 Welcome to both the House of the Senate Appropriations Committee. We are here today to hear a public hearing on the FY25 proposed Governor's budget. Senator Kitchell is the chair of the House of Appropriations and the Senate. I've been trying to hand it off. Why don't you give us a few words and then I'll talk about the rules. Okay. Well, first of all, welcome. We have a lot of witnesses tonight, so we're going to have to move through quite quickly. And there's a timer, so just watch when your time is up and I'm getting into the rules of the hearing, but welcome and we appreciate you're coming forward. There are obviously many people testifying and making your request and we will, if you wish, we'll make more talk, not more time, but more opportunities to get things in writing. So the Senate and the House are doing this together because obviously we've got to get to a budget that balances and so we'll be having to make decisions around how funding is allocated. And with that, I'm going to turn it over to Representative Lanford who will sort of run through the rules tonight. Thank you, Senator. It's pleasure to have you back in our room and the rest of the rest of your committee. So I'm Representative Diane Laffer and I chair the House side of the Appropriations Committee. And we have about, I think, 50 some here, so we have everybody has two minutes. Like the Senator said, we'll watch it. I'm not going to stop you at 30 seconds because that can be very disruptive, but if you watch, but I will, if it gets to the red, we will stop you. And like the Senator, I mentioned, people who are even watching right now from home or some other place, or if you need to leave or something happens, you are very welcome to submit in writing your testimony and Erin puts that together and those will be all posted online probably by the end of the week. For people who have never been to a public hearing before, there is no discussion. This is not something that we're going to have a give and take or discussion. So sometimes it startles people that we don't ask questions, even though sometimes we would love to. But it's for us to just hear at that time. And Representative Harrison is to my left here is going to be calling the names, mostly because I believe that if people left that job to me, I would be much, much worse, but we'll all give him help at the same time. Some people will be on Zoom. Some people are here in person and you can come up. I think Representative Harrison will say who's on deck is who's coming up next. And we do need to do who's on deck. Yes, I'm sorry. I'm going to mispronounce some names tonight. I apologize up front. And if I do, please correct me when you take the witness stand. So first up tonight is Opeyami Parham. Okay. And on deck is Melissa Raigold Garrett. My name is Opeyami Parham. I have been a resident for months since 2014. And I am currently a resident of Montpelier. I have known of the Land Access and Opportunity Board for a little over a year. Please support the Land Access and Opportunity Board with the designated 1.97 million of appropriations in support of its base operations. Vermont leads this organization, which is staffed by and dedicated to the needs of Vermont communities that continue to suffer from marginalization and ongoing systemic oppression. I have witnessed many attempts by people of different races and various classes to gain access to sustainable living here in Vermont. What I have witnessed has not always been pretty. I have only seen one person of African-American descent be able to obtain a mortgage and to purchase a house. My own experience has only been with renting and that has been difficult enough. I was questioned by police while sitting in my own driveway in Donnerston because a neighbor had reported, quote, a suspicious individual. I had been living there for a year. A queer white couple told me to my face that they were worried about renting to me because they were already highly visible in their Wyndham County neighborhood. What happened to my trailer park neighbors after this last round of flooding has been heartbreaking. Vermont still has a ways to go on equal housing and land purchasing opportunities for BIPOC people, people with physical disabilities and low income whites. The land access and opportunity board offers a place to explore inequities, such as the ones that I have already described. And it is an opportunity to build support for moving forward for reparations, particularly our state's commitment to healthy and fair distribution of land. Thank you for listening. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, Melissa is up now and on deck is Becca Parent. We can't hear you. Hi, my name is Melissa Regal Garrett. It looks like the video isn't operational right now. It says that the host is disabled. We can hear you, Melissa, if you like to read your testimony. All right. That sounds great. Thank you for your time. My name is Melissa Regal Garrett and I live in Colchester. I'm the past president of the board of the Vermont Foundation of Recovery. V4 is a member of the recovery partners of Vermont and I'm here today asking for your support for our 2024 budget requests. $1.5 million to the Department of Corrections to expand our recovery coach model statewide. An increase of $1,559,000 to the current base for a total of $3,040,000 to support the expansion of certified recovery residences. And as recommended by the opioid settlement advisory committee, $325,000 from the Opioid Settlement Fund for Recovery Residence Scholarship Program. At recovery residences, the journey to lifelong recovery is paved with hope and concrete supports and services to help people realize their power to stay sober. On recovery day, many committees heard from Vermonters that their time in recovery residences contributed to them building the recovery capital needed for ongoing sobriety. I am one of the thousands of Vermonters who have family members or close friends impacted by substance use disorder. For me, my brother's ongoing sobriety means I have a best friend, someone to lean on as we support our aging parents, and my children have an uncle who supports them holistically. His sobriety means he is present for all aspects of life and is a contributing member of society. The roots of that sobriety are in the relationships he built in a sober house while he was in early sobriety, and I am grateful every day for that. Having a systems of a way of thinking, I support learning more about the need for recovery residences in terms of number of beds, locations of homes, and types of supports within the residences. Evidence by the number of people on wait lists for V4 homes and the list of communities seeking to open a home. There's a real need for more recovery residences throughout Vermont right now. The current budget request for additional base funding and scholarships will help add additional residences for Vermonters with substance use disorder who need them right now. Thank you again for this opportunity to share with you my support for the recovery partners of Vermont budget requests. You're welcome. Hey, I'm now as Becca parent. Becca is Rebecca White. Whenever you're ready, Rebecca, Rebecca, Rebecca, Rebecca. She's muted. Rebecca parent, you're muted. You can move until you're back. Rebecca White. I'm Becca's Jessica Arquish. Good evening. Hi. My name is Rebecca Joy, Henrietta White, probably not who you were expecting. I live in beautiful Bradford, Vermont, and I work for the Hanover Co-op food stores and auto service centers of Vermont and New Hampshire. I thank you on behalf of our 27,000 members for your work to prioritize today's issues and challenges in Vermont, while strategizing on how to build a better tomorrow for all Vermonters. As a community owned business, the Hanover Co-op is built upon cooperation and decades of partnership and collaboration to solve the most urgent needs of our community together. That is why I'm here today to request the fiscal year 2025 budget include $37 million in one time funds to start up a universal state run paid family and medical leave program. This program outlined in age 66, which was supported and passed through the house is too essential to Vermont's welfare to delay. At the Hanover Co-op, we work with hundreds of small businesses, many of whom cannot afford to provide paid leave insurance for their workers. As a mid-sized employer with 342 employees, 266 of which are full-time and receive benefits, we know that labor costs can sink a business during fluctuations of the market or demand or in the midst of a crisis like the floods many Vermont communities experienced this year. Last year, small businesses are the heart and soul of Vermont. They shouldn't be forced to choose between keeping their business or keeping their employees on payroll. These businesses and their employees deserve access to an affordable and universal paid leave program, whether they're a university, village, store, or an organic farm. The funds needed to initiate this self-sustaining program will allow businesses to attract and retain valued staff, keeping Vermonters and our communities working. It's not a question of who needs paid leave, it is a question of when. We will all experience the need to leave work to care for ourselves or a loved one or to welcome a new child. Paid leave is not a luxury program, rather it is essential to closing the critical gap in our systems that suppresses Vermonters without means, a gap that is widening every day. I thank you for the opportunity to provide comments on behalf of the Hanover Co-op and for your continued service to our great state. Thank you. Good evening, Jessica Barquist. I'm here with Clint Parenthood of Northern New England. We provide affordable, comprehensive, reproductive, and sexual health care to more than 16,000 people in Vermont at seven health centers and virtually through our telehealth program. People turn to us for affordable, high-quality care including wellness exams, birth control, STI testing and treatment, cancer screenings, abortion care, as well as a variety of primary care services. As one of the most rural states in the country, we are often the only provider someone sees. We have expanded our telehealth and mental health services to meet the growing needs of our patients. We see everyone who comes to us regardless of their ability to pay, and 54 percent of our patients have low incomes. Last fiscal year, we provided over 800,000 in free and discounted care to our communities in Vermont. As a mission-driven health care provider, we fundamentally believe everyone should be able to access affordable, high-quality, sexual, and reproductive health care in their communities, no matter where they live or how much they make. The reality is that ensuring our patients have access to this essential and sometimes life-saving health care is getting harder for us. As the legislature and Vermont voters were voting to codify access to reproductive health care at our Constitution, PPNNE was forced to close five health centers across the state because we could no longer financially support them. While our right to reproductive care in Vermont is the most protected it has ever been, and others are looking at us as a model of reproductive access and care. The sad reality is that our access to that care is the lowest it's ever been in recent memory. Even with the support of our donors, we're looking at a 3.9 million deficit in our 2024 budget. We have a plan to turn it around and working with the Department of Health Access and Legislature to get more equitable Medicaid reimbursement rates, which will be a critical component to our financial stability, but these will take some time. And there are critical gaps that need to be filled in the meantime. And so I'm respectfully asking for one-time stopgap funding of $500,000 for our health centers so we can continue to provide this care. Thank you so much. Pick up now is Bernie Gracie, and on deck is Lila Bennett. Thank you. My name is Bernie Gracie. I'm president of the Averilakes Association. Our organization represents the interests and aspirations of the camp and landowners of big and little Averilakes of the Northeast Kingdom. Among our aims is to encourage public education and the principles of conservation, preservation, and restoration. To that end, we treasure our relationship with the Essex County Natural Resources Conservation District, which has played such a vital role in local and direct owner engagement, education, and advocacy through Vermont's Lake-Wise program to protect our beautiful lakes. I have personally witnessed and have been the beneficiary of San Manes-Wise Council to our members. The Essex County Natural Resources Conservation District is an indispensable local partner and a collaborative organization. Our association's leadership and board of directors are unanimous in public support of increasing the base funding