 Welcome everybody. Senate Education, Tuesday, June 2nd, continuing remote hearings, and today we're going to be doing a mix of things, looking at a couple of different bills, but before we do that, as everybody knows, we had some news out of the Burlington Colchester area disturbing news for those of us following child care, and especially for me, the child care UVM where my kid went and where I participated in a, I think, 50th anniversary ceremony for them announced that they are ending operations, as did the child care center at St. Mike's. So it touched off some concern in the Senate in general, and I wanted to, as quickly as we could, try to connect with CDD about their thinking on child care stabilization as we reopen child care centers. I've asked the people who run the UVM Center to testify. They couldn't make it today, but hopefully Thursday we'll hear from them. But I thought if I could start with Deputy Commissioner Bebeco, and I know this is not news to you nor is the fact that most child cares are on a knife-edge economically anyway, but I'm just wondering if you can run down for us your view of the state's ongoing support as we reopen the child care centers, things like is there a plan to continue stabilization even though centers are nominally open but open at less than full capacity, that sort of thing. And then we can chime in with other questions and avenues of examination as we go. So welcome and feel free to start anywhere you like, Deputy Commissioner. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Good afternoon, senators. Good afternoon, committee. For the record, I'm Stephen Bebeco, Deputy Commissioner for the Child Development Division. I'm here today together with CDD's Director of Policy, Melissa Riegel-Garrett, and we are here to give an update on reopening of child care after this two, two and a half month closure period. On a high level, I'll be talking about finances, capacity, health and safety, supplies, and data. And this aligns with the memo that we provided to the committee. First, on the topic of finances, the state has concluded two programs that ran during the closure period, a stabilization program for programs that were closed and an incentive program for programs that were open and serving the children of essential persons. These programs sunset on May 31st, and we have a firm deadline for submitting invoices to make sure that we can provide payment to all of the child care providers before the end of the fiscal year. In addition, the Department for Children and Families is administering a restart stipend program where child care programs and summer day camps were able to put in a very simple application and receive a cash payment from the Department for Children and Families to help them with some of the costs associated with continuing operations and reopening, costs associated with purchasing supplies, perhaps hiring new staff members, and frankly giving them a leg up going into the summer. That program is a $6 million program, and I understand from our colleagues in DCF that they expect most of the payments to go out this week and next, so a very short turnaround to put hands, put money in the hands of providers and summer day camp directors at a time when they need it. Could I just ask a clarifying question there? I think that's great, and obviously you worked very quickly to get money in people's hands. Is it a one-time payment, and what are the limits for how high it might be? Thank you for that question, Senator. It is a one-time payment, time to the beginning of the summer to help programs open during the summer, and the awards are computed or calculated depending on the number of slots that a program has and the number of days that the program will be open, so a program with a small number of slots and small number of days will get less money than a program open for the entire summer with a large number of slots for children. There are some typical numbers that we have heard from our colleagues in DCF, and Melissa, please correct me if I get these incorrect. I believe that a family-based or a home-based child care provider could expect typically $3,800, and a child care center with 70 or 75 children would receive, I don't have my fingers on those numbers. I'd be happy to provide an update to the committee. Melissa, would you mind providing some detail here? I am opening the document as we speak, so I hope to be able to provide an update in about two minutes. Thank you. While Melissa is doing that, I want to add that some of the larger programs received a stipend payment of over $100,000, which is a great way to support them as they go into the summer months. Can I just ask what the definition of summer is, so it starts June 1st and goes to when? These are programs that have committed to be open by July 6th. And then, do they have to be open through September or something? Well, typically these programs run through the end of August, and the longer a program is open, the larger the stipend amount. Melissa, do you have that information? I do, yeah. What we know is that a registered home who will be open all summer with 10 kids would receive approximately $3,800, and then a larger center open all summer with 75 slots, for example, would receive $28,500. Thank you, Melissa. And DCF has timed the payments, so that the payments to go out first were two programs that are already open on June 1st, and the last payments to go out will be to providers who are open closer to July 6th. Although with payments going out this week and next, I anticipate that Manu will be in the hands of the providers by the end of next week. Another update that we have on the topic of finances is our CCFAT program, the Child Care Financial Assistance Program, has changed back from enrollment basis to attendance basis. Now in the month of June, and this puts the control and decision making of child care subsidy back in the hands of families. At the same time, we have extended the so-called U code for families to use during the month of June for cases where families, for whatever reason, feel that it's not the right time to send their child back to child care, but they would like to keep their slot with a child care provider. They can work with their eligibility specialist to use the U code to provide payment to the child care provider during the month of June and keep that slot. On capacity, I want to remind the committee that, as you well know, Vermont has had a capacity challenge with respect to child care going back certainly before the time of this closure, and the latest data that I saw was pre-closure. There were approximately 9,000 fewer slots statewide than the demand would have otherwise needed. And certainly during closure, we have worked very hard within CDD to make sure that families who are families