 This is Senate Government Operations and today we're looking at some of the budgetary impacts on some of the areas that we cover. So we have State's Attorneys and Sheriff's Office, Department of Public Safety, Emergency Medical Services, and the Academy, the Training Council Academy, and Nolan is with us and the Commission on Women, the Vermont Commission on Women. Does anybody have a time constraint? Because we can go in any order here, but if somebody has a time constraint, we should honor that. So does anybody have one? Madam Chair, Public Safety has a time constraint for a two o'clock with Senate appropriations. Anybody else? All right, let's start with you then. Does that make sense? At your discretion, ma'am. No, I think that makes sense. So would you like to have us? We have your budget information here you sent to us. Either you sent it or Megan did. But somebody did. Thank you. So would you like, oh no, I'm looking at Sheriff's. Is that posted on our website? Well, we have the transport. Did it get posted? It came in an email. Oh, I don't know. Did that come this morning? I didn't see it. We can resend it, Madam Chair. No, we got the Sheriff's in that one, but I thought that Mike Schirling had sent us something also. I didn't send anything, Madam Chair, so I don't know what was requested by staff to be sent in for this. So our finance team may have sent you something. Okay, well, maybe I've misremembered then. So let's just start with, I know that you talked about a new position. Do you want to start with the impact of the governor's budget on you? And if you support that, well, of course you do because you're part of the administration, but explain to us some of it and where there might be things that we might be able to help with or not. So if you'd like to start us off, Mike. Sure. Thank you. Most of the budget restatement works from the original governor's recommended FY21 budget, which we testified before you on a couple of occasions, I believe about. So highlighting the areas where there's an emphasis or focus on the restatement. I'm going to ask Megan to fill in additional details behind this, but you'll see funding for co-director for fair and impartial policing. Important to note that that position does already exist. We have hired for that position and it's being paid for at the moment with vacancy savings. So this is to backfill and ensure we can keep the position going under the current circumstances, having an additional very well qualified civilian advisor and community engagement specialist on this topic. We believe is essential at the moment that is a part-time position, which is budgeted at $65,000 for this fiscal year. Also of note, we have fully funded the computer-aided dispatch and records management system, although that's with special funds, but for your committee, which is operations, there has been significant emphasis on the ability to collect and report data. It was part of our modernization strategy in January. It's something we also mentioned in our 10-point fair and impartial policing. More nuanced strategy in June, that is moving forward. Also fully funded is body cameras for the state police and other both administration and legislative priority for several years. The equipment is in and the installations have begun. We anticipate that installations will be complete by spring at the latest, hopefully quicker than that. That is challenged a bit by the pandemic and the fact that the installation team is actually coming from a higher infection rate state, so we've got some nuanced safety guidance that has to go with those installations. We have done a couple of different alterations to the budget to modify the relationship of vacancy savings and overtime to meet the 3% reduction, but we don't anticipate any significant operational impacts to that. We've learned quite a bit relative to creative operations in the wake. Actually, it's not even the wake. We're sort of right in midstream of the pandemic, so some of that experience has assisted in making operational modifications to help us achieve some of those goals. We are also working diligently to collapse space, our physical space, in particular rented space into owned space. Again, the experience of the last six months has shown us how much of our work can be done remotely and the Division of Fire Safety is facing a budget shortfall that results in large part as a result of the curtailment of permits in the wake of COVID. They're one of the organizations, they're the primary organization that's looking at space. Again, this goes to our modernization strategy as well. It's just accelerating a strategy we talked to you about in January, which is to really view our facilities not as individual department facilities, whether they're a state police barracks or a fire safety office or an emergency management office, but as statewide public safety assets and how do we best use those assets and collapse our operations together, both to provide better service and one-stop shopping for consumers, but also to save the taxpayers a little bit of money and upkeep on running multiple facilities. Those are the high-level components that you'll see. If it works for you, Madam Chair, I'll pivot to Megan to walk through some of the other pieces of the crosswalk for the restated budget. Before we go to Megan, can I just ask a question about, I know that when we do, I assume that it's the same thing for you, that the rental is considered an internal service budget. Is that what that term? I think that buildings and general services, but... I know where you're going, Madam Chair. Yeah, yeah. If you're putting them together, how is that going to impact if BGS is billing department of you and then they're billing fire and safety and are they involved in this? They are involved in their space assessments. It should not adversely impact the internal service funds, so not adversely impact other budgetary components in particular BGS. That's because the pieces that we're looking at collapsing are external rentals, not state-owned facilities. We're actually moving to the state-owned facilities to continue the fee for space and the internal service fund transfers. And we just so folks listening are aware, we are mindful of any potential impacts to landlords and communities and we're careful not to be making decisions that are going to adversely impact businesses around us or communities. These are relatively small footprint offices of 6, 7, 8, 12 people. They're not large footprint facilities. Does anybody have any questions for the commissioner and then we'll move to Megan for more or some details? Oh, Anthony. Hi. I honestly don't know if this is a budget question or not, but I think seem to remember last time we spoke, we talked about how traffic stop data was not reported differently in different areas of the state, different codes and whatnot, and then took a person back at the main office to like recode everything. So I'm wondering whether that's still happening, whether it's been a progress made in trying to get the traffic stop data to be coded to similarly ways and similar ways around the state. Does that make any sense? Is that our conversation? It does. That computer aided dispatch and records management system that I mentioned a moment ago, Senator, is that project that not only for traffic stops, but for all contacts, all events that are responded to statewide. The goal is to have a unified system, unified reporting, ease of data entry, ease of getting the data back out, whether it's an interactive dashboard that any community member or anyone can use to see that easily or reporting out raw data that researchers or anyone else can pull out and be able to manipulate in different ways to do research on. So we're making some progress there. We are making progress. Thank you. And may I just tag on to that? Michael, you're hoping to make progress. Do you have a timeline for that? Yes, we're about to go to independent review on the selected vendor. And as soon as that happens and our file is complete, we'll begin negotiations with that vendor, simultaneous to the independent review. We expect that will take six to eight weeks, roughly. And then we'll be ready to actually start a deployment. Me, actually make it operational. Yes, it'll take a little while to make it operational because we'll have some programming needs and things. And it is all subject to successful negotiation with a vendor. But yes, we're on our way. Great. So you're hoping to have it working and up and running in late fall? It'll likely take into 2021 before it is. We have a full installation. And then we've got, assuming that our vision of bringing the majority of public safety organizations onto that system, that will take quite a while to transition and do system conversions and bring everybody on. But 2021 is the target. Great. Perfect. Can you talk just a little bit about the co-director for FIP? Did you say that the person was already hired? Yes. Yes. I think you know, Aetan, who chairs the RDAP and FIP committees. Aetan was our unanimous and relatively easy selection. And he was willing to take on this work. So a known commodity with a tremendous amount of talent and someone who candidly will really hold all of our feet to the fire on looking forward and making changes. Good. Good. I'm anxious to have him talk to us about that. That'll be good. We're also fortunate, I should mention Captain Julie Scribner is going to be moving into the other co-director position as Captain Gary Scott retires in November. So also very fortunate to have Gary's done a tremendous job over the last few years. And Julie is going to be a great addition to that as well. You actually let people retire? Well, I'm trying. It's possible. It's conceivable I could have a draft piece of legislation that for you to consider about not letting him retire, but he may be angry about that. We could put that in the budget. Because he's a VSP person and he has to retire at 55? I