 This is the Senate Appropriations Committee. We're continuing our work on the three-quarter budget for fiscal 21. And today we're going to be taking testimony from the Department of Health. I can see that we have Dr. Levine, we have Paul Daly with us again, and Sarah Clark from the agency. Apologize for starting a little later. We wanted to get, we had to have several more members get signed in before we wanted to start the testimony. So I don't know if we have, you have documents that you wanna put on the screen to share. We also had Chrissy send some questions to Dr. Levine. I think at least one of them was a follow-up to the question that got raised to Paul when he came and presented to joint fiscal on the charge for certain tests that I believe Senator Sears constituents experienced. And so there was a desire to get a little bit more information and explanation about that situation. And there was a second one, but I can't remember off the top of my head. So we're gonna probably be asking questions as well as we go along. But with that, Dr. Levine, you had probably a presentation that perhaps we would screen share, is that your plan or did you just wanna give us a verbal? It's quite brief, but we can do both. Okay, that would be great. And most of what I'll say is really on the first page of this two-page document. So basically, may I begin? Yes, certainly. We have the document up in front of us. Home visit is first. Exactly. So you'll see that there's a state funding reduction of $1.1 million. And most of this reduction, $850,000 to be exact, results from the delayed implementation of the expanded home visiting program. The purpose here is that we had originally envisioned the expansion would begin in July and the fiscal year 21 cost would be a million dollars in state funds. However, since we've been fully mobilized for the pandemic response since February, the planning on this project had to stop at that time. We now believe we'll be unable to begin the expanded program before the fourth quarter of fiscal year 21. So the restated budget just acknowledges this reality that reduces our global commitment budget in our public health appropriation by 1.8 million. And then the balance of the savings will come from slightly lower internal service charges and a revised estimate of the federal share of department administration costs. So as you know, we have three appropriations. So this mainly impacts the public health appropriation very slightly the administration and not at all the ADAP. All right. Any questions about this? This is just in order to do the planning and advance work for implementation, just all the resources went to deal with the pandemic and as a result, a delay in getting this program ready to come online is being delayed until the last quarter. Correct. It's still a very near and dear to our heart program. May I ask you a question about home visiting because this is an expansion. Well, we already have some home visiting capacity in place in light of the pandemic, what is the status of those home visits? Are they still being conducted? I know that the same number of lives, I'll call it would be covered. The real question is, are they doing in-person visits? I'm not exactly certain to be honest. I'm gonna have to check with my maternal child health unless Paul Daly's aware of something I'm not aware of. I was just wondering whether it was done just like telemedicine in a remote way or? Arcudelbein and Senator Kitchell, it's Paul Daly. I did check with the program staff. They had said that for the existing clientele, they did move to tele-meetings and those have continued at about the same level of activity as prior to the epidemic. Okay. Thank you. We can move on then to the next section of the memo. Yeah, and there's not a lot to say really in the next session of the memo. We can go into greater details, but there's a tremendous amount of federal funding going into the public health response to this pandemic. And it comes from a number of funds and it's been able to fully cover all of the work that we've been doing to this point in time. We continue spending at the same rate. It will also continue through the next fiscal year. And the next page, is there a next page? Okay. All right. Yeah, these were just to, you know, we presented these in the house appropriations committee to really just update three projects that were authorized by legislation, telehealth connectivity, COVID-19 related health disparities and EMT and paramedic training. All of these are really in their inception stages, if you will, with the first one, the telehealth working on a grant agreement with VPQHC for the project. On the second one, negotiating sub-grants. And on the third one with the EMTs, beginning to accept applications for tuition support. So these are all very early, but they are updates on prior legislation authorization for funds. So, and all three cases, this ties into a question that Senator Westman was raising. Is that money has been appropriated, but it's taking some time before it gets out the door. So in all three cases then, actual expenditures from these appropriations have yet to occur. Is that what is the situation here? Senator Kitchell, it's politically I can address that. That's true. No expenditures have been made, but all of the, because the legislation authorized it, all of the grants will be, they will reimburse costs that have been incurred since July 1st by the grantees. Okay. All right. Committee, questions of the commissioner. We might wanna get into maybe this using this as an opportunity for a more general discussion other than the specifics. It sounds like your budget per se is pretty straightforward. The one thing that I would raise that has been brought to our attention, and that is when we put together the hazard pay, which is being administered by the agency, we had had the impression that salary adjustments had been made to all the identified employees who were provided at risk of exposure to the virus. And then we subsequently found out that the adjustments only had been made for employees done by Dale and mental health, but that the alcohol and substance abuse clinical staff that might be providing in-person and at risk. We had by virtue of excluding the DAs from eligibility excluded employees that did not get any salary adjustment from your department or from ADAP. I don't know whether that has been brought to your attention, Sarah, I know that that's not being ministered by the health department, it's being done. I think someone from divas on loan heading that up, is that right? It's actually a secretary's office employee. Okay, so has that been brought to your attention that the ODAP funded alcohol, substance abuse staff out in the field that might be providing in-person services? I don't know how many, the extent to which it has been done in-person that provided a higher risk of exposure, but I just wanted to ask the commissioner or Paul, whether that situation has been brought to your attention in terms of those that positions funded for the services that come through ADAP. We excluded because we thought that they were covered by these negotiated salary increases. Does this ring a bell with anyone? Well, it's kind of appalling that the association would come to the department, I don't even know the extent to which you have had ADAP-funded employees through the designated agencies that have been providing in-person services. I think I'm, am I losing my committee? Have any of you heard this concern that we, Dale and mental health negotiated salary increases for hazard pay for selected employees? ADAP did not and that the designated, and we had taken testimony. Sarah probably will remember this from the secretary who said, please be careful, you don't duplicate. So we very specifically excluded employees of the designated agencies for that reason, because we had been told that these salary adjustments were being made. So I want to just bring to your attention that that exclusion of these clinicians has been brought to our attention, but I don't have a sense of how many or a definition of the need. And sounds like I haven't heard. I remember that conversation during our talks about the hazard pay bill. I don't remember a conversation about excluding people who might have. The question really was, how much time did they actually spend with clients or in person versus either remotely or by phone or whatever the other process. And that's where I got, I'm getting a little bit confused. You know, do they have, do these individuals who worked for designated agencies and substance abuse or others have the records as to where they work? Because that was the whole idea behind it was frontline workers. And I wasn't realizing that we excluded certain people who had gotten a pay adjustment. But we did, we did. And I can speak to that because I was on the work committee that created the legislation. And we were cautioned by Secretary Smith not to duplicate actions and pay adjustments that were also using the CRF grant money to provide increased pay. And that was done for the mental health workers and the Dale workers. It's not just you work for a covered employee, but the job that you perform has got to be, it's primary function is that person to person interaction that would place the employee at higher risk of exposure. So if it's being done by telemedicine, then there's obviously not that risk. And we had thought that, so we very deliberately excluded employees of designated agencies for that reason because it had been negotiated. The same as we did for municipal employees because we provided a separate pod of CRF money to fund hazard pay for that group. So I just bring it up. Paul and Dr. Levine has something that has been brought forward to us and I guess we need to have some more understanding of it, the extent to which in-person services were in fact provided by employees of the designated agencies. So I don't mean in light of the fact that I'm just bringing this situation to your attention and that it hadn't been brought to you before. I don't expect you to respond, but I want you to be aware that that was a problem that was presented to us, but I have no idea how many employees of designated agencies are funded by ADAP that would meet the criteria and that we should address. So is that something that Dr. Levine or Paul should look into? Well, we're going to need to because we're putting together a technical correction and we've found some other things that have to be addressed in that hazard pay program that have cropped up obviously in the course of implementation. And this was one. We're at this point trying to evaluate it and figure out how to deal with it through some kind of amendment to the bill language that we had. It was in the big healthcare bill H965. We'll explore that for you within our ADAP section. That would be very helpful because we're going to be working on those technical amendments and need to deal with some other corrections. So I'd appreciate any information that you can provide. Other questions? Senator Sears, shall we go to your question about the testing then? That was... I think the commissioner is fully answered to those of us in Bennington County. The issue of the two forms of testing and the need why we do it. The question that I don't have yet is why certain people are charged for testing and others are not. And it appears that in the Manchester case there was a $65 per test charge. And then I heard that there are other places charging as much as $150 for a test. So I'd like to understand there's nothing would inhibit people from getting the test more than knowing that they're going to get charged for it. And when I had a person who came to me and said, I called my