of essential persons have the had access to the child care that they needed when they needed it in a way that was accessible to them. Now that we're coming out of the closure period, that effort certainly has not ended. We have a statewide network of child care referral specialists who are available to families to help them with referrals to open and available child care programs throughout the state. Their information is updated pretty much daily in cooperation with our licensing staff to make sure that they have the most recent information about what's available where. As well, our licensing staff and our child care business technicians work together with child care providers who are looking to expand their number of slots that are available. So in some cases, there's a child care provider who may look at their current location and want to find a different location. And we have a variance process for that. It's already set within regulation and we expedite those requests to make sure that child care providers have a location that works for them and for their families as quickly as possible in a way that is safe and appropriate for our children. And moving on to health guidance and supplies. Our colleagues at the Vermont Department of Health have been doing an extraordinary job, I feel, in holding webinars with a variety of interest groups, including child care providers, of course, and also parents and families to update them on recent changes to health guidance. They also staff a call-in number with public health nurses so that when a child care provider or a family has a question about health guidance, they have someone that they can talk to one-on-one. And the information, as I understand it, the information that VDH gathers from those conversations goes right back into their planning for updates to their guidance. And the most recent guidance that has come out for June 1st, again, as I understand it, was informed directly by those conversations in a positive way. As well, we are continuing to support child care providers as best we can with supplies. Yesterday and today, CDD is working together with partners, state agency partners and community partners, to man and distribute supplies to child care providers and children's integrated service providers across the state. There were two sites that were set up yesterday, and there are two sites again today for the distribution of cloth facial coverings, non-contact infrared thermometers to providers who don't already have one either because they had purchased one or they've already received one for us, and limited supplies of hand soap. I have to say that I went to the distribution site in Colchester yesterday and was excited by the turnout already before our start time. There was a long line, and the conversations that I had with child care providers who were waiting in line, I found on the whole very encouraging. There were some providers who had already reopened that day, yesterday, and they were very excited to tell me about that experience and also to share the excitement that they felt from the families that they were able to welcome back in, and the children that they were able to welcome back in to the programs. On the topic of data, we are making our best effort to track data on a day-to-day basis about programs that are open and reopening and closed and closed permanently. Unfortunately, the data system that we currently have, Bright Futures Information System, has very limited capability in this regard. We're able to track the number of expired licenses, but we're not able to track the number of programs that are currently open. We are trying to get a handle on that data using information that is available to us. As we move forward, we're looking to refine that process to try to get data that is more stable and helpful for us in our work to support child care providers and families. With that, I would welcome questions from the committee. Before we do that, maybe Ms. Regal Garrett, is there anything you'd like to add? You're still muted. You can give us a yes or no. Hey, how about that? No, I think the deputy covered it just fine, and I'm anxious to help support any details in terms of your questions. Okay, great. Committee members, questions for Deputy Commissioner Berbeco? I have one. Go ahead. Thanks, Bill. And hi, Steven and Melissa. It's good to see you guys again. I appreciate the update. And one question I have is you mentioned, Steve, the 9,000 slots short before COVID. Did you mention how many you are estimating were short now, or are you still not sure because of the inadequate statewide data system? Thank you for that question, Senator Hardy. Unfortunately, we don't have our finger on that number right now. We do have a very rough approximation of the number of providers that are open or opening in the next few weeks. And we hope as we continue to move forward, that we'll be able to determine more stable numbers. Okay. And I know that you finished the stabilization program, that that was something you were running just during the COVID crisis, and now it's ended. However, it's really clear that childcare centers and home providers need ongoing stabilization payments in order to be able to continue to be open, particularly because they're opening at lower enrollments and therefore don't have the tuition payments. And, you know, this may be just something that we as the legislature need to provide to you to be able to provide to childcare centers, but have you, do you have a position on a longer term stabilization program, maybe one that would at least go through the end of 2020 and provide stabilization payments to these programs as they get back up on their feet, and then hopefully increasing the subsidies and other payments, the pre-K payments and things like that so that more families are supported, but I've never heard you testify that you think a stabilization program should continue in some form. So I wonder what your position is on that. Thank you, Senator Hardy. As you pointed out, the stabilization program was developed and established to help keep the childcare structure and infrastructure afloat during the closure period. That was the goal. And now that we're out of the closure period, as you point out, the stabilization program has ended. The administration is certainly watching very carefully and listening very closely to childcare providers and also to families as we move through the month of June to get a sense of what the needs are and what the barriers are to bringing our childcare infrastructure back up to the level it was pre-closure. Okay, well, I think that, you know, there's two programs, two major programs in Chittenden County have already announced that they're closing. So it seems to me that there's already growing evidence that