 Good morning. Today is Friday, January 29th and you are watching a joint House committee meetings of the House Human Services Committee and the House Education Committee. Our testimony this morning is focused on the governor's proposed child care plan and so I'm going to turn it over first to the commissioner of DCF Sean Brown commissioner. Good morning. Thank you madam chair. I first introduced myself for the record Sean Brown commissioner for the Vermont Department for Children and Families and with us today we have leadership from other departments within the agency of human services. We have Dr. Levine from the health department and we have Commissioner Squirrel from the Department of Mental Health and then also we have Deputy Secretary Gouche Heather Gouche from the agency of education and we all appreciate the opportunity to provide a high level overview of the governor's vision to restructure the child development division and realign early care and learning under the agency of education and streamline the delivery of other important services within different departments within the agency of human services. As before we jump into the high level overview I do want to stress that you know as we provide this overview the timeline for this proposal is implementation of the earliest would occur would be July 1st 2022. So there's no proposals or dollars implicated in this year's budget adjustment act or in the 22 build on that was just delivered by the governor. None of you know so you'll not see any budgetary impacts currently. We recognize that this is the start of the conversation and that a lot of work in conversation needs to happen with our providers our partners to gain their feedback and input on this and allow time for that planning in those conversations that's a piece of that almost 18 month implementation period. I think we're all leadership of all of these departments and agencies are here because we strongly believe this proposal will lead to better outcomes and delivery of services for children and families. And what is now a bifurcated system. And that we know as we move forward we welcome the feedback and questions from the committee. But just keep in mind that we believe this is the start of the conversation and not the end of the conversation. So are we able to have Sarah Truckel who's with us as well our chief financial officer from the department control the PowerPoint so she can put up on the screen. Yes we can. Give me a minute I just have to find Sarah on this long list. Okay. Okay Sarah. Is everyone able to see the screen. Yes. So Sarah if you want to jump just to slide five just so we can quickly just provide a high level overview of what we're looking at. You know in our proposal that we're presenting today it really looks at the child development division and all the different functions that it has under its umbrella of moving pieces and components of it to complete a system of care that right now are bifurcated. So we're proposing that the early care and learning move under the agency of education and unify essentially a cradle to a career system of care and learning for Vermont's kids. It's been a long term vision of our governor and this proposal moves that vision forward. Also it looks at the pieces of the child development division that look at child and maternal health and home visiting and the children's integrated services and would move that under the Department of Health and then some mental health components of services provided through the oversight of the child development division and the funding would move to the Department of Mental Health and then the piece regarding the child care subsidy program the financial program would move from the child development division over to the economic services division which has experience a long history and experience of running financial eligibility programs. We are not proposing a change in how those services are delivered in that program. Now those services are delivered by our community partners for referral service and financial eligibility are done across the state through contracts. Many of them are parent child centers. We are not proposing any changes to that system. Just the administration of those and work with those partners would fall under the umbrella of the economic services division under this proposal. You know in the pieces that would move to the Department of Health you know the Department of Health is responsible for you know public health and maternal health and many of our prevention services and grants that we administer through the child development division are really grounded in a public health response and so that's why we're proposing the components of the child development division that focus on those public health responses and many of them that leverage Medicaid funding which is also a major source of some of those services provided from you know services provided at the health department and within the child development division and those core services that come with those dollars would be realigned from CDD the children's integrated services would be moved over although the services would be unbundled they would still be provided and build down through the Medicaid program as many of our other providers do as well and then also we're proposing our master grants would move under the health department you know that fund the parent child centers we're not proposing any changes to those but just that those would now be administered under the health department and then also this proposal would really realign all of our home visiting that occurs in our different areas you know a point of our work has been recently particularly in our CHIN's reform workgroup space is looking at expanding our prevention services and home visiting that's seen as a core prevention strategy and improving the health and well-being of vulnerable families and children at risk and some of the new CHIN's money that we received in the restatement budget are now going to be passed through to the Department of Health and really ulster our home visiting capability and we believe we're aligning all of our home visiting under that health department umbrella would provide better integration and leveraging offer funding opportunities and also leveraging their expertise and their evidence-based programs that they administer through the health department and we think that that would lead to much better outcomes for children and family and I would turn it over doctor to Dr. Labine to kind of touch on what they see as the benefits to this approach as well should I take that as my cue I just wanted to politically appropriate deferral to the chair that's all so on record I am Commissioner Mark Levine of the Department of Health and I will build on some of the concepts that Commissioner Brown just discussed I have to say that obviously I'll give you the punchline we support moving the proposed elements of CDD to VDH as you'll see sometimes history recapitulates and there are some things that are actually returned to ways they were prior to me and many other commissioners being on board I believe it capitalizes on opportunities for unification of some programs certainly improved integration of programs and really some very currently existent strong partnerships and working relationships across the agency including with DCF and DMH but also a very progressively strengthening relationship with AOE that I would say was pre-existing before the pandemic and has only by necessity gotten stronger during the pandemic there's also some potential for increases of efficiencies and strategizing and eliminating redundancies and I think as you'll see in my comments there's a recognition of the centrality and importance of public health and