I'm going to get started and our first order of business is to approve the minutes of our January 9th meeting. They were relatively short. But I have a motion to approve. Thank you. A second. Um, so motion has been made and seconded to approve the minutes of our February 9th meeting. All those in favor say aye. So the minutes are approved. Our next item is fiscal updates. The party mayoral from department of finance and management who is with us today and we're going to have an update. My goodness party are like miles away. No, you can't really so. I'm fine. Let me go back down there. I'll try to sleep loud. Apparently, I mean, this is a house does things bigger, I guess. Good morning. So good morning. I welcome. Thank you for, for welcoming me here this morning. And I hope all members of the committee have weathered the storm. Personal lives. So I will jump right in starting with the 1st item on my agenda, which is the report on fiscal year 23 close out. And what I was going to do was high level summary of D F E F and T F general education and transportation fund operating statements. So you should have a document that is a 4 page document. A 1 day 1 and I'm going to just jump right in skipping the cover page to age 2 of 4, which is the general fund operating statement. And once if you're all there, I'll start with the one of this document. Okay. So I'll, I'll start by highlighting the very 1st line, which is the top line general fund revenue at fiscal year 23 close out. That's the 2.224 billion number that you see in the upper right hand corner at the top of the FY 23 column. So that compares to our consensus forecast by, by being $43 million higher than the 2.181 billion forecast that we built the budget on this year. So certainly continuing the pattern of strong revenue performance exceeding forecasts on the next line. The direct applications line of 70.46 million is actually, you'll see that's down quite a bit 26 million from the prior year direct app figure. And it's also down quite a bit from the number that was on the GF operating statement prepared by JFO back in May of 90 million for direct applications. And so really the most material sort of point to highlight in a review of the operating statement is that that's intentional. There was a unique feature built into act 78 this year in the C section. And we, it was actually act three and act 78 that directed the commissioner of finance and management to only transfer to the general fund. Those, those amounts from the funds referenced in D 101 B2, which are AG court order, secretary of state services fund on claim property and the three DFR funds. We were directed to only transfer what was needed to close the fiscal year and not do a complete sweep to the general fund as has been the practice previously. And, and the reason for that was that amounts in excess of what was needed to close the general fund were to be transferred instead to the cash fund. So that's the unique feature that we see reflected here in the operating statement this year. And the, the upshot of all that really is if we skip down to the number near the bottom of the page for unallocated operating surplus or deficit. This number, which is 337,449,200, that's not a random number by chance that exactly equals the figure that is referenced in act 78 section C 100, which directs the first 337,449,200 dollars to be carried forward to fiscal 24. And that was a number that the FY 24 budget is built around in the construct for FY 24. So we, we had a fairly straightforward close out didn't run into any major problems. We did have to have some things covered back in the statement of legislative intent in June, which would have complicated things if we hadn't had clarification, but based on, you know, that process, we were able to execute according to the session law as an active and come out with exactly the amount needed for next year and there's there will be no general fund left that is not spoken for, so to speak. So any questions before I move off the general fund operating statement. Committee. Any questions? Thank you. We'll keep going then. Okay. Seeing none. I'll move on. I'll just add, I guess I didn't speak to the reserves at all. And we did again, you know, bring the budget stabilization reserve up to the statutory maximum with almost $20 million added there. The only other reserve change was a technical adjustment between the human services case load reserve and the 2753. It's really a technical item that I wasn't planning to get into. I can answer any questions and follow up, but I guess that people want to get into that level of detail into it offline. Hey, so I'm going to turn now to page three or four, which is the education fund summary. And I will probably be brief here. We really, there's not a lot of significant difference since the May and fund outlook was prepared by JFO. The total revenue did come in 1.7 million higher versus the May general fund outlook. So slightly up there. And I guess within the, you know, within the revenue items sales and tax. It ended up being down about 5 million versus the May outlook, although the other segments made up for that with the, especially the, the other category, but slightly up in purchase and use meals and rooms and lottery as well. Within sales and use tax, although it was down 5 million versus the May outlook at close out. There was one segment of sales and use tax that was up, which is the cannabis revenue a little over a million higher than than was previously expected. But at 2.8 million versus the 1.7, we were expecting back in May. It's not a, not a tremendous difference, but a million dollars there. So that's a summary of the revenue. Of course, there's no changes within the appropriation section versus. Preview, I guess the only material difference between the May outlook and this statement here is if you look all the way down to the bottom line, the current year, undeserved, unallocated figure of 137 million is 32 million higher. And the figure cited in the May, in the May outlook, and that is directly attributable to the fact that per act 78 C 112 32 million, which you can see up in line 24 B was unreserved from the PCB reserve. So that will be available for deployment and FY 24. So that's the fund outlook. And I'll pause if there are any questions there. Okay, so we'll move on to the T fund and really pretty straightforward here. I don't think I have much to say other than that. You know, the revenue is 3.96 million lower than the January forecast. So a little bit off, but that can be that was made up by the reversions line to you know, revert that that same amount to end in balance while also providing the full 5% stabilization reserve. So that's the that's the T fund. I guess not, not much to see here. And if there are no questions, I'll keep moving. I know you've got a packed agenda. Questions. Okay, so exhibit a to is the unencumbered balance transfers report and we are typically, you know, required to provide this report pursuant to section D 101 v2 each year. And this is the final amounts transferred from the funds listed here. I've already I think spoken to the construct this year and the fact that we were only transferred from these funds to the general fund the amounts required to close in balance. So that's what happened on the first page of a to on the second page of a to we're spelling out the specific amounts that were transferred from those funds to the cash fund sub account the second sub account of the cash fund. That's the part that's unique and different this year that we're also reporting these transfers. I think I've already spoken to those and we understand the construct. These are the numbers to the pennant. So that's exhibit a to fairly straightforward. And if there are no questions, I'll keep moving through. I don't see questions. Okay, so our final report to bring to you today is exhibit a three. And this is the report required pursuant to section seven B of act 81. This is the report of 2023, which was which is of course the act that was passed in the special section. And so here we're required to report on the balance appropriated to the agency of human services for the general transition program. And this is the number there the 25.395 million, which which ends up being available of 23 million of that coming from those special fund unobligated balance transfers and there was already a couple million on allocated in that in that sub account of the cash fund exactly so that's what Secretary Sam Wilson will have to work with when she takes the podium here. That's that's fortunate when we did act 81. The first place we're looking for was actually to do an additional contingent appropriation and so we knew that we thought with revenues would be there to support that last contingent appropriation we have 21.5 in the budget just to give a refresher here. And so this is really good relative to what the obligations are for the flood so it's nice to know that this sub account can provide the adequate funding for act 81. So thank you. Anything. Yes. Sorry just a quick question. This is in addition to the money that was appropriated for the general assistance housing. If you're referring to that 10 million. It was a total because you did 7.5 in the base right and the balance 18 was. Yes. It's all in addition to that gym as well in addition to the C 123 section of act 78 of act 78 rather which was which was 10 million. And so this is this is in addition to that and I'll add no without speaking too much on behalf of a just but this figure really falls right in the range between low and high of the estimates they were making of what would be required additional to come to fully execute the executive order and the provisions of act 81. So we are you know it will remain to be seen if additional adjustment is required and be a but I think it's safe to say sort of the pressure and urgency is off right now. I'll just add there was going to be an additional report required at this meeting by a chess on status of their close out and carry forward funds available to fund this purpose and really based on the way this number came in. That was removed from the agenda because it will that kind of rushed carry forward process isn't required in fact a chess will be reporting their carry forward balances which just like all other departments and agencies are due finance and management tomorrow actually it will be going over those plans the next couple weeks that's really our first step moving towards you know be a development but I guess the good news is no fire drill there and we'll be able to work out any additional needs from from their carry forward based on this 25.3 million things are things are in pretty good shape for that emergency. I guess I just wanted to I appreciate that that reference to the H.S. close out I just want to I guess highlight that we don't know yet because we haven't seen a full budget of what's needed. Whether this 25 million in addition to what we have in the budget is actually sufficient so I just wanted to put that on the record that's and that's a that's completely appropriate to have on the record and and as stated before I guess the good news here is this is cash in the bank now and available and we'll probably have time to work things out in B.A.A. and not in a fire drill situation but we'll be able to see how things are going and this will be a big part of our that you know B.A.A. development of course flood concerns will also probably be a part of that too. Thank you. So we may be we will be I'm sure revisiting this in the B.A.A. process other questions. Then thank you for your presentation and the documents. Okay. Thank you Madam Chair. And so we're going to move on to the Medicaid year end report and Nolan Langwell is here to do that. This one morning. The record in all vinyl. You really are very far away. I know. It makes a comment about. So we should look at. The one. Yes, yes. Document for everyone. Yeah, so I'm just going to. I'm just going to sort of highlight some various pieces of this. Yes, you should all have the report by statute joint fiscal and administration are required to report on the most recent end year Medicaid and Medicaid related programs to the eboard which this is not, but this is a preview of what we'll be giving to the eboard. We include caseload expenditure information and other information. We sort of want to flag for you in the budget. Data. This report represents the most current information we have for the end year fiscal year 23. That's provided to us today. And when the information comes forward, you can update this. This is really just going to highlight just some of the key points. The impact of the COVID-19 public health emergency continues to reverberate through the health care system. And it will probably have effects. You've come. Overall 23 and Medicaid and Medicaid related expenditures total 2.17 billion. This was 2.3%. Or 52 million below what we did budgeted the BAA gets from 9% increase in spending over fiscal year 22. Global commitment and overall program administration were down. All the state only pharmacy and dish payments were up. Particularly with dish. State doubled its dish to fear. Normally dish is 22.7 million. I just cap on it. But there's cap in this year. We went cap. The cap is 46.4 million. And this was to help stabilize hospital providers. As was allowed under act 83 of 22, which was the budget adjustment. Medicaid continuous enrollment. We often refer to this as the suspension of redetermination. That's called Medicaid continuous enrollment. As you know, this was passed at the beginning of the pandemic. This ended on March 31st. As part of the federal consolidation appropriation act of 2020. Bless you. So the process of redetermining eligibility in Vermont began. In April and is expected to take about 12 to 14 months. The non-disabled adult eligibility categories were the ones that were most impacted during this Medicaid. This period. Normally these categories experienced turn on off the program.  