 the Tuesday morning meeting of the House of Representatives committee. And we are starting off rated 830 with the Agency of Agriculture. And first, we would like to welcome the Committee of Jurisdiction. We have the House Agriculture Committee here. We are working as a team because we need to move through these budget pieces very quickly, but thoroughly and responsibly. And so we are doing these joint meetings. So for Carolyn, for your committee, what we typically do in appropriations, we hear sections, and then we stop for questions at those sections. And so appropriations members or ag members, please use your virtual hand. If you have a problem with that, just give me a signal like this, and we'll make sure that your questions are asked. We also have a couple of members here from House Natural Resources because there are some water quality pieces within the Agency of Agriculture's budget. And it's important that all committees hear the testimony that is related to the work that they do. And so I am going to ask Peter. He has a quick question, Peter. Just comment. You've got me for another five minutes, and then I have to go to corrections and institutions for BGS presentation. I'll probably see you on the floor. Thank you. And we do have a floor session today. So we are scheduled with agriculture through 9.30, but we have a formal recess at 9.45. So we do have a little bit of room there. And I also have to jump off for a meeting at 5 of 9. And so, Mary, you're prepared to go with this committee and CHIP conquest. This is your budget, and so be sure you're highlighting all of the issues. But I'm going to stop there and welcome House Agriculture. We like this partnership. It's working really well with other committees, and we hope it works with you as well, and Amy with Natural Resources. Carolyn or Amy, do you have any comments you would like to make before I turn it over to the Agency? Thank you, Kitty. Really glad to be here with you today. And we really appreciate being invited to come. I think this makes a lot of sense to save time as we move through this process. And while speaking for my committee, we really appreciate this opportunity. So thanks. Great. We're glad to have you. Amy? Same thing, Ditto. Thanks for the heads up and inviting us and including us. And Representative Dolan is also here with us today. So thank you so much for having us. Good to see you. I do apologize for your short notice, Amy. You turned around very well. I think I called her a five after eight and said, there's water quality. So please join us. And so welcome, Secretary Tebbets. It's nice to see you. If you would like to introduce your team and start. And if you could start with water quality, I don't know if you can shift gears. If you can't, I understand. But I'd like to start with the water quality issues because the Chair of Natural Resources was not prepared to be here and has other commitments. And so that would be helpful if you could do that. And we will stop in natural places to ask for questions. Welcome, Secretary Tebbets. Well, good morning all. We're all pinching ourselves knowing that today is actually August 25th and not January 25th. But welcome back. We've been extremely busy as you have been over the last few weeks since we last saw you in the middle of the summer. So why don't we, as the Chair requested, why don't we move right to clean water adjustment? Joining us also on the team is Deputy Eastman is with us today, also Diane Boffo and our financial director Amy Mercer is with us today as well. So let's go to clean water. And as you know, we have had some serious budget issues. One of our biggest programs at the Agency of Agriculture is water and water quality, both with inspection enforcement and a number of granting programs that offer financial assistance to various partners, including our farmers who are implementing water quality projects on the ground. So I think that probably the headline here is we did have to trim some of the work that we had to do in water quality. And one of the adjustments is reduction. We'll see it on the line too. Some water quality grants of about $600,000. I think it's important that we have prioritized making sure the implementation continues to happen on the farm. We believe those projects are important. We can go forward with what we're trying to do. We're maintaining our core commitment, those foundation programs that improve water quality. So those remain in place. But we did have to trim some of our areas with some of our granting programs. And some of the granting program will not be fully funded as we go through. They will receive some dollars. They're not getting a total cut. So we'll go through with that. Diane and Allison, you can offer any more detail if you'd like. But I think the foundation of our water quality program remains intact. It's just some of the granting programs will not go forward through some of our partners that are working with us as well. So Diane, I'll let you add any added comments if you'd like. Thank you, Secretary Tibbets, and thank you for having us on today at the House Appropriations Committee. Yeah, $619,999 is the reduction in the clean water funds. And it will be on our water quality granting. Some of those won't be expanded as much as we had hoped. We'll still be doing work around rotational grazing and farm agronomic practices on farm work. But some of that will be scaled back. So nothing is really going to zero, but we're scaling back certain things. The support we have for UVM extension, the conservation districts, the NRCC are all in place and fully funded. Those are the ones that are truly boots on the ground on the farm implementing those water quality fixes. So those will remain strong. We moved a couple of years ago to multi-year grants because it was very hard for these organizations to have one-off one year at a time. How do they get staff? How do they keep staff? If you can't show that this grant is going to continue through multiple years. And each year, of course, making sure they understood that