of the Natural Resources Conservation Council by $2.5 million for a total base budget of $3 million. This will address the chronic underfunding of Vermont's Natural Resources Conservation Districts that undergirds Vermont's local conservation delivery system that the Averilakes Association so vitally depends on. Thank you very much. Welcome. Thank you. Hi, you up now is Lyle Bennett and on deck is Sarah Lewis. Sorry if I got that one. Good evening. Thank you for having me. My name is Lyle Bennett. I am the Executive Director of Journey to Recovery Community Center in Newport, Vermont. We are a member and an active collaborator of Recovery Partners of Vermont. Today, I'm advocating for the appropriation request as presented by RPV. The first being $1.5 million for community-based peer recovery coaching to support people in the prisons and about to be released. This is extremely important from a social standpoint and an economic standpoint. The more resources and skills we can offer, the more likely they will have success in finding sobriety after release. We have got to focus on this part of our system so we can break the cycle of recidivism and relapse. Inmates with a substance use disorder are 120 times more likely to overdose and die than someone in the general population as their tolerance is very low. The more tools we offer, the more people will come out and become taxpayers. I believe this will help families reunite and then help the next generation of Vermonters have more success as adults. This will improve our system. The second is an increase in the base funding for Vermont recovery residences. As you heard earlier, we have got to support our recovery residences as the integral part of the system of care that they are. Please understand that a short-term intensive treatment is necessary but does not provide enough time or skills to create long-term recovery. Recovery is not simply sobriety. Recovery is learning how to go to work, learning how to manage stress, learning how to establish routine, learning how to be contributing members of society. Recovery residences will also save money in the long run for Vermont. The third ask is for 325,000 and recovery residence scholarships. Again, sometimes a person may enter treatment with nothing in fact less than nothing and coming up with $10 let alone over 100 or more to get into sober living is sometimes impossible. Allowing people the time and space to rebuild their lives will save us money over time, save lives and help families break the cycles of addiction and poverty. Thank you for your time and your commitment to Vermont. Thank you. Hey, now is Sarah and on deck is Carrie Blind. Hi, my name is Sarah Huges and I am the Youth Conservation Leadership Coordinator for Audubon, Vermont and I'm speaking on behalf of the Serve Learner and Workforce Coalition as a former participant. When I graduated with the bachelor's degree in environmental studies and relocated to Vermont in 2017, I quickly realized that getting a job in the environmental field is no easy feat. For the first three years, I had to work three to four part-time and seasonal jobs while simultaneously suffering from major depressive disorder and anxiety. I really thought I'd never be able to hold down a normal work schedule or be a valued member of a professional team. When I found the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board's Education and Outreach AmeriCorps service position at Audubon, Vermont, it was the perfect opportunity to practice something that I was so scared of, a full-time position. During my two terms with AmeriCorps at Audubon, I built hard skills in environmental education, group management, natural history knowledge, project management, field work and so much more. But more importantly, my self-confidence and self-worth grew tenfold. After my service with Audubon, I went on to get a remote job with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in New York for a year until I learned that Audubon, Vermont, was hiring for a full-time youth leadership conservation program coordinator. I applied for the job and was hired to lead Audubon programs that help high schoolers, college students and early professionals build that same confidence in themselves through paid service learning positions the same way that I was able to. The program is partially funded by the Serve Learn Earn Workforce Coalition, which allows us to pay participants competitive wages and offer trainings that boost their resumes for the future. The Serve Learn Earn Coalition is asking the state to continue their support of our workforce development programs. It is crucial to the sustainability of our collaborative that we receive 2.37 million this year. Without it, I fear many teens and young adults will miss the opportunity that I was so lucky to have and get left behind. Thank you so much for listening and for your service to our state. Thank you. Hey up now is Kerry Ryan and on deck is Daniel Hayes. Good afternoon. Thank you so much. My name is Kerry Ryan. I'm the current market manager for the Capital City Farmers Market there in Montpelier. I apologize for any background noise. I'm calling in from Honduras today to make this very important request on behalf of both my market's customers and vendors alike. I ask that you approve NOFA Vermont's request for $478,500 in the state budget for food access programs. Since taking over the market in 2019, I have personally seen a great impact that the crop cash program has made in the lives of my producers, which includes about 100 vendors each season and our customers, which averages about 2000 people every Saturday. Now keep in mind, we're only open 26 days in the summer season and only four hours per day, but in that short window of business time, we saw the crop cash distribution to our customers increase from only $7,351 in 2020 to $28,560 in 2023. All of that money went directly to Vermont farmers and makers and supported our families in need. For this reason, I ask that you approve NOFA Vermont's request for $478,500 in the state budget for food access programs. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Hey, Daniel Hayes. It's like a seat and on deck. There's Galen Keane. Hello. I am Daniel Hayes. I am the HVAC training coordinator and instructor for resource, which is a member of serve, learn and earn as well. I'm also a federal proctor at the EPA to administer the EPA section 608 exam. With me, I have one of my students, Lydia, who has taken great success with our program at resource and she's here to share a few things as well within her success and new employment with Vermont eating and ventilation through our program as well. I had been working in hospitality, but trying to have a long-term career in hospitality is difficult. Trying to have a career that pays you back the amount you're putting into it is really difficult. I struggled to find a direction and the stability that I was looking for. The jobs that I was getting was a toxic work culture and had high turnover rate. I've really been looking for something I could count on my co-workers and my co-workers could count on me. What I discovered with HVAC was that so many of the people who work in this field had done it for a long time and they're well respected. I wanted to be a part of that community. It's hard to take these steps. The program was very clear in telling me that attendance was not an option. Paying on time was not a suggestion. You really had to have bought it. The first thing Dan said was you're being given the opportunity. It's your choice to take it and run with it and that's what I did. The program supportive approach helped me figure out what I needed to transition back into a working routine. So professionally I've improved with timeliness, problem-solving, communication, prioritizing. Personally I've become more accountable, productive, and better at managing my emotions and able to push through life's challenges. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Thank you. Okay, up now is Shailen Keenan and on deck is Patrick Royce. Thank you for the chance to speak with you all today. My name is Shailen Keenan. I'm the Youth Program Manager at Vermont Works for Women and we also are proud members of the Serve, Learn, and Earn Collaborative. So I also want to thank you for your past funding and support of SLE. I'm here on behalf of dozens of our program participants to advocate for 2.37 million dollars in continued funding for SLE. I can speak to the impact of this investment and what Vermont risks losing without adequate funds. VDUB works towards a future in which all women and girls make confident, deliberate choices about their employment without discrimination, stereotypes, or lack of opportunity getting in the way. SLE creates opportunity. Every day my job focuses on increasing the number of girls who pursue STEM in the trades. Giving them service learning opportunities in these fields falls squarely in line with the goals of SLE and the workforce development needs of Vermont. For nearly 25 years our Rosie's Girls camps have introduced middle school girls to carpentry and welding. We've trained 150 adult women in our trailblazers program, many thanks to SLE, and in 2023 SLE enabled us to build a continuum by creating LIFT, a free trades training program for high school girls. In the first year we hoped to enroll 10 students, we had 25 apply. They gained skills in carpentry, welding, and electrical work. When asked what needs to be done to see more girls in STEM in the trades, participants said more encouragement for girls, more short-term programs like this one, and more opportunities. Data tells us that when we give girls early and regular exposure to the trades, we make these environments empowering and inclusive, and we remove barriers like fees, we pave a way for them to enter a workforce that desperately needs more young people and more women. SLE is a critical player in Vermont's workforce development system, and it's a positive productive investment in creating an equitable Vermont economy. Please continue supporting SLE's work, and thank you for your time. Welcome. Okay, up now is Catherine Boyce and on deck is Jen Talman. Hi, good evening. Good evening. Yes, it's great to it's great to be here with you and thank you for your time. So I'm Catherine Boyce, I'm a resident of New Haven, Vermont, and I'm a post-permanancy service provider with LUN since 2012. I'm asking for a request to increase the base funding for the post-permanancy services programs by $300,000. This program serves Vermont families who are adoptive guardianship and kinship caregivers. Adoptive and guardianship families and kinship caregivers are not your traditional conventional families. Their experiences and their journey is unique in that the children these adoptive and guardianship caregivers are raising have experienced tremendous inherent losses of their birth families, broken homes and even communities worlds apart from what they were born into and identified with. As a result of these losses and traumas from childhood for these children, both they and their new forever families are impacted for a lifetime. It is a lifelong journey healing from those adversities and therefore adoptive and guardianship families have to learn new skills, training, education, and how to adjust to doing therapeutic parenting from that of traditional conventional parenting. And my own life journey directed me into this path and doing this work with LUN as I was a former foster care youth in my adolescent years due to abuse and neglect. I benefited from special therapeutic services that aided me in my own healing and I ended up getting a scholarship for my undergraduate studies. I pursued social work and came into the field to help other families to build resiliency and find success in their forever families. Adoption forever families journeys don't just end on the adoption day in court. It really is a lifelong journey and it takes these services and resources to support them through their journey. And these families exist in all of our communities. I ask that you take time to consider increasing $300,000 to this very much needed program. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, you have now is Jen Townley and on deck is Parley Sturlock. Good evening and thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today. I am Jen Townley from Williston and a member of the Developmental Disabilities Housing Initiative. Our adult children have an intellectual and developmental disability diagnosis with significant support needs, whether medical, emotional, physical, health, safety, et cetera, and qualify for Medicaid's home and community-based services waiver. Our community desperately needs the development of housing options that addresses the range of our sons and daughters needs and provides choices and stable, permanent, service-supported peer housing. And I'm here to ask for $10.82 million for implementation of the 3 Act 186 pilot grant projects and for annual development of service-supported housing for adults with IDD. Many adults with developmental disabilities and higher needs are living with their aging parents and seek a permanent service-supported housing option for them to call home in a community where they grow up and where the community knows them and can meet their needs when their parents can no longer care for them. For a family like mine, there are restless nights in worry, wondering who will care for our children when we are gone, to meet their needs and provide them with a happy and meaningful life. I'm sure many of you have faced a similar dilemma of finding appropriate housing and services for aging parents when the role of caregiving becomes too much. Since the closing of Brandon, there has been little money invested by the state and service-supported housing for adults with developmental disabilities. Vermont has failed to meet their obligations under federal Medicaid rules and is currently under two corrective action plans to demonstrate that HCBS waiver recipients like my son have true choice, including choices of housing. One thing that will support the sustainability of this type of housing is that our adult children have HCBS Medicaid waivers to support them as well as access to entitlement benefits like Social Security to help fund rent. I'm here to ask for $10.82 million for implementation of the 3 Act 186 pilot grant projects and for annual development of service-supported housing for my son and others in this vulnerable population so we can close the gap on the 602 units needed immediately as outlined in last year's Housing Brief from Act 186. Thank you for your time and your service to all Vermonters. Thank you. Up now is Harley Sterling and I'm deaf is Bennett Townley. Go ahead. You're on mute. Thank you, Chair. Good evening and thanks everyone for hearing my testimony today. For the record, my name is Harley Sterling. I'm the School Nutrition Director for Windham Northeast Supervisory Union. We serve meals to the towns of Westminster, Saxons River, Athens, Graffton, Rockingham and the village of Bellas Falls. I'm also the most recent past president of the School Nutrition Association of Vermont. I'm here to request that you please support the governor's proposal for level funding both the Farm to School grant program and the local foods incentive at $500,000 each. I've seen both of these programs benefit our school district and the students of our communities directly. The Farm to School grants were a really wonderful program that bring together teams of educators, school nutrition professionals, nurses and administrators to do work they otherwise would. The work of these teams strengthens the connections in our communities and our food system and these grants are a great use of funds because each dollar spent creates downstream value many times over as these teams often continue their work for years after the performance period of the grant. Just today I was working with a team that is ordering a greenhouse to create an outdoor kitchen and classroom space. This team is still working together three years later and applied for a USDA grant to build this greenhouse. So three years later that work is continuing and helping to bring federal dollars to Vermont schools. The local food incentive grant is also great because it helps bring Vermont food to Vermont kids. The United States National School Launch Program is the largest restaurant in the world and we want to see it supporting our local farms. Our district has been fortunate to receive the highest 25% award tier twice and for the dollar we were granted we reinvested $7 in our local Vermont farmers and producers. Vermont is really leading the way in farm school programs throughout the country and I see this everywhere. Just tomorrow I'm going to speak with someone from Massachusetts from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education because they want to hear how Vermont is doing all of this. So we really are the leaders and I really want to see this work continue. So I ask that you please support the government's proposal for level funding both the farm school grant program and food incentive at $500,000 each. Thank you. Thank you. Okay now up is Bennett Townley and on deck is Taylor Strom. Hi. Hi. My name is Bennett Chica Townley. I am 26 years old and I've lived in Wilson since coming to America in 2001 from Romania. My family is a member of DDA Chi and I have a developmental disability and other diagnoses. I would like to advocate why peer service supported affordable housing in Vermont is important to me and my uniquely able friends. Since elementary school I've made many friends with IDD in Wilson and surrounding Chittenden County towns. I would like to continue to live in Wilson in a neighborhood with friends I grew up and attended school with. Most importantly I feel safer in Wilson than I would in other places in Chittenden County as many people know and would help us if needed. Alas my friends and I want to have choices about where we live, who we live with and how we want to live. We would like stable permanent inclusive accessible service supported housing in our community so we can live together. We need this type of housing immediately since many of us are living with aging parents including my friends and I and we can't afford regular housing on our own. We do not drive and need to live near public transportation or we can safely walk to amenities. I ask you to fund 10.82 million dollars to implement all three pilot grants and annual development of service supported housing so my friends and I can have the housing we need and it will also help me feel more confident. My friends and I are at the age now where we want to have a place to call home that is not our folks place or a group home and experience the same freedoms other people our age experience do but with support and a safety net. Thank you for your time to hear my application. Thank you. Okay now off is Kayla Strom and on deck is Christy Lennart-Rickert. Hello thank you for having me for the record my name is Kayla Strom I'm a resident and Richmond Vermont and I'm the farm to school coordinator at the Northeast Organic Farming Association of Vermont. I'm here today representing the Vermont Farm to School and Early Childhood Network a statewide network providing leadership coordination and advocacy for farm to school efforts in Vermont. We're asking you that asking of you to support the governor's budget proposal for both the Vermont Farm to School and Early Childhood grants program and the local foods incentive for schools with level funding base appropriations of $500,000 each. My role as Nova Vermont's farm to school coordinator is centered around supporting the increase of local foods in schools and early childhood programs and making sure that these institutional markets work for our Vermont farmers as well. Aligned with the state's local purchasing goals the Vermont Farm to School and Early Childhood Network has the goal of reaching 30% local purchasing by 2030. To reach our shared goal we need to make local foods easy to procure and available for schools while we're creating market opportunities for Vermont farms to thrive. The combination of the farm to school grants program and the local foods incentive work together to integrate food access with local food purchasing and agriculture and food education. These programs provide financial and technical support to schools to integrate farm to school. When we invest in farm to school and early childhood we invest in our students, our local communities and our local economy. Again we're looking for your support of level base funding for both local purchasing incentive and the farm to school and early childhood grants program at $500,000 each to support Vermont farmers and Vermont children. Thank you. Welcome. Okay Christy is up now and on deck is Drew Hazelton. Hello my name is Christy Lenard-Rickert and I live in Sharon, Vermont. I'm director of operations at Easter Seals Vermont and have worked with the Easter Seals post-permanency program for the past 20 years. I'm here today to request that we increase base funding for post-permanency services by $300,000. Post-permanency services is the one statewide program that helps to wrap supports around families in an effort to prevent adoption dissolution and kinship placement disruption. Adoption and guardianship can be the best outcome for many children who've been in foster care but much of the real work begins after the papers are signed and the newly formed family works to build strong bonds and lessen the impact of prior adverse childhood experiences. For many years hundreds and hundreds of parents have expressed their appreciation for members of our team which is comprised of adoption competent trauma informed professionals. In 2022 post-permanency services helped 557 children with over 3,300 different parent contacts statewide. For many years we've demonstrated that these services are vital to creating and preserving health in our communities as well as the mental health and well-being of one of our most vulnerable populations, children who have experienced early trauma and abuse. We need the state of Vermont to invest in families by making post-permanency services sustainable. This program has not received a base rate increase in far too many years and services are at risk of going away. The true break even cost needed is a base increase of $300,000. I thank you all so much for your commitment to Vermont families and for considering this request. Thank you. Okay, Drew Hazelton and on deck is Margaret Lofface. Good evening, Drew Hazelton. I chair the Vermont EMS Advisory Committee and this evening I'd like to just point out the Vermont EMS system is critically important but often forgotten part of Vermont's safety net responding to more than 100,000 calls a year. Vermont's budget annually supports the many career and volunteers with a total of $150,000 for workforce development. This amount does not meet the needs of the 160 services and more than 3,000 providers in our system. We ask that you support our ongoing work for workforce development with a million dollars. These funds that we've used over the last few years has helped us maintain our struggling workforce but has not been enough to fill in the gaps that we've been facing since the pandemic. My second ask is that you consider funding the state's USAR program for $750,000. As one of the local swiftwater teams that supports Vermont's flood response, I saw the importance of the Vermont USAR team for coordination during the July floods. Continued support for local teams will help our communities become more resilient as well as save lives in the future. So again I'd ask that you support EMS with a million dollars in workforce development as well as the state's USAR team with $750,000. Thank you. Thank you. Hey, Margaret's up now and on deck is Jenka Good evening and thank you for allowing me to testify. My name is Margaret Loftus and my husband Jonathan and I own and operate Cross Malina Farm which is a highly diversified farm in Corinth Orange County. Our farm has been a NOFA member for over 15 years and I am a member of NOFA policy organizing and steering committee. Our farm has participated in the Crop Cash, Crop Cash Plus and the Farm Share Program for many years now. I'm here today to urge you to support the $478,500 base funding for NOFA Vermont's Crop Cash Plus, Crop Cash and Farm Share programs. These programs support farm viability because they encourage consumers who would not otherwise be able to do so to participate in CSAs and shop at farmers markets. As a farmer I have seen firsthand again and again how these programs bring new folks to our CSA and the farmers market. This was particularly true this past season. The expansion of the Crop Cash program brought a 12% increase to our farm sales at the Chelsea Farmers Market. Our Farmers Market Manager reported at the end of the season that the increase in sales was due to Crop Cash and Crop Cash Plus was market-wide. These programs are the types of critical tools Vermont needs to achieve food security. We operate our farm and attend farmers markets in Orange County where there are few options available to buy fresh produce, eggs and meat. There are also many many folks who have a hard time putting food on the table. Crop Cash and the Farm Share Program allow us to serve people who do not have easy access to fresh food and who would not otherwise be able to afford it. I wish you could see firsthand how happy it makes people to pick up a CSA share or to take home a dozen fresh eggs from the farmers market. I urge you to support the base funding for NOFA Vermont's Crop Cash Plus and Farm Share programs and I thank you for the opportunity to testify tonight. Thank you. Okay, up