 Welcome. Welcome back to the Vermont House Appropriations Committee. It is Thursday, January 19th, 2023. It's one o'clock. We are coming into our committee for a public hearing. So if you don't mind, I'm going to read some instructions as to how we're going to do this. And it's in a new way over time. In person and on Zoom, and Representative Shai will be assisting as well as our committee assistants and Mike on this. Let me see if I can read the directions here of the statement of how we're going to work. But welcome to this public hearing. This is hearing is going to be on the BAA, which is the FY23 Budget Adjustment Act. My name is Representative Diane Lanford and the House Appropriations Committee and I are going to be hosting this hearing today with a great deal of assistance from all the people trying to knit together both on Zoom and in person. So wish us luck and if there's a technical difficulty we beg for your patience as we deal with that within the in the hybrid way. We're for those that are out there we're holding this meeting in room 11 of the State House in case you're you're still coming in and we'll be also simultaneously simultaneously broadcasting this on on YouTube as well so you can there's various ways to be able to to watch and and actually watch in the future if you care. So those that are joining remotely you will notice that you can see and hear us but you won't be able to speak until Aaron, committee assistant and and Andrea, right, are going to be monitoring and welcoming people in from Zoom who are there but not live yet as their name starts to become on deck that bring them into the room as a presenter just like they would be in the seat and we have a three-minute clock that I don't that they can see or we can see from here and each participant will have three minutes to or less you don't have to take the whole three minutes or less and at three minute mark we will if you're on Zoom I just want you to be aware of the process then when the time limit is three minutes is done you will be moved and that will be the end of your testimony on Zoom we could you're gonna get moved and then here you will move away from this and and take your seat in the back of the room we're also keeping an eye on I don't think it's going to be a problem but the capacity in the room you know I think right now we're fine just looking at it I'm not going to do a head count but if we had 500 people in here or a hundred we might have needed to ask a certain number to go up to the cafeteria and watch on on YouTube and that we would try to figure out a way to get as you start to hear the names two or three that you would come in and and shift but I don't think we're going to have that problem today at all cover the three minutes and representative shy here next to me is going to be helping to call at least we've got people in person and people who are on Zoom and the first person is and we're taking this as they come in first comes there's no no preference other than this is when you signed up we have 28 people in total and the first one up is first up is going to be Nick Sherman who's in person and that will be followed by Linda Wicklach from Bennington remotely great and the time will start when you speak sir thank you very much good afternoon madam chair members of the committee thanks for the opportunity to speak today I'm Nick Sherman I'm with Leonine public affairs and I'm here today speaking on behalf of the Howard Center the Howard Center has a request in the FY 23 budget adjustment for $952,000 for the purchase and repair of the Park Street property in Rutland Vermont Park Street is the name of the property it's also the name of the program the program there works with adolescent males and their families the adolescent males with sexually harming behaviors it's the only program in the state that serves this set of clients and not surprisingly because the clients are treated in state in their communities and near their families the outcomes are better than the folks that got to go out of state for it the clients are referred through the local service providers through the agency of education department of mental health and department for children and families the reason Howard Center is making this request is because the landlord is divesting the property the currently stands on June 30th 2023 and there is an option to purchase it which Howard Center would like to do which is the purpose of the request for this appropriation but they have to do that by April 30th which is why we're asking in the context of budget adjustment so and the reason also for the request for the purchase is that the you know the program itself is having a hard time being sustainable this would basically alleviate a hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year in rent which would make this program much more sustainable by itself it's a good program it's been in the community 20 years it serves the whole state and we would appreciate if the committee would give it consideration thank you very much next up and forgive me if I pronounce your name wrong please correct me when you get yourself online is window black from Bennington followed by Chad bigger good afternoon my name is Lucifish and I'm the executive director of Bennington property department and I'm the current president of the law association of all day services I'm here today to request a budget adjustment related to building funding during the FY22 budget discussions we recognize that we're going to be approximately four million in additional support in order for the existing programs to remain open through this winter 2023 the legislature appropriated 1.5 or 4.5 million because we knew that amount would not suffice for the full fiscal year Dale allowed us to draw down the response in the first two quarters in light of our census rising costs of workforce challenges we will need an additional 2.1 million in order for the programs to remain open through June 23 most programs are operating at only 50% capacity or less and other and others are struggling to hire staff largely in part due to our very low Medicaid university rate at 1860 an hour which makes us unable to compete effectively with other higher entities the cost of just about everything has everyone else that has gone through the group insurance cleaning supplies food building everything is just amazing right now as you're also aware deep it is in the process of a rate setting but that recommendation the benefits favorable and captures our needs will not be a time to keep us file will not be a time to keep us viable to this current year the reality of our fiscal situation is part due to COVID part due to inflation no large part to due to our extremely low Medicaid university Delta services provide volunteers with much even service for themselves and their family caregivers and we help the state of Vermont to keep health care costs and nursing home costs down I asked you to continue to support us through the budget adjustment app and continue to work with us to stabilize that financial situation through your deliberations this legislative session thank you so much for your time thank you for the consideration thank you very much next we have Chad vigor followed in person by Susan Aronoff you're muted there you go thank you madam chair and the committee members for allowing me to testify today my name is Chad VJ and I'm the executive director of recovery house member of the substance use treatment provider community recovery house has been serving Vermont residents for the past 50 years I'm here today to talk about the FY 23 justice reinvestment appropriation but before I begin I do want to let you know that I will also be reaching out to representative Emmons and the house corrections and institutions committee to share our request during fiscal year 22 recovery house and more specifically the Serenity House program took in at least 117 clients with a known connection to the Department of Corrections we estimate the percentage of known and unknown justice or corrections involved individuals to be between 25 and 50 percent of our general population as we work to transition individuals out of incarceration and into treatment or into treatment at the referral of their probation or parole officer we are faced with the logistics that require time and human resources within our agency more than most of our general population we're currently striving to reduce the time between the first call requesting service to admission with this and the logistics we face it is important to grow our admission staff with met with Medicaid reimbursement rates being as low as they are recovery house is requesting an appropriation of $50,000 to cover the additional cost of admissions expansion for this fiscal year thank you for your consideration welcome thank you keep next up is Susan Aaron on and followed by and so soon Susan from Vermont disabilities development should be live in the person in here okay well we'll come back on keep a little mark here so and so soon from the Vermont affordable housing