actually don't know what's driving, whether it's time in service or age, which I can answer that if you want. I'm sure you want to out him. Without telling you with age, it is time in service and age, which is our retirement system, 20 years and 50. They're eligible to retire. Mandatory retirement is 55. Yes, it's way young. Yeah. Well, we, some of us would like to change that. Just keep in mind that it's not the years that will get you in this job. It's the mileage. That could be said for many jobs. That's true. So, Megan, would you like to, is there anything you'd like to fill us in on some more details on the budget and the... Madam Chair, this is Rick Almec for the record, Director of Finance and Administration and Public Safety. I'll take those budget questions. I actually did just forward to our FY21 restated budget proposal. And as well, I know Chrissy Galoulli has posted it on the Senate Appropriations Committee site. I'm not sure if you're able to access it there. I could share my screen if you want to see a copy of the ups and downs form. Rick, just briefly, I'm sorry, Madam Chair, I skipped over a giant piece, which is the mental health outreach specialists. So just very briefly, it was widely accepted as a good strategy. Historically, in January, we put forth this again as part of our modernization strategy to expand from two barracks to as many as possible. And as 2019, the legislature asked us to propose a plan for expansion of this program statewide. We did that in July, planning for two this year, an expansion of two additional this year to the following year and to the out year. And that was reprioritized in the governor's restated budget to accelerate that and add seven additional positions in this year's budget. So that's another area. I apologize, Rick, for A, not knowing that you were on and B for interrupting your flow there. But also, we haven't gotten anything. I mean, not an email. We just got it an email. I haven't gotten it, but it takes a long time to get to Windsor County. It's true. I know. You're way out there in the sticks. So if you put seven additional positions in, does that cover all the barracks? We will be, well, both one short in the barracks, but also of note is that the state currently does not pay for the other two. They're done through MOUs with designated agencies. So in order to assure parity, we have to come up with a plan really to fund three additional positions so that those designated agencies aren't disadvantaged by this expansion. So we're working on that. Oh, yeah, good. All right. So any more questions for the commissioner? Well, I just like to know what the total DPS budget is. Rick can give you that to the penny. I think it's right there on our email. I know, but I haven't gotten that email yet. To clarify, Senator White, I did send that to you directly. Yeah, you don't have everyone's email address. Oh, it just sent an economic, I mean, not Senate government operations and that gets to all of us. Okay. Okay. Well, Mike Ferrant, send it to Mike Ferrant. And then we can post it and we can all look at it. Is that, can you spell Ferrant M Ferrant? F-E-R-R-A-N-T. And it's at ledge.state.bt. And Mike, you can post it for us. I can. I just sent him my email address too. Okay. Okay. Okay. You should have that shortly. And I will get back to your question. The total public safety budget the governor recommend for the FY 21 restate. In general funds, it's 54,330,972. And the all funds total is 113,795,517. Thank you. And Mr. Ferrant, did you receive my email with the budget proposal? I did. And I am posting it to the committee's website right now. It takes a few minutes to stick there, but it should be there in two minutes. Right. Thank you. Madam chair, are you intending that I go through our ups and downs form once you have that posted on your website or do you? Well, I think just kind of a high level. And then if committee members have questions about it, I think are the appropriate. We don't want you to have to go through this whole thing twice. And you're going to have to go through it in detail with the appropriations committee. We just want to kind of get an overview. And some of the things that we were really concerned about, I know where the body cams and the mental health specialists. And then I'm very interesting to hear about the co-director for FIP. And so those are the kinds of things that unless committee members have very specific questions right now, I would say a high level. And then if there are issues that we need to address or and I know that it's hard to ask the you to say anything about the budget because you're part of the administration, but if there are issues, let us know. Great. And I would just add to our chair's comments that we are your advocates in appropriations as well as, you know, as well as obviously your good work in appropriations, but we can advocate and have advocated quite successfully for the things that we consider most important. Yeah, yeah. Just to speak to that for a moment, Madam Chair, the budget itself that we're very supportive of the budget, not just because we're an extension of the administration, but you'll recall that the original statement of the FY 21 budget represents the first year of a multi-year strategy to do additional investments to stabilize our budget. So with that as the starting point and now the pullback of roughly 3% necessitated by the pandemic still puts us in not a perfect position, but you know, as stable, I think as we've been and we still have that multi-year plan, once things are more, once we get past the COVID pandemic, you know, I think we've got a good plan moving forward that either this administration or a future administration together with the General Assembly can use as a template to move forward. Thank you. Madam Chair. Yes. This is Mike Front. The budget document is on the committee's website. We can share it on screen here if you would like or if you'd just like to direct the public back to that, whichever is easier for you. Whatever you think is easier, committee members, do you want to just put it up on your screens or do you want it to be shared on the screen here, committee? I think it's fine for us to look at it on our own and I mean, if we're going to high level, we may not need to see every need. Does everybody have access to some plate that they can look at well? Yep. Yeah. Anthony. Okay, great. Let's just do it that way then. I don't think you have to share on the screen. So we have it's here and I'm looking at it. Yeah. Okay. The commissioner has gone over all of the items that are in the state police appropriation fairly well. I can direct your attention to appropriation number two, criminal justice services. The first two lines are simply internal service fee reductions from BGS. So those are, it didn't really cause any pressures for us. The travel and registration under COVID, we're not really seeing a lot of travel and training happening for obvious reasons. So that is an easy way to reduce some of our budget to meet the target and then a small amount in vacancy savings. So pretty small cuts overall for the criminal justice services appropriation. And can you remind us what is included in criminal justice services? Sure. The Vermont Crime Information Center and the Radio Technology Services Division. VCIC stands, yeah, Vermont Crime Information Center. I think I said that. Okay. Thank you. So if there's no questions about that, I can move on to emergency management. Yep. The small workers comp reduction is an internal service fee. In emergency management, have a little bit of movement here because we were intending to have 1.5 FTE move from federal to general as part of a long-term strategy to get an appropriate amount of match for our federal funds. And the fact that the federal funds are somewhat stagnant over time. However, due to some of the COVID funding that was available, we were able to delay that. And in return, beyond the savings, we're able to put back, put some money towards our swift water rescue and damage assessments. And these are really important for flood events and disaster events because the federal funds does a great job of paying for the outfitting and training for a swift water team, but they won't pay for response. And the damage assessments are very important to get the local emergency planning commission involved early on in getting a good damage assessment that can affect whether or not we have a declaration and receive federal funds under public assistance. Those are two very important things that we're able to add into our FY21 restate. Any questions about that? Chris? Yeah. Actually, it's on a prior section, so I'll wait till we're done with this section. Oh, okay. I think he's done with number three. Okay. I had a quick question. And I apologize if I, while I was fishing for documents, maybe I missed you saying this. Up in the first block under VSP, body camera hardware purchased, then there's a savings of $161. Can you feel us in? I mean, is that things were less expensive than anticipated or fewer, less equipment was purchased? How did we end up saving? So that's kind of a combination of a lot of different areas of savings in state police that we experienced in fiscal year 20. As we got towards the closeout, we realized that we were going to be able to make payroll and have sufficient funds remaining. And so with the general funds that we were able to free up and the one time funding that was appropriated a couple of years ago, coupling those two things together, we were able to purchase the equipment and get the project started in 20. Okay. And this isn't purely an appropriations question, but does this mean now that each officer is out with a body cam? The project is still in progress. So I don't believe any of them are live other than our tactical team. Chris, I think you may not have been with us at the very beginning, maybe when Commissioner Sherling was saying that a lot of the team that's coming to