars in funding just like any of the school district would be. And then we scroll on further, so in-pat school is still 1.5 million or change, accounting and technical one million or change from before. Section eight we've been to before just to remind you though, this is amending a different act, not that Q and budget, but the reference to the business to Vermont was in a different bill. I'm sorry, no, I'm confusing myself. This is amending, sorry, act 120 again, section eight 51, the amount of appropriation going to 15 Vermont is increasing from 6.5 to 11.5 as reflected in the previous section. So this is just fixing across reference. So this is all the enabling language that goes with the work that we did the other day looking at the information from JFO. Yeah, this is the budget language, yeah. The other thing is above this for policy matters. There was an option actual, these two sections and other minor sections. This is the minor section. We'll get to the other sections shortly, but these are these sections. So if you have questions about the earlier sections, we'll wait on that. I think there is one question at the moment related to it's on in section, it's on the one related to the independent tech centers. Yeah, go up to the yellow language if you would on the previous page, right, yeah, right here. So I've since had some conversations about this and I talked with JFO about this as well. And I also even checked in the other day, the secretary was saying that there's going to be some gears money available for that. That is the governor's education emergency relief fund that he had intended to actually give to the tech centers and I verified that I did have a text with Adam Grashen who verified that that was indeed the plan. So I wanted to check with Mark to kind of help us understand this implication, what your understanding of this is. And then Kathleen, I'll get to you. Hey, good afternoon, everybody. I guess we're thinking at this point that this section is not going to be necessary. If these three independent schools received this $4.4 million grant from the governor of this gear money, they would, that money comes with basically no strings attached. If this language was included, they would also be able to then participate in drawing down some of the money that you've appropriated for K through 12 districts for CRF eligible costs already. And it's looking like the demand for that money is getting up there, at least to the point where you've appropriated money. So in effect, these career centers might be able to basically double dip, get this money from the governor's office, the $4.4 million, and then also draw down some of the money that you have appropriated for K through 12 districts. So that's really all I had to add on this. I think that these districts are covered. I know that they were inadvertently, they were inadvertently excluded when the Q1 budget was passed with the $50 million appropriation for K through 12. But if the administration is going to use this $4.4 million, I think that's probably a more generous allocation to them than your regular K through 12 schools will have. Okay, thank you. Questions on that? Kathleen James. Yeah, thanks, Kate. I just, I'm not the right one to sort out the question that I just received, but I just wanted to make sure that you, Kate, and Jim, and Mark, I just forwarded you all an email from the tech centers and from Jeff Francis. And so I guess if Jeff were here, he would be raising this question to you. And so if you could read it and just confirm for me, I've just been in touch with Southwest Tech. Can you tell us what it says? Yeah. What the concern is? Yep. It just says, I've been in communications with Scott Farr, who is the superintendent director for the River Valley Technical Center School District. And he's been in touch with Southwest Tech and the other, and Hannaford. They wanna be sure the technical center districts are eligible for CARES funding. They were challenged to follow the discussion yesterday over section two and where that was headed. It's clear the intention of the committee is to make the technical center districts eligible for funding, but the method for doing so became less clear. I wanna flag this as a key interest for those districts and make sure these districts have both CFR and ESSER eligibility. I'm not sure what the specific plan is for Governor Scott's use of the gear funds. In all likelihood, the needs of the tech center districts will be somewhat different from the needs of the CTE centers that are associated with the pre-K to grade 12 districts. They also had some concerns about ADM. So I just wanna make sure that before we move this bill along, that everybody who's, you know, writing this legislation has had a chance to read those concerns and just make sure we're following up. The ESSER funds, that's in a different pile of funds, correct? Yeah. Would they have access to that, Mark, do you know? I don't know that, I'll check. I don't know if they would be eligible. Okay, so now that I've passed that along to the attorneys and the experts, I will mute myself and just make sure, I just wanna make sure that this legislation is in