doctor to try to get a test, I might have to pay. And I said, well, you know, you should make sure that you call somebody else because that's not my understanding. So you want to respond to that, Dr. Levine and clarify. It sounds like we've got two different tests here. Exactly. So we have the two different tests, one of which is the PCR, the kind of gold standard traditional test we do in our public health lab. And the other is the more novel antigen test, which is the one that Manchester Medical Center has been doing. The way the guidelines are currently written, the PCR test is covered completely. And the antigen test had not, has not achieved that status yet. But aside from that, it's clear that the Manchester Medical Center's practice is to not accept Medicare or Medicaid. And even Blue Cross Blue Shield, they indicate they're still ironing out some issues or whatever. So that most people who would have gone there for one of their antigen tests would have been told they had to pay for it. Just because of their practices alone with insurance. It remains to be seen and I presume we will evolve in our looking at the antigen test as one that might very well be covered, but it would should be covered in a very specific manner in terms of the indications for when that test would be appropriate. And in the next week or two, we'll be coming out with a health alert notification, which will further describe the antigen test and its role in the scheme of testing for COVID-19. And that will help clarify for everybody exactly where we think it plays a role and what the appropriate indications are. I think in at least in my experience with this down in Bennington County, a lot of people because of quarantine requirements, which we're seeking a quick test that would give them a result almost immediately. And I don't know how long it takes now. I haven't had a test done recently, but we've heard stories that it takes Senator Westman that it can take four to six days to get the results depending upon where you are in the state. And so I think that's why people went to the Manchester clinic because they wanted to get out of the quarantine situation and know quickly, but I don't know that for sure. But I know some people have gone that route. Yes. So this is probably not the test to be used for getting out of quarantine because by definition, you're asymptomatic. And the test is not does not perform well with people who don't have symptoms. It's really meant for people in the first few days of having symptoms that are compatible with COVID-19. So that's the answer to that part. With regard to Senator Westman's larger issue, it really does vary across the state tremendously. Some hospitals have in-house platforms that they can run their own tests on that give results relatively quickly. Some don't. Some send to commercial labs. We're working with Vaas and with the lab directors to try to determine the best way to increase testing capacity within hospitals that want to have it because some don't even have it at all. And we want to make sure they have a diversity of platforms. So we're not vulnerable to shortages and national supplies and things of that sort. The biggest issue with the turnaround time has been with the national commercial labs like lab core and quest. I don't want to point my finger at them and say they are evil because they are just overwhelmed. That's nothing to do with them as much as being overwhelmed because when all of the states in the south and the west experienced their surges, they suddenly tried to get up to testing capacity where they should have been all along, but hadn't yet been. And they're having turnaround times in excess of a week, which is almost a worthless result if you're managing an outbreak of positive tests. So those labs are now starting to catch up. So that should reduce the turnaround time for them tremendously. We also work with the UVM medical center, as you know, that's sort of the triage site for where the tests are sent out to. And the goal is that the more remote and community level hospitals get the same access as the partners of the UVM medical center get those in their health network. And that is supposed to be true, but it doesn't always appear to work that way. So we're working with them to make sure that a hospital Vermont that wants its results because they're testing somebody who's symptomatic and needs a result today, gets that result so that there's an equity situation across hospitals. So that's what we're working on as we speak, because we are aware of the fact that some of these hospitals have really had to wait longer than we would want to feel comfortable with. So we're not, we don't have our head in the sand on this. We're quite aware of it and working on it. And to the extent we can within the state, to the extent of these commercial labs nationally, it's more of their problem of trying to catch up as fast as they can. So I appreciate that doctor. Thank you. So just to follow up and then I see center westman's got his hand up out of all the out of what 14, 14 hospitals, 14. I'm just going to go back to that. I'm just going to go back to that. Off the top of my head out of the out of the Vermont hospitals. Do most have the testing. The lab capacity to do the tests. And the reason I'm wondering is, as we're seeing these particularly colleges open up, schools open up, it seems like we're going to see a great deal of demand for tests. And I'm just thinking the volume on these. The volume on these is going to be a huge increase. And the more we have in state capacity. To manage our own needs is desirable. So. Where are we now relative to what percentage of the hospitals are able to do their own testing? Is it half or. Or. No, I would say it's probably in the two thirds range. More than half. More than half. I think. I'm just going to go back to that. So what's that? So what's that? Well, So how does anybody know that walks in. The lag time. I've had some people come to me and say they waited six and a half days to get the results back. And that's within the last two weeks. And, you know, issue and if somebody appears to be positive, you're going to want to know quicker. And they walk in the door and they think they hear in the press conferences 48 hours. So if you're in the group of people that are symptomatic, you should expect 48 hours at the longest. That means most likely you've had your test ordered by your healthcare provider and they know where that test is going so they'll get the result back when needed. If you're going to a pharmacy or if you're going to a primary care practice that will take your sample because you have no symptoms and they don't have to worry about infection and all that, they may send it to a national lab in which case you may find it six days. So usually the person ordering the test knows what they're getting into because they know when they want the results quickly and when they don't need it quickly. Now if the patient is saying I'm doing this test to get out of quarantine and I'm on day seven, obviously six days later is like, well I did the full quarantine, it doesn't matter anymore. So the goal is to get that test quicker. I would hope that they would have been clear about that at the time they got the test done so that they would get it back quickly enough. I don't think that and what I hear from my local hospital is that they're having to send to Burlington to get the test, the analysis done and the test done there so and it's that lag time in between. So if your sample is going to the public health lab you're going to get it back very quickly. If it's going to the UVM Medical Center and they're doing it you'll get it back quickly. If they send it out they almost send all of their other tests out to the Broad in Boston and that's very quick as well. They're not in the business of triaging to the commercial labs. But if you go to a federally qualified health center or a primary care office or a kidney drug anything of that sort you may find that your lab is going to a commercial lab in which case you're not going to get it back right away until they've caught up completely from their overloaded schedule so far. But I would say to you I think most people that are going to get tested have heard in the media that it's 48 hours and they don't know when they go and where they go and I might say to you and call it my local hospital I've had two people talk to me that it took 60s when they went to my local hospital. And did the hospital have the capacity to analyze the specimen? No they did curbside and they sent them they sent it on to Burlington and it took six days to come back. Really that's helpful information thank you. Perhaps Senator Westman you can provide an email so we could look at what happened and where it was sent and you know and maybe you could send it to Paul and he can direct through the system. I will do that. Okay all right because it seems like what we were finding is there's great variability around the state. We know with any other medical procedure there's great variability if you're being charged and that seems to be the case with the antigen test and so it's helpful but ideally then the patient would get this information from whomever is taking the sample so they know what the expectation of return time should be. But that would be in the ideal world of course. Other questions of Dr. Levine? Yes Senator Sears you're muted though. I unmute myself thank you. I just wanted to say something about the Manchester case and I have nothing but the greatest respect for the people at the Manchester Clinic. I've met them and talked to them but I have to tell you that the Department of Health did a fantastic job with some criticism thrown in by others and etc but Dr. Levine you know what I saw you do and your Department of Health in dealing with that fear in the northern part of my district from people and how you calm the situation down you deserve some credit there and I want to give you that while we're here today on this meeting so I thank you for all you did to try to just calmly explain the situation to folks. I appreciate that you'll be hearing a little more about that in the near future probably because as you know there was no major outbreak that we could determine. We continue to get sporadic cases that we expect that but the investigation from the FDA angle isn't going to show anything tremendously wrong with the machinery or anything of that sort. The problem was many of the businesses in that area chose to close once the news of an outbreak hit and you know interrupted the reopening process and I just need to give you some credit for your manner and you came in there and really did a great job. Too often I'm quick to criticize administrators. Yeah Senator Sears we've made that observation. You've never noticed that? Yeah but I think we've always had a great relationship. I don't know about always. I am sure that the governor is you have been incredibly valuable and the governor is respecting and valuing the science and the and your recommendations and when we heard from the legislative economist he talked about actually because we get into this dichotomy that oh it's too tight you know they're strangling the economy and you know that national debate but our economist said that by virtue of having the lowest infection rate the lowest hospitalization rate etc that the management of the pandemic has had a beneficial impact on the Vermont economy as opposed to starting up too soon etc and I know that we have lots of differences of opinion in fact there are some people out there just like with anything else saying it's too tight it needs to be liberalized etc but I did think that you should know from the economic perspective the