 This is the meeting of Senate Appropriations Committee. This afternoon, we're hearing from representatives from our publicly funded higher education system. So we have University of Vermont here, the president, Aramella. We have the chancellor of the Vermont State College System, Sophie Satney, and we have Scott Giles, who is president, executive director. I don't know exactly, but of Vermont Student Assistance Corporation. And I see Sophie has Sharon Scott with her and President Aramella has Wendy Koenig and Scott Giles has Marilyn Cargill. So we certainly have, we're very fortunate to have very knowledgeable people joining us today. We were hoping last week we're talking about where we wanted to get more information. We've been looking at how we have appropriated CRF money. So we want to get sort of an update on how that money has addressed needs. We also want to make sure that you can tell us that the amounts that you received, you think will be expended or in some cases may already have been expended, so that we don't have anything left by December 30th. And then the other is to get really what it looks like today, which was hard to anticipate what enrollment would look like, the effect of the pandemic on our higher ed communities. And so the committee was very interested in having all of you come and brief us on those issues, as you see the world right now. So I'm going to, I know that we have information from UVM, we have, did we have other documents from VSAC and Vermont State College, Chrissy? Yes, we have a presentation from Vermont State College. Okay, so what I would like to do, if we could, I'll start with, why don't we start with the University of Vermont and then we'll move to the state college system and move to VSAC, and then people can ask questions as we go along, but then we can have some discussion and sort of general conversation around the world of higher ed from the people who are right there experiencing it every day in terms of the impact, what you've done for health prevention and so forth. So I'm going to start with the University of Vermont sheet. I know that we have an expenditure you provided a sheet. So if you want to just, you want to want us to put that up on the screen, President Garamella, or do you want to just give us a summary of what's on there? I'm happy to do it either way. Senator Kicil, whatever you like. Well, why don't we start with just some general comments from you in terms of a summary of the world, as you see it from where you sit at the University of Vermont. Thank you. Thank you, Senator Kicil and all the senators and all those who've joined this call, the world as I see it. I don't think you want to know, but first I want to just congratulate everyone on this committee and folks across the legislature and the governor's office. I think we are seeing various ways of operating during COVID across the nation. And I'm very proud that I'm in Vermont today. I think you've all done a fantastic job handling an unpredictable uncertain situation the best you can. And I think the results are speaking for themselves, both in terms of use of care funding, being very careful with how you're budgeting, you know, in the quarter and all that, but also how we're addressing COVID. So truly I feel very much like we have great partners in the governor's office and the legislature in the commissioner of health and certainly to Schneider and others who've put together this safe opening plan. Certainly my colleagues, Chancellor Daphne and Scott Giles who runs Vermont from all I can tell. So just briefly, I'll summarize and you have what we did for you, Senator Kitchell, is to give you how we spent allocation of just under $8.7 million in the previous, I guess, before June. And so in FY20, we had technology and hardware expenses. Obviously we had to go remote in no time and pivot right away. We had lots of additional compensation leave and unemployment items, lots of equipment and supplies, you know, sanitizers and masks and all to buy. And then a big expense for us in the spring was room refunds to students, wanted to just really the lion's share of the funding that you provided around $5 million. We, you know, refunds to students for parking, mail refunds for another two plus million dollars. So that added up to 8.69. You've got the actual numbers in front of you in the table. I'm happy to answer, you know, add to any of those. We, then the next two tranches that we described are what's been happening since July 1st, the allocation through December 30th of 2020. So we were provided, you know, $17.3 million in CARES funding for the added COVID expenses, but an additional $2 million for our office of engagement, which of course also is very timely in terms of addressing issues which assist the state come out of COVID and cope with the challenges COVID. So the amounts that we're using, we're putting the $17.3 million, you know, what we're allocating it for. Again, the categories are the same. The technology hardware and software is $2 million. We've done a lot. Every single classroom has cameras, has the ability to remote stream the classes, et cetera. Again, additional compensation. Tons and tons and tons, actually very large amounts of sanitizer and masks and plexiglass and all of that. Testing has been very expensive. I think I hope you all heard by now, seen by now that I truly believe that we at UVM have probably the most comprehensive and aggressive plan for the return to campus in terms of testing, contact tracing, distancing, de-densifying, isolation, quarantine, all of that. It costs a lot of money, but I thought that providing an education to our students in a safe and healthy environment and protecting the health of our community as well as the surroundings, the neighbors was very important. So we spared no expense. We, our testing regimen is such that we test every student before they even set foot in our community. And so the numbers are very, you know, speak for themselves and I'll come back to that. But the testing thing has been very expensive. That's a big part of the expenditures we've put together. Additional financial aid, our students, their families are in dire straits often and additional financial aid requirements for their facilities, modifications and such. So that all adds up to 17.3. And then the Office of Engagement, I will give you a very brief separate update on where we are with that if you would want that. And then we've also projected our expenses related to COVID from January through June of 2021. This is our spring semester and that comes out to $12.2 million. Same category, slightly lower expenditures because we're hoping things are a little bit better. Of course these are all unpredictable. So it's our best estimate. I also at the very end included expenditures that are COVID-induced. They're certainly worsened because of COVID and that is our revenue shortfall. I understand CARES funding per se is not meant for sort of lost revenue but it is a very real cost for us. And that's about $21 million that we put down there as context for you. I wanted your committee to be aware of how challenging financially the situation is this year. So essentially, I guess in summary I would say we presented in the table how we spend $8.6 million of FY20 funding, how we're using the 17.3 FY21 funding including the in addition, the two million for our office of engagement and our projected needs beyond that. So the major uses for the FY20 money was refunds. In 21, the expenditures are COVID testing, expanded technology, et cetera. And I'm happy to answer questions on testing and such. I will say, and you should all, I hope it'll reassure you all that our testing while extremely rigorous is the results are also extremely gratifying. We've had about, we've received about 5,000 tests from our pre-arrival testing so far. This is through Vault Health and Rutgers and we've had five positives, five out of 5,000 and those five have stayed away. So we prevented five people from COVID from coming to the state, but essentially 4,995 were clear and will be coming to campus. The others will isolate where they are and come. And then we're doing on-campus testing broad through the Broad Institute, which is a highly regarded collaboration between MIT and Harvard. And we've had on the order of 15, 16, 1700 tests so far. And again, the positivity rate is like 0.1, 0.2% something like that. So essentially 99.9% of our students we found were COVID free to start with. And then when they came here, we double-checked and they're in COVID free. So it's not meant to be provocative in any means, but I think that our students are the most tested and perhaps the most COVID free of anyone in Vermont. And so there's been more of a chance of picking it up in Vermont than what they come in with. So I'm just very pleased that this testing regimen is working. We're gonna be testing them every week for the next few weeks. We'll gather a lot of data along with Dr. Mark Levine and Jan Kearney and others. We'll look at that data and see if we need to stick with the same weekly testing, which is quite likely, or increase or decrease the frequency of testing. So again, a lot of expense, but I believe that is warranted and it keeps our community free. So I have a question for you. The news has certainly been troubling with the startup of many of the colleges and universities around the country. We have two UVM grads, Senator Ash and Senator Sears. And I'm sure they never partied while they were at UVM. But others, I'm sure they just stuck to their studies, particularly Senator Ash. So my question is how are you going to handle, if in fact, because we know when you're young, you're immortal and sometimes you take risks. So the question I have is how you would manage that kind of normal student behavior in this environment. And maybe students, you've got the advantage of the startup of other colleges where they've seen that actually it has meant the difference whether they are on campus or whether they are all off on remote learning. So it may, in fact, maybe that experience has sort of brought home the reality of it. But I was just wondering, and then we can talk about the same because I believe some of the state colleges are gonna have some in-person classes as well. Yeah. It's a great question, Senator Kitchell. So certainly I've benefited from the experience of other colleges. I speak to the presidents across New England almost on a weekly basis. Very often we compare notes and folks, presidents of universities across the country. You know, I just read this morning, it almost seemed like a typo to me, but UNC, I believe had a 30%, 30, 30% positivity among their students. We have 0.1%. And so like Jan Kearney said in her inimitable way on Vermont this week, this weekend with Stuart Ledbetter, he'd interviewed Jan Kearney and Dr. Mark Levine and Patty Freelock. She said, this is Vermont, this is not North Carolina and we're UVM, we're not UNC. And so there's an enormous difference between the two. But to your first question, which is very pertinent, it's occupied most of my time and my thinking over the last many weeks. And especially given people like Senator Ash who are so careful and good about these things, not everyone can be like him. There are challenges with this. I think that my worry was most about, thank you very much, sir. Thank you. For those of you who can't see the screen, Senator Ash is showing his true colors. So, I'm here in the University of Vermont. Oh, he's got a shirt for all occasions. He wears the same shirt every time, really. Or a book, or a book. Great. So we've put a lot of effort into this and we're actually very regularly updating and evolving our plan too. I will tell you that Mayor Weinberger has been a great partner. I spoke with the city council earlier this week and he suggested some important things which we've adapted in our planning. So the bottom line is overwhelmingly. So we provided an at-home option, Senator Kishel, as you know, and said anyone