 So we are going to today hear from Nolan, Betsy, Tucker, whoever has input for us on potential sources of funding for EMS people, law enforcement, municipalities, the kinds of areas that we deal with just so that we have a better understanding of where people might go and how, if they ask us questions, we might direct them. But so is that fair analysis of what we're going to do today? Yes. OK. So who of you wants to start? Senator Bray, we've lost you. I mean, act and start as you want. OK, let's make sure Senator Bray is back with us. Do you know, Delia, what happened to him? No, I'm looking right now. It looks like he just shut his camera off, but he's still with us. But he's not responding. He has his mute on. He's not responding. His camera is off, so I'm not sure if he wants to be off or not. Chris, can you hear us? I don't think he can hear us because he would respond. Hello. Hello. Oh, you are there? Yes, ma'am. OK, do you just want your camera off? I did for a moment. But it can. OK. But all right. It's fine if you want it off, but I want you to be able to hear. Oh, yeah. No, I can. I've been hearing you all along. I had turned off. I'll just fess up. I had a sandwich, and I wasn't going to eat in committee with my camera on. Now you got it. OK, that's fine. We just wanted to make sure you could hear. And you didn't respond when we asked you if you could hear us, probably because you had your mouth full. But anyway, OK. So Nolan, did you say you were going to start? I can. OK. I don't have a lot to say. Well, however you want to organize this is up to you. OK? Sure. The three of you. OK. I'll just start because it'll be short, because this is some funding for EMS providers. So for the record, Nolan and I will the Joint Fiscal Office. My camera may go off for a moment because I have to look at a screen that's on my iPad. So if it shuts off, that's why. The two places that come to mind would be, as we've discussed previously, what they're calling the CRF, the Corona Relief Fund. That's the 1.25 billion. And I think like we discussed last time we had this conversation is the guidance for what the state can do with that has yet to be released. It's going to be released soon. But that seems like a catch of money that would have potential. This would fall within that need, I think. I know that there's lots of. We had Sarah Clark and another committee earlier. And she was saying that their thought on AHS was to use some of that CRF money to backfill some of the shortfall from the other grants. So for instance, they expect to be short X. And the grants that they're going to get from the federal government early Y. And they're going to use some of the CRF to backfill that. But what we do know about it is that there's certain criteria can't be. Nolan? Yes. Clearly, Vermont didn't get 1.25 billion. Do you know what we got? We're getting 1.25 billion. We are in that one. OK, great. Yes. We were getting a bunch of different pots of money for different pieces. That one, let me pull up a different screen real quick. Sorry. That one, so there's. Nolan, before you go further, when you say the guidance hasn't been written yet, who is responsible for the guidance of this 1.2 billion? So this is coming from the Treasury. And so they gave $150 billion in the CARES Act. That was going to be, quote unquote, efforts to states, tribal governments, and local governments. And there's a small state minimum. I forget who I've given this presentation to, so forgive me. So to back up for a second, in general, when we get different pots of money, there's like a formula that's usually used. And on average, Vermont usually gets 0.2% of whatever that pot is based on, because that's kind of how our economy is relative to other states in the nation. This had a small state minimum of 1.25 billion. That's actually 0.8%, so it's four times more than we normally would have gotten. And so we're going to get 1.25 billion. It's unclear if it's going to come in one payment or two. And in the beginning, there was conversations from the Treasurer's Office, like would there be a bank that could take a check for 1.25 billion? So then there's been conversations at the Joint Fiscal Committee about what role the legislature will have in terms of our grant process, in terms of our priorities. The administration is still putting together what their plan is for how to spend that money. And the conversations at Joint Fiscal have been about what will be the legislature's role, what will be JFC's role in terms of having some say in how that money is spent. So granted, there's going to be a lot of people, a lot of organizations, a lot of entities who are going to be looking to the state for some piece of that. So from the stuff I've seen, that's one area where a case can be made for some funding for EMS providers. All the other entities are going to be looking to that same pot of money. The other place that I would recommend you look or is what we know is the EMS fund. Can I ask a quick question before we go on? Sure. The 1.25, do you know how that compares to, I don't know what you would call it, the sort of economic damage to the state? I mean, is this making us whole? We're going to be even. We are ahead. We're behind. No, no. The $150 billion that was in that pot of the money is for this. I don't know. I don't know where that number came from. I can't imagine it was based on some big analysis that had been done. I think it was more of like that was the number that was agreed upon by the various parties. And then how to divvy that up, there's a formula, there's a formula. And that's why in that formula, there was a small-state minimum. Is that going to be enough? Probably not. But that's what we're getting now. And there is going to be COVID-4, what we call COVID-1, COVID-2, COVID-3. So COVID-3 is the CARES Act. And rumor has it there will be another one. There's not a lot of guidance yet from the Treasury. But what has been said is, one, the payments, let's see, must be used for new government spending in response to COVID-19. And that's defined as spending that was not approved by the federal government. Sorry, it was not approved by the legislature prior to the bill's enactment. So in other words, it wasn't like we didn't have a budget bill that was going to be used for some other for COVID. And then this came out. They said, aha, you got that. You can't use it for that. That's part of why Act 91 or 7 was a 742, was they postponed signing that a couple of days because President Trump was going to sign CARES Act. So they waited until afterwards just to make sure that we were in that it wouldn't fall into that bucket. Got it. And the only other piece that's in there specifically is that it says it cannot be used for abortions. That's what they call it, the Hyde Amendment. There'll be more guidance coming out from the Treasury. I already know that the states are pushing back already because it can't be used to supplant. And so the question is, how is that defined? And a lot of states are feeling the pressure that we need this money, and that's too restrictive. So there's conversations going on about what that money can be used, where the Treasury is going to provide some guidance, and there could be some more down the road. But that's where we're at for now in that bucket. So there's a lot of conversations in a lot of the committees about what they would think would be a priority that could be part of that. So that's, I think we talked about that last time about the committee writing a letter or communicating to the legislative leadership or the Appropriations Committee or whatever as to what your priorities are. Great, thank you. When you said the guidance is coming from the Treasury, and then you said the Treasury is going to come up with some guidance. You meant the US Treasury. The US Treasury. And then when you spoke about the Treasury, you meant our Treasury? Yeah, forget me. The only time I spoke about our Treasury was in terms of, with the Treasury trying to find an institution that could take that large of money. Now my understanding is it may be coming in two payments, so, but that's a different conversation. Nonetheless, that's money that we are getting and we're supposed to get soon. We're supposed to come in within 30 days of passage of the CARES Act, so. Do you know who in the administration is kind of spearheading this pot of