 Good afternoon everyone. Thanks for being here. I'll be brief today before answering your questions. As we head into next week's veto session, I want to once again make clear the significant concerns I have with the direction we appear to be heading. Again and again, Vermonters have been vocal about the forability of our state, but it's our ranking as one of the highest tax states in the country, cost of housing, property taxes, home heating bills and more. Too many Vermonters are struggling to get by in their face with a tough reality that they may not be able to afford to stay in the state they love for much longer. Anecdotally, we hear of people who have considered moving to Vermont, which would help our economy, but have second thoughts after seeing how expensive it is and the severe lack of housing for the middle class in particular. So while we made progress over the past six years, we have to stay focused on affordability. And while the legislature rejected most of my proposals to give Vermonters the tax relief they deserve, we have been successful in preventing increases in taxes and fees, which has allowed us to be more competitive with surrounding states. But this year, I'm worried the legislature is reversing the clock and doing a lot of the good work of the past six years and setting us up for failure. Whether it's a hundred million dollar payroll tax, 20 million and unnecessary DMV fee increases, hundreds of millions in additional costs that will come with a clean heat standard, spending 70 million more than I propose in base spending and more. When I'm outside the Montpelier bubble, I hear a lot of the spending in Montpelier is out of control. And they're wondering how they'll be able to afford it. To be clear, I think all Vermonters are taxed too much. And the last thing we should be doing is raising them given high inflation and record surpluses. But what concerns me most about the approach the legislature has taken this year is that those who can least afford it will feel the financial harm the most. Those lower on the economic ladder struggling to get by who already qualify for free childcare or free school meals will now be forced to pay more to help families making 170,000 a year get childcare subsidies for free lunch for their kids. That's not progressive. It's anything but it doesn't feel right. I've said it dozens of times and I'll say it again. I share many priorities with the legislature. We want to invest in many of the same things, but we can't do it all at once and make it less affordable in Vermont than it already is. When voters went to the ballot box this year, many made the choice to split their ticket voting for Republican for governor and a Democrat as their legislators. But I don't believe they did so expecting one side could completely ignore the other. They want us to work together to at least negotiate. So we get some balance. That matters to me. It's why I tried to meet the legislature where they were right out of the gate in January. And that's the case today as well. I'm still ready to work with them. I'll now open it up to questions. Probably haven't already met with the speaker and the pro tem to talk about their new ideas regarding the mental program. I understand you're meeting tomorrow. But have you received any additional information? Do you have any thoughts to share about it? I don't have much to share with you. I haven't seen their proposal at this point. You may know more about it than I do. But we're expecting to get something possibly this afternoon or tonight to review before the meeting tomorrow. One of the ideas for funding GA houses to some extent potentially could involve pulling down future federal infrastructure funds. This match that we talked about earlier this session. It would that wouldn't open up to budget. But would you be in favor or in theory be opposed? I'd be opposed to that. Yeah, that was one of the things that I thought was important. I still believe it's important. Given the economic storm clouds that I keep talking about, we're going to need that match money in order to keep some of these projects moving forward to help our economy continue to move forward if we go into a downturn. So I think it's vitally important that we have the match to be able to do that. To help the very people we're trying to to assist with. I also think though that there is room within the budget to work things around to make things work in both our favors. So we'll see what they have to offer. But but I'm really ready to at least hear them Are there issues that have arisen in the week since the legislature adjourned that you think a companion bill drafted right now might be useful in addressing? Oh, sure. Yeah, I think some of the there's been a lot of housing money that's been put forth to VCB, for instance, they they've been to fund some of our requests in terms of the VHIP program, which I think is so essential. I think that would help in terms of the homeless population as well. And those who can't find housing. I also believe that we need to even decide to move forward on the stabilization or reserve fund for landlords that I think would be really helpful. Because there are many as we found after trying to to to go in and survey some of those in the hotel motel programs at this point in time. Many of them have sex and eat vouchers. And we're finding throughout the state that there are many landlords who don't necessarily want to rent to those folks because let's be honest, there is some damage that comes along with it and some not in all cases, but in some cases, and the landlords have left holding holding the bags, so to speak, with a lot of repairs that they can't afford. So this this capital reserve would help if someone did some damage, they could put those use this fund to put their their units back online, as well as if they weren't paid for rent and so forth. So that's something be to be received a enormous amount of money and whether that was redirected in some way, I think that would be helpful. I've talked to a lot of service providers who were surprised to learn that according to them, based on correspondence that they got from Commissioner Winters, that the majority of