the approach and the advice that you've provided to the governor which he obviously has taken very seriously does have an economic benefit to us as well based on what we heard from our economists so I wanted to convey that as as well so it's not only just the public health but it's and and I I don't know about other legislators but in my area compliance with the mask requirement is just incredibly good. I can't even remember seeing anyone without a mask as I've gone either to the post office or to the local store so I don't know what the compliance rate is statewide but I would say based on what I'm seeing people are in Vermont are taking the information that you're giving and the mandates and the advice very seriously so I just hope that that's the case throughout the state. Thank you I think we're finding from other countries in the world too that some of them are not getting the economic bang for the buck they anticipated because of the way they reopened and hopefully some of them are doing as well as you describe our economists talking about from our experience. Okay Senator Starr. Yeah I was just wondering I represent a pretty big ski area and Senator Kitzel does in Westman, Alice does in Dick. I was wondering has there been much talk about what's going to happen later this winter for the ski season? Yes we have these meetings that are called restart meetings that happen several times a week where literally every sector of state government including public health of course is represented and that group has been responsible for bringing recommendations to the governor as he opens the spigot little by little in various areas and the ski industry was just brought up yesterday actually and though we know that if the pandemic continues the way it's been going the ski areas will not be what they used to be in terms of the way they look and the way they have to operate they will still be in business and our goal is to create the kind of setting where people can adhere to all of the appropriate public health recommendations and still enjoy the sport and have the industry still be a vibrant industry. So we figured now that it's August we do need to make our plans happen with enough lead time so everybody's ready but needless to say we've been spending so much time on things that are more seasonal that we couldn't get to skiing yet but it's been teed up as our next kind of area to delve into. Other questions of the commissioner or Paul? One thing that people have talked about and in some states the whole public health system has really been eviscerated over time and a pandemic has really pointed out the importance of a robust public health response. One of the and this gets into some discussion that people are having and that is how as we're managing the crisis of the moment how do we take this experience and and the kinds of planning and the long-term systemic kind of changes that are going to be that have been identified that really need to be made are you when you're talking about future planning I'm sure that the whole question about the role of public health of the capacity of public health how we can take this and really strengthen the work that our health department does is a topic of also discussion. Can you just give us a little sense of how once we get through the get through the all the incredible pressure that you're dealing with now how we take it and move forward in a in a way that gets us into a better place for the future? Yeah so you know it's the Trump administration gets fingers pointed at it all the time and we continue to do that but it's really a whole host of administrations successively that have literally eviscerated the funding for public health in our nation. A fair amount of short-sightedness not anticipating things that science has been talking about for decades even as simple as regular emergency responsiveness for public health. Not a pandemic on this scale that happens once in a century but even smaller things. We've had the warning flags go up with H1N1 with Zika, Ebola, none of them were sufficient apparently to get people's minds really functioning in a prevention public health mode. This one will finally do it we hope and start that process of returning the funding to public health that has been eroded away for so many years. Just the money that's being spent federally now to support our efforts in the pandemic tells a whole story by itself but think if there had actually been an infrastructure already prepared for this in a much different way that would have been very telling as well. The fact of the matter is our country spends a couple percent of its entire health budget on public health and prevention. All of the european countries spend in their teens percent low and high teens on public health and prevention and their outcomes speak volumes because their outcomes are uniformly better than the united states which spends tremendous amounts much more than any of those countries on health care but not on health. So we have a lot to learn in a whole bunch of spheres and this pandemic should hopefully turn out well but also be a sort of flag that goes up that really people can look up to and say we know what we need to do to protect our future and to become a healthier nation in general not just guarding against these infectious diseases that will happen with more frequency but guarding against a whole host of things that clearly we've not paid enough attention to over the years. So I think we're going to see a huge change in that and you know it's a shame that certain parts of our structures like the CDC are being made to look evil and bad and you know part of a hoax or what have you and certainly not well informed or providing cohesive and coherent messages to the public because the reality is the rest of the world thinks the CDC is the preeminent public health structure that exists. So we have a little work to do in the right direction but I am fairly optimistic about this message getting out there and people understanding where they should put their investments. Senator Cormack you have a blue hand up. Yeah thanks Commissioner I want to echo the compliments everyone's been paying you that's going back to when you were regularly testified to health and welfare. We were impressed with your work. The state has delegated to local school districts the questions of how to provide for safe reopening of the schools. So I know that this is actually not your mandate now it's the local districts but are you confident in what you're hearing and seeing coming from local school districts? Yeah so you know we are pretty much linked at the hip with the agency of education you know they didn't even dare figure out what kind of instructional apparatus needed to be set up around the state until the health guidance was furnished to them. So I'm very confident about school's ability to adhere to the health guidance. The health guidance is very broad obviously it's not just disinfection and sanitization and proper cleaning protocols but it's also how far apart the kids have to sit do they have to wear masks. It's also what happens if somebody comes to school sick what do you do about that and also is what happens if somebody actually has COVID do you close the school do you close the class how do you respond to that so it's a very broad health guidance how do you operate a school bus in this era how do you actually screen people at the door whether they're staff or students to make sure they're not coming to school ill so I could go on and on there's a ton of that and I'm very confident about that but the next layer on that is how does the school actually operationalize all that and open up as a school is it going to be in person is it going to be remote is it going to be hybrid and how do they function in that way and if it functions as hybrid what do you do with the kids the days they're not in school and that leads to the whole issues about childcare and parents being able to work or not work etc so it's a very very complex set of variables and circumstances but I'm pretty confident to be honest about our ability to operationalize it from the health angle for sure I don't I don't think that's problematic I think the most problematic thing is do we have the staff in the school to pull it off because even though we are the lowest state for new cases and our lowest test positivity rate we still have a lot of anxiety understandable anxiety amongst educators amongst school bus drivers amongst staff custodial staff what have you in the schools of administrative staff they all have their own sets of concerns and some of those concerns might mean that they can't be present in the educational setting so do we have the staff to pull it off is a bigger issue to me than any of the mechanics of it if you will so there are still unanswered questions yes yeah so secretary french is still awaiting all of the school district's response to how they're opening he had more than half of them the last time I heard from him um so he's what he's awaiting just what kind of instructional plans do they have and then he's also awaiting what are their staffing realities do they have staffing do they not have staffing I'm hearing from reopening skeptics who say that they're not sure we can get keep the kids shoes tied safely or get their runny nose is wiped safely I mean what do we how do we answer that yeah I I I'm not so worried about those things to be honest because generally this the physical distancing and the masking requirements are going to allow people to feel much more comfortable about the kinds of interactions with the younger kids that need to happen my daughter actually teachers outside of Vermont in a place that has no business having their schools open because their positivity rates higher but she only has a few people in the class and then a whole bunch in the hybrid mode and she's been able to feel comfortable about keeping away from the kids but also responding when she needs to respond because that's a very short duration interaction and works out one last question okay if you if you're confident in the protocols for reopening the schools could we borrow those protocols and use them to reopen the state house oh there's much of them that you could do actually absolutely however that the question is just like telework in all of state government is when is there the absolute necessity to be in person versus it's just nicer to be in person because you're used to it and you can connect with people differently than when you do it the way we're doing it now so I think it's more legislators determining how critical the in-person environment is to accomplishing their work and if it can't be accomplished in the ways that we're now learning how to use more and more technologically thank you very helpful center star you've got the last question I'm looking at the clock um yeah I was just wondering in the protocols like for bus students is the bus driver going to have a way to take the temperature of children as they get on the bus or is that going to be done when the children get to school but I would think that the sooner something wrong is detected the easier it would be to to fix it great point and I think originally a lot of people thought that the bus would be the best place for that to happen nip it in the bud if it shouldn't happen send the student home right at that point however that was putting a lot on the staff that would be available at the level of the bus and probably more than they could bargain for so the consensus was it was still going to be better off done at the front door of the school it was just one of those reality test things that um logistically wasn't going to be able to work well at the level of the