SmartTranscript of House General - 2025-01-17 - 10:30AM

[Chair ]: Good morning, everyone. This is the House Committee on General and Housing. Welcome. And, today is Friday, the seventeenth of January. Happy Friday, everyone. So this morning, we are going to hear from the first thing we're gonna hear is concerning intellectually and developmentally disabled housing. And we have two two witnesses. And then at eleven, we're hearing from the Vermont League of Cities in town. And that's our that's our morning. So why don't we introduce ourselves to the witness? And those of you who our next witness, you can hear the introductions as well. You wanna start? Sure. Good morning, representative Sonia Lamont, Memorial Washington District, [Sonia Lamont ]: which is Morristown, Elmore, Worcester, Woodbury, and a small part of Stowe. And for those of you who will still be in the room, I will be stepping out at eleven fifteen, so I just wanna put that out there now. It is not you. I just have somebody else to attend you to. [Elizabeth Burrows ]: Good morning. I am Elizabeth Burrows, and I represent Windsor one, which is Heartland, West Windsor, and Windsor. [Mary Howard ]: Good morning. I am Mary Howard, and I represent Rutland City District six. [Gail Pesso ]: Good morning. I'm Gail Pesso, and I represent Chittendwine Culture. [Mary Howard ]: I'm Debbie Dolkin, and I represent St. Johnsbury, Kirby, and Conkers. [Tom Charlton ]: Tom Charlton, Athens Chester. Joe Parsons, towns of Newcomb, Topsom, and Groton. [Sonia Lamont ]: Good morning. Leonora Dodge from Essex Town in the city of Essex Township. [Chair ]: And I'm Mark Tohali, and I represent Calais, Plainfield and Marshfield. And we have representative Krasnow, who isn't here, but I think will be. And and Ashley Bartley, who is our vice chair and will be here, I think, soon. So would you tell us your name for the record and your association, and then please present your tell us what you wanna tell us. [Marla McQuiston ]: My name is Marla McQuiston, and I'm with the Developmental Disabilities Housing Initiative. And we are a group that is a hundred and twenty parents of the state. We all have young adults with moderate to high support needs. I'm here primarily to ask for funding. There were three pilot projects awarded, planning grants from act one eighty six in twenty twenty two, and two of the projects are on their way. They've received funding not to get going. The third project, the Champlain Housing Trust in Burlington, is still needing two point eight million. We're hoping to receive that this year to get going. I have three sons and a daughter. My son, Justin, is here. So Justin has Down syndrome. He's twenty seven, and we're hoping to make sure that he has a place to live once his parents are gone. He's very friendly and outgoing and kind of a character. I have picture that he was, like, stepped into the sections of the Williston parade and let everyone here on his own. But he's well known in Williston, and he would like to stay and live in Williston. He would like to live with some of his peers. He will always need direct support professionals. He works eighteen hours at UVM in the grounds department, but he can cook some. He can't really manage his schedule and figure out timing of things. He can't tell you the difference really between ten bucks and a hundred bucks. So he really needs someone to help manage his money. Let me see. So we're you know, we wanna create a place where he can call home, and he would like to stay in his community where he's known. He doesn't want to sent out to other towns. Not that there are any we know a lot of good towns. The the reason this has to be a priority right now is in nineteen ninety three, when Brandon was closed, the state promised to support people with intellectual and developmental disabilities in their communities, but very little has been done in thirty years. The state has relied exclusively or almost exclusively on shared living providers, which are essentially foster care, especially for those with the highest needs. Five agencies recently surveyed their shared living providers, and they found that twenty five percent are planning to leave in the next five years. And they're already struggling to find that speed for the survey. Because of the staffing crisis, the state is now mostly relying on aging parents to provide housing. Many of the parents in our group have left work to care for their young adults. Many of us left work when they were younger and left high better paying jobs of looking at workforce. You know, there's a lot of people who could be contributing. The the housing for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities is very different. I mean, it can it can fit in with affordable housing, but some people, just need more supports. Some of them are nonverbal and need diapering and need suit two people in the bathroom to assist them. So you need not just an a excuse me, not just an ADA whatever system it is. Yeah. But they need more, you know, they need more space for the bathroom. They can't feed themselves. They needed someone to cook for them. They need a kitchen. Many people like my son could live in the same place and not need that much space, but he can't live by himself. So a lot of our housing that we're proposing, especially CHT's project, is a mix of people with higher needs and people with moderate needs who want to live together and want to be in their own community where they go up and went to schools. [Chair ]: Could I just ask you? Yep. So does that mean I assume if someone's got capable living by themselves, it could be a one bedroom. But, otherwise, what you're saying is we're whether it's in a group setting or an individual setting, there would have to be a bedroom or an aide that would be full time in the house? Or [Marla McQuiston ]: It depends. I mean, most of the the the model that we've really liked is Visions New Hampshire, and they have structured it so that they have staff. They have staff that come on shifts. So that means that there's not a person who is responsible all the time for that person. It gives better job satisfaction for the staff. I mean, you know, you've got kids. You and your your husband or wife can take your kids and three other ones and go to the beach. And if somebody has to go to the bathroom or somebody has a meltdown, one of you can take care of them and somebody can take care of the other ones. So if you have a kid with a wheelchair, you you know, two staff can take him and two or three or four others to the movies or to the whatever. So it's not we wanna get away from the siloed one on one. Most of these young people went to school. They don't really want someone hanging over their shoulder all the time. So anyhow, so the housing needs to