we expect this funding. If we don't get this funding, things may change. But we have a very strong program in place, especially UVM extension in the conservation districts and some of the watershed organizations to have this implementation at the farm level. So it will be a pinch, but it won't be a wholesale cut. Thank you. Thank you, Diane. Theresa, could we move back to the Hollywood Square view? And then I just wanted to see if there were questions on this. It's about a $620,000 reduction of scaling back water quality programs to farmers. Are there questions from anyone on this? Seeing any questions. I'm going to ask a question. Amy? Well, I just would love an example. So it's a scaling back. So we were scaling up, presumably. And so is this represent just a reduction in the number? And if you could give us an example of the types of projects that won't get funded? So if you go back to our original request, we were looking for $600,000 more in clean water fund granting programs. So it's about a, we didn't go up $600,000. We went down $620,000. So some of the things we had hoped to do was a greater expansion on rotational grazing training, some more innovative and different water quality fixes at the field level. Some of those will have less activity. It won't go back to zero. So for example, maybe we were hoping to scale the rotational grazing up to 50 farms and we'll be able to have enough money to do 25. So it's not, and nothing is truly going back to zero, but being able to expand some of these programs will be curtailed. OK, thank you. So it represents a reduction just from the original budget in January, but not a reduction from the previous year. I would have to go back and check those numbers to verify that. But I believe that is the case, but I will need to verify those numbers. OK, that would be great. Thank you. And just so that I'm clear, Diane, the reason for the reduction is the dollars coming in didn't perform as well as we had hoped is I just I just want to make sure that that's the reason why that our funding stream didn't perform as we had anticipated. Correct. The clean water fund across the board funding was reduced. So this is our portion of that overall reduction to the clean water fund revenues. OK, Representative Helm, thank you, Diane. Representative Helm. Thank you. So I wonder about this sum. I don't know. Our farms now are down to some 700 figure or something in the state who have a pretty tremendous drop from five years ago, more 10 years ago, more 15 years ago. So my point is, shouldn't our cost to agriculture for this be decreased after at least a little bit of time? I expect this year you'll lose even more farms. And it comes to a point in time, you're addressing, yeah, beef cattle and that type of thing on the Graceland. However, the number of cows have to be getting down. I mean, the number of properties affected by condensed cattle has to be decreasing. Am I incorrect about that? So Representative Helm, the change in farm number total, yes, we're down around 650 active cow dairies. We're seeing an increase in goat dairies, which is fun. We're up to 46 versus 42-ish a year ago. And sheep is now six sheep dairies. So a little shuffling around there. But the issue being of how the regulations have been implemented for water quality, large farm operations began almost 15 years ago. Medium farms about 10 years ago. And in 2016, the certified small farms came in, or 2017. Pardon me. So the smallest group, which is the largest number, is now being regulated in a means that they had not been before since 2017, three years. We're only three years in on these smallest farms. And the more we look, the more we go to inspect. And we're on a seven-year cycle for these farms. This is where the issues are. And some have had delayed maintenance. They're all stepping forward, even in this time of very tight economics. We have allocated all of that capital funds. We are already not obligated. We have people have to do all the paperwork. But we expect to expend that capital fund money in another three months. So have it ready, have it obligated, people doing these projects. So these small farms are coming forward. They want to stay in business. They want to be dairy farms. We have found and pointed out the water quality issues. And they're trying to implement. So yes, there are fewer farms, but the largest number. So 33 large farm operations, a little over 100 medium farms. And out of that 650, the rest are these small farms that we're just getting to. And just doing those inspections and just finding these issues that need repair. So yes, the farm numbers are down, but we're now into the largest group of farmers remaining that haven't had this scrutiny for water quality. So now we're in that mix and there's a lot of demand. A lot of demand to assist with these concerns. But I want to make clear that the $620,000 cut isn't directly to farmers. It's to the organizations that assist them. And we're being very cautious on our priorities of those organizations, UBM extension, natural resource conservation districts, the people who go to the farms and talk with them about how they can fix these issues that we've found on their farm. We help them too, but these outside groups sometimes are more, I don't know, black hats, white hats, no. But regulatory versus non-regulatory, they can go on the farms, they can talk about the different fixes that can get you to the compliance that you need. Where they're saying you need to come into compliance, these organizations are the ones assisting. So we're really focusing the money onto those organizations that go to the farm, provide the assistance to the farmers, trimming those back a little bit that are providing assistance, but aren't specifically looking at water quality compliance. They're not compliance officers, but they're saying, oh, the agency told you and you need to fix the manure pit. Here are the options on how to fix it. So that kind of work being prioritized versus rotational grazing can help your farm too. It may not be a direct like, ooh, something nasty is getting towards surface water. So those are the ways we're trying to prioritize the remaining funds after this cut of 620,000. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Diane. We have Representative Dolan and Representative Hooper and then I want to move on to the next budget because we only have about a half an hour. We have about 40 minutes left and I want to make sure we get to cover all budgets and then we can go back and ask questions on anything as time allows. So Representative Dolan. Thank you and good morning. I appreciate this opportunity to participate. So thank you very much for that, Chair Dolan. My question refers back to the annual report that you all put together across state government that looks at phosphorus reductions and the goals that we need to achieve to meet our obligations over time and the performance that we've accomplished thus far. And I'm concerned that the cuts might affect our pollution reduction targets that have been so important and so much of a focus for the legislature over the past number of years. Can you speak to whether you anticipate these cuts having an impact on our pollution reduction targets for this particular sector? Representative Dolan says, and I can speak to that. I believe we are headed in the right direction with this as you indicated in that report. Agriculture has done a lot of the heavy lifting. Our farmers have stepped forward, worked on a number of projects and some of the data shows that agriculture is doing its work and it's working through that. I think with these particular reductions, it is not going to impact those projects that really need attention quickly. Some of those on-farm implementation conservation projects, those will go forward. As Diane mentioned, most of this reduction is related to technical assistance that some of our partners give our farmers, which granted is very, very important. But we believe this reduction, that it is incredibly difficult budget times is probably the best and it keeps us focused on our 20-year plan. We continue to do those infrastructure improvements, conservation practices will go forward. So I think we'll stay on target and we'll just keep marching forward like our agricultural community has done. Thank you, Secretary Tevitz. Representative Hooper. Thank you. Two questions, please. The first is, would you remind me of the source of the Clean Water Funds? What are the revenue streams that go into it? And then my second, so let me ask that question and then I'll come to my second one. So Representative Hooper, the sources are the property transfer tax, a portion of the sales tax and the bottle redemption, the ashits. Yeah, okay. And my guess is bottles been okay, but sales and property transfer have been down. I guess property transfer has been only slightly off sales, rooms and sales has certainly been an issue. Bottles were off for a while when there was no ability to return them. COVID, there was a prohibition on that early on in COVID but that has switched, changed now. So that has reverted. I think there was a spike potentially when redemption opened back up. Okay, yeah. And then my question goes to the decision about where the expenditures are. I can't tell from the little box that you've shown us. So you've indicated that it's a down in 600, roughly 600,000 for the grants. Where else are the downs in those programs and why the decision to do grants rather than other places within your control in that area? So these grants, as mentioned before, the original budget request was for almost $600,000 more and to expand granting programs. So we're going in the opposite direction backing off some of those expansions. So as mentioned, grants is where we have probably the most flexibility, trying not to take away money that's going direct to farmers for the implementation. So those partners who work with farmers is an area where with the multi-year grants, we can potentially adjust that, hoping that things will get better in FY22 potentially, maybe, maybe not, but that we can adjust those multi-year grants with participants to keep things moving, maybe at a little lower rate, but that is probably the area we'd have the most flexibility. I certainly see the nature of the similarity with the up and the down. I understood all of that. I was curious about your analysis and whether or not it made sense to look, and this is what I can't tell from here, is were there opportunities within the agency for reductions or reorganization or reordering so that you did not have to take them out of the grants? So beyond the, so the Clean Water Fund dollars land in the water quality appropriation in the agency. So are you asking would we adjust other appropriations in the agency to provide more money to the clean water appropriation? Is that what you're asking? Well, you've very politely pointed out what a silly question I just asked. I got your point. Yeah, thank you. Okay, sorry. Yeah. Thank you, Mary. And as far as the source of the Clean Water Fund, we've heard a lot about properties selling in Vermont and being very attractive. That's all new activity. And we heard from our state economists that that new activity has not yet been reflected. And so when Diane mentioned that the property transfer tax was off a bit, it was prior to all of this new activity of sales. And so we have yet to learn if there is significant new activity or if it's normal. And so that will be more information coming. And the sheets as bottles are able to be returned and no longer stored, we may see a big bump there. And so depending on the activity in a couple of these areas and in the sales tax, there is a budget adjustment process. If we do see an uptick in the property transfer tax and more money comes in than was anticipated and the sheets, if that has a huge bump in it, there is the budget adjustment process to make an adjustment here if it's available. I just wanted to put that out there. So I think now, Chip, you will follow up with any other questions. And for the ag committee, if you