actually install, I guess that isn't the right word, but the body cams, the teams are coming from highly infected areas. And so there's this complication with them coming to actually implement the body cams. That's what I understood. Right. That's what we heard, implement and train and stuff. And maybe the savings is in that. The savings is just, Senator, the savings is just being able to pay for some of it out of fiscal 20 funds. So being able to reduce the impact on fiscal 21 funds. And the travel component is a piece of what takes time. The rest of it is we have 10 barracks that need installations as well as 202 vehicles that need equipment added to them. So it's not quite as easy as just strapping on a camera and hitting the road. Got it. Thank you very much. So while we're on the number three, the emergency management one, this isn't directly related to the budget necessarily, but one of the things we heard from VSEA on Friday was that there really isn't enough PPE for the state employees and that in some instances people in the corrections are actually wearing garbage bags because they don't have the appropriate equipment and so I wondered if there's any in the budget anything for that or if that doesn't fall within the regular budget. It wouldn't fall within the regular budget, Senator. And I heard of that testimony and checked in with corrections and was advised they have been doing in parallel with the emergency operations acquisitions and personal protective equipment. They've been doing some of their own purchasing. Commissioner Baker is working through some of those challenges and the emergency operations center and the state SNS warehouse do stand ready to assist if they continue to have challenges. The personal protective equipment that we're acquiring and warehousing is that effort is going well. That's federal dollars and it's not reflected in our budget. Okay. Okay. Are we ready to move on? Okay. One clarification before I move on to fire safety. I said it was the local emergency planning commissions doing the damage assessment. It's actually the regional planning commissions that are doing that damage assessment. So moving on to fire safety, there's just a small reduction in the temporary employee line item. This was a curriculum development coordinator at the fire academy. We still have the position. We're just trimming the budget a little bit on that. Okay. The next appropriation, the administration. We had proposed 128,000 for e-ticket contracts. It turned out that there was another year of federal funding available through the national highway traffic safety administration, which is managed by VTRANS. So we were able to apply and get an award so that we no longer need this general fund. And going forward, my understanding is that will be encapsulated in our CATRMS system. Admin reduced our temporary line item. We're not currently using temps for any of our functions. Travel for obvious reasons. And the rest of them are all internal service fund reductions that just come from those other departments that had to also trim their budget. May I ask? Yeah. Rick, e-tickets. Are those the tickets that a state police person would issue on the highway? I mean, are they now all e-tickets? I don't know that we have 100% e-ticket capability, but both state and local law enforcement at this point have e-citation capability through these grants from the national highway traffic safety administration. And public safety actually sub-granted most of the funds to local law enforcement to get these printers and scanners and such into the cars to allow for e-citation. So I would assume that was fine for a ticket that you were issuing in person so they would know that there would be a ticket that would surface in their inbox or wherever. But it's a little difficult for a ticket that is actually issued when the driver or the operator isn't present like a parking ticket or a something else kind of ticket. I'm not sure. I can clarify this a little bit. Senator, it's Chris Herrick. Maybe I'll put my camera on if I can figure out how. So the first thing is e-ticket is actually Rich Brickman mentioned that there's a printer in the cruiser. So the e is actually a function on a computer. It prints out a ticket, but it's from a computer printer. So it's more legible. And so it's actually given to the driver and can be mailed in other cases. Got it. The other question you had is we have installed these in all of the state police cruisers and a large number of local entities as well. It was made available to all of them. Not every one of them applied for the sub-grant, but I don't have the number in front of me, but it's a huge percentage. The goal was to have every cruiser statewide and a large majority of them are now equipped. Right. Thank you, Chris. Thank you. Can we go on to the Forensics Lab? Sure. Last appropriation is the Forensic Laboratory. The first two are just internal service fees. The only significant reduction was contractual line item, and that was possible due to some things that are now have been applied for federal funding and has been received and then right sizing, you know, based on the number of contracts we have. So it's a combination of those two things that enable us to make that cut without any pressures. Okay. Does this in any way impact the testing of the rape kits? No, there was a period of time when we were way behind on them. Right. I can speak to Dr. Conte, who's the director of the lab, and get back to you on that. I'm not aware of any issues. Okay. No, the backlog is not substantial. Oh, good. Okay. Any questions? All right. All right. Well, I don't see any real issues here for us. I think that we certainly, appropriations has asked us to just give them some comments on it, and I think that we're going to have a discussion afterwards, but I think that we certainly will support the mental health outreach specialists and the co-director of the FIP and some of the body cam. I mean, those are, I think, the main things that we were concerned about, or I was anyway. I don't know, the rest of the committee. So, any questions, committee or comments? Okay. Yeah. Thank you all. I know there's a variety of our partners are going to be presenting their budgets in the next few minutes, and there's so many folks doing incredible work on both running their organizations, but also on the COVID response. And I know Dan Bates is on the line, so I wanted to give a shout out to the operations committee for his tremendous work over the last seven months in the command center for the health department. So, tread lightly on him. Give him what he needs. We almost always try to. We try to be good to, well, we try to be good to everybody. You do. I'm only being facetious, but it was an opportunity to call out his great work. So, thank you again for your time. Thank you, commissioner. Thank you, Megan, and my Rick, and who else was, oh, Matt was here. Okay. Thank you. So, anybody else have a little time cruncher that they'd like to jump into the queue? Madam Chair, it's John Campbell, and I do also have a two. Obviously, we'll do whatever it takes, but if it's possible. You got it. Okay. All right. And I think Annie is with us also. Yeah. In fact, actually, Annie's the one who's really going to be able to answer most of the questions here. And we have Jennifer Harlow and Bill Boniac, and I did see that Mark Anderson was with us for a while, but I don't see him now. But we have a couple of sheriffs here also. Okay. And you know, we're not looking at the state's attorney's budget here. Just the sheriffs part of it. And which we do is the transportation portion of it. Right. So, if you would like a presentation, I will defer right to Annie so she can go through the specific numbers and then any questions as far as policy or any of that nature, I'll be here to address if that's okay with you and the committee. Sounds fine to me. Committee. Great. Go ahead, Annie. Great. Good afternoon, senators. Nice to see you all. I hope you're all well. Remember, you're on a Zoom meeting here and you're being broadcast out to YouTube in the world. Okay. Thank you, Senator. I will just go through the budget quickly. I have sent Mike documents and they're on our website. Okay. Perfect. So I think I'll try to get through it relatively quickly. The 3% cut to us will be absorbed primarily through three areas. The up and down sheet will show you that the cut to us at the sheriffs was $143,358. A small portion of that is internal service fees at about $11,372. The bulk of it's coming from per diem and I'll explain the per diem system to you. That's $117,000 cut and a mileage at about $14,000 and there's some change on those things. We feel that we can manage that primarily right now because the courts are doing much of their work in a remote teleconferencing world. So we've been able to absorb those cuts because when the sheriffs are not moving folks from the correctional facilities to the courtrooms or from the correctional facilities to other places that are being asked to drive them. Our budget for the sheriffs on an annual basis and for FY21 will be $4,635,000 in change. 