be you know, it has higher needs. It will need more space. That community space of a a kitchen and a a dining room where everyone can eat together, you know, some of them might not eat there all the time, but some of them will have to. And and that costs more than a typical affordable housing unit. And that's you know, we we these projects the three projects are costing more than kind of a standard affordable housing. We expect that there will be efficiencies over time and in the design and in the operation, but you can't check you can't test for efficiencies if you don't build it in the first place. So these were the first ones that were built. They were given the money to plan. The money needs to be given to be built so that there can be efficiencies learned. The current need that's been put out there is actually, it's from a report from the Developmental Disabilities Council. I put a link in my online in my testimony. But their housing brief from twenty twenty two said a current need of six hundred and two, and that's probably a low estimate. And that's statewide. Yes. Six hundred two units. Units. Well, yes. [Gail Pesso ]: There it is. [Chair ]: Need to hold six hundred and two Two people. People. Yes. [Tom Charlton ]: Yeah. Oh, okay. [Marla McQuiston ]: So but in general, what we found is that most people across the nation, it's the experience is that most people want to be in their own apartment, even if it's a studio with a bunch of other studios, and they have a common kitchen or living area or something. We do understand that there's a huge need for housing for many marginalized people. We understand that there's homeless people who are dying for lack of housing. We wanna bring up that there are many people in our our parent group who have had people have had their young adults living in abusive situations because of the lack of supervision for shared living support and the lack of training and the lack of adequate care, really. I I will leave you our family stories, and there's a few in here that are just heartbreaking. There's others that people just need. You know, parents are aging. You you can't always care for someone. Is that document in electronic form? Yes. I can provide it. I can Do you provide [Chair ]: it to to our to Kamala? [Hannah Schwartz ]: Some documents? Yeah. [Marla McQuiston ]: That one is. Yes. I put that one on. Okay. Thank you. And then this is a just a overview of the Champlain Housing Trust. There's a few of them, the the Burlington project. So, you know, these some of our people are are living they're housed. They don't qualify for coordinated entry because there's twenty three year olds living in being placed in a nursing home with elderly. There's some with high medical needs are housed in the emergency room of the hospital. Some are in the motel programs. That's not housing. They they need permanent housing as much as people living on the street. So I would say my last thing is that we will be in the cafeteria on Tuesdays every other week. If you have questions, we're happy to answer. And, Michael Monti from CHT told us in August, regulatory relief will have some impact. The takeaway is that we need we asked for investment last year. I know a lot of you were involved in the the bill that was put forward last year that would have helped a lot, but we didn't get it. So we need it now. Thank you very much. Appreciate your time. [Chair ]: Any questions from the committee? [Speaker 8 ]: Yeah. Any questions? [Sonia Lamont ]: Thank you [Mary Howard ]: for your Howard. Thank you, chair. Thank you for your testimony. I'm I'm sure you're probably not aware in align with what you're telling us that there is a bill regarding guardianship in the senate right now. [Marla McQuiston ]: Mhmm. And [Mary Howard ]: representative Donahue and I are coordinating along with senator Williams to get a bill here in the in the media in the house to coordinate with that. So [Marla McQuiston ]: Yeah. It might be something you What what number is it? [Mary Howard ]: Oh, I don't have a number. [Chair ]: That's okay. Uh-uh. Somebody has. S five. It's s five. [Elizabeth Burrows ]: S five? I think so. [Chair ]: Okay. We think. [Mary Howard ]: Okay. Thank you. [Marla McQuiston ]: Thank you very much. [Chair ]: I have a question. So the these three pilot programs, two are underway. The CHT still is short of funds. [Marla McQuiston ]: Yeah. [Chair ]: Two point eight million. [Marla McQuiston ]: Yeah. [Chair ]: Billion. Is there right. Are they or you willing to I mean, has that been Requested. Requested to the administration? Do we know whether it's gonna be in the administration budget? Is it [Marla McQuiston ]: I don't know about that. I know they've put they've applied for funding from Vermont Housing and Conservation Board. They've applied from Burlington community development block grants. They've applied you know, they applied for I can't remember which senator, the congressional spending thing, and we didn't get that quick. [Elizabeth Burrows ]: When we [Chair ]: my golly, when we have Chris in from Sampling Housing Trust, maybe we can ask him to have a brief update on the funding the status of that funding. The reason I ask is this committee has always asked for input, literally written input on the budget. Yeah. And we have to comment and rank our priorities. And so, that's a really important moment for us to have some influence on the [Marla McQuiston ]: That's why we're here. Policy issue. [Chair ]: Thank you very much. [Marla McQuiston ]: Thank you. [Chair ]: Any further questions from the Commission? From the committee? I guess. Yes. Please. [Sonia Lamont ]: Yes. Of course. Thank you so much for coming with this. Are you are you finding that the population that the numbers are growing as our state ages? I mean, you know, we're having, like, workforce decreasing, senior populations increasing. You know, we all know that we're a lot of us are are choosing to have kids later in life, and, you know, it it's it's and we all wanna give great, you know, great lives for our our kids and and and their adult into their adulthood. So is that six zero two number that is now three years old Right. [Marla McQuiston ]: Like, there's more young people coming out of high school and, you know, their parents are getting older. So yeah. [Chair ]: Great. Thank you. Thank you very much. [Marla McQuiston ]: Thank you, Norma. Appreciate you coming. [28 seconds of silence] [Chair ]: Wanna introduce yourself, Hannah? [Hannah Schwartz ]: Yes. Hi. I'm Hannah Schwartz. I've been in Vermont since nineteen ninety eight when Goddard got me here. Thanks to Callas. That's where I started. And lived right on the on the pond. Anna Schwartz. I have a master's degree in special education from Antioch, New England, and a second