 afternoon meeting of the House Appropriations Committee on Wednesday, August 19th. Our chair, Kitty Toll, will be joining us very shortly, but in the meantime, we wanted to get started. Joining us this afternoon is the House Institutions and Corrections Committee because we're taking testimony from the Department of Buildings and General Services, and so we're delighted to have House Institutions and Corrections and BGS with us. And what I think I'd like to do is go quickly to the commissioner, but before I do, Representative Emmons, I wonder if you have any remarks that you would like to make before we begin our testimony. Well, I hadn't really thought of anything, but I would like to welcome BGS at the table. I know that there's going to be some changes at the BGS at the end of this week, so I'd like to wish Commissioner Cole the best of luck and enjoyment on his, because I'm not going to call it retirement, because I don't think you're going to fully retire. I'm retiring from state service. Yes, yes, but I hope that it's a good venture for you, and you will be missed, and good luck, and I know the committee wishes you the best. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I enjoyed my 10 years working for the executive branch, and thereby working with you all at the legislature to move public policy forward under two different governors, and a variety of different policy, especially when it comes to BGS, which is more of the potpourri of state government, where all the loose ends gather, and I've really enjoyed working with you all throughout the years, and I'm looking to finishing up this week, so I can move on to a new chapter in my own professional life, whatever it may be. Great. Thank you, Chris. And also, I just want to let folks know that BGS is always under the radar. We never think, many people think, well, it only takes care of our buildings, it only takes care of mowing the lawns, that type of thing. And if we did not have the Department of Buildings and General Services, we would not be able to function as state government. They are the department that ensures that our employees have a safe work environment, and that we can carry out the duties of state government. So, and I just want to acknowledge that for BGS, that they are such an integral department, and they always go under the radar, and no one thinks of them as being integral to the work of state government and providing services to homeowners. So, back to you, Mary. Yeah, thank you. And so Commissioner, before we let you go ahead with your testimony, I want to remind the committees that what we're going to hear is a budget presentation for the full year. The documents that we're working from will be what was originally presented by the governor back in another life in January, as I understand it. And while we passed a quarter year budget just a few weeks ago, what we're going to hear about today is the full year budget and what we did earlier has been incorporated into this. So, what is up for consideration is the full FY21 budget, not a three quarter year budget. And I thought, yeah, I see Kitty back, but I think she, we've done introductions, et cetera Kitty, and I think we're ready to turn it over to the commissioner. Thanks. Thank you, Mary. And I apologize for, I have a daughter getting ready to leave for school, so I don't want to talk about the chaos in my house right now on YouTube, but these are a little high right now getting ready to drive to Michigan. So, put my mind at ease, Chris. There will be some rest areas available to you in the state of Vermont as you begin your journey. Thank you. I'd like to, for the record, Chris Cole, commissioner of Vermont State Department of Buildings and General Services, and I'd like to take this opportunity to introduce various staff who are here on the call. Some I can see, some I can't. Jennifer Fitch, who is the deputy commissioner of BGS, and you have seen her on some occasions, she will be acting commissioner starting Saturday, not Monday, Saturday. Welcome, Jennifer. Welcome. Thank you very much. Jennifer, if you don't know, was a rising young star at VTRANS as a project manager in the Accelerator Bridge program. I recruited her to be the deputy based on my previous work experience with her. She has exceeded my expectations in terms of coming up to speed and managing a complex department of BGS, and she will excel in her new role as acting commissioner. Eric Philcorn, principal assistant to the commissioner's office is on the call. You're all familiar with Eric. Jason Penard, who is a financial analyst for AOA financial services, he prepares half of our budget, and it's divided up by programs, appropriation lines. He has some of the bigger ones. Sean Benham. I don't see his name, but I think he's on the call as well. He's got the other half of our budget. Director of AOA financial services, Holly Anderson is also on the call, and I apologize if I have missed anybody from either BGS. Marco Grady may be on the call. I'm not sure. I can't see everybody's names. But if we want to go ahead, Theresa, and put up the document, I can start taking the committee through our proposed budget. Oh, I got to move my little thingy. Let's see. Try it over there. Where do you want to go? We'll start up at the top. I'm just trying to figure out how to put my little box. There we go. Up at the top, this is the administration. This is the commissioner's office. You're going to see that we had budget targets of a 3% reduction for general fund or transportation funded programs in the department or a 5% reduction in ISF funds. And I will go through each of the appropriations by program and show you where we made reductions when we could to meet those targets. For the first appropriation, which is the commissioner's office, there are really no opportunities for cuts because it's really just salaries or very, very few, if any, operating expenses in this program. And so there's just really no budget change for this program, although it probably will accrue some vacancy savings due to my position not being filled for a little bit. So moving on to the next one, engineering. This program is the salaries and benefits of all of our project managers at BGS. And it is funded through the capital bill. And so that bill has already passed. This is the number that