get these questions to Chip, so we can all can stay on the same page for water quality. And with this piece of the budget, Carolyn, what we're asking is as the policy committees make a recommendation on certain sections, don't wait to send us everything. You can send it to us in pieces so that we can start checking off areas within budgets. And we will look for your recommendations as you take further testimony and make a recommendation on all of these areas. Thanks, Kitty. We were hoping to have a meeting tomorrow morning, our committee meets at 8.30. I'm not sure who our witnesses will be at this point, but I will be glad to get back to you as soon as possible. And I'll do it through Chip and through Teresa. My emails are exploding and so I wouldn't respond quickly enough. And Amy, the same for you, the same message. As you make decisions, please let us know. So, Secretary Tebbets, let's move on to the next budget. And Mary, I need to step out. Thank you very much. Well, why don't we begin with just maybe an overview of what's been going on over the summer and how that's impacting the budget currently and going forward. So, let's maybe begin in March and potentially agriculture has been moving forward. We have not stopped moving with a number of our services to our community. That includes need inspection, dairy farms, land inspection, also the laboratory and Randolph has been up and running all considered potential employees. So they've been carrying out the duties throughout the pandemic. As warm weather came and things loosened up a little bit, more of our staff got out into the field, waste and measures, water quality inspections, and also animal health. We had some issues with some animals coming from the Midwest, that needed attention that needed some proper permits and so forth, so we found that. Also farm, weather testing, pesticide monitoring, certification, that's all been going forward. As far as staffing, physically in the buildings that we've had about 46 people here in the administration working here mainly in the business office and also in water quality from time to time. A lot of our folks have been working from home. About a third of the staff has been working from home on a regular basis and that's worked well. It's been productive and I think everyone is moving forward with that and that will continue until January into the next step on that. So- Secretary Tibbets. Yes. Some of us are having a little bit of difficulty hearing you. Okay. You could lean closer to the mic. Okay, I'm trying to do that. I am in the office. I was hoping that would be a little better. Is that better? Yes. Okay, I'll try to do that. Project out, not down. Yeah. Yeah, thank you. So some other things that have been happening since you had your adjournment. We've been really focused on the granting programs. We have three granting programs that are underway. Major, major dollars that are being put through the agency to the community based on the CARES Act. Dairy producers, farmers and processors. And it's a $25 million program on the ground now that we're getting money to the producers and also on-farm processing and so forth. The agriculture fairs, the application closed last Thursday and over the next week, that's a $500,000 appropriation. And that will be hopefully over the next couple of weeks we'll be getting money back to the fairs because all of our fairs and our big events are canceled this year and there's tremendous losses because of those. We also have working lands and a number of our agriculture producers. There's an $8.5 million agreement and granting program that's underway. The applications are out and people are starting to apply for those. Those may range from a maple producer, a sugar maker. It could be a farmer's market. It could be a slaughterhouse vegetable producer. All of those are in that $8.5 million program. So the application is out of that. Mary, can I have a record for a second? Sure. Yeah, please. The water quality slides, at least the ones I saw, there was just basically the one slide. There's another presentation that has a number of slides in it. And I wonder if we could have that up on the... Maybe, yeah. I don't have that. No. No. Yeah, we sent it in, I think, last year. It was the only one I had. All right, coming in right now, Teresa. I think Diane's gonna pop it up for us. Okay, thank you. We were trying to sort that out behind the scenes and we're confused. So why don't we just stay here until Teresa gets that and can pop it up? Yeah. Okay. So Secretary Tepits, I think we can keep walking through your presentation. And Diane, when you get to it, I'm on the changes to the agency's budget slide. So here are some of the headlines that you wanna be focused on with that, with our proposal. So when we originally proposed the budget, we had a $750,000 one-time additional request for the Working Lands program. That has been withdrawn. The base is still there, but the one-time additional money of $750,000 has been withdrawn. Also withdrawn was a $25,000 request for an EARTAG pilot program. USDA is putting in some new regulations related to tracking more animals electronically. We have withdrawn that. We believe USDA has parked it for a bit. So we think we have some time to catch up on that. Internal services, a fees cost reduction. We've got about a $60,000 reduction in that. And also one thing that has been happening, and that's why I talked about the granting program considerably in the beginning is this is something new for our agency. We don't do this kind of money. It's about $40 million that's going through the agency of agriculture. And developing the application, making sure that it's in compliance with the CARES Act funding. And just the scope of the people that have been working on this has been tremendous. So what we're considering and what for your consideration is also was $1.5 million use of CARES Act funding because we have people that are working on the CARES program nonstop. And this will help us offset some of the general fund expenditures across four