Thank you. This is Jane Kitchell. I'll start. I'm Chair of Senate Appropriations and here for this afternoon's hearing with me are Senators Nipka, Ballant, Starr, Baruth, and myself. Hello, and this is Representative Mary Hooper. I am the Chair of the House Appropriations Committee and from the House Appropriations Committee are members Peter Fagan, Neda Townsend, Tristan Tolino, Marty Feltas, Dave Yacoboni, Jim Harrison, Robin Schei, Trevor Squirrel, and Bob Helm. We look forward to hearing your testimony. Senator Kitchell, did you want to say anything else? No, I think we've got so tightly packed we need to get right into the testimony. Yeah, so thank you. Let me just explain our procedure, which is because it is so tightly packed and the two hearings, we are hearing from 80 people and so unfortunately have to limit our time to two minutes. Remember the folks testifying will see a clock which shows you two minutes and then ticks down and then Representative Fagan is going to also be indicating on his screen when you're getting closer to that time. If we come to finish and you're not finished, please just finish the thought. Yeah, Fagan is demonstrating. Please finish your thought. We welcome written testimony and so you can communicate with us that way but just out of courtesy to everyone, we need to be pretty tight on our time. The way we'll manage this is I will call the presenter. I will say that person's name and then the person who is following them. I will give you a heads up. So if you'll be prepared to come in quickly, that will be helpful. So I'll call the first person who's going to talk and then the first person who's on deck. And so with that, I believe we're ready to begin and the first person up is Jessica Barquist and on deck is Linda Wichlak. So Jessica Barquist. Hi everyone, I'm Jessica Barquist with the Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence. We represent 15 member organizations throughout the state which provide advocacy and support to victims of domestic and sexual violence. We have three key funding priorities for the 2022 budget to support the needs of survivors in our state. The first is 200,000 to support the reentry of women into their communities from Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility. Reentry of women was funded in 2020 through CARES Act money and was split between the Vermont Network Divas Program, Vermont Works for Women, Mercy Connections, and the Women Justice Freedom Initiative. While the funding for this work has come to an end, the need continues. Supporting women to successfully reintegrate and achieve economic independence must be a priority in order to disrupt recidivism. Almost 80% of women incarcerated in Vermont are incarcerated for community supervision violations such as losing one's housing or job. Our second priority is 400,000 to domestic violence accountability programming as suggested by CSG in the Justice Reinvestment Report. We are very grateful that the governor has added 200,000 into his proposed budget to support the sustainability of the domestic violence accountability programs across the state. We're asking the legislature to increase this allocation by an additional 200,000 to a total of 400,000 to represent the full amount recommended in the Justice Reinvestment Report. And then finally, we're asking for a $250,000 increase in state funding for the Vermont Network and our member organizations. We currently receive funding through the Center for Crime Victim Services, but this has not seen an increase since 2008. Our programs are managing to maintain quality care for survivors across the state, but they are increasingly doing more with less. And these services provide a critical need for our communities and need greater support through state funding to continue to do so. Thank you so much for your time. I'm sorry, I was so admiring that you were perfectly on time there. I didn't unmute myself. I neglected to acknowledge Representative Kimberly Jessup who is also in the meeting. I thank your pardon, Representative Jessup. Next up is Linda Wichlack and following her is Janet Hunt. Ms. Wichlack. Thank you. I'd like to start by thanking all the committees for your support for the CRF assistance for adult day programs last legislative session. We very likely would not be in existence without it. The 10 adult day programs across the state are committed to doing everything possible to make Vermont the best state in the nation to age in place and to remain viable through this pandemic through our adult day without walls program. We continue on a more limited basis to provide whatever services we can to prevent an increase in nursing home admissions, which also saves the state funding of the Vermont Association of Adult Day Services is requesting a one time appropriation of $5 million to address the anticipated low census once the programs are able to reopen and a Medicaid reimbursement rate increased to $24 an hour. Adult day programs are looking forward to reopening. We're hopeful that with the vaccine will be able to reopen as soon as possible. We do not anticipate being able to be open at 100% capacity for quite some time. It necessitates our $5 million request. Despite the fact that we are be serving persons in person, the limited billing revenues will not cover our fixed costs. Our current rate of 1672 does not come close to meeting the needs of our participants that we serve and allow us to attract and retain, retain qualified staff. Our teams of skilled and caring staff and health care professionals provide health monitoring assistance with personal care and therapeutic activities. Because we are fee for service program, adult days are not reimbursed when somebody is absent. Despite the fact that many expenses are still incurred. We have many absences throughout the year due to the frailty of our participants illness and our Vermont winters. The increased reimbursement rate will assist us with those frequent revenue losses. We thank you for considering our request. Thank you, Ms. Wittschlack. Next up is Janet Hunt and then following her is Sarah Kenney. Hang on, I had a malfunction here. Okay, here we go. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. I'm testifying today. My name is Janet Hunt and I'm the Executive Director for the Vermont Association of Area Agencies on Aging. And I'm testifying today on behalf of that organization regarding older adults who face the risk of malnutrition or who may already be malnourished. Good nutrition helps support a healthy and active lifestyle, improves health outcomes and reduces health care costs. Whoops. I think we lost Ms. Hunt. Oh, that's unfortunate.  Oh, dear. Oh, I see her in the waiting room, but maybe she had a disconnection. Okay, let's see if I can grab her again. Okay. That was weird. She just needs to unmute. Thank you. In contrast, are you all set? Yeah. Okay. In contrast, malnutrition particularly, the lack of adequate protein calories and other nutrients needed for tissue maintenance or repair has shown to be associated with poor health outcomes, frailty, falls, disability, and increased health care costs. Adult malnutrition is a growing crisis in America today. According to 2018 statistics from Feeding America, nearly 5.3 million citizens who are 60 and older currently face hunger in our country. That equates to one out of every 14 older adults who are food insecure. For Vermont's older adult population is comprised of 20% of all of the overall population, which ranks third in the country. Older adults in Vermont who are threatened by hunger is about 12%, or 20,618 people. And older Vermonters who are at risk of hunger is around 9,295 people. My time is running out and I have submitted written testimony, but we are asking for $1 million over the next three years, totaling $3 million. With this funding, we can begin to reduce the gap. The gap currently is about $5.53 per meal that we need to make up. So we are looking for, again, $1 million over the next three years. Thank you. Yes, you have my written testimony. I'm sorry I didn't get to the other stats. Yeah, thank you. We will look at your written testimony. Thank you. Next up is Sarah Kenney, and then following Ms. Kenney is Catherine Titus. Thank you for the opportunity to speak on behalf of Let's Grow Kids. A very big part of our work is direct support of child care programs, and thanks to the investments that the administration and legislature made in recent years, plus the significant support you've given over the past 11 months, we've been able to counteract the widespread closures that other states have seen because of this pandemic. You've supported this sector to weather many months of increased costs and decreased enrollments, and we thank you for that. And yet, despite these investments and the deep resilience of this field, the current situation is unsustainable, and families will need child care after the pandemic. To ensure that all Vermont children have access to high-quality early childhood education that meets their needs, our state must commit to changing the system so that no family spends more than 10% of their income on child care, fairly compensating early childhood educators, expanding access to high-quality early childhood education, investing in new IT infrastructure, strengthening system governance and administration, and identifying long-term funding. The governor's budget implements a number of these components, including the crucial investment in IT, continued work on the state's five-year redesign plan, and investing in building capacity of the system. These are important priorities, and there are additional investments needed. Even before the pandemic, we estimated 2,000 additional lead early childhood educators were needed. Funding is needed this year for scholarships and a loan repayment program to support and retain a skilled early childhood workforce. The governor's proposal continues the CCFAP five-year redesign plan, but it doesn't include funding to pay programs based on a child's enrollment in the program instead of paying for attendance, nor does it set rates based on a cost of care formula. Importantly, the budget must also include funding for two studies to help map the future of child care. We ask you to find a feasibility study to estimate the costs and recommend a sustainable funding source, as well as a governance and accountability analysis for the child care system. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next up is Catherine Titus, and following her is Lisa McDougal. Good afternoon. Thank you for having me. I am the Director of Operations for Cathedral Square, a service-oriented affordable housing organization that operates two licensed assisted living communities, Cathedral Square Assisted Living in downtown Burlington, and Memory Care at Allen Brook in Williston. Currently, 83% of our residents rely on Medicaid to cover the cost of their long-term care needs. I greatly appreciate the opportunity to comment on the governor's recommended state budget for 2022, and I respectfully request that your committees consider adding a 2% increase to the Medicaid reimbursement rate, specifically for assisted community care service, ACCS program. A rate increase is necessary in order for us to continue to hire and retain high-quality staff and provide exceptional care for our residents. There was a modest increase in 2020, and it was the first increase in many years, and not enough to close the cost gap. Prior to the pandemic, we struggled to cover our operating costs and maintain appropriate staffing and had to consider the possibility of closing our doors. We simply cannot compete financially with the other long-term care communities that don't accept Medicaid and can therefore offer higher pay rates and have design and bonuses. Since the pandemic hit, we have had additional significant increases in expenses, which we do not foresee decreasing in the future. Beyond the need for an increase in fiscal year 2022, having an annual inflationary factor built into Medicaid reimbursement for housing and community-based services, which include assisted living and residential care, is also essential. This would help ensure the sustainability of our network of providers serving the lowest income older adults in the state. We hope you'll review and support the new H-153 bill introduced to provide this increase. The work of our organization and others across the street is critical to providing high-quality care to older Vermonters and helps meet the state's goal of having a diverse set of options for Vermonters to age indignity in their local communities, which prevent older Vermonters from having to move to a higher level of care and higher cost of nursing facilities. Thank you for your consideration. Thank you. Up now is Lisa Neck-Dougall, and following her is just Eric Seitz. Hello, I'm Lisa Neck-Dougall. I own and operate a certified organic vegetable farm in Shaftesbury, Vermont, and I am falsifying today for the Vermont Food Bank in support of their Vermont Feeding Vermonters Initiative. I'm also the current president of the Vermont Vegetable and Barrier Groves Association. I work with Bennington-Retland Opportunity Council, the KitchenCovered, HIS Pantry, and Head Start in Bennington. In 2020, I was able to sell and provide top-quality vegetables to these pantries with the help of Vermont Feeding Vermonters Program to the sum of $5,000 in total. With the program funds I was able to provide more food to these pantries in addition to the 15,000 pounds of produce I donate annually. We are always happy to donate by receiving money from some of our food we produce is beneficial for our farm. I know of many other farmers across the state who are able to greatly increase the amount of fresh produce supplies to pantries. I support the state funding $500,000 for the Vermont Food Bank's continued support of the Vermont Feeding Vermonters Initiative. I feel strongly that a lot of these funds to pantries across the state helps support patrons of these pantries, nutritional needs, and also assists the grower economically. The program offers healthy food for families, financial security for farms, and pantries the ability to source food locally keeping the dollar in the community. It's a win for everybody. I sincerely hope the Vermont Food Bank received these funds. Thank you. Thank you. Next up is Eric Zeitz and following him is Jill Olson, Jill Olson after Eric Zeitz. Hi, can you hear me? Yes. Great. My name is Eric Zeitz, co-owner of Pitchfork Farm in Burlington, and I'm glad to be here to speak on behalf of the Vermont Food Bank and Vermonters Feeding Vermonters Initiative with whom we've been proud partners since its inception. The work being done by these programs is remarkable and it is crucial. 2020 laid bare and in stark relief the necessity of societal safety nets. Unfortunately, there have always been hungry people in our communities, often the least among us, unseen and unheard. The global pandemic and subsequent recession of 2020 was the great equalizer for people and businesses of all backgrounds and means, and so it was with Pitchfork Farm. We're an organic wholesale produce farm. We grow a few crops in great quantities selling in bulk to grocery stores and restaurants. When the pandemic came to Vermont and the state shut down, we saw our sales come to an absolute halt. Our restaurants, all 50 plus that we work with, closed. Some of them for good. Every year we rely on the winter and spring sales of many tons of root crops such as beets and carrots to supplies with the startup capital needed to get each new growing season going. We use this capital to pay for a myriad of supplies such as seeds, potting soil, greenhouse propane, wax boxes, and most crucially, labor. Without the money from sales of our winter roots, we cannot afford to pay the 10 to 12 people who work for us annually, particularly early on in the season when there's little in the way of new crops to sell. The food bank and the Vermonters Initiative swiftly filled that void for us. This past spring, they made emergency purchases of thousands of pounds of beets and rutabagas that were sitting idle in our cooler. In one critical move, they kept my business afloat, provided us with the cash for spring hires, and provided thousands of pounds of food to the people that needed it most. I'm proud of the work I do and I'm so, so proud to be a partner with the food bank. I implore the state to provide the funding of $500,000 needed to continue to grow the Vermonters, Feeding Vermonters Initiative, a program that is needed now more than ever. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Seitz. Your co-presenter is excellent, too. We enjoyed. Yeah. Next up is Jill Olsen, and following Ms. Olsen is Jan Van Eck. Good afternoon. Thanks for the opportunity to testify. I'm Jill Olsen, and I am the Executive Director of the VNAs of Vermont. So, I represent Vermont's Home Health and Hospice Agencies. I'm here to request that you include in your budget funding for the Choices for Care program. Choices for Care is the long-term care program in Vermont for Medicaid recipients, and it is in substantial trouble, as I think you've heard from previous witnesses. We provide care for people at home to help keep them independent at home. There was no increase for Choices for Care in the FY21 budget, and at this rate, at this point, our losses when I last calculated were at about 27 percent, meaning that it's costing us about 27 percent more to provide the service than we're receiving in payment for the service. So, this is a long-standing concern about the solvency, really, of the program, and it continues. We continue to lose ground, particularly in years when we don't receive an increase. The program is obviously that much more important during these times when keeping people at home has been so critical. I also want to express our support for the proposals that are in the budget for nurse home visiting, for in the maternal child health program, and also for proposals to support the nursing workforce. It is impossible to overstate the critical nature of the nursing shortage at this moment in Vermont. It's substantially worse than it was at the beginning of the pandemic. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you, Ms. Holson. Next up is Jean Venek, and following him is Nick Kramer. Mr. Venek? Mr. Venek? Is he in the waiting room? No, I'm nudging him now. Okay, thank you. Here we go. Hello, folks. My name is Jean Venek. I'm an immigrant to Vermont from Canada. I'm a manufacturer. I was invited to come here to set up a manufacturing plant by your governor. I'm listening to the folks who come before you, and they all seem to be begging for money. They line up and have the little tin cup that they rattle and ask you for some cash. And what I'm going to say to you is there's never going to be enough cash.  You know, Beth Pierce is looking at the income streams coming into Vermont as a closed system where she raises and you folks raise your cash by taxation and some money from fees and the odd money from the tourists, but really it's taxation.  People in this state are poor. Half of them are in less than $30,000 a year. There's never going to be enough money if you do that. So what I would submit to you is it's time for the state to start looking at the broader perspective. What you can do is you can raise funds by selling state goods and services to people outside the state. This is what Delaware does with great success. And as a result, they don't have any sales tax down there. There's nothing to stop you from selling goods and services outside the state. And just looking around, I can see if there's substantial amounts of funds that are out there that can be easily recognized. I've identified just from the scrap that's lying around roughly a billion dollars in excess capital. And you can go sell and do it in a flash. Would an extra billion help you folks out? I'm suspect it would. And you can go on from there. I mean, the money's there, but you're not going to do it the way you're doing it now. You're just going to have to go out and find other customers and sell to them to raise cash. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Van. No, so we're not taking questions at this point. We're doing questions now. We don't have the ability to do that. Thank you. That's fine. Next up is Nick Kramer. And following him is Judith Irvin Irving. Thank you, Madam Chair. And thanks for the opportunity to speak today. So I'm here representing the Vermont Council on Rural Development and the Working Lands Coalition speaking support of the governor's recommendation for an overall appropriation of 3.6 million for the Working Lands Enterprise Fund in fiscal year 22. Over the last year since the onset of the pandemic, VCRD has been engaged in community conversation about the future of the state. We've talked to over 2000 Vermonters at this point. One thing we hear over and over and over in these conversations is that even when we're through this, there's not really going to be any normal to go back to, especially when it comes to business recovery. Nowhere is this more apparent than in our working land sector. Vermont's farmers, growers, cheese makers, woodworkers, et cetera. Those that have been able to expand into online sales, home delivery, or tap into emerging collaborative markets have been able to, they've seen increased sales, they've retained and in some cases even hired new employees all in the midst of this national recession. These are the kinds of forward thinking adaptations the Working Lands Enterprise Fund exists to support and has been funding since its inception in 2012. In that time, they've funded over 240 farm and forest projects, distributed over $7 million in direct funding, leveraging $11 million in match, created over 500 Vermont jobs, and generated over 36 million in additional revenue. Last year, they were able to distribute in just a few short months over a quarter million dollars in relief funding to farm and forest businesses to address acute pandemic related needs and pivot their operations. So as we look ahead to a year of recovery, VCRD and the Working Lands Coalition believe that a strategic investment in our Working Lands Enterprise landscape can really be a cornerstone to Vermont's recovery and we strongly support the recommended allocation. Thank you. Thank you. Next up is Judith Irving and following her is Beth Walsh. Good afternoon. My name is Judith Irving and I'm co-founder along with my husband and daughter of Fat Toad Farm in Brookfield, Vermont. I want to thank you for the opportunity to speak in strong support of the Working Lands Enterprise Fund, which the governor has recommended to be funding at $3.6 million. At Fat Toad Farm, we've been in business for 14 years making goat's milk caramel. We use a lot of goat's milk to make this artisanal convection. For the first 10 years of our business, we had our own goat herd. We then sold the herd to Ayersbrook goat dairy in Randolph run by Miles Hooper and Daryl Bro. We now buy our milk from them and truck it to our production facility on the back roads in Brookfield. As we entered 2020, our business had just barely crossed the line into profitability. We seriously restructured our business model in 2018 in order to try to reach this goal. Our plan for 2020 was to stick to our knitting in hopes of increasing our profitability by the end of 2021. At that time, 70% of our business was to small and medium-sized specialty food stores and restaurants all over the U.S. The rest of our business was generated from our website and from Amazon. And then COVID-19 happened, closing most stores and restaurants and seriously jeopardizing our business. We knew we had to act quickly and rethink what we were doing. Since it was becoming clear that people were moving to do most of their shopping online, we knew that was where we needed to focus our efforts. We essentially had a home-built, relatively unsophisticated presence on the web and knew that that wasn't going to work. We applied for and were fortunate enough to receive funding from the Working Lands Enterprise Fund COVID-19 Business Response Grant Program. We used these funds to start working with lean-edge marketing of Burlington, a firm that specializes in Amazon and website development and analytics. In a matter of months, they were able to radically improve our presence on these sites and train us on how to keep maximizing sales in those two channels. We immediately saw positive results and became well-positioned to take advantage of the changing, biting habits resulting from COVID-19, rather than have our business become a victim of those changes. From April to December 2020, our website sales increased by 198% over the same time period in 2019 and increased by 110%. The Working Lands Enterprise Grant made the difference for us between success and serious financial struggles. Thank you, Ms. Serving. Next up is Beth Walsh, and following her is Ben Noterman. Thank you very much. I am Beth Walsh. I serve as the Director of Career Development at Northern Vermont University in Johnson and as the President of the Vermont State College's United Professionals Union staff. I am also a member of the VSC Labor Task Force, which is a group of VSC staff and faculty working on a solution to the financial challenges faced by the Vermont State Colleges. The Labor Task Force's proposal addresses restructuring to save resources and improve governance of the VSC, but today I want to focus on the need to reduce tuition. While we all know that the pool of traditionally college-bound Vermonters has shrunk, a review of the data shows that this change in demographics is not driving our decline in enrollment. In fact, it's our rise in tuition that is directly correlated with the enrollment decline. Vermont has one of the lowest percentages of high school graduates heading to college, and 51% of those college-bound students are going out of state institutions. That is the highest percentage in the United States. The students who stay in Vermont graduate with a higher than average loan debt. We have some of the highest tuition rates in public education in the country, and we are the only state that allows our state grants to follow students across our borders without any restrictions. In the early 1960s, the state committed to funding the VSC system in whole or substantial part, but over the last 40-plus years state appropriations had gone from about 51% of the VSC budget to about 17% currently. Each year, our tuition goes up so that we can keep our doors open. Please find a way to increase funding to the Vermont state colleges so that we can continue to provide high-quality, accessible, higher education for the betterment of Vermont. The Governor's one-time addition of $20 million for FY22 is needed, but not enough. Please do your best to find an additional $17.4 million to help us truly recover from decades of underfunding. The effects of the former Chancellor's recommendation to close three of our campuses and the devastation of COVID-19. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next up is Ben Noderman and following him is Riva Reynolds. Hi, good afternoon. My name is Ben Noderman. I co-own and operate Snug Valley Farm, a grass-fed beef and pastured pork operation here in East Hardwick. I'm here today in support of the Working Lands Enterprise Initiative. This past spring, as we all know, COVID-19 was unknown coming to us and it changed a lot of the marketplace for a lot of farmer-directed consumer farms. We lost instantly our institutional sales to schools, restaurants in the shutdown in March, so we had to pull it. We pivoted and with the help of the Working Lands Initiative with the COVID-19 response business grants, we were able to pivot to a home delivery model. Currently, we service two routes a week to Burlington and the Route 100 corridor servicing anywhere from 20 to 50 households weekly. We were able to bring on partner farms, a lot of other farms that were negatively affected by COVID-19, everything from milk, bread, maple, cheese, all the good stuff. So now we're essentially rolling grocery store and with the help of the Working Lands Initiative grant this spring, we were able to pivot that to this and become a rising tide to help lift our farm friends in response to the COVID-19 crisis. So I'm here to testify in support of the $3.6 million that Governor Scott has allocated to this. This is a worthy and worthwhile campaign to keep our working lands open, farms healthy, and people with available, excuse me, and access for people to local foods. I would just like to reach out again and say please support the Working Lands Initiative. There's a lot of good things going on and that rising tide will lift all of us. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Next up is Riva Reynolds and following her is Daniel Mowland. Thank you. Hi, my name is Riva Reynolds and I am part of Standard Farm, a fourth generation family farm in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont. We sell grass-fed beef. We also do hay and primarily organic maple syrup. We do wood fired. We are entirely family labor and we sell all of our maple syrup direct, so no bulk sales to any of the larger bulk buyers in the area. With the help of a working lands grant in 2018, we had actually seen our best year yet in 2019 and we're very excited going into 2020 when COVID hit and our restaurant sales dried up overnight and we were looking halfway through the year at being down 20,000 in revenue from 2019. With the help of a COVID emergency grant from the Working Lands Enterprise Initiative, we were able to focus more on bulk sales to our restaurant customers, giving them some opportunities to also stay afloat. We were able to reach out to new customers to sell barrels of maple syrup direct. Doing both of those things meant that we needed to use funds to purchase large volumes of pails, so we could see some volume discounts on that. We were able to purchase materials for safely packing and strapping of pallets on our farm. We were able to build a loading area so we could safely load and unload and we were able to, instead of seeing our $20,000 loss, we were able to survive with only an $8,000 decrease in sales and we actually were able to also see an increase in online sales more than doubled in the last part of the year around the holidays. And these investments were, we would not