now is Jacob Gallagley and on deck is Margie Diamond. Good morning everyone. Good evening. My name is Jacob Gallagley. I am the food service manager for Wyndham Central Supervisory Union. I'm here tonight to request that you please support the Farm to School and Early Childhood program with level funding based appropriation of $500,000 for fiscal year 2025. I also request that you support the local food and sense of grant program at a $500,000 base funding. I found that Farm to School programs are so much more than simply teaching kids about where their food comes from. They create an avenue to expand the understanding of the building blocks of both life and health. Though the idea is usually start small with sprouting a seed in the classroom or composting scraps after lunch, these concepts tend to begin to mature inside young minds given the youth of Vermont a holistic appreciation that students elsewhere do not get the opportunity to develop. Kids notice change. They notice it a lot and even small changes in the classroom and cafeteria make a lasting impact. At Leland and Gray in Townsend, Vermont, we make the small change to remove carton milk from our cafeteria and replace it with bulk dispensers filled with organic local milk processed only 30 minutes down the road at Miller Farm in Vernon, Vermont. Making this change alongside explaining why Miller Farms milk is better for both our bodies and the environment has opened the eyes of hundreds of students to where how and why their milk is processed. Students are super interested and excited about milk now. So much so that there are field trips that visit Pete Miller's farm on a regular basis. Apparently the cows are great at selfies. I've seen a ton of them. Very cute. It's awesome. This type of connection to land animals of food would not be possible without the measures that have been taken to incorporate farm to school concepts into the everyday lives of Vermont students. I thank you for all your support and again ask that you please support the farm to school and early childhood program as well as the local food and sense of grant program with level funding based appropriation of $500,000 for fiscal year 2025. Thank you. Have a great night. Thank you. Okay. Yep. Now is Marguerite Diamond and on deck is Jennifer Hoso. The group? The group's up there. She's up there. I see three in a little later. I know they're all turning points. I didn't know if they were together. All right. Thank you very much everyone. Hello. My name is Marguerite Diamond. I am the executive director for Turning Point Center in Bennington. We are members of recovery partners of Vermont. I'm here today to ask for your support and appropriating $1.5 million to the DOC to expand our recovery coach model statewide, implementing a legislative solution to Vermont's landlord tenant law that provides for the safety and successful recovery of all residents and Vermont's certified recovery residences and supporting the expansion of certified recovery residences through base increases and scholarship funding from the opioid settlement fund. I was born and raised in Bennington. I spent 30 years in the San Francisco Bay Area before returning home in 2020. I'm also a person in recovery. For most of us, we think of home as safe. That is not true for many of our fellow Vermonters with substance use disorder. Accessible recovery residences for up to 90 days is a critical piece of the continuum of care. Many of the people we see are attempting to break the chains of an intergenerational cycle of alcohol or other substance use. Coping by checking out is a way of life. Recovery residences provide long-term solutions, helping folks learn to live a different, healthier life and keep them sober. Healing individuals in turn heals our communities and has a direct impact on public safety. Vermont is our home. Let's take care of those who are suffering with evidence-based practices and compassion. Thank you in advance for your support and appropriating the $1.5 million to the DOC to expand our recovery coaching model and expand certified recovery residences. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. Hey, Jennifer Loso and on deck is Michael Johnson. Hi there. So my name is Jennifer Loso and I am from Rutland, Vermont, and I'm a certified recovery coach at the Turning Point Center of Rutland. Our center is a member of recovery partners of Vermont. So I'm here today to ask you to please support the recovery partners of Vermont by allocating $1.5 million to the DOC to develop our recovery coach model statewide by enacting new legislation to Vermont's landlord tenant law that provides for the safety and successful recovery of all those residing in Vermont, certified recovery residences, and also by aiding the expansion of certified recovery residences through base increases and scholarship funding from the opioid settlement fund. Recovery supports and services are the long-term solution for helping people realize they are capable of achieving recovery. Peer support is key to the success of those supports and services. As a person in recovery myself, I know the importance of peer support and the power of connection. To sustain recovery long-term, one needs to maintain connection to other healthy, positive, and safe people, places, and things. These types of connections may begin while incarcerated in treatment and recovery housing at recovery centers and more. Building connections early in recovery is essential to keeping that recovery intact long-term. I'm grateful to have these connections in my own recovery and to be able to give back my experience, strength, and hope to others. This is why I'm here to ask you to support the appropriation of $1.5 million to the DOC to expand recovery coaching statewide, implementing a legislative solution to Vermont's landlord tenant law that provides safety and successful recovery to recovery residents, and also supporting the expansion of recovery residences with base increases and scholarship funding from the opioid settlement fund. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. Okay. Michael Johnson is up, and on deck is Rachel Jolley. Good evening, and thank you for having us this evening. My name is Michael Johnson. I'm a chief executive officer of Turning Point Recovery Center in Springfield, Vermont. I'm also a member of recovery partners of Vermont. I'd like to continue to support and ask you for the support for the $1.5 million for the community-based peer recovery coaching to help our corrections programs. I truly believe this is an opportunity to help people before, during, and after their incarceration, where we can help them become better members of our community and help them find that path to recovery when they're out. And I think it's important that you support the $1.5 million increase for our base funding for recovery residences, because it's so vital and needed to our communities that folks have a place to go. It shows that it makes a difference in people's lives, having had a recovery residence at my center for a number of years. I've shown a success in how people get back on their feet and make a difference in the community, and living a life in recovery and being able to have a chance of success. I think it's vital and also is the opioid settlement funds to help support the scholarships, because as they said, most folks come and they don't have much for funds or supports when they come. They always leave with a lot more than they came with, and they have an opportunity for a better life and recovery. Recovery is the answer, and I thank you for your time tonight. Welcome. Rachel Jolly is up now and on deck is Heather Wilson. Okay, thank you. My name is Rachel Jolly, and I lead the Burlington Community Justice Center. Given the growing interest in relying on restorative justice programs to help alleviate court, prosecutor, and defense caseload backlogs, the almost two dozen state-funded restorative justice centers have growing budget needs for fiscal year 2025. The DCF currently supports 12 providers in offering restorative programming for court adjudicated youth or those at risk of being so. This program has been level-funded for many, many years. For the past two years, the legislature appropriated $250,000, designated base funding increase, last year. We ask that appropriation continue in fiscal year 2025. For the court diversion and pretrial programs under the AGO, the governor's budget includes a 3% increase in the AGO court diversion and pretrial services budget, totaling about 3 million, and the AGO has also requested approximately 300,000 additional monies to support four centers whose caseloads have been especially high and who need to increase capacity to meet that demand. We fully support that request. And lastly, from the Department of Corrections, there are 17 centers which provide restorative justice services funded by DOC, which include restorative justice approaches for community disputes, pre-charge and post-charge cases, post-degidication, and post-incarceration. CJC has received a total of 3.5 million in grants from DOC in fiscal year 2024. Funding for the CJCs through DOC currently resides in section B338.1 of the budget, entitled Justice Reinvestment. Despite the title of this section, only a very small percentage of these funds are for justice reinvestment. The majority of the funds in this section support transitional housing and CJCs. We are focusing on CJC grants at this time when we request the following. Three separate budget sections for RJ programming, transitional housing, and justice reinvestment funding. This will more accurately reflect the purpose of the sections as well as create greater transparency in the budget, and 3.9 million for community justice center grants in the DOC budget, which include the 10% increase over our fiscal year 24 DOC grants to address COLA increases and increased operating costs. Thank you. Okay, up now is Heather Wilson, and Andeck is Amela Mirzenkovic. Sorry. You did better than I thought. I'm sorry. We're skipping Heather. She's not online. Okay. Okay. So, Mila? Amela? Andeck is? Joe? No, why? Okay. Good evening. My name is Amela Mirzenkovic, who did really well. I'm impressed, and I'm the director of USCRI Vermont, one of Vermont's refugee settlement program. Thank you for this opportunity to testify about the critical need for funding in support of transitional housing for refugees coming to Vermont. We seek your support of the $998,700 in the fiscal year 25 base budget for the general fund of the state refugee office for grants to provide transitional housing for refugees. USCRI has been resettling refugees for over 40 years. Some 10,000 refugees from all corners of the globe have resettled in Vermont and call Vermont home. Refugees have made great contributions to our state, both economic and cultural. Upon arrival, refugee agencies are required to secure temporary and long-term housing. Over the past two years, that's been increasingly difficult. The federal government provides each refugee with one-time payment of $1,275. This does not cover all the necessary costs. The cost of temporary housing is fully covered by refugee agencies from donations locally. The refugee agencies have needed to place families in hotels and Airbnbs and costs range from $50 per night to $250 per night. Some families have needed to stay in temporary housing for two months or longer. I will leave you with these words. Refugees come from some of the most unsafe environments. They've been deprived of basic human rights, including housing, health, education, and nutrition. Upon arrival to Vermont, they're eager to start their new life and enter a workforce. I thank you for your continued support. Thank you. Hey, up next is Joia, and on deck is Suzanne Aldana. We are late, and thank you for this opportunity to testify on the FY25 project. My name is Joia, and I'm the Director of the Refugees Resettlement Organization, ACDC here in South in Vermont. Since 2021, and over 250 refugees have made their home up because of transitional housing. You hear last week from Nagina Ezema, one of our new Vermonters originally from Afghanistan, who spoke in support of transitional housing of refugees. On behalf of the hundreds of refugees we support throughout the state, I hope you will support 998,700 in the FY25 five-base project for general fund to the State Refugees Office for grants to provide transitional housing for refugees. State funding for transitional housing is a smart investment for Vermont's future directly contributing to economic growth, countering liberal shortages, and revitalizing our communities. Most of the refugees we support choose to stay in Vermont after being welcomed into transitional housing and receiving services such as English language, instruction, health care, and workforce training. In fact, over 80 percent of jobs seeking refugees are foreign employment, and marks 79 local employers and already contributed about 5.2 million to the state in analytical ways. Last week, two single moms who arrived in October moved into their shared apartment. This was made possible because of transitional housing. It gave them the opportunity to attend LNA and English classes without worrying about paying rent. So I want to thank you for your time and service to the state. I sincerely hope that you will support our request for 998,700 in the FY25 five-base project to provide transitional housing for refugees. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Next is Suzanne and on deck is Donna Bailey. Good evening, everybody. My name is Suzanne Aldana. I serve as the vice president on the board of directors for the counseling service of Addison County, one of our designated agencies. I've lived in Vermont since 2004 and have resided in Middlebury since 2010. I'm here to say thank you, first of all, for your critical support last year, which empowered our agency to raise the starting wage from $14 to $19 an hour, no small feat. I'm also here to advocate this year for a 6.5 percent Medicaid increase to help us invest in healthy communities and most of all, equitably serve our most vulnerable residents in Vermont. Due to increased need, coupled with a decade, a previous decade from 2010 to 2021 of underfunding, we currently have over 700 children, youth, and adults waiting in line in Vermont for community-based mental health services and substance use services. To each of those 700 individuals is attached a working parent, a neighbor, a sister, a brother, a spouse, an employer, thus impacting all of us as a whole. To ensure a healthy and thriving Vermont that we all desire and seek, a Medicaid increase rate of 6.5 percent is not simply a nice-to-have, it's an essential. Thank you so much for your thoughtful consideration and your service. Thank you. Okay, next up is Donna Bailey and on deck is Gloria Quinn. What about Margaret Wall? There we go. My name is Donna Bailey and I live in Bristol, Vermont and I'm the director of the Addison County Parent Child Center. I'm also a proud member of the Parent Child Center Network. I want to thank this committee for your hard work and your commitment to listening to the varied needs of Vermonters and responding to the needs presented. Listening to the testimony tonight reminds me of how we're all connected and how we are all a part of creating the Vermont we want to live in. Many of the funds talked about tonight are braided together in our communities to meet people's needs. I'm here tonight to request your support to increase the funding for the Parent Child Center integrated grant in the amount of $721,945. This will help to cover health insurance cost increases and support the Parent Child Center Network and becoming a standalone nonprofit that will have the infrastructure needed to streamline the granting and reporting processes for the state. Your support for the Parent Child Center Network is important to young families, but young Vermonters and their families. Vermont is lucky to have this unique resource in our state and every family in every town has access to Parent Child Center services. We welcome new babies, provide play groups for all families, we provide home visiting and center-based services such as childcare, parenting classes, high school programming, housing, food access and other supports for young families in need. We work with at least two generations at one time, which makes a huge difference in a very small amount of time. Parent Child Centers make sure that young families are supported and healthy and this helps our Vermont economy and our culture in many ways. We help to make and keep Vermont a great place to raise a family. Again, please support the increase of the base funding for the Parent Child Center integrated grant by $721,945 to cover insurance costs and increase and support the Parent Child Center Network infrastructure. Thank you. Thank you. Now up is Gloria Quinn and on deck is Katie Horner. Evening. I'm Gloria Quinn. I live in Heartland, Vermont and I'm the Executive Director of Upper Valley Services, the designated agency serving individuals with developmental disabilities for Orange County and beyond. Our services extend statewide to include crisis intervention and long-term care through our adult family care program as well. Today, I urge you your support for a crucial 6.5% Medicaid rate increased totally 14.6 million for our designated and specialized service agencies. I'm grateful for the past support that has helped reduce our staff vacancy rate by 25% over the past three years. However, our turnover rate remains at a high of 32%, highlighting ongoing challenges and retaining skilled staff. Many leave due to higher wages elsewhere and the stress about demanding work compounded by the high acuity of those we serve. Operating costs are escalating and housing remains a critical issue for many Vermonters. This past October, 9% of Vermonters with developmental disabilities across our system were at risk for homelessness. Statewide, 31% of the people with developmental disabilities are supported through the shared living provider model and for UVS we are at 58%. It is absolutely critical that we maintain the stability of our services and housing for the people who rely on them. Current system changes including new needs, assessments and rate reforms threaten further destabilization. Without adequate ongoing support, the lives of those we serve could be upended. It is essential to prioritize stability and continuity in our service system and investing in our services now is far more cost effective than repairing potential damage later. Investing in our service system is also investing in our broader communities by reducing homelessness, protecting public safety and decreasing ED visits and hospitalization. So I urge you to approve the Medicaid rate increase. Together we can continue to innovate and provide the vital services that our community needs. Thank you for your time and consideration. Up now is Katie Tormey and on deck is Erica. Good evening committee members. Thanks for having me. My name is Katie Tormey and I'm a member of the Developmental Disabilities Housing Initiative. We are a parent-led volunteer advocacy group of over 100 parents throughout the state who are working towards the development of stable service supported housing for our adult children with intellectual and developmental disabilities, many of whom have significant support needs. My daughter Emily is 35 years old and has Down syndrome. She wants to live outside her parents' home. She wants to live with friends. She wants to live in the community she grew up in where she feels safe. Since the close of Brandon 30 years ago, there has been little money invested by the state in service supported housing for adults with IDD. The few group homes there are in Vermont are designated for individuals with intensive medical or behavioral needs. The only other option is the shared living provider model, which is not always a good option for many reasons. It can often be isolating with little to no oversight and is never a permanent home, often referred to as adult foster care. Hence, there are few options for individuals like my daughter Emily to live outside of her aging parents' homes. Our children deserve better. We are thankful to the state for the funding of the three pilot planning grants in 2022 to begin the process of housing choice for adults with IDD. The grants have been awarded and we are back this year asking for funding to make these peer residences a reality. Last year's housing brief by the Vermont DDC reports the immediate need for 602 housing units for adults in Vermont with IDD. The three pilot planning grants when completed will provide homes for 30 to 35 individuals. As you can see, these projects are just the beginning of what we actually need. Please support funding for the implementation of the pilot planning grant housing begun by Act 186 and a pipeline of funding for the annual development of stable service-supported housing for adults with developmental disabilities. Thank you. Hey, you have now is Erica Holm and on deck is Annika Hywel. My name is Erica Holm and I live in Calis. I am one of the co-executive directors at Central Vermont Humane Society in East Montpelier. I'm also the chairperson of the Animal Cruelty Investigation Advisory Board created by the legislature in 2016 and I am an animal control officer in two central Vermont towns. Thank you for giving me the time to speak with you about age 626. I have lived my entire life in Vermont and in those roles that I mentioned I have experienced all aspects of animal cruelty in our state and the fragmented system that attempts to resolve it. Vermont has laws on the books to attempt to protect the animals of Vermont and while those laws could be stronger what is critical right now is fixing the broken system that we have in place to enforce those laws. Animal neglect and cruelty reaches into every corner of Vermont in every city and town. We need one agency to provide the oversight and guidance for enforcement of our laws and to consolidate the opportunities to create fiscal efficiencies. The number of cruelty cases as well as the issues resulting from unregulated rescues and the importation of animals has increased dramatically in just the past few years. Various committees and studies have been recommending major changes for years and the can has been kicked down the road until we are now at the point of crisis for the people and animals of Vermont. Nibbling at the edges of the problem is ineffective and expensive in the long term. There may never have been a line in the budget for animal cruelty investigation but rest assured a lot of money is spent on it every year. It's just been fragmented, inefficient, untracked and reactive rather than proactive. As the professionals in this budgetary process I hope you will find a way to fund this critical work in an efficient and effective Thank you very much for your time. You're welcome. Hey, Annika is up next and on deck is Mary. Hi, my name is Annika Heilile. I work for Public Assets Institute and I'm the Campaign Manager for Fund Vermont's Teacher and the Fair Share for Vermont One Team. In this capacity I am additionally representing the ACLU of Vermont, Vermont Conservation Voters, the Vermont Early Childhood Advocacy Alliance, the Vermont Natural Resources Council, the Vermont NEA and Voices for Vermont's Children. I am not here today to directly advocate for an appropriation. I am here instead to point to the clear need for increased state revenue. Each of you faces this every day as you work to build a state budget that ensures that every person in Vermont has the opportunity to thrive. This reality is particularly clear this legislative session as the legislature grapples with the needs for funds in housing, blood response, infrastructure and much more. At the same time as the state has increased budgetary pressures and many Vermont residents are struggling to make ends meet, we are seeing increased income and wealth inequality. The top 1% currently have incomes that are on average 20 times larger than those of the other 99%. During a time of huge budgetary pressure we need to raise revenue for the state and it makes sense to increase revenue by increasing taxes on those most able to pay. There are currently two bills being considered by Houseways and Mids that would raise significant revenue for Vermont by increasing taxes on the wealthiest Vermont residents. The first is H828 which is a 3% surcharge on personal annual income over $500,000. This is a marginal tax so it will only affect income over $500,000 and would affect under 2% of Vermont residents and would raise over $70 million annually for the state. The second is H827 which is legislation to tax a portion of unrealized gains as personal income for taxpayers with over $10 million in assets. As we consider Vermont's budgetary pressures and the pressing needs we see every day, I urge you to support these bills. Thank you for your consideration. Thank you. Hey up now is Prairie Hayden and on deck is Jill Holt. Good evening. My name is Mary Hayden. I'm the executive director of the Vermont Association of Area Agencies on Aging. I'm here to speak to you first about meals on meals. We support adding another $2 million to the base budget in addition to the $1 million we generously appropriated last year for a total of $3 million in base funding for state fiscal year 25. We would also support allowing home delivered meals to be a Medicaid covered service so that Vermont may draw down a matching federal dollars. Meals on wheels targets vulnerable older Vermonters who cannot afford access or prepare their food and it helps them to remain at home and it provides prepared meals meaning USDA nutrition guidelines which are delivered by community volunteers. It also