so many of the programs that we're going to be discussing so what are some of the advantages and strengths of this proposed approach starting with the focus on public health and programming clearly at their core home visiting and the parent child center master grants are public health programs the strategies they employ are aligned with the department's division of maternal and child health approach and programming the funds from CDD support families of children with special health needs which were originally housed at VDH and are well aligned with our children with special health needs programs in MCH we've talked a lot with this committee actually about universal approach to home visiting and a unified approach strong families Vermont is currently shared between MCH and CDD and I do think we try to function with a single voice across the leadership teams in this transition to strong families Vermont the development of the continuum and the movement towards evidence-based sustained home visiting this gap can lead to confusion in the field and staffing and other resource redundancies so this could be a clear improvement above that terms of aligning across the same system help me grow Vermont is housed at VDH in the MCH division it's a system model for improving access to existing resources and services for expectant parents and families with young children all the way up until age eight and it promotes healthy development of children by supporting families providers and communities to link children and families to the services and supports they need bringing the home visiting and the PCC master grants to the health department would indeed support much more consistent messaging and buy-in from the field and it would demonstrate alignment across parts of the same system if there's something that VDH is noted for it's being data-driven and evidence-based we'd like to think we're a model for that and that we have a proven track record and how we manage and analyze data and implement evidence-based programming and we've clearly worked successfully with many community-based agencies to support and elevate data gathering and fidelity to model implementation across multiple domain domains CIS as a standalone program in CDD doesn't always have the same access to the in-house technical and analytical expertise that could be provided in such a future transformation and it would help them with efficiently completing necessary data collection analysis reporting all those functions that are so critical we have in the MCH division and across the health department a very strong backbone of quality and performance improvement running programs with sub-recipients to improve service delivery such as recruitment, retention, screening and referral I do think that having a sort of single point of contact does streamline processes and points of contact for some agencies and it would help community agencies that have to work with multiple state departments on their contractual issues and the technical assistance that's provided on the theme of kind of redundant disease and staffing and other fiscal and implementation resources as Commissioner Brown said we're not here to talk so much fiscally at this point but obviously this could provide an opportunity to maximize resources eliminate positions that might be duplicative and make the representation on things like task forces with early childhood groups and other councils much more equally represented and uniformly represented really in summary on this part of my presentation improving coordination and better measurement and quality improvement would be expected to lead to better outcomes for families you know I don't think on day one families are going to recognize an immediate impact hopefully they won't see the background changes and we don't anticipate immediate changes in any service delivery pattern or partners or methods but I think this kind of coordination and data measurement and the analytics and quality improvement with targeted technical assistance and less redundancy of resources can certainly have a downstream favorable impact on Vermont kids and families which really is the core of our proposal and what we would love to see better outcomes in so those are my somewhat higher level as keeping on the theme of Sean Brown comments regarding the impact of some of the moves to the Department of Health Commissioner I thank you for that and I'm aware that it is 1041 and you may have somewhere else to go I do see that David Englander is here and I don't know if someone else from uh yes Alisa Stahlberg our director of MCH is here there you are and so I don't want to hold I don't want to hold you from the governor's press conference we could ask them is it all right for them for us to ask them questions later on yes they're they're prepared for that and I'll be on for another five or six minutes just as an observer of the next testimony okay um committees does it make sense um that we'll just we'll get the overview and then we'll start asking questions still okay I'm going to turn this back over to you um Commissioner Brown to uh orchestrate who goes next in this multi-faceted plan sure thank you and I know Commissioner Squirrel also has some time sensitive concerns today as well and needing has other commitments and so another piece of this proposal are moving those early childhood and family mental health services that currently reside within the child development division and some of that that those mental health dollars are we're proposing you know to improve service delivery and coordination for families of moving those pieces to the department of mental health and I'll defer to Sarah to kind of touch on those points as well okay I guess that's my cue good morning for the record Sarah Squirrel commissioner of the department of mental health wonderful to see everyone this morning I think this slide really illustrates how DMH thinks about our work particularly on the children's system from a comprehensive public health approach promotion prevention early intervention treatment and recovery certainly when we think about early childhood and family mental health it really gets at a targeted area that we can do more with certainly I think we would all agree that we need to build capacity for promotion and early intervention for children I think we have a critical opportunity across the system to go upstream and to intervene earlier we certainly know the impact of trauma adverse childhood experiences on children and they're setting long-term health trajectories in their earliest years so the bottom line is the earlier we intervene the better the outcomes and that's precisely what ECFMH is designed to do and we see it as absolutely critical and vital to Vermont families and communities we do support the shift of the early childhood and family mental health component of this to the department of mental health just a little bit of history on this as well it's it's always helpful to look backwards as we look forwards in FY 12 this funding actually historically sat with the department of mental health and I believe it was an FY 12 that we transferred these monies to DCF for inclusion in the CIS bundles so that's just a little bit of background in terms of the history of the funding there are if Sarah you can go to the next slide just for the committee's understanding there are two components to early childhood and family mental health the first is treatment services and those treatment services are really designed to provide clinical treatment to a child or their family who has a diagnosed or demonstrated need we use a lot of evidence-based practices to provide those services and treatment that includes anything from clinical assessment service planning and coordination