master's in social work from the University of Vermont. I've worked in the field of human services for over twenty six years in this state. In two thousand, I started heartbeat life sharing, which was one of the first alternative options to the HCBS. I didn't understand the state I was coming into. I was, I think, twenty three or four at the time. I didn't know the history of Brandon. It it was located on a farm. I was I bought the town farm in Hardwick and then donated it to the nonprofit and was very enthusiastic about creating alternative options. It was a long road. Heartbeat is up and going, and heartbeat is spelled b e p t and not spelled wrong. It was one of my she b s. Home based community home based community supports. It's the home home care provider model that's also known as adult foster care for adults with IBD. Let's see. Community is the lens by which I explore and make meaning of the many intersecting crises of our time, especially here in Vermont. I have lived in, founded, and studied intentional communities for the majority of my life. Community is an essential part of belonging and such a valuable concept to keep exploring as we think about the problems that we are facing now. Communities, how we know each other, and support each other through the good and the hard. Truly, community means to me a place where I belong, where I'm known, where I'm celebrated for what I have to offer in my individual skills, and also a place for durable and lasting relationships. I think when you were asking, Marla, about the crises and the growing numbers, we have seven point five million kids in the United States that need services in our public school right now that will graduate by, like, I think, twenty twenty eight. We have an aging home care provider model, and those really good home care providers are retiring. We know that. We have six hundred and two unplaced adults. That's in the the council's report, the DD council's report. I think the numbers are astronomical. I think we've been potentially sleeping at the wheel with this crisis. We really need to address adults meet adult needs in this state for people with severe IDD and also people who just are gonna need additional supports to be successful in their lives. And getting multiple options, seventy six percent of our population is served by the HCBS model. We need more options. We've been saying I came in in two thousand when I started Heartbeat, and I think it was challenges for changes on the table through Patrick Flood that, like, I I've been hearing we need more options, and we just aren't doing it the money, and it's really bricks and mortar funding. Program funding is helpful, but we need money to build the programs. I hand raised fourteen million dollars to put the infrastructure in a heartbeat, private donations that was without any help from the state. So that can happen. But you're really totally dependent on philanthropy. And I think there's a nice mix between philanthropy and the state funding that can happen. But out solo, we really I think the state needs to take seriously the need for housing and put some money into the bricks and mortar and support development of new programs. [Chair ]: If you can expand on that a little bit. That is don't assume that we know much of anything [Mary Howard ]: Okay. At the [Chair ]: moment. Yeah. So you're implying that there's one model and it's fine, but we need other physical kinds of arrangements. You wanna expand a little on what you're talking about exists now and what what additional things you think should come? Happen. [Hannah Schwartz ]: Yeah. So I think we've been really dependent on the generosity of Vermonters to open their homes and take in adults with developmental disabilities into their homes. That's a transient experience for a person with special needs because Elizabeth coined the term, as as, what was it, a home a series of, you know, my son she didn't want my her son to be, a stranger in a series of homes because we we don't really have the statistics on there are some amazing home care providers, and I I am all about expanding options, not shrinking options. But the idea there is a lot of turnover in the home care provider model and not enough training. And so we need to just expand the training for home care providers, and we also need to train our direct supports. We need to really build the education around that. And there we have a new we have a housing crisis in Vermont. You guys all know that. Young people can't buy houses. Even if they wanna be home care providers, they can't afford a home to then take a person into their home. There aren't enough homes. And so we're losing really good home care providers. Nobody can afford to buy a home that would wanna be the next generation. So we have to kind of look at where are we going? This crisis was approaching us for the twenty years I've been in the field. And now we're kind of in the hot spot where we do three to five years, we're gonna lose, I don't know, three hundred home care providers. I don't know the exact number. We need to get that. But we're gonna be looking at, like, kids aging in, providers aging out. We're looking at, like, what, a thousand people who need homes. I mean, this is serious. [Sonia Lamont ]: Yeah. Sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt your flow, but I am trying to figure out how many so when you talk when you say a home care provider or a home based community support, are those the same thing? [Hannah Schwartz ]: Yes. That's the that that's kind of the model, and then the home care provider is the individual provider that says to an agency, I'd like to Post. Post somebody in my home. That's what [Chair ]: I'm trying to do. [Sonia Lamont ]: Care provider is not, like, a is not the caregiver providing the service. You're saying they're providing the home and services in their home? [Hannah Schwartz ]: It depends. Some people that again, that's the individual packet development. So some but some home care providers do provide the care also up to a certain percentage, and then there's a day program person who can come in and get someone out into the community. But they may get eight hours. So then that home care providers really, like, eight hours a week, they're not providing care, but the rest of the time, they are. They are the main person for that. [Sonia Lamont ]: Visits may just be providing some kind of activity or, like, some kind of more maybe more professionalized, like, medical or something. Right. Okay. And so do you have numbers for those two types of things? Like, how many home care providers are in the state and how many [Hannah Schwartz ]: Direct support and care. Support cares. I don't have that number off the top my head. That would be, like, a collective research around