stabilization payments are necessary in order to make sure that our childcare centers are able to survive this crisis. So it would be really helpful if your division could at least put together some kind of numbers about what you think it might take. Because I think that that's the direction we're going to need to move into is ongoing stabilization payments if we want to see our childcare system in the state of Vermont survive. And it would be great to have your support and your assistance in determining the level that is necessary. Yes, Senator Hardy, we're happy to provide whatever information we have available to the committee. How would be the best way to do that? Well, I guess I would defer to my other committee mates. Well, I just want to second what Senator Hardy said. I think that's the thrust of our committee's feeling is that ideally we would have stabilization payments continue up until the point where we raise the amount that we're subsidizing the system generally. And we'll hear from Allie Richards in a second. But there's the sense overall pre-COVID that we underfund in a severe way our childcare system. Now that we've learned that the hard way, let's not make the same mistake twice. So if your office could provide an estimate, the Senator Hardy suggested through the end of 2020, what would it cost to continue some form of stabilization? That would help us. The other thing I just want to point out is Senator Ash makes a great point about the administration's 400 million for economic restart, which is a nice round number, a very impressive number. The sort of number we don't normally throw around, but we have 1.2 plus billion to work with. So 400 million becomes a workable number. But if we were to instead of 400 million go with 390 million, that would still be a record-breaking historic amount of economic development funding. But you would have suddenly 5 million or so to put into something like this. So it would help to have estimates. It would help again to have the support of CDD for such a program. I understand that the governor's recommend is what it is, and everyone serves at the pleasure of the governor. But I think on this one, we're all on the same page that we really need these centers. That leads to my next question. So first, thank you for what you did following your last visit to us. We talked about some confusion and guidance for programs. Some programs, at least one, was asking parents to pay 100% of tuition rather than 50%. You very quickly put out clarified guidance. That program put that out to their parents and then promised to refund to parents or credit them with some of the money they had paid in inadvertently. And so that worked out very well. But I started thinking this morning about another scenario, which is parents at St. Mike's and UVM, I'm guessing, paid half tuition right up until the point where they learned that those programs were not going to reopen. So if that's the case, you had people paying hundreds, if not thousands of dollars on the expectation that that would save the program that their child goes into and reserve their slot. Now it's as though they never paid that money because they have no program to go to. So my question is, in that case, does the program or the state or both owe those parents any of that money as a clawback? Because the agreement was that they would have reserved slots ready for them when the system reopened. Clearly the 60 families at UVM and the equivalent number at St. Mike's do not have that even though they paid that in good faith. So just that may be the first time that's been brought out or it may not. But what are your thoughts on that, Deputy Commissioner? Thank you, Senator Berth. Frankly, I'm not familiar enough with whether UVM and St. Mike's access to the stabilization program to speak to them in particular and the experience of those families. I can say that it's our understanding that UVM decided to close their program and that decision dates back before or the reasons behind that decision date back pre-closure. And I don't have further information about St. Mike's decision, but I can say that when a program decides to close and it makes that business decision, then typically the community of educators and staff and, of course, families come together to try to find a solution that meets everyone's needs. We saw this not that long ago with the series of our collection of programs under the name of Heartworks, Loveworks and Steamworks, where some of those programs made the hard business decision to close. But another provider was able to come in and use the space that would be vacated and provide service to those families so that there was a minimal loss to the number of childcare slots. And in CDD, we help with that process as best we can. Our role within the regulated system is to help providers with variance requests so that when there's a change like that with Heartworks, Loveworks and Steamworks, and potentially a similar change that may or may not happen with St. Mike's, that our licensing staff is there to help with any request for variances and provide technical assistance so that childcare providers can access facilities that are safe and appropriate and families can access childcare that meets their needs. And from what I understand, the UVM Center is working in Williston to find space for their families. And I guess it would be key to know whether St. Mike's or UVM accessed the stabilization program funds, because I think it's easy to understand if they did. And these are not institutions that are going bankrupt. What they've decided to do is just close their childcare centers. I think it's a different story if a childcare center took stabilization money and is bankrupt and they can't offer services and they don't have the money to pay it back. But if it were the case that UVM and or St. Mike's did access the stabilization money and then potentially also got payments from parents, we would need to know that I would think and redress that because it would be money for parents that just went down the drain. And these would be institutions that would be well off enough to reimburse if such were the case. So could I ask maybe at some point today or tomorrow if you could just send me that information, whether those centers were involved in the program? I'd be happy to answer. Great. Other questions from the committee? Okay, let's go to Allie Rich. Oh, I'm sorry, Ruth. That's okay. I just had a follow-up question from Melissa that came out of the last time. We were together in this virtual space, which was a question about support for childcare programs that are looking for human resources support or guidance for particularly surrounding staff members who are not able to return to work because of health reasons or other reasons that make them