 Good afternoon everyone. Thanks for being here. I thought I'd spend a few minutes today talking about where we're at after the end of the session. There are about 60 bills that passed during the last two weeks of the session, and as you know, at that time of year, things can change quickly or be added at the last minute without much notice. So as is typical, I won't be making any specific decisions on individual bills until we receive and review them using the five days I have to take action. And just for awareness, I don't have any bills on my desk at this point. Legislative counsel will take whatever time they need to review the bills and get signatures from legislative leaders before I start getting bills and they typically come in batches. That's a long way of saying you shouldn't expect any action this week or early next week. Taking a step back in January, I presented a budget to the legislature that was balanced, prioritized for monitors in communities, helped make Vermont more affordable with tax relief, and made investments in shared priorities like childcare, climate change mitigation, infrastructure, workforce, and more. The good news is the legislature included funding for most of those initiatives. The bad news is they spent a lot more money than I proposed and relied on regressive taxes and fees to fund the added spending, which I believe is unsustainable given the economic uncertainty ahead of us. As I've repeatedly said, we can make historic progress on our shared goals without increasing costs on already overburdened Vermonters. What I put forward was sustainable, something we can afford next year and in the future. And we can expand on those shared goals if we have organic revenue to fill those coffers. I've been clear. I'm ready and willing to work with legislators to find the right balance between their approach and mine because that's what Vermonters elected us to do. As I said in my adjournment address, majority of Vermonters voted for me in the last election in every single town while also electing them. Vermonters voted for balance and expect us to work together. But they've also been loud and clear with me that they didn't think Vermont was affordable even before this legislative session. That's why I have serious concerns about the financial impacts of what they passed. Between $100 million payroll tax, $20 million in DMV fees, $30 million in property tax pressure, at least $180 million in potential clean heat mandates, that works out to roughly $1,200 per household per year. I worry about everyday Vermonters already facing cost increases due to inflation. I worry about lower income single moms who won't significantly benefit from what was passed this year will pay more in taxes and fees to help families with higher incomes or the seniors on fixed incomes who are already living on the edge and won't see any benefits but will face higher costs. Now it's no secret I have some disagreement with the approach lawmakers have taken. So I'll once again make this appeal which you and the press are now familiar with. We share the same goals. We both support making historic investments in shared priorities but I believe we must do it in a way Vermonters can afford. We have five weeks between now and when they come back at the end of June Vermonters want us to work together and I'm ready to do just that. So with that I'll open up to questions. You reiterated some of your concerns with the legislation as well as extending revenues and you said in this quest for balance you hope that they will join you in this upcoming veto session to deliver that. What do you mean by that? Well it's to pass forward for them. They can seek to override my veto which they've shown that they can successfully do or they can work with us to try and find some middle ground work together to compromise both sides giving some in order to do what I could find palatable and they could as well. So that's the outreach. So you'd said the outset. Just a little look at the bills haven't arrived on my desk yet but it does sound like you anticipate vetoing some significant pieces of legislation. There are a number of bills I have concerns with and again we'll take a look at all those and put them together and I'll have to prioritize as well. I can't veto everything. So I'll just have to make some decisions over the next couple of weeks. How productive, you know you've been around many sessions. How productive do you think this session was fees and taxes aside in terms of the legislation that was passed? How productive do you think it was? I guess it depends on your standpoint. From my perspective I think it did a lot of harm and could potentially do a lot of harm to every day of our monitors. From their perspective I think they had a mandate when they came in and they were going to move forward with that mandate and they did so successfully. So again I guess it depends on your perspective. Can you reconcile the two mandates you were elected every town and the people of Vermont elected in theory anyway veto-proof majorities in both chambers? Yeah, I mean you have to look at it. They didn't do so knowingly or collectively. Each district elected their representative. I don't know as any of them went to said we're going to go in and veto everything and override everything the governor vetoes and we don't expect you to listen to anything the governor has to say. I just think that they expected us to work together and from my perspective I have a full view of the state. theirs is narrower than mine and again when you have a super majority and have the power and a lot of cash because of the surpluses that we have you the sense of being able to deliver and you know it's not, I know Governor Cooper is facing the same thing in North Carolina today. So the opposite, he's a Democrat and he's facing a super majority and they overturned his veto as well. You mentioned when you were speaking about the young single mother wouldn't the young single mother be able to benefit from child care? Well there you are and they're