So there was a. Increase in those particular conversely though. The number of people that were receiving premium assistance. So I decreases in the same period. So we anticipate that as this federal policy, they're calling it the unwind. Are we going to be able to do that? So we anticipate that as this federal policy, they're calling it the unwind. We anticipate that as this moves forward, we should see a flip flop. Where it would see more of a leveling out of the non-disabled folks. But seeing an increase again in those receiving from our premium assistance. Related to this, as you know, we've been getting a 6.3% additional F map. Since 2020. Also part of this federal consolidation appropriation act. This enhanced F map has begun to wind down. On April 1st, it decreased from 6.2% to 5%. And then again to 2.5% until I won. It will decrease again. October 1st to 1.5%. And then at the end of the calendar year and cease to exist all together. Between fiscal year 2020 and 2023, this enhanced F map resulted in over $300 billion in general fund savings. Looking ahead, some other things I just want to flag. ARPA provided the states with a 10% enhanced match for one year. This was for April 21 to March 2022 on a home and community basis. Mod had $71.8 million in savings in this period. This money can be matched to almost $163 million gross and it can be spent over multi-year period on home and community based services. As per a federally approved plan. Under this plan, fiscal year 2020 budget increased 3% rate increase. For several home and community based services, this would be funded over three years. However, in fiscal year 25, there will be need to backfill fees as the rate increases become part of the base. That's an estimated to cost about $17 million. FFIS has projected a 15.9% increase in clawback beginning in calendar year 24, which could have a general fund pressure of between three and a half and $6.8 million in fiscal year 24, as well as representative base pressure going forward. The IMD phased out, which was part of the fiscal year 2020 budget. Also under the guise of continuous enrollment. There's a new provision as part of the same federal consolidation appropriations, which is basically continuous. The IMD phased out, which was part of the new global commitment waiver last year is estimated to be an additional $2.1 million pressure in 24 and $6.4 million pressure in fiscal year 25. Also under the guise of continuous enrollment, there's a new provision as part of the same federal consolidation appropriations, which is basically continuous enrollment for children. It required all states to have a 12 month continuous eligibility policy for all the kids who were on Medicaid and CHIP as of January 1, 2024. This will have fiscal impact, but it has not yet been determined what that would be. With prescription drugs, every year there tends to be a new drug that comes onto the market that costs a lot of money. This is one that HHS has been paying very close attention to. And then finally, the floods. The floods may or may not have an impact. We do not know what the short term or long term effect would be on this. On caseload or expenditures and why not, but we'll definitely keep that. That's the highlights. A lot of moving pieces there in terms of future. Yes. A little bit more about the clawback. Yes. The clawback was tied to the. To Medicare Part D. And essentially what it was was this and I'll let Senator to chill on the blanks where I flaw on it, but. Essentially, when they came up with Medicare Part D 15 years ago, whatever. It was a supposed to help states new money to states, but. And so the clawback is a way for the federal government to sort of recruit some of the money it costs. The federal government to provide the service to states now we were already doing. We already had a prescription drug program, so it wasn't great for us, but essentially it's the federal government trying to help pay for this program. And it sort of will go on in perpetuity. Still a fairly significant increase on the 60%. Yes, very much so. No, and do we have an it's maybe more appropriate for a hs, but do we have any update on how the determinations are going? I would defer a hs on that. That's one friend. We know if they're. Um, actually showing a decrease in total enrollment, or is it. They're all being predetermined at this week. So, let me re frame the question, make sure that I understand it. Have we seen a production in the game? But I wasn't expecting there is a dashboard. Why don't I send you a link and that would give you the details information. Thank you. I think nationwide experiences, people have just are not returning there. You know, they're being having to go through a redetermination process. There's some reforms and they're just and it could be their circumstances change the insurance. How long has it been since we've suspended three years? It's a long period of time in a very dynamic population. So. Other questions. Thank you, Nolan, and this is very good when you have a minute to go through this. Medicaid is such a big program actually. And so many moving pieces. We have a report. All the 52 points of light. And so we track Medicaid expenditures weekly, simply to make sure things are going. So it's good to be closed out the year. On a positive note, because there was some concern that that might not be the case. I think that's some good news to go with a whole lot of not so good news. All right, so now we're moving on to. The state colleges and the sale of radio licenses. And. We have Patricia here. General counsel from Vermont state colleges and something's not so who's chance. State college and traveling. Oh, we have a whole triumvirate here. And so we are. Being asked to. Address a situation that. We changed the statute and no longer required legislative approval for the sale. We are actually being asked to authorize. Sales that occurred prior to that change in the statutory language. The sales actually and transacted. And so this is. An action on the part of. Legislature to validate and to. To make sort of official that legislative obligation to approve. So that's kind of the context of why we have state colleges here today. And I don't know who's going to present the background. All right. If you want to put yourself on the record and. Good morning. Thank you. I'm Patty Charlie. I'm the general counsel. I'm the general counsel. I'm the general counsel. We are here today seeking retroactive approval of the divestment of. Two campus radio station licenses under the Vermont telecommunications act. The VTA was enacted in June of 2007 and repealed last month. Our primarily run by students with one exception. The Vermont state colleges campuses have had difficulty recently holding student interest in traditional broadcasting students are more interested in streaming content over the internet. Castle 10 was the first campus to experience this decline. And now Lyndon and Johnson have as well. The radio station associated with the Randolph campus. Is still holding strong in terms of interest and participation. The declining interest of students made it more difficult to meet FCC requirements which include regular reports on activity content and the like. Following several several years of compliance challenges and associated expenses. Castle 10 began considering whether it wanted to continue to hold its license. In 2017 we consulted with our FCC council who described these campus radio station licenses as having limited value due to the restrictions on non commercial educational stations. These are not your typical commercial broadcast stations. A broker would be required if we sold the license in late 2018. Castle 10 determined the most expedient route was to relinquish the license to turn it back over to the FCC. Following public meetings of our a certain committee of our board of trustees as well as them a the board of trustees themselves. The license was returned to the FCC which also required public postings of that action. So we did not sell the castle 10 license we we turned it back over to the FCC. More recently northern Vermont University made a similar decision and the board initially voted not to renew the FCC licenses for Johnson and Landon. After learning of the decision through FCC filings we were approached by two different parties with interest in one or both licenses. Accordingly we did a slightly late but still effective renewal of those licenses with the FCC and explored their sale or transfer. Vermont public radio now known as Vermont public offered $80,000 for the Linden license alone and we entered into a sales agreement. In accordance with the FCC requirements notice of the sale was published through the FCC public files including a period of time for public impact statements. Another entity also of Vermont nonprofit remains interested in the Johnson license which has a lesser value because it has a much smaller transmission area. We were unaware of the law of the VTA's requirement that we seek legislative approval. We made these decisions using the best information available to us. We were guided by experienced FCC counsel. FCC counsel work in a federal regulatory so that they were not aware of this law as well and we seek your approval to cure this deficiency in our actions. I'm sure you have some questions. Any questions? Yes. Not so much about the disposition of the licenses or the retroactive curing because that seems to be relatively straight forward but in the thinking about the unified campus I understand that originally there were separate radio stations. Is there a thought going forward as we transition to streaming about a kind of unified vision for how the university is going to work or will it wind up being separate streaming operations in the way that we had separate broadcasts? At this point the student government associations are really trying to think through all the different student activities and what that will look like. So I would say that's still a work in progress on those things. A lot of the behind the scenes registration systems all that stuff is in place for the single university but the student government associations themselves the students will be working a lot of those things out like student fees, student activities so I would expect that they will be thinking through on that as well but there will be more opportunities for cross-campus collaboration on things like this. Again if there are students at Castleton, Lyndon or Johnson that are interested in participating in a traditional campus radio station opportunity through the Randolph campus. If you just want to piece this up a little bit. This is Sophie Sadatny, Chancellor of Vermont State College. And then just to make sure I understand where we're at now. So only the BTC campus has a broadcast operation. So no that's not quite correct. The Johnson license, we renewed the Johnson license because there was interest in one or both the Lyndon and Johnson, the North Vermont University. So the plan is to likely sell the Johnson license. Because the statute is not an appeal that could be done without any action on it. Thank you Madam Chair. So since these processes needed to be public and since normally when the colleges undertake something that they decided to divest themselves up we get a lot of comments here in the legislature. Now I didn't happen to receive any about this. I'm just wondering during the public comment process, were there any public comments regarding the action? I did not look back at the Castleton action that was for three or four years ago now. The Lyndon license which was required to be posted for that public comment did not receive public comment. Other questions? So this is an action item. So we need to take official action and I guess. I think I'm going to do that. I think we are about to get a motion. I move to retroactively approve the disposition of WLR Lyndon and WIUV Castleton radio license. So it's previously required by 30 BSA 8063. Second that. Second. So we have a motion made and seconded to approve retroactively the sale of the radio licenses. That's presented. Unless there's further discussion, I'll call for a vote. All those in favor. Oh, I'm sorry. Yes, Senator Sears. Actually to comment, I would, I've read the memo from Maria Royal. I'm not sure we have. I don't know the history of the 2023. I missed it, I guess, when, whenever we did that, but I'm not sure we have the authority to approve this. I would really like to have legislative council. If you look at the attachment C from legislative council from rare. Yeah. The last paragraph, in light of these circumstances, a joint fist has the authority to retroactively approve all five contracts and thereby cure the procedural effects. So. I don't understand where we got that power. Well, I don't think we have Maria here. She here. We have Jen Carby here from legislative council, perhaps. But she's not prepared to speak to this opinion that was prepared by Maria Royal. If we took away the legislative role. In 2023. I'm not sure we have the power to. Retroactively approve all five. That's where I'm trying to understand. I just want to make sure that we're doing something that isn't going to we're exercising the power that we had before we repeal that statute. Well, and also I don't think we took away our power. We took away the requirement. Yeah. But it said the legislature. The legislature. The legislature. The legislature. For the fiscal committee. Okay. So. So that's. We did obviously have ledge council take a look at the request and what our role would be to cure the. The error here and. So it's a good question because it's kind of an unusual question. Other comments. Otherwise I was in the midst of. About to call the roll. And so we are going to have to do this. So we're unless it's further discussion. I'm going to have the court call the roll. Senator Baruch. Yes. Senator Cummings. Yes. Representative shy. Yes. Senator Sears. Oh, I'm sorry. Senator Sears. Oh. Okay. Sorry. Senator Westman. Yes. Representative Wood. Yes. Representative Cornhouse. Yes. Senator Kitchell. Yes. But my question is, can we vote remotely? Yeah, I don't think so. I thought we changed it in this frame. It used to be the house rules and. I believe. I'm looking for Jen, but I believe that was the resolution reports. Three. You could join meetings. Three people that come to support accounts. That's a vote. Through this. I think that's a joint. This is a joint correction. Justice oversight committee had to meet remotely because the state house was closed. Right after the flood. And we had John Bloomer look at that. And it is allowed for. Remote. All right. So I think everybody's saying we did actually give ourselves. The authority to meet up to vote remotely. So. I think with that, and we have a vote of nine nine one. To. Retroactively approve the sale. Thank you very much. Thank you. Now you can see we've got the next hour. And we're going to be talking about housing update. And this is certainly something that. We spent a lot of time actually one. And the joint fiscal committee was given the charge of oversight in terms of how we are. Implementing the transition. Hotel hotel program was set up as part of the pandemic. And so I think. We were going to have everyone. I'm up at the same time. And sort of coordinate their. Their presentation to us we have. But if we want to do it. Separately, I don't know. There was some discussion about. Coming as a group. But as you can see on the agenda, we have. The first item is the transitioning and this is from. AHS and DCF. So. Why don't we start. With. Secretary Samuelson. Interest. Well. Oh, definitely. Yeah, I was going to say. Over there. And I have my reading glasses on. And I thought that gentleman was Chris. So my apologies. Okay. So if you want to introduce yourself through the record, please. Thank you. Jenny Samuelson, the secretary for the agency. I have here with me today. Deputy commissioner Miranda gray. And the director of the office of economic opportunity. Sarah Phillips. Thank you for having us. I know that we've got a tight agenda with only 20 minutes. We have a lot of data to go through this morning. We're going to try to go through it relatively. So our next item. Speaking of time.  