offers therapeutic meals for chronic disease management but the funding is not enough to serve the aging demographic of older Vermonters. Vermont Association of Area Agencies on Aging also supports the Vermont Food Bank requests to increase their base funding to $5 million. I'm also here to discuss what happened with the moderate needs group which is choices for care funding. It was cut from the budget last year by $2 million. This program supports case management, homemaker services, adult day services. It also enables people to be able to stay in their homes. Both the adult days and triple A's have MNG clients and last year Dale requested a cut due to purported underutilization but that underutilization was due to severe workforce shortages. It does not reflect a lower demand for the service. Both adult days and triple A's have waiting lists for these services and the cut has resulted in an $800,000 cut for adult days. Therefore Vermont Area Agency on Aging joins adult days in requesting that this $2 million be restored to the case. Thank you for the opportunity to address this. Thank you. Joe Olson is up now and I guess I'll, I'll, I'm sorry. Good evening. I'm Joe Olson. I'm the executive director of the V&A's of Vermont. I'm representing home health and hospice. I'm here tonight asking you for support for two critical services that we provide. One is our skilled home health service that's our medical care at home. And the second is choices for care direct services. So that's a long-term care at home. Individuals who are receiving these services are people who would otherwise be in a hospital or in a nursing home. So they're really critical services and they're really taking the pressure off other parts of our system. So many of our hospital discharges are going home, critical, critical service. Our skilled home health ask is a little complicated. We'd like you to bring us to 100% of the Medicare Loopa rate on July 1. This may sound familiar to you because it's also a BAA request. And then we'd like you to keep us there on January 1, which when the rate will again increase. This is because we're on a January rate cycle. That's why we came to you in the BAA. And so we don't want to get here. We're going to be behind if we don't get the BAA. We don't want to be behind again. So that's that request. And then we're asking for a second year of funding to fully fund the rate study that was done on those choices for care direct services, which called for a 51% increase. So that was a diva study. We got 15 last year. We're hoping for another bump this year. And it's especially improved this year because we're losing our case management revenue. So home health is being taken out of the case management system because of implementation of new federal rules that we have to follow. And it's going to take a lot of revenue out of the program for us and really change the math on whether this program is workable. So I'm really concerned in a way. I'm always concerned, but after this year, home health agencies just don't have the revenue anymore from the federal government to subsidize Medicaid we used to. And now we've had almost 10% Medicare cut. And we have a lot of migration to low paying Medicare advantage plans. So that our room to subsidize is just disappeared. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. Hey, Ellen. And I'm Jack. It's Mary Kate. All right. Thank you. My name is Helen Levin. I'm the executive director of the Vermont Health Care Association representing long term care facilities in Vermont. So skilled nursing facilities or SNFs are about two thirds of our members. And we are supporting the governor's proposed budget, which includes statutory nursing home inflation increases along with updates to Medicaid methodology. And those updates include a request to reduce the occupancy penalty. So minimum occupancy is a tool that states use to prevent overbuilding of nursing home capacity. In Vermont, we also use certificates of need and we have decades of policy work that's incentivizing lower levels of care before referring to a nursing facility. And we've seen that our nursing home bed numbers have been declining. Today, two counties have no SNFs, three counties have only one and a three remaining counties six reliant one provider for 50% or more of their bed capacity. Additionally, two SNFs have closed since 2020 both in the Northeast Virginia. So we don't have too many beds. We do have a workforce shortage and that limits providers ability to meet new residents. Last year personnel cost reached 80% of operating revenues for some facilities. It was 100% or more of operating revenues. And we we just can't keep continuing like this. We need funding to help retain capacity while we rebuild our workforce. skilled nursing facilities are caring for our most elderly, most vulnerable remodders. And we support the governor's proposal to increase SNF Medicaid rates. VHCA also represents assisted living residences and residential care homes. We're thankful for last year's increase to the basic service package. But we also note that many of our members imply provide enhanced residential care services or ERC services. These did not receive that increase. And yet they are needed for those enhanced care. So we're also asking that we fully implement a coverage of costs for enhanced residential care in this upcoming budget. Thank you. Thank you. Mary Kate is up next and followed by Jill Good evening. Thank you. I'm chairs members of the committee. Thank you for this opportunity to testify on behalf of all of Vermont's federally qualified health centers. My name is Mary Kate Mollman. I'm director for Vermont Public Policy and by State Primary Care Association. FQFCs provide care to one in three Vermonters regardless of their ability to pay health centers also have a strong commitment to their communities engaging in the needs of their communities. This includes providing primary care, running a grocery store, setting up a school dental clinic and delivering thousands of pounds of food to those in need. But this mission and these services are at risk. Today we are asking for an appropriation of 2.8 million in state funding for diva to align FQFC rates with their individual costs. According to federal statute and FQFCs rates should reflect through its reasonable costs for the services it provides and the people it serves. This unique rate is increased annually by the Medicare economic index and adjusted as necessary to reflect changes in the health center services and the populations they serve. Today Vermont's FQFCs have not had rates that meet these requirements. By State has worked with diva first between 2015 and 2017 when diva initially sought to comply with federal law and again for the last two years. The funding requests we put forward today built on the work that diva did in 2017 and our advisors agree that this approach is a reasonable way to meet federal requirements. Our goal with this appropriation is to reinforce our collaboration with diva and achieve a resolution for FQFC rates that endures. We also hope to continue working with diva to improve the change of scope process and apply it consistently across health centers. Finally we want to thank you for your ongoing support of FQFCs. The funding you provided last year was critical but health centers remain financially fragile. Many of them are presenting budgets with significant operating losses. To close these gaps health centers are looking at laying off staff and cutting services and access points. They need to make these decisions even as primary and preventive care needs are critical to their communities and are the heart of the state's own health care reform goals. Thank you. Thank you. Up next is Bill Booth and followed by Tina Clark. Hello my name is Jill Bowton. I'm the post permanency worker for Bennington County. I've worked for Easter Seals in that position for the past 10 years. I'm speaking tonight in support of increasing the base funding for post permanency services programs by $300,000. In my 10 years as a post permanency worker I've had the pleasure of working with many adoptive and kinship families. I've worked with families who have adopted internationally, families who have adopted through the Department of Children and Families when biological families, when biological family reunification was not possible and I've worked with grandparents who have become permanent guardians for their grandchildren. I have sat at kitchen tables and tiny mobile homes in the most rural part of the county, tidy apartments in in town Bennington and single family homes throughout the county. Whether working with a family of financial means or a grandmother on a fixed income, the common thread that ties most of these families together is caring for children who have experienced considerable early trauma. Caring for a child not born to you and who experienced early trauma can be challenging. The child's behaviors can be misunderstood by childcare providers, their schools, at times their mental health providers and quite often by extended family members. Families are usually working very hard to meet the needs of their children. The tasks can at times feel daunting and sometimes quite isolating. Post permanency services work to partner with adoptive families and kinship families to address the critical needs of their children. Bennington is not a resource rich community. Mental health agencies availability is often not commensurate with the needs of the families they serve. Schools are often neither adoption informed or trauma informed. Post permanency is often the service that is often the only service that provides an affirming message to families. Yes we can help. This collaboration is often critical in advocating for and achieving the services necessary for a child to experience repair from early childhood trauma. Thank you. Thank you. Okay up next is Tina Clark followed by Yasmin. Rita. Rita? Sorry. Good evening. So my name is Tina Clark and I live in the town of Tumbridge and I am here tonight advocating for the budget for post permanency through Easter Seals program. Our family has been working with the post permanency and Easter Seals for nine years. We adopted two girls out of foster care and the support that Easter Seals has been able to give us has been invaluable to our family and and hopefully we are optimistic that we'll keep our girls from becoming another statistic of the foster care system in childhood abuse. Our girls have come with special things like brain damage because of the abuse that they endured. Reactive attachment disorder which is also accompanied by significant behavioral problems and violence and as well as the dealing with the post trauma of of that early thing and I know that we've worked for years with Ann Wheeler and having a consistent person throughout this whole process has been huge in the success for our girls and so she's been able to give us tools and connect us to various things that are there to support our girls in their transition from young girls being victimized by their biological family to hopefully someday well-healed adults and the the post permanency program has been a part of their longevity within our family and our family feeling that we have the support to be able to adequately support them through hope healing and so that's kind of what it's meant for us and I would definitely advocate to give them the money that they need to keep up this very valuable service. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks. Up now is Yasmine and followed on deck by Frances Pissell. Hi, good evening. Yes, Meen Duitar. I'm the new executive director of Vermont Legal Aid and I'm joining you from the Northeast Kingdom. I'm grateful to be here today to share VLA's critical work in the realm of human services and the need for increased funding to support our shared interest in increasing access to justice for Vermonters. Our fiscal year 25 request is 1.3 million increased to our base to maintain our legal services. Currently we have approximately 88 permanent staff and are at risk of losing approximately nine staff without increased funding. According to the governor's budget, funding remains stagnant. We are grateful for the 650,000 that was added to our base last year, which was necessary to maintain staffing and operations and we respectfully ask that this amount remain in the base. However, in fiscal year 25 due to further increases to costs in health care, operations and inflation, VLA now requires an additional $550,000 to maintain staff and operations. In addition to our projects in crucial areas including eviction and foreclosure prevention are at risk of termination. Due to increased demand for legal assistance in the realm of housing, our funding is being depleted much sooner than anticipated. Based on our projections, VLA would need approximately 730,000 to maintain these projects so that these services and resources remain available to keep Vermonters housed. Without adequate funding, the absence of legal services in these crucial areas will only exacerbate an already devastating housing crisis in our state and come at an even greater price to the state. It's cheaper to fund homelessness prevention than to pay for homelessness. To the extent human services work is important, we are necessary to help solve problems with housing where people have representation we forge quicker pathways to solutions which help ease the burden on our courts and keeping people housed leads to greater family stability and community safety. Funding legal services is not the better choice in the work. The legislature funds as a part of the choice. If we have ongoing funding, we act as a partner for the service work community partners are doing and funding legal services expands access to justice and powering our communities and shifting. Thank you. Okay, Francis, Kissel is up now and followed on deck by Catherine Titus. Go ahead, Francis. Something's changing because of audio. Connecting to audio. Francis, if you can hear us, we're just going to move to the next until you can come back in. Catherine, is she Catherine Titus? Is she on? We're all getting a little need for dinner. You're not going to get back if you say so. No, it's fine. I hope I get the people over here. Can everybody hear me? Catherine, there you go. Hi, how are you? Good evening. My name is Catherine Titus. I'm from Colchester. I'm the director of operations for Cathedral Square, a service-oriented affordable housing organization that operates two assisted living communities and houses over a thousand Vermonters and affordable senior housing with SASH. I thanks to the committee for the chance to testify on the governor's budget today and for the investments you made last year in the community based long term care sector. These were hugely impactful, but continued investment is essential. The governor's proposed FY 2025 budget does not adequately address the current long-term care crisis in our state. In the 2023 rate study released by the Department of Vermont Health Access, it was recommended that enhanced residential care Medicaid reimbursement rates be increased 13%, 37%, and 60% based on corresponding levels of care. We received a 4% increase for these rates last year. It's simply not enough to sustain the escalating operating expenses that were forced to endure to safely house and care for Vermonters. It's a critical time for older and disabled Vermonters who have limited access to skilled and reliable long-term care services. Our friends, neighbors, and family members who are unable to complete basic activities of daily living, such as bathing, meal prep, medication management, depend on the support from home based choices for care, residential care, and assisted living communities like Cathedral Square. Our two assisted living communities are currently providing homes and services for 44 residents, 91% of whom are on Medicaid. With facilities closing their doors all around us, we're very concerned about what happens to our residents if we are forced to continue struggling with prolonged underfunding. We respectfully request your committee consider increasing the long-term care Medicaid reimbursement rates as proposed in the 2023 study and we also ask that you establish annual Medicaid rate increases ensuring stability and sustainability. Without this, providers like Cathedral Square will have to reduce capacity at a time when Vermonters need this the most. My thanks to you for your time and attention to this critical matter and the opportunity. Thank you. Okay, so up now is Karen Stewart and on deck is Brian. Good evening. My name is Karen Stewart. I live in Burlington, Vermont and my family has received post-permanency services since adopting our daughter Olivia in 2016. I'm asking your committee to please increase base funding for post-permanency services by $300,000. Raising a child is not easy. Raising a child with developmental and intellectual disabilities, attachment disorder, ADHD, FASD and significant speech delays is even more challenging. My daughter was adopted through the Vermont Foster to Adopt Program. She's a feisty spirited nine-year-old. She has fiercely blue eyes and blonde hair. Her birth family has struggled with generational poverty and substance use and abuse. Despite her intellectual and behavioral challenges, my daughter is healthy, happy, and progressing as a second grader and a caring community member. I attribute the successes of our family to the post-permanency services that we've received. Post-permanency has taught me how to view my daughter through a trauma lens. It's helped my daughter and me to bond despite attachment disorder and developmental trauma, and it's linked me to critical services like early childhood development assessments, speech therapy, family therapy, and at-home personal care services. It's also coached me through complicated IEPs at school and through the annual visits with her birth mother that were agreed upon in our PACA or post-adoption contract agreement. Post-permanency services have been the wraparound service to help my family navigate the extremely complicated and confusing system of medical care and mental health care that is needed to ensure my daughter can live a healthy and productive life. Olivia is nine. She is a loving, caring person and she wants to give back to our community. She is the future of Vermont and our family can support her needs, her disabilities, and her abilities much better. Through support from the Post-permanency service program. Thank you. Okay, so up now is it. Is it Brian or Brian don't. It person. No. Okay. Okay. Okay. So, Megan. Megan is up now and on deck is Lori. There she is. Hello, thank you. My name is Meg, and I'm the policy director for the Vermont chapter of the Alzheimer's association. Older Vermonters with dementia are some of our most vulnerable and require access to services that have been perpetually underfunded. This has resulted in our inability to keep up with inflation offer competitive wages and reduced resources for Vermonters living at home with dementia. In 2025, the number of Vermonters with dementia is projected to be 17,000 an astounding 30.8% increase from 2020 in 2022 for months unpaid family caregivers provided more than 28 million hours of care. The $250,000 dementia respite grant has not seen any increase in more than two decades. The $250,000 a year is now taken to pay for licenses for T care. This leaves only $200,000 to meet the needs of those struggling to care for a loved one with dementia. I'm asking you to please increase the dementia respite grant to $500,000 a year. I'm also asking you to fully implement the increases outlined in the 2023 divas rate study report for home based choices for care and enhanced residential care services. We also provide services to our lowest income older Vermonters who require nursing home level of care at home. The report recommended 13 to 60% increases in rates for ERC and last year they received only 4%. It also recommended a 51% increase in at home direct choices for care services and they received 15%. It's imperative we complete the work outlined by the diva rate study this year. Thank you for the investments you did make to the long term care sector last year including fully funding the ACCS and adult day rates. Unfortunately, this sector remains in jeopardy. In the last year we lost 192 assisted living and residential care home beds and one home health agency is in the process of closing. Increasing rates is essential to attract and offer competitive compensation to staff caring for some of our most vulnerable. I'm also asking you to help by increasing the dementia respite grant to $500,000 and fully implementing the rate study increases for our choices for care home based services. Thank you. Thank you. Hey, Lori is up next and on deck is Barbara. Hi, thanks for having me. My name is Lori memory. I am a single mom of two from Shelburne Vermont. I'm from the state. I am asking that the budget be amended to include $10.82 million towards implementing the 3 pilot planning grant projects. Outlined in act 186, as well as an annual funding pipeline to develop service supporting housing for adults with IDD and moderate to high support needs. Joey is autistic. He struggles with behavioral challenges, including compulsive behaviors, sensory issues, a complete and utter lack of safety awareness and a need for assistance with all activities of daily living. He requires 24 seven supervision and is functionally non verbal, making him particularly vulnerable. He's currently in a residential educational placement in New Hampshire. He's absolutely thriving there, but ages out in May. Vermont doesn't have appropriate housing for him. So his team and I are looking out of state for another out of state placement. Over the years, since about 2005, I've volunteered my time to work on a number of state level advisory boards. Committees work groups all had recommendations to address housing this population. Every single time every single committee. We were told there was no money. Every single year. Money goes towards housing. And we've heard testimony tonight that the homeless population gets money. Criminals being released from jail, substance abusers, new Americans, victims of domestic violence, all get money regularly. I wouldn't say that they don't need housing. They do. But as a society, I believe and always have that we need to house our most vulnerable population first. And I'm out of time. So thank you for listening. Bang, sorry. Up now is Barbara Edelman and on deck is Darryl Ruby. Hello, I'm Barb Edelman from St. Johnsbury, where I live with my partner Darryl, who has Alzheimer's. Thank you for this opportunity to urge you to allocate $500,000 to the dementia respite grant, a relatively modest investment for a big return. Many participants in the two caregiver support groups I attend are caring for people further into the disease than Darryl. So I see what's down the road for me. I see the exhaustion. I see the mental and physical deterioration of the caregivers, I mean, caring for someone with Alzheimer's eventually becomes a 24 seven job that can last for years. At some point, it's no longer possible to leave the person at home alone. So tending to one's own needs, getting to doctor's appointments, getting regular exercise becomes increasingly difficult, if not impossible without outside help. Respite care is essential for their well being. Vermont's dementia family caregivers provides over 28 million hours of unpaid care in 2022. Keeping them healthy by providing meaningful respite help is cost effective for the state. In 2014, a $2,000 annual cap was set for caregivers receiving this grant. This does not afford a meaningful amount of respite in 2024. While I don't need respite help yet, many of my fellow support group members do some quite desperately. A grant that could provide them with $75 a week, 3900 a year would enable them to continue to keep their loved ones at home while ensuring their own health doesn't suffer. Please increase the allocation for the dementia respite grant to 500,000. It is a relatively small but very effective step Vermont can take to ensure it's 20,000 plus and growing unpaid dementia family caregivers can continue their vital roles. Thank you so much. Thank you. Okay, up now is Darryl Rudy and on deck is Nate. Darryl was with Barbara. I'm sorry, Nate and on deck is Michael George. Oh, Darryl. Sorry Darryl, we thought we weren't sure if you were a team, which we kind of know you are. Yeah. My name is Darryl Rudy. I'm here to share why Vermont should allocate $500,000 to the dementia respite grant. Like more than 13,000 other Vermonters over the age of 65. I have Alzheimer's. I'm in Johnsbury with my partner Barb, whom you just heard. I want to spend the rest of my life with her and in our home. In Vermont there are over 20,000 unpaid dementia family caregivers like Barb. All of them are dealing with a disease that is long and complex. There is a greater risk for anxiety, depression, and poor quality of life than caregivers of people with other conditions. 35.4% of Vermont's dementia caregivers report depression. This is among the highest percent in the nation. 