coalition followed by Andrew winter both on zoom thank you madam chair members of the committee for the record I am and so soon and I am the interim executive director of the Vermont affordable housing coalition the Vermont affordable housing coalition brings together more than 80 affordable housing developer service providers and other organizations across the state of Vermont I'm here to request that the budget adjustment act include funding for two immediate priorities to address the state's crisis of how homelessness and affordable housing the coalition supports the proposed $3 million in the budget adjustment act for the home family voucher program for families transitioning out of homelessness we are concerned however that many of our volunteers will become unsheltered or end up in unsafe housing conditions absent immediate action to extend and expand eligibility of the GA emergency housing program we ask that the budget adjustment ask act increase funding to the GA emergency housing program through June 30th 2023 to prevent unsheltered homelessness specifically we are requesting an increase in funding through the BAA to extend eligibility to households in both the GA housing and transitional housing programs until June 30th 2023 we know that housing not motels the solution to homelessness nonprofit housing developers have asked for a $175 million investment in housing programs as a step towards addressing the state's critical housing shortage we ask however that you invest $50 million to the Vermont housing and conservation board through the budget adjustment act in addition to the $5 million included in the budget adjustment act for the Vermont housing improvement program or v hip this would maintain the current pipeline of housing development and ensure that progress in addressing the state's housing crisis is sustained through the remainder of the fiscal year thank you for your for consideration of this request and commitment to housing all Vermonters thank you and I believe Susan Aronoff is in the room now so Susan why don't you come up and then we'll get back in line and do Andrew winter sorry catch your breath hi so good afternoon so I was going to testify remotely this is my first time back in the building and when I realized all the people on this committee the new people on this committee I just decided it was worth the effort and worth the risk to show up in person so thank you and sorry for being late for the record Susan Aronoff I do the policy work for the Vermont developmental disabilities council that's a bit of a mouthful I submitted written testimony that better describes who we are haven't really caught my breath yet sorry it's a long hill up here so our main point this year is quality is job one so I'm a rare state employee that gets to be somewhat of an insider subject matter expert on the needs of our developmental disability system and yet we're entirely federally funded we have an agreement with the agency of human services I can speak and represent the needs of the people with disabilities and family members depart from the governor's recommended budget last year the house put money I'm sorry put requirements to improve quality oversight for developmental disability services it passed a requirement to increase oversight the Senate Appropriations Committee took the increased oversight out because the positions were not funded we would like you to fund those positions it was a great idea last year it's an even better idea this year since we left in May I have hot links in the materials I submitted there have been a lot of tragedies in the developmental disability system there are for adults charged shared living providers charged with abuse and neglect in Franklin County really horrific charges I would really appreciate it if you'd read the article and read the council's letter in December we learned of more abuse and neglect charges okay and then yesterday there was an in-depth article in the digger that really laid the current system bear and I'm going to try to quote offhand my boss Kirsten Murphy the executive director of the Vermont Developmental Disabilities Council she's absolutely right when she says it's a lot of different problems and there are and I want to stress this no bad actors I don't know anyone who works harder than the people who work in our developmental disability system whether they are home shared living providers who suddenly had to become 24-hour caretakers anyway it's an under resource system it was in crisis for her for COVID it's in crisis now please fund those positions now last thing really quick one care Vermont should not get any more Medicaid funds please read it please ask the RBA questions thank you anyone better off good afternoon committee members and madam chair my name is Andrew winter and I'm the executive director of Twin Pines Housing Trust in White River Junction Twin Pines housing is the regional nonprofit serving the Upper Valley region of Vermont in New Hampshire we provide a range of affordable opportunities to some 565 households across the region including those transitioning from homelessness to general occupancy housing to age restricted or senior housing we also provide home ownership opportunities to nearly 70 families through our shared equity home ownership program whether rental or home ownership properties all have benefited from the state and the legislature's investment in affordable housing over many years there has been a historic level of funding for housing over the last several years that's been appreciated and has gotten out to community organizations like Twin Pines to address the most significant needs facing the state a lack of housing this includes three projects in the town of Hartford that will be under construction this year representing 110 units these include 18 units of supportive housing for the chronically homeless with services provided by the upper valley haven our regional homeless shelter provider it includes 82 units of rental housing serving a range of incomes including moderate income households who cannot find high quality housing in the upper valley strong and expensive housing market where the vacancy rate is 1% thank you for the appropriation last year 55 million dollars to VHCB through the BAA that made projects like these possible we are hopeful that you will again consider making housing a priority this year through the BAA with an appropriation of 50 million dollars and give us and our peers across the state the ability to bring war projects forward securing funding now gives us the knowledge and certainty to move forward with new projects in our pipeline this can take six months or more of work to ready for an application for funding projects including include creating for home ownership opportunities in the town of Woodstock for moderate income families renovating an existing senior housing development in Woodstock developed in the 1970s that we recently acquired and has suffered from under investment. You're looking at additional projects in Heartland and Hartford and Thetford and Fairleigh all need the kind of investment that you can make with additional funds for VHCB. The H.C.B. has indicated that last year's allocation will be committed by the end of June and there are likely many more projects to fund that there are resources available. I would encourage you to prioritize housing with an additional 50 million dollars and help us build homes for those across Vermont. You're welcome. Next up we have Paul Dragon from CVOEO followed by Anne Lawless from the town of Wheelock. I feel that that's risky if she wants to please sit with chair. Thank you madam chair and committee members. Thank you for having me today. We're here to request a budget adjustment to start the process of solving child homelessness in Vermont. We think this is a strategic first step to ending to solving all homelessness in Vermont. Child homelessness in Vermont. If you look back 2016 to the current in 2016 we had 156 households who are experiencing homelessness in Vermont. In 2022 that went to 857 and we know some of the reasons because of the pandemic. Today approximately 450 to 500 families are experiencing homelessness with over 550 children in Vermont experiencing homelessness according to DCF data back in late December. We think this is a number that with a strategic investment we can solve childhood homelessness in Vermont. We know the risks due to childhood homelessness. We know we have to go upstream. Some of the risks include emotional and behavioral problems, increased risk of serious health problems, including chronic health issues. We also know that children are more likely to experience homelessness as adults if they have experienced childhood homelessness. So the also the effects of attendance and academic performance with even one brief period of homelessness is well known. So some of the strategies that work we fully support our housing partners and they're asked for more affordable housing. That is a key piece for this. We are asking in the BAA for rental subsidies for rapid rehousing for