line with our intent here. So my understanding is that other than the three independent tech centers, they are eligible under the language you've already passed for sharing in some of the CRF money. It's only the three independent centers that were excluded. And those are the centers that I think are going to be receiving gear money from the governor's office. So... And that was what you said that there are concerns about not being eligible for... Of course you freeze now. Sorry. Oops, you're frozen, Kathleen. Thoughts, Mark? Jim may wanna weigh in on this, tell you a question about my understanding again is that other than the independent... TRF money, yes. Okay, Kathleen, you bleeped out for quite a bit in there. But anyway, I'm going up to Mark and Jim to see how we deal with it. Oops, locked up again. Again, my understanding is that other than the three independent technical centers, technical centers are eligible for CRF money. Yes. Her interest, she is focusing on the three. Yes, so the three that were not eligible under the original language that was passed in the Q1 budget, those three districts were not eligible, but they are going to be receiving money from the governor's office, the $4.4 million that's available and then governor's emergency education relief fund. So that would be actually more than they would be getting through. You know, it could be districts are eligible to apply for reimbursement for whatever their CRF eligible costs are. So, you know, it's gonna vary for a district, but $4.4 million for three districts is probably more than... So the CRF, the CRF in eligibility is gonna be more weighed by their eligibility for year. Can you say that again, Kathleen? Don, sorry, I don't know what's happening to my internet. So the fact that they are ineligible for CRF is gonna be more than compensated for by their eligibility for year. I don't know if it'll be more than compensated for it because every district can apply for all of their CRF eligible costs for reimbursement. If the money that's appropriated isn't sufficient, it gets prorated, but $4.4 million for three independent schools. I can check and see how many students there are in those schools, but it seems like it should be adequate to meet their needs, yeah. So you're standing as the 4.4 goes solely for the independence. I can check on that. That was my understanding because the other technical centers are prior school districts that are eligible for applying for CRF eligible costs for reimbursement. Okay, thanks, Mark. I'll double check on that right now while you're moving on. Thank you. One of the challenges that we have with the current language, if we keep it, is that it's coming out of the pre-K-12 as opposed to coming out of the independent colleges, excuse me, independent schools. So in reality, these independent schools, tech centers, we had considered being in the independent school group where it was factored by per pupil expense. We have that limited right now to 1.5 million, which means it's gonna need to be some a little bit of complicated math in figuring out how we address that if we were to leave this in. I could just maybe address the question similar to Mark. I don't have the actual figures, of course, but just by way of math, if you take this, we have an appropriation in this bill, $68 million for K-12, K-12. I believe we have 116 school districts, am I right? So that's about 706,000, I believe, per school district. Just by way of an average. And you have three tech centers with 4.4 million, so that's 1.4 each. So the gears of money on that basis, at least by simple math, sounds quite generous for the tech centers compared to the school districts. But as Mark said, it's based on actual expenses and submissions and everything, so. And the independent tech centers actually should be figured on the number of students who are on public, who are public students as opposed to independent or private dollars. Thoughts, why don't we take the document down? So let's just review our options at the moment. Option one is we take it out, and if it doesn't appear, someone else will pick it up. I'm pretty sure that they will advocate. Option two is we leave it in and let them know that this is a problem with the concern that they can double dip if someone doesn't keep track of it. I mean, once it's out of our hands, it's out of our hands. I don't see the third option. One of the other, I guess the third option is we would put it into the independent school language where it's per public school employee. So thoughts, recommendations. I'm personally inclined to take it out and personally inclined to take it out and just put them on notice. Oh, but I see Sarita and Larry. Yeah, Sarita? Yep, just to clarify, is it already appropriated in the governor's gears budget? He's got his own money. He can spend it any way he wants. So he's got that money. It's specifically for education and he's currently planning on spending it on tech. Yeah, I would support taking it out. Lynn would support taking it out. Larry, you wanna say something? I would certainly support taking it out as well. I'm almost certain that they'll receive funding from the governor's