82% of that is salary and benefits. Who is paid from the general fund in the sheriffs department are the 14 sheriffs, 14 elected county sheriffs and the 25 state transport deputies and those are the folks as I mentioned before who move people from facilities to the courts. We also have a budget line so the sheriffs basically I think most people here know this and I'll just say it just so it's on the record but that the sheriffs are basically a very strange concoction in the world of state government and that they are a public and private mentorship together. So the sheriffs have an operation that they run where you've seen them do private contracts with like pike industries where they're running construction patrols on the interstate and they have other contracts for with you know could be with a local hospital to provide security. They have other contracts even in state government but so we so in essence we are the general fund is putting about $4.6 million into the sheriffs operations. It is for those groups the 14 sheriffs and the transport deputies and they're also pay two other items which are primarily per diem money and mileage. Now the per diems are generally can work for the sheriffs doing other work for the sheriffs some of their other contract work when they're working for us the sheriffs bill us for their time and we also pay for mileage moving people back and forth but about it's about $356,000 of money for per diems. Now you think maybe why would we need to have a per diem budget when we actually have full-time state transport deputies. Well first thing one is that not every county has a per diem I mean I'm sorry has a state transport deputy two of the counties do not so they always use per diems when they have to move people. Some of the counties only have one or two so if someone is out on is out sick or they're out on workers comp or something like that we will need to have a per diem utilization and then there are times when we're asked specifically if they can use additional folks on a transport they may have a they may be using people in the van and they for efficiency and they feel that they need to have an extra body or two and so they talk to central office and we approve that. So for the most part their budget is is pretty much just some salary per diem and mileage and that's it from the general fund. You are probably wondering you know what did the scope the landscape look like once they shut down. So on average the sheriff's program they transport 565 persons a month that's what the the state transport deputies on average are doing. When the courts closed down in mid-march of 2020 that was basically three and a half months so what we estimated was that we would see a drop of about 1946 less transports and we came pretty close with the projection. We actually for FY 20 ended up by transporting 4482 that was the actual we had estimated that they would transport 44838. So we were off by a few hundred about 400 but we still felt like that was pretty good and we adjusted the budget accordingly and we had to make the cuts. We made it to the per diem program. We made it to the mileage program and I think that we're going to be able to manage very well. One of the things that I'll raise two issues one is that the carry forward budget and you know what carry forwards you know are all about. So the carry forward budget has also allowed us to assist the sheriff's departments with things that they need that the department doesn't necessarily have the ability to budget for but for example if they if they needed you know to improve their radio their radios we might be able to support them with that. Sometimes a couple of years ago we helped them give them a small stipend so that some of their folks could could get some better uniforms. So we don't do a lot in terms of carry forward but we do take a look at the fact that the sheriffs don't necessarily at the rate that we pay for per diems at the rate that we pay for the cars sitting when they are not they're not moving around. The sheriffs have to buy those cars out at those cars. They're sitting at court for eight hours. They're not paying for themselves. So we do try to help the sheriffs with some of the carry forward. This year we have very little carry forward available to us and I'm just going to see if I could pull that up so I can see what our carry forward just to talk about that. Our FY 20 carry forward is 102,500. One of the things that we are a little concerned about is two things. One is that has to pay any prior year purchases from FY 20 that have not yet come through. But the other thing would be if we are in a situation where the state transport deputies need body cans we don't know how we'll manage manage to pay for that with with that amount of money plus the storage. So I think I'll stop and see if there are questions from the senators or anybody else that Madam Chair. So I have no doubt that the general fund will I mean that we'll be able to do it and I don't worry about that. But I do worry about the the sustainability of the sheriffs themselves of the sheriff's offices because of the bizarre way we we treat them and fund them and so they're not eligible for some things because they're a government entity but yet on the other hand they're not eligible through small business association because they're I mean because they're a government entity they're not eligible for SBA and because they're entrepreneurs they're not eligible for something it's it's a so I do I do worry about the way we fund them which has nothing to do with necessarily with your your budgeting here but I do worry about their their sustainability and I I'm not sure that's a longer term question than this budget but we do need it is something we do really need to address I believe Anthony this is kind of random thought it's kind of random as well but when I hear we always hear about how the sheriffs do contracting out and they submit bills and they have contractors various groups whether it's the hospital they do stuff on the highway whatever they do they must do a lot of administrative work it seems like you know there must be is there a lot of administrative overhead for sheriffs that they have to deal with I mean who's taking care of all these contracts and everything well when Jennifer first came the first time she came in and testified we asked her if she was surprised when she's been on the job I think seven months and she's a law enforcement officer that's what she wants to do and she's doing a lot of desk work and administrative and she said she was stunned by that so they're doing it yeah no it just seems unfortunate it should be a better way of doing it it seems it just seems like it bogs down the sheriff who should be out doing law enforcement work yeah I don't think you'd get any argument from the sheriffs about that or from Jeanette or probably from John Campbell right or from John yeah so given that I mean this is slightly off subject but so how do we change that well I mean that's not not in this not in this conversation right I realize but that's that's a conversation perhaps we'd like to have in the future after this period I believe that I believe that it's a conversation we've been leading up to for the last three years or four years and I think there are some answers but I don't I don't know it's going to take a lot of work to do it because it's a whole culture in Vermont the way we address these but it'll take a few weeks that's for sure I would say this madam chair that if um when the sheriffs get hit with certain um certain uh requests so for example if the auditor um if the state auditor sends them a long laundry list of things um we try to help them as best we can so uh bar burnardini and ashley perry at our office myself will try to do that even sometimes with public records requests uh that come in which can be very time consuming I think as you all know uh whenever we can we try to assist the sheriffs with those kinds of uh those kinds of issues that come to them however you're absolutely correct that in that you know I they they employ their own administrative folks to do a lot of that a lot of the work to manage and and schedule and control all of that and it is it is quite a bit on them I I we talk to them frequently only because we're talking to them about stuff that they're submitting to us and it's very difficult um sometimes if we ask them for you know to get something to us because we know that they're extremely extremely busy I'd like to be you know it's clear for senator plana um the contract issues because those are the you know private portion of their of the business of the sheriffs that um we do not deal with those contracts we don't help them with any of the um administrative aspects of those it's just the the transport issues right some of the other matters that they deal with that that we consider to be strictly law enforcement such as uh some of the public records requests yep thanks any questions or concerns or comments we'll start here Madam chair I know that uh Sheriff Harlow and Sheriff Bagnac are on I don't know if they if there's anything I missed that they might want to add hello there Sheriff Bagnac you're in your car you're on also on mute and I hope you're not driving I'm parked I'm parked by a different medical center so I'm out and about and uh I have better connection out here in the field than I do at my office so it's uh and it's good to be out and about scene that's where you know our state deputies are doing to throughout and about patrolling you know our areas and it makes a difference in our communities especially with still a lot of people not working and we're still having a lot of issues with family disturbances domestic issues so there's a lot of stuff going on and Annie you did a great job thank you you too John um so you know we're always looking at the per diem uh the rate that the per diems they're currently at approximately $18 an hour most of the sheriffs today are paying around 20 so there's still some sheriffs are losing $2 an hour you know with the per diems but you know at some point you know we'll address that and I'd love to have a conversation with Senator White and Senator Clarkson in reference to what we do to change the sheriffs here in Vermont I know you've been talking about it for the last couple years and I think at this time the point and we should talk about it and I think it's time for a change it really is thank you you're right your parlor do you have anything to add thank you Madam Chair I'm just basically was here to learn to so I can better understand what's going on and and things but I really appreciate everything like Annie is a lifesaver for me she's helped me out tremendously in my position I greatly appreciate it as well as other sheriffs and I'm thankful that I you know as