money? Is it ACCD? Is it budget and finance? I think it's coming, I think it's starting at the upper, I think it's starting at the top. I think that the fifth floor Department of Finance and Management, I think they're the ones who are taking the lead on trying to come up with how that money will be spent. Last time I heard Adam testify on that, he said they still are working on a plan. Might say Adam, I mean, commission regression. Yeah. And how that all plays out in terms of they present a plan, legislature responds, or we have, that I think is yet to be seen. And that's continued conversations that are happening. Nonetheless, it's a big pot of money that there I think is fair game to try to make a case for some money for EMS, along with all the other demands that will be on that fund. So Logan, that sounds like it's gonna be almost like a budget debate. The governor's gonna make a proposal and then the legislature will make a proposal, argue it out. But that's obviously not gonna take the place of our budget debate. So essentially we're gonna have two budget debates, kind of in a way, it seems. Does that make sense? It makes sense. I don't know how to answer that question now because I don't know what decisions are being made. I've heard that, I know, yeah, I mean, how that plays into the budget, I think is still being determined. What I have heard is that, you know, we're looking at doing another budget adjustment for fiscal year 20. And then the conversations are that maybe there would be a partial year 21 budget, maybe it's a quarterly as we see how the revenues come in. I think when Jane talked about it, before she talked about a budget adjustment and then a three month budget. Yeah. And then that we would do now and then do the rest later. Yeah, that's the current thinking. And again, that could change. But to come back to EMS, the other pot of money, I think that's fair game is the EMS fund. And I was looking at the statute and Betsy can look at this too. Let me just pull up the screen real quick. Let me identify what that is. Yeah, as soon as I find it, it's where we go. I had it up. Oh, here it is. Okay, so it's 18 VSA 908. I'll see if I can do this copy. See if I can do a message chat. Can I paste it? All right, I just pasted it to the chat. And what that language says is the commissioners shall have health shall administer the funds that the extent funds are available to support online and regional training programs, data collection analysis, and other activities relating to training of EMS personnel and delivery of emergency medical service and ambulance services. And I'll leave that to Betsy to determine that, but I believe that and delivery of emergency medical services and ambulance services in Vermont, I believe that seems that makes it that sort of opens it up. I mean, that has to be run by the EMS committee. Now that said, again, this is a legal question, but for Betsy, but like you're the legislature, you can change that. So, and so my understanding is at the close of calendar year 19 or fiscal year 19, there was $377,000 in that fund. We had budgeted, I think, 450 in your bill, but that was under the anticipation that another 150,000 would be coming in. I don't know whether you want to book that because that's a tax, it's a fee on companies that DFR may choose under H742 not to take at this time. So I would recommend that you only look to money that's actually in the fund currently and not necessarily what money was supposed to come in. It may not have come in, it may not come in depending on how DFR or actually, I think DFR tells the tax, I think the department tax what the amount is, I believe is how it works. Nonetheless, my point is there's $377 in the fund, that seems to me like that'd be a fair game. Now is obviously that may not be enough. It's something to start with. I think that one of the things that we heard when we were talking about that fund and what seemed to be in there, the $377, was I know that Jim Finger said that Rutland had an application in, it hadn't been taken out of the fund yet. And they felt that perhaps there were other ambulance services that had put in applications that hadn't been funded. So he felt pretty clear that there wasn't 377 in there if they looked at what had actually already been applied for. Did I get that right? Yes. Yeah, I remember that conversation too. And I mean, there's ways that you can potentially do it. You can probably do it. You can just direct Department of Health to use funds that aren't promised. Maybe you don't put a number on it, but you just say you can direct the Department of Health to use that fund to use unencumbered or unpromised money to get it out the door to EMS providers expeditedly to help with COVID-19 response or to help providers as they deal with this. There's ways you can do it without, And probably the easiest way for that to happen would be through the advisory group and the ambulance service organizations instead of having individuals apply. They probably have a better sense of, so maybe we can talk with them about how that would be best directed to DOH. Allison, would you have a question? And like I said, you can change the statute you could add in the uses. You could say and for use in response to COVID-19 or you can even keep it vague for future for natural disasters, et cetera, like unexpected circumstances. And maybe add some language to sort of make the point that you're directing the health department to work with the EMS providers and get it out the door ASAP. And making the process a lot less cumbersome. Yeah. Allison. I think, Jeanette, that a number of our EMS departments which are associated with the municipalities, I mean, who are embedded in the municipalities will benefit directly from whatever municipalities get in terms of supporting activities, additional activities that have resulted from the coronavirus. So my guess is that some of our EMS will get direct benefit through their municipality benefiting in this. I don't, obviously we don't know what that formula is gonna be yet by population or whatever. Well, yes, those will be able to potentially apply for FEMA funding, assuming they're keeping all their records and everything. But many, many of them are not connected to municipalities. In fact, I believe what Drew said was that most of them are not, most of them are like rescue down here is a private nonprofit. There are about 10 or so towns or 15 towns that actually pay into it, but it's not connected to a municipality. So they wouldn't have been, I mean, they're looking at that also, but that's why I suggested that maybe through the EMS advisory council and the ambulance service association that they would have a better sense of who really needs it now and won't have access someplace else. So then to tag on to this, I would suggest that that's an aspect of our letter to the administration as they will be weighing where to deploy this 1.25 billion that we might. This is the 377. Right, I understand. Let me just finish my thought, which is that, sorry, I just have to close the door because the phone's ringing in the other room. But to articulate that the EMS departments that are associated with towns will be benefiting in a way from that COVID money, whereas independent EMSs won't be. And we would recommend that we maybe fill up this fund from the 1.25 billion that a certain amount be allocated to that fund for precisely this kind of expenditures during the COVID crisis. And that we use the fund to receive whatever EMS is going to get from the 1.25 billion and that we make a case for them with Adam Greshan's office to do precisely that because these funds are exposed, they're independent of municipal government and therefore they, but they have an advisory board that disperses the funds in a thoughtful fashion. That might be the vehicle that we ask money be put into. Yep. So other questions for Nolan or Nolan, do you have more that? No, I was just, those are the two places that I could think of off top of my head that would spark some conversation about how to do something in the short-term immediate response. Okay. Any more questions for Nolan? Okay. So thank you, Nolan. And you're welcome to stay with us, of course. We always love to have you with us. Betsy or Tucker? I was just really here to more listen because I think Nolan's on the, as a JFO employees on the front lines of the