who's uncomfortable coming back is welcome to stay away. As of today, the numbers are around 1,800 students, 1,800 students that chose the at-home option. And so those that came, so many of them we know are writing to each other saying, look, I'm working in my roommate to make sure we don't allow anyone to come into our room. And so they all want this to succeed. You even, there was a fair amount of reporting yesterday with the move-in. And I think on the whole, you see that these students really want things to work. Of course, there have been also cases of reports from the community on what appears to be COVID, not responsible behavior. And so not only are we doing educational, focusing on that side of things, our student leaders, our medical students, our nursing students, they're all these peer education via pressure type of programs we have. But we also are being extremely explicit and clear about the sanction and about the enforcement. So if we find the egregious violations and they're reported to us or we get access to that in any way, we will find them, have to find, or if the behavior is egregious enough, they'll be suspended. We're not going to hesitate about, it's a question of life and death truly, and the life of our neighborhood, the neighbors. So I think the message is getting out loud and clear. We provided a simple, sort of a very easy to fill in web link on our neighbor's facing page on our return to campus webpage, where any neighbor can simply click on that site. It's a web-based, drop-down menu-based reporting tool where they can say where it's happening, what's happening, provide some details, and we're following up right away. The follow-up has been quite gratifying too. Those addresses, and you'll notice there's a small number of addresses at which these things happen. There were 26 or so, our community relations team, which actually Wendy Koenig leads, wrote to the landlords, wrote to the students at those places, and as far as my recollection is, only two repeat offenses happened, and several of the students wrote apology notes and such. So we've been very, I guess, hands-on about this. We're also funding at the mayor's request COVID educational circuits so that we're able to go as something is happening, ticket them, and we've asked the police to let us know if the violations were COVID related, in which case we follow up as well. So it's a very, it's obviously a cataract in the stick. I do think the cataract works for 9,500 to 10,000 students, or 9,900, for those who need the enforcement part, we are not hesitant at all. So this is serious. I certainly don't want 10 students to force us to close. We're doing the same with Greek houses, fraternities and sororities. I can tell you that their parent organizations are also being extremely serious about this. They have rules, they're supposed to wear masks in public areas within their houses. Follow all these rules, not have rush events, at all virtual events, et cetera. So I could go on for a long time about this, but there's a lot of thoughts that went into it. And I welcome any input from anyone as well on this group. Thank you. Thank you. That's a pretty thorough update on actions to date. Unless the committee has some specific questions, maybe it's good to go and see what, have the chancellor brief us on what is happening at the state colleges and the campuses. And I see that you have Sharon with you as well. I don't think I mentioned that Sharon was, maybe I did, I don't know. I'm zoomed out. So thank you, Sophie for coming today and bringing us up to date. I know you've got some additional challenges that you're trying to manage. And so it's sort of trial by fire, but would appreciate getting an update from you as well. Yeah, certainly. We did provide a presentation to Chrissy, but I think given how valuable your time is and hearing that you're zoomed out, I don't think we need to go through our whole presentation. The key points, just to follow up in terms of what President Garamella was saying, assuming that's sort of what you're interested in. As far as our CRF funds go, we received 12.215 million for FY20 and those funds have largely been expended. And we received just over 15 million for FY21, which have to be expended by the end of the month, by the end of December. And we're working on funding those projects. And again, most of those, I could run through the categories, but they're going to be very similar to the ones President Garamella listed out in terms of testing and equipment and facilities modification, remote instruction costs, et cetera. So I'm not going to run through all of those. So really for us, the focus is on the bridge funding. So again, we're extremely appreciative for what we've already received. We did receive that additional CRF dollars for FY20. And that was extremely helpful to us to ending FY20 positive. We don't have the final number yet, but we're anticipating, we will have a carry forward of approximately 4 million from FY20. And again, in large part due to the additional funding that we received from the legislature and the governor, and that included room and board refunds and things like that. So we're coming into FY21 with a carry forward of approximately 4 million. You've already given us a 5 million in bridge funding general funds for FY21 in your first quarter transitional budget. And then an additional 7.5 million in CRF funds to be used as bridge. And those we're working to spend as creatively as we can within the guidance. And we're working closely with the joint fiscal office and checking to make sure that what we're spending it on is legitimate. So our ask is 40.3 million in terms of what we're anticipating need for this year. But when you take into account the 4 million carry forward that we have from FY20 and then the 5 million in bridge we already received the 7.5 in CRF bridge money, that brings us to 23.8 moving forward that we're seeking in bridge funding. And that obviously assumes that we have the roll forward of our base appropriation. And again, we did receive our first quarter of that already but assuming that that remains the same moving forward that's the sort of bottom line of what we're asking for right now. So I don't know if anyone has any questions specifically on the bridge or the CRF funds because we could talk about that first or I can switch over to talking about COVID and the fall semester if you would prefer me to do that. We can go on to that. I think what you're saying is the legislature made a commitment for this bridge funding and to help us really do the planning and get a path forward to stabilize the state college system. So we have $23 million yet to figure out committee. That's what I'm, I think that's really the heart of what's being said here. The Senate added the 7.5 when we did the quarter budget. I know that the chancellor's office has identified ways that we can use that money that would be permissible or working toward using all of it. So that's what is still out there for us to address to fulfill that commitment, that bridge year that the chancellor is referencing. So just keep that in mind as we move forward but that's a very helpful breakdown, Sophie to walk through with people how what the total amount was in the end because that was somewhat undefined of a few months ago and then how you ended up the year and what we've done so far to date. So we've done some, but we're not quite there. So thank you. I think we can then move on in terms of sort of where the landscape is it relates to campus life and the decisions which may vary depending on depending on the institution, I'm not sure. So unless there are questions about the money for the state college system, the governor has proposed it's on his list, it's sort of a waterfall if CRF is found eligible, I've been storming my brain working with Steve Klein and not hitting a brick wall but I haven't given up yet. So in terms of how we can utilize our CRF a pot of money. And so that's where that currently stands. Senator Ash and then Senator Starr. So it gets to this issue of what you're calling a waterfall. If I guess there's a question for Sophie if with the governor's current proposal let's assume that nothing changes then the federal government doesn't make the funds eligible under his proposal, what would happen to the state college system then? If we don't receive the additional 23.8 million in bridge, is that a question? If the governor's proposal to use CARES funds doesn't come to fruition because the federal government doesn't change its policies. If we adopt the budget as is, what would happen next? What would happen next is that once the legislative session wrapped up is that we would work with our board to decide what steps we need to take but those would be significant and dramatic steps because again, we're looking at a significant budget deficit and I would just echo back to what President Garamela said we anticipate this is going to be a year long impact for COVID. So that's why our deficit is so serious looking because the spring is also I think going to be impacted by COVID just as the fall was. We obviously have the structural deficit as well and we won't have the reserves or anything else to see us through. I mean, we're operating on the edge so if we don't have bridge funding then it will result in significant action that will be taken. I would imagine along the scale of what was proposed back in April it may be different to what was proposed in April but it would be something significant along those lines. Well, I think we're all hopefully moving in the same positive direction across the branches and with the state college system but I do hope that the various campuses understand the status quo proposal from the administration and what it means because the legislature always gets stuckered into these dynamics where if we want to guarantee the funds it means we have to cut funds to the tune of the exact same amount from the rest of the budget meaning that the people who are in the state college community see the money on a spreadsheet and say, oh great, it's there for us even though it's not reasonable to assume that they will know the federal guidelines and then puts us in the position of being the bad people of having to undo other people's appropriations in order to come up with the money. And I just think it's important that at a time when sort of public policy literacy is very low that public budgeting literacy which is also very low that we all do a good job of communicating what's really on the line because we've walked, this is like a Charlie Brown kicking the football situation for the legislature and it's crossed other governors as well. This is not a new tactic but puts us in a very challenging position. And I guess I just offer that you don't need to respond and let Bobby ask his question. I would just simply say to Senator Ash we asked the administration what would be the fallback and they didn't have an option B. So, but I want to again state that from a legislative perspective I think we have made it clear that we are very committed to seeing the system stabilized how we will do it. The pressure that is putting on us to figure out because it seems like that's where the gorilla is landing is something that we're gonna have to work very hard on because the only response from the budget is it's been presented to us is the possibility that CRF money can be the source of the 23 million. So that's the reality of where we are now. And I guess I'll go on to Senator Starr and then I think Senator Sears has his blue hand up. So Senator Starr. Yes. Thank you, Sophie. Of course the 23.8 million is very important to our universities. And I fully support working to try to raise this. I'm wondering what your fiscal year is and how much money if we used CRF funds how much you could use by December 31st which is the deadline for those funds of that 23.8 if we could get that freed up and you could use it. How much of it could you use by the end of this calendar