 This is the Thursday afternoon continuation meetings of the House Appropriations Committee. And I just have one quick housekeeping for our committee, the Appropriations Committee. We will be meeting on Monday. And so at the end of this, make sure we don't sign off before understanding a few things that will be happening on Monday. But for now, we are happy to have joining us the House Government Operations Committee. We have the Department of Public Safety budget before us. And we have Commissioner Shirling. I see your name, I don't see you. I'm hoping you'll be able to pop on. And we have your deputy commissioner, Chris Herrick. Nice to see you. And I will let you introduce the rest of your team. And what I wanna just tell the Committee of Jurisdiction that is joining us that what we are considering with the administration's proposal is a full year budget. And it's based off the 21 budget as proposed in January. And so much of the information that you'll see before you is just the differences that were made from the governor's proposal in January. And so it's important as we go through, if you do not see an initiative or any change in the ups and downs that you know have happened, it means that it's still on the table if it was proposed in January. These are just showing the things that are still in but may have been changed or things that have been completely, that have been completely eliminated or completely new initiatives. And so it's a bit more complicated but we are going to be able to sort our way through this quickly. We're on a very quick timeline. I'm going to ask that the Committees of Jurisdiction reply in an informal email to us, very informal about things that they agree, don't agree or would change by January, January, I'm way out of touch here, by September 1st or 2nd. We're hoping to have a bill out that Friday or the next Tuesday because of Labor Day. So all of our work either way would be completed by Friday or before. So it's a very, very quick turnaround time. And for everyone listening here, appropriations, we're doing a joint public hearing with Senate appropriations next Thursday and Friday and anyone is welcome to join in and hear what the public has to say about the budget, their concerns or their support of certain areas. That will be Thursday at five o'clock or Friday at one o'clock. I think I have those times, right? Dona Teresa, yes, five and one. And so I am going to stop talking, welcome everyone. And I'm going to turn this over to Commissioner Shirling. I'm looking around my Hollywood squares trying to find where you went. There you are and welcome. And we look forward to hearing the differences between what was proposed and what you're proposing now. Welcome. Thank you. And it's good to be with you. Sorry that we have to be with you in the summer. I said January. Wishful thinking that we were doing this in January, but not wishful thinking that we get to January quite that fast. Well, I guess it's a double-edged sword, right? The quicker we get to January, the faster we get COVID behind us, but anyway, I'll stop talking and just, I can't see all the Hollywood squares, but I think we've got with us, Rick Hollenbeck, our director of administration and finance director, Megan Kleinfelter, who's the deputy there, Chris Herrick, you mentioned. I think Erica Bornemann's with us from emergency management and Colonel Birmingham. And I, director Derosha may be on or may not be on, I'm not sure. In any event, I was just going to take a moment and walk you through some of the highlights at Fortuitis that government operations is on because some of the highlights relate to operational matters and then turn it over to Rick to go through as many of the ups and downs as the committee would like. As you've heard from other agencies and departments, we've crafted a budget for 21 that tries to both meet the target anticipated revenue but also provides a good foundation for additional challenges we may face in 22. Just remind the committee that what we presented in January and February was a three-year effort at stabilizing the Department of Public Safety's budget. So a variety of alterations to try to get us to a point of stability. And the core of that still exists here, but because of the various challenges and things that are happening all at the same time, it looks a little bit different. It may take us a little longer to get to that budget stability. But that said, I think we've got a pretty good budget under the circumstances that's presented here. I'll just highlight a few things that intersect both operations and some of the larger budget items really quickly. We are reimagining a variety of the ways in which we do business in part because of the budget but in part because of what we've learned from remote working and alternate work arrangements as a result of the pandemic. So we're doing a lot around our space and how we deploy assets and what technology is used. And that's reflected in part here in the budget. We've accelerated the adoption of some information technology projects. That was not a result of COVID or the budget. Those are just things that we told you we were going to do in January and those are still in motion now. The two primary ones are our body cameras for the state police. That hardware has been delivered. The installation is beginning and we anticipate installation to occur if all goes as planned without any COVID curve balls by the end of the year. All the barracks and all the patrol division, the field force division will be equipped. The other is the foundational piece of technology that I've talked about, the computerated dispatch and records management system. We're within just a few days of selection at this point. It's taken a little longer than we anticipated because of the hiatus in the process that was caused by COVID. But we're pretty close now to selecting a vendor and that will provide the basis for really everything we do going forward in public safety, small P small S statewide to inform data-driven approaches now to be able to track things like race data in traffic stops and beyond to be able to track outcomes to see what works, what doesn't to be able to track use of force, a whole host of intersections there. Another major initiative involves the deployment of mental health clinicians. One of the items that you passed in at the end of the first portion of the session was direction to give a report on a plan to deploy mental health clinicians to all the barracks. That was also a strategy that was embedded in our modernization plan that we presented in January. What I submitted in June in response to that showed a three year phase in of the next six positions for mental health, two for 21, two for 22 and two for 23. The budget that you're looking at now actually accelerates that process and would deploy seven additional mental health clinicians in the coming fiscal year. In actually in the existing fiscal year, I'm getting confused about where we're at. We would normally be presenting for the following year but we're still presenting for this year. So this year we would deploy an additional seven on top of the two that we have and those would be done as contracts or MOUs or something of that nature with our designated agencies or other service providers. They would not be employees of the Department of Public Safety. So I'm Claire Commissioner, and a total of nine in this budget. There will be a total of seven. As it turns out, we have memorandums of understanding with the designated agencies and we're not making contributions to the first two. So in the budget, there'll be seven that will bring us to nine but you've rightfully hit on an interesting challenge going forward which is how do we balance the delivery methodology and the investment in a way that makes sense. We certainly don't want certain counties or designated agencies to have to put in a disproportionate amount of resources. So we're