dollars, I'm almost certain of it. Kathleen? So if we take it out, then we rely on the governor to appropriate gear funding or designate gear funding. If we leave it in, there could be the risk of the double debt, is that following that? Okay. And I'm imagining that they're gonna be advocating along the way and again, I did have a text from Adam Gresh and saying that that was the intent. Madam Chair, can I just jump in? Yes, please. I just got off the phone with Candice Elmquist from Finance and Management and she thinks that the way that the administration is pursuing the use of that gear money, it would be broader than just the three tech centers. So I misspoke, it would not be limited to the three tech centers that were excluded. It would include all the tech centers plus some other schools, I think based on the language that you write to me. So there's still the issue of double dipping where they can apply for gear money and they can also apply for CRF money. But they would have to go through a grant application process for the gear money the same as they would have to go through the CRF funds. So I know that maybe you throw some monkey wrench into this discussion, but I wanted to make sure I got that straight. And we're in the 11th hour. Mary. Yeah, I think, Mark, thank you for that clarification. I think that's very important. And as much as that money would be distributed to all of the tech centers there could be, I guess at that point I would be in favor of leaving it in. And I mean, that's a big change. I'm not sure what they'll need, but if it's going to be distributed throughout all the tech centers then I would like to see that language left in. How complicated is it to move it to the independent school section as opposed to the definition of an independent school that's tied to independent school versus- The drafting standpoint is easy to move. American just include it there, but the sum for 1.5 million for independent schools is based upon a metric of the times of amount. So that might have to increase if you move these three into that bucket. Right. Kathleen. Couple of things about the double dipping thought would these applications not all be going through AOE who would presumably keep an eye out on that? I guess that's one thought question, hope. One, two, if we, I think if we move it into the independent schools section, that's one, it is complicated. And two, that total pot of money is only 1.5 million, right? That's not a big pot of money. And three, I think in my conversations with Mike Lawler at Southwest Tech, I think he said that he had mentioned that the deadline for CF funding was September, it's already gone by. So we might need to do another fix if these schools are gonna apply for this money. Mark. That's a good point that hadn't occurred to me that the deadline for applying for this money is already passed. So to the extent that these independent tech sectors haven't applied for it, the window may have closed. So, but again, in terms of the double dipping question, the gear money is very flexible. It's the governor has complete discretion as to how to allocate that money. It didn't even have to go through the joint fiscal committee. The CRF money on the other hand has to be appropriated and there are a lot of constraints around its use and timing. So I'm not sure how that would all sugar up, but it would be out of your hands. It would be up to the administration at that point. So at this point, they don't even have the ability to apply for it anyway. Is that what you say? Well, I don't know if they have applied. I don't think that they have because they were being eligible under the original language. And the deadline for the application was September 2nd, which was yesterday. So you don't know. In terms of the independent school, if the appropriation, the $1.5 million appropriation was $422 per student. Right. So if you wanted to bump that up to include tech centers, like we could figure out how many students are in the independent tech centers and bump that number up a little bit, but we're running out of Sierra money quickly. And we're running out of time. I mean, I have to get up to appropriations today. I think we need, I think we need some protections for these independent tech centers somehow. Serena? Yeah. Is there any way we can appropriate it and then hold it to see how things pan out and if they don't? We're passing on a recommendation. That's all we're doing. That's our control disappears. We're passing on a recommendation. I'm seeing just a couple of other people in the room just looking to see if you have a recommendation here. Dylan or Jay or Casey or Caleb. Chip Conquest, do you have something that you- I mean, I would just say that I do want to provide some certainty. We're early in the process. So I think that we should try to be as comprehensive as possible if we don't have entire clarity about how the other piece would work with the governor's office. So I just think at this stage of the game, probably more is better just to be safe and then they can narrow it down as needed if they get additional information in the next week or so. So this is where it gets tricky because the