families and we are also asking for support services to wrap families in support services and do targeted case management. So for the BAA we're asking for an additional 2.1 million in rental subsidies to rapidly rehouse families. This is in addition to the 3 million in the CARES housing voucher program already in the BAA, which we are super super thankful for. We'd like to include in the budget adjustment an additional 1.5 million this year and then annually to increase support services for families through the family supportive housing program. This state investment can be matched with Medicaid funding under the targeted case management category and that will increase the overall amount for needed support services for. So this will be a start and then we have a funding pattern for years after this, but this will be a needed first investment for solving child homelessness in Vermont. Again, a strategic investment, a necessary first step to solving all homelessness in Vermont, something that's doable and relatively possible with funding. Thank you so much. Welcome. Hey, thank you. Next up is Anne Lawless, followed by Sharon Elingwood from N.E.K. Choice School District. Thank you very much, Madam Chair and committee members. I serve on the town of Wheelock Select Board. And I really appreciate the opportunity to talk about some of the provisions in the Budget Adjustment Act. Wheelock has a population of 759 and we're a hill town in Caledonia County. We have a three person select board, part-time clerk treasurer working under 30 hours a week and a two person full-time road crew. We share a volunteer fire department, a transfer station and a pre-K through eight elementary school with our neighbor Sheffield. And one of the reasons it's hard to fill boards and commissions is that volunteers, they can feel insecure when they lack the expertise that typically a paid administrator or a consultant would bring in a larger town. We have some big needs and big projects underway and we would really benefit from help researching funding opportunities, applying for grants and managing the projects and grant closeouts. Making our town hall accessible is our most important project and we've been working on this for over a decade. Yes, in 2020 we had a municipal planning grant, but it didn't get us across the finish line with our voters, but we're getting closer again. We have an architect under contract. Some funds, the voters set aside earlier and we have ARPA funds, but grant funds could make our ARPA funds go so much further. We have a small fire district that serves about 20 households and during the drought last summer there was a water shortage. People woke up that a governance transition was needed and it's now underway, thankfully. And while it's not a town project, it's important and there are three town hookups and very likely there are infrastructure needs because this system is pretty old. A little more on grants. For the past couple of years, I've volunteered to write grants. We do pretty well with the applicant friendly V-trans ones that do not have the the strings attached from the federal government. Those are those are much more challenging. I just want to put in a good word for all the state employees we've worked with who are exceptionally they're just so good. They're so helpful and knowledgeable, but neither I personally nor our clerk nor our planning commission members nor our ARPA committee members have the capacity or the time to research and plan the more complex grants. And I love doing this, but I might not get reelected in 2025. You have about 30 seconds. Some in our town do not feel it's worthwhile to seek these large opportunities because of administrative burden, and I think it's hard for people to understand the rules. One last example is just following the law. We're on our third try to adopt flood regs. It's mistakes are made in the adoption process. It's very exacting. So thank you very much for hearing me out and we appreciate any help you can provide for more resources. Thank you. Welcome and thank you for your work. Next up we have in the room Sharon Ellingwood, followed by Jill Mazah Olsen. Good afternoon. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you committee. I drove two hours each way from Eastern Essex County on the border of New Hampshire to be in person today to basically echo what Anne Lawless just said. I'm so honored to speak after her. I live in Lemington and our population is 100 not 700. So I'm here to speak in favor of the BAA Rural Infrastructure Assistance Program, just as Anne did, to express how much it would help small towns across all of Vermont, not just Essex County, to have the capacity to apply for further funding in such small infrastructure. My town has about 63 registered voters, no sidewalks, no paved roads, no schools and no post office, two people per square mile. I live on a state paved road with underserved internet, no cell service whatsoever. I have a career, a teenager, aging parents. I'm on the N.E.K. School District Board, which is nine towns in Essex County and one in Kirby and Caldoni County, and I'm on my Supervisor Union and I'm on nine committees right now, which sounds glamorous, but I love my work, but I'm getting tired and having this capacity could allow us to really expand things for our towns and not just my town, but many towns. All of our select board members have full-time jobs. We have zero full-time municipal employees and 99% of the positions in town are held by people with one or more jobs. We have zero hospitals in Essex County, zero pharmacies, zero colleges and one high school, over 675 square miles. So we just don't have the capacity to build bigger projects because of the time we have to do just the basic things in town like audits and elections. E911 right now we're digitizing maps with three select board members who work very, very hard. So to have this funding in the BAA would help us with what who went and where to apply and just be very significant. One size does not fit all. Our pre-K kids right now along the river in New Hampshire can't get pre-K. The Vermont pre-K's are in Vermont 30 miles away and the state will not pay for them to go one mile away into New Hampshire to a pre-K, where they're going to be a choice student anyway when they turn five. So we have kids missing two years of early intervention and that just doesn't fit for us. Again the outcomes could really make a big difference for us to capacity build and I commend everyone who's working hard on this for every small town not just our area. It's not about the money. This is our moment. You are our partners. It's not about the money. It is about the capacity to be at the starting line as everyone else. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next up is Jill Mazel Olsen followed by Mary Kate Mullman. Good afternoon. I'm Jill Mazel Olsen. I am the executive director of the V&As of Vermont. So I'm representing home health and hospice agencies. We are here to ask for an appropriation of in state dollars four hundred and twenty two thousand dollars. It's just over one point one million with the Medicaid match for our skilled home health services that will bring us to 90 percent of the Medicare fee for service schedule which is a lower schedule than the standard rate. It's a BAA request because we are on a January one timeframe for skilled home health rate increases. So we've been working with Diva over since 2019 to try to bring our rates to 100 percent of Medicare as we do for primary care. And our last increase was one year ago. And that is the schedule they asked us to be on because of the way the federal rate updates work. So we're lined up with hospice and lined up with the Medicare schedule. Skilled home health is our medical care at home. So we do lots of kinds of services. But this is nurses and therapists in your home often after hospitalization. So this service is critical for hospital discharges. And a lot of people get discharged home with they need intravenous antibiotics. They might need wound care. They might need other kinds of supports after surgery. This service is we've preserved access this year but it is definitely imperiled. Every home health agency in Vermont with maybe one exception is currently operating at a loss. A situation we've never seen before at this level. To preserve access some agencies are using as much as 50 percent of their using travelers for as much as 50 percent of their visits. So a traveler is about $300 a visit. Our Medicaid rate is about one twenty two. So there's no way to continue like this. Unfortunately CMS is also cutting our standard Medicare rate. They cut us on January one by three point two five. That's a cut to the standard rate. And on January one of 24 they will cut us by seven point eight five. And they're planning a clawback equal to three years of the seven point eight five. So we can't go on like this. So it's a BAA request again because it's been a year since our last increase. And it's really it's really a critical service. I also submitted written testimony so you