your designated agencies. So you look so there's seventeen or eighteen designated agencies. I'm not quite sure the number, but you have each region has their designated agency, and they are responsible for staffing all the care. K. And there's a staff shortage. I mean, everybody's looking for staff at this point. [Sonia Lamont ]: And there's oversight to the home care providers that's They're outside of, like, our jurisdiction of housing Yes. [Speaker 8 ]: Yes. Yes. [Hannah Schwartz ]: That's the designated agency responsibility. Okay. Sorry. This is No. [Speaker 8 ]: A whole new [Hannah Schwartz ]: A whole world opening up. I do have met a lot of this community. I am here to talk about I said, why am I here? That's the next thing. It's actually Riverflow Community. It was awarded, funds from act one eighty six. Thank you to all the legislators who participated in that. Like, truly, that kick started a really amazing opportunity for new programs, and I hope that continues. Riverflow, hit the ground running. It's planning funds. So you have to really act one eighty six was just for planning. Well, we took that very seriously. We got our nonprofit. We, put together an incredible advisory board and a board of directors. We got a pass through nonprofit so we could immediately start fundraising. We found a piece of property, and in sixteen months, we opened our doors. And I'm passing these out. This is the fall newsletter. [Chair ]: Could you describe physically what Ruben Flow is? [Hannah Schwartz ]: We might have to share. Riverflow is a thirty acre property, fifty seven Cedar Lane in Moncton. We're thirty minutes from downtown Burlington. We are very close to Shelburne, Bristol, Middlebury. We love the Middlebury co op. We're we bought an abandoned house, and we rep fully renovated it. We did get money from VLITE. We had a we're deeply grateful. We got fifty thousand from VLITE, two hundred and forty thousand from VHIP. We are an application to the Vermont Housing Conservation Board, But we also raised a lot of philanthropy, raised a lot of money to match all the gifts that we got in from the state. We purchased the land. We renovated the house five hundred and thirty seven thousand dollars to renovate it. I would say about forty percent of those costs are to meet the public housing codes and also to get licensed, beat the TCR therapeutic community residence state licensing code. So sprinkling systems, full fire stations, ADA bathrooms, ADA doorways. All of that kind of renovation is very expensive, so a huge percentage of the cost of renovation or building has you have to consider that we're just meeting regulatory codes, and those are expensive. [Chair ]: So physically, though We're open. Is it a [Sonia Lamont ]: How many? [Chair ]: No. But is it individual units and then I mean, how what does it look like? [Hannah Schwartz ]: Look like? Okay. You walk through the door, beautiful big boot room. There are you turn to the right. There's a beautiful wing with a big open ceiling. Everybody has their own bedroom with their en suite bathroom. How many? Four. Four friends live there. And we say friends. We don't use the word client. And then you come if you can come back into the boot room and you go to the right, and there's a beautiful big open dining room, big open kitchen. We had to renovate and pop out walls and create really think about accessibility and flow, beautiful, laundry room where everybody can gain the life skills. We're doing a lot of life skill building. A lot of, you know, it is a community within itself, the home itself. We're fully staffed. We have just amazing momentum, enthusiasm, and excitement towards this. And so many stories. I can't even tell you when a friend came back from being with his family for Christmas and just went around and hugged and said everybody's name. I was so happy to be there. It was so sweet. It's really and then there's a big living room. There isn't a staffed residential wing. So we do have what we call householders, and those are house managers. [Chair ]: Sorry. There's not [Hannah Schwartz ]: There is. [Chair ]: There is a staff resident. [Hannah Schwartz ]: There is a staff residential wing. So there are we really believe that, you know, for the folks that we're caring for that need night care, maybe need to change their bedding in the middle of the night or have a nosebleed in the middle of the night and need all their bedding changed and everything washed, and that that's the kind of care that's needed. So we have two we have four residential staff that live on-site in that home. It's really one on one. It's high. [Sonia Lamont ]: They don't take turns sleeping there. Like, they they live [Hannah Schwartz ]: They live there. This is an extended commute. We call that extended community home. It's like an extended family. And so the idea is really the warmth of the home and people the continuity of friendship is really a core value there, like, in the model that we're creating that trying to eliminate the high level of staff turnover and really look at what retains people, and how can there be meaningful long term friendships for folks. And this extended family household is really you know, we use the word chosen family that's coming more and more into the lexicon of our conversations. There's a [Marla McQuiston ]: lot of chosen family in this model and really community. And yes. What what kind of people take on that kind of job? What are their credentials [Gail Pesso ]: and their commitment? [Marla McQuiston ]: Yeah. Good question. [Hannah Schwartz ]: Social workers. I'm a social worker. I feel like people interested in human services, we partnered with UVM. We're bringing in masters in social work internships. We're looking at speech and language pathology interns. So we're really coordinating with I haven't connected with Middlebury as much as I'd like to and connect with the, Middle Middlebury College, but I think there'll just be more and more professionals that are interested in their internships and conducting. Alternative models are really there's so so much interest. Like, I am I have more interest than I can deal with. We also have over sixty applicants, and we're full. There's sixty plus applicants already, and I hear from, like, three to five families in a day. I mean, we we can and we're in the middle of the permitting and site planning to be able to build out the thirty acres. We think we can put three to four more houses on that property, but the permitting is extensive and the process is long. You know, families are literally like so twenty twenty six, I've been saying twenty twenty six, we might be able to build house too. But it's like, how do I know my kid's getting in? How do I know I'm gonna get there? And [Chair ]: have you had public