 Welcome back to the Vermont House of Appropriations Committee. It is Wednesday, January 25th, 2023. It is a couple of minutes after 1.30 and we have with us the chair of House Human Services. We've asked for their participation because their part of the BAA is very extensive and we're grateful for your help walking us through the letter. Do we have your letter? You have it. Do we have it, Erin? Yes. Okay. I don't have it. I don't have it. I mean, your email has it. Okay. So let me bring that up. So does the rest of the committees have it? No. Not yet. Not yet. All right, Erin. That's perfect. Oh, see? And bring it up so we're ready. I do not have it posted. Thank you, Jim. Always. Always. Oh. Pretty good for a chuckle. This is our temporary location and we arrived here an hour and a half before we went live. Discovered that none of the outlets on the outside wall were functioning. So I'm pretty sure our crew will be ready. And I keep saying this, but we can produce the Colbert show in 20 minutes. Here's Madam Chair. You're the definition of making it work. Well, I've got an incredible team in there. We'll have to hang with me right now. I think there's phones. Can I come from you? It came from my committee assistant, Lori Morse. Is it functioning on your website? We can find it there. And we don't have a printer in this world. I can give you my version that says just approve everything. There you go. Okay. All right. Erin, you don't have it, right? I do not have it. Is it posted on your committee website? It is posted on the House Human Services Committee webpage. Okay. Yes. I'm going to find it there as well. Today's date. Oh, so it's on your committee? It is. It is also sent to your committee chair, but it might be easier and faster to find it on our committee's webpage. Yeah. While I send this to the state diaper bank proposal. Oh, yeah. I know that one. Here we go. Erin, I just sent it to you. Okay. Yeah, Human Services Committee. It's under Katie McClendon. I got it. It's on your committee. Remind me. No, it's on your committee. I sold it to you. Is it today? Yeah. Yes. Under today. Okay. All right. How long do we have you for that you are willing to go to? As long as you need me for Madam Chair. 130. We'll try our best because we know you're busy. It's okay. It's okay. Our committee is functioning under the capable direction of my vice chair. This mentorship didn't last long. See, you're under the bus. Yes. I don't want to be able to find things anymore. He's already surpassed your. He's already surpassed. Oh, I've taken the table from his hand. Then chair, how would you like me to proceed? Are you guys got it? Anybody? All right. For the record, ma'am. Okay. Thank you for the record. I'm represent Teresa Wood, chair of the House Human Services Committee. Thank you for having me in your beautiful committee room this afternoon. With a lovely view of downtown Montpelier. And I appreciate the opportunity to be here to review the House of Human Services budget adjustment recommendations for fiscal year 23. We have a number of adjustments as you might expect. The first thing that I want to do is in. If we in general agreed with the governor, you will find this not making necessarily very specific recommendations around that. However, of course, there's always exceptions and you will see the exceptions. The language sections. I want to just particularly call out. I want to particularly called out the refugee resettlement investments for the employment programs. We learned that it's not necessarily like a brand new program. It's something that they are doing and is to expand that. And that was contained in the language in particular. Well, I don't know if I'm not going to give you page numbers, because what you have is probably a little bit different than what I have. So I just wanted to mention that as well as the cares housing voucher program. We support that. We didn't specifically address that in our memo. We do address housing in our memo in other areas, but I just wanted to call those particularly. I think those are the only two things that I wanted to call out in particular. So let me move to the memo. We organize this by department. We comment on the Department for Children and Families, the Department of Disabilities, Aging and Independent Living, and the Vermont Health Department. And for DCF, we break it down into their major divisions and units of government so that hopefully it's easy to follow. And we also indicate the B number on our memo so you can find a corresponding on your spreadsheet if you're looking. I do seek to be an overachiever. So under the reach-up program, this is something that is in the governor's recommend, but we really did feel we needed to make a comment here. Frankly, at the end of last fiscal year or during budget testimony last fiscal year, we encouraged the department because we knew that there was going to be an uptick in caseload. The department's own reports by their outside consultants indicated that. And they did not feel that they wanted to include that in their 23 budget request and said that they would be here in budget adjustment and lo and behold, they are here in budget adjustment with a make. Yes, I'm sorry, I see that question or a comment or something. Yes. Do you have any idea why there's an uptick in caseload? You know, given that, you know, we still have extraordinarily low unemployment and more jobs and people to fill out. That is something that members of our committee are looking into in terms of looking at the FY24 budget, which we'll be able to report better for you on that. The estimates that the department's consultant views taken to consideration of a variety of factors, including the economy, including all the things really that you just spoke of, Representative Harrison, I don't have a copy of their report right here. It is on the committee's web page from last year. I can certainly find that and forward a link for you to that report that shows what the estimates are based on. And what we're seeing is that those estimates held true in fiscal year 23 and that they are experiencing a caseload and therefore asking for this adjustment. So you're thinking they just under budgeted this year? They did under budget this year. We pointed that out to them. They failed to follow their own recommendations from their consultant. And we pointed that out and they said, well, we'll deal with it and budget adjustments. And that's why we're here. They did under budget. In my opinion, Representative Harrison, it was under budgeted. Yes. Okay. No, thank you. I just, and I'm sure it's not a simple as looking at unemployment or workforce shortages. No. It seems to me contrary. The trend seems contrary than what I would be expecting in a strong job. And often, oftentimes the reach of caseload is a prelude to the future economic trends in the state. So, so I don't want to be a forbearer of potentially bad news, but just let you know that that's the bucket half full. Well, right now this is about 3,500 families, 3,480 families. And I made a note to find the report that we received last year and I'll send you a link to that represent Harrison. Thank you. The General Assistance Emergency Housing B321. This is no shortage of information and advocacy around homelessness here in the state. And we continue with that from our committee. We agree with, you know, everyone who speaks to the who speaks to the inability of the hotel and motel program to be a long term solution to our homelessness problem. However, we do have a March 15, 2023 termination date coming for the existing transitional assistance housing program. And we are looking to not have three particular categories of individuals be impacted by that change. And so we are recommending of what essentially right now would be in your terms one time dollars to extend assistance to those individuals at those households who have an individual who is 60 years of age or older. Those households who have a person with a disability and those households who have children 18 years of age and younger. The number of households that that means, so families with children there are 357 households. Those with someone with an older Vermonter is 273 households and those with a person who is living with a disability is 348 households. And you can see at the top of page two we give you suggested language from legislative council that would enable those individuals to remain housed until the end of this fiscal year. Hoping that we are able to somehow during the 24 budget process work with the department advocates those individuals with experience and to try to come up with something that is more sustainable. I can tell you that this is not the full amount that advocates were requesting. We prioritize those three populations in our committee. So we are recommending 13, almost 13.5 million dollars, 13 million, 424,710 dollars to ensure that those three populations that I spoke of would be served through the general assistance housing program. So they would transition from the program that's ending in March to the general assistance program, which is an ongoing program. Representative Schaik. Thank you, Chair. This is really helpful. I really love having all those numbers as a numbers person. So we're talking about 978 households that are impacted. And how do you arrive at the 13.4 million? Is there