 This is Friday, June 12th. We're starting quite late. We had three issues to discuss today. We're going to get as far as we can. The first issue that we're going to talk about has to do with the bill, the language that we sent to appropriations yesterday regarding use of the COVID relief funds and the language we sent related to our public pre-K 12 programs as well as our public colleges of higher learning. Since then, we've been approached by the independent schools as well as the independent colleges. Representative Coopley, Conlin and I have been working to try to figure out how we might address the independent colleges. There are a couple of documents. Avery, I'm not sure if you have the documents. Did I send those to you? One that showed the list of independent schools? Somebody has that. Avery, did I send that to you? I'm not sure if I have that. I can definitely look around for it. A list of independent schools? Yeah. If not, I think I can actually share it. I might even be able to pull it up. Avery, I just sent it to you. Oh, good. Okay. Thank you. That was the information from Chloe, right? There was a list that we got from Chloe. There was also one that we got from that I got from Milmore. Okay. I'm sorry. I just sent Avery the one from Chloe. Okay. For the financial analysis. I'm going to see if I can bring this up or not. All right. Finally figured out how to do this. Can you see this? Is the document showing up for everybody? Yes. Yes. So the independent schools reached out to us and as I said, Representative Coopley and Conlan and I worked on how we might address our independent schools in relation to COVID relief funds. So I asked them to let us know, to send us information on their independent non-sectarian schools and what the numbers were as well in relation to those that are publicly tuition to those schools. This is the data that we got and what you can see, there are some that are nearsk. It's not called nearsk anymore. It's called something else. I forgot what it's called. But it's the accreditation accrediting agency. There are, as you can see at the bottom, the total enrollment and then the number of students that are that are publicly tuitioned and then over on those that are approved by the state board of education. So we started a conversation. We looked at a variety of options and we realized that maybe the best way that we could do this is to use a document that that looked at the potential costs of of other students returning to school that that Secretary French gave us the other day. And we asked Brad to take a look at that and see Brad and Chloe to look at that and see if there's a way that perhaps we can we can help out our independent schools who are who are hosting our tuition publicly tuition students in those schools on a per pupil basis based on enrollment. So Brad and Chloe, can I ask you, I'll stop sharing my screen. Are there any questions about this first of all? We are very limited time. So now I have to figure out how to not share this. Okay, maybe Chloe you can unshare it for me. I mean, let's see, here we go. So Brad and Chloe, I'm not sure who was prepared to give us an idea on how we might count these students. I can go unless Chloe has a burning desire to go first. Okay. Okay. For the record, Brad James Agency of Education, which I usually forget to do online. There are, when Secretary French was speaking with you the other day, I remember when it was, he had a document from the National Association of Superintendents that kind of did what what they anticipated at average cost to be or cost to be to reopen a school for an average school. They have certain parameters. And that number came out about off time. I had 1.7, 1.8. I think, I think that you that we sent that to you. Avery, do you have that one? It's the one. Look at the website, see what it's called. I don't remember. Is this the correct document? Let me go back and look now because I, yes, that's it. Okay. So what what what they did along with the National Association of Business Managers or business officials is they came up with, they thought were going to be cost and up at the top it says there that they their average school district is not applied to Vermont. Their average school district was over 3,600 students with eight school buildings, 183 classrooms and 329 staff members and 40 school buses. Using that, they came up with all these numbers down below. So what they thought they would require. And when you go through the rigmarole, put it all together and then dividing by the number of pupils, I think it comes out to $484, $485 per few is what it does. So we figured this was a reasonable starting point to look at what the cost would be for the independent schools to reopen also because they're going to have the same type issues that the public schools are going to have. When you look at this, the, the, I think pretty much they all, they all relate to the independent schools except for the last one, which is providing transportation and child care. And, and that, that amount adds up to a total of 233, just over $235,000. And so if we exclude that, and then sum up the rest of them, it comes out to be about $1.54 million. Claude or Avery, could you pull up the other document now please that has the numbers on it? That's the one I'll be referencing now. Thank you. If you just go all the way to the top at first. So there, there, there are the parameters that you just saw, just in a different format that you saw in that other sheet of paper right there. There are the numbers for the students and such. Actually a little bit bigger was better. One more. There you go. And then it, I just, those are the numbers. So now if you would scroll down a little bit so that number eight, line number eight is on the top please Avery. Yep, that's good. That's perfect. Okay. So what, what line eight is, is that total that I was just mentioning to you, if you back out the child care and the transportation, that leaves about $1.4 million. Currently the numbers that I had, and, and I'll explain this in a second, the numbers that I had for most recent numbers that I have for publicly funded students at independent schools in Vermont was just about 22,830. That's an FY19 number. I've not seen current year numbers yet. But looking at what was just put up there by, by Representative Webb, that, that number is 2712, 2,712. We'll come back to that in a second. Working with that 2830 number that you're looking at right there, if I was to figure out, okay, what proportion of that is that of what was called an average school, that's his line 10 now, then we take the 2830 and divide it by the average number of students for, which is 3659. That's just over 77%. If I take the 77% of, 77% of that $1.5 million in line 11 now, then that comes out to just about $1.2 million that, that, you know, on a per, on a per pupil basis, dividing that roughly $1.2 million. Now we're in line 12 by the number of students that I used 2830. It would be $422 per student. Rounding that puts it at 420. And so down below we're at 420 per publicly funded student at the independent schools in Vermont. And again, we're talking about just this, the students in the state of Vermont, or in schools that are in the better Vermont independent schools. So when you do that multiplication, you come out with $1.18 million that the cost would be. If I was to go back in to the file right now and replace that 2830 number with the 2712 number that Representative Webb just showed us, you would come out with the exact same result because the proportion would change, therefore the total would change, the per pupil amount, it would stay the same. It would, it all be proportional. So that number down there is, is what we came up with based on this logic. Representative Conlon and, and, and Coopley and I also spoke with independent schools earlier today. They of course would like to have the same, the same program that we used for the, for the public schools, however, they would pretty much lose out on, on the 2021 because it's, that's title one based. So this was an approach that we thought at least could give them access to some funds. And I see Kathleen who represents an area that has a significant independent school. Did you have a question or comment Kathleen? I did. More than one. Significant independent schools, actually. What about reimbursement for COVID costs already incurred? Peter Conlon, you had a good response to that, I think. What was our, do you remember what our thinking was on that? I think that what we were looking at was the fact that they have access to ESSER funds for that. No, we're talking about, okay. Can I just jump in for a clarification point about that approach to the Conlon? The independent, the independent schools do not have access to the ESSER funds directly. What, what the CARES Act clearly states is that they, ESSER schools may get equitable service money from, from the public schools in terms of ESSER. That, but otherwise the ESSER is going to the public schools. The, the money we're talking about here is the coronavirus relief from the CRF money, which has more stringent restriction. All right. Well, then I'll speak to my, my broader point of issue here, which is that what we don't know is, did these independent schools spend money above and beyond what they had budgeted to spend for the year? In other words, were there added costs if they had any offset by their savings, by not offering everything that is spring related, by laying off employees, and by not having to pay for contracts for services that they needed