unavailable. And I've heard from childcare centers that just not sure what to do and they want to do the right thing, but they don't have the human resources expertise. You said you were going to look into that and I'm just wondering if you had any more information on that issue. Yeah, I did actually. I reached out to our partners at ACCD and the Department of Labor to find out what was the employment laws around all of that, and we will include the responses to that in our next FAQ. But essentially, because Ramon's an at-will state, the employer, and this applies not just to childcare, it applies across the board. The employer and the employee relationship is something that they work out together. So we've got a lot of details around that. Senator Hardy, you asked, I think, a couple of different layers of questions tied to that, so I'd be happy to send you what I learned from the Department of Labor. That would be great. Thank you. Senator Perchlich. That reminded me. I do have a question. One of the things I'm still hearing from providers is that problems that they had before COVID are just coming back and presenting themselves in starker light. And one of those is the licensure requirements, you know, and I'm here anecdotally of a lot of centers closing before COVID because they just can keep up with the licensing requirements and find the employees that had the right credentialing. And I wondered if the state administration has thought about waving some of those requirements as we're losing more slots so that we can keep those slots open. Does that make sense? That question. Who would you like to pick that up, Andy? No, I guess anybody that feels qualified to answer. Well, Senator, I can say that we are very sensitive to feedback like that. And as part of our rules promulgation process, we have a very strong commitment to getting feedback from the field from childcare providers and also from families and stakeholders and the public generally. And as part of that process, if there are rules that the members of the public feel lead to childcare provider closure, then we certainly need to hear about that. And that would be very helpful for us. Melissa, would you like to add some detail? Yeah, so actually currently through the COVID response period as we were serving essential persons and then as we're rolling into this transition, our licensing rules actually have a variance request lever that can be pulled and we are processing and supporting programs with a variety of variances, one of which is tied to staff qualifications. So even without a rule change, we are absolutely trying to be responsive to the context that we are in now and be able to ensure that we've got the folks that we need on site to take care of kids. So those centers should be aware of how they apply for those variances? Yeah, we issued last week a frequently asked questions about licensing and a tip sheet about what to expect when a licensure came on site now that we are in this reopening phase. And part of the frequently asked questions that we issued did address that the variance option is available to them, again, not just for staff qualifications for a variety of ways. Sometimes it's even serving children in different age groups. So we've got folks that maybe previously didn't serve schoolagers that are applying for variances so that they are able to serve schoolagers during this time. Okay, thank you. Yeah. Okay, let's go to Ali Richards. Thanks for joining us, Ali. And I'm wondering, you know, this is a conversation that's spun out in three or four different directions, but it's all the same basic idea, which is how do we support going forward in the short term for the next six months, but also in the long term. Thoughts on, if I could ask you just to respond specifically to the structure that was laid out, in other words, the closing of the two programs, the stabilization and incentive program, the current DCF restart, stipend program. What's your sense of those in terms of efficacy, are they enough, etc.? Thank you very much for allowing me to share my perspective and for the record, Ali Richards, CEO of Lesser Kids. And also very quickly, I feel like within the context we're working in all of us right now, I just can't make any statement without saying that I personally in Lesser Kids and Organization stands with Black Americans and marginalized population to do whatever it takes to confront structural racial inequity. And it is we're becoming more and more attuned to the intersection of early childhood education issue and the incredible role that high quality childcare plays in moving us towards a more equitable and just future. So thank you for that. I just feel remiss to not say that in this context. Be your specific questions. Thank you for allowing me on because you already alluded earlier that you knew what I was going to say. The stabilization grants played a crucial role in sustaining the majority of Vermont childcare programs during this challenging time were luckier than most other states because of that. However, as you're seeing with these two closures, the Vermont childcare system was substantially underfunded before the pandemic. So again, this is a hard message in this very difficult economic context to take in. But the childcare system was in absolute survival mode in every single dimension before the pandemic. And this is really the straw that's breaking the camel's back. The programs that UVM and St. Mike are unique in that they are tied into Vermont's underfunded higher ed challenges as well. But they are absolutely not unique in what they point to to all childcare programs. They are absolutely the canary in the coal mine because they were implementing best practices. They were doing what we as a public have not funded and not valued. They were actually investing in very high quality programming, which included paying staff on par with public education benefits and public education colleagues. They had incredibly high quality because of that incredibly high staff retention. They subsidize the cost of care for their families. As we know, CCFAP has not paid ever before COVID or now enough to actually reimburse the actual cost of care. And so both of those higher ed institutions were losing substantial money on these programs because they were doing what we will not do yet as a society. So the underlying issue here is the underfunding of childcare. It's public dollars. I mean, to Senator Perclick's question as well. Yes, logistically, there are variances. Of course, I'm really glad to hear CDD. You know, there is flexibility, there are variances, but moving back the bar on quality, you know, is not really what we believe is is possible or necessary right now in this crucial moment. It's really flexibility and variances like that can help through