individual and group community supports individual and family therapy as well as medication monitoring those services are provided by the designated agencies which is a network of providers that we oversee and work with on a regular basis the other element of early childhood and family mental health is the consultation and education and again that is a truly preventative and promoter activity where we are providing consultation and education to the adults in the child's life to really support them through parenting and to build capacity for them to support their children who may have social emotional and behavioral needs I would say in terms of the split of funding about 75 percent of it is targeted for the treatment component of early childhood and family mental health and about 25 percent of it is utilized for the consultation and education of course as we move forward we would like to grow the consultation and education portion of this we think that's the right direction to go from a promotion standpoint I do think there's an opportunity here where we can really streamline this work and this funding under the department of mental health and we can also leverage the flexibility of payment reform so this committee or committees may be aware the department of mental health has implemented payment reform our designated agencies are paid on a case rate so by having these fundings this funding included in that case rate we do we really do create the opportunity I think to grow in this area as well as to leverage the flexibility of payment reform under the department of mental health to provide more services in this kind of prevention arena so I think I will leave it at that for now and hopefully that's a good overview for the committee in terms of the early childhood and family mental health portion of this thank you commissioner and just in terms of your time frame when do you have to leave and if you leave is there someone here as well from dmh yes so I believe I am the only person from dmh here so I will probably just turn my camera off and try to do some coordination of my schedule to ensure that there is someone from dmh here to answer follow-up questions thank you appreciate sir sorry commissioner brown you're still in charge of the flow great thank you and I think the next piece we'd want to touch on this proposal is the piece of realigning the early care and learning all within the agency of education to really create that cradle to career ladder for Vermont youth which really would align and integrate a really bifurcated system right now and some funding systems as well and with us today we have the deputy secretary Heather Boucher from the agency of education we believe from you know the administrations that that this really moves forward the ability to serve families and kids holistically within one system of care to really lead to better outcomes for those families make it easier for them to access those systems right now there's multiple you know depending if you have your child in a private pre-k or public pre-k there's different ways you access that those systems and so families that might have kids in different systems it can be quite confusing or switching from one system to the other depending on your circumstances aligning it all within one system could really streamline those processes as well and will also align the IDA part b and part c funding streams and the services that they provide um and and then also just lead to better outcomes for kids educationally and and also you know that I would also highlight as Dr. Levine indicated before I turn it over to deputy secretary Boucher is um it would really allow us to streamline the collection of data and the analysis of data which is really key to improving you know system delivery and outcomes for kids by by aligning it within one system it really strengthens our ability to do that work better and and I'll just turn it over now to deputy secretary Boucher to kind of touch on where they see the benefits for families and kids in the systems with this initiative great I think that is my cue can everyone hear me can everyone hear me okay I can't see I can't see folks thank you commissioner brown thank you for the opportunity to testify on our proposal this morning for the record as commissioner brown said my name is Heather Boucher deputy secretary of education very happy to be here with both committees and my colleagues this morning so as we've already highlighted the proposal talks about grouping the administration regulation licensing professional development general education special education components of vermont's early childcare and education systems all together into a new division at the agency of education which would be early care and learning and then as you certainly heard from my much more knowledgeable colleagues there would also be public health components mental health components and financial assistance components which we haven't talked about yet that would also potentially move as part of this proposal so the restructuring with respect to the administrative regulatory and education components of the state childcare system aligns with I think as commissioner brown alluded to governor scott's broader cradle to career education model and the goal of that framework is to do everything in our power as state government to ensure that individuals emerge ready to engage in society as productive informed citizens and we all know that making sure all of our children from birth onward get off to a good start is a critical way to achieve that long-term goal I really appreciate what commissioner brown said earlier about sort of the timeline of this approach and that this really is just an initial conversation to kind of think about the concept certainly we would want to engage many stakeholder groups over the next 18 months to ensure that all voices were heard and that we were moving in hopefully a direction that had a significant buy-in across the state given that I'd like to state up front that it's not a strategy to destabilize or weaken Vermont's private childcare system in Vermont we recognize that that's some concern that folks have already been communicating to us and we want to assure the private childcare field that that's not the intention or impetus of this proposal in fact the private system is a critical necessary infrastructure in our state instead this proposal is about restructuring government operations to maximize efficient and timely processing of applications monitoring regulation and as commissioner Levine talked about also eliminate redundancy that currently exists across two agencies and ultimately we feel allow more time to be spent serving children and families which is what I believe we all want instead of now spending a lot of time navigating cross agency issues challenges ways of doing things this would we believe allow us to spend more time actually doing the provision of services and really focusing on our families and our children so the slide in front of you shows the breakdown of the current cdd activities and programs that would be moving over to the aoe as I said the proposal really aims to integrate childcare licensing general management and oversight professional development early intervention intervention systems integration head start oversight and contracts and grant management with with aoe's long-standing work in the pre-k space currently in addition to shared oversight of the pre-k program with cdd under act 166 the aoe provides leadership support and oversight on early learning education standards from birth through six also known as vells the vermont early learning education standards assessment again from birth through six early childhood special education early multi-tiered