was in that bill. So this is the number that goes into the appropriation big bill. The next one is information centers. So this will take a little bit more of an explanation. Oh, I think you went a little too far because this is the copy center and I want to be the one just above it. Oh, keep going up. You're down, Teresa. I think we have. There we go. Yep. That's it. Thank you. So the information centers, the first change is ISF allocation reductions. And these are the big statewide allocations either from ADS or DHR. And this is our share of those reductions for this particular program, reduction and temporary employee expense. We only have half of the centers open. They are using pretty much all of the permanent employees with the exception possibly two. And a couple of temporaries and the rest of these are the savings and hours attributable to temporary employees who are not working in the centers that are currently open. We opened eight centers at hours from 10 in the morning till six at night. Those are the busiest peak travel times. The staffing levels changed to where we've doubled up staff for the duration because of the disinfecting and cleaning enhanced that needs to go on. The savings in this program, you'll see the change in third party services. The next change in order that really just shifts it from one fund to the other fund from the general fund to the T fund. So the savings is about 140,000, which represents our budget target that we needed to bring this program in. We've just reestablished the program about a little over 30 days ago. We're still monitoring the demands placed on the staff and the cleaning and all of the things it takes to operate in compliance with the executive orders for social distancing and limitations on how many people we can have in this space. There's just a little bit more work involved in working with the public to meet those targets. You're going to notice an increase in custodial Portalette cleaning and an increase in Portalette rental. When the rest areas were shut down, we needed to provide services for the truckers who were in essential service in terms of bringing food supplies and other goods to Vermont throughout the pandemic. That is part of our responsibility, the Federal Highway Administration, to ensure that we have facilities that the trucking community can use to either rest or rest room facilities. And Portalettes was the way to deliver that much needed service to those essential workers. And so that's where you see that $180,000 for both of them for this year to maintain that. We have people who still come to rest areas without masks who don't want to wear masks. We don't allow them inside the building. They're free to use the Portalette. So we need to not only maintain a presence at the centers that we did not open, but we still need to maintain a Portalette presence at the centers that we did open. Because we are only open for limited hours, 10 to 6, we do need to have the Portalettes for those that are traveling outside of those hours. Any questions? Alice? I have a question. I have two questions, in fact. On the engineering cost, you said it was $4.1 million. No, it's $4.1 million. We put in not quite $3.8 in the capital bill. So I don't understand why, where that extra money is going to be coming from. We put in $3.735. And you said the $4.1 million is coming from the capital bill for FY21. And I don't believe I've been checking with Catherine, because she's also on here. Because I'm thinking, my mind said it was closer to 3.8. So I would question that one. Yep. It should, Madam Chair, you're exactly right. It should match, this amount should match what was provided in the capital bill, because that is the source of funds. So that would be my first question. My second question is for the rest areas with the increase in the custodial and then the rental of the Portalettes for $360,000. Is there any dollars for that coming from either FEMA or any of the COVID dollars that you've been working? Because previous testimony to our committee, when we were in session back in May and June was indicated that BTS is getting some dollars through FEMA as well as some COVID dollars. Would any of those dollars cover this? Our guidance to BGS is to track both our expenditures that are potentially that are COVID related on additional things we're doing for the response as well as people's time who have been focused on COVID as to whether or not it ultimately gets paid for out of CRF or out of FEMA dollars. I'm to be honest, I don't know if this is an eligible activity being reimbursed from FEMA. But the proposal from finance and management is to include these expenses in the CRF funds. So that's that's what you see before you today. So I can't see the top column Chris. So where the 360 is, is that column CRF column? Yes, it is Madam Chair. So those are being covered by. Yes. CRF dollars Alice. That's proposal. Yes. Okay. I couldn't see the top either because I'm on the iPad. So everything is scrunched. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. I was hoping to find a little fun funding there, but it would have been not GF dollars anyway, right? Yeah. BGS is a very hard place to go looking for funding. Especially for GF. Yeah. We're mostly internal service funds, but this is one of the funded departments. And it's really the it's really these Portalette costs that have really impacted this particular budget. But you know, aside from the Portalettes, we did meet the budget target in terms of cutting back the program costs. You know, and it wasn't that hard to achieve since they haven't been open for a while. Okay. Are we finished with the centers and moving any other questions on that section from anyone? I'm not seeing any Chris. So where would you like to go? Whatever is next, which I guess is the copy center. Yep. Purchasing. So purchasing. This is an interesting story. So it's budget target is the 38,372. You have the ISF allocations and then this 31,000. So we have a prior year carry forward from last year. And we're implementing the e procurement project, which is an enterprise level project, which is going to affect all of state government and improve our contracting processes and ability to use state contracts. In order to have that program up and running after the software is completed, the