going to work on that but we've got enough budgeted here for seven FTEs exactly how we end up balancing that out to deliver whether it's seven or eight or nine in the coming year will depend on a variety of different factors but a significant expansion of that program is budgeted here. Thank you. And I just wanted to remind or just want to say I see you have 86 pages in this presentation and we have about an hour and a little over an hour. We really want to stick to the meat of what you have to share with us with the budget, with policy changes, with issues that are at hand and we don't need the structure and the number of employees and all of those extra pieces. Absolutely understood. We're not planning to do any of that since we did that with you in January. We're primarily going to stick to pages three and four just the amended ups and downs and I'm highlighting the big portions of that right now. Okay and I have a quick question from a representative Townsend who does have this budget for house appropriations. Amanda. Thank you. Thank you very much. So just really quickly to make sure I understand the number with regard to the mental health clinicians in the document which was provided to us today. It says six FTE and I wanted to make sure is that, does that seven then include one that was in the budget presentation in January plus this six here equal. That's exactly right. It's, we had one budgeted in the prior rendition of this. This adds six additional. Okay. Thank you. And then the final sort of member issue. I'm sorry, commissioner. There's a question from representative Hooper and then we'll continue. I promise we will let you get through a sentence before we stop you again. I'm just confused about the mental health clinicians and how this is being provided. So what are the two communities that already have these positions that are not being funded and how are you going to kind of get equity into the system? The two barracks that have these workers and we actually have to call them something else as of a meeting that we had yesterday on this topic the operational components. So they're mental health specialists or something along those lines. The two barracks that have them are St. Albans and Westminster. And what we're working toward now is to develop a master, a memorandum of understanding and or contract that we would ask all the designated agencies or other organizations that are willing to sign on to participate in. So we're basically going to, we're trying to create a singular job description and a singular program that delivers the same service and replicates that across the 10 barracks and the service areas of those barracks. And ultimately the goal is for the state through the Department of Public Safety and eventually in partnership with the Department of Mental Health and Corrections to fund all of those positions. How exactly the transition is going to look for the two that are already in motion. We just don't know the answer to yet but we are cognizant that we don't want to create an unlevel playing field for those, those two designated agencies that are providing the service now. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Let's continue commissioner. My final piece is, you'll note that there is a part-time position called a fair and impartial police and co-director. Both the acceleration of the mental health clinicians and the use of this part-time position are in response to the need to accelerate our modernization strategies, particularly around equity, fair and impartial policing and delivering modern service to communities. So this position is a civilian who would be a co-director along with right now Captain Scott, eventually Captain Scribner who will be taking that position later this year when Captain Scott retires if we allow him to do so. And the scope and depth of the work is just continuing to increase. So adding another person with subject matter expertise in this arena we think is it's a critical time to do that. So that's why you'll see that $65,000 investment in the budget this year. That's the macro overview of the key operational things that are impacting the budget in one way or another. And I would defer to any of the directors for anything else operational. And then if not, we can either have the committee guide what you'd like to talk about in the ups and downs or we can have Rick go through it with you. Whichever you prefer. Thank you. We have a question from Representative Townsend and then I would like to go to the ups and downs sheet and will that reflect all of the ups and downs for the 21 budget or just the change since January? I don't wanna get this wrong. Rick, this is, which one does this represent? This represents the changes from the original FY21 governor recommend budget. And then after made his question though, Rick would you help us to remember as best you can pieces from the January proposal that we need to keep in mind? I don't wanna miss a large initiative and we'll go back and we'll sort this out but if there's pieces that we can do here with both committees present, that would be helpful. Mehta, your question please. Yes, please, thanks. In my mind, a big operational piece back in January over time was an issue. And perhaps I missed it but in my quick overview of the materials provided for today, I didn't see overtime. Has that gone away as an issue or not? It has not, that's a great question. So if you were to look at the January ups and downs you'd see significant investments in overtime, a rebalancing of shift, excuse me, of vacancies savings. And we spent a bunch of time sort of walking through how all of those things relate to one another and how that balances out for the personnel costs. Those challenges remain but what we've done in the presentation here is it builds on all of those changes. So with the governor's recommend as the basis for the work that's being presented today, we get through the first year of relative stability in the three year exercise on the public safety budget. So I hope that makes sense. So you check as to whether or not my brain has taken this in, in January for overtime it showed $1.3 million. So somehow that's been able to be absorbed, sorted out somehow so that that's not something for us to worry about. That is still in the proposal. It's in this budget, it's just, we're showing you the ups and downs from that prior budget. So how has the prior budget changed? This is where it becomes confusing because we're working with the proposal as well as the changes. And since you don't see the changes on here they're still in the numbers that we received in January. Thank you, I got it. So $1.3 million in overtime is still a reality. It is. And if you recall, that's one piece of a multi-year strategy to stabilize that. Yeah, I don't want to confuse things further. So I won't add any more detail because I fear it won't be helpful. Thank you. Thank you. I'm going to move to a question from Representative Lanford and then we're going to move right to the chart please. Diane? So I'm so grateful that I actually brought home my book and the only thing I ever print is the actual crosswalks or ups and downs from. So I've got a note in here, commissioner, on that line, that 1.3 that made us so eloquently put that next to that overtime of 1.3 million, I made note if this is enough. So time has now passed and obviously you haven't made any change to it on this new, but maybe you could highlight as to whether or not that was sufficient do you have extra or are you expecting to spend even more? We don't anticipate a surplus or a deficit there. We've made some operational adjustments that relate both to COVID and the budget realities of 21 and we're trying to keep a handle on overtime to the greatest extent possible, but 1.3 was the first portion of what we anticipated would be a multi-year need for an increase in overtime to get to a stabilized budget. We have some new experience