So that we, we can make sure that meet the time goals. And we have to, a documents from you. D and D. One. In our packet. Oh D is just to remind us all. To help us to see how you are doing relative to. providing this kind of data. So that's right. So D1 is the document that you've submitted. Correct. Okay. Thank you. So we'll walk through the data that you have in front of you in D1. As we all may remember, the cohort that we are going to be talking about today are those who continue in the 630 cohort for the historic pandemic air housing program. On June 30th, what we saw was a population of 1,250 households currently in the program. That group of households will be static and will continue. That will be the group that we will be using and bearing back in mind throughout the next few months of where we started and where we're going. At this point in time, now that we've moved forward by a month, we now have 1,025 households currently remaining in the program. With 174 households who've transitioned out and I'll go through in a second where they have transitioned to. Our average nightly rate has come down slightly to $140 per night. It's important to note that the way that we're going about this are individual negotiations with hotels. This is an average. And so what you will see is that as we go through this over time, this will come down slowly again because it's individual negotiations with each of the hotels. It's just remind me that was it was 146 or what was the average 146. Yeah. Yeah. It's changed too much. It's only come down slightly. So moving forward to look at and understand the households that we have currently in the program. The next slide that you have identifies where in the state by district that these households are. I will note that over 80% of the households are in five primary areas of the state, including the central Vermont area, Bennington County, the Brattleboro area, Burlington or Chittenden County and Rutland County. So that's just that's one under a thousand are in those five areas with encompassing more than 80%. And you will see that trend carry forward as we go through the next few slides. And also you'll see us focusing a significant amount of resources and efforts there. The next slide represents taking a look at the population based on the household size in the current hotel program, the number of bedrooms or units that we need to bring online and by what size. I think that this really points out that really what we're looking at is a unit's challenge and problem as we try to bring on the number of units. Many of you may remember that for many who are in the hotels before they even have housing vouchers, there weren't units for them to transition to. The point of this slide though is to really look at what type of units and unlike the past, we've often contemplated because most of our housing programs have been for families and for vulnerable populations. What you see here is the number of the highest percentage of households that are in this program really are looking at single bedrooms or single room occupancy type of units. Moving forward, one of the things that we will continue. You've got one bedroom or SRO and then one bedroom. What distinguishes those two columns in terms of? Yeah, so the first column is primarily those that are single person households and the second may be a couple person household and that really does need a bedroom. Just wanted to in the asterisks. Yes. Next to 10. Yep, the asterisks next to 10 is there's a single household in there that will potentially need a larger than a three bedroom. Thank you for writing. Yes. Do you know how many of this 120 have vouchers? How many of these people have vouchers? I'm gonna have to Deputy Fisher, right? I don't know that number up to that man, but I can't let to see if that is something that we have or if we will be able to understand because all housing vouchers don't necessarily come through the state. Thank you. I'm wondering if there's a built-in assumption here that that the people are in the counties that where they're being housed now in the hotel program that's where they would normally live. So I'm looking at Addison County where I'm from which only has nine and I think that's because we don't have very many options available and I'm thinking that those people may have moved to Chittenden and Rutland counties and yet we may not be building the amount that we need. So I don't know what you're doing. You can speak to how you're dealing with that issue. So the way that we're dealing with that issue is we're beginning to ask folks the in the in their eligibility determination where they would like to go back to that that is not fully built in here but this this is really an opportunity for us to have a rough idea of where the units are and how many individuals we need. That said I want to I want to make sure that we're all there are some individuals who have moved out of their county but it's not the vast majority and that's why we wanted to present this as a rough idea to the vast majority we're able to stay in the communities where they're from but it's a great question thank you. Senator Westman. So how many of these because in my county the units that are available June 30th are gone. So how many of these are affected by the flood because for example on the hotels that we're housing people aren't there anymore. So I can pull up that and I can pull up the information on the on the hotels there were a small number of hotels that were impacted by the floods. We're currently looking at and assessing what that means for the populations and that work is is ongoing. At some point when we get through this presentation I want to hear where we're going with that population because we ended up with a fair number of people with shelters and where they've been leave house. Well the other problem is that there isn't housing for them and what we as we've tried to get them people to work with through capstone the case of the capstone is so great that you know before this started there was over 70 households that they were helping and how some of the counselors are pushing 90 to 100. So for me there's a piece of crisis that goes well beyond all of this. Yeah so you're absolutely right that I want to make sure that we all understand that the the flood has a significant impact particularly in the central Vermont region on the housing units that we have and I can walk through a little bit of what we're doing on that. But we're going to be dealing with floods a little later. Exactly and that's what I was going to point out. What Senator Richmond is speaking to Westman is speaking to you is that there were 32 individuals who are in the hotels and who had to temporarily leave. Some of them have been able to return to their current hotels but Miranda. Yeah for the record we're in a great time for the economic services division. We did have four motels that had received damage and we have been able to one of the hotels and people didn't need to leave. But the other three we were able to rehouse those individuals at different hotels. Thank you. Other questions otherwise we'll keep going. I just want to say this is a really wonderful presentation of the data. Very easy to read not a lot of narrative. So I just want to acknowledge the word because when we first started out we were sort of a blank slate in terms of the data of the profile on the needs. So this is just a field that this is a very succinct and easy way of getting information to us. It's good to see the trend starting to reverse this out. However do we know you know when you go from 1250 to you know just what about do we know what happened to those people that actually succeed in finding housing? That's a couple slides up. So I think as we go through I think some of the questions. I'm glad we're listening very closely. I appreciate that. There are a couple slides up that I think will answer some of our questions. So if we go through some of the data that will allow us to then get to questions I think are going to be comprehensive. I just want to add this is I mean I appreciate that the folks who are in this particular cohort are moving into new housing. I don't know if I would characterize it as with the trend is reversing itself. Given that we still have a lot more people coming into homelessness and some of them staying in the hotel some of them not under different eligibility criteria. So I'm very happy for the work that's happening here and I know that you're doing a lot of other work and a lot of other people are experiencing hardship that are not on this PowerPoint. Right yeah and I want to acknowledge that and what you will see is the last the last slide which is in the appendix will help to highlight and identify that this is only one small cohort of those individuals who are experiencing homelessness. Okay so moving forward but directly going back to this to those who are currently in the program the next slide outlines the eligibility criteria by age disability and domestic violence families with children health code violations natural disasters and pregnancies that are in this cohort and I want to acknowledge that's not the whole population of those experiencing homelessness at this point. I will say that a lot of we get a lot of questions around the disability category that is a broad range from individuals who are experiencing mental health chronic illness chronic conditions physical disabilities and within each of those categories it's a broad range of ability. So it's it's worth it's worth pointing out that that is a pretty diverse category of individuals. Moving forward to get to to your question. I have a question this two questions on this slide just want to clarify that word some people are double counted for good reason here. Double like someone might be have a family and have SSI. So they're going to fall under the SSI category first they're not double they're not double counted. They're not double counted. So they are not double counted. So in this case they're falling under the SSI SSDI category first and then under the other category. And is it in the order that you would put someone in? It's however I would say is the easiest for the individual to be able to determine that they have eligibility for the program. So disability because it is based on receipt of security is very easy for us to be able to determine that for the individual. Whereas something you know same with having children that's a fairly simple thing but an eviction is hard. There's paperwork that you need to be able to obtain from your past to be able to share with economic services that okay. And then I understand that if you divide this by count you would wind up a number so small probably you should be sharing it with us. Are you do you see a real range from county to county and housing number shakeout? I remember at some point we had sort of a supposition I don't even know how to call it an assumption that some regions might have much higher books with disability levels or much higher families with children. We do have that and I think yes I want to say that we we do have that based upon if you looked at the previous where we have our districts that slide yeah yes you would see the range of the mix different though of the the prevalence of the difference of eligibility criteria. I don't think so we can we can yeah it doesn't it doesn't tend to change or shift significantly I think where you might be able to conceptualize that is in the units data and you don't see a vast variety of different issues okay. We're going to keep going very quickly. We've got a very succinct amount of time. We've got a lot more slides more slides and we've got minutes so let's keep going. So next slide gives you the the reasons for exiting the program some of them have transitioned to apartments 34 they've exited related to misconduct they've been housed in a something other than an apartment like a family member or other housing opportunity we've had a small number move out of state and then we get a lot of questions about non-renewal not every month every 28 days an individual needs to renew in that case there's a significant amount of outreach that economic services does by phone in person often and also by correspondence by mail and these are the individuals who ESD has not been able to to make contact with you may see that number go down because those individuals lose their benefits that sometimes entices them to reach out to the state and so we are doing everything we can to make sure that they're not they don't lose eligibility just because they didn't contact us. If I could just quickly ask about misconduct that was one area where people showed concern when we had our senate debate it's a relatively modest number yes but the the worry was that misconduct would be defined by hotel owners without checks on their ability to exit people any thoughts on how that's going? It's going relatively well and the next submission of the emergency rule will have that laid out in in more in more detail and then okay moving on for as folks may remember the agency of human services began screening individuals for their risks and needs back in November. It's not the same cohort it's a constantly evolving cohort we are now digging in with this cohort specifically I do want to know that that this that this will give us information on the types of supports they need but really it is a unit that they need more than that than anything else there's not and it's that type of the the types of supports will assist us in both helping them find a unit that is appropriate and in helping them keep the unit but it really is it it is as a unit issue and again you see this this we've got about 755 individuals and households screened and about 437 have moved forward and we are shoring up the agency of human services resources here we have a rescue team who just began going out so that we can rapidly increase the screening now that we have a discrete population that's not ever evolving I wanted to comment obviously it's housing but we know with many populations and with such a percentage of people with disabilities here SSI or social security it's housing combined and we have the report from the HCB that is talking about the resources that are necessary to support and preserve the housing once it's secured so you've got to have the unit but you've also got to have the services there so that you're not ending up with future evictions or the people that have fairly complex needs get the support they need so I I absolutely interplay is so essential that with the housing first experience that we've had we absolutely agree and that's why programs like pathways and other programs that really combine services and housing together are essential many of those programs are having a hard time expanding their reach because of the lack of actual units okay moving moving yes i'm trying to understand what that means households with a shared care plan you screened 119 and Barry and 109 of them have a shared health plan so only nine of them don't however in Bennington you screen 96 households only 50 of them have a screen shared plan it goes on similarly in the the other three major districts Burlington uh Rutland and Brattleboro why are those so much lower than Barry is it a lack of staff is it a lack of what what is the reason for that so I think and well look to the team but we see in some of these areas have been a lot more churn in the in the population we do see a some staffing related issues it's a process though it's a matter of ensuring that we're going in we screen individuals and then they meet on an ongoing basis with it with a care manager and it takes some time to get to the from the screening phase to the phase of having a shared care plan and again in some areas it's churn where we've seen a lot more folks coming in and out of the program and that means we've started plans with folks on in other areas we may have had less staff and in some areas it's also engagement of the client this really has to be a client focus so we can dig into specific areas senator Sears with you but those are the those are some of the interplays that we see um forgetting to from screening to shared care plans it would be helpful it would be helpful to me and perhaps others who represent some of those areas to hear more detail at a later date we're going to be getting monthly reports so we can really see that trend more about why the disparity though this this tells me the number with a shared care plan which seems good but I don't understand why there's only 10 of the household screened and buried that don't have a shared plan and 46 don't have a shared plan in Bennington I don't understand that same with in it and it's even worse in Rutland and Burlington in terms of percentage without a shared plan so maybe we could just get a follow-up we'll get a we'll get a follow-up summary to you on that and focusing on those areas where that disparity is so so significant other comments senator Sears that's it thank you yeah okay so we're going to have to move along pretty quickly here so I think we've actually touched on the next slide in our conversation that we've had so we'll keep moving on to the data one of the elements