this struggle, this moment we're in with the pandemic. But, you know, it's the lack of money that's causing these closures and that is causing programs to struggle and causing programs not be able to find folks because they're paying poverty wages because there's no money in the system. So I just, you know, I have to make that point. It is a tough reality for us to face in a pandemic response. But it is what is causing these problems. And we can't just go, there's no magic bullet to go to these two programs, to go, to continuously do targeted subsidy and superhuman sort of work to prop up these programs when really it will continue to be a problem. We will lose more and more and more childcare over these months if we don't commit to addressing this. So that's to your specific question, Senator. The stabilization program, incredible. Now the restarts program, you know, the flexibility needed is already in the program. So that's very important because every single child care program has a different situation. How many kids coming back? You know, how many teachers can they retain with underlying health crises and age and other things? So we just don't know yet how much money is going to take, but we know six million will not be enough for all the reasons that you said it's a good start. But it's certainly not enough, by the way, for summer camps and for child care. And it's not enough for those who are seeing that half their families are not coming back. They can't make ends meet right now financially. So they may have to look at closure, even though they didn't think they had to. And so we really have to look at increasing the dollars in the restart program as an absolute first step. So we have, and I believe we actually submitted before my testimony to the committee, a building stronger document. The beauty of these recommendations, Senator, is that they put us on a path of CARES Act dollars to get us financially through this pandemic with child care for a lot of the issues that you've already pinpointed in the earlier conversation. And it sets a path to systemically starting to fund child care properly. They're in the document I sent. I just quickly go over them as they intersect with your questions. You sent that to us today? Yes, I believe my colleague, Senator Genie, about an hour ago. It's posted on our website. Sorry, not very long ago. I can just very, in two minutes, Senator, I can just tell you what they are. I mean, basically, we've actually pushed this policy document out in the last couple days and have over 750 signatures and dozens of businesses and counting, signing on. And it's basically stating that we, you know, to support children and families, all of these are absolutely appropriate with CARES Act dollars. You really do need to increase the CFP reimbursement rates they were under before. Now it's more expensive and difficult to do this work. One lever is absolutely increasing these rates and again sets us on a path into the future when we're able to dig deep and publicly finance more of this system. Our estimate is about $450,000 per month. I'm sure CDD would have a much better estimate for you, but to adequately fund the subsidy rates. And then continuing CCFAP rates based on enrollment rather than attendance as a further financial stabilization into the field. UCODE is a great sort of piece of the puzzle for families, but we believe it's far cleaner and more stabilizing to just continue subsidies based on attendance, not enrollment, excuse me, enrollment, not attendance. And finally, expanding CCFAP's work search qualifications as we slowly restart our economy beyond 12 weeks, so folks can stay on the subsidy while they're looking for work if they have lost their jobs or had other impacts like that. The second piece, adequately funding child care programs to actually hear to these guidelines, the health and safety guidelines that are crucial right now. This is where the restart grants come in. Again, $6 million huge start not enough for child care or for summer camps. The amounts that Melissa said as you end up stretching them over all these programs are not going to backfill the losses that these programs are seeing right now as they reopen. And then just continuing to understand the fight to get PPE and source that material, mostly sourcing, frankly, even beyond the payment is the real problem. And then the last two categories are supporting early educators. All of the reasons of these closures that you're seeing, what you have brought up in your questions, these poverty wages are not allowing folks to hire, replace staff that they're losing right now. So we again have calculated it's about $14 million. If you want to increase early educator wages now for sort of hazard pay in this environment, funding professional development and preparation to continue the pipeline scholarships loan forgiveness to get folks into this field, recruit and retain these early educators at this crucial time and then into the future. And those are all appropriate expenditures under CARES Act. And then the final thing is the infrastructure. You've heard it a couple times today how our hands are tied in so many ways, big and small, because we do not have a modern IT system underlying this entire child care industry. And a one time investment of $6.7 million gets us that we put it on a path last year with state appropriation through many of your colleagues committees. And we haven't finished funding that and implementing that system. So you have that in writing. Those are our recommendations. Again, this is real money and this is a real structural systemic issue. I know it's hard to face that with such a tough lagging state revenues and such a difficult pandemic response. But like you said, Senator Barouf, we all just got a front row seat to a broken system and the pain is going to bring in all of us. And it was broken before. And now we need it not just to open our economy to support these kids and families. It's one of the few things that's an intersection of supporting vulnerable Vermonters and equities and robbing the economy. I mentioned earlier, thank you, Allie. I mentioned earlier the $400 million the administration has chunked out for economic development. This is, you know, an overlap if there's a Venn diagram of education and economic development, child care centers, whether they're home based or not, are in that sweet spot. So if we're going to find money in the COVID funding for anything, it should be this area because it's two of our categories at once. Questions for Allie? Thank you for that document and the write up. I think that's very clear. Senator Hardy. Thanks, Allie. I'm looking at your document and it says the overall need of approximately $33 million, but I don't see a breakdown of the things that you listed in