 This is Senate Appropriations Committee and we're still working on the budget adjustment for the next couple of years. And so we are gonna be taking testimony from the Vermont State College Chancellor and staff. We are, I noticed that you have quite a lengthy submission. I think it's like 25 pages of information. So our focus today is only on the budget adjustment. I realize that you'll be back for the big bill, but if you would just explain what's being requested here and how it will sort of segue into maybe your budget request that we'll take up in greater detail later on, that would be great. And I see you have Sharon Scott with you and Catherine Lavasser. So Chancellor, if you wanna start or however you wanna present this, we will proceed. Yeah, so I really appreciate all of you meeting with us today and thank you very much for the opportunity to speak with you and give you an update on the system and also the potential CRF funds in the FY21 Budget Adjustment Act. So as you know, we do have a new leadership team. So for the record, I'm Sophie Zidatni, Chancellor of the Vermont State College System. And with me today is Sharon Scott, our Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer, as well as Catherine Lavasser, our Director of External and Governmental Affairs. So I hear what you're saying. So I'm just trying to figure out here how much to share with you. I think the key points that we would like for you to take away today is that we do believe the Vermont State Colleges are key to Vermont's success. We are in the middle of a significant transformation that's being guided by the work of the Legislature Select Committee on the Future of Public Higher Education in Vermont. And we do recognize that it's vital that we transform. We've included in the packet, we have materials about the students that we serve, that we are across the state of Vermont. We're within 25 miles of nearly every Vermont. We have a heat map that shows that in the materials. We did want to emphasize that our students are not necessarily traditional middle-class students coming from stable families. Not all of our students have homes to go to and or can afford a residential four-year experience that we really are serving all Vermonters and not just those that one traditionally thinks of as 18 to 22 year olds going to colleges. This slide has some of the data on our students that's in the materials. So again, we do educate over 10,000 students a year and most importantly, 83% of our students are Vermonters. We do educate more Vermonters than all other institutions of higher education in the state combined and about two-thirds of our alumni live and work here in Vermont. So we strive to educate. We have 3,300 first generation college students. We have about 3,000 low-income undergraduate students. We provide pathways to affordable certificates, degrees, credentials and seek to provide economic stability in the rural regions of the state where we're located. As a system, we employ nearly 3,800 people and our employees live in every county of the state as you can see on this slide. We are among the largest employers in the state next to the state of Vermont, university of Vermont, the state's largest hospitals and some of the larger businesses. Regionally, we also stack up as a large employer and do employ hundreds of Vermonters in our anchor communities. So we offer competitive wages and benefits and we also provide employment for Vermonters of all educational attainment levels. Our top enrolled programs align very well with Vermont's workforce needs for mental health professionals, childcare providers, entrepreneurs, educators, healthcare professionals and more. And so again, understanding why we're so important to the state of Vermont, we do recognize the system faces significant challenges if it's going to continue to meet the needs of Vermont and its students into the future. I know we've testified before and we can certainly discuss more next time that we're in front of you, but some of the challenges facing us regarding the demographics and the market challenges. We faced this past year, we had several campuses operating online only. We've had a steep drop in enrollment and we've also had significant operating costs associated with the pandemic. Of course, we also had a structural deficit going into the pandemic. We received significant bridge funding and CRF dollars from the legislature for this FY21 for which we're extremely grateful. With that bridge funding, the legislature did create a legislative select committee on the future of public higher education in Vermont and that committee has been charged with assisting the state of Vermont to address the urgent needs of the Vermont state college system and to develop an integrated vision and plan for a high quality affordable and workforce connected future for public higher education in the state. And as you likely know on December 4th, the select committee released an initial report. There is a second report that will be coming out on February 12th and a final report in the middle of April, April 16th. There are some main recommendations in that report relate to a common accreditation for the three residential colleges, Vermont Technical College, Northern Vermont University and Castleton University. It also recommends aggressive administrative consolidations as well as a restructuring of our budget and steps that we need to take to reduce our structural deficit plus recommending an increase in the base appropriation from the state and ongoing bridge funding. So we're working with our board right now. We're in a listening phase. We've had a couple of presentations to the board. We have another board meeting coming up on February 22nd. Right now we have approximately six weeks of public comment. We're in the middle of that. We have a link that we've provided on our website with materials and an opportunity for people to submit written comments and our board will be holding a listening session with the public. So not only internal but external stakeholders as well. And that's scheduled for February 17th. So while we are continuing to plan for the future, we are also undergoing significant transformation work as we go along and we're taking needed action at the time and we're doing what we can to transform. We've been working in regular close communication with the speaker, the Senate pro tem and the governor. And we are looking to partner with the state leaders and the select committee and our board of trustees as we work to stabilize the system and build a better, stronger and more sustainable future for Vermont. With the transformation in mind, our board of trustees did recently adopt a set of strategic priorities. And the strategic priorities are