that the legislature was really interested in understanding for the small proportion of the clients who need residential care what's the capacity in the residential care system you see that outlined in slide number nine in addition to that we are working with with the Vermont health care association to survey long-term care residential care facilities and to assess the availability and barriers for their expansion for the needed population that report will be back to us in September and so we can bring that subsequently forward moving on there was a there were questions about the security deposits and I'll remind remind the committee that between September I'm sorry summer of 2022 and march of 2023 the program fundamentally changed when we use evap resources to a more rental rental relationship and so during that time period individuals who came into the program had a direct lease type relationship with the hotels and the state paid security deposits this will be a one time report out because this information will not change but you see the total number of people and the funds that they that went out if they stayed in the program less than four months the state reclaimed those security deposits when they left the program and then the rest of the security deposits were paid out in a relationship between the hotel and the individuals in March 2023 yes I noticed I didn't see in slide nine there's residential capacity for sort of specialized services but I didn't see the total number of beds available for just regular emergency housing anywhere is that later in the presentation for emergency shelter beds no it's not and I can follow up with the exact number thanks and I know that changes every I know we're pressed for time but on security deposits at the very bottom it says all deposits should have been returned to clients with no room damages the state does not have data on what was returned for us it's held so that five million number there should have been returned but we don't have any idea about how much was it was a really how much was returned to the clients it was a relationship between the clients and the hotels understood but it was state money it was state money we do not we do not have any information on the amount of that that was was returned we do know that the attorney general's office and others attorney general's office in vermont legal aid have been working with clients who feel like they did not receive their security deposits back and or hotels who may not have administered it the program appropriately I'm just wondering why why can't the state require that the motel owners report that data the state gave the security deposit correct I think at this point it would be asking motels to go back to determine and I think we were using e-wrap so this would be for federal we were using e-wrap these were federal dollars and they may have been officially done so I don't know but this is something legally I think we'll have to I know and I there's do you have any cop I think I'm done yeah that was part of deputy secretary for the agency of administration so yes the the e-wrap program those nine months while it was operating in that manner the state didn't have a formal role a legal role in the relationship between the renter so we were paying the security deposit on behalf of the renter but that didn't give us any legal rights to impose any conditions the feds actually said you cannot impose additional conditions on landlords beyond some eviction prevention measures that they allowed in e-wrap here so the state had very limited capability because of the federal restrictions on the program yeah we cannot require we could we could not legally require the hotels to report a fact I just want to note the craziness of pouring millions of dollars into a program but neither the feds nor the state having any reporting on how that gets ultimately just yeah I I can understand you're being confounded by the federal regulations and policies so but again we did look into this several times and we were not able to legally require the hotels to report this back so the rest is let's go through it very quickly and then I'm going to have to shrink probably VHC be a little bit but obviously the whole a lot of the oversight is directed toward the agency so we can finish up in five minutes yeah and we can take even less that we we have received a lot of questions related to how we engage communities in our resourcing the program we don't have to go through the rest of the slides that can be there for your and we can take questions offline I just there are two key things that the that the agency did one as we submitted an RFP asking for emergency shelter staff and services that was issued in May returned in June you will know from the timeline that that was prior to the the period in which we created this transition period for the current program until April of next year so what we're using that RFP to do is to staff the screening in case management to shore up the AHS staff that are currently doing that and then in addition that filling gaps in the community shelters the rest of the slides which again we can are really there because we've gotten questions about it are around the the process where we submitted letters of intent I want to I want to note that when we did the letters of intent we requested the letters of intent from communities there were many other things that we continue to do in terms of engaging with our providers through the Office of Economic Opportunity through our usual processes in state government and those continue to go this was a supplemental activity where we knew at that moment that we were going to have a major transition that was going to impact communities and we wanted to engage communities and providers in helping to identify solutions knowing that each community was very different we received letters of a court request of more than 50 of them from across the state there was a vast range of from vast range from people expressing interest and just and just assisting to really solid proposals because it wasn't an RFP it really was a way to generate ideas some of those were really viable and projects that move forward through the hop program and others were just communities expressing support we can provide more information on those at a later period of time but you've got some of the general information there the other thing you'll notice in the slides is we've received questions about whether the hop grants went out this year they absolutely did they went out on time and they included many of the items that communities put forward so I'm going to pause there I know that we're out of time for today but we're happy to bring back more information on the letters of opportunity in the future yeah thank you for all of this and yeah as the chair said this is like very comprehensive and helpful if they're reading I appreciate all of that I noticed that there are two things we asked for in the legislation around sort of an outlook into the future and a projected timeline for this transitioning household I know we're early in the process and I know that the more we do for planning now the you know federal households will be as we move along some wondering about your plans for offering that to us next time I appreciate you bringing that up what I will say is two things it's early in the process and the flood has significantly impacted and I know that the agency and administration will go through that has significantly impacted those plans it would so we will begin we will continue to work on that and bring it forward for a future meeting yeah other comments or questions thank you and we look forward to the next report which would be mostly so we can see how the times will turn and really we have two things we have this fixed population gear and then we've got the other populations that are children so is that good news representative wood yes from my perspective I would think so thank you so now we're going to move on to the hcb and we have a major here that's silly but it's not available so he has as poly to give us the update on behalf of the hcb so welcome good morning for the record poly major and the director of policy for front housing and conservation board and we submitted to this committee a report of the board's activities over the last month to operationalize the requirements that are in act 81 I know we have are limited for time so I'm going to get to that most of the sand in the report that we submitted but did not highlight some sections of that report for discussion with the committee or questions the act one act 81 asks us to provide monthly reports on the status of our initiatives to bring more units online and also shelter beds online and we're while we're providing monthly numbers on those I want to make sure that they're being read within the broader context what Vermont is able to do in terms of bringing new affordable units online which is going to be significant over the next three years so since 2020 you say three or thirty three and hopefully thirty as well great I'm just glad you said three thank you yes I wasn't sure but since 2020 the hcb has helped support the creation or funded the creation of 1,500 units those are units that will be coming on board over the next three years so in this coming year we're going to see about 45 percent of those online but by the end of 2026 we'll see all of those units online and we'll have more in the pipeline by that point so while each month we're not seeing the the magnitude of new units that would like to see I do want to make sure that those monthly numbers are put in context of the ongoing work that is happening another point with the data that we provided is that construction timelines as we've seen over the past few years are hard to predict and so there is going to be some fluctuation in the projections that we've provided to you especially projects that are further out they may encounter delays and likely will as especially as the impact of the flooding diverts resources to other construction projects so there's going to be some fluctuation and also in the as we provide monthly reports on units that we anticipate came online during that month those numbers aren't reconciled until the following month so we're going to see some change there as well but we'll try to be as as accurate as possible given all these variables with the you also have asked us to report on the number of shelter beds that are coming online and have also asked BHCB to invest 10 million in FY24 funds in bringing additional shelter beds online investing into the shelter system and as we've worked more with shelters across the state over the last several years we've seen that a lot of their focus rightly so is and specialty is in that service provision part of their work and often they need support on the development and building side of these projects so one thing we've done to help strengthen this pipeline is work with ever north vermont's housing syndicator to help provide some of that professional development assistance to shelters that are bringing projects forward to help move them along and bring them to fruition so we'll continue to learn how to support these projects and we work very closely with OEO to bring new shelter projects in line but that's just one thing that we're doing to try to increase shelter beds uh yes um when you're looking at how to leverage both funding and that technical assistance do you look at the data coming from AHS about where the greatest need is we work closely with AHS on these projects asking them to suggest shelter providers that want to develop have the ability to bring a new project so yes I think they're looking at that data and they're bringing those suggestions to us and we're meeting weekly at this point to help collaborate on this I think I'm worried I'm wondering about the edge between providers being ready interested and having the capacity to think about the next step and where the greatest need is and I think we often tend to sort of give money and resources to those who ask for it or ready for it rather than perhaps where the greatest need is and so I think those are two different things that I'd love us to pay attention to in the future that's something that we're certainly very aware of and trying to balance deploying the resources as quickly as possible uh to to bring beds online and also taking the time to develop projects in areas that have less of that development capacity so very aware of thank you I just I just want to sort of highlight represent corn hizer's comment and then ask what I'm looking you know looking in your in your list of projects brought with this very high need area and very low project you know area coming on on board so this highlighting what represent corn hizer had said in terms of areas of need my other my my real question was about on page two of your report you addressed the ten million dollars or the manufacturer home home um infill and my um my question really is about in the second paragraph where you talked about two partners have already signaled their intent to seek funding to replace approximately 25 homes can you elaborate a little bit on that I'm trying to figure out is that like upgrading current individuals or is that I would you just elaborate on that sure and I think that might be a little bit of a misnomer and they're writing I think that as we talk to our partners who operate of the non-profit development partners who operate parks they have either had vacant lots that they can put in and on or they have a lot that is unutilized because the home on it is so deteriorated that it needs to be replaced in order to be habitable and so often that is the case where we see both vacant and underutilized lots there's underutilized lots are the ones that have an uninhabitable home on them and that's what's being replaced with nobody living in it right now I'm personally okay all right that answers that question and I was glad to see in lamoille county the lawsuit being settled on the shelter so yes that's very glad to see that support thank you um one of the things that you have in here and I don't know what you have for discussions going on but that has to do with the feeling that with the increased population of renters that have exited homelessness that the local housing entities really are struggling with the demands staff demands to work with those households so that they can preserve now obviously some individuals are coming they're part of housing first or their sash or whatever but you had there's a request for housing I can't remember the title exactly that would be to address the fact that you have such an increased percentage of renters that need to have support and to avoid eviction or if in fact you have to undertake eviction proceedings the staff resources that takes so have you had discussions with with the agency of human services around um that particular area of staffing resources so we're just starting to have those discussions and then to find the position again so I believe we termed it a housing retention specialist but as we speak with our partners across the state they there's some variation in what they're looking for there so it's kind of a blanket request but the kind of context for this is uh at 81 ask the hcb funding projects to increase the percentage of units outside for household exited homelessness from 15 to 37 and f y 24 and as we look at that and interpret that language if that was uh if that would be applied to new funded projects it wouldn't be able to help in this effort to transition people out of the hotels because those funding projects won't those units won't be online for the next several years and furthermore the new units coming online this year are bound by pre-existing legal agreements so what we're hoping to do