this document. I've seen your previous breakdowns. I don't know if it's the same or if you've altered those breakdowns, but if you have just a little, I like tables, a little table, that would be helpful just to see how you're breaking it out in the various categories you mentioned. We can follow up with that, Senator. Thank you. And I think roughly I mentioned the sort of package of wage supplements and professional development and loan forgiveness scholarships is about $14 million in our estimates. CCFAP is about $450,000 a month. The IT system is $6.7 million. And there are other pieces, but those are the broad pieces. But yes, we can get that to you. While I'm unmuted, another point that I was going to make earlier that Senator Persley caught for me in his question is we actually have been hearing on a very logistical side that some variances on background checks and deduping various needs for multiple fingerprinting is something that could possibly be a way to streamline some staffing issues that we've continuously heard from the field. Okay. Other questions for Allie Richards or for our other two witnesses? Okay. Thank you all so much. Obviously not the end of the discussion, but it's good to know what directions formally your department is headed in in terms of funding. If I look at what you've already got underway and what Allie's asking for, one possibility it seems to me is just taking the program, the startup program, and having another round later on in the fall. That would allow you to use the exact same structure, the same calculus. You would just send out a second check. That wouldn't cover all that Allie's talking about, but it might be a simplified bureaucratic means of getting more out to providers. So thank you. And again, Senator Hardy had a request and I had a request for information. So when you can get us that, that would be great. And as always, feel free to stay around, but we will be doing very boring things in the next 45 minutes. So also feel free to drop off the call. Thanks so much. Thank you so much for your time on this. Yep. Thank you. Yep. So committee, just a quick pick up on something else. Andy, I saw your email to Senator Ash and Senator Kitchell. I'm glad you're moving forward on that. You remember Andy had said he would take a look into the HVAC system and see if there was a way to develop language to make sure that we have grants for districts in terms of their circulatory machinery. So Andy, just let me know when you've got something to show to us. I did send you an email after I sent that email today. I was just like, hopefully get it on their radar so they don't go off spending all $1.2 billion. Well, there are, you know, as you probably know from other contexts and committees, the Appropriations Committee is basically putting big fences around large amounts of money. So the idea is that when we've done the BAA and the skinny budget or the three-month budget, there will still be chunks on the order of hundreds of millions left to spend for the large budget, which I think is wise on their part. And part of that is going into the administration's 600 million, you know, 400 for economic development, 200 million for healthcare, and indicating that they're not just going to green light that massive amount, they're going to probably shrink those down significantly, which will leave more for things like this, hopefully. So let's, Corey, are you ready to take a vote? There's actually a new system that Jeannie will do it and I sign off on it, but we're ready to go. Jeannie, you're ready? Jeannie, are you still with us? If not, I can take that out of the sheet. No, I'm here. I was just trying to post the document that Allie Richards sent in response to Senator Hardy's request. So that's why I was not available. I can't see you, Jeannie. Are you... You want to see me? Yeah. I always prefer to see you. Oh, golly. All right, just a minute. That's all right. If you'd prefer not, that's another question. I just have to find the little screen here. Here we go. So this is the extension on the lead work, and what was your recollection of what David Englender said they had spent on the lead program so far? I clearly heard him wrong, and I checked with him and got another figure entirely. Anybody remember? No. I thought he said... Is his rise a dollar wise? Dollar wise. Not a lot. Barely anything. Hardly any money. He thought that they shut off the faucets. Didn't he say $33,000? That sounds about right. It was really small. And so I emailed him that night, and I said, you know, I can't believe that that's all we've spent. And then he wrote back and said, no, no, we've spent $767,000. $30,000 is what I wrote down. Right. I did too. So I didn't go back and listen to the tape, but in any event, they've spent, you know, a little more than $750,000, which Ruth and Debbie will find out as amusing as I do. We fought with the house for weeks where they kept criticizing our lack of testimony and talking about how accurate their numbers were. And it looks like we will come in way below what we put in our original bill, which was... Management. 2.5, I think. I wrote down $133,133, so... Oh, did you know? Yeah, that's what I wrote down, but who knows? I could have missed it, but yeah, certainly not 2.5 million. So, Julie, would you take a roll call for us, or do you want Corey to do that? I think the clerk should take the roll call and I'll record the vote and he'll verify it. So this is entertaining a motion to concur with the house on the lead extension bill, which is 9.57. Yep. Yeah. And I have a motion from Senator Perchlich. So... And a second. Discussion? Okay, clerk will call the roll of that. Senator Hardy. Aye. Senator Ingram. Yes. Senator McNeil. Yay. Senator Perrant. Yes. Senator Perchlich. Yes. Senator Barouf. Yes. I was hoping we could find six different ways to say... You could do the... What comes to mind is that auction show that was on A&E like 10 years ago where the guy would be like, Yep. Debbie, you could go with Bangla. That's right. What would it be? Well, they don't actually do that. They repeat. They don't really have a yes so much just they repeat whatever you were asked. Ah, interesting. Okay, so that won't require much explanation on the floor, but it strikes me that neither Corey nor Jim have reported anything at this point. So would one of you like to... I mean, all you have to do is point to the findings, basically. Corey would love to because I might not be present. Okay. But I do have a note on what I wrote down for remediation was $30,100. That's what I wrote. There we go. I wrote $33,000. We're all close. We're all like this. Whether you take Ruth's $133,000 or $33,000, it was $767,000. So I think he went back and looked and refreshed his memory. Yeah. Okay. So Jeannie, does that... Do you