Sheriff Boniac I'm also able to get on the road more with my guys which I really appreciate not as much as I'd like but I'm starting to get a little bit um I don't want to say comfortable but I'm managing my time a little bit better right now and state deputies you know transport deputies like Sheriff Boniac said would they're out you know helping us backing us up doing things as much as we can to show a greater presence in the state um the interesting times that we're seeing currently in our community so I know that our communities have definitely appreciated the um uptick in seeing more deputies out on the road so but thank you all for listening and thank you for letting me be a part of this today Senator White if I could add to the committee Sheriff Harlow has done an incredible job up there in a very short period of time and I know her constituents are very happy with her and we you know she said Annie I think Annie sort of adopted Jen when she came on and you know it's one of those situations it's really nice to see how some of the folks when they you know first get appointed or elected that they shine and she's one of our shining stars that's for sure great so this is a small it's a budget item and it's relatively small perhaps but I've always felt that there's some inequity in the way we deal with serving I guess it's just called serving papers so when the serifs do it they have to pay 15% of the cost back to the state and when the constables do it they don't pay anything back to the state has there ever been any thought about doing away with that requirement that they pay it back well you know that's been in the books for a while and I do I agree I just find that if you know if the constables are not not knocking the constables because again the process has to be served but I think the sheriffs are definitely at a disadvantage because it is part of the money that's coming in for them to help you know pay for cruisers or pay for you know the uniforms pay for weapons things of that nature so when I say weapons I'm talking about just regular sidearms that are that are for regular patrol but the the point is is that if you have somebody that doesn't doesn't have to have that kind of overhead they'll you know can do it for less money then you know the some people will get cut off so I think that would be even though we don't really deal with that aspect of their budget I think it's something that would be great for the legislature to take a look at plus they haven't had an increase in in many many years to that and I know that part of the issue now is the sheriffs you know have talked to me about the fact that you know they go to serve a paper and sometimes it's multiple trips to to get them delivered and it could be you know you know hours and hours out of a day to try to deliver something and so that has created you know a real drain on resources and they haven't had an increase to that rate for years and years I want to I can't remember but maybe Sheriff Bonyak does but it's probably been at least a dozen years or longer you're correct and it's it has been around 10 to 12 years and we did introduce a bill as past sessions unfortunately COVID hit and kind of got put on the wayside for now but the bill was out there we were looking for an increase and you're right you know some lawyers say after three service three attempts request a tax order some other ones will say you know keep trying until you you know so we're actually we lose money every time we you know especially you got to travel you know the mileage adds up and you know the time itself but the other part of it I know years ago some of the sheriffs said they thought the 15% was for the sheriff's salary increases from the state um so I don't know if that's true or not but but it's something you know to look at once again Brian thank you madam chair I don't know whether john or um bill or uh any might be able to answer but and I know it's not necessarily our purview today but if we were able to put the sheriffs on the constables on equal ground in terms of uh process serving what's the foregone impact on the budget you have any idea we wouldn't have that um we wouldn't have it I don't any I don't think you unless you've you came across that um but senator I'm more than happy to get back to you on that with the answer to that question we did we did I think mark Anderson gave it to us some time ago and I don't remember what it was I do we do have that senator I think I think we I provided it to mark and sheriff McLaughlin this year and it was just a matter of how much money the 15% puts to the general fund I think that senator Collamore's question I do think I have I think I have that in my email and I'll go back and look for it when we get off this call and if I get find it I'll send it into Mike Braun okay thank you wasn't some I could be wrong completely off base but I thought it was something like 150,000 a year that's what I remember is somewhere around in there so you know just if you want to look at the other side of it with the constables how much are they doing we have no idea so like does they don't report at all exactly so and it's no it's no disrespect to the constables it's just a matter of you know when the when you really look at you know at this time of especially COVID where you know money's tight and if the state needs that few extra dollars you could be you could be looking at another you know anywhere from $50,000 to $100,000 that you're missing out on or you're missing out on if you didn't have to get back well I know several of the sheriffs we noticed our civil process dropped down to about one quarter of what normally do so you know we're we're taking a hit on that too anything more committee on thank you great thank you on your front porch john yes I am and unfortunately my allergies are really kicking up there's something it's that's going as I said I just told patty that I think next next conference call I'm going inside she can come outside golden rod is uh just come out down here yeah I think that might be it because I feel like I'm about to rip my eyes out so don't do it on screen yeah I won't all right bye bye thank you committee members thank you senators thank you any bye bye share phoniac okay should we jump to um emergency uh emergency management services dan and I see we have drew with us also thank you madam chair um I don't really have I don't want to waste your time I don't have a lot to say today um our budget was largely unchanged in the proposal so we're sort of from the health department standpoint in a place where we support what was proposed for us and don't have a lot of concerns or complaints so I will yield my time then to our stakeholders if they want to talk a little bit more about it but unless you have significant questions we don't have a lot of testimony to offer you today on this one other than that we're satisfied with where we are okay yeah we should probably hear from the people in the field to see if they're satisfied with where we are okay thank you any questions for dan first and then we'll jump to drew okay drew so I have not an opportunity to see what impact on services this budget proposal will have the one piece I would speak to is the need to fill the vacant position of the training administrator we were told the advisory committee was was told that there's possibility that position would not be filled as a going forward as a vacant position so the only thing that I would add is that we would like to see that training administrator position and now the open chief of services filled their important positions in order for us to continue you know providing EMS and you can you talk a little bit about that those and I'm going to see what's going on with my phone here yes ma'am so I can I can offer you a couple of updates on that so it's not our intent to leave the training administrator position open we we currently have two open positions right now the EMS chief and the state training administrator we're waiting for approval from human resources to hire the chief with the hiring freeze on we have to go through the process to to allow us to hire that the comment I made at the advisory committee and I'm sorry drew if it was a little confusing is that we just wanted to wait until we had approval for the chief before we open the process to before we reopen the process to hire the training administrator just because if there was any negotiation that chief position is a little bit more important to us but it's still our intent to fill it it just will mean that we'd rather prioritize the chief's position because that has the broader reach we're now in the second week awaiting approval for the hiring of that chief's position we're hoping that we're here any day now we're rattling the cages as much as we can rattle them and that process will open as soon as we have everything ready to go as soon as we're soon to approve if we get approval we'll open both positions simultaneously and then it will just be a matter of getting the right candidate which is some of you may know has been a very difficult process for us over the last couple years is keeping that position filled so there's nobody in the world of VMS that wants those positions filled more than I do so I certainly will do everything we can and we'll do our best would it be helpful if this committee is a DHR where the approval comes from would it be helpful if this committee and wrote to them and encouraged them to give the approval to hot for these two positions I think from an official standpoint I should probably say that it's not my place to say that but again I'll yield to my stakeholders to make any judgments on that if you would it be helpful from my perspective I think it would be helpful these positions are are you know very important one of our long-term workforce development challenges has been the vacant training position in the in the state and certainly with Dan as the chief we were we were making progress