now as a result of the last four months. So what those out years look like, I'm not sure I'd want to put a firm number on it, but Rick could tell us what we thought the Delta was in January if he has it available. Sorry to put them on the spot. The Delta and what we expect to be over or short? If in the second year of budget stabilization we were gonna ask for additional overtime, is that right? I believe a small number, a much smaller number. Right, I wish I could remember the number, but it's been so many numbers since then that I don't have it off the top. But so let's say as a placeholder there was another $500,000 to get to what we think the realistic annual average spend is on overtime, we've got some new experience now and Colonel Birmingham and his team have done a variety of really creative things in the last couple of months. So that number may go down. I don't anticipate it's gonna go up. Yeah, well, thank you. I wouldn't, and the experience that you have now to compare it to is a rather odd year to be comparing. I would imagine. So it might be tough to even get a handle on if that was enough or too much, but thank you. Commissioner, you had the number right. It was just under 600K. I wish I could say I pulled it out of a brain cell but it was a guess. Always take credit. Thank you, Rick. Let's start going down through the appropriations and so that we fully understand some of the reductions you had a 3% target. Did you also have a 3% target within your department from the administration? Yes, roughly a 3% target. Is it possible for Teresa to share the document to everybody or does everybody have it in front of them? It's in front of us. Okay, great. And if you could tell which reductions are 3% and how you're going to make those work and not impact the work that you do in which perhaps COVID money was used to help with some of these initiatives and let's leave it at those two. Okay, I think you'll see that the reduction of roughly 3% falls to the bottom line. Individually, we have a variety of reductions that are not necessarily tied to a particular percentage with the exception of the internal service fees which are in general, 5% reductions. But I can run through this and explain all of that. If you would like to start with state police, for example, the fee for space and workers comp, those are 5% general fund reductions, the variety of service fees. We've heard from BTS and we will hear on fee for space, ADS and workers comp. So we understand those reduction. Great. The next line, the mental health clinicians, the commissioner had spoke to that already as well as the fair and impartial policing co-director. Are there any questions on that? I don't have questions. I'm not seeing any commissioner. Representative Landfursher, hand up from before. Yes, ma'am. Sorry, I'll take it down. And I have a question from Representative Hooper as in Robert Hooper, not Mary. Thank you, Madam Chair. Are these mental health positions contract? They are listed as FTEs, but are they contract positions and how are we guaranteeing any kind of coverage if that's appropriate for this kind of question period? They are contracted positions. They're full-time employees, but not employees of the state. So we can modify that for some clarity there. So how are we dealing with coverage then? You have one eight-hour person, then a 18-hour shift. This is, we're trying to get just to a base of one specialist per barracks at this stage. And we actually discussed this yesterday what the schedule would look like and the reality is it would be based on the need. So what are the times when the clients are most in need? We would mirror the schedule to that based on call volume assessment. Thank you. Thank you. Let's continue. Okay, next line item is the body camera hardware that we had in our original FY21 GovRec. We were able to make that purchase out of FY20 funds. So we're backing that out here. Okay, so we don't have a reduction in any actual body cameras. You were able to purchase them with 2020 money and therefore you have all the body cameras that you need and you don't need an appropriation. You can back out this amount. Sort of correct. The body cam project is in process, but we have obligated those funds in a purchase order. So we won't need the FY21 funding. Thank you. I shouldn't flag for you and at least some members of government operations are aware of this that as past S219, we believe needs a slight language tweak. The way it's written, it would require a body camera for all 334 troopers, including folks like the colonel and the majors and special investigation units and things like that. So unless amended, it would double the cost of the body camera project. So we're hoping to work with the legislature to make some amendments to ensure that we've got body cameras with the right personnel, but that we're not needlessly spending money on folks that any video they take would be quite boring. And for some, actually we potentially be inappropriate. So just wanted to flag that for you. Thank you. Let's finish this section and then we'll open up the first section to more questions. Next line item, vacancy savings. This is largely for us to allow for the mental health clinicians and the fair and impartial policing director. And travel line item being cut for obvious reasons. With COVID, nobody's really traveling out of state unless it's something mission critical. And I'll stop there if you wanted to. I have a question from Representative Lamper. Sorry to be a bit. So I just wanna make sure that I'm reading this right and this question might be for Rick on there. So underneath the body cameras, in what you're presenting today, you have a reduction of 161,623. And in January, you had as a line item 387,747 I'm thinking is the same thing. But now you can reduce that by 161. So would it be true then to say that you used 226,000? The difference between those? The remainder is for other parts of the project. The 161,623 was specifically for body camera hardware. And that was to be combined with the one-time funds which we actually spent down. And how much was the one-time funds different from the 387? I don't have that number available, but there was the one-time funds that were appropriated for the camera project as a whole. Yes, yes. Yes, and so there was some left in that. I can't remember the exact amount, but I can get that to you. Okay, well, it's actually just for me to be able to figure out when I'm reading the old one to the new one, if by okaying it, that 387 is now different than what it was before. Right, it would be the 226 you mentioned that remains. And I believe that is for the storage fees. Yeah, I've got no storage in the clouds. Okay, thank you. I am getting it somewhat, I'm catching on. Thank you, Diane, Representative Townsend. I was just going to suggest that that was for the storage. Thank you. Okay, and could we talk a bit about the vacancy savings of 765,000, are those actual vacant positions or are you doing a reduction in staff? There's no, sorry, go ahead. There's no reduction in staff for those numbers. This is going to put us in line with what we're projecting for vacancy savings. And I'm sure the commissioner was about to speak to recruitment, so I'll let him speak to that. Yeah, recruitment has slowed a bit as you might imagine. It was already slow, it's slowing a little more. The academy's capacity is limited by COVID operating guidelines. So we were only able to put 11, I believe, into this academy class where we normally shoot for 15. And then of course, we anticipate we can project retirements and basic attrition so we can come up with a number that is as close to realistic as possible based on the overall operating conditions. Thank you, Representative Hooper. Excuse me, thank you. I'm trying to put together how going forward you will pay for the mental health clinicians. So I understand that you're using vacancy savings this year but this