the 1000 or so households that had originally been set to lose eligibility on July 1st, will in fact be able to stay in additional 84 days based on this new guidance. I'm wondering if you can talk about that universe of people, how many of them are going to be able to stay until September based on what's coming out now. Yeah, I think I'll have to rely on Secretary Samuelson on this. We can put up the slide. So as folks may remember, if we go back to a few press conferences ago and even the last one, we talked about restarting the general assistance housing program on the 1st of July. The general assistance housing program has several different eligibility criteria. One of them are four vulnerable populations. Those individuals that we've discussed before are pregnant individuals with a disability, families with young children, those over the age of 65. When we restart the program, they're extended by 28 days. But there are other families who are in what are considered catastrophic, which we also talked about the last time that we were here. And they're eligible for 84 days. When we look at the data, it breaks down so that right now we have 1200 households that are in the program. Of those 1200 households, 524 of them qualify for 28 days and 636 qualify for 84 days. Now, if you have a catastrophic event, that that autumn that trumps your vulnerable population. So there's, there are individuals who may be families with children in that 84 days or individuals who are older than 65. The service providers that I've talked to say they reviewed the catastrophic, what's required to be eligible to the catastrophic. And they're saying the people these numbers do not match with the situations that they're hearing that these people in fact would not qualify based on a very narrow eligibility guidelines. I can only leave that to the Department for Children and Families rather than the service providers who are the ones who determine eligibility. And these are the these are the numbers that they have from doing eligibility determination with individuals. So actually, can I piggyback on that? I've talked at length with the Department about these numbers and I've heard the same. I mean, the exact quote I got from one service providers is these numbers don't make sense. And the catastrophic is not my understanding based on conversations with the department is not actually based on individual determinations that what people qualify for. It's projections based on pre pandemic numbers. Based on the actual numbers that you have about like how people are qualifying, you're looking at less than 100 qualifying for catastrophic. So why did you use pre pandemic projections instead of like documentation that you actually currently have for that population. So the way that the program is currently designed individuals who like we are restarting the program and redetermining eligibility in those catastrophic categories every month. And so once on July 1st when the program restarts because remember we are currently in the pandemic housing program, different eligibility criteria wide open, they will determine the eligibility at that point in time. Again, the Department for Children and Families are the individuals who determine eligibility. They're very skilled at it. And the numbers that we have here really reflect their knowledge, their experience and their interactions with the current clients. So these numbers right here are a projection based on what you think you're going to hear from motel guests when you conduct the actual eligibility interviews on July 1. These numbers here reflect what DCF has for information related to eligibility as of now. Every single month they redetermine eligibility for individuals on July 1. They start actually two weeks before that. We will we will know exactly who falls into which category person by person. I mean, what you're saying is directly contradicting what I've heard from DCF like within like we were talking about this a week ago. And I believe you're like the website itself said like there's an asterisk and it says like it's a pre pandemic projection. Yeah, it's based on it is based on projection. Again, eligibility is I don't think it's in conflict. Eligibility is determined on a month by month basis. We during the pandemic, we did not use the same eligibility criteria. We are restarting the GA program on July 1 and on July 1 individuals will be determined for eligibility. Again, Department for Children and Families are the ones to determine eligibility and they are the ones who have the expertise in determining and projecting out what our estimates are going to be going forward. So are these estimates based on pre pandemic data about the population that was eligible then or are these estimates based on current knowledge of the population that's in hotels right now? It's a combination. And again, eligibility, we don't have the eligible the actual eligibility will be determined for the GA program on July 1st. This is a significant number of folks staying in hotels and hotels for a significant amount of time. Presumably, I mean, Governor, you talked about the scale of expense associated with this. Is this an unforeseen draw on general fund dollars? And if so, how are you accommodating that? Again, I do believe this will have an impact on the general fund and we're going to we can get through it at this point in time. And that's why it's so important that we put all the tools in the toolbox so that we can provide for permanent housing in the long run, whether it's the VA program or some of the landlord assistance programs and so forth. So we can open up as many units as possible. We've also directed as I put in the executive order, had the Department of Public Safety actually go out in some of these higher populated centers that are impacted the most like Rotland, Berry and others, maybe Bennington, I can't remember. But to actually survey to find out what's open, like what have we had for violations, what are closed down at this point in time so that we can put them back online. So, but yes, this will have an impact on the general fund. When did you find out that more than half of the households that were originally set