some formulas like 5000 a night? I don't know. How do you figure that out? We actually requested the data from the department. Okay. So these are figures provided by the Department for Children and Families. Okay. And then the 2 million. I haven't gotten to that one yet. Oh, okay. That's fine. I'm about to. Okay. You mentioned it, but you're going to tell me. Yeah. Okay. The additional 2 million is right now there are a number of coordinated care teams. I think you've heard of them. They've pulling together people from home health agencies from various other agencies within the state government, as well as some of our community providers. And they are attempting really to help with some of these complex cases that are out there who require additional care coordination. Because folks in the motel and hotel programmer, they don't generally receive care coordination. So this is people who need help with health care, people who need help accessing supportive services and obviously trying to find permanent housing as well. And a lot of this, you'll note that we indicated that's for hiring and or retaining coordinated care teams. We are providing some feedback that most of this is being done right now by individuals who have some connection to either a current private provider and or DCF itself. And the additional resources are needed in order to be able to provide that complex care coordination for those individuals who will hopefully, if you recommend approval of this, be maintaining in the hotel motel program through the end of the fiscal year. Representative Shai, did you have a question now? So just quickly, you indicated this wasn't what the advocates were asking. Would you mind saying what they were asking for? For this aspect of it, the one that we have 13.4 million, they were asking for roughly 21 million. Okay, in additional, you said you got this number doing some projections from DCF. Yes. Does DCF support this addition? Because I don't think it was in their... No, this is a committee recommendation. No, I get that. They support the governor's budget adjustment request. So they don't like the additional money then? I'm not going to put words in their mouth. They tell me they support the governor's budget adjustment request. All right, thank you. Okay, so that's it for the Economic Services Division. Anybody, we all sound that? Okay. Moving on to Child Development Division, B318, the Child Care Workforce. So you may recall... Well, some of you may recall, a few of you may recall. We allocated $7 million in last year's budget for retention, essentially retention bonuses to go out to the Child Care Workforce. The Department for Children and Families has had a difficult time getting that money on the street. There are roughly $2 million of it has gone out, and we're now closing in on the seventh month of the fiscal year. We investigated whether there would be the possibility of granting the remaining balance of those funds to a private entity organization in order to be able to maybe get those funds out to the Child Care Workforce and providers in a more expeditious fashion. We were told by the Department that that really would not reduce the requirements for any of the grant agreements. And so while we thought that that might be a potential solution, they tell us that because of their grant restrictions, that those all would need to be followed even by a third party. We remain troubled by this. I'll be honest. This is impacting the Child Care Workforce, and it is what some providers refer to as a fairly onerous process to receive these funds. And I will point out that when the program initially launched this summer, the Department for Children and Families was requiring child care providers to expend the funds first and then get reimbursed for them. Yeah, of course, there was a significant outcry about that. These are not programs that operate on a large margin. And so they had an inability to offer those and then be reimbursed for them. So they did rethink that. However, we are still faced with significant delays in getting this money out the door. And I know that the Department is working on this. They continue to work on it. You know, we've asked if we can have assurances that all the money will be, you know, make its way to the intended recipients. We can't get any guarantees about that. I'm just putting that out there. So we don't have any language or you don't have a... The only thing that we felt that we could really do in this regard is part of what the issues that some providers have told us is that they just literally don't have the capacity to sit down, look at the requirements, fill out the application, do the interface back and forth with the department, get the grant agreement signed, and, you know, move on from there. And so we are suggesting that with some of the money that's already been appropriated that there's enabling language that allows the department to issue a contract to a private partner that will assist child care providers in filling out the applications and getting them into DCF. DCF does not have the staff to be able to do that themselves. I'm very familiar to the rural approach. Representative Shah. Is there a reason it's so hard to get this money? I mean, you said the application process. Does it have to be that hard? Could they revise it and make it easier? Are there some federal or other rules that make it... I'm trying to remember if this ended up being federal money or state money. I'm not sure if... It is general fund. For the child care retention, it's general fund dollars. So they can set the rules. We have been unable to impact that, Madam Vice Chair. Okay, thank you. So it's safe to say the rules have already predicted that it's in the way. Not predicted. That's demonstrated that they're in the way of getting it. Yes, as well as the capacity of child care providers to apply for the funding. So the fact that it's state general fund gives us more latitude and flexibility. I'm just going to say, across AHS, we're hearing more and more about contracting issues. I'm just going to put that out there. Not only in DCF, but DCF has a lot of contracts and grants out. So I'm not really sure what has happened in the grants and contracts administration world in the agency human services. But I have heard multiple complaints about that process and the difficulty of that process. And so this is emblematic of what I've heard from other providers, not in the child care world. Madam, can I ask a question? I'm okay. I got my answer. Thank you. Okay, so when we talk about this area, this is in the human services agency that works with the grants and the assistance and the funds. And you're saying, from giving this right, you're saying that they're having a hard time getting applicants to get the grants in or having a hard time processing the grants or is it both? I don't know how the workflow within the agency of human services, we didn't speak to contracts or grants managers. Yeah. So I can't speak to whether or not they're feeling overburdened by the workload. I can't speak to that representative in but I can speak to the fact that the community members, the childcare providers have found it difficult to apply for these funds in many cases. And so that's why we're recommending using a small portion. We don't say a specific amount if you wanted to put a specific amount you could, but we're suggesting that a portion of that $7 million be allocated to assist childcare providers to actually apply for those funds. But do you see this more than just childcare? I am seeing this in multiple areas. Yes, the grants and contracts management. I don't really know what's happened, but it's like somebody flipped a switch and something has become extremely difficult. When they weren't before? They've become more difficult. I mean, the state's contract and grant process has always been, you know, a process. You know, it's public funds we're dealing with. So I don't want to get too off track. I just need to make that. We have a little bit of a line. Yeah. So we're presented shy and we're presented alone. So because it's general fund, they aren't restricted by and they can, it sounds like, and I believe it was our intent having been on this committee last year when we created this to make it as easy as we could to get the money out the door to the people who needed the money. And what I'm hearing is that the agency has created something that has made it much harder than anyone anticipated to get the money. And that's a large reason that the money is out. I just find it a shame to think that we'd have to spend some of the money that we were going to give to the people who need it to hire a contractor to help them fill out the form so they can get the money. I mean, I appreciate that you're trying to help them up. I don't disagree with you representative. I'm sorry. Thank you. I'm done. Representative. Did you have a chance to respond? I mean, one report to the committee, but one of the things that they said is due to the iteration timelines, but our companies, they were unable to enforce the work requirement. So part of it, I think is you're trying to also loosen the language. Nope, that's not with regard to this. Okay. We will address that shortly. Okay. Good. I wasn't sure how long the language. You said there was a line. There was. Okay. Okay. So that was the