through the end of the year? And so, you know, I guess my feeling with providing funds to independent schools, I don't necessarily have a philosophical objection to it, but I do think it can't be done without oversight to make sure that there were costs incurred above and beyond what they had budgeted. And same thing for FY 21. Or can they demonstrate that funds provided will result in easing of pressure on the education fund, which is of course the public school goal by lowering tuition to public towns that, that tuition their kids to the schools. In other words, I think that, you know, in order to qualify for this money and apply for it and qualify for it, there's going to be some books that are opened to show that this money is needed and would not create a surplus. You know, in our, in our proposal, we talk about any surplus created by Corona relief funds has to be returned to the education fund. So I think the same rule should apply for independent schools. I think that's about it. It's a little bit complicated. I definitely recognize that. I want to let people know that this is kind of our last chance to get something in for the independent schools, the language that we have, the amount of money that we put forward in the Appropriations Committee. The Senate is doing a whole lot with those funds there. And I don't know what's going to happen with with the approach there, but there's nothing that we have at this point that recognizes the independent schools. So this was an opportunity to at least say we are going to make sure you have access to these funds. I was seeing this as a reimbursement model up to what you would have received for the number of students that you have at the school based on on a set amount per student that's on public tuition. So that's what we have at the moment. And I sort of either have to get this out if there's major major revisions. I guess you'll have to get to me. Now I suppose it's possible over the weekend. We're out of time is our problem. We were asked to spend $50 million in 48 hours and sort of the boat is sailing. So Peter, come on. Yeah. So Kate, I would just say that I think that putting in a provision is appropriate. Using a formula like this I think is probably the best we're going to be able to do. I don't know if the per pupil one is the right. I was in the middle of something when Brad was speaking and I assume Brad you spoke to the fact that there are services that independent schools don't provide that may be in that 400. I guess it was a higher number. So I assume you took that into account. Is that not really because reading through the criteria that the people who did this came in, it was really about what are they going to need for schools and such in terms of opening up services to students outside of protective equipment and such. Yeah. Well, you know, I'm comfortable with this as long as it has the same language that we're holding public schools to. And that is that any surplus created by CRF funds revert to the education fund. So if you look at what we're spending, just to do some fuzzy math, if we set aside 45 million for both years and how many we have what 80,000 students, that's $560 a student for the two years. So just keep that in perspective. That's about 80. Is it 80,000? Oops, you're muted. Yeah. Again, I haven't looked at these numbers. I would say it's closer to 85, probably 87,000 somewhere in that range. Okay. And, you know, we're talking about all the students. Yeah. So that would be less. So if we took the 45 million, Chloe would do this all in her head and 85,000 students. That would be $529 per student. Did I just do some fuzzy math? Kathleen, are you comfortable? Yeah, I just have a question and a comment. Okay. The one thing I didn't understand the reason I asked about reimbursement for COVID expenses already incurred was that I couldn't tell from the way this is structured whether they the money can't be used for that. It can only be used for reopening costs. That was what I was confused about. No, I think that we can make it, I think we can make it cover both. Okay. Yeah, we can make it eligible. I think, Jim, we talked about that we can make it eligible for 2020 with the ability to carry it forward. Okay. Yeah. And then I, Peter, I totally, I take your point. I, the, I guess I just want to get in a pitch here that at least in my district, independent schools are a really vital part of our educational landscape. And if we don't help them, we are missing out on a huge chunk of students. And so I just, I see this as very important. I know it's late, but you know, we're missing out on a, on a major chunk of our student population here. If we don't help the schools that serve them. And I, I don't object to that at all. They, these are vital institutions. I'm just saying that we, we just approved 70 million dollars on the floor today for businesses who can demonstrate that they have lost 75% of their revenue. Yeah. And we are saying that public schools, if a surplus is created with these funds, it has to revert to the Ed fund. So I just think that same criteria needs to apply here. I understand. Fair, fair is fair. And there's always, always the possibility if we ever get to some tier two that they could come in and talk about the other students that are, that are there, the other 5,000 students. Yeah. Larry, Cooper. Brad, in terms of returning Peter as well, in terms of returning that surplus to the Ed fund from the independent schools who do not report their finances per, for the most part, how do we ensure that that happens? I, the only, the only way I can see it is if their books are opens for us to, to see what's going on that I don't, I don't know how to, how to look at it any other way. Because we would, we would have to see what their costs are. And I could compare it to how much money they're getting. That's, I, I'm not sure. I've not thought that part through We're going to have to move on. It has to be really whether we can support where we're going. I don't know if Jim, if you put it into language or not. I could put it into language. We were talking about appropriation for fiscal year 20 that can carry over to fiscal year 21. Yes. The surplus. I'm a little bit concerned about the surplus just because it's not a public school and all the rules on surplus that we have are for public schools. Right. So do they meet the surplus? If they, if they're putting in, if they're, they're putting in their expenses, who's carrying the surplus? It just stays in the funding. Well, it's possible that the use of CRF funds could create a surplus because it can be used for a payroll that was already budgeted. It can be used for that purpose if the employee was redeployed to deal with COVID-19 matters. So because you have a budgeted expense that's not being covered by this federal funding, it can create a surplus. That's where we have the issue now. But for private schools, it's the same, it's true, but our whole infrastructure on surplus is designed around public schools. So I don't know what issues that will fill up to require them to carry a surplus in the next year into we just, our mechanism is we would just add fund payments. We don't make it from payments to private schools. So the whole mechanism is going to quite work the same way. Okay. So I'm not sure how to do that. Okay. Well, I think we're just going to have to figure that out. Not now. Committee, can we move this along? Yeah, I certainly have no objection to moving along, Madam Chair. I think time is of the essence and in all fairness, I think it, you know, I think it's a fair proposal. Okay. Is there anybody opposed to that? As far as I'm concerned, as long as there's the same oversight, I'm fully in favor. And we'll sort out the, we'll sort that out later. Absolutely. And again, this is, this is not done. This is not going into law tomorrow. Right. This is good. It's got a ways to go. Okay. Thank you. Jim, we can talk, talk later. Maybe we can power one on Monday and try to get that sorted out with Brad and Chloe and Mark. All right. So let's take this down. I want to see if we can just do the, if we can quickly do the chart of accounts, because then I want to be able to, and I hope people can stay longer than our time, so we can at least get a basic start on the challenges with the designated agencies. So is, I'm sorry here is, I'm looking for Bill Bates here. I am, if I can just turn my mute off. Okay. So there was a question in, there was a question in appropriations about whether it was possible to use CRF funds to help the schools along in relation to implementing the universal chart of accounts, which brought the question, where are we with the universal chart of accounts? And two, would this be an appropriate use of CRF funding for schools to bring everybody up to speed on that faster? It's an appropriations question. I'm seeing Brad's face. So I think if we could just get an idea on where we are with the chart of accounts, how far do we have to go and what are the impediments? And we do have some business managers in the room. Excellent. So for the record Bill Bates agency of education and Avery, I had shared with Suzanne a PowerPoint and I don't know if we want to share that with the entire committee. Okay. See if we can, we can get the high level here. Absolutely. So the way that I like to report out on projects is what I call a project roll forward. So it takes you from why are we doing this? Where are we then? Where are we currently at? Where are we headed? I'm not going to, given the shortness of time, go slide by slide, but given your question