focused in four key areas, affordability, accessibility, quality of academic programs and relevance of programs. And we've defined each of those as to what success will look like. We've also embedded an intentional focus on diversity, equity and inclusion. And that's reflected in the board's recent revisions to its bylaws and trustee handbook, as well as its decision to create a board level committee on diversity, equity and inclusion. We also just briefly want to thank you for the work and encouragement you've provided to us, including the bridge funding that we did receive with the FY21 budget regarding the workforce initiative. So I just want to quickly mention that we spent approximately 1.5 million of CRF dollars on the workforce initiative. It enabled us to still have 971 Vermonters taking almost 1400 courses across all four of our institutions. The demand was very high that we filled up very, very quickly. We got to 971 very rapidly. We've had tremendous free feedback from students about the initiative, how it came at exactly the right time, it helped them change careers or upskill and the value of the wraparound services that we provided. So we could ask a question and other people. The 971 Vermonters, obviously one of the big challenges is enrollment and reaching out. And also how, and these were people who obviously were unemployed and this was a workforce strategy. Do you have any sense of, out of that almost 1000 Vermonters, how many this would have been their first encounter with the state college system? In other words, were they actually maybe a new pipeline of Vermont adults seeking the benefits of the state college system? We just sent a survey out, I believe it was last week and I'm pretty sure that was one of the questions that was included in it. We started getting some of the feedback on that but we definitely once we get that we'll be happy to share more information with you but I'm trying to remember and Catherine may remember this better than I do but I think when we were enrolling people that was a question and there was a significant number of new people that were new to higher education. There were people that already had some credits or had, I mean, we had some people, for example, working through the Castleton Center for Schools which was for teachers, professional development. So that was at a much higher level. Obviously they have education and but it was the full range down to people doing much shorter term certificate programs. So it really covered a broad spectrum. We did ask that information though so I'm quite sure we have it. I just don't have a number. So I don't know Catherine, do you have a number on that? Happy to follow up with that. I think we're still in the process of collecting all of the surveys back from the participants. All right, just very interested to see how, because that to me is a very good initiative to think about how we're connecting to a very different group maybe of students and workforce needs than might have occurred in the past. So, okay, other questions or I'll let the chancellor keep going. You do know that we have Senator Baruth now on our committee. So he's providing some real good continuity between the work underway and the committees and the various studies. So he's very welcome addition to the committee. Can I quote you on that? For any particular purpose? Just every purpose really. Oh, well, no, I think this has just been such an important discussion to have and really to focus on not only what is the role and the benefit of our state college system in a variety of ways. And then, but like any system, we're taking what is sort of we've inherited and the question is how do we, you use the term transform but re-engineer whatever you wanna call it to address the realities of today's needs. And certainly if there's an area that I've been harping on in that nursing program and just the resources that, but our limited capacity relative to that study that was done in terms of what we need as a state for that particular area of our healthcare workforce. So some of the areas that you really are strong do line up very well with where that future needs are well known. And certainly that's one of them. So unless there are other comments, we'll let the chancellor keep going. Anyway, 1,000 students, that's not almost 1,000, that's... Well, it was 971 students and we probably could have served. Well, I'm sure we could have enrolled more. One of the challenges we had was that we wanted to make sure we gave everybody a really good experience and because we were offering wraparound services, textbooks, childcare, transportation, it meant that it was, we didn't wanna over commit and then have people have a bad experience. So we really focused on making sure that we provided people with the assistance they really needed. So they got the best experience in the hope that moving forward, they would see value in it and be willing to continue to invest in themselves and return to the Vermont State Colleges. And again, we did put that set it up on a very, very short timeline. If we had more lead time, I think we could do an even better job with it. But certainly the need was there and the word got out very, very quickly. There was a press conference on a Friday with President Joyce Judy of CCV with the governor and by Monday, we were having to pull back on some of the marketing we were doing because we really couldn't accommodate taking more people. We were sort of running out of instructors to set up additional section. So- Well, I deliberately rounded up to a thousand because a thousand just carries a different, I don't know, sense of volume compared to nine. We were very close. It's like that $9.99 kind of approach. The other question is out of the Vermonters who enrolled, was the completion rate with all the supports that you also referenced were being put in place? Was the completion rate, success rate, one that you found to be good or did it identify some other areas of needs or supports? I don't believe, so I've not heard that. My sense is that it was successful that people got the support that they needed. And I know on the survey, one of the questions was what support did you need? What support did you take? Was there anything that you didn't receive that you needed? So the survey did include questions along with that. And primarily, I think textbooks, technology assistance, childcare, although I was surprised there wasn't as much childcare need as I had anticipated but that may be because everyone's remote and the kids are at home and they've already adjusted to that, I don't know. Catherine, you had a comment? I did. One piece that stuck out to me in the preliminary results from the survey that we were able to gather so far is