and asking this committee is to interpret this as a goal asking our partners to have 30 percent of new units and units at turnover rented to people exiting homelessness which is actually a greater number because that's pulling into this effort the whole affordable housing portfolio of the state and as we've talked to our partners asking them is this something that they're able to do the feedback we've received is that over the last several years they've for the most part doubled the number of units in their portfolios that they're renting to people exiting homelessness and with that they've seen considerable service strain on their maintenance staff on their service partners and they've also seen an increase in evictions and for them who have a mission of providing affordable housing eviction is a failure for these organizations it's also a failure for these families and it's something we want to avoid so in order to successfully rehouse population household exiting homelessness there needs to be those services available and so our partners are saying yes we want to work towards this goal of 30 percent in order to make sure it's successful we need to make sure we have service coordinators resident service coordinators that will ensure that the tenants can access the services they need and so we're asking we've asked them what would that look like and so far in each of our conversations they've said yes if we had one FDE at each of these nine regional organizations that could help deepen the ties of the service community and help work with these tenants to ensure that they're successfully housed so we've just started those conversations within the housing recovery working group that includes AHS and we'll continue to have that I think our hope over the next month was to really drill down on what those positions would look like and what that ask would be in terms of funding I know we also are looking at philanthropic sources that we can bring in and help supplement that but it would need some state support in order to really be successful other questions otherwise I'm just looking we have 15 minutes left according to the clock here other questions or other part thank you this is really a very helpful response that is started and I think we'll be looking obviously a number of things I know are out there potential projects that can be added I would hope over time that you worked on can I just yes it's very brief it's on the last page about the 30 percent applying only to rental units and somehow you were able to house somebody that was previously unhoused and they somehow through some program or some combination of things they were able to enter into home ownership you certainly would be able to count those people as well in that category it is wanted to be clear and that we've been excluding people from home ownership absolutely just as we pull the data we don't keep that tenant level data in-house so in order to report on it but yes that would absolutely be a success other comments your questions thank you very much oh that's your oh I moved it that's why it's over there great thank you because I didn't think it was for me all right so now we're going on to the commission chamber included in the packet was a letter that I had sent on behalf of the committee for additional information because when we're doing act 81 we actually incorporated some of the requests of the administration but we didn't really have a lot of time to flesh out the thinking behind it and so I appreciate your being here today and we'll let you take it from there great thank you thanks for having me through the record Josh Hanford commissioner housing and community development and it's great to go after uh polly and bhcb since a lot of this is coordinated effort um and my my responses are to your letter largely but just wanted to recognize that since that letter received on July 6 we've had severe flooding which is impacted residents and communities across the state and just highlight the importance of and recognize the fact that there's overlapping work here between what act 81 looks to the issues looks to solve and what we're dealing with now of impacted households to flooding um you know early data 211 uh has reported self-reported over 4 000 residential units impacted and over 700 self-reported units is uninhabitable more female information will verify that and we'll get to a number but we know you know 14 mobile home parks were impacted four of them receiving sustainable losses substantial losses including 61 uninhabitable mobile homes um we realize that FEMA support for folks that had damaged property the maximum benefit is 41 000 so if we have someone's home that's uninhabitable rental property that's uninhabitable and repairing that getting folks back in and this focused work on the the population the cohort that um this work contemplated helping that AHS went over earlier there's going to be overlap and there's going to be impacts and doing that work onto the specific questions the first was related to the manufactured home communities infill program the 10 million that BHCB was asked to support infill and some questions about you know what do we know about uh the opportunities here where they exist so we've done a lot of work on this already uh first we have an annual mobile home park survey that all the mobile home park owners submit to the department and we knew from that that there were 326 vacant lots across the state and another 126 that could be made habitable varying amounts of work in those lots some of them are easy minor repairs some of substantial work so to better understand that we did a survey um of mobile home park owners across the state private nonprofit and co-op um and we received responses uh and those were selected based on the priority areas from the AHS data for where we have the most unhoused that we need to try to find housing for so we focused on those five regions those five counties and we had um over I think it was 23 mobile home park owner 26 respond to our survey which was a phone survey and a web follow-up that had 82 vacant lots that could be ready for infill on an expedited timeline with no or minor repairs in addition to that um our largest partner of monster housing authority which also has the largest the the largest mobile home park owner in the state they had an additional 86 lots that could be potential for this infill program so we also screened them against flood you know none of these are in honey your flood plain none of these um parks were impacted by the flood that's encouraging I was waiting for the butt we also reached out to all the manufactured home dealers in the state and in bordering uh New York and New Hampshire and found that um within six to eight weeks of of ordering purchasing um manufactured homes could be here uh there's little existing stock you know all on the dealers but they could get them in six to eight weeks and we also looked at the average price of these new energy efficient manufactured homes you know HUD these are HUD certified manufactured homes that the term mobile home is now manufactured home and they become much more energy efficient um they're installed on a uh frost free foundation that is stamped by an installer a license installer um and so the cost has gone up quite a bit as well so the cost of a new home on a site all hooked up is between 120 and 150 thousand dollars so this is quite uh increased from some earlier estimates of sort of what this 10 million dollars could buy in a number of lots but still when you compare the average development cost of a new affordable housing of 400 thousand dollars it's still um significantly more more affordable so with this with this information and these estimates we feel the one time um appropriation to BHCB to work on this pilot infill program could result in 60 to 80 infill and families rehoused in manufactured home communities in areas of high need and so in working with BHCB you know they've also started some outreach and talking and we've talked about what the mechanisms would be in place to ensure public benefit of this month you know um uh long-standing priority for petrol affordability and other mechanisms that would need to be in place to ensure we've got the right benefit for this and there's lots of different options I guess I would say I think leaving BHCB the flexibility to determine what's the best um course of action in the different mobile home park uh options and ownership levels is is wise you know the simplest could be you know the v-hip model where we have a five to ten year affordability period it's a rental that rental rate gets reported through the tax department through the landlord rental certificate where you can verify the rates are affordable and over a period of time that that ends and goes away and that home continues to serve an affordable family or is purchased by affordable family we know our mobile home or manufactured home community residents by and large are low income all the way up to perpetual ownership by a non-profit owner that could sustain that home and transition it to an affordable ownership there's there's lots of ways to to make this work depending on the ownership and the models that can be employed and we've had those conversations with BHCB I really appreciate all of this I'm very helpful I also appreciate that you keep on something back and forth between mobile home and manufactured homes it's people who live there tend to come to mobile homes um but I appreciate how it's sort of like modernizing towards manufactured um I have a fairly obnoxious question which is it sounds to me from everything you've said and I've read here that you could have 60 to 80 families housed in manufactured homes in the next three months is that what you're thinking that would be a goal I won't take as a promise yes that would be a goal just try to create timelines that's not too obnoxious I was gonna give six months like that was really good but obviously time is of the essence here so the supply is out there not necessarily in Vermont but so the immediacy of that response is certainly I think there would be there is obviously an impact with the 61 homes they were just completely destroyed and then another 20 they'd have major work and so you know we'd be competing against ourselves with with a larger need than what this was specifically for the cohort that we're trying to exit from the from the motel program but there seems to be supply and there seems to be lots that could easily be made ready to accept them and not in flood and not in flood it's just sort of a separate region even though okay great thank you oh yes rapid so two questions uh one is what's the average configuration is how many bedrooms around me square feet yeah that's a that's a great question on the average is 80 feet long and I think remember if it's 14 or 18 feet wide but two bedrooms okay the average is about a thousand square feet okay and secondly the folks that are in mobile homes that got destroyed in the recent flooding yep aren't they they're in a variety of places um that some of some of which we don't know but um folks that were totally displaced hopefully they reported to 211 registered FEMA and FEMA starting to disperse payments to them so um initial temporary payments that could be in a hotel a motel they could have found a rental someplace else with a family friend could be in short-term rental um you know Airbnb situation and so the the the challenge that we're in right now because there's a lot of attention on some mobile home parks as there should be I visited the two in Berlin and they're totally wiped out I mean they should be looking at a buyout down the road but is FEMA bringing in any trailers because I know in hurricane areas like Florida they'll bring in trailers I could talk about that that's a whole nother direct housing program through FEMA that is a whole nother piece of work that we're doing that's that's quite substantial have that as part of our flood discussion on that I guess what we're saying is that just compounds the challenge that we've got here I just want to check on the two in Washington County one is out in the Barry Moffillie road it's the other one in Berlin um Weston on no they're both in Berlin one is called Berlin mobile home park that is right near the AOT garage when it comes down the hill and the other is River Run which is just past the Dunkin Donuts on CO2 down by the river okay and Fortin got hit in Irene but I've seen it it did all right this time it flooded but um and they evacuated temporarily but everyone's back in they raised those lots after Irene the owner raised every single lot and it it worked I mean they had some issues with the infrastructure you know not being accessible but the homes stay dry so I can be quick um I could be quick the other the the manufacturer home improvement repair program Mer we just funded last year um with four million in um ARPA funds I have you'll see in the write-up how successful that's been already 90 96% of the funding has already been requested we've had to put a hold on some of the programs what we're finding and our staff has visited 18 mobile home parks I think is for a $10,000 repair we can keep someone housed where that home could be shut down it could be uninhabitable and add to our homeless challenges and so we think another four million dollars in this program it is going to be very timely and prevent upstream um more homelessness we've already had meetings with VHCB our our tenures our attorneys have spoken about the most efficient way to transfer this money and essentially just add on to the program we already started just in February that's been very successful today and you can see numbers of there about the applicants and what we've been able to do all right so that's going to keep people in their homes it doesn't add to it doesn't compound the problem but it doesn't help right provide any more capacity what it has done to is is give us an eye into these mobile home parks these manufacturing communities and find where the better sort of opportunities are and the repairs and get some of these owners are already aware that the state is trying to help them improve these communities and so that's we have more information about what to do in short term because you've already started to do it through a this formal granting process um we gotta move right yep then we get to VHIP you know about VHIP um 617 units today that includes a number that are under construction right now about 75 percent have gone to uh rehouse uh families exiting homelessness um this five million from VHCB to support this effort we'll do a couple things one it'll be targeted to those areas of the greatest need and it'll be a chance to support these five homeowners centers that are doing this work with some a little bit more capacity because they've been stretched thin they can't do any more because they don't have enough staff to do more and so um we think this this um added support will just enhance that program and set it up for more future success um to address one of the questions you specifically asked Senator Kitchell you know when someone is referred and exiting homelessness to a unit they've got to have an ability to pay rent whether that's from their own earned income or rental assistance and their rental assistance piece just as the service piece that VHCB mentioned is critical for a landlord to be able to take any tenant um and so the challenge with the uh voucher the housing voucher program it's a federal program it has federal rules there's there's a coordinated process to award those vouchers and serve people exiting homelessness um but it's not a one for one just the hotel population it's everyone that needs housing that's in that system and not all those individuals have a voucher at any given point um what is