as to where we're at, if we can jump ahead to slide 13, I'm sorry, slide 12. Slide 12 is our deployment schedule and what you can see here, if I can clear my screen, here are all of the rounds and then you can also see the baseline live dates in column four. And we've highlighted or shaded in gray round five, about two thirds of the way down the page. That is where we're going to be at as of July of 2020. So we will have 35% of all of the SUSDs implemented by July 2020. And then you've got round six, round seven, and round eight that follow. So by the end of July 21, we'll be at 65% implemented, round seven, January 22 will be at 80% and then 100% at the end of July of 22. That's based on the current schedule. The other thing that I'm sorry. That's the schedule. What's the reality? That is the schedule. That's where we're at currently. We are on schedule to complete those five SUSDs for July of 2020. What we have done as a project team, if we can go to slide 13, here is a roadmap that shows where we're headed. So we have implemented version 1911. Then we have worked with Power School to come up with additional releases. So version 20, version 21. And I won't talk through all the detail, but you can see that we're making headway into implementing many of the deliverables that are in the contract. So that's the project. What I think your question leads to is where are we at with the 85 items that have been requested by the business managers, the LEAs? 28 of those are contract related. So Power School is on the hook to implement those according to the contract that we have with them. There is another 57 system enhancement that the business managers have identified and asked us to scope out. And so we need to figure out how to pay for those if we were to implement them. And I think that's the question that you're asking. Yes. All the focus right now is related to would COVID funds help in this process in bringing it forward? And would they potentially be something that would meet criteria? And Brad, correct me if I'm wrong, given the restrictive nature of the CRF funds, I don't see that these system enhancements would meet the definition, but I'll defer to you, Brad. I agree with you and Representative Webb was correctly reading my face when she first talked about that, although I was on mute. No, I don't think that these would meet the criteria for the CRF. So even though you've, I'm now trying to translate from the Appropriations Committee, because you've asked school districts to code for CRF funds, they were thinking that perhaps that would make them a CRF eligible. If I make a step on everybody's toes, I think that'd be a stretch, because that's just a simple accounting, well, the business managers probably tell me it's not simple, but it's just putting things in a different code. I don't think it's any different than any other code. So I think it'd be hard for us to say if there's really a significant cost involved with that. I think, and again, the other AOE people who know more about this than I do, I think we're really kind of talking about two things, the chart of accounts, and then there's the implementation of the system that's going to be running the chart of accounts, and Bill is kind of addressing that. Yeah. And that's what that timeline was, if he was showing up and putting money towards it is not going to move that timeline forward. Okay. Then I think we're done. Yeah. That's really the whole purpose, Serita. Yes. I was just wondering, I didn't know if I missed an email or something. I'm just not, I guess if we're done, we're fine. I just needed a little bit more context about what we're talking about here. So yeah, we're done. It's really only to answer a question that the Appropriations Committee asked to move the chart of accounts along because they're very interested in it. And because you're starting to ask. What are the chart of accounts? We're not going, well, we'll do that later. That's just trying to get everybody on the same billing plan. Okay. Yeah. Sorry that we're just so pressed for time. I just didn't know if we're making a decision and I really, yeah, we're done. We're done. Thank you. This is, this is not the way we like to do business in our committee. That's for sure. Okay. Thank you. So then we moving on to the other topic, which is another question that came from Appropriations and that was related to some challenges that we're hearing from the designated agencies. And perhaps the designated agencies, the connection between the designated agency and schools comes, I believe, from Act 264. If I have that correct, that allows access to the designated agencies to help schools with children who have special ed and mental health challenges. Is that correct? Do I have that correct? Who might be a good person to tell us exactly what. Hi, Representative Chair Webb. This is Sarah Squirrel, Commissioner of the Department of Mental Health. Thank you. You're the perfect person. Yeah. So just to jump in and to provide a little bit of context. So what we're talking about is success beyond six. That was a fiscal mechanism that was put into place in the early 90s that allows for school mental health agencies, full mental health services through the DAs to provide school-based mental health services to local schools and students. It's a very creative fiscal mechanism by which the local education agencies use their local match dollars to actually draw down the Department of Mental Health's Medicaid dollars. So essentially what that means is for every dollar's worth of service, the local LEA puts up 40 cents and then we're able to draw down the 60 cents of the DMH Medicaid, which greatly reduces the cost of the schools and allows us to provide exceptional school-based mental health services across the state of Vermont. Obviously the impact of COVID-19, which drastically and quickly shifted the provision of services, has caused some challenges. I have to say our community mental health agencies immediately leaned in to really work creatively to ensure that our youngest children and youth were able to continue to access services. As you can imagine now more than ever with the pressure of remote learning, isolation, we think the social, emotional, and behavioral needs of children and youth are significant, are urgent, and important. And as everyone on this committee is aware, many young children, school is their safe place. They access some of their most nourishing relationships through their schools. And so we have worked very, very hard to try to ensure that even though it has to be delivered a little bit differently and we had to think really creatively that we want to ensure that children, youth, and families continue to access those services. I could try to summarize quickly what I think the issue is. I guess the problem that we're trying to solve, if you will, is that the Department of Mental Health, we have a lot of flexibility in our Medicaid, which is we've moved towards a case rate, you know, that's kind of where healthcare is moving in terms of payment reform. So the designated agencies have a case rate for the provision of their other mental health services. Success beyond six has remained somewhat of a fee for service program. So in order to when COVID-19 hit, in order to ensure that we could continue the provision of services, continue to support our designated agencies to make sure that we could retain our staff because we all know that the mental health needs of children and youth are only going to increase the Department of Mental Health put into place an emergency case rate so that our school partners could continue to provide services in a much more flexible way. Obviously here at the Agency of Human Services, DIVA, DMH, we've also worked to allow telephonic supports, freeing up flexibilities and billing so that more telephonic supports could be offered. And we tried to move quickly because we wanted to stabilize the system, which we've all been doing, right? We want to stabilize our essential healthcare providers. The issue that has emerged is that a portion of our local schools, not all, but some have been contemplating canceling or reducing those contracts because there is some worry that they will not be reimbursed by the Agency of Education. So while we have all this flexibility under the Department of Mental Health's Medicaid case rate, schools are concerned that they won't be fully reimbursed for the same kind of flexibility that we have, which then results in if the designated agency doesn't have the local match coming from the school, we can't draw down the Medicaid. There's a huge gap fiscally for the designated agencies, and then we kind of put the provision of services at risk. So I have to give kudos to leadership at the Agency of Education because they have been trying to work very closely with the Department of Mental Health on potential solutions, but the guidance and the review that the Agency of Education has done has concluded that there are some limitations in terms of what the special ed reimbursement dollars can cover and possibly can't be used as flexibly as we have contemplated the continuation of services. That puts the designated agencies in a really tough position because what they're doing now, because we're committed to continuing services to these children and youth, is where there are gaps, where schools are saying, no, we're only going to pay you for this 15 minutes or this 15 minutes. The designated agencies are actually having to come up with their own match dollars so that we can draw down the full amount of Medicaid, which