funding? [Hannah Schwartz ]: We have received VLITE and VHIP funding. VLITE. [Chair ]: VLITE is energy efficiency. [Hannah Schwartz ]: Yes. And our house really thanks to our we worked with Efficiency Vermont. We did also get rebates, and we did everything we could to make it the house is very, very efficient. [Chair ]: You had applications in to, the ACV? [Hannah Schwartz ]: Yes. We have an application in right now. [Chair ]: Right. And is how much is that for? [Hannah Schwartz ]: Four hundred and twenty. [Chair ]: But if you build new units, you're gonna have to [Hannah Schwartz ]: Go back. [Chair ]: Go back. [Hannah Schwartz ]: Absolutely. Right now, it's the permitting process. And we received the we were able to get an extension on the act one eighty six funds that has kind of left the door open until February. And that's really funding the all the site planning and engineering to get us to the table for the permitting. And I need to speak with Zapata about some of the permit stuff too. Great. [Chair ]: We're about out of time. Is there anything else you'd like to tell us that you haven't? [Hannah Schwartz ]: Wow. We went off script here. I really think you should see even though it's two years old, this housing report, I highly recommend that you read the DD Council housing report. I did talk to you about the large number coming in. And, you know, I think these models got kick started by act one eighty six, and I hope that they continue to be supported because they're gonna be most effective. And that money will be the best spend if it's not just a one and done. It will be far more effective. Oh, I wanted to say, general Merrick Garland, January sixteenth, he just said, not what is politically expedient, not what is easiest or most most comfortable, but what's right. [Chair ]: Thank you very much. [Hannah Schwartz ]: Stepped out. [Sonia Lamont ]: Appreciate your time, [Chair ]: buddy. Thank [Hannah Schwartz ]: you, Kelsey. Thank you. [47 seconds of silence] [Speaker 8 ]: Okay. Okay. [Chair ]: One one person or two that you can send over time. Here. [Elizabeth Burrows ]: You don't have to look right. Yeah. [Chair ]: I can even come over to captive [Speaker 8 ]: pieces. You find anything to do. Okay. We're still We're still meeting for some reason. So Awesome. I hate to [Chair ]: do this, but I I think now that you've settled in, would the committee like to take a five minute break? No. Now are you? I'm ready. Yes. Okay. I think we need They're [Sonia Lamont ]: so excited. [Chair ]: I'm ready. That'd be great. I'm trying to [Tom Charlton ]: find Sometimes. Oh, boy. Okay. [Sonia Lamont ]: Yeah. You're you're in butts with mine. [Speaker 8 ]: That's right. [Chair ]: Josh, are you doing all policy now? [Tom Charlton ]: At the LCT, yes. While I'm getting ready, I guess we can introduce ourselves or I'm gonna figure this out. [Chair ]: You why don't we have the committee introduce itself to you, and then you can introduce yourselves. [Sonia Lamont ]: K. Good morning, representative of the law of Washington District, and I will be stepping out shortly. Keep your heads up. [Elizabeth Burrows ]: I am Elizabeth Burrows. I represent Windsor one, which is Hartwick, West Windsor, Windsor. [Mary Howard ]: Good morning. I'm Mary Howard. I represent Rutland City District six. I'm Debbie Dolgen. I represent Saint Johnsbury, Concord, and Kirby. [Tom Charlton ]: Tom Charlton, Athens, Chester, Grafton, and Lindell. Joe Parsons, Newberry, Topsom, and Grott. [Sonia Lamont ]: Leonor Dodge, Essex Town, and City of Essex Junction. Thank you. [Chair ]: Yeah. I'm Mark Mulholly, and I represent Callas and Plainfield and Marshfield. Emily Krasnow is not with us, and Ashley Bartley may come in, but she's our vice tier. So please introduce yourselves and take it away. K. You do you wanna take a minute and connect your computer? [Tom Charlton ]: I I I'll I'll, introduce myself. And then while Smith is introducing herself, I'll try to figure out the tech If it [Chair ]: I can't still worse, we can help you. [Tom Charlton ]: Okay. Too many windows open and, you know, things. But, John Hanford, I've met some of you in the past and welcomed new members. Quick background, I work with the Montlega Cities and Towns now. It's been a little over a year. Before that, I was housing and community development commissioner, for governor Scott for five years and deputy commissioner of housing and development under governor Shumlin, for a couple years. And before that, community development director doing housing work, working with communities for for quite a while, now with the league, helping support their main priorities, which continues to be housing. So that's why we're here to give you a little overview of what we're talking about as ways to help, build more housing and support communities in doing that. [Hannah Schwartz ]: My name is Samantha Sheehan. I work with Jobs at PLCT, although I just joined in October. Before that, most recently, I worked in the office of former mayor, Monroe Weinberger, on a number of housing policies there locally. Although I'm not from Burlington, I live in Hancock, which is an hour and a half away from Burlington. And a slightly different experience in terms of, future growth there. [Chair ]: Gail, would you like to introduce yourself? [Gail Pesso ]: I'm Gail Petzl. Chittenden, twenty, Colchester. [Tom Charlton ]: Ready? Yep. Alright. It's working. So we're just gonna give you a quick overview. First of all, thanks for having us in, to get a chance to speak with you early. What does VLCT do? Well, we represent every city, town, municipality, and state, including all of yours. It's a member organization. It's been around since nineteen sixty seven. Nonprofit. It's nonpartisan. And it's here to serve and strengthen local government. We do educational workshops for local officials. We provide comprehensive, insurance coverage for municipalities. You know, you have to ensure your employees and your buildings and and all of that. That's a big deal these days. We provide confidential legal guidance from our experienced group of municipal attorneys, help, you know, make sure towns are following the rules and and are able to deal with the challenges that come their way. We collect data. We do a lot of surveys and data collection to help, municipalities, members answer a number of questions, where they find themselves in in certain anything from wages to different initiatives that the states put forward. And we also work with a lot of state agencies and legislative working groups. One of the new things we're we're really been doing really since the floods is helping municipalities with technical assistance, grant writing, financial management, you know, with the influx of ARPA funds and disaster recovery funds. We we've been