of our six appropriations at the agencies. So these folks are helping, you know, standing up this programs. They're also reviewing the applications, approving the applications. And the work that's going on behind the scenes leading up to this has been tremendous. We will say it is an estimate of where we think we're headed on this, but I know that Amy and Diane have really crunched the numbers on this, but we believe that just to get these granting programs up and running and continue probably right up until at least January and beyond is going to be about $1.5 million use of CARES Act. Well, last two secretary tablets, the last thing you said. Yeah, I was just going to highlight again it's about $1.5 million of CARES funding that is helping us stand up these programs, get the applications developed, get the reviews underway. We have employees that are doing work in this sector that normally it's not in their work plan just because of the scope of this. It's about $40 million worth of grant funds that we need to get out the door in a very quick fashion. So we have work plans where people that may be working in something that's unrelated to agriculture development that they're working on this project so we can get these dollars out the door as quickly as possible. And there we go. Yeah, great. And page. I think you can go to the next one. And while we're moving there, we have two questions. I'm going to wrap Giacoboni. Dave. Yes, thank you. Can you hear me? Yes. There we go. Secretary, thank you for all your work. I just wanted to understand while you're standing up the processes for administering the $40 million, are you using the CARES Act dollars to hire new staff or are you using the CARES Act dollars to pay for your existing staff who are doing CARES work and therefore thereby saving general? Yes, thank you for the question. We have not hired anyone because of this. We're using existing staff to work on this. And representative Giacoboni, it does allow a general fund offset the use of the CARES Act money. And that is in our indicated in our crosswalk documents across. So, thank you. Where I was, what I was wondering is if, so not only have you reduced the $750,000 for the working lands, you've also are booking additional savings of roughly 1.5 million, I presume in general fund, by using the CARES Act money. I was wondering if you had given consideration to using some of those savings to restore the working lands, but obviously your budget target doesn't allow that, I presume. My, my, my understanding is probably that could not be used for CARES dollars could not be used for that. We do have, as long as the money is saved or fund dollars. Secretary, could the general fund dollars that you're saving with the CARES Act be transferred to cover the working lands? So, representative at this point, the funds, so the whole 1.5 million was not all backfilling general fund. So it's about 408,000. That was our general fund target reduction. So we have been able to use the 1.5 million in CARES Act funds to offset general funds in that manner to meet our required reduction. We could not utilize all the 1.5 in CARES Act dollars for general fund reductions. It had to be, it had to be connected to the granting programs that we're operating. Basically, it's directly to staff time. So we could not, could not find more of general fund than that just based on staff time, the way staff are paid. Some of them are split between general fund, special fund, federal funds, et cetera. So that was the amount that we could offset. With those CARES Act dollars. So there wasn't other funds available to backfill the one-time requests for working lands. Yeah, thank you. Okay, and then- Let me go back to the, thank you. I appreciate that, Dave. Rep Conquest. So it's the, this 1.5 million dollars an administrative percentage that came from the grant programs themselves to administer the grants or is that additional CRF money that you were, that you got in order to pay for the time of running those programs? It's the latter representative Conquest additional funds. It does not come off the granting funds that are going out. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Chip. And I think we're ready to go back to you, Secretary Tebbets. And excuse me, Dave, did you have another question? Yeah, it was just a hand issue. Okay. Secretary Tebbets, this has been a little rough just getting this document up and we'll get there. Thank you. Sure. So I think, I don't know how much detail you continue to want to, if you want to walk through the crosswalk over you, I think that's the next one, Diane, I think that's where we're at. Or who's running the bus here? That's Teresa. Teresa. Can you scroll down, Teresa? Thank you. So here's some of the detail I talked about. Some of the things that we've withdrawn, the one time money for the $750,000 working lands. Then we go to the Eurotag program, we park that, some internal fees, cost reductions, and also we just had a discussion about the $1.5 million of the CARES Act funding to help with some of the, we're getting this $40 million out the door. We can go to the next one. And here's some of the crosswalk and I don't know how much detail you want to get in this. But I think the two biggest headlines out of our budget are the using some of the CARES fund to help with the granting program. And then we had the deep discussion about the water quality as well. And pretty much all the other programs have been level funded and stayed intact. So we have not had to trim some of our granting programs, whether it be fairs, et cetera, or two plus two, all those programs, we hope we can hold the line on those and not have any major reductions in those programs. But I don't know, Madam Chair, how much detail you want to, if you want to keep going through these and Diane, feel free to. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Yeah, we certainly are familiar with the, across the board reductions and service fees. So we funds, we don't need to discuss that. And I'm looking to hands to see if people are confused or have questions about some of the other reductions. It's, I can't see the documents very well, but it sounds as if we have walked through everything you wanted to show us. Yeah, I think that the major, the major headlines that we've talked about, both the water quality and also the CARES Act. Yeah, so Teresa will be sending these documents to us so that we can look at them. It's always hard to do on the screen with pictures and hands. So maybe we can put this document down and go back to the full screen, Teresa, and have a conversation about this. So we, I'm looking to the committees to see if they have any questions or need further clarification of what is being proposed here. Goodness. I am surprised. We are normally a little aggressive with our questioning. So I'm not seeing any questions. And so Kitty, we'll let you get back to work then, Secretary Tebbets and other folks from your agency. Thank you very much. I think Kitty described the process that we will be going through, which is working this up pretty quickly. The two committee chairs, it sounds like you may be having committee discussions and advising us as to your opinion on what ought to be happening there. Kitty talked about how quickly we want to walk through this. So I think we've covered what we need to as a committee. Since we do have a bit more time here, I'm wondering if you would like to talk to us any more about the grant programs and the use of the CRF money and maybe the challenges you've had in getting those out the door, since that's, as you've noted, a huge amount of your work this summer. Yeah, that would be great. I can give you just a quick update on the three programs. The $500,000 for the fairs and field days, those applications are in. We're double checking the figures and going back to the fair associations or the fairs if we need some additional information or any corrections that they might want to do. So that will be happening over the next couple of days. And so by the end of the week, we hope to be announcing how much each fair will get. So that will be hopefully completed by this week so we can begin the process of getting checks to those organizations. Looking at the recovery grants. Sorry, Secretary Tebbets, I see a hand from Rep Partridge, Chair Partridge. Thanks, Mary. It was, I don't mean to interrupt your presentation, but I'm wondering if that last set of slides has been sent into our committee. I've been communicating with Linda Lehman behind the scenes, but I just wanna make sure that last set of slides gets sent before our meeting tomorrow. I think that we're meeting with you, Anson and Allison, and then I think maybe Diane's gonna join us on Friday for our community meeting. I just wanted to make sure that was gonna happen. So sorry to interrupt, but... Yeah, we'll make sure we get those to you. Great, thanks so much. I think Diane's doing something right now. Okay, thank you. Thanks, Mary. Yeah, yeah. Secretary Tebbets, excuse me, yeah, back to you. Sure, so the other portion of our recovery grants under the CARES Act is the dairy section, which is dairy farmers as well as dairy processors. So as of yesterday, 424 people, organizations, farmers, processors had taken out and started the application. We have approved 101, and we have made $3.6 million and dollars in grants have been approved and $2.9 million has already been approved. We expect today maybe another $750,000 will be approved and sent out as well. So we're getting up to, I think by midweek, about $4 million of the $25 million has already gone out the door. The agriculture producers and working lands program began last week. People have begun filling out the application for that. And it's just beginning, and we've got $8.5 million in that. So a few dozen people have submitted applications and this could be anywhere from a maple sugar producer, slaughterhouse, a farmer's market, all those are qualified for that fund. So those will start going out the door in the coming weeks. So those are the three granting programs that we've been really, really focused on over the last few weeks, standing them up. As you know, the state has a number of other, there's also a $5 million program for the forestry industry and that one is not being managed by us, but that one is also being kicked out by the forestry and that's another $5 million program. So it's really great. We're continuing to do a lot of messaging and I would encourage all of you if you can help us with that. We do have some deadlines coming up over the next few weeks where people need to get their applications in. The CARES funding, we have to get this money out the door and on the ground by mid-December because we do not want to defer any of it to the federal government. So we're continuing to message through our networks. We have a newsletter that goes out with about 4,000 people subscribe to that. We've flooded our social media channels, be it Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. We have listservs at the agency that we continue to pick out information. We also through press releases, the governor has highlighted these programs and his messaging as well. So now is the time that we're really encouraging farmers, producers all to work with us. We have some workshops over the next couple of weeks to help people with their applications. A farm viability is helping us as well to help anyone that could be struggling with the applications. So right now the push is just to get people get their applications, get them approved and hopefully we can get some money to them. Thank you, Secretary Tebas. I see a hand from Rep Conquest and then Rep Partridge. Thank you. So I have two questions about working lands, CRF funding. So we had passed a smaller round of CRF funding, I think maybe in the quarter one budget and then later we did the larger CRF bill. We passed the larger working lands funding. Did those two different programs stay separate? And if so, did the first one, did all the money go out from that? So Representative Conquest, there was a