strikes me as a commitment into the future to maintain that level of savings and transfer the funding to these contracts. Am I correct in understanding that? You are correct, Representative, this is not your first budget review. We have a number of potential strategies. Some may involve vacancy savings if recruitment continues to be a challenge. We're also talking about whether for some kinds of responses it makes sense to use these responders in lieu of police officers. So once we have them deployed, we'll get a better sense of how much of the call volume they can actually take away from the field force. I don't wanna put too much stock in there because we don't have a lot of field force. We're not that big. So there's not a lot of extra room there but that is something that we're looking at. And then the third piece is we really see this in the future as a partnership because it won't just be reductions in calls for service to the state police and law enforcement agencies. If we do this successfully, it'll reduce visits to the emergency department, it'll reduce incarceration, it'll reduce some of the workload for the Department of Mental Health. It'll prevent things from getting to a stage where it's very expensive. So if you use the analogy of a typical healthcare scenario, if you wait for an infection to fester too long, you end up with surgery and debriefing and very expensive healthcare. If you can deal with it early and often as these folks are, this program is designed to deliver that kind of service, then the overall goal is to reduce costs at the backend and then hopefully we have multiple people coming to the table to help fund this in the long term. What has stymied the growth of this program to date is starting from a point where we're trying to build the coalition and build the multi-faceted funding just to get it off the ground. What we're suggesting is we're gonna do it in reverse. We're gonna get all these folks on the ground, we're gonna show the efficacy of the program and then we're gonna go to people and say, listen, put up 10 grand here, 20 grand there, 30 grand there, you're saving way more than that. Yeah, and I'm sure that you will be able to show that. I'm very excited by this and I wanna congratulate you on this initiative. It's fabulous. I hope that you will try to gather that data with both the communities, the healthcare system, the DAs, et cetera, so that we can see that and continue to support it over the years. Thanks. That's a great point. Our data system is one piece of the puzzle, but we've already engaged the state's chief data officer, Kristen McClure, to start to think about how do we cross-pollinate data from multiple state organizations where it's typically very siloed so that we can paint a picture of what's effective and we can paint a picture of what's not effective in terms of our policy decisions. Yeah, and then add to that needing to pull up from the community level too, all of those effects that aren't at the state level. It's complex. Absolutely. Thank you, Mary. I'm sitting here laughing at myself because I realized I asked a ridiculous question about vacancy savings. Of course they're vacant, they're vacant positions. I'm a little distracted today. I sent a daughter off to school and it's a little nerve-wracking. But my question, what I meant to ask were are there critical positions that you won't be filling in order to achieve these savings that you have been trying to fill? No, we're not leaving anything critical on the table. And we have two other questions. I have one from Representative Jessup and then Representative Banson. Great, thank you. So this may be well trod ground in terms of the policy committee, but I thought I heard that the rollout of the body cams would be at the end of the year. And my question is, is that at the end of the calendar year or fiscal year? And does the delay have to do with some of the earlier back and forth with storage or with something else that you could lightly touch upon in a fiscal committee? If everything goes as currently planned, the deployment will be complete by the end of the calendar year. Is it possible it could go beyond that? Yes, the technicians that are coming to help us with the installation are coming from Texas. So there's some very stringent guidelines on what they can do and how they can travel. There's no real delay, it's just we've got to equip 202 uniform troopers and 10 barracks with gear. So it's just a very large technology project. Okay, thanks. It's just interesting to see that something purchased in fiscal year 20, often in our budgets when something is purchased, it is ripped out the door and to see it show up again, but these are unusual times and I take your points. Thank you. That was just to be clear, it took until this year to get the final funding so that we've got all the dollars necessary. And it also took the cost of the equipment and the storage to come down to sort of meet in the middle. So a lot of things had to happen to get this needle threaded. Thank you. And Representative Townsend. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Going to personnel in a different way, back in January, I had a note here that we had 26 Tupper vacancies for which we were recruiting, are we still down 26 or thereabouts? I'm hoping the colonel has that number off the top of his head. I haven't looked at that in a few months because I've been distracted. I know we just tired a few. Yeah, we are, I don't have the exact number but I can get it for you with the 11 in the, see it's hard because there are 11 in the class right now, but they are not deployed to the field. So they are technically not being utilized even though they're taking up positions but I can get you the accurate vacancy count and transmit it over there for you. Thank you very much. Yeah, if you recall, the department used to render vacancies included troopers who were in training at the academy and we're going to pivot to a different representation of that where they're not really truly vacancies. Those people have been hired but they're not available. So you'll see three numbers. You'll see authorized staff, number available and then the number that are unavailable either. And there are other things that cause that too. It could be an extended injury or commonly some kind of military deployment or something like that that causes unavailable staff. Thank you. And I think we should move to the second appropriation the criminal justice services. Sure. The first two lines are IA internal service fees that we covered that you are aware of those. And so I'll bring us down to the third line, which is travel. As I mentioned before, we're cutting travel for obvious reasons that people just simply aren't traveling under the COVID restrictions. Registration is for the same reason that is a line item that we typically use for a training or a conference. And so we don't have a lot of that going on. And then a small amount in vacancy savings. And as far as the travel, these would, these may be one-time savings depending on the need and traveling to conferences or whatever, you're counting them as a one-time savings and hope to reinstate these amounts for travel and registration. Well, I guess it all depends on whether or not technology will lend itself to those trainings in the future. I would want to kick that one to the commissioner. It's a future that's unknown at this point, whether I understand your answer. Are there any other questions on this budget? Yes, ma'am. Diane, I didn't, sorry. I didn't get my hand up quick enough. So I'm looking in the January, the only thing on there that I have a question, I'm sorry if you can't hear me, I have to look in my book, was there was a swap of $1.1 million of general fund for using special funds, fees from background checks. And I've just got a note here that said there was a narrow window to use this and you were able to save general fund dollars. Do