to be exited on July 1st were in fact going to be able to stand until they're burning to show through months? Yeah, well, some of that I will take partial blame for, because I had always assumed that the numbers we were receiving were included those with kids. For instance, that would be still eligible for the program. That was not the case. I think it was communicated maybe differently throughout our process and not knowing everyone that was going to be involved. I just assumed that we would be able to take care of the most vulnerable. And so I said that we should follow through on that. So are you saying that you made a decision as an executive that households with children will qualify for this extra 84 days? Yeah, I mean, well, it wasn't for the 84 days. It was for the extra 20 days, right? You want to come up and clear this up. But it was for the first piece. That was the part that I was involved in. Yeah, and I think there's a nuance here, right? When we talked about the program from the beginning, we've talked about restarting the general assistance housing program on July 1st. I think what's what we're hearing here is a as folks learn more about the in-depth of that program. Not not the governor, not I, but folks on the ground. There's a realization what that means is that the eligibility criteria pre-pandemic and now is has nuance to it. It's 28 days for vulnerable populations and 84 days for catastrophic. That's nothing new. And so when we made the decision to reset the program, that's that was the decision that we made as a team. And there are and there are individuals with families that are in that catastrophic family and vulnerable individuals. And so if you if you're right now projecting, and so I'm assuming budgeting for 636 households getting the 84 extra days of eligibility, if you encounter situations where you think this is a family that needs the additional days but they don't quite qualify under catastrophic, but can you make a decision at that stage? So I think our goal all along has been to really work with folks to get into permanent housing. And that's what we're actively working with families and families with children on as we as we move forward. And I think that that that's where you know we're working really closely with the local cities and towns. We're looking closer with local service providers to ensure that individuals have the services they need to make the transition to permanent housing because that's in the best interest of families and children. I put in a request for the RSP proposals that were submitted and also the letters of interest that were submitted from you know, nonprofits municipalities, companies responding to the state's calls for shelter proposals. I was told the RFP was a sealed bid process so they won't be released. The only thing that will be released is the actual whatever contract is awarded and the names of anyone who is submitted but not any additional details. And when it comes to letters of interest, which were submitted to DCF from partners on the ground, I was told that those are also not exempt. As I said, those are not subject to public disclosure. Why not release these proposals? Why keep them under wraps? Secretary Samuelson. Well it's the first time I've heard of your request so I'll go back and can get you more information. I do know that what we're working towards with the RFP is to follow the standard contracting processes that we do in the state. We've just started reviewing those bids at this point and haven't made an award. And so it is our usual practice to go through that bid process and then make announcements. I can follow up with you offline. But I guess why make the decision to release this as a sealed bid as opposed to one where everything is released publicly? I have to follow up with you offline again. We'll need to work with our staff to better understand. What about the letters of interest separate? I'm also being told that those are exempt from public disclosure. I can read to you the exemption. Yeah, unfortunately I don't think that Commissioner Winters is able to be on today. I mean some other other family issues going on and so we'll get back to you after. Well I'd like to hear from the governor, I mean do you think in principle that these proposals should be public given that the event? I think when it's appropriate I think they should be public. Yes. But in my years of contracting not everything was released at the time they got into the office. There was a bid date. It was a sealed bid until then and if there was any nuances within or any flexibility within the bid itself they weren't released until they got through all that to make sure that they compared apples to apples. So I can understand part of this but eventually they should be all public. And I guess the letters of interest weren't really bids. It seemed like a pretty informal process. I mean do you think those should be not released for the time being? Well again I don't know what they came back with. I don't know what they say. I don't know if they made contensions within the letters. I just don't know that much about it. I haven't seen them. So I don't think I should comment until I know a little bit more about that. But I do believe in transparency. Relatedly. You know I've heard some grumbling from service providers saying A. you know we weren't given a lot of time to submit these and now it's been two weeks and we haven't heard anything back including how much money is really on the table. When we're going to know what they're going to award. And you know a lot of folks already left the hotels. So Amy do you feel like state government is moving fast enough here? I think we're moving at an appropriate pace. Governor Rutland City and I apologize for questions that have been asked. I'm sorry I'm late. Rutland City has a written emergency housing transition plan that includes busing people elsewhere. Are you aware of that? And if so do you know whether they'll be busing them out of state or just inside Vermont? Yeah I don't know anything about that. First I've heard of that proposal. I know that there was some event we had I believe we had all kinds of providers and so forth coming