 So, welcome everybody, Senate Education Tuesday the 8th of September, and just a heads up for anybody who might be watching on YouTube or who will watch this a little later, we are going to be operating some getting a little feedback from somebody. Somebody not muted or have a double device. Okay. So what we're going to be doing today is beginning work on some language that's still wending its way through the house. I had been apprehensive that the house might wait until the last week to make clear their priorities for CRF funding, but to their credit they've put forward this language to appropriations and to us, and so we have I think the right amount of time to work on it. So that's up on our website. So if everybody on the committee can pull that that draft language up, and then Jim's going to give us a quick 30,000 foot walk through, and then probably right in the middle of that Secretary of French will pop in. So as soon as Jim is done, we'll go to the Secretary then at 245 Steve Klein, who I believe put together the numbers, will testify on them. Then at that point, I'd like to even though the schedule says otherwise, I'd like to go to our HVAC and nutrition witnesses. And then if it's all right, Jeff, Jay, and Sue, have you guys come in at the end with your points of view about everything that's been expressed? That sound all right? Okay. So Jim, why don't you start us off on a walk through of the language? Okay. So for the record, Jim Danware, that's console. We're walking through their proposed CRF educational language that was delivered to House Appropriations Committee by House Education. Section one amends section A50 of Act 120, Act 120 with your first quarter budget. So this is amending that first quarter budget. And in your first quarter budget, what you had done is appropriate $50 million for three cases, 12 schools and independent schools. What you're doing now is you're increasing that appropriation for fiscal year 21 by an additional $32 million. So now you've got $82 million being appropriated for this purpose, these purposes. There are actually four categories that the appropriation is allocated to. I mentioned among three cases 12, that separately has a category for HVAC. There's an allocation for independent schools up to $1.5 million. This is in what you passed before. And there's an allocation up to $1 million for administration and technical assistance. So you have four uses of that original money. So this bill, Jim, I only counted three. What was the first one? Well, pre-case is 12. I see. Okay. Just a general catch-all. As a subcategory of that, this is HVAC. That's kind of like two or one. Independent schools and administrative overhead. Okay. Great. And a separate bill, you took part of that money and put it into food school programs. So you'll get back to it. Okay. So what this does is it increases the appropriation by $32 million, allows the agency to prioritize that money and to reallocate it to a different category. So you're giving discretion to AOE to move money around between these categories. And then you are on page two. You are, yeah, you're basically giving festivals to AOE to move money around these buckets and also to require them to report back to joint fiscal committee, commissioner of finance and management, and JFO, if they do that. On page two, subsection B, you'll see that you're increasing the appropriation or allocation to a person, from $6.5 million to $11.5 million. Jim or chair, can I ask a quick question? Yeah, go ahead. Jim, what's the difference between the highlighted sections and just the crossed out underlined change? That was a much recent version. That's updated language for has appropriations is not relevant for your purposes at all. OK, I just want to flag a question for us as a committee. As we think about HVAC, Jane Kitchell was wondering whether because her point of view is that work on HVAC could be done outside of the efficiency Vermont program and would still be able to be paid for or reimbursed. So she was wondering if we wanted to put more money into that program. My feeling is that it's better to have everybody operating in one frame so that people aren't working at cross purposes with the contractors and other things. But just as we listen to the HVAC people, one of the questions would be, do we do we leave the agency with the ability to reimburse just generally that kind of work? Or do we add as the house did to what we've already done in that program? So anyway, go ahead, Jim. OK, line 15 of page two increases the allocation to pre K through 12 schools from 41 million to 68 million. And then 17 to 19 line 17 to 19 clarify that the three independent tech sensors are eligible for this money. They were included in the original first quarter budget. Sorry, Jim. So is this breaking down the additional 32 million? This is in other words, yeah, basically taking the 13 million and increasing the allocations to these these different areas. OK, so so this is not 27 million over and above the 32. It's 27 of the 32. Yeah, and yeah, the rest is going to efficiency Vermont, right? Yeah, OK, sounds good. Section two, bottom page two on the page three, amend another section of your first quarter budget, which is the is really a cross reference to the the allocation to efficiency Vermont. So that's going up, as we just said, from 6.5 million to 11.5 million. That's a technical change just to reflect the change we went through in the first section. Section three, amends act 120. So this is a separate act from the first quarter budget. In that act 120, section 50 had allocated 12 up to 12 million for some of those meal programs. And what's happening here is that the recognition recognition that not all of that money was used and therefore up to four million of the remaining funds are also to be used for surprising equipment in relation to food service. So vehicles, freezers, capital assets, et cetera. So basically it's taking four million out of the appropriation for pre-K through 12, which is now we just went through that a minute ago, taking four million of that and sub allocating that down to equipment for food programs. And then likewise, agencies permitted to reporotize to reallocate funding. So that's what this one was doing at sea. And and then again, there has to be a report to JFO, et cetera, if they do that. So those three sections, once I went through there are the CFC RF funding sections. And any bill or policy. OK, before we move on, any questions for for Jim, quickly on the shape of those CRS, Senator Hardy. Thanks, this might be a question, actually, for the secretary. But I'm just curious about the math involved with the food service because I think there was more than four million left over. So what happens to the other stuff? And just wondering about the math for in general, like how much has been spent of what we allocated before and where did it go and hoping somebody has a spreadsheet or a table? So again, that's maybe a question for the secretary. Yeah, so just one quick thing. So Steve Klein and the secretary will speak to how the numbers were were created. I'm thinking here just questions for Jim about the. The overall shape of what we just saw. OK. So question noted, Debbie, was that your question as well? Yeah, yeah, pretty much. OK, yeah, like a charter spreadsheet would be helpful. And yeah, and the third. Well, just one quick and just make sure I understand. So we're talking about an increase of thirty two million and so basically five million increase to efficiency from on and twenty seven million to. Precate for twelve. That's that's that's how I add some to thirty two million. OK, so Jim, why don't you quickly go through those policy pieces? Yeah, yeah, sure. OK, so section four. On page three, I believe page four, sorry. Reduces the minimum number of student attendance days from one seventy five to one seventy. Is that the identical language to what's in our draft? No, because your draft also increases the required teacher of train days. So your draft drops to student days like this one does. Well, your draft increases the train days by five days. Their version is not to that. OK. I I we can get more into this later. But my assumption would be that we would just swap out our language for this because it we talked about it as sort of a