2025-03-25 00:00:00 - Joint Committee on Ways and Means
2025-03-25 00:00:00 - Joint Committee on Ways and Means
SEN KENNEDY - And welcome to the hearing of the joint8 committee on ways and means fiscal year 2026 budget hearing on health and human services 2. I'm state senator Robin Kennedy, representing the First Worcester District. Welcome to Worcester. Welcome to the heart of the First Worcester District. I am the Senate23 chair for today's hearing, and I'm joined by my house co-chair representative, China Tyler of Boston, and we now call this hearing to order. First, I want to thank my staff, whom you'll see throughout this room: Carol, Brian, Olivia, Giselle, and Kayana. I wanna say a special thank you for all the work you put into getting this hearing set up for us today, navigating through the process of hearing in a relatively new building. I also wanna share that today's hearing will include testimony from 10 agencies that have been invited to testify. As we know, health and human services account for just over 50% of the state budget. And today, we're gonna hear from the agencies who serve some of the most vulnerable residents in our Commonwealth. We have a long list of agencies to hear from today, and we wanna make sure79 that each agency is given sufficient time to testify and respond to questions.
Therefore, for the sake of time in moving the hearing along, we request that each member limit their questions to 2 per agency, and we will go back through if time permits. As the senate chair of the joint committee on children, families with person in persons with disabilities, I know that several members of the committee here today104 have bills that also are before, impact the agencies we'll hear from. However, I wish to stress that this is a hearing for the fiscal year 2026 budget. And while we may wanna use this opportunity to receive answers on agency policies, I do ask that members keep their questions to budget-related topics and will note that other124 questions may be ruled out of order. For policies, I do welcome all members here to future hearings of the joint committee on children, families, and persons with disabilities. And I know chair Jay Livingstone, I would welcome your136 feedback as well. To any members of the public who are here today, we will not be able to accept public testimony at today's hearing. We do welcome and encourage folks to stay or to join us online by livestream, and we and listen to the testimony of the agencies who are assembled here today.
The joint committee on ways and means will157 be hosting a public hearing on Tuesday, 04/08/2025, where members of the163 public may testify both in person and virtually. Details of the public hearing may be found on the legislator's web legislature's website, m a legislature dot gov. I would like to take a moment to thank the Worcester Public Schools and the team at Dougherty High School for their willingness to welcome the committee to this brand new high school and for all of the assistance they have provided to make this hearing a success. I chose to host the commit the, committee hearing today to highlight the emphasis that Worcester has placed on adding chapter 74 programs to our comprehensive schools. You'll hear a little bit more about that in a moment. But as we heard yesterday at the education hearing, we know that more of our young people are looking to access career and technical programming, and Worcester public schools have taken great strides to make more of those seats available. I would also like to thank the State House ADA coordinator, Carl Richardson, for making this219 hearing accessible with CART and ASL221 interpreters. And I do ask if anyone has any challenges with seeing the CART or getting229 a microphone or with seeing the ASL interpreters, that you233 please let our staff know, and we'll continue to make changes as need be.
We certainly wanna make sure that our hearing is as accessible to all who wish to participate. I also wanna thank our court officers who are here today. Joe and Anthony, thank you for all of your assistance. And then, just before we get started, a few housekeeping items to mention. We are in the middle of a school day. So, as you just did, you may hear the school bell going off periodically until 2 PM. We ask that all visitors remain on the first floor in the area of the auditorium to not disturb our scholars during their day. Restrooms are located just outside the auditorium. Lunch, coffee, and water for members and staff are across the hall. There's also a space available if members do need to take a break or step out for a call or meeting. I292 do wanna recognize representative John Mahoney, whose district we are also sitting in today. He will be joining us later on in the hearing. At this time, I will turn it over to my co-chair, representative Tyler, for her remarks. Remarks.
REP TYLER - Good morning, everyone, and thank307 you so much for showing up today. I first like to start off by thanking my co-chair, Senator Kennedy, for your professionalism and for315 having me today in your city of Worcester, home of the Woosocks. I'd also like to thank Dougherty Memorial High School for hosting us this morning. This is an amazing facility, and hopefully, all our kids across the Commonwealth can have access to amazing facilities like this. I am Chyna Tyler, representing the Seventh Suffolk District, parts of Boston, and neighborhoods that you all may be familiar with. Speaking of The Woosocks, the home of the Red Sox, Fenway, Mission Hill, Roxbury, and a little bit of Dorchester, I'm honored to be here today. And generally speaking, I look forward to considering all the testimony that we hear today and throughout all our hearings and work with chairman Mikowitz to put355 forth the best h 1 budget we could possibly do. So, again, thank you so much for showing up. We're really grateful for your presence today, and we look forward to your testimony. Thank you.
KENNEDY - Thank you so much. I will ask members, and I apologize for the need. It's great to see so members of so many members of the committee able to join us today. For those, I'd ask members if you do have a question for any of the panels, for the Senate members to please text me, for members of the House to please text rep Tyler, or certainly throw a chair at us or something if you can't grab our attention. We certainly wanna make sure everyone is heard and has an opportunity to ask questions. This time, I will ask members of the committee to introduce themselves and the district that they represent. I don't know. Maybe rep Garcia will start at your end.
REP GARCIA - Hi, everyone. Good morning. Judith Garcia, state representative, 11 Suffolk. I represent Chelsea and Everett.
REP KILCOYNE- Hello, everybody. My name is Meg Kilcoyne. I'm the state representative for the Twelfth Worcester District, which is just a few minutes north. I represent the towns of Berlin, Boyles, St. Clinton, Lancaster, Sterling, and 1 Precinct 4 in Northborough.
SEN DOONER- Kelly Dooner, State Senator for the Third Bristol And Plymouth District ranging from the Rhode Island border with Seconk all the way down to the gateway to the Cape Of Marion.
SEN MIRANDA- Good morning, everyone. Senator Liz Miranda represents 9 neighborhoods in the city of Boston, the Second Suffolk District.
SEN PAYANO - Good morning, Senator Pavel Payano,474 representing the First Essex District, which is Haverhill, Lawrence, and Methuen.
SEN COMERFORD - Good morning. Joe Comerford. I represent the Hampshire Franklin Worcester District. That's 25 cities and towns in Western And Central Massachusetts.
REP DIGGS - Representing Kip Diggs, Second Barnstable. So it's Ketuwet, Austinville, Centerville, Hyannis, Barnstable Village, and West Jarmuth. It's nice to be here, and I look forward to having a great discussion.
REP SMOLA - Good morning. State representative Todd Smola, First Hamden District. I'm the ranking member of the committee. Thank you for having me here today.
REP HOLMES - Good morning, Russell Holmes. I represent parts of Boston, Mattapan, Dorchester, High Park, Rosendale, and JP. Thank you.
REP PEASE - Good morning. Representative Kelly Pease represents the Fourth Hamden District, which is Southampton and Westfield.
REP MARSI - Representative John Marsi from the Sixth Worcester District in Southern Worcester County, the towns of Dudley, Southbridge, Charlton, and Spencer.
REP MCKENNA- Good morning. Joe McKenna. Eighteenth Worcester, just straight South Of Worcester, bordering both Connecticut and Rhode Island, towns of Webster, Douglas, Sutton, part of Oxford, and Oxbridge.
REP HIGGINS - Good morning, representative Natalie Higgins, the Fourth Worcester District, the city of Leominster.
REP MORAN - Good morning, state representative John Moran. I represent the Ninth Suffolk District, which is parts of the South End Roxbury and Dorchester in the city of Boston.
REP HOWARD - Good morning. Vanah, Howard state representative for the 17 Middlesex District? That's Lowell and Tewksbury.
REP XIARHOS - Good morning. Steven Xiarhos fighting Fifth Barnstable578 District on Cape Cod, towns of Barnstable, born in Sandwich.
REP SCARSDALE - Good morning, Worcester. Margaret Scarsdale, State Representative for the First Middlesex District, which is Ashby, Dunstable, Groton, Precincts 2 and 3, Pepperell, Townsend, and Lunenburg, Precincts A, C, and D.
REP SABADOSA - Good morning, everyone. I'm Lindsay Sabadosa. I'm the state representative for the First Hampshire District, which is the city of Northampton and the towns of Chesterfield, Covington, Goshen, Hatfield, Plainfield, Westhampton, Worthington, and Williamsburg.
REP VAUGHN - Good morning, everyone. Marcus Vaughn, state representative, ninth Norfolk for the towns of Wrentham, Plainville, Norfolk, Mills, Walpole, and Medfield.
REP ARRIAGA - Good morning, all. My name is state representative Shirley Arriaga. I represent the Eighth Hampton District, the home of Westover Air Reserve Base. Thank you.
REP RAMOS - Good morning, state representative. Rolando Ramos representing the Ninth Hampton District City of Springfield.
REP KERANS- Good morning. My name is Sally Kerans. I represent North Shore Communities of Danvers. Excuse me. West Peabody, Topsfield, Middleton, Wenham. Thank you.
REP OWENS - Morning, everybody. I'm representative Steve Owens from the 20th ninth Middlesex District, which is most of the city of Watertown and parts of West Cambridge and North Cambridge.
KENNEDY - Wonderful. Thank you all so much. 1 other piece of housekeeping I will note, as we shared with the members as they were coming673 in, but for those that are joining us by live stream in particular, it's677 my understanding that the last 2 tables are actually not on camera. So I will ask my colleagues, as you do, to ask a question and just share your name again so that folks who are watching us by live stream can know who's asking questions, and you could be noted as such. At this time, I would like to introduce and welcome Doctor. Rachel Munares, the superintendent of schools for Worcester Public Schools, and Principal John Staley, our great gracious host for today, to share a bit of welcome and a little bit more information about where we are sitting today.
RACHEL MONARREZ - WORCESTER PUBLIC SCHOOLS - Morning, everybody. Welcome to, well, our house, of which Senator Kennedy has graciously borrowed for the day. I am Reginald Nares, proud of super school, and I am seated here with the dynamic principal of Daugherty Memorial High School, Mr. John Staley. We thank you so much for your leadership. There are quite a few elected officials here, so I will not recognize all of you. But thank you for sharing your names. Special shout out to our local representative, Mister John Mahoney, who I understand will be here later, and, of course, Senator Robin Kennedy is a huge champion for public education. And I wanna also want to thank representative China Kayla for being here and co-chairing this hearing. So we are thrilled that you are here to admire our shiny new Doherty Memorial High School. It's really quite something, isn't it? I know we're not gonna be able to have you tour the school while students are here, but you can just imagine what this must be like for the nearly 6 in a hundred scholars that walk these halls each and every day.
We've got this beautiful auditorium, a black box theater not too far from here, state-of-the-art classrooms, a new gymnasium, and space for career and technical programs, which you heard a little bit806 about. We have programs for engineering. We have some environmental science that we're working on. We have, what's the 1, John? Programming and WebDebt and what's marketing and finance and what's that construction craft labor. And so you can imagine the facility necessary to make that happen. We're very thankful that we can offer this programming to our children, and yet there is not enough seating for all the children who want these programs. So still a lot of work to be done in the Commonwealth. So I am told that we have, and I just heard, a hearing from 10 different departments and agencies today. So if this is anything like a school committee meeting, this meeting may go so long that we might not call Daugherty a new school anymore by the time you're done. So, please grab coffee, find a comfortable seat, and enjoy the show and the input that you'll get. We want to make sure that you feel welcome, and please try not to spill anything in our new building. Thank you.
KENNEDY - Thank you so much. Yes. Thank you.
TYLER - Thank you so much for having us. Next, we'd like to invite our first panel, the executive office of veteran services, including soldiers' homes. That'll include secretary John Santiago, former rep Michael Lazo, executive director of Holyoke Veterans Home, and Kristen Baldini. If I mispronounce your name, please correct me. Executive director of Chelsea Veterans Home. Please come on up. Thank you. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
SPEAKER20 - Good morning, everyone.
SPEAKER11 - Good morning.
JON SANTIAGO - EOVS - Sir Kennedy, Chair Tyler, distinguished members of the joint committee on ways and means. My name is Jon Santiago, and I'm honored to serve951 as the secretary of the executive office of veteran953 services. Today, I'm955 joined by Christine Baldini, our executive director of the Massachusetts Veterans Home at Kelsey; Michael Lazo, the executive director of the Massachusetts Veterans Home at Holyoke; and Robert Engel, who's our assistant secretary of homes and housing. Thank you for the opportunity to speak today about the governor's FY 26 budget proposal for the executive office of veteran services. 2 years ago, we set out on a mission to transform how we serve our veterans. And today, I'm proud to stand before you to share not just the progress since becoming a secretariat but also the work still ahead to fulfill our promise to those who served. First and foremost, I'd like to sincerely thank and commend you all here for the passage of the HERO Act. As governor, Healy signed this historic bill into law. I'm pleased to report that we have implemented 95% of its 40-plus provisions.
This includes the first increase to the disabled veteran annuity in 17 years, increasing and implementing the veteran's higher tax credit, expanded behavioral health benefits for chapter 115 recipients, expanded access to r b benefits, and other critical provisions that enhance the lives of veterans and their families. This legislation has already begun transforming the way we serve our veterans, ensuring they get the benefits, care, and opportunities that they have earned. In our continued fight against veteran homelessness, we remain committed to our end veteran homelessness campaign. In partnership with the executive office of housing and livable communities, we have invested nearly $20,000,000 in ARPA funds to provide housing, strengthen service providers, and expand outreach efforts. To date, this program has placed 61 veterans in permanent supportive housing and another 60-plus in transitional housing. It's working directly with over 300 veterans today. And on the capital side of things, we've identified 300 plus units in the pipeline with several developments preparing to open as soon as next month.
Through our1074 community partners, EOBS has supported the delivery of over 100,000 supportive services to almost 8,500 veterans. In addition to housing, we continue to1084 prioritize financial support for our veterans. We've1087 allocated more than $28,000,000 in chapter 115 benefits to nearly 5,0001091 veterans in need. We also are dispersing over $43,000,0001095 in annuity payments to more1097 than 19,000 disabled veterans, our parents, widows, and spouses, while spearheading initiatives and creating new programs to address pressing issues like veterans' homelessness, education employment, and supportive services. To accomplish much of this, engagement has been central. That's why we've established an office for engagement, a dedicated effort to connect, mobilize, and empower veterans across Massachusetts. This new office is leading revamp efforts to expand veteran-to-veteran connections, ensuring more individuals can access services, support 1 another, and contribute to their communities.
As a part of their mission, we've strengthened oversight and coordination of our safe team, which provides peer support engagement services throughout the state, our serve team, which supports justice-involved individuals, and our women's veterans network. These programs are being reinvigorated to increase outreach, enhance peer support networks, and improve access to vital resources. By amplifying engagement, we are not only supporting veterans but are also fostering a stronger, more connected community that uplifts those who served. While we've made great progress in veteran services, we've also transformed our 2 veteran homes, which, for the first time in history, are DPH licensed, 1 of which is CMS certified, and are now using electronic medical records, implementing quality improvement strategies. Not to mention, we've built a brand new home in Chelsea, and we're building a new 1 in Holyoke, which we'll hear more about in a second. Overall, the governor proposes a $206,000,000 budget for EOBs, which is 7,600,000.0 above the f I 25 GAA.
This includes 13,600,000.0 above the f I 25 g a for veterans' benefits, such as the annuity and the chapter 115 benefit line item. H1 also includes about $80,000,000 to support both of our veteran homes. This overall allotment helps us maintain critical staffing, supports infrastructure improvements, allows us to operate and maintain our 2 veteran cemeteries in Winchendon and Nagawamp,1221 and provides health care and supportive services to veterans at the long-term care and independent living facilities in Chelsea and Holyoke. We are particularly proud of the transformation happening at both veteran homes over the past 2 years. They both continue to show progress when it comes to modernization and quality of care, ensuring that Massachusetts veterans receive the highest standard of care. 1 of the most transformative improvements has been the successful implementation of electronic medical records (EMR systems both at Chelsea and in Holyoke. This is a major step toward the delivery of health care.
This digital transformation has enhanced patient safety, streamlined care coordination, and ensured regulatory compliance, significantly improving operational efficiency and quality of care for our veteran residents. Additionally, the new state-of-the-art facility at Chelsea has been fully integrated into our operations with a strong focus on expanding services, improving workforce capacity, and optimizing the EMR system to further enhance care. The home continues to set a high standard for long-term veteran care, utilizing innovative practices and personalized health care solutions. The groundbreaking will soon begin at the site of the Chelsea domiciliary facility later this year, projecting to build over 200 housing units for veterans.
This development marks another critical investment in ensuring that the Massachusetts veteran homes have access to comprehensive care and secure housing. Meanwhile, construction at the Holyoke Veterans Home remains on track, with a major milestone reached this past November of the topping off ceremony. This achievement symbolizes the continued progress and commitment to delivering a world-class facility that will serve Massachusetts veterans for generations to come. When completed, the new home will feature state-of-the-art medical infrastructure, specialized care units, and expanded resources to provide comprehensive, high-quality care to its residents. We at EOBS are proud of the work that has been done and look forward to building on it alongside support from the legislature and our community partners. They're due to support this budget so we can continue building a commonwealth where veterans and their families thrive. Thank you. I'd like to pass it off to Christine Baldini, Mike Lazo to share some remarks.
SPEAKER22 - Can you hear me?
KENNEDY - Get to speak right into it.
CHRISTINE BALDINI - COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS - Is that better? Thank you. Good morning, Mayor Kennedy, Chair Tyler, and members of the committee Ace and Me. My name is Christine Baldini. I'm honored to be here today as the executive director at the Massachusetts Home. Thank you for the opportunity to testify on behalf of the home. Governor Healy's fiscal year 2026 budget proposal includes 46,900,000.0 that will fund the operation staffing of the Massachusetts Veterans Home at Chelsea and the domiciliary residential program for our veterans. Located atop Outer Horn Hill in Chelsea, the new state-of-the-art veterans' home embodies the Commonwealth's unwavering dedication to veterans' well-being. This 154-bed skilled nursing facility provides comprehensive care to our veterans, ensuring a high standard of medical and supportive services, and features an environmentally conscious design in line1444 with the state's energy reduction objective.
Our team consists of 333 dedicated staff members who care for 231 veterans in the long-term domiciliary program. Our staff are deeply committed to service excellence, and that's represented in diversity, equity, and inclusion, and this remains a major priority. The workforce composition reflects commitment, with 38% of the workforce identifying as black, 18% as Hispanic, 4% as Asian, and 61% as women. Additionally, we work in collaboration with 8 labor unions that represent our team. To enhance resident-centered care and ensure excellence in service delivery, we continue focusing on workforce development and recruitment of experienced skilled professionals across the clinical and non-clinical roles. Implementation of the EMR, electronic medical record system, was a significant milestone. This is transforming our health care operation. By replacing traditional paper records by replacing traditional paper records with a secure integrated digital platform, we have enhanced accuracy, reduced administrative burden, and improved overall efficiency. Still, time access to resident information empowers the care team to make informed decisions more quickly and fosters streamlined communication across all disciplines.
As reflected in Chelsea's 20 24 Pinnacle Quality Insight Report, we are incredibly proud to share that1576 we achieved a 98% favorable rating and an outstanding 4.83% rating for recommending our services to others. These results are a testament to the dedication and the compassion our team provides to residents who work tirelessly in providing the highest level of care for residents and their families alike. In addition, the tremendous support received from the Commonwealth allows the Massachusetts Veterans Home at Chelsea to establish a standard of care with an average of 6.37 hours of direct patient care per day in our long-term care setting. This is significantly higher than the national benchmark. 1 of our key focus areas is communication. This ensures that families stay informed, residents feel heard, and our staff members remain engaged in meaningful dialogue. To strengthen our connection with the veteran community, we collaborate with the local VSO, veteran not-for-profits, and faith-based organizations. Additionally, we have an ombudsperson on staff who works directly with veterans, providing an essential avenue for1665 peer support, advocacy, and conflict resolution.
This role ensures that veterans have an additional dedicated representative to voice their concerns, navigate the services available, and uphold their rights, ultimately fostering a more responsive and veteran-centered environment. The Massachusetts Veterans Home at Chelsea continues to make significant investments to address the long-term needs of the residents. We are fully licensed by the Department of Public Health and certified by the center and Medicaid services. Furthermore, we remain committed to improving overall wellness and quality of life among this population. A major redevelopment project is underway at the neighboring domiciliary building to create independent veteran-preferenced housing and supportive services. This phased redevelopment will update the campus through a combination of renovation and new construction to better meet the needs of the veterans and their families. The plan includes 220-plus units of mixed-income affordable housing with 100% veteran preference and built-in supportive services. Looking ahead, the Massachusetts veteran home at Chelsea remains dedicated to leading the way in long-term veteran care through continued modernization, staff education and development, and person-centered programming. We are fostering a culture that prioritizes individuality, dignity, and meaningful engagement. We ensure that residents live their best lives in a supportive, home-like environment. As these partnerships and initiatives come together, we are proud to represent a model of care and service delivery for veterans nationwide. Thank you for the opportunity to testify1807 today, and I'm happy to answer any questions you may have.
MICHAEL LAZO - COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS- Good morning, Chair Kennedy, Chair Tyler, and members of the Joint Committee of Ways and Means. My name is Michael Lazo, and I am the executive director, Massachusetts Veteran Home in Holyoke. Thank you for the opportunity to testify on behalf of the Massachusetts Veterans Home in Holyoke. Governor Healy's Fiscal Year 2026 budget proposes 33,200,000.0 to support the mission and priorities. This funding will strengthen staffing, enhance care, and support programmatic development, ensuring1853 that our veterans continue to receive the high-quality care they deserve. The future of our veterans' home is brighter than ever as construction of the1861 new Massachusetts veteran home at Holyoke is well underway. In November, we celebrated a topping-off ceremony, marking a major milestone with the placement of the final steel beam. The last 2 beams were painted red, white, and blue, signed by staff, veterans, and stakeholders who have played a pivotal role in the construction. These beams symbolize our unwavering commitment to honoring the sacrifices of our veterans, providing them with the compassionate, high-quality care they have earned. Today, our dedicated staff of 344 provides care to 17 veteran residents at the Veterans Home in Holyoke. Our workforce remains diverse, with 72.6% female staff, 33% minority representation, 3.3% veteran employees, and 3% disabled staff members. As we prepare to expand into our new facility, we are actively recruiting to meet the demands of a 234-bed long-term care facility and a new adult day health program, which will serve up to 50 veterans.
This modernized facility will require approximately a 40% increase in workforce, spending both clinical and nonclinical roles. Our staff continues to demonstrate resilience, adaptability, and an unwavering commitment to veteran care. They uphold the highest standards in health and safety protocols, infection prevention measures, regulatory compliance, and best practices to protect both residents and staff. We remain focused on hiring direct care professionals, including CNAs, LPNs, and RNs. As I mentioned, we hold ourselves to the highest standards, and I'm proud to report that our commitment to excellence continues to be recognized. This past January, the US Department of Veteran Affairs conducted its annual long-term care survey. I'm incredibly proud to share that the home achieved 0 deficiencies, a rare and outstanding achievement in health care inspections. VA surveyors praised the quality of our quality of care, infection prevention protocols, and the dedication of our staff. This past July, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health conducted its1989 licensure survey, and the home successfully received its official state1993 license on 07/25/2024. I'm also pleased to share that our application to1999 the Center of Medicaid and Medicare Services Certification has been accepted.
On February 25, we welcomed CMS surveyors for a 4-day certification survey followed by a 2-day life safety survey in March. Dawn performed above the state national averages, reflecting our commitment to excellence in quality and compliance, and we remain optimistic about certification. These accomplishments are a testament to the hard work, professionalism, and dedication of our team. Our veterans deserve the best, and we are committed to providing them with the highest level of care. Beyond clinical care, we strive to keep veterans engaged, connected, and actively involved in their community. Veteran satisfaction continues to rise. Our 2024 survey results show an overall rating of 4.92 out of 5, which is a 3.32% increase from 2023. This reflects the exceptional dedication of our staff, the relentless focus on providing compassionate high high-quality care. Our veterans continue to enjoy a variety of community activities and outings, including shopping trips, car shows, dining events, and bright nights. 1 of the most cherished traditions is the Holyoke annual Saint Patrick's Day parade, a highlight for both veterans and staff. It is moments like these that reinforce the strong sense of community and belonging within our home.
Our strong partnerships with local veteran organizations and dedicated volunteers continue to be a pillar of support for our mission. This past year, we doubled the number of active volunteers in the home through outreach at libraries, community centers, and local colleges. Volunteers play a crucial role in enriching the daily lives of our veterans, offering both compassion and companionship. We introduced a new volunteer-led initiative, including the Volunteer Ambassador Program, which assists visitors in wayfinding and general inquiries, as well as a retired librarian initiative, bringing veterans a book club, read-aloud sessions, and a mobile book cart, creating meaningful opportunities for engagement and lifelong learning. These efforts, along with the unwavering support of our veteran service organizations and community partners, ensure that our home remains a vibrant, welcoming place. As we look ahead,2133 we remain committed to making strategic investments that enhance both immediate and long-term care for our veterans. I want to express my deep appreciation to this committee, governor Healy, and the entire legislature for your continued commitment to our veterans. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. I'm happy to answer any questions.
KENNEDY - Thank you. I know we had a couple or few additional members join us. So if you could sorry. Introduce yourselves. Those who have recently joined us, could you introduce yourselves?
REP HAMILTON - Thank you. Representative Ryan Hamilton represents the fifteenth Essex District, Methuen, and Haverhill in the Merrimack Valley.
REP ELLIOTT - Good morning. My name is Rodney Elliott, state representative representing the city of Lowell and the community of North Chelmsford.
REP KASSNER - Hi, representative Kristen Kassner. I represent the Second Essex District in the North Shore, Hamilton, Ipswich, Raleigh, Newbury, Georgetown, Topsail, Precinct 1. Thank you.