appropriations coming in. So I was just really more listening today in regard to EMS. So do we, I'm going to ask also, and I don't know if this is Nolan or Betsy or Tucker about potential money for municipalities, not just EMS, but municipalities. I don't know if Nolan or Tucker, which of you is going to address that? Let's see. Yeah, that's, I thought one of the key things, and that's the other key thing we need to understand. If you'd like, I can provide some general background, especially kind of going at the questions that Senator Polina posed last Friday afternoon about whether or not municipalities were going to qualify for some form of assistance if FEMA funds are released. In general, the first question that came up last week was, are there any Vermont municipalities that will get direct relief under the CARES Act? And if you go to the US Treasuries website, they have actually listed every municipality that qualifies for direct relief. And the base criteria is that you have in your local unit of local government, which could be a county, 500,000 residents. The answer is no, there are no Vermont units of local government that will qualify for direct relief. Right. However, units of local government under some of the relief acts that have been passed will get access to funds depending on how the state is going to administer it. And there is relief for various programs. I received a few emails and responses when I was researching this. There may be funds available, everything from what Nolan covered under EMS all the way to unemployment insurance for municipal employees, pay check protection, things like that. Municipal corporations will have access to some of that. But with Vermont's smaller municipal populations, the state is going to be the entity that is going to be receiving and administering the funds. And that brings us into the questions about FEMA funds that may be available. At the top, I will note two important things about the way that the FEMA funds operate. The first is that the state is again the administering entity. And in this case, it will likely act as what the regulations call a pass-through entity and the municipalities will be capable of applying for relief. Important things to note about the way that FEMA operates generally. And I can send the committee the 800 pages of guidance that I did not read. Thank you. Take all of this as general outlines of how this operates and nothing too specific. The first thing to note is that if a municipality does get access to funds for relief, under the president's order, the maximum coverage would be 75% of the costs incurred. It can go up to 90%, but there has to be a demonstration of need that would allow it to go that high. And the order very expressly sets the limit at 75% currently. The other thing to note is that FEMA funds cannot be used for duplicative services. So if a service is covered by any of the other relief acts, it can FEMA funds cannot be used to support that service or the costs incurred in providing that service. This morning I was looking at guidance that just came out about local governments providing food delivery service for vulnerable populations. And one of the first notes is that there are six different federal funding programs that are currently available just for that one service and that FEMA funds would only be available in the case that none of those other funding mechanisms were available to the unit of local government. And there was everything from CARES Act relief to special USDA programs that have kicked in for municipalities to establish emergency food shelters. So those are kind of the big issues for you to consider. I will note that if you look at the enabling acts that created these FEMA programs broadly, that the units of local government that qualify as eligible applicants for funds, it's everything from your county governments all the way down to your local school districts. And there has been some general guidance on, again, there's not a ton of clarity on these issues yet. Things are still developing, but some of the areas where units of local government that are currently operating programs that are being supported by FEMA, they are doing things like disinfecting all of these public facilities, establishing temporary medical facilities on the grounds of these municipal corporations, providing medical sheltering. Interestingly, one of the categories that is listed, and I have a lot of questions about whether or not this is duplicative of other funding sources is providing security and law enforcement services. And purchasing and distributing food, water, ice, and medicine. So that would be the USDA affiliated programs that I was just discussing. Checker, may I ask you a question about that, about the duplicative funding sources? When you talk about duplicative funding sources, you're talking about others that are coming from the federal government that are COVID related, right? I mean, the fact that our sheriffs, for example, can access the, now access or hopefully will be able to, if the house votes on the emergency county funds, doesn't preclude them from being able to get FEMA money because that isn't a COVID related fund coming to us. Right, and this is about federal programs that are available for the COVID response. It does not have to be COVID specific federal funding. If there's federal funding available that you can use during the COVID response, FEMA access, from what I understand, the last resort for services that are not otherwise covered by those other existing funds. Brian. Thank you, Madam Chair. So Tucker, the funding that you're referencing, does that come in the form of just a payment or is it a low interest loan? Is it a grant? How is that gonna be determined, you know? You may wanna ask Nolan that question first because I don't know. And second, because I'm guessing that he might have been around during the Irene response, which was the last one, right? So if I can just throw something in there and Nolan might know this better, but I do know that it's, what it was during Irene was a reimbursable amount and you had to have exact records. You had to keep records of everything and receipts and everything. That's the thing that Chris Campany sent out that I forwarded to you. And I think the LCT forwarded some portion of it to the towns because you have to keep exact records. And actually during FEMA, the towns, it was administered through the county and since we don't have county government, they had to go through all kinds of machinations to allow the regional planning commissions to act as the county government. But I think I'm right about that, Nolan. Can you correct me? I think, I can't remember what was done for Irene. That sounds about right. But for the 1.25 billion, there is gonna be some oversight. The bill actually included some kind of solicitor general that was gonna oversee how the money was spent. And I think there will be some kind of like, I don't wanna call it reconciliation, but some kind of justification that will be required where I know that several agencies are already taking that into consideration about like tracking how much time is used for COVID versus others. I'm even in joint fiscal, we're doing that now, just in case. So I think that that is the way to, or what people are doing. For some of the other money, I just sent, I just sent to Delia and Gail a link that Stephanie Barron and our office put together, just a running spreadsheet of different grants and stuff that are coming to the state. I asked them to post it. A lot of those are new grant, a lot of them are existing grants in which they've just put more money into. And in those cases, those grants will be held to the same accountability, reporting standards that already exist. Like for instance, there's grants that go to health department for other stuff. And there's all kinds of requirements that they have to do to report back to the federal government, that will still be the case. So that's one way that the feds are getting the money out. So depending on the source of money will depend on how it's held accountable. So Allison, just one second. I just want to add one thing in here. If we remember with FEMA, with Irene, Sue Minter was appointed the czar of- Zarina. Zarina of whatever it was at the time Irene. And there were some of our towns down here were three years later, still fighting with the feds to get the FEMA reimbursement money. And they had to have all those records in exact order in order to get them. So we might want to, for different pots of money, I wonder if the administration is kind of appointing somebody in the administration to be the Zarina or czar of those particular funds so that everybody can be helped. Allison, did you have a question and then Tucker? No, I'm sorry, but I guess I'm just not clear. 