of course is putting pressure on their overall budgets in an already stressful time. We also had contemplated at the Department of Mental Health possibly continuing the case rate, but of course fiscally we can't do that responsibly if we can't assure that we're going to have those match payments from the local schools. We want to look more long-term at the potential of a case rate, but in the short term without some assurance or opportunity to work with AOE and the LEAs, that really becomes challenging for us. Right now we are actually looking at potentially the healthcare stabilization package that the Agency of Human Services is working on as we go forward. There may be an opportunity to utilize some of those dollars to stabilize the system. Again, that's a kind of a short-term, mid-term approach, but those are some of the pieces that we're contemplating right now. And we do worry, of course, because we want to assure that we can retain our workforce. We want to support the capacity of the designated community mental health agencies because we know come fall we're going to need them. So I think that's where we are right now. I know there's a lot of folks on this call that and particularly with the DAs that can also articulate what that looks like and feels like on the ground to them. But certainly the Department of Mental Health is committed to finding a path forward, but because it's a shared funding stream we have to do it collaboratively with AOA or Agency of Education, our local education agency. Given that we have a lot of federal funds hanging around here, it seems that somehow we should be able to find some kind of a solution that's to work. Why don't we hear from, so I see we've got laurels here. Do you want to add anything at this point or shall we go on to Bob Beck and Mary Moulton? I think Sarah covered it for DMH, so it's fine to move on. Thank you. Okay. Mary Moulton, you represent Washington County Mental Health and understand that you are experiencing some challenges related to this funding. So welcome. Please help us identify the problem. I also, I need to unmute myself. Thanks so much. Thanks so much for having us here and giving us this opportunity. So for the record, Mary Moulton, Executive Director of Washington County Mental Health Services, just reiterating what Commissioner Squirrel said around the maintenance of our workforce when this occurred with COVID. You know, we really shifted that workforce to remote and we began to see increasing need from these kids who are extremely vulnerable and their families as well. So we did such things as setting up food sites, getting out to homes, doing social distancing, being able to at least see the family, see the child inside, have some exchange, and then continue again any time there were incidences or needs. Our schools, we really appreciate and they appreciate the work that we do, but they obviously see a difference between a BI that is seven and a half hours in a school system by a child's side, helping them to access their education every day through this shift that we all did. And so what I would just add to what Commissioner Squirrel said is that, yes, these dollars are used and they are used then through a contractual arrangement that is made between the designated agency and the school system. And so as we did the shift and we supported kids just as schools did, we began to hear concerns from the schools about the ability to be able to be reimbursed for services and pay. So what I'd just like to share is I think that the playing field out there is little different in different areas, as Sarah said. And so while the guidance came out and the Commissioner and Secretary of Education provided guidance around the CARES Act would call for you to maintain your staff and maintain your contracts, there was a line within the guidance that said, and we do recognize that if there is a change in frequency and duration, that you could, you could, you know, alter your contracts, look at them differently. There was a suggestion through that language that said two things, maintain and also we recognize there is a difference. With that, different areas around the state have approached this problem in different ways. And so, for example, very quickly, LaMoyle County has experienced their supervisory union saying, well, that tells us we should pay and they have paid for the full year. There are some discussions going on in different parts of the state and I'll let my colleagues speak to this about, well, we'd like to pay, but we're not sure how and we really need to look at whether we'll be reimbursed under the current contracts. And in my area in Washington County, we have heard our contracts are null and void. And so given the fact that we have had this major event, we really need to shift to fee for service and only for the IEP related services as Commissioner Skrull indicated those little 15 minute increments, while we may be doing, you know, two hours, three hours or more for a kid in crisis during the day at their home or remotely, as we would have in school, that's not able to be recognized in our discussions. That's being called into question as to whether that should be a mental health side of the house issue at this point, because we're not together in this physical building in the school system. So different areas are interpreting their issues around budgets, certainly, which we respect because this will cause a major shift in our budgetary pressures as well as indicated. And, you know, for Washington County, that's $2.9 million in a, you know, in a quarter totaled up in contracts. And that given the match is 1.4 million in general fund, but it's it does hit us double because we're going to have to buy our own match if this happens. And, you know, what was a good year will put us in the hole. It's just a it's tremendous problem for the designated agency system. And I think I'll I'll see to others or to questions to Bob Bick or Todd Baumann from Northwest Counseling, who has also joined us on the call today. So let me just ask you. So if we have a student who's identified for these services in an IEP or whatever, you have been very often, I would imagine these are students that are also on special ed extraordinary costs. Yes, very often. So it's also tied to special ed dollars. Yes. And so it's the special ed dollars that are being used to match. Yes, success beyond six. Yeah. Yes, with their special ed dollars. Yeah. So you you've talked about a student, for example, that maybe was a seven and a half hours of service per week, I think you said per day in a school. Okay, so this is a one on one. Yes. So you have a one on one who was in the school seven and a half hours a day, helping them access programs and move through the building and whatever it was that they needed. And now the schools are closed. And now they're providing services, but it's not seven and a half hours a day. It might be more acute management of behavior from a phone call or it could be it could be a variety of things that might that's so so the seven and a half day now becomes a so seven and a half day becomes seven and a half hours a week. Could very well be. Yes, very, very well be in the schools are reimbursing you for the for the actual fee for service. We well it's not a fee for service contract. So our contracts or for the bundle of services. So yeah, yeah. So for us what we've said is we'd be we'd be pleased to cut to discuss what concessions we could make within the contract. But what we are receiving is it has to be a fee for service only for specific delivery and that's related services. That's from your school. That's from your school district at this point but not necessarily from the AOA. Correct. Okay. Thank you. Why don't we hear we have two other designated agencies here why don't we listen from those two committee members can we can we go until five. I'm going to take that as a yes. It might it might be less than that because we don't have many folks from the we don't have I think Brad you're the only one here from the agency of education and I'm pretty sure you're not prepared to do this one we're supposed to have Emily Simmons and Avery if you could reach out and see if if Heather Boucher and Emily could join us later that we're meeting now rather than earlier see if they can come join us as well. So why don't we hear from let's hear from Bob Beck in Chittenden County. Thanks. Sorry we're keeping everybody late on a beautiful Friday afternoon. We kept you late. Well I have to admit the disruption actually worked for me because my granddaughter was graduating at CVU and I got to watch the event live stream so I would not have been able to do that if we met earlier. Oh nice. Anyway for the record I'm Bob Beck I'm the CEO with the Howard Center. I just want to reinforce exactly what Commissioner Squirrel and Mary have said in terms of the scope of the issue I don't need to repeat it I think the issues are identical here in Chittenden County. We have had as have the other DA's incredibly collaborative and cooperative relationships with our schools for a long time and I think part of the challenge is the communication that came from AOE. This is not meant to blade blame at the feet of AOE. I think they were doing the best that they could to identify the issues as they viewed them but it has created a challenge and you know given our size we're talking about school contracts which for us you know see ten million dollars it's a big chunk of our budget. I think the challenge for us all right now is a recognition that everything