year to cover your 21 shortfall? Yeah, so our fiscal year runs through to June 30th of next year. And we are trying to be creative in what we can use CRF funds for. But again, as I mentioned, we've received for which again, we're extremely grateful. We have received a lot in CRF funds already. So we already have those monies to use up by the end of the year. We have just over 15 million in CRF funds to cover the cost, the testing, the PPE, all those things. We have the 7.5 already that's bridge funding that we're trying to be creative in what we can do. But it is a challenge. And if it came to us all as bridge funding, right now it would be a real challenge to know how we would deal with that. One of the challenges is that, again, as I think was mentioned, is we really, right now as we understand it, we can't use those funds to replace lost revenue. And that's really where our deficit is coming from is lost revenue. And we have a lot of fixed costs that aren't COVID related. That are salaries and benefits and carrying costs and all those things. So it's a real challenge to know how we would do that. We're open to being as creative as we can, but I think there's probably gonna be limits to our creativity with respect to the entire amount that we're seeking. But if your lost revenues are created and caused by COVID, I don't see why you couldn't use that to a maximum. It depends on the institution and the nature of the organization with the CRF money. That's the problem, Bobby. So that's the litmus test as it relates to businesses. But it's not quite as transferable to higher ed or some other or to state government, for example, or municipal government. You can't make up those lost revenues. So that is the challenge is if we don't have more flexibility or some of my ideas don't come to fruition, then how do we formulate plan B? So with that, I'm gonna move to Senator Sears. Are you, yes. You're muted. You're muted again. I know I mute and unmute myself. It's just really harrowing experience here on Zoom. Nice to meet you, Chancellor. Nice to meet you as well. And please take my comments the way they're meant not to bearage the state college system, which I have the greatest respect for. I represent Bennington County. We just lost one of our major employers in one of our great schools, which is Southern Vermont College. It's now in bankruptcy again, and they're trying to sell the property. And I'm sure somebody will get it for something way under the value just as they did with Green Mountain College. So I'm fully understanding of the need for even just as an economic driver to keeping those colleges and university open. I'm also very happy with our relationship with the Castleton Nursing School, with the Community College of Vermont down here. So I don't wanna see that change, but I see us between a rock and a hard place here. If anybody who's been around our Appropriations Committee very long thinks there's 23.8 million discretionary spending in this three-quarter budget, I don't know where it is. We have debt service. We have state employees contracts. We have all kinds of obligations that are there. And so if you try to find discretionary spending, you may have to look at VSAC, you may have to look at UVM, you may have to look at healthcare. Those are the places that we'd be stuck with because of the way the governors set this up. So I guess my biggest concern would be what have the consultants that we paid said about this 23.8 million and do they have advice for us? Is it a portion of it real that could be COVID funds? Is it a half of it? Can we get something from those consultants on this governor's proposal? So the consultants you're referring to consultants to the legislature in terms of the ability to spend CRF funds? Yes. Okay, yeah. So I'm not familiar with them. I mean, our number comes, our 40.3 million that we started with comes out of the report that we had from Jim Page, that the Joint Fiscal Office had requested and then from the state treasurer's report. I'm not arguing with the amounts. And I'm not actually not against saving our Vermont State colleges. I'm just wondering where anybody, where we would find 23.8 million. And have we consulted with the consultants Joint Fiscal looked at this? What are our options? So we are working with Joint Fiscal to come up with and explore ideas to be as creative as we can on this. We are also taking measures to contain costs internally. So we're trying to do the best we can to make sure that we're not asking you to pay for things unnecessarily. But again, we are looking closely at what others are doing. Other colleges and universities, we're keeping a close eye on the US Treasury guidance. I mean, that's, and again, even if the timeline was expanded, right now we're looking at this end of December timeline, if that were extended to the spring, that would help enormously because it would address COVID related costs and expenses for the spring as well. So, and we, again, I just wanna be clear, we fully understand how challenging this is for the legislature. And I understand that it's, it's not a lack of desire to help the VSC. It's a question of really challenging choices that you're confronting and limited dollars to address all the need that's out there. And we do recognize that. Thank you. Other questions of the Chancellor? Okay, and could you just brief us in terms of the startup and which institutions are having in-person learning and how that is working? Or maybe the students haven't returned yet, I'm not sure. No, we're well underway. So Castleton University and Northern Vermont University started last week. Vermont Tech started earlier this week and the Community College of Vermont starts, I believe it's September 8th. So we kind of have a spectrum. The Community College of Vermont decided back in June. And again, each college, we worked with them, it was collaborative, but each college looked at what the needs were for their particular students, their faculty, their technical capabilities, et cetera. And so the Community College of Vermont made the decision in June to switch to being online. They'd have a small handful of courses that will involve some face-to-face labs, art classes, things like that. They're offering a range of virtual learning options, asynchronous, accelerated. They have a smorgasbord of different options, but essentially most of it is going to be remote. Castleton University is providing remote instruction for the fall. They do have nursing that will be obviously doing some practical hands-on with nursing. They do have students back on campus. I believe they have approximately 300 that are in-person. They have a lot that are commuters. They also have additional students, graduate students that live in downtown Rutland, and they have students part of the Killington program. So they have some students back, but the courses will primarily be remote. Vermont Tech has some students living on campus. I don't remember the exact number for them. Those will be on campus all semester. And again, those tend to be students that are out of state, international, or have housing insecurity or inability to access courses remotely. And then they're looking at doing a low residency program given that Vermont Tech, a lot of it is hands-on and experiential. They will be having students coming at different points during the semester for intensive, week at a time labs and hands-on. So that's a new model that we will be trying out this semester. And then at Northern Vermont University, they're providing both in-person instruction and some remote. And the numbers are, they have just under 6% of their courses will be online, 48% are fully face-to-face and 62% are a combination of face-to-face with some hybrid, some remote. And again, just to go to what President Garamella was saying about the experience in Vermont. At NVU, for example, I believe they've tested done over 3,200 tests at this point and they've had zero positives. Now, many of our students are Vermonters, so I'm sure that contributes to it, but we are also testing students at all our colleges as they come in, day zero, day seven. And then depending on the amount of face-to-face interactions is really driving the amount of testing moving forward. But at Northern Vermont University, for example, they will be doing regular testing for the foreseeable future. So yeah, we're also taking it. And the other question that had come up earlier was how to handle situations where students aren't complying with the pledges that they've committed to. And I can tell you already that we've had students that have been sent home that haven't complied. We're taking a very strict view of it. We've also been working closely with the towns in which we're located. I know Castleton, for example, just passed an order limiting the size of gatherings in the town, so they're taking advantage of the governor's directive, permitting towns to take action to help address off-campus activity as well. So we are working closely with our local communities, also with our local police departments, et cetera, to try and curb off-campus behavior as well as on-campus behavior. Senator Westman, you have a question? So early on, the reports were that schools across the country were gonna see a 20% drop-off in students. What have we experienced at the state colleges in the number of students that had dropped off and in the students that you expected initially going to school? Yeah, so our residential colleges have definitely seen a decrease in enrollment and it ranges from approximately 11% up to, I think it's 23%. The Community College of Vermont routinely anticipates a decline in enrollment. They are seeing a much stronger enrollment than they had anticipated. They had anticipated a decrease. I don't know if it means that they're above where level with last year, but they've had a strong enrollment. They had a strong summer. Obviously for us, even with those enrollment decreases, the revenue implications are larger than that because of having so many fewer students actually on campus. And so our revenue largely comes from, about 78% of our revenue comes from students in the form of tuition, room and board and fees. So even if we have, the enrollment numbers aren't catastrophic, we're still having significant revenue implications because we're having so many fewer students actually on campus, so it has an impact on the room and board aspect of revenue. So is there any way that we could get some sort of a report back from you on who's the 11, who's the 23 and how that breakdown through the system is? Yeah, we can follow up and provide you with that. I did have one more follow-up question. As we talk about the bridge funding and having to come up with the 23 million and that I don't think we can do that. And this might not be the place to do it because it's a longer question, but some idea of where we are in the system in making changes, because I think we all know that we can do the bridge funding, but if nothing changes in the system, we're going to be right back where we are now in a year from now. So the question really is what is the system doing to change? And for those of us that don't spend all of our time dealing with this, how do we get the update and how do we understand what's happening? You know, I think that would be helpful to just revisit our own legislation on that that created the select committee. And then within that, it's a steering committee that I understand the chair is Joyce Judy. And they're going to select the contractor who is going to provide the consultation and the body of knowledge and expertise to help the steering committee. And I understand and Senator Ash can confirm this that the Senate appointee to that committee is Senator Baruth. And so we're really relying on that structure and then to also because of campuses, and I'm stating this, because I want to make sure I have a clear understanding. And then there are committees that have been created around the various campuses and