not getting any increase so you have a certain level of poverty I think it's 150% at this point 200%, whatever the figure is I'm thinking of that single mom who's already receiving child care and not paying for it. They aren't going to get any more than they get today but they will have to pay for it because if they're working they'll be paying a payroll tax. 65% of federal poverty level now she does get a free child care. That's why my bill that I put forward included went up to almost 400% of poverty levels so that would include them within existing resources and not having any payroll tax. So again I've said we're all going to have to compromise if they're willing and if that means going a little bit more but the long range goal is I agree with them, I think we should have more but we have to do it at a pace we can afford. Just short of saying that you've planned to veto the budget but you're also speaking as if it's all but certain that there's still an opportunity for them to reopen it which there wouldn't be if you signed it into law or let it pass into law without your signature can we assume that you're going to veto the budget? Well there's other ways of accomplishing that I don't have to get into all the intricacies but there are other areas of concern and once you open up one bill you can counteract what you've done in another. So there's ways of crafting legislation to take care of something without opening up the budget but again, I'm not saying I'm going to or not going to I'm just going to take a look at all of them to find a path forward. You said there's no bills on your desk right now I thought you had the biodiversity bill am I right about that? I'm not that I'm aware of it I've signed everything that's come to my desk It seems this philosophical difference between you and the legislature is not really new although there are the new powers if you will of the legislature how would you rate this in your what year is this six years as governor that's where we are right now They've all been different obviously but I would counter that our differences aren't philosophical because I'm in favor of increase in child care I'm in favor of doing more I'm in favor of pay family leave it's just our approach and how we do it and the pace at which we do it is of disagreement so I don't know if that's philosophical but I'm a fiscal conservative I've been in business a long time I've been governor now for this my seventh year I've been in the legislature for a number of years before that I've seen some downturns in the economy I've experienced that in business I know how difficult it is when that happens and it happens quickly and I don't know if everyone in the legislature has experienced that and all they've seen thus far for some are the good times you know we've had a surplus we brought forward a surplus in the state budget for the first time in a decade over the last three or four years we didn't have that before because we were rebounding from that economic downturn so again I think it's the experience that I've had and knowing what I do and knowing how difficult it is to make those cuts leads me to want to walk before you run and they're going from zero to sixty in one session you know if you haven't had an opportunity to review the legislation yet how do you feel in concept about this idea of expanding the model redemption universe in order to increase the amount of fiscal money? I've been opposed to that Bill since I first heard about it and throughout my legislative life I think what we what we put forth decades ago worked was a good step forward but now we have something all different with the recycling zero sort and so forth and I think we should be focusing on that I'm not saying we give up on model redemption in its entirety but to grow it to this degree I think it's going to have some consequences workforce and otherwise that we're not contemplating at this point and I just I think it's the wrong approach I think we should be focusing on recycling One of the arguments in favor of the legislation that would increase future legislators pay was that the current pay scale is just too paltry to allow regular monitors for lack of a better word to get into public service do you think there's merit to that argument? I think there's some merit and I've been vocal about that as well we what I hear from when I'm trying to encourage someone to run for office they typically ask me well how much time does it take and what about what am I going to have to do when, how long is the session and I have to answer honestly because it's open-ended don't know it can be I've been in here into June in one of our sessions when I was in the legislature and so there's no set time limit and that's been the biggest deterrent in terms of trying to encourage people to run the pay for some is an issue and I've said if you want to raise the pay that's fine but you have to reduce the length of the session and have some finality to that for what they, when they were going to be here and for how long so they can get back to their normal lives and back to their own jobs and be able to tell their employers how long they're going to be on So two weeks from today I know we've gotten their standpoint on this before but the hotel motel program will kind of go back to its expanded version and city and town managers I talked to just as recently as yesterday they kind of have no idea what they're going to do with these influx of people coming back so yeah I mean we're all in this together and it's something that we're not sitting on our hands waiting for the date to arrive before doing anything we're trying to make arrangements at this point it's permanent housing is the answer and I want to reiterate that every dollar that we spend for the hotel motel program is money that we won't be able to utilize for permanent housing typically so we should be putting more money as you know we put forward an initiative of $15 million for the VHIP program now the VHIP program has been probably one of the most successful programs