you recall what that was about and did that happen? Yes, it's in, go ahead, Rick. It's the criminal history record check fund and we switched a lot of the budgets in the Vermont crime information center from general funds to those special funds in order to help us accelerate the budget stabilization plan. And so that is still in play here because we haven't undone it here in this crosswalk. Okay. I'm not sure about the limited timeframe that I'm not sure what that refers to. Okay. All right, thank you. Excellent note. It may refer to the fact that we, that's the bulk of that's for the CATRMS project and that it's a, it's coming to a, it's critical phase right now of vendors, selection, negotiation and execution. I think, do I have some other? No, I don't have any other questions on the second appropriation. Let's move to emergency management, please. Okay, emergency management. I'll skip over the workers' comp and go right to the federal funds that we're making available from a grant due to COVID and allowing us to restore the general funds that we were going to use in the original FY21 GOVREC. Had that gone through, we would not have been able to reverse this because it would have been supplanting at that point, but since we, they'll never pass, we're able to restate this as federal funds. Okay, thank you. And then the SWIFT water rescue and damage assessment assessments somewhat go together in that if there's a disaster, we need a flood, sorry, a flood event. We need our SWIFT water teams staged and active if there is anyone in jeopardy and the damage assessments are so that we can use our, sorry, Erica, I don't know if it's LEPCs or RPCs in order to do our damage assessments and these damage assessments are absolutely critical to a declaration should we be reaching the threshold. Thank you. I don't know if these CPCs are mandatory. Erica, did you want to weigh in? I hear a background noise, Erica. Was that you or not? I was muted, I think there was some echoing, but Rick was able to capture that succinctly and available if there's any questions. Thank you. I think those are pretty self-explanatory and so I would suggest we move to the fire safety division, please. Okay, for fire safety, I'll skip again over the workers comp, temporary employee line item reduction of 20,000. That is a scaling back of the temporary position that was funded in FY20 in order to do curriculum development and that's all for general funds in that, but if you direct your attention, a few columns over to the special fund cuts, sure you want to know why we're restating that. The fire safety special fund experienced a deficit this year. It's ended the year at about $900,000 in the whole. So we have begun making some reductions to try to get a balance of 21. 21 will bring a significant amount of cigarette revenue that we didn't see in 20. So by cutting these line items of just under 400,000, that should bring a balance to the 21. We still have the FY20 deficit to deal with, however. And we do have some questions here. Representative Hooper, Mary? Yeah, thank you. I'm not surprised that there's, I assumed there would be a down in your revenues just because of the construction season being disrupted. Is there something more than just a COVID related response as an issue with the fund? Or is it simply the disruption of the construction? I think it's mostly, oh, sorry, Michelle. That appears to be most of it. There's also, we've seen a slight change in the types of permits that are being issued. We're seeing quite a few that are in the $199,000 project range that are scooting in under the wire in terms of the fees. So that's a piece of it as well. Okay, and given that, well, the folks who work in this division are always awfully busy, but did they get redeployed to other work if there was a downturn in the work? And were you able to draw down CRF money for the other work that they may have been doing? They did not get redeployed in terms of their, their assignment. They had an occasional thing here and there that they helped out with COVID, but there was an opportunity to accelerate the clearance of backlogs of permits and get things taken care of during that time when the number of new applications went down. Okay, that's, well, that's always wonderful. Yeah, thank you. Commissioner, you mentioned the fees that being able to, I don't want to use the word circumvent, but being able to scoot in under certain limits, does the fee schedule need to be reexamined, in your opinion? Do we have Director Dorosha on? I know he's taking a look at that. Yes, this is Mike Dorosha. That's a good question. We really don't want to change that figure right now. What we did is we tried to prevent a bottleneck of permits by offering constituents a, kind of a quicker way of receiving permits for these small projects that were under 200,000. And when we looked across all our permits about 3,000 a year, there was 30 to 40% of our permits were under 200,000. And it wasn't just a bottleneck and a volume of them, but it was not a lot of the information that was submitted to us was incomplete and caused a lot of domino effects, a lot of extra communication. So we redid the permit application and we now send a field personnel to the field to expedite the permit. So there was just a lot of advantages to what the, like the commissioner said, you know, when people are doing 275 or $300,000, they're gonna submit something claiming it's $200,000. And, you know, we just start in a position right now to be asking for receipts and stuff. We do require an end of cost valuation form. We do receive some extra funding and some circumstances. But the project right now is pretty successful, but we are, like the commissioner said, and directly there's a little loss there. I'm not sure if you were on a fee schedule to review fees, but fees are really to cover the cost of services. And if we're running a, if we're not meeting the bottom line here and I don't know if there's a deficit in the fund or if you're able to use other funds to address where we're not coming to zero. Are we running a deficit in this fund is one question. And number two is the fees have not been, I don't think updated in five years and have the cost increased in five years or have they remained the same? Just personally, I don't recall exactly what year it was, Rick, that we went in and raised our permit fee, our construction permit fee. But the last time we did it, we raised it 45%. And I took a lot of heat when that rate was raised by 45%. And I guess I'm probably still taking some heat for it to be honest with you. But what the issue is, like the commissioner said, we've had a, there's been a downtick in the construction fees. And that's where the majority of our special fund revenue count is generated is by construction permit fees. When the construction was good seven, eight years ago, we were carrying a $2 million surplus. So we are solely dependent on special fund revenue. We received no general fund for our fire safety program. I understand that he has to jump 45%. It worries me that we're not doing the increase, you know, on a smaller basis, depending on the cost. And when we wait till they get out of control, then I can understand why people are upset when a fee jumps so high. So it's, I understand the don't raise any fees, but then if you're not paying for the cost of service and your jump is substantial, that doesn't make any sense as well. My second question was, is there a deficit in this, are we running a deficit here or are we using other funds to balance this budget? Because reductions to cover the costs that it was 900,000. And I don't see the full 900,000. So is there a deficit in the fund? Yes, there is it. If you look at it on a cash basis, the deficit is around 900,000. Okay. And is that just for this year or have we accumulated, is there a larger overall deficit? It's mostly this year. We ended with a very small deficit in fiscal 19, but I