1.25 billion is coming through the CARES Act. The FEMA money is separate, right? And I'm not clear how much it is the FEMA money. I'm pretty clear on most of the CARES Act money, but not on the FEMA money. So we're now talking, Tucker was talking about the FEMA money and I just don't know what we're talking about in terms of money to the state. Is there a certain amount? I thought it was that you had to keep the records and then they would approve up to 75% of the, and then they would appropriate it afterwards. But I don't know if there's a set amount that they're gonna give us or not. Do you know Tucker or Nolan? Right, or is it all reimbursable? So I apologize for confusing the conversation. There's different pots of money that have different levels of state contribution and different requirements. So Tucker was probably talking about FEMA and then when you asked me the way in, I kind of jumped to the 1.25 billion. Right. So I forgive the confusion. So that's why they're- Those different pots of money. So with FEMA, there is, am I right? There is not a set amount that's coming to the state that we will after the emergency or during the emergency, we will start applying for that money. And the way I understand that you said it will work, Tucker, is that the money will come to the state. It'll be a conduit so the town would apply to the state and then the state will put together a package of how much money is needed like they did on ice storms and stuff. Right. That's the framework as I understand it. And I don't know the answer to the question of whether there's going to be some sort of advanced bulk payment to allow the state to deal with the claims that are gonna come from sub-applicants or whether this is going to be, as is traditional, reimbursement for expenses related to the disaster. I did see that some tens of millions of dollars in FEMA relief funds were released to the state of Ohio, but I don't know if that's because that money has been spent and that is a reimbursement for the disaster relief. I wanted to back up to the question you had about whether there has been an officer designated for the state yet. And I noted, Suzanne is here. According to the declaration that was issued by the governor, Erica Borneman has been designated the state coordinating officer and that's the director of Vermont Emergency Management and the state coordinating officer will work with a federal coordinating officer that has been designated for our region. And that's about the outer limit of my understanding of how this breaks down administratively. Susanna, did you have some insight into that? I apologize, I actually don't. I'm not sure. I trust Tucker's information. I don't have anything different. Yeah, and I know Erica is that all the requests for PPEs and that kind of stuff are going through Erica. I don't know if all the money or just FEMA money, it would be going through them, through her, I don't know. I know that we have been given our internal contacts in SOV, but I don't really know whose name is sort of at the top of that list and I'm happy to find out and loop back with the committee. Okay, and it would be helpful if there was some, if we knew if like for different pots of money, if there were specific contacts like for FEMA, would it be Erica or for the 1.25, would it be somebody else? And just so that if we knew who the contacts were, that would be nice. Okay, I can find out. Thanks, thanks. Okay, any more questions for now that we know all the answers? Anybody else, Allison? Well, I assume the LCT is going to be reminding municipalities that they need to be as diligent as they were. I mean, we all learned our lesson in Irene. I mean, that was a tough education for all of us. So I just hope that VLCT is communicating like wild at the moment to their towns to be doing all this. And I know that one of the things that we did learn there was that, and I don't remember exactly, well, I can't remember exactly the lesson we learned, but I know the town of Halifax, for example, was really, really damaged in Irene. And they started working on it right away to bring the town back and put their roads back in shape and everything. And FEMA told them that they wouldn't be eligible because they started the process of recouping their town or reinvesting in their infrastructure before FEMA approved it. So I don't know if that's going to be the same here that municipalities are going to need to get approval first before they... Yes, we should. I don't know. Halifax fought like tigers and Suminter fought for them and they did, were made pretty much whole, not completely, but so... Yes, and that brings up a good point because I also recall that the lesson learned from Halifax is that lots of municipal managers had had to have things inspected first by the FEMA person to okay, you know, how the project was going to be rebuilt. I mean, remember that whole thing about culverts that that was that stupid ruling of FEMA's that we couldn't replace the culvert to the proper size it had to be replaced to the size it was before, which was clearly inadequate. Remember that whole, you know, they had to okay that, which is like, oh, please, I hope we learn from that. Well, we may have, but whether FEMA has... No, I hope FEMA has. So I don't know. Does anybody have any more questions or comments or anything? We probably should have asked Chris Campani to join us because he's, he really is kind of on top of FEMA. I'm sure other planning commissions are also, but he... Okay, Gregory, I wonder if Peter's, because Peter could do that too, Peter Gregory. Yeah, no. Yeah, I, probably most any of the planning commissions could, I tend to rely on Chris because we've had, he's been so involved with issues around Vermont Yankee and emergency planning and all that kind of stuff. So he, and when FEMA hit, they had, when FEMA hit, when Irene hit, they had their plans really well in shape because of Vermont Yankee. So he was able to respond quicker than many places, but I guess, so what Betsy or Nolan, if we were to do something around that $377,000 and direct, we have to do that legislatively to, and put and the and in there and dealing with COVID-19 and then suggest that they take a certain amount of money out of the 1.25 billion and use that as the mechanism to funnel the money to the EMS programs. Would we have to do that legislatively to change the statutes? Betsy and you know. Well, I think the EMS fund, because it's a state fund, Nolan, correct me if you think this is, tell me if you think this is correct, but I think you'd have to have a session law appropriation like you were gonna do an S-124, your S-124 in section 26 would have said the sum of 450,000 is appropriated from the EMS fund and then you add a $400,000 appropriation from the general fund in fiscal year 21. And then you just specified the purpose. You said in S-124, it was the, for the purposes of emergency medical personnel training. So you took them under that language, the general assembly would have specified the amount from the EMS fund and then specified the purpose of the appropriation. So I think you'd do something similar for the appropriation from the EMS fund. Then I, just Nolan going by what you were saying with trying to figure out how the 1.25 needs to be divvied up, seems like that would be a separate question about the legislative authority or whether it's going to be JFC approval or whatever the term into process is. Yeah, that process has not been determined yet. So that's, I think there's a conversations that are happening in joint fiscal committee about how that would, what the priorities would be and where that money is going. But I think, yeah, I think as Betsy and said is you could do a session law, you could also change the statute to add like, and natural disasters or unexpected events, right? You could just so that it's clear that it gives us some more on top of the training purposes. And then you could say