first, that was the first part of that. So any assistance that the appropriations committee can provide to loosening up that contractual requirement, we are all set to be on board with that. The next, the next section are funds that were as a result of the h 171, which was a childcare bill and set up student loan repayment assistance and scholarship programs. And you may recall that there were, there was some specific language with regard to the qualifications, the timelines and all of all of that. So I'm happy to report that one of the programs has been fully utilized and actually has a waiting list and that's the teach program, which I think that has something to do also with the fact that it was an existing program. So people knew about it. They were familiar with it. And that program was ready. And, you know, they were on their way. So they already existed. It was, it was well has been well utilized. In terms of the student loan repayment assistance, we are record. So I want to say $2.7 million is allocated to that only $256,817 and 18 cents. I just want you to know to get detailed only $256,817 has been spent to date. And so we are suggesting you will see on page three of our memo we are suggesting some changes that brought in eligibility a bit to be able to utilize more funds and essentially allow the department more flexibility and in providing payments to the childcare workforce. So the first you will see halfway down the page in paragraph 2b and that is looking at the annual salary of not more than $60,000 from $50,000 an increase of $10,000 looking to also impact childcare directors. And then in C to C, you will see that the language that says within the preceding five years has been struck. So essentially what we're saying is if you are still paying off student loans and you're in the childcare workforce, the fact that it's six or seven years old really is inconsequential. We really feel like you should be able to receive assistance. We want to keep you in the childcare workforce. And so we are suggesting removing the preceding five years requirement. And these, by the way, for people who might be unfamiliar with this language, this is language that the House Human Services Committee had put in the bill and was then adopted by the House and not to leave the Senate and the body. So we are recommending essentially changes to our own language. Representative Page. Yes, I have a question regarding the federal scholarship program that we've heard so much about. Does that have any effect upon what you're trying to do here as well? Yes, of course. I mean that came about after our bill was passed and certainly people are eligible for the people who are eligible and applied for that might not think about applying for this, but in effect they could be eligible for both. And then we have added an additional category under C2. And this connects, it, one adds master's degree and it connects to the early childhood career ladder certificate program through Northern Lights at the Community College. So again, we are looking at the additional education requirements and the professionalization of the field and making additional education available to people in the field and broadening what we are intending to spend this $2.7 million on. So this is not requesting any additional funds, unlike the housing. This is just saying let's take what we've already appropriated and change the language a bit to enable what we've appropriated to be used. And that appropriation is all general fund. That's something you have to speak with JFO about. I think there was some federal funds that got mixed up in that. That's the 2.7. Yeah. Are we on page 4 now? Yes, we moved to page 4. Oh yeah, there was one more thing. So what we were saying is if this D is an addition, that if you would have otherwise qualified when we make these changes, then you can, so if you applied and you didn't qualify because the program was more narrow now that we're recommending widening it up, you are eligible for a payment if you had met the eligibility requirements within the last 12 months. So they can either reapply towards? Yeah. Hopefully they won't have to reapply. Hopefully they have the applications and they can just send them the money. So this is just making it clear that we're essentially saying we're not retroactive to 12 months. You get 2. They're not blocked out. They're not blocked out. Right. That's it, except for you will be seeing a mention in the Family Services Division. The Child Care Financial Assistance Program was under spent by 5. something million dollars that is now being transferred to the Family Services Division. But I will address that momentarily. So we also have to move on from that. Okay, it looks like we are. All right. Children's Integrated Services. Last year we, this is one of the areas that has had a rate study over the past few years. And we have made incremental progress to moving the per member per month rate up. This is a package of services for children with intensive needs, very young children with intensive needs. And this is, they, we had received mixed reports, frankly, about whether or not the department had instituted the 650 per member per month, which is what we had intended. We verified that in fact they have. And however, there is also an increased caseload in this line. Now the department is accommodating that increased caseload by transferring funds within the department. So there's no request for new funds. But this statement is just to merely ensure that they do not pay for the new individuals, the new caseload folks at a reduced per member per month. We want to make sure that that 650 per member per month is paid for all recipients. I want myself. Madam Chair. Madam Chair. We had a request or at least heard a request in our public hearing around this. Does the number 265, does it spring a bell? 265. 265. I don't know what you heard from the hearing. This is a service that's required to be provided for eligible children. And it's essential. It's very early. It's part C. So if you bear with me for a minute, we'll find it here. I just want to make sure that we're talking the same. Yes, I don't. If you if you could elaborate on the question that you heard, I may be able to answer that. Yeah, 265,000 for CIS. Higher 1575 families per month. Is that maybe the new case? We received assurances that that there is case load growth, that they are accommodating the case load growth by transferring from unused unused funds in other areas. And that we are wanting to make sure that the $650 per member per month that they did increase the rates for are applied to all individuals. So I think that there has been some concern on the part of community members that the new case load people would get a lower rate. And there are sufficient funds within the DCF budget to accommodate this. So it's not new. Well, what we heard from or who we heard from just to give you a list from the Winston Proudie Center in Brattleboro. And we were going to ask you because we didn't know if they were asking just for their part of the world or is it a statewide? We haven't ferried it that out yet. So you're saying that right now the 650 if it stays for everyone is sufficient. 650 and they're covering all case load. Is there any reason to think that the department would in fact reduce the rate for new people? That's why we see doing this. That's why we see a paragraph here because we had received feedback that there was discussions about paying a lower per member per month rate for the new case load. So you want language in here that says that won't happen? That is what we are hoping, yes. Do we have that or do you want us? We didn't come up with specific language, no. Okay, moving on to the Family Services Division. Okay. So essentially the savings that were achieved in the Child Development Division are being transferred to the Family Services Division. Family Services Division deals with foster care, deals with justice-involved juveniles, deals with a whole host of things in supporting children and youth who are either away from their family temporarily or in some times permanently and those youth who have some court involvement. And so it's probably not news to anyone that since Woodside is closed there has been a patchwork of trying to figure out how to appropriately refer to it. I'm just going to say a patchwork of things that have been cobbled together under great stress for Family Services Division staff and Family Services workers in particular who have been doing yeoman's work covering some of these young people who are struggling significantly and in some cases causing physical harm to Family Services workers. So I just need to put that out there. We by no stretch have a system that is accommodating this need right now. You have all read in the news about the Newberry facility and that is in the Supreme Court right now. So we are not expecting any judgment on that for up to a year. And the department has submitted a plan which you can find on our website that essentially looks at a sort of a four-tiered approach to these juveniles that need extra assistance. What they are proposing to use these funds for are for a eight-bed pod-like. We prefer to call them tiny homes as opposed to pods because they are going to be home for these youth for a period of time. And pods just sounds, I don't