can see this in a little more detail. There's also two elements that we in the BAA that we support. There's a federally mandated increase for hospice rates. So of course we support that and then there's a language adjustment to act 83 section seventy two. That's the workforce retention grant and it increases the amount for home health agencies. And that's a program that's already funded but there's some leftover dollars and it would increase our our allocation. Thank you very much. Next up is Mary Kate Mullman and then on Zoom will be Corinne Julo. Good afternoon Madam Chair members of the committee for the record my name is Mary Kate Mullman I'm Vermont Director of Public Policy for Bistate Primary Care Association. Bistate is an organization that supports federally qualified health centers in both New Hampshire and Vermont. Obviously I'm here to talk about the Vermont health centers. Specifically I want to address the annual rate increase for FQHCs that was item 11 in Diva's BAA presentation last week. I'm going to put my request first and then I'm going to explain what that actually means right after. We are asking for that that rate increase at a minimum use the calendar year 2023 Medicare economic index instead of the calendar year 2022 Medicare economic index which is what they currently use for that annual adjustment. So what does that mean. Well first of all I want to cover review what an FQHC is Vermont has 11 health centers with sites in every county and the state and we provide services to a third of Vermonters regardless of their ability to pay or their insurance status. These services include primary care mental health substance use disorder oral health reproductive health and supportive services such as translation and transportation. How are FQHCs funded. So for Medicaid services federal statute requires that states at a minimum provide FQHCs with an encounter rate for Medicaid covered services in Vermont that encounter rate covers mental health services primary care services and additional wraparound services. Federal statute also requires that at a minimum state Medicaid programs increase the encounter rates by the Medicare economic index inflation figure which is what I referenced in our ask. The item 11 in Diva that annual increase for FQHCs use the 2022 MEI which is 2.1%. We're asking the legislature to use the 2023 MEI which is 3.8%. So what are those numbers look like. We're confirming them with Diva I still have to get confirmation from them but we believe this is looking at an increase for the FQHCs from 324,000 to 586,000 which is about a difference increase of 262,000. And I want to call out that this increase doesn't come close to closing the gap between our cost and reimbursement. We had buried done to an analysis over the summer that looked at the 2021 differences between cost and reimbursement and saw that the deficit across all of Vermont's health care centers or health centers was 14 million. So this is a drop in the bucket but we're hoping it's a step in the right direction so thank you. Thank you very much. Next up is Korean Julo followed by Megan Sullivan. In support of the budget adjustment for the rural infrastructure assistance program. I am Korean Julo and I'm from North Europe. We are five islands of Lake Champlain with a population of around 1,000. We have a municipal water department that services about 680 properties and is in some need of some major infrastructure repair improvements. Our little part of Vermont operates with the hard work of eight boards including over 50 officials supported by 15 employees and many volunteers. My official roles are town clerk, treasurer, delinquent tax collector, waterfront supervisor, and select work clerk. I think I said them all. But many of the officials and employees in North Europe wear as many hats as these. We like to try and get things done in North Europe. We do so despite not having a paid position responsible for the non-statutory requirements necessary to run government at any level in the modern age. Our select board, a group of five, is responsible for facilities maintenance, human resources, technology infrastructure, and cyber security. The website, compiling a town report, negotiating contracts, building budgets, writing warnings, drafting policies and ordinances, emergency management, animal control, care of the roads, and any other tasks not committed to law by any other to any other officer. I apologize, the list. But the town office supports much of this work. We are, however, bound by our statutory duties and must attend to them first. This creates a bit of a haphazard approach to some tasks and definitely resolves in zero time left for long-term, one-off projects, such as grant writing. Not only is there no position to find right and administer grants, but a grant is a stand out for a large project. In a system where elected officials turn over every two to three years, an employee can only assist when no elections are scheduled or snow is falling, et cetera. There is no mechanism for project management, especially for projects that span multiple years, like major water infrastructure improvements. The unprecedented amount of federal dollars available have highlighted this efficiency in small rural government. I believe rural infrastructure assistance program would help. I was disappointed to learn that North Carolina would not qualify for the program. I would urge not only supporting this program, but if possible, expanding to all rural towns to know administrative positions. We are hopeful and ready to accomplish even greater things in North Carolina. I appreciate the time. Great job. Thank you. OK. So next up is Megan Sullivan, followed by Brian Carroll from the town of Glover. Good afternoon. Madam Chair and committee members, thank you for having me for the record. My name is Megan Sullivan, and I am the Vice President of Government Affairs for the Vermont Chamber of Commerce. The Vermont Chamber's mission is to secure an economy conductive to business growth while enhancing Vermont's way of life. It is because of this mission that we are supporting recommendations in the BAA that aim to advance Vermont's economy and grow our workforce, which I'm going to discuss in four areas of workforce, housing, rural capacity and broadband. With over 20,000 job openings and not enough people in the state to fill them, we need more people. New Americans have always been an important part of Vermont's culture and workforce in continuing to welcome these individuals and families as a critical part of our future pregnancy. Barriers that exist for these community members to enter the workforce can be helped through employment assistance programs, and we ask that you support the additional funding proposed in the BAA for these important programs. In housing, recent graduates and seasoned professionals alike are deterred from working in Vermont due to statewide supply shortages in suitable housing. The Vermont Housing Investment Program has provided an important investment opportunity to increase housing units available across Vermont, and we encourage you to also support additional funding for this program. In rural capacity, federal funds that have flowed to Vermont for COVID-19 recovery provided a once in a lifetime opportunity to invest in Vermont's communities and infrastructure. For underserved communities that we've been hearing, these funds have remained out of reach due to a lack of staff capacity to find, apply, and administer funds. With an approaching expiration date to obligate and use these funds, there is an urgency to help underserved communities with these existing programs. We request that you support the governor's request for $3 million in the rural infrastructure program to be able to provide technical assistance for those underserved communities to access the transformative programs that this body created during the last biennium. And lastly in broadband, there are areas of Vermont that are unserved by high-speed internet or underserved because they can't access internet altogether or are served only by DSL. Particularly in rural towns, small businesses struggle to keep pace without reliable internet and spotting connections and communities stagnate or shrink because they struggle to attract new residents to a place without reliable internet connection for work and for school. The Vermont Chamber of Commerce supported the state's application for these competitive funds from NTIA and now support the governor's request for $30 million in the BAA to leverage these federal funds. Thank you for your time and for all of your efforts to look at how to support Vermont's economy to grow into the future. Thank you. Thanks. Next up is on Zoom, Brian Carroll, followed by in the room, Julie Tesler. Was I, I guess I was muted. There you go. Now we hear you. Okay. Good afternoon and thank you for allowing me to testify on this important legislation. My name is Brian Carroll. I'm a retired Vermont public school administrator, former select board member and current town administrator for the town of