send that to Secretary Bluma? No. I send it to Senator Perrin, who then verifies the accuracy of my... The votes as I recorded them. He sends me an email confirming the accuracy and then I send it to Peggy and she sends it on. We could make it any more complicated we would. Wow. We did not do that when we took a vote and nagged this morning. Well, I don't know. That's the instructions I got. Yeah. Bobby was the one who was so concerned about voting for us. Okay. So everybody, if you could, let's, for our last order of business, just click on the... On the website, we've got under Jim's name, the miscellaneous bill. And my thinking about this is that it's sitting in appropriations now and it's liable never to make it out because of the $400,000 we put in for, seems like a billion years ago, but proficiency-based learning, we put that in as a way of funding them to do more professional development, etc. So I started wondering, one possibility would be that we could tell Senator Kitchell that we want to just eliminate that appropriation and then move whatever in the bill we are still behind and think is worthy of this moment, just ask them to move it out with an amendment that strips out the money and whatever sections we no longer want to move, assuming that we don't want to move them all. But as I look through it again, there are, it seems to me a couple that maybe we might want to get rid of, but there are three or four that it seems to me would be worthwhile to move. So if you look at the first section, the AVIC stuff, I mean, that couldn't be more apropos at the moment. I'm thinking, you know, there was a part of me that thought, well, maybe we should go at it again in light of where we are now financially, but I think it might be better just to send the house what we have. They will inevitably take a whole bunch of testimony and make changes to what we've done. So just getting it on their radar screen, giving them some language on higher ed, you know, the question and the danger of institutions going out of business and what would happen if so, just giving them something to chew on over there might be worthwhile in and of itself. Thoughts on that section? Yeah, I think it's very pertinent as you're saying. Okay. All right, so not hearing any objections. Let's think about leaving that in. And then, you know, I'm trying to keep in mind what Senator Ash said about at a certain point, he wanted to make sure that what we were working on were things that would not seem out of place in what is still continuing to be an emergency. Obviously, we're now moving things that are not COVID related, but, you know, for instance, we'll get to it later, but the re or the language around gender equity on higher education boards. Is that something we still want to do in light of what's going on at the board of trustees level? Does it does it seem out of scale with the challenges as we now understand them with the board of trustees at VSC, for instance, and UVM? So let's hold that question. I just use that as an example. We have the repeal of the oath on page five. And I don't see any reason why we couldn't leave that in. It's just striking a piece of old language. We have Bobby Starr's small school support language, which seems to me maybe more useful in light of what we want to do for supporting child care and pre-K programs, because this would allow them to keep their small school grant and not worry about that if they want to have a pre-K program. Any objections on that? Okay, what about the wellness program? Well, you had asked me to bring that up to Health and Welfare. Yeah, how'd that go? Well, Senator Lines has not allowed me to talk about I think tomorrow she has me on the agenda. Okay, all right. So if she likes it, a possibility is we could pop it out. Same with the, I think it's the next section. Yeah, that's right. Five and six. Yeah, is that right? Yeah, and then the feminine hygiene one too was nine. Okay, so I thought they followed each other, but theoretically those could be popped out and placed in Health and Welfare language. The elections language, section seven. I'm trying to remember, I think the House dropped this into a miscellaneous bill of their own, but at this point, I can't see any problem with having it go twice, because it may be that one or the other of our bills doesn't make it. Andy? I had a constituent that contacted me recently about this, pointing out the reason they didn't like it. I can't remember right now, but they seem to, they had a good point. I can't remember what it was right now, but I had some problems with it. Yeah, well, it's moving who appoints. And it becomes from Martha Heath in Essex Westford, and it's been an issue that she's been very passionate about from last year to this year. And she obviously a former rep and well thought of in the House, and so it takes on a certain importance, but it's a good point. We shouldn't lose track of the fact that there are people who oppose it, no doubt. Right, and it just like delays to 2021. I think it's people that got forced merge, so to speak, that when they have a board opening, they can't fill it. It goes back to the merged board that appoints it. But because it is notwithstanding to the year 2021, those local boards can't send their own representative. The full board picks the replacement. And so that just, some people don't like the fact that the local town can't send their own representative if there's an opening in between elections. Yeah. Okay, so let's put an asterisk on that one. So far, that's the only thing that is a no-brainer. Then this other language, I think, do we have Jim on the line yet? No. Jim had to step out for another call. I can't remember if both of these pieces speak to the same issue or not. So let's put those to one side. And menstrual hygiene products, Debbie's going to, you'll talk about that along with the others tomorrow in health and welfare. Okay, then... And I just clarify, is that what the plan that would be added to the pre-contraceptives? The pre-contraceptives. Theoretically, if Jenny is amenable. So the special education changes, I think we've already done. So that language would get pulled. And then let's see. And we pull the proficiency-based education. Yeah, we'll pull that. Appropriation, okay. Yeah. What do you think about the gender balance UVM, VSC language? I mean, it's amazing to me how the events of the last three months have, you know, just massive changes. So I look at this completely differently now. I mean, it's still something that I think should go. But I foresee if we were to put it out alone right now that people at VSC would think it incredibly tone deaf that we would be talking about boards of trustees, but be exclusively concerned with gender balance, not with the survival of their system, loss of