March 16, 2023

The meeting was called to order at 8:01.

Announcement: All are invited to an ice cream social today at 4 o’clock in the cafeteria with Vermont Trails and Greenways Council.

Rural Omnibus Bill

·       A link has been provided via email to the tracker

·       Representative Priestley reviewed the tracker and gave a brief overview on status of each bill that is included in Omnibus Bill

·       Hope is for this to serve as a tool for everyone to continue to access

·       Will spend more time during next weeks meeting to look deeper into each bill

Drew Hazelton, Rescue Inc.

·       Drew provided an update on the status of EMS services in Vermont

·       Services are suffering throughout the state due to lack of personnel and being unable to meet needs (including transports) and the system is at a point of failure

·       Many patients are waiting over an hour for necessary services

·       New training initiatives have been successful

·       Have been unable to hire new employees at the rate that they are leaving

·       Main challenge is where to make up the difference from lack of reimbursements (specifically with lack of reimbursement updates to Medicaid in years)

·       This is both a financial and workforce crisis for EMS services in Vermont

·       Primary ask to the legislature:

o   Improving Medicaid reimbursements (currently does 69% of what Medicare does) and make these in line with Medicare

o   $1 million ask to continue education/training initiatives

o   Assistance in gathering data to support structural changes in the future to create a more sustainable model (current model was built years ago)

·       EMS is supported by advisors out of local hospitals which have more recently come on board to help stabilize EMS services.

·       Skills and training needs vary by region and the highest level of care ultimately needs to be in the more rural areas since they are farther away from hospitals.

·       Representative Jerome reminded members that the Workforce Bill also includes $1 million for education dollars

·       Representative Sims shared that H263 does include some of the asks that Drew has requested

Tourism Day

·       A reminder that March 22 is Tourism Day

·       Amy Spear, Vermont Chamber of Commerce

o   Tourism economy is the second largest contributor

o   Joint hearings with House Commerce and Senate Economic Development will take place a 9 a.m. w/several speakers that represent sectors and regions

o   A reception will take place at 4 in the cafeteria

o   Legislators are encouraged to meet with attendees and industry leaders in their regions

o   Industry leaders will be wearing name tags to help identify each other

o   Notes will also be delivered by Pages on 3/22 to make sure legislators know who is there if they haven’t reached out in advance

·       Commissioner Pelham, Department of Marketing & Tourism

o   The role of the department is to promote Vermont for tourism and more recently relocation efforts

o   Visitor economy is in all corners of the state

o   The tourism infrastructure makes the quality of life for Vermonters due to the amount of money they spend to sustain businesses

o   Huge disruption during pandemic but numbers are coming back up

o   Additional information will be shared during Tourism Day on available grants to elevate tourism dollars by region

o   There will not be a specific ask for the legislature for tourism this year but there is an ask for relocation/retention efforts. Ask includes grant program funding to communities doing this work to help address workforce challenges.