 Hello and welcome. This is August 26, 2020. This is the House of Representatives Education Committee. And this morning we are looking at pre-K through 12 funding issues. And I'd like to welcome Secretary French who's going to speak to us today about the budget going forward. So welcome Secretary French. Good morning. It's good to see you all. I believe you might have our slide deck for our budget presentation available. If I do, I will load that for you. Oh, thank you. And with us from the agency side, we have Bill Bates, who's our CFO, and Kathy Flanagan, who's our happy CFO. I'll be happy to answer any questions as we go through this. We did any slides. You can go down. This is fine right here. You might remember the format of our budget presentation. In the spring, we basically modified that presentation to update it for a restatement of the budget. So the format's basically the same. If you want to go down to the next slide, executive summary. So we, you know, went through a process, you know, essentially to address the deficit that's in the general fund and went through an exercise or if you will, to make adjustments to the agency's budget. And we'll, we'll get a specifics of that, but we were able to navigate that fairly well. I will point out the agency of education. And one of the, I think common misunderstandings is that people often can conflate the idea of the ed fund and the education or the agencies, but Oops, where'd he go? Looks like he's frozen. He's frozen. Send a little message. Yeah. I'm going to turn it over to Bill Bates, our CFO to sort of walk through this overview and get into more detail. Thank you. You've bleeped out a little bit, but I think we get the Justin and. Okay, sorry. Good morning, everyone. Bill Bates. I'm the director of the agency of Ed CFO. And I will pick up where Secretary French left off and this is the executive summary. And I'm on slide three right now. And this is the original governor's recommended by 21 budget that stand across all 12 appropriations. And this is what we had submitted back in the spring. And at the bottom, I'll highlight for you that of the $90.8 million increase, only 8.4 million or 9% of that total increase was for finance and administration and education services. And then of that 8.4 only 147,000 or 2% was for operations. Next slide, please. And now, fast forward to June, July timeframe and the, the ask was that we come up with a restated FY 21 budget. We have done so, and you can see here and I'll drill into the detail, but starting at a very high level. The agency's net reduction is $502,000. And the general fund portion of that is the required 3% reduction that we've been asked to achieve. The reduction by appropriation we have finance and administration is 127,000 education services 183. The adult ed in literacy is 108,000 flexible pathways is 60 and then state port is recommended 24,000 key here is that along with this restatement budget, we're also asking for a reclassification of $6 million. And that is for the switch of the data team going from education services over to finance and administration. There's no questions on the executive summary. We can advance to us like live questions on the executive summary. Okay. Can I ask very quickly, just to understand the reclassification of the data team that doesn't have any impact on the budget that's just the money appears elsewhere. That's a great question and when we get into the detail ups and downs I can show you exactly where that $6 million is getting reduced out of education services and being added to finance and admin team. And it's a reclass of those resources so they were reported to Deputy Secretary Boucher and now they're reporting out through myself. Okay but it doesn't change overall spending. No. Thank you. Thank you for the question. So on the next slide I'd like to give you a high level overview just to give some context the. The data management team structure change and then when you, when you think about agency operations there's really two main appropriations it's finance and admin and then education services. And we started talking about the data team. When we presented our budget back in the spring this is how the previous structure of the agency looked reporting up through Secretary French and you can see underneath Deputy Boucher. Heather Boucher it's the data management and analysis team is reporting up through her. And then on the next slide I've boxed out that. So you can see and highlight the change to the data admin team reporting up to the CFO. There's no questions on the new structure. This next slide. I kept in from the original presentation that because I think it's helpful for everyone to get an appreciation of the, the size of the agency, and this takes us all the way back to the fly 2008 2009 timeframe. I refer to that timeframe from my private sector days as the financial tsunami. That's where we had the downturn in the economy and you can see if you look at the green line that's going from the left to the right. At the time we had 213 employees at the agency. And if you fast forward to FY 21, you can see that we're currently at 159 employees. In addition to the downturn in the economy in the early. 2000s we also had a restructuring within state government a couple years back, where we took and carved out all of the it resources and created a DS. And so you can see that in the 1819 timeframe we also had a slight downturn. And that's associated with the IT team moving out of AOE and moving into the agency of digital services. Any questions here before I move on to drilling into more of the detail. Just one, one little side that I have in relation to the data that you were talking about, where are we right now in terms of the chart of accounts and CC SS DDMS. You know where, where are we in terms of our progress in that area. Okay, thank you for that question so the, the chart of accounts, hooray hooray we are done with that that's called the handbook to portion of the project. And so that has been completed. And we're actually slating for mid to late September to do a detailed training for all of the business managers on that. And the SS DDMS. I like to refer to that as the finance plus the finance plus project. And I just the other day signed off on the completion of round five. We're moving into round six of a multi round implementation and that I think that we're doing very well as far as that is concerned, rather than doing the big bang approach and trying to do all of the districts at once we have chunked up the implementation so that we're doing rounds where you have five or six. As us these that are going live at the same time. We also worked with power school to expand their implementation timeframe. As a as a vendor they would like to say that they could get a general ledger implemented in three to six months. And so we expanded that so that the school districts have a full 12 months to implement, because we know that there's going to be competing priorities for those resources and so by extending the duration we think we're actually helping with the implementation. The 12 months is what's the date on 12 months. Each each each round so we just started a new round in July 1. And so that group of districts will go live next June. And so that's the way that we're proceeding with the implementation. I was going to say if you would like specific details as to percent complete I can I don't have that at my fingertips but I can get that for you. So we just kind of live with this and there probably isn't essential for our conversation right now so I'll let us move move on. Thank you. Serena Austin. I'm just wondering is there any relationship between the personnel the number of personnel that got lowered from 08 21 and the lower student student population. The loss of, I don't know 60,000 students or so. Is there any correlation at all. Yeah I don't I don't think so I mean my interpretation of the historic data is as Bill mentioned. The big adjustment came with the formation of the agency of digital services and you know the IT staff that were previously at the agency are now employees of ADS essentially. That was the big change. But when I talk to my peers around the country and in New England about the scope and size of their organizations. My observations I don't think it's directly tied to the number of students. I think there's sort of a correlation to the tide to the number of school districts because a lot of what we do at the agency is sub grant or pass through dollars through the local enemies or lea so there is a relationship I think in terms of managing that complexity at the level we call the SCA level versus the lea the local agency depending on how complex that is. But for the most part I think the staffing is based on the scope and size of the federal programs that we administer. And to what extent their higher ed is another key variable some state agencies administer higher ed others have it separate. We don't inside the agency of education we don't administer higher ed essentially. We don't see a lot of relationship necessarily between the number of employees and the number of students but rather those other sort of entities that we have to manage as part of a sub grant process. Okay, thank you. Keep going. Okay, thank you. So if we go to the next slide please this next slide is just calling out those components that make up finance and administration and then education services. If you go to the director's office you have communications legal finance administration and then data management, and then under education services you can see the programs that make that up as well. We can advance the next slide. We'll start talking about the, the adjustments that we've made in the restated budget. We're financing administration, and we can see that there is an increase in this particular appropriation because of the data assessment reclass of $6 million, which is line item number five. But specifically to the reduction you can see that. And again we'll drill into these details. On one, we're reducing that by 57,008. We have a slight decrease in the supply line item vacancy savings is a reduction of 18,700 and then we have 50,000 in contracts which makes up the subtotal of 127,467 dollars in reductions in this appropriation. In advance to the next slide we can talk about education services, and you can see that here we have a total decrease of 6,191,971 dollars. The makeup of that is the