together in Rutland in particular to see what we could do to solve this problem. I don't know if that was yesterday or the day before. I just don't remember but I remember reading about it. Maybe it was last week. Is this week a much of it? Okay well there's an event that Rutland is putting on themselves to try and help out. Now there if you you can see the numbers I mean that's it hit me when you see the gross numbers of like Rutland district office proportionally per capita they are the highest or the most impacted and then from there I would say maybe even the Barry office and Bennington Rattleboro and Burlington per capita the district office is doing much better than the others. So those the areas that were were focused on and I know Rutland in particular has had to deal with this throughout the pandemic. Can you give us a ballpark estimated cost for the extended eligibility for 524 households that are getting the extra one and the 636 are getting extra three months? Yeah I don't have that. Ballpark? I don't want to bought this a ballpark before you get on whether I will get to the table afterwards. All right I mean you seemed like you were telling us exactly how much it was costing per month to do this each hotel stays. I've been doing it for three years yeah we should be able to. Well so I guess that's what I mean. Yeah we haven't done it yet. It was less than the cost of the month so the extension of the program so. And why was that because of renegotiated hotel rates why would it be less than one if there's such a substantial number of people staying for four months? Three months and then. I'm concerned about doing math from the podium. I want to make sure that you get the actual right numbers so we'll get you get you those numbers afterwards. Part of it is that there's a number of households that have transitioned out of the program already and there are a number of households who will continue to transition out of the program but why not we'll get you the numbers afterwards. Senator Brood said we'll be housing people until there's an alternate stable system in place. Will you be retiring any budget that includes essentially open-ended funding? Well I'd like to see what they're proposing first I I have no idea what they're what they're going to be putting putting forward so I think I would think I'll wait until I read their proposal meet with them so I fully understand what they're contemplating. So yesterday you let Universal School Meals Bill go through without your signature saying you feel in reality have been an overridden in the veto session I guess what that trained or that thought process for this bill and not other ones say it's childcare that also has overwhelming legislative support. Yeah it's difficult one to communicate in some respects and and I do think that we have a lot of work to do in education I saw some further numbers yesterday where there was a study done by some group and mass scores are down dramatically reading the scores are down dramatically over the last two years we have a lot of work to do there so again I didn't want to come to a point where we're just this gets politicized in a way where we don't focus on those fundamentals that I think are so essential but I as I said right from the beginning you know we I truly believe that we should help those families and those kids they need their help but I I fundamentally don't believe that those that are impacted those on the lower end of the scale should be paying for more affluent families for a free lunch I think they can pay their fair share and they're willing to so it just seems counterintuitive to me the other thing that was somewhat counterintuitive and I know we've been talking a lot about independent schools and so forth but the class that was left out are those independent schools that don't take public money and so it appears we don't care as much about the children in those situations as we do in public public schools which leads me to believe it's more about politics than policy you mentioned transparency what do you think of the legislature impeachment committee inquiry committee meeting behind closed doors yeah I mean this is this is their prerogative they're in control I'll let the let's just let a branch take care of that but I I understand the sensitivity but but that's something they'll have to answer to and I actually do have one serious question if it is a serious question that wasn't a serious question no this one is I'm just getting you ready do you plan to enjoy Father's Day maple creamy and if so will you be using BT diggers creamy located yeah I I enjoy maple creamies that wasn't on my my list of things to do for Sunday we'll have to see what happens but that's usually my day of mowing so I don't know if I'll have time for creamy we'll go to the phones before coming back to the room Ted Barber import daily express all right we'll go to Tom Davis compass Vermont thanks Jason got a reading about the potential beta technologies getting involved with the North East Kingdom airport are you aware in those conversations that there'll be opportunities for both other private aircraft and also some state uses for that airport in conjunction with beta or when they take it over completely as a private airport well it'd be a somewhat of a combination of the two and we'll put that out and and it wouldn't just this is something that we'll put out to anyone and then we'll we'll get bids back and so forth but some of the criteria would be that has to be kept open to the general public and also the leases that are on the property at this point in time would be honored so it'd be a little bit of a combination of the two Are you in favor of this if all the numbers work out? Yes yeah I think I think this would be great news if it was beta and we'll see who else comes forward but if it was beta I believe there would be significant for the region from an economic standpoint and would really have a ripple effect across the whole Northeast Kingdom so I think this is great news if it comes to fruition Very good no other questions thank you thank you that's it for on the line so we'll go back to your governor outside of your ceremonial office you now have