systems of support and pre-qualification for universal pre-k programs in terms of assessment you might be familiar with the ts gold program and the readiness for kindergarten survey so these pieces are already what the agency has in play that would integrate very well with the proposal that that we're putting forth for you know conversation and further discussion in addition and I think both commissioner levine and commissioner brown mentioned this the the potential positive aspects that could be could be brought to bear in terms of data management analysis are pretty exciting to us as well so our data management at aoe our data management and analysis division called d mad already collects analyzes and reports on the required data for both federal and state requirements with respect to the universal pre-k space including head start and this proposed restructuring would allow for greater integration of all early care and learning data sources which would enable us to better discern how to support students and families from birth through high school graduation and beyond so really happy to hear about your thoughts on the proposal we definitely look forward to collaborating with the legislature hopefully on a bill to move this concept forward and i'm happy to take any questions as well as my colleagues thanks and we support the proposal i didn't say that but hopefully that was clear thank you and i don't mean to tease all of you but you do work for the governor and you when he supports this so i'm presuming you also have you all support it or we wouldn't be here um but it's glad to hear you glad to hear you say it publicly um uh commissioner uh i don't know if there are other slides that uh you want to i'm turning it back to commissioner brand yeah i i would just touch on that the the pieces that will remain within the department for children and families um you know we've talked about what would be moving out to other um and you know other departments within a hs and then also going over to the agency of education um as i touched on the child care financial assistance program an elegy determination piece would stay within dcf it would move over to the economic services division so it would fall into place with like the other financial benefit programs we administer there along with the reach up three squares vermont general assistance in the low-income home energy assistance program so we would just add in the cc fat program there as well and so the team that that administers that program would move over to economic services on the ground it would really be no change in terms of what vermont or c in terms of accessing referrals and trying to locate child care and also who they apply through and where they receive their determination all of those components would remain in place it would just be that the oversight and administration of those grants and contracts would move over to the economic services division also some of the prevention work that's really connected to the family services division would stay within dcf for that purpose and then also um transportation you know we're moving forward with um uh try to do a statewide master grant for transportation given that cuts across so many of um our programs and services and so that would be we would still coordinate that whether it's for the family services division uh the reach up program or or you know uh child care reasons as well that we would coordinate and issue um and manage those funds and contracts as well and service delivery for transportation within dcf thank you um i want to open it up for questions and maybe turn to representative web if she has any comments and then i see that representative cupley has raised his hand thank you uh and thank you um madam chair for including our education committee in on this important discussion um i am following up on questions about children's integrative services cis and cisei the portion that is uh early intervention and am i understanding that that part of it is moving to health and part of it is moving to the agency of education uh and uh if that well first is that correct yeah there are components the children's integrated services of peace would be moving to the um department of health um you know their maternal child and uh health division um the i you know some of the specialized education services and id id a part uh dollars would then move over to the agency of education and um realign those with the part b dollars that already exist within the agency of education so i'm just having a concern coming from the field that while this might increase efficiency or reduce redundancy it might be um it might might give families fewer options is that your impression that it might be less sensitive to the needs of families we don't believe that we believe by it will actually open up opportunities um and in new areas for families and children by being able to leverage the work and expertise and providers that work with the health department um and also those specialized services that already exist in many of the of this the education system already and so that it would we believe it would open up opportunities in collaboration and integration that just don't exist now and i in our bifurcated system at my second and last question um so far would be whenever i hear cradle to career i hear the sound of the education fund um and i know that that the governor has had a lot of interest in being able to use education fund dollars for some of his other initiatives and i'm wondering if that is something that you are considering in this as well yeah that's not a part of our proposal uh the funding that supports uh the pieces in cdd that that that um will move with the work that goes with that with those pieces to the appropriate agencies so that um we're not proposing a change in the funding structure for these programs per se would just be realigning the dollars and services that already exist for this um over like you know that all of the the cdd funding for uh you to support the early care and learning system and the professional development would move with that um in the 23 state fiscal year 23 budget over to the agency of education all of the cis funding and service dollars would move over although i i do want to be very clear that um you know while those services will still be provided through the children's integrated services we're proposing that those services be unbundled and then be um still be accessed by our providers but but get billed through the normal medicaid provider system um there are significant um administrative dollars tied to that bundle um and our proposal would be that those efficiencies gained there would allow us in this proposal any efficiencies will get reinvested back into the system and and support additional services for families and kids um but you know so i want to be clear about that as a piece of this proposal thank you representative coupoli uh thank you madam chair um i sarah still with us sarah squirrel commissioner squirrel uh yes she's in two places at once okay uh commissioner are you able to hear us right now yes i am thank you thank you commissioner i i have a question that has been on my mind for some time now particularly with our children being out of school but what is the are you hearing um issues with mental health and perhaps even suicides yes it's a a great question thank you certainly right now we know that the impact of covid is and the pivot to remote learning is having an impact on our children and youth across the state even prior to going into covid um if we refer back to some of the youth risk behavior survey data that we all look at and pay attention to particularly for adolescents we were starting to see increases significant increases in