reclassification again of the data team but also a reduction in grants in the amount of 124,841 dollars. We're reducing travel by 15,000 and then we have in this particular appropriation vacancy savings in the amount of $43,255. And just to clarify those vacancy savings you are actually that's just going to hold us through this next quarter but you are continuing to you are planning to hire for those positions is that correct. We've got a total of 10 vacancies, I believe, within the entire agency, several of those are within the finance team. And so when I came on board, I had proposed the concept of centers of excellence and having three of those within finance. And my goal is to submit for consideration the, the filling of those positions that would help us complete the build out of those three centers of excellence. That's everyone knows because of COVID-19 there is a hiring freeze and so that's also having an impact on this. Secretary French anything else to add on that. To the chair's question. Yes, so we tend to, you know, absent the hiring freeze move forward with our hiring, especially can I think their conversations and the finance or I guess the appropriations committee. You know, we, I think we characterized our, our vacancy now as sort of being typical of a large agency of our size so the 10 is not atypical as the normal kind of churn. In terms of addressing the budget requirements, we were able to book additional costs in there. As a result of sort of the COVID emergency and how you know the delay with the freeze and that's that's impacted our hiring ability. But we intend to pursue our hiring as best we can in that context. The hiring freezes. Is there a plan on the lifting of that? Is there a date or not? I don't think so at the moment. We still have and I believe the joint fiscal committee is also involved in that as well so every basically every hire has to be justified relative to the emergency response. And that goes through the secretary of administration committee actually then secretary administration then ultimately joint fiscal reviews, those things so there's just a lot of oversight right now to ensure that we're really doing as much as possible to focus on the emergency response. Thank you that's helpful representative James. Thanks chair web and thanks for being here. I wondered, we talked about this a little bit at our joint hearing with appropriations. The grants section is that where you're proposing the funding cuts to outright Vermont. Are we getting to that. Yes. Yeah. You want me to hold my question for later. Yeah, let's wait till we get to that slide. Sounds good. There are no other questions I think we can advance to slide 12 and what I might ask as a favor this is this is a roll up or what I refer to as a roll up of all of the detail that's included in the ups and downs. And so if we could stop sharing this document and pull up the, the ups and downs document that we shared. It's the Excel worksheet. I'm not aware that I received that. Do you have it and I can make allow you to share. That will work. I get a message that says host disabled participant screen sharing. I'm going to resend the email. Yeah, we'll take. Yeah, you can do that. Just call it up here real quick. It may be quicker just to make you a co host. And then you can pull it up. Okay. Can you see that now? There we go. I think. Yeah. Is not the one I want. There you go. Does that, does that work? Yes. fiscal year 21 budget development addendum. No. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Is that education fund reversing history? It's weird. I have the, the document. Yeah. Let me try it again. So I just stopped sharing and. Did sharing again. Did that work? Do you see the FI 21 budget. Development addendum. There we go. Sorry about that. So what I have here. I can go back to the. Line 12. And if you look at this, I know that it's quite small, and it's very dizzy, but. If you. Draw your attention or if I can draw your attention to line six, that's appropriation. Five one. Zero, zero, zero. That's the finance and admin appropriation. And you can see the original in the column. I, the 28 million. That was what we originally submitted. And here is the detail that gets us from the 28 million down to the 34 million and 932 column I, that number should ring a bell because that's the 5,881,000 that I have referred to in our executive summary. So if we focus on column D, general fund, you can see the internal service fund changes for that is from finance and management byline. So these are the internal service fund changes that they have given us that we've incorporated for property and commercial liability, insurance, HR, the ADS allocation, workers comp and then vision. And then the $852 that is the supply line that I had made reference to earlier on line 26, the vacancy savings of $18,762 line 28 and then the two line items, 30 and 31, that is the contractual change, 18,000 that came from our legal counsel. They are informed as they were able to reduce one of their contracts and it produced a savings of 18,000 and then over in finance on line 31, we had been able to reduce the budget by 32,000 by carrying over a purchase order from the current year to next year. I'll pause there and see if there's anything that Kathy Flanagan would like to add or if there's any questions on finance and administration. I don't have anything additional, Bill. I think you've covered it. Thank you, Kathy. Keep going. Now we're moving into the education services appropriation on line 37. And again, I want to highlight line 42 for the committee. That's the $6 million tagged for the data management team move from education services to finance. And then the remaining components of the ups and downs for this appropriation are the grants. You can see that we're proposing reducing the Teacher of the Year grant by 2,500, Governor's Institute by 5,780, Outright for Monk by 40,000 and then the Early Reading Grant by 76,561. I had made reference earlier to the reduction to out of state travel and that produced a savings of $15,000. And then we had talked about the vacancy savings. One of the things that's a little difficult in looking here is looking at this is to understand this is the dollar that was taken away but in comparison to what was the total appropriation. So Teacher of the Year, it's minus 2,500 in comparison to what was the original appropriation. If I could get an idea of the percentage of reduction you have in some of these areas would be helpful. I think I'm not so. Teacher of the Year is probably not as interesting at the moment as perhaps Governor's Institute outright and Early Reading. So I believe and Kathy, correct me if I'm wrong. The Teacher of the Year, that was it was 2,500. We increased it to 5,000. We're bringing that to the 2,500. So that is in line with previous years. Governor's Institute, I believe that is a straight 3% reduction to that grant outright Vermont. Again, correct me if I'm wrong that originally had an appropriation of $20,000. It was increased this past year to 60. We're reducing it by 40, which brings it back to the original appropriation of 20,000. And then Early Reading is an interesting one. It's money that was appropriated that has not been spent in the past and I'll pause there and see if Kathy might be able to give some better historical perspective on that particular grant. No, I don't really. The Early Reading grant has been in place for a very long time and the grant program it was originally used for ended a couple of years ago. So we've had a couple of years where that money has been unspent. So because we don't have a targeted subrecipient for it, we put it on the reductions list. What would it take to have a subrecipient? We would have to advertise it as a grant program. And I believe at the moment we do not have a program defined for its use. And I don't know if you have any additional information about that. Yeah, I would say to the chair's question, we need some policy direction. It sounds to me like this has been lost over the years and I'm trying to read and remember this. I don't think this was related to the Early Ed initiatives, which was a separate, I don't know if you remember, there was a $30,000 grant to SUs for Early Ed that sort of went away, I think probably with that 166. So maybe this was sort of a companion program that had some policy connection, but I'm unaware of what the policy direction here would be. So if we had some policy language that essentially said, here's what we'd like to see accomplished and therefore we're appropriating X dollars to see it accomplished, that would probably be the starting point. That 173 comes to mind, but I will move it on because I know Kathleen has some questions. Is that outright? Yeah, thanks, Kate. So I am really concerned about the deep cuts and funding for outright, just knowing the services that they provide statewide for a group of students that are really at risk and vulnerable. So I was trying to think back and I remember in FY20 that the legislature provided 60,000 in base funding for them and I remember because the Education Committee signed off on that letter that that was a clear intent to provide that funding and we had pre-COVID obviously provided that 60,000 again in the FY21 budget, you know, again before COVID. And I think outright was told at the beginning of the summer to expect and plan for an 8% reduction. And so I think they were very surprised to find out in this most recent budget that we was proposing a 66% reduction in their funding. So I'm just wondering what happened over the summer, you know, to I guess to propose such a deep reduction in their funding. I mean, I guess I see it as sort of pass through money. The legislature has signaled its intent. This is a crippling funding cut in the services that they provide and I wonder in the absence of that funding, if AOE has a plan or a strategy to provide the kind of outreach and support to at-risk youth that outright provides. As far as I know, they're the only nonprofit that provides the sort of professional development training and curriculum support statewide through AOE to teachers and educators around the state. So absence that work, how will AOE accomplish that? Yeah, those are great questions. Firstly, to your first question, what's changed, you know, as we've been navigating the emergency, understanding what the financial context is. So as revenue projections have changed and our appreciation of