good about Act 81 and the work we've done to transition now folks that are in that cohort have to be entered into the coordinated entry system so they can be offered a voucher and it makes the whole process more efficient because if you don't have a way to pay rent it's pretty hard to to house representative this is just a request for the next meeting between um VHCB and a new questioner is is could we have a written definition of what what is meant by people exiting homelessness because I learned that it's not exactly what we don't all necessarily have the same definition of that and how how does that differ from what we've asked in Act 81 just sort of an observation in all of these presentations there's been a little aside and we need to pay more attention to this about needing technical assistance or needing wraparound services whether we need it for people helping helping maintenance technicians in this case you talk about most of these parts of benefits from additional technical assistance for long-term park viability I suggest we talk to the SBGC about that for example but I think we need to there are additional costs that we need to think about as a legislature as we're talking about building more units of whatever kind there are other costs whether it's wraparound services to the homeowners or to support the people who are building the homes that we're going to have to pay attention to just the last piece I think public covered it well the the goal to rehouse folks at 30 percent dedicated to the folks exiting homelessness if we look at the turnover of units in a year we'll actually be greater than the new units built in a year and so that's a a helpful way to help us achieve that shared goal thank you other comments your questions hi yes back to senator westman the help for the communities themselves I have a community that has put an extraordinary number of units in and the community has had their local budget go down three times and and headed to a church of fourth book and they need increased police and there's a hump between getting those units in and most of the units you're talking about when they say you're going to get property tax off and do not pay for themselves in the community so that basic tax increase thank you thank you now the last housing related is the update on the council and mr. pampered you're one of the co-chairs along with secretary samson and we just wondered this was created in the governor's executive order and obviously intended to be kind of the place for all this work and policy development and data analysis is being brought together so I guess you're the designated hitter I don't see secretary samson coming up I can tell you that I think we have the same update so all of the positions have been appointed all the folks that have we had to choose from the various organizations that were mentioned have all been submitted to governor picked and have been informed we're trying to get the first meeting scheduled unfortunately we weren't able to move as fast on this with with the flooding and just getting sidetracked but that has all happened folks have been informed and I think the goals of that council looking towards establishing what do we need for units by region by type how are we going to achieve that and how are we going to measure ourselves against that goal is work that is happening in various other places already right now and in a very consistent way but having it housed with with this new council and having an annual report to bring that all together and we're having the same discussions with towns and with rpcs they're all looking to establish their goal for housing needs and then a plan to how to achieve it that you can measure yourself against you know I think we all know the challenges that workforce the construction all that but having a goal and then measuring how you're doing it is the first place you start and so that effort is underway this council will bring it together and provide a good way to do you have technical assistance on that council to provide strategic planning support for you all or are you that is a great question I think we've identified that for that committee to have the sort of bandwidth to be successful it would be great to have someone help facilitate some of that work because everyone on that council is a leadership level position and it's great for setting goals and making decisions but we will need a body of work to happen and that to be directed um and so I don't have an answer other than that we've identified it and talked about it and seeing if we can find some resources to support that work I love that thank you it would be very helpful in the council if as we talk about this we talk about 40 000 units statewide where do we have septic capacity what do we have for septic capacity what do we have for water the first thing any developer does is look at what they can get for infrastructure or set septic and water and transportation is our access to highways is something after that but clearly um I've never I haven't seen any report put together where of what we need in that and I would say in the earlier documents we saw about um um the presentation of 750 out of the 1200 or a thousand need one bedroom units and we've never been able to highlight where we need and what we need for units it's a lot different building a one bedroom unit it's a building not three that agree I you know our current housing needs assessment does dive into that a little bit we know we need more one and two bedroom um rather than family units we have a there's an original breakdown in our existing housing needs assessment talks about strategies of rehabilitation versus net new but this work will help refine that as well as bring in that info about where the infrastructure exists because you're right you can't solve this problem without infrastructure which gets into the greater challenge of our flooding and I think where we have some of that infrastructure there's some challenges with those historic um developed areas in relation to our flood plain and where rivers are and we need to think long term about how to address that I just had a community to lose it so which right I think Winooski too there for a while all right thank you well we'll look forward to the work of the council and secretary samison the the executive owners of either hs secretary or deputy and she's informed me that um she it's going to be serving as your as the culture so thank you for that now we're going to move on to another topic um the 2020 storms and we have kristin it's kristin oh yeah oh there you are kristin clauser the secretary of administration and um secretary furley from the development and um and then I don't know whether why don't we do the um first one uh first one as it relates this is the business grants and then um we have just finished up a proposal that will be taken out at the e-board this afternoon that will help uh um households that have experienced damage so we'll start with the business grants and then we'll do a brief summary of what is uh being proposed to assist homeowners and um thank you for helping us over the weekend you have something ready for action on the homeowner front as well so thank you um so secretary clauser are you the lead up center I think so so just by um proximity I suppose so um it's I'm glad to be here just hope your birthday party went well it did hope it did hope miss nine year olds don't notice when mom ducks out every once in a while so stated for the record I'm kristin clauser I'm the secretary of administration I have with me deputy secretary Doug Barnum um he is going to give a little bit of insight um kind of the economic gaps we've identified with respect to federal funding and additional aid that's coming into the state and then um secretary curly is with me as well specifically to talk about the business grants we were going to talk generally what flood relief and response first and then giving said this is grants and does that make sense in terms of scheduling that's great thank you okay so I don't think I need to remind anyone on this panel um the 36 hours of steady rain we received on july 10th and 11 and subsequent storms afterward which led to catastrophic funding in um many areas of the state because of the forecast prior to that event um there was already a declared state of emergency which um governors got declared on july 9th that allowed FEMA resources to come immediately to the state they were here prior to the flooding event that also activated the state emergency operation center which so with the ninth inclusive funding because it was the washout in killington so it would yes that one speaks okay that's right so so the the event started on the ninth on the ninth which is the friday flooding events in killings because there was obviously weather before the big that's right and mudslides and washouts and it started at that kind of led to the situation where additional rainfall on top of already saturated lands um increased the impact of what was you know historic levels of rain in some areas over nine inches of recorded rain in that 36 hour period just really significant so because of that early declaration declaration the state emergency operation center was already in place we have been able to leverage resources from other states we had swift water teams strategically in place in areas of expected flooded floods so that we could respond as quickly as possible um and i will say despite being three weeks out from the when those events first started because of the initial storm and then subsequent storms afterwards every couple of days um it did take you know seven to ten days before we could really start shifting more into recovery and less in immediate response um and health and safety concerns so now we have some information that we can provide but it's really important to understand that this is very preliminary we're still pulling in data this this data i'm about to talk about is um as of thursday evening so it's probably changed significantly since then and will continue to um talk about you know where we are as those numbers climb but it's just really important to understand that this is preliminary data with respect to damage and early estimates of impact so state infrastructure damage um there were 18 state buildings that were impacted by the flood thousands of employees have been displaced um luckily thanks to all of the technological advancements during the pandemic we were able to switch almost immediately to um to remote work and then have been able to find coop locations for many of the um departments and agencies that can't work remotely but needed to work so there was a minimal impact and for state government operations which is good news um but we will be dealing with bringing these buildings back online over the course of the next several months some buildings with lesser impacts will hopefully be back online mid august others will take at least another 90 days to come back online because of the way the flooding impacted the major systems of those buildings that were located in the basement of big old buildings um so we have elevator damage and hvc damage and data law data damage and you name it so there's some buildings um that will take longer to come back online we had several state parks that sustained damage we're working to bring those back online as we speak 136 state roads and three bridges sustained damage one bridge was destroyed 305 miles of state-owned rail lines were closed due to flooding and significant washout damage oh i'm sorry that's just lampers got our hand up um Emily just gave me a poke to bring attention to your hand up sorry uh your question thank thank you madam chairs um i did have a question about the state buildings you said 18 state buildings were impacted and i'm just going to make an assumption on that that the location of them were primarily in either waterbury or montpelier would that be correct yes so the vast majority of those were in downtown montpelier we had some buildings kind of outside the downtown area including waterbury that had a little bit of damage to the grounds right the parking lot of waterbury but there was no damage to the waterbury state office complex no water inside that building the same is said for the public safety building and um in waterbury some of the buildings outside of the immediate downtown area in montpelier sustained minimal damage dol for example um had a an inch or so in the basement of that building but we were able to get that out really quickly and um and dry that building out so so some buildings outside of downtown montpelier sustained very minimal damage and are back online now currently it's mostly it's downtown montpelier great well thank you i i had actually had a conversation with the the chair of of house institutions in correction as they went on a tour of some of the damage in and heard that are the tunnel and things the the flooding impact at them you know the mechanical rooms but mostly the elevators which from what i'm hearing you say that there'll be a short time before they're back online the ability to operate the elevators is is going to be you know the ADA compliant piece and those buildings um that's exactly right so the elevators can be back online that fast nope so they're out of the 18 buildings there are some buildings that will be back online by mid april or i'm sorry mid august um that's right but some of our larger buildings like 133 for example the elevators were impacted 109 the pavilion the elevators were impacted there are a couple of other buildings where the elevators are impacted they will have a much longer um time period before they can get back online those buildings also had major systems impacted in addition to the elevators the elevators and old buildings are programmed to go to the basement when the power goes off so that's where they all there's only like one elevator mechanic in the old region too i think that's right well now there's two but the real problem with the elevators are parts the supply chain issue on elevator parts is sometimes 18 20 weeks before we can actually get the parts in for those so you're you're exactly right the elevators will will take longer and when in the buildings where those have been impacted they won't be offline for a longer period of time so that would be my as we go forward with this in assessing the damage and the cost of getting and accounting will develop over time as to the impact and the cost to the state as their buildings become more and more um evaluated as well so that'll be a part of our our bigger flood relief pieces what's what is our buildings and what are we going to do in the future to make sure that this doesn't happen or at least minimize it in the future huh that's right i i can jump there next which is early estimates of damage to do that because we're um thank you we need to you're running over yes thank you thank you for your time keepers well madame chair i think that yes mr tassel no well i think um i'm well aware i keep looking at the clock so i don't want rush because this is really important and obviously people want to have a good sense um but if you could document you're talking about that no oh these these are just my these are actually my talking points prepared for something totally different that i'm just stealing bits and pieces i'm going to present to you today all legislative briefing guys didn't we got some info is there a way to get a summary from yes so there's a recording of the all legislative briefing that i believe kendall smith sent around last week to all the legislators that has much of the information i'm talking about today but more importantly it has a lot of the resources that are available for those impacted by flooding so we can i can um we can send that back around that's a