KENNEDY- Thank you so much. I'm gonna ask the first question. Oh, we additional people. Sorry. I didn't see all the new folks walking.2217 Yes. That's it.
REP HAWKINS - Hi, Darlene. I'm Jim Hawkins. I'm the state rep from Attleboro.
SEN BRADY - And thank you. I'm also, I'm Senator Michael Brady from the Second Plymouth Norfolk District, and my mother was born in West Virginia2240 in 1924.
KENNEDY - Excellent. I knew that you had good lineage, senator. Thank you. Thank you so much, Secretary Santiago. Thank you first for your service to our country and your service now to the Commonwealth. I do wanna ask you about your service line items, +1 410-0100, +1 412-0012, which I know funds many of the service providers across the Commonwealth, here in Worcester home to Veterans Inc, which I know provides a wide array of services. Can you speak to in this line item how, funding is allocated for the programs that receive funding if it's procured or otherwise, aside from what is, legislatively earmarked, how other funding is administered based on need or or, clientele, etcetera. And then noting starting in a couple of years ago in 1410 in the main line item. It includes language that funding can be transferred from that line item or several other line items and transferred to the 2 soldiers' homes. I know that there's this budget reflects a decrease in funding to the soldiers' home and the House 1 budget. Can you speak to has funding been transferred? What are you projecting to transfer, and what has that process2320 been in the last couple of fiscal years, which I think it was in as well, and what do you project for the year2326 ahead on that?
SANTIAGO - Great. Thank you, Senator. So on the latter point, so, traditionally, h 4 puts forward an option for the administration to transfer funds to the homes, and that's traditionally been taken out by the legislature. So we really haven't engaged in that process. There's a $5,000,000 chargeback in a certain line item that we pay for temporary staffing for the homes, and that's traditionally been covered by EHS when this was DBS under EHS. That's along with the case now. So now it's a $5,000,000 land that we have. The homes will pay for temporary staffing, which is a need given the context, and then we will charge back the homes. With respect to your first question, there are 2 primary land items. I think it's 250 and 12 that cover those supportive services for folks like BetSync. I think BetSync is a part of both of those respective land items. Traditionally, those have been its separatory requirements to fund those homes.
There's actually a piece in the legislature that says if you're funding a certain program, those same programs will be funded in the following year as well. So there isn't really a procurement process. Something that we'd like to do moving forward, perhaps in the next fiscal year, is to work with the legislature and perhaps some of our external partners to look into this process for a more targeted approach to certain regions that represent a variety of needs for veterans across the Commonwealth. I can tell you that since I've taken over over the past 2 years, we've decided to look into data with respect2409 to this. Prior to this, we would just collect2411 reports from various organizations, but now we're collecting, I would argue, pretty good evidence to say what we're doing across the Commonwealth. A part of what I mentioned here, particularly when it comes to veteran and veteran homelessness, where we've offered a hundred thousand services anywhere from food pantry services to a transportation ride to a mental health session. So that's the data we're collecting now to see where those gaps may exist across the Commonwealth.
KENNEDY - Thank you. Thank you. And are there any other questions I have to ask?
TYLER - Thank you so much, secretary, former rep. So always happy to see you. I have a quick 2 question, actually. The first question is around the house 1 budget. So the house 1 budget includes 12,400,000 for its admin account. Is this adequate funding for your agency at the secretary level?
SANTIAGO - It's good to see you, representative. Yes. Let me just say from the get-go that this H1 budget is the highest level funding that veteran services has ever received in the history of the Commonwealth. Right? We feel comfortable and able to do our jobs, not just with respect to what I'm doing in the central office, but at the homes as well. And if I could just take a second just to really highlight the transformation at both those homes. You know, part of my role is just to really see who's doing good work and get out of the way. These folks right here, directors Baldini and directors Lazo, are really leading a transformation there. You made a picture 2 plus 3 years ago before I took over. These homes were not licensed by DPH, not certified by CMS, were operated by administrators, not licensed to do that job, and were on paper medical charts, papers, and scheduling.
Right? And that's all been transformed. A large part thinks that these 2 folks are now licensed to do this job. Now, I do think we're able to do our work here at the executive office. The biggest increase you'll see with respect to my office is the increase in the annuity, and I think it's the 400 line item. That's primarily Chapter 115, which includes the annuity. As a result of your tremendous work on the HEROAC, we increased the annuity line item by 25%, from 2,000 to $2,500. It's about 19,000 people, disabled veterans, also gold star families that received that. We felt that it was right to honor their service and sacrifice. So2544 we, in collaboration with our legislature, increased that, and2548 that's probably that's where you see the largest bump in the it's about $6,000,000 this coming year. But we feel that h 1 sufficiently allows us to do what we need to do to support our veterans.
TYLER - Okay. Thank you. And then secondly, on the HERO Act, we pass a ton of bills, and we're always concerned about how it works, how it may not work. Can you share with us about how the HERO Act has changed your agency's operations, if any at all?
SANTIAGO - So the HERO Act was focused on a couple of things. How do we increase benefits? How2579 do we recognize veterans? How do we shoot for what I would argue is more inclusivity and equity in the veteran community? We've done a couple of things here in the HERO Act to better align ourselves with the federal agency, number 1, but really to show our veteran, our veterans and their families that we care about them. Right? A couple of things. We updated the definition of the veteran. We were still operating on a definition that was in the past, quite frankly. Right? The VA2604 had moved ahead. Other states had moved ahead. We were operating in a less inclusive environment with a definition we had. In fact, in chapter 115, the legislature legislation written at the time explicitly prohibited paying for mental health services. Now, again, this is a throwback from when chapter 115 was created. It was created in Civil War, but how how how this progressed. So we looked at updating this legislatively alongside the legislature. And to this day, we're still increasing2633 and improving it. In fact, right now, we have a Chapter 115 working group that's been created. It's composed of members of my administration or my staff, but also community members and other folks just to continue to increase and support it so we can support our veterans in the field.
KENNEDY - Thank you. Thank you. Up next, we have assistant minority leader Kenny Kelly Dooner.
DOONER - Thank you, madam chair, and through you, and feel free to pawn me off to another panel if this question doesn't pertain to you guys. But, something I was working on with rep Doherty, who recently passed, was looking into Taunton State Hospital and how we can utilize the buildings that aren't in use, obviously, in need of some serious repair for our veterans. I'm just curious, is there any appetite for that, or any appetite to pair with, like, a nonprofit that would consider helping restore some of those to create veteran housing? And if this isn't the right time for this question, please just let me know.
SANTIAGO- Well, senator, we would always welcome the opportunity to work with you and anyone on this panel here who's interested in supporting veterans. And if you have, I can tell you that with the end veteran homelessness campaign, $20,000,000 from ARPA, 7000000 dollars went to what's called the hope campaign, an innovative and robust outreach program, but 13,000,000 of that dollar went to is going to capital projects across the Commonwealth. And we've identified 300 plus units that will hit the pipeline this year, whether that's a ribbon cutting or an opening or a groundbreaking, and we're excited about that. So if you have opportunities in your district that you'd like to share with us, particularly with community members as well, we'd be more than happy to engage with you in that conversation. The challenge is obviously funding. Right? And so we'd be looking at getting back to you to see if you can support that, but we'd be more than happy to have that conversation.
DOONER - Perfect. Yeah. There is a nonprofit that I have been talking to. They were looking to identify some other properties, but that, unfortunately, didn't pan out. I just looked at the Taunton State Hospital and how underutilized its bus route is. I just think it could be a great opportunity. If I could meet with you later about that, that would be fantastic.
SANTIAGO - Well, consider it done. Now, I also mentioned the 5 pillars of the Inventurous Veterans' Homeless Campaign. 1 pillar is to support our nonprofits. Right? To provide the technical assistance that they need. Because oftentimes, these are small nonprofits without the expertise needed to build, design, and draft the plans to come up with a pretty complicated project. Right? And so we've offered technical assistance to a variety of nonprofits across the Commonwealth, and we'd be more than happy to partner with you.
SPEAKER8 - Thank you. Yeah.
SPEAKER1 - Representative Holmes?
HOLMES - Good day, mister, secretary. I'm gonna say, I know you gave credit to the folks sitting beside you, but it makes a big difference having a practicing position as our secretary because it stands out to you that a facility is not licensed and not certified on paper. You know, you would never work in an environment that way, and so getting the facilities to that manner is great having you in the role. My question is, really, I got the numbers for diversity of the staff. But if you talk to Haywood Pinnell or any you know, you would hear his challenges around homelessness and homeless veterans. And the fact that it always feels like the Chelsea and the Holyoke home feel like they're local. They're for local people. That's just historically how they felt.
People in the West thought it was for them in the West. People in the East, Chelsea was for the East. And as you grow from 117 beds, it sounds like, to 234 in Holyoke. And then, as you now have opened up Chelsea, do you have an answer to the diversity of the residents? Who's living there for who's who's there? Just like you gave me female, black, Asian, and Hispanic, that would be good to know the residents at both homes. And then it would also what are you doing as you're doing your budget around as you get all of these new beds? How do we make sure that the scatterplot for veterans all across the state that they are marketed to and know these beds are available, not just for people who live in Boston and live in Chelsea, not just for people who live in Holyoke, but every homeless veteran across the state knows that this I hope a lottery process makes it so that everyone becomes available because my understanding is historically, it's kind of been, you know, who you knew helped you get in. I hope we're eliminating all of that as a part of this new process. So if you can walk me through that, that would be great.
SANTIAGO - Well, thank you, representative. Good to see you. Let me say a couple of things. I completely agree with you. Right? Traditionally, these homes have been viewed upon as this is an Eastern Mass Chelsea or surrounding area and vice versa in Holyoke. That's 1 reason why we symbolically changed the name to the Massachusetts Veterans Home at Chelsea. You're absolutely right, sir. These homes are for Massachusetts veterans, irrespective of where they may live. Right? With respect to the data, we actually underwent an equity analysis at both homes to look at this right and to see what was happening. Because, you know, as you said, I'm a physician. I operate from day a data lens. Right? And you're absolutely right.
The vast majority of residents there are white males. Right? But we place an emphasis on diversity, equity, and inclusion, not just at the homes but also in my office as well. I'm proud that our staff is diverse. Not only do you have a person of color leading this agency, but our deputy secretary is also a black woman. Right? So this is something that we breathe through the entire agency. It's not just how we hire people. We select people. We want quality folks, but it's also through the hero act as well. A number of initiatives are here to increase and support veterans of color. So this is something we're excited about. Let me say with respect to the 2 homes in our policies, so much of the first 2 years of my office here has really been about starting up this new agency and turning around with some of the things that you said.
I've been talking to staff recently about year 3. What does that look like? To me, it looks like organizational3026 maturation. Right? How do we create, create efficiencies?3030 How do we streamline things? And how do we get3032 to these other important issues that that had I mean, this the market has a commonwealth for many years. That's something we're excited to do. We've done the analysis. There's a significant gap to achieve, but you're absolutely right. Having the marketing, having the verbal thoughts to address these issues head on. And I'll also add in chapter 1 44, which was the office act, which was the bill that created our secretariat, many of which I voted on. there was a $200,000,000 bond bill put forward to look into a third home, right, to increase that geographic equity. That's something that we're in a conversation with DCAM to look where across the Commonwealth we could potentially put a third home and what that would entail.
HOLMES - I guess my question is, are we gonna change? Like, how will we get this place from being all white males? So, like, will the new beds be more geographically, will you be intentional about trying to go out and do more outreach? Or is it? Hey, I'm already on the waitlist. I've been on the wait list for all these years, and now I'm next in line. Is that I know that's that's kind of 2 cultures. Right? They folks have gotten used to they're almost next in line, from what I understand. And then how do you make room for the folks who didn't even know that these homes were available for them? So will it be a lottery? Or what will that process look like?
SANTIAGO - The current mechanism is first come, first serve. Right? During the application. Right? As we undergo this new organizational maturation, we're calling it Massachusetts Veterans Home 2030. The strategic plan looks at a whole host of components. 1 of which is revenue, 1 of which is customer service satisfaction, and 1 of which is workforce. But a part of that is looking into how we make sure that veterans who are underserved, irrespective of their race or their gender, are cared for. We have 25,000 women veterans across the Commonwealth. Traditionally, they have not gotten the services respective. They buy for them what they have earned. Right? And so we've changed our management. We've changed our programs and policies to better address that, and we look forward to doing it with veterans of color as well. We started a new initiative. It's relatively new and called the Veterans Unity Initiative. Looking at this issue, how do we empower veterans across the Commonwealth, particularly those who are underserved, to make sure that they have staked in this, that they're engaged with us from the homes to chapter 115, to the annuity, and so all host and other programs that we have? But we're happy to follow up with your team and engage in that conversation. But I think you and I and this team are aligned on our goals to support veterans across the Commonwealth.
KENNEDY - World. Thank you. Up next, Senator Brady.
SPEAKER20 - Thank you, madam chair.
BRADY - Thank you, madam chair, and welcome. And, thank you, director, and all of you for all the work you've done. You did mention the heroes act that we recently passed. As we all know, we can do we can never do enough for our veterans. We passed the Welcome Home Bill and the Valor Act 1 and 2.3209 But with all the comments coming out of the White House every day, there's, like, the weather changing. Do you have any? Can you elaborate on any impact it's had? Because, you know, I hear about all these veterans being fired or laid off. And, you know, we have a veterans hospital in Brockton that I represent. We have the homes that you mentioned. We have put a lot of funding into helping more veterans get off the streets and get homes and then into individual living quarters. Can you elaborate on any impact that it's had right now? Because they're talking about, well, the states will pick up the slack. And as you know, like every 1 of our consumers, we have to live without a means. We have to balance a budget. Thank god we do have a rainy day fund that's done well, but you can't replenish that too much because our bond rating is a double a bond rating, the best it's ever been. But, we have to still, you know, live within our means. So, was there anything you would like to elaborate on that now that you would recommend we can do moving forward? I know that it could be too premature because every day out of DC, there's a different comment made in the media.
SANTIAGO - Well, thank you for your thank you for your your comments, senator. I completely agree with you, sir. It is very challenging right now to work government. Not so much well, as a result of the policies folks are pushing forward, but the uncertainty. Every single day, there's a new issue, a new attack, a new potential cut. I can tell you that thus far, there was a cut of a thousand VA employees. Right? Then there was 1,400. Some of those folks have been reinstated. Now, there's talk of a cut of 80,000 employees for the VA. Right? Significant workforce reduction of about 17%. And here in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, we have about 8,600 VA employees. Most of those3321 are direct clients, direct patient-facing. Right? So they would be exempted from that. But I can tell you, just putting on my physician hat as someone who cares for patients, even veterans sometimes, that support staff is so critically important. Right? On average, for every physician or provider, you probably need 4 or 5 staff. Probably challenging to hire staff right now given the circumstances and given what the healthcare workforce has been through, but I'm concerned for our VA. And listen, I support the VA. I'm a VA patient myself. I get my care there. But I am very much concerned about where folks where things were headed given comments that are coming out of the White House and the administration. I can tell you that with this budget, the vast majority does not rely on the federal government. This is all the work that you're putting into it.
BRADY - Right.
SANTIAGO - The commitments that you've made. Now, there are some funds that we get from the VA, primarily in the infrastructure arena. 65% of both homes, the construction have been financed by the feds. Right? So, Chelsea is almost done. Right? So there's about $16,000,000 still left there, but we look forward to completing that in the next couple of years. Right? But Holyoke, despite the fact that we've been able to push, move that forward, it's ahead of schedule. In November 2026, we'll be opening up. There's still $200,000,000 out there. Now3399 we feel that these are low risk because the funds have been obligated. Right? There have been contracts that have been signed. And so we feel we're just continuing to move along with the process here. It's the building's going up. Those are the risks that are at stake here. Right? But I can tell you that for veterans out there, I get stories all the time about a veteran recently from Western Mass who was deployed 4 times, combat veteran, was let go of his job because of his quote, unquote performance.
The previous month, he was given an evaluation that he was doing great. This person opens up a vet center that provides mental health services to veterans. So, again, when you take a chainsaw approach to this, it can have a whole whole host of3446 unintended consequences, and that's what I'm concerned about. But I can tell you that over my 2 years here, we have fought to work closely with the VA in a very integrated way. When I got here, it was almost 2 different silos. Right? So we fought to work closely with them. That's what we've been doing for a long time. How do we make things work faster, more efficiently, whether it's women's veterans issues, whether it's homelessness issues, and we've been able to do that. Again, the veteran homelessness campaign is a great example. Right? We work closely with the VASH vouchers, the VAs, the 1 in Brockton as well to get folks those vouchers that they need to to get it permanently, to get a housing to get some housing with support and services. So I share your concern, Senator, and look forward to working with you to make sure that our veterans' voices are raised and that we're working closely together to support them and their families.
BRADY - Thank you. And thank you for all the work you've done in the rest of the committee. I, as well as some of my colleagues, serve on the veterans committee as well as serving on this committee. So if you hear anything, please don't hesitate to contact us because you may be on the front lines getting more rapid information than we do here in it and outside sources. But, again, thank you for all you're doing. And as we all are very concerned with the different messaging coming out of the White House that, you know, every day there's something new and you don't know what's truth and what's facts and false information, and we are very concerned. And as I mentioned, as we go through the budget here, we have to live within our means. And we do have a rainy day fund, but you cannot deplete that down to nothing. So thank you again. Thank you, Madam Chair.
SPEAKER1 - Thank you. Representative Diggs?
DIGGS- Thank you, madam chair. Secretary of Santiago, it's nice to be see you and, work with you. Thank you for coming down to the Cape quite a bit. You know, we have 19,000 veterans on the Cape, and I have the largest of 3,000 veterans, most in the Cape. And, what's important to me is if, you know, that third spot, maybe we can get it closer to the Cape because, honestly, it's all about, taking care of my my my area and making sure, you know, our veterans have done so3565 much and asked for so little. So I3567 think it's something that's just so poignant and so necessary that we bring something down towards the southern part.
KENNEDY - Got you. Almost over.
DIGGS - Got me. Okay. Down to the down towards the, you know, Southern part of mass. So that would be appreciated, but thank you for all that you do.
SANTIAGO - Right. No. We share your concerns when it comes to the representative homeless points equity. This would be geographic equity. Right? Yes. And so we share your concerns, and we wanna be supportive of that. Honestly, there's a significant cost to that. It'd be another VA grant that you'd have to get. Right? Because these are expensive facilities. But we look forward to working with the committee to support our veterans across the Commonwealth.
SPEAKER1 - Thank you. Representative Garcia?
GARCIA - Hi. Can you hear me? Great. So, representative Garcia from Chelsea, First, thank you so much for the remarkable work that you've done, especially for the veterans across our Commonwealth. My question is, do you have an operating budget of 46,900,000.0 for the Chelsea Veterans Home? Can you walk me through it? Are there any veteran needs that the budget doesn't cover?
SANTIAGO - I'll pass it to director Baldini, but the short answer is that we feel very confident and able to do our job with the budget. Again, this administration has funded veteran services in a way that no 1 ever has before. And I will say if you look at the budgets with respect to both homes, particularly at Chelsea, the past couple years, it's kind of been up and3677 down because as we3679 transition from new buildings to our older buildings to new buildings, right, staffing concerns I mean, let's face it. The new Chelsea home was delayed a couple of years. Right? So we3689 were able to fast-track that by a whole year, actually when I got there. But if you look at the funding for previous plan items, I mean, there were some significant reversions. I mean, 3 or 4 years ago, they were reverting $14,000,000 to the state fund here. Right? And so we look at this issue, right, to get a real sense of what's happening on the ground with our veterans, taking into account the change to the new home, but also this new Penrose development as well. Right? For many of you who aren't familiar with Chelsea, there's a long-term care center, but there's also a domiciliary. Right? And the domiciliary will no longer be with us in a couple of years because that's turning into veteran housing. Right? So how do we manage all these things at the same times at the same time while attempting to support our veterans? But, again, we feel very comfortable with the budget right now, being able to support our veterans moving forward.
GARCIA - Yes. I also feel very comfortable with where we are with the budget. I think that our residents truly have everything that they need. Our staff are very well supported in terms of education and training, in terms of our staffing, and our PPDs is very generous to meet the unique needs of the population that we serve, with responsible spending, good labor management, and contracting, and following our contracts and having the best pricing points for them, I feel that our our budget is very doable. We just need to keep our eye on things and spend responsibly. And if there's something that's needed, we just let the secretary know, and we'll figure out a way to get what we need. But I'm3792 very comfortable and confident in what we have.
SANTIAGO - Let me just set it. An existing challenge that3796 is real, irrespective of whether you're a veteran home or a long-term care center out in the community, is the need for good staffing. Right? I mean, staffing is expensive. It's hard to come by. CNAs are tired. I mean, people are still burned out from COVID-19, believe it or not. Right? And so we are looking at ways to better support the workforce. 1 thing that we did, and I think you were there, is that we instituted a Sydney CNA career ladder. You had CNAs at Chelsea veteran home who'd been there for 10, 15, 20 years and never danced in their profession. They stayed at CNA 1. Right? These are primarily women, people of color. Right? So how are we supposed to how how are these how are we supposed to support them when we're not giving them an opportunity to to rise up in the profession? So we instituted a CNA career ladder, and, it was it was taken very well, and we're excited about what's happening at Chelsea also. I don't know if you
LAZO - Yes. Over in Holyoke, we have been able to institute the career ladder. We now have career CNAs from 1 through 4. We have 2 CNA fours that that are are, very much part of the management team, very, very supportive of our of our work, really help the CNAs, the other levels of CNAs to work to achieve, 1, great veteran care, but, 2, also grow in their profession and eventually3877 become that CNA 4. Great program. And it does create an attraction, gives us3885 a makes us a place people wanna work3887 because they have opportunities for advance as they grow in their
SPEAKER1 - Thank you. Senator Fatman?
SEN FATTMAN - Good afternoon, mister secretary. Thank you for your service. And, Senator Kennedy, what an amazing institution this is. My mom graduated from Daugherty in 1969, and I was sending her pictures as I walked tardily through the hallway, probably as she did back then. But what an amazing place this has become. Congratulations. I wanted to ask a question about suicide amongst our veterans in Massachusetts. A few years ago, a gentleman from Dudley in the Massachusetts National Guard that I represent asked me to come join him for a walk, a 22-mile walk. And, I didn't understand what that exactly meant and would be educated on the subject of every, you know, the 22 soldiers commit suicide every day in our country. I believe that number's dropped a little bit, but still unacceptable and tragic. When that event happens in our state, what happens? Has your office been notified? What services are provided to family members? Could you expound upon that just a little bit so that we can understand how we might best serve this population as well as drive down these numbers for our heroes?
SANTIAGO - Well, thank you, Senator, for bringing up this very important issue. It's an issue I feel very passionate about, and I can tell you that we are thinking about this, putting efforts into this. And, actually, you've been involved with this as well. I mean, again, chapter 115 expressively prohibited mental health services. Right? We changed that. You changed that when you passed that law, and now we can support these 5,000 veterans on chapter 115. Veterans who are poor, socioeconomically disadvantaged to get the mental services they need. But you bring up a bigger point, Senator. I think many of us who serve are aware of the challenges, mental health, and suicide that our veteran community faces. And it's the 1 part of this job 2 years ago that I wasn't necessarily prepared for when I would get the number of calls, messages, and voice mails from family members who had lost a loved 1. Now, I've taken care of many patients, active duty service members here stateside with mental health. I've seen a lot of bad things in the emergency department. I've taken care of active service members with devastating injuries on the battlefield as well.
But still, I wasn't prepared for the number of calls I'd received from veterans to your point. 22 numbers suggested about 17 a day now. 1 of the first things that we did as a secretary is that we put forward a commission to look into this. We worked with partners, nonprofits primarily, across the spectrum here to come up with some recommendations. And they noticed a couple of things. Number 1 is that veterans are disproportionately impacted by mental health issues, as we know. Disproportionally impacted by substance use and have access to firearms. Right? So with those with data and with the information, we put forward a grant of $2,000,000 to look into this to support the organizations on the ground doing the work that they need to do. But, again, so much of what we do right now is dependent on the VA. Right? We are a $200,000,000 organization, 800 staff.
Right? We can't compare to the VA, which is hundreds of billions of dollars. Right? So when the VA talks about cutting services, like the gentleman I just mentioned, he's a 4 4 time deployed veteran running a vet center, providing mental service to veterans. He lost his job. Right? So we need to do all that we can at the state level, working in partnership with our VA colleagues to make sure veterans are getting the services they need. But I can tell you that this is something that is very important to my staff. That's why we try to think holistically and comprehensively when we come up with programs. We just can't give a veteran a home if we're talking about intervention and veteran homelessness. We have to provide the supportive services who are there. So that's why when we give when we give funding, so much of what the land items that I was talking to senator Kimmy about earlier, these lands are really focused on those supportive services to provide veterans so they won't find themselves in a situation when they're contemplating suicide.
FATTMAN - I appreciate that, and I appreciate your care for them. Just to understand, so if a person who deploys from the Massachusetts National Guard, or someone who'd previously deployed commits suicide, are we notified are you notified about that? And is that? I hate to describe it that way. I'm really sorry to describe it that way. But is that do we track that?
SANTIAGO - So, we do not track that. We recently, a couple months ago, just got a suicide grant from the VA. It's called the suicide mortality review board. Grants, $300,000 to look into when a suicide does happen and it's identified to be a veteran, to what factors were associated with that to do some preventative work. Right? But as of right now, if a veteran out there unfortunately commits suicide, it doesn't necessarily come back to my office. There's no reporting with respect to that. Oftentimes, we'll hear about it through supportive networks. In the case of active duty service members, those folks, whether it be the guard or whether it be, you know, the DOD. Right? There's a different mechanism for that as well, and I don't interface with that. But there's enough tragedy, enough sadness around there that gets back to us, and that's why we need to be vigilant. We need to be active on this, so we need to be supportive of veterans and their families. Thank you.