faith in their trustees, you know, resolutions from their faculty, votes of no confidence in their trustees. Debbie? Yeah, well, I mean, I think it's always the right time to do something that relates to the rights of people and adequate representation of the diversity of, you know, of people. And actually, I think you can make an argument that if there were more diverse voices on these boards that you would have better deliberative processes and, you know, and a better mechanism of making sure that everything is taken is considered, you know, in deliberations rather than less and that it might have actually helped to have had better balance before. Yeah, fair point. I'd say if we're going to put it out, maybe it would be good to somehow rewrite the language or put in a finding where we allude to something like that. Other thoughts, Andy? Well, I thought, I kind of agree, Debbie. I think it's fine to keep doing it, but you could give them a little more time. Do we have a deadline here? I was trying to find, I think they just have to start recording. And then it's asking for just a goal. Oh, by 2025? Yeah. Yeah, so it's aspirational. But, you know, there's been a lost year. Let's face it. So, we could change the date for the, you know, when we're expecting. Okay, other thoughts on that one, Ruth? Yeah, I mean, I agree with Debbie, of course, that I think it's always the right time for gender equity. But I do understand your point, Phil. I think that, you know, there are some people who may see it as irrelevant, but, you know, I think we can make the argument that they're wrong. But I do want to point out, though, that the VSC board, I believe, is already gender equity, already has equal drivers. And it was this, the UVM board that we were more concerned about because they were really radically off in their balance. And I think, given the testimony we've heard about how UVM is going about things, one could make the argument that they would be more likely to value equity in the budget decisions they're making and maybe wouldn't have made the decision to close their child care center and wouldn't have made the decision to cut the salaries of part-time or, you know, low-paid faculty members, probably many of whom or most of whom are women, if they had a board of trustees that was more gender balanced. So that, you know, the decisions they're making coming out of this crisis could be more equitable if they had a more balanced board. So I think that's a fair argument still to make. Yeah, agreed. Anybody feel differently? Okay, so let's consider that we'll move forward with that. I think whoever records that on the floor can indicate what Debbie and Ruth just said, but also that this is not the be-all and end-all of what we're contemplating for the institutions. So among other things we've talked about, whether in the next budget bill there should be some language around the money that goes, to UVM and the VSC, transparency of financials among other things that we had promised we might look at language concerning. So that stays in. So when Jim couldn't really be with us right now, but and does everybody agree that we should get rid of the proficiency-based appropriation? Okay. Yeah, that's what's holding up. Yeah, and you know, let's face it, we threw that out there when there was a snowball's chance in hell we might get it. Now there's not. Now the snowball has melted. Is there any value in keeping all but the appropriations? It's like keeping the issue out there even though AOE would just oppose having the language in there without the money or are you talking about getting rid of all section or to get rid of the money? Well, the whole section just is an appropriation. Right. So, you know, we took testimony on proficiency-based learning. It seemed an issue worth addressing at the time. I think it still is, but the relative importance of it given the other things we have on the radar screen now is just so I don't think there would be any any crying anywhere if we were to get rid of the whole section. Okay, so what I will do then is I'll talk with Jim and ask him to prepare an amendment for us or for appropriations, whichever seems the easiest. And next time we meet on Thursday we'll have him speak to those election pieces and maybe we can I'll talk to Jane Kitchell and see if she's amenable to just voting out what they have if the appropriation is gone. There's nothing in there other than maybe the menstrual products which do have a fiscal note attached but if that isn't in this bill then hopefully the rest should just sail out of appropriations. That would get everything that we have had prepared pre-COVID moved over to the other side. Any other business? Yeah, Debbie. Yeah, just so while you're talking to Senator Kitchell, you still intend to speak with her about the UVM patient with electors. Absolutely. You know, the complaint that they had around not being able to get financial projections and data, that seems to me something that could be addressed in the language. It's a tougher question to think about because with both UVM and VSC we're constantly asking for efficiencies and asking them to do more with less. So that's a very long-standing message out of appropriations. So basically the complaints amount to the fact that they are creating efficiencies at the bottom of the bureaucratic ladder rather than at the top. So, you know, it'll be interesting to try to mesh what our committee might think about that and what the appropriations committee might think because if you spend time in appropriations you know it tends to be a more, I would say, a somewhat more conservative, physically conservative committee than this one or other committees of jurisdiction, maybe by necessity. So I will have that conversation. I'll update everybody once I do. So we will meet on Thursday. We might have a short meeting on Thursday, but I will see all of you then. Andy? Well, you can look at the email I sent you. I did send you kind of an outline of this program, this, you know, school ventilation grant program, but let me know, you know, we can talk Thursday maybe or... Yeah, let's pick that up on Thursday. Okay. Okay. And Jeanie, if you want to stay on the line we can do a little talk about Thursday. Okay. Just so you know, Jim has just entered. Jim, we've just finished, but if you can join us Thursday and if you can stay on the line now I'll tell you what we sort of tentatively talked about. Can you hang on for a few minutes, Jim? Oh, sorry. Yeah, I missed the beginning of your sentence so I didn't know what you were doing too. So yeah. Okay. So if Jeanie and Jim can hang out I'll see everybody tomorrow in the Senate call. All right. Okay, I'm ending line of stream. Okay. Great. So Phil, sorry about that. I was having a call with Tim Ash talking about...