the challenging moment we're in financially, that's what's led us to propose the budget that you see before you. And to the point earlier about, you know, the programs and specifically the personnel that the agency employs. As we approached trying to navigate the challenging financial context, I didn't think it would be appropriate to see the agency experience a reduction in staff while at the same time maintaining these programs at their prior level. So, you know, basically in a nutshell, spreading the pain around, so to speak, financially so that we can ensure the fundamental program level. So to this concept of fundamental program levels, it's my understanding that this organization always received $20,000 in recent history. That was a federal grant that didn't even come from the general fund. So federal dollars went out right through the agency at $20,000 a year. And then there was a moment when they experienced $60,000 a year due to those $20,000 a year payments somehow being aggregated and going out in one year. That was the rationale for the legislature to appropriate $60,000. There was no other rationale presented. So what we're doing here is I would say returning the funding level to what had been its historic amount, which is the $20,000. Although in this case, there is no federal dollars behind it. So this is essentially a new appropriation to a certain extent. But the $60,000 was an anomaly. The $20,000 is the typical amount that the organization has relied on from a pastor, as you pointed out, through the agency of education. So, you know, in terms of our plans for additional programs, we're not planning any additional programming or other ways. We're merely returning the appropriation back to what had been its historic amount. And we expect and we know that efficient outright will do the work they do based on the $20,000 they've always relied upon. Yeah, I guess what, I know I mentioned this the other day. When you talked about spreading the pain around, I guess what I found so striking was that in a proposed budget cut for AOE of $500,000, 8% of your total budget cut is coming out of a small nonprofit that provides services to an at-risk and vulnerable population of students statewide. So it just felt to me like a very high percentage of your overall budget cut was coming out of one nonprofit. And so that's why I asked, you know, if you had a plan for replacing that important work to a segment of students that are already at risk and probably in the context of COVID are probably even more vulnerable now. So it just seems to me that this is important work. I know that nonprofits around the state have had a hard time qualifying for the ACCD grants because of the way their revenues work year round. And this may be a difficult year for nonprofits to raise philanthropic dollars to, you know, to, you know, fall fundraising appeals are going to be tough this year. And I think that if outright was told at the beginning of the summer by AOE to expect an 8% cut and then found out last week that instead they're facing a 66% cut, I think that was a big surprise. And so I don't know, I just, I'm very concerned about this cut. And I hope that the legislature can find a way to restore the $60,000 that we appropriated for them last year, and that we had been planning to appropriate for them this year. So I guess that's my my comment on that question. So thank you. Yeah, I'm happy. I don't know if there's a question or representative James, but you know, I certainly support their work. We support their work as well. I just want to make sure I'm being responsive. Yeah, I know that you support the word. Yeah, that's why I wrapped it up with saying I know that that turned into a little bit of a monologue. And I know that you support their work. I just that was a concerning cut to me. And I know that that money is tight right now. It just felt disproportionate to me. And but I understand you support their work. So thanks. I understand the Valder. Thank you. Yeah, chiming in on the same concern here. I do think that we cut their funding by 66%. It's a fairly strong message that we don't support their work to the level that we very recently did. Also, while I do see that they received only 20,000 in 2018, they received 40,000 in 2017. And so it seems to me this is a program that's about five years old. The funding's bounced around. We recently added a contract, which is why I went up to 60,000. And I know that was recent. I guess you've already answered a lot of the questions. So I'm sharing that concern and I'll leave it there. My other question is I'd really like to see us fill this gap somehow. I know you are crunching some very hard numbers, but have we looked into whether CRF funds that have gone to schools that need to be spent in accordance with preparing for the school year, is there any is there any mental health carve out whereby we could where schools could contract potentially without right Vermont individually? Is there any kind of support we can do to free up local dollars that may be CRF dollars to support this? I just I understand the hard decisions. I'm extremely concerned that this funding will drop this year. I'm really concerned about health and safety of some of our student population who are uniquely served by outright Vermont. I'm very concerned. So how we how we gotten as creative as we can and trying to find these dollars one way or another and is there work that this committee could do or that districts could do locally to advance that work if this becomes a final draft of this budget. Just I know it's a small line item, but just to stand up for a second longer. Is there is there any other creative ideas there? Yeah, I think, you know, it's not so much creative. We have other means, but they'll certainly districts will be focused in on what will probably be the most significant aspect of our emergency response, which is student social emotional well being. You know, just in terms of just to speak again on the amount. So the federal grants, my understanding is pre did my rival secretary that the federal grant was $20,000 a year. It's just some years that came out the $20,000 came out from the prior year in the same fiscal year. So it showed up as four year what have the or 60, but the appropriation or has through appropriation field was $20,000. So I know, you know, the use of percentage is somehow useful in making that sort of justification. I would also say you could use the percentage to say, you know, what justified the legislature basically increasing the appropriation by 200% in one year. You know, there wasn't, I don't know, much rationale to that other than 20,000 sort of that accumulated on three payments. But in terms of the CRF, you know, so the districts have two right now, they have basically have two pots of money available through the CARES Act. One is the CRF, that's the $50 million that was appropriated by the legislature. Those funds have fairly restrictive, but are also sort of available on a reimbursement basis. It's not clear to me to what extent districts could seek reimbursement under CRF for expenditures dedicated in this area. But through the ESSER program, which is the other pot of money districts have, I feel more confident saying that under ESSER districts would have additional money. But I don't, I don't think it's fair to say that sort of, you say, creative solution isn't necessarily a replacement for these funds. These are, I would say, basic stabilization funds for the organization operate outright Vermont, like other organizations in the state that provide support services for students are going to see an increased demand for those services. So it's important to acknowledge that funds like ESSER or CRF are really going to be designed to focus on the new costs that districts are going to experience, not necessarily a replacement for the sort of stabilization appropriation that the organization utilize to just to operate day to day. That's helpful. But just, I want to keep us moving along because we've got a whole other group coming. I just noticed that our representative for appropriations has just joined us and there was a little snafu in him joining us. But I will, we'll find this period of this testimony in here, representative conquest that the committee has been having about outright because that's the power, I would say, to our members. This is the governor's recommend and the legislature now will take a look at that and we'll see, you know, more looking under couch cushions perhaps. Representative Austin, and then I want to see if we can finish up this segment of testimony so we can hear from the association. I just want to ditto what representative elder and representative James just said. I think the students that work with outright Vermont, I feel like they are probably our most vulnerable or one of our most vulnerable populations in the public schools, even prior to COVID, but I think the isolation that has resulted due to COVID, I think there'll be a lot of need to address this population in there. I always see it as a public safety or public health issue, you know, in terms of their safety. So I just support what representative elder and representative James stated. Okay. Bill Bates? Yes, thank you. We will proceed. I can find my mouse here. So the last three pieces of the restated budget reduction exercise are the adult education and literacy appropriation. And you can see that there are two line items that make up the 108,150 dollars. One is the provider grants of 81,150 and then adult diploma in the amount of 27,000. And Kathy, we worked with Deputy Secretary Boucher and the program folks in identifying these cost reductions and anything more to add that might be helpful for the committee? No, that's correct. We worked with Heather Boucher and these amounts represent the 3% reduction. And then if we went to flexible pathways, which is line 72, same thing, dual enrollment and VSEC. The thing that's different here is that there is a small portion that is or half of it is head fund and half of it is general fund in the amount of 29,775 by funding source. And you can see the detail of the 28,500 is dual enrollment and then VSEC 1,275. And again, those reductions were bounced off Deputy Secretary Boucher and the program folks then make up the 3% reduction that we were asked to achieve. And then last but not least is the state board. And they had you can see here on my 90, $24,042 is made up of in-state