a done deal. They're they're already doing this. And so taking the agency's recommendation there seems to make sense. Anyway, keep going. And if you would just indicate anywhere where it's identical to what we've already agreed on. OK, so section five is identical to what you've agreed to. So this is the use of the Australian ballot for the twenty twenty one school year. And takes it away from the department that has to be a verb passed initiative. It can be done by a school board on its own motion. OK, that's the same. Um, that's the facts here at sea. Then section six at the very bottom of page five and then over to page six is the waiver of the online teaching endorsement for school year twenty twenty one. And that's the way the requirement for teachers to hold an endorsement for online teaching. That's the same in both bills. And then section seven is this thing that's been carried over for a number of years now on a temporary basis, which is how do you feel a vacancy on a unified union school district board? And this takes the takes that and puts it in the hands of the school board, as opposed to the select board of the town or the person came from. This was passed back in the special section 2018. It's part of the budget. It's passed before that in act forty nine. So this has been around for a while. It keeps sunsetting because this is part of the idea of a bigger rewrite of chapter eleven that we're waiting for an agency. And that's OK. All right, great. Ruth. Go ahead, Ruth. Ruth, sorry, I had to unmute myself. So this does not include Jim, the eight e.m. change that we have in our draft. Is that correct? Not include that. No. Do you know why? It's still being still being discussed in the house side. What to do if anything about that. So they've been calls over the weekend and every day about that. So it's been worked through, but it's not here. OK, thanks. And and again, my my feeling about it would be as long as what we've done is covid related, which our little miscellaneous bill is all covid pieces, including the qualified teacher piece. Then I think we should feel free to drop those pieces in here as our additions to this. So, Andy, last question before I had a question on section seven, but I can hold it if you'd want to move on. OK, why don't we, because we've got the secretary here. We're going to lose him at three. I believe, Mr. Secretary, good to have you with us. Good afternoon. So I guess my my first question would be how the numbers will reach these particular numbers. They're all they're all very they're not round numbers. So I assume there's a set of calculations that went into each. Yeah, I could speak just firstly to Senator Hardy's question about the food service. That is one that we generated in the original thing was Section 12. We had funds, I think, approximately forty of sixty some odd food service authorities submitted for reimbursement in mid August. And we had about two point two two point two million dollars worth of requests, so we had funds left over in there. So our team went back and discussed that with food service programs to see if they were going to have other expenses. And we identified, particularly the area of equipment purchases, supplies. These would be things like freezers and other capital assets that would be useful for them to continue to meet the mission under the children. So that's how we came up with the additional four million dollars that we're adding into this request at this point. OK, how about the the number thirty two? Yeah, that's this is going to be a number that was initially generated by the agency. I can give you an update on what we have on CRF requests to date, but that wasn't necessarily a number that we put forward. So that came from JFO? I believe so in consultation, probably with the superintendents and business managers, school boards. OK. I am curious about the update. Where where do things stand? Yeah, so we had just trying to bring it up here. Districts. Submitting requests into us. I think the latest numbers I have as of September 3rd. We asked them to detail out additional CRF costs they would have. And that came out to about sixty seven million dollars. So this would be sort of the equivalent, I guess, of the LA appropriation of twenty nine million. So so we know there's additional costs beyond what was budgeted in CRF originally. So you mean sixty seven million, including everything since the start of the pandemic? Yeah, the way it was put out is that we asked districts to identify those CRF eligible costs and get back to us by September 2nd. And this is the number that it generated. So we're trying to look forward a bit until the end of this or at the end of this period of December to identify the costs that they might have that would be reimbursable under CRF and the total came out to sixty seven million dollars. OK. And so then it's so that's leaving. I can't do the math math quickly because I can't remember the first number. But it's leaving a chunk for between now and December, let's say. That's right. OK. Let's see. So I want to ask you, there's a phrase here based on its view of relative priority. So that's that's language that's meant to give the agency the ability to move any of this money, it seems. That seems a little broad, given that we are laying out policy priorities here, categories of expense that that we think are to be prioritized. But it seems like with the inclusion of that phrasing, it really allows the agency once we adjourn to do whatever it likes. Do you see it that way? Yeah, once again, I wasn't directly involved in creating that language. I understand the intent to provide us some flexibility after the legislature adjourned. But I, you know, be open to whatever you think would be necessary to enact that week, as we see with the the variation, what was appropriated versus what the need is, there's going to be some need for some, I'll say, quote unquote, tactical discretion and how to address those needs. I think the cover with CRF, so to speak, is that all that has to be, you know, tied to the federal eligible expenses. So there's not a lot of leeway in terms of using funds in other other ways. Just a question of how do you allocate them, if you will, among the different appropriations that are available? Yeah. Well, for instance, the four million that you're looking now to repurpose from the 12 million for nutrition is going to things that support the nutrition, you know, infrastructure. So that so maybe maybe some language where, you know, there's some reference to the priorities laid out elsewhere in the statute. So I see we have Steve Klein, Secretary French, would you want to turn it over to Steve Klein now? Yeah, sure. I'm happy to help. I do I do have to leave here in a few minutes. Understood. Welcome, Steve. Good to see you. Good to see you. We're we're wondering a couple of things. First of all, there have been a couple of requests for a spreadsheet of some kind, if you have one. And failing that, we're looking for some insight into how the numbers were generated. OK, so, for instance, the 32 million that that has its various components. How was that number reached? What was the set of calculations, etc. OK, and there is not a spreadsheet right now there. Here's the situation. The House put in thirty two point two million, which is a little bit higher than what you have in your language. The language has been adjusted in the House bill. And they're doing it. What happened was last week and I don't know what you just would hold. So I don't want to repeat everything you've heard. But the numbers coming in from the school districts are are not even all in yet. You know, there are some school districts, they may be into AOE, but we haven't really got them yet. So what we're carrying there, what we're looking at is a changing tableau of just how much money those school districts need for to cover their expenses. And so how do we get the thirty two point two? It's a function of what we think the need will be and what the House had available to give them. So if you were to ask me, you know, and we can go through these numbers, the number of what you actually might need might be a little higher higher than what the House could afford to give them. They gave them thirty two point two. That is a slight bit lower. And