community leaders and so forth. And that thinking and work would then feed into that steering committee. I think it's 15 members in total. And I don't think probably it's, I know that the select committee probably hasn't met the steering committee I know is meeting because they're having to review the vendors and make a decision and possibly they have by now, I'm not aware of it. So if any of our witnesses have got the latest update, that would be helpful as well. But that's, I think we should ask our Senate representation to keep us up to date because it's such a critical process and the work and the timing is so critical. I understand that, but I do know that each of the schools and you're probably as aware as I am of Northern Vermont University, they had their committee, which is pretty much wrapped up its report to go. So I'm just trying to figure out how to sort through where we are with everybody. So Sophie, do you know to your knowledge or Senator Ash to your knowledge, do you know if a contractor has been selected by that steering committee? I know that I was invited to a meeting on Monday. I'm a member of the Select Committee and we've been invited to a meeting Monday afternoon at which I believe we'll be told about the contractor. So I don't know for sure. I just know that we're gonna be receiving an update in my senses. The update will include who the contractor is. And Scott is on that committee as well as well as President Meramella. So, okay, all right. Other questions of the Chancellor, otherwise we can move on to BISAC and Scott, I also see, I don't see his face, but I see that Tom Little is joining us as well. So just wanna welcome Tom. Thank you very much. And Senator Kitchell, before I start, I just wanna be mindful of your time. So I will kind of skip part of what I thought that I would present and then come back to questions. But let me begin, I think echoing what Suresh and what Sophia both said is our appreciation for the attention that the Appropriations Committee has given to higher education into the needs, both of the institutions and of our students. And in particular, express my appreciation for the work that you did with us early this spring when we came to you and said that without some clarity regarding the FY21 funding levels, we couldn't make awards. And I just wanna, I know that was challenging, but on behalf of all of us at BISAC, thank you for working with us to make those commitments. Of the 19.9 million in base funding you gave us, we've already obligated close to 17 of that. And we are still obviously in late August. I thought I'd take a minute on the higher ed picture, then talk about our COVID funding and kind of provide you an update with what we have done and where we are. One thing that I do wanna make clear and in this regard again, I'm echoing the comments that Suresh and Sophia made. This has been a year of unparalleled collaboration within the higher education community. And as I take a look at not only the work that BISAC is doing with the institutions of higher education, but the work that they are doing in order to figure out how to bring students back on campus safely. The Vermont presidents are meeting weekly to talk about their experience and to share plans. UVM, the state colleges, Middlebury, they've all really contributed both their leadership and their resources to make sure that all institutions have the benefit of the work that they're doing. And I think we all owe them a debt of gratitude. From a student perspective, this will come as no surprise. This has been a challenging year for everyone. There's been a great deal of volatility in student attitudes. The transition of high schools from in-person to remote created its own set of challenges, particularly for students that were undecided or were late deciders towards the end of the spring. Summer melt is normally a problem that we see. We're 11 to 15% of students, high school seniors who claim though, be on campus and the fall don't show up. And we're seeing some evidence of greater levels of melt in part because this K-12 system had to focus very much on meeting core academic needs during this transition period. And while we were able to step in and kind of backstop some of that work, we saw a decline in financial aid filings both at the national level and at the state level. One of the things that we did is a result of the resources that you provided us and in part in response to something that Senator Westman shared. In March when we were last talking, national surveys suggested that upwards of 30% of high school seniors that otherwise would have gone on to school were considering not enrolling for the fall we're deferring for a year. We went out to survey Vermont financial aid filers kind of both in late June and then in early July. And I can provide more detail about this at another time, but one of the things I do wanna acknowledge is that I think that the schools were in a very, very tough position. When we surveyed Vermont financial aid filers, 90% of the first year students and 85% of the returning students said that they planned to enroll as normal. But as soon as you talked about online modality, those numbers changed pretty dramatically and students started indicating that they were more likely than they would have otherwise to defer a semester a year. We saw upwards of 20% of the financial aid filers indicating that they might defer if online was the only mode that was available to them. Not surprisingly, there are lots of equity issues buried in there that I can talk about another time. The other thing that we took a look at was the economic impact that COVID-19 was having on our students. And again, one of the things that we have seen is that the economic impact of COVID, much like the economic impact of the last recession, breaks down along education lines and along gender lines. So female students were more likely to report the loss of work. First gen students were more likely to report temporary work stoppage than second gen students and probably not surprisingly dependent students more than independent. One of the things that we were tracking was that students with multiple COVID-19 related financial events were less likely to enroll. And later on, we'll be sharing some updated information because we redid this survey in late July, kind of early August, that has kind of shown that the strategies that the schools have been using by and large, I think has been successful in shifting the desires of Vermont students. But it, I think speaks to the challenges that they face as they have faced competing pressures with regard to how they offer education mistake. So let me turn now kind of quickly to our CARES Act money that you all provided to us and offer it kind of upfront that one of the challenges that we faced similar to what Sophie and Suresh have indicated is that there were limitations on the way that COVID-19 money could be used that prevented us from doing some of the things that we would have liked to have been able to do. Earlier this year, you appropriated 5.2 million in COVID-19 funds to support two goals. One was to provide a replacement for the some advancement grant funds that we had been provided last year as kind of one-time funds. And 4.6 of which was provided in order to allow us to kind of handle the appeals of grant recipients whose income had changed as a result of COVID-19. And in a normal period, if there were no strictures or limitations on those funds and we were to receive 5 million additional dollars we would have looked at probably raising levels for everyone but there was no way that we could justify that as being a COVID-19 related expense. So the targeting of these funds is targeted on individual student level COVID-19 impact. We gave you an estimate when you came to us based on our prior experience in the Great Recession and based on information that we were seeing from economists within the state regarding unemployment. In our past experience that when students appeal because of economic circumstances, the grant goes up by 3,000. And based on our early June unemployment estimates we expected that maybe 1,000 to 1,500 students would appeal. We have currently received about 775 appeals at this point. 640 of those have been reviewed. There are about 140 that are pending. 92% of these have resulted in increased awards. So we have of the 4.6 that you provided at this point awarded 1.2 million of that to roughly 500 students. We've also awarded from base funding an additional 300,000 for students who have appealed but we can't tie that directly back to COVID. So we are absorbing that within the base funding. If nothing else changes and there are no changes in the way these funds can be utilized, we're projecting that we'll use a little less than 2 million of that 4.6. And I offered the caveat if there's additional flexibility in its use or there is a second wave that results in new unemployment or loss of income, obviously some of this could change. But we wanted to give you kind of the best kind of projection that we could kind of based on what it is that we are seeing right now. In addition to that, as you recall, you provided an additional $5 million that in part was, I think, placed there against the possibility that any or all of our estimates regarding need were off by a substantial amount. When we received that $5 million originally, we proposed three uses of funds, technology stipends, which I'll talk a little bit about in a minute, replacement of summer work for students that lost the ability to work and relief for student loan borrowers who are unable to make payments. We came back to the committee just to check whether or not those uses aligned with your intentions when you provided the appropriation and decided that we would proceed with the technology stipend but put the other two potential uses on hold. And in communication with the two committee chairs, we said that we were comfortable awarding up to roughly a million dollars depending on the need. So I thought what I would do is report back on that. Colleges and universities had some of the same challenges when they made that quick move to remote in March that the K-12 system did particularly with technology. Many of the low income students and first generation students that we were both serving lacked the technology to be able to make that transition smoothly. And in conversations with the financial aid team at CCV, they estimated that roughly 30% of their Pell Grant recipients lacked some of the technology that they needed to make that transition. And in late spring, we were able to step in to meet some of that need by creatively using our emergency micro-grap program. But as this unfolded and it was clear that the demand was higher, we sought permission to use some of the COVID-19 money for these purposes. We went out to college financial aid offices to ask them to nominate students. And we originally received 5,000 nominations for these $1,000 stipends. Obviously that was substantially more than the million dollars that we had indicated, at least initially that we were comfortable awarding. So we've gone back and done some triaging to prioritize those students that are the lowest income within the pools that were nominated. We have awarded 760,000 to about 760 students. Just a second, Scott. President Garamello says he's got to sign off. So I just want to acknowledge that he's leaving. We appreciate his spending the time with us this afternoon. I assume Wendy is gonna stay on. And thank you so much for that question. All right, thank you. Thank you, Therese. Sorry, Scott, okay. We expect those numbers will continue to rise. We just received 1,800 additional students nominated from CCB. And our experience has been that the response rate in this process runs between 10 and 15%. And if nothing changes, we'll expect to commit a little bit more than the million dollars that we had originally talked about, which will leave the additional $4 million either to be allocated towards