non-employee travel of $4,042 and then dues to their National Association that is $20,000, which they have not chosen to continue with those dues. Yeah, I do remember that they decided that it didn't have the value to them, but I think that they were hoping to use that money for something else. Yeah, I was going to make that point that the state board probably would not, I'm confident they would not agree with this cut. But once again, we're going to bring forward a recommendation, but that might be something you want to check in with them on. Right. And then on line 98, you can see the sum of all of those reductions is $446,959. That's the 3% in general fund. And just a crosswalk to the folks in the committee, if you go over the line or column I, line 98, that's the 502 that we've made reference to in our PowerPoint. And that concludes our update on the restatement budget. Thank you. I'm going to go to Chip Conquest first and then Peter Conlin. Thank you. So I had a question that came up in our committee on the dual enrollment. And if that's done as a way to achieve the 3% savings, do we expect that there will be enough money to cover the utilization that's expected this year? I mean, it might be hard to predict given the odd situation we're in, but I'm just wondering if we think there's going to be enough to cover whatever utilization of dual enrollment there might be this year. Yeah, I think it's a great... I think Peter Conlin, you are adding on to that particular concern as well. I think Chip stated the question beautifully. Thank you. Go ahead. Yeah, the way this program functions, I'm sure, is you're where we can't really predict on an annual basis what the usage of the program will be. And particularly for this year, we have no understanding what's going to happen relative to COVID, relative to the use of this program. So it's going to be very hard to predict. Okay. Okay. Thank you very much. So... Can I just follow up on that? Please. Have we ever had a time when there wasn't enough money to fund the demand for dual enrollment? And if we do have one of those times, how do we solve that? Is it lottery or how does it work? My observation is that we come back to the legislature for additional funding to fund the program as necessary. We also have been reporting, I think, on an annual basis how the programs be utilized. And I think we've... I know I've been involved in testimony that has identified our concern on the equitable access of that program when we provide those annual reports too. But yeah, my understanding is we come back for additional funding or adjustment if necessary. Okay. Thank you. And then, Kate, I do have a question. I don't know if we're going back to the FY 2020 revised carry forward requests or not. But I just had a very general question about that if we're headed there. This is in the other slide deck that Bill had presented at, that approach. And I'll just tell you my only question with it is just the next... I'd love an explanation between a carry forward and a reversion. Perhaps Kathy or Bill, if you could answer that. So the question is the difference between a carry forward and a reversion. So the carry forwards are monies that are obligated. And so we would be recommending that those funds get carried over to the next fiscal year for those obligations that we anticipate. And then the reversions are the monies that we're giving back to the to be used for other sources or purposes. And are those, is that money spoken for or can that, is that money, what becomes of that money in this case? I know with a reversion with the, you know, the Ed fund, obviously it just goes to the bottom line. Kathy, do you want to chime in here as to where those funds go if they're reverted to general fund? Yeah, like you're correct. The Ed fund just goes to the bottom line of the balance statement for the Ed fund. The general fund is sort of more tangible money that reverts back to state finance and exactly how it gets redistributed. I'm not really sure, but it would come out of the appropriations allocated to the agency and be put back into a larger statewide available pot of money. And can this money be used, for example, to fill the gap with with the outright Vermont, for example, or for dual enrollment? Or does it have to go through that process you just described first? No, my understanding would be that we requested carry over, we released money to be reverted, and that state finance could change the way we have requested and allocated that so that the reversion would be less, we would not meet our 3% target reduction. But for the quote unquote operating appropriations of finance and administration and Ed services, those dollars could change if the result would be, monies would be retained at the agency, not reverted, and then we would not be meeting our 3% target. Okay. I want to just note that we have a time challenge at the moment. We've got at least an hour or more of testimony from the educational groups, and we have less, we have basically 40 minutes of our time. Serita, and who else has a question? Is this something that you could write it down and we could forward it to it and try to get answers that way? If I could just quickly ask it, because it's just, I'm just trying, okay, I'm trying to understand just the 77 or 76 plus thousand dollars in early literacy that isn't being used and the disconnect to me between the Ed committee, you know, proposing a literacy bill for coaching that didn't make it out of committee, but there are definitely districts where there are disadvantaged, you know, economically disadvantaged students, ELL students whose scores are lower than proficient. And I just, you know, in a very short time, Secretary French, if you could help me understand, I mean, that's one coach there, that amount of money that you're cutting is a coach for some district, for some kids that, you know, that could help a district improve their literacy, but disadvantaged students. I'm wondering if you can help me understand how we can get that money to that district, whatever, whoever, whatever district that is. Yeah, as you know, we're keenly interested, yeah, we're interested in literacy reform as well, but basically we don't have the policy authorization to spend the money on our own. We have to, we have to have some rationale for you in statute to do that. Okay, thank you. Okay, I want to thank you very much for presenting this CHIP conquest. Can you tell us what you would like from us if you want us to be, we don't, we don't have your recommendation yet. So what would you like from us moving forward? So we will ask you to send us a memo, just an email basically doesn't have to be formal in any way, but just telling us what your, if you have positions on things that have changed in the governor's restatement budget, we'd like to know, you know, that you disagree with, that we would like to know that. If you have significant, you know, things that you want us to understand our real priorities of your committees, we of course would like to know that too. There are some small issues that I mentioned to you about things like outright Vermont, Governor's Institute, things that have had some reductions that we would just like to know your committee's position on, is that an area that's a priority that you want us to really make an extra effort to find money for? Or are you, or do you believe that those reductions are ones that are necessary and acceptable in this, this particular budget here? Let's see. Oh, I did have one, one question that maybe I could take one second to ask the secretary or perhaps the Bill Bates. There's a line in the budget about the Independence Place program at one being considered a 24-hour facility for purposes of getting it funding. Somebody in our committee believed that, that that was possibly closing and I just wondered if you, anybody there, had any information about whether or not that was something we needed to be aware of in the budget? I'd have to represent a conquest. I'd have to go back to look at that. We have spent some time with Lund over the past year, including Bill and I both did a site visit of their program to understand and also met with a chest to understand the rate-setting dynamics around their program. But I'm unaware of any recent developments in their status of their program, but we'd have to go back and check. I don't know, Bill, do you have any new information on that? I do. Okay. And we could take it offline if you want. I just, I can, I could share that with you. I need to know whether or not they're keeping the main building, but then they sort of have step-down facilities, I believe it's the step-down facilities that are being shot, not being funded. But their ability to draw down whatever funding it is by being a 24-hour facility remains and we don't need to change that language in the budget. Yeah, we can take that offline. I think that's going to be a conversation. Yeah, those are the main things then. And, you know, and we're obviously, I don't know if you all discussed it before I got on, but we're certainly interested significantly in whether there will be additional CRF spending proposals around K to 12, pre-K to 12 education. Yeah, we actually did not have a chance to really get to the CRF question, which the committee has a great deal of interest, but I'm going to have to shut that conversation down for now in order to get to the next group. But we will be asking you to come back. I believe we've got some time already scheduled with you for next week. So if you could keep an eye on our time and be available, we'd greatly appreciate your flexibility in that regard. Yeah, certainly. I mean, the CRF is outside of the budget proposal, but that's certainly something we were actively involved in. Look forward to partnering with you on. Right. So I'll just, before I go, say that we are hoping to have a final decision on our budgeting by next Thursday, next Friday at the latest. So just as a timeline. Okay. What a timeline we'd like, but that's the one we have. So. Yeah, we hear you. We are so aware that we're in the middle of a global pandemic and that we don't have the money we thought we had. So with that, I'm going to invite switch gears and invite Susie Glasky and Chelsea Myers from the School Board Association, the Superintendent's Association to provide an update to us in any response to the budget as well. So I believe Sue and Chelsea, you are presenting together. Yeah. Thank