stepping into this fray in a way that we haven't in the past. We're fortunate right now to have a a million dollar USDA grant to provide this, local assistance. It's time limited. It's something that we have hundreds of touch points with municipalities across the state on every type of issue you can imagine, helping them, address their needs, handle their financial management operations, seek grants, so forth. And, you know, it it seems to be, very valued effort, but, you know, it is something that, we have some special support to do that right now. [Hannah Schwartz ]: If I could say something about so that team is four folks all with an incredible amount of expertise and experience in municipal finance and operations. And with ARPA deployment, they actually assisted all two hundred and forty seven municipalities in the state. Some of that was very light touch, like a place like Burlington saying, oh, this like Burlington saying, oh, this project came under budget. What could we possibly do with, you know, fifty thousand dollars? And they share some ideas. Some of it was very high touch, like sitting in a team's meeting with a volunteer, clerk and facilitating the grant reporting, like, on the commerce portal, for each of the ARPA deadlines. So really critical support for getting that money out the door and into the ground. [Tom Charlton ]: You know, we're the go to source for municipal like, there's no one else in the state that really understands municipal finance operations like VLCT because we have every community as a member. Burlington to, you know, Shaftesbury, everyone in between. Rep. Burrows. [Elizabeth Burrows ]: You may be getting to this, and so I apologize if I'm asking this question in advance. But can you explain the the overlap or relationship with the, RPCs? [Tom Charlton ]: Sure. At at a very high level, and, you know, Samantha jump in, they provide certainly a capacity and assistance to municipalities, but mainly around sort of the the land use planning responsibilities and not so much daily operations, financial management. [Elizabeth Burrows ]: More on a, kind of logistical [Tom Charlton ]: Logistical, legal Legal. Really, everything. [Elizabeth Burrows ]: So I wanted to get in my town of one thousand people was to get a planning grant through our RPC, regional planning commission. Sorry. Would VLCT help them to they wouldn't necessarily help them to implement the grant, but could they help them with the financial management of the funds? [Hannah Schwartz ]: Or how what would what [Elizabeth Burrows ]: would the VLCT role be in there? [Hannah Schwartz ]: If if a municipality received a grant for any project, physical infrastructure, programmatic planning, whether that was a state or federal grant or philanthropic, the municipal operations team could advise them and sort of provide technical support and expertise on how to manage that grant in a compliant way. Compliant with the funder, but also compliant with Vermont State law. [Elizabeth Burrows ]: So if you let's say that was the case, what would what would the interface be? Would you would you both work with the town, or would you also work with the RPC? [Hannah Schwartz ]: Well, we wouldn't do it. Our colleagues do it. Yeah. Both. [Tom Charlton ]: Potentially both. And, you know, they do, one on one, go to a municipality, help sit down. They do workshops and trainings. Like, we'd have a whole series, you know, preparing to apply for a grant, applying for a grant, the financial management and compliance standards of that grant, closing it. We have a series that this team has done, you know, standard spreadsheets, guidance on complying with sort of cross cutting federal regulations, all all that sort of stuff. [Hannah Schwartz ]: Excellent. Reserve funds, matching funds [Tom Charlton ]: Yep. [Hannah Schwartz ]: Building stacks. They help a lot of municipalities come to them because they have a partially funded project with several sources, and they need that last one. Uh-huh. And so they'll help actually with the research for funding opportunities and the sort of project readiness for that, process. I wanna point out a key difference between the services VLCT provides and the RPCs. Our members is every municipality, the ones you live in and the ones you represent, are members of VLCT. We provide the same services and the same level of service to all of them. The RPCs may do that within their district, But but region to region Right. The the services that is offered in Addison County may not be the same as offered in Essex, may not be the same as Windsor. Right. [Tom Charlton ]: They're often a creature of where they're getting their funding from too. Right. Yep. That sort of, moves their priorities around from year to year. [Chair ]: Mhmm. It depends on. [Gail Pesso ]: You must become a member, any municipality town. So there's a fee to that. And does that mean that the whole team, say a select board, would be members of? [Chair ]: The town is a member. Correct? Mhmm. Correct. But it it serves if an individual select board member has a question, they can pose a question after the but if I have a question, they don't have to answer. [Tom Charlton ]: So the [Gail Pesso ]: Meaning a constituent, not necessarily like someone the Yeah. The representative clerk. [Hannah Schwartz ]: The town official. [Tom Charlton ]: Every everyone that's an employee or serves in an official role, elected or appointed Is a member. Is a member that gets those services and those questions answered. And there's trainings? And there's trainings. Okay. And the member fee is based on the population size. So it's a sliding price. And then most, I think every municipality besides maybe one in the state is also a member of our insurance trust. [Hannah Schwartz ]: I think there's two that are in there. [Tom Charlton ]: Two. Yeah. But that's a, you know, that's a separate choice to if you can go get insurance on your own. If you think ours is a better deal, that's another choice. Actually, I [Chair ]: have a technical question. If passive, that's their insurance. Mhmm. Cool. Yeah. [Marla McQuiston ]: What's it called? [Chair ]: Passive? It's caps, p a c I f. Property and Casualty Insurance and Fund or something. [Tom Charlton ]: Trust me. Trust me. Trust. Yeah. [Chair ]: It's it's and it's and it has a head. There's a very great guy who runs passive and [Sonia Lamont ]: He just left. [Chair ]: Billy? Joe? [Tom Charlton ]: Who? Joe. Joe. Seventeen and a half years. But he's still working. He's serving a national because we have to buy reinsurance for our trust. He's going to that national group that's going to provide backup coverage to us [Chair ]: and all the other states. My technical question simply, is that considered a captive insurance program for purposes of