one of the other kind of programs that we had proposed or for other uses of the committee. So I'm not clear, Scott. Is the need, particularly with remote learning and CCB is remote and the hybrid courses and so forth that are out there, is there a need to allocate more than the million dollars to support the technology for students to participate? Because one of the goals, obviously, is to keep that enrollment up and keep those students in school. So are you recommending more money be allocated to support the technology side for students? We would like, we are kind of projecting at this moment. And as I say, it's a moving target because we just got the nominations from CCB. Coming into this, we thought that the million dollars would be enough, but with these additional nominations that we have received, I think it is very possible that we could go over the one million to somewhere between one and 1.5 million. Okay, because we just need to give you some guidance. You already have the money. The question is how it would be sort of allocated. The other part was to do something also, and that was direct student assistance and that as the people in the colleges know, sometimes students really have a car repair or some kind of emergency or food or help with apartment or something falls apart and they need help in order to address it and to stay in school. So a couple of years ago, we allowed a certain amount of the money for BSEC to use to address those emergency needs, to keep kids in school and many of them are right on the edge. So one of the would be permissible would be to do more. And at this point, I think it was a very modest amount, 60,000 or something to do more to recognize that if the kids haven't had the same employment this summer as they might have normally that that could mean their emergency needs or their financial situation is much more fragile. So that's one thing that we need to talk about and that is do we want to recognize that our students have those emergency needs? We've focused on utilities, we've focused on rent, we've focused on a whole lot of things for emergency needs. So I just wanna throw that out. And I think what would be helpful, Scott is if you would provide the committee with just a breakdown of the amount and that what you would like to propose to us for how that remainder could be used to support students because that has a beneficial impact on our colleges because you want those kids to stay. Absolutely. Okay. Absolutely. So we'd be glad to come back, take another look at what we're seeing within the emergency grant program and within technology and come back in the next day or so with a proposal to the committee. Okay. And then the last was just helping buy down some of their debt. Yeah, we have, I think nationally, we've all seen the challenges that some particularly recent graduates have had finding jobs and the struggles that they've had paying their student loans. This is, we had BESAC had been working very, very closely with our borrowers to help them with payment relief. One of the things that several states have done in the absence of relief being provided directly by the federal government for those non-federaly owned student loans has been to use a portion of the CARES Act funds to provide some relief to those borrowers that are struggling to make payments during the period that they can't make them. So it'll be helpful. And then we can consider what we want to do. Committee, other questions of any of our witnesses? My goodness. Well, thank you all for coming. And we have some work ahead, I guess, before we finish up. And I think obviously this has put everything into uncertain territory. So if you can, I guess everybody is saying that the money that we've appropriated so far, I think UVM and the state college system, except for that 23 million, so to speak, that's hanging out there, that sort of appears as though you have something that you may not have that the appropriations, in fact, will be spent by the end of the year. There is nothing that you're gonna leave unexpended to be reallocated. Is that correct? Everybody's shaking their heads. Wendy and Sophie and Scott, your question back to us is that five million and how we might want to use it to assist students that we've just talked about in terms of what that allocation might look like. That's correct. And in the spirit of collaboration, making sure that that money is available to be spent. Okay. All right, Senator Starr. Yeah, I'm just wondering has the university and the state colleges and BISAC, have you been pushing our congressional delegation at all in regards to trying to loosen up? One of the heads nod, Bobby. Senator Starr, I just talked to Senator Abbey, he's office about this this morning. And I know that everybody else has been talking to them regularly, we're trying. Yeah, good. Keep up the good work. Okay. And similarly, I have been in conversation with the U.S. Senate Education Committee staff trying to work through some of these issues as well. Good. Yeah, we've been in touch with them, but also I would say, at the national level, there's a huge amount of pressure from higher education institutions in general as well. So it's not just our congressional delegations, but there are other national organizations related to higher education that are making the same pitch. Okay. So committee, I think that unless anyone has got further questions, or any of the other people who have joined today want to make any comments on offer that opportunity. I know that we have Sharon and we have Tom and... Yeah, you also have Marilyn. And I see Marilyn up in the corner. So I just want to offer an opportunity. You have a question or comment? Yeah, since Marilyn is here and we did an estimate on the grant program for the increase, the other 5 million that was put in, how good was our estimate and will there be enough to carry the students that we had that have come back to us and said their economic situation is worse? We need to redo that. How are we doing with that? And did we estimate right? So I would say, Rich, that we have $4.6 million that can be used for those appeals. We've currently spent about 1.2 million because of the COVID relationship that has to be there and another 300,000 of state-appropriated funds for non-COVID appeals that have come in. So we estimated that we'd have about 1500 before the year was over. We have 800 so far. We will receive appeals across the fall semester if it runs at all as it has run in years past. And who knows this year if it's gonna run as it has in years past. That's a dangerous thing to say. But if it does, we'll continue to receive them. The other thing that we can't predict and no one can is what's gonna happen in as the fall unfolds, right? So right now our appeals have been slowing down a little but we still have 150 more in the pipeline to review. So they're definitely still coming in. People are hearing this message. The average award increase has been slightly over $2,300 for each student who has received an increase in eligibility. So families are incredibly appreciative of this money. They are definitely asking for it. But I would say right now if I had to guess and I just don't know if this is a good idea or not, I think we may be closer to spending 2 million than 4.6. And I think Scott mentioned that when he first started talking but you just don't know what's gonna happen this fall semester. What happens to those kids in January? Well, that's... Yeah, the second half of their year we will have carried those kids through the fall semester but will that turn into a drop-off in attendance at the state college system where the largest majority of those kids are and as I think we heard from the state colleges filling those seats, 76% of their revenue comes from the kids that are in those seats. I think that you've just identified one of those questions that we can't answer. It's a one of those ill-defined concerns that is hanging out there. And we can't... There's the CRF constraints right now without an extension are really gonna very much constrain what we're able to do if that's the reality. I think we need to be cognizant of it but at this point, the capacity to address it is right now we're still struggling to figure out the bridge money. And I think the fair point there is that our estimates are based on the fact that these funds have to be spent by December 20th. If that deadline were to change we might look at those estimates differently. Okay, great. Other comments or questions? Tom, I see you're unmuted. Do you have anything you wanna add? Nothing to add. Good conversation and uphill climb. Yeah, I know. Well, you've been around to know you've climbed many hills. So we'll join hands and climb together. Sounds like a fun trap movie. Except for Senator Sears we're always holding hands and jumping off the cliff. So. I'm just thinking of that. I've never seen what budget was this much uncertainty. And it's created by not knowing what people in the Washington DC or some of the first of the messy administration and the Congress are going to do. And their lack of leadership to bring anything out when one would have expected it months ago has just left us at every other state in the union up in the air. And so questions that people like Scott and UVM and the state colleges are asking you still have the answer for it. That's true and I thought of state agencies too. So as we look at this budget I would say we're setting ourselves up for one hell of a budget adjustment act in January of 2021. Those of you who are back here then given the races knows but I think this will be one of those challenging years where assumptions, some will come true and some won't. But I think it's all can be laid at the United States Congress and the presidents. I've failed the American people and Ramondris miserably. That was a two minute. It was. And if somebody wants to close it's something a little more uplifting. But I think what I've said is true though. I know it's true. Why we're in the position. Yeah, so I guess that's why this election is gonna be. I know. Maybe a central election in terms of what direction Congress will take because we're not alone in this. That's the other thing. Other states, other large cities are really just struggling as much as we are. And so let's hope that we can see some some kind of fiscal relief and response to where we are. But until that happens then we're just kind of in this horrible limbo situation. So other comments. Otherwise, Chrissy said she's gonna see if the Department of Labor might be able to come on a little early. But we've taken quite a bit of time from the staff of the state college system university and VSEC. So we do appreciate being you're being available today. And Scott, we look forward to the memo regarding your proposal on the money and how that could be allocated to where you're seeing the need. Thank you very much. Many thanks. Thank you. Chrissy, I don't know. Did you hear back from Department of Labor? No, I have not heard back yet, but I didn't reach out to them about 10 minutes ago to see if they could hop on a bit earlier. Okay. Well, if they can, then we'll put them on as soon as they get here. I have just wanted to talk to the committee and that has to do with our two public hearings. We got Senator Ash, are you talking to your Frankie or are making some kind of... Well, my question has to do about the public. I'm resorting to the baseball pitchers. They now, they have to cover their mouth in there. I see. And that is the amount of time these hearings are gonna take. We got information that we're supposed to sign on an hour ahead. And then we've got, well, the most we can have are 40 witnesses. And for one, I think there's a 30 something and close to 30 for the other. So my question is, are all members available? Do we wanna sort of divvy it up and do four and four for each of the hearings, just in terms of your time demands, the house, we're doing it jointly with the house. But I was not aware