depression anxiety suicidal ideation um and we know with the ongoing impact of covid remote learning you know particularly for adolescents who this is a point developmentally for them where interaction with peers is really critical to their development and their identity um you know those are groups that we do worry about when we look at the data in terms of demand um for child and youth mental health services we are seeing an uptick fortunately we are not seeing an uptick in terms of demand for really high levels of care such as inpatient right now but at the same time in terms of you know just general demand for counseling services outpatient services uh residential services we are seeing increases so that certainly is something that we are concerned about and i think why our efforts and potential focus on reopening schools is also a really important factor right now thank you madame chair i have one more question for deputy secretary buchet if i may absolutely i i again have a concern about whether or not the agency has the personnel to accomplish all of these little goals we have can you address that yeah so just to clarify the existing personnel that would continue these functions would move over to the agency of education so there isn't a plan right now to reduce um that personnel okay thank you does that clarify the question yes yes yeah i mean i think i think the details would be worked out as we move forward but that's from our perspective the agency of education's perspective this is not um really a cost saving measure it's really about the concept and make and and the vision of what we're trying to do um so so we're not coming into this thinking that um you know we're really thinking of it as step one it would just be really moving the components that fit with education over to education including the funding streams as commissioner brown already said thank you thank you represent cupoli are you finished for right now with questions okay we have we're beginning to have a lineup um which is good we have um representative wood we have representative conlon mcfaun and paella right now and redmond right now is the lineup uh representative wood thank you madam chair um a couple of questions and um the the bundling and unbundling i'm not sure i guess uh commissioner brown maybe that will be for you um uh so uh certainly from a provider perspective the bundling of uh a group of um services allows flexibility um at the provider front and more flexibility in in addressing family needs and seems like unbundling those things um would do the opposite and we'd be referring back to essentially a fee for service um modality that what existed prior to the bundling which is fairly recent um so if you could address that i would appreciate it sure and i would also um have sarah chuckle jump in here as well um you know it will unbundle those services and i think um what you would hear from our providers um you know when we just went through payment you know realign you know the bundled payments and restructured those um there were some providers who gained from that and there were some providers who lost from that and that was a large concern and so that's a fixed rate for that bundle if you break out those services it allows more flexibility to to to bill for those services a little differently and so we believe that you know while while you know it might um lead to having to you know in terms of the way they draw down those funds will be different it opens up opportunities and it also opens up opportunities to do it that way into our existing payment reform systems that we're trying to move forward in the different in the different systems of care that we have and so that um and we would say there's a pretty high admin rate built into the into the into those rates right now it's 36 percent and so if we were able to reduce those and build those back into services it would it would expand what those you know what we could provide for services for kids and families that they might not be getting now through that bundled rate and I would ask Sarah Truckel to jump in here as well to provide any more technical um explanation on that as well happy to do so so Sarah Truckel DCF financial director for the record um as the committee recalls we went through a process uh in children's integrated services around payment reform and currently have a statewide bundled case rate which was not um the bundled case rate that was identified from the consulting group of burns of an associates as the uh current bundle so as you recall from last year your committee actually made the recommendation to fund the bundle and I believe it was the 633 dollar rate um but currently the bundle is funded um just over I think it's 509 dollars as a case rate um in the proposal here of unbundling through payment reform we were actually able to identify which funds and which costs of services are attributed to each one of those core cis services so what funds are associated with early intervention what funds are associated with um early childhood family mental health specialized childcare and home visiting um through that process there's also funds that go into the administration of cis so that's the um the uh cost associated with the fiscal agents the regional cis team the local cis coordinators the intake and referral and the coordination um the bundled case rate allows for flexibility in the sense of services but it comes with that high associated administrative cost what we are proposing here is to unbundle those services but then reinvest those costs into services for kids um the other standpoint which I'm sure the department of mental or the department of health would also be able to establish is right now the bundle includes home visiting services but we also have home visiting services that take place out of the bundle on a fee for service pace situation so there's a lot of different interplays going on right now and this really aligns the dollars in the service delivery that benefits children and families thank you for the information it creates a whole list of more questions but I'll save those for later my other question is for uh deputy secretary buchet um so uh really just this weekend um a little bit earlier we heard some data about uh children um ready to learn and the the high percentage of children from the data that uh kids entering kindergarten are really um at a high level ready to learn and of course we can always improve but that the data is looking very good in that level and to me that says that the early care and learning system is actually doing a pretty good job um the uh in contrast we also look at the at the third grade level um data and it shows that there's a significant difference let's just say between the ready to learn and the um achievement at third grade levels and um so I'm trying to figure out how this is really going to benefit children uh in a system that seems to be performing pretty well right now yeah that's a great question thank you for the question so um you know I think someone spoke to this earlier I I don't we're not planning to actually change services we're planning we're planning to change how the back end looks and delivering those services and to actually have a more streamlined approach so that we actually have more capacity to continue uh what's already happening in the early child uh space so that we're not spending as much time negotiating across different um human services or different agencies human services and the agency of education so I don't um we're really not talking about changing um the basic aspects of what the staff are doing it's really where the staff are actually going to be housed so I think that's really important um I would I would have to reflect a little bit