next step is generally downloading all your contracts and all your forms and it's called the catalogs. And you have to pay a vendor separate from that because we didn't include it in the original project costs. We had a vendor picked out and they were awarded the contract. And I think the contract was around, I don't know, 120,000. And when COVID-19 hit, it put this e procurement project on hold and it gave Deb DeMora, our director of purchasing and contracting an opportunity to reach out to some of the vendors who were impacted by COVID. And this particular one who had the catalog contract, she informed them that we still needed the catalog work, but we were only able to pay half as much to get it. And she successfully negotiated that deal. And so we're still getting all the catalog work that we wanted, but at half the price. And for doing that, I'm making those funds available to her program, so she doesn't have to lose a position. Since she created the savings and did it to meet this targeted need, that's where those funds are going to come from. And so they're technically from carry forward funds that we're going to be used to fulfill a contract. Since that contract is going to cost half as much, we're going to use a portion of those carry forward funds for this purpose. So that's our recommendation. We see the down here. We'll see the up in another budget. Nope. There is no up. Just down. He's going to use a use a portion of the 31,000. Correct. It's already, it's from a carry forward plan. So she received carry forward authority last year because she had a position that was going to go into the program. It didn't, we didn't hire the position. And so we approved the use of the funds for the catalog for the Z pro program. And so not getting the same catalog work at half the price as how she generated the savings and the save and the original money came from her carry forward from the previous year. Okay. So the 31,000 is not the total of the vacancy savings. It's, it's the remainder that's left after she uses the portion she needs. Yes. We're citing vacancy savings, but if she doesn't achieve the vacancy, the vacancy savings, we have a backstop in terms of the savings she created within this contract. Okay. Thank you. Yep. And the next one, I believe might be the copy center. Postal. Did you already do postal? I'm at purchasing and whatever comes next after purchasing. It's at the bottom. I can't see it though, because I have the, the, your faces at the bottom. So all I can see is purchasing. Now I can see copy center. Thank you. Okay. So we're skipping postal. I can do postal. I just can't see the top of it. There we go. Nope. It's, I, let me, all right, just keep it there, Teresa, and I will move my, I can't move it because it flips. I'll move my box. All right, now your faces. It's between two pieces of paper. Yeah. I got it now. Postal center, ISF allocation reductions of 4,625 vacancy savings. 6,820. And this reallocation of program supervisory staff. So this, the postal service, the postal center is in part of BGS that's called government business services. And these programs have a director. There are three program supervisors. And the programs are postal, print, surplus property, state and federal surplus property, and the fleet program. And they're all managed by one director and they each have program managers or supervisors. And we're reallocating the director's time. We had a position that we had approved for the surplus program. It was a limited surplus position. It was in our budget previously, but we have worked out a way between different programs within BGS to not have to hire that limited service position. And part of these reallocation of program supervisory staff, that is the manager and the director are being moved around to focus a little bit less time on some of the areas and more time on surplus property. And the reason why they're going to spend more time on surplus property, they're going to, they're managing the gun sales program. And that's where that, those sales emanate out of surplus property. So you're going to see an up and surplus property and a down in the other programs they manage that I mentioned. And so that's the tail of the postal center. Are there questions? Okay, Chris, I'm not seeing questions. We'll move on from the postal center to the small four week fleet management. No fleet fleet managed print. So the next one's print. There are ISF allocation reductions. And then again, this reallocation of program supervisory staff away from this program and over to the surplus program. So all these reductions will add up to one big up when we get to surplus. But that's the print program. Fleet management, ISF allocation reductions, vacancy savings. We're either going to use furloughs or fund balance if we don't get any vacancy savings. This ISF fund, as you may recall, has a positive fund balance in excess of the value of the assets that we have borrowed from the treasurer to purchase. So we still have a little bit of money that we could take out of that fund balance if necessary, but it's a small amount, only 14,953. Again, the reallocation of program supervisory staff away from this program and over to surplus. And then 50% reduction of travel expense line items for 976. And that gets us to that budget target. And then the state surplus, if there are no questions about fleet, I'll move on to state surplus. The state surplus program, you see ISF allocation reductions. Here is the removal of the new limited service position that was in our previous budget. So it comes out of this one. And then you see the reallocation of program supervisory staff to support the gun sale program. And that's the up from the collection of all those other downs from the allocations of the other programs we just went through. And then vacancy savings furloughs or fund balance likely to require to meet the target. And the state surplus program also has a positive fund balance. So that won't be any problem to meet that 32,000 if we don't achieve the vacancy savings. Any questions there from folks? How much is your fund balance, commissioner? I don't know. Jason would have that answer. And some of it's committed. So the fund balance we're using to fund the part of the federal program. And it's being used also to fund a portion of an IT