have done them without the support of the Working Lands Grant and I'm very grateful for it and please do consider continuing to fund this program. It's critical for Vermont families and farms. Thank you. Next up is Daniel Malint and following him is Julie Tesla. Hello, thank you for this opportunity to speak to you today. I am Pastor Dan Malint. I operate a church in central Vermont in Barrie and we operate a soup kitchen as well as a food shelf that's open 24-7, 365 days a year. The food shelf is currently operating at 450 pounds of food a day up from 150 pounds of food a day before COVID hit and so we've seen a vast increase. The programs of Vermonters Feeding Vermonters, the Vermont Food Bank and Everyone Eats program have really helped us provide for those in need. They have provided a benefit for those organizations with increased sales that were otherwise negative affected by COVID as you've heard others testify. They've benefited us by giving us access to fresh foods and vegetables, the ease of access, a freedom of choice and a much longer shelf life than we usually get from our food partners. The benefit to the clients has obviously been more healthy food, a wider variety and more dignity. The benefit to the state has been the benefit of multiple levels of funding where it helps the local farmer, it helps us in providing food for folks in need and then obviously keeps those dollars well within the state. I appreciate the time that you've given me to present the support for Vermonters Feeding Vermonters, the Vermont Food Bank and also for the Everyone Eats program. Thank you. Next up is Julie Tesla and following her is Joanna von Kuhlen. Thank you for having this public hearing. My name is Julie Tesla. I work for Vermont Care Partners. I represent 16 designated specialized service agencies. As you all know, this has been quite the year. The CDC estimates that 40% of Americans are struggling with either mental health or substance use or both. For us, we've seen an increase in acuity of the people we serve and a great increase in the demand for our services. During the last three months of 2020, we had 5,500 Vermonters accessing our crisis support services and over 2,400 requests for our other outpatient services, different mental health services. We have been working very creatively and hard to meet people's needs. We've developed warm lines. We're delivering food, medicine, educational activity supplies, tablets, helping with IT, helping people with temporary housing and hotels, reaching out to the hotels that have people. We've been doing lots of virtual telehealth and audio only and even doing wellness activities for the people we serve, our staff and our communities. What we ask of you is support so that we don't leave people on our wait lists. Help us with outreach, outpatient care, clinical care, case management, nursing, crisis intervention, residential and housing supports. This is for older Vermonters. Vermonters who are homeless, people involved in the criminal justice system, cross the board. And what we really need support with is our workforce. They're under incredible amount of stress and we could use a rate increase to fully fund and support them so we can recruit and retain our workforce. We also have short-term needs. On the short-term, during the COVID crisis, we could use more resources for our hotel outreach non-categorical case management and crisis stabilization programs, as well as training wellness activities and those kind of solid things that the federal government won't fund and we're having problems with things like air ventilation systems. So thanks for your consideration. I appreciate your time. Thank you. Next up is Joanna von Cullen and following her Jordan Giaconia. Thank you for the chance to talk with you about Vermont's early childhood education workforce. My name is Joanna von Cullen and I direct a non-profit center of serving families in the Lamoille County area. High quality education depends upon educated experience teachers, yet I have a room in my center currently empty, not due to a lack of children, but because I haven't been able to find enough teachers. Even before COVID-19, we've gone six months or more unable to fill a position due to a lack of qualified teachers. Early education teachers are so poorly compensated that they don't earn enough to pay back existing student loans and can't take on more. They often work full-time, taking classes while caring for their own children and relying on programs like Three Squares Vermont to survive, assistance that could suddenly end due to a minor pay raise thanks to the benefits cliff. It is a precarious existence. Achieving the necessary credentials rewards them with a career that doesn't pay enough to make ends meet, so they give up the work they love moving to the K through 12 system. There, with the same level of education, they literally double their income, get health insurance, respect, summers with their children, etc. We are constantly losing teachers, our best teachers. To provide high quality early education that really makes a difference, Vermont must have a prepared and plentiful workforce. We must retain existing talent by compensating them with pay and benefits in parity with the school system. We need to entice top-notch new students into the field. The governor's budget makes important investments in the child care system, but we must go much further to support Vermont's early childhood educators. Targeted student loan repayments and scholarships would be great places to start. We need to recognize that this work isn't simply sitting babies. It is work that requires intelligence, skill, patience, ongoing education, and a real passion for helping children and families. Having that empty room without teachers impacts every family that calls and is told, again, that they are welcome to join a wait list. Every time I say that, I am painfully aware that I've just told another person that they can't go to work until they find quality care. Thank you so much for supporting Vermont's young children, families, and crucial early educators. Thank you. Next up is Jordan who will please pronounce his name for me. Excuse me for not being able to, and following him is Claire Kendall. No worries at all, Representative Weber. It's Jordan Giaconia. I'm speaking on behalf of Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility. We are a business association of roughly 700 or so member businesses across the state. We cover a wide variety of issues, but for the purposes of today's testimony, I'm going to be speaking to some portions on climate and clean energy investment, but we'll be following up with more detailed comments on other areas in childcare, racial justice, and many others. I want to preface this as basically just say Governor Scott's latest budget proposal is a clear indication that we're moving on from this false choice between economic growth and environmental protection. We applaud the governor for putting forward a series of forward-thinking green investments that promise to save Vermonters money, create lasting family sustaining jobs, and grow our local economies while also helping to meet our emissions reduction requirements. That said, these investments often represent a dose of one-time funding, and so we look forward to working with this committee and others to find more long-term funding mechanisms for our clean energy efficiency and transportation programs. So for one, we're really, really, really happy to see elements of the Transportation Modernization Act and the governor's proposed budget address. We see that this is a valuable opportunity to address transportation inequities and the climate crisis simultaneously. Aspects of both the TMA, which the bill numbers H94, and the governor's proposed budget are major, major, major service to these goals, so we encourage this committee to support the full suite of investments proposed in the Transportation Modernization Act, including at least $4.3 million to advance EV adoption, $600,000 for the Myowich Smart Program, $1.5 million for the Replace Your Ride Program, $5.5 million for the Downtown Transportation Fund. Also, I'd note $2.7 million to fully fund the fare-free transit program and many others. Additionally, we support the governor's proposed investment in $20 million to weatherize Vermonters homes. We see this as the critical down payment on the broader $1.2 billion needed to weatherize an additional $120,000 low and moderate income homes across the state. And also happy to see the additional money for renewable investment, but would like to see it fleshed out in more detail. So thank you all. Apologies for the kind of the long-winded response. And I would just note that VBSR's support for these initiatives is backed by a broad coalition of groups, and we will be submitting more detail in writing jointly in the coming days. So thank you all. Thank you. Next up is Claire Kendall, and following her is Mary Mogi. Good afternoon. My name is Claire Kendall, Co-director of the Family Center of Washington County. Thank you for the opportunity to testify, and thank you for your service of Vermonters. My budget request today is for FY22, is full funding for parent child centers of $10 million, but the very least, please ensure the parent child centers receive base funding of $7.5 million. PCCs deliver critical and essential state services to families with young children through integrated grants and contracts with DCF. PCCs are state partners and family resource hubs across the state that connect families to community and state partners. The critical work that PCCs do reduces child custody rates, bites addiction, lowers rising health care costs, continues to make progress in family safety and stability, promotes healthy child development and access to quality early care and education. The impact of the pandemic on the mental health and well-being of families has been significant. The loss of connections due to child care closures and school interruptions, and the loss of community-based social interactions has resulted in increased isolation, anxiety, and depression throughout our communities. Families