SPEAKER1 - You. Senator Miranda?
MIRANDA - Thank you, guys, secretary. I have 2 questions. 1 is, going back to my time in the house in your time in the house, I was incredibly shocked, when I went in, I went to do a service project with our mayor, to be able to check-in on, veterans that were living in community and was quite alarmed that I went to visit a couple Pine Street Inn facilities, that were full, almost all members, all beds of veterans. And so I had a question around, and I visited that place 4 years later, and all of those veterans, except the few that have passed on, are still in that facility, still living in a homeless shelter. And so I wanted to ask you a question about the end homelessness campaign. If 1 of the tenants is about moving people out of poverty and thinking about the timeline of, you know, when a homeless veteran is living in a certain building or space, is there work to be able to say, hey. You can then move on to an SRO or move on to maybe in your lifetime be able to purchase a home or live in a subsidized apartment or in public housing, because it was really sad to be able to go back.
And some of those veterans were very young and not able to see them, you know, fulfill their American dream to be able to get out of the situation that they were in. And, you know, we're spending millions and millions of dollars in the city of Boston. We don't even have enough beds for all the people who are unhoused in our city. So I would just love for you to answer that. And then I had a question around, many of the veterans in my community is kind of piggybacking on rep homes are choosing to or forced to, age in place versus go to 1 of the homes. Either they don't know about the homes. Maybe they don't think they can afford them. Maybe it's not, close to their families. And so, I've reached out to you multiple times. You know, it's little text in the middle of the night about, a specific story about a woman, a black an African American woman veteran who had just been victim of a scam, because she has been living on her own essentially with a roommate, and they're both in their seventies and eighties without family. I know we can do better for women like her, and just concerned about the women and men who are choosing or forced to be in the community because they don't have the access or the knowledge in how we support them. Many times, by the time their concerns or issues reach come to our tables, it's usually at the end or when there is a crisis.
SANTIAGO - Thank you, Senator. Good to see you. On the latter point, I completely agree with you. If you read any veteran study that talks about services and programs, whether it's a city, state, or federal program, services, or funding, it's pretty good. It's pretty decent. The gap that is always there consistently across the board is engagement. Right? And how you think about engagement determines who you're speaking to or who you're engaging, whether it's in Roxbury or whether it's in Holyoke. Right? That's 1 of the reasons we created this office of engagement. I really dedicated folks to go out there and meet people. I have told my staff, I don't want us to be the most externally focused organization in government. Right?
And I can tell you since we're putting up this office of engagement, right, we've received, like, 5,200 calls over the past, I don't know, 6, 7 months, maybe close to a year right now, and 95% have been answered. Right? Because veterans need that type of support, particularly older veterans, folks who might have some mental health disorders as well. Right? So we feel very passionate about engagement. 1, because it's a big gap that's been identified over and over and over again. Plus, we know that there are certain communities that don't get the engagement that they deserve and that they need, particularly women and folks of color. On your first point, Senator, we agree with you. Right?
This, our invention homelessness campaign, has 5 pillars. The first pillar is called the Hope Campaign. It's not just providing supportive services and kind of the bland way of saying it. Right? It's a very dedicated effort, and it's innovative. Right? Shallow subsidies, going out there, meeting veterans, working with landlords, finding every single way that we could support veterans to get a place to live, but also have the supportive services to wrap around them as well. Because we know that they need that. You can. You cannot give someone a key and expect them just to, you know, fix everything to be fixed. And so that's what we're we've been doing for the past. The program has been there for about a year. Funds probably went out 6, 7 months ago.
Right? We see some good data come back, and we're working closely with our partners across the state to really end veteran homelessness. And just to mix it up, take a get this from a big picture lens, as you know, the number 1, 2, and 3 party of the Commonwealth is housing. Right? The governor has talked about this almost every single day. You folks here, you senators and representatives, hear from your district, constituents, whether it's, I can't afford my rent. I'm homeless. You know, how how do I am I supposed to afford this place if I can't find a place to live? Right? And so the governor has tasked all of us in the cabinet to think about housing in a very real way. Right? And that's when this veteran homelessness campaign started.
But the data is very challenging. It's not ideal data, but if you were to look at the data right now, there's a once-a-year pit count, a point-in-time count, where they count all the homeless veterans. There are about 650 or so, per the last pit count. Now, that's not the best number because it captures not homeless veterans, but rather veterans who lack permanent supportive housing. When you take a deep dive into that number, if you look at unsheltered veterans, the number is probably about 40 or 50. Right? So, this is manageable. We can do this. Right? We can work closely in collaboration with communities, stakeholders, and folks like yourself to find those veterans, reach out to them, and address whatever concerns they have, whether it be mental health, substance use, to get them on the right track, and that's what this campaign is about.
SPEAKER1 - Thank you. Thank you. Representative Kilcoyne?
KILCOYNE - Hello, secretary. So good to see you in Central Massachusetts. I've always enjoyed working with you. I don't think we overlapped in serve. Oh, I know we did4658 a little bit, but it's been wonderful to work with you in these roles. I just had a quick question. I apologize if it overlaps with some of my other colleagues' questions, but I know a challenging thing in trying to support the veteran community is sometimes finding where they are. I was very proud to join my colleagues in the House and Senate in voting for this thing. Can you hear me? Okay. My voice has deserted me this week. So, yeah, I wanna make sure I'm clear. I was very pleased to join my colleagues in supporting the HERO Act, which shot to expand not only expands veterans' benefits but also tries to take away some of the bureaucratic obstacles that we saw within the veterans community that prevented some of them from getting access to the benefits they deserved. And in a case in point, I was at Iwo Jima Day about a month ago or so at the State House, and that's something I know you've attended in the past.
This year, we thought all the evil, all the veterans of Iwo Jima during World War 2 had left us, and 1 miraculously showed up, and we had no idea were still there. So I think that kind of exemplifies sometimes the challenges we have in knowing these benefits are out there, but trying to make sure we're connecting those benefits with the veterans community. And I know that's something your office has really taken leadership on. So I just wanted to kinda get a sense from you, and I know it's still early. The bill was just signed into law a few months ago. But if you've seen any sort of uptick in veterans being able to access benefits they didn't have before, if there's been an increase in any applicants in seeking those benefits under your watch.
SANTIAGO - It's good to see you, representative. Absolutely. There's been an increase. There's, and we've been a part of that. Again, the key is engagement. We did multiple town halls all across the Commonwealth, engaging with folks. We've tasked we've partnered with many legislators to host some of these as well. You know, veterans are a unique community. Right? You'll find some who want the license plate and wanna talk about their experience, but there are many others who don't want to. Right? Particularly some of our older veterans, right, who feel that they don't deserve services. Right? I see it all the time. Right? A veteran, World War 2, Korea, Vietnam. Oh, let's support the veterans who actually need help. It's like, no. Like, we should support you as well. Right? So part of our goal is to go out there and engage these veterans and say, listen. You might not need services, but when you do, if you do, we're here to support you. Right? Again, part of that integration is with the VA. Right?
The VA provides health services, like physicians, nurses. Right? They provide mental health services, a whole host of programs and supportive programs that they do. Right? And so when the Biden administration passed the pact act, that was the largest expansion of benefits in generations. Right? We saw numbers significantly increase in the thousands with respect to veterans accessing federal benefits. Right? And a part of our job was to make sure that veterans were aware of what's going on and to go out there and make sure to sign them up. I'm proud that our national service offers our our leaders when it comes to this. Signing up veterans, working with our 200 plus VSOs to get veterans, those VA benefits, disability compensation, and they're bragging about the ones that they deserve. We were just actually at Gillette Stadium, I wanna say a month ago, and we had 1 last year doing what's called the VEAC, Veterans Experience Action Center. This is a priority of the VA, but they've had a couple hundred oh, no. Less than a hundred of these across the country where they set up shop.
They have VA representatives on-site, and they connect people to veterans on the spot.4870 This is not just an expo where people say, oh,4872 here's some information. Sign up for this. You sign4874 up on the spot right now. I went to DC A Year ago, and I said, Where's your next VEAC? Can we have 1 in Massachusetts? Oh, we don't need 1 in Massachusetts. I said, listen. Let's have it4882 in Massachusetts. Let's do it at Fenway Park or Gillette Stadium. Right? We made some phone calls. We made it happen. The first VEAC that we had last year, we broke every record that they had. Right? We partnered closely with our nonprofits with our VA friends, had over 500 veterans here get services, and we just had the second 1. So that's the partnership, the engagement that we're talking about. That's not just with the VA but with our community circle as well. Community stakeholders as well, and that's what leads to these benefits reaching our most underserved veteran.
KILCOYNE - Well, I can speak from experience, having seen you come out to my region and talk to our local veterans there how big of a difference it made. So I really appreciate your efforts and applaud your efforts, mister secretary, because I really think that grassroots engagement, both on a micro and macro scale, makes so much of a difference. And your leadership has been exemplary there. So thank you so much.
KENNEDY - Thank you so much. I don't think we have anybody else who's requested questions. So with that, I'm actually gonna turn it over to Senator Dooner to wrap us up with 1 final question. Thank you.
DOONER - Thank you for that, Madam Chair. Just have a quick question about services for Gold Star families. We have a Gold Star family in Taunton. This was about it was about 10 years ago at this point, but they did end up losing their house. You know, the children kind of ended up raising the younger children, and they really struggled. Do we have any services for gold star families? Obviously, what they have to go through is something none of us could ever imagine. And is there, are there any services or funding out there for gold star families from the Commonwealth?
SANTIAGO - So, so there is a very specific 1. It's called the annuity, and that's a 2,000 annual payment, which has been increased to 2,500 thanks to the work the legislature has done. You're absolutely right. Our gold star families, they've paid the ultimate sacrifice. I mean, you have a gold star father on the stage with you today who's been a champion for veterans and for gold star families ever since I've known him, and that's rep x.
SPEAKER24 - Still Thank you.
SANTIAGO - And so what I would say5011 to you is, you know, let's connect. Let's connect me and me,5015 rep x, and how we can support them. There are some financial benefits, but more so, it's about the community. Right? We do have a gold star day at the state house that rep max is in part of as well that the government is very committed to doing. And I can tell you that last year's event was it was moving. It was moving, and we're we stand by them. We're5035 committed to supporting them financially when we can, but really just letting them know that there's a network who cares for them, who honors their sacrifice, and wants to be a part of their lives.
KENNEDY - Thank you. And my apologies. I missed representative Arriaga has a question as well. So, my apologies.
ARRIAGA - Good morning. Mister secretary, executive directors, thank you for your testimony and your continued support on behalf of our veterans. From 1 veteran to another, I can clearly tell you that it does make a difference. I get continuous phone calls about the great work that you're doing throughout your time here in this office. But my question was in regards to outreach, which we heard a lot today. As you can see, we're very eager to support5074 you all in your mission. But mine was primarily in regard to women. As you know, a report came out about 3 years ago from the auditor's office stating that we need to do better, and identifying, locating, of course, connecting our women veterans with resources, and we just wanna ensure that, you have the funding, the tools, to complete your mission. Thank you.
SANTIAGO - Well, thank you, representative, and thank you for your service. You're absolutely right. Before I took over, in addition to the situation at the homes, in addition to some of the inefficiencies that we were having in the central office as well, there was a report from the auto's office that said we are failing women veterans. Right? And so we took that very seriously. And we've put together a whole host of, whether it's resources, took those recommendations, and went to work. If you were to look at the recommendations now, I don't know all in front of me, but I can tell you that a variety of them have already been implemented. 1 of which was the women's advisory commission focused on women veterans' issues. Right? We set that up immediately.
In fact, they put forth a plan to put out a report, and I think it should be coming out later this month, how to support women veterans. Right? So we took a leadership in this because we know it's important. It's the fastest-growing group of veterans in the Commonwealth. It's about 25,000 of them. So whether it's doing that, adding resources, doubling our staff when it comes to women veterans, hiring more women veterans in our staff to make sure that we are aware of what's happening in their community that we're excited about. And, again, this engagement community includes the women veterans network. Right? And so if you were to look at the data with respect to the number of events, that we've held regarding women veteran issues, it significantly increased over the past year, since I've been past 2 years since I've been5177 here. But always looking forward to partnering with you as a woman veteran yourself who cares passionately about this and to engage our veterans out in Western Mass or across the Commonwealth.
SPEAKER6 - Thank you so much.
KENNEDY - Thank you. And just to confirm, anybody else? Questions? Excellent. Thank you so much, secretary and directors of our 2 veterans homes. Thank you so much. Next, we're going to invite our second panel, which is the relatively new office of the veteran advocate. And I'll invite Bob Notch, our veteran advocate, and David O'Callaghan, the deputy commissioner of administration and finance. And while this transition is happening, I just wanna remind our committee members that lunch is available across the hall. There's also room over there to work. So please, at your leisure, feel free to to grab lunch. I also wanna rec recognize, 2 of our colleagues that have joined us, representative Jim O'Day, who is the dean of the Worcester Delegation. So representative, good to see you. And also wanna recognize representative John Mahoney. Representative Mahoney, thank you for letting us, be in your district as well. So thank you both for being here. And I know in those during the course of the last panel, we had a few other members of the committee join us. So, after the bell, I'll ask you to introduce yourselves.
SPEAKER26 - Great.
SPEAKER22 - Here.
REP MONTANO - Hi, everyone. Samantha Montano from 15 Suffolk, which is a mostly Jamaica Plan, a neighborhood in Boston.
REP MENDEZ- Rita Mendez and I represent Brockton. And this is a beautiful school, so I'm so happy to be here. Thank you.
REP BIELE - Good afternoon, everyone. State representative David Beal, fourth Suffolk, of5306 the South Boston neighborhood in the city of Boston. Thank you5308 so much for having us and for your hospitality.
KENNEDY - And I think we got everyone that came in. Senator Fatman, I5316 know you came in, but we were able to ask a question. So I don't know if5318 you wanna introduce your district.
FATTMAN - Thank you. Thank you, Senator. State Senator Ryan Fatman, Worcester Hamden District, 19 communities in Southern Worcester County and the Hampton County.
KENNEDY - Great. Thank you. And veteran advocate, please start.
ROBERT NOTCH - MASSACHUSETTS OFFICE OF VETERAN ADVOCATE - Thank you, Chair Kennedy, you, Chair Tyler, and distinguished joint committee members for talking to you today. Advocate. I also wanna thank the administrators of Dougherty High School for the day in the beautiful
KENNEDY - I can get the speaker right into the microphone. Can't quite hear you. Thank you.
NOTCH - My name is Bob Notch. I'm the veteran advocate for the Commonwealth. For those that I haven't met, I'm also a soldier for life, and I served 27 years full-time as a commissioned officer in the Army and the Army Reserve. Since my transition out of the military in 2016, I've served military and veterans in the nonprofit sector, having spent my entire life focused on the well-being of service members, veterans, and their families. Very grateful to be appointed to this position, continue to serve veterans and military. With me today is Daniel DuPont. He handles finance, human resources, and administration of the office of the veteran advocate. And on my right, Kate Watson, and many of you may know her. She's been wandering the halls of the state house. Kate handles research policy and, as it relates, legislative affairs.
Through the foresight and efforts of the general count general court in 2022, the office of the veteran advocate, the OVA, a first in the nation effort to create more oversight within state government as it relates to the dignity, privacy of veterans, as well as how they receive their benefits and service. For its dignity and respect are built into our logo. The OVA is an independent state agency. In broad terms in broad terms, our responsibilities are to examine the systems, liaisons, spies and assist state and federal agencies regarding the programs, benefits, and services provided to veterans and their families in the Commonwealth. Additionally, in more specific terms, we are responsible for aiding and coordinating you with municipal veteran service agent officers as well as conducting independent investigations, any fatality, near fatality, or serious bodily or emotional injury for veterans in the care of the Commonwealth.
The OVA mission. Office office of the veteran advocate safeguards the well-being, dignified treatment, rights, and benefits of veterans, the care of, or receiving services from the Commonwealth. During these, veterans and their families receive passionate, timely, and effective services. OVA collaborates to facilitate access to federal and state benefits, conducts thorough investigations to enhance care services provided to veterans. All that said, this is what we believe. Alignment. Our work focuses on 3 main stakeholders: veterans and their families, residents of the Commonwealth, all of you, and supporting agencies. Our goal is to align the capabilities and support provided by local, state, and federal agencies with the needs of the veterans and their families and the expectations of the public. Those are out of alignment. You take a look.
Collaboration is key. Our preference is to find areas for improvement and5585 work together to raise the bar. We believe transparency builds trust. We believe responsiveness is a common courtesy. We believe that advice must be backed by research and data. As we advise you and your staff, you can expect that advice is based on quality research. This fiscal year, FY 25, is the first fiscal year of the operations of the office of the veteran advocate. Unable to present at a hearing last year, but I did provide a letter requesting our budget needs. I wanna thank those members of the conference committee, supported that request, negotiated our current budget of $2,000,000. Dollars This funding allowed us to build a solid foundation for the newly established office, and it's capable of meeting all of the statutory responsibilities listed after January.
The Current FY 26 h 1 budget proposes no increase over FY 25 funding for the OBA, resulting in a flat funding of $12,000,000 for FY 26. This amount does not provide the minimum maintenance increase necessary to meet inflation, nor does it allow the capacity to extend operations to meet our growing workload demands. Our analysis determined that an increase in staff to meet the growing workload, cost increase for long-term office lease, and Technology cost increase require an appropriation of nearly $3,300,000 by '26. The 3 specific areas mentioned above are the significant portion post-budget for FY 26. Full-time staffing. While the current staffing provides the minimum capability to meet all requirements listed in the statute, demand as we meet organizations and offices, and for our support has increased.
We're asking for more funding to provide larger staff to be able to handle the workload increase, also be able to provide redundancy to those areas where we are only 1 person deep. Important that I introduce these individuals next to me today. They have multiple jobs. They have 3 jobs. That is the majority of our staff right now5750 covering down in several5752 responsibilities. The Second piece5758 is office space. As we stood up, we provided we negotiated a sublease to health and human services for a thousand square feet. Their lease runs out in the next few months. Went through the process with the CAM to negotiate a new office lease. They are moving into a new space this spring, 3 times the size, 3,000 square feet to our staff, which provides us a long-term capability capability to maintain an off-base where we are actually getting discount on the rent. As the space increases, it costs us more overall. And the third item there is technology.
OVA relies on the executive office of technology services and security to provide all of its technology support. In FY '26, the chargeback fees are increasing across state agencies. For our office, those will double. So, we have to face the double increase in chargebacks for office services. And if we increase our staff, that will also provide an increase as well. Adequate funding of nearly $3,000,000 to $3,300,000 for FY 26. The office of the veteran advocate will be prepared to meet its requirements of examining systems, reporting local service agents, and advising you and the public about how the Commonwealth may improve its services for veterans and their families. We will continue to build relationships and collaborate with federal and state aid to best serve the veteran. Thank you again for the opportunity to testify and for your consideration of the budget. I welcome your question.
SPEAKER11 - Thank you.
KENNEDY- Don't see anyone having submitted a Oh, it's Fattman.
SPEAKER7 - Finger sorry.
FATTMAN - Colonel Notch, it's good to see you. Kate, you as well. I appreciate your presence in the state house. I believe you're doing a fantastic job, the both of you together, Batman and Robin. 1 thing you said stuck out to me. I wasn't gonna ask a question, but I had asked secretary Santiago about suicide, unfortunately. You mentioned that advice must be backed by research and data. And I had asked the question about tracking suicides amongst our national guardsmen and women and those who are current and those who have served. And I balance that with privacy and family's privacy. I know how difficult that is. Met some families along the way. I'm wondering if you could maybe just offer us some ideas because I think that this is a topic that we need to explore further. If we don't track our men and women who are committing suicide who served in the National Guard, I'm not sure how we're supposed to help prevent it. And I think you know that that's something I care a lot about, as we've had some discussions. And I know a lot of people up here care about that subject. So I don't wanna put you on the spot, and maybe it's a conversation for another5972 day, but I would like to try to start thinking about that and get it into the public consciousness as much as we possibly can.
NOTCH - Thank you, Senator. It's great to see you again. Yes. This is a very long conversation, but I do wanna highlight a few things. This country has spent hundreds of millions of dollars specifically on military and veteran suicide. I don't know that we've seen improvement using those numbers. Are we making an impact? Are we doing the right things? Those are the questions we're asking. And as you mentioned, data is 1 of the things that we wanna track down. It was not built into this year's budget, and it's potentially a future issue. But it's 1 of the things that we see as a force multiplier and being able to serve military and veteran families here in the Commonwealth.
Can we track the information that's spread across the 12 executive agents? Be 1 of those agencies as some form of program benefit or service for veterans. A lot of that information gets silenced. I think capturing that to get a better picture, 1 way to help us make decisions. The other part of this is, yes, recognizing that those are individuals. Individuals are making decisions. Sometimes, those decisions are impacted by mental health issues or other issues that we need to look at. What can we do to help the individual? How do we make an impact? Capture the data on that and look at what are those things that are specifically tied to an individual. The secretary mentioned the suicide mortality review board. That's 1 way of capturing it. Something that we've looked at.
Massachusetts has 1 of the lowest rates, at least for veterans, for suicide.6092 But right now, we don't have a good picture of what's happened in the last few years. The VA just released their study last week, which is a two-volume document, talks about suicide. We would love to be able to work with executive agencies, partner agencies, or offices, figure out ways to better capture the information that's happening. Our statute focuses on veterans and their families. The conversation that I've had with the adjutant general here as well is that we aren't don't have the statutory authority to work with military families, but those that are currently serving in the Garda Reserve may already qualify as veterans in Massachusetts. That's why we have a close working relationship with the National Guard. We wanna continue to work with those agencies, and I will find the information. In my opinion, working in the nonprofit space for the last several years, these are individual cases. What we do to help that individual change their life continues to remain with us. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
SPEAKER1 - Representative Holmes?
HOLMES - You for your service as well. My question is around the 3,300,000.0. I know you said some technology, office space, and more staff. I'm a preference this by saying we have, I believe, in COVID gotten away from personal contact. And so when you when I hear the, when I hear the secretary Santiago talk about advocacy and getting out of neighborhoods, with COVID, people just used to emailing and, you know, trying to get in touch with people, and that takes multiple iterations. I email you. You emailed me back, and I'm trying to figure this out. When I go to your website, there's no telephone number. Right?
And so we see what's happening at the federal level with Social Security and how many millions of people all of a sudden will have to go someplace. Potentially, we hope not, pray not, that that's actually ever gets executed. With your new situation, will I, a veteran, be able to call your office and talk to someone? Will a veteran be able to do to actually walk into your office and talk to someone? Because this whole we're6256 gonna live remote in the whole new world. Many of us, old folks, we still wanna be able to go into a place and see someone, talk to someone, call someone.6268 Will that be possible with $3,300,000?
NOTCH - Thank you, representative. Yeah. The short answer is yes. The longer answer specifically, we do not have a phone number out there because we don't have that capacity. Right? Again, I've been in the nonprofit space. My point is if you're gonna have a phone number, there better be a person answering the end of that phone. Don't have that capacity to do it right. The other part of this is that we're more of an oversight agency. We look strategically across all the agencies. We do have 1 specific responsibility that requires us to aid and coordinate with the veteran service officers and the communities, and we're doing that right now. We have 4 regional liaisons that are the face that roam within Western, Central, Northeast, and Southeast and visit each 1 of those veteran service agents on a regular basis to find out how are things going, what's working for you, what may not be working for you, how do we fix the system. We're trying to be careful of interjecting our office as a service provider because those agents are the service providers. And EOBs in some capacity.
HOLMES - You are not old enough to know that commercial. I think it was at the time, New England Bell or whatever, where the person got in the car and they drove way out onto the cape. Remember that commercial? Right? And they said let your fingers do the walking. Remember that? Do you remember that commercial? If you're gonna be the advocate, people have to be able to advocate, be you know, call you to advocate to you. I can tell you, Haywood Fennell, rep Tyler's constituent, he can advocate very well. And so, but he's gotten senior. Someone should be able to just pick up the phone and complain and not have to try to figure that out.
He can do it online. I got you on that 1. But, someone should be able to just pick up the phone. And so I understand right now your limitations, but I think we need to if we truly say we wanna serve people, they should be able to call us and get back to the way people have traditionally done business with the Commonwealth and not have to go through 3 or 4 iterations of finally talking to somebody. So I hope you get your money, and I've got your technology. I hope whatever you're doing with your technology, you get a phone and someone able to answer the phone is what I'm asking you to make sure you put into create a full item, phone call. That would be helpful. That's my recommendation. Thank you.
NOTCH - Thank you, representative. Yes.6429 And we know Hayward, too.
KENNEDY - Don't believe we have any additional questions. So, Colonel, thank you so much again for your service6439 to our country and to our Commonwealth now and your leadership with this office as the veteran advocate. Thank you. So at this point, we're gonna actually take a 10-minute break. I'm gonna ask all of my colleagues if you are parked in a space that is not necessarily a space you're supposed to be parked in. The parking lot has opened up with some of our students who have left for the day. So I'm gonna take a 10-minute break so nobody misses testimony that they're looking forward to hearing and certainly encourage folks to also, if you choose, grab some lunch. So we will gavel back in, to be clear, at 01:10.
SPEAKER22 - Revenue here.
SPEAKER25 - Hello?
TYLER - Alright. Wonderful. I'm sorry for the technical difficulties. Next, we're going to be inviting panel number 3, which consists of the Department of Transitional Assistance. We'll hear from commissioner Jeff McCue and also Rachel Goldstein, who happens to also be the chief financial officer. So welcome, Commissioner, Miss Goldstein, and we're happy to have you, and please share your testimony. Thank you.