million dollars allocated through H961 and 2.5 million allocated through H966. Is that the two that you're speaking of? So the first one I thought it was less than maybe it was, no, I guess it was a million, yeah, so yeah, right. And so they, because one was allocated to ACCD, the 2.5 million was allocated to ACCD and the one million was allocated to the Agency of Agriculture. So due to CARES Act regulations, we have to report them and keep them separate by appropriation, but we have a memorandum of agreement with ACCD to manage the granting program as one for the working lands, but we have to track the dollars separately. So the application, the applicant will be seamless. They're applying for working lands, but they won't know that the money's coming out of H966 versus H961. It'll be 3.5 million that's available. It'll be expended. We do have to track it by appropriation as dictated by statute or legislative intent. Okay. And so my other question may, you may or may not be able to answer because I think me that ACCD took sort of, took over administration of that, but my understanding is that, well, when we talked about the funding, the CRF funding for working lands in the big CRF bill, the second one, one of the things that had some real discussion in the Commerce Committee and some discussion, I think I remember in our committee was that, we wanted them to be able to use that money potentially for things that were within the guidance, but weren't necessarily simply losses, revenue or loss of marketing or sales. That if people had needed to make changes to their operations in order to deal with the COVID situation, that money, working lands money might be available or would be available for that kind of thing. My understanding is that the program has really become just making up for losses. And so A, is that true? Is my understanding accurate? And B, do you all know why that something that seemed to me to sort of not meet the intent is the way the program got rolled out? Well, we're just rolling out the agriculture and working lands. So within that application, you, yes, can certainly claim a revenue loss, but we also have a whole section of other economic harm. And we give some prompts on that. Did you have to purchase personal protective equipment? Have to change your operation to accommodate the separation, the distancing, the, for a slaughterhouse, we had people that had to put in plexiglass dividers, you could claim that because they could keep operating but you had to separate people. So those types of expenses are possible. You had to change your business operation from sales at a restaurant to online sales. So you needed a new website, you needed different packaging, you needed different shipping expenses. All those things are possible. And then we have at least five slots where no prompting at all, what else is out there that you wanna claim? So I think we're very wide open of any type of other harm that we might not have thought of. We try to give some prompts, but certainly we have seen interesting things come in in the dairy application of husband, wife teams operating the farm once the house is immune compromised. So they had to adjust how they work because of COVID and had to hire out to other labor because they couldn't get all the work done by protecting their spouse. So if you can write up a justification, give us the numbers, we'll review it and house it related to COVID. So we're seeing some pretty wide open broad things and we expect the same coming in for the non-dairy working lands grant. It's five wide open things of you tell us what your economic harm is. It has to be related to COVID. It has to have a justifiable dollar amount as in last year these things cost this much and because of COVID now they cost this much. Document why there's a change. What's the dollar amount? Why is it related to COVID? So I think I don't feel that that's the case. I think we're being very wide open and we don't claim to know all the economic harm of business has suffered under COVID and tell us. Tell us what it is. Justify your show your math is like being a school teacher. Show your math on how you got to this number and it will be considered. But the things that has to be is somehow related to COVID and it has to be documentable in some manner. Well, thank you for that. That's different than what I had heard people's concerns being. And I'm really happy to hear that you all are doing that. So just to reiterate, it sounds to me like economic harm can be interpreted to mean a need to change your operation in a way to adapt to do something different going forward. And as long as you can show that that the need for that is COVID related and that there's a business plan that has some viable numbers in it that that would be considered. That's great. Thank you. And we're also several months into COVID. We're going back to March. So if people did figure out ways to operate this is still past tense some of these expenses. I mean, if they march things went to the devil and April being entrepreneurs they figured out something new and implemented in April and May. So we're still looking backwards and paying for adaptations they've made to remain in business. So it still is backward looking, not forward looking. We're not accepting, I'm going to do something different out in November. It is, I did something different back in April. So it is, that is very true that it's backward looking, not forward looking. And that is some, it's not a requirement of the CARES Act. It puts in a lot more audit functions if you go forward looking. And we love our farmers and entrepreneurs to death but we don't want to put them through an audit if we don't have to. So being defensible of backward looking receipts, data, what you spent money on has less concerns in CARES Act expenditures and being forward looking in the iffy world of I might do something in the future. So we have focused all of our grant programs backward looking. Thank you, Diane. Chip, do you have a follow up or does that answer your question? Oh, well. You