recording of that briefing and then all of the questions we also have if you go to um vermont.gov slash flood that is a landing page that has all of the resources available as well but it doesn't have i'm not as interested in the resources because i do have the candles in that list i'm more interested in being able to hone in on what the damage was sure so i have early estimates of what we have thus far as of last week for damage additional damage is coming in daily so again i noticed that that had nausea but i want to repeat it again um our total estimated damage for state buildings exceeds 45 million dollars a lot of that depends on what systems can be salvaged and what systems have to be totally replaced um so we expect that to exceed 45 million we don't know how much more it will be yet real property damage from individuals reported to fema as of last week was 8.4 million over 8.4 million dollars total estimated damage from that's just real property damage reported to fema from individuals 8.4 million dollars as of last week so the total right that's just real property damage it doesn't include that's right then there's the total fema public assistance estimate of damages right that's roads bridge it infrastructure essentially um that's 92 million dollar over 92 million dollars total estimate of damage for the federal highways impacted state and federal highways is another 60 36 million dollars again that's as of last week so it may be entirely different um in addition we have 10 million dollars of individual assistance reported to fema as well but that number is going to continue to skyrocket as um fema gets in there and does individual assessments with folks we have nine counties that have been approved for individual assistance 11 counties that have been approved for public assistance and then all counties have been approved for fema funding for emergency protective measures and hazard mitigation statewide i have and that individual assistance includes things like temporary housing temporary housing units repair replacement of owner occupied home hazard mitigation assistance um and kind of a medley of other things that folks would be available for that they can stack through the individual assistance so are you including municipal expenses are lost like town highways uh so what's that one of these numbers so that there may be pieces of again this is what was reported to us from fema right or reported to fema i should say so that may include pieces of municipal damage through the public assistance estimated damages the individual even if you combine both numbers it still seems really low that's right um is that i mean it's fema behind in terms of processing application this is only what it's been actually filed and reviewed so three over 3000 residents have applied for individual assistance thus far and again this is as of friday right that that's as good as my numbers are um there have been over 2000 home inspections requested fema's completed 1.1400 just over 1400 of those yeah so these are likely very low very early baseline numbers it's just what we have thus far so you're giving us close to 200 million dollars right now total damage i don't even know if that includes commercial property so there could be another 50 to 100 million there i don't know what on average is uh match requirements so it depends on the time it depends on the damage it depends on the county um there's a 30 and um doug has been dealing with a lot of the fema federal funding and and how it overlaps with our bus so he will he is free to jump in and correct me or add to this at any time there's a 30 day period which we have not designated yet that's 100 match response and recovery efforts are typically 100 match certain programs also have higher match if we get it if we hit a particular level of a threshold of damage then it shifts from a 25 percent match to a 10 percent match we do like the 90 yeah yes um and i and that's why people should call two on ones yes we believe that the threshold is 112 million um but it is somewhat discretionary on fema's part they they have to make that decision so it's not an automatic trigger um but we do anticipate it's around 112 million of verified public assistance and individual assistance and we've requested 100 percent of um fema reimbursement there hasn't been a decision yet from fema but that that was the request and that's what we've been working with our federal delegation to push i think it's unlikely that we receive that but we're trying this is for the state expenses yes okay state buildings highway so so for state building for state buildings it's going to be a patchwork of things we do have flood insurance through the national flood insurance we have private flood insurance that we maintain we can access that flood insurance up to our 45 million dollar cap um there's a deductible required for that that will be probably between five and 10 million dollars by the time we're done to leverage that 45 million dollars of funding and then fema funding would be available on top if the damage goes beyond our insurance limits fema will come in and be available and there's um certain grants and programs dealing with mitigation that we may be able to fund to leverage fema for as well i'd like to indicate that we're going to be scheduling another our september meeting earlier in september so um which will mean without the uh benefit of the august experience and that should give us obviously a lot more information um that we would have available at that point so i'm going to um uh move for more questions to finishing up and then moving into the business grants um and then we'll go into what we have for individual assistance as well short with Peter walk so so secretary currently it's unless it's more information about but we're kind of going over an update i'm happy to chat individually with with folks and provide information on the info what we have thus far is there like a a week update you know for all the information you've given relative to damages reported from public assistance individual i'm just wondering maybe that's that help answer some we do file a denda to the um declaration with fema that lists damages but you know by the time we have that information it's likely stale yeah because it's collected and then presented is that on the website that you mentioned of the flood the fema declarations i i can i can check on that we can send them to you um i can check to see if we put the fema declarations out there so i guess at this point i'm going to move on to the business grant proposal that has been advanced it's going to be part of the eboard action this afternoon to help fund that program that has been presented to our joint uh economic development committees in commerce committees uh last last week so if there's not any further questions and and looking at the time i'm going to move on to secretary curly great for the record i'm lindsay curly secretary of the agency of commerce and community development i know you were pressed for time so i'll give you a little bit about this and then let you direct help her how many details you want to go into here um as secretary krauser mentioned um as the days have you know unfolded after the the severe storms we've worked diligently to um try to identify gaps that existed with with respect to um harm around the state and it became very evident um that um one gap one area that we were seeing very quickly was um and with respect to the business community and certainly folks have lost their homes it's devastating and we you know there are some resources and tools to help in that arena but with our businesses you know people who provide jobs uh and keep our communities going uh there was very little i do want to acknowledge sba disaster does have loans they're very helpful to those that will qualify um there are some good terms um no payments for a year and uh no interest for a year so again i don't want to uh not acknowledge that but for some that won't qualify or who are still very um um highly leveraged thank you if that's what highly leveraged i have a copy of the uh pose program okay maybe we should just make it available to committee members um it's the emergency gap assistance program and it's uh 20 million and um i can um maybe we could have copies made because i think that would help that would be great i i apologize i assumed everybody had it but um yeah don't copy the back of this i recycle um reprint on the other side so i'll talk sort of slowly while you do that but so the the purpose of the program is to provide 20 million dollars um to businesses and nonprofits that is that sustain physical damages so this is not for economic injury right now we are focused on physical damages um and applicants uh the goal is for them to um they need to establish that they do intend to be open and um bring back their employees and get uh get back to work or get to work on repairing the damages as possible we know that this will not uh fix everything uh this is really an emergency um uh hash flow for them to get started on some of that work some folks uh are afraid to to hire somebody to you know do the cleaning or to rip out a floor that needs to be ripped out because if they don't have the money to pay for that they don't want to be on the hook to owe somebody if they don't have the very cash needed to pay that person that they prior to do the work so the way we have designed this program is that we would provide um the uh the lesser of 20 percent of their net uncovered damages with a cap of 20 000 so what does net uncovered damage mean that means they are going to demonstrate to us what their damage is and that could be in the form of estimates or actual um invoices that they they've incurred and uh less any flood insurance they may have and what we're asking them to show us are grants or donations that have been provided to them for the purpose of repairs right so if they have received a grant to repair a floor we don't want to provide them with a grant to prepare them for again right so if they've received a grant or a donation for something completely outside of damages that's fine we're not going to you know have them deduct that but if they've used a grant or donation already to defray the cost of damages we need to um deduct that from our calculation so um so that's how the the uh calculation will be done we will um for applicants who have net uncovered damages greater than a million dollars we do have another category we'll look at um and we'll provide the lesser of 20 percent of the net uncovered damages or uh there are a few thresholds depending on how many fts they are there are so again remember our goal here is to bring employees back to work um get the doors open so um there will be uh awaited you know based on the fact that they have more employees and they're getting more people back to work if they've already opened and they've gone into debt to do that this will come they can still they can still apply absolutely um we will hold that against them we recognize that you know some are able to leverage it in a variety of ways and and get moving so i have a story that um um the new owners have been there 30 days and and they've reopened oh yeah we heard some stories where there were businesses that literally um closed that day the closings were that day so um yeah we're going to be we're going to work with people we want them to succeed uh do you want to go to thank you i've been reading that some businesses have been doing go funding campaigns right and uh is there some way you're able to tell whether i mean they could they're raising 100 000 dollars could be for general purposes which may go to the floor right so you have some way to figure out what we're asking you're just asking them to a test we're asking them to a test and again we recognize you know this is going to be on you know your honor again i don't know if you've walked through the downtown like i've said to people again i'm i'm honest just you you have to look at your neighbor and know that if you take more than than you you know your farm you have to remember that you're looking at the person next to you who didn't who didn't get that so i we're just really hoping we also you know i have to say is you're getting 20 percent of your net damages and it's like again it's there's arguably going to be a a lot a large gap that you have to fill and we do want people to staff there um whether it be loans or other grants we want people to staff to try to come up with it and you know one number i've heard and i don't know if this number has changed but in my player for example i heard the average average loss business loss was 186 000 dollars so um so somebody gets 20 000 for their damages it's right there's still going to be a long way so i know this is not perfect um we're trying to make sure that people aren't you know we don't have a duplication of benefits we're going to do the best we can but i'm also acknowledging that this is it's hard enough and i re-understand yeah but full disclosure yeah other questions um as i said our two committees um a lot of testimony last week as well as your presentation of the proposal um yes coming is this going out as do they have to upfront the repair or is this going out as cash it's it's going out as cash they don't have to upfront it we also recognize again like coming on the heels of covid it is there are so many people that are cash they need fast other questions thank you thank you um and that now we're going to move on to and i don't know if you want to stay to do this uh secretary i'm happy how can you stay helpful um well one never knows when no one's being asked that is true thank you i'll give up my middle seat though how's that all right that's right more in the supportive role that's right that's right all right so um our next witness is pete walk managing director efficiency vermont and over the last several days to spend on this awful lot of work to look at where we have appropriations that are out that really could be um directed toward um helping um flood victims and this is really looking at households many of which have experienced significant loss heating systems appliances and so forth so what we have um it's another area of providing some financial relief to vermont households and this will also be taken taken up this afternoon at the eboard this use of funds so if you would like to just give us hot off the press uh can i just say that as we look at Montpelier and how quickly it is recovering a lot of that credit goes peter who managed the thousands of volunteers and that is no small task well that's public recognition well deserved thank you and now you're going to even get more recognition for uh um what we have before us today and i know that people were working over the weekend and you were you heard the adirondacks on going to a funeral and secretary clouser was trying to have a birthday party and Jen carby was trying to camp and you know all of us were uh in the midst of trying to get something ready for today so it's it's it was quite a combined effort and i just want to recognize everybody and um uh representative cornhizer um if i got more emails from you i i was so um so with that said if you want to just give us um sort of a review of how we distilled um what you were um putting forward in terms of action today so appreciate your being here on such short for the record peter walk um and the director of efficiency it's a pleasure to be with you uh while there was a lot of work past few days i think that's uh leadership at its best coming together to solve problems that people are facing so um uh i think this is a great way to dovetail with the presentation from senator for reform secretary cirling uh on the business side this is an attempt to provide some relief and financial aid to those residents