door of the bus yeah thank you you guys are doing a great job keep it up thank you other questions of the commissioner or money questions of paul um if not if something comes up of course we will be in touch and appreciate the information that you've provided to us a lot of it is beyond the money but it's really talking about well in fact what our state resources are doing for us so we appreciate everything and I see now we have commissioner baker and we're going to move on to corrections which also has its own um COVID related um demands I guess are problems that they're managing as well so thank you very much Dr. Levine and at this point um we're going to move on to the department of corrections and their budget um and I think bye um thank you I think perhaps do we have uh and we have Matt D'Agostino welcome back Matt thank you Senator your chair didn't even get cold which I'm sure people are happy about um it's the best phone call I've received senator since I've been at corrections yeah when he called me to ask him to come back my question of you commissioner I thought you said your wife was adamant that you would only be like a 90 day now um I've lost track of time but um did you negotiate a reprieve I don't know I celebrated my 45th wedding anniversary last Sunday so I don't know what that says but um I'm I'm I'm still home so well we're glad you're home and we're glad you're still on the job so um do you have a document that you want a screen share or how did you want to uh present um oh I see it okay we have your ups and downs sheet here Matt's going to take the Matt's going to take the lead senator and then I'll I'll I'll I'll help answer questions okay we probably want to have a little more discussion in terms of what you're budgeting for out-of-state beds I know that originally they were they're lower and um that gets into justice reinvestment no question so uh we'll start with this sheet and then work through um Matt as you know this committee does not usually go line by line we really want to look at the you know sort of the bigger things we know that some of the internal service charges are going to go down simply because of the rate um that that was adjusted so um I just want to let you know that we don't expect um nor nor will you keep everybody's attention if you attempt to deal with the $47 or whatever there might be on some line and it doesn't look like there's many changes here certainly no correct senator there's there's only three appropriations where we have changes and I'm I'm we can start with the parole board it's a very small adjustment it's a it's a travel reduction um that's unless anyone has questions we could move on to correctional services out of state where I think the interest probably will be okay is that fine with the committee yeah all right senator sears you're okay with that senator sears yes swim no I wish I had um okay we're we're now on to the correctional this is correctional education next actually I want to go back to that because the governor is still proposing to move community high school of vermont into the education fund that's correct that's correct this wasn't changed from the original 21 budget proposal so that proposal is still there it is and that would be a total of three point almost 3.5 million yeah all right well you know we've got a lot of discussion about that um senator sears and I are great supporters and feel that whether you're incarcerated or not you have a right to that education but this is a point of departure I think with some of our colleagues in the house in terms of how our education for these vermonters is funded but senator sears you had a comment well I have a question I guess in prior times that we put the funding into the ed fund we provided general fund to cover that funding so that it wasn't actually impacting the property taxpayer in this case you're moving you're not moving any general fund over to the ed fund am I correct that's the way it looks to me yeah I believe I believe so senator sears when when this proposal was originally included with the 21 budget it was I believe there was a there was a tax revenue maybe a sales tax revenue that was being redirected to ed fund I believe which was an increase to ed fund at the time I believe that was that was the the logic behind this I think was Kino the original proposal had two pieces moved to the ed fund one was about two million of trial care and the other was community high school in vermont when the senator sears you're referencing years how many years ago and I think it was we moved general fund at the time yeah it was about six or seven maybe longer ago but then we solved the problem and then all the purest purest of the ed fund came out and said we hadn't solved the problem well and then we had the whole change in the way no no general fund transferred to the ed fund anymore so so I'm sure this is going to be a topic of discussion and I'm not sure what the house will do with it but I'll flag it for the committee that this is this is a recommendation well I'm pretty good guess what the house will do yeah well they're going to have to find three and a half million to make it up I can't find my blue hand but just you know it was always easy to justify moving having the ed fund pay for young people up to the age of 21 because they would be entitled to if there was on an IEP or something be entitled to be getting education money anyway so there was always you could always justify that and that's the way it was a long time ago so I don't see that as such a problem to be paying for them it was always an issue if you're paying for older people but up to 21 for crying out loud they're entitled to get ed money anyway if they were in their school well you've just joined Senator Sears and me Alice I have always maintained that we should be paying for them the other the other people a little more complicated but certainly for them who don't have the diploma for them can you speak to that at all Matt in terms of the enrollment of the community high school it's an accredited school this the same as St. John's Bay Academy it is an accredited high school and I don't know in terms of the enrollment and the age do you have data on that Matt or Commissioner I do not Matt I don't think we do right right now I don't have that although I think that there is an entitlement if you don't have a high school diploma even as an adult I think we ought to we ought to get see what our statutory provision but I believe I could be 50 years old I wish I were and still go and still go that's right yeah so we should we should check that and I know that who do we have on for joint fiscal support um uh it's Catherine I'm here I'll Catherine Catherine I see you if you could see if we could look at what the statute provides in terms of access to a high school diploma under Evermont law okay all right and senator we'll get the numbers of enrolled folks um plus some idea of age okay thank you you're welcome um we probably should go to our next screen then Chrissy so in correctional services the first two lines are offsetting that one million eight hundred sixty thousand dollar expense and it's um this is just a technical adjustment the 30 new correctional officer positions that were created um in the FY 19 budget bill sorry the FY 20 budget bill there were no position numbers when the FY 21 budget was put together so even though there's no cost the positions are offset by the savings from having the additional positions we just put the technical adjustment in to show those 30 positions until we can actually include them in the in the vantage system uh senator Sears you understand all that I'm not sure I just got it all you put them in and you took them out so the the positions were not didn't require additional funding they're going to be funded through savings in overtime vacancy okay all right I understand okay so they were already in the base it's just that we would get full time classified positions and the expenditures that we were making for overtime and temps etc would be available to support those classified positions but and the status of those positions still are that they're under recruitment they they are vacant we are not at that point of filling those okay because you don't have the position numbers or it's just that we haven't filled our vacancies that exist yet to get to those third that makes sense how oh so you've got not only these that haven't the new ones not filled but you have a significant number of existing positions under recruitment correct yikes oh we have we have 14 in the academy right now and I can get you the number um of what that would be for correct saucers vacancies I don't have it right here in front of me but I can get it for you okay that would be helpful senator sears do you have any questions no I decide I mean it's just it's an ongoing problem that exasperates the situation I know you know people are working 12 hour shifts if not more and it's you know they're getting burned out and it just exasperates the situation and it's a tough job especially with COVID yeah it is a very tough job and in light of that communal nature um in the facility um and I know that hazard pay higher pay had been negotiated for those positions um but even that I mean you know I can understand family being very concerned seems a family member going off to work in the in a facility like that and particularly when you hear about like things at marble valley or st jay or whatever right and people coming back from Mississippi so I don't envy the commissioner no no okay and then we've got the uh then we've got the COVID pandemic cost and that would be the crf money that has come to the department and it shows it in that column okay almost up five million correct and then this is for for things such as pp staff sal or any other other COVID related operating expenses yep and I'm sorry I think I had missed the health savings health services contract there's their savings there of uh one one three one point three five million or sorry one point seven five million this is related to the change from the previous contract that we had with Centurion to the current contract with vital core that was effective July 1st of 2020 there was a part in May per per in May per month cost difference between the previous contract and the current contract which allows us to to reduce our overall budget in this area for the contract may I Matt in today's justice oversight committee meeting there was quite a discussion about the medical director position which has been vacant since I can't think of her name right now Dr. D I think was the Dr. D left and it's being filled 15 hours a week and that it may cost more than what's budgeted to fill that position because trying to find a full-time doctor had even 175,000 might not be easy it can is there room in the budget to make sure that we can do our best to fill that position if person's willing I believe that there's there's some additional funding that we could find for that position I don't know the mechanics of uh it's not a classified position all the mechanics of you know when you take the 1.75 savings and you still have that important position vacant I think everybody agrees that you know it'd be ideal to have full-time but right now I think you have 15 hours from a doctor that you're borrowing from someplace else from diva from diva so you know I'm just concerned that make sure there's enough money there to pay more if we need if we found somebody was willing and good but needed an extra how many thousands I don't know so senator after after the hearing this this morning matt and I communicated and you know I I think if it's a 10 15 thousand dollar pump you know we could manage that within