know, even smaller. So we have had significant discussion with the department about this. And it would be inappropriate to say that our committee supports this on any kind of long-term basis. However, we really honestly feel like we're caught between a rock and a hard place at this point in time because we cannot as a state afford to do nothing. It's impacting those youth. It's impacting the state's workforce, impacting the families, the school systems. And so we cannot afford to do nothing. Is this the best solution? It is the best that people are able to come up with at the time at this time. And it is a temporary, and I just want to call to folks' attention, temporary in this world means four, five, six years. We're not talking about temporary, meaning four, five, six months. So we are supporting the governor's request in the BAA with conditions. He's looking to transfer $4.6 million for startup and construction costs of a secure residential stabilization facility. And it's called something else on your budget sheet. It is B327, but it's called, I don't have it right here in front of me, called something slightly different. That's a different level of their, you know, they have a different, and this is what they testified that this would serve. So right now the plan is to utilize part of the 60-some-odd acres at the St. Albans Correctional Facility to house the pods. You know, we have some misgivings about that. They want to use state-owned land. They have a community that is, that they are working, that community is working with them, which is one of the criteria. And it being temporary. We have, I've talked with Chair Emmons about this, because this is essentially a capital expenditure. And she, you know, you should obviously do your own checking on this, but we've had, you know, a couple of discussions about that. She's aware of this request, and she's also received a copy of our recommendations. We are saying that we need additional, so we're approving it with conditions. We believe that we need more information around a longer term plan. There is no budget that's presented. I'm sure in 24 budget we will see operating costs associated with this and further development costs. But, you know, we were essentially just given a number, you know, and without any backup information. And while we don't want to hold up the process from moving along because it does need to move along, you'll see in our narrative that we really feel that we need more information about what your plans are for a location for a permanent facility, and how long you think that that might take, and the timeline and budget as well as design for this temporary facility. And we would like to see that by the end of March because one, we don't want to, we don't want this to be held up, but we also, you know, we don't want to make a mistake, you know. And so we want to deal with the issue, but we feel like we need to do our due diligence in terms of seeing more detail than what has been provided to us. I wanted to move the process along, but say we need more information. I've got Representative Schein, Representative Harrison, Representative Dickinson. Thank you for this. Two questions. If this were to get approved, how long would it take to be operational before it's actually operational, and how many people could it serve at one time? They said that this is still requiring a year lead time and eight. Okay. Thank you. There's quite a long lead time on construction stuff, as you know. That could be a lot worse. Well, that's your estimate. Yes. And I will say that the plan right now is to contract this service. The actual service. The staffing of it is to contract. So we would address that. I'm presuming in the FY24 budget, but they did tell us that their intention is to do that. Representative Harrison and Representative Dickinson. Representative Page, did I miss you? Okay, good. Okay. I apologize if you already told us this, but I'm trying to get my arms around this. If we're doing eight tiny homes or pods, whatever you want to call it, and for $4.6 million, I want to get in the housing business pretty bad. I mean, we're talking $800,000 a piece, whatever, $600,000. Well, no, remember there's site work that needs to be done. There's, I mean, there is no like, you know, slab of concrete out there that says, okay, come put your pod on me. So, and the thing that you will see in our description is that this also at the top of page five, this is also for renovations required in the, I'm not sure if you heard testimony about the Wyndham County Sheriff's Program. Well, it's not the Sheriff's Program. Wyndham County Program that the Sheriff's Office is assisting DCF with. Two beds. That's two beds down there. There's three beds down there, but there's one in the upper floor and two in the lower floor. The lower floor is not yet complete. It requires renovations in order to be occupiable. I guess if that's a word. And so it would include what the work that needs to be done there. Yeah, no, I'm not. We need to do something because we keep coming as can because we can. Yeah, I understand. I know just the back of the envelope math seems like. Well, as you can see, this is why we are asking for additional information. We feel like the process needs to move along, but we feel like that. We want more detail, frankly, about, you know, what the costs are for, you know, how much is for site preparation? How much is for the actual pods themselves? How much is going to the design? There's some engineering work that needs to be done at the Wyndham County Sheriff's location. You know, how much money is allocated to that? You know, we. So, okay, thank you. Well, we will hopefully have more information if you agree with putting such a deadline in here. Thank you. More than a passing interest to me. Oh, really? Yes, I'm sure you were aware. I spoke to the select board, I guess it was presented to them last week, maybe a week before. And they have not approved it. They have sent it off to zoning and are thinking about it. So I'm not sure where that's going to end up. But the point is, is that this is a correctional center. And I'm sure you understand that Woodside was, everyone's intentionally, it may still be a therapeutic medical facility that would do with counseling and helping these young people who are troubled too. It was never intended to be a correctional center for youth. In fact, one of the reasons the federal government finally took away the money for Woodside is because it sure did look like a prison. They treated it like a prison. They destroyed it. It was a mess, a hot mess, and closed it down. So here you're placing this facility on a correctional center where they have basically our maximum security facility. So representative, these are all the same conversations that we have had in our committee over the last two days. And it is one of the things that, perhaps I might find some humor in this that makes this less costly than it would be, is that they want to utilize state-owned property. And yes, are there other locations for state-owned property? They have not made an absolute final decision about that. As you said, are in discussions with the town officials about it. The other state-owned properties that they have considered have not risen to the top of their recommendations. It is, we were very clear that what the services are for these youth are to try to enable them to take a moment, take a breather, realize you don't have to have a life like you have right now. And to get the support that they need in order to be able to change things for themselves and for their future. And I think that I might even use the statement that we don't want them looking out their window and seeing barbed wire. And it's a concern for us. And it is why on paper, you know, we're going on record that saying that we will not agree to a permanent facility being located on the same grounds as a correctional facility. I did receive information that that is, that some people agree with that in the administration and others do not. You might recall the people who have been here for a while. About five years ago, the administration presented a plan to have a campus at the site of the St. Albans, which I understand is really in Swanton. Is that correct? No, it's really in the town, but the address is Swanton. Okay, somebody told me it was really in Swanton. I was like, well, I want to give a town. It's due, but okay. So there was a proposal by the administration to put the women's facility there to expand whatever and replace or rehabilitate men's facilities and to put the replacement for Woodside on that. And as a body, we said no to that. And, you know, I have expressed, we have expressed our concern that this is, we don't want this to be viewed as our tacit approval of an incremental approach to that ultimate plan. That's correct. We've been very clear about that in human services. I don't see another alternative right at this point in time. We are a member of my committee and a member of representative Emmons committee are going to do a site visit to visually see where this location is the proximity to the current buildings that are there. And to have the opportunity to have more dialogue and details about exactly what the plan is. But I was pretty sure that your committee did not want us to wait on getting you our recommendations for