changed in March and it not only changed for us in terms of the way we're doing business it changed for the schools in the way they're doing business so the schools are no longer providing seven and a half hours a day of face-to-face services with their students. They're not providing transportation to and from school for their students and yet they are trying to work within their taxpayer approved budget to continue to draw down the funds in order to keep their teachers in place to keep their services in place in anticipation of reopening in the fall in some in some fashion or other and as DAs we are exactly in the same place. Our critical criteria right now is to on the one hand solve the short-term problem which deals with FY20 but also be strongly positioned so that when students come back we have the staff and the resources to ensure that we can meet their needs and I'll just reiterate briefly what Mary said that we already are seeing signs that a lot of the young people that were serving are going to need more mental health supports and services this has been a traumatic experience for those of us that are adults and for children it's even more so because they don't fully understand the intellectual realities of the situation so I know Sandy McGuire is on I think she's still on she's the CFO at the agency I don't know if there's anything specifically in terms of numbers Sandy that you want to just quickly put on the table for folks to consider. Yeah Sandy. The only thing hi everyone Sandy McGuire from Howard Center you know I will just reiterate what's been said as far as the ability to leverage Medicaid that these dollars give us for as a state for Howard Center we're talking in the fourth quarter with the challenges with these contracts potentially three quarters of a million dollars which leverages $1.8 million in Medicaid so if we're not able to resolve successfully not only do we individually as an agency have some financial challenges as a result but as a state we're leaving significant federal dollars on the table and there's both the current challenges in this fiscal year and how do we resolve it but as we look at programming next year schools while they anticipate the need they're hearing and seeing the increased need already they're reluctant to commit which makes us unable to be able to know what we're doing for staffing and have operations in place they're looking for assurance that they'll be reimbursed from the AOE and without that they're sort of stuck in a hard place the other piece is if going forward we are in this fee-for-service structure if you will with more limited opportunities to be able to capture revenue and not be able to draw down the Medicaid revenue it's ultimately going to increase the cost to the school districts we're going to have to increase those rates if we're leaving Medicaid on the table there's going to be a cost shift there that we don't want as a state I don't believe to be leaving the federal participation on the table and have to increase one way or another the cost to the to the Vermont taxpayer I'm sure that somewhere you folks have looked at other potential sources for matching funds besides other than schools looking at other possibly funds that could be used to provide that match and I'm pretty sure the federal guidelines are probably Medicaid guidelines are probably fairly strict you can use some local dollars as match from the schools you can use some some dollars from towns some other revenue streams united way and others are potentially eligible it's nowhere near the level of dollars that come in for the contracts and essentially what we look at the way it breaks down is the contract is paid essentially 60% federally and 40% through the school district so not only does it leverage but without those dollars you can't draw down the 60% Medicaid but then if the schools aren't paying you're left with either 0% of that remaining 40% or if you're billing fee for service a much lower amount which does not support the the business modeling for these services serita Austin a retired guidance counselor on our committee serita Austin did you have a question yes I'm just wondering this kind of piggybacks on cake because we're in the state of emergency can you fill out an application for disaster relief funds for mental health services I don't know if we have anyone from the department that could answer that question the only disaster relief at this point that we're aware of as a designated agency system is through a FEMA grant which is a crisis counseling model to provide additional services for our communities so I'm not aware of uh disaster relief funds I thought that it might be FEMA but I thought there were funds for mental health services that you know after during a disaster so it was just another source I was just wondering if that might be a possibility Bill or Brad do you have anything to add on that sorry I couldn't get the unmute I don't have anything Brad are you aware of anything there's a man on the uh I and I have not looked through the cares act for anything along those lines I've seen that there's stuff for businesses I don't know as you classify as a business that way in that same regard I truly don't know I do know that as Representative Austin mentioned there is a FEMA grant and I think it reimburses I want to say reverse maybe 75% of the cost something like that it's that does not kick in until after the president declares the emergency over at which point people then um apply for it I that I don't know a lot about it but that's the kind of the gist from my understanding but I think it is fairly wide-ranging as to what those funds can be used for Peter Conlon I also want to make sure that we also get to where are you on here it's Todd yeah yeah hopefully Brad could probably answer this quickly or maybe Sandy McGuire I'm just this is complex stuff that I don't particularly understand real well but what I the base problem here is that um school districts cut back their need because they didn't have school kids in school um but at the same time they're also sort of legally bound not to pay for services that they're not receiving is that true do they what's their level of flexibility in this and I realize that if they aren't paying for services you can't match and draw down the federal dollars right the guidance that everyone is referencing is is the same basically that that school districts should be paying for services that they receive I'm hearing from Washington mental health and and Howard a little bit saying that people are not that they're canceling contracts is something that I had not heard um and that's reducing that's a different that's a different question to me um but but in term in terms of paying for services that are delivered I don't think there's any question about that I believe what what the issue is is that the services are not as what's the word I remember they're not as long for lack of a better term my brain just stopped so they're the service the hours of per day are not are not as high therefore they're getting less money and that the real issue here is that because the leas the school districts are not sending their their payments to the um to the da's they're not going to have enough local mats to draw down more Medicaid so it's right for them but but the schools basically can't right it this it's it's questionless to what the legal they can or not but the way that the way some of the contracts I've read um say basically that they should not be paying if the service is I'm not very much we're supposed to have Emily um join us who is one who's legal counsel for for the agency and she's not was not able to join us I don't think she still is and she's the one that that wrote that wrote that directive I believe um Todd if I could just say yeah you know with all due respect if there's any attorneys in the room I don't take this the wrong way but you get two attorneys you got three opinions and uh you know I think part of the challenge right now is if you read the contracts from one perspective it in fact says that regardless because it's a bundled relationship for a 12-month period um payment is due in the same way that uh if you have a lease uh and you decide that because of circumstances uh you can't occupy your building for three months you still have the obligation to pay the lease um on the other side of the equation there's the interpretation that there are certain constraints as it relates to the to the payer or the secondary payer and I think the challenge is even in the AOE um guidance email that went out um in while it on the one hand it talked about only paying for the services on a fee-for-service basis there was a clause that say except if there may be contract language to the contrary so that's where it starts to get into the um pull and tug um I I I agree with that um I I completely agree with that but the contracts I've read it that it's that language is not in there yeah yeah I can't speak to anybody else's contracts I could tell you it's in our contracts but um but I don't think that the goal is to make this the goal I don't think certainly in our part or the school's part or AOE's part is to make this a win-lose kind of situation it's to try to come up with a solution which meets both uh the um legal and obligation responsibilities of the LEA and the AOE Department of Mental Health um but also recognizes the fiscal impact that it would have on um the designated agencies and try to come up with a solution that works for everybody so I think part of the reason we're all gathering here