I can run through that and say where the differences are. So we were told and you probably have had testimony. You're going to get testimony on this. If you're physically not thinks they could spend another six point five million on HVAC systems. I thought it was five point five. Well, five point five, that's fine. And I haven't really received any. I've had a phone call, but I haven't heard any final testimony. We put in five for the House. So they're putting in less than what you think. Or no, five million, right? Because yes, five million. And that's partially again, there's a function of money available. And there may be HVAC work done that's not through Fish and Sea Vermont. And I think that a lot of schools have needs that have not been reported yet. And I think Jeff can talk about some survey he did. And one of our key concerns is just the money available for the schools to cover their needs. Steve, can I ask and this maybe this is a question for the House committees themselves. But when you say how much the House had to spend. Yeah, when we left, my understanding was that there was a hundred million that had been spent off. So when we say what the House had to spend, are we talking about the speaker maybe divvying up between committees, that money? Yes. And let me explain the problem here. The governor put in nothing for K through 12 education and his bill. These are some of the things that are at issue. And there's so the so anything the House spent, even though we had 90 set aside by the legislature and the governor spent one hundred and thirty three million on economic development. If we had kept the 90 million, that would have reduced the you would have to take it from somewhere. So the House did have to look at the sort of needs and make its own determination of where money went. There's a couple of factors they made. The Senate has a bill right now, a hazard pay bill that is going to cost twenty two million more. The latest estimate I've seen, then what the current bill does. So the House in part of its effort to build a budget has set aside 15 of those millions to try to get toward that level. So that was important to the House to try to fund the Senate's priority of housing pay, of hazard pay. So you have 15 there. You have the fact that the governor set in nothing for the K through 12. So the 32 plus 15 is like forty eight million dollars that the governor didn't have to deal with. And so in that process of identifying needs, they that's what they had and you will be able to. When it comes to the Senate, we will probably tell the Senate appropriations that we think the K through 12 the might be a little bit higher and they're going to have to make a determination of, you know, do they fund as much economic development or do they fund, you know, those will be the Senate type of decisions. Well, what what would be important to me, maybe obviously is what what the actual estimated need for K through 12 is regardless of those political considerations. Yeah, so let's let me finish going through that, because that's a good point. So your efficiency, Vermont, your number is right now five point five. Right. And yeah, then the House put in five. I mean, at the House, yeah, House put in five million. So you can sort of see one difference there. The major area where we have this unclarity is in the amount that schools are going to need to use in the way of CRF money. And as I was saying, I think that and Jeff, it's going to have to correct me. At the last count, I think eighty five or so percent of the schools that reported and we based an estimate based on that eighty five percent of the schools that reported plus the five million and with no cushion. And we came up with a number that's about nine hundred thousand dollars higher than what the House gave. So but the problem is we have 15 percent of schools not reporting yet. And the other problem I just want to flag is every week that goes by, we know more like, you know, we're in a very tenuous time right now. I would have preferred to build a cushion in because as schools open, we may discover larger needs. So I can't I would if you were to have me come in when we're just finishing the House bill. Obviously, the committee is just voting it today. By next week, when you get that bill, we would I would really appreciate a chance to come back and say we think the number is X because it is changing. We could see it go down as the other 15 percent of communities report or its districts report. We could also see it go up and and so that's so I right now I feel like in my own this is just me looking at the numbers. You're probably about a million and a half or two million lower than I would like to be in the House number without a cushion. But, you know, that could in a week from now, it's been going down last towns that have or districts are reported. The numbers dropped, so it could easily be different. That's not a large number when you're talking of a total expenditure of about sixty to sixty three million of CRF money. So it's we're definitely in the in the margin area. And the other concern is you don't want to over appropriate. You want to appropriate enough that you can cover it. We have a system in place now that if the money is not used, it'll be recaptured. But, you know, we're all since everybody's hunting to cover their needs. The Senate has the hazard pay need, you know, and this is a pressure. You there's pressure on not not going over. But it's it's clearly what the Senate's going to have to deal with. OK, questions for Steve. Go ahead, Senator Hardy. Thanks, Steve, I know that this is changing rapidly. But I guess I'm going to just put in another plug for a table so that we can follow what has already been appropriated, what has been spent and what it's been spent on. And then what is the recommendation or the suggestion or the proposal for additional appropriations and where specifically it's going? Because, you know, I'm a numbers person and I'm still having a hard time following what the ins and outs of what's been where we're at. So. So in this, that's fine. And we'll do it. I think what I would suggest is what I would like to do is when the bill comes out of the House, because they basically it'll probably take them to a Friday to pass this bill. We will produce a table at that point that says, here's what you have here's where your your needs are. And this information about five point five I'm getting now. We will encompass. We'll put that in there and we're going to do a table saying where we know the need is as of this moment because it changes. And so I so will not be a definitive table that says, you know. You know, this absolute. I think I would definitely do it at the end of the week. We'll put some of the other Steve, I think it's five million, not five point five. I thought you said the need was five point five and the house gave five. No, we haven't we haven't spoken with the HVAC witnesses yet. But but the house has added five. So it may be that we come up with a higher figure, but we haven't haven't yet. So that's I think what you'll hear. And I really don't want to get ahead of them is they would they could absorb a higher number than five that was all the house added. OK, great. All right. Thanks very much. That's helpful, Steve. No problem. And we will definitely put together a table on this that we should have. And I'd like to have the 100 percent of the community, so that'll give you a little more assurance that number is accurate. So OK, and Steve, I think the one of the most important things you said to my way of thinking is that you you believe there's it would be wise to have two million dollars more than the thirty two. I would be my today's opinion. Yes, I have to tell you again, as we will change, it could change. OK, but just just so that we know that from the day it go. So thanks very much, Steve. All right, no problem. Thank you. And as I said at the beginning, what I'd like to do now is go to the people from efficiency, Vermont, the HVAC. Witnesses. I think it's it's a great lookout that the house is looking to add money to that program. To me, that says that the program was picking up on a need and now that need is generally understood. And we're fortunate that it seems we can get more work done than we thought. So with that said, let me if I could ask Jody Lesko and Dan Riley, not sure what order you'd like to go in, but feel free to go back and forth or do whatever sort of presentation you want. What we're looking for is an update on what's already been done quickly. And then we've heard that there isn't a bottleneck of contractors and that the 300 plus districts that have contracted or attempted to get work done so far, we could do a lot more of that with more money. So so dig in wherever you like. Sure. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'll go first for the record. My name is Daniel Riley, and I'm the Director of Public Affairs for Efficiency Vermont. I'm going to give you a quick recap of why Efficiency Vermont was chosen to administer the program and our progress to date. And then I'm going to turn it over to my colleague, Jody Lesko, who oversees the program. Very briefly, as the state's energy efficiency utility, we operate in nearly every corner of the state. We cover every community except for Burlington, which is covered by BED to give you a sense of our overall reach. Twenty nineteen, we served over seventy thousand residential customers. We partnered with over twenty five hundred trade allies, including contractors, engineers, manufacturers, suppliers. Importantly here, we have over twenty years of experience working with schools here at Efficiency Vermont, and we were really able to build on those strong ties in order to ramp up this program very quickly. It's been said many times in testimony, but I do just want to repeat it very quickly. This program will not prevent the introduction or spread of COVID-19 in a school setting. However, as you know, adequate ventilation can be a helpful mitigating factor and it can reduce the likelihood of a spread happening. Also bears repeating, you know, the program isn't expected to bring every school in the state up to the level of top ventilation standards. That would require more time and a really an order of magnitude, more investment than we're discussing here today. That said, we've achieved quite a bit of progress in the last 11 weeks. So far, we've been able to enroll over three hundred and four schools, which is really an unprecedented mobilization for this type of work. We finalized all of our agreements with AOE and AOA. In addition, other things we've been able to do, we've created a website with intake forms for schools and contractors to make it as easy as possible to participate. That's how we're able to get 300 schools in so quickly. We've created and executed an outreach and enrollment plan that prioritizes schools with the highest need, considers geographic equity and size. We've really enrolled schools of all sizes, a wide variety of needs from almost every county in the state. We developed eligibility requirements, HVAC guidelines, and recommended measures for schools to follow. And then this technical guidance includes a breakdown of different problems the school could face, potential mitigation measures and the right type of contractor to perform the work. We've also coordinated the bulk purchasing of equipment. All enrolled schools will receive an indoor air quality monitor, and we're offering training with that. And we've also conducted research on other common standalone measures like air purifiers. And then there's there's a lot of weekly education going on via webinars and newsletters on all the technical and programmatic detail supporting this work really quickly. Efficiency Vermont was able to do this because of three words, reach relationships and systems. Reach is really just our statewide reach. As I mentioned, we operated nearly every we have staff in nearly every county. We were really able to quickly reach out to the schools, especially the schools in the more rural parts of the state that might have fewer resources and we can help them participate in this initiative. Relationships have really been key here. You know, we we have 20 years of experience. We have strong relationships with the engineers and contractors that are needed to scope and complete these ventilation projects on such a tight timeline. Our outreach teams have been constant contact with them. And really, we've been monitoring the supply chain for this since March, when the crisis began. So we really have a good sense of the capacity and the needs at the moment. And my colleague, Jody, is going to discuss that in just a second. And lastly, it's really the systems in place. And, you know, Efficiency Vermont has the administrative infrastructure and the team in place to be able to ramp up quickly and really be able to understand what's happening in every different part of the state. In terms of additional funding, as was mentioned, you know, we believe that given the large demand for the program and the average project cost, we do believe that Efficiency Vermont could quickly and effectively utilize an additional five to six million dollars for the program. We are also confident that we could distribute that funding before the end of the year, given our pipeline. Our goal here at Efficiency Vermont is really to have enough funding to not turn away any K through 12 school that wants to enroll in the program and to ensure that there's enough funding where every school we work with can really develop a reasonable scope of work. Even with an additional five million, we cannot say for certain that it would be enough to ensure that every school in the state can fully participate. And with that, when we turn it over to my colleague, Jody, who can give you a little bit more of the technical details on why that is. Jody. Thank you, Dan. For the record, my name is Jody Lesko and I am the director of programs and implementation for Efficiency Vermont. And I have the great privilege of running the schools and your air quality program this year. I think we all knew going into this program that the need for HAC improvements in Vermont schools was greater than a six and a half million allocation could fulfill. And we knew this because we in our contractor network and our partners like the Vermont Superintendents Association have been in these schools and have seen the state of HAC systems in Vermont schools. But we also knew there would be barriers to overcome. And as Dan said, indoor air quality is just one piece of the very complex puzzle that's facing school administrators. And we knew their attention would be pulled in many different directions as they were preparing to reopen. We also knew that the supply chain was under stress because of the global manufacturing shutdowns that we've seen that are coinciding with the increased global demand for HVAC equipment. In short, we've been blown away by the response from schools and from the contractor community after the governor enacted the program on July 1st. Efficiency Vermont initiated an education and outreach campaign on July 8th. And we received 130 intake forms from schools just in that first week of the program. We also heard from over 30 engineering firms, design firms and contracting entities wanting to sign up to help schools. And we've heard from HVAC contractors that they've been able to bring back furloughed employees because of this program. To date, we have approved subgrants for 121 schools totaling five point eight million dollars. The projects will be completed by the end of the year. Combined with the purchase of indoor air quality monitors for schools and the cost to administer the program, we've reached the limit of what the original funding can achieve. We have already identified five million dollars worth of projects at 159 schools that have enrolled but not yet been approved for funding. We also have 24 schools that have enrolled that have not yet submitted scopes of work. And we have over 100 eligible schools that have not yet enrolled or submitted an intake form to us. We've now paused funding approvals for subgrants. With additional funding, we would proceed with refining scopes of work and getting projects underway with those that have already enrolled and we would encourage pre-boarding raw equipment. We would also initiate dedicated outreach to those schools that have not enrolled. You might have seen in Vermont Digger that Evelyn Haberman Killian of CX Associates who provided testimony here earlier this