and having a lot of cooperative work done with the EMS office and I'm concerned that with that position vacant we're going to be set back further from kind of where we were knowing that Dan's taking on you know more responsibilities in other areas and not being able to completely give us all of his time EMS needs that that position can you send could you send us some information about the two positions just so that we're clear about what they are and what their responsibilities are if you can send that to committee members then we'll we'll work up a letter is that okay committee are you okay with that yeah I think we want to know what we want to know is the impact of not filling the position what's the negative impact of not filling the position well that I can give you you know obviously that the EMS chief's position is the principal liaison between EMS agencies in the state of Vermont as Drew mentioned we've done we've made a great deal of ground up in the last couple years with that outreach with making sure that the voice of the provider is heard by not just the legislature but also the administrative sides of the department of health so the impact of not having that person in the role means that there's going to be a gap there and that's that's a challenge and that's it means pretty much everything that we do is is one step removed from its operas from from being operationalized so I think there's a big impact the training administrator is in charge of all of the principal licensing and continuing education for the state of Vermont EMS system we've it's been vacant now for 18 months so we've done everything we can to shift responsibilities around on our team meet those responsibilities but there is a gap when it's open we're fond of saying that if we're not innovating we're moving backwards and we've certainly not been able to innovate in the way that we want to we've not been able to support the educators in the way that we want to but you know so so there's a gap and when that's open that's that's a challenge now just to be clear we're not restricted from hiring that HR has authorized that position they recently authorized it so we haven't opened it up we're just pausing awaiting the determination of the chief's outcome before we we post it we've had four candidates since it was originally posted and they've all for one reason or another come almost to the end of the process and not worked out of the last minute so it's been a very frustrating a couple years on this position it's been tough so that that one has been approved though for hiring it's the chief operations position that you need to get approval for okay any more questions or comments allison well it just it just strikes me that this training administrator is so key given all this money that we are trying to coordinate with attracting marketing getting more ms people in that that training administration job is key to making that happen and happen successfully so we wish they were on now I 100% agree with you and like I said there's no one that makes that wish any stronger than I do no it's we're now all clear on that because we've been working so hard to direct that those crf funds and and this additional money for ems training so yeah and need somebody to minister it for sure you know this vacancy is is is reflective of a lot of the challenges that ems faces in vermont you know we we want a high level manager we want a paramedic that's in there that can that can understand all of the levels of our system but the problem is that our our farm team is not very deep there's only 300 paramedics in the entire state and the folks that are prepared at the level that we want them to be prepared for are gainfully employed in in many situations and not looking for new jobs if they're already have one in vermont we've been forced to look out of state and the challenge as you know bringing someone into burlington area with a high cost of living is is difficult so we've we've met a lot of obstacles with this position and it's been it's been tough so with what we've learned about working from home there's no reason why the person has to be located in burlington now they can come to browborough or woodstock yeah and in fact um that is a change that we made in the last posting of this position uh so historically um for the last couple years at least it has been uh tethered to burlington area in the last posting we open that up to say that we are open to uh any kind of virtual arrangement that we could make we had a candidate that we thought was going to work out that way and again it just became down to dollars and cents and it didn't work out um but you know the the hard part with this process is to get somebody to the very end of that process is months of of work and uh when it crashes at the last minute you're just set back but uh madam chair i absolutely agree with you that um there's no reason this needs to be tethered to burlington i've fought for that for a long time with uh internally i fought for that uh and i think i think we can make that happen and and quite frankly i think drew will echo my uh my feelings on this that i think it's a good thing to have a training administrator located in browborough or woodstock i think it helps us represent the the system better uh and and there's no you know there's there's nobody walking into burlington office to the you know for us to help them it our whole world is virtual so i wholeheartedly agree so would this person be allison would know about this eligible it seems to me we have a couple programs one is if somebody has a job to come to vermont that they can get some relief with um moving expenses or something like that um would they be would this person be eligible for that program they might they might well be eligible for the new worker uh the relocation program and that program is even though it's been sidelined a little bit by coven uh it that is still operational because it's an it's all uh an online application it's it's easy more easy to administer than remote worker which is more backburner right now uh partly because people are already moving without any assistance to vermont without that incentive but we're pushing very hard for these and and that new worker program is still it's going to be back in in the next month will be uh operational again and uh they have approved 24 people there are more people in the queue and they've had 150 applicants already so absolutely it would be appropriate we've actually uh offered moving assistance the department of health has supported I think the last applicant we offered up to two thousand or three thousand dollars in moving assistance not not the last one but the one prior to the last one we had offered moving assistance too he was coming from Ohio and again it just didn't work out but uh so we have we have had that in our arsenal great we were folks in um but great and it just hasn't worked out so if I may ask madam chair well what was what derailed the final candidate when the the person you thought was so good and what derailed that in the final analysis well uh without getting too specific about the candidate uh themselves uh it was just dollars and cents uh it came down to the fact that the candidate was making um uh more money than we could offer uh doing the jobs this candidate had a couple of different jobs that they were into and the we couldn't we couldn't offer a package that was competitive that would make the change appropriate and that happened in fact that was the last really the last three candidates we've had it came down to finally dollars and cents well you know I'm just curious because we know in senate economic development that across the boards we underpay in Vermont in every sector business about 20% would that 20% have made a difference in that job offer um it's hard to say but but I think maybe um you know my instincts would say yes but we were very close um in all three of the last three candidates we came down to very tight negotiations and it just just couldn't work out um I think the cost of living had a lot to do with you know so we had in the last three candidates two were from out of state and one was an in-state and the two from out of state it just came down to the cost of living that we could we could make them competitive with the salary but when they added the cost of moving to the Burlington area and the high cost of living it didn't make sense I know an empty house right in here in Putney well if you know any paramedics who want a job let me know I'll be happy to discuss it with them any more questions or if you can get that to us we'll send a letter to HR about the the chief operations person I'll be glad to send you the information about position anything else committee okay now just frustration about the training job we share your frustrations okay thank you very much thank you thank you thanks so I think that we have um next Kerry Brown are you going to um talk to us about the women's commission budget I you're there someplace and just um for information purposes uh should we get there I see it's 216 right now Senator Collamore has to leave to go talk about um a cluster in Rutland so he'll be leaving us at 230 well it's uh Dr. Levine is called a session to deal with the situation he killed me got it going to not Rutland but his county in Rutland county yeah thank you yeah so Kerry although it's perilously close to Windsor county well we we could take care of that maybe in reapportionment happily not today so just for your information the reapportionment board is all appointed now the last person was appointed who happens to be our tenant I recall you had a hand in proposing this person I did and she is excited it's looking at maps and deviations from population and stuff yeah right hi Kerry hi hello all right so Kerry would you like to yes thank you all very much um I appreciate the opportunity to talk about my budget uh and um to answer any questions that you have um we have been asked