are missing traditional face-to-face interactions and social support systems. During the pandemic, PCCs made it our mission to continue providing critical supports to parents and children. Parent child centers provide parents with knowledge, skills, and resources that they need to care for their children. We work to strengthen families and communities across Vermont. We are hubs for families with young children. An actual place in local communities where families are always welcome and can get the support they need regardless of the economic or family status. Children do well when their parents do well. Prevention work saves money. PCC prevention services ensure parents have the knowledge, skills, and resources they need to care for their children. Healthy children and stable families result in strong and resilient communities across Vermont. PCCs use a family-centered multi-generational strength-based approach that treats both and prevents ACEs and families and children. Thank you again for your time today and for your support and dedication and service during these challenging times. Thank you. Next up is Mary Mogie and following her is Kathy Paquette. Hi, my name is Mary Moucher. I'm the administrator of Ethan Allen Residence, a non-profit residential care home in Burlington. Ethan Allen is home to 40 elders, 18 of whom rely exclusively on Medicaid funding for their well-being. We are part of the Living Well Group, which operates two other residential care homes in Vermont, one in Montpelier, the other in Bristol. In all, the Living Well Group is home to 100 elders, some of whom are the most vulnerable elders in Vermont, and I'm happy to report that all three are remain COVID-free. I welcome this opportunity to share my thoughts and recommendations on the governor's 2022 budget. I come before you as an advocate for a population that is too often forgotten about or dismissed, people with no economic means, no safety net, no family able to care for them. Our mission at Living Well is to provide quality residential care home to these elders. The survival is dependent on Medicaid. It is this mission that brings me here today to ask you to please consider a 2% increase in the budget for Medicaid reimbursement rate, specifically the assistive community care program and the enhanced residential care program. In addition to the 2% increase to Medicaid budget, we're asking that an annual inflationary factor be built into the Medicaid reimbursement rate for assisted living and residential care. This continuity is essential to the stability of our organization and our ability to fulfill our mission. The financial struggle is real for Living Well and any other organization committed to serving elders. Should our doors close for financial reasons or should we find ourselves happening to abandon our mission of providing Medicaid beds, these elders in our care will find themselves in nursing homes, hospitals, and possibly even homelessness. These alternatives to our home will exceed the 2% increase I'm asking for and significantly diminishing the quality of life for vulnerable population we serve. As public servants, we may share your belief, you may share my belief that a society, a community can be measured and how it treats its most vulnerable members. With this in mind, I hope you will favorably upon my request and invest in our elders who deserve our care, community, and compassion. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Moje. Next is Kathy Poquette and following her is Earhart Monke. Hi, everyone. Thank you for holding these budget hearings and for your time and your service to Vermonters. I'm Kathy Poquette. I'm the Nutrition and Wellness Director for Central Vermont Council on Aging and I've been here for 30 years. I also live in Berrytown as a local farmer. And I oversee 12 contracts that provide meals on wheels in Central Vermont. And we are here to ask for your support for a million dollars for the next three years to support the meals on wheels. We know that through this COVID time, we've had some positives and negatives. One thing that we've recognized is food is important and to keep our elderly safe. And that's what we've done with meals on wheels for the last 50 years. And we want to be able to continue that. We have seen a 30% rise go on with the demand. We've also had to bring in emergency meals to help support whatever went on during COVID. But we want the state to speak with the support. We get minimal state funding. We do get some federal funding. We also get local funding as well as those who are receiving the service do fund, do support it as well. But we want the state to come up with some more funds to support such an important program that is preventative. We know it keeps people safe. We know we take on well-being and we refer to other services. We also know that food is medicine and that it does help. And we do provide local foods, but we could use with that money, we could help farms as well. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Next up is Erhard Manke. And then following him is Yvette O'Connor, Erhard. I'm having difficulty getting my video camera to start. So, there we go. Sorry about that. Okay. Thank you for the record. My name is Erhard Manke. I'm here representing the Vermont Housing Coalition, which I think most of you know we have a statewide membership of over 90 nonprofits that provide housing and services to some of Vermont's most vulnerable citizens. I want to thank you, folks, for the amazing partnership in helping our network to play its role in standing up the pandemic response for homeless Vermonters. As I think you know, Vermont has done exceedingly well and that's in large part thanks to your good work. As you, I believe know, we have over 2,500 Vermonters living without housing, permanent housing in motels. Right now what we need is permanent housing for those folks to transition to. We need rental assistance and we need supportive services for those with the greatest challenges. We will get a fair amount of rental assistance, a large amount of rental assistance and some services from the most recent federal COVID relief package, but what we direly will need and what absent bricks and mortar dollars coming from the feds, what we will need is bricks and mortar dollars coming from the state. And so we're here to strongly support the governor's request for the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board, $20 million and one times plus the annual appropriation of $10.8 million. We also have deep concerns about the proposed initiative for General Assistance Emergency Housing. What would we have done for homeless Vermonters without this system in place? The state needs to continue to be the backstop and be responsible for emergency housing for Vermont's lowest income, most vulnerable citizens. And we'll provide more testimony, our network will provide more testimony on this. This needs to be postponed given all the uncertainties about the pandemic and how long that will be needed. On a quick personal note, I just wanted to mention to you folks that after 24 years I'll be leaving the Affordable Housing Coalition at the end of the month. So this will probably be the last time that I'll be testifying before you. And I just want to thank you as the Coalition's Statehouse Advocate for 24 years. I just want to thank you all for the collaboration and the work and the accessibility. Thanks. Well, Earhart, thank you for telling us that. And thank you for your years of work in the Statehouse. Thank you. Thank you, Chair Hooper. I understand that Evette O'Connor is not with us. So we will go on to Amy Johnson and following Ms. Johnson is Carl Kent. Hi, everyone. My name is Amy Johnson, and I'm the Director of the Parent Child Center of Northwestern Counseling and Support Services and Co-Chair of the Vermont Parent Child Center Network. I'm here today in support of increasing state funding for parent child centers providing essential state services. First and foremost, I'd like to thank the legislature for their ongoing support of the PCC network. I feel fortunate to live and raise a child in a state that recognizes the importance and true value of a network of family resource centers that support positive childhood experiences. Childhood experiences have a tremendous impact on the future of Vermont, including lifelong health and opportunity for children and families in our state. As such, early experiences are an important public health issue that the PCCs are on the front lines addressing. To continue to provide prevention-based supports and services and build healthy communities in our state, we are advocating for a base funding increase to help deliver our essential services. $10 million of base funding is needed to fund PCC's eight core services. Our request is to work toward our goal of $10 million. We ask that at the very least, our PCC's base funding be brought up to $7.5 million, an increase of $4.2 million for FY22. Underfunding has made providing all the needed services for families a constant challenge. To this end, it is critically important for Vermont families and communities that the services provided by PCCs are not only fully funded but of high quality and consistent across the state. An increase in funding will support the overall global health of the network by allowing for adequate funding of our prevention hub. An increase in our base funding will ensure that our state maintains a rich and robust network of family resource centers. Investing in PCCs as critical primary prevention and upstream supports for families means that families will have the opportunities to access services and thus build on family strengths and enhance protective factors which will stabilize children and families and reduce ACEs in the high costs associated with them. For Vermont families, PCCs are the answer. Thank you. Thank you. Next up is, and I'm sorry for mispronouncing your name, I assume it's Carol Hunt and then after her is Jasper Kaleba. Thank you very much. Good afternoon, everybody. My name is Carol Kent and I'm president of the School Nutrition Association of Vermont. I am nutrition director for the LaMoyle North School District. As you're well aware, school food service programs have been working nonstop since March 18th, feeding kids for free in this pandemic because of waivers we received. We haven't done it alone. We've been in partnership with our agency of education, child nutrition team who've been such a great support throughout the past many months. I'm here to representing school nutrition professionals across the state and we're asking if you could please support an additional position at the agency of education, child nutrition. We've been working serving kids free meals based on waivers. When these waivers end, there are a great number of school districts who are not wanting to go back to the paid meal system. We want to find a way to keep the universal school meals going. It's such a benefit to our kids and our families. What's happening is there's going to be this great wave of schools applying for programs like provision two with our agency of education. This is going to be just bring a big burden of work onto our child nutrition program and we want them to be prepared and with enough staffing to be able to continue programming seamlessly. So please consider it's $100,000 for an additional position at AOE Child Nutrition so we can keep feeding kids and supporting families through the remainder of the pandemic and onward. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Next up is Jasper Kaliba and following him is Phil Hoffman. Hello everyone. My name is Jasper Kaliba and I'm a senior at Harwood Union High School in Duxbury. I'm here before you to support the $500,000 proposed state funding budget for farm to school grant and technical assistance. I'm one of the co-leaders of the Harwood Farm to School Club which I help create as freshmen and I've seen flourish into more than just a school club but a community builder. I initially joined because of the focus on sustainability but I can now see how it promotes so much more than just that. Things like equity, the local economy and most importantly a mode of learning that is different from what our curriculum offers. This is the ability to take action on what is important to ourselves and the broader community. Three years ago my school received a $15,000 state grant from our farm for our farm to school program which allowed this club to start taking action. We have used the funding for infrastructure like school gardens bringing students to local farms to learn from firsthand and promoting local and organic foods in our cafeteria to kids who might have not been exposed to it outside of school. We have made connections with farms all over Vermont sourcing ingredients for events like our annual harvest day meal or harvest of the month cafeteria taste tests. Most recently we have adapted our approach of action due to COVID precautions by changing our normal harvest of the month program from a taste test to an at-home cooking competition sourced by local farms. We have even had farmers give virtual tours and interviews with both middle and high school students attending and collaborating. I can only imagine what the relationship between schools and farms would look like as well as the economic benefits for our agriculture industry if every school in Vermont had a farm to school program like Harwood or just a budget to start off. This $500,000 bill will allow students to learn in new and meaningful ways which will benefit our community socially, academically and economically. Let Vermont be a leader in this initiative and give as many schools as possible access to these grants and funds. Thank you for your time and consideration. Thank you. Next up is Phil Huffman and following him is Ed Sunday Winters. Good afternoon. My name is Phil Huffman. I'm the director of government relations and policy for the nature conservancy here in Vermont and I'm testifying today actually in my role as one of the co-chairs of the Vermont Housing and Conservation Coalition. I want to thank you all for the opportunity to testify today and for everything that you all are doing for Vermonters in this really difficult time. It's good to see you all again and I just wish we could be together in the state house. For any of you who don't know VHCC, the Housing Conservation Coalition, is a collection of more than 50 nonprofits and businesses large and small that work on implementing conservation and housing projects statewide. Our members have a long history of working collaboratively with the Vermont Conservation Board to deliver results that benefit Vermonters in all sorts of ways. Our coalition respectfully asks today for your support of the governor's budget recommend of $34.8 million for VHCB and FY22. This amount is appropriate and needed to more fully enable VHCB and its partners to help address the unprecedented challenges Vermonters are facing from COVID and to capitalize on the opportunity we have to accelerate Vermont's economic recovery from the pandemic through expanded investments in both conservation and housing. We also urge you to provide flexibility for VHCB to direct funds as needed to respond to individual community needs whether they're for housing or for conservation. Governor's budget language directs $20 million in one-time funds from the $34.8 million total to go to housing only but the needed investments are varied across the state and we value the ability of VHCB staff leadership and board to assess and support the most critical needs in our communities. There are some other points that I would love to make but in the interest of time I'll stop now and I'll share those with you in a written statement later on today. Again, thank you very much for the opportunity to testify and we really appreciate your consideration of our perspective. Thank you. Next up is Ed Sunday Winters and Madam Chair I just want to check Ed Sunday Winters there's two of him and I'm wondering if he may need uh oh he just disappeared. I thought maybe he made needed the other person to help him but I'm going to try to promote the other one and see what happens. I see his hand is raised so there we go. Very good. Yeah thank you before you begin so after you is Dave Bellini and then following him is Tommy O'Connor. Mr. Sunday Winters please go ahead. Very good thank you so much for this opportunity. I'm Ed Sunday Winters. I'm pastor of Greensboro United Church of Christ and I'm also co-chair of the Hunger Council of the Northeast Kingdom and so today I come to speak in favor of support for a new agency of education position within the Child Nutrition Program so that schools that want to transition to universal school meals will have the support that they need to do that. You know our schools have been benefiting from universal school meals during the pandemic and it has benefited our students in numerous ways. We know that students who are well fed learn better. We know that students who are not anxious about where their next meal is coming from learn better. We know that students who are not stigmatized because of how they access healthy food in our schools learn better. In short we know that universal school meals can have made and can make Vermont schools even better in numerous ways reducing or eliminating stigmatization from from accessing free or reduced price meals, less paperwork for staff, more streamlined meal service, less unpaid meal debt, more opportunities to partner with a state full of wonderful farmers who can provide fresh and healthy food in our school cafeterias and finally and perhaps most importantly fewer students turned away at mealtime due to an inability to pay. So I would encourage you to please support efforts to make school meals universal in all the ways you can but particularly this year by supporting the new agency of education position in the child nutrition program. Thank you very much for your time and for all you do appreciate your service to our state. Thank you. Next up is Dave Bellini and following him is Tommy O'Connor. Mr. Bellini. Hello everyone my name is Dave Bellini I know many of you and I would like to speak today as a consumer of services and I'm speaking strongly on behalf of central Vermont home health and hospice and probably all the other county home health and hospices. I have two aging parents in their mid 90s and they have a host of medical conditions and I have witnessed firsthand CVHHH has kept them one out of the emergency room and two out of the nursing home and that has to save money. A year ago I had a dreadful accident what am I going to do? I was in a cast non-weight bearing CVHHH nurses, nurse practitioners, occupational therapists, physical therapists, social workers. I don't have a prepared speech. I can't say enough good things about those folks. I think they save money because they want to keep people out of nursing homes and rehab and number two they prevent repeated trips to the emergency room. I know this firsthand and I know you have a lot of people and I'm going to stop there. Thank you. Next up is Tommy O'Connor and following him is Sarah Carpenter. Thank you. Hello my name is Tommy O'Connor of Jeffersonville. Thank you for your time and allowing me to speak on the appropriation request in the youth council bill and continued financial support of our after school programs of this great state. Our after school programs are a critical component in the education of our youth. Our communities grow and prosper thanks to the strong collaboration between our after school spaces and leaders with the educational instructors and administrators. Since the pandemic struck Vermont made every conscious effort to prioritize the needs of our most vulnerable. Those are our youth. When our schools reopened their doors it was clear that the after school space was going to become even more valuable in keeping our youth safe and involved in fulfilled enrichment opportunities. I proudly work with a team that provides academic enrichment in the community of Lemoyle North. We saw how powerful opening our doors was to our families. We were able to keep our youth abilities to process their social emotional feelings. We were able to provide food and nutrition to all of our families