project. We have relating to the gun sales program, which is an inventory management project. I don't think we've settled on a system. We're evaluating other systems the state uses for other programs to see if they can be applicable and worked for ours. Jason, do you know the, there are the fund. Sean commissioner. I can jump in with this one. Last year fiscal year 19 ended with 450,000 in surplus. We haven't finalized this year's numbers. Obviously we'll probably lose a little bit in that fund, but it'll, it'll be three to $400,000 in surplus still. Thank you. And are the funds in that fund fungible? Can they be transferred and used for other other purposes? Are they not thinking of the proper word? Are they, may they only be used for specific purposes? I don't know the answer to that question. Sean. No, I'm not sure technically. I think traditionally we've left them in the fund. Like the commissioner was saying, the, the intent I think was to, and it has been to support that IT development project that we're going to be taking on this year. We could look into this though, transferability. So they, they were raised specifically for the IT project? No. No, they weren't raised specifically for that. This is one of the ISF programs that does well. So you remember there, there are two surplus programs, one's federal and one's state. The federal one, you know, loses money and state really doesn't receive any benefit from the federal surplus program. The benefit goes to the municipalities, which is why we manage it for them. That, that program loses money. So the state surplus program, you know, fund balance, you know, as we allocate back and forth between the two programs, because it's the same people that operate, manage both programs, you know, we tend to, to, to address some of the fund balance that way. But, you know, we, we, we sell a lot of stuff through the state surplus program and we don't really have an inventory control system as you would think for somebody that runs a retail operation. And then when we received the responsibility of selling guns through the state surplus program, we, I felt at that time to ensure that our inventory control system was robust. We needed, we needed a database that tracks things that come into the inventory, that sit in our possession and then go out of the inventory. And where did they go to? We're running this program in compliance with federal regulations, utilizing federally licensed gun dealers. And it's important to have a really good inventory control system that can produce reports that can document where these firearms have gone. And so we're still doing our due diligence to see if there's anything that we could pick up that the state already owns, like liquor control has an inventory control system. And we're evaluating that with our staff as to what, if any of these could be applicable to us. And so I don't know how much of that fund balance we would need. But as commissioner, I feel very strongly that that investment should be made given the criticality of the property that we're selling out of surplus program. I understand. Thank you. Any other questions before we move on? Okay. Next. Next. The next is the federal surplus program. Representative Helm had a question. Sorry, I didn't look. His hand is up. Representative Helm, sorry. Got my act together, you know. Can I just go back just for a second, Chris? Yep. This gun program. Yes, sir. So you sell, you take in state police guns, whatever they are, and you then have an auction or something to only two gun dealers or to the public? Just to, just to the only eligible people under the state statute, we can sell to our federally licensed gun dealers, whether they reside in the state of Vermont or they reside outside the state of Vermont. Then we hold an auction. The federally licensed gun dealers with their federally licensed numbers sign up for the auction and they bid on the guns. They go in 20 gun lots. So, you know, the state police and local police have been hanging on to guns for a long time. And, you know, some of them are from the 1960s and 70s, you know, with those small Bushnell scopes that you remember when they first came out with those two, you know, guns that are been confiscated recently. And so there's a real mix in there. And we do it in lots so that some of them aren't worth much. Some of them are worth quite a bit. And each gun lot, you get a little bit of everything in it. And then they resell to the public. So, right. Okay. So one more little question. And years past, fishing and wildlife, for instance, would come up with a handful every year. Do you do all guns in the state, including theirs, or just state police and, you know, police take guns? There's a provision in the statute that the commissioner of fish and wildlife can take possession of any of the guns that I have in my possession if they're useful for their education programs. I don't recall, to be honest with you, Representative Helm, whether or not what the commissioner of fish and wildlife is authorized to do with guns that they come under their possession. And I haven't received. Yeah, they may still do that. I don't think that was addressed in the statute that was created three years ago for us to sell or two years ago for BGS to sell guns. I don't think that was an entity. The guns that they got usually weren't worth very much anyway. So, well, thank you, Chris, for that. You're welcome. You're welcome. The federal surplus program is a reduction of $360. You can see this has an appropriation of $7,200 to keep the lights on. The next one is a property management program. This is the program that manages all the leases in the state of Vermont. There are ISF allocation reductions. This is the one program within BGS's budget where we are recommending the elimination of a position. So a reduction in force. There are vacancy savings. And then there is an increase in the cost of leases. And the increase in the cost of leases, this $1.5 million, is directly related to the state leasing additional space to respond to COVID. Some of these leases are for medical surge sites. And some of these leases are for AHS clients homeless off the street during the pandemic and a place to stay. Those types of things. And you'll see that these are in the CRF bucket. And I can provide you with the listing