we've initiated and I don't think Vermonters have a great idea of what that means because if you have a home and you want to add an accessory dwelling or you have an apartment that needs upgrading so you can rent it out there's grants available for up to $50,000 with some stipulations attached now we've only been doing this for a year or two at this point and we put 500 and something units online for less than $50,000 per unit when you compare that to the money we put forward and again I'm not saying that we shouldn't have done what we've done but when we put it into bigger projects we're talking you know $250,000 or more in terms of per unit cost and it takes a lot longer so the pace of which we are able to react is going to be part of the answer so I'd like that's one area that I would like them to instead of cutting our request by $5 million I think at this point in time should expand upon that and we're just going to have to continue to survey those who are involved in the Hotel Motel program to find out what plans they've made if they've made any what issues they have and we're doing just that every single day and I might ask Secretary Samuelson if she has anything she could add to that at this point it's about the program that on a quarterly basis they're putting as many as 100 units online in that program and that really does make a difference for the reminders we've been in our hotel and hotel programs who have access to those we know that there are reminders who have housing vouchers right now and are not able to access permanent housing and we are committed to working with the towns and are actively engaging in conversations and discussions and we'll continue those from on the access to these towns tomorrow again I want to echo that continuing the money in the hotel and hotel program isn't necessarily getting us to the permanent state that many of the individuals need in that program Secretary Samuelson what's the latest most accurate number on the number of individuals that are going to be exited on June 1 and the governor said you've been surveying them how many of those individuals have you been able to confirm will have housing to transition to when they leave those hotel rooms we know a significant proportion of them actually have an alternative plan we talked about that last time that we were here it's a dynamic population so I don't want to get down to the infinite number that have an alternative plan but we do know that there's a significant proportion that do and are waiting until the program ends to implement that plan significant are you tracking this? Do you have data on this? Is there a spreadsheet where you're keeping track of each individual and finding out what the plan is I'm happy to get back with you on that but we are being actively engaging in case management and care management with each individual and their families to engage in that process so I can get back to you in the number of individuals that will lose eligibility beginning June 1 there is a dynamic number so let me go ahead and I'll get those details back to you dynamic number, does that mean that you haven't fully decided who's going to be eligible and who's not going to be eligible? are there still decision points ahead that are going to be determinative as to whether or not somebody can stay in their motel or hotel room? No I think that's an inaccurate statement it means that there are individuals who are coming and going from the program on a daily basis letters went out to program individuals at the beginning of the month that will be exiting on June 1 and I gave you the number of those letters about when there was conference I was struck by the number of families who had section 8 vouchers who weren't able to find any I mean I wasn't surprised but I was struck by just the sheer number and that's what led me to believe that we need to do a better job in trying to promote the VHIP program and you could all help with that as well to try to get the word out and we can identify just point them our way so that we can get them that would help them as well for some struggling families trying to pay the property taxes this would be another approach to helping supplement that as well the other part of that was the number of people not a great number but there's a number of people in the hotel motel program that would qualify for senior living of some sort and they just aren't quite ready to give up their independence but they would qualify for that so we are actively pursuing that as well those facilities are pretty maxed out too well it was like I'd be desperate to be in one of those facilities but there's nowhere for me to go well interestingly enough we're finding that there's some opening in that program and again I'm going to ask Secretary Samuelson to chime in there are some struggles in certain areas but there are certain areas where I have beds available it was about my comment about senior living and that the the question was if there is no bed capacity maybe you could repeat the question so I don't get it wrong or the statement the general understanding is that's pretty maxed out there was some money in the budget that's you know hoping to increase reimbursement rates which hopefully will increase capacity but I mean how many new beds do you think will be available for the significant population of elderly people who work in these hotels do we have any tips? yeah so I want to be clear there are a number of individuals who are older adults for other levels of care who are right now you know as they understand considering whether now is the time to give up 30 minutes for those who are qualified for skilled nursing which I believe is what you're asking about there are beds across the state that openly track them on a regular basis and it fluctuates as many as 100 beds at any given time I think we're referring to the activities that we have and particularly the discharge from the hospitals and while we found that to be challenging that's often because of the specific needs of those individuals