the sentiment that some participants didn't know where to start if they'd been laid off or were looking to career transition. So if you're talking about things that were unique or flags for the future, there was a little bit of a sentiment of these courses are excellent but I don't know which one I should go with if I'm transitioning my career. I think a lot of that has to do with the speed with which we launched and needed to make sure that the program's completed. So those are factors that can be mitigated if a new program were developed. We launched and had students in classes within a very, very short period of time. And while that's great, if you're already ready and you know exactly what you wish to do, it can be much more challenging when you are presented with a panoply of options and all of a sudden you just need to make a choice because your option will be gone if you don't do so. Okay, thank you. I will turn it over to, if there aren't any more questions, but turn it over to Sharon to talk on the finance pieces. That's really why we're here. Yeah, okay. Senator Kitchell, would you like us to skip straight to our budget adjustment request or would you like a little bit more of background? Committee, do you need, we've spent quite a bit of time with state colleges and we have the report that has been issued around the recommended funding over a multi-year period of time. But let me ask committee, do you want any more background information or should we, we can go to the money and then we can open it up for more general discussion? Why don't we do it that way? And then if people should have to leave or whatever, but our focus of course is always finding the money. And- Absolutely, and in the interest of time. And we're committed to doing that as I think that has been pretty obvious. I think all of a sudden, we tend and I would say in the legislative arena to look at and sort of categorical or long committee lines, but I think the situation with the state college system brought home the reality that you can't look at just the state college system within the context of higher education. It gets into social equity. It gets into economic development. It gets into workforce. And so it really does force a much larger discussion and a much deeper appreciation of the role and the statewide presence of our state college system. So I guess we should start with the money. We know that the governor did include some money toward this year. I think it was five million and two different pieces. And then his 22 budget does include some additional money, but I don't think it adds up to the amount that was suggested was needed in the report. So if you wanna start with the money, and I guess Sharon, you'll do that for us then. We'll go there and then we can have further discussion. Yes, so we'll begin just with the budget adjustment since that is what you asked us here originally for. So a couple of weeks ago, the administration approached the Vermont State Colleges about whether we could use additional CRF money this year given the new deadline that was outlined by the federal government on December 27th. And you may recall that you issued us a really gracious 22.758 million dollars in CRF as part of last year's cycle in Act 120. But unfortunately we had to return 13.4 million dollars of that back to you in October, and then another $640,000 at the beginning of December. And that was really because we were unable to use the money in the timeframe allotted. December 30th, 2020 was too short a time period. We have other expenses that we could use them on, but we could not do that given the guidelines. So for example, you couldn't purchase testing in advance. We knew we needed testing in the spring, but we couldn't purchase those testing kits in the fall and have that be available for us in the spring. And so that tight timeline really forced us to be in a position where we needed to return those funds. As we were thinking about it, we said, well, what could we do knowing the new guidelines, knowing that the spending can go through the end of December of 2021? So this is a calendar year request, not simply just an FY21 request. And we identified a series of projects that we could use CRF funds for through the end of the calendar year. And these projects included things that were a little bit more than $5 million COVID testing for the fall and spring. So in the spring of this year, we anticipate that at minimum our COVID testing, and this is what we've contracted for, is a little over $681,000. Now that's using the minimum standards and guidance that we have available to us right now. And that guidance has been placed to us by the state. We do know that at the federal level, there is discussion right now about the return to school, return to higher education, and whether there may be additional standards placed upon us yet we do not know. But that would be one thing that we're looking for, increased cleaning and sanitation of our college buildings and facilities. Each of our residential institutions, so the exception is the community college of Vermont because they are still fully remote. It's costing us about $50,000 a semester to make sure that we're meeting the cleaning and sanitation standards that have been set before us by the state of Vermont and according to guidance from public health officials. Also, we have substantially diverted employees who are not performing their regular work, but are instead responding to the public health crisis. An example is an athletic trainer who may be overseeing a portion of COVID testing or an administrative assistant who is not supporting faculty but is instead now participating in remote advising sessions for students. We also need to provide additional sections due to social distancing. So when we look at our academic classrooms, typically they seat between 18 and 30 people. It's not a 50% occupancy in most classroom spaces. It's generally less than 30 to 40% that we can see. So we have many classrooms where we can only seat seven students plus an instructor in a socially distant way. So we need to add extra sections for those things. Those are all activities that we need to pay for during this current fiscal year as well as we're anticipating we'll need to be paid for in the next fiscal year in the first half. And so the last thing is fall scholarships. So we know that many of our students, and we could see this from the CRF workforce development activity that many of our students and many of the individuals in the state of Vermont have a great deal of need. And so we are proposing a specific scholarship that would help those students who they or their families have been negatively impacted by COVID. Unfortunately, we can only use that money for the fall