you. It's so good to see all of you. I hope you're all doing well. We are going to present joint testimony from the School Board Association, the Superintendent's Association, the Principal's Association, the Special Ed Administrators and the business officials. So I'm going to get us started and then who will take over after me. So on behalf of our organizations and our members, we would like to thank you for inviting us to speak to your committee on the current status of reopening schools amidst the COVID-19 pandemic and legislative actions that would positively benefit schools during this time. School boards and administrators, as you all very well know, have been working tirelessly to responsibly navigate the safe reopening of schools on September 8th. This includes contending with evolving health and safety guidance, competing concerns from family, staff, and community members, operational and logistical challenges, and the significant academic, developmental, and social needs of the students they serve. And that cannot be understated or overstated. At this time, we have recommendations for your committee to consider to ensure school districts have the financial stability and support to safely reopen schools in September and to address our issues facing public education. Our associations recommend that in light of the governor's order to delay the opening of school until September 8th, that for the 2021 school year only, the required 175 student days set forth in 16 VSA be reduced to 170 days. This modification will relieve districts from the obligation to find ways to make up the five days that would have been fulfilled had school started as originally scheduled. And as you all just began to talk about, at the end of June, the general assembly set aside 100 million of coronavirus relief funds to help K through 12 schools with the cost of reopening during the pandemic and to address the deficit and education fund. The governor's budget does not include money to help schools deal with with the reopening cost amid the COVID-19 crisis if the federal coronavirus relief funds are not used to pay for these unbudgeted costs for reopening schools. Districts will be operating in a deficit, which will need to be addressed in the following year's budget, leading to a spike in property taxes and potentially drastic cuts to spending at a time when students will need additional academic, social and emotional support. VSA has begun to collect information regarding the cost associated reopening schools. I should state that this was ahead of the release of the CRF application which came out of the AOE last Friday. So this information might be slightly different now that they've had a little bit more clear guidance coming from the AOE on what is an allowable cost. But it is becoming clear that the estimates will likely exceed the original allocation for reimbursement, though more information needs to be collected. Furthermore, many business managers and superintendents have reported uncertainty about what is considered an allowable cost. Given the go-ahead this summer to do what it takes to safely reopen schools in the fall, districts have purchased protective equipment and cleaning supplies, increased their technological capabilities, hired additional staff such as custodians, school nurses and now the highly coveted substitute teachers, and committed to providing childcare for their employees while their children are in remote learning. They have not yet been reimbursed for these expenses and have significant concerns about operating at a deficit leading up to an extraordinarily difficult budget season. Their CRF applications are due next week, so there might be more information for you all to inquire about then from the AOE. As a secondary factor in many cases, it is unclear to the field how to be proactive and supportive of the efforts to use federal funds to address the Education Fund shortfall. I'll also add that just because we have started to establish what the costs to reopen schools are, I can imagine that on September 8th in the weeks following, there will be some unforeseen circumstances that may require additional purchases to ensure that kids are safe in school. We respectfully request that the General Assembly proceed with its original plan for the $100 million which were set aside for K-12 education. The agency of education and the administration have strongly encouraged school leaders to procure the equipment and hire the personnel needed to reopen safely with the understanding that coronavirus relief funds would be available to reimburse districts for the associated costs. A changing course requiring local taxpayers to pick up the costs could disrupt reopening plans already in place. In particular, more systems may determine that it's safest to move in the direction of remote learning which would have additional implications for the reopening of Vermont's economy. I'm going to pass it over to Sue unless you want to ask questions about that section before she gets started. Any questions so far? Okay, let's move on to Sue. Good afternoon. Sue Ceglowski for the Vermont School Board's Association and as Chelsea mentioned, the Superintendent's Association, Principal's Association, BCSEA and VASBO. Local school district officials are very concerned about reductions in equalized pupil counts for FY22 attributable to declines in enrollment in the current school year, resulting from decisions by families to either homeschool or enroll students in private schools or other factors that may lead to decreases in enrollment. A survey earlier this month by the Vermont Superintendent's Association indicates that with 46 superintendents responding, 85 percent are either very concerned or concerned about declines in enrollment in the current year due to COVID-19 dynamics and this concern is shared by other local school officials. As you and other legislators are keenly aware, a decline in equalized pupils will translate to an increase in education spending for equalized pupils and increased tax rates at the very time when schools need to both invest in learning opportunities for students and they're contending with the economic effects of the COVID-19 crisis. The importance of the General Assembly taking action on this issue in August and September stems from the fact that school districts will receive equalized pupil counts in December to inform their FY22 budget deliberations and preparation and by December 15, budget development work is nearing completion with budgets slated for finalization in January so that they can be warned and presented to voters in March. This year more than ever, districts need a stable environment for their budget development process for FY22 and a decrease in equalized pupils resulting from COVID-19 effects will be tremendously destabilizing. Our associations recommend that 16 VSA section 4010 be amended to establish a one-year hold harmless protection against declines in equalized pupils in order to stabilize budget development for FY22. And then we have four additional observations, excuse me, three additional observations. The first one is that in an August 5th letter to the House and Senate Education Committees, the superintendent serving Vermont's three technical center school districts informed legislators that they had learned from the Vermont Agency of Education that under current law those districts are not eligible for federal COVID-19 relief funding. It was later announced that the entirety of the governor's emergency education relief fund approximately four million dollars will be directed to career and technical education. Our associations believe strongly that technical center school districts should be granted sufficient funding for the reopening of schools through one of the available federal funding sources. Second, our associations have heard concerns from members that receive revenue through tuition paid dollars by paid by so-called choice districts in Vermont. We have not surveyed receiving districts about this concern, but we are hearing from school officials about anticipated revenue shortfalls in districts accustomed to receiving tuition revenues, where those revenues are expected to decrease due to COVID-19 related enrollment decisions. To the extent that anticipated revenues do decline, operating deficits will likely occur. It may not be necessary for the general assembly to consider this issue in this short session, but it is a situation that may require further investigation. And third, in June, the legislature created a $6.5 million school indoor air quality grant program funded through the coronavirus relief fund, and this was to help schools repair and upgrade their heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems to meet COVID-19 specific guidelines. It has been reported that approximately 300 schools are interested in applying for the grant and that project prices may vary with many in the 40 thousand to $60,000 per school range. At $40,000 per project, 300 schools would need $12 million, and at $60,000 per project, 300 schools would need $18 million. We're bringing this to your attention because ventilation and air filtration are a major concern when considering whether or not to reopen a school for in-person instruction, and current information indicates that more funds are needed to allow schools to meet the CDC guidelines. For more information, we refer you to pages 24 through 25 of the Strong and Healthy Start Safety and Health Guidance for Reopening Schools, which was issued jointly by the Vermont Agency of Education and the Vermont Department of Health. Thank you very much for your consideration. Thank you very much. I can say that we are meeting with the Ways and Means Committee hopefully on Friday to begin to look at the EDM issue that you're talking about. In addition, Representative Coopley and Conlan and I have started working on a committee bill related to the school days and the tech centers. We definitely need to be having a conversation about the CRF funds. We're very, very aware that we had all expected and understood in numerous conversations throughout the legislature in the House and the Senate that one of the reasons we did not allocate the $100 million in the CRF funding is because we were holding it. I'm not sure how that got lost in translation. Any questions so far? Representative Batchelor. Good morning. Thank you very much. Is there a way we could get a copy of what