mean, it was under 50,000, I believe, you know, but yeah, this year was mostly due to the COVID. We may have ended with another small deficit this year if there had not been for COVID. Thank you. I think we'll want to watch. Let's go to appropriate, I don't see any other questions on this section. So let's move to the fifth appropriation. So this is a administration division. And the first line has to do with the e-ticket contracts. This is a project that was completed with National Highway Traffic Safety Administration funding. And we have been seeing the end of that funding in the past couple of years. So we thought we were gonna need general funds for it this year. We were, during the midst of the COVID crisis, one of the things that happened is we found that there were some NHTSA funds available to do one more year of these contracts. So we are backing out those general funds and putting it back into the Interdepartmental Fund because that federal money is handled by the Agency of Transportation. The temporary employee line item, we're cutting the general fund temporary employee line item because we haven't had much luck in hiring a temporary position anyway. So, and we're trying to cut costs where we can. So that's a place where it was a pretty easy cut. Travel for the same reasons I've mentioned above. And for the rest of what's in administration, they're all internal service fees, workers' comfort fee for space, ADS, human resources and vision and the insurances. Okay, our questions on the administration, the reductions here from anyone and any government operations, please, if you have questions, please raise your hands. Your virtual hand. Okay, I'm not seeing any and then let's move to the Forensic Laboratory, please. Absolutely, in the Forensic Laboratory, the only one that's not an internal service fee is our contractual line item. We did add a position to the lab in the original GOV-REC and that allowed us to reduce some of our general fund contracts and also some of it was due to the availability of federal funds to cover some of the contracts. Are there questions? Section. Please, Representative Fagan. Thank you. Rick, thank you. Good seeing you again. Rick, when the Department of Health was in, they mentioned that the lab and I can never, I know we have at least two labs, but the lab was doing a lot of COVID related testing and the other testing that they would normally do was then sent out to other labs for those other labs to conduct the test. In other words, there was no reduction in services, just where the actual performance of the test occurred was different. So number one, is that this lab that we're talking about? Because I know it's certainly not the Agriculture Lab and where would the expenses for paying those other labs to do these tests show up? This is, Representative, this is the Vermont Forensic Lab. You're talking about the Public Health Lab. Okay, so there's three there. There may be more than three. I think A&R may have a lab as well. Sometimes it's hard to keep track. Thank you very much. It is. But on that note, is your lab able to keep up with the demands that have been placed upon it or are you also seeking outside assistance? No, our lab is in reasonably good shape. We actually have just assigned two microbiologists to assist with the Health Lab to bolster their capabilities for COVID testing. There's part of it. Thank you very much. Is there an inter-departmental transfer to cover for that? There will. They're just starting their training. Gotcha. Very good, thanks. Thank you, Peter, Representative Towns. So following directly on what Representative Fagan was asking about, I was looking over my notes from January and we had a backlog at that point at the lab with regard to controlled substance cases and latent print examinations and things of that nature. Everything's, it sounds like, everything's more than up to speed at this point. We've got enough personnel and enough materials and all of that. There's always a bit of a backlog in both fingerprinting and drug analysis just because the cases continue to climb but it's not so substantial that Director Conti is indicating that she's resource deprived. Excellent, thanks. Thank you, Representative Jessif. Hi, just a quick question about the forensic lab and capital investments. And I apologize, I don't know a lot about this budget. It falls to Rep Townsend. But if retail cannabis were to go online, are all the pieces of equipment and staff in place for that? Or would that be an upward pressure potentially? Thanks. I don't know the answer to that question. I'll have to ask Director Conti and I guess it depends on what the, in part on what the demands on testing would look like. I don't believe that forensic lab is doing any cannabis testing at this point. And I would, if the legislature's looking for a place to have that kind of testing done, I don't believe the forensic lab would be the appropriate spot. I think that would be the agriculture lab. Yeah, I guess I'm not- That's accurate. That is exactly what the legislature has considered. So just to be sure that I'm following any testing that may potentially be needed, be it blood work I understood went out of state. It used to go to Pennsylvania, I don't know if it still does. But let's just say in the hypothetical, again, I'm just looking forward for upward pressures. If there were to be, in fact, be some sort of a saliva-based test that would not happen at the forensic lab, is that what I heard? That might. That depends on the nature of the test and what the chemistry, what tools are required, et cetera. I'm sorry, I was interpreting that as more of the commercial market, any testing required to support the commercial market, not the criminal side of things. Okay, thank you. Okay, I just wanted to be sure you were done. Representative Helm, you have a question? Representative Helm? I don't see you Bob. I will come back to you Bob. I have a question for the commissioner until I was able to come back on. I wanted to go back to the part-time position for the position for fair and impartial policing. And in light of what is going on nationwide, I need some comfort that a part-time position is enough to do the training that is needed and to make sure that Vermont does not come into the spotlight like in many other cities and states across the nation. And what is happening for training at where the training in, tell me where the training center is. I need help. The police academy? The police academy, the training at the police academy, yes. Can you tell me about the training that happens there and then what this position will do? And if you feel this is sufficient to address any issues? A part-time position is not sufficient to address issues. We have put forth a 10 point strategy in addition to the modernization plan that we presented to you in January that we do believe is a comprehensive suite of areas for improvement, for modernization, for new technology, for new process and practice statewide, not just within the Department of Public Safety, but the 10 areas that we've identified are all things we think should be standardized on a statewide basis for all law enforcement agencies. So it's really working on all of those things that is essential. And this position acts in a role to help us coordinate all of that. So it's a piece of a much larger puzzle, but an essential piece. Commissioner, if I may add to that? Sure. I don't know. Can you hear me? Matt Birmingham, director of the state police. What's important to remember too is that we have devoted full-time sworn members of the state police that are, one is the captain, Captain Gary Scott, his full-time position in the state police is the director of fair and partial policing, community affairs. And he works very closely with our office of professional development, which has another staff of five sworn members that are dealing in-service training, hiring and recruiting. And all