BAA to get all of that. So we wholeheartedly concur, represent Dickinson with what you just said. This is not a place for any kind of permanent facility. And frankly, it will have an impact on those who travel through there in the next period of time. If we end up, you know, in the end agreeing to that plan, we have concerns about it as well. Yeah. Well, one comment and then another question. Temporary can sometimes mean a whole lot more than four to six years. I think we've been in the middle sex 10, 10, 12 years, 10, 11 years. And I just want to say that I would like more information on what the plan is. You know, is it going to be outdoor access for these these young people and how is that going to work with the correctional? I mean, that could be, you know, not that they would escape so much as that they would be then very close and able to be very close to the actual correctional center in a way that maybe neither you nor anybody else wants. Right. And that's that's why I said we want to do an actual site visit, have eyes on to it and carefully deliberate about this. And we want to learn from, you know, previous actions of the body. Thank you. I completely concur with and I'm sympathetic with your desire for more information about this interim solution and a more long term solution. I just, I guess I have a technical issue. We're talking about possible language in the bill, right? Yeah. So if the bill if the language asks for a report by March 31, but the bill doesn't become effective until April. April or whatever. Well, we had April, but then we said, oh, no, we really want it sooner. I know. I'm just wondering out mechanically. I'm very sympathetic with this. How do we do this mechanically? So it has some pull. I mean, if this could wait until the budget and they could put in the bill that that will be July. Right. Yeah. And so I can't wait. So if we condition the BAA, how does it work? So mostly we're thinking about other places where great idea go forth and develop. We call putting a fence around that money. Yeah. We're not appropriating it just yet, but we're saying we're reserving it for this process. So it's conditional. Conditional. So in other words, they can't get the money till they comply with it. We're not right. We're not authorizing the use. That's that the intent of this is that we're not authorizing the use of that money until they comply with a plan. Thank you. I know what we did with the night. Is it PSAPS and dispatch regional dispatching? Great idea. Not ready yet. They know this is in the budget for that date. They can start working on this now. They are listening to us and they know this is a priority. Yes, they reported to the Joy Justice Oversight Committee in December with sort of a sketch of the plan. And so they are working with the Department of Buildings and General Services and they have got estimates for the pods and the like. And I think it is, you know, working with the appropriate officials in a receiving town, they're trying to work in a collaborative fashion. And, you know, I really feel our role is to try to make sure that we mean temporary, you know, and that this is a transition to something that is more permanent and that, you know, I guess a future legislature could change our decision. But we're not interested in this on a correctional facility property for extended periods of time. So representative Mahaly, let me maybe try this on for size. All right, so we've got the BAA, which is so you know, you don't want, doesn't have to stay in BAA. Let's just say in March that, you know, there's wonderful things that happen between now and then and that there's some sort of new thing. We can literally lift it up and put it in the big bill. Because the BAA comes back from the Senate, we'll come back, they'll have many changes. It's going to, everything's going to be percolating, everything's alive all the time. Nothing's ever done until the governor signs it. And conversely, if they don't comply, the money just might disappear from the final bill. Yes. Right, got it. Thank you. Just to be clear, it's not an additional appropriation, unlike our housing. It's a transfer from one of their unspent lines. So we don't have to break this money in as new money. There, we're just saying your ideas, we're just going to hold it. Yeah. I really, you know, to be fair, I really do see them working with us on this. Okay. They know that, you know, we're concerned about the status of the current status. You know, it's no news to anybody, but Acting Commissioner Chen will be gone before this report is due. And so, you know, I'm hopeful that we can work even sooner. Well, we will continue to be working with the department, you know, even as this BAA is moving through the process. So it's not like we're going to wait for some final language and say, oh, you know, now, now we'll get to work. You know, we will be continuing to work on that represent. Thank you. You're welcome. Madam chair, I wonder if you know that they looked at any other sites. Yes, the primary buildings in general services said they looked at three or four sites. They did not elaborate on which ones they were, but it's fairly short list. You know, I mean, we own property in Middlesex. We own property in Bridgens. We own property in Windsor. We own property in St. Albans. You know, so I suspect that they ruled those out for some reason, which you don't know. Okay. Those would be questions that we would ask. Well, like more of the wise. Yeah. Okay. Okay. All right. We're going to move on now to the foster care system. Oh, no, Lund. Sorry. I don't want to skip over Lund. Okay. So. Oh, because we talked about this earlier today. Oh, okay. Okay. All right. You're going to clear us. I have no idea if I'm going to clear you up. We had some confusion in our committee yesterday about 1.1 and 1.2. Oh, did you have that same discussion? Oh, okay. Well, good. Well, they are two different amounts. Okay. So 1.1 is in the governor's recommended BAA. Okay. That is for increased caseload. As we understand it increased caseload related to reach up. Reach up eligible families. That was 1.1. This 1.2 million is essentially, and again, it's one time funds to get them through the end of this fiscal year. And before we, I want to back up just for a second. I know that people are familiar with the Lund center, but I just want to, I guess, place an asterisk of importance next to the services that they provide for, for moms, mostly, who have substance use issues and are also trying to learn how to parent their children. And, you know, when you're dealing with substance use, that's, you know, a major, major thing in and of itself and trying to do that in a process or in a place where, you know, there are challenges all around you. And so then add to that being a new parent and or being an expected parent. And so I just, I just want to sort of put a human face on the types of services that they provide. And to also note for you that three to four years ago, DCF eliminated one portion of the program that used to be funded for the Lund center. So if you think about, if you think about recovery in sort of a step process, our committee took a site visit to the Jenna's promise up in Johnson recently and they have essentially a three step process where they move people through from, you know, where they first come in directly from, you know, a short term detox kind of situation into there and they move them through stages to ultimately independent living with supports. And the department eliminated step two, you know, so the sort of more transitional and supports for independent living are not provided anymore through the Lund center. And so we need this asset. This is part of our battle against substance use. And it's part of our battle to try to have these children have a different kind of life than, you know, maybe that they are born into. And so, all right, that was just my, that was just my commercial about the so important, the importance of the Lund center. So the Lund center is not just one place. No, no, it is not. So they, there, you will, you saw, I think in the governor's language about PNMI private non medical institutions rate increases going into effect for PNMI. So the Lund center is impacted by that in a positive way. So they will receive increases, you know, when the PNMI increases, if that goes through. This is the hold them until that happens. This is the close the gap until PNMI happens. And that's, well, that's it. I don't need to say anymore. That's, that's, I don't need to talk anymore. I'm going to say close the gap until the 1.1. That's totally. No, the one, the one point. The next year. The 1.2 that we're recommending here is that's, that's the close the gap. That is, this is not in the governor's recommended budget. Okay. And the 1.1 is what's thrown us. Right. Yeah. We got confused by that too, but we got it cleared up. Do we get it? Do we don't have it? Yeah, that's where we were. They're two separate things. Thank you. We got representative here. So if I'm reading the notes here, this is to serve an additional eight to 12 individuals. Okay. I think we're going to be able to increase their capacity with staffing it up. For the rest of this fiscal year. And then with the PNMI increase going into effect. Yes. They would be able to have a higher level of occupancy. Can they even hire the