JEFF MCCUE - DTA - You very much. Chair Kennedy and distinguished members of the Joint Committee on Ways and Means. My name is Jeff McCue, and I have the distinct honor of serving as the commissioner and leading the incredible team at the Department of Transitional Service and Transitional Assistance. As referenced, I am joined at the table today by our chief financial officer, Rachel Golston. PTA's main objective is to help low-income families and individuals transition from6646 poverty to a better life. We serve 1 in 6 people here in Massachusetts. 1 in 6. It's more than a million people who, without DTA and its program, would be wondering where their next meal is coming from or how they'd be able to pay their rent.
We support vulnerable residents in every community in the state, from Brockton to Belmont, from Wellesley to Worcester, and every municipality in between. The need for our services has never. Over the past 5 years, the SNAP caseload has increased by 40%. Our economic assistance program supports families and has seen a nearly 50% caseload increase. And the economic assistance programs that help older adults, people with disabilities, and children have seen a caseload increase of a whopping 7%. These numbers are striking. They represent real families facing real challenges. Our clients are single mothers, young fathers, people with disabilities, children, and working folks who have fallen on hard times. ETA remains focused and invested in disrupting poverty for the current population and for future and for future generations.
KENNEDY - Good time.
MCCUE- Excuse me. But we can't do this alone. We work closely with partner organizations throughout the Commonwealth, like the Worcester Community Action Council right down the road here in Worcester. The Worcester Community Action Council is a valuable SNAP Outreach provider, helping us to ensure that our services and benefit programs are accessible to all those in need. The work here in Worcester goes far beyond our partnership. The Worcester Community Action Council provides fuel assistance to families struggling with heating costs, a head start program for children, and free tax assistance for those in need. Through partnerships like these, we're creating comprehensive support systems that address multiple dimensions of poverty and provide pathways, real pathways, and economic mobility.
We are working so that children in our network today have opportunities to break the cycle of generational poverty. We have focused on targeted investments in our budget this year, including $700,000 to extend pregnancy support from just the last 3 months of pregnancy to the full pregnancy. This6807 targeted investment will help6809 families break the cycle of poverty. Important work6813 would not be possible without DTA's 1900 employees right across the Commonwealth. The empathy, expertise, and knowledge of our team are second to none. Thanks to your support through past budget actions, we've been able to bring on 300 new staff positions over the past year to support the state's most vulnerable residents. In addition to uplifting and empowering those who need it most, ETA is a significant economic driver, bringing in $2,700,000,000, federal dollars every year that is spent in every community across the state.
This money supports our farmers, business owners, and the people they employ. For every dollar in SNAP spent, we see a dollar and 54¢ in economic activity. This program is a substantial driver of our local economy. This fiscal year, DTA is focused on continuing our work to provide services that help our clients transition out of poverty. We hope to utilize new technology to streamline our work, support our staff, and enhance our clients' experiences. We will continue to administer our food and economic assistance programs with full integrity and with emphasis on protecting benefits from theft. At DTA, we know it all starts with food. Nutrition is a critical social determinant of health for all ages, from children to older adults. Our programs provide upstream support, lessening the strain on other agencies and services across our Commonwealth. We serve 1,100,000 SNAP recipients, of which nearly a quarter of are older adults. 28 percent of them have a disability, and about a third of them are children. While food security is fundamental, we know there is no better way to break the cycle of poverty than a good paying job. Our employment and training programs help connect our clients with opportunities to change their lives. Through our competitive, comprehensive, integrated employment program, we've helped nearly 700 clients secure jobs in the first half of this fiscal year with an average wage of $19.25 per hour.
We have focused on a 2 two-generational approach to our programs where we address both parents and children simultaneously. Recognizing their interconnected success is key to breaking poverty cycles across generations. We strengthen strength and support for parents 25 through the whole family approach to jobs, collaborating with the Department of Public Health to improve cross-sector coordination for young families who might otherwise fall through service gaps. ETA is always striving to improve how we deliver our services and to improve our clients' experience. We recently opened a second office in Box Boston's Jackson Square to complement our existing Nubian Square location as clients' needs continue to grow in the Boston area. We are also currently developing 1 DTA, an application that will streamline the actual benefits application process to access eligibility across all of our benefit programs. In the midst of all7038 this, we are facing an ever-evolving criminal enterprise that is targeting our clients and their much-needed assistance.
To combat this in the intermediate term, we recently developed a new card-locking feature that allows our clients to control when their EBT card is usable, thus protecting their benefits from theft by allowing them to lock it using our DTA Connect mobile application. We are also in the process of transitioning to a new EBT card system, which will come with enhanced security assist features, including plans to roll out tap-to-pay and chip-enabled EBT cards. We know there is still much work to be done, and your continued support makes it all possible. It is especially important that we as the Commonwealth continue to support families in poverty in light of strengthening attempts at the federal level to slash benefits and resources for vulnerable people, including SNAP, TANF, and Medicaid funds. I thank you for your time today, and I've been delighted to answer any questions. And this may have.
SPEAKER1 - Thank you, commissioner. Representative Higgins?
HIGGINS- Thank you, Commissioner. Sorry. I'm in the back row. I represent a Gateway City, the city of Leominster. And, 1, I just wanna thank you for for your highlighting of food and how important the Healthy Incentives program has been, getting fresh and healthy food to my community. 1 of the concerns I have is the proposal in this budget to roll back the cash assistance programs, the TFDC and the EAEDC funds. The state legislature has worked really hard kind of put in these increased grants in January of '21, July of '20 '1, and October of '22. And, we were we will see our families will see in just about a week an increase in their benefits for a family of 3 to $861 a month, still very shy of the deep poverty limit of $1,110 a month, and a single person for 441 a month. We work with constituents every day who are trying to make ends meet on these benefits, and it is impossible. Like, just absolutely impossible. If we can get them into public housing or some sort of subsidized housing, they might have a shot, but that means, like, there's little wiggle room for any kind of emergency. So I'm just wondering what the administration is doing to make sure that we can continue to provide these cash assistance benefits, especially with so much uncertainty around what other benefits could fall at the federal level.
MCCUE - Representative, thank you for your question. I wanna speak first to the benefit levels as it relates to our cash benefits to our TFDC, our EAEDC program. These are benefits that were increased by the legislature, by the administration during COVID and have seen some level. We have a scheduled issue reference, a scheduled increase to those benefits scheduled for the April issuance. Those are going forward, as you mentioned, in April. Our budget does call for a rollback of that 2% increase of July. This was a difficult decision to make in light of just the varied budget pressures that exist across the Commonwealth, across anywhere in terms of living within our fiscal means.
I would also acknowledge the fact, again, sincerely privileged to work in an administration that put a lot on the table with this 1. The benefits that support the same client in a noncash factor around lunch with the with the support of this of this legislature, expanded childcare opportunities, access to some discounted7291 utility activity of I don't think all of those things together will take the sting out of the fact that we are proposing 10% adjustment in a negative way. It was really a call made to live within budget means and to try to make a decision that was that would allow us to look at 1 specific area and not detract our capacity to be to move in a way where we could support people moving beyond poverty and to be able to promote some continuity around food security.
SPEAKER11 - Thank you, reverend.
SPEAKER22 - Senator Payano?
PAYANO - Thank you, Madam Chair. And, thank you, commissioner, for both of you coming down and presenting and for the incredible work that you guys do to serve individuals when they are not at the best time in their lives. It's such a needed, needed, needed service, I think. And I appreciate I know we met in Lawrence last week, and I had an opportunity to see the Lawrence office the last time I was there. I was a food stamp worker, and, facilities looked a whole lot newer and on point than when I was there. So, it's I'm sure folks like working there more than where they were before. You know, and 1 of the things that, throughout the conversation, that I thought was interesting was around sort of the microchips. And I'm wondering if you can talk to us more about what the barriers are to switching the system, you know, sort of like, you know, timeline, you know, what can we expect, to that? Like, what's the work that's gonna entail to get us to that point?
MCCUE- Senator, thank you for your question, and thank you for your recent visit to Lawrence. It was especially helpful to the team to have you out there and also for you to talk as your time as an alum. So it was really much appreciated. I want us to step back roughly a year ago at the opportunity to appear before this committee and which was talking about program integrity and program integrity challenges in PA. And at 1 point in time, I think I maybe just stopped just short of slamming my hand on the deck. As a statement of my indignation, those individuals who would steep stoop so low steal from the most vulnerable air in the car. That skimming continues today, specifically within this SNAP program where we thought certain federal advancements might take place in a more immediate way to be able to; in fact, we've seen just the opposite. Not only do we continue to have the same functioning strip on the EBT card that we're why do you highly vulnerable to skimming, but we also, in December, lost the capacity to be able to replace stolen benefits that were taken by us.
So that now puts us in a really difficult position from a DTA perspective,7523 but our clients in substantially difficult. I feel for them, and I wish that we had been able to do, but we aren't sitting on our laurels here. We have been engaged aggressively to do a couple of specific things that we're looking to7542 turn the tides from our end. 1 is7546 that we have established a lock unlock capacity from our DTA in that application, which now allows client to be able to lock and unlock their cards when they're not using them. Now provides an opportunity for somebody if they're in line at this at the supermarket to effectively unlock their card, use their card, and lock it right up again. So that's a capacity that we implemented on our own. We put in place. We saw the need, and we're continuing to try to educate clients in terms of utilizing that. We're in the process right now.
I appreciate the opportunity and the timing before this committee to talk about the fact that we are transitioning to a new EBT card vendor in April. You'll be receiving some information from our office flagging the fact that EBT services will be down for about 127606 hours toward the April and just wanna be able to market that. Would enlist your help if I could in terms of trying to reach out. We'll be doing communications ourselves, but I don't think you can do enough. So I, appreciate that notice of help on this 1. 1 of the things that this transition to an EBT card new EBT card will allow us to be able to ship to a new cap to pay and a chip card enabled EBT card under this new I'm pleased to be able to share with this group, and, again, I'm hopeful to enlist support. We've worked through the administration around this.
We have been we have been informed and it's been confirmed with us that in a supplemental budget, which will be coming to you before the end of this fiscal year, there will be monies in it that is specifically targeted and to enable our agency to be able to install chip card technology, such as the chip cards that you have, any of you may have on your credit cards, which will effectively be able to promote a higher level of protection for our clients. This chip card technology is not gonna happen concurrently with the transition in April. We need to be able to move to this new EBT vendor. We need to be able to stabilize services under this new EBT vendor. And then when we move to a chip card, we're going to effectively have to do a pass card replacement across our entire client base, which is well over a million people, and be able to make sure that we don't suffer any loss of continuity services. So, Senator, I can probably, in the coming months post EBT transition, get back to you and the committee with a specific time frame, but it's really important that we stage this in a way. The only thing that I can think of worse than not having chip cards in our future is rushing to them and putting them in place. What are the benefits we have in terms of where we stand right now? This issue of benefit theft is not unique to Massachusetts in any shape or form. The prevalence of this in places like New York, New Jersey, and across the country is outrageous, and we see it all over. California and Oklahoma are 2 states that are piloting the chip card technology. We are watching them closely. California ran into some early technical problems. You know, 1 of the benefits of not going first is that you have an opportunity to see trial and error from others paying close attention.
SPEAKER22 - Thank you. Vice chair? Yes.
SPEAKER1 - Co chair. Excuse me. Co chair.
SPEAKER8 - Vice chair.
TYLER- All those things. Yeah. Commissioner, thank you so much7798 for being here today. I know we spoke recently, and you were able to clarify a bunch7802 of things for me, but I still have some questions that I'd like to ask you. The first question is around federal performance standards, and I'd like to know how DTA plans to keep pace with the federal performance standards for payment error rates and timeliness to avoid federal penalties in FY 26.
MCCUE - Couple things, representative Tyler. I'll reference it. I'm not convinced of the performance standards that are in place today. The same performance standards will be in place tomorrow. A couple of folks in front of me have spoken about the federal landscape and where the rules have changed substantially. We're paying close attention relative to that. The biggest single step that we've taken with respect to managing the error rate and ensuring the error rate, we are in compliance with the federal7855 error rate. I should say we have taken. I think we took it in companionship with you. You afforded7861 us the ability to hire 300 people last year to bring on a number of folks who are getting better every single day. I visit all 21 of our offices pretty regularly and tell staff that the job is hot. It's difficult. The rules are complex. But I see people getting better every day relative to this. Our workers get better. We invest in pretty robust training. We're able to identify with analytics areas where errors are being made, and we're able to turn around and do some real strong, almost immediate continuous improvement, be able to identify staff who may have been making those errors and to work with them and their supervisors to address any recurrence around that. So I feel strongly that we're in a really good place in terms of moving forward.
TYLER - Thank you so much for that. I appreciate it, and I look forward to keeping in touch with you about that. And then, also, I'm just in the interest of time. I know we have a bunch of folks to ask questions, but just in the interest of time, please keep us in the loop on the 12-hour shutdown when it comes to April and the card switchover. 12 hours can mean a lot to folks who really need that resource. So, we're happy to use our platforms to help spread what we can do to try to address issues or any issues that may arise. So thank you.
MCCUE- Oh, Jared, just on the 12-hour piece, if I could get another commercial in, it we we do anticipate it to be about 12 hours. It will happen, likely toward 10 or 11:00 on the 20th of June, which is a Saturday night, and probably go forward until about noon on Sunday. The reality of this is that many of our clients, the majority of our clients, have utilized their benefits for the month well before that time. At the same time, we don't wanna leave anything to question. We're gonna be engaging with clients. We will be reached doing all kinds of outreach via paper, texting, and the. We're also gonna work heavily with our retailers who are obviously impacted by this but also can provide us the opportunity to post signage and help us to carry the belief no stone.
KENNEDY - Thank you. And as my co-chair mentioned, we do have several members who wish to ask questions. So I will ask everyone to keep your questions to 1, 2 at most if they're pressing. And hopefully, we can get back around, but we have 7 more panels, and we're well through the day. So, up next, we have rep Sabadosa.
SABADOSA - Hi, commissioner. I'm gonna stand so that I can see you as I ask the question. So I'm sure many of my colleagues join me in having experienced a great number of calls from constituents who are frustrated about not being able to reach DTA after they apply or they need to talk with a DTA worker. And it appears that the data shows about 50% of the calls that are trying to reach a worker are automatically disconnected because of the high volume and that those who do get through are waiting for about an hour. We know that it's really important to have that that 1 on 1 communication, and I appreciate all of the things that you've mentioned where you're really trying to improve outreach and communication. It doesn't seem to me, and please correct me if I'm wrong, that h 1 has any additional funding for you to increase your staff or to increase IT resources that might help with this enormous volume of callers that are not quite being served. And I was wondering if you could tell me specifically how many more workers we need. What additional resources do we need? What can we do to help you better serve our constituents?
MCCUE - Representative House 1 does not contemplate any additional staff but most importantly, fully funds the staff we have, along with recent collective bargaining8108 adjustments that have been put in place. We have secured a high number of people with your support. What's critical and incumbent upon me right now is to retain those folks, to grow those folks, and to be able to support those people in their performance. So, we will continue to do that. I will not be in any way representative, dismissive of what you're talking about. Access is a challenge for us right now. We are working hard to address that. I think with the number of stakeholders at the table, we've made modifications to our phone access to be able to eliminate or certainly mitigate the number of people that are online that are utilizing and using up their minutes on hold with us and being8156 able to do that. We've also recently taken some steps to increase our in-office presence for our workforce to be able to bring people back to work and be able to support the kind of presence and to be able to support folks around.
I mean, our offices are a bit tighter than they used to be mainly because, in many locations, we have taken on, some additional folks in our in our offices from MassHealth, Accessibility, Housing and Livable Communities, where we've looked to try to build some EHS type centers, certainly service centers around. Representative, if I might, the other piece, think that sometimes when folks look at our think that often the attention is given and caseworker. Account. Our case worker account, lifeblood. When8216 it at the end of the day, it all comes down to who works in8220 our agency, and they're excellent. However, I think there's often an opportunity. I'm somebody who goes back to about 45 years of state service. I think at times when people look at budgets, services, and programs, and they look at everything else, it goes into a bucket that people call admin. Our non caseworker account, old admin, includes our front end staff, our clerks, base of DTA, includes our hearing staff, includes our training staff, includes our program and, integrity and investigators, not just people like me. And it's really important. It also includes our technology, which we live and breathe and survive. Just ask that as the he reviews our budget and it's difficult decisions to make.
SPEAKER 1 -Thank you. Senator Miranda?
MIRANDA - How you doing, commissioner?
MCCUE- Okay. Thank you.
MIRANDA - Really excited about that new office, and my team was there to witness that. So thank you very much. The ETA office is pretty close, in 1 district. It just shows you how much need we actually have that you can take a bus ride with a few stops and DTA in Nubian Square and in Jackson Square both would be full Yeah. To the brim. I had multiple questions, but I'm gonna stick to 1. Gotta respect my friend here from Walter. 1 of them was8315 about the pilot program around the chips because theft of SNAP benefits is a real thing, and there is no money in the budget to see how to replace it. And so8325 many families are feeling very destitute once they lose the little bit of funds that they do get. They haven't been able to get them replaced. So really excited and thinking about that. And 1 was about the cuts that was another colleague, I think it was rep Higgins, already asked. I wanna talk about the cliff effect. And you probably can't talk about it at8344 length, but this is something that we get calls about a lot in our8348 office because it's when basically a household loses eligibility just for people that wanna know for public assistance once the income surpasses a certain threshold, and asset testing. In some cases, the value of a lost or reduced benefit can actually exceed what they're actually making in wages.
And you actually see people who will decide, sadly, to leave a place of employment because they know that they're gonna lose their SNAP benefits or their voucher for sometimes as little as 20-something dollars, or at least that's what they call us about. Do you have on average, how many families that you determine in the system become ineligible based on an increase of income or asset? Has the department really thought about how we actually address this? Because it could be the difference, you know, we live in the city of Boston, for example. And just because someone gets a job that pays them a dollar more doesn't mean that they can afford the rent that's in the city of Boston or childcare as it's the most expensive city to raise a child. And so I just had those that 2 part question around, do you have the data, how many people this impacts, and is there, like, a task force or a working group or something happening in the agency that we could work with?
MCCUE - Senator, thank you for your question. Out of respect for folks, I'll limit the amount of time I'll talk about the cliff effect, but I could talk about it for quite a while. It's something of great importance for us. It's pivotal in our effort to try to disrupt multigenerational poverty. This cliff effect is an issue that I hear about a lot from our stakeholders, from our client groups when I engage with clients and families themselves. But I also hear about it extensively from the retail community where they want they wanna offer somebody who's receiving benefits for additional hours of promotion, and that individual will step forward and say, I can't take it because it will have too much of a negative impact on my benefits. Yep. Which is working completely.
MIRANDA- I guess what you're trying to make happen.
MCCUE- One of the things that is really problematic for us is the fact that and this is I think, we hear this around SNAP the most. SNAP falls under USDA, has different eligibility rules, has different expectations, different requirements, verifications, and all. Most cash assistance programs fall under HHS. And, at the federal level, quite honestly, never the twain show. Yeah. And so there really isn't much of a meeting of the minds, Will, if the sun will work on this front. I had the privilege of being in this job from 02/2015 to 02/2019. Heard from members of the legislature who came to us with retailers. I heard from stakeholders and clients about our need to do something about the cliff effect. 1 of the things we put in place with the legislature's support is the extent to which individuals find a job on our caseload. We provide them with some transitional support services in terms of cap. It's now that provide a ramp for them. It doesn't do away with the cliff, Senator, but I think it smooths it out a little bit and maybe makes it a little bit more negotiable for the party. Currently, we're engaged pretty aggressively with the executive office of labor and workforce development, Comcore, and other entities where this administration is real. We need to get our heads around the cliff effect. And to the extent that the federal government can't come together on this, we need to be able to do it. So there is ongoing ongoing work a lot trying to address. The cliff effect came up strongly as we traveled the state with the poverty commissions.
MIRANDA - And I would love to continue the conversation. As the threats come from the federal government,8597 I'm really concerned. You see people that go into the training programs. They're getting, you know, maybe a new job in the clean energy field, which we want more diversity, more women. And then all of a sudden they're offered a salary that they've been dreaming of. And then they're like, these 3 cuts will be immediate to your food, to your childcare, and to your housing. And people are choosing not to further themselves in their lives and are8623 continuing in the cycle, and we can't keep having the conversation. So I'm really looking forward to, like, having meaningful change because this is gonna keep coming up. So thank you so much.
SPEAKER25 - Thank you, Senator.
SPEAKER1 - Thank you. Senator Comfor? Commissioner,
COMERFORD - Commissioner, thank you so much,h Senator. For your testimony and for your service. I'm really grateful. This question, probably unsurprising to you, is about the Healthy Incentives Programme. So as you know, Commissioner, the Healthy Incentives Programme was reduced on December 20, in December to $20 per month per household, regardless of household size. These cuts, as8669 you know, and I know you're grappling with this, have had pretty detrimental effects on the people who8675 need nutritious local food. And boy, your SNAP numbers are extraordinary. And they've had significantly detrimental effects on farmers who had come to rely on this, and so it was really a win-win kind of program. So, the governor's fiscal year 26 budget proposes $18,820,000 for the HIP program. And so my question is, how many families and at what benefit levels do you expect the funding proposed in H1 to support in fiscal year 26? And just so that my colleagues know for clarity, those who aren't tracking this, the previous benefit levels, it's now $20 regardless of family size. The previous benefit levels were $40 a month for 1 to 2-member households, $60 a month for 3 to 5-member households, and $80 a month for 6, plus member households. So again, the question is, how many families and at what benefit levels do you expect the funding proposed in H1 to support? And thank you for all you're doing around this issue.
MCCUE - Thank you. And I'm very much anticipating this question from somebody who's been such an active member of the caucus and systems discussion. But it's important, I think, to go back and talk a little bit about what happened this fiscal year and just, I referenced it earlier with Senator Miranda, the fact that I had the privilege of serving in this job from 2015 to 2019. I was commissioner when we brought the8778 healthy incentive program online. I saw firsthand the impact of the program, the opportunities it provided, and win win-win-win-win-win-win-win in the context of supporting farmers, supporting our clients, and getting healthy and nutrition food nutritional food to our clients.
Also addressing the fact it's a program that's used extensively by seniors, and it addresses things like isolationism of seniors in terms of getting folks out to their local farms. So I'm immensely supportive of the program as I am immensely impressed by our farmers here in Massachusetts. Work very, very hard, often with very, very slim profit margins at all. So I recognize that. In '25, the governor's budget included $25,000,000, which would have provided for the 40, 60, 80 thresholds that Senator Comifred referenced. We didn't do the legislature last year, and the final budget included $15,000,000 for HIP, which effectively put us on a course in December to do what we had in talking to our clients, in talking to our advocates, in talking to the farming community. We did what we believed to be the right thing and continue to believe to is the right thing.
We needed a program that would run continuously all year. Unfortunately, in December, that required us to run it all year round to effectively adopt a universal $20 per family per month. The $18,800,000 figure that is included in the governor's8894 budget would allow us to basically extend that benefit, looking at the utilization dates, you excuse me. Utilization stats as of before we change the threshold, which is roughly about 7% of clients, would allow us to be able to offer individuals and families $30 per month as a benefit going forward. It would not allow us to go back and revisit the thresholds from before. It would allow us to adopt a universal $30 threshold. $25,000,000 would be necessary for us, the $40.60, 80.
COMERFORD - Thank you so much for that clarification. It's good to know the target of 30,000,000 that the administration believes is necessary for that 18,000,000.8950 I will just say, you know,8952 I totally understand the legislature's responsibility here. But as you know, commissioner, we would have very much welcomed a conversation before the cuts, and we would have welcomed a deficiency supplemental budget so that we8966 could have tried to forestall them, as we do with so8970 many programs that face deficiencies. And I know you grapple with this. We grapple with this. So there's more to come here in this great conversation about the Healthy Incentives8978 Program, and we know you love it. And that's important, and we really appreciate that.
SPEAKER1 - Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Rapontenio?
MONTANO - Thank you, chair. Commissioner, hi. I wanted to say thank you for increasing the benefits for pregnant folks. I think that's a really important increase that we're making, $513 per person, I think. Do you have a number on the amount of folks that are served by this increase or how many folks are served in total? And then, just to piggyback off of what Rep Higgins had said, it is encouraging to see this increase but also concerning to know that we are gonna be losing around 30,000,000 in the next coming fiscal year for folks who are receiving benefits. And how do we plan to, I guess, make room for all of that, considering our housing crisis and what's happening to the economy?
KENNEDY- And, yes, that's the question. How many folks are9043 served, and then how are we planning9045 for the future of our fiscal health for low-income folks across the Commonwealth?
MCCUE - Can't I can't project how many of our our pregnant in the next year. But I can share with you the numbers that we projected our9062 dollar amount based upon our previous history. I wonder if I can get that to you and the committee, rather than trying to recall it and potentially quote, erroneous number. We did flag $700,000 as a cost item for this. We think this is a really, really smart investment to be able to promote healthy children, healthy families, and really promote the kind of sorry, once when somebody happens to be pregnant and supporting them through through their entire pregnancy. Thank you for9099 the question.
SPEAKER1 - Thank you. Representative Holmes?
HOLMES - Commission, how are you tonight?
MCCUE- Well, thank you.
HOLMES - I wanna go back to the question around loss. As you know, been in this fight for a long time with the e b EPT commission with rep O'Connell, now mayor O'Connell, and I when we did that many years ago. And the governor at that time said 3% loss was sufficient, and we went bananas in front of the9137 house. Do you have a number for what will what the loss is today or the amount that you think we're9147 losing in theft? As you mentioned, we a % agree that it is horrible that people literally steal money out of the mouths of babies. So you have you're saying you have the integrity unit. Do you have an amount that you think that is percentage-wise?