and most importantly we provided new and robust learning opportunities to enrich their education. Our programs helped bolster the knowledge gained during the school day while also helping our youth learn self advocacy skills. We give youth a voice and a chance to speak up for their desires in their education. After school professionals can help with personalized learning plans and the development of educational goals even in our youngest learners. A strong democracy is built on all citizens having a voice that is heard and understood. The voice of our youth will not only assist in the direction of education needs to go but will also identify the needs of learners for years to come. A society must remember that the youth voices of today become the leadership voices of tomorrow. Again Vermont has ranked top 10 nationally for its after school programs. These programs do more than just provide a safe space for our youth. It provides additional opportunities to learn about oneself. It creates stronger communities and it enhances the education of leaders of the future. In closing I ask the state of Vermont to continue to provide financial assistance to our after school programs and that you support the youth council bill to give youth the voice they deserve. Thank you. Thank you. Next up is Sarah Carpenter and following her is Robin Way. Good afternoon. Thank you for inviting me. My name is Sarah Carpenter and in this role I'm serving as chair of the Vermont Rental Housing Advisory Board something I've been doing as a volunteer for the last two years since I retired as director of the Vermont Housing Finance Agency and I'm here again to talk about a mission we've all been on to update our housing code enforcement system which now relies primarily on volunteer town health officers. It's a system that's quite broken in communities who have not been able to take it on themselves. In 2018 you created the rehab advisory board and we've worked very hard with a great number of recommendations and actually had a piece of legislation for you to consider last year that didn't quite make it to the finish line. We are back and we are strongly encouraging you with tons of support to support a bill that would move the enforcement of the rental housing safety code to the Department of Fire Safety and create a rental registry that would support doing that. A rental registry is something this state is badly needed and would have been so helpful this winter with identifying benefits for landlords, benefits for tenants. We have no knowledge of where our rental housing is in any coordinated kind of way. Now we are proposing really three things. One is that the state moved the enforcement of rental housing safety codes to the Department of Fire Safety, move it from municipalities who are just ill-equipped to do it. And how would we support that? And I think we are making a very modest request of a one-time allocation of $400,000 to stand up the program and then this program could be run very sustainably like it is in many other communities with a modest annual fee of about $35 a year per apartment to fund the registry itself and the operations of the fire safety. I've provided you with some written material that shows the budget, shows how we would be spending it and our need for the $400,000 one-time money. So I appreciate that and hope you'll contact me if you have any more questions. Thank you. Robin Wei is next up and following him is Susan Fortier. Hi, thanks. This must be what speed dating feels like. I am Robin Wei. I'm the executive director of Chef Plain Islanders developing essential resources. We're usually known by our acronym CITER. We're a community-based organization serving primarily seniors and persons with disabilities living in Grand Isle County. I'm here to speak in support of the governor's recommended allocation of $34.8 million to the Vermont Housing Conservation Board in the FY22 budget. This is a much needed increase and will have an immediate and lasting impact on the health and quality of life of Vermonters throughout the state. For more than 15 years, CITER has been working to facilitate the development of an on-island senior housing option for people living in the five small Chef Plain Island communities that make up Grand Isle County. This is especially challenging because sitting on rocks in the middle of the lake, there are no municipal septic systems and very limited municipal water. After years of searching, years, we have finally found the required septic capacity in a viable site for the project in South Hero directly behind the Chef Plain Islands Community Health Center and the New Worthen Library. With VHCB funding, CITER, in partnership with Cathedral Square Corporation, will soon be embarking on the creation of Bay View Crossing, a 30-unit independent housing facility that will offer permanent affordability and the ability for residents to participate in the SASH program. This site also offers close proximity to other services, including CITER programs as we plan to co-locate our offices in the facility. And most importantly, it'll mean that a number of seniors do not need to leave the islands. They're friends, family, and community to find housing. It may only be 20 or 30 miles to Burlington, but it is a world away from the islands. Bay View Crossing will change this unique part of Vermont for the better, both socially and economically, for the long term. And VHCB funding is a critical piece of the funding that will make this happen. I'm certain that more funding as recommended in the governor's budget will have the same impact in other communities all over the state. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Next up is Susan Fortier, and following her is Mary Ellen Britt. Hello. Thank you for the opportunity to provide comments today. My name is Susan Fortier, and I'm the executive director of the Meeting Waters YMCA. We run youth development programs, YSPIRE After School Program and summer day camp in southeastern Vermont. During the past year, child care and out-of-school time programs, including after school and summer camps, have had to be flexible and adaptable to meet an ever-changing demand, and we've proven that we can do just that. We've pivoted quickly and efficiently, providing programs that meet the needs of working families, while ensuring quality child-centered programs with a focus on meeting the social-emotional needs of children and addressing the learning gap, while giving families the support they need to continue to work and provide for their families during this critical period. Never has the need for supporting quality-enriching affordable care been more apparent and needed. It's a moral and economic necessity. Today, I ask that you continue to support quality child care after school and summer programs by increasing funding and restructuring the Child Care Financial Assistance Program to ensure that families spend no more than 10 percent of their income on child care. By supporting the STARS, Step Ahead Recognition Program in a way that supports families, as well as providers and staff, and by supporting universal after-school care, which will ensure access through the state to quality out-of-school time programs. For so many families, participation in quality programs would not be possible without financial assistance. The need is greater than ever. As one parent wrote recently, my son has attended YS Fire and attended Y Day Camp for the first time this past summer. He was feeling down and out from not seeing his classmates for so long and not interacting with anyone. While attending camp, he was so overjoyed to be there, he even asked if he could go on the weekend. He's learned a lot of really neat stuff and enjoyed all the staff. These programs and the financial assistance I receive provided me with the ability to stay employed through this very crucial time. Thank you for your time and consideration. Thank you. Next up is Mary Ellen Britt, and following her is Peter Jacobson. Mary Ellen, Ms. Britt, are you there? I'm here. I'm clicking the buttons. There I am. Hi, gang. Hey, thank you very much for the opportunity to be here today and for all the hard work that all the folks in the legislature do. I live in Potney, and I just want to give a little bit of testimony for NOFA. They have requested some grant funding, and I want to tell you a little bit about my experience over the last year. So in March of 2020, I lost my job because of the pandemic. And despite holding a master's degree in healthcare management, I think that my job is never coming back. So it has changed my trajectory in a very significant way. And as a result of that experience, I began to have significant food insecurity for the first time in my adult life. It was a shock. And it was a very important eye-opener for me, which is why I'm here today. So I was alerted by a friend about the ability to apply for NOFA scholarship in order to help pay for a CSA share with a local farm in order to access in a safe manner. That was my take on it. I could go to the farm, pick up my groceries. I didn't have to go to the grocery store. Because of my age, I'm 63, and health problems, I didn't want to go to the grocery store. So luckily, I did get the funding. And as a result, I had a lot of really healthy, highly nutritious, organic food that sustained me from July of 2020 all the way through to the end of December. I applied for Vermont's food stamps, but found I was not able to use the food stamps to pay for my membership. Nor did NOFA have any access to those programs or any connections. So I'm here to ask you to fund, if possible, the current grant request and begin to work toward an integrated program. Because I think that NOFA probably should be a program of the state government of Vermont. So I think in closing, just to keep it brief for everybody, funding NOFA, in my understanding of how all the situation is woven or not yet woven together, I see the grant request as a perfect foundation, upon which to build some state programs in order to be able to stand ready for the next disaster or the next pandemic. So I'm familiar with Maryland, and I know we want to