staff to take care of the date to 12 or do they need to hire staff to take care of them? Yes. This, this will be part of the plan to increase occupancy. They need to hire in additional staff. Yes. And then with the PNMI and anything related to healthcare and mental health. Can they, can they hire the staff? I'm talking about the money. I understand. They believe that they can. Okay. It's a very, I mean, you know, a mission driven organization and there are people passionate about trying to help, you know, young moms with substance use. So they, they believe that that will be possible with this additional funds. And that, that will be supported on going with the PNMI. I just, you know, I understand because it's challenging. Yeah. I agree. I understand. Okay. Now moving on to foster care. Foster care is, you know, we hear all about all the other residential programs. Okay. We hear a lot about justice involved youth. And okay. Those are really small portion of the kids that we support in the state who are not either temporarily or sometimes permanently with their families. The foster care system is really the foundation upon which all of that other stuff exists. And foster parents have not received sufficient support in our opinion during the pandemic. Yeah. So they were given a one-time payment as part of, I don't remember if it was, you know, which version of the COVID money it was. I don't remember if it was our bar or whatever the previous versions were now. I can't even remember their names. Yeah. So they were given a one-time payment and there is a calculation that is involved with giving them sometimes a small increase. And they have received a 5% increase in the rates paid. And I know you're going to ask me how much is that. And I don't have that off the top of my head. But I will get that. I should have had that. So we are recommending to support this group of individuals. And this is something in the way that it is worded is important. One-time payment to foster care providers who have active, who are active as of January 1. I mean, we picked January 1 just because it was the beginning of the year. It wasn't any, there's nothing special about it other than it's New Year's Day. And right now there are currently 886 children currently in foster care. You'd be surprised how difficult it was for us to get a number of children in foster care. I heard about that. So looking for, the reason there's no number there is because it's not in the budget. There is a number. We're recommending approximately 433,000. No, in the governor's recommendation. Yeah, it is not. This is an addition. This is not. We won't see a B number. There is not a B number. Right. But there's no B number. That means that this is an addition by the Human Services Committee in terms of our recommendation. So 433,000. Yeah. That's our best estimate. Representative Shai. So I appreciate that this system has been highly stressed. What do you expect to be the result of a $500 payment to the families? What we expect to be the result of that is an acknowledgement by the state and by the system that we value what you have been doing, that we understand the stress that you've been under, and we appreciate you. Not to mention all the increased costs because of inflation and they, you know, they house and feed and clothe the foster children. And their payments have been going up, I assume. Not commensurate with the level of inflation that we've had. No, for sure. Did we do other? Sorry. I was just going to say, having worked on the other side, the state owes a huge debt of gratitude to those families. Did we, what have we done the last couple of years to help foster parents over and above the regular rate? Did we do that? That's what I was mentioning earlier. We've made one payment in a previous COVID relief money. And I'd have to go back and double check the amount. I want to say it was $300 or $400. It was a one-time payment, like we're suggesting here. I'm pretty sure it wasn't $500. There's something less than that. I think we started at $500 and the department said, oh, well, that should be, yeah. Anyway, that sounded like you, Madam Chair. The requests come from your committee or did they come from families that were in the program now? This request is from our committee. This is based upon our knowledge of the stress that is being handled by that. Yeah, no, I'm just telling you where it came from. It came from, we did not have hordes of families coming forward and saying, you know, this, but they're, they don't have, they don't really have a large voice. Okay. Are you done? Yeah. Thank you guys for wearing your masks like in state. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. I'm good. This will become law, so to speak, sometime mid-year. Is there any value in recognizing the service of people who come on as foster care between January 1 and say June 30th, both because they will be there and also it sort of helps the department with a kind of, it's all, it's not just a retroactive recognition. It's also a sort of a signing bonus. Would it help if it was June 30th instead of July, January 1? This was based upon us being able to put together an estimate based upon the number of children in custody. So that number is going to fluctuate. So, you know, I'm certain their committee would be certainly amenable to, you know, flexible language. But we wouldn't know the number then. That's correct. So we have the fiscal note. We try to provide as many specifics as we can when we're trying to make a recommendation. We appreciate that. Okay. All right. I'm going to move on to Dale now, the Department of Disability, Aging and Independent Living. So, there's a number of things here. It looks like less than it is to be honest. So, in B329, the department is requesting almost $1.1 million for one time. And this is really for fit up and changes that need to be made to help a long-term care skilled nursing facility or facilities. We were taking testimony on this prior to the governor's budget being released. So, they were not liberty to say how many, this was going to be covering. But this essentially is going to start to address the backlog of people who are held up in hospitals because there's not the next level of care for them to be discharged to. So this is a one-time expenditure. And I think our committee thinks that it is really necessary. And so we support the governor's proposal here. Supports and services at home, SASH. Again, there, like I said, we didn't, we didn't like just write down everything that we agreed with with all the governor stuff, but some of these things we did. Again, this is something that was in the governor's BAA and we concur with that. In developmental disability services, B333, there are a couple of areas here that weren't further explanation just so the committee understands what they're for. It calls out a specific organization, Upper Valley Services. Upper Valley Services is the designated agency for people with developmental disabilities. They cover Orange County, but they also have, they have offices in Randolph Bradford, and they have an office in Moortown, which as you know is in Washington County. So they also run statewide crisis beds. The developmental disability system does its best to not utilize the Vermont psychiatric care hospital to essentially provide the supports and services for people who are in crisis within its own system. Are they 100% successful? No, but they are generally very, very successful in doing that. What they are finding, given the acuity level of the people increasing, they really need access to additional crisis beds. And so this is providing some support to Upper Valley Services to access on a statewide level additional crisis beds for the system. So part of that is one time, the 400,000 is one time and the 716 is ongoing, which you will see incorporated into the base budget as you look forward in 24. And that's in the governor's recommend. These are, these are governor's recommend, yes. So both that. Okay. In the same area, $1.4 million for public safety. These are individuals who have public safety concerns who either age out of DCF custody or who are adjudicated by the courts to be incompetent to stand trial under Act 248. And these folks require intensive level of supports for both their own safety but the community safety as well. And this will serve an additional five people. The department has not come forward actually in quite a number of years and asked for any additional caseload for this group or their general caseload. So, I mean, in budget adjustment, every year we see it in the regular budget but not in budget adjustment. So there has been an uptick in this area. No one believe this year. Thanks. So are the five people already identified? Yes, these are people who are likely already receiving services, yes. And then, do we have a sense of how many individuals are in the custody of the commissioners? I can find that number out for you. Let me just curious to know. Yeah, I don't know on the top of my head and I can tell you what it might have been 20 years ago but that was long time ago. Probably changed. Yeah. Okay, thank you. Number people who are officially in the custody under Act 248. Yes. And the safety just to be clear is a broader category. It includes people who have gone through the court process and it also includes