semester, but we do hope that that would allow students to be able to enroll in the fall, perhaps be able to postpone some of their aid and use that in the spring and be able to help them get through this. And that we're estimating at about $900,000. And we hope that it will help somewhere between 750 and 900 students depending on their level of need. So we really appreciate your willingness to have us here and we'd be happy to answer any questions that you have. Okay, I'll start. A lot of this that you're proposing here is being driven by the CRF guidelines. And I believe, and Stephanie, you're listening, because the CRF money is becoming overly subscribed, I believe the house may have used general fund. They did. And if they did, then general fund does not come with the same constraints. So my question to you is whether that list of needs, does that crosswalk with the 40 million that you said you would need in fiscal year 22? And to what extent is it being driven by keeping within the CRF guidelines as opposed to where if you had general fund in greater flexibility, you would feel would be more effectively used? So for the, there's about $1.4 million of that that would be able to be used in the coming fiscal year. So in FY 22, so that $1.4 million is included in our $45 million budget ask, or $42.5 billion budget ask. So that would be inclusive there. Do we have many other needs? Absolutely. But the remaining 3.6 million or approximately 3.6 million of that is money that is necessary right now that is not included within the Vermont State College's budget. The colleges have been very, very careful with their money holding positions open, making sure that they are being fiscally responsible and really in many ways, austerity measures to take care of making sure that we are having as much money available for us to be able to assist with resolving our deficit. But these are things that are extra to the budget that make things worse. Okay, so that's very helpful. So the 3.6 million that you've identified needed now in no way helps you with that bridge funding need that you've identified. Not for FY 22, that is correct. Okay, thank you. Senator Baruth. So I'm curious and maybe it's elsewhere or in different streams of money represented elsewhere, but when I think about the select committee's report, the pieces of it that make the most sense to me in terms of changing the equation are the unification of the system. But what allows that to be transformative is this idea of ubiquitous course delivery around the state so that someone who's enrolled at Castleton or NVU is not limited to the offerings there, but they have the other offerings. So I had been expecting to see at every level an attempt to use money to advance the technological side of the system, the online delivery system, students technology, the individual campuses technology, getting everybody more firmly connected and increasing that sense of ubiquitous delivery. So- Maybe you're into 22, Phil. Well, what I'm wondering is when the administration came to you for the budget adjustment, is there no way that you could use increased technology funds now that could help that later goal? There are absolutely ways that we could, if we had increased funding now, that was directly related to that transformative experience. We could absolutely use funds like that now. I will say that we were able to use a portion of the CRF dollars that you allocated to us last fall to assist us with remote delivery, so last fall and last spring. So our college campuses made massive upgrades over the summer, last summer, and into the fall to increase its remote delivery capacity. That capacity extends not only to delivery remotely from one classroom to a single student or multiple students, but it also allows for further delivery across college campuses. We have faculty today who are scheduling classes for the spring that are actually enrolling students at each of our individual campuses and a couple of departments in specific that the chancellor can refer to refer you to that are really making tremendous inroads that way. Additionally, we have a USDA role development grant that was recently authorized that's allowing the colleges to work with mental health professionals to be able to make sure that we're offering further mental health capacity across the state. And so we are doing that, but there are many things that we could be doing today given the funding, but we are still in the planning processes for some of those things. Though I know that our technology staff who I spoke with yesterday would be happy to pull a project together that addressed it immediately. And I guess that's what my question boils down to is in the same way that you've got in the budget adjustment, your testing needs, it seems to me that there must be some work that you're doing where we could direct increased funding on the technology side, even without waiting to do it all in the big bill. So I just put that out there. Certainly there is, with this particular ask when we were working with the administration, it was under the expectation that all of the funds needed to be CRF eligible. That's why the narrow focus of the specific projects that are proposed here. Okay. And that, I suppose that's back to the chair's point about general fund versus CRF. Right. Yeah. Okay, thank you. I just, other question is how much, which is budget adjustment within the budget adjustment context we deal with versus within the big bill itself for the overall funding. What was important is then, is knowing that the 3.6 is really an add-on to anything that was included as required funding included in the report. It's not, we can't subtract it and say we've made some progress. No, not specifically, no. I would address this here. Okay. I did just want to add one thing. Sharon just mentioned, but we do have faculty in both business and maths between Castleton and NVU that are using telepresence. So they'll be teaching in person on their home campus. And at the same time, they'll be teaching students at the other institution via telepresence. So those students will be participating at the same time, but remotely. We also did use some of the CRF dollars to build a website, which now hosts all our online offerings going to Senator Baruth's interest in ubiquitous to make it much easier and transparent for students to find courses across the system. They always had the ability to take courses across our system. It was just very hard for them to figure out what was available and when it was available. So we did use CRF dollars to build that website to make it much more easy for people to find courses across the system. I guess I need to understand if we're looking at what is being requested and linking it back