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Agency flags implementation challenges for S.60 farm relief and says $31.7M USDA block grant not yet executable
Summary
Nicole Dubuque told legislators the agency has concerns about S.60’s design (public board, privacy, scope and equity) and that an estimated $31.7 million in USDA block grant funds for disaster recovery remains unavailable because no executed agreement or administrative funds exist yet.
Nicole Dubuque, chief operating officer for the Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets, told the committee the agency is ‘‘in a challenging place with the bill’’ S.60 and outlined several operational concerns if the bill is implemented as currently written. She said creating a public board to review private financial information would likely push most deliberations into executive session and raised questions about public records, equity and administrative workload.
Dubuqe said the current S.60 language is broad in scope and may cover ‘‘losses and expenses’’ in ways that would make evaluation complex and…
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