to reduce our budget by three percent which we have done um I want to stress that uh every single year we are asked to reduce our budget to some degree and usually it takes the form of being asked for a level funded budget um which means that we have to sense our personnel costs go up and our allocated expenses our ISF expenses go up then we have to make reduction somewhere else so um every year the portion of our budget that is that we have any say over gets smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller and it includes um travel office supplies um cell phones um printing and postage and that's it that's all we have any say over so um so that's just to kind of give you a little context not to complain about it because we can always somehow make it work but every year I have this feeling of this is the year we're not going to be able to make it work and so um so in our tiny little budget our budget is just under four hundred thousand dollars this year a three percent reduction is quite significant and we are able to do it this year seems like every year we have some kind of lucky little circumstance that lets us make it through this year um because we have moved to all online meetings we have cut out any mileage reimbursement for our commissioners so that's about fifty five hundred dollars that we're able to save um and we also had another just sort of stroke of luck if you would call it that the family situation of one of our employees changed such that she went from family coverage in her health insurance down to two person coverage um so it's not something we could have planned on or asked for but it was sort of a fortunate timing that it came along right when it did otherwise we were going to have no choice but to make cuts to our staff time because there was there's really just literally nothing else left and so um so we're so we're fine you know we're able to keep everybody on and continue doing our work on the same shoestring that we're very accustomed to doing it we're very very frugal and we've got a lot of practice in that and really our the majority of our expenses and where we need our financial support is to our staff because that's we're not really we don't spend a lot of money on and we don't need to spend a lot of money on anything else really is the time that people have to put into it we're incredibly busy right now because um this pandemic is having quite a strikingly disproportionate impact on women and so we are doing a lot of data collection a lot of analysis of what that means documenting that um and it's it actually every kind of every time we go back and look at it it's it looks a little bit worse I was just looking at unemployment numbers today and we've been tracking the share of women's and men's unemployment since April and typically men make up the majority of unemployment claims but that flipped in April so there were 46 percent to 40 percent women to men but then ever since then it's been getting steadily worse and worse every month until in um in July 64 percent of the unemployment claims in Vermont were women compared to 36 percent for men so it's um not completely sure what's at the bottom of that but at any rate there's there's a lot going on for women right now so we're well working on that and you've been great partners with ACCD rolling out these grants uh our CRF funding grants and so you take on and wear many hats um I may I ask a question madam chair yes please um so Carrie given this fiscal squeeze you've experienced for at least the last six I mean for as long as I mean for for a long time do you also what percent of your budget do you bring in on grants and are you penalized in in bringing in bringing more in on in grant funding outside of uh taxpayer funding yeah we um we don't we it's an unusual circumstance for us to receive grants we received a very large one a couple of years ago to do a paid family and medical leave feasibility study right from the U.S. Department of Labor that was unusual and it all went to this one specific project um we every once in a while we'll get like a couple thousand dollars here and there for always earmarked for specific projects and um so it's not something that we that we build into our budget or count on at all it's not there never anything that can support our general operating expenses on an ongoing basis um have not noticed any penalty that we've incurred for that um so that's it's but it's not something that we that we can count on but also it takes time and administrative time and effort to do those to research them and to apply for them but it strikes me that so much of what your work I mean so your work is so good and the results are so uh useful that it it strikes me that that there would be granting opportunities to help supplements this budget that is so constrained yeah and I think that where that could come into play would be when we have particular projects that we need to get done or if we if we've got for instance this past year we had carried forward from the year before so we were able to create a temporary position of a data management coordinator and we had somebody who worked part-time on a temporary basis which was fantastic um I would love to have somebody permanent doing data management because it's such a crucial part of what we do but that was a um that was a temporary kind of defined position and project that they were working on and so that's where grants can be useful to us uh any questions or I guess there's not much we can do about your budget well we could advocate for it not to be cut three percent well we could but um if this year might not if if they already have been able to realize some savings through the right and it's it would be hard to justify right this budget as opposed to other budgets I mean right except she's also taken on COVID work I mean the commission on women in case the rest of you don't know has taken on overseeing five million dollars of grants that have been designated for women and minority-owned businesses that Kerry has done we're hoping here later this week in senate economic development I hope um how how that's rolling out and so they've taken that on additionally so yeah yeah so that was that was not something that we had to buy yeah further support yeah we did not have that in our in our work plan for this year I know and it turned out to be a really fantastic program got a lot of help to a lot of people and even though we the majority of work didn't fall on our shoulders it was still quite a lot of work for us but much more for other people Chris thank thank you yeah so um on that last bit you know sometimes when people handle grants for someone else they become a fiscal conduit sort of a fancy thing but I mean do you get any kind of I guess I'm concerned are you being asked to work for no compensation when you take on those kinds of tasks like does it displace work that you would have otherwise done or does COVID displace that work otherwise done and so now you're doing COVID driven work right that so that's a great question um because COVID really did throw everything kind of into a new light and it has you know since March so our work has really focused on COVID which obviously we didn't plan for um we were not giving out grants ACCD maintained maintained that and so we weren't acting as any kind of fiscal pass through for that grant money um which is good because that that was one of the ideas that had been proposed along the way and and we were pretty clear that we weren't we didn't have the the capacity to do that um so if we were going to be asked to do that we'd have to bring on additional staff and so that and it wasn't it wasn't practical from anybody's point of view um so it's a so it's a kind of funny thing because we're uh you know we do the work that needs to be done and um it's it's possible that there may be some COVID really funds that are able to help offset some of the additional time that we've had to spend on COVID related work but I don't actually know for sure yet if that's the case so again not something we can count on okay and then just so make sure I understand your earlier remarks did you say that you've had flat budgets or declining budgets in preceding years right so we're asked we have been asked for the past several years um almost every year we asked for a level funded budget so they ask us to develop a budget that's the same um in order to do that we have to make cuts to various parts of the budget so that it because the personnel costs are growing up right no matter what and so um so the overall number for our budget has been going up just a little bit because we can honestly never make it level funded never quite works out um but the but the money that we have any kind of control over has had to be cut every year right well I mean I guess the concern when someone gets stuck in level budget land it's even even just with inflation you know you're you're being asked to do the same mission with less money effectively right here it's kind of a starvation budget and it worries me what's what's the total appropriation now from this state so the FY 21 is 399 and something and you've got our our ups and downs document in your folder so you can see the changes that we made to what we originally requested we I don't I don't see that on our website has that just been added Mike Farron it has um I got it about a half an hour ago and put it up on the website if you hit refresh on the committee's website actually I'll send a link to it okay if it's on the website I can find it Brian are you waving goodbye or do you have a question you're waving goodbye bye and just one more note about the personnel costs we have three staff members two of them are not exempt and so it's their their pay it step increases and cost of living increases but I am exempt and so we that's another area where we have some flexibility over how we spend that money so I don't always get a salary increase depending on the year depending on