year was quoted as saying that schools working with her firm have estimated project cost between $40,000 and $60,000 as they move toward COVID specific ASHRAE and CDC specifications for their HVAC systems. To date, when I look at the whole project pool, our average cost for approved projects is $48,000. Not unlike what I believe Jim was saying, we are seeing a downward trend so that that average cost is coming down as weeks progress. That is a rapidly evolving situation as so many things are right now. And while most schools' scopes of work are in the $30,000 to $45,000 range, there are some schools that are far exceeding this. It's not uncommon for folks on my team to review scopes of work in the multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars for HVAC improvements for a single school. There's a big question about how much work, how much additional work the supply chain and the contractor workforce can support between now and the end of the year. There are currently eight plus week lead times on some types of large air handling equipment. While this is only slightly longer than normal, the window for order, delivery and installation before the end of the year is definitely closing quickly. Air filters are also experiencing longer than normal lead times and some models of standalone equipment are currently out of stock. We anticipate the supply chain becoming increasingly stressed as more schools throughout the country, not just Vermont, begin addressing this problem. While there are early indications that the contractor outfits and the workforce are reaching their capacity in some pockets, none of our contracting network are currently turning away work with schools. Because of the investments made by Efficiency Vermont for program setup and outreach and education early on, an increase in grant funding would not require the same level of Efficiency Vermont labor to deploy. I estimate that a doubling of the grant amount would only increase Vermont's cost to administer the program by 50%. This means that more money could be deployed directly to schools. And as Dan said, Efficiency Vermont's goal is ultimately to work with as many schools as possible while making meaningful indoor air quality improvements with those really customized scopes of work. For me, one of the most heartening things about this work, aside from it helping schools with this immediate challenge is seeing the nexus of energy efficiency and indoor air quality. Some of the ventilation changes covered by this grant will help schools save money on future energy bills and positions them for greater energy efficiency when the pandemic is resolved. This is particularly important as we expect schools budgets will be constrained in the coming years. With that, I look forward to answering your questions. Okay, that was very helpful. I think your testimony speaks to a question I put out earlier, which was posed by the chair of Senate Appropriations. Is it better to drop the five or six million into this program? Or is it better to recognize that a school could, on its own, contact a contractor and then seek reimbursement? Everything that you've said and I think all of our thinking to date suggests that we would want to work through this one pipeline. As you say, you've already got it set up and working. You've created categories of prioritization, etc. If we didn't use this network or program and just allowed people to go on their own, we could wind up with the situation we were trying to avoid, which was bigger, better resourced schools in more urban areas, picking up all of the contractors and available equipment. That's my take on that. Questions for the efficiency of Vermont people from the committee? Okay. I understood you to be saying between five and six million, you believe, is doable. There's also, as was noted by Steve Kleina, a clawback mechanism. If it looks like we get toward the middle of December and the money isn't going to be spent on this program, the agency would have the ability to move it anyway. So if we think about the house has added five million, you're suggesting possibly up to another million beyond that. As Jody says, we've already identified five million worth of additional projects and still have 24 schools enrolled that have yet to complete scopes and over 100 schools that are still out there. Understood. I would just say to anybody listening on YouTube, if this for any reason sounds like crazy spending, all it's going to do is reduce the deferred maintenance at these schools on the federal government's dime. So the more we can put into this, the better as far as I'm concerned. So with that said, let's move to the nutrition side of the CRF and that would be Fay Mack and Rosie Kruger and Ms. Mack and Ms. Kruger. As I said to the efficiency of Vermont people, not sure, well, actually, why don't we start with Rosie Kruger and Ms. Kruger, if you want to just give us a heads up on how money has been spent, the agency's thinking now on the flexibility that's being given and that will set us up for hunger free Vermont to speak to it. Sure. So for their record, Rosie Kruger, I'm the State Director of Child Nutrition Programs at the Agency of Education and I haven't actually had the opportunity to talk to this committee since March and I'd love to take a second if you've got the time for me to update you on all the work that our Child Nutrition Programs have done across the state since schools closed in March. Sure, if it's relatively high level over. Sure. Yeah. I think that'll kind of help you understand where we are right now and how we've overcome some challenges in the previous months and the challenges that schools are facing right now as we head back today. So first, I want to say that I'm really incredibly proud of the work that our schools and our Child Nutrition Programs across the state did in March and have done in the month since. Within a day or two of school buildings closing, we had school meals programs set up in every supervised reunion in the state to be able to continue to provide meal service uninterrupted to kids in their homes. And this required intense dedication and work from people on the ground to figure out how to do something that we'd never done before. And so we applied for tons of waivers from USDA to allow us to keep serving those meals to kids in their homes. We were able to get some waivers that allowed us to continue serving meals to all children at no cost. So all kids 18 and under have been eating at no charge since March. And just this week, we got some, I'm sorry, just this past week, we got some good news from USDA that they're actually extending those waivers through December. So we will be able to continue feeding all children 18 under through December pending some funding being available from USDA. And that's great news. That's something that had been making us in the Child Nutrition Community very anxious because in June USDA had told us that we were going to have to start charging for meals once school started and stop doing the Summer Food Service Program, which is what we had been using to feed all children since March and start returning to the School Nutrition Programs where we charge children who are not income eligible for free and reduced meals and also where we're limited to just serving children enrolled in school. So that was some great news that we got last week, but it came very late. And so our School Food Service folks spent the summer planning for a scenario in which we had to start charging for meals where we needed to only serve two children who were enrolled in schools. And so people have been working really hard in the past week to turn that around and to get their program set up to feed all children. So I just want to really recognize that. So starting in March, people came up with a lot of creative ways to figure out how to get meals to kids. And so we as a state required that schools figure out how to provide meals to kids and they did that. So in a lot of more rural schools, they actually repurposed school buses and drove meals around and left them in those coolers that you may have seen at the end of driveways around the state. So folks were getting daily or sometimes weekly deliveries of meals for all the children and their households from their schools. In more