application deadline for all of the money, even the money that you have, the additional money that you appropriate or will appropriate on top of the $50 million that was appropriated in the Q1 budget, the deadline for that, for applying for that money has passed. So it would require, I think it would require changing, allowing these schools to come in and apply after the September 2nd deadline if they were going to be able to participate in the application process for reimbursement of Sierra Ape eligible money. So the gear money, that's not an issue because that can go out whenever the governor's office wants to send it out. Do we have that option as a committee to put that in legislation or? I don't know. Chip Conquest, any recommendations for us in the process of this? No, I have no recommendations. And I'm really here just to try to get up the speed on what the issue is and where you all might be going. So I don't know how the original money, how the application process and the application deadline was established, but if it was legislatively, we can always change that. If it was done sort of administratively by the agency, I don't know why they wouldn't be, well, I shouldn't say that, I don't know, but you can always ask them to change the application deadline. It was done administratively. So now I'm seeing two options. One, leave it as it is and tell appropriations you have work to do. We take it out and say appropriations or the Senate, when more is known, you decide how to deal with it. So if you take it out, they would be limited to participating in the gear fund distribution. If you leave it in, you've got the issue of the application deadline. Okay, let me try this. We take it out and tell them they need to lobby the governor. Is there any thought on that one? Who thinks that's an option they would consider? Take it out and go back to them and tell them you should lobby the governor. Not good. So you're now, I see one hand up saying good. I just put my hand up to speak if I'm allowed. Oh, okay, yes, please, stay. What are our alternative options to that? Options are we do nothing and we tell appropriations here, here's all of this organized, here's your problem. Option two is we take it out, which would leave it to the tech centers to lobby the governor for money that they could get because at the moment, it doesn't look like they could get it anyway unless there's a whole rigmarole of changing that. Option three is we try to put it under the independent colleges, I mean, independent school appropriation, which means we have to go back and look at the 1.5, which we're truly out of time to do. So option to say, leave it as it is until appropriations, you have a problem. Chip, how does that sound to you? Terrible. That's what I was thinking. Your guidance on this, but maybe I have a question for Mark. This is a separate appropriation of CRF money. Yes. Can't it come with some direction about how it's to be spent, including essentially telling the agency that they have to establish an application program for getting this money out to, I don't know if it's, if you're talking about money that's limited to the independent tech centers, but can't we just pass this appropriation with that stipulation that the agency of education shall create up and administer a program with a dead application deadline that is sometime in the future? I think for most schools, if they were aware of the application deadline on the second, it's possible and Jim may wanna weigh in. I mean, it may be possible to tell the agency that they have to allow these additional three districts to apply even though they, even though it's past the deadline. But if this is a new appropriation, so we appropriated the 50 million for a number of purposes, we're now appropriating CRF money under a new appropriation within the budget. Within the money. It's a matter of saying, telling the agency that this money comes as, and they are to establish a program to get it out. I guess, so I mean, they're operating into the assumption that school districts are gonna get reimbursed for any CRF eligible costs that they've expended money for. And what you've done is you've added more money to the initial $50 million appropriation because we've determined that $50 million is not nearly enough to cover their costs. But I still think, sure, because it was administratively determined deadline for the application process, I assume that AOE could, because it's only three independent tech centers, AOE could open up to process those three districts to allow them to apply as well. Okay, that's helpful. I didn't realize that we're just essentially adding to that existing pool of money. Yeah, I think the way it's strapped is you're just going back into the original language that was passed in the quarter one budget, section 50 and just adding additional money for that appropriation. And is the, and this is for Kate, I guess, is the agency resistant to the idea of extending the deadline? I mean, that would be the simplest. I can get on the phone right now to see if I can reach somebody over there and call if you want. But that's not a question I can answer. Yeah, good luck. Do you want