Glover. I'm here to speak on behalf of the recommendations in the BAA for the $3 million for the agency of administration to develop a program to provide technical assistance to rural communities. My wife and I moved to Glover 24 years ago and often recall our first town meeting in 2000. It was like something out of a Hollywood movie, procedure, candor, direct conversations, even humor. Everything appeared to work to apprise the people of the important budget decisions for managing a small town. You had the moderator reading the articles and setting the procedure. Three members select board of the town clerk on stage, providing the critical information for attendees to take a floor vote. It was pure democracy, simpler times. I was elected to the select board in 2014 and was green to the practices of town government. For the first two years, I followed the direction of a semi-retired board member who had the time to volunteer and lead projects like constructing a new town garage, proposing a design for a three-mile sewer line, creating an energy committee. I was still in a full-time job at that time and it was understood that my time was limited for taking on such leadership commitment. In subsequent years, I gathered my footing and began facilitating my own discussions and decisions. However, being an organizational wonk, I grew concerned with the idea that succeeding board members would almost need to be retired in order to get the people's work done. Eventually turnover did occur and the board was forced to equally distribute the various responsibilities held by that one board member to all three board members, things like sewer roads, dam management, human resources, technology, lake environment, health, et cetera. The new system appeared effective for a period and that time ended when COVID arrived. We now face decisions involving life or death and may ask ourselves what is our role to create, maintain safe town environments should we require masking in our business. These discussions pushed the town government into areas that were more pressing and highlighted the challenges facing Glover. Shortly after this period, we received a $318,000 of ARPA money with some general loose guidelines relating to affordable housing, childcare, economic development, employment, et cetera. Those big ticket items outlined in the initial ARPA description were tough to wrap our heads around. We had nowhere near the scale of infrastructure to address those needs. I'm going to move down to what we learned. So about 20 seconds, sir. 20 seconds. Basically, I became the town administrator part-time using ARPA funds and became quickly apparent that in order to disperse ARPA, we had to have someone in the lead. We do have a town administrator. We need technical, organizational, and leadership skills for sustaining growth. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. Next up is Julie Tesler, followed by Rachel Sealy. Good afternoon. Thank you for having me and all of us here today. I want to start by thanking the Committee for the 8% rate increase that was given to designated specialized service agencies last year. It was a lifesaver. Really appreciate it. Today, I'd like to talk about rate equity. The Medicaid rates at the designated agencies influence our ability to provide access to quality services. We recognize also that CMS and AHS both want to understand and address the variation in rates as the state analyzes and develops improved payment methodologies. Rate equity for similar services is important for our communities and for the agencies. Each network agency, though, provides both mandated core services and variation in services based on regional needs and resources, and sometimes they're a resource for the whole state. And the rates developed over time based on history, institutions, acuity, new innovations. So they're pretty varied. However, the disparity in rates is, at this point, a little hard to quantify because there's so much variation. We'll be working with a national consultant, Cohn Resnick, who has a federally approved cost report process. So we're developing that information, but it's going to take a little time. In the interim, though, we think we can begin to make some investments in those outlier agencies that are clearly below the other agencies. And so what we'd like to do is ask that this committee, rather than what we don't want, is don't redistribute funds from all the agencies because we're all struggling. There's a workforce crisis. There's inflation. There's increasing demand and acuity for the people we serve. So no agency can afford to lose. We're asking that you make an investment through budget adjustment for the few agencies that could really use at least a boost on an interim level and then we'll have more information and can make better decisions moving forward about making those investments. So thank you for the opportunity to bring this to you today. We're still working on the numbers because it is really complicated. We have two CFOs working away trying to figure that out and we'll get that information to you soon. And a heads up, we will be asking for across the board rate increase of 10% in the FY24 budget because even though that 8% was really helpful, we're pretty much in the same spot we were last year with over 1,000 staff vacancies statewide. A turnover rate last year of over 33%. Vacancy rates in mental health of 20% and in developmental disabilities of 24%. So you can imagine the agencies are really struggling right now but we thought in budget adjustment if we could lift the few that really have the greatest disparity in rates that that would be a good investment. And so I thank you for your time. Look forward to getting to know many of you and working with you in the future. Thank you. Next up is Rachel Selig followed by Robert Little. Good afternoon Madam Chair and members of the committee. For the record, my name is Rachel Selig. I'm the Director of the Disability Law Project at Vermont Legal Aid and our Staff Attorney for Government Relations here in the legislature. Vermont Legal Aid is a statewide non-profit legal services organization with five offices across the state. With our sister organization Legal Services Vermont, we respond to over 20,000 requests for legal help each year. We help Vermonters with problems having to do with access to their public benefits, housing, education, employment, civil and individual rights, health, including access to long-term care and home and community-based care and assistance to crime victims. I'm not here today to ask for a budget adjustment act appropriation for us. I'm here to ask for you to support funding for our clients. You've heard from many programs today who also serve our clients and we certainly support those. Our clients are struggling to be able to access or programs including Adult Day, Skilled Nursing, Developmental Services and Mental Health Services from designated agencies and other programs for many of the reasons that have already been described. I'd like to focus today though on the topic raised by Ann Saussin from the Vermont Affordable Housing Coalition, which is the need to continue funding the GA program for current GA and transitional housing recipients. This morning once again, DCF did not bring to the legislative committee on administrative rules a different rule or plan for this program. And so the committee did vote to object to the rule change for this program that stopped folks from being able to apply for transitional housing back in October. We still have a homelessness crisis, however. And right now the expectation is that the federal funds are going to run out in approximately March. We don't have places for those folks to go and I do not believe that it is an acceptable policy choice for us to send folks into tents and sleeping bags across our community. So we would ask that you appropriate enough funds to avoid that return to unsheltered homelessness through the end of the fiscal year so that our clients can remain housed where it is easier to provide them services, whether those are social services or legal services while the legislature works to develop a longer term plan for shelter, for affordable housing and for rental subsidies. Thank you very much. I have this Robert Little from Rural Edge and Linden followed online by Kathy Beyer from Evernor. Good afternoon. For the record, my name is Robert Little. I serve as the director of community development with Rural Edge, the nonprofit housing developer in the Northeast Kingdom. I also serve as the vice chair for the Vermont Affordable Housing Coalition. First, I want to thank you and your colleagues for the unprecedented transformational investment you have made in affordable housing. Since CARES Act and ARPA funds have been allocated, Rural Edge alone has brought on 74 new units with another 132 fully funded or under construction. We are very proud of these accomplishments and we have 14 projects in our pipeline for the next four years. Today, I want to highlight one of those projects. Packard Court is currently several vacant