something along the lines of French session law appropriate up to 377,000. So that would take care of Jimfinger's concerns that they're not double dipping. That's one way. And then should we try to find out from our EMS people what they think that they need in, beyond that 377, what they need that we could recommend to the administration and to the whoever the legislative body is if they're going to have any, if we're going to have any say in it an amount from that 1.25 that they would need that we are suggesting go to the EMS providers. Would that be a good thing for us to find out? I guess, I mean, I don't, yeah, we don't know what their need is going to be. They know better than we do what their need is. One other thing to do to think about would be is find out if there's a way that we could let the ambulances, the EMS association determine how the money gets dispersed. Right, but we need to, the 377, that's my suggestion is that it go through there but the amount from the 1.25 billion, I don't think that anybody would agree that the ambulance services should distribute all of that money should distribute all of it. No, no, no, no, but I mean like, we figure out how much. Yeah, yeah, we need to say, we think that $750,000 of that should go into the EMS services and it should be dispersed through the combination of the ambulance association and the EMS advisory council. And that would be Drew Hazelton and Jim Finger, really. That's what I was saying. I wasn't saying that they should determine how much they should get fired for saying that. Maybe we should have them do that. They are the emergency people. They'd offer me a job though after that. Does that make sense, committee? Why don't you summarize it one more time? My understanding is that- Okay, do you want me to summarize it? Yes. So we are going to ask Betsy Ann to draft up something that put on this EMS fund where that we know there's 377,000 or there was that it directs the Department of Health to disperse any unencumbered funds immediately through the EMS advisory council and ambulance association, whatever that's called. Betsy, I'm sure you remember the exact name. And then we add that for the purposes in there, we add and for unexpected, unanticipated events or natural disasters or something like that. And then we find out from those two associations what kind of, what ballpark figure they feel that they would need to respond now, say through the end of August or September. And then also ask, then write a letter to Adam Greshan and the governor and suggest that that amount of money be put from the 1.25 billion into that same fund to be dispersed to the ambulance services. Is that what we thought? That was my sense of what you were doing, is that second letter to Greshan and the governor about putting that additional money into the EMS fund from the 1.25. Yeah. Okay. Anybody, Chris? So there are a lot of streams of revenue. I'm just trying to, there's the 1.25 we keep talking about, but I don't, my impression is that, and this is where I need Nolan to get me back on track, are there monies within the 1.25? There's money directed to health. And I don't know if within health, they're already targeting emergency services. And one of the ways we talked about emergency services are physician extenders. So that would seem like a very legitimate connection for health care. So there's been COVID-1 and COVID-3, each had one had 4.9 million and one had 5.4 million. That went to the health department. So it's over 10 million, but that was not for an EMS specific. That was for COVID response. So that's different than what this 1.25 pot of money, this is a separate pot of money. And that's why I said before the guidance about how it can be spent to be determined, but I don't think it's gonna be specific to who it can spend, you don't. It's more gonna be how, like what are the types of things in terms of like, what are the criteria or what are the guardrails? And I can't imagine that EMS would not be part of it. I think it's more like, like they said, that can't be spent on something you already appropriated for or can be used for this or for that. But I think that EMS services clearly can't imagine it's not a function that couldn't be funded through that. Also, the backtrack, I think I confused things again a little bit about how the money would be dispersed. It sounds like the health department has experienced doing this and know how to do that. It would just be a matter of the association maybe just providing some level of input to the health department, but we should probably just leave it up to them to figure out how to disperse it. Yeah. We could. Okay, Chris. The other question to you, Madam chairs, are we, I know that we talked, or maybe more accurately, you talked to Senator Lyons pretty regularly. Are we just kind of staying in sync with healthcare in terms of having them also looking out for EMS? I can't answer that. I quite honestly don't know. Nolan sits in with them. He might have a better sense of that. I actually don't talk to Senator Lyons as much as I did during the session when we did crossword puzzles together every single night, but. It hasn't really come up. I think partially maybe because they either know or they've been doing testimony more specific to hospitals, mental health, designated agencies and in their conversation, the EMS I don't believe has come up out of our cause, specifically this kind of conversation. I do know that Diane Derby had sent some information to me, but it was primarily around funding for PPEs and for ventilator masks and stuff. I think that they are in desperate need of funding for other issues also. But I do know that there is an SEOC call every week, I believe, and Diane Derby takes part in that. So they are, and that's around EMS and related issues. So we'll copy her on whatever we do. Diane Derby is from Leahy's office, I'm sure you all know that. Yeah. Yeah. So other issues, are there other, as Allison just pointed out a little while ago, is there CARES money? Is that, or maybe it was Chris, is there potential there? Because that's different than the 1.25, right? No, that is the. That is the. That is it. Harris is COVID-1, right? That's the, okay, what's COVID-3 really? COVID-3. What's one? The first one they did a while ago in March. So can I just clarify? The 1.25 is money that's part of the CARES Act along with other money. Okay. Okay. I wish they'd just send us lots of money and stop naming them. We're actually hoping that COVID-4 happens and that we all, all these programs that have now been created actually get fully funded because we've run out as we know of the PPP program money. Yes, we have. And we're hoping to get some more. And actually I am not sure I would suppose that ambulance services would be eligible for PPP money if there was some there, but most of them are losing their people, not because they're laying them off, but because they are continuing to operate. So. I bet some of them applied because they are all small businesses. But isn't, wasn't the PPP to keep your employees paid? And then to hire, and to require, right, but most of the ambulance services and the EMS people aren't laying off people. They're desperately trying to give more people. So they aren't. Anyway, Anthony, did you have a question? No. I was just two things. I kind of wish that we were here about more funding streams available, to be quite honest. I mean, I feel like FEMA and CARES and EMS fund are fine, but there was a part of me that was hoping for more, but longer term, I'm just, I don't have, this is not a question, but it's more just the thought that I'm a little, I don't want to say concerned, but I wonder what's going to happen when we come time to divvy up to $1.25 billion. I mean, I really hope that we have some way to get people involved in making that decision. Like some of us know that, don't just like, I want us to take some creative thinking about it. There's the things that we can do that would help us avoid this kind of situation in the future. One thing that I learned recently, historians were talking about why this depression or the coming reset and slash depression is not going to be as bad as it was in the 30s. Because in the 30s, there was no unemployment insurance. It didn't exist. You lost your job, you lost your job. You had no money, period. So one of the things we learned from that