was just read to us so we can refer back to it? It's not on our website. Yes, I will post it. I received it during the AOE presentation and didn't get a chance to post it on the website, but I will as soon as we are done. Thank you so very much. It was very informative. And we really do appreciate it having and writing so that we can find it. I do know also that the agency has some thoughts as well on our EDM challenge. So I think I've got three possible ways of looking at that that we will be addressing with the Ways and Means Committee. Any other questions at this point? Kate, could I ask one? Please. Very quickly. It's really kind of a yes or no question, although it's a big one. Just based on your testimony, it seems like the money that we have allocated plus the ESSER funds, the question is, are schools going to need, I think we all had hopes that that was going to be more than enough for schools to cover what they spent and then help them reopen. Was that wildly optimistic and are we going to need significantly more money setting aside the ventilation issue? That's the $100 million question. It seems really uncertain right now. I would say from the preliminary, what we're hearing preliminarily from school districts is that for a really long time they were unsure as to what they can get reimbursed for. And so now that that's becoming more clear, we might be able to get a little bit more clear information within the next week when the CRF applications are due. And one thing I didn't see in your list of concerns but that I've heard is a concern is the cost of compensatory and recovery services for children on IEPs, which may or may not be big depending on guidelines from the agency of education. Tracy, do you want to respond to that first? Because I know we're running out of time, but I think Peter, you're referring to July 28th guidance from the AOE around COVID recovery services and compensatory education. And we do have concerns about that. I know Peter, you've heard, I know Kate and Larry have also been in some discussions about that. And just to update you, we had a meeting with Secretary French just last week asking for that guidance to be retracted while we're waiting to hear back from him. So I want to respect that process before I go into much more detail. But the concern is the guidance introduced an unnecessary and legally unsupported concept of COVID recovery services and it's impacting schools with parents requesting additional meetings and services, etc. So I think it's a big concern around resources, around budgets and something that we need to be addressed. And at least we want the committee to be updated on. So we're hopeful that we may hear some positive, a positive response from Secretary French and we'll certainly let you know. And if that problem isn't sufficiently resolved, it would be good to have a time to talk about it a little bit more with your committee. Thank you. So that's still an active conversation. Anything else? I remember Lynn, you had a question about busing. Did you want to see how busing is going? I would love to know how busing is going. We're having a very difficult time in the kingdom. We have eight buses for pre-K through 12 that have not received any registration paperwork. They cannot do inspections. They cannot do the registrations for eight buses and someone off the cuff sort of told them we'll go without it and our transportation person said absolutely no way. But we're hearing from Department of Motor Vehicles that it takes at least six to eight weeks and that will be after the buses are supposed to be on the road. I don't know what to do to help. Are you hearing about that? I'm seeing we don't have the agency of education in the room anymore. I don't think they're gone. Are you hearing that from other districts? The challenge of similar to this, Chelsea or Sue? Can we ask Jay? Jay, do you know? Yeah, I hope you can hear me. I'm out home from there and that's not super here. We've heard that same concern from other districts. The Secretary of Department of Motor Vehicles Commissioner talked a little bit about issues with cars the other day in a press conference. I haven't heard anything though, Representative Batchelter, about how they're planning to address that and it certainly is a concern. I wish I had more information. I just don't. Thank you. They got a little annoyed at me that I was rustling the bushes and creating a little problem. But we can't let the kids go on buses that have not been inspected and have no registration. I don't know if you're creating a problem. I think you're bringing up a problem that they need to fix. And I have spoken with the commissioner and I won't say anymore. It hasn't been solved. Yeah. Thank you for your work in that area. Thank you. I'll reach out to the transportation chair as well. See if he has any more influence on that. Thank you. So I would like to, Jay, Jay Nichols, did you have anything further to report before we go to the teachers? No, I'm also we're going together. Thank you. Okay. So read Austin, you had a question. Yep. Just on the this could be for Chelsea or Sue. Last summer, there was a study done on, you know, possible. This is pre COVID school construction or school renovation. I'm wondering if schools that pre COVID already were identified as having HVAC issues if they're being prioritized in terms of replacement for that equipment or is it just a first come, first serve basis? I do not think it is a first come, first serve basis. As you have noticed, Jeff Francis is not with us. He's taking a vacation this week. He knows probably the most out of all of us on the HVAC. We do know that as we said in our testimony that the money allocated for the HVAC program is not going to be sufficient to address all of the needs. But yes, that some of these problems existed in districts that were already having significant deferred maintenance issues. And I think that they will be prioritized, but please don't mark my words. I think Jeff can speak to that when he returns or if someone else knows it. Sue might might also. I don't have any further information than what Chelsea just told you. I'm sorry. Okay, I just I do hope they are being prioritized in the most needy, you know, the most needy schools with the worst systems. I hope that's all. Thank you. Larry Coopley, do you want to speak to them or shall I go to the teachers next? Well, no, I think just a little follow up on on Sarita's question. Do we know of any schools that cannot open because of HVAC issues? Well, in Wyndham Central, the school board made a decision not to open their schools because of concerns about HVAC. They had planned on going hybrid and in elementary schools fully in person. And now they're going completely remote, perhaps until Thanksgiving is what they've told parents. So it's a huge issue there. A lot of deferred maintenance in that system as well, which obviously adds to the problem. Thank you. Okay, thank you. I believe we've got the NEA from an NEA in the room. Is it Colin and Jeff? You do. For the record, I'm Jeff Van, the executive director of Vermont NEA, and joined today by Colin Robinson, our political director. And so Colin will chime in as necessary as I stumble over this, but going back to returning to HVAC, I'll just start there real quickly. Don Tinney, our president spoke a week or so ago with doctors. I don't know how to pronounce his last name, Ja, who's the director of Harvard's Global Health Institute. You spend on CNN and MSNBC or whatever on all those other shows talking about this. And he said that's a major concern is the HVAC systems. And so he was stressing the need to get those up to speed and working efficiently and correctly so that they can turn the air over. And as many of my members tell me and tell us, a lot of the HVAC systems consists of opening a window in a lot of our older schools. So there's not a whole lot of, I wouldn't say, there's not a lot of fancy air exchange systems in schools in a lot of schools. And Wyndham Central found that out. So it's a big issue. And it's of concern to us. I jumped on the call late. So if I'm being redundant here, I apologize. Yesterday, several of us testified in the Senate Finance Committee. And I'll just say this, teachers and educators, bus drivers are all returning and have done incredible work in the spring, some cases over the summer, and they're returning right now in many cases and trying to figure out how it's going to actually go, how it's going to work come September 8th when kids start coming back in, be it in-person in a hybrid situation or fully remote. So it's still a question mark, but they have a lot of questions. My folks have, my members have a lot of questions and concerns. And many of them have not been addressed and they'll try to figure out how to do that. But they're excited to be back. But we do think that there may be a need for ongoing legislative oversight once you adjourn. There's a lot of decisions that will come after you adjourn, end of September, hopefully, or something like that, that will come up before you return, you or your successors or whatever, return in January. And I think there's probably a real need for legislative oversight October, November, and December. There's a lot of questions that will be unanswered in September. And I think it would be helpful to have some legislative leaders looking into this and finding out how they can react and not just waiting until January. I think it's a little too late. Things are moving very quickly as we all know. So we think maybe there's a role for some legislative oversight going forward. So on that regard, I think others have probably mentioned this, but I'll be redundant. We think the $100 million that was fenced off in June needs to remain so and used for education fund purposes and education purposes. The department, the agency of education set as much three weeks ago in some guidance they issued to schools. They were issuing guidance in May and June, guiding schools and telling them this money would be there, resources would be there, financial resources, and a sudden change in direction is not helpful to them. They acted in reliance on that money. Schools did. And I don't think they should be penalized for acting in reliance on legislative leaders, administrative leaders, all saying the money would be there. So I think it's important to know that $100 million was relied upon and needs to be there for schools as they have a lot