to what's being proposed when you're talking about investments now and to support the transformation or the courses being available in a ubiquitous way. Is that included in the estimates? Are you doing some additional thinking about what is needed? I believe that's included in what the state colleges have said they need in the big bill. Okay, I just wanted to be clear. So what I was wondering was, was there a way to, in the same way that the testing need started in March and continues unabated and we're dropping money in each bill to deal with it. I was wondering if, because I'm sure the technology spend has been going on unabated as well. So I guess it doesn't really matter if we provide the full 40 plus million in the big bill or if we moved part of it out here, but I just wanted to make it clear that as far as I can see, that's not just providing the courses but making them easily transferable, making sure that each major is available wherever you are. Those things are key to the, to the kind of unified system we've been talking about. So, I think for the committee then it's delineating what we do in the budget and a budget adjustment to make corrections to the FY 21 budget versus what gets done in the big bill and part of this much larger discussion that will occur between education committees and the appropriations committee. So I know that there is some additional language about if other money becomes available. Stephanie, can you just, we're kind of getting into what the house did but the administration was proposing a total of five million. And I think some of it was a combination of what we have now, they thought was CRF, but of course, we might have spent that on something else like rental assistance. So can you just tell us how the house carved the baby up here on this one? Sure, so the governor had the 3.6 out of CRF and then if additional CRF was available and up to an additional 1.4 for the five million total. The house, I believe had simply appropriated 3.6 of general funds specifically for COVID related expenses. They did not have the second if additional, they would just be dealing with general fund in the FY 22 budget. Okay. So any additional? Okay. So what we have then coming over to us is dealing with the money that you need now and obviously holding the longer conversation around because it's some capital funding, I think is also being requested in the report. Wasn't there some capital? Yes. Okay. As well as, so what we're doing now is making no just additional costs because of COVID. All right. And that's what the house did. Would there be up to 1.4 if CRF do you see that that money would, that your costs would be, well, it is you outlined them were five million. So yes, you've already done that. Yes, absolutely. And there are additional items that we did not include on here recognizing that the pool of CRF dollars was likely limited. And those would include things like making upgrades to our HVAC systems. They have a longer lead time and they're much more expensive in terms of activities. It is work that if the pandemic is continuing should be done and that the colleges do not have the money to be able to do so, but we did not include them on the list here. Now the recent round of federal legislation did include funding for higher education. Can you just tell us from the state college perspective how does that help and what does it, I mean, if it's all of higher education for everybody in the state of Vermont it gets spread around pretty quickly. So Sophie or Sharon, can you tell us do you have any sense of the financial relief that would come to the state college system from that latest bill? Yeah, so it's called HAF, H-E-E-R-F and it's college specific. So we already have a sense for what the amounts are and it's approximately 12.3 million that would come directly to the individual colleges, wouldn't come to the chancellor's office, goes directly to the colleges. We would be required to just as it happened in the spring initially in the spring we were given a certain amount of money and half of which had to go out to students. Approximately three million of this would also need to be immediately directly given to students which would leave about nine million. But it is by college. So one of the challenges we face is that for example, the community college of Vermont because it includes part-time students, Pell eligible students, a large portion of that money is directed to the community college of Vermont and they haven't really had a lot of COVID expenses because they've been online. They're not doing testing. They got an exemption from the administration on that. So one of the questions we have is how much of that remaining money could we actually use? So right now we're estimating between $5 to $8 million that we may have available to us to use from that. Is that a fair assessment, Sharon? You're gonna have the numbers in more detail than I do, but it's done an excellent job. Okay. So that was the month in the spring when we got some money in the spring, I think we got about six million, three million of which had to go to students and three million of which we were able to use to reimburse our room and board. So it's similar to that funding. So it does come with fairly prescribed uses then. There are fairly prescribed uses. One of the, we're still studying it and as you probably know, the federal guidance is a little sketchy at this point and not quite as adequate as we'd love it to be. So we're still understanding it, but a part of this money or we're hoping the majority of it could be potentially used for loss of revenue. And so that's one area that we're really delving into and trying to understand how that could be calculated. Again, that is where the community college of Vermont is a little bit more of a sticking point as it did not see substantial loss of revenue, whereas the other institutions in the system did as it related to the pandemic. So if that is the case, that would be helpful. Additionally, the restrictions are somewhat similar to CRF. They're not exactly the same, but they're somewhat similar. So there are quite a few restrictions just as there was with CRF dollars. It just seems like CCV by design doesn't have the same costs that you would have with residential facilities and that more traditional campus life. Okay, so you're still out of the nine million based by college of the great, you said that CCV would get, how much of that nine million? I think it's around four to five million. Right. And the rest, okay. So it does. Yeah, there's a formula that they use. So it's sort of number of students, the number of Pell eligible students you have. This one is distributed a little differently than in the spring because it does give some weight