61.5% have one or more chronic health conditions, a number that also is above the national average. Expanding the dementia respite program is imperative if we want Vermonters with dementia to be able to age in place and if we want their caregivers to remain healthy. While I'm still functioning, I know that Barb will have a heavy load as my disease progresses. Frankly, I'm speaking to you today because I don't want my condition to put Barb's health at risk. Please increase dementia respite grant allocation of 500,000 so that Barb and thousands of other dementia family caregivers can continue to care for their loved ones at home. Thank you so much. Thank you. Okay, up now is Michael George and on deck is Sam Lincoln. Yes. Hi, good evening. I'm Michael George and I live in the Queen City, Burlington. I'm Michael George and I'm a member of the Developmental Disabilities Housing Initiative and we're currently working with other Burlington parents advocating for forever homes for our adult children here in town. From the start of the COVID pandemic in March 2020 until the summer of 2023, I cared for my adult son's needs every day and every night, three and a half years, many of those 24 seven. His physical ability is highly mobile and requires eyes on every moment he's awake. If I were to become unable to care for him, he would in all likelihood become homeless and would not be able to handle this adult male with his physical abilities and bolting behavior. None of us lives forever and we all become less capable as we age. The option for him, if I were to die, would be would be living with a shared living provider or more properly labeled adult foster care. As a parent, I gratefully accept his challenges, but the chances of someone else willing to offer 24 seven care in their own home with his level of needs is slim to none. And they can bolt, and they can bail out at any time, which would undoubtedly start the whole cycle all over again. Just to testify today, the developmentally disabled Vermont adults deserve forever homes where they can safely experience safety, friendship, quality of life, knowing their placement is secure and solid. Brandon is the past it didn't work. We won't go there. Adult foster care offers no guaranteed stability. We need a new model one built on stability and respect. Service supported housing for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities, in my opinion, is the way to go with this in mind. I'm requesting that you allocate approximately $11 million for implementation of the three pilot grant projects and annual development for service supported housing for our adult children. Thank you. Thank you. My name is Sam Lincoln from Lincoln farm timber harvesting and Randolph center. Due to excessive precipitation, including the floods in July and December of 2023 and a lack of frozen conditions over the last two winners logging contractors have experienced 16 consecutive months of unsuitable ground conditions for harvesting and hauling timber from Vermont's forests. Many timber harvesting operations were shut down entirely for weeks before and after the July flooding and many only work spread. It's practically in a four month period. Logging contractor damages have primarily been revenue loss from business interruption as opposed to as opposed to property damage, which the revenue loss is uninsurable. These small businesses have experienced as much as a 30% revenue loss for 2023 with total revenue loss in the hundreds of thousands of dollars per business. The administration was asked to include losses for logging contractors in the B gap program in July, but we're told revenue loss was not being included. The federal delegation was approached, but there are no programs for logging contractors and therefore they could not offer relief. House ag food resiliency and forestry voted unanimously earlier in the session to support a relief effort with a request for $1 million to be appropriated for a one time. Logging contractor relief program among the priorities they sent to house appropriations for BAA, but it was not included. We asked that you fund a relief program in the FY 25 budget. We have a harvesting and adaptation resilience program. We're asking for funding to help logging contractors contend with the severe weather and ever changing climate. The cost of water quality protection is rapidly increasing for timber harvesting. Loggers are expected to absorb absorb these costs and it is a rapidly growing issue. H 1 6 6 24 is in the house ag and forestry committee right now and it would provide payments to logging contractors for specific materials and practices that can be utilized. We asked that that be funded in the FY 25 budget wants to build most forward. Thank you. Hey, Christine hazard is up now and on deck with Diana Jones. Go ahead Christine. Hi, my name is Christine hazard and I'm the executive director of Brattabur housing partnerships. Here in the southeastern corner of the state we're partnering with Wyndham and Windsor housing trust supported by the expertise of cathedral square corporation to pilot the support and services at home sash for all program based on the well established statewide traditional program. We are currently in the middle of the second year of the pilot project. You may know the traditional sash model which supports seniors and adults with disabilities. The sash for all model follows the sash model by having a community health approach to homelessness prevention embedded in low income housing by expanding the model to the broader community, including families and individuals. This comprehensive and data driven program offers a wellness nurse a sash coordinator and a mental health clinician with the support of a core group of local service agencies to help individuals and families to find their own wellness goals or navigate crises to avoid homelessness. The team also focuses on a community health needs by you data to create a health plan. The pilot program has already shown a reduction of emergency department visits and lease terminations for participants. Today I request a 2025 budget request of $300,000 to continue the sash for all pilot program for a third year. I'm happy to share the M and T bank thought so highly of this innovative program that they have committed $450,000 over three years as part of their highly competitive amplify fund grant. Sash for all will be able to draw down $150,000 per year for three years, leaving a balance of $300,000 for next year by supporting your three. I'm confident we can show more positive results and create a framework for replication around the state. Thank you for your consideration and time. Thank you. Okay, now up as diana Jones and on deck is Heather Wilson. Thank you chair kitchen and chair lamp here. My name is diana Jones. I've served as the director for the Thompson senior center in Woodstock for the past 13 years. I serve as the president of the Vermont Association of senior centers and meal providers and was honored to be on the advisory committee for age strong Vermont. Being older Vermonters to successfully age in their homes and communities is important work that a variety of partners come together to accomplish. There are extensive studies across all systems of care that show prevention is the best investment. Nutrition plays an essential role in promoting good health and preventing disease home delivered meals on wheels provides the critical daily nutrition and check ins that aid prevention and help keep people successfully at home. As nutrition providers, we are seeing increases in demand for meals at the same time that food packaging and staffing costs are increasing. At my side alone meals on wheels jump from 5,800 meals in 2013 to over 12,500 meals in 2023. That's 115% increase in 10 years. Based on the average cost per meal, the number of meals served and current reimbursement rates, the gap is growing. Local A's and small community meal sites can no longer fill this through local fundraising and a recent survey of meals on wheels providers, the average reimbursement rate was $3.89 per meal. I have two letters to share from the most important voices. Those of our older Vermonters who receive meals first, I've never really been able to cook well for myself. I was diagnosed with diabetes. I was really scared. But I talked with the chef at the senior center every month. He knows what helps me. My doctor is happy and I'm healthier than I've been in many years. Our support over the past several years is deeply appreciated. It has allowed me to continue living independently in my home. I'm now approaching my 99th birthday and have decided it's time to move to an assisted living. I could have not have made it this far without you. In closing, I ask you to please support the total 3 million requested for meals. Help us deliver this essential prevention program that reduces hospital visits and keeps people in their homes. Thank you. Thank you. Now up is Heather Wilson, followed by Margaret Walt. Good evening. My name is Heather Wilson. I live and work in St. Albans and I'm here to speak on behalf of the designated and specialized service agencies across the state of Vermont. We are seeking a 6.5% Medicaid rate increase for organizations, $14.6 million from the general fund. I want to send a thank you from Northwestern counseling and support services. The legislature provided our system of care and Medicaid rate increase and one time funds for tuition assistance and loan repayment. These investments were very appreciated and have helped us to reduce turnover from 34% to 22%. It is important that we continue to invest in our organization serving children, adults, individuals with developmental disabilities and individuals with substance use disorders. We have to address the cost of our system, salaries, insurance, operating costs in order to ensure services remain for all Vermonters. A workforce that often feels fragile strives to respond to the high level of mental health needs. This may be a child dealing with thoughts of suicide and engaging in self-harming behavior. A child with complex psychiatric issues spending significant amount of time in the emergency department while they wait a year for residential treatment. Or a child with autism spectrum disorder whose services are suddenly stopped due to lack of funding. High acuity and workplace stressors on staff can be unrelenting. The administrative paperwork burden is huge and we are consistently told that the available salaries are inadequate for their life and do not recognize their educational investments and professional licenses. Last year we struggled to retain qualified staff, feeling disillusioned by an underfunded and overburdened system. We can do better. To support Vermont, we need to adequately fund our designated and specialized service agencies. A Medicaid rate increase of 6.5% is necessary to keep our services going and our communities strong. Thank you for your time and consideration. You're welcome. Thank you. Okay, now up is Margaret Walsh. Hello and thank you for the opportunity to testify this evening. My name is Margaret Walsh and I'm the director of the Parent Child Center of Northwestern Counseling and Support Services in St. Albans and the mother of a brand new five month baby, five month old baby girl. I'm here today to request an increase in base funding for the Parent Child Center integrated grant by $721,945 to cover health insurance costs increase and support PCCN administration. I've worked for the Parent Child Center of NCSS for over 10 years and strongly believe in the upstream prevention and early intervention services we provide. I've witnessed firsthand how high quality early childhood experiences can yield long term positive outcomes for families, which in turn creates a healthier Vermont. All 15 parent child centers are committed to delivering on our ACOR services, whether it's supporting a child with complex medical needs, helping a family access child care, or providing support in the prenatal and postpartum period. Families have options. As a new mother, I am feeling the concept of it takes the village more than ever and I'm keenly aware that the most supportive villages when the offers a multi generational community based approach. By supporting our ask, we are recognizing the importance and value of providing families with critical programs during the earliest years of their child's development. In order to continue to provide statewide essential services for families with young children in Vermont, we must have a strong parent child center network that provides adequate and competitive benefits to the staff who deliver these necessary services. That's why we're asking for an increase in base funding for the PCC integrated grant for network administration to ensure we are aligned with Act 150 and to cover health insurance cost increases. Thank you so much for the opportunity to testify before your committee today. Thank you. I think we're at the end of our list. However, there was at least one to add some technical issues and I don't know if Francis. But Kissel is still there. And if he is, maybe he can unmute and run. Oh, yeah. Where's she. If you can unmute you can join. There you go. Okay, Francis. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Francis hear us. Yeah. So, you can connect. You can submit your testimony to our committee. And we will get it that way and we promise we'll read it. Right. I think we can close the hearing. I think we can close the hearing. We can go off live.