MCCUE - Representative, I can tell you that it goes up and down, and we're seeing some impact in terms of the lock unlock capacity relative to that. I would share with you that in terms of total SNAP benefits that we author over the course of a month, we do about a hundred and $25,000,000 total benefits dispersed. We've seen high watermarks in some cases of close to a million dollars. The rate goes.
HOLMES - Alright. And on the cliff effect question, 1 of the things we've been hamstrung on this, as you said, for9207 years on the federal part. But is the daycare voucher federal? I thought that was state. That's
MCCUE- We're able to continue to support and again work in strong partnership with early education and9222 care to be able9223 to provide some level of continuity around childcare vouchers depending upon the level of compensation somebody sees when they go into a job.
HOLMES - But that is fully under our9235 control, correct, with with the state?
MCCUE- Well, a lot of the early education and care costs are covered by the TANF federal grant, but at the same time, yes, it's we were able to exercise unique discretion here in the comp.
HOLMES - Because that is the place where folks also worry. I can't lose my voucher when I'm getting more money because then I can't afford daycare. Finally, let me just say the prioritization. I hear that we have so much in need. Is there a way to prioritize? I heard you say, and you must have heard me earlier asking about this telephone number and service. Is there a way to prioritize seniors? Again, there are so many folks with so much need. That telephone line obviously is important. But what all of these folks are asking is there are you, in your budget, having a way to prioritize these 300 people you've hired around, making sure we get back to seniors who are also in need?
MCCUE - Representative, that's a great question. So we have a specific dedicated senior assistance office. Now, that office is located in Holyoke, Massachusetts, but it has statewide phones. It's not9315 unique to Holyoke, but the staff themselves are housed there.9319 We often get our good news is our population of seniors here9327 in Commonwealth is growing. We also are seeing, unfortunately, a corresponding increase in receiving our benefits with seniors as well. So we're looking at different ways in which we can staff up that unit. We already share some of the calls on that out, with opportune without with other age without other offices across the state to be able to meet some of that need. But we are looking specifically at that, including the fact that we currently have defined the senior assistance office as supporting seniors as defined as 60 and9368 above, which is how the federal government, if a snap, defines seniors. I think what's gonna have to happen, represent is that we're gonna have to redefine what that bumper is and decide if we can continue to provide the kind of quality support of services to seniors while maintaining a threshold of 60.
SPEAKER22 - Thank you.
SPEAKER1 - Senator Dooner?
DOONER - Thank you, Madam Chair. Though I have a lot of questions, and I could keep you guys here all day, I won't. Just 1. I was dealing with a woman who chose to capitalize on Senator Miranda's point. She got a dollar 50 raise at her job, and she was losing her SNAP benefits over that and was advised to work less, to make less money, to keep her benefits. So I have similar concerns on the system not necessarily helping people work their way off. She was doing the right thing. She got a promotion at work but still had to feed her teenage son, and a dollar 50 raise at work wasn't gonna help feed her teenage son. And so, did you say that the general eligibility is set by the USDA? Is that correct?
MCCUE - That is correct.
DOONER - Okay. And is there no way for the9455 commonwealth to tailor those eligibility requirements to fit9459 the needs of our residents?
MCCUE - We would have to do that, settled up, by utilizing state dollars to operate a certain amount. It's a federal program. It's very rigid with respect to us. We don't enjoy the opportunity to employ a waiver or anything of that nature to be able to revisit eligibility.
DOONER - Right. I understand that. I'm just trying to find a way to help these people who are trying to get off the system because the system we have now is not helping them. So I just wanna try and find a way to get there. And if that's something that the legislature needs to handle on our end, if you guys could let us know. I just want to be able to help people like this mother who was doing all the right things and was advised to work less to keep her benefits. That shouldn't be the way. We should be working to help people get off the system, not the opposite. So if there is anything the legislature can do to help with that, to make sure that if somebody like that mother receives a raise at work, she's still gonna be able to feed her son. I just want you to let us know. Thank you.
MCCUE- Thank you. I'd very much appreciate that dialogue. We're in violent agreement. When somebody's doing the right things by themselves and their family, we should afford them the opportunity to pursue those aggressive.
KENNEDY - Thank you. Anybody else have any questions? Representative Kern?
KERANS - Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Commissioner. Oh, hi. Back here.9560 Really delighted to hear that. There'll be sub-budget money for the replacement of stolen benefits. I echo the sentiments and outrage of all of my colleagues that it is about the lowest you can go when you're stealing food, as rep Holmes said, from the mouths of babes. Can you talk just briefly about the replacement cost in the short term? And then I know you referenced the lock and unlock system, but that is different, if I understand it correctly, from the chip technology. Very much so. That we'll need. And what's the cost of that? Thank you. That's 1 question, madam chair. Just noting that. Thank you.
MCCUE - Representative, I do wanna just because I think certainly the words matter on this. The supplemental, which will be coming before this committee and will be coming back to the legislature, is about chip cards. It's really about giving us the funds necessary to install chips because, the benefit theft, replacing benefit thefts, and, again, I'm not trying to dismiss how important that is and how difficult that is on behalf of clients. Chip cards are a much more sustainable and permanent resolution relative to this, and I think that's absolutely the right way to9650 go. You're absolutely right,9652 representative, and I appreciate the dialogue9654 that we had last year at this hearing about benefit theft and how it's continued through this year. The lock unlock component is very, very different than the chip. It effectively affords the ability now for clients to go in and lock their cards, make them basically unassailable by any kind of criminal to be able to go in and
KERANS - So thank you for that, and thank you for pointing out you brought this to our attention 1 year ago. I know you've been working hard on it. I thank you for that. Look forward to continuing work on it till we restore lost stolen benefits. Thank you. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
SPEAKER11 - Thank you, Rachel.
SPEAKER22 - Thank you. Last call?
SPEAKER1 - Thank you, commissioner McDaniel.
SPEAKER25 - So much.
SPEAKER1 - Thank you, Rachel.
KENNEDY - Up next, we're gonna welcome the Department of Children and Families commissioner, Miller. Take the opportunity to say it's wonderful to welcome Commissioner Miller without the interim. And now, welcome David O'Callaghan to join. Sorry. We had you in a previous panel. He can't speak right. I can't wait for that 1.
STAVERNE MILLER - MASSACHUSETTS DEPARTMENT OF CHILDREN AND FAMILIES- Alright. Good afternoon, Senator Kennedy, rep Tyler, and members of the Joint Committee on Ways and Means. My name is Stavron Miller, and I'm the commissioner for the Department of Children and Families. And I'm excited to be here with you all today. I want to thank Governor Haley and Lieutenant Governor Driscoll for supporting a budget that allows us to maintain core services that support families so that they can remain together and be strong as a family unit. In this challenging time, the level of resources and support enabled by this budget will serve as a lifeline for families trying their best to take care of their children as best as they9793 can. I'm grateful for our strong partnership with all of you and your willingness to come to the table to resolve and make good decisions on behalf of families in the Commonwealth. Currently, we are serving 33,000 children and young adults. Of that, 80% of the children seen the ages of 0 and 17 are living with their family, and 20% are in some type of placement, foster care or congregate care setting.
The governor's 2026 fiscal budget funds the department at $1,500,000,000.The budget may maintain our ability to meet the unique needs of children and families that we serve. Before I get into the details of our budget, I just wanna give you a little bit about the federal budget and how that impacts our work. We received 32,440,000.00 in federal grant, which supports various programs that we have and salaries of 28 of our employees. We have 1 grant with the Massachusetts Office of Refugees and Immigrants, and this is an unaccompanied refugee minor program, and this may be at risk. And finally, we are working with EOHHS to assess and identify any potential losses to the 300,000,000 in federal reimbursement that the department generates from title 4 e, which is foster care adoption and guardianship assistance, and title 19 Medicaid, and the social services grant block. This budget allows us to continue to utilize case management strategies that have9904 safely reduced our cases by 19%. Since the start of this administration, we have been able to reduce our current average statewide caseload ratio to 13.6, which is below the 15.1 that we've negotiated with the bargaining unit. I'm grateful to our staff for the important work that they do on behalf of children and families across the state.
Our reduced caseload contributes to budget savings that are necessary to maintain critical services. 68% of the budget supports an array of services, such9943 as our out-of-home placements and our support and stabilization services. 28% covers salary-related expenses for social workers and other employees. 4% covers our administrative expenditures. We have been very successful in the last year in hiring and maintaining staff. The governor's budget provides approximately 20,400,000.0 to bring every office up to its targeted staffing level. Our targeted staffing level is 4,400 individuals. Specific budget items that speak to our priorities are the increase in foster parents' stipends, increase in chapter 7 66 residential school rates, growth and adoption and guardianship subsidies. As I mentioned earlier, we have been seeing a decline in overall DCF cases, and9999 the proposed 49,000,000 decrease aligns with our lower placement caseload projections, congregate care, and intensive foster care provider capacity. 8,000,000 decrease as a result of contract-specific savings. These initiatives will allow the agency to serve children and families more efficiently.
The governor's budget will help us to advance several department priorities. In April, we relaunched our support and stabilization services, a network with a new and expanded array of services. This budget also allows us to have our continued commitment to the 33 family resource centers, which service thousands of parents and children, both those individuals working with the department and those who are not. The governance budget supports our continued efforts to strengthen case practice related to our older youth who are turning 18 in foster care and remain eligible for DCF services until age 23. I'm happy to report that 77 percent of the kids in FY 24 either remained or returned to care. And as we continue to explore with them new strategies on encouraging more of them to have us help to support them into their young adulthood. Governor Haley's budget supports DCF to keep child safety front and center and10090 continue to expand preventive services that empower families to develop a skill set to safely care for their children and prevent the need for foster care. It has been my pleasure to present to you a budget that speaks to Governor Haley and Lieutenant Driscoll's vision for children and families and support for DCF's dedicated and hardworking staff. I look forward to your questions.
SPEAKER1 - Co chair Tyler.
TYLER - Commissioner, thank you so much for being here with us today, and thank you so much for your hard work. I know it does take a lot of work to make sure that you're hands-on in this field. So, again, thank you for all the work that you do. Quick question. The House Budget 1 includes 347,500,000.0 for child and family services. Will this funding also support foster care rate increases?
10147 SPEAKER2810147 -10147 Yes.10147 K.
SPEAKER2 - Thank you.
SPEAKER1 - Thank you. Ranking member Smola.
SMOLA - Commissioner, thank you very much for your for your testimony here today. Appreciate all10163 that you do and all that10164 your team does. We know that it's not an easy job, particularly in today's day and age, so thank you very much. I wanted to ask you a little bit about the DCF caseload. So, over the10174 course of recent years, as this committee has looked at challenges with the DCF, we know that you're working hard to tackle those challenges. Can you tell us a little bit about the DCF caseload, how that has changed over the course of the last few years, where it's at now, and what the hopes are in terms of caseload for the future?
MILLER - You know, I think that 15 to 1 is a nice number, and we know that the smaller the caseload is, it is also gonna allow us to spend more time with families, and do that dedicated time, really ensuring that they have the right services available to them. So right now, with our average around 13.5, I think it's reasonable. But I would say that the complexities of the children that the workers are working with is a challenge for us. And that's the part of the work that I think we'll continue to focus on.
SMOLA - Expect it. What is the prime goal for caseload in terms of, I mean, I know the more casework workers, you know, the better, the smaller that load is. But is there a target in comparison to where we are and where we would like to be, or are we this10247 is the place that we should be more happy we're there.
MILLER - I would say that my staff is gonna ask10253 me to say that we're not happy where10255 we are. And10257 I think for the people that we serve, we're not happy where we are. Right? I think that if there was a magic pot and we had enough money to make it, you know, 8 to 10, we know that a smaller caseload like that would be, you know, fantastic. Right? Because right now, we ask10276 social workers to go out and see families at a minimum, you know,10280 of once a month and oftentimes are having to spend more time and with a smaller caseload that would allow them to do that type of work. But what we're managing is that we said that the expected caseload is 15 to 1. So, having our caseloads anything below that number is gonna be much more manageable. I think we've also put in a lot of support to help manage the work that the social workers are doing even with the 15:1 case low ratio. So placement challenges as they, you know, decrease and we're able to manage that, I think we'll be in a better place.
SPEAKER1 - Thank you. Senator Miranda?
MIRANDA - Thank you, Commissioner. Thank you for meeting with me a few I think a few months ago, a few weeks ago, regarding the Department of Children and Families because we have so many young people in my district and families impacted, and you have a couple facilities, that are pretty robust in the district. I have 2 quick questions. 1 is around10351 the racial impact analysis. The DCF recently implemented a program aimed at reducing racial disparities and outcomes for families of color that interact with the system, which includes a racial impact analysis on any new policy before it takes effect. We would just love to hear an update on that. I don't know if it's too soon for that, and10375 has the analysis, like, meaningfully impacted the organization and have there been any changes? I think this is really connected. If folks are not black and brown, you may not know that, you know,10387 incidences of interaction between black and brown children and families sometimes have a disparate result in comparison to families that might be a more wealthier communities or of different races. And so I was really looking forward to some of this data or information. And the second question is also about caseload, and I just wanna upload it with some information.
There's been a large increase in caseworkers that have actually exited DCF post-pandemic. We've seen that across the board, and a lot of agencies that need a lot of hard work, and around 300 of them left last year, left per year in the years leading up to the pandemic. In 2022 and 2023, respectively, 413 and 410 left. I mean, this is data that I got, so I don't know if it's correct, but I pretty I'm pretty sure, respectively, which is like an increase of about 40%, sort of like double the amount of people leaving10446 each year. With staffing shortages10448 and higher turnover, what is the actual impact on reunification? We talked a lot about this, how the ultimate goal is to make sure kids get back with their families. But even the 15 to 1 or even if it's higher, if people are leaving, the pressures then on the other staff who remain. How is that impacting our ultimate goal? So the race analysis and then the sort of staff shortages in connection with how it's impacting your ultimate goal, which is that kids are in safe, healthy homes with their families.
MILLER - So I'm gonna say that we probably met a couple of months ago. I think I'm not prepared to answer that question fully and in the way I would like to around the analysis around race and ethnicity and the impact. What I will say is that we have seen some improvements already. And so, maybe after this, I could give you all a better picture of it because I wanna be accurate. But what else just say from my general memory is that, you know, we've seen10510 a decline in the number of children of color who in our efforts10515 to make sure that kids are placed with Ken, that we've seen a decrease, increase in the10521 number of children of color placed with their family members. Right. And so I think just those types of efforts that we've made to be committed to 1 child being at home first. And that's why our support and stabilization is so important because what we want to do is see that 80 percent be, you know, closer to 90 percent if that can safely happen for our family.
And what we've also known is that when we're able to place can kids it with Ken and keep them in their communities, they are stabilized more quickly because they can stay with their friends in school. They know their aunt, they10559 know their uncle. Those kinds of things can help them to transition home sooner. I think 1 of the things that we really want to do is to do more community campaigns because families are brought10573 to our attention. And so, we want the community to understand the impact of making the determination of a child. They see a child who is being abused or neglected and determine whether there are other ways of supporting those families. So it's 1 of the things that we've been exploring is potentially something similar to our 211 line, which is more of a warm line where families and the community can call that line to get information on services that are available.
We've also been doing a lot of work across the secretariat to really talk about, you know, crossover youth and families and how we can support them together and ensure that families have the things that they need and they're not negatively impacted by any type of discrimination. We've also done a lot of work within our organization to offer training for our staff around bias and understanding the families that they serve. I think we've over the years, I've been, as many of you know, here for a long time. And I think the makeup of our staff reflects the community. And I think that the conversations that people are able to have, around10655 who we are serving as very, you know, powerful and impactful to the10661 work that we do. So whether we're talking about the fact that we have a director for LGBTQ, who can talk about, those kids that we're servicing or we are, you know, having conversations with our ERGs, and they're really having conversations about the families and about the conversations about the person sitting next to you.
SPEAKER6 - Thank you.
SPEAKER1 - Thank you. Senator Comerford?
COMERFORD - Thank you, Chair. And thank you, commissioner, for this testimony and for your work and the work of your team. So, DCF stopped withholding survivor benefits for foster children in January 2024. And thank you for ending this practice. I'm hoping that you can provide an update on DCF's work to create bank accounts for foster children to save these benefits for their use when they transition to adulthood. And I just want you to, if you can, confirm that this change is accounted for in the governor's fiscal year 26 budget, meaning it's paid for, the loss of this revenue?
MILLER- Yes. So it is paid for, and so we've been able to do that. And I wanna turn to David because I'm probably gonna mess up the amount. He could just tell us how much we've10744 already been able to save.
DAVID O'CALLAGHAN - MASSACHUSETTS DEPARTMENT OF CHILDREN AND FAMILIES - As far we've opened it.
COMERFORD - Yeah. If you could just you have to get up really light and nice and close.
O'CALLAGHAN - So, year to date, we've opened over 400 ABLE accounts. ABLE stands for achieving a better life. Accounts that let us save the benefits for children help them count again. That's approximately $2,300,000. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
SPEAKER26 - A couple of them, please. Still gotta
SPEAKER1 - have it right here.
SPEAKER11 - Just pull it back. Let's get it back.
O'CALLAGHAN - Alright. I'm gonna say it 1 more time. Is that better?
SPEAKER11 - Yes.
O'CALLAGHAN - Thank you. So, Yearday, we've saved10791 we've opened over 40010793 ABLE accounts, which stands for achieving a better life experience. Those accounts enable us to save Social Security benefits for children without them counting10803 against their asset limit, which is around $2,000. So they remain eligible for these benefits. It's approximately $2,300,000 that we've saved for kids, our children so far within those accounts across all 430.
COMERFORD - And the amount accounted for in this budget is
O'CALLAGHAN - Say it again.
COMERFORD - The amount accounted for in the fiscal year 26 budget is So You're not accounting for that revenue.
O'CALLAGHAN - Correct. Correct. We've, yes. We've stopped. We did not include that revenue in our fiscal 26 budget going forward. So
COMERFORD - I just wanna thank you for doing this. This was a Healy Driscoll administration fix at the Department of Children and Families, and it was good and right. And I know lots of people are cheering that this has happened. And thank you.
MILLER - Thank you. And thank you for supporting us. We're very proud of it and spend a lot of time talking to our partners10862 across the country about how we've done this, and there's a lot of interest in the work that we've done here around this. So thank you.
SPEAKER1 - K. Representative Holmes?
HOLMES- I shoulda, I, thank you for all your work. To the rep's question about the 15 to 1 and 13.6, I just wanna make sure I'm hearing what I think I heard. They're on the line. The 15.1 was negotiated some years ago. That's what we had to do for contracts. Right?
MILLER - Yes.
HOLMES - And that's that's why we're working for the 15.1 1510895 to 1. The real number you would10897 rather have is 10 to 1. That's about what I heard you say. Right?
MILLER - Yeah. That would10901 be great.
HOLMES- Alright. So just wanna make sure we say it that way because 15.1 was what we negotiated to get to.
MILLER - Yes.
HOLMES - Alright. The question I have is about the caseload. I just believe that with COVID-19, I have seen10919 our children go through an10921 awful lot. And I believe that, in so many ways, folks are just hiding to make sure they stay away from DCF. And so I think it10931 would be very important. How do I know that? Because I'm 1 of those uncles and aunts that you were just talking about that had my 16-year-old niece. And I think people just got very educated to make sure they don't get the phone call to DCF. So your your, efforts around, advertising, as you said, and making sure everyone knows, knows to contact you. I don't know if I lost myself here. But I think we10964 need to just do a lot of activity around marketing because of the fact or making10968 sure everyone still knows to to not10970 just to put in on mandatory reporters. Can you talk through it? Now, my niece is 18. And so have we're10979 back in the same challenge and, obviously, trying to figure out the 18 to 23. Can you talk through how you qualify? And then, how do we make sure we keep as many of them? I feel like 18 to 23 is, again, that clip effect that we were just talking about with assets. We don't wanna lose them when they turn 18. So can you just kinda talk about what we're doing to make sure we get all of them their resources that they can for those years as well?
MILLER - Yeah. I think we have to change the way that we talk to young people. You know, there's a lot of stigma attached to being involved with the department. And so we really took an approach of talking to them about how11024 do we support you into young into adulthood. Right? And helping to not to use language like signing yourself in like that doesn't sound very inviting, and helping them to understand the benefits that are available to them. And we have, you know, a team of folks called young adult services, and those folks are available to support11047 the social worker around reaching out to the11051 young people, helping them to know what scholarships are available to them, and giving them some training around fiscal literacy. Also, talking to them about, you know, job opportunities, vocational opportunities. And so we've been spending a lot of time11065 on that and just even talking about the paperwork that we11069 used to prefer young people to sign up and agree to it, changing those methods, I think, have really been helpful. And kids can come back, and we can have a conversation with them. I think we had to change the minds of our staff for them to understand why we feel like this is important. You know, I have a big concern about being a part of kids being homeless. That's not something I wanna be associated with. I don't wanna be associated with comments that have been made about kids going to prison. I really wanna be a part of the story that tells the successes because we have lots of them every year in June. We're celebrating them in every region. And we have lots of kids who are on 4-year scholarships and all kinds of colleges across the country, and they're doing great things. And we want people to know about that.
KENNEDY- Thank you. Anyone else? Great. Thank you so much. Alright.
MILLER - Thank you so much. Have a good day.
TYLER- Next, we're11139 gonna invite panel number 5, which is the Department of Developmental Services. We're gonna hear from Commissioner Sarah Peterson as well as Dylan Latimore, the chief financial officer. Thank you so much.
SARAH PETERSON - DEPARTMENT OF DEVELOPMENT SERVICES - Good afternoon, Chairs Kennedy and Tyler and members of the joint committee on ways and means. My name is Sarah Peterson, and I'm proud to serve as the acting commissioner of the Department of Developmental Services. I'm honored that Governor Healy and Secretary Walsh asked me to step into this. As was mentioned, I'm joined today by my chief financial officer, Dylan Latimore. I wanted to say I'm also really grateful for the warm welcome that I have received from members of the legislature since stepping into this role in September. I've met with partners across state government, including some of you. And it's clear to me that there's a strong commitment to providing improved opportunities for individuals with disabilities to be fully integrated and thriving members of their communities. It's my pleasure to provide you testimony on behalf of DDS, which currently serves over 49,000 children and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities, autism spectrum disorder, and acquired brain injuries across11230 the Commonwealth.
This year's proposed $3,289,000,000 budget reflects the Haley Driscoll administration's11238 commitment to those individuals and their families and in support of DVS's mission. House 1 prioritizes investments in high-impact areas while also identifying opportunities for savings wherever possible. Each year, the number of individuals and families we serve continues to grow, and we must evolve and expand to meet their diverse needs. We anticipate that our service population will grow by approximately 3% in FY 26. In the past 6 months, I've made it my priority to get out and meet DDS staff, the individuals we support, and their families and to visit the programs that DDS operates and funds. I've been blown away by what I've seen, and I'm so proud of11287 the hard work and commitment of our staff.
Recent news coming out of Washington has left many of us concerned about11295 how changes at the federal level could impact services for people with disabilities here in Massachusetts. I want you to know that we are closely monitoring the situation with frequent communication with my counterparts around the country and in close collaboration with EOHHS, MassHealth, and our provider networks. Our main priority is monitoring potential cuts to the Medicaid program. Cuts to Medicaid and SNAP would have a devastating impact on people with disabilities, and DDS also generates over $1,000,000,000 in Medicaid revenue each year. Changes to immigration policy, such as the elimination of temporary protected status, would also have a significant impact on the DDS workforce. In FY 26, DDS plans to continue several key initiatives aimed at improving how we ensure equitable, transparent, and consistent services for our diverse population. Addressing workforce shortages remains a top priority, and the largest investment in house 1 is the annualization of $388,000,000 in chapter 2 57 rate increases, which provided 20% increases across DDS residential programs and supports minimum salaries of $20 per hour for direct care professionals and also more competitive salaries for nursing and clinical positions. We've seen data to support that this investment, on behalf of all of you, is paying off in terms of staff vacancies, and we wanna keep that momentum going. DDS is also focused on addressing challenges with access to day programming.
While we continue to see progress in this area with steadily increasing program capacity over the previous 2 years, there's more work that we can do. DDS is currently developing a policy to fund startup costs for new day program sites and is seeking language in the FY 26 budget to issue grants for the development of new day programs. House 1 also provides $207,000,000 for the Chapter 2 57 reserve, which will support additional rate increases for DDS day and employment programs in FY 26. In order to sustain these important investments, DDS must identify opportunities for cost savings. Going into FY 26, DDS is reevaluating the utilization of residential bed capacity across our system. We have a goal of more efficiently utilizing existing capacity and updating policies to11458 create incentives for new referrals to be accepted more rapidly. However, I do wanna be clear11464 that DDS is still engaged in new residential program development. House 1 provides for a hundred and $16,000,00011472 for the FY 25 and '26 turning 22 classes and $26,000,000 for individuals with acquired brain injuries, which DDS will leverage to open new homes and to transition individuals out of nursing facilities.
Each year, the Turning 22 program supports an increasing class of individuals, with the FY 26 class anticipated to be over 1,500. In addition to the increased enrollments, we've also seen an expansion in the number of individuals with a diagnosis of autism and increased acuity across the board. The department continues to assess the scope and effectiveness of its engagement with the autism population across the Commonwealth. The Governor's House 1 proposal increases the adult autism line by 20 percent to support the significant expansion in the number of eligible individuals. Growth for this population continues to be rapid. And this year alone, the number of eligible autistic adults increased by 15 percent. DDS also remains committed to supporting the changing needs of individuals and their families as they age. DDS has a unique role in that we support individuals for their whole lives. Starting in f y 23, DDS focused efforts on improving support for our older caregivers, as well as providing service models that recognize the changing needs of DDS individuals as they age. DDS convened an older caregiver advisory group to develop a work plan to address the unique needs of this population.