of needs coming up. And I think I know yesterday Chelsea and some others mentioned that in the Senate Finance Committee. So I hope they did that again today and I'll try to echo that. We didn't prepare this together though, as I mentioned yesterday, we come at this separately. I can share with folks the AOE's guidance on that and I'll dig that up. Schools are being asked to do a lot more with a lot less and it's important that that money be there. The ADM holds harmless language we think needs to be enacted. I know the chair mentioned some draft bill or something like that. We think it's important that the ADM, that schools be held harmless as the fluctuations both up and down in some cases of student counts come around in October and during the census day. So it's important that we know that we're in the middle of a health pandemic. Parents are making choices that they would not have made otherwise as to pulling their kids out of school and homeschooling them. Homeschooling applications I think are up 75% and schools should not be harmed by that as parents make temporary decisions based on the health pandemic. And I know again you mentioned it Madam Chair about the calendar the 175 days we think there's a need for some flexibility in that regard as the virus blooms here and there and elsewhere and schools need to be allowed to some greater flexibility in the 175 requirements. We hope that at least certainly for this year that's a we think that's a necessary moderate change that ought to be enacted. We have some concerns about licensing endorsements, online licensing endorsements. I think we're working through the standards, we'll work through the standards board about that. The standards board actually licensed licenses teachers. There's a waiver to the end of the calendar year but we think it ought to go through the end of the academic year. It doesn't make sense to just give somebody a partial waiver if you will for an academic year that does not make sense. I know the agency is aware of that but I just want to put that on your your your menu as well of possible concerns. And finally I'm going to say it this way the educators parents schools are all being subjected to required quarantining rules. So parents who work outside of schools or inside schools and other schools or whatever they're being required in some cases to quarantine because they are exposed to somebody a colleague or or something. Same with teachers and schools will have to respond to that and under the federal law the CC the corona I don't know CC FFC RA there are 10 additional days of sick leave to folks but we think there's an additional need for that because if you've got a student or a child who's being required to quarantine and you're an educator or you're a parent working in another environment you may sell you yourself may have to quarantine and then if you got a child who's got a quarantine all because of state rules we think there ought to be some protection built into the system so that people aren't penalized and that includes schools who have staff who have to quarantine. So we think it's important that nobody be negatively affected because of a state required quarantine order if you will. So currently currently six days are not in statute they're part of contract. Correct. Each contract's a little bit different but nobody should be you know penalized for it you know they may be well and just required to quarantine and so some questions about whether they're actually sick those questions have come up can you use sick days when you're quarantining when you're in fact well it's a state requirement and who should pay for that and who should cover that and so employers will have to do that with some employees as will schools and nobody should be negatively affected because of a quarantine requirement. Just just curious do you think of this as being something that's not just for educational employees but for employees of others I'm just trying to think where this goes. Yeah I think it you know I raise it here in the context of school employees obviously but if you're a employee at a various business around the state and you encounter you know customers clients of some sort and then somebody tests positive and you've got our quarantine I think it's not singularly a school issue it's a employer issue and no matter whether you're a school employer or a private employer or a non-profit in the state you've got people who interact with the public in some cases and may be exposed and need to quarantine thereafter. Just to put a specific point on it you can envision a scenario or multiple scenarios at some point during the school year where there is a small outbreak inside a school where a class or a floor of a building might have to quarantine that doesn't just impact the educators and students in that building but it reverberates out into the community and if parents are in a situation by virtue of a potential outbreak inside a school based setting those parents should be able to for the public health of their entire community in an entire state to be able to quarantine with their child as required and there obviously is federal legislation to provide some support for that but if you're in a situation where there may be multiple quarantines as this pandemic evolves just trying to think ahead to ensure that our students and their families are able to heal and quarantine safely and without economic loss to protect the public health of our students and communities. Okay any questions? Thank you. Representative, that's a question. Just real quickly with the quarantine I'm just wondering if let's say there was an increased funding for testing if people who were required to be quarantined let's say they were tested every day and those that were negative could could work is there any way to work it that way? Well certainly there's probably a way what we're hearing though more recently is that testing is not available as much as it was a short time ago some of the tests are being sent down south where the hot spots are so we're in the best case scenario let's say there were tests they were available it was 24 hours or something would that help to solve this problem? I think in theory it would yes. Okay. Thank you. Very quickly. Thank you. Thank you thank you Madam Chair. Jeff there's been some ramblings about teachers who do not want to return to the classroom is that what effect is that having throughout our state? Well throughout the state we were calling for a statewide approach to all this and so the answer is it's scattered throughout the state there's no statewide answer to that but we do have a lot of educators teachers support staff who are themselves compromised in some health fashion or another who have been seeking accommodations on the ADA some schools are addressing that better than others I'll just say that way and which is you know I guess to be expected this is new to everybody I am concerned that people are rushing to make they're really what I'm hearing is people are very concerned about their own health or a loved one at home who's not covered in the ADA for example and having to make really hard health decisions about whether I want to be remained employed or whether I want to ensure that me and my loved ones are well and safe and so there's some really hard choices being made by folks right now people are in service it's probably a little bit they're dealing with it but come September 8 when kids return I think it's going to be a whole new ball of wax and what we've seen around the country is wherever we've turned on the spigot maybe a little a little bit too fast we've seen problems in the school settings and so I think we've got to be really make sure that we have the masks on that we're making social distancing we've got we've got to adhere to those rules and one thing that we're concerned about is as parents send their kids back into second or third grade or whatever the case may be school is going to look very different than it did a year ago kids are you know heard this morning about a teacher a kindergarten teacher setting up her room and basically cleaning out her room of all all sort of the stuff on the walls and everywhere making as much space as possible to fit in 15 desks and you got a bunch of kindergartners who are expected to sit at at a desk for six seven hours that's a far different looking classroom environment for a kindergarten than a year ago and I'm not sure how those kids that's going to be the first taste of school of let's sit down for six hours as a kindergarten I couldn't have done it I'll just be honest with you I would have gone nuts and I think it's going to be really hard for a lot of these kids so I'm concerned about teachers being able to return but I'm also returning concerned about students experiencing school in a very different environment than it was a year ago I mean that that in itself creates a what I would consider a serious staffing problem for probably some schools if not all I don't know how that's what the effect is really going to be I'm aware of at least one superintendent who's who said made the decision to go remote based on not knowing the staffing that he that he would have and I heard this elsewhere too I mean our folks were asking us how should we answer these surveys in July you know are you able to come back to work for and a host of other questions and surveys asked by schools of staff the problem is you didn't know what the plan was then right if it was fully remote it looks very different than if you're fully in person if you've got an immune compromised system yourself certainly I could teach remote if I'm at home in that setting but if it's in person it looks different so if you don't know what the plan is it was sort of the a classic chicken the egg and I think there will be some staffing issues come September 8th I'm concerned about that too yeah thank you thank you Jeff yeah and and represent Cooley I just want to lift up also Chelsea earlier mentioned the substitute teacher issue and substitutes are in short supply in normal times let alone during a pandemic many substitute teachers are retired teachers who are in vulnerable populations so and let's also remember that in a normal school year students and educators might arrive at school with a little runny nose or you know a little temperature or something like that that is not something that anybody in the school community should be doing in this moment in our