the budget okay okay seems like it's in light of everything it's a pretty critical position so no good luck but recruitment I'm sure is well as I said this morning so right you know as I said in uh joint justice this morning since I've been here we've been trying to fill it I've actively participated in that I've talked to ex-CEO's from hospitals and it is not we've interviewed one person it just wasn't even a doc it wasn't the right fit it's very difficult to find someone to fill that position yeah okay thank you any other connecting points from this morning's meeting dick uh not on this okay area um shall we go down to the next section then um a lot of this internal service funds which you don't need to go through because we know that um those all got adjusted five percent general fund um so I believe sorry so the the out-of-state appropriation we're looking at right now um it probably looks more confusing than it needs to be so we what we've done is we've reversed the proposals from the original FY 21 governor's recommended budget um so the first the first five lines effectively um reverse the the increase the various increases and decreases in general fund for proposals related to that um we at this point are unable to increase the us marshal beds or or consider any any increase from a from a per diem cost change at least until the pandemic is through it would be prudent to to um to not be trying to add beds or increase the cost of those beds um so our budget proposal is a reduction of the appropriation from the original 225 beds by 19 to 206 beds and that's that bottom line the 586 thousand dollar reduction and we have how many right now that we're as of today there's 219 beds being used here's where it gets complicated yes I was waiting for you senator sears well our all 16 beds connected to the decrease in the marshal beds and therefore your um do you have increased and are all 16 beds reduced on october 1st or are they throughout the year you you're asking on the marshal on the marshal beds well i'm asking on both because there seems to be a you're going to have an additional 16 marshal beds right that would be the goal yes and you're going to have a reduction of 16 out of state beds correct correct and then you have somehow you're going to fill the work camp in caldonia by initial 50 beds i mean that was the original proposal when we talked about this back in january i know but but i've i've heard i didn't go to any of the meetings thank god but no but they backed it out they're reversing it oh they are that's i think that's what they're trying to say here reversal of the governor's proposal is being reversed that's that's correct those those first five items the 1.6 million dollar reduction through the the last reversal the 1.3 million dollar those five lines are are backed out so we're effectively restarting with the f y 20 budget as it as it was passed and this is the only appropriation where we could we could really just look at the bottom the reduction from 225 to 206 beds the restated budget effectively is the the only item in in this f y 21 budget for us so we're intent to have about 225 out of state next year average right no we're talking about we do see it from 206 206 206 if covid if covid and the effort of justice reinvestment two starts to pay off in the third third and fourth quarters of the three quarters budget that would have free up additional space am i correct yes and if if the population continues today our populations at 1397 and our detainees are at 319 which includes the federal detainees it's it's remained fairly flat i mean we had some spikes around holiday weekends on detainees but that number is hovered below 1400 now um for for i'm just looking at projections of maybe reducing by more than um 16 beds so what what we're doing right now senator on this piece about the out of state beds obviously the covid positive test in Mississippi complicates the conversation for us a little bit more and i can you know i know there's an interest in those numbers and i give them to you in a minute what we're trying to do right now on paper is figure out how we can move some of that population back sooner than later especially the vulnerable population so the reason why i tell you that is i think it will give us a sense of how well we can manage the population back here with an additional number coming back sooner than later that makes sense with no promises we can do it but i do have staff right now working numbers to figure out where in the system can we find space without compromising our quarantine medical isolation protocols that we use to keep our facilities clean the next question becomes where does the 500 i'm having hard time reading it 986 586 go it doesn't go into savings well it's a savings does it get reinvested that's the question no no that's that that is our our commitment to cut the budget that's a budget cut that we're we're taking but that's not something that correct matt agree to matt i'm correct right that's correct yes for sure but we do have the other investments we made but in the other bills on the community side using crf for this year is that um dick you worked on that so yeah but i'm just concerned that we're not here we are not reinvesting 585 thousand into community-based programming just a bad precedent i mean i think we if we're really going to do justice reinvestment and we have to re-invest savings i mean if if we got down to 150 beds out of state then we should be reinvesting the savings from that 56 beds so that's you this is exactly the question that i've been raising is with this bed change how how were those savings reflected in the budget and right now they're helping the bottom line um but uh obviously that's an area we're going to have um more discussion um i don't know what the um uh and dick you probably ought to have some discussion with your um counterpart in the house too because um how they're going to look at this i think can be helpful i believe i have a saturday morning conversation with representative hooper uh is she your um i didn't think she did the corrections i thought that was the um i thought that was chip conquest who had corrections i i was that representative hooper has us senator oh she does okay you wouldn't give him a lesson change okay you wouldn't give up the corrections and the only thing that we can do is look at um um the other governor's proposal of where we want to increase spending he's got a couple of initiatives and we may want to set priorities in terms of uh of ultimately the budget so we can talk about that a bit more well i did i'm concerned it's not a huge amount of money i am concerned about the precedent it sets after passing justice free investment too the first opportunity of reductions in beds from out of state are going to the bot to reduce the bottom line and that's a concern about a precedent and um clearly we can follow what kansas did and have a mess and then blame everybody that justice reinvestment didn't work but if you don't reinvest you don't get the benefits all right well um there are a couple of proposed areas of increase and we'll just have to set our own priorities on this um one is um the governor is again proposing exemption of military retirement and that carries um that that has um cost implications and the other was the downtown tax credit those are uh two that i can remember off the top of my head so um we just have to look at that um look at how we um if we if we don't want to take this reduction then how do we fund it so um other discussion other than how this connects um to justice reinvestment um the budget right now has how many beds is budgeted for how many of beds again matt can you tell us two fifteen did you say it was it's 225 uh well currently um before we look at the restate restated budget okay so we are talking about a reduction right now from current uh base budget of 225 down to 206 so you're you're anticipating a reduction of um of these beds of 19 beds okay thank you but again these numbers assume that the 19 people come out on october 1st i think this this is this is annual this isn't annualized so the the 206 beds would be the would be the base appropriation for for the full f y full year f y 21 i think your earlier point senator we're a little we're a little bit higher right now but as we as we see justice reinvestment and other components working and reducing this population we may go below the 206 but it'll if we go below the 206 by a few it'll average out to 206 for the year we wouldn't have significantly more savings until we were we're substantially less than that do you get my point matt that if justice reinvestment is to work you got to reinvest money yes i understand senator i hear you on this i i think the challenge for us in putting this budget together that we presented to the governor in in uh in covet environment the covet environment right now there's not a lot of other places to try to find money to take off the bottom line i mean that was our challenge it's not i understood i understand your challenge commissioner i just didn't yeah but but i want to just make the statement senator it's not that from where i sit we don't support reinvestment we do support reinvestment i think we've had some conversations internally about areas that we can start working on that can in fact help us cut down on the population in state which will allow us to bring even more folks back which will be be the savings that will get reinvested i think we all agree that are there 400 000 there for better intervention programs somewhere in your budget that was did we find that through crf that is through crf yes right okay i can grant you a pass on on that part anymore that that's an important community investment the other thing to get dick you put together and we can look at it again because it's hard to remember it was what a million and a half two million dollars like that is pieces that we we funded in a prior um we've done so many budgets and bills this year it's hard to keep them all yeah if somebody can just get us back that information so if catherine um could from the joint fiscal perspective just give us that package that we already funded to support this first year of of justice reinvestment that would help i think refresh makes things a little easier to i will track it down and get it for you all right thank you senator a couple other points that didn't just um i i wasn't aware that that money i thought that money came out because i'm getting confused on skinny budget total fiscal 21 budget number one number two um we are um through savings that we can find also working on um when i briefed you on focus deterrence with uh professor kennedy from john j focused on the high risk domestic violence folks which is the focus on supervision in the community the cut down on especially in furlough situations um the in probation situations the cut down on reentries into the system i'm hopeful that as we get through this moving into this fiscal year that we're going to start seeing that work start to pay off and that was the whole and that's the whole logic behind the whole reinvestment activity quickly if i may i apologize i may have misspoken about the batterer intervention we had a 327 000 crf that was uh going to the network against domestic violence um i think they were two different two different conversations that were happening when i said yes we had it i wasn't referring to the batterer intervention per se it was the the money that's going to domestic violence and and um the 13 accountability programs related to to that that was the rf funding mm-hmm well we had to put it out in a way that was permissible for crf you so uh but we still we need to go go back and look at what that package