And we're working with key partners like the Executive Office on Aging and Independence to implement needed training, services, and support statewide. The House 1 budget invests $44,000,000 in these continued efforts. DDS's Technology Forward initiative is dedicated to using assistive technology to empower individuals to achieve greater independence, self-sufficiency, and access to their communities. Remote support and monitoring offer innovative solutions to care, which provide opportunities for individuals to be less reliant on staff. The11610 department provides a number of family support11612 services, including respite services, which are a lifeline for families whose loved 1 with a disability lives at home. DDS's 52 family support centers, including culturally and linguistically diverse family support centers, were utilized by more than 21,000 families this year. Respite services continue to be a significant need for families, and the House 1 budget annualizes funding to maintain new programs developed in recent years using ARPA funds, including weekend11645 and family group programs, overnight stays at hotels, and 24/7 respite sites.11651 With11653 the trends that we're seeing in terms of the complexities11655 of the individuals that we support, coupled with our commitment to support folks throughout their lifespan, it is more important than ever that we approach our work in a way that provides a more consistent, transparent, and equitable experience for all. Last year, DDS procured a new assessment tool, the supports intensity scale adult version or CISA, to better assess the support needs of individuals with a focus on their abilities and goals as opposed to their diagnoses.
The rollout of this new tool really reflects a major systems change and cultural shift for the department, and I've heard from family member participants and staff respondents alike that their experience had been incredibly positive and eye-opening. Some family members have gone so far as to say that they learned new things about their loved 1 through their participation in the assessment. I recently met with the team doing this work, and their excitement and commitment to improving the lives of individuals through an in-depth understanding of their goals and abilities were palpable. Under the leadership of Secretary Walsh, health equity has been11725 identified as a core strategic planning and operating principle in the work we do. Last year,11731 DDS partnered with Mathematica, a data and analytics consultant, to complete a health equity review of DDS.
The review focused on service awareness and enrollment, assessment and authorization of services, existing provider networks, and the design and provision of Medicaid home and community-based services. EDS is currently reviewing those recommendations with an eye toward identifying both short and long-term goals to begin improving11762 our approach to health equity more11764 broadly. Finally, I wanna take a moment to highlight an initiative that I'm very proud of, which touches upon a number of the issues already addressed, including workforce, cross-agency collaborations, and the culture at DDS. This year, DDS partnered with the Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development to create a new arrival direct care internship program designed to provide11790 recent immigrants and refugees with hands-on paid experience and direct care roles at DDS facilities. The program was first implemented as a pilot in which 9 Haitian refugees completed a 15-week program, which included training in individual support, compassionate communication, and essential care skills, fostering both personal and professional growth. The program was a huge success, resulting in all 9 of the interns being hired permanently. This collaboration is just 1 tool towards addressing the ongoing need to attract talent to the direct care workforce and has breathed new life into the workplace culture at the facility. I look forward to the year ahead and to the Department of Developmental Services' continued ability to support those individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities aging into our adult system and those families and children requiring additional support. Fulfilling the diverse needs of our service population makes our Commonwealth stronger, and I appreciate the legislature's support of our mission. Thank you. I'd be happy to take any questions.
KENNEDY - Thank you, Commissioner. I'll jump in first. And I wanna thank you for elevating and pointing to the benefit that immigrants have to our economy and our workforce. We know across industries, human services field. And just to put a fine point on it, in recent months, I visited a program where 5411880 employees at residential homes help keep individuals in their community with the right support. 54 employees are on TPS status, that has now gone our way or will shortly, expire or go away. So, thank you. And I appreciate your efforts to help build up our workforce. Can you speak a little bit about it, more specifically in detail? I know there's about a 13% increase in the DDS budget overall. Can you speak about where that increase is going, particularly to? I think they're really important, and thank you for highlighting turning 22. Also, specifically, thank you for your efforts around dayhab. We know to our community members that's such a huge, important program. But can you talk about where that increase is going and then where some of the cuts may be in the autism division11924 as well as some of your plans on consolidating some of the group homes?
11928 PETERSON11928 -11928 Sure.11928 Absolutely. Thank you, Senator. So a large portion of the increases are related to nondiscretionary spending. Those are the chapter 257 rate increases. They are also related to collective bargaining agreements. And so that is, you know, 388,000,000 is chapter 257 annualization. And then we have a hundred and 16,000,000 that's turning 22 annualization as well as some new turning 22 services. We also, are are investing some of our own funds in some of the areas where we used ARPA funds over the past couple of years because they're going away, namely in assistive technology and respite services. There's $5,000,000 that's going to that. And then we have case load adjustments. So we'll have about $44,000,000 related to changing need, and that's11980 just based on the growth of our population and what11984 we need to, continue11986 to serve those folks. In terms of savings, you know, it was really, I think, the most important to us that we try to figure out some creative solutions where we were not going to be cutting services, especially to our most vulnerable population.
And so, in terms of the residential home consolidation, what we did is we just took a wide look at our whole system and where there might be areas where we could be more efficient. We discovered that there were a number of places where there had been vacancies, where there hadn't been new referrals accepted, etcetera. And so we asked our areas and regions to just take a close look and see if there were ways that we could shift things around so that people wouldn't lose services, but we could more efficiently use our existing capacity. It's12038 sort of a 1 time right-sizing of our existing capacity so that we can be really intentional about how12044 we move forward for growth because we do have a need for growth. We have increasing classes each year coming into our system through the turning 22 process. We have obligations in terms of moving people out of nursing facilities and out of more restrictive settings into community placements. And so we do need to be really intentional about how we grow there. And, in terms of turning 22, really, that is reflective of a change that we made a few years ago.
We restructured our account in FY22 to fund the first 2 years of eligibility instead of 1. And now that12088 we've had a couple of years and are looking at the data and how things have kind of played out, that second-year class, when they're coming into the class, they might be aging in January, but they might be aging in December. So not everyone is gonna receive a full menu of services on January 1. And so we've kind of used that data to project out more accurately what we need in order to serve the turning 22 classes. So we think that the previous methodology overstated that need and that we will be able to fully serve the turning 22 class with this reduced number. And that's the same issue with the realignment of the children's autism account that you referenced. That that account really hasn't historically been aligned with spending. And we have a full staff on board now, and we just had, an open interest period where we anticipate that our waiver enrollments will, grow by a 38 for this coming year, but we do think that12149 there's enough in that, proposed budget in order to meet the needs of those individuals.
KENNEDY - Great. Thank you. Go to Tyler.
TYLER - Thank you again, Commissioner, for showing up today. We appreciate it. 2 questions. The first 1 is around the house 1 budget, and I'm just wondering if it adequately funds your department for all of its projects and initiatives coming up in FY 26. And the second question I'm sure you can answer is how has a caseload fluctuation around the program turning '22 affected your agency's operations, if any at all?
PETERSON - So we do believe that the proposed house 1 budget would be12191 able to meet the needs of our12193 service population. We have taken a really close look, just like12197 anybody does when they need to balance their budget, of where there are places where we could make adjustments without feeling significant12205 pain in terms of operations. And we think we've identified those areas where we would be able to do that. In terms of our caseloads, we have different caseloads for different types of service coordinators. And in terms of our transition service coordinators, I don't have the number offhand, but I believe that their caseload, so we have, a traditional adult, intellectual disability caseworkers have a caseload, on average of 62. Our ASD or autism service coordinators have a caseload of about 80. And then we also have transition and children's service coordinators. I don't have the numbers off hand, but I'd be happy to follow up with your office to provide them to you. During that transition period, usually, that's from the age of 16 to 22. We have kind of an all-hands-on-deck approach where we partner with the school system. We partner with our area offices, and it's not just the service coordinator kind of out there on their own in terms of preparing for that transition. But the steady growth in those numbers has allowed us to plan for it. It's not like we are just seeing a sudden blip in the numbers. Over time, we've just seen that number gradually go up, and it's allowed us to prepare and hire for those caseworkers that we know we know we're going to need.
TYLER - Thank you. I definitely appreciate the follow-up on that number.
PETERSON - Absolutely. Thank you. Rep.
DIGGS - Just a statement. You know, it's great to see your work ethic that you're doing because you can see the various people coming and going to work,12311 and seeing them helping themselves and giving themselves confidence, but also helping and really being part of the community. It's, you know, the work you can see the work that's happening, and it's truly, it makes you smile and, like, we're doing something you're doing something right. So thank you. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
SPEAKER22 - Thank you so much, Rob.
SPEAKER1 - Thank you. Senator Miranda?
MIRANDA - Thank god for Teams. I'm sorry. I don't mean Teams, Microsoft Teams, but Teams who help you put questions together. So, shout out to them. I came very12350 prepared today. Thank you, commissioner, and everyone who's here.12354 I had a question about age 22 being the cutoff for funding regarding profoundly autistic individuals. We've heard about a lot of situations where children are cut off from services when they turn 22, despite the age being arbitrary, really, in the progression of the services required by them and their families. In fact,12379 what we hear is that as profoundly autistic children grow up, they actually, at times, sometimes require more care. Has there been a conversation at the agency about that? I know we're talking about budget today, but sometimes the policies that we have in our agencies end up costing us a lot more, particularly if they're people who are not getting the adequate services that we're budgeting for.
PETERSON - Thank you, Senator. Yes. The age drop-off that you're talking about there is really when a student goes from having their entitlement services through their local educational authority transitioning into our adult system. So it's not12422 so much of them no longer receiving services from12426 DDS. It's that the whole system that12428 they're working within and their families12430 have been accustomed to for their first 22 years of their life12434 is changing to the adult service system. We've been doing a lot of work around this issue, and, you know, particularly with your point regarding folks with profound autism.12446 We're seeing increased acuity across the board, and so we've made a number of changes over the past year, both internally and trying to come up with some creative solutions for those folks so that they don't wind up in places like an emergency12459 department or, arrested, you know, if there's a behavioral incident. 1 of those things is that we have built up our own clinical bench.
So we, in the past, I think it's about a year, maybe a little bit more, we onboarded a medical director, a new director of health services, a medical ethicist, as well as 2 senior-level psychologists to support the central office. We're about to onboard our third of those senior psychologist positions. And that really provides our area office staff the opportunity to have clinical support in a way that they didn't before because the complexities of the cases that they're dealing with are really challenging to navigate. Then those clinical folks within the department are able to help12508 kind of navigate some of that transition with the area office staff, working with the local education authority, local hospitals, you know, our other EOHHS, sister agencies to try to make that transition as smooth as possible. We also, just in the last 6 weeks, put out a new RFR for our most clinically based residential program yet.
It's the highest rate that we've ever paid. It's higher than our most medically complex home. And that requires that the residential providers have a certain level of clinical support within the homes staffed by clinicians as well as clinical oversight. And we're really hoping that those program capacities will help us keep people out of more acute settings like an emergency department. In addition to that, we've also built up some of our stabilization and evaluation units to be able to kind of provide that segue between a more acute inpatient setting and a residential program. But the piece that you're talking about is something that I don't think that there's a day that goes by that I don't have conversations about that particular issue because we're seeing the same thing, and the numbers are showing us that that trend is going to continue.
MIRANDA - And I think 1 of the most important points that you mentioned is it's leading to also huge disparities in incarceration, particularly when you look at, black males, young black males that you see a lot of times when they're incarcerated, if you actually go in through their files, they've usually been interacting with state systems. You know, we talk a lot about the school-to-prison pipeline, but really it's like DYS, DCF, DDS, to the prisons. We don't want that to happen. And I'll actually give the mic yield the mic because I have a couple of other questions, but I could just email you.
SPEAKER1 - K. Thank you, Senator. Thank you, senators. Senator Tomaker?
COMERFORD- Thank you so much, Commissioner. And I just wanna say thank you also for the staff that you have in Western Massachusetts and Chris Klaskin, who's over there. He is really quite adept at fielding legislator concerns and working the problem until there's a solution. So I'm grateful for both the Western Mass team and your legislative staff. And I'm gonna believe that the funding is adequate for the Turning 22 program. I have to say that that is the greatest pain point in my district. Hands down. No question. That leap to 22, and the services that families are offered in Western Mass has has really been challenging. And again, this is not a measure of your staff. I think it's been a measure of resources. So I appreciate the focus on it. I do12686 hope that any cost savings are able to be born as you try to improve those services. We've had a12694 number of very, very dire situations in Western Massachusetts. I'm sure you're aware of them, and I'm12702 glad for your focus. My question is on the group home consolidation. So if I'm accurate, it's about a $19,000,000 expected cut to the budget. And so I'm wondering how you'll achieve these savings, and, you know, for example, how many folks will be moved in their residences, and then what impact will this have on the wait list for home placement, which I understand is12734 quite large?
PETERSON - Thank you, Senator. So I do have the numbers of individuals by region, and I don't have it in front of me, but I can follow up with your office with those numbers. What we've looked at in terms of capacity and ability to consolidate are primarily homes, where there were already existing vacancies, as well as changing our policy so that we no longer pay for extended vacancies. I'm not talking about short-term absences. I'm talking about months, months and months long, vacancies in homes that, are not being filled, and we need to, you know, make sure that we're getting value for, for what we're paying for those services. I believe that that overall, the number of individuals who would be subject to move was well under a hundred. But as I said, I can get you that, and I can get it specific to your region as well.
COMERFORD - I bet everybody would love to see that data, Yep. Because12800 I'm sure we're gonna be hearing concerns from constituents in Western Massachusetts, where the drive times are12806 so much longer. Yes. I, you know, I do worry about visitation.
PETERSON - Yep. Absolutely. And we've been very mindful of that as we take an overall look. We're trying not to have any disproportionate impact on any 1 region or area or provider. We wanna really want to make sure that it's spread out as much as it can be.12827 And we're, you know, trying to kind of push12831 out as much communication as we12833 can so that people aren't surprised by12835 it. So we're working really hard on that piece because, you know, we do think that it is a way for us to achieve cost savings, as I said, without eliminating services for those folks. And so, you know, we hope that that it will be met with, you know, an understanding of the of the budgetary constraints that we're under and the need12857 to kind of make those tough decisions. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
12859 SPEAKER812859 -12859 Thank12859 you. Thank you very much.
SPEAKER22 - Thank you.
SPEAKER1 - I think unless anyone else has any last questions.
SPEAKER1 - Excellent. Thank you, Commissioner. Thank you.
KENNEDY - Up next, we're gonna welcome the Department of Youth Services and Commissioner Reardon, along with Michael Lynch, the deputy commissioner of administration and finance, and Tula Sibande, the chief administration officer. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
SPEAKER15 - Good afternoon, Chair Kennedy. Can folks hear me? Alright.
CECELY REARDON DEPARTMENT OF YOUTH SERVICES - Yes. I'm right on top of the mic now. Alright. Good afternoon, Chair Kennedy, Chair Tyler, and distinguished members of the Joint12919 Committee on Ways and Means. My name is Cecely Reardon, and I'm the commissioner for the Department of12923 Youth Services, our Commonwealth's juvenile justice agency. I12927 am joined here today by DYS's deputy commissioner for administration and finance, Michael12931 Lynch. And to my left, I12933 have our chief administrative officer, Doctor Toulouse12935 Evanda. It is an honor12937 to appear before you all today about the department and to provide information about some of the ways that Governor Healy's12943 fiscal year house 1 budget ensures that we meet our commitments to young people,12948 their families, and the communities that we are proud to serve. While governor Healy's proposed 2026 fiscal year budget for DYS of just over a hundred and $78,000,000 does represent a 6% decrease for the department from last year's general appropriations12963 act, I am pleased to report that we remain well positioned to maintain our investments in12969 quality services and to strategically improve and expand individualized diversion and rehabilitative opportunities for our young people that we believe will promote family engagement, invest in community support, and ensure a fair and equitable juvenile justice system for all.
We are especially excited about the governor's budgets efforts that will allow us to really, reimagine our continuum of services for young people consistent with data driven best practices, as13001 well as the efforts it will allow us to move13003 forward on to promote staff wellness and13005 the wellness of our young people and safety in our programs and safety for our young people in our communities. We're also very excited about the opportunities for our efforts to expand groundbreaking partnerships with our agency and community partners to address trauma and racial inequity. We will accomplish this work as vigilant fiscal stewards, closely monitoring potential cuts to federal funding that may impact our services. So when we think of that, we're talking about cuts to Title 1 in school lunch funds that are administered through the Department of Elementary and Secondary Ed. Fun fact: We received those covered about 40,000 meals, breakfast and lunch, last year for our young people. So we're watching that very closely.
And we're also looking very closely at cuts to Medicaid as we were poised to expand the transitional services that are potentially Medicaid eligible or eligible for Medicaid reimbursement13057 this cycle. So we are planning to accomplish all of this in full alignment with our secretary's core commitments to supporting high need, high risk, high acuity adolescents and, you know, really making sure that we're investing in economic empowerment for our young people, for their families, and really in our workforce as well. And we do this in partnership with the other human service agencies you'd heard you've heard from today, some more closely than others, but we do this with them and with our contracted providers. And we do this so that we can make sure that we are working together to remove barriers to positive youth development and, where possible, to really mitigate, if not ultimately eradicate, inequities that are endemic in our system.
So before highlighting some of the opportunities that the governor's budget affords us, I'd like to just give you a brief description of who our young people are today, actually in fiscal year 2024, because that's the best data we have at this point in the year. So in the fiscal year 2024, we saw a slight increase in both our detained and our committed census. So those are our kind of our primary censuses that most people think of. And, you know, we also saw, I would say, a return to our pre-pandemic numbers. And that's in the average of about 10% increase in our detention population, about a 15% increase in our committed population. But I think it's really important to note that this is still in the ballpark of a 10-year low for the department. We're about I think it's about 54% lower for our overall census than we were in the fiscal year 2015. So, you know,13155 I think what we can look at in that is that, and something we take a lot of pride in, is that those numbers reflect our partnerships. Those reflect especially our partnerships around prevention. Our JDAI work, which now dates back13167 18 years at this13168 point we've worked to reduce the unnecessary use of detention for young people who13172 really don't need that level of safety and security. Maybe not safety, but that security. Like, talk about it that way.
And, you know, it's also our partnerships with agencies like the Office of the Child Advocate, specifically around diversion. That's 1 of our most exciting areas that we've really expanded in the last few years, including the diversion line item, which debuted in our budget last year. And so now, thanks to all of that, to that partnership and to that funding, there are now equitable opportunities for evidence-based diversion in 9 counties across the Commonwealth. We're almost there. We're getting really close to the whole state, but stay tuned into that. What I'm really proud to report is that 81 percent of the young people served through divorce diversion completed those diversion contracts successfully. There's about 7 percent who did not, whose referrals were returned, but not for any reasons related to success. So overall, I think that's a really profound13227 accomplishment, and it's 1 of the13229 areas where we're starting to see some traction in racial and ethnic disparities. So, you know, our successful partnerships around prevention really do mean that13237 much like our sister agencies, we do serve a very concentrated population of young people who have pretty13243 significant service-related challenges.
They have very acute needs, and they really require much more specialized13249 support and services, especially post-pandemic. Our young people have significant trauma histories. They have trauma reactive behaviors, and this all requires sophisticated and complicated staff responses. And they and their young peoples overwhelmingly hail I'm sorry. They and their families overwhelmingly hail from economically challenged communities plagued by systemic racism. More than half come to us with unmet behavioral health, educational, and substance use13282 treatment needs. We are confident, however, that13286 Governor Healy's budget allows us13288 to continue to meet young people where they are right now and to provide13292 them with the individualized treatment and support they and their families need for them to be safe and successful in our communities. Here are just a few highlights of the types of services that the governor's budget supports for our young people, our staff, and our partnerships.
So Governor Healy's budget supports investments in13310 our residential and community-based programs that reflect young people's voices, their families' voices, and community-based programming that will translate into safety in our programs, as well as positive community connections. Some of these include allow us allowing us to maintain and, where possible, strategically expand investments in educational services and career readiness and vocational services. This is programming that begins13336 in our residential settings and then continues into our communities. We are proud to report13342 that close to 100 of our young people last year, the last academic year, achieved either a high school13348 diploma or a HiSET, and then a comparable number participated in post-secondary educational opportunities. Some of that was dual enrollment, and some of13357 it was college courses.
Very exciting for us. But also because we don't because we know that not every young person is on an academic trajectory, that that's not their13366 passion, that's not where their talents and skills lie, we've really sought to expand our vocational and career readiness13372 programming. And so, we now have partnerships with over 36 vocational and career readiness partners across the Commonwealth. We have also updated vocational spaces in a number of our facilities. Some of you during your visits have had the opportunity to see some of that what that looks like, whether13388 it's to sample the fruits of our culinary programs or if you went to the big e13392 this year, perhaps you picked up a t shirt that13394 was created by our silk screening silk screening13396 programs, it's created and designed by our young people just so that's clear.
And, you know, and I know that some13402 of you have heard some of the beats in our recording studios when we had those visits. So we are really excited about the opportunities that the governor's budget provides as well for our next phase of strategic planning. So we just wrapped up our last strategic plan, and we're moving forward with the new phase of strategic planning. And just so folks are aware, here's a sneak peek at that. We are committed to reimagining our continuum of services to young people committed to our custody with the goal of safely reducing our reliance on residential programming. So, in order to do all of this for our young13435 people, we obviously have to invest in our staff, and this budget absolutely allows us to continue to do that to make sure that we have a stable workforce that is equipped to address the complex needs of our young people and their families. So 1 of the things this includes is supporting our regional mentors. We have mentors who meet our staff on the very first day at basic training and will remain involved with them, supporting them throughout their critical first year, as well as providing support to their supervisors.
We've served over a hundred 5 over. I'm sorry, 500 employees to date have received mentors in this programming. It also supports our dedicated training center, which provides our state and contracted provider employees on the like, the critical training they need to be on the job on day 1 on racial equity and inclusion, gender responsive modalities, trauma informed care, how to best support our LGBTQIA youth, and youth who have experienced commercial sexual we are also extremely proud of our partnership with the Office of the Child Advocate, which allowed us this year to create the Trauma Race Equity Empowerment Academy known as TREE. TREE trains staff across our secretariat using a curriculum that centers on young people, their families, and their experiences with our system. The first cohort included staff from 5013518 staff from 10 agencies that are learning about trauma,13522 racial trauma in particular, and learning how to have the difficult conversations with our staff, with13528 our workforce, with our young people so that we they can then bring this important body of work back to their own agencies. And most importantly, I think right now is that the governor's budget allows us to continue this critical partnership with the office of the child advocate and ensure that there are at least 2 future cohorts of the tree academy.
The governor's budget also allows us to important very to invest in very important recruitment strategies, including targeted social media campaigns. We've had a lot of success with that. Follow us on Instagram. Doctor Savanda can get that information to folks if we need it. And, also, it helps us really make sure that we're participating in community-based career fairs because we know that our young people are best served by folks who they can connect with. We are very proud to report that over 50% of our workforce represents the young people in the communities we serve. I think we're at an all-time high in the Commonwealth with that figure. The other thing it also supports the governor's budget also supports our retention efforts. Now, we need to be able to hold on to staff, and we've hired a significant number of staff in the last year, and that only helps us if we can hold on to them. And so 1 of the things that we've been able to do with this year's wit,h and we will could be able to actually cement with the governor's budget is a new role that we first piloted through grant funds, which is for trauma response specialists. We have 3 on staff now, and their job is to respond when there are incidents that are traumatic in our programs and in our communities, to be there to offer support to our staff. They're not investigators.
They're not HR. They're just there to create a space where our staff can process the secondary and sometimes primary and sometimes tertiary trauma that often comes with working with our young people and the circumstances that they sometimes find themselves in. So, since this role has been created, just so folks are aware, we have supported over 630 staff in our program who've been either affected by incidents in our programs or incidents in our communities. These are just a few highlights of some of the critical work that we believe the governor's proposed budget will support. And it's critical work that we really feel will help us alter the trajectory of our young people both before, hopefully, they ever even come to our doors and also that will allow them to success to safely and successfully return to our communities. It's really gonna offer us the critical support that our staff need to feel that they are being valued, that they are safe, and that they are fully equipped to address the challenges that our young people and their families bring to the table. So I thank you for your time and for your attention. I look forward to working with this entire committee, the entire legislature, and really working together to make sure13701 that we are fulfilling our mission, our vision by our values, and I really welcome any questions you may have.
KENNEDY - Thank you, Commissioner. Just have a question and a point and opportunity to highlight some of the work that you're doing. And I don't think I heard you mention it, but in terms of the young people that are choosing to stay connected and involved with DYS, post 18. So, if you could talk a little bit, give you the opportunity to talk a little bit about what that looks like in the funding and what how that, covers that, support. I also just wanna as you talk about the census being at a historic low or going down despite the slight increases, do your do you envision any, say, consolidations or closures of any programs in this current fiscal year as a result of that?13754
REARDON - So starting with your first question, senator, our youth engaged in services program is 1 of13759 is 1 of the things we take a lot of pride in. We've always had the ability to offer voluntary services. However, it wasn't until probably about 10 years ago that we really doubled down and said we are gonna offer this to every single young person and not just the ones who make it easy for us to do so. And so every single young person is offered voluntary services. At this time, about 65% of our young people are accepting voluntary services, and they are able to remain involved with us until they turn to age 22. They can turn us down when we first ask them, and they can come back at any time until they turn 22. And the really beautiful thing about it, I think, if that's the right word, but it is to me, is that they remain connected with their original caseworker.