lots on Main Street in St. Johnsbury and has been so since a significant fire destroyed the prior buildings in 2009. Rural Edge owns the site thanks to a federal appropriation from then Senator Leahy in 2012. Our plan is to construct 30 units of senior housing on the site with onsite support and services at home or sash onsite. The project has already been highlighted by the governor as a shovel ready project. The site is ideal for senior housing as it is in the designated downtown and close to many services including the St. Johnsbury senior meal site and the Good Living Senior Center. Adding 30 units of senior housing to this area of the town will be a significant benefit not just to the town but to the residents as they will truly be part of the community. Rural Edge is currently submitting applications to HUD for program 202 funding. This is a national competition that if awarded will bring 3.8 million dollars of federal funding to the state. We are also working on an application to VHFA for 9% tax credits which would generate 7.6 million in limited partner equity. ACCD has already committed 378,000 in Brownfield funds to clean the site and the town of St. Johnsbury has noted the importance of this project and allocated $50,000 of local ARPA funds to the project. We anticipate and ask to VHCB of 4.1 million to the project in May. Now we're hearing that funding could be limited at that time and if these funds could not be committed it would stall the project. If construction which is currently anticipated to commence in the spring of 2024 were delayed because of this climate of inflating prices and limited availability of contractors the delay in funding commitments could be the difference between this project happening or not. So it's quite serious. We are excited to see the $5 million appropriation for VHIP in the current Budget Adjustment Act. We administer that program in the Northeast Kingdom which has already brought 30 units online. Yes, the $50 million appropriation in the BAA to VHCB will ensure that we can continue to do the transformational work we do every day. Thank you for your time and consideration of this request. Next up, next to our online Cathy Byer from Ever North and followed by Jim Moulton from Vermont Public Transit. Good afternoon Madam Chair and members of the committee. My company Ever North is a nonprofit affordable housing developer that works across the state and we've been doing this work for over 30 years and we have created or renovated over 6,000 apartments across the state. I personally have been doing this work for over 20 years and I can tell you I have never seen a housing market like the one we are living with today. The legislature recognized the magnitude of the housing crisis and made significant investments in housing in 2022 and 2023 state budgets and as a result many Vermonters were found housing. In partnership with our regional nonprofits like rural Edge and Robert Little who just testified before me we currently have 300 units under construction that includes 20 units in Bristol where we have tremendous community support and that project is slated to be completed in July and we're constantly asked when can people start moving in? We have another 590 apartments in 16 different projects across the state from West Rutland to St. John'sbury that are in various stages of permitting and gathering pre-development financing. But without an additional investment by this legislature some of these 16 projects will be stalled and may not be built. As was done last year we are hoping you can include an additional investment of 50 million in this budget investment act that will help us keep this pipeline on track. I know that you all are doing the hard work so I very much thank you for your time and your consideration. Thank you, thanks very much. Next up, Jim Moulton followed by Jonathan Baker from VCUDA. Good afternoon, thank you Madam Chair and committee members. Excuse me for the record my name is Jim Moulton. I'm the executive director of Tri Valley Transit one of eight public transportation providers in the state and also the chair of the Vermont Public Transportation Association the trade association for all providers together. We provide transportation for the general public, elders, persons with disabilities, Medicaid members and much more. Today I'm here to specifically discuss a funding gap in Medicaid transportation which does not appear in the governor's budget adjustment request. We face a lot in common with much of the previous testimony that you've heard. Major labor market shortages, significant general inflation challenges. However, we also face some specific industry cost increases. Everyone here of course is aware of the huge increase in fuel prices, the fuel that runs our industry. There's also been a large increase in the cost of reimbursing our volunteer workforce across the state. We use volunteers who donate their time but we do reimburse them for the use of their personal cars to provide many of the rides to Medicaid recipients. Also unique to how the Medicaid transportation system is structured, since 2020, we have experienced a 20% drop in revenues from member premiums. The number of people paying into the system has dropped. So our revenues have dropped. We've also at the same time experienced a 50% increase in the average number of rides provided to each eligible enrolling. This is due to an increase in what we call super users. These are folks who need more than 120 rides per year for things like methadone treatment, cancer treatment, kidney dialysis, life changing, life saving services. In addition, unique to transportation, we are unable to cost shift our excess expense of Medicaid onto other cost centers or funding sources. We can't shift our costs onto Department of Transportation Revenues, for example. Thus, for fiscal year 23, the current fiscal year, we are seeking an additional $1.7 million to support the Medicaid transportation program. We've experienced half of that loss already through December and anticipated continuing for the next six months. Thank you for your time. Thank you for listening. Welcome, thank you. Thank you. Next up is Jonathan Baker from Danville, followed by Molly Dugan from Cathedral Square. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. I'm actually here on behalf of NEK Community Broadband. So we are the largest and most rural CUD in Vermont. So the CUDs are municipalities that were created by the administration to build affordable broadband in the areas that were abandoned by the national for-profit ISPs. So we serve the most rural and economically disadvantaged areas of our state. And because we are a volunteer-led organization, we don't have shareholders or executive bonus packages to support. We see the number one driver of higher bills to our customers as debt service. That's obviously interest paid to banks. And so the question we often ask is how can we get money out of the hands of the banks and back into Vermonters' pockets so that those dollars can flow back into our communities. And we are very excited about the administration's decision to allocate 30 million for a middle-mile network. And we'd be even more excited if you would support the creation of a revolving loan fund that is interest-free. That would reduce the interest payments on infrastructure built and put money directly back into the pockets of Vermonters. Once again, thank you for your continued support and I'll yield the rest of my time. Molly Dugan in person from Cathedral Square. And then after that is Ellie de Villier and I'm probably pronouncing your name wrong too, Ellie. Sorry, Vermont Communication Community District, but Molly. Thank you. Good afternoon. Chair Lanford and members of the House of Appropriations Committee. My name is Molly Dugan. I'm Director of Policy and Strategic Initiatives at Cathedral Square. I'm also a co-chair of the Vermont Housing and Conservation Coalition. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. I wanted to testify to ask that you direct $50 million to the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board for the development of more affordable housing in this year's budget adjustment. The success we have had bringing new affordable homes to communities across the state with the infusion of funding over the past few years is real and must continue. Importantly, this past investment included funds allocated through the BAA. In fact, the House appropriated $55 million to VHCB via the budget adjustment last year. A similar investment in this year's BAA would clearly express the policy priority of addressing our state's housing crisis and provide affordable housing developers like Cathedral Square with the confidence that there will be funding available to turn the projects we are diligently working on today across the finish line and starting construction in the very near future. Cathedral Square is a nonprofit housing and services organization that's been operating for 45 years. We pioneered the SASH Support and Services at Home Model in 2011 to help ensure across the state that Vermonters have access to the tools, resources and care partnerships necessary to live in their chosen homes and communities for as long as possible. We own and manage 27 housing communities providing homes to just about 1,300 Vermonters in over 1,000 apartments. And we serve primarily older adults and those with disabilities. 