today is I think um I think I certainly want to see how to make the agency the the designated agencies whole but I also want to make sure that we're not just dragging the schools deeper into a pit that they're already in and so we're sitting here with this federal money we're trying to find a way that we can do this in a way that meets the appropriate criteria to use those funds and Sarah Squirrel do we have any idea what the total um suffering that's going on with the designated agencies at this point do we have a we see we needed to jump off uh Kate oh she did okay is there is um I do believe it's 12.5 representative web 12.5 million yeah Heidi Hall who is um my CFO gathered that information for all designated agencies and that's the potential and that's you know unless there's some mitigation through some arrangements that get made down the road here um and those discussions are going on as we speak so so that's 12.5 of which 60% could ultimately be covered by Medicaid is that right Sandy Sandy I'd ask if that's the GF I'm assuming that 12.5 is the general fund that's the general fund okay that's what you're using to to to match yeah that's correct okay that's too bad um Peter do you have you have your hand up for yeah no okay Todd Bellman for the record thank you for joining us for the record my name is Todd Bellman I'm the executive director at Northwestern counseling we serve people in Franklin and Grand Isle counties and um you just want to echo what other people have said but I want to put a really fine point on what this means for the people of our community we are working really closely with our superintendents to try and figure this out they've taken a stance that they're only allowed to pay for the services that are being provided so and we're working with them to find out how can we figure out how to make that work the challenges and this makes as an agency this makes me really worried and it makes our schools extremely worried for what does this mean when the kids come back to school we don't have the ability to maintain our infrastructure during this period we know that there's going to be this huge need that is on the other side of this when kids do come back to school both just through the trauma that's been caused by by COVID but also I'll share and I don't know if I'll represent two if you've heard this yet we just got a call today from both Ben and Jerry's there are a large employer that we have here in our community they said they're seeing a significant increase in depression and substance abuse can we do anything at all to jump in and help and we got a call from our local immigration which is the largest employer in Franklin County and we heard that they're laying off 75% of their workforce that they're only maintaining a workforce of 25% in Franklin County and they are our largest employer so we know there's this incredible trauma that's taking place both from COVID directly and secondary from the impacts that COVID's having to these families and we know and the schools tell us all the time they need us to be healthy on the other side of this and our concern is without some type of additional funds to bridge this gap we will not have the infrastructure in place to provide that need that we know is there and we know it's coming we're we're preparing as there's a second wave a wave of mental health need that's coming and we're trying to have the infrastructure in place and we're working really closely again with our school partners on that because both of us are very fearful that we won't have the services in place when we need them most so let me just move to Tracy Sawyer's for a minute because Tracy I would imagine school districts are also having trouble being able to get special ed dollars is that correct because of the change in the amount of service so they're missing federal funds as well right so do you want me to give my little testimony here quickly why don't you do that that'd be great thank you Tracy Sawyer is executive director of the Vermont council of special education administrators and I just want to start by saying thank you for having this discussion and having us and also say how much we value the success beyond six partnerships and what good work the DA's have been doing in the last few months and always do but from so from our perspective here's the here's how the issue went it was an issue of concern to my members in April mainly and May and in early April the field did receive guidance from AOE that encouraged the continuation of schools paying for mental health services via their contracts with the DA's but it didn't address how the AOE was going to handle the reduction in services and existing contracts so schools were immediately worried about reimbursement AOE stated that guidance would be forthcoming and it was in early May that there was additional guidance that acknowledged that some services covered by existing contracts either could not be delivered at all in the remote learning context or could not be delivered with the same frequency or duration and the guidance said in these cases unless a specific term in the contract provided otherwise the guidance quote said LEA should refrain from paying for any services that the LEA knows were not delivered so and I want to be clear that it's true that the use of IDEA funds is not flexible and the feds have not relaxed the requirement that IEDA funds be used for the actual provision of services so when the second guidance came out then my members started to renegotiate some of the contracts or were thinking that they needed to renegotiate some of the contract and it's been my understanding that superintendents then largely took over that work so you'll hear from Jeff Francis after me but and I would just like to say that the contracts are not uniform so some had to give 60 days 30 days just the contracts are all over the place as well but how I understand my perspective how my members have described typically during the regular school year many school districts in Washington County for example purchase pods for school-based services and with the purchase of a pod the school receives services of a BCBA and contracted number of BIs to support multiple students with IEP goals and objectives and the BIs are cross-train to work with various students within the district to provide consistency for students and to mitigate the absence of the BIs and BI being behavioral interventionist. So in April a group of my members so again there's the special Ed administrators and school districts learned that school-based BIs had been redeployed to work in other areas of the mental health agency at least in Washington County so like micro on micro residential programs residential are helping with case management responsibilities to cover duties for employees the mental health agency who fell into one of the high-risk categories and just we're told that funding was being blended and that the continuation of a school contract permits DAs to bill Medicaid under a more flexible standard than IDEA or Vermont's own special education finance rules. So this was just concerning for VCSEA especially given the grim reality of the education fund shortfall and that some students being served currently are not eligible for special education services and clearly fall outside the school's responsibility for provision of services. So it seemed to them that it represented a cost shift to local budgets and then came the guidance that LEA should refrain from paying for any of the services that LEA no were not delivered. So again I just want to say it's true that IDEA is not flexible I think the bottom line is the concern that school budgets could likely rise because schools will pay the contracts but not get reimbursed from AOE and for taxpayers it looks like schools aren't being physically responsible and rising budgets are often blamed on special education and this is directly related to special education services and in that portion of the budget. So it's just an ongoing concern of the education fund dollars being used to fund mental health and I think just we're in such an economic crisis and schools are you know really facing a huge cliff and a very significant hit on funding so that was really our concern. So we talked to Dan French right away and he was very open to hearing the concerns and he's been I know working back and forth with Sarah on this but again we extremely value our relationships with the DA's and the service providers but as you say Kate nothing is easy related to COVID-19 so from my perspective that's kind of how this is unfolded over April and May and now into June. Thank you Casey too. Yes thank you thank you Chair Webb I just want to respond to Todd who brought up those two potential issues. I did hear about the INS I have not heard about Ben and Jerry so that's something I will look into as well but please keep me informed with this stuff too. I think you have my email I think we've talked before so thank you for bringing that up. So let's let's see if we can put this in a nice neat package. We have a global pandemic schools were shut down immediately demonstrating to us what inequity looks like. I think you want to see inequity close the schools. We have our neediest students that are being served in different ways. You have there are contracts between the schools and the designated agencies to provide various supports whether it's case management or it's behavioral interventionists or it's one-on-one or a variety of things that you provide however those hours have been drastically cut because of the