So this is something that we've been able to maintain as effectively cost-neutral, really, as our census has declined over the years and our caseloads have been able to, you know, become much more manageable for our caseworkers. And so they are able to remain connected to that original caseworker, and that relationship is what we find is what is the biggest attraction for our young people, that they want to remain connected. I mean, if you think about it, it's crazy to think that an agency that you get sent to against your will that is associated with, you know, with locked doors and loss of liberty that 65% of our young people are saying, I want your continued support. But they are, and it's because of that relationship. And those services range from whether it's simple case management to housing support to educational support, support with behavioral health services.
A lot of our young people take advantage of career and job readiness supports. Our career navigators are available to them. So for many years, it's really been cost-neutral as our such as13860 our census has fluctuated. You know, and so that's the answer to that question. With respect to our residential programming,13868 we've just recently released a procurement for our boys' staff secure programs. And we do anticipate procuring 2 fewer programs in that cycle. And we also, within the last 2 years, released an RFR, request for responses for our new girls continuum. And that, continuum was poised to include 5 staff secure programs and 1, hardware secure program for girls. And to date, that continue we have not, able to locate a site for 1 of those programs, and 1 week 1 of those programs we did not receive a bid for. So that continuum is operating at 3 sites and 1, 3 staff secure sites throughout the state and, 1 hardware secure. So the fact that we have not filled those spaces to date has not required us to make any additional closures or cuts, and we've been able to manage that. Though we are, I will, in full transparency, say we are seeing an uptick in our girls population larger than the uptick we've seen in our boys population this year. That's, you know, fiscal year that's fiscal year 20 as we go into well, end of 20 25.
And so on the boy side, what we're seeing in terms of those program reductions is that it's really right sizing our continuum. Our staff-secure programs tend to be less utilized and, as compared to our hardware secure facilities, which tend to face the highest levels of utilization. There are a few reasons for that. Is it fits very it really fits with why we're reimagining our continuum. We know that research and best practices tell us that young people do better in their homes, in their communities if they have the appropriate support and services. And so what we're hearing from national best experts is that if you think a young person can be in a staff secure program, they probably can be home. You can figure out the right constellation of services to make sure that they and their communities will be safe. And so that's where we're really looking right now. So this while it is a reduction in programming, it is an opportunity, I say, to ensure that we're really making the right decisions and have the right expectations for what young people need to actually accomplish in a residential setting and really looking hard at what young people can do much better at home with supportive services.
SPEAKER22 - Tyler?
TYLER - Thank you so much again for attending today. We really appreciate your testimony. I have a quick question about something new that you guys actually implemented last year, the Massachusetts youth diversion program. So in FY 25, we saw that the new program, the Massachusetts youth14030 diversion program, was funded at 2,100,000.0. So I would just like to know how how did everything went for the first year as far as implementation?
REARDON- So it's gone extremely well, I would say. And actually, the good news is it wasn't. It was the first year that it was part of our14046 budget, but for 2 prior years, we worked as a we had a learning lab effectively through funding that the office14052 of the child advocate was able to secure. So in the first 2 years, we served somewhere around 400 young people and had about the same 80 to 90 percent success rate of completion. And now, as we've continued to add programs in the fiscal year 2024, actually, no. I'm sorry. Fiscal year 2025, we've had as many referrals as we did in those first 2 years, and we're looking at that 81 percent success rate. And we're really excited about it. We're excited that in some sites, we've had to14085 actually expand staffing in some parts of the Commonwealth because it's an opportunity that so many folks wanna take advantage of. Judges: It's available to judges. It's available to police officers. It's available to14097 court clerk magistrates and district attorneys, and we receive referrals from all of those important juvenile justice14104 partners.
So it's something we're excited14106 about. And what we're really14108 most excited about and we're tracking it very carefully is, you know, we know14112 Massachusetts, like every other state in14114 the country, has a significant problem with14116 racial and ethnic ethnic disparities at every stage of our juvenile justice system. Diversion is 1 of those14122 critical entry points where if you can14124 divert a young person, then you're likely to never see them again in your system, either your juvenile system or your adult system. So recognizing that we are now seeing significant amounts of diversion for youth of color across the Commonwealth, which didn't previously exist. I mean, previously, we didn't have a lot of the data to really track it, and that's what's also really exciting about this diversion model pilot program that14147 we developed with the office of child advocate is that it allows us to see that14151 and to see how we're making that14153 difference.
TYLER - Alright. Thank you. And then really quickly on the numbers. So house 1 recommends funding for this program to be 1,900,000.0. Does h 1 adequately fund this program for f y 26 and keeping with your 81 percent success rate? Could it do that?
KENNEDY - Yes. It does. Thank you. Anybody else? Nope. Miranda.
MIRANDA - Thank you. And thank you, Commissioner. We've had a lot of great meetings in our district, and thank you for your leadership. Recently, CDC research has shown well it always14193 shows this. You spent, like, 10 minutes talking about sort of the racial disparities and the disparities in the system, but it's shown that similar adolescents had a 34% lower recidivism rate when they were in the juvenile system versus the adult system. For those of you who don't know my story, I grew up in a household where my father and all 3 of my brothers were incarcerated in the same family. You know, I went on to Ivy League school, and then my brothers, dealing with the pressures of our own community, all ended up in systems of DYS and adult incarceration.
What we know is that young people discharged from DYS commitment have lower recidivism rates than young adults formerly incarcerated in the adult system. Some of the figures of that 46 percent of formerly DYS committed youth were rearranged in comparison with 76 percent of those 1814247 to 24 year olds that are coming out of the House of Corrections. The reconviction rate is 26 percent in comparison to double the rates. In our current system, sending older teens into the adult system, we all know is making it worse. Right? Most14263 young people can be held accountable and be on track for rehabilitation, particularly14267 with developmentally appropriate interventions, including some of the ones that you talked about, about being at home or being in the community if they don't pose a risk. The data would suggest that our system is carrying out its mission and really delivering stability. What in the department do you think is responsible for this? I've been paying attention to this. And14289 from your perspective, how can we14291 make the numbers even better?
REARDON- So we've actually had14295 the opportunity to review 3 different14297 pieces of research in the last 3 months. 1 is around educational quality outcomes for our education contract. I know Senator Pavano is familiar with it. We also have had the opportunity to review data from the DESE about educational outcomes after young people leave DYS. We've also had the opportunity to review information we've tracked about our LGBTQ youth. And what is the 1 unifying factor among all of those reports is the power of relationship.14329 We find that when young people are able to feel seen, valued, and heard in a relationship, that makes all the difference. You know, our folks are transitional transformational adults. That's the role they serve. They're not designed to be there, you know, for the rest of a young person's life. They're designed to be there in that moment when there's the opportunity for change. And that, I think, is what makes all the difference. That's what brings young people to stay in our voluntary services. That seems to be what young people report about their experiences in our classrooms, how they've, for the first time, felt that individualized attention and connection and interest in who they are and found their own interest in education. Whatever that pathway may be, whether it's traditional academics or vocational services, they feel like someone has seen them and recognized that they can do well and want to do well, and that makes all the difference.
SPEAKER8 - Thank you.
TYLER - Thank you, Commissioner. Thank you. Next, we're gonna hear from panel number 7, Mass Ability. New name. Let's see here. We're gonna hear from commissioner Tony Wolf and Lee Colopy, and I'm sorry if I mispronounce your name. Please correct me. Chief14412 of staff, Mauricio Vasquez; chief financial officer, Kathleen Bebel; deputy commissioner, Aja14420 James; disability determination services assistance commissioner, Jessica Simney; director of excellence and innovation. Welcome, and thank you.
TONI WOLF - MASSABILTY - Thank you very much. I'm so glad to be here. And the rest of the tribe is behind us. Just wanna let you know. So with me, we're here is with Asia James Esques. So thank you so much for having us today and hanging in there with us. So good. As you know, I am the commissioner. I've been14448 the commissioner now for the last 8 years. It's hard to believe I've been in front of14452 you 8 times. And so, let me just get right into it because I'm sure that you're all eager to move this along. Governor Healy's fiscal year budget, the February 2026 budget, proposes a budget of $93,700,000, and that is a 6,800,000.0 increase, ensuring our agency, again, to retain our professional staff and dedicated workforce, as well as making sure that our providers receive competent and competitive rates. That is what the increase really focuses on. I think we all care about the communities we serve, and it's essential that our providers also have a competent, quality workforce. So, again, that is where our increase, focused. I wanna do a little bit about a description of our services and particularly around our disability determination services.
And we're really fortunate today to have Asia James here thinking that perhaps some of you may be asking14525 questions. We provide career, home, and community services and conduct disability determination for the Social14535 Security Administration. Now, this is a confusing role sometimes, and we often hear from you, and I'm hoping this will be able to address some of your questions. Our role is to determine if somebody has a disability that hinders their ability to go to work. We do that assessment. Right? We get the referral through the Social Security Administration to our disability determination division, who are federally funded state employees. Alright? And then once the assessment is conducted, we then go back and transfer that information to the Social Security Administration. Once it goes to the Social Security Administration, we have no ability to track that, nor do we decide people's benefits. And I know there's always some confusion about the role that we play. I think we are watchful as you continually hear from our14598 colleagues today, what Social Security Administration may be doing in terms of reducing their workforce, which will have potentially an impact to our disability determination services.
Last year in our14614 career services, we were able to serve over 23,000 people through our career14620 services in collaboration with our14622 community colleges, offering standard, training certificates, industry certificates that are encouraging people to go into high wage industries, providing paid internships, individual career counseling that has led to permanent employment. And just this year alone, we have calculated that thanks to the employment rate of individuals that we serve, we have saved an estimated $21,000,000 in public benefit. So it's only smart to continue to have this investment both in terms of the state and the federal administration. In our home and community life services, we empower individuals to engage in their communities, and we support 11,000 people who had previously been in institutions and facilities and who are now living in the community. We're really proud of our workforce and our participants who have stayed in the community at a rate of 99.3%.
Our services include our adult living centers, our independent living centers, youth transition to adult services, assistive technology, and a wide range of community-based services for those living with a brain injury. And I wanna give some examples of what some of those services are, particularly with our brain injury population. Just in the last 6 months, we have been able to partner with a provider to open a new shared living apartment for participants living with a brain injury. And we've developed a curriculum partnering with the Department of Mental Health, who particularly have been training first responders and police14746 reinforce police, understanding how to work with somebody with a brain injury. And I think it's also critical as people have been talking about incarceration, we have also been going into the prisons to make sure that adequate brain injury assessment is conducted to make sure that people understand that it is somebody with a disability, and that disability is is a brain injury. Now, I really want to thank all of you and Senator Kenny. I've already acknowledged this with you.
Our appreciation grateful to the legislature for approving our new name and our language. As you know, we were once the Massachusetts Rehabilitation Commission. It's still a mouthful for me today. We are now Mass Ability. By advancing this legislation that you have done, it has underscored our commitment to reduce the stigma of individuals with disabilities. It is time to break down the systemic barriers. We must continually do this. And it also acknowledges the talent and the abilities of people in businesses and in companies and in our own workforce. Now we're really proud that, thanks to your support of this legislation and governor Healy, Massability has presented to over 700 career professionals acknowledging the importance of changing language, of rebranding the work that we do. We no longer want to be the best-kept secret. I'm really excited to say that we have talked to our colleagues across the country. And just to give you some ideas of some of the names that people are exploring, in California, 1 of the names that they're considering is disability works, kind of a clever way of playing on words. Right? In Vermont, they have transformed their name to higher ability. So I think you're14878 hearing, again, the importance of language and the importance of how it changes the14884 public perception of those living14886 with a disability.
Over the last 2 years, the demand for our services has increased. So if you are looking at our social media, it is having an impact, and I you are not following us, please do so. It has. We're at a point now where we're seeing about 1,500 new applications each month. What's interesting is that the population is14915 changing, and we need to change accordingly. Just last year alone, 23 percent of our individuals that we serve have a psychiatric excuse me, are 25. Under 20 5 and 60 percent of those individuals have a psychiatric disability. So you see that we are moving perhaps away from physical disability only to more invisible disability. Now, let me just talk to you about how we're thinking about transforming our own services to better serve the younger population. 1 such example is Jake Handler, the founder of Ahoy. Ahoy is a really interesting application, and I encourage you to learn more about it. and I will have some information for you later on to distribute. Jake did not initially plan to become a disability advocate or an entrepreneur, but his life changed dramatically when he acquired a cute, toxic, progressive disease that led to a 10-month coma. His journey is highlighted in a number of podcasts that I encourage you to follow, as I mentioned in our annual report.
After a lengthy recovery, not surprisingly, he became a recipient of our home and community services, and we aided his transition from a facility to an accessible apartment in Boston. However, Jake quickly realized that the world around him often lacks accessibility for a wheelchair user. With the help of his friends, he created Ahoy, an app that uses crowdsourcing technology to rate the accessibility of public spaces. Some refer to it as the ways of accessibility. Now, we have partnered with Jake and his incredible partner, Chris, and have collaborated so that now our job seekers, particularly focusing on young adults, are now experiencing internships, particularly in digital user engagement, platform enhancements, and collecting15065 accessible feedback for public15067 spaces. Again, it's a world of work that is15071 different than perhaps a young adult has known before, but it's a way to open up the avenues of work. Thanks to these internships and Ahoy's incredible employer network, we've been able to really offer incredible career opportunities to these young adults.
Establishing genuine partnerships with genuine people like like Jake and Chris and other businesses has acknowledged the skills and the passions of our job seekers. Now, as we discussed today, the state budget, I15108 would be remiss if we didn't also talk about the federal landscape. Our career services currently receive 44,000,000 federal dollars through the US Department of Education. And you understand that we're all watching very carefully what is going to happen to the Federal Department of Education. As well as, I also think the thing that we're very concerned about is that in there is a budget resolution that I'm sure all of you are aware of in Congress that is requiring the workforce and education committee to find $330,000,000,000 of saving cuts over the next 10 years. So, as you hear our colleagues watching the federal landscape, we are as well. So, although this house budget does support our needs today, if there is a dramatic change in the federal landscape, it will have a dramatic effect. And so I really want to let you know that we together can figure this out. In addition, as I said, we're also watching the Social Security Administration and the impact that that might have on the individuals across the Commonwealth.
Here in Massachusetts, I have to say I've never been happier to say I'm from Massachusetts, and we take great pride in living here. I have to say that immensely, and I take great pride in the leadership of the Elie Driscoll administration and each of you. As a legislator, you have always supported individuals with disability. In times of uncertainty and confusion, and there's lots of it is critical that we stand strong together in our principles and our values of making Massachusetts accessible. Now I'm eager to answer any of your questions, and I'm grateful to, again, to each and every 1 of you.
KENNEDY - Thank you, Commissioner Wolf. I don't think anybody has; they don't have any questions. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
SPEAKER4 - Yep. Representative.
SPEAKER5 - There you go.
PEASE - Alright. Thank you. I just wanted to clarify because we're all even. Even being a Republican, we're all anxious about what's gonna happen at the federal level and where it's gonna end up. So you were saying what was the 300,000,000 that was gonna I missed that.
WOLF - So, so right now, there is a bill on the floor that is asking for Congress to consider $330,000,000,000 in cuts, specifically under the workforce and education committee.
PEASE - Over 10 years, you said.
WOLF - Right? Over 10 years.
PEASE - Okay. I just that's why I just wanna make sure I clarified what you said there.
WOLF - I'm not making this a political statement. I'm just making it a, you know, a No.
PEASE- No. It's something we all have to be concerned about.
WOLF - What we're experiencing.
PEASE- Right. We all have to be concerned about, and we all have to wait and see where we end up, but there's a lot of stuff going on right now. We gotta wait and see. Right? Thank you.
WOLF- But I do wanna stress that 73% of our workforce is federally.
TYLER - Thank you so much for your testimony and for showing up for us today. So, good question on the independent living center, which I'm sure you're familiar with. So house 1 proposes the independent living center, the line item, which you may be familiar with, I'm sure, 4120-0200. The line item may be level-funded at $8,000,000, and that's been the case since FY 19. So just wondering, will this funding level continue to allow sufficient operation of this independent living center?
WOLF - That representative is a great question. I think what people don't realize is that we are a pass-through agency. We get federal funding from the ACL, Community Association of Community Living. That money goes directly to us. It passes through to the independent living centers. We don't have a mechanism to increase that funding. And, unfortunately, the independent living centers do not have the ability to, be able to get Chapter 257 for their staff. It is a concern that we have shared together, and so this budget does not have any increases in independent living.
TYLER - So safe to say, not sufficient at this time?
WOLF - I'm concerned about for me, I am concerned for the independent living centers and their staff. We have not been able to increase staff rates like15420 we have been able to with other providers.
TYLER - And thank you. And last and certainly not least, about15424 the h 1 funding level of 93.7, is that sufficient for maintaining your FY '26 budget?
WOLF - Yes. At this point, Operations, I'm sorry. Operations at this point in time.
TYLER - Okay. Sounds good. Thank you so much. Appreciate it.
SPEAKER4 - Great.
KENNEDY - Thank you so much. Thank you very much, Commissioner. Look forward to our continued work together. At this time, we're gonna welcome up the commission for the deaf and hard of hearing commissioner Choturnua. We're joined by Sheehan Makura, deputy commissioner for administration and finance, Caitlin Parton, general counsel, and Heather Daly, executive assistant to the commissioner. You got a whole lot of swag.
OPEOLUWA SOTONWA - MCDHH - Good afternoon, Chair Kennedy, Chair Tyler, and members of the Joint Committee on Ways and Means. I am Doctor Opeoluwa Sotonwa, Commissioner of the Massachusetts Commission for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing. I'd like to introduce our chief financial officer and deputy commissioner for A and F, as well as Caitlin Parsons, who is our general counsel and legislative director. I'm honored to15534 be here to present Governor Healy's budget for MCDHH for the fiscal year 2026.15540 Our agency ensures that approximately 1,400,000 Massachusetts residents who are deaf and hard of hearing have equal access to public services, opportunities, and15554 benefits that the Commonwealth is providing. MCDHH has a dedicated and passionate staff of 57 full-time employees, over 40 percent of whom are deaf and hard of hearing. We're responsible for ensuring quality and timely communication access for all deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals in Massachusetts. Our budget will assist us in serving as the referral service for all of the Commonwealth sign language, ASL interpretation, and communication access real-time translation requests in Massachusetts, making us 1 of the largest service providers for the community we represent.
We are a central resource for state agencies to provide ASL English interpretation and CART services, supporting a wide range of constituents through legal proceedings, medical emergency requests, and the like. We have a strong workforce for ASL English interpretation and meet that ongoing demand. We appreciate Governor Healy recognizing the community's high demand for ASL interpreters when she addressed the legislature in her second State of the Commonwealth address. She stated quote, that ASL, we know, is used by millions of Americans, and interpreters are in short supply. We thank Governor Healy for her work, and we also would like to thank the late representative Carol Doherty for including the ASL Inclusion Act in all of her efforts. MCDHH remains steadfast in collaborating with key stakeholders and working towards expanding ASL education and awareness by training interpreters, mentorship, quality assurance, and technical assurance.
MCDHH also ensures expanding the availability of training for stenographic professionals wishing to pivot into the CART captioning field. This is important because many older Americans with hearing loss do not use ASL to communicate and do not benefit from ASL interpretation. We're also proud to walk you through communication access workforce development to employ statewide services so that the deaf and hard of hearing residents can access critical services and15736 participate in Massachusetts without communication barriers.
Governor Healy's15744 budget proposal maintains prior-year investments in the after-hours emergency referral service, which makes communication access providers available outside of regular business hours and on holidays and weekends for deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals in emergencies. MCDHH oversees15766 the quality of interpreters through our screening program. We are currently working to redesign the program, which has been running for over 20 years and is in need of an update. That way, the interpreters that work in15784 our community can be up to date in15786 terms of skill. Moving on to the workforce, the shortage of ASL interpreters is a considerable hindrance to communication access for the deaf and hard of hearing community. The interpreters are experiencing burnout, retirement, and also matriculation into other states15806 and other workforces. To address this, MCDHH is currently working on15812 a sign language interpreter pilot program to support new interpreters15816 and also increase retention of the current interpreters that we have, as well as expanding outreach to interpreters and CART providers nationwide to increase our workforce.
Our community service division works through client supports to service infants, children, adults, and families requiring complex social services. We have 5 children specialists as well as service navigators and are currently supporting 2,436 clients, of which 46.2% are on MassHealth. We work with the newborn hearing screening program. We advocate for deaf students and hard-of-hearing students in school. We provide services in the court system as well as a variety of complex cases. We assist people with health care, law enforcement, education, and working to meet the needs of deaf and hard of hearing individuals across the Commonwealth. MCDHH also funds deaf and hard of hearing independent living services through section 2 57. We're providing resources to Deaf Incorporated, the center for living and working right here in Worcester, and Viability as well. These agencies support deaf and hard of hearing individuals across 8 regions of Massachusetts and help deaf and hard of hearing individuals access important services to be able to live their lives independently. Education, training, and resource development an important components of MCDHH. We provide training to first responders, including municipal police systems, state police, fire departments, and emergency medical services. These trainings prepare individuals to effectively interact with a large population of people who are deaf and hard of hearing or late deafened.
Our visor card and emergency service cards accompany police and emergency responders in their vehicles, and they can utilize this card to help them communicate effectively with deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals as well as non-English speakers. Our education and training help prevent personal tragedies and lawsuits by preparing everyone from medical providers to first responders for the communication challenges inherent in working with someone15987 who is deaf or hard of hearing. We also help15991 health care providers to prevent any issues in terms of access or communication when working with deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals. We also work to obtain smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, emergency vaccine vaccination services, and language accessible videos. We have begun to completely revise our website to make it more constituent-friendly and have a more accessible interface by including English-equivalent ASL content when necessary.
This will give MCDHH more access to serve our16031 constituents and our constituents more access to utilize our16035 web-based services. Finally, I would like to16039 thank Governor Healy, Lieutenant Governor Gris Driscoll, and Secretary Walsh for their incredible support of MCDHH and their unflinching commitment to provide equal access to all government services. While the federal funding cuts do not directly impact MCDHH, our constituents obtain services from other agencies that are directly impacted, which has increased the number of cases our community service division is taking on daily. MCDHH is working continuously with sister agencies to continue to support community needs in shared efforts and provide much-needed relief. Members of the joint committee on wage and means, I urge you to support governor Healy's proposed budget enabling MCGH to continue addressing the societal barriers faced by deaf and hard of hearing constituents. With this budget, we can increase the number of ASL interpreters and CART captioners on our contract and continue the efforts that we have laid out in this speech. Thank you for your attention to these critical issues. I'm happy to answer any questions you may have.
TYLER - Thank you, Commissioner. I don't have any questions. I do have a comment. I have the unique privilege in my more permanent role as chair of the senate chair of the joint committee on children, families, and persons with disabilities to work with you and your team on a regular basis. I am incredibly grateful for the education and support you've provided to me in that role. We are certainly committed to making sure that all of our public hearings, public meetings are accessible, available, and welcoming to every member of our community and recognize why we maintain that commitment. Sometimes we come up short, and I want to acknowledge that for anyone that's on the live stream, we encountered some difficulties in setting up today and not quite meet the mark of where we'd want to be.
So I want to acknowledge that, and16166 I want to thank you. And I want to thank the ASL interpreters that are with us here today for brainstorming with us, working with us to make sure that to the best of our ability we can meet that. So, to16177 those watching and maybe didn't get quite the full, participation and, and certainly16181 to you, Commissioner, I want to take ownership16183 of that and acknowledge and, apologize and certainly stay committed to continuing to work with you and learn from16190 you of how we can continue to do better, as we always must strive to do. So I just wanted to publicly, on the record, say thank you. I enjoyed16198 our work together. I look forward to another 2 years, another session of it, and wanna thank you for all you've done. So thank you. Yep. Any questions? Yep. Mayor Palms?
SPEAKER8 - Thank you, senator.
SPEAKER8 - Thank you, senator.
HOLMES - Thank you, commissioner. When I looked at the amount, I was. It just brings the question of how many interpreters there are. You said we're very short. So how many do we have across the Commonwealth, and then how many you need to probe to, and then what is the average pay that we does it by hour? It'll be great to just understand what the resources are and how many you think you need.
SOTONWA - I don't have the data at my hands. Maybe I'll ask our deputy commissioner of administration and finance, Sahin Makuria, to remark. Thank you.
SEHIN MEKURIA - MCDHH- [Inaudible] It's to be right up close. Sorry. I've only our staff, ma'am. [Inaudible] ID of the certification. [Inaudible] You still do not get enough16325 at cover. [Inaudible] Private or stable.[Inaudible] That's the age aging. [Inaudible] Evolve is a high.[Inaudible] Decrease the number.
HOLMES - Alright. We just said it was something I didn't know. The pay is good, you say. It seems, such as, like, when I listen to the commissioner, it is very impressive to be able to communicate the assignment. Is I find it, you know, to be an impressive thing. So, when you say the pay is good, I'm still trying to get a sense of how much you say. I think you're saying. I wanna make sure I have it right. We have about 250 to 300 across the state. And then how many do you you're getting a large demand, obviously, particularly, like, I'm just thinking of all the 351 towns and cities they need when they do committee hearings, us doing our hearings. What do you think the number would need to be to satisfy the need in the Commonwealth? I guess I'm just trying to get a sense of what that number is.