of the leases and where they are. I have an email somewhere, but I can't minimize anything once the screen's been taken over. So I can get you that information if that is of interest to you. This is Representative Jessup. Commissioner, I would welcome that information. Thank you. You're welcome. Okay. So Commissioner, if you send it to Teresa, then she'll get it out to us or to Phil. Any other questions, folks? I'm not seeing any hands. Can you tell us, Commissioner, the consequence of the reduction you said that you're having a risk? I don't want to get right into the details of the position, because obviously we don't talk to our employees until you have finalized your budget. But it's a position that performs work that is not in the core work that we do. We're not quite sure why we have the position we find use for the skills from time to time, especially around COVID. But it's not a bread and butter position of the department. And we really don't need it. And that was a way to meet the budget target and keep our program intact. This will have no impact to the property management program or how we manage leases, how we provide customer service to the other departments who are in lease space. It isn't connected to the property management program or goals in any way. Okay. That is what we needed to know, is in terms of programmatic impacts and your testimony is there are none. None. Yeah. There are other state employees and other departments that can provide this service to DGS if we needed it. And we have used other departments for this service when we needed when we have needed it. So it's basically a design services, but not build a design more graphic. And my recollection is that when you came to the department, you had a view that we needed to be moving more into government own property rather than in leased property. And just as you leave us, I am curious if you have continue to have that view. And if you've seen the savings that I believe you hoped we would achieve? I continue to have that view, but we have not achieved the savings that I hoped we would achieve. We have achieved savings, but not in the manner that you just presented it. So when we had the national life fire, we renegotiated that lease with national life and that produced savings for the state of Vermont because we got a better rate than what we had before the fire. When we moved the agency of transportation to that lease building in downtown Barrie, we got savings for the state of Vermont because we renegotiated a better lease terms for the state of Vermont. We're going through a similar exercise right now in the capital complex where we are moving departments around utilizing state-owned space to a greater degree with the hope of reducing a lease. And there would be two leases. We would be two or three leases we'd be reducing. The capital complex move alone if it continues will save the state of Vermont $2 million over a 10-year period in operating costs and $1 million if we do end up selling some Baldwin Street properties. And so we're continuing to do this. We're establishing a team internal to BGS with an outside consultant to review our state-owned space, look for opportunities to invest some money to increase the capability of those spaces. For example, we have a project that never really got off the ground. It was really expensive. It was a complete redo of the Supreme Court building and it was a $25 million project and it just never advanced through the weight of its own cost. But the component of the projects that we should do are the stacks, the connector space, and replacing the elevator so employees don't get stuck in there. And those are the types of projects I think BGS in the next five years are going to be advancing for your consideration. Projects that seek to spend a smaller amount of money rather than building a new building to rehabilitate some space and create opportunities to do just what you said representative to reduce our reliance on leases. And that's going to be a five to 10-year project and you guys are going to be really in the best position to see that that thing has legs and it keeps continuing. So I really appreciate the question and I know the Deputy Commissioner will look forward to reporting on BGS's success in the future in doing just that because one thing the pandemic has taught us, we don't need all of the physical space that we have and we should be working to reduce that space and creating different opportunities for people to work and have touchdown spaces, hoteling spaces, et cetera, and slowly over the next 10 years reduce our reliance on state-owned space and maybe take some of these state-owned office buildings if we decide we don't need them all and, you know, sell them to a developer and convert them to housing because we do need housing in the state. Okay, thank you Commissioner. Are there any other questions on property management until we then not seeing any hands? So moving on to I think it's fee for space is next and last. Yep. This is our biggest line item in our budget. It's a $31 million program. This pays for the largest number of employees in the BGS budget, our operations and maintenance employees. There's approximately 240 of them spread over six districts across the entire state. They are our front-line employees. They're some of our hardest working employees. These are the employees that take care of our antiquated state buildings and keep them running no matter what. And a tip of the cap to these hard-working BGS employees that really are the face of BGS to all the other departments and agencies. And these are the people that I received emails from on a weekly basis extolling their good work that they have done on behalf of another department. And so I just want to acknowledge the hard-working men and women in this particular program. ISF allocation reductions 112,000 for this particular program. And those are just the same reductions, same formulas spread across the programs. Vacancy savings 413. This shouldn't be too difficult to achieve. It just took us a whole year to hire a plumber in the southwest district or southeast district. And so there is a hiring freeze going on. And this program still gets employees hired though because they're taking care of our buildings which are still operating. Reduction and temporary