use those funds to build something permanent that will be self-sustaining, support farms, increase farm jobs, and nutrition for all Vermonters when the need arises. So thank you very much. Appreciate it. Wrap it up. Thank you. Next up is Peter Jacobson, and following him is Michael Redmond. Thank you. So hi there. I'm Peter Jacobson. I am the Executive Director of Vermont Cares. I'm pleased to join you. Thank you for having me today. Vermont Cares runs HIV prevention and care programming, including case management, medication access and transportation, and prevention programs, including HIV testing, syringe service programs, education in schools. I'm also here today representing two other AIDS service organizations, the AIDS Project of Southern Vermont and the HIV H2C Resource Center. We're testifying today because for the first time in many years, we need to ask for an increase in additional support from the legislature. The governor's proposed budget provides language for that appropriation, and we're grateful for that. And we're asking for a couple of amendments, as well as an increase to the dollar amount. Funds from the Department of Health to these AIDS service organizations were reduced in January 2021, as Ryan White Federal funds were reallocated to supplant losses elsewhere. Although total funding cuts surpassed $170,000, that's the amount that we are asking for to be included in addition to the appropriation in the budget. And I just want to say Vermont has done such amazing work in terms of HIV care and prevention. We don't think we can afford to backslide and provide worse care moving forward. Our state should be really proud of the work we've done so far. We've also included some language urging potential supplanting of funds should those medication funds not be available moving forward. And then some additional language so that if those funds become less stable in the future, organizations like ours have more transparency and more ability to plan moving forward. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you for considering this and have a great rest of the day. Thank you. Next up is Michael Redmond and following him is John Gordon. Hi, my name is Michael Redmond. I'm the executive director of the Upper Valley Haven and White River Junction. I very much appreciate the opportunity to provide testimonies. They focused on Vermont's plan to restructure the general assistance temporary and emergency housing program. Let me begin by saying that I agree with the recent testimony provided by DCF commissioner Sean Brown to legislative committees that there's great potential in this idea by changing from the current rules based GA program to one that is based on client needs, allowing flexible service models and tapping into the experience and knowledge of community organizations. That said, there is much means much we don't know about the specific plans for this state for this transition, which is now being planned while a worldwide pandemic remains in effect with unknown conditions that will exist at the time of the proposed transfer in October. I heard similar concerns expressed by the members of the Vermont House Committee on Appropriations last week during the testimony from Commissioner Brown. There are now 1800 households receiving temporary shelter and motels, including several hundred families. How many will still be there in October at the time of this proposed transfer? Without profound changes in the current rental market through additions to new affordable housing units, more supportive housing services and more rent subsidies, how much change can we reasonably expect from the community organizations to help these households now living in motels to transition to permanent housing? Will there be submission dollars in the contracts to manage the scale of program implementation? I very much agree with the comments of House Appropriates and Chair Representative Mary Cooper who said the tale of the recovery referring to this pandemic and economic dislocation is going to be substantial years probably not completed with the flick of a switch. Commissioner Brown also correctly raised concerns about the lack of affordable housing and rental vouchers that are hindering people who are temporarily housed in motels from securing permanent housing. Perhaps be valuable to frame the plan for a transition based on the metrics that need to be in place at the time of the change in program administration, or at least that these metrics could scale the program response to the terms of resources. I urge that whenever this idea is going to affect the state, remain a backstop for the unexpected, not just ask the community agencies to manage this program on their own. If we've learned anything over the past years that we cannot simply will the changes we want, we can only respond to what is before us with imagination, experience, sufficient resources, and a continuous focus on safety for all. I encourage the appropriations committees to keep that in mind as well. Thank you. Thank you. Next up is John Gorton and following him, our last presenter, testifier, Mary Houghton. Thank you for allowing me to testify. I'm John Gorton from Fairfield, and I'm here to express support for the state funding for the Vermont Food Bank and their Vermonters Feeding Vermonters Initiative. I'm a certified lay servant in the United Methodist Church, and along with several other volunteers, I run the Sheldon Methodist Church food shelf. In 2020, we serve 2131 families, 6,070 people distributing about 225,000 pounds of food, 70,000 pounds of which was fresh produce. We're open two hours a day, six days a week. This is a total volunteer effort, and I distributed by my take about somewhere between a half a million and three quarters of million dollars worth of food on a total budget of less than $30,000. The Vermonters Feeding Vermonters Initiative is very important for several reasons. Most importantly and importantly, this program helps local producers get a fair price for their products, even though I give those products away at no cost to my clients. I strive to provide my clients with high quality, nutritious food, and local fresh produce is one of the best ways to do that. Keeping these food dollars in our state, supporting our local agriculture and circulating in our communities, benefits our communities and the state as a whole. In 2020, I received a $2,400 grant through the Vermonters Feeding Vermonters program. I use that to buy fresh produce from three different producers. Being able to buy small quantity lots whenever I started to run low helped me ensure quality produce for all my clients. In addition, at the end of the season, as Farmer Lisa McDowell testified, those producers donated a whole bunch of leftover produce to me, so it multiplied the value of what was provided to my food shelf many, many times. We strive to treat everybody, all of our clients in a friendly, respectful, and dignified manner. This program benefits everyone whom it touches, the families I serve, the farmers who produce the food I distribute, in the communities that we all live in, and our state as a whole. So I encourage you to include this in the budget. Thank you. Thank you. And the next and last person we have up is Mary Houghton. Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Mary Houghton. I'm a community member on the board of the Tri Park Cooperative Housing Corporation in Brattleboro. Tri Park comprises three separate mobile home parks with a total of 304 homes, housing around 900 people. It is the oldest mobile home park cooperative in the state and includes the largest park in the state, Mountain Home with 264 occupied sites. These homes provide some of the most affordable housing in Brattleboro and without additional subsidies like Section 8 rental assistance. People owning homes in the parks include receptionists, cashiers, many other workers, as well as retirees living on social security and people with disabilities living on SSDI. Tri Park now faces two major threats to its stability, aging and failing infrastructure and households in the direct path of the next flooding event. In 2011, Tropical Storm Irene resulted in the loss of 20 homes within Tri Park, and we have to move, excuse me, an additional 42 homes from the special flood hazard area. We have a master plan that quantifies and lays out a path to addressing those needs. The projected costs are about four million dollars. We expect to be able to draw some funding from co-op reserves, refinancing additional debt, but we will still need at least two and a half million dollars in grant funding. Many of our problems are common to other mobile home parks around the state with aging and inadequate infrastructure and residents who are very low income and can't support substantial rent increases. For these reasons, we support the full funding for the Vermont Housing and Conservation Trust Fund. We're not asking for a set aside. The board knows how to balance multiple priorities. And we also support the increase to the Vermont Affordable Housing Tax Credit, which may help our residents buy more affordable homes. Thank you. Thank you. And you're done. Yes, and we are done with that. This includes this public hearing. I'd just like to say that on behalf of the Senate and the House Appropriations Committee, we deeply appreciate the testimony of the 37 people who appeared here. I know that we have written testimony from many of you and many other folks who have submitted testimony, and we certainly will read it and discuss it as committees as we try to chart a path forward for a better and healthier Vermont in the future. I'm looking at Senator Kitchell to see if she'd like to add anything, and I think I may have covered it. I think you did, and thank you all. And the important thing is for everybody to understand that we will carefully consider all the requests of which you can see there are many and varied, and that's part of the whole appropriations process. So thank you for taking the time today to give us your views on the budget and where additional spending is recommended. Thank you. Thank you. So I believe we can go off live now.