of services and funding that we did previously just to help us with this discussion that's helpful matt but if you remember maybe you had left and just came back but the discussion sent on the batterer intervention program sent it around the fee that was charged to the batterer to attend the group and previously there had been no fee um and that was covered by state funds and so you had a lot of people not participating because they either couldn't afford the fee or they didn't want to pay the fee or whatever so uh that was the attempt there that's the one that i'm talking about matt you're looking at um is that a question dick or um i everybody's kind of looking at the question is that at one point back when we were in the building i think we had discussions about the four hundred thousand dollars i think we were all in agreement that what had happened and transpired in the previous administration shifting the cost to a pay-as-you-go the batterer intervention wasn't working and that we needed to fund it and a lot of good programs dropped out because they didn't want to collect or couldn't collect from the participants that was the that's the four hundred thousand i was talking about so i don't believe that that did make a tar budget i i apologize i wasn't present for those conversations i think they did happen yeah no i know so why don't we put that on as something to get more information on we certainly but senator we may be talking about we may be talking about the same thing in the cfr money i'll work this out with matt um in my conversations with caron i just got to recover that conversation in my mind but we may be that that um that may be the cfr money but we'll have to we'll have to work with matt on this okay other comments or questions other committee members i i only got this um sheet glad to see you're all still here um okay senator westman um you have nothing senator ash you're on but muted um i'll just say that i can respect that they have to take their orders from the fifth floor but it cannot be called justice reinvestment if we do not reinvest the money and so i think we really do have to think about other ways to fund whatever else they want to do because it is a complete betrayal of the entire justice reinvestment process to not reinvest those out of state uh bed savings and we just received the letter today saying that they're following up with the phase two of justice reinvestment and i don't know what message it sends to them if we're immediately walking away from the first steps and if i were the feds i wouldn't come in with any dollars to follow on because we've just shown we would be showing that we're not committed to this for the long term and i don't mean to be pugilistic but i know departments have to come in and take direction from the fifth floor but we don't have to hear both sides of it we have to either stick with the plan or not okay um this is to me this is the conversation that we knew was um before us and so um that you have a proposal we understand the position you're in commissioner and matt and um we'll uh center sears will have further conversation with his house counterpart and um we will look at priorities that we have versus priorities that um are requiring funding as the in the budget as proposed and um make our decision so thank you on that i noticed the chair takes great glee in letting know that i will have further conversations i dick i know you'll be your charming self and you'll deliver whatever whatever on our behalf we look forward one of those big we look forward to the results of your saturday um discussion the pow wow uh-huh um other uh questions is is that the last up and down sheet matt that's right that we that's that was everything yes we so we've tortured you through completion okay other questions um of of corrections obviously we are um we're we are very committed to the justice reinvestment um um legislation that we passed and um and so i'm sure you're not surprised in hearing some of the questions and concerns that were raised um and um so we we will be looking at that closely and uh it has nothing we understand that the position you're in i've been in it before and um um know that um you are having to make the decisions that uh that is that are necessary on behalf of the administration and we appreciate that um and we will evaluate this proposal and figure out what we go from here uh are the questions of of the commissioner and matt anything more that we haven't covered that you want to brief us on in terms of what you think has gone well obviously the management of the um for vermont inmates in terms of the um prisoners and that seems to have gone well in terms of the isolation it was very very as it was a big um outcry obviously from the st johnsbury area when the transfer of the inmates came to the uh facility but in the end that seemed to have been from a public health perspective um the right thing to do and nothing it seems like there's not an issue now but are there any other um situations that we might want to know about or things that are going well or things that you're um finding particularly challenging right now in this environment yeah i i think um a few things and i did speak at joint justice today so i i don't want to bore senator sears with what i talked about earlier but i'll talk a little bit about covid um we we just yes um i got to get my days right two days ago the 18th uh we retested marvel valley in rottwin again and that really was a result of the six inmates that came back from mississippi and um who ended up with another infected inmate plus two of our staff now two of the staff were were fairly symptomatic um been out of work they're okay they're not hospitalized it's been a little bit challenging for them i've spoken to them several times checking in on them um clearly in that situation we learned a lesson we believe as a result of the contact tracing uh there was a breakdown in protocol that that ended up with the two staff getting affected but the contact tracing was able to stop that in its tracks and i'm happy to report that that facility is now clean um and uh we only have one inmate right now that's in any type of medical isolation within the system in maron that's the good news and as i said um as i said at joint justice today um you know there's there's staff that are working 14 16 hours um managing this and um they get all the credit for keeping our system clean i do want to touch on something senator sir said a few minutes ago um i i and i i i reported this in our our staff meeting within a hs this morning there there is um i had meetings with labor management yesterday uh i do a weekly call with the entire state anybody the department can get on asks me questions we brief from what's going on yesterday we briefed them about the budget there's a there's normally 140 to 160 of the employees on and um those calls are very helpful for me because it gives me a sense in this covid environment where i can't get around the state it gives me a sense of morale and um our our staff is being pushed through its limits as many state state agency staffs are our our security staff is tired and um they're working mandatory overtime um we have lost staff as a result of family members worried about them being exposed inside facilities and where we're working as hard as we can to maintain the security of the system and so i want i want to bring that up uh i i want to also talk a little bit about mississippi um we have 219 inmates down there and in the end 84 percent of our inmates tested positive 184 um that that that was very disheartening um as this unfolded and uh i i've been in conversation with the ceo core civic and um you know uh been responsive but but clearly as i told him this should have never happened the challenge in mississippi is is that the county that the facility sits in is leads the country it's the 10th county in the state for community spread and so i have another conversation with the ceo tonight about some other um points that we would like to see them do and we're hoping to have staff back on the ground in mississippi next week to make sure that the protocols we're insisting on are being followed now the good news out of the bad news is is that out of that 184 that were positive there's only one that remains in the in the infirmary we had four there at one point and they've been moved back into medical recovery a good chunk of the 184 have shown no signs at all and they're back in medical recovery now what we refer to as medical recovery which is a step down from medical isolation and one one inmate remains in the hospital um he has been there for a couple weeks and the reports that i get twice a day are showing that he's improving and the challenge is around his o2 saturation so um that's a report from mississippi um and uh we're this is escalating our conversation internally about how to better manage that population so i think that's uh that's that's the update there and a lot of stuff i shared with joint justice today i won't repeat when it comes to accountability uh and the opening of the office of professional standards we are focused now on our hiring process focusing on equity impartiality and fairness in our system to include our employees we're working with uh tavitha more the president of the n double acp in rotland to raise the bar when it comes to equity within our system there's a lot of us stuff going on a lot of other stuff going on i won't take up time i'd be more than happy to talk to folks about it because i know you got a lot of issues to deal with with the budget so that is really a snapshot of what's happening yeah all right thank you for that update and i realize i think senator sears probably believed was he is the only member of this committee who um has had to listen twice but sometimes repetition is helpful and we rely on him to keep keep it all in his uh inventory of knowledge so thank you very much um for the that update as well um other questions um at this point matt anything else we need from your perspective i think we've covered everything thank you though all right yeah so committee um thank you we are um finished with testimony for today we have time for discussions um i don't know at this point you're free to uh to leave the meeting at any time thank you thank you thank you very much thank you um before we go to something else can i just ask do we have a all senate phone call today at four yes okay what did that come on do you know did it come by was an email from uh peter email from peter okay thank you um yeah i've got okay um i was uh peter sterling it came uh yesterday wednesday 404 just to help you in your yes sometimes it gets it gets lost thank you very much yes and he had also sent out another email just before that um on the um uh floor schedule yeah next week okay so uh on wednesday earlier he um said that there would be a call at four and hope people can participate and um and that we're going to um what we'll be doing next week yeah do you know do do you know jane or or uh dick um when our staff is going back to work our committee staff people uh i think as soon as you let them know but mike farron asked the other day if people would let him know when they wanted to meet committee chairs so i think if you contacted mike if you could mike or peggy yeah i i'm meeting wednesday and thursday this next week yeah so i wasn't sure what time we'd get done tuesday but i he of course it's kind of easy for me because peggy's full time but he said something about making sure to ask him and he and peggy would see what they could do to get your committee because we're going to meet and approach every afternoon but we still have or are we going to meet in the morning to jane do you