change in program so they don't necessarily need help to walk through the halls anymore to get to the cafeteria or to get to another class. They don't need someone sitting with them in the circle to keep them focused. So we have reduced hours which means reduced funds which means potentially harming the designated agencies and we can't use the funds that we normally would have used to pay for those services because they're reduced which therefore cuts down the access to Medicaid funds. In the meantime we have this big pot of gold sitting over here which is the CRF funds and we have not yet figured out a way how to legitimately use those funds to be able to keep the agencies whole, to be able to draw down those funds and we need some serious thinking here because we're certainly hearing that this is a challenge for the schools. The schools are not banks. We have budgets going down because of the introduction of global pandemic and we have this pot of money and I need some ideas on how we can access that money to be able to keep the agencies whole to be ready for the fact that we know that the students returning in the fall are going to look different and be needier. That we already know. I went on a walk with four teachers the other day and they said you want to see learning loss? I got it. I'll show you. So we know that. So ideas, how can we use that money in a way that meets the criteria and helps us be prepared for the return? Peter Conlon, do you have the answer I hope? Not even close. We clearly need minds that understand this much better than we do as just elected citizens because it's complex. I just had a question though and that is did the DAs see a reduction in expenses as a result? I don't think they were under the same order to keep their employees employed as the public schools were. And somebody mentioned the concern about staffing up for needs in the fall and I just would like somebody to expand on that if somehow the staff disappeared and you don't expect it to reappear or if it actually never really went anywhere and there will be enough on staff. I'd be happy to speak to that representative Conlon. We were strongly encouraged actually to keep our staff employed and that was from the very beginning with meetings with Secretary Mike Smith. So we took that on at Washington County for sure across all populations and there was mention of a redeployment by Tracy which was seven individuals and an unfortunate conclusion by our district which we've tried to rectify that for some reason the kids still weren't getting those kids weren't getting services. We just shifted their needs to other workers but we did move seven workers from children's into our residential children's facilities. So we maintained because we had so many vacancies as well we maintained our staff across and we were encouraged to do so strongly by our secretary. So they moved into positions where their salaries or whatever would be reimbursed? Yep those seven and that those are areas where we have said we'd be you know within the contract structure we'd be very willing to sit down and discuss concessions. Our district is one of those that has indicated that they believe that the contract is null and void and so you know we are having some contractual discussions around that. Yeah I guess Kate this is more a question for you you know this is a or this is actually a technical question so let's say we say okay this is really a human services problem and a human services committee comes up with a way to fund this 12 million dollars does that still does that negate the ability to draw down the federal money if we just sort of throw 12 million dollars at you without it being funneled through the schools and school services? Out of it's 12 million of general funds. 12 million of just general funds would would do it but not 12 million of CRF funds. No not 12 million of CRF funds okay. All right so we need we need a way to get general fund money in there and then replace that the general fund with CRF funds. I just remember from appropriations face what but one question I just want to get to is how is it affecting how what what are the effects that you are you're experiencing with this lack of of money what's what's what what's the the problem? I can speak from our agency as we we entered this with about 30 35 days of cash where our our someone asked our we are still accruing the expenses of those employees because they're still doing some type of work and we kept them under the kind of auspices that we would be reimbursed for that. We made that decision in mid-march going forward and I know DOE's decision AOE's decision or recommendation to only pay for the services you've been received came out significantly later than that so we had already accrued a significant amount of expense for that time period we're burning through our cash. I I know we are very quickly going to go into our capital fund which is our our we're going to shift capital dollars into operating dollars and we project without some type of help we're going to eat through all of those dollars as well so we are very worried about that I you know we have a I've been briefing my board on this regularly keeping them in the loop we are now looking seriously at how do we decrease our expenses as a way to kind of right-size us given the significant reduction in revenue that we had planned on having that we don't have now. So is it staffing that you're trying to cover that's that's breaking the bank? Staff is about 80 percent of our expenses are our staff wage so anytime we look to save to reduce our overall expense it has to include some type of staffing reduction. Okay but what about for you Bob Dick what's what's breaking the bank? Is it staff? Class? Sandy you want to? Yeah I mean it's the same for Todd as far as what we're looking at for the current fiscal year and worse similarly about 80 percent is staffing costs but I would offer that the dollar amounts that we're talking about right now or for fiscal 20 right we're talking about from March forward or May forward depending on which date that you're looking at and the other problem with this besides the current financial one is what's going to happen going forward the way these contracts or devise that is as Mary mentioned it's a package of services so we're offering you board certified behavior analysts we're offering you clinical specialist behavior interventionists there's multiple resources that go to this and again the primary issue in this challenge is the behavior interventionist but there are a lot of services crisis intervention living skills training homeschool coordination schools sign a contract for this they pay whatever it is say it's three thousand dollars a month to have that capacity in place if going forward what they believe is happening is that they can only build fee for service there's no we don't build fee for service for the schools for this right now there's a capacity of staff available to support them and then some of these contracts that also includes consultation and training for the school partners for the teams etc but we don't log that currently it doesn't say we'll give you x hours of this y hours of that and so if moving forward there's not a resolution on how they're going to be reimbursed and again nothing has changed in this as far as the contract they signed they were getting reimbursed before there was no guarantee of certain hours again it's sort of a resource level off overall and then the memo that came out said if there was any reduction in services don't pay pay fee for service and so as they look at we've met with the chitman county special educators this morning and excellent partners we're all working together to try to resolve this but they are rightly very nervous about signing contracts for next year even if school is fully in session and stays fully in session and we're all trying to plan the multiple strategies on both sides for how that might look different but if it's going to be a fee for service model how that is going to work is not going to work on their end if they're not getting reimbursed and it's not going to work on our end if we're not getting the 3000 a month that it takes to support these services and now just have to bill out a subset of services fee for service hit by hit if you had 12.5 million distributed with general funds then you could access the the Medicaid funds is that accurate the 12.5 million is the current challenge for the current fiscal year for FY 20 for fiscal 21 my estimate is we're talking yeah I think we're 62 million overall as a system 62 million is what is 62 million the total size of the success beyond six program across the state for a year that's not the loss that's the correct correct that's the budget when we're talking about the 12 million those are the education dollars yeah currently for the current fiscal year again I'm concerned that even if and I think this is incredibly challenging to come up with 12 million dollars in general fund for this year but again it's just going to lead to a bigger issue for the coming year if we can't solve the reimbursement for the for the districts or it's going to create another shift to general funds that this cares Peter Collin just a quick technical question we keep saying money from the general fund but I assume the same is true if it's coming from the education fund we use them interchangeably okay the education fund which has 100 million it's missing at the moment better than 150 okay so the moment I'm not seeing a solution to this we are going to hear I will try to