people who have aged out of the DCS system and we're essentially preventing them from going through a court process. Okay. But I'll get the number back to 248 people. Great. Those of you who remember Sandy Haas, this one representative Haas, this is something that was near and dear to them. Okay. Again, an unusual request for the BAA is for people who have experienced a brain injury. We have a home and community-based services under global commitment for people who have experienced a brain injury. And again, they are experiencing an uptick in both the acuity level and the number of people who are needing services and this would serve 70 people. Any questions on that? Okay. Choices for care. Lots of discussion about choices for care. Lots of discussion about choices for care. So the department is required on an annual basis to submit a report to the legislature on the, especially I guess what I would cost the, you know, sort of truing up the end of year and what are there any funds remaining? How would they be invested? Where should they be invested? And there is specific language in the green books that is highlighted here at section 33 BSA, section 7602. This language, similar to this, was in session law a couple of years back. We were successful in getting this in the green books. And while we are, we have ongoing questions. Yes, I'm struggling to find the right words on this. We have ongoing questions in this area. As you know, there have been extraordinary stresses placed on long-term care facilities throughout the state. We represent Page knows about the nursing home in his area that is closing shortly. We've had 10 other long-term care facilities close. And so the Medicaid rates that are paid are insufficient to sustain these businesses, frankly. I mean, that's the long and the short of it. However, the language around savings specifically targets savings to home and community-based services. Nursing facilities are not considered home and community-based services. They are institutional services. And so we have differences of opinion with the department about how that's interpreted. However, so there were some, what they call extraordinary payments made to several nursing facilities, as well as some money invested in rate increases, additional rate increases, for instance, in the home and community-based side from, I think it was personal care and homemaker services. So there were investments made. It's all hinging on the determination of how you calculate savings and when that is done. And Representative Lanford has been around long enough to know about this language. And I'm not sure. I know. And I'm not sure we quite have it right based upon this year's actions. So however, the money has gone out the door. It was, you know, there isn't, and we were not disputing the fact that we needed to make payments as necessary. And so we are concurring with further work to be done with the department on that language. That's why I said... So maybe in the big bill... There may be some work on that. That's a future story to be told. That would be representative Dulling. Yes. And that just reminds me to say how much we appreciated all of the collaboration between our committee members and your committee members. And it really helped, I think, for everybody to sort of be hearing the same things at the same time. And just wanted to extend my appreciation. It was... I almost couldn't have a form because everybody was interested in what we were doing. But we like to keep you busy. And we're grateful. All right. I dealt day providers. Again, you see no B number next to this because this is a committee recommendation. This is an ongoing... I'm just going to say, you're okay with the Choices for Care piece right now? Yes. Yeah. Well, we said acceptable. Acceptable. All right. I just want to make sure I mark it off. Yes. We'll have further discussions with the department about that language. And you may see us returning for... Okay for now. Yeah. Okay for now. Adult day providers. Again, this is a recommendation from our committee. You know, the ongoing saga of adult day services providing... They provide a valuable resources to families who are supporting an older remonter at home and trying to keep them at home. They have struggled significantly during the pandemic and this fiscal year is really no exception to that. And there is a report coming out February 15th that we hope will help address some recommendations about how to... Well, it's not exactly a rate study. We're really talking about the structure of payments. Things like paying based upon attendance versus enrollment and the like. You know, this is a population that has lots of medical appointments. They may not feel well during the day. They might not be there, but you know, you're still providing a support to them. They might not have the staff in order, you know, for when they do come back and they're feeling well to be there and yet if you're not there, you don't get paid. Just imagine our education system if we only did day to day. Exactly. How many students were there? Right. That's a very good analogy, Madam Chair. I'm going to have to use that one. So that's what the February 15th report is supposed to do. So this is additional, again, one-time appropriation of $2.1 million to sustain the organizations through the end of the fiscal year. I do want to make a point that we have had three facilities close, two of the three facilities and an additional two of three facilities that UVMMC ran that did not reopen. So, you know, a total of five, we really reduced access to this service in the state and it's a problem. It's a big problem. Five total. That closed. Yes. What is left? Ten. Yeah, ten. So our committee supports this and we do recognize that, you know, the one-time dollars are going to be drying up and we need to find a way to sustain these services and you're going to be hearing that throughout any feedback from our committee about Medicaid services. It's, we are on a house of cards and the bottom layer has already crumbled and the other layers are crumbling. It's a crisis state. And speaking of crisis, nursing, home-based nursing, the low-utilization payment adjustment, Lupa, this is really also, I think you'll see if you haven't seen already in the health care committee, they are also supporting the home health. Again, this is not in the governor's budget recommendation. I believe, trying to remember, not mix it up, but I believe that they had been told previously that there would be an increase to get them closer to the Medicare Lupa rate, but it did not come through. And so they requested our assistance in this. We can provide, they provided information at various different percentages and at $2 million, that increases it up to 100% of Medicare Lupa. And we have information that we can provide if you were interested in something down, but we thought- Is that general fund or is that rolled up? Mr. Medicaid, this is GC. And then one of our smallest recommendations has one of the longest paragraphs, but moving on to the Department of Health, we didn't really have any major changes in the Department of Health to the governors. We didn't have any, actually. This is a relatively minor one, but SAMHSA provided grants under their emergency grants to address mental health and substance use disorders during COVID-19. That was the sort of title of this grant project. And those funds end on May 31st, and the Department of Health has put funds out to local partners. And you can see in the first paragraph the kind of work that they have been doing. What we are requesting, and this would be probably general fund, we're requesting approximately $13,000 to fund the final month in fiscal year 23. $13,000. Yeah, $12,810. To fund the final month of FY23. We want the opportunity to really consider whether or not we should be recommending this program continue on an ongoing basis, but we can't do that until the 24-budget process, and this would leave a 30-day period, or 31-day period. Without data. Without, well, without, it would cause an interruption in services if we decide to continue it. So if we decide not to continue it, there's nothing lost other than $12,810. But those services would have continued. So we, it gives us an opportunity to make a decision at a state level whether we want to continue those services or whether there would be any other federal grant monies to continue those services. So that in 24 we don't have this month? Right, right. And, you know, I don't need to tell this committee that, you know, our arsenal for substance use services is, needs as many tools in the toolbox as we can afford. And then our final was sort of a last-minute addition. And again, this is something that might ordinarily be in the capital budget. However, due to timing related to real estate transaction, a Howard Center came forward to ask for assistance in securing funds so that they may be able to purchase three buildings located in Rutland. I found that interesting that Howard Center runs a program in Rutland. But it's been a program for 20 years. This is a program that serves youth who have inappropriate sexual behaviors and has been very successful in serving those youth. The owner of the building has the buildings up for sale. They would require the program to move. They are not really interested in moving. It would disrupt