how we're managing to balance our budget well and I think of you as sort of an extender to you know what the state does so do you get are you able to offer your employees a package similar to what a state employee would be offering we are all state employees but you are I'm sorry I didn't realize that that I'm glad to hear that yeah so so they get they get what else we all get what all state employees get okay thank you or are they are they union members yes they are but you're exempt so I'm exempt so I'm not yeah thank you for that clarification that's actually reassuring to know that you're in the regular pool right so any more questions or comments or just frustration and and a thank you for all your crf help because even though you didn't administer it you were instrumental in orchestrating it well thank you all for funding it and making it happen okay anything else thank you Kerry thank you so much so committee with that we don't have anything else on the agenda for today we we did we have um was the Chris Burkell was he not going to come and chat with us about the criminal justice training council oh yes he was I don't know where uh I didn't ever see him there well we'll I guess we'll get him another time um so I think that what we have just in terms of budget stuff that the areas that we deal with are most of our stuff is not particularly budget related but I think that what we talked about was the racial equity advisory panel um suggesting that they might have 150 000 additional money I don't know we haven't decided that yet um Human Rights Commission didn't want their their um 3 cut but I'm not sure how to how to justify asking them not to take a cut when we when other people are and DPS the mental health outreach specialists and stuff I think we can we should have this conversation tomorrow I was hoping that we could have it today but I didn't know that Brian was going to not be with us and I think that we need to make sure that he's with us for this and then also have the conversation about the VSEA language um around the opening the the union contract is that uh yes and yes we're we're hearing from Vince Alusia and Steve a little later I mean we began it with Steve the other day but on Friday but uh is Vince also test I can't remember I I just I don't know that there's anything more than that there's not much more to say right um we just have to have the conversation and decide what to do and what to say to appropriations and um they did I think they reported out S-233 on the floor today oh they did they had a few changes but they were pretty minor and I don't know what they're doing with S-220 they did have some changes in there but I'm going to have to find out why that the um that on the floor there was a an amendment about the um energy plan training module that Tim Ash and some people put on as a and saying that they would tell us what they're doing and then the OPR would would um have some kind of a module um worked up that if they didn't if the professions didn't do training around uh climate change and energy that then they would take that and the house I believe is putting in there that they have to take that for license and the initial license and then every two years for renewal and I I'm going to ask them it seems to me a waste of time to have somebody take the same two hour course every two years but right really it's like you want something new but the but the it is one training module for two hours on our energy plan and I don't know how you would justify doing it every two years having people sit through the same two hours but I'll find out from them right there's so much changing it would be strike me as very surprising if two years on someone was offering the same training and but Chris it's not the profession itself the profession itself is doing all the training around energy where this is a module that this the director of OPR has to design to speak to our energy goals this isn't this is just here are your enter here are Vermont's energy goals and and it's the same for all professions it isn't as if it would be different for furnace installers than for real estate people well you know I'm supportive of the idea it does it's a tricky thing I mean who's going to if someone hears that 10 vs a 578 talks about greenhouse gas reductions as a state goal there's there's a lot of miles between that and what are you going to do as a installer that actually helps the state get there so but I don't want to prejudge I just I wonder who's who's going to be the liaison that's going to translate the state energy goals into sort of meaningful terms for people who then install and maintain things that help us get there well that's what we in ours what we asked for was a OPR to get a to look at all the training that is being done by engineers real estate agents furnace installers all of the people that were listed there and ask them what they're what they're currently doing because engineers are doing a lot right and so do they really need to sit for two hours and listen to our state energy goals yes well we probably be a lot better off putting if we really wanted to make a change start putting some resources into building inspectors around the state yeah we started building to code more which I'm hearing more and more support for because those who build to code suffer competitive disadvantage when other people don't bother to build to code and building to code is actually cost effective but we don't regulate for that and you know from being around this discussion about listing builders registering builders I'm going to stop now yeah that registering contractors well that was right yeah well as you probably remember I voted against it I do remember that's why I'm saying I'm stopping now oh it's too bad let's well it's it's anyway it's a big topic so be interested to see what comes back in 233 no two that's 220 233 is pretty I mean sorry in 220 we don't lose that whole bill because of that maybe they would eject that portion and send us the other stuff back or something no that they're my understanding is they're putting it in and it's an amendment okay they're putting in contractors no no no no they're putting in the two hours of training every two years yeah so that's where they are and I don't know they haven't really done much around s124 so I'm hoping that that also moves so what else do we have to do committee oh yeah you know the two hours of training maybe that should be for legislators as well we need more than that on the state energy goals the problem on this day what is what is the most important training that we can have let's see by implicit bias civility um let's see there's a whole list of things there is there is yes well and Vince Lucy has just sent us another email oh resending it so that it'll be handy for tomorrow so in our committee discussion I guess oops and what was oh about the the language yes okay perhaps you can schedule a pay act as one of the topics you will take testimony as you review the budget impact well I will write him back I think we already took testimony on that we did that was just sending it all to us again so we will reread it for tomorrow so um the other thing I just wanted to um do you want to have a uh I got a thing from um Matt Birmingham um because there's been some uh conversation that um we're having more deaths in Vermont by police officers it's increasing um exponentially as the way it was portrayed and I have a um a list of all the um injuries or deaths by police officers from 1977 if anybody do you want me to forward that to you yeah that would be interesting given we've all gotten the ACLU emails right right yeah yeah it's it's um it lists the the year um the officer involved the person that was either injured or killed whether they were injured or killed and what the circumstance was um you know like they were shot and killed during a burglary when they took two hostages something like that there's an explanation so I'll send that to you but in in fact my understanding is it's not going up it's not that big it's not a large number at all no it isn't it since 1977 it's um something I I think 23 people and um and I think two of them are what uh they refer to as um suicide by cop right um so anyway I will send that I will send that to everybody if if you want that right thank you and thank you I so we're on to tomorrow you want us to be have thought uh about BSEA contract and all these budget what we want to advocate for in the budget yeah and what else what else we can um if we have we won't have 233 but we can look at what they pass today so we can be ready for that and um and well let's look at 222 to be ready for that does that make sense sure and then I really want to start on this um and I know that it's uh Mike was a little bit confused here by what we were actually calling our shelf bill and he has reworded it a little bit so it says lessons learned but preparation for potential emergencies bill as opposed to shelf bill I think that's an improvement thank you it is an improvement so um we'll do we'll start on those discussions with Tucker and Betsy Ann great okay okay go file your campaign finance report if you haven't already I haven't I know my my treasurer greeted me yesterday as I returned from the post office walking down her street and she said I filed it yesterday it's like yes but I have nothing to report so I know so do you report a a nothing to report bill if you don't go over 500 either raised or spent I'm just trying to remember the baseline if you don't have carryover from last year I have $70 carryover from last year and actually I did get a check for $100 so I now have $170 okay that's a war test yeah it is a war test well for those of us who have a raise we've raised a little more than that so we yes so thank you all see you tomorrow you have a lovely afternoon and evening I'm going off to an uh a a conference on arts and justice so we'll be channeling our social justice and racial justice issues