employee expense. We've got rid of our intern program and we eliminated our temporary employees. So we saved 80,000 there. Reduction and other contract and third-party expense. Window washing. We're not doing window washing this year. That's $75,000 saved. Reduction and snow removal expense. Don't haul the snow after each storm. So we're going to pile it up and have it trucked away a couple of days after the storm. You pay a premium right after each storm because all the limited trucks are working to clear all the lots and if you can wait a couple of days you'll pay less. So we're going to try that strategy which is how BGS used to do it and that's going to save $65,000. And then we're going to save $700,000 Joe Asia who is our director of design and construction who manages the projects in the capital bill did an examination of the fee for space expense programs and identified costs in the plumbing and heating system repair as well as repair and maintenance to buildings and in the fee for space accounts that could legitimately be part of the major maintenance program. The reason why they're not is the supervisors who sign these invoices it's just easier for them to bill it to the fee for space program where they have all the expense codes rather than having to get an expense code from Joe Asia the director who manages the capital bill expenses and so Joe is going to take this on himself and work with the directors to ensure these these projects get in the right bucket and we hope to save 700,000 from the fee for space program by funding it out of major maintenance where these project expenses legitimately can belong. Commissioner may I ask you to pause there I'm not seeing anybody from corrections and institutions pop up on this but is this simply shifting a cost from the general fund or for the internal service charges to the capital bill and does that then reduce the amount of money that's available for major maintenance which has been an ongoing concern. You can tell I used to be on that committee so I've been trying to ask this question. This is something that the department has done previously before in other tight operating environments when the department has been requested to reduce the fee for space program. If you think about the fee for space program and you think about the other you know reductions we've got 100,000 in heating oil a reduction in auto expenses but then we got these increases you know which total 1.5 million which are directly all related to COVID the biggest one being security services so it's really challenging to reduce expenses in an operating budget you know if your operating scenario doesn't change we're really dependent upon the weather how cold is it going to be that relates to that heating expense how much snow do we get that relates to our snow contracts as well as overtime and things of that nature so it's a hard budget this is the only way that I could come up with Madam Chair to achieve 1.5 million dollars in savings was to shift 700,000 of it to the capital bill which are legitimate capital bill expenses and as I explained it's the supervisors for this program because they work in the fee for space program they're just used to putting all of their expenses in the fee for space program we're going to work with them on things that are eligible for the capital bill and could be funded out of major maintenance if they would just ask Joe for the fund so they are legitimate major maintenance expenses we're going to make the process a little bit more administratively difficult for them so we can get the funds in the right bucket if they would come to Joe and say I've got a $40,000 plumbing project and I'd like some major maintenance money he'd give them the money but they're just billing it to fee for space so we're just changing our process a little bit I wouldn't characterize it as less investment in the buildings the investment's going to occur but we are going to be displacing some fee for space dollars that could have legitimately been put in the major maintenance program thank you representative Edmonds has a question thank you Mary for asking the question that you did because I was going to ask that same question fee for space gets a quagmire when you start asking any questions about fee for space but isn't that some of the intent of fee for space dollars that it goes towards the maintenance of that building yes but typically therefore expenses $3,500 or less anything that's over $5,000 is under the state's definition of what's a capital expense qualifies as a capital expense so $5,000 and up is a major maintenance expense 35 and below you know $5,000 and below really is fee for space so it is for maintenance as you mentioned but it's not what we would call major maintenance so I guess protecting our capital budget just to be clear right now in this particular presentation we have almost I don't know if you want to go with the 3.7 that we put in the capital bill for engineering or that 4.1 for engineering plus the $700,000 that's almost a $4.8 million pressure on to the capital bill that the bill is that we are picking up on an ongoing basis and our bonding capacity is going to be decreasing over the next few years so it's just an added pressure and I just want to make that statement and Mary again I thank you for raising that because you took the words right out of my mouth I didn't have a chance to raise my hand thank you you're welcome and so this is the point of us having this joint conversation is for us to hear this together and when we get to the end of the presentation we'll have a conversation about the two committees communicating with each other and you're informing us of your view of the actions that we should be taking here so that can be on your list or what you want to do oh are you back yet I can't raise my hand so I can't see you I'm sorry please go I can't raise my you're in charge again well they don't need to do that but my question is the capital bill has gone and has been passed so how will this $700,000 be reflected on the current year capital bill maybe that was addressed when I was it as the description says it's going to shift costs from fee for space to major month major maintenance plumbing and heating systems repair will be about 400,000 and then repair and maintenance to buildings the