depression was unemployment fund is a good thing to have. And I guess I'm just wondering whether what we're going to learn from this experience is a good thing to be had that we provide primary care to everybody. Because right now, the governor's talking about making sure insurance companies don't charge out-of-pocket expenses or co-pays for testing. Well, maybe that should be a policy going forward as well that you see it wellness all the time for as part of a public program. Just things like that. I don't want us to just pay off bad bills with that $1.2 billion. I want us to think about how we could actually take what we've learned and institute policies that are going to help us in the future. Anyways, this is a random thought, so I'm thinking a lot about it lately. Well, not to put any words in Susanna's mouth because she's here to speak for herself, but she keeps reminding us that we need to use this opportunity to say, if we can do this now, what can we learn so that we can do it permanently? So I think that that's right. And we're actually looking at the same thing in judiciary. If we can institute policies around corrections in the courts and everything else now, can we apply those permanently? So we need to take this opportunity to learn what we can do permanently. So I didn't say that nearly as eloquently as Susanna said it. So would you like to say it yourself, Susanna? Thank you, Madam Chair. You took the words right out of my mouth. Yeah, and I was looking at a different part of my screen and I missed the very last portion of what you said, so I apologize if there was a question in there. Please repeat it, I'm happy to answer. No, I just said that I didn't mean to speak for you and I didn't say it nearly as eloquently as you and so would you like to weigh in? Oh no, you've got it, you've got it. Susanna, your notion of identifying opportunities through this disaster was so clear on Tuesday when we heard from the title insurance people. I mean, from the land records, I mean, there is our next opportunity with title searches is digitizing our land records for which you clearly are gonna need to do and Chris Delia from the Vermont Bankers Association this morning, reinforce that. Absolutely. There is identifying, I would call this identifying opportunities for the future through the, from the pandemic. Another way that came up recently in some conversations was the idea of making college, finding a way to use some of the money to make college affordable so that it feels it's less people going into prison, more people going to college, coming out without a lot of student debt. There's just a lot of ripple effects that could come from doing the right thing to raise that money. Susanna, did you wanna weigh in? Thank you. I appreciate all of the comments from the senators. I think you all are spot on. It really is about looking at upstream factors. And I think about it, I mean, one way we could look at it is, if your roof is leaking, sure, you could put a paper waste basket, a waste paper basket under the leak in your room, but that's only gonna do so much and for only so long. It's really about the preventative activities that you do to strengthen everything and everyone. So you're absolutely right, upstream factors like the availability and affordability of educational resources is really critical to keeping people out of incarceration and keeping people gainfully employed and employed in the kinds of sectors that aren't particularly vulnerable like we see now in COVID. Yeah, absolutely. And again, I am happy any time to come and think through what are some of the other sectors or committees that you may wanna consider talking to. Think up, Tucker, wait, Tucker had a response here. And then Chris. I don't have a response. I have a message from Michael Czernik that he wanted me to share with you because he went back and listened to your discussion about the potential for a land records commission moving forward and he wanted to share that the lands record commission existed for almost eight years and that it was overseen by John Bloomer's mother and that representative McCoy was assigned to that commission and that there may be a lot of information available to the committee from that former commission if you are interested in reviving it. Good, thank you. I wrote a letter to the committee this morning and hopefully we can talk about it next week so we can get it taken care of. Thank you, Tucker. Chris. I was just, you know, really the same as what other folks have been saying, Anthony and others that this whole COVID thing is like, you know, we're getting a giant mirrors being held up and we're seeing more clearly in many places where the current system is weak. So I was mentioning in our all Senate meeting, Senator Mazza asked me to move on. He said, we could do that another time. But it was, I was mentioning if we had had paid family leave how different it would have felt to people to have to step out of work because of illness of either their own or a family member, you know, it would have been a much less stressful transition for many people. Or when we start looking at people at the low wage scale and worrying about being able to afford to boost their wages, if the minimum wage were higher, we quote unquote, essential workers at places like grocery stores would have, we wouldn't have had been talking about sort of an emergency hero bonus pay. They might have been making a more manageable wage from the beginning. So I just think there's probably many of these. And the last thing I'll say, because we are already are nodding is the thing that's always thrown back to us on all these kinds of proposals is that they are not affordable. And somehow we've decided everything happening right now is affordable. So it reinforces for me that it's a political community choice. It's not really that there's not enough money in the checkbook. It's we decide how big that checkbook is to begin with. So now I'll stop. You're here. You're here. So any more comments about today's issue and then I'll Nolan, are you raising your hand? Yeah, yeah, I just want to just going back to something Senator Polina said before about wanting to know what money is out there. I had put together a document that was specific to health and human services only about, and I broke it out by COVID-1, COVID-2, COVID-3 and I sent it to Gail and I asked her to post it. So then I gave you a sense of different pieces of information. I looked it over multiple times and I didn't see anything that was specific to EMS other than, I mean, there could be some views for interpretation, but anyway, that's another resource for you to look at to get a sense of the different pots of money they're coming in specific to health and human services. So I said to Gail, hopefully she'll post it soon. So one of the things that we heard from Drew before was that some of their supplies, their medical supplies are being depleted. And so that might fall into there. It isn't specifically EMS, but it's medical supplies that are going to them. So committee of- I have a quick knowing question. Yes, yeah. There's a infrastructure proposal and being talked about federally, I don't know, something like the moving forward money. Is that another name for COVID-4 and is that something that's still alternative? I don't know. I think it's all tentative. I've just heard it. There's another potential bill. I haven't heard about what's in it. That may or may not be it. I don't, I couldn't answer that question. Okay. Good question. There's a section in the treasurer's presentation on the house ways and means on the moving forward infrastructure money. But it's, I've never heard that term before. And there's quite a few things that would be of interest to municipalities around things like wastewater and drinking water and municipal infrastructure and things like that. It's on our economic development website also. She presented it to us as well. Okay. What I am reading is through the update that Steve Klein puts out every week. And what he wrote was, recent conversations in Washington indicate that the next stimulus bill will be focused mainly on small business funding with possibly more legislation after that. So, just take this. No one. Why has EMS been pulled out of all the healthcare discussion? I mean, why is it separate? It's essential to healthcare. It's getting people