that we had to sign on an hour ahead until we got that email. Well, what they said was, you gotta sign on, but then you can just leave it on the hold for the hour. You don't have to sit there for the... No, that's true. They said we could go about our work. They're letting us do that? Oh. Yeah, they're letting us, okay, dad. That's nice of them to let us go do something else for them. My question to the committee is, are you available for both hearings or do you have a conflict? And just for our own planning purposes? I have a conflict Thursday night. Thursday night, okay. Chrissy, are you kind of keeping track of this? Yeah, I'm taking notes. I need to know who is the chair of these hearings? I think Kitty will be. That's good. I'm available both nights, both. All right, thank you, Alice. Can I speak, can I be one of the speakers? Okay. Senator McCormick. Yeah, I wonder if we have a conflict. My calendar shows that our regular committee meeting tomorrow is from 2 to 4.30. And then the public hearing starts at 5. So if we're signing on an hour ahead, it's at 4 o'clock, which means I'd have to sign out of the committee meeting. And just have the iPad inactive for an hour. I think that would be true. We'd have to wrap up Senate appropriations by 4 with this new protocol of logging in an hour early. All right, so you need to look at the schedule and... Yeah, yes. Senator Ash, you wanted to know. There's just no way we have to be on an hour early for this to work. This is just ridiculous. Let's have the committee should be meeting that is the priority. And then we log on when we log on, it'll work out. Who made that rule? The IT folks say they needed... Teresa sent an explanation that we see about how they have to get people into the rooms and then because it's a webinar, it's not just our Zoom conferencing. Don't ask me to explain it. You know, I'm hardly the most savvy tech person here. So my question is... Wait, why are you on the joint technology committee if you don't know anything about technology? Because you put me on. Why don't you ask yourself that question, Mr. Coach? You're doing a great job, though. Thanks. They love me there. The second hearing is at night as well. No, no, no. The second one is a Friday afternoon. Friday at one. Well, we have a similar conflict, though, which is that we're scheduled to have our regular committee meeting until a half an hour before the public hearing. Well, Chrissy will have to adjust for that. Yeah, I will make sure we adjust for that. Okay. Is there anyone else who can't make the hearing? Senator Ash wants to testify, so we'll put him down for 30 seconds. Only if Representative Toll is the host, I would like to talk to him. You can't torment her, Tim. No, I won't. Could be a final opportunity. I'm not sure I fully understand. I still don't know, I fully understand what the point of the hearings is. We've already had hearings on this budget, haven't we? Not on the restated budget. But from the point of view of the lobbyists, it's about the same, isn't it? I can't speak for the lobbyists. What we're not having a special lobbyist. They don't care about vacancy savings. They don't care about travel being cut back. I mean, they might be, I would think the CRF proposals would be one area that people would have not had a chance to offer. So we've asked them to weigh in on the CRF funds as well. It's part of the budget. The governor's budget includes it. So, yes. I think it's a mistake, but whatever. I think Timothy's being difficult. No, no, because we've got, we're going to have people weighing in, for instance, in favor of the 30 million for the state colleges, not understanding that it's not even an allowed use. So it's, we're not going to have the chance to educate people that the proposal as it stands isn't workable. And so it creates this almost theatrical. Can we ask them what they'd like us to cut? But we can ask during a public hearing. They only have two minutes and they just say what's important to them. And then we'll do like we always do and that we have to set the priorities. So I think we have that every year. Anyway, we're committed. They're on and they're scheduled. So I'm going to, at this point, we'll have to accept what has been scheduled. It is on the restatement. And is it airing on YouTube or what's the way it's gonna? It's gonna be a webinar. It's a Zoom webinar. That is not going to be carried live on YouTube as far as you're aware. It will be carried live on YouTube. It will be on YouTube. So it's just like any public hearing. People will come and they will have two minutes and we'll have a timekeeper. And it's the same as the ones that we have had around the state. Only we're doing it remotely. Before we move on, I'd just like to raise a practical question for future Zoom meetings. Because we're starting to see this play out whenever the meetings are on YouTube. Of course, we're in the Zoom room being attentive to the issues. There are chat functions going on on the YouTube link. And people have a right to do that. But that then becomes the official place where people will go forever to look at the proceedings of a meeting with unfiltered commentary being offered by different individuals. Sometimes with information that's not accurate. And I think what's gonna happen is there are gonna be legislators who are gonna sort of be taking a pass on actually being an active participant. And they're gonna be in there jockeying around with commenters on YouTube. But that's just something I'd say to file away for, because... Well, then I'd be concerned about that if that becomes part of the official record because it's not part of the official record. And so I think we have to... But that's YouTube's issue, not ours, we can't... It's Chrissy here. We do have the ability to turn off chat. So I can talk to Teresa that's recorded. It's only the folks that are testifying, but we do have an ability to turn chat off. On YouTube? Well, no, on Zoom is where it shows up. They can chat separately on YouTube? Yes. Oh, okay. So that's a YouTube thing. I'll talk to her. It's worth people thinking about, because what will happen, and we know this when some legislators are on Facebook during committee meetings and dealing with real-time stuff, it's going to become an issue in the future with legislators in real... Some legislators in real-time being on YouTube, engaging with people who are commenting while the rest of the people are actively doing the committee work. And it will have implications because people don't understand that the commentary on YouTube doesn't necessarily reflect... It's not necessarily accurate or... It's not the official record and it may not be accurate. I think that's something we need to explore. All right, Chrissy, that's something you will do. I see that we have the focus from Department of Labor here. So why don't we go into their section of the budget and not keep them waiting? They were kind enough to come early, but it's more only two minutes early. So that I'm going to ask the commuter in terms of the budget, in terms of the restated budget. Also, as you can imagine, there's been a concern about the problems with... the UI system and delays and so forth. So I'm sure it'll be kind of a free-floating conversation, but if you could at least speak to the restated budget and whether it has any impact in terms of what you would be proposing versus what the governor proposed to us in January. So, Commissioner Harrington, welcome. Thank you for coming. Great, thank you for having us with me. I've got our CFO, Chad Wozniak, who's not a stranger to any of you, and he can help provide any context or additional details. One second here, while we get rid of an echo. Great, so we were asked to propose or re-propose our budget with a slight decrease in the general fund, which we strategically went through our budget to identify points where we could pull that information. Yes, ma'am. Members of the committee, if you could go on mute, maybe that's, maybe we're contributing to the feedback. Senator Starr, if you would mute, if you would mute just cause we're getting feedback, I think maybe that will help. Okay, do you wanna try again or? Chad, you seem to have two heads there. We're just trying to make sure we can get rid of the feedback here. Well, trying to keep some respectful distance. Is that better for you, Madam Chair? Oh, yes, yes, it seems to have solved it. Great, so again, what you have in front of you is likely two documents we provided, and one gives a little more detail than the other, but we identified three specific areas that included a slight reduction from the originally proposed budget. And that includes about $8,700 out of our administrative services line. I should start by saying in total, the Department of Labor only accounts for about $5,411,000 in general fund money. So when we're talking about a 3% reduction, we're looking at a total of $162,335 that we identified through a variety of programs, one being our administrative services with a slight reduction, some ICANN money, which is some workforce development money that was used to administer a grant program. There was a reduction in the grant, the overall federal grant. So we were able to remove some of the overhead cost out of the administrative line for that grant. And then we also looked at some decrease in our wage an hour and earn sick time. Those are specific to the fact that we've just been able to realize a little bit of vacancy savings there. And traditionally that fund also has just a slight amount of money left over at the end of a typical fiscal year. So combined with the vacancy savings, we were able to take out about $50,000 out of that line. And then a slight reduction in our overall administrative subsidies and budget allowances. So the total obviously being the 162,335 in general fund money. So we can talk about any of those specifically or anything else about the budget or I can talk a little bit about the other items you mentioned. I think because you're so predominantly funded by federal dollars, as you say, the general fund is very, very small. And so it's, and then you had some internal service fund reductions of 5% as well that would have contributed to it toward that, which we've seen in all the budgets. Any questions about the restated budget that the commissioner has said is a slight reduction in the general fund? Yes, Alice. I just wanna say for the public hearing, the public out there hearing that there's vacancy savings going on. I would think they would be very upset because of the huge issues that happened and are still going on with regard to adjudicators. So I think, you know, people says vacancy savings at this point, but I mean, I understand what you're doing. Well, and I would say that's not, those aren't necessarily planned vacancy savings. You know, it may have been based on either the fact that we had a new employee come in at a lower pay rate or in this case, there may have been a position that was just open for a few months while we were filling a position. But this fund typically has a little wiggle room in it depending on how the year shakes out. So that's where we were able to find about 50,000. Senator Ash, your hands up. Yes, so commissioner in the budget itself, the language we received, there's grade out language, meaning that it's no longer being requested. And it relates to a series of transfers that I think are under the rubric of the next gen funds. You just explain what the explanation on the bottom of it I'm drawing from memory here says something like not needed anymore, the transfer piece. So can you just explain what's going on there? Sure. And Chad can talk a little bit more about the timeline, but I think it was about a year ago now in the previous budget, those next gen or wet fund as they are also called workforce education and training fund dollars were actually moved into the department of labor's base budget. So those actually appear within our detailed budget at the bottom under workforce