other 300,000 so it will come directly out of the capital bill and fund these projects so we're basically saying we have $700,000 worth of projects that have been in the fee for space program that are eligible for the capital bill under the state's definition of capital assets and we want to move the projects we're going to want to fund a portion of the fee for space program with the capital bill to take care of these projects and basically it's it's funding them directly out of the capital bill and I understand that but wasn't the funding within the capital bill already assigned for for certain functions is this some things won't happen then so major maintenance is a sort of a catchall for projects that we do that are repair and rehabilitation projects that are in excess of $5,000 to a variety of buildings and those that project list isn't developed until we get the appropriation from the legislature traditionally the second week of May so the the money is there the projects haven't been spoken for so you can create the capacity for these by not addressing other things that you may have correct and and to the vice chair and to representative Hooper and representative point they are correct we will be spending $700,000 less on our buildings because we're not going to be using fee for space money to do it but it was a way for me to develop a budget in keeping with the budget targets that were given to me thank you and I understand and I'm sorry I missed that earlier explanation so let's continue Chris I don't see any other hands that is the end of my budget presentation and just for my own clarification Theresa could you pop that chart back up so there's as with another budget that we heard from earlier the agency of digital services the general fund the $60,000 reduction is the 3% target that was given to you by the administration for general fund is that correct 3% for a general fund and transportation fund and 5% for ISF funds and that's the 1.815 the 5.8% is I can't see the top column I can't see the top so I can't I can't but that is that that's the internal okay all yeah all right thank you and those are and those are to meet the three the targets that you were given that is correct thank you any questions from the committee representative Taylor yes commissioner you know I take an interest in the corrections feasibility study that's then there was an RFP for I'm wondering whether any of these changes affect the ability of that to continue on a schedule and get done by the end of December I don't know about the schedule but none of these budget changes impact that project in any way good thank you very much are there other questions am I not seeing any other questions so Chris what we have been doing since we're meeting with a with the joint committees we have been taking 15 minutes to clarify any questions and concerns and in scheduling when we'll get feedback because as you know we're on a pretty fast train to get a budget out and you are more than welcome to stay you and Jennifer and the rest of your team to to hear that part of the conversation or you're you're welcome at this point to leave but again I want to say on for myself and on behalf of our our committee thank you for your service to the state you've certainly done your years and contributed greatly and we're going to be sorry to see you go but I hoping for fun things I hope you're going to have your next adventure is going to be rewarding and we look forward to having Jen join us as the head of your team so thank you very much and I would I would echo your comments back to yourself thank you very much for your public service and leading what is one of the toughest committees in the legislative process and the house really does set the budget for the senate and you guys do the in-depth work and really dig into it and I've really enjoyed you on that that's just common knowledge I've really enjoyed working with this particular committee through the years you asked really good questions and you're fair and balanced and you really treat the people that come before your committee with respect and I do appreciate that so thank you thank you best wishes to you thank you very much and so Alice what we have been asking other committees we've already had several joint committees that we don't need a formal letter that cites specific sections in in the budget bill or statute or what we need is an informal memo from you when your committee has had time to review all of this information stating to us what your concerns are what you agree with or how you may like to see things done differently and so the the three pieces we've seen the the three percent reductions within the general fund and the transportation fund and if there's policy concerns you have there we'd like to know what those are and within the five percent reductions in the internal service fund obviously there's a seven hundred dollar shift to the capital that I'm sure that weigh on weigh in on we do have two public hearings next week on Thursday and Friday the one on Thursday is at five o'clock and the one on Friday is at one o'clock and so we won't be making any firm decisions public and Adam you may want to yourself as we're listening to your Congress I just don't and so you may want to join in and Teresa will send out a link to those public hearings so that we know what Vermonters are thinking about this budget but after that the following week if we could get an informal memo and decide on things send them out to us we don't have to wait for a memo that you know encompasses all parts of of areas that you want to weigh in on when you make decisions on something the sooner we get it sooner we can expedite this budget out and get it to the house floor and Peter this is yours so you'll connect with Alice when they're having these discussions and Peter I I would just say I'm in the process right now of working with my committee assistant to figure out next week and I'm sort of thinking it might be Tuesday we meet Tuesday morning from 8 30 to 10 so seeing that this I think the BGS budget is pretty straightforward compared to the DOC budget and if I'm speaking out of line for the committee please committee members speak up but I think we can deal with the BGS budget pretty quickly next week and I would like to see if we can bring you in for