urban parts of the state, the schools provided grab-and-go pickup at the school or at other locations around town. And we found overall that when schools provided direct household delivery via school bus, they actually served far more meals than they would have served had school been in session. But the schools that provided only the option to pick up meals at school actually served far fewer meals. So overall statewide, we actually served fewer meals than we would have served had school been in session by just a little bit, which is actually pretty impressive when you consider the logistics that had to go into effect. And it is better than what I'm hearing from our neighbors in other states. Across the country, folks generally saw huge decreases in the number of meals served and here we kind of were able to saunch the bleeding a little bit and generally be able to serve almost as many kids as we would have had school been in session. But it's still heartbreaking to know that we did miss some kids, particularly when transportation was an issue and meals were not delivered to households. So schools continued that until the end of June. And then throughout the summer months, schools had the option to continue providing meals. And we had a number of nonprofit sponsors who jumped in to provide meals as well. They weren't required to, but with the USDA waivers that we were able to get, we were able to continue providing again, meal service to all children 18 and under throughout the state. And that's something that we would not have been able to do in a normal summer. So without those waivers, there are a lot of schools that wouldn't have been able to provide meals. So a lot of schools who had been providing that household delivery using school buses because they were unsure about what funding would be available made the decision in early June to scale back and to just provide pickup options. And so I think that's why we initially had estimated that maybe we could use up to $12 million over the summer months. In general, schools opted to go to the less costly route of providing just meals for pickup. It's kind of in terms of reporting back to you about how it went this summer, it really varies across the state. So in some parts of the state where they wouldn't have been able to provide open meal sites previously because of USDA program restrictions, they actually serve far more meals than they would have served because they were able to operate open meal sites through the summer food service program. But we had other parts of the state such as down in Bennington, where Southwest Vermont Supervised Union normally operates a really robust summer meals program that's based on summer camps and libraries and pools and having meals available at all the places that children congregate. And this summer kids couldn't congregate. And so those meal sites were not able to serve as many meals. Many of them were just closed. And we're hearing from those types of locations that they serve far fewer meals this summer than they would have had school been in session. We don't have good overall numbers yet. The schools have two months from the close of the month to be able to report to us how many meals they served. So I only have numbers through the end of June. But of course we'll let you know when we do have updated numbers from July and August. But in general anecdotally I'm hearing from the folks who had robust programs previously that they serve fewer meals and from folks who couldn't operate before that they did serve more meals. So it really is kind of a mixed bag across the state in terms of whether children had the access that they would have had to summer meals. As we go back to school today, schools are facing some new challenges. So we do have this state law that requires that every public school make meals available to every attending child every school day. And because of the way we've chosen to interpret school day this year that means that schools need to be able to figure out how to provide meals to kids whether they're at school or at home if they're counting those children as attending that day. So that means if the kids are at home you gotta figure out how to make meals available to the children in their homes again. So that may be via school bus delivery or via a grab-and-go pickup either at the school or at locations around the community. And then when the kids are in school this is a brand new challenge that they haven't faced yet. So our guidance with the health department requires that children in step two of reopening that children eat meals in their classrooms. It's the recommendation that they be served the meals in the classrooms but they can also go to the cafeteria in small numbers to get their meals and bring them back to the classroom. As an example of of how that changes meal service I want to just pick one component of the the school meals program and tell you how that has changed when we start talking about serving meals in the classroom. So milk is is part of the school meals program for both breakfast and lunch. And when meals are served in the cafeteria the way that milk usually works is that there is a milk cooler in the cafeteria it's kind of a flip top cooler. And when the milk delivery company comes in they bring in their crates of milk and they put them in the cooler they rotate them you know around and the milk is stored in the cooler throughout its entire life at the school. So the kids come through the lunch line they take their milk from that same cooler and they go through the line they get charged they drink their milk and that's that. When meals are served in the classroom we have to figure out a way to get milk cold from the cafeteria to the classroom. So that one component requires coolers carts you know some some way of getting that milk individually into each classroom rather than having this one big cooler for the whole school. So Miss Krueger we're going to run up against the hard style of war so we we do have three or four other witnesses. So I'm I'm very interested in what you're saying but we're we're hoping to get clarity on the numbers that are that are in this house. Okay. Bill as opposed to necessarily you know a view of what's what's happening with the money. So anything that you can tell us about the the numbers the budget numbers that have been proposed for. Sure. So the four million that is in the house bill that we're suggesting be available to schools for this fall for back to school equipment costs for the child nutrition programs that would cover costs like those milk coolers that are needed. It would also cover packaging to bring meals to the classroom. It could cover vehicles to deliver meals to children's homes. There are lots of additional refrigeration and hot holding costs for keeping meals cold and keeping meals warm when they're being delivered to children in these places other than the cafeteria. So we're pretty confident that schools are going to be incurring these costs and that we can set up an equipment grant program that'll be fairly straightforward for us to run as an agency and for schools to apply for that would ensure that the money is spent by December for these pretty important components of operating a school meals program. And I can tell you where I got that that four million number. So our colleagues in Rhode Island did an estimate at the beginning of the summer about how much it would cost to provide meals in the classroom in Rhode Island based on the number of classrooms they had it's they had a per classroom number and I took that and multiplied that by the number of classrooms we think we have in Vermont and that's where we got to four million. So that number doesn't necessarily include all of the additional costs to bus meals around because we're really just limiting it to equipment and supply costs. But schools could use other funds that are available other CRF funds available to them for those additional costs if they wanted to incur them. Senator Hardy, you had a question. Yeah, thank you. Rosie, thanks for your testimony. The so originally we provided $12 million in June for summer meals and associated costs. My understanding is that 2.2 of that has been spent. Is that correct? And then you're requesting that four million be allocated for equipment and supplies for the school year. So that's 6.2. What's what's happening with the other 5.8 million? I think it was my understanding that the legislature was looking to take that money and spend it elsewhere on education programs. So I think we were saying that we can we know we're we're confident we can use this for for child nutrition programs. But if you wanted to repurpose the rest of that for I think by default it goes back into the the general CRF funds for the agency to spend. If you did something else, then obviously that would. So I can answer that if I just want to jump in if I can. That that was we needed five one million for the efficiency of Vermont. We used that extra five actually money's fungible to get to the 32 we did use that potentially 5.8 to help achieve that. So the 32 is not all new money. It's it's repurposing to that's why I want the table. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. And Rosie the the other costs for school meals will be covered because of the federal waiver that allows schools to provide universal school meals. Is that so they will until December they will receive a about $4 per lunch that they serve and about $2.30 per breakfast that they serve from the USDA for every single meal. So we think that's enough to cover the cost of the food and the cost of the staff to prepare the meal. But it's not necessarily enough to cover the cost of the extra packaging or transporting it or all this additional equipment that we need to store the meals safely and move them around the school building or around the community. So that's why you know we've kind of structured it as an equipment grant for those costs specifically. Okay. Great. Thank you. Okay. And great. If I could then I'd like to move to Fay Mack. And Ms. Mack at any point if you want to address the actual numbers that are at issue or the specifics of the program that would be great. Sure. Absolutely. For the record my name is Fay Mack. I'm the advocacy and education director at Hunger Free Vermont. Thank you all for having me today. And I can be pretty brief. I know that there's a hard stop coming up. But I really want to just take a moment to thank you all for really prioritizing food security needs in the legislature throughout the pandemic response we're seeing hunger is currently at a level higher than it ever was during the Great Recession or at any point we've seen in recent history. People are facing dire, dire straits in ways that they haven't before in the last 20 or so years. So programs like the school meal program is really crucial for families in order to put food on the table and make sure kids in particular are able to have the nutrition that they need in order to navigate the complex learning environment that they're all navigating this year and to succeed. And I also want to thank Rosie and her team. AOE has been a really strong partner in all of this work this year and have worked so incredibly hard to support schools. There have been a lot of unknowns coming from the USDA and just from the situation that we all find ourselves in right now and the technical assistance and support is really crucial. Hunger Free Vermont along with the Vermont Food Bank and Vermont Feed which is made up of Shelburne Farms and NOFA Vermont are all really supportive of AOE's recommendation for the four million dollars to support school meal programs in this fall as they continue to face increased costs. As Rosie said, schools are going to face costs that they haven't faced in a normal school year. Packaging costs need for carts and coolers and ways to keep food cold, ways to keep food warm, and to serve food in a way that's totally different than how food is currently and are usually served to students in the cafeteria. The Summer Food Service Program which will be able to reimburse for the meals as Rosie mentioned has a higher reimbursement rate than the National School Lunch Program but they're facing costs that are totally new. There are needs for the equipment for transportation. I would also add that in addition to equipment and supplies I don't know if this would be covered in the way that AOE is proposing but there are going to be ongoing costs for the transportation, you know gas, vehicle maintenance, leases, all of that. So those transportation costs are going to kind of continue rolling throughout the school year along with packaging costs and other things that need to be bought continuously too that may not all be able to be purchased right up front. The four million dollars seems you know based on on Rhode Island's estimate seem like a good place to start. It's hard to know how much schools are going to need to spend and I think it's important that the number is something that feels like it could be spent you know to avoid a lot of unspent funds toward the end of December. So the four million dollars seems like a really good place to begin and a good estimate and so we're supportive of that. The you know the other thing to just to say too is that the costs are going to continue into the coming year as well. I know that we're talking specifically about CRF funding right now which ends at the end of December. The school meal programs are going to be facing increased costs throughout the school year and right now it's really uncertain what kinds of programs and what kind of access schools will be able to offer in the second half of the school year based on the USDA and the waivers that they're approving. The situation that we're in right now with universal school meals for all students is only approved through the end of the year and they need Congress to approve it for for the second half of the school year. So we may be faced with a whole new set of complications too as we look forward to the coming year as well. Okay great and a good note to to put out there. Congress so far has failed to give us what we've been asking for but hopefully they'll be spurred as we as we go forward into this fall season. Questions for either Rosie Krueger or Faye Mack from the committee. I think they're in agreement on the numbers. Did both of you testify in the House Committee? No. No okay but you you seem all right with the House numbers on nutrition. Okay so not seeing any questions for for those witnesses. If we could turn to let's go in order as we have them listed on the agenda. Jay Nichols, Jeff Francis and Sue Siglowski. So Jay if you want to start us off. Okay for the record Jay Nichols Executive Director of the Vermont Principles Association and we will each try to be brief so you have some time for questions and I'm just going to turn us back to the actual to the whole bill. So we appreciate the House's attempt to make sure that we spend the COVID-19 funds and not returning to the feds quite frankly. I'm not sure there's enough money in here but I'm optimistic that there will be and that will be pretty close. I fully support what Steve Klein said about making sure there's some type of a buffer. The last thing we want to do is leave schools in a position where they can't fund this and the burden goes back on the local tax payer during a time of unprecedented financial crisis in the state of Vermont. So we don't want all local taxpayers to get hit with any extra fees so we need to use that federal funding appropriately as best we can. In terms of provisions in the bill the increase of money focused on HVAC improvements makes sense. It's probably not going to be enough. Senator Barouf your comments on deferred maintenance are point on so hopefully that money can be used in a way that helps us over a longer period of time. We've told our schools at least the Principles Association we've been telling schools to spend what they need to spend to make sure they can reopen safely so all the funding that's provided in here all goes towards that end including the meals piece. Schools have done a great job as the two ladies just attested in serving meals to kids in the summer and there's a lot of problems with serving kids now in school when we have many kids in hybrid or remote learning environments. So there's going to be a lot of work that has to be done there. In terms of specifics of the bill the 170 student attendance days we support that. This was unprecedented year we backed up the student days and brought staff in early to