more on um equating sort of the the implicated association that somehow the k-12 system is not a good system and the current early child care system is a good system based on just test scores I think that there's some really important things we'd want to consider and look at um you know uh in addition um to that yeah and that wasn't my reference my reference was really about uh looking at what the um current success of the early care um system uh is and and trying to figure that out so okay thank you yeah thank you representative wood um representative conlon good morning uh just briefly uh you know I heard at the beginning this is kind of the start of a conversation uh all that could you talk a little bit about timing when language will be produced that's going to come before these committees um and how that's going to play out sure we have a some draft language and that we'd like to submit and I think you know the idea is that we would move the idea forward to create um uh like committees of of our partners across the spectrum that will be impacted just start having the conversations of what makes sense how to do this technically to move it forward how do we um capitalize on those integration um uh and streamlining opportunities to increase uh services for families and kids and then come back in uh for the 23 budget with a with a uh financial proposal and the staff moves and the details and a plan of how that work would happen that's our vision is that we really take it off this year um with with a framework legislative framework but then come back in to the session next year with those details worked out with our partners and also highlight areas where we weren't able to come to an agreement um and and then have those conversations with the various committees of jurisdiction of how do we move that forward and what does the final plan look like that gets implemented that following July I think that's our vision here um uh Commissioner Brown I just might comment that today is the last day that a long form bill may be requested in the house but yes doing anything at the last minute is fine um Representative McFawn thank you madam chair um I have a question about history um and I think probably Commissioner Brown you might be the one that has to answer this one um in the presentations we talked some of the uh commissioners talked about uh history and they said that these services were previously provided by that agency um I happened to be around when uh all of this these services were switched to DCF my question is what is wrong uh there was a reason for making that move and taking those services out of those different departments and putting them in one place um what happened that makes you think that we need to put them back now to where they were in the first place so I'd like the question why were they moved in the first place and now that we're at this point why why do we have to move them back what's happened within the agency to make that happen yeah I wouldn't say that necessarily something's happened within the agency Representative McFawn I would say that um decisions are made at a point in time based on information and data that's available and the current thinking and practice at that time and then as you know those uh programs and dollars and practices evolve you know and also how how the needs of Vermont families and children evolve you should always be looking like does our system currently meet the needs of families and and what we're seeing is that we have as our systems have had developed you know these changes they've become very siloed and bifurcated and you know and there's you know the child development division has been asked to become a mental health provider a public health provider when when there are already departments within state government that really that's their area of expertise you know so so though we believe those agencies should be taking the lead in the delivery of those um expert of those services they are the experts in those areas you know we don't they come they they oversee and manage the designated agencies that deliver a lot of the services that that that the um child development division contracts for yet we don't oversee those providers we don't have those established relationships we're on the periphery of that and so what what makes sense to us is that those dollars and services should really align with the department that has the primary responsibility and and expertise and history of working with those providers and the the delivery of services to those to those same families in different areas is really a bifurcated system and it's the same on the health department um you know in terms of the piece that goes to AOE I don't you know there's always been the private um regulated um um early learning and care system but as as we evolve and look at the educational needs of our kids and the transitions that we ask of them as they move through at different ages and different different programs it's very complicated and the handoff is not always smooth you know from zero to three or three to five and then and then into the into the kindergarten system um that by moving it into the agency that oversees you know early you know learning for kindergarten and some of pre-k to align all it just seems to make sense when you're really trying to um envision how do we support kids from birth um through post grad you know through 12th grade how do we and how do we leverage better outcomes that comes through data analysis um and and streamlined systems and that's not possible in our bifurcated system right now we you know we're not looking to change the you know the private system we're looking to strengthen it through this system we believe that's that that's the outcome we're looking for okay thank you i i but my memory serves me what you just said was the reason why it was all put together in in uh your agency but that represents you answered my question thank you and representative bomb weekend um that might be something to um or both committees or one committee to explore because when you look at a policy resource document from february um 2016 it says quote recognizing those programs serving young children and their families are most affected when they're integrated vermont has taken several steps to build a coordinated system child development and family support services talks about cis um and how these services were previously provided through separate programs with distinct funding streams so we'll talk about that and we'll find out i'm at another time probably um as to how the hiring is going um because i believe we need a cis director um currently um so thank you madam chair yep um we have one two three four we have um four um people who still want to um ask questions it is 11 23 um representative um by yellow thank you madam chair um so uh commissioner brown just said that he's hoping that this will help strengthen um the private provider side of child care and i'm just wondering how you envision the regulated at-home child care providers playing into this because it seems like this is much more geared specifically towards center-based care and i think um at-home providers are an integral part of providing access across the state and i would ask uh deputy secretary uh bush a to jump in here as well um but we don't see it as just benefiting you know those those large private centers but we also see it benefiting um you know the smaller family-based uh care homes as well um you know the cdv staff um it is small relatively speaking to the size of the right of the system of care out there for early care and learning if you look at the resources and the depth in the education system that exist throughout the state um you know overseen by the agency of