from their homes or wherever they live to the medical facility. Why is EMS excluded all the time from the main healthcare debate? That's a political question. It's because the EMS, the ambulance system was originally thought of as a transportation issue. That it was transporting. It was not thought of as a healthcare issue. And we've learned over the past few years that it really is an extension, as Chris says, of your doctor, that it is an extension of that. So it's just taking, wrapping our heads around a whole different concept of what EMS is all about. And I think that there's just tension between those two kind of philosophies of where it should lie and what it should be. Well, yeah, no, I answer it. And certainly our abilities now in ambulances to actually administer healthcare is so much more considerable than it was before. But Nolan, if you'd wear that EMS hat as you continue in all the healthcare funding pieces, it would be great. Happy to. Right, there was an era when the people who would pick you up with an ambulance might also be driving a hearse. I'm not kidding. I mean, it was kind of like the attendance phase. So, yeah, it was not a, maybe there was oxygen in the back, but it wasn't sort of a rolling emergency room the way they are now in a certain way. Yeah, yeah. Anthony, Anthony. Sorry. It's okay, Anthony. We can't hear you, Senator. I always presume, not always meaning up till now, but when I was younger, that ambulances were all run by the hospitals. Like you call the ambulance, the ambulance left the hospital and came and got you. Yeah. And I think the fact that they don't, they're not really attached to hospitals is one of the reasons why they're underfunded. I'm not saying they should be attached to hospitals, but imagine if they were, they would be well funded. Some are, some are, depends on where you are. And believe me, our hospitals are hurting also. So they're not well funded either. Well, now they are, right. Actually what you're seeing is a trend of municipalities privatizing. Right. Yeah. Just to go to what Chris Bray had brought up, the treasurer's piece, which I don't know how to get it from our economic development website to the GovOps one, but in the moving forward framework that they're talking about, this proposed $760 billion for infrastructure, there is lots for municipalities from, as Chris pointed out, clean water and wastewater, but rural broadband, drinking water, all sorts of water infrastructure and brownfields cleanups, and focuses on climate change, school buildings. My guess is municipal buildings could be in there and affordable housing. We were looking at it because of the amount of stuff it has in unhousing. And there's already, as you probably know, 4.67 million identified for Vermont for housing out of that and a very specific amount identified for Burlington. So they're slowly amounts are coming out. I just sent that to everyone by email. Good, thank you. Thanks. I wanna know how you did that at another point. Because... Okay, any more questions, comments? Madam Chair, the sister's not a Davis again. Yep. I just wanted to let you all know I received an answer regarding the previous question about who are the right points of contact for the different pots of money. And I am told that Adam's commission regression is actually the best person for you to reach out to you about that. Oh, good, great. Thank you. Thank you very much. So, next, Peter asked when we wanna meet next week and I said that Tuesday, Thursday and Friday seemed to work for us. Does that still work for everybody? Yes, good. Okay. Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, great. Okay, and what I thought on Tuesday, we could look at the issue of the title searches. That came up again this morning in the all Senate meeting and have suggested that we have Chuck Starrow, Chris Delia, Randy had sent an email that I think I forwarded to everybody. And if I didn't, I will about a couple people and then Carol Dawes and Susanna, I don't know if you're being kind of our liaison here but we'll send you the information, the invite also and VLCT to talk about how we might do that and then how we might beef up this digitizing commission and get that going again without needing legislation, I believe. And then talk, I have on the second item, talk about the training council. I think we need some more information about the training council. I've had some conversations with law enforcement and there are some issues around some of the training that we have legislatively mandated that they have and it is causing some issues. It's meaning that they can't expedite the level three certifications because we've meant, this is the way I understand it. And so I'd like to hear from them about it. For example, we have mandated that they all have to have search and rescue training but VSP does search and rescue and there are certain search and rescue teams. So why everybody who's a level three certified needs search and rescue, the extensive training. So there are some things like that that we need to, we probably have to deal with them in the long term but for the short term, we need to address some of them and how they're going to deal with some of the hands-on training that they need to do like the force, what's that use of force training? That's a hands-on training and how they're going to do that. So I suggested that we take that up on Tuesday and then on Thursday, we can invite the EMS people back to talk about what they think their needs might be and how we can hopefully have an influence on getting those needs and then hear from again some of the communities at risk around voting and just have a short conversation about that and other issues that have come up around. I know the, and I don't remember the name, the title of it, it's the Racial Criminal Justice Council. It involves a lot of the Attorney General's office and a lot of law enforcement people and so they're looking at like bias related incidents, reporting and stuff like that and just have that also and other issues that might be coming up from communities at risk or vulnerable communities. Allison, did you? Yes, I think we need to hear directly from municipalities as well. They're now beginning to get a good sense of what are particular to municipalities in the needs that are arising. And Paul, it would be great to hear from VLCT. I think it's more compelling to hear from individual town managers or mayors or whoever. We can do, I always invite VLCT to every meeting we ever have. And if there are individual town managers and the problem with doing that is how to choose who's going to be part of the conversation. But VLCT is going to be very clear on who's in, who's having the most needs and what they are. And perhaps we could ask VLCT to identify some people, to identify additional needs that we need to be addressing that are affecting municipalities and who might speak for those, who might be good witnesses for that. Yeah, yeah, we can do that. And if there are, so we'll spend Friday looking at new issues that are coming up, particularly around municipalities and any other stuff. Chris, do you have a, yes? And so tomorrow, are we coming back to the posting of information, legal posting question? Did we have that on for tomorrow, Gail? Yes, yeah, I thought so, yes. Mike Donahue. Yeah, and John Flowers. Right, okay. Just wanted to double check. Yes, because that puts our conversation of two years ago in a little, this whole experience again is put that conversation back in the forefront. So yes, we will have that conversation and we might have time tomorrow also just to hear since invited to that is VLCT and the clerks and the media about other issues that municipalities might be facing that can be brought up but not necessarily discussed and then we can figure out who would be appropriate to have them come and talk to us. Does that make sense? Yep, the, you know, this whole thing with posting when we're, and now our meetings, it's making me think this isn't for the next week or two, it'll be for well beyond the next session even, is now that we've gotten one foot much more firmly into the digital world, you know, like what's the legislature gonna do when we come back in 21? Will committee meetings, are we gonna just go back to, you have to show up in person or are we gonna start finding a way to blend physical committee meetings