think um at the end we might have to meet all day but at this point uh we're doing afternoons the same as we would um and next week we'll have to determine um you know are the testimony and people are asking and let me we know that this session is it's going to be driven by getting this budget for the third last three quarters completed we know that we have to have a budget in place by october first just like we had to have a you know by july first so um we are going to have to if you want a back plan from october first we're going to have to have a budget wrapped up by um september 25th so if people so people need to understand that the uh for other committee work that the getting the budget completed is what's going to drive the uh timetable of how long we're in session and we are absolutely have to be um uh completed so we have a budget in place um by the first of october so that's why we have the two hearings scheduled for next week and um hopefully i think the first week of september um the house you know that's pretty aggressive um and then it will give us um time and then if we have a conference committee so um if we were to just as a tentative deadline have a budget completed by september 25th um we can back plan from there but it's going to be the budget and and i know that um senator ash had sent out a list of bills that will move forward but not every bill is going to be acted on within this compressed period of time no i i would hope that we were done this stuff by the end of september at the latest well we have to be yeah i don't think leadership wants us to meet after the budget's completed and so after so the absolute deadline is october first but we would want to get a budget completed for the governor either to sign or and has happened in a couple of years become law without signature uh we have to allow some time well if if tim would tighten up the other bills so they don't keep us down there for another week after uh we should just do the dying budget and go home well that's senator star the other the the bills are in the other body that senator ash doesn't have much control over and that would probably be the topic of discussion on this afternoon at four o'clock and with the chairs um in terms of what bills will see action because obviously this came up at the legislative management committee and um the speaker was you know pretty adamant and this is just because we've got four weeks if something has been on the wall and not seen any action uh don't think you're going to take it up now is sort of the message yeah well but they're you know typical um well so i got two little bills i'm taking up next week alice i can't be at the meeting so it's just the two little bills that tim asked the senate judiciary to work on then we'll work on trying to understand what the house is doing to our use of force bill okay what are the bills does somebody know other than you oh he'll send you an email send me an email that relief of abuse oh relief from abuse it's age nine six something and a bill dealing with driver's license suspense and i don't know why they're so important either one of them are well okay shouldn't say anything are you not there both days we mean both days no i'm there next week i'm talking about tonight at the chairs meeting if you're going at the all caucus meeting oh the all brings up what jude judiciary is doing i won't be there at the all senate caucus oh that's why you won't be you won't be at the all caucus and you won't um all member caucus and you won't be there for chairs as well then no i'm protesting down at the four corners seriously i've got i'd already made prior plans the chair's meeting is that can people listen in you're the vice chair right you should go in my place what time that uh that would it's just going to be a continuation after the all member okay so i think you're allowed to go in my place self because you're the vice chair yeah thank you okay you are my favorite so now we've uh had some other in terms of the budget any further discussion well i i i would support uh that reinvestment of those dollars uh that decker was talking about uh into the community so these people won't get back into prison um you know and i i i don't think that's a good use to cut to cut the overall expenditures to take that money and and put it to reduce the budget and and then have these people out there that we bled out of prison with no support thank you bobby i thought senator ash put it very well we passed it and we taking it seriously and we this is really going to be an evidence of our commitment yeah uh so other comments by the way we just got the five hundred thousand dollar federal grant to have them work with us the next two years on the implementation of justice reinvestment yeah i i know that's tim referenced the approval of that um yeah which is really important um weird we're gonna just uh we're kind of doing a lot um just as the house takes testimony then we will schedule um we uh they did take some testimony from the vermont state college do you want to see if we can schedule having the new chancellor come in uh we and um when we did the oh i think it was the q1 budget uh we added seven and a half million of crf money um and they're working on ways in which they can use that at the seven and one half was to help with that bridge funding need and um and so uh um that people interested in having the state college come in and talk to us about the progress i would assume senator star and senator westman definitely because obviously the um a couple and macormick and nicka i mean orange county and randolph is certainly i think you must have um you would um the preservation of the randolph campus is i would think important even though it's in a an adjacent county that's right it's very important okay no that would be great having having the new chancellor in okay well i'll anything else in terms i know i would hand up i would just say that um i i certainly would like to have um the state colleges in indefinitely but i think it would be a good time to get a little update from all of higher ed um because as they talked about earlier in the year if are we going to experience a drop-off in students they talked as much as 20 percent and coming back in september they'll know what this looks like i i think we ought to get just um a presentation about the overall health of all of this thank you for talking about both uvm vsac and uh yes okay so um just higher ed update yeah about the private colleges richie that need i i i absolutely with testing and getting started up and all that i mean i there's a lot of concern here in bennington about bennington college coming back and well we did put money in we remembered language that we added that would um help them provide the funding for the testing of those students which was a request from the independent colleges um i think a general update of all of higher ed privates publics everything would be a good thing for us to do because if they if there really is a drop off of 20 of all students across it's going to have a huge ripple effect that we're going to want to um walk into with our eyes open i think castleton is already reporting that it's not as great a drop-off as they thought and they're more coming than they expected then if that's the report i think that's great but we also i will will speak from my employers vsac we also put money in to bolster the grants because family's incomes are down you know we did that and that money for the a lot of that money will have to be spent by december but does that mean the second half of the year that um those kids are going to have smaller grants i you know i think all of that we need to look at um well they've only got so much money so um we may have to understand that the extent to which there are resources unless the federal government gives us additional money um we've made the appropriation in anticipation of that as it relates to um particularly the vsac demand but there's also um additional um uh proposed money and including helping if more courses are done remotely for some students they need to have help with the technologies to support remote learning and so they are using they have some money um for that as well and then there is another provision it was something actually the senate put in place and that was to help students with expenditures emergency expenditures sometimes a car repair or help with rent can make the difference whether they can continue to stay in school and so um it may mean with less employment this summer we have more situations where students have that kind of financial hardship or emergency that makes the difference whether they can stay enrolled or not i'm wondering if if castle what uh alice just reported regarding castleton leads me to the question for the state colleges would be what has been the impact of the discussion about saving or closing the state colleges following jeb's falding's announcement yeah and is that why you've got more people going to castleton because that's the one that was going to stay open and people that wanted to take advantage of the state college system and until you've had a drop in enrollment at linden and johnson or whatever they're called now yeah could be so if that would be a question that they could try to answer um you know is is the you know what do you call it richie when people apply to college our application at those colleges yeah all right so um all right we'll schedule a higher ad some time on that um some of it's going to be an update on in terms of what we've done in terms of moving money that way and what the experience to date has been um sometimes it's hard to know for example um we put money out in an earlier bill to help uh towns if they had to borrow money because uh to make the education payment people hadn't paid their taxes but um the default rate on taxes at least this spring uh that never got used so um sometimes it's good to go back and say did what was the need and um and and um the other um area that we know for example and we need to get an update and we're going to be making modifications to our hazard pay but um it's on a first come first serve we tried to do the estimate of eligible employees um the best we could it wasn't intended to say we're all we only intend to you know meet a partial need our goal was to provide an appropriation that um would fund the benefit for the estimated number of employees so um if in fact um more uh our estimates are off then we may need to go in and look at adding some more money to that because that was a concern around uh the message that went out from the agency and that is uh it's this is a first come first serve benefit and um that is what you've got to do so you don't overspend but if it means that we have eligible employees that are have provided those essential services and our estimates were off then we need to go in and and um adjust for that yeah are any are any of you getting any uh comments from your school people in regards to testing for covered at schools and I mean some people are saying there's gonna be any testing and they're all nerve dot things to me that that is something that the local schools are having to address in their planning that that's uh so I haven't received anything but according to dr levine today they're gonna part of their protocol is to test the students and staff I would hope as they come into school each day at least they're doing a a temperature but they're not doing a COVID test every day no no but that that tells if you're sickly or not right up real quick but some of them are saying oh there ain't gonna be any tests given and they're you know very nervous about their local schools I mean well I when we're getting into education and