everything. And the fund balance is at the designate. I asked about, you know, well, ordinarily, this is unusual to see this. Ordinarily you'd be taking out a loan. You'd be going through it. And the potential picture right now, we can't do that. We can't take on additional debt in order to continue a program that we've been running. And so this would actually end up resulting in $150,000 in lease savings. They would then have to be paying taxes and stuff. So this is for the purchase of those three buildings in Rutland. And you can see the purchase of the buildings, $184,000 and then $368,000 for the capital needs in order to rehabilitate those buildings for use into the future. The program serves, has a capacity of serve 20 youth at any given time. And these, I want to point out, these are the type of youth that unfortunately we are sending out of state. So we can't afford to lose this program. We've sent kids as far away as Florida who have some of these same kinds of behaviors. And so in fact, we don't have sufficient resources in state. So we do not want to risk losing this program. And while this is a bit unusual, we are supported if you are able to find some one-time dollars to support the purchase of this property to sustain this program. Again, Rep Emmons and her committee is aware of this. Great. We did hear about it. We heard about it in our public hearing. Representative Schein and Representative Harrison. So thanks for mentioning that we already are sending people out of state. Do you have a sense of what the cost is when we send people out of state versus in state? It just seems to me intuitively it would be a lot more expensive to send somebody to Florida than to take care of them here in Vermont. I can tell you that light on is pretty high in the Department for Children and Families. I can't tell you what the exact, you know, constant per participant is, you know, it varies from program to program that they send them out of state. But we certainly can seek to provide additional information about that. Oh, thank you. Representative Harrison. So the notes here say they would save 150,000 annually in rent payments. If you took a portion of that, would they just mortgage it? To us. Whoever. I mean, but I mean, it just seems to me intuitive. I spent a little while since I figured out the cost of a mortgage, but if you borrowed a million dollars over 20 years, it would not cost you 150,000 a year or maybe cost you half of that. We're bringing forth the request. And like I said, I did ask the question about them boring. They indicated that they don't have the ability to take on additional debt at this time. That was a response that we got back represent Harrison. We had a brief conversation about it too. We were like, people did some investigating, you know, kind of off the cuff to find out like this is paid through child family services. So we have a, we have a dog in this race, so to speak. But I've got that wrong. I think it's a pony or something. It's in the race. It's okay. I do that all the time. I honestly, I just wanted to get it on the record. They have approached many different committees on this. They've been sent all around the building. And I said, you know, I'll make sure that it lands and then, you know, be up to you folks to decide whether it's funded, but it has landed. We will continue to have the conversation and the institutions and corrections to see. All that work, right? Yeah, go ahead, sir. Can I ask a general question? Oh, can I just, the reason that it's here as opposed to in the capital budget is because there is a April 23rd deadline. Is that in here? Okay. We're aware of that. Oh, okay. April. Yeah. So capital budget. And an offer deadline. So, Madam Chair, if I may, you have a variety of requests over and above what was in the BAA proposed by the administration. My back of the envelope calculation is something like $22, $23 million. If we didn't have an extra $23 million, is there any kind of priority on the request that you would make? Well, having anticipated that question... She gets so... Why does she know you? Well, I didn't know if it would be represent Harrisons per se, but I anticipated that someone on the committee might ask that question. We really feel in our committee that it's our job to bring the needs of Vermonters forward that we feel meet the priorities. And that's what we've done. And whether or not we can fund all of those will be up to this committee to decide. So these needs that we have outlined here meet the priority list of things that we think that Vermonters need right now in this moment in time. And as you can see, most of them are around the homeless population. That was the big one. No, no, I'm not suggesting any of them are. I know. I understand. I understand. You can help us by saying, you know, this is a five-star need right now. This one may be a four-star need or some portion of it. It's just, it's helpful because you work, live, and breathe this stuff every day. We just look at numbers. Yeah, which is why I said it's our job to present the needs of Vermonters. And that's what I feel like we have done. You know, I'm not going to like throw any of these requests under the bus. It's our, it's our committees. It's our committees work. So, yeah, I mean, I think everybody would consider them a five-star request. You know, whether the Park Street program should be funded in, you know, should be our recommendation or somebody else's recommendation. I just wanted to get that one on the books so that you're sort of officially considering it. So she's not going to answer. You're all promised. I know. Yeah, I'm sure they might, you know, as you indicated, there are, you set someone that's to representative Dolan and representative Romney. Thank you. And thank you for those presentations. I was very much looking forward to hearing from you. I appreciate that. A follow-up with Microsoft Harrison's question. They're taking some of the sections I'm overseeing. There are some line items in here that you didn't specify or identify as with any comments. Are you still suggesting that the particular line items that you have identified are a higher priority than the ones you did not speak to? No, we just didn't. We followed the instructions mostly that said if you agree with something you don't necessarily need to say, you don't need to include it in your memo. So if there were, if there are items that weren't specifically called out, that just meant that we agreed with them and you didn't need any further information. We didn't feel like we needed to provide any further information that what the administration had already provided was sufficient. The ones that we agreed with in terms of the governor's BAA and we included in the memo, we felt like you might need additional background material in order to understand that. Thank you. You're welcome. Excellent. Representative Blumen. I'm just struck by, this is some comment. I really appreciate the work that your committee did. It's a hard budget to have to react to. And I think, and what it reflects to me, you know, the fact that $12,810 was identified by a committee member as being critical to then ensuring the continuity of a program, like that's great. You know, I really appreciate the thoughtfulness that went into this as far as I can see it with the way that you've described it. Thank you. You're welcome. I'm just going to say the same. I really have deep appreciation of your committee and that was made repeatedly. Just the diligence they did in trying to understand the numbers behind some of the requests, particularly with respect to the support for families where it was confusing housing. I appreciate these. Thank you. You know, I'm going back to your question about priorities, which you didn't answer. I did answer. I said they're all priorities. You know, the hard part is in some ways, there really are real differences in these proposals. Some of them are kind of fundamentally humanitarian, like $13 million for people keeping people out of the tenth. You know, for two or three months. And others of them are, are we going to cripple our infrastructure? You know, we let something go. And putting a priority on that, it's almost a moral issue, rather than it's hard to find a systemic priority basis for that. You know, it's just, I mean, my first reaction is all of it. I would say human services is an incredible committee, emotionally. Thank you. You're welcome. And certainly my committee or I are available for any additional questions or clarifications that you might have as you deliberate. We are happy to be of service and look forward to our work on the 24 budget. Thank you whole committee. I know this was so much work and we really appreciate all the work that you are doing. Thank you very much. Our goal, Madam Chair, is to tie up the BAA by Friday straw vote. We'll do the final vote on Monday. You will need your wisdom on the floor if we get a lot of digging under the hood. Will you be amicable? I am happy to be of service any way I can, including, you know, with a shovel to dig you out. You can dig us out or dig us in. No, I don't want to do that. Did I get everybody? Yeah. You, I believe, you were about 15 minutes away, which I thought we were going to be. So, thank you. Great. And then we're going to come back and we're going to have Sarah for a bit. All right.