make sure that everybody was ready for the start of the school year so waiting those five days makes sense. Jay before you go on our bill also as per the secretary's recommendation ups the number of in-service days. At the same time that it reduces the number of school days do you support that piece? I would need more information on that. Sue, Jeff and I have been discussing that and I don't know if either one of them wants to comment on that and okay really aren't sure exactly what that might mean in terms of locally collectively bargained agreements. Okay fair enough. I'd like to hear what Dan has to say about that too. I know he supports it but I'd like to hear his rationale. Okay I think his rationale was that they were going to need more in-service days up front. Up front and that they were already in fact doing it and so it was more a description of the reality as opposed to you know any change for the districts but I take your point about the collectively bargained agreements. Thank you. We also believe at the VPA that we have no problem at all with the Australian ballot change during the pandemic we think that makes sense and then to return that once we're back in more normal times to the local school districts to decide themselves rather they'd vote would rather vote from the floor or through an Australian ballot process. In terms of school board members being appointed to open seats you know I've always said I think it should be done by the school board not to select board so we certainly would support that that movement. We fully agree that the independent tech centers should qualify for COVID relief funds and the language that makes them become a district for purposes of CRF is very important. What else? The waiver for online teaching we support that. The standards board did a good thing in taking the endorsement and allowing that to be provisional through December 31st but that's in the middle of a school year and we don't know what this year is going to bring so just extending that by statute to June 30th 2021 makes sense and I think that's really the major points that I want to hit on just reiterate again what Steve Klein said let's make sure we have enough money that we can make sure no school district no taxpayers get left behind and that's it. Sounds good Jeff. How is my audio today? Sounds all right. Good thanks I tried to dial in but you just mean doesn't have a dial in option which we'll try to figure out with Jeannie but following Jay's comments let me just mention a couple things first I support using EVT to get the HVAC money out I did a fair amount of work at the front end of that as they were communicating with school districts and everything they said in their testimony about their ability to expedite the process I agree with in terms of determining the amount of need for school districts I'm going to quickly go through my understanding of this by way of informing the committee but I'll start by saying that the house education committee has a fiscal note that was prepared on September 2nd by Mark Pralt which is a good illustration of how the money is intended to work okay okay um is my audio still okay it's it's getting a little uh thank you so we left in the spring with the so-called hundred million okay yeah Jeff we're in the spring with a hundred million fans off do you get that uh go to sue okay we'll go to sue sue and we'll we'll try to come back to Jeff but okay uh Sue Siglowski executive director of the Vermont school boards association for the record just wanted to also support the concept of a buffer that was talked about by Steve Klein I believe that when Jeff is able to testify and you're able to hear him he's I think he's going to be telling you a little bit about how the numbers were reached in this bill and that and I think when he does you'll see the reason why there needs to be um a little bit of leeway so um I'll leave it at that and hopefully he'll be able to get on in a couple minutes and and go over that with you because that was information that was collected by the vsa not the vsba as far as the policy portions of this bill that have to do Australian ballot and filling any school board vacancies um I want to use your phone and your connection and I'll talk to them Jeff we can hear you now Jeff okay okay I'm gonna finish up by saying that uh the policy portions of the bill the Australian ballot and filling board vacancy the that language uh we agree with the board vacancy language is actually something that um has been in effect and it's sunsetted on uh July 1 of 2020 so it's just putting back into effect language that was already effective okay um at this point I know you're limited in time so I'll I can turn it over to Jeff at this point if that's okay perfect okay senator bruce Jeff's gonna come at you from my phone okay oh all right interesting let's give this a shot okay Jeff you're up we can we can hear you they're not in their heads they're saying pretty I'm gonna turn my volume up as much as I can okay so we're Jeff we're losing you now I'm not sure what happened Jay but I don't know I still got him on speaker and I can hear him good you guys can't hear him now no now I can hear him Jeff Jeff what can I ask this Jeff um this is suboptimal even for a zoom meeting so why don't why don't we do this why don't we schedule you for Thursday if you're available okay and in the meantime if you want to generate uh a memo for us with what you had planned to say today or you can save it for Thursday but we'll start with you on Thursday Jeff I can't tell if that was a yes or a no what time will what time will that be yes 230 230 okay great jeannie if uh if you could take note of that that on Thursday we'd start with Jeff Francis done okay great so um committee I'm assuming nobody has questions for any of the witnesses uh that we've had so far because no one had had raised their hand after they spoke but any final questions for for this group okay so here's what I'm thinking makes sense I I made some notes I know uh committee members made notes so on Thursday what I'd like to do is we'll have a few additional witnesses but we'll compare notes about the testimony we heard it seems you know our priorities policy and numbers um seem very similar to what the house is talking about with the exception of possibly some additions uh in terms of policy and some additions in terms of money um the buffer idea seems to make a certain amount amount of sense to me as does giving efficiency Vermont what they think they can get done so with that said why doesn't everybody um bring their notes to Thursday's session we'll hear from Jeff and maybe one or two other witnesses and then we'll have uh prolonged committee discussion and we'll work up our version of of language with the caveat that the house hasn't passed anything yet and they may make significant changes between now and then Senator Hardy um yeah thanks that sounds like a good plan I'm wondering if we could also hear from either Collin or Jeff from the NEA um especially given that the NEA doesn't seem happy with the school reopening process and I'm also wondering if there's anybody we could hear from that could speak to the testing protocols for schools the COVID testing not standardized testing um there doesn't seem to be a necessarily a program for testing at schools and it's as a mom just very concerning to me and I think that's one of the things that teachers are concerned about as well so I don't know who that would be necessarily but that doesn't seem to be included in these costs yeah and and my understanding at there is that there is no statewide program it's completely district by district but but it's a fair question and we can um think about who might be good to bring in on that Jeannie did you hear um the suggestion that we add Jeff Fanon to Thursday I did I did that would be great if you could reach out to him as well and we'll have another name or two for you between now and then okay um thank you to everyone for attending today I I think as I said that there doesn't seem to be a huge amount of difference between what we've been discussing and what the house is intending to do so that should make everybody's job easier between now and two and a half weeks from now um so thanks everybody and I will see uh most of you on Thursday