education i think you're a you know providers will be able to leverage um those connections and those services and that expertise locally you know and be more responsive than most likely our staff could be just given um you know we're relatively small and then what when you're looping in and building connections to those school districts and you know and making sure those transitions of those kids happen smoothly in the care of those kids and the learning for those kids i think there's an opportunity providers to um you know to work closely with their their local education system and i think there's value in that i would defer to uh deputy secretary bush a to jump in here as well on that yeah sure thank you uh i think it's a great question representative playola so thank you for posing it uh just to clarify when i say private i mean all private providers so not just center-based care um all all all whether they're home-based um whether they're private you know really it's the private piece that i was trying to actually um note so i agree that uh so if if we actually you know that back to representative cupoli's uh question earlier there are ways we can actually um better integrate what we're doing in terms of um pre-qualification for programs whether they're in home whether they're in center-based care um that could really um i think free up some resources again so that we can be doing more things that i think would benefit all of our child care folks so it would allow us to be able to provide uh professional development training more um cohesively for all of our um early child care providers whether they're public whether they're private whether they're in home whether they're in center-based care so um again we're you know we we think that coming together uh will both preserve some of the unique aspects that families choose to have children in smaller settings but also allow some of the benefits um of better coordination collaboration opportunities across different types of early care and learning to really help our overall system thank you so represent pale do you have a follow-up not at the moment okay um we have um three people represent redmond um represent brumstead and representative um austin representative thank you madam chair um this this really is has a little bit of um a question uh for the aoe and um dcf i would say um and it this is like kind of a hard thing to put your finger on because it's not a very tangible thing i understand the um the piece about um billing differently and um putting the expertise in the agencies that you know where that expertise lies public health and um but the the agencies and departments have different cultures i'm i'm trying to get a culture kind of the culture back of um you know they have different cultures um aoe has um kind of a different cultural approach in from what i've heard around early care and learning so i have concerns about um you know this area going to aoe um in um a very large agency um that has a lot of priorities and concerns and um you know from a very tight-knit department that's working you know across all of these issues together in a more integrated way um i know that aoe you know has there are vacancies there there's been some challenges in hiring um and when i you know when i go to my school board meetings i hear quite a bit about how challenging it can be at times to interface with folks at aoe so so that's my my concern is just they're very different cultures from those two and i have real concerns about how this kind of gem of a thing that's working well or seems to be working well at least from the outside um will be impacted frankly by by moving into such a you know be be kind of separated into all of these areas with a lot of it being held by aoe so i don't know how you know if you can respond to that that's a primary and i've heard from many stakeholders about this about this particular cultural issue can i uh jump in to start us off commissioner brown so i um really appreciate the question and i'm very aware of um some of the thinking and the concerns behind it um it's interesting about the size of the agencies so i wanted to tackle that one first so i actually believe um because of the existing cdd staff this division would be the largest in our actual agency of education so it's interesting to think about a program moving from what our from our perspective is a bit of a be a myth agency in terms of human services to a very small agency of education comparatively so i'd have to kind of like think more about that because um i i think i think um the notion that it would be moving into a bigger bureau bureaucratic context is actually not borne out by the reality um so i'd want to kind of think more about that and maybe sort of discuss more about like sort of what where some of that thinking is coming from and and then just um kind of talk through that a bit more the second piece about culture um i will say uh professionally and personally has um has been uh challenging for me and part of that is because um i myself um have my entire career has been based in the context of child development i'm actually a developmental psychologist who has done her entire career within education settings in fact when i was an undergrad uh before i graduated with my bachelor's degree my very first sort of official teaching roles were actually a child care center at the campus that i actually graduated from and then my first job was actually at a private child care center when i um when i when i graduated from college before i went into grad school so i think um one of the benefits of this approach would be to really try and and break down that silo that there's something really um that there's something like hard and fast about groups of people that want to ensure that students are taken care of because at the end of the day that's what we're talking about both the education system and um our early child care system care about making sure students are developing and doing well not just in terms of learning but also in terms of their um social emotional growth and i i really would welcome the conversation um to further unpackage that and think about where some of those barriers and challenges come from because i don't i don't think um when i'm out in public schools um i'm not seeing where um i'm not seeing where that has to be that that should or must be an automatic barrier or assumption and if i could jump in i also see it as an opportunity as well um in terms of you know we have some incredibly talented and dedicated and knowledgeable staff at the child development division and also out in the field and so that's not going to be lost in this initiative and i think there's value in um and sharing the knowledge and expertise that both uh uh staff from aoe and the providers and the cvv staff when you bring them under the same umbrella i think there's opportunity there uh not risk because i think um there's value in um and sharing you know those cultures together and understanding what each brings to the table and and i think that's when you see growth and development and you see innovative change is when you merge those synergies together um and that's just from experience and and working in the human services field and and program change and so i think there's tremendous opportunity here for the state um um you know under this proposal but i certainly understand um there are certain there are different cultures between the two agencies uh but i don't think i don't see that as a barrier i see that as an ability to merge them together and strengthen both and just this is not personal this is just what i have received you know from you know this is not one comment or two this is over a period of time so just to be clear sure represent from