being a higher level of care so I do want to say that there are beds available across the state the state has also worked with and is currently working with a vendor to bring on higher need beds for those who might have mental health substance use correction in histories they currently are not able to find a location that will come on right around the time so it slides coming in July and there will be 100 beds there that will also be able to be prioritized for populations who have higher needs and can't go to one of the currently available beds I'm a little bit confused by what you said earlier about there being a plan of survey and figure out how many of these people do have a plan because when I asked ECF about this a few weeks ago this was a non-record interview I published these comments I asked specifically this question and I was told because the population is transient I don't even think that kind of survey is possible so has that changed is there now going to be an actual systemic effort to figure out how many of these people that are exiting are going to have some sort of if not permanent housing shelter or you know are we going to get some sort of census I'm happy to get folks back in touch with DCF since October we've had a cross agency team that has been working with individuals to do care management and case management to assess what their needs are and to help them identify a plan and move on to permanent housing that's included a nurse it's included someone who is specialized in helping people find employment it's included someone who is specialized in helping navigate economic services as well as the housing partners on the ground and through that project we have been assessing the needs and the plans of individuals who are currently in our hotel program we added a primary focus to help them identify and find a permanent solution and provide them the appropriate supports to do so the question isn't are there case managers talking to these folks but is there an attempt to gather data that will be publicly available that tells us you know of the 2,500 people who left within this two month period you know 50% found a shelter bed 10% got a permanent shelter is there going to be that data that tells us where these people went that's different than whether or not you're talking to them and trying to identify yeah thank you I think that before what I heard your question is are we currently trying to get individuals that are currently in the program as individuals access the housing programs we will continue to look at and monitor the broader agency of human services data but as they exit we may not have their individuals we may not have access to where they go and what their plans are once they're no longer in quality in programs that the agency can service one more question the governor as I'm sure you know there's this group of democrats that are you know to not vote for the budget because of this issue and I'm assuming that legislators reopen the budget somehow of course you know they're coming at it from the opposite direction has that at all affected your calculus about whether or not you should sign or veto this budget bill right it's not that I'm not aware of that but I'm going to look at the glass a little bit differently for those who would look at that and might say well you better not veto the bill it could get the budget could get worse that's what they're getting at and I would say that if we could get to a point where we could agree and make the bill more palatable that we'd actually gain numbers on the republican side in particular so for all those who are going to vote against it no matter what if we made it better from my perspective I think we could gain enough enough votes to make it viable if you do right republicans might join on the other side so it's a dynamic and you can look at it a couple of different ways one of the things we haven't talked about much that I know is really important a lot of people and significant money behind it is this salt workaround did not make it across the finish line and I'm wondering your thoughts, reactions to that I think it's unfortunate that it didn't because it really doesn't affect our budget and would put money in the pockets of many folks from the federal level so I'm scratching my head a bit as to why it didn't make it don't understand about federal money as you know the debt ceiling talks are ongoing in Washington it seems like one of the places that there has been some agreement is for federal government to claw back unused pandemic COVID cash will that affect us anyway we don't believe so it's always a concern because you never know what they're going to claw back and that's why I kept advocating for even with the IIJA money and other money that we're going to be utilizing in the future that we make sure that we have the match once they start they'll start clawing back other money as well to fill gaps so we want to make sure that it's committed we believe that we're in good shape there we have programs in place it is committed it hasn't all gone out the door but it's all committed so depending on how they structure the which I think we're okay as long as it's committed to use and not actually gone to the end user I don't know if you would know where Commissioner Greshin is on about how much money is allocated but not yet spent I hope we get that number Kristen Kristen, Secretary Clouser I think it's just over for my extended but I can follow up with the exact number as well so yesterday the special committee was officially announced kind of person by person it's going to be a part of Franklin County investigations and I know it all starts in the House but considering it's rarity I guess how on the loop are you expecting to be throughout this whole process just kind of hands off I don't think I'll be involved whatsoever other than answering some of your questions but it's in the House at this point and they'll have to do their investigation and come to some conclusion and then vote on that if they choose to