of the fair and partial policing, objectives and goals for the department are pushed out across all command staff and all members of the department. So it's not just not the, all of our fair and partial policing, goals and objectives are not falling on this part-time position. It's supplementing an already very robust fair and partial policing unit of the state police. Thank you for that information. I don't see representative Hill had a hand up. Bob, did you have a question? Your hand is up, you need to unmute. There we go. There you go. She had me lathered with all sorts of things that had to erase first. So can I, can I go to any topic I want? Well, within reason. Yeah. Ask to be on topic. I can do that. I can handle public safety and some things commerce and that's about it. I'm going to ask you public safety. There is a, I think it's a proposal within the department right now to charge local municipalities for PSAP work. And I think from what I can gather is to charge the municipalities that have departments. And for me, for one, I have two departments in my district and one of them, they, the way they figured it's going to be half of their annual budget is what it'll cost them. So I guess I'm just trying to find out what's going on. We've been through this before and it's always kind of skittered off to the side and never happened. Then my understanding also is there are many other things in that bill that I don't even know what they are. And anyways, I'd like to see if somebody could call me, send me a copy of the bill, maybe just a snapshot of what's in the bill and some information. So as I know, when I'm talking about this, I know what I have a little bit of accuracy in what I'm saying. We can send you the updated, the updated bill and somewhere on various committee sites, there are copies of our presentation and a written document that outlines our modernization strategy from January. We can get you those DC-Harrick to send me a text message offering to help facilitate that. So it sounds like he can get you all of that pretty quickly. But for the entire committee, just partially to remind you some of the things we talked about in January but to tell you where we're at with this right now, what we put forth in the modernization strategy in part was a rebalancing of the way that the state supports public safety statewide. We're suggesting that there are things that we are currently charging municipalities for or not providing for service that we should be providing. Two big examples, the computer-aided dispatch and records management system. We believe the state should be delivering that as a core service to public safety organizations statewide without a charge. So what your departments are seeing representative is a piece of the puzzle, but they're also, if they're police departments, they're seeing a reduction and ultimately an elimination of charges that are coming for technology. The other piece is the mental health clinicians that as we craft this program, the plan is not to just respond and provide service to the service area that's covered by the barracks and the state police, but to cover the entire service area that barracks would cover to include all municipalities. So to provide additional assistance there. On the other side of that coin, there has been a can that has been kicked down the road, so to speak, for some time around creating parity with the way that dispatch services are paid for statewide. And this is a much longer conversation, but the oversimplified version is that there are some municipalities who are paying a lot for dispatch services. There's some that are paying a little for dispatch services and then there are some that are getting service from the state and they're getting it for free. And it just doesn't create parity across the taxpayers. So we've put forward a plan to create some parity to not overcharge people to only charge for the calls that they're going to and only charge for dispatchers, not charge them for any kind of overhead or administrative fees or ADS fees or anything like that. What we think is a very pragmatic approach to just creating parity across the public safety organizations for a service that is quite complex and costly. That's the simplified version. Well, can I get a little more complicated version? Absolutely. And to be clear, we've been talking with public safety organizations since January about this plan. So it should not have come as a surprise. We've had multiple conference calls. We've sent multiple communications to them. And the most recent one was just, I believe yesterday. Well, I'm not gonna say it's a surprise. I don't believe it was to them. It was a little snuck up a little bit on me only because we have not been around the system very close here since last March. So that, and that's my fault. Maybe I should figure out a way of keeping better track of things. But as far as my law enforcement, they didn't try to tell me that it was a surprise by any stretch of the imagination. Great. Final note is that what we also asked agencies to do when we send another round of correspondence in the last couple of days was to sort of unpack their numbers, tell us whether they think we've got the numbers wrong, or there's this cross-section of their calls that they shouldn't be billed for, et cetera. So we're still in a phase where we're trying to come to what the final numbers should look like and we're asking for their input. Thank you. Thank you. Mary, did you have one final question or not? I can't, I don't see your hand. Yes, I did. Yes, well, I can't raise my hand since I'm close. My question, I'd like to go back to the fire prevention fund. Did, can you tell me, I thought Mike DeRosha mentioned that there was a surplus in that fund. When was that and how much was it about approximately? Maybe Rick can chime in too, but it was probably maybe five, six, seven years ago. And to be honest, the carry forward balance was about 3.2 million. And the reason, so what we tried to do at that point was to hire people honestly to help us out because we're just bombarded with work. But we couldn't hire people. And if I recall, that was a time where the state actually took the funding, the carry forward money from us. And so, where we are right now, Mary, I know you're familiar with our division. We're trying to put forth a budget right now that I think it more aligns our budget and expenses to what the actual revenues are. And so that's what we're doing. We're being fiscally responsible by recognizing that. Our revenue may be down this year, so let's try to control our expenses as we can. And that's what we put forth here was an honest attempt to reduce our expenses without devastating our services and so forth. And we can do this. So we'll have to see how the economy is. It's hard to, in this environment right now, it's hard to predict where we're gonna be. I appreciate that, Mike. And I didn't want us to leave this discussion thinking, oh, there was a deficit, what were you up to? The fact is you guys have been slammed that it was a huge amount of work. You tried to stay on top of it, but we also made a decision to use some of that fund balance somewhere else. And maybe we should, I don't know how much detail, but we may wanna come back to this. But when we say, oh my gosh, there is now a deficit in that fund, let's remember that in fact, monies were taken out of that fund that would have covered that deficit. I think I'm correct in thinking about it that way. That is correct. And then secondly, we have been, our budget, our expenses have been coming in under budget. So, I have been under our spending authority. So this is a revenue issue. Yeah. Okay, thank you. And I think this is to the commissioner, to the finance director, were the funds in the fire prevention special fund used elsewhere within the department or were they swept up as part of the, and I always forget the words that we use that describe