a their DGS just put in a brand new battery pack housing for those those batteries that were in the basement of the state house insurance company put the kibosh on that so they're now in the parking lot have you got a chance to look at those yet? I have not but but I just want to correct you that's my state house office it's not the ceremonial we actually use that so right they're office yeah do you do you think this the added cost of having to bring those outside set up a a housing for them why are into the state house is that an added cost do you think that we as a society should be taking a look at I think it's twofold I think it's it's it's something I do believe in I think having a battery large-scale battery storage I think is part of the solution both large-scale and small-scale is part of the solution for the future to make some of our renewables make sense it's unfortunate that we didn't weren't able to catch this before it happened that it was actually installed in the basement before the insurance company weighed in and said no you can't have it there so that didn't come out until after we had it in place so that is unfortunate but but I do think this is this is what we need to do we're going to need to be able to to have that backup battery as well as to soften the demand cycles and so forth so that we can utilize that to our full advantage so it's the future and it's coming and we should be part of it should other institutions schools colleges even homes be thinking about this they do I mean when you think about some of the the smaller scale battery backup so to speak Tesla has one remount powers involved in that you can either buy it or rent from them I believe but there's other private entities that sell them so yeah I think that that's that's going to be helpful in the future you can go in some cases days without power especially with what we're seeing the climate change and so forth it's nice to have instead of a generator you have a battery backup you have a question I have lots of questions to go back to your question about the cost of it and I apologize again I didn't want to do the inappropriate math while I was here at the podium the total cost of restarting the program and extending it to families with children up to 18 is on the low end seven point two million dollars and on the higher end depending on how many individuals go into the catastrophic category 10 million dollars our goal is really to work in the department of finance and management has been working hard to find that that funding and has been able to do that without needing to reopen the budget conversation seven to ten per one no for the for the full extension of the program through the 84 days how can that be because weren't you didn't you say governor was 18 to 20 million dollars a month to run it as what as it had been running when we had 3,000 when you had when you had 1,800 thousand that number is wrong it was enough that was enough that was enough yeah I mean there was one number where the it was like 20 million but as they gave out the deposits actually it was down in half I think right yeah the the real monthly number is seven to eight so that but if the monthly number is seven to eight and you've got so I'm happy to have someone yeah we don't need to because what we don't want to I think so we don't want to work out the details here but that when they when they looked at it depending on the range of whether an individual and or a household falls into catastrophic or a vulnerable population is 7.2 to 10 million dollars all right thank you yeah not to beat this to death but I just went back to you know my emails to look at my correspondence with the folks at DCS about this and I was asking about the data and why it was this and it said prior to the pandemic the split between catastrophic and vulnerable was 55 and 45 percent and ESD expects similar utilization in July of 2023 you know many households qualify for both with GA eligibility returning to specific day counts ESD anticipates that these households will provide further documentation to qualify for 84 days so it seems pretty clear that they're saying this is entirely based on pre-pandemic projections and that's also what it says on your own website where it says the number of households are a projection based on pre-pandemic eligibility as I said it's based on based on the information they have in determining eligibility and on their experience on the ground right now so they're using the best estimates to calculate this out but they're saying this is based on pre not how they're saying now happy to take it with you offline are you taking new applicants for this program it's an ongoing program so yes so someone for example moves from another state here and says I don't have a home and they really don't they're they would be eligible if they meant the qualifications that we had before pre-pandemic they would be eligible today Part July 1 I should say you mentioned you follow up about the RFP and the letters of interest letters of interest would that be today so it was planning on doing the story today in terms of when those will be released just you said there'd be additional information so like we'll follow up with you today with with the information about one of the states doing this winding down their programs or extending the extending I don't know yeah I'm not aware of any but yeah so the majority of the states who had programs Oregon and others wound down their programs over a year ago we've looked across the country we know that New Hampshire is another state that has continued their program and their winding they did some wind down earlier in the spring and they're winding down around the same time period that Vermont is but I think the bigger message there is that the majority of the states who had these programs up and running wound them down a long time ago are we getting people from other states in significant numbers when we have looked no I think yeah the answer to this one do we have some in the past yes I don't want to equate that no no one has moved here but we're not seeing a significant influx of folks who want to supply and demand influx no okay thank you all very much