sted and then representative austin although representative austin your hand went down so i'm all set thank you okay representative brumstead thank you i um i want to just go back to the cis question um for me cis as we the words we're using our cis bundled and then decoupled and so these i just want us to remember too that these are our most vulnerable families and we pulled them together for integration in order to not just for what happens financially inside of government but also how these families are dealing with multiple things going on in their lives and being able to come to one place the um right now it seems like we're talking about it spreading out over three different agencies mental health as well and that the question for me is before we do something i get the money piece i've had to work on that in committee so i understand that piece quite well but the question that i asked a year ago when i was working on this piece was is cis working and are we doing a good job meeting the needs of the families and the kids and that that's the real question and it does seem like we are because every time a tiny pullback is made you notice it right away because these these families are in such dire need of help in order to keep their child integrated into into the systems and it seems like we're doing a good job so across the whole piece my worry is have we talked to the families before we come forward with a new a new way of doing business inside of government i think that um i'm one of the i'm on the government accountability committee as well and whether or not government is accountable is the data that's driven by the people that are impacted by the programs and so i i don't really i'm asking a question whether or not i guess have you talked with the families have you talked with the with the children about how the programs are working i think that's the work that will happen in the coming months in terms of really getting feedback from the different providers and the remoners that participate in these programs to make sure when we move forward with any change that we take their concerns you know we have a vision right now of what we think that we were proposing this looks like we make we can certainly come back to you based on those conversations and say we think this piece of the proposal that we initially thought looked this way should look this way and i think we're open to under to knowing when we need to shift our proposal in response to the feedback we're hearing and making sure that children and families continue to receive the highest level of service that they're accustomed to but also are there ways that we can increase that as well and so i you know our commitment is is that we will be talking to our partners our providers and then making sure whatever we move forward next year in the legislature as as the final product of that the proposal as it will look all fine-tuned has all of that feedback incorporated into it so we so what we're proposing now could look different of representative from said based on those conversations so it's too bad that maybe we couldn't have done that last summer and then come forward with but just to get a sense before you go through all that work whether or not people are happy people our program is working being integrated where they are well and i would say that you know the the service is still delivered by multiple providers it's how we pay for those services that looks different than than it used to those services will still be provided it's just how they get paid for those services will be different because it'll be unbundled and they they can now bill separately for each unique service the service delivery doesn't go away it just it's it's how we've approached the bundling of that will look different and that's what seems so odd to me honestly it's that our healthcare system a lot of our world right now is moving in the opposite direction we're moving away from fee per service and into bundled managed care so why wouldn't we want to do that in i think what what you've heard is that we'll be able to still thank you right i don't know if the education the education committee may get into less debating of witnesses than we do when we have strong opinions we make sure that they our witnesses seem to know what they are and i am teasing representative brumsted because she's only the one of seven of us who have spoken myself included and express some concerns representative web i want to turn it over to you yes and i think that the questions that are being raised are certainly questions that everybody's going to need to consider as as we move forward or not after we actually see that bill coming forward which i assume is coming from the administration which will give us a place to have all of those conversations we are a deliberative body and we will have an opportunity to address all of those things and i'm sure knowing the committee on human services and education we will be debating all of those issues um and if there are no final um comments um that uh commissioner you or um deputy secretary um bruce or um or commissioners squirrel squirrel want to make we will we will conclude this hearing um but if you have a final comment just let me know i just want to thank the both committees for your time today um as a department we don't normally appear before the education committee on a regular basis so this has been a great opportunity to get to know you all so i appreciate that um and i would just say um you know wherever this leads you know the questions and the comments from committee members and that deliberative process i think always make for a better outcome more whatever that outcome is and so we've always appreciated our partnership and uh and the inquiry from our committee members so thank you if it's okay uh chairwoman i would echo those thoughts and um also thank um thank you for the opportunity to meet more um representatives from the human services committee i know a couple but don't often get to interact with you all um and nice to see that the representatives from education again um i really enjoyed all of the questions i think the way we move forward is is to really raise uh you know truthful tough questions and that's actually how we move forward in the right way we need to um this is a you know this is um a meaty proposal so i think we came into this um expecting um that we will we have a lot of work ahead of us to do if we want to bring it to fruition and we look forward to partnering with you all um um to see to see how this goes thank you i don't want to put you on the spot uh commissioner squirrel but i guess i am no i'll just echo the comments from my colleagues thank you for your time this morning um to hear this proposal i think you know fundamentally um it is really about the north star of our accountability um is to the children and families that we serve and support um collaboration partnership um are the fundamental tenants of our work and i think that's reflected in some of the discussions that we're having today um and it's also just great to see other early childhood partners again um and again this is a nice opportunity um to focus a little bit on early childhood um mental health as well so thank you for that well thank you and thank you all for spending um your morning with us and i imagine that separately and together the committees will um be hearing from from you and others um as this gets fleshed out so um this this is the conclusion of the joint hearing of the bramont house human services committee and house education committee on the governor's proposal um to uh eliminate the child development division and move child care and other functions um to the department to the agency of education and elsewhere uh