do so an area of I guess a through line you saw a lot of decisions as you said but a through line with leaders in both chambers these last couple weeks of the session is essentially the Governor's either vetoing or is going to veto a record amount of bills more than any other Governor in the state that's what they've been telling me at least and I guess your response that you mentioned just the inexperienced law makers they've only been here for the good times we'll have this federal windfall but just I don't know if you have a response to that or kind of a rationale behind why this year might be different I think you know this is a record year of spending as well record year of increase in base budget expansion I think it's at 13% I don't think we've ever seen that so maybe there's a correlation between spending and vetoes I don't know we'll see you spoke a lot on the 72 hour wind period as well that's going to hit your desk I just I know you said you don't want to make any final decisions but just in concept in the next couple of weeks here do you foresee vetoing that again it's it's on the table we'll wait and see when we get it and I'll make a decision at that point go to the phone starting with guy page daily chronicle thank you governor so my question is Governor McDonough who reported today that Vermont Judge Allison Arms was considering releasing an 18 year old accused of armed robbery and drug possession saying it's not her fault if the state doesn't have a secure youth facility Governor McDonough has to support Senator Kitchell in this opposition to the state plan to open a facility there when and where in Vermont is expected yeah I think you cut off at the end there guy but I think I have the flavor of the question we are working on other initiatives Southern Vermont Medical Center is one there's another in Wyndham County with the Sheriff's Office so we are working on a couple of other ways to approach this and we'll wait you know I haven't made any decision we haven't made a decision on Newbury at this point it's in the Supreme Court and on a technicality in terms of the restrictions place or the power of the town so we'll we'll wait and see how that all works out before making a decision to go from there can you tell me one second go ahead okay can you tell me a little bit more about the Southern Vermont Medical Center and the Wyndham County Sheriff's Office's I can't in detail I don't know if Secretary Emelson has anything more on that or can research that and get back to Guy to get information back to you what the Governor is referring to at Southwest Medical Center is an expansion of their services to include an adolescent mental health beds that will be available and it really depends on the need of the individual youth or child the second person that we are talking about the need in our system of care one is stabilization so when a youth is in crisis there's an opportunity to kind of take a time out and stabilize and then determine where best longer term residential placement is and so that identifies the second piece that's needed in our system which is that longer term residential option what we're talking about at the Wyndham County Sheriff's is that opportunity to do the stabilization when before we move out they use on to residential treatment like we might see in Newberry I will say that we we continue to try to work with towns and look for partnerships across the state what I can say is that in the past we've heard and asked towns and providers to come forward and help us find what is needed for Vermont's children and we have no one has and they're all with each of the towns that we work with there always is some reason that they come forward why it's not what they want in their yard so I really would ask Vermont towns Vermont villages to really consider what is the right thing the facilities that we need for but say they haven't and the judge just says hey there's no place to put this child I've got to release it it's just simply got to be a better alternative yeah again I want to look to working with our cities and towns to ensure that we have both stabilization and residential treatment for any absence of that it's really falling to state employees and so I can't dig into this individual case but again we'll continue to look for and explore opportunities to do the right thing for Vermont children Tom Davis, Compass Vermont Governor amongst that pile of bills that you have to consider where is the housing S100 bill on that stack I think that S100 isn't exactly what we wanted we would have preferred having more expansion in terms of Act 250 reform and regulatory reform but it's still a good bill and barring any technical issues with the bill that would probably go through but we'll take a look at it yeah anything will help at this point with housing yeah there's in the room just a quick follow-up to Guy Page's line of questioning is your administration still advocating for pause in raised the age reforms yeah I mean our feelings haven't changed on that issue I know part of the taxes we're looking into whether or not Vermont would be able to assess a payable tax on people who reside here but work remotely for companies based out of state if you got any clarification on that question I'd like to refer to you Commissioner Beaulio thank you for that question are we in the current bill is that if you live in Vermont work in Vermont for a non-employer you would be subject to that payable tax some of the law would say that that employer would have to collect that payable tax on your behalf sure so does the Supreme Court's impact on this session obviously the shield bills responding to the abortion decision and the brewing case a lot of legislators brought that up in terms of legislation they could even introduce or picked up this year just your thoughts on this report well again it's putting more pressure maybe more authority giving it to the states which is for some some have always advocated for that I think that we've reacted appropriately thank you all very much