who have been impacted by flooding and who have lost critical equipment uh as part of that flood right heating systems uh hot water systems uh other other sort of key appliances within a home and to provide an opportunity especially for our low and moderate income neighbors to be able to provide assistance to go beyond what femur might reimburse them for to the most efficient available models available to them to really lean into providing that assistance so they can have reduced their energy burden in the in the long run but really to be able to make this change to be able to stand in and help uh with assistance in this moment when they're all thinking about how do i heat my homes how do i provide hot water for my family over the course in the next few months this is the moment and so i appreciate the the response from um uh from the legislator in the administration to step forward and say this is the right thing to do in this in this moment so the idea is to repurpose uh to move uh from uh 35 million dollars in weatherization that was to flow through efficiency not through the public service department to up to 10 million dollars of that money uh to a another purpose uh by which the public service department can then use it to grant uh to efficiency or not to manage this program to get resources out the door to those flood victims who need it as quickly as possible to make it available to uh to single-family homes to multifamily dwellings to owners and renters and and figure out the landlord rental combination as quickly as possible so we can make sure that those resources are available this coming uh heating season questions uh yes a quick question thank you for this does this include all 14 counts not just the FEMA-designated counties i'm a little i don't remember what the executive order was it so what right what i mean flood impacted yes right so somebody as in counties but i've had talked to constituents who have lost things so they would be eligible to apply yes if they were impacted by the flood yes they would be eligible okay and somehow they'll know how to do that and yes we're in early stages of of insurance you know how to be a FEMA-designated that's in order to qualify that's right that this is not it's not FEMA money it's the allocation of ARPA ARPA money within an allowable use for ARPA which is not dependent on a FEMA designation and you have some communication and outreach plans so that people will know that they can apply for this so uh that's what efficiency does is communications and outreach and so we will get this out too and and we're going to partner with uh state agencies on their ability to communicate directly with those who filed through 2-1-1 and all other means to get information out as quickly as possible the moment that we're in right now is the decision-making cycle that people are right i've talked to folks on the ground this uh senator coming to mention i took a week off and i helped organize volunteer efforts in my favor i understand on the ground what people are going through i had lots of conversations with business owners and with uh residents who are trying to figure out what decisions to make first and they're starting to think about especially as we you know finally felt some relief the past couple of days and cool mornings in the case in the winter is coming like late summer didn't it uh senator Cummings has a question or comment no i just i've asked anybody else i'll ask you i know we've had supply chain issues both with uh heat pumps those kinds of things also with furnaces and we've got essentially a three-month window to get heat in the people's homes have we've looked into the availability of you know this is the time to make the change over if you can but can we get the product yes so that's one of the first things that we did was ask that question and we stay on top of that all the time we have a team that is actually devoted to managing the supply chain so that we can make sure that when we incentivize something that it's available and can be used obviously that doesn't you know work it's not perfect right when there are challenges and we don't normally have to replace this sort of scale at the same time at the same time that needs to be a focus we would um we can we are going to do everything we can within the supply chain to make sure that those those resources are available as it comes to uh furnaces and other things um as the focus in vermont policy is shifted away from more efficient uh fuel oil or propane based systems to uh electrification and biomass and the like though we don't have a as clear sense of what the supply chain looks like but that's certainly something that we can partner with a fuel association others to think about I just don't want to see us increase our homeless population because we get to November and we don't have heat in in homeless and people will do what people will do anything to keep their families warm so we need to really right and this is our opportunity to help them have the best available options other comments or questions I just want to make a quick comment if I could then yes just to tie on to that uh so efficiency vermont ran an h-fact program for us um following the immediate impact of the pandemic and we had all the same concerns about supply chain and you did an amazing job as an organization queuing up all of those hundreds of districts and we were able to service 200 plus districts with new h-fact so I have every confidence in you and I thank you publicly for bailing us out on that emergency and now taking on this so it's great to have efficiency vermont there and on that note I'm just letting you know in 10 to 15 minutes to add to our time pressure there is a fire alarm test and there will be a voice over a speaker and two short announcements and they're sorry for the interruptions but we don't have to exit the exit just put our fingers in our ears so just to uh learn to uh um enter yes um so when will this program be available oh this is yes representative wood on that note just wondering what's the um what's the time frame for this to be active on your website and sure uh what there's there's likely to be a two-step process the first is to get information out that that help us coming out of not just similar to the way the business grants were communicated so that folks knew that help was coming and they could start to incorporate that into their decision making we needed we needed to develop the plane as we fly so there's much work to be done there um the other pieces we will need to go through a granting process with the public service department we are looking for other sources of funds that we could use that could potentially move quicker uh that say are subject to the puc's jurisdiction over our budget if we can do that then we can start to move on some things more quickly the other piece we may consider as as you just heard from from the administration the there is the same level of challenge and fewer resources available to the businesses impacted we may have some funds that are less constrained that we can use to help there we're going explore that concept but the month the program in front of you is entirely for residential well we will continue to explore and see what makes uh what's possible but we want to get communication as quickly as possible out to folks that help is coming and then communicate the specifics as people begin to share more information so that actually ends up in my district at least creating more anxiety as opposed to less by saying help is coming then not telling people how that help is coming but it businesses and residential work but I'm not sure that communication strategy is helpful but or some time frame when when yeah you know if I'm going to talk about this and I'm going to walk into a community that's devastated I'm I need to say we hope to have it up by September October whenever yes we have some idea well perhaps we can get that information out a little you have to recognize this is put together in the document you have was finalized about 9 30 so um there's more information coming and obviously urgency time we forget um but one thing is certain we winter is going to be upon us too quickly so I think everybody understands the urgency here to move and we'll get maybe more information out um as it becomes available and I do I do appreciate the questions about timing and we will anything we communicate will project out when additional details will follow so people will know uh that and went to look we will do everything I can to move this as fast as possible right thank you very much um at this I'm going to move on to um the next item items and these are all action thank you um so interesting all of you at one I'm sure um and because we're meeting we have a number of um grant approvals and we want to move through them pretty quickly they've been sent out one is a very large one here um and um why don't we get started the first one is um jfo number 3 1 1 5 and that is um a very large number of positions I know this is something some people have been contacted about getting the positions approved and um this is for the preschool development grant um and so uh we this is an action item to approve the creation of these limited service um positions that would be supported under this grant uh yes various agencies the required 30 percent match I know some of it's from outside organizations but the match is that in our budget has passed I'm not an appropriation so I shouldn't I shouldn't answer my questions so I don't know but maybe um Diane or Robin or Richie or um or um legislative or council Sarah or Mark would know um I would assume that um we don't say what the conditions is here okay why don't we uh actually um deputy commissioner right um why don't you come up and maybe you can answer that question sorry there's 800,000 for DCF there's uh agency of education status 112 etc and short answer yes welcome yes so you want to put yourself on the record and we're not a general law deputy commissioner and partner children and families overseeing the child development division um and will you just repeat the question again sorry it's the match required for this grant to accept this grant is that in our budget are we going to have to sort of pull this out of the air somewhere um the match is planned and it's largely planned through actually the film profit match with partners that are part of the grant overall so okay but 800,000 for DCF is that in your budget it's included as uh reporting we're getting in from our partners I can get I might have to get back to you on this I know that's all or Shayla sorry I'm relatively new to state government so these exactly specific questions so all right well um so Livingston who's gonna she's smiling today welcome Shayla everybody Shayla Livingston answer to the question yes policy director for the agency of human services for the record um so yes it's in our budget we do not need more money okay that's what I meant to say all right so um any other questions about this um obviously this is something that you've been tracking um it's been part of the discussion I imagined yes we had an extensive uh Madam Chair yes I did sorry for the interruption I just um I just want I just noted that the on the agenda the the the uh JFO numbers 315 and on the actual document it's 3155 okay just 3155 thank you what number is it supposed to be 3155 so yes Madam Chair we uh had a presentation about this it's expected it's this will help our system of care really move forward so on that note would you like to make a motion would you like to make a motion that we approve the positions oh we have a specific thing here okay okay I move to approve 14 limited service positions seven at the department for children and families two at the department of health one with the department of mental health three at the agency of education and one at the office of racial equity the positions are funded under a grant from the previously approved preschool development grant JFO number 2970 all right we have a second form of a second um Senator Cummings unless there's further discussion I'll call the roll senator Baruch yes senator Cummings yes representative Harrison yes representative Lamford yes representative shy yes senator Sears yes I think that was a yes senator Sears you were muted sorry yes senator Westman yes representative Wood yes representative Coronas your uh should we be holding the vote what is there a problem all right guys the motion is for 14 limited service positions correct correct yes and the grant manager position was moved from department of health department of children and families and so that should be a department for families one at the department of health and one at the oh okay all right so you need to uh it's so amended in my motion all right thank you so it's one and one all right okay yes all right uh senator Kitchell does let me before I vote that correction does it impact anybody's vote on the approval of the grant of the limited service positions okay um I'll vote yes yes oh I'm sorry no thank you that's fine okay thank you for that so the vote was 10-0 all right um now we'll move on to um grant 3156 it's just two limited service positions to the agency of human services and um we have he's right there oh okay so calling is um here um remotely um and um do we have questions uh we have the explanation of of the request and is to recruit recruit and support and train americorps members partially funded um so uh anything that you would like to add to the request mr calling regarding um the two limited service positions at the agency of human services hi yes the only thing I'll add is that we just received notice uh that next for next year they're going to be moving to 18 month grant periods for these grants uh so we are expecting that from january 1 2024 through june 30th 2025 uh the two grants in question will be funded and uh the numbers for those for the commission support grant they're giving us 295 000 and for the commission investment fund that will be 406 000 so those grants we anticipate will continue to be funded good news um further questions discussion if not um I'll move to approve two limited service positions at the agency of human services funded by ongoing grants from the corporation for national and community service americorps second second second we have lots of them I guess center coming set it first uh further discussion if not senator baruch yes senator Cummings yes senator parison yes representative lampford yes representative shy yes senator sears yes yes oh yes senator sears says yes I believe um senator weston yes representative wood yes representative cornhizer yes senator kitchell yes 10 zero now we're on to um request 3157 and it's 300 000 to the agency of agriculture food and markets from the natural resources conservation service from one limited service position um do we have anyone who wants to speak to this request here yes on the screen we have um mary montaur uh was with um the agency of agriculture you want to speak to the request good morning uh so this is our request for a limited service position to support um essentially a grazing technical assistance provider at our agency and this position would be supporting direct assistance to farmers to enhance their grazing management practices and also in coordination with other part other external partners and it's being funded through a grant from the natural resource conservation service and uh the way I like to look at the grant is the grant will be fully funding the position and then we'll be matching the grant with our current financial cost share programs so we currently have grant programs for farmers to do these practices and I'm here for any questions that people might have any questions not someone like to make a motion um I will mo