that those kind of protocols I guess we can talk to at the chair's meeting um what the education committee is going to do in terms of getting other comments in terms of we will schedule witnesses for other parts of the budget as necessary we want to do more with higher ed and we know that we're coming back on the hazard pay because as any bill um when you're setting up a new program it some things need to be adjusted I was rather surprised that um that we were getting a request on the substance abuse workers being left out and there'd been no communication I gather with the Department of Health so and I don't know how many of those workers are in fact are doing in-face service obviously with the developmentally disabled and they've got group homes and so forth there's a lot of direct care and in-person services so we'll have to quantify a lot of that is oh and I'm not sure that those workers understand that the remote doesn't count I'm wondering about that dick just because you're working we made it very clear that if you're doing that service remotely or telemedicine met a method then you're you're not um in in that in-person um at risk situation so there may be some confusion because some people think well because I work for a covered employer I automatically am covered and that's not true it's the nature of the job that that employee is performing that puts them at an elevated risk of exposure so Sam McCormick you have your hand up yeah from time to time sort of add talk an issue will come up but I'd like to develop just a list of the classes of people who have fallen through the cracks you know that seems to me we've actually done a pretty good job as a state of addressing the problems this has caused people economically but you know that for example I think people who had difficulty getting benefits back in the spring most of them have now gotten the benefits but they're having trouble getting reimbursed for what they missed early on are you talking about like unemployment unemployment and and the federal stuff that the state administers uh you know and when people were just spending six and seven hours on on hold on the phone and you know they were going online and just get nowhere um most of those folks are now getting some kind of aid but there were periods of their of months where they were not and they would like to be reimbursed for that in some case they've made you know personal loans from family that they want to pay back um and I don't I don't know where that data is being collected I haven't um um we can ask the UI they put out a daily report I don't think they know I don't think they know well so my point is those are questions but I don't know uh where we would where in state government um any such information um well I was just thinking that that everybody on this committee just just bring in their stories next time we have a committee discussion and we just because that would then determine who we want to before we give these agencies money we might want to talk to them about it are you going to use this money to straighten out these problems and I and I gotta say they don't always they're not the ones to ask because about what the problems are because typically I get the complaint from the constituent I get on the phone and the bureaucrat denies that it's even happening you know I think where there is a big problem is with people getting through to the adjudicators there are still people stuck out there who are waiting for adjudicators and I don't know how many adjudicators they have but that is still a problem with some people not getting through the adjudicator system and they've been calling calling doing the same stuff they were doing early but it's mainly adjudicator it seems like we've got a number of issues that are coming in and it's hard to accept them right out one is the UI debacle which is spent a lot of time and um joint fiscal committee has spent a lot of time and we have pushed to get more people even to answer the phone but answering the phone if you don't know the answer or you don't know how to navigate the system or you don't know the rules um it doesn't get you to some resolution that's right that's a lot that um I believe has been a topic of discussion by economic development then there's the other part and that is the parameters that have been established for grants for whichever admin entity then um and so there was a lot of controversy around the decision that the legislature made around sole proprietorship yeah those decisions are going to be revisited in the proposals that are being advanced by the administration yeah and the policy committees will have to consider them so I think some of this is going to happen naturally by virtue of either what's in the CRF proposals that the administration is presenting um to that would address some of these like the sole proprietorship um senator McCormick you have your issue about the two husband and wife and that's something I would think you would want to send to economic development and um and you know I mean we've got people in ag that are still upset that we didn't give the full amount that the governor recommended so um uh there are a whole host of there is one responses of it what there is one issue that um the date was changed from when you had to have been in business from I think it was um Jen I don't know if it was January 1st or there was a date in which you had to be in business in order to qualify for some of the programs I know of business and then they changed that back to July of 19 and it had been a date in um I don't know if we had that in or what of when you had to be in business by and it set it actually on the application and then they changed the date and said oh no this isn't any good you have to have been in business by uh July of 19 and so I have a couple of very good restaurants that um were in the door at right at the right time got all their accounting stuff in and then they were told well the date changed and you you didn't own the business and the person owned a percentage of it prior to that then they bought the whole thing on January 7th from the from the owner for whom they had worked for like 30 years and had been groomed when the guy retired and they didn't get a dime and well the only thing I can say is all of this information is coming in during ad hoc I would every single time it raises a policy question whether it came through as it relates to the hazard pay we can say yes we want to address it or no uh we can't make that sometimes people want something so refined the administrative complexity is more than can be managed but I would I would ask all of us that have either around the hazard pay being a problem which I've been collecting and we're going to be doing some changes or any of the grants that you take the questions that have come to your attention and send it to the chair of the policy committee so that they can when they're doing their work they can then say get testimony as to can it be changed what are the reasons it's why it is or gee we didn't realize why it has to be the way it is but I would I think that with so much information coming in um we've got to we've got to be somewhat disciplined because the Appropriations Committee is not going to be the place where some of this right get addressed so Senator Westman's got his hand up Senator McCormick and then Senator Starr so I brought up yesterday the idea of there must be somebody doing a tracking document for money going out and we have all of fiscal was going to ask for that that's um I think if they ask for that then if they're if we see a place where money's not going out the door it I think it highlights a problem except right now if you read a number of these reports there some of the money has not gone out today but it's scheduled to go out within a week right so you know I think we've got to be careful how we ask for the data because some of it is just the administrative upfront work and processing that is inherent before an actual expenditure so I for an example the rental assistance is the money going out the door is it not all right well we'll see what we can get in terms of updates um and but that's something joint fiscal can work with Brad furlin I think um on the fifth floor senator McCormick you had a comment then senator starr I just have other members of the committee heard from chambers of commerce yeah if they're looking oh yeah yeah okay yeah I think we've got to take a look at that right well that's yeah on the list and the other I talked to Betsy Bishop we put in money for marketing none of that has gone out yet and I said to Betsy has there been discussion about using your regional chambers as you know as partners in that marketing initiative and she was I had had no discussion but was going to talk to accd so it seems like with fall foliage coming yeah there have been a number of regional chambers who understand their area of the state oftentimes it abuts another state and how they could work you know in partnership with and move some of the money out to the to those regional entities so there's been a request we're hurting we didn't qualify for some of the other financing and so a letter has gone out um requesting um some kind of uh financial aid so yes that that's on the list dick thanks um senator star yeah um we're gonna the ag committee is going to take up a little bit or take testimony in regards to the non-dairy portion of grant money we sent out there's one clause in there that that if you cannot show a profit between march april in may and and if you do show a profit in that area or that time zone then you don't qualify and then the other is that uh some of the the end dates are like september 1st and and they haven't even got the money out to to deal with it yet only gave them like a week or two window to apply and qualify so we're gonna look at that next week in ag and then we'll report well you know i guess they should come and you are identified the problem they should come back with how they're do they have a remedy for it yeah and does it take legislative action in other words are these administrative parameters that they've established or are they limitations that we have put um somehow in in the budget or in another bill i think to some extent i ran into this question with adult days it's the administering departments are putting in these earlier deadlines but the one that we have used constantly is that december 20th day that if the money hasn't been spent then it's being caught back and we will um use it we will use it but um but in order to know what can be reallocated because the program has been shut down etc we the earlier we know that the better but um if it if what they're setting is deadlines that are so early it doesn't give an opportunity then i think we can they they they there's some negotiating room there yeah um we're gonna take a look at a few of those problems uh tuesday or probably wednesday okay all right well i would think if you know what the issues are and you've told the secretary what they ought to have is a proposal in terms of how they they feel that they can either address it or they feel why it's problematic to address it yeah yeah okay other comments otherwise um i'm going to suggest we um uh call it a day for the committee we're tomorrow it's tomorrow friday already yeah oh yeah um friday the 20 i think first friday the 21st oh day's the 20th today's the big women's suffrage day yes i know um so the 21st we're meeting at 130 and we've got dale and we have a dcf coming in tomorrow afternoon um so unless there's further discussion or requests that people want to make i'm going to suggest that we adjourn the meeting for 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