regulation by the state? [Hannah Schwartz ]: Yes. I believe so, but it's not positive. [Elizabeth Burrows ]: I will check. Check. The Vermont. School board insurance trust. [Chair ]: Yep. Yep. Yeah. [Tom Charlton ]: So We're very similar to VISBID. We also have VIMERS, the Vermont Municipal Employees Trust, which provides, you know, all the, staying retirement estate employees and teachers. It's the municipal pool of employees. Okay. That's a separate trust. Yes. [Hannah Schwartz ]: I wanna provide an, like, example. So last year, the legislature, changed Vermont tax abatement and tax sale law. We had a training just before the holiday week. I think a hundred and twenty municipal officials attended, and some of them may have been municipal attorneys, like a city attorney. Some were listers. Some were, tax delinquent tax collectors, but all all town clerks. So all the folks who engage in that tax abatement process and wanted to learn and understand the new law participated in that training, and it was conducted by our attorneys who work at VLCT. [Chair ]: I I recognize that you have only reached your second slide. Nope. I it is. [Sonia Lamont ]: This is based on me having your slideshow on my laptop. I can move to this slide. So I noticed I will let you go through this slide, and then I just have a question about the public safety. Yeah. Go ahead. [Tom Charlton ]: We're gonna divide and conquer here because we're also both in terms of operations. So Yeah. So, each each, biennium, we have a policy setting process. We have five different committees made up of representatives from all the municipalities, and we develop municipal policies for the next two years. And that's fifteen pages long, covers everything from transportation to environment to land use, you name it. And then each year, we develop priorities out of that because, you know, we need to narrow it down to the most important things, pull from those vast policies. And all of our members voted this in our annual meeting, October first. And they voted to support these priorities as well. And calling through those, those meetings, those those those committee process, there was this common theme that what really municipalities are really asking for the legislature to consider this year is to support municipalities in meeting their obligations and functions of today's local government needs and help take action with us to solve the challenges of the twenty first century. So there's some things that we need your support to do as a municipality, and then we wanna join you in taking action for these other big big issues. And even before the elections, we had this lower property taxes thing. Everyone thinks to school budgets. Everyone thinks that there's a twenty to thirty percent of your property taxes is your local budget. Right? And there are a lot of things that have sort of piled up that have added on costs. And we think there's some low hanging fruit that we could work on together in a bipartisan way to help municipalities have chance to lower their property taxes. And so that falls under this bucket. I have some details later. You know, invest locally. There's often you know, who delivers all of the laws that that this body solves and even federal government down? It happens at the local level. You know, that's where the rubber meets the road. That's where things happen. And so think more about investing local. It's just going right to the locality investing. You know, there's there's ways to share your revenue and share your programs in your without going through a new program creation, new bureaucracy, new funding that is competitive and often missed equitable distribution across the state. If you just shared the revenue for a specific first purpose directly with the municipality, reach the end user, your residents, your taxpayers quicker. Improve accountability. There's, you know, a reason to be, transparent and fiscally responsible and comply and have this apply across all state government, local government. And then the big things that, you know, you're here, to to to focus most on, housing. Our number one issue, again, top priority, when we survey municipalities is continues to be housing, housing availability and affordability. There's a lot property taxes, affordability, all of us fall very closely, but housing. You know, we want to support new incentives and and and really support infrastructure that is needed to support all this new housing that we want to build and that we've authorized through landmark, land use legislation. Needs to be built densely in these areas. Well, they need water and sewer. Municipalities can't approve, you know, property tax increases to pay for it without authorizations. We need creative solutions to this. We wanna continue promote public safety and build resilient communities, you know, repeated floods. We need to build resiliency into what we're doing and respond to the impacts of of climate change. So sorta to get specifically into housing, as I said, we really want support in in bringing new incentives and investments for infrastructure to support all this housing growth. Really, what we're calling for is to authorize local governments. We're not asking for an appropriation. In anything we're talking to you about. We're asking for authorization so we can do these things and solve the problems ourselves. We need authorization for local governments to use performance based contracts or extend tax stabilization support. You know, we've all, maybe not all, but many have heard the tax increment financing debate for years. The the the reality is if municipality can support the infrastructure growth, water, sewer, roads, sidewalks, and we can get the developer who's going to build that but needs that private infrastructure first, so we can have an agreement. We'll do x, you do y. The new development will pay back the y that the municipality had to borrow to put that infrastructure. That's what we're talking about. You can do it a bunch of different ways. Our existing TIF program is too complicated, too cumbersome, and too political in most cases to do this. We need new solutions, and there's coalitions out there that are talking about this, the build homes, campaign. Let's let's let's build homes. Others, the bond bank, are talking about ways to get at this issue where it could be each individual project can be authorized a municipality to borrow, to take on debt, not asking the state to take it on, but we need the increased revenue, the grand less growth, and that new taxes to help us pay back that debt. So then we can all grow, and we need growth, grand less growth to keep our property taxes down. That's just a reality. So we're asking for that authorization. We are not proposing the specific formula. We're open to