25% of our residents were homeless before coming and living at Cathedral Square. We currently have 1,200, a little bit more than 1,200 people, mostly older adults on our wait list. It takes about three to five years to get people in. This is roughly the same number that is in our existing portfolio that has taken us over 40 years to develop. With the growing aging demographic in our state and the current sizeable count of homeless individuals and families, we must continue the huge investments in housing creation if we are serious about addressing this crisis. With the legislature's commitment to affordable housing over the past few years, we were able to build affordable housing recently in South Hero, 30 apartments that opened this past October. We already, that is all filled up and we already have 86 individuals on the wait list. Our small property development team at Cathedral Square is currently hard at work to create more housing this time in St. Albans. This will be a 33, 33 affordable apartments and is gonna be taking place at the former, hopefully at a former Brownfield site called the Fonda site. We need to have the confidence now that we can be sure to develop that site in St. Albans in the near future. Thank you so much for your time. Next up is Ellie Duvier from the Vermont Communications Union District followed by Maureen Gilbert from Lund. Hello, good afternoon. Thank you, Madam Chair and members of the committee. I am Ellie Duvier's president of the Vermont Communications Union District Association, Vakuta, and I'm also executive director of Maple Broadband, a CUD in Addison County. Vakuta supports and applauds the administration's further investment of $30 million in affordable broadband through provision of matching funds for an NTIA broadband grant. And I wanted to provide some context on the importance of this today. You are all aware that many residents and businesses across Vermont lack access to high-speed broadband, often relying on slow and unreliable DSL. A middle-mile fiber network that provides affordable bandwidth for ISPs will support the statewide broadband rollout by helping to keep residential customer costs as low as possible. We hope that any middle-mile network built in Vermont will prioritize residential subscriber access and rates. The good news is that Vermont is well situated to accomplish these goals, having already established the publicly-owned and community-governed communications union districts, which make up Vakuta. In continuation of the legislature's vision of affordable broadband for all Vermonters and in recognition of the fact that the middle-mile will be built with majority public dollars, it is critical that the ownership and operation of the middle-mile be for the public benefits and with the same level of citizen-driven oversight. Simply put, it's our tax money and we should derive maximum benefit from it. Thank you very much for your support, time and consideration this afternoon. You're welcome. Thank you. Next up is Maureen Gilbert from Lund and then followed by Josie Henry from the town of Alberg. Madam Chair, members of the committee, thank you for inviting public testimony. For the record, my name is Maureen Gilbert and I'm the chair of the Lund Board, a nonprofit in Burlington, Vermont, serving children and families statewide for over 130 years. Lund's CEO, Mary Burns, very much wanted to be with you here today, but is unavailable due to COVID. Lund's residential treatment program is the only place in Vermont and one of the few in the country where pregnant and parenting people can access residential treatment for substance use disorder and mental health challenges with their children living with them. This eliminates a major barrier to treatment and it's good for children too. It advances our mission of helping children thrive by empowering families to break cycles of poverty, addiction and abuse. For many residents, the alternatives to residential treatment at Lund include incarceration, homelessness, family separation. At Lund, they receive evidence-based outcomes-driven treatment. The program is licensed by the Department for Children and Families and our funding is set by the Department for Vermont Health Access using the Private Non-Medical Institution or PNMI rate setting rules, rules that have long been identified by the provider community and state as flawed. With this as background, I'm gonna tell you what's happening right now at Lund. We've seen new challenges in this stage of the pandemic. Residents are coming to Lund with more intense needs requiring more staff to support them safely and we've faced the same challenges recruiting and retaining staff as so many other businesses and nonprofits including ones who have spoken today. We're licensed to serve 26 families and we always have a wait list but due to staffing shortages since late 2021, we've had to serve fewer families in order to serve them safely and effectively. Due to the structure of PNMI funding that reduced census has led to significant financial losses for the agency. We have been receiving extraordinary financial relief funding from the state to help cover those losses but in November DCF told Lund it would not approve our application for losses dating back to July 2022 saying that this relief was meant to be temporary. So at this time we're projecting a loss of 1.2 million by June 30th of 2022 which is unsustainable and puts the future of this essential program at risk. The Lund team is working hard to recruit and making progress with the help of new strategies and increased wages but we need your help to sustain this program until we can get back to full capacity. We're asking that the governor's budget adjustment include 1.2 million in bridge funding to enable the continuation of this essential program. Please be aware that the governor's budget adjustment proposal already includes 1.9 million inflationary increase for PNMI funding to be spread across all 12 of Vermont's PNMI programs. Our request today is separate from an additional to that important adjustment. The Vermonters who are served by Lund and their families and communities need your help and we thank you for considering this request. Thank you. And thank you for bringing us that other number that we might get it confused with. Absolutely. Next up is Josie Henry from the town of Alberg followed by Chloe Leary from the Winston Proudy Center. Good afternoon. Thank you, Madam Chair and members of the committee for this opportunity to testify today. I am joining you to express my support for the proposed rural infrastructure assistance program. I currently serve as a chair of the Albert Select Board. We're a town of just over 2,000 people and prior to being on the Select Board I served on our local planning commission. My background is I come from the military. I'm a retired naval intelligence officer who happens to have a little bit more spare time than the rest of my board members, but I end up volunteering right now definitely over 40 hours a week working to essentially when I joined the board I had huge aspirations of major improvements in the town of Alberg. It's no secret that we need some just a number of things that people have mentioned already. Water sewer improvements, broadband is an issue for us and then just overall essential services. And like those that have spoken before me our biggest challenge is lack of volunteers. And then when we try to hire out lack of the ability to find people to work those positions. We implemented in our budget last year something that's been contemplated for years a hiring a town administrator. And we're still working to find somebody that has the qualifications that can do the job within our current budget limitations. So we all are facing serious challenges on how to accomplish the normal tasks of these municipal official and appointed positions. And then to go beyond that and try to work through the complicated process of finding, applying for, and then administrating or the administrative process is associated with the grants is just we never get to it. I'm already behind on our ARP administration because I'm doing that myself but it's a long list of things combined with the continuity issue others have mentioned if a volunteer does go through the process and secure a grant ensuring that everything that entails is passed down to whoever follows in their footsteps is problematic. So I would again, thank you for letting us speak today on this I think critical issue. And I do want to echo what my neighbor from North Hero said. I noticed Albert wouldn't qualify for this particular proposal. However, I do still feel strongly that it's a step in the right direction to get us to try to stop each town creating on