to part-time students. So I think that's one of the other reasons why CCV is getting a bigger chunk this time around than last time. Other questions about that? So the timeframe that the new federal money has to be spent is what? One year from the date of receipt. So this may be, would there be an ability to, instead of using state dollars internally within your budget to supplant those federal dollars, and move those state dollars to other institutions? Can you reframe the question? I'm just wondering. I'm always talking about swapping out money, Sharon. Oh, I'm all for swapping out money. It's a question that's too... That's my question. Can we swap out money? That we can absolutely swap out money. The issue for us is that HERF money is allocated to a specific institution, and it has to be used by that institution. So if the institution is lacking in expenses, it would be difficult for us to be able to make the swap. Sharon, I think what Senator Westman's saying in the July budget, if we just, we budget to the whole system. How you distribute, could we change it? So we adjust to CCV the amount of the appropriation by the amount that they're getting through this other funding mechanism to make that general fund available for the... It may be possible, and we're actually working on our appropriations formula right now, so it may be possible for us to do so. I think, did I get your thinking right? Oh, you're headed right in the same way I... We may have to chat later. Yes, I wanna keep the system whole. And we very much appreciate that. If it's helpful, I do have the actual amount. So for CCV, the total is 4.4. Castleton is 2.9. Northern Vermont University is 3.4, and VTC is 1.7. And the total is around 12.6. I kind of rounded that, so if you've written them down in there a little bit off, that would be why. And CCV was 4.4, almost 4.5. And again, 740,325, I believe would have to go out to students. So anyway, there's a different amount. Yeah, we're trying to figure that piece out. But yeah, it looks like approximately we were scheduled to receive around 12.6, 3 million of which would need to go directly to students, which would leave 9.6. And then depending on what happens with the community college of Vermont, we'd be between five and eight would be available to us. Other questions or comments? All right. Yes, Bob? Not so much on the money. I'm wondering about the nursing programs. Is it okay to ask about that? Oh, sure. That ties into workforce. And to me, that's one of the major areas of workforce need that our state college system connects to. And that's their nursing programs. Well, yeah, besides being a legislator, I'm on the BNA board and we have to hire these traveling nurses that cost us wicked. The hospitals, they're short people and Newport anyways, and they have to hire traveling nurses. Yesterday, we heard that our own health department hires traveling nurses. So my question is, are we all booked up in the nursing program? And could we expand if we are all booked up, is there any way we can expand that program? Well, we've been pushing that wagon, Senator Starrs. If you look, we don't seem to move the wagon. Yeah, actually there's some initiatives going on in the Northeast Kingdom to do just that. And in fact, one of the proposals in the governor's budget is to offer tax exemptions for nurses after education here. That is a way of creating incentives, but it doesn't do anything to address the underlying problem. And that is there's just an overall shortage of nurses being graduated. And the question becomes one of, how can we actually increase our nursing programs to provide sufficient capacity to recognize that need, which for the next 20 years is pretty staggering to be honest. And so one of the things we're gonna have to decide, well, we don't do tax policy when you give a income tax exemption, but one of the questions, ultimately you make, is it better to give a tax break to a nurse that it's graduating as opposed to using the equivalent amount of money to expand the courses to build the capacity so you can generate 100 more, how many more nurses every year for the next 20 years? Well, I know like with us at BNA, it would be cheaper for us to pay a student's tuition and put them through school than it is to hire these, and we do have a program that we've set up there to help. And I know when Senator Sears has said that there's one Bennington Hospital is another, so we actually have a number of programs in place by healthcare providers as ways of encouraging and meeting their own workforce. But we, and that's good, but the question ultimately, because we've been told that the programs are, we need to expand their capacity and that we have students who wanna go into nursing, have the academic ability to do so, but the programs are just fully subscribed. So that's gonna be a decision that we've out there and that is how is the best way if we're making these public investments to get progress on the fundamental challenges. The number of nurses is substantially less than what the need is. So Senator Westman. I would just say, and we've said this before because this is an old question for us. And I applied the reinvention of the way we deliver services at the state colleges, but I would say the legislature is much better at buying things that they can see with revenue. So if you had a proposal that said, here's how we could expand the number of nurses that we can put out of the system, I think people in the legislature would move Heaven and Earth to find ways to support that effort financially. Yeah. And the fundamental question is if you're doing a million and a half in tax exemptions or could that million and a half get us longer term benefit if we had a proposal to expand the number of nurses, Senator Sears. Oh, sorry. It's okay. Did you wanna say, I don't mind, Rich. Yeah, I would just say that if we could expand the program that Bennington had with Senator Vermont that moved to Castleton, I think there are hospitals and home health agencies and nursing homes across the state would buy into that big time. Big time. Actually, that's a good segue. I'm hoping that to Castleton will move into the Putnam Project in downtown Bennington where the nurses, although the hospital did just purchase the property of Southern Vermont College. Folks are aware of that. It was more in the interest of the community so that it didn't end up as some kind of a who knows what. So, but I know that they're very interested in working with Castleton specifically. And I don't know if you've had conversations with Tom Dee at the hospital. I know we are looking at doing that down in Bennington. We've got discussions coming up to see about moving the Castleton nursing program, I think to the same