may have a follow up, you may have to do a follow up. I like better the first, my first understanding. Well, Diane, can you send me, is there a document that has those sort of the qualifications? We have an application guide on our website. I'll send you the link. I know we have one for the dairy, but that's been out well over a month now. The, I think we're in the midst of finalizing the application guide for the non-dairy working lands, but I'll send you the link to those. It shows you screenshots of the application, walks you through how, you know, what you have to consider when you're filling this out. So I'd be glad to send that to you. Representative Conquest, it's Anson again. I just want to add that I think one area that people have done it's looking back, but it's actually looking forward was we've had applicants say they were a soft cheese maker and they lost their market. But what they had to do is pivot and put up a farm stand and get people to come to the farm or put up a website. We have seen that and we have funded those type of operations through the state. So I think what Diane is highlighting is there's a way to do it. I think we've had a dairy farmer who's actually decided to process milk and because of some of the reductions that they faced through their co-op, they decided that they wanted to do something that value added on their farm. That was a direct result of COVID and the dramatic reduction in the price of milk paid to the farmer, but they were able to use some of those COVID dollars for startup money to start this processing facility and get them online. So there is a way to do it. And I think a lot of these, we hope, we also want, we're looking to the future here. We've got a lot of losses, a lot of expenses that our producers and farmers have incurred, but some of them are looking to the future and changing their business model and they are able to use some of these dollars to do that. Thank you. I may try to follow up with you all a little bit more about this. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Secretary. We have a final question from Representative Partridge. Caroline, you're... Kitty, I just forgot to lower my hand. Oh, okay. So we will work with the policy and you will work between us and House Ag and also with the agency of agriculture. I have just two clarifications. One, I wanna, in house appropriations, we're really careful of the use of the word cut because cut and realigning to a fund stream are two different, really two different pieces. So when we, I wanna go back to the clean water just quickly. If there's a reduction to the program, but the reduction is due to realigning to the performance of the fund, is that correct? Yes, yes, it is, okay. There is lower revenue coming into the clean water fund and this is the adjustment. To everyone across the board, agriculture, A&R, AOT all have been adjusted based on revenue projections. Usually when we see a cut, we have to get to a budget balance or money is needed elsewhere. And so we take money from one area and put it somewhere else. But this is, we identified a fund stream, which was the property transfer tax percentage, a percentage of the total amount of the fund. It's for a tax percentage, a percentage of the sales tax in the sheets. And as those come in, we base a budget on an estimate, but then we have to true up to that estimate unless the legislature decides to add more money. But that would be a separate discussion. You are aligning your projects to the amount of money that came in on the funding stream that we designated. And then my other question is, is there any reduction to the base of the working land and replaced with other dollars? Or is that base the same with general fund dollars? The base remains the same at $594,000 for the granting program from general parking lands. Okay. No GF was taken one time and replaced with other dollars. Correct. In our original FY21 request, we ask for a one time increase of 750,000, but the base for the working lands and general funds for granting was 594,000 and remained level funded. Thank you, Diane. I appreciate that. And so Carolyn, we look forward to working with your committee and as soon as you can get a memo to us on these areas, there didn't appear to be many questions after we left the water quality issue. There are some just around working lands. There will be some with CRF. CRF dollars we can address separately from the budget. So if you have a position on the budget and can get us that as soon as your committee is ready, we would appreciate it. And then CRF can be a whole separate memo. When you send us a memo, it can be very informal. Don't, it can be just a simple email. You don't have to cite statute. You don't have to do the sections or anything like that. Just make it as informal as to expedite it because we're going to know what you're talking about and it will save a lot of time and Ledge Council is out straight. So. Thanks, Kitty. We will be working on this tomorrow and Friday. So perfect. Oh, perfect. Thank you. And we invite anyone to the public hearing, pass that on to your constituents back home. If you have a way to send out messages, you may want to send that out. Teresa can provide the YouTube link that they can join in on. And again, Secretary Tebbets, thank you for bringing in your team and we'll follow up with any questions. Kitty, may I just, Kitty, Dave here. I want to thank the secretary and his staff. I also think one of the secretary's members here today has a birthday. I think that might be Diane. Well, I just wanted to wish you a happy birthday. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much, everybody. Yes. Thank you. This is what I wanted for my birthday this morning. I was to talk to the House Appropriations Committee. I think you're a little older than I am. Diane, aren't you? Oh, yeah. Years and years. I don't know which way that one goes. OK, so enjoy the. Oh, we'll see you all on the house floor. We're back on the floor. So we'll see you very soon. Thank you. Thank you very much.