hear from the agency agency of education I know that we were supposed to have Heather Boucher and Emily Simmons but they were not able to join us but I think what they're probably going to say is exactly what you told me that they said there's part of that that makes sense in terms of asking schools to pay for services that weren't rendered when they don't have money so that's a challenge Brad Chloe is Chloe in the room Chloe usually figures these things out did she leave Chloe have any thoughts okay I'm here um I don't have I have I'm I'm listening and thinking and learning yeah um and I know I mean I know I do believe that there are other committees thinking about this um I I I think Stephanie Barrett in our office is working with some senators on it as well okay so I will keep my ears to the ground yeah we can't use the code we can't use the crf money to match it has to be state dollars state or local and we can't justify it um it goes back to our hundred million so um is Brad Brad is is Mark in the room right now I don't think it's in the room others ideas I I wonder um what we really have here is a contract dispute and you know is this going to get settled in court if we can't figure out a solution legislatively so Washington county mental health is you do have a lawsuit going correct Mary but no no we have conversations at this point that have escalated between two attorneys but um we would really very much like to get to sit down and have the discussion really want to just sit down um Jim Demeray just checking with you to see if you see any options for us I don't uh sure what I this is the first time I'm hearing this as well I'm not familiar with it um so like Chloe I'm just you know listening along at this stage and Mary Hooper from Appropriations you have a magic 12.5 no that's the reason we asked you to take this up and I really want to say thank you for taking it up at the last moment on a long day in a long week etc um I think it's a problem that we need to figure out how to solve it would be a real shame to say oh it's a contract dispute because I think there are larger issues here which I know you all are just deeply aware of and I so admire your dedication to the kids that we're trying to support through this process um there is another associated piece which is that we're trying to move our healthcare system to a fee-for-service way of thinking and it sure would be a shame if if the education system said we don't want to be part of delivering healthcare to kids in that same way and I just I just wanted to give a nod to the value of dealing with fee-for-service because of what it gets for the whole system um I I think I think maybe we need the weekend to think about it I've been texted or emailing with Stephanie Barrett um so maybe we just need the thinking caps of the JFO folks um and hopefully I mean those poor people are working hard as hard as everybody else you know so thank you and Chloe you're in conversation with Stephanie as well can I just clarify something Mary Hooper you said the value of fee-for-service and moving toward fee-for-service no away from okay thank you oh why are you that's what I thought okay we're trying desperately to move away from thank you to um uh yes I beg your pardon thank you for how they're fine Friday afternoon yeah and actually in in our act 173 we're trying to try to move away from that as well right um we just are struggling getting there this did not help serena sounds to me like right right now it's either we force school districts to pay the money or we don't as the obvious answers say that again that I mean the the easy answer here is something that forces school districts to honor the contracts that solves the problem but obviously that's a very problematic solution so the it's I feel like we have kind of a binary choice at least at this moment in time the either force school districts to pay so we can get the match and the da's are made whole or we don't well we do have two business managers in the room I see Rick Pembroke and Brenda Fleming are in the room how does that sound to you guys that sound good either of you yeah Brenda I kind of wish I was listening um Peter was suggesting that we perhaps force the school districts to pay no no no I wasn't suggesting that I was just saying that that seems to be the only option to solve the problem at this moment in time shandy Brenda is my constituent I gotta I gotta talk carefully whether I think the biggest question that I don't have the answer to but I would you know want us to kind of fold that through is um you know what does that mean in regards to the match because we do know that the full amount of services aren't happening does that put the mental health people in in a bad bad worse or different situation and I know you are the people who can write the legislation that says you still make the school district whole so they wouldn't say outhandedly it's a bad idea but I think I'd like to just not from my point of view but from the mental health agencies what what that means from them in regards to their matches that would be my my thoughts if the schools were forced if the schools were forced to pay I believe our agencies would be fine I believe there would be unintended consequences on the local school budgets because their challenge is getting the reimbursement from the AOE typically they get reimbursed for this contract from the AOE again it doesn't specify a certain level of services it specifies a capacity and I want to be clear it is not that there has been no service provision there just hasn't been the same level of service provision because the students haven't been as available and so what muddied the waters typically they were all on board to continue at least in our region to continue to pay these contracts until the guidance came out that said if there has been a change in the frequency or duration of services then only pay fee for service unless there is specific contract language so now everybody's running around to look at the contract language and etc but I would suggest that forcing them to pay them is going to solve our problem create a bubble elsewhere in the local school budgets and I'm seeing Tracy because that's going to get us in trouble with special ed and I'm Rick Pembroke I'm the chief financial officer in Springfield yeah I concur sounds like an unfunded mandate that's going to bloom out of control and we'll be dealing with it at the ballot box and the local property taxes which isn't a pretty conversation right now I think I must misunderstood because I think Peter was saying by the legislature mandating it they would also make sure that we received reimbursement you didn't say that I'm pretty sure mandate one-sided all right it's 453 um my e-mail is available um if you think of something um last weekend I was you know losing sleep over one thing I might as well lose sleep over this um I want want to want to solve it just not seeing that avenue yet but boy there's just got to be a way I don't know Kate it seems like every day there's a new problem and a new issue and they just keep getting more severe yeah chair web can I just ask this hypothetically there was another another pot of money coming from the federal government and we were able to use that to backfill loss revenue so we made the education fund whole then would we be able I mean I know this is a hypothetical but I'm just wondering then could would we be able to pay this pay the 12 point whatever million if we had fewer restrictions on the way we use the money that would make a difference oh wait a minute Esser funds yeah there's some Esser funds Esser funds Chloe poor Chloe I'll jump in on Esser funds because just what I've been hearing from various legislative committees including yours is a different use for Esser funds just throwing that out there yeah not my decision but yeah yeah I have to think about that don't we um um I think I think that's it for now um Jim Demeray if you could I'll maybe I'll see if we can talk um either over the weekend on Monday to talk about the language um to address the the um independent schools I think I've got enough to draft something so let me drop something to get to you and and a few other people and just there was something to look at when we yeah I mean if they could it's just to cover it's just to cover 20 20 and FY 20 and 21 yep there's a way to put them together that'd be great I think you can carry over yeah yeah okay um and it looks like um let's see we've got Mary in the room I don't think that we have Chip in the room but uh we'll just say that we're not seeing a way to use um we're not seeing a purpose for the um chart of accounts money I know that that was something of interest to the committee we're not I don't think we're going to give you anything on that I I got that very quickly thank you for asking the question I'm sorry to have put you through it we have to ask the question I know so I'll report back we so want it don't we can we just get it done can we just get it done the answers no right this way um I think that's it I want to thank you all so much for coming I apologize for um the way the legislature functions we uh we we don't know we are not always able to control the time because we have a process by which people everybody gets to speak on the floor related to the issue before us and as one legislator said years ago uh not everything has been said it just not has not been said by everyone and we had a little bit of that today I think thank you so much thanks everyone for being here thank you that idea it was a great weekend