building where VTC is and across the street from CCV. So we are exploring ways to... That would be the old Putnam block that's under redevelopment. But given the fact that the hospital is offering to pay back all student loans if you stay five years at the hospital, I think that's a great initiative to try to get nurses into more rural areas. I hope that the state colleges will work with the hospital on this project. I think they actually are doing that, I think in central Vermont as well as in the Northeast Kingdom with our NBRH. And because the hospitals actually have very highly credentialed individuals who would be interested in teaching. They don't wanna move into academia because obviously they're getting paid more working for the hospital. But the hospitals are now saying, at least in my area, they would free up time. And actually the health commissioners routinely are faculty at UVM medical school where they would allow time and they would continue to pay their salaries so that there's not a financial disincentive to actually do some teaching to provide the credentialed staff that you need for a nursing program. So I think some interesting discussions are occurring now as to how do we look at our collective resources? How can we address this need? And so if there are ways that if we had I guess I would rather like to support and see how we could make these programs and these partnerships and expansion of nursing opportunities more available. To me, that's where I'd like to see the money go, frankly, I'll be honest. Because if the hospital's already paying your tuition and you're coming out, get free and then we're gonna layer on you don't have to pay any income tax. It seems like that's perhaps that's very advantageous financially for the individual but doesn't do one bit to expand the number. No, I would, if I might, I would just say couple that with the fact that hospitals I know that we have staff at Copley that would be willing to teach. And it had taught before one nurse that had set up a program. And if you could couple that with staffing and it would seem like a win all the way around. So what's happening at our colleges in that regards? Some of this work is underway. So maybe Sophie can brief us on. Yeah, I mean, certainly the nursing program is extremely strong at Vermont Tech at Castleton and then at CCV and we do have these pathways built in to really encourage people that are interested in going into the medical fields to have clear pathways for them. I do know one of the issues is clinical placements for nursing that can be a bottleneck is giving people the hands-on experience that they need and having clinical placements available in the hospitals. So I know that in the past that's been a challenge. But we certainly I know through the chair has raised the issue. I know with the in the Northeast Kingdom and we've been following up with Vermont Tech on that. Vermont Tech does have, is serving students, nursing students at the Linden campus. So we certainly, this is one area I would say where nursing really illustrates collaboration across the system, really involving all of the colleges in moving this forward. But I mean, I appreciate the comments that have been made and certainly we can think through and I will take Senator Westman's and other people's suggestions here in terms of, can we put a proposal together that links specifically if we had X dollars, we could open up X number more seats. So we can certainly explore that moving forward. Senator Sears, you still have your yellow hand up. Do you have a question or? And you're muted too. Oh, okay. God, I'm muted half the time. I was so happy today that Senator Baruth was muted while he was trying to talk. Because I have a hard time with unmuting myself. But if I don't mute, you know, I say things that I didn't intend for anybody to hear. You're it again, Dick. Okay. Well, thank you very much. All right. Other questions on the budget adjustment, which is pretty skinny and then we'll be obviously having a lot more discussion as it relates to the 22. And your proposals, I guess I would say what is being recommended by the governor in the 22 budget then is less than what is suggested necessary in that study. Is that correct? That's correct. That is correct. Okay. All right. Can I just ask one final? Yes, you may. That's verification for me. So nearly 14 million that we were around 14 million that we took of CRF money away. Of that money was, and at the time we had the stipulation it had to be spent by the end of the year. If that stipulation hadn't been there, could you have spent a majority of that 14 million on IT projects? I think we, not any IT, but all, I mean, across all the COVID related needs, we certainly could have done. Yes. And how much of it could you have spent on these things that Senator Bruce brought up that are IT related that might have an effect on next year's budget? I don't have an exact number on that. I mean, I know that we had, we ran into supply delivery problems on a lot of the technology. So there was technology that was being ordered, but as everyone in the country was going remote, one of the challenges we had was that we had to take delivery of any equipment by December 31st. And that just became, that was one reason why a lot of the money came back was because we couldn't, we weren't going to be able to because of the supply chain. So I can't tell you exactly how much is IT, but I think a fairly sizable proportion of that, of the unspent was IT related and due to supply chain issues. Okay. I would like to state, for those of us who are on joint fiscal in December, early December, when the proposal from the administration was to take that 13 million and bring it back in because it couldn't be spent. And they were going to, they put it in as part of their business grant proposal. I had said, perhaps the other alternative is to do like we did with a general fund conversion through public safety or department of corrections and preserve that funding for the state college system. I think Senator Westman, you remember that conversation? Thank you. And Senator Sears and the administration was holding firm for their 75 million for business grants. And that was part of how they were funding those grants was from that reallocated $13 million. So we could have used that method, but that was something that we really couldn't do that well in joint fiscal, couldn't do in joint fiscal that conversion. And the administration was determined to take the 13 million that couldn't be used simply because of the COVID restrictions and use it for a different purpose. So I did try to just for anybody that is listening the reminder is joint fiscal could only accept or reject proposals from the administration. That's