education and training fund. So that's no longer needed with simply because it is included in our base budget. That's helpful. Do you have any insights into, when we think about what the federal government might do in terms of stimulus, we hear about things like broadband and infrastructure and different sorts. Is there anything in the workforce category that seems to have legs that you're hearing about in Washington that this budget might be wise to anticipate? From a federal perspective, I'll be honest, most communications and comments are around unemployment insurance. However, I think one that remains at the top of the list, specific to workforce development is apprenticeship money for the expanding of apprenticeship programs. So I would certainly anticipate that there may be additional federal money for apprenticeship programs. I have a feeling if I'm reading the crystal ball, I mean, I can't imagine that states wouldn't also see an increase in their dislocated worker fund. And so that is dollars, federal dollars that come to us through the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act and others that are specific for employees who have been laid off either temporarily or permanently displaced. And so I would imagine there'd be additional funds there. Okay. I'm not sure any of that necessarily has a bearing on what is specifically laid out in this program unless Chad, feel free to provide any color to that. The only thing I can say about that is I personally from the CFO office have heard not a single word on what's going on for the new budget year out of the federal government. So right now it's a bit of a mystery to me as to what will happen. I am anticipating lots of changes in the UI world and I would anticipate some changes in the WIO funding of which the dislocated worker that Commissioner Harrington just spoke of, I would imagine that has, we'll see some changes or some increases as well. And apprenticeship has been a focus for several years now. So I would expect that would continue to be a focus. Are there any requests from the administration to our congressional delegation related to these things? Not at this time. And I don't think that's anything other than, I think we typically hear of comment or are asked to provide comment to our congressional delegation. I think most recently the feedback we've given has been around UI modernization, but there again, that goes back a few months now. So there may be another opportunity, I'm assuming coming up where we could provide some additional comment or recommendation for funding. And I would also say that I can follow up with our workforce development director. You all know Sarah Buxton and see if she's hearing other comments either at the state level or the federal level. Okay, now this is my last comment. I do think, because it would be wise I think to anticipate funds, not the worst case outcome, but I think a very inefficient outcome would be the feds just pump up WIOA funding and we're back in the same trap of not being able to use the funds because the population we have doesn't quite match these bureaucratic requirements from Washington. So now's the time to try to seek maximum flexibility if they're gonna jack up the amount of money that comes for some of these programs. So we can actually use them for the people we have in Vermont, not the people they have in Des Moines or early primary states. Thank you. I think, I would think that out of all the competing interests that the state, the state of not geopolitical state but the state of the UI systems around the country when we see the lines in Florida, when we see the difficulties that people are having accessing these benefits, it's hard to fathom that a program that has had such a historical federal presence that something won't be done to address the plight of so many unemployed around the country. So one would hope that perhaps if there's anything that comes out of this long-term benefit would be the money to modernize these systems that many states have that are pretty antiquated. I will say that, yeah, sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you. I was just gonna say that in the last proposed stimulus package that got hung up at the federal level and hasn't come through yet did include some significant money for state UI modernization. Other questions about and not the budget because the budget's pretty straightforward if more federal money comes in, of course we can accept it through the normal process but if not, then we can talk about where things stand relative to the UI system. I know that you're coming in to join fiscal committee tomorrow to get approval for a $35 million grant. So perhaps we can have some discussion around that. My first question really, and that is taking on this new program and what it'll take to do, how will that compromise the several thousand cases that you've still got left to adjudicate that it seemed to be really complicated and people are saying they aren't getting callbacks and there's been no resolution. Well, we see further negative impact on the department's ability to start getting some of those cases resolved and out of queue. So I don't wanna say there'll be no impact. I mean, maybe what is important for me to just highlight while I have a second is some of the mitigation efforts we've put in place in adjudication. So we started prior to COVID with probably about eight adjudicators, maybe as low as seven. We're now up to 15 and a half adjudicators. The seven or eight original ones, five and a half that have been reassigned from other departments. We have a couple new adjudicators that have joined us. We also have six additional temporary hires that we'll start next week. We have two additional vacant positions that are under recruitment and you probably heard during the last press conference, we also are onboarding a team of fact-finders from our vendor that can help with the compiling of the necessary information, whether it be attestations from the employee or the job seeker, the claimant or the employer or compiling documentation that they provide and putting it together in a packet. So our adjudicators under the program can focus on expediting decisions and getting determinations out the door. So from that perspective, our capacity will be growing greatly just in the next two weeks. We also are looking at different enhancements to our claimant portals to help. So what happens is, from a claimant's perspective, whether it's their initial claim that they're opening or their weekly filing claim, if they select an option on either one of those, they can indicate and cause a determination of ineligibility that causes them to go into adjudications. And that can happen repeatedly since people file each week. So you could have somebody that their claim continually goes into adjudications because of how they filed each week over and over again, if we aren't able to correct the way they're either answering the question or provide the documentation to get them through that process. So I think from that perspective, we are looking at a variety of different ways to streamline our process. We also have a process improvement professional that is being reassigned to us in two weeks from the agency of transportation on a temporary basis to take a look at our processes, to see where there are pinch points in the process or duplicative efforts or waste, whether that be time and effort or whatnot. So we are also looking at different ways to streamline the process. So to get to your original question, this new program, there is the ability for individuals to appeal determinations. However, the only part that will likely be adjudicated is if they cause an issue on their claim as part of their normal filing. So I don't think we'll see an increase in issues because it includes people who have already been filing. So if they fill out their claim a certain way that causes it to go to adjudications, then, and that could be something like someone reports severance pay or someone indicates that they quit or were fired. There's about 17, 15, 12 different possibilities that could cause a case to go to adjudication. So I don't think there'll be an increase in adjudications but we do, we are required to afford them the opportunity of due process and they can appeal determinations based on the criteria. So I'm glad to hear you mentioned the quit or be fired. Just, we're having to talk to a lot of people on email about what status they are and the terrible lament they're having. But one recent person said they put in fired, they weren't fired, they were laid off and they didn't quit. But they said they didn't see where there was any option for them to put that in. So they put in fired and of course, they then went to adjudication. I don't know if they're doing that or if that even happens every week, but is that really the case that they can't find or laid off? So there are two pieces there. One is on the initial application when they open their initial claim. There is an option for selecting laid off and that indicates that they were laid off. When they go to file their weekly claim and I think what's happening here is if you read the print at the top, if you actually read the step-by-step instructions, it says, please answer the following questions pertaining to this specific week. So what they should be saying were you fired or did you quit for the week in which you're filing? Not way back in the beginning when you opened your claim, but did you lose another job? Did you quit another job? Essentially, those are federally mandated questions to determine eligibility. So really what they should be saying is no to all of them because their status hasn't changed in the week in which they're filing for. But that's a great example of where I think we can identify enhancements to our claimant portal just to make that more clear and apparent to people. That would be good. Okay, thank you. That's good. Yes, ma'am. Other questions? Senator McCormick. Thanks, though. Senator Nittka just addressed my question. I have a question and I'm really not sure what we should do for those of us who have received emails from applicants. And some it'll be three months and they've gotten a call and then it's been a week or weeks and there's been no contact back. What do you have for a tracking system? And I don't know what to do to help people. I suppose I can send them to Kendall but my attempts to refer them to the department, I assume it's just because people are so overloaded and that gets into what you have for staffing. So for those of us, and I think we all are, some of these applications are in fact, people have gone without income for several months. What do you recommend we do to assist people who are in that where they might have really complex cases and understand that they just don't fall in and as I said yesterday, the other day, the algorithms, it's really easy. You've got an employer that got laid off, et cetera, and your wage data is there. They're not that straightforward. What do you advise us to do and how do you keep track of those cases that in fact are very long-term impending and how do you plan to get them caught up? So it really depends on the case, but I will say we recognize that, so back when Maximus took over our call center operations and probably up until maybe two months ago, they would try to resolve an issue and then if they couldn't resolve it, they would add that person to what they called an escalation log and they would send that escalation log to the department. However, some of these escalation logs were coming through with hundreds, if not thousands of people on them. I think what we have done recently actually and have a much better system in place is that you may remember, and I believe I've sent a letter, but I'll make sure that I get this information to you that we have what we call the claimant inquiry tool. So it is actually a way for any claimant, regardless of whether they've been determined eligible, ineligible, if