in our in our history so I think the substitute teacher is definitely going to be an additional and impactful issue a fall job for a committee for committee members we are out of time but Kathleen James I want to go to you thanks I had a similar question I'm just thinking about teachers and staff who might have concerns about returning this year and might be wanting to take a leave of absence or you know or something similar what is the NEA recommending or do you have a proposed solution or you know how should SUs handle someone who might want to take a leave of absence what are you guys proposing do you have a solution that you're offering up or well it varies I mean I hate to say it depends the classic lawyer answer right but it's true everybody's a little bit different I did I did know in years past I'll say it that way if somebody was seeking an accommodation and and for whatever reason it wasn't reasonable in the school couldn't provide the accommodation they thought they needed I think it was always a safe fallback that educators could ask for an unpaid leave of absence and it would get it right it was no it was pretty much I think standard it was it was understood that that was always an option to both sides that does not seem to be the case this year and I'm perplexed by that I don't understand it because if I'm you know the other alternative is the teacher says I don't want to I'm not going to return a resign and then you've lost somebody who who's quite capable but has health issues or whatever who can't teach this year is very sincere about that so I you know this statewide there is no statewide recommendation we've got to process all the ADA requests individually as do the schools some schools have issued more blanket policies around this and we're concerned about some of those but you know there are there is no one statewide solution at this point and unfortunately it would be easier my job would be a whole lot easier and and perhaps schools would be too if we had a statewide overarching here's how we're going to address these issues but we don't have that thanks and thank you I'm sorry I'm sorry we're done oh yeah go ahead Collin in that case I was just going to say also you know teachers and school support staff are are working folks like most of us who the prospect of taking an unpaid leave of absence might not be in most cases is not financially feasible for them in their family when you're talking about health insurance and other things so I think that's factored into decisions for folks as well yes thank you Collin sorry I missed that that's right that's a it's a big topic yes it is kc2 thanks madam chair it's not really a question it's more of a comment I just want to thank you for coming in Jeff and Collin and everyone else who spoke today I'm just going to echo Jeff I'm going to tell you a little bit about from the mindset of a parent as well as the legislator my five-year-old will be starting kindergarten on September 8 so I will be watching that I'll let you know how that goes last night we went to his brother's soccer practice and he couldn't sit still out of time him I just told him to go run laps and I just timed him because he couldn't sit still so we'll see how that goes it's something that I know people in my community are worried about it but like it's really hitting home for for someone like me it's my first kid entering school and it's something that's really it's unfortunate it's a it's a it's a sad time but we're going to make the best of it and I'll let you know how it goes so thank you I wish you all the best personally and professionally it's going to be different for your child and that's but I think you can you can navigate it right I mean there's a way to to make this a pot you know make this into something positive but I can't imagine I good luck on the sitting a kid still for six hours man that was not me yeah Casey we're going to be checking in with you of our weekly report when we get back a reel on the ground experience I very much appreciate everybody coming in today Jim Demeray I want to start working on a committee bill we started with some language I want to take a look at what we've heard the memo that we got from the secretary the memo that we have from the the associations and the memo from the NEA and start to put that into put it all together and then we'll just we'll just we'll just take them one at a time we are we do not have a lot of time here to address this we have to get back to the budget and anything we're going to do is probably going to go into the budget so we're going to need to work incredibly fast and probably need to you know maybe give some folks some assignments here to get some of this done in a in a in a way that we want to be out of here in a month which means we basically have to be done in two weeks in order to send our work over to the senate just keep that in mind Jim had signed off I think oh he did okay okay just remind me to let me remind me something I'll get to him and and and we can we can we can flesh that bill out and see if we can get that presented next week Friday we're hoping to do something related to the ADM issue we're going to be hearing about we'll start a conversation about the influx of not the influx of it's basically the homeschool situation we're going to start with that and we have a draft idea to present from ways and means and we'll look at the opportunities that are recommended here as well related to that issue so with that um oh Serita Austin yeah I'm just wondering with that legislation that you're proposing the AOE kept saying that they couldn't spend that literacy money because they didn't have legislative approval is there any way to work that in they needed it they said that they needed it attached to policy I don't know why it couldn't have been attached to 173 but it wasn't and I think that's just going to be a we could go down that rabbit hole and be stuck there for a long time um and I think what we need to do is be focusing on on basically getting getting us through we can have another conversation in January and we're really going to be separating what we must do now and what we can pick up in January I just didn't know if there was a quick solution to that but that sounds like not I don't see it and yeah we have we have general fund challenges and everybody's going to have to participate in in those challenges um even even our favorites so Chip we will we'll be getting back to you um just before we before we go I just want to take a temperature on what we heard from the Vermont State colleges and the presentation there um and just raise your hands um is there an what we're going to look at we have the governor's recommend which is that we'll address it maybe if there's funds and there's saying no this is a priority for the 235 so who would like who who would support saying that that needs to be funded the 235 bridge fund I'm raising my hand okay good okay so it looks like we've got a majority is there anybody that's not interested in supporting that okay okay good so I think I I am going to get I'm not sure if Dylan supports it or not he said he was raising his hand I'm going to count him I guess I just you know I don't I'm not against it but I'm short of supporting it with the amount that we don't know about the hundred million we've discussed today for K-12 so no I'm not willing to say oh yes let's absolutely get them that 24 million no matter what because at the expense of what we really don't have any information okay thank you you the only other thing would Philip please post that whatever it was that we were listening to so we have something to reference from the the speech that yeah he'll thank you okay um and NEA did you have something to post for us on your recommendations the more we can have posted that these it is for yours truly to find it rather than going through my email so do you have can you um give us something that we can post related to your recommendations I mean I have them on a list here but I am and and uh what we talked about today yes um you talked about 8am you talked about calendar you talked about licensing endorsement you talked about um sick days right we can get you something and uh it may be sick days because it's more general labor if you will it might be something that they're in a better position to take up that sounds that sounds like a lot of um contract laws that they're a little bit more uh versed in and labor issues with they're a little more versed in so it would be worth it to reach out to them and see if they could take a look I mean we have an interest but um I just fear we're gonna not do a good job time-wise and um we have the the recommendations for um from the the other associations and I will get the one from the agency and and work with Jim on putting that together I largely you know given what happened yesterday in senate finance I think we're on the uh 100 million the 8am and I think on the calendar issue I think we're largely in in lockstep with the folks at Two Prospect yeah I think so I think that's that's an easy one that I don't think anybody has a problem with that one we didn't coordinate it it just sort of happened to be yeah yeah and we've already got language for that um okay well thank you folks chip anything else chip conquest anything else uh no um just you know I would encourage you um any any decisions you make about the things in the budget um if you could just send those to me or to our committee as you make them rather than waiting to have all of your decisions made and then send it at the end um that would just help us kind of get through this budget as as as we do those parts we can sort of cross those off so so issues issues of interest to the committee at this point in terms of budgetary issues if you want to take a look at it and send me a note that's fine if you want to bring it up now that's fine as well I don't want a long speech right now I just want the bullets because we don't have the time okay we have our committee on on Friday to kind of finalize that right yeah right okay yeah I'd like to help the committee so and we I know that we we tend to really wrestle with topics for a long time and we aren't going to have the ability to do that no we don't have the time okay so I will see you Friday um Philip and I try to get this organized um with the Ways and Means Committee and I appreciate everybody being here and showing up on time and and everybody stay healthy