right. And obviously they rejected mine. Well, you didn't get what you wanted. We don't have that clause in the appropriations bill. No, no, we don't. But obviously what you had, it was so many competing needs and it was unfortunate, but we can't change it. So we're gonna have to deal with it. But if that 13 million had been preserved to carry forward in the general fund bucket, we would be dealing with a very different situation for FY 22. That's my only point. So unless there are further questions or reminiscence about what we could have done and didn't do or tried to do and hit a brick wall, we will let our folks from the state college system get back to work. Yeah, anything else? We do have a definite number that they need beyond what's proposed, right? Well, the question for us is we know what the definite number is, but it's for most of it would fall into the big bill. Yeah. Can I just ask one question? Just one, what do the enrollment numbers look like as compared to a normal year versus now in COVID? That's a really good question. We're looking at the spring. I think we've had some softening in numbers of students not coming back in the spring because having such a large proportion of classes online isn't what they're interested in doing. It is really challenging for us to predict what we can expect for next year for FY22 for the fall. And that's one reason why right now internally our estimates for next year, there's such a large range because we just don't know if there's, well, we don't know what's gonna happen with the vaccine, but assuming if we get back to normal, we just don't know if we'll be able to recapture students that didn't come this year. And we also have to face the fact that we have a much smaller class that came in this year and that smaller class will be with us moving forward. But yeah, I mean, it's just very, very challenging, not just for us, but for everybody in terms of how to predict what's gonna happen in the fall. And as with so tuition dependent, it really has a big impact on our ability to do our budgets because we can't really say with any certainty what it looks like. You can find a copy or those numbers in the packet of the enrollment from the fall. So that is available to you there. It was a large drop from our normal pre-pandemic enrollment going into the fall. And unfortunately that fall enrollment does carry with us for several years to come. As students who choose not to enroll tend not to re-enroll or they enroll at slower rates. And so we'll be carrying that incoming class from the fall of 2020 for several more years with us. Thank you. Anything else? Okay. Thank you very much for coming today. And I will be talking with you at greater length as we get into the big bill. We have- Thank you so much for having us. It was a pleasure and we hope that we can answer any other questions. Yep. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. It's a 238 according to my other computer and we have the next witnesses scheduled at three. Are you on Chrissy? You are correct. Yeah. Okay. So committee, what I thought we would do this is gonna wrap up all the testimony on the budget adjustment. And then tomorrow have Stephanie start walking through because the house is gonna bring their budget adjustment bill out onto the floor, Thursday and Friday. What they did is take our mini CRF bill and just put it all into their budget adjustment. So we'll be getting that back, that piece of work that we've already done plus the other parts of the budget adjustment which I think is going to be fairly straightforward. So that's the only, that was all I wanted to tell you. So do you wanna just take a break and come back and at three o'clock and then we'll finish our testimony for today? Is there anything else, Alice? There is just the one thing with regard to the VSNP program. I've already got the data on that. Oh, you did? 167,000. Very good. Yeah, I've gotten the emails and I actually asked the chair of the house committee if they wanted to take a look at that, they had some discussion, but it came in so late that they didn't act on it, but they know that that will probably be something we will put on our list for discussion in terms of how much revenue has been lost to support the services. So we have that information and Stephanie has it from DCF. So, yeah, it's rich. Because we all are getting emails about that, can Stephanie or, so it's 167 million of revenue that was lost in FY20 because most of the revenue comes in in the spring. Because that's when most people register with the dog tags. And so we are looking at also, it's not a specific amount yet, but the FY21 number is likely to be very similar. So, 167 would give you balance, would make the fund or the program in balance for FY20, but for FY20, but we're in the midst of FY21, so you can sort of safely say that you have to double that to, or nearly double that to cover through 21. Did you say 167 million? No, thousand. Okay. I'm going to say a million. A lot of dog tags. Yeah, there wouldn't be a dog or a cat safe in the state. Okay. So, no, we did get the data of the numbers on that from DCF and as Stephanie said, there are two different pieces, one of which is revenues lost from last spring, but that only deals with a bit of the problem. So, we're all getting, we're getting emails and we just have to decide what we want to do and how much we want to do. Okay. Anything else other than VSNP, which we didn't forget because we already, that's why we got, Stephanie will tell you my email there to say, be sure we get the figures. Is there anything in the budget adjustment that would help the judiciary to get started up on jury trials? If not, no, Bobby. They should have been saving money all year long to have plenty of money to get started back up with. I'd like you to be the special envoy between the Judiciary Committee and Pat Gable to let her know. Well, I think we need to understand the need, Dick, and that's something you can help us with, like, I'm sure. I will try to do that. All right. But I would have, I would love to have Bobby be the special envoy. They wouldn't like Bobby at all. All right. So that's something else that we can have some discussion on as we get into the bill. All right. There may be something in the next round that's available. And I think the, yeah, and the question is, when would they be starting up? When would the need be and how much we do in budget adjustment versus big bill? Well, I don't know. We need to have a conversation. Yeah, let me let me just. There is going to be a huge backlog and many of us are worried about a huge increase in corrections population as they try to clean up the criminal. OK. All right. So now we're down to 15 minutes. We'll go offline. Yeah.