they filed or have never filed, they can log in with their information and they can submit an issue for one of our UI specialists to complete. Now we are not trying to broadcast that link because we're really trying to hone in on those more difficult or complex cases so not to overload our system. So the first method should be for people to call our claim center. I would also say many people on, and again, this is not a justification. I recognize that this is an area where we fell short early on is that many people called our claims center probably months ago and were told they were gonna get a call back and they didn't get a call back or told their issue had been escalated and it either didn't get escalated or something happened. So we have tried to go back in time as much as we could to go through those lists to get back to people but I would encourage them if they're listening to this presentation today if they haven't heard back and are still waiting they should call the claimant center again in the sense that if the claimant center is now under strict guidance from the department that they have 24 hours to resolve a claimant's issue and if they can't resolve that issue within 24 hours they have to submit on behalf of the claimant one of these claim issue reports for one of our specialists to resolve or handle. We have also provided that link to legislators so that they can hand out that link to the claimant to either fill out or they can fill out the link on the claimant's behalf if the claimant is okay with that. So there are a couple of different methods there should someone run into an issue. Some of you are reaching out to either myself or our legislative assistant Amanda Wheeler on kind of these very unique or complex cases and to be honest, every time I get one of those I say thank you very much for submitting it or sending it to me because some of these truly we've got two systems that are trying to pass information back and forth. They're looking at multiple checkpoints and determinations they're actually moving through three systems if you count the adjudications and four if you count the appeals process. So again, there is that possibility that data gets lost in the transfer of either the human transfer or the technical transfer. So anytime you're hearing of somebody who hasn't been able to get their issue resolved in a matter of two weeks, we'd like to know about it. And so if there's someone who's still hanging out there that's over two weeks, months, whatever please either have them fill out that inquiry tool we're typically able to resolve issues that come in through our inquiry tool in about 10 days or less. And we actually have a team of people that we've reassigned to handle those cases. They should, if they're not going through one of you or if they're not going through some other predetermined avenue, they should simply just call our claim center back. And if they can't resolve it in 24 hours they have been instructed to provide us with the details so we can resolve it. So you're gonna send that information? Well, you'll send that information. Yeah, well, I'm like, oh my gosh. Yes, I will. Okay. I will send it directly to you. All right, well, okay. And then Chrissy can send it out to the committee to show that we've got it. Senator Starr, you had your hand up. You're muted. Yes, thank you. I just wanted to let Michael know and you as well. When I had calls from constituents I finally got hooked up with Cameron Brown at UI and- Cameron Wood maybe. I mean Cameron Wood. And he did an excellent job. Y'all would get back to people or have somebody get back to them. People had been waiting for three or four weeks and it really worked very well, I think. So if we get that link, if we get that link and that's working decently should help. Other comments? Okay. So the budget itself it's pretty straightforward and the UI is still a work in progress. Okay. Yeah, I would add just so the committee is aware regardless of what we're going through right now and the need to upgrade our system we have started a comprehensive RFI request for information and RFP request for proposal process. So we do have our team working with ADS resources to do the comprehensive business requirements gathering process in the effort of moving towards a request for information from possible vendors or contractors. But I think once we get that RFI information and can compile that into a report we can come back to the legislature with an idea of what a modernized solution would look like in terms of not only functionality but cost and also the timeline for implementation. And then I think the tough question is gonna have to be at our level, the state level is are we wanting to move forward with state dollars or with federal dollars if and when they become available, right? And that's not an answer we have to figure out now but should we get to that point and if there are no federal dollars assigned for modernization then we just have a decision to make as to whether to wait or to move forward on our own. And we can talk about that when we're there. Okay, my screen indicates that I have two people who have their hands raised. Senator McCormick, are you one of them? Yeah, yes. Thanks. And this is not about your leadership because the problem in question predates you. But we had got testimony, I think it was just yesterday describing labor's computer system as being reminiscent of old pictures of the Sputnik Control Center. That is, now so it looks like you really kind of need to update. Yeah. There are positive and negatives to both. Obviously right now the negatives outweigh the positives but there are some silver linings to having a 50 year old system. The system did just in case anybody's interested it did turn 50 years old on the 9th of this year. We were a little busy so we didn't hold a birthday party or anniversary but it is at that time, so. Senator Ash, you were the second person. Yeah, commissioner, I'm wondering, Sir Vermont, I don't believe has any direct connection to the Department of Labor. And I'm wondering if you think now's the time to bring that under the Department of Labor's auspices since many of the skills that people develop while doing some of the AmeriCorps and other functions are complimentary to what the various WIOA funded programs and other labor programs do so that there would not be one place off in a mystery office and then all of the other places for people to develop. And I know that there are people who do some things like medical work who are maybe go under the service under the Sir Vermont thing but I feel like Sir Vermont is under doesn't have very high name recognition amongst the public. And at a time when we're trying to have a sort of more coherent pipeline for skill development, I hope you'll do some thinking about whether this budget should fold them under the Department of Labor. Senator Ash, for those of us who are trying to put some context around, is this a federally funded program and where is its organizational home? Sir Vermont used to be called something else, this corporation for service, national service in Vermont or something. It's the AmeriCorps like overseers or something. Did that used to be run out of the governor's office? It is Vermont's state service commission under the Clinton era AmeriCorps stuff created when Governor Dean was in 93, three full-time staff members, AmeriCorps grants, compliance with federal regulations, working to expand opportunities to serve in Vermont, et cetera, et cetera. I just looked it up online. It falls under the agency of human services out of the secretary's office. I don't know anything more other than what's up here, but I appreciate the comment, not anything I was really on my radar, but happy to consider it and at least do some digging. So thank you. Thanks. I think that probably ties into an ongoing conversation about different workforce programs and where they're located and how they coordinate and how people know about them. Okay, other questions? If not, I'm going to let the folks get back to their work and committee. Then I think, Chrissy, we're done. Is that right for today? We are done for today, but I did want to give the committee a bit of an update on the public hearings if I can just- Okay, why don't we do that? And so Department of Labor folk, if you want to, you're welcome to listen, but I expect you probably got other demands on your time. So thank you very much for coming today. Thank you. And just let me say, I truly appreciate everybody's support over the past six months or so. We'll continue to work through this, but know that we've got partners in each of you helping us out. So thank you very much for that. Yep. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So now we'll get to the instructions about our hearing from Chrissy. Yes, I did get confirmation from IT that they can shut off YouTube chat. So they have it, they know that we zoom into the meeting. The first thing they do is they disable it. So that will not happen for our public hearings. So they're on that and they're actually going to be in the room with us behind the scenes so that can be turned off. So hopefully that alleviates that concern. And then in terms of logging on an hour early, I did just review the agenda and we should be fine. You have testimony from public service at three and I don't anticipate it going longer than four. Seems like it's been sticking close to an hour. So that we can adjourn at four. You guys can log on in the background and then the public hearing will start at five. And the same is for Friday. We don't start the public hearing until one. So if you can log in at noon, I don't believe you have anything scheduled in terms of committee time. So we're on the floor at 1130. You're on the floor at 1130? But Tim. I don't think it will be on very long. Okay. Tim, what's your sense about floor? We have not yet received word from us, any chairs that they have bills to take up this week. The only action I think we'll take is tomorrow I'm going to move to refer some bills back to committees. An example would be the hemp resolution because Bobby already covered that from his committee in another bill, the food residuals in another bill. There's a transportation one, which is in another bill. There's the state house paintings in another bill. So just to clear them off the calendar, some of them are taking up lots of space and bills that aren't going to happen. Just to window that down. But Friday we should have, it'll be like today was, I think John Bloomer said he messed up that they were supposed to send an email out to everyone alerting you to not even bother going because it was going to be a token, but they- They did. Made them- It was funny. Only half the people received it though. So- Oh, oh. For the meeting. Right. So it's, I think Friday will be exactly the same way. Okay. Great, then I think we should be okay for public hearings. And again, I apologize for the inconvenience of having to log in that hour earlier. Did you confirm that that is actually required? I have asked. I don't have an actual information, but I will continue to inquire. Did you've already sent out the Zoom numbers on those? Those are going to come from Teresa. She is managing logistics on the hearing. So you'll be getting the Zoom invites from her if you haven't already. We don't have them. Okay. I'll touch base with her. We're going to connect actually after this meeting. The hour isn't Chrissy or Teresa's fault. It's IT or some system. Right. And we'll get to the bottom of it because it sounds like this might be something we'll be doing, you know. Well, I think if, you know, in the future, any public hearings will be difficult when people have to give an extra hour, you know, to log in ahead of time and then be without that device for an hour. Yeah. Understood. That's a relief. Well, you can log in and swim. Okay. I guess. Yeah. Well. Not today. So are we, can we adjourn the committee meeting right now and stop recording?