how we take money. You're talking about when it was reverted to the general fund? Yes, so it was reverted to the general fund. That's what we did. Yeah. Okay. It was not used elsewhere in the department of public safety. No, I can look back. I think we're looking at like Mike said, around seven years ago, and I can get those details on that fund scoop. Okay, thank you. I have this memory of spending some money on some police cruisers, but I may be making that up. No, he says I was right. In that budget, yes, we did have an increase in state police cruisers in that same budget because we had sort of robbed from those line items for several years and the fleet was in badly needed to be replaced. Okay, thank you. That money used, well, it was just reverted back to the general fund and then there was an increase within the, another one of your budget line items. Correct. We have one last final question. We're at the end of our time. Representative Harrison. Yeah, thanks, Kitty. So we, I'm just not familiar with all your budget documents and we touched upon it, but I'm not sure where it shows, but on the body cam issue, I just wanted to revisit that again. The storage issue has always been an issue with the cost. Is that built into the budget and is that why there is no difference shown if we're going to put these live in the coming months? So the storage is in the budget. The hardware is the only section that was removed. I'm trying to get back to the page that would show you the reduction in equipment. That would be, if you look at page five of 84, you can see it in the department rollup under the equipment line item, 161, 623 down. Page five. Yeah. So you can see that line item being reduced in equipment only. Okay, so the cloud storage or whatever you do is for backup. Where would that show? I believe that would be in the contract line item or software. I'll have to scroll down on where that is. Okay, all I just want to be, it's in there. It's in there. Okay, that's good. Thank you. Sure. Thank you, Jim. And any follow-up questions, we will put those through Mehta who has this budget and Mehta. Will you make sure to keep in contact with Representative Gannon so that when their committee, if they have any follow-up with public safety that you can join in, would you mind, John, if we join in on one of your meetings as well? And so I want to thank the commissioner and the team for coming in. Right now we're going to have about five minutes so that I can hear from government operations what their concerns are, any policy issues that they want to bring to the table or if there's any language that they think they need to be working on so that we can turn these budgets around as quickly as possible. And you're more than welcome to stay and listen or you can sign out. I'm not sure where you are, Commissioner Schirling, but it looks a lot better than where any of the rest of us are. I hear you're muted and maybe you weren't muted. We've all been guessing. I'm in cold chester. Oh, good. Enjoy the backdrop. So you're welcome to stay on. And again, thank you for being with us. Thank you very much. Good to see you all. Thank you. John, are there, from your committee, as we want to, as we start to close out budgets, we want to be aware of any of the sticking points. So from you or any of your members, are there things that you are going to need to take more testimony on? Think about ad language concerned about a budget reduction or increase? Well, I mean, Commissioner Schirling did note in S219, we require all Vermont state police to wear body cams and that language needs to be tweaked to exclude, you know, folks that are not in the field as he referenced. And that will not come through the budget or are you anticipating adding that to the budget, the budget language? That would not be part of the budget, but it would have an impact on the budget because it would reduce the number of body cameras that the state police need. And so in a memo to us by the first or second, if you could relate that, that you support or don't support, if we could get a memo from you and it can be a very informal memo, it doesn't have to cite statute or sections in the budget, just, you know, cite what the issue is and whether you support it or what the change is that you recommend. Right. And the only other change might be tied to whether S54 passes in some of the testing requirements that are in that with respect to saliva testing and blood testing respect to cannabis for highway safety. So those would be dealt with in the cannabis bill and not in the budget, correct? Yeah, but I just wanted to just point that out to you. Thank you. Anything else budget related? Marcia, excuse me, Representative Gardner. Thank you, thank you. Back to the body cameras. Do we have any idea what the savings will be if not, if all officers do not have to be equipped with body cameras? I think that we have lost, I see Commissioner Schirling is still on, I'm not sure if he's, if just, there he is. Yes, I lost signal a little bit though. So if there was a question, I missed the content. Representative Gardner. Yes, I'll ask again. Because not all of the officers will need body cameras, can you tell me how that will affect the budget? It would seem that there would be a reduction in the cost to supply everyone with body cameras. I wish that were the scenario we were in, we're actually in the inverse that as, as written 219 would add cost, what we're suggesting is to tweak the language to ensure we don't add any cost. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Marcia, that was an important question and Bob. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'd like to thank the commissioner for not getting us seasick while we're sitting in Colchester. I kind of am in the same ballpark with Jim. Last year, the storage numbers were prohibitive and now all of a sudden they seem to be a second thought. So I hope that at least in our committee we can talk about where that money ended up going or not going. Thank you. We look forward to that conversation. And I'm going to lower it and are there any other final questions? So we will hear more from you. I'm looking representative Gannon from your committee about tweaking the language regarding those people not working in the field and not needing body cameras. Understanding there's not going to be any impact to the budget as Marcia discovered for us. However, please let us know if that language needs to end up coming into the budget. We'd need to consider it sooner than later with the time schedule. And then that if the other pieces are pieces that you agree with, your committee agrees with, if you could just get us a quick email, send it to Theresa and she'll make sure to forward it to the entire committee. If you agree with the rejections and changes and don't forget to look at any initiatives that were in the January proposal. Okay. Okay, thank you. Mary? I'm sorry, I thought of a question that maybe DPS can answer. My recollection of the governor's budget in January was for the mental health specialist, the one that was going, however many that were going to be there, you had planned on receiving some money from the department of corrections to help fund that. Is that still the case? And does DOC know that? I do not think, I do not see commissioner nor- I don't either. Does, do you know Rick? Are you aware of that? I do recall that they were going to fund one FTE, but I don't know if their outlook has changed. So my recollection is when I discussed, and there was a transition and there's their commissioner, different commissioner had written the budget versus Colonel Baker. That was a surprise to them. And so if you're still counting on that, that probably should be sorted out between DPS and DOC. I believe the commissioners have spoken. So I think they are working that out. Okay, Mada, you and Mary between DOC and DPS will find out where we are with that position.