me to see if I can reach Bill? Please do, yeah. All right, let me jump off and I'll open. It could be a quick call. Yeah. I think they would prefer just to do the gear thing, but... That's the simple route. That also may not satisfy the monetary need for any of the tech centers if it's going to be split between all of them. Right, and I'm, I don't know if this is accurate, but in an email I've just received from Superintendent Lawler, he said that his understanding anyway, that is that the gear money is going to be, he said, tied to components of high quality CTE instruction like simulator labs, high end equipment and not earmarked for reimbursement of items like under the CRF. I don't know if that's accurate. He's just, it just sounds like they prefer the CRF funding. I don't know. I'm just the messenger here. Anybody else? Lawler says, if you keep this language here if the discussion you just had, I would add a sentence that says, the agency of education shall establish a process for regional career technical center school districts to apply for and receive this funding. That sounds good. Does it need to say independent? I... He'll do the language. Okay. And are we, is it coming out of the pre-K-12 or is it coming out of the independent schools? Our draft is coming out of the public schools. And to try to move that is complicated, isn't it? And we don't have anybody from the tech centers here. And Caleb. Yeah, a question for Jim. Can you try to understand application deadlines aside and the reason, my understanding was the reason these independent centers couldn't access the money to begin with it because they are not an LEA. I thought that's what the secretary... No. Is that a separate issue? I don't quite see how we're getting around that problem. The problem is in 2016, the definition of school district is very broad. So it includes town school districts, uni school districts, interstate school districts, state school districts, unified school districts, and corporate school districts. But for some reason, it does not include these independent career technical centers. That's right. So by impending our state definition, we do it and it's not somehow... There's not a federal designation that's still standing in the way of eligibility for CRF. Like having cleared the obstacle at the state level, that's it. Yeah, I think basically we have a differential problem because we always see school districts in language, but that actually excludes the three... These three independent tech centers. So this is just as I picked those three up. There's no federal issue with using money if you're funding for these school districts. That's fine. It's only a question of whether you want to include them. Yeah. I guess I'd just say for my part, I think we leave this language in and the reason is, like Dylan said before, maximum flexibility. I don't really see it downside. And I think that we need to put more money in the whole pot, but I think if we determine that we've cleared a Vermont definition problem with our language here and that... But for that, these institutions would have been able to apply before the deadline. I would hope that the agency can make an administrative accommodation. I think it's too late to include a requirement for that accommodation in the bill because we have not testimony and we're thinking of this at the last possible minute. But I don't see any harm in including this. So for what my opinion's worth, I say, let's keep it. Jim? Just in terms of a response to Caleb. It's really a policy question. Whether you keep it. Will you just restate? I'm sorry, I was still distracted by the phone. Will you restate the policy direction that you're considering? The policy that you... Yes, to you, Caleb. I'm just saying, I think we keep this language where it is because I don't see the harm. Whereas if we strike it, the possibility that an administrative accommodation could be made by the agency will not exist. So we keep the language and put in administrative accommodation. We direct the agency to set up a process. Well, I did say that I felt it's too late to direct the agency since we don't have any ability to take testimony and we know about the capacity issues. But I would say that retaining the possibility and hoping for an agency response is better than not having that possibility. We might have to go on the floor. I can't remember if it's a long floor or not. I think it was not. Is that correct? Two o'clock. I think short. It's supposed to be short. Yeah. Brief was the word. Better go. I wonder if we can come back. Phil, do you know if we could come back? I presume so. I would probably reach out to Peggy Delaney and Mike Ferrant and maybe Catherine Lavasseur and... And it's possible but that by then we could get somebody from the agency. Ann, who else do we need? All right. I think we are gonna have to end. And I will see if we can come back after floor, after a bunch of announcements. Sorry. That would require creating a new meeting. So someone needs to reach out to me to let me know. Okay. Thank you. All right. Okay. I'm leaving. Thank you. Yeah, we'll see you on the floor, folks. All right. See you in a little...