MEKURIA - 1, 2. And I would think if we and, [Inaudible] I think the thing that we should emphasize [Inaudible] other deaf audio hearing. [Inaudible] That way,
SOTONWA - And if I may add also, just to Sahin's remarks. There are efforts that our agency makes an effort to partner with some community colleges to be able to allow16490 Governor Healy's programs to be more successful. She has created a program with community colleges that students are able to attend for free if they're making less than $70,000. And so we wanna jump on that and be able to look at those historically ignored communities because Massachusetts is a very diverse workforce, and our statistics of interpreters that we're working with are 90% white interpreters, 90 % of them are female. And I don't say that as a slight to those people currently working in that workforce, but we're kind of missing an opportunity to employ people who look like and function like the community that we serve. So we'd like to be able to have an appropriate presentation in that workforce. We would like to be able to work with more interpreters who are specifically trained to work in the legal environment and have expertise in that area. We have interpreters who have a high level of expertise in the medical area16556 and, high level of expertise in the government area. So, having more interpreters who are experts in these various niches and are able to accompany deaf individuals to very and for example, governor Healy's state of the state address, Having interpreters who are linguistically competent in these various areas will be able to provide quality service. So it's not just a numbers issue, but a quality issue as well. Thank16587 you for the opportunity to state that.
SPEAKER3 - Thank you, chair Tyler.
TYLER - Thank you so much again for being here with us today. A quick question on house 1. Does house 1 also include funding to maintain the after-hours emergency services program?
SOTONWA- Yes. $250,000 is allocated for that. Yes. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
SPEAKER1 - Thank you.
SPEAKER4 - Thank you. Representative Kearns?
KERANS - Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Hello, Commissioner Satanwa. Nice to see you again. Always enjoy your visit to the16638 New England home, homes for the deaf with Tom Boudreau, the effervescent Tom Boudreau, and the team over there. Just wanted to follow up on your comment about emergency services and when a person who is deaf or hard of hearing might have an emergency and go to the ER. What is what happens now, and can we be doing more, and how? That's sort of 1 question, 3 parts. Thank you.
SOTONWA - Thank you for that question. Typically, when a deaf person goes to an emergency room, they use VRI technology, which stands for Video Remote Interpretation Services. So you will see a deaf person with a small iPad, a special number will be called, and an interpreter will appear on the screen. Our former position was that we encourage that in times of emergencies only because most deaf individuals do prefer to have a live person in the room with them. But because of the condition of the workforce right now, we do understand that remote video interpreting is a necessity. So we encourage doctors and medical personnel to use it at the discretion of the individuals in the room because it's not a 1 size fits tool. There are some deaf individuals who prefer to utilize captioning services. Some prefer to use assistive technology that aligns with the cochlear implant or hearing aid that they have. Typically, we encourage people to ask the deaf or hard of hearing person who is the patient what works for you and how can we meet that need. Thank SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
SPEAKER2 - you.
SPEAKER4 - Anybody else?
SPEAKER3 - Thank you, commissioner.
SOTONWA16767 -16767 Of16767 course. It's always a pleasure to be with16769 you here. Thank you for having me here today.
SPEAKER3 - Sure. 1 word.
TYLER - Next, we will hear from the Massachusetts Commission for the Blind. That'll be commissioner John Olivera and Justine Muir. Please correct me if I mispronounced your last name. Deputy commissioner. Thank you so much for showing up today. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
SPEAKER6 - Alright. Trying
SPEAKER7 - to work this microphone here. Hello?
SPEAKER3 - Hey, Krishna. Thank you.
JOHN OLIVEIRA - MASSACHUSETTS COMMISSION OF THE BLIND - Alright. Good afternoon. Eric Kennedy, chair, Tyler, and distinguished members of the joint committee on ways and means. I'm John Olivera, the deputy commissioner at the, commissioner at the commissioner for the blind, and who I left as deputy commissioner, Justine Muir, and she just16851 joined us 6 months ago. And I've been here16855 for 38 years at the agency and commissioner now for going on a year and a half or so. So Justine is just starting out her journey. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today regarding the Billy Driscoll administration's proposed fiscal year 2026 budget and, crucial services and support that it provides to the 28,000 legally blind Massachusetts residents. The proposed FY 26 budget recommends funding the mission for the blind at $38,800,000, which is a $368,000 increase, about a 1% rise over last year's budget. This investment will allow us to continue the critical work, helping individuals who are legally blind achieve independence and stay in the local community. During this past year, MCB's assistive technology unit provided training to our vision rehab therapists to give them foundational skills training and teaching individuals how to use iPads, iPhones using large print or speech output. Consumers have also been able to supplement this training at the Carroll Center for the Blind, Mass Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired. MCB's orientation mobility unit continues to provide excellent services related to the use of the white cane and other mobility travel aids.
This unit is also currently planning a town hall that will educate our consumers on various guide dog school options. Turning to MCB's fiscal year16970 26 budget, the budget includes 250,000 to create 3 new social work positions. 1 of these positions will be based in our Springfield or Western Massachusetts office. This will help alleviate the high caseload counts that our workers have had in that part of the state. The second position will provide a vision rehab therapist in our Central Massachusetts office, Wister. This will double the number of staff that we have working in that office. For years, we've had this position that had not been filled because someone had retired, and 1 worker had been covering this area. Having a second worker will be tremendously helpful and will allow our consumers to really see see a worker more frequently and receive training at home. The Boston office will be hosting the third position, and this will include a worker who will provide housing assistance to our consumers. This has been a need that's been growing over the past several years, and we are proud that we have received the funding to be able to fill this position. This position will provide services to consumers who are unhoused, those17073 who are about to lose their housing. We'll also provide application assistance and look for suitable housing for individuals who are in search of housing.
The budget also supports MCB's workforce by analyzing collective bargaining agreements and providing funding for increases that occurred and will occur over this next year. This budget maintains a strong the budget increase maintains a strong and well equipped team to provide the specialized high, quality and individualized services that we provide to our consumers. These resources will continue to provide more essential services to our consumers. Social rehabilitation or community services, as you know it, will offer essential skills training to help our consumers stay in their homes longer and for the possibility of having to move in with family members or even a skilled nursing care facility. The social rehabilitation services that I'm speaking about are things that you think of as tasks of daily living, cooking safely, doing laundry, managing your monthly finances, and using alternative methods to different tasks around your home. Our vision rehab therapist will provide this type of training and will enable our consumers to stay in their homes. The second service that we provide is vocational rehabilitation services. This service assists individuals in achieving or maintaining employment opportunities, and we especially try to focus on higher wage opportunities, training programs. Heard about our vocational services that MRC provides. We do exactly the same things, but for the blind community.
These services include, for the vocational side can include college education, a variety of different training programs, and programs that might provide certificates so that they could use that as they apply for their job search. Turning 22 program is a program that provides specialized services to young adults who are deaf blind or might have intellectual disabilities. This program provides a variety of different living situations so that the consumer can end up in a program that best fits what they need. The program also provides many opportunities to attend day programs. And again, we always try to fit the program to what that consumer needs and what serves them the best. Regarding the agency's federally funded programs, which is again vocational rehabilitation, we have our older independent blind program and our supported employment program. To this date, MCB has received expected funding, but we are looking carefully and working with our organizations for professionals that we belong to and also working with our consumer groups and our contacts to try to stay up to date on what is happening in Washington.
As you know, it changes daily. You never know what's gonna happen tomorrow. So, our program makes a significant difference in the lives of residents of Massachusetts that we serve. We receive constant positive feedback from our consumers about life changing support that our staff and working with our staff provides to them. Looking ahead, we know that the need for our services will continue to grow. Age-related vision loss is the leading cause of legal blindness in Massachusetts. And as our population ages, the number of people experiencing vision loss increases, barring MCB to provide the essential independent living rehabilitation services that they need. But by investing now, we are ensuring that Massachusetts will be a more accessible and supportive place for everyone, including the 28,000 legally blind people in, Commonwealth. I'm deeply grateful for the opportunity to testify here today, and our community and myself are grateful for the legislator's ongoing support and commitment that you have provided over the years to the legally blind residents of Massachusetts. Available to answer any questions that you
KENNEDY - Thank you, Commissioner. We have a representative, Owens.
OWENS - Hey. Hi. Hi, commissioner. This is representative Steve Owens. By way of description, I'm wearing my blue suit and tie today, and my hair and beard are a little grayer than the last time we were together. Time moves on. Yeah. Or it comes for us all, my friend. First of all, thank you so much for sticking with us the entire afternoon.
OLIVEIRA - It was like the marathon. We're almost at the end here.
OWENS - And I do. A few years ago, my office got a lot of complaints from the deaf blind community about not having as many resources, and those complaints have largely stopped. So I'm either assuming that you've done a great job in servicing that community, or something else is going on. So I'd love to hear you talk a little bit about what resources you have for the deafblind community and if you think that h 1 meets the need for those folks. As you know, those are some of the most vulnerable and isolated folks that you serve.
OLVEIRA - Right. Right. So the deaf blind community is, say, served through our community access network program. Deaf Inc is the vendor, and they serve individuals by providing service providers to go with them to help with communications needs at a variety of different events that they may want to go to. We are also have our fully staffed. We have a staff person in each region. We are trying to work closely with Deaf Inc. To come up with any new ideas17525 that may be of interest17529 or may work for the deaf blind17531 community. I think our staff and17535 our commitment to them has been shown. We are very responsive to any needs that they may have and try to work with them as much as possible. So going back to 1 of the new programs we started this year is we're providing funding to the Wing on the Home for the Deaf.
So that when a deaf blind person is taken goes has to go to the hospital on an emergency situation that, we are providing funding to pay for a person to sit with them while they wait for their treatment, or services they're going to receive at the hospital. But this is something we started this year and will continue next year. I'm glad to hear that the calls or the inquiries to your office have subsided. That means that we17587 must be doing services17589 that are meeting the community's need, and we're, again, we're always looking to go with them. Leslie John Baker Johnson and I go to the annual meeting of Deaf Inc to make sure that we hear of any concerns that it may have. I know that Leslie is on the phone with the staff at Deaf Inc on a regular basis, speaking with them and trying to make sure that we're doing the things that they need to try to serve the needs17616 that they have. Thank you so much. Thanks for the question.
KENNEDY - Thank you. Like, that may be it as we're getting to the end of the day. Thank you so much, Commissioner. And I'll just say we're grateful to be able to call you commissioner. So thank you so much. It's always a pleasure to work with you. Thank you. So for our tenth and final panel, we're gonna have the Office of Refugee and Immigrants, and we'll invite director Christina Aguilera to join us. And thank you, director. I know this has been a long day, but we're very excited to hear your testimony. Thank you. We'll need to slide the microphone over because it has17671 to be right in your face.17673 The 1 on the table probably won't cut it. Thank you. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
SPEAKER4 - Can you hear me well? Yes. Thank you. Might have just broken it. Hello?
SPEAKER3 - Yes. We can hear you.
CRISTINA AGUILERA SANDOVAL - MASSACHUSETTS OFFICE OF REFUGEE AND IMMIGRATS - Good afternoon. It's really an honor and a pleasure to be here today. Good afternoon, Senator Kennedy, and to all of the distinguished members of the Joint of Idiom Ways and Means. My name is Christina Aguilera Sandoval. I have the absolute privilege of serving as the executive director and the Massachusetts state refugee coordinator of the Office for Refugees and Immigrants. I am here today from my senior leadership team, chief operating officer, and Kelvin Pham, ORI's CFO. And it's really an honor to get an opportunity to share the mission and the impact of our agency and also in support of Governor Haley's housewarming budget. Let me tell you a little bit about ORI's mission. Our state's office for refugees and immigrants has the distinct mission to welcome and empower all immigrants in Massachusetts to access resources and opportunities.
Our goal and the absolute main objective of every single 1 of our programs and our very committed and talented staff is to ensure that we can facilitate a path to self-sufficiency and well-being for all the newcomers that are choosing Massachusetts as their home. We do this by collaborating across government agencies, by building partnerships with community-based organizations that are all in your communities, and by creating programs that meet the needs and uplift the contributions of immigrants to our Commonwealth. These community-based organizations for example, the ones right on Gage Street, ACE, Ori's and Friendly House, and Scentria Care Alliance, which is in Worcester Street.
They provide absolute an absolute lifeline to families that settle in Worcester and just like them, to families that settle all over the state because due to the17815 housing crisis, it had to expand the way in which17819 they welcome and resettle individuals17821 from 1 city where their offices are, placed to the surrounding cities where they can find stable housing for17829 them. Massachusetts is home than is home to more than 1,200,000 immigrants who make up almost 18% of our population and more than 20% of our workforce. My family is 1 of them. We're originally from Venezuela, and just like many of our staff members, providers, and the people from all over the globe that we serve, we all work hard, we love our community deeply, and we give back. That's why ORI's vision is to ensure that all immigrants are welcome to the Commonwealth, achieve success, and are fully included in the economic, civic, and social fabric of our state.
The critical role that our agency, in collaboration with other agencies across the state, has played more recently in receiving in a collective and compassionate way and responding to newly arrived families and refugee families has been unprecedented but also a huge source of pride. By welcoming them and responding to their circumstances with strategic opportunities, such as rapid legal services towards work authorization, English classes17907 for workplace readiness, stabilization and rehousing programs and support, health assessment, and employment opportunities. All of this paves the way for their success. And when they're successful and when we do this right, we know that the result is the overall success of our communities. Governor Haley's proposed budget includes an increase in ORI's administrative funding to be able to17937 support greater fiscal and program oversight that allows ORI to expand our capacity and manage and execute contracts, and track results.
Now I want to focus a lot of my testimony today on the stories of impact, the stories of success, in some of the stories that are from constituents of your communities that are, again, a source of pride. First, let's start with safe shelter exits. OR ICE initiatives as part of the state's emergency assistance shelter system have been successful in supporting families' independence to transition out of shelter in a safe and self-sustainable way. This government-wide effort increased exits by 53% in the last 6 months, and up until recently, 700 families have been exiting our shelter system. Number 2, employment opportunities. Just in fiscal year 24, Massachusetts community providers enrolled 33 3,600 employable adults across 3 employment programs that ORIA runs. Close to 50% of individuals were placed in employment in the same year, and more than 80% of those jobs offer health benefits and others that ensure families are safe.
Number 3, English for work readiness. I'm going to tell you about Shanna, who arrived from Haiti and was seeking safety in Massachusetts. 1 of her biggest challenges was the language barrier, which limited her opportunities and made daily life more difficult. She was determined to overcome this obstacle and enroll in ORI's English program, which successfully successfully completed in December of 2024. She gained confidence through the program. She ensured that she made sure that she had enough language skills to go and apply for a job opportunity. And just a month later, just January of 2025, she secured a full-time job at an Amazon warehouse, a position that requires strong communication skills to follow instructions, coordinate with coworkers, handle OSHA requirements, etcetera.
And she's now making sure that we all get our packages. I just realized that I caught the part when I said that Shanna actually lives in San Arpaio's district in Medford. No? Okay. Metfield? I'm like, which of the met? Alright. Rehousing. It's number 4. Hillary's a newly immigrated single mom from Haiti and a former Pittsfield Shelter resident, worked really closely with her case managers in 1 of the resettlement agencies. And right now, she has been able to afford an apartment near her job, a great school for her first18128 grade son. And with the support of local volunteers, she, received donations of furniture and other type18136 of emotional support that are allowing her and her kids to live in this new place, and have a community. Additionally, the program stabilization services enable her to continue with the English classes from her new place and to stay connected with immigrant immigrant legal resources, empowering her path to self sufficiency. She used Homebase with the support of HLC our HLC partners, is now working full time and is eager to save for the future of her family.
Now a couple of programs that I wanted to mention also as examples, are more historical programs that our Office for Refugee Resettlement has, for refugees and immigrants have been doing for many years. Our agency has been around for 4 decades, and some of the original programs besides the federally funded ones include citizenship for new Americans and financial literacy education. In f y 24, our citizenship for new American program partnered with 18 community based organizations to assist low in low income, lawful permanent residents in becoming naturalized US citizens. ORI providers enroll over 3,300 immigrants, and over 2,100 immigrants became US citizens just18218 like my parents did recently. Financial literacy education is the other18223 1 I mentioned. We have conducted 76 f financial literacy education workshops, and, and this has been with providers, again, all over the state, including your communities. And it has become more relevant than ever. And the wait lists are now bigger than ever, in a good way, because it supports families achieve financial stability by teaching them how to better, navigate financial institutions and, work with a banking system.
We serve over 400 residents in 14 cities across the Commonwealth, with the support of 10 providers, And, the Husani family shared how a solid foundation on a solid foundation that she built out of joining this workshop has been helping them to make informed financial decisions in these times of hard economic times and also navigate the banking system with confidence and manage her finance as, newcomers in The United States with more knowledge and intentionality for saving for the future. So having said some of the stories of impact, I wanna share opportunities that we see in this ever changing times. Massachusetts has a history of offering a helping hand to each new arrival. It is part of who we are, how we see ourselves in our state, and how the world sees us. The contributions of new arrivals weave the social and economic fabric of our state and make us who we are, vibrant communities that are part of our success. In this times of anxiety and distress for immigrant families, we're more determined than ever to remain true to our welcoming history.
The Office for Refugees and Immigrants receives about 80% of our funding from the federal government from the Office for Refugee Resettlement. This funding allows us to work with providers to do case management, cash assistance, programs for employment, youth, schools, elders, and other critical and others that are critical to refugee advancement. More recently, resettlement agencies that are key partners and providers to the Office for18366 Refugees and Immigrants have received stop work orders from18370 the US State Department, ceasing funds and services that supported 8 hun that were supposed to support 832 refugees that were resettled in18380 Massachusetts 90 days before, within 90 days before January 20. On February 27, the department the state department also terminated federal contracts with resettlement agencies and in supports for the placement of refugees across the country, including Massachusetts.
What we have decided to do, considering that our agency, ever since the change of administration, has been able to draw down draw down funds for all of our federal programs with absolutely no issue, is to see is to work really closely with those impacted by the state department decisions and see how we can expand the, support for intensive case management. So these individuals that were before service by direct service funding and, house rent, food, etcetera, through the funding of the state department, can have at least additional intensive case management support so that they can work with Raft, home base, and other programs of our state and not end up in our shelter system. We're also working closely not only with our secretariat at HHS and our sister agencies but also with the affected organizations and the attorney general's office to better address the federal changes. Susan has built a very robust rapid response system to monitor all the changes that might impact our constituents and our Massachusetts residents in terms of immigrants and refugees.
And we have been able to educate thousands of not only colleagues within government but also community-based organizations on how to better inform and educate communities and people that they serve about these changes.18490 House 1 would ensure that ORI continues to create opportunities18496 for information, education, success, and self-sufficiency. Our agency has strengthened and expanded in the past couple of years, thanks to your support, the legislature and the Hill District administration, and Secretary Walsh, to be better equipped and more responsive in meeting the needs and expanding opportunities for all immigrants across the state. We ask you to support the governor's proposed budget, helping us ensure18525 that immigrants can achieve success. And I'm really proud to share that what we have demonstrated as the Commonwealth and as a state in the past 2 years is that there is a way to manage immigrants and influx of multi of people choosing Massachusetts as their home with respect to human dignity, valuing human capital, appropriately allocating resources, and including new members into our communities. Your support for the programs that I laid out above will help build even stronger communities in your districts and across the Commonwealth. Thank you.
KENNEDY - Thank you, Director Aguilera. And I certainly wanna share in the appreciation and pride of the work that ORI did, joining with HLC and other statewide agencies to help support the newly arriving families that we saw in greater numbers starting 2 years ago. And, despite the tragic circumstances that caused them to leave their homes and come here, we're grateful they are here and wanna be clear on that and18593 wanna acknowledge that because of the work you did here in my community, I know across the state, so many of these, newly arriving individuals have filled critical, critical roles. We've heard some from some of the other agencies, but in certainly in many other industries within our community, filled some of those those workspaces, places that I'll no longer name publicly for their own safety.
I do, will ask, I do think the piece you mentioned at the end around the resettlement agencies, 832 families that were on track to, again, join our communities or help be settled here and18631 join our workforce again to fill so many gaps that we need. I appreciate that House 1, as you mentioned, does account for providing some support. I think it's about a $237,000 increase. Do you have a sense, as we're talking about with a lot of federal cuts, that that some that have been, contemplated, or advertised, but not necessarily gone through, but certainly in cases like this that where contracts have been terminated, do you have a sense of how much of a gap that is in financially and what the state may need to look at to, again, help support 800 families, to be sustainable in their homes where they are rather than enter into a much more costly and broken shelter system?
AGUILERA- Thank you for your question. And18678 I know that 1 of the biggest supporters of that, reception and placement, which is how the program is called by the state department through resettlement agencies, is direct assistance. Mhmm. But I think we're we're confident that by having allocated an additional $3,000,000 from our federal funds to the, refugee case management and intensive case management, we can work with the experience that our, resettlement agencies have in the rehousing program directly with the, housing livable community, find out find opportunities through home base and RAFT to ensure that these families have, housing protection.
KENNEDY - Thank you. And I appreciate you, and I should have also, shouted out the incredible organizations that are doing the work here in Worcester. So thank you for naming them all. I appreciate that. Other questions?
DIGGS - Thank you. How will the citizenship for the new American program continue to help to provide wraparound services for those, excuse me, settling in Massachusetts?
AGUILERA - Yes. So citizenship is 1 of the programs that, I think that the outcome of it brings most joy because at the end of the journey of an immigrant to come to Massachusetts is being able to become a US citizen and hold that flag with pride. And, this is18780 a program that, has always been somewhat steadily funded, with small increases that allow us to serve, up to 3,000 individuals with, that are legal permanent residents so that they can have English classes, citizenship classes, pass a test, have someone have a an immigration attorney or, be a accredited individual or permanent justice accredited individual fill out their citizenship application so that they can become citizen.
KENNEDY - Yeah. Other questions?
HOLMES - Thank you for all the work that18821 you do. My question, of course, is really around immigration and federal, but is me thinking, that we get into such a crisis mode and that when we go to have the classes and know your rights, the know your rights classes are what happens if someone18843 knocks on your door, what what happens if, someone addresses you. But when I hear all the things that you're doing, RAFT, education, financial literacy, home base, English classes, do you have, a know your rights that, of course,18860 addresses, you know, all the challenges with TPS. And I just think, as the rep and I were talking, you can't even keep up with what the feds are doing every single day. You can even have a know your rights for what's changing every single day. But do you have something that is more comprehensive than just knowing your rights when someone knocks on the door?
But do you know your rights? Plus, here are all the things that are clear, like, as a noncitizen, you can qualify for this. As a person who's new immigrant, you can qualify, and you don't qualify for this. Like, is there again, not just on your website, but is there something that when someone, even in our offices, can walk in, Mera sends me some stuff, but is there something from your office that here are all the services that you can qualify from the state and as in, you know, if it was double sided, something that also says here all the things that happen if someone knocks on your door. So it's really as much more comprehensive than, hey, I wanna give you something in case of an18927 emergency, but also if that emergency doesn't happen today, here's what we provide as a commonwealth for you. Know your rights on 1 side, kind of what my thoughts are, and then here are all the services that we can make sure that while you're here, you know, it's clear on what you qualify for or not.
AGUILERA- Thank you. We have many resources and information and have been.
HOLMES - I don't want many. Excuse me. That's my problem.
AGUILERA - So that's where I'm headed. Since we have many different kinds, and yours is a very specific request, we will be happy to work with your office to put something like that together. I think it's, and I see several people nodding as, like, this is something that your offices would benefit from and your constituents might be requesting. What we have been focusing the majority of our energy in all of this rapid response and information and location campaign, and Susan can speak more to that, is in making sure that we train others that are the trusted local community based organization that speak the language of the communities that are in their communities so that they can provide these resources in their languages with their, logo that, you know, are their their local partners. Would you like to expand on that?
SUSAN -MASSACHUSETTS OFFICE OF REFUGEE AND IMMIGRATS -The only thing I would add is that we have also been doing know-your-rights presentations to a kind of larger audience. And when we do it through a larger audience, we often adapt to whatever's going on. So we have lots of internal trackers. We're very much on top of, like, what is happening, and then we adapt our programs sometimes day by day as to what's. Thank you.
KENNEDY - Are there other questions? So I'm sorry.
HOLMES - All of us who are not very capable and only speak 1 1 language and sometimes struggle with just English. I think we get pushed by many people who want to say what people qualify for and what they don't. And it would be good for me to be able to also be factual, if you understand what I'm saying to you. Because of the fact that 1, I wanna be factual for what folks can get and what they qualify for, but then also be able to be factual for some of the misinformation that's happening about how someone may be robbing from our systems and things of that nature. So that's what I mean. I appreciate the urgency of the moment, but still when someone's in front of me, if I can give them both sets of information, here's how we address something urgent, here's how you still live day to day, that would just be helpful even for for me and my offices.
AGUILERA- Absolutely. That's a great request.
KENNEDY - Thank you. Rep Arriaga? Yep.
ARRIAGA - Thank you so much for the information and all the work that you do for all these individuals who come to Massachusetts for a better tomorrow. My question might19121 be an easy 1. Do we have the current number of families slash individuals we currently still have in the system? And do you think we'll be able to house them before our deadline funding expires?
AGUILERA - I'm very confident that all the work that we're doing across government in collaboration with our partners at the housing and livable community team will get us there. As I mentioned, the exits, thanks to all the programs that we've collaborated on, have increased significantly. And in terms of the exact numbers, I'm happy to get back to you. I don't wanna just give you an old number. Appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you. Anybody else?
KENNEDY - Thank you, director. I think hearing no more questions, we thank you. Thank you very much. 1. And with that, we have come to the conclusion of our hearing today. I19183 do wanna again thank the members of our committee again. I wanna thank the agencies that are here. I especially wanna acknowledge all the commissioners and staff from all the19193 presenters who are still with us.19195 Thank you for sticking out the whole day and supporting your colleagues. I certainly see you and appreciate that. I wanna again thank Joe and Anthony, our court officers, again for your support. I wanna thank our ASL interpreters. I know it's been a long day. Thank you. I wanna thank my staff, who I hope are still standing strong19212 out there. Thank you for everything you do19214 every day. Again, thank you to Dougherty High School for welcoming us and allowing us to use this space. So thank you so much. And with that, we'll adjourn.
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