their own and expert in these areas that we're just not going to be able to do without the support. So thank you again. Welcome, thank you. Thank you. Next up is Chloe Leary followed by Arnold Thomas from the Vermont Land Access and Opportunity Board. Board. Dr. D. Chloe. Hi, can you hear me? Yes, we can. Thank you. My name is Chloe Leary. I'm the Executive Director of the Winston-Prowdy Center in Brataburro. I'm testifying today in support of $265,200 in additional funding for Children's Integrated Services or CIS. CIS is Vermont's unique system to optimize young children's health, development and learning by providing individualized support to families and early care and education programs from a multidisciplinary team of specialists. These essential services, some of which are federally mandated, are designed to improve outcomes for at-risk children and families. Despite CIS being underfunded and level funded for years, the effectiveness of the program is well recognized and the legislature has shown support for CIS over the last two years by increasing program funding in order to increase the CIS per member per month case rate to be much closer to the real costs for providers. However, rising case loads are lessening the impact of the case rate increase since program funding has to be spread over a larger number of families. So funding allocated to CIS for fiscal year 23 allowed for a $650 per member per month case rate to serve 1,507 families per month across the state case loads fluctuate months a month due to lots of different variables, including staffing levels, but the monthly case load average for January through November of 2022 is 1,575 and has gone as high as 1,657 in one month. So 150 more families were served in that month than funding allowed. So this has the effect of decreasing the reimbursement and the higher case load numbers are expected to continue. So without increased funding for the current fiscal year, either not all families in need will be served or reimbursements will continue to be watered down and not match the legislature's intended levels. Based on the most current case load data and increase of $265,200 and FY23 is needed in order to fund the CIS system at the $650 per member per month level. Thanks for your consideration. You're welcome. Thank you. Next up is Arnold Thomas, followed by Gene Kraft from the town of Versa. Can you hear me now? Yes. Okay, thank you. My name is Arnold Isidore Thomas. I am the pastor of Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Jericho, Vermont. And I'm also the member of the Social Equity Caucus, the moderator of the Talk Vermont and member of the Vermont Land Act Test and Opportunity Board of on whose behalf I am here today. The Land Act Test and Opportunity Board was created by the Vermont General Assembly in 2022 under Act 182 in acknowledgement of structural racism and prevalent wealth disparities in Vermont and in an attempt to create new opportunities for improving access to land and home ownership for Vermonters from historically marginalized or disadvantaged communities who continue to face barriers to land and home ownership. As a board, we represent the NAACP, the Vermont Racial Justice Alliance, LGBTQ Vermonters Mentally and Physically Challenged Vermonters, Indigenous Vermonters and Refugees and Immigrants who seek stability partly through access to affordable land and housing. To this end, we will seek funding presently unspecified through the state government which created us in an effort to create the means by which such properties can be attained and in the hope of making Vermont the envy and example of other states of what an affordable and welcoming state can be. Thank you for allowing me to speak today. You're welcome, thank you. Thank you. Next up is Gene Kraft followed by Steve Whitaker. My name's Chair and members of the Appropriation Board. Thank you for allowing us to testify before your committee today. My name for the record is Gene Kraft. I'm a town clerk and treasurer, administrative assistant in the small town of Bursher, Vermont. Bursher is a small town in Orange County, Vermont, East Central. We have 672 people in our town as a bedroom community. We're equidistant from Randolph to Montpelier and the upper valley, White River Junction. We're a very small town where a lot of people do most of the jobs and a lot of it's volunteer. I'm also want to voice my support in the BAA assistant, capacity assistant, $3 million that the governor has proposed putting forth. It's not enough, but it's a start. We also like North Hero and V-Lock and Allberg and all the other small towns in Vermont. Something left behind. We can't compete with the cold testers in the Burlington's of Vermont because we don't have people on staff who are able to write grants, church out grants and follow the administration of those. And we are a very small town trying to build a garage that two years ago would have cost us about $1.1 million. Today it's gonna be $2.8 million, $2.0. And we have not been able to find grant funding to help lay some of that cost. If we were to, we've done all the work to do it. We're shovel ready. We have a design, a site, a layout, a building. But because of the inflation, the pressures of supply chains and the increase in the cost of labor, our project has doubled in its scope. And if we were to bond for the money, we've gotten an estimate from the bond back recently at the current interest rate. The first payment for our bond repayment would be $122,000. The town of Versailles also already raises $1.8 million to fund our school district, Riverdale Interstate School District and to fund the town just with the increase in the payment of $122,000 a year to the bond bank, it would add $150 to every $100,000 of value, probably tax value on the town of Versailles. And that is our only means of tax, of taxation and of fundraising. Thank you very much for the opportunity just to lend my support to the program and any money you can find, please send it directly. Thank you very much for your work, it was much appreciated. Thank you, sir, thank you. And next up is Steve Whitaker. I believe Steve is our last participant today. So after the three minutes committee, we will go offline and I think we're done for the day unless there's something else. Sir. Good afternoon, Steve Whitaker from Montpelier. I've worked for 30 years in communications, planning and local government and some state government accountability issues. I'm speaking primarily in response to the 30 million requested for matching funds for an NTIA grant by the Vermont Community Broadband Board. That board and its efforts is literally off the rails with transparency, with accountability and with planning. There was statute that I helped write, Senator Brock got inserted, that would have enabled a statewide engineered fiber design to use Senator Bray's quote utility grade so that it could survive storms. They ignored that date. So in this case, they're asking for 30 million for a grant proposal, which we can't see the grant proposal is claimed to be exempt under contract negotiations. There's not even an award made. They're asking for 10% of the total available nationally, which is somewhat absurd, but we need to be able to see what's being asked for. They're proposing in this, which maybe some of the reason they're not letting people see it, to create a special purpose vehicle where some private interests are gonna own the electronics on these resilient rings around the state. I could go into more detail, but not in three minutes. I'm alerting you that I would ask you to condition that 30 million with language to the effect of the auditor to look into overuse of exemptions. I've asked to see the contracts with these internet providers. We don't know, we haven't seen the performance of how they're gonna break even. We don't know how they're sharing the money with the, like Maple Broadband is sharing money with Wadesfield-Paston and they're creating monopolies in direct violation of statute. Statute 202C and their Title 30 requires that shall support competitive choice for consumers and shall support open access for competitors. They are disregarding and there's no one policing it. So, I ask you to condition this language on being able to see the proposal they're asking for the matching grant for and to direct that the auditor. 30 seconds, just one second. I can leave it there. Similarly, Divas asked for a grant or money in the Budget Adjustment Act. They lost 50 million or more in intellectual property that belongs to the state. That was discovered in a report that Senator Ash required be done. That needs to be investigated before the statute of limitation runs out. Some language attached to the DEVA grant or appropriation requiring the Attorney General to look into that would be responsible. Thank you. Thank you. That ends our public hearing. Anybody that came in? So, great. We can go offline. And just a big cheers for Erin. Yay, Erin. Yay! You got your first one under your belt. Piece of cake. Everybody made it in. Everybody made it in. Best job.