a little bit on Tuesday morning perfect okay thank you and I know okay great and Phil I know you're on this video so maybe we can work with Peter and and it won't be Chris so it'll be Jennifer to come in and Eric good we whoops Alice I don't want to cut you off no that's fine I said that that's how we're going to proceed for next Tuesday great butch has a question we have three questions we have butch Diane and Mary Representative Shaw excuse me thank you time I'll go by dry cough yeah butch do you want me come back to you or are you all come back come back okay Diane and then Mary sure thank you thank you so I'm I just wanted to check on something and I don't know if it involves BGS but it can't help but but I know that it definitely involves house institutions and corrections I do believe that today is the due date for the space study on the on the state house you know so I've been watching for a flash of that I just didn't know if that was on your radar or that has come out or or if that involves BGS is input I think they hired somebody to do it so Diane are you asking that of our committee or are you asking that of the commissioner I was I wasn't sure if I should ask the commissioner if I should ask you where where it would be coming from well my committee is going to be looking at it for sure probably next week we're meeting on Tuesday and Thursday so that might be one of the first things on Thursday because we'd have to coordinate Freeman French and Freeman okay and I was gonna and I thank you for asking this day because that was rattling throughout my brain whether to ask Chris this or not decided not but Chris I don't know if you can weigh in on any of this I think you know the the the study was done by Freeman French Freeman they and this is we're talking about the original state house study not not the state house study the legislature is involved in now right we're talking about the original one or the one now the COVID one now the COVID one now for you locating oh well we're not really we're not really part of that study we're we're assisting the sergeant of arms office and Freeman French Freeman request for building blueprints and things like that we we've given them a couple of possibilities that we knew about such as the Vermont College of Fine Arts and Barry Auditorium and things like that but we're not involved in the the day-to-day of the study we're in a more of a support role upon request so I actually if I just keep going I can jump in and just give you an update if you want I it's uh this it's off it's due today and I saw a near near final draft I think it's going through um proofing as we speak I think it'll be out later today or tomorrow at the latest it is everything you say it's basically a discussion of options leads to questions about you know mostly has make determinations of what they do as far as how remote how how much in person and it gives you it does exactly what Chris's point out is right it looks at all the different space in the area and makes a bunch of suggestions but it should be out by the I'm hoping by the end of the day late uh Catherine Bentham's the one in our office working on it with the sergeant arms and Freeman French um but you're correct it's on a very this is the point where the study should be out thank you Steve for that update we'll be looking forward to seeing where legislature will be held and um in January hopefully that will help guide us Mary you had a question and then we'll go back to Representative Shaw Mary you have to unmute yourself or you are you good um thank you um I just wanted to ask we had had a discussion about the fund balance in the surplus property and I would I wanted to suggest to corrections and institutions that they may want to take a look at that and see if that well that's one time money if any of that could be access to mitigate other reductions elsewhere again I don't know what the restrictions are on the fund or if that would be appropriate but it just strikes me as worth following up on thanks Mary um Representative Shaw thank you uh Chair so not to not for today but but maybe when uh and when Peter comes in uh next week or Jen or somebody I'd like to understand more of how the CRF funding relates to this reduction in the budget and in the what-ifs that are involved in that and so but I think it's a fairly long conversation that takes some explanation and may or may not have some risks so I'd like to understand those thank you thank you butch we'll be doing a lot of CRF work um generally which this would be part of and um uh you know to learn about the uses of it and any um any changes that may need to be made and some of that may may be reflected in the budget bill or maybe in a separate bill there may be an earlier CRF bill for things that that need to get out right away and so there will be several CRF conversations going on but as far as BGS specific Chris when you and Jen go corrections and institutions um you'll have more information for butch at that time I'm assuming thank you I don't see um any other questions um I just because I keep forgetting I do want to give a quick shout out to uh Representative Yacoboni who was recognized for a lifetime achievement in prevent child abuse and that's quite an honor and I just don't want to forget it we have a nice uh audience group of people here and you should be um very proud of the work you've done and congratulations Dave well done so we are going to take a quick break we're back on at 245 uh to start um we have the Chancellor of the State College is in and we will hear some testimony and have an opportunity to fully understand um I don't know if we in in an hour we can fully understand the picture of what life is like going back to colleges and what the financial outlook is for the state colleges uh in the new planning that that is happening but we are going to start that conversation after yeah to 15 we just have a few minutes yeah to 15 so uh we're going to eat and have a quick break bob you have a question nope your hands now I just wanted to clear that up because I've got to 15 here so 15 yeah did I say 245 yes 215 215 and uh in the meantime I'll get my house in order getting a child off to college because it is not it's not a fun time right now I'll tell you six minutes kitty I'm going to stop the live stream now