with public access through something like Zoom? Because a lot of people have commented to me how pleasant it is to be able to just dial into a meeting, participate, they didn't have to leave home, they didn't have to drive, they didn't have to park, they don't have to feed a meter and then they continue with their other work. So anyway, I'll put that in our two rings now in basket. Yeah, I think that we can learn from this. I still think it's important to have committee meetings in person. Yeah, I don't think to replace them. Right, but to have the ability for people both to participate, not necessarily there in person. Right. And I think there's the question about that Brian brought up the other day about the peg access. Can they be taping these meetings and then sending them out? And we just said yes, we didn't know if it was legal or not, but we said yes. And I think that that's another question that could be instead of just should they all be being live streamed or video streamed. Right. Yeah, those are. I know the ratings on Seneca Vops have been almost off the charts. Yeah, right, right. Chris, it's interesting that you say this this piece of feedback because you know, on the whole farmers market issue, I had emailed back about probably 10 people who emailed yesterday about their frustration about the governor's order on farmers markets. And I said, well, weigh in tomorrow, go to and listen to the Senate act, meeting tomorrow morning, they're discussing it. I've gotten a bunch of emails saying, oh, that was great. And it'd be great to not, I could or fully doing this because I didn't have to go take an hour to get to my pillar here. An hour from people from my area or Bennington. It's like a two hour drive up and then you sit there for an hour and then you drive back to ours. It takes your whole day. So it is. So the farmers who were caring about that issue just loved being able to experience that discussion. So thank you, Brian, for your discussion this morning. You're welcome. Did you make some decisions? Well, I think Anthony and I felt one way and perhaps the other members of the committee felt a different way. And so we didn't take any formal action. We're going to wait for the governors, well, not the governors, but the administration's new guidelines which will be released tomorrow. But I don't think it's going to affect any farmers markets this weekend. Too bad. I could be, I mean, Senator Polina may disagree, but that was the feeling I had at the end of the meeting was that they probably would still not be open this weekend. Chris, let's see if Senator Polina has on that topic. And then I'll go to you, Chris. Well, basically, Brian's right. They're going to come up with the guidance tomorrow. This is the third time they've told us they're going to come up with new guidance. Some of us are a little more skeptical than others. The committee decided to wait till after they come up with their guidance before we react to it. Brian and I wanted to make it clear on the committee's behalf that we wanted them to come up with a good guidance, one that people could actually live with, live within a political as well as a practical way. So I think basically for people who are hoping to open up their markets tomorrow or Saturday this weekend, it's not going to happen. I wouldn't think. Chris. Well, and just so I get the, is the none of the issue, social distancing or physical distancing at the markets? That's a large part of it. Yeah, the idea that we're putting, that farmers might be at risk also because the farmers are lined up at the market. And of course, farmers who feel that way don't have to go to the market. But NOFA came up with a list of guidelines that they obviously worked on with farmers as people who deal at the markets. And so they have ideas about distancing out the market and limiting how the market operates. Not just going to be a full-blown market. It would be limited because of social distancing. But people are not sure they want to do it. There's definitely mixed feelings amongst the farmers as well. Interesting. Well, it's interesting. I mean, we have grocery stores open. Believe me, that's one of the bigger arguments we've made. It's like, you know, we're not going to go to a farmer's market, but I'm going to go to Shaw's and walk down an aisle like with other people like. Well, you're much closer. With produce that's been touched by people from Peru all the way to like Montpelier. Well, that's an argument. So just to complete the thought, the House Agricultural Committee is sending a letter to the administration calling for new guidelines. The idea that Brian and I had was for the Senate Committee to sign on to the House Committee letter that we now voted. That was a good idea. And since we're almost to the end of the story on this, the other colleagues who thought differently just preferred to wait for the guidance to come out and see what it said before doing anything more. Yeah, that came down to, yeah. Yeah, it wasn't that certainly I don't want to misrepresent. They were just as supportive of having farmers markets open. I think I could say it was just that they didn't feel that our letter would make much of a difference at this point. I wanted to go on record as supporting it, but that's okay. Me too. So Betsy Ann, can I ask you to do one more thing or Tucker? I'm not sure which would be the best or maybe both of you. If there are, and we don't need to do this right now, but if there are sunsets that are about to happen in June, that we need to repeal the sunset or extend it, we should be looking at those to see which ones we may need to, something came up yesterday and I wrote down, sunsets, but I can't remember what the issue was, but it was an issue that came up around a sunset that we will need to make sure that we repeal the sunset before. I mean, it doesn't have to happen next week, but at some point we should be looking at those. Yeah, good call. Our office actually keeps a record of sunsets. Okay. I'll reach out. I think it's Katie Mclin. She keeps the sunset record. I'll reach out to her to get the latest copy. I know one at least in your jurisdiction is the sunset on the funding of the State Ethics Commission runs out at the end of this fiscal year. Well, I did ask Larry Novens about that, and he said that he thought it wouldn't need any legislation because it's in the governor's budget now. Okay. But if he was going to check just to make sure that we didn't need it, but there was something else that came up the other day, and it was when we were talking about title insurance. Anyway. Yeah. I don't remember what it was. Yeah, we'll reach out. I think there should be a list that we can just forward to you. Okay. Let's see which ones are in your jurisdiction. Okay, thank you. Yeah. Anything else? Yeah, I just want to make sure I'm clear on tomorrow. That 10 30 tomorrow morning, I still don't know a hundred percent whether it's going to be a floor session, which I took Tim to say it probably wouldn't be or whether it'll just be an all Senate caucus. From what I understand is that there would be only one bill tomorrow and that would be the one that we did around transferring the anyway, the one bill that we did. And since the house hasn't yet figured out when they might be able to vote, and at the earliest it would be the end of next week, that we could, his suggestion was that we perhaps have a floor session either Tuesday or Wednesday of next week, and that would give us time to pass it and get it to them. That's what I thought I remembered. Thank you. And since we haven't heard if we're going to have a floor session, my guess is that we'll just have an all Senate caucus. Thank you, Madam Chair. What's up? Okay Madam Chair, I see David Englander has been with us this whole time. I didn't know if he was going to say something. My goodness sakes, I didn't, there I see him. A little round. A bow tie. It's a bow tie beaming in through the door. No, it's not. It's not beaming at all. David, did you have anything you wanted to throw in here given our conversation? Thank you, Betsy Ann. Maybe he's just here in spirit. He's not responding. He's muted. So, are you with us or not? Okay. Maybe he was. Anybody else have anything that they would like to say? No, sir. Okay, so, see you tomorrow at 10.30. 10.30. 10.30 and then again at one. Good. Look forward. Okay, thanks.