all sorts of ways of doing this, but we we want more authorization to do this type of work. We also want to increase the threshold for permit appeals to projects. Municipalities go through a long public process with lots of, time spent and hours of of volunteers going to night meetings to authorize districts and areas for growth. And then you go through that, and at the end of the day, a couple people appeal it, and you just wasted all that time and goodwill. We need to have a rational appeal permanent appeals process in Vermont that doesn't kill projects, kills people's motivation, and slows our housing growth. So what's behind that? [Chair ]: Can I ask you to be a little more specific there? I mean, everybody said this, but are you talking about what kind of threshold? Mhmm. [Tom Charlton ]: So one there was one positive appeals work last year in act one eighty one that moved to any ten that can appeal on act two fifty to twenty. Right. Great. But those are still folks that they're not even the neighbors. Still one neighbor can appeal a project. These are any twenty that can be come from really anywhere and join up and say, we don't like that project. There are still situations where a community will go through a new land use planning process to designate an area for more density. They'll go and get the designated center from the state, go through all those public processes. They'll, get the, sort of act two fifty exemption. And down the very end, through all those public processes, they'll still be an abiding neighbor or someone that will call that to question at the very end of the process. So we're open to what whatever folks can agree in as consensus that provides more balance here for for all the public processes that were put into that process. [Chair ]: See, as I understand it, just tell me if I'm wrong. Right now, the way things are, whatever we put in act one eighty one aside, if someone wanted to appeal literally a local the local permit for a project, a building permit? Can a burn building permit be appealed? [Tom Charlton ]: Yes. [Chair ]: Okay. Got it. So if the building permit is appear even let's say, it's as a right. So there's no discretionary permit. It's just a building permit. That's appealable? [Tom Charlton ]: I I'd have to I believe so. I'd have to check. But even the process to allow for, the you know, say say in this district, you have water and sewer and you wanna allow a five story property. Right. And it you you you're in this district. You're getting incentives to build this. And then as you get closer to that period where it's ready to go to construction, a neighbor or someone with interest is able to challenge that after you've already had a public process to allow five story buildings to be built in this district. [Chair ]: So do you do you think that the league would be supportive of, for example, efforts to basically say that if neighbors want to appeal, they need to appeal at the plan level. They need to appeal kind of at the at the stage when earlier, if you will. And that once that's done, no appeal. [Tom Charlton ]: Yeah. I I think one of the areas we're preferencing this on is areas projects located in these designated areas. They've gone through a robust public process. Right. Like, in those areas, the community has supported this, and you've had plenty of chances. You're to to now then appeal the actual project once you've already spent three years saying, these are all the types of projects we want to happen in this area is just killing these deals. So I'm sorry I'm not being more specific, but we're open to [Chair ]: This helps. [Tom Charlton ]: All types of permanent appeal thresholds being reduced. [Gail Pesso ]: So you're suggesting that the appeal process, let's say it's fifteen days, should not be there after the planning occurs because it's gotten public support? [Tom Charlton ]: Yeah. I mean, that's hard to say that exact example, but the the the example I'm more familiar with is this part of this community we've designated as a growth area. We have said this is what's allowed in this area. Five story buildings, you know, multiunit. You can have setbacks of this far. You can have this level of density. And there's been public process after public process, plenty of times to appeal, appeal to your select board, appeal to the planning commission. They still voted to move this forward, and then now someone goes and starts to build it puts the permit in to build that, and then now it's appealed. We we that that is wasting everyone's time and effort. [Elizabeth Burrows ]: We just So you're saying [Gail Pesso ]: it was ten and now it's twenty? [Chair ]: No. That's That's for act two fifty, state two fifty. But these are just local permits. [Tom Charlton ]: Could be local permits too. [Chair ]: Act two fifty is the state level. [Tom Charlton ]: Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, there are brighter minds than me that, will talk about, the the deep the the choices we have to limit appeals. I would say there's been some attempt over the past few years, but most would argue it hasn't been enough. [Chair ]: Yeah. What but the thing that I think I just wanna put as a placeholder for you is how the LCT will react or work with situations where towns are told, if you want exemption from that appeal, you have to do all of these things first [Speaker 9 ]: Mhmm. [Chair ]: In your planning. Mhmm. And so towns that don't wanna do that wouldn't get that exemption or even more I mean, I'm not saying any of this would happen, but something to think about is if if it if one step further is to say towns have to do this in their zoning. Right. And if they don't, we'll maybe help you, you know, provide money to VLCT or others to provide, but you have to do this. Generally, VLCT is more supportive as [Tom Charlton ]: the first way you describe that. And we have the majority of communities that want more housing, and they're taking proactive approaches to go through their own land use zoning changes, up zone, have all these things, these public processes, and then someone's appealing them. If a town says, no, we're not gonna do that, they don't wanna be forced. But let's support those that are actively trying to build more housing, are proactively doing this work by stopping folks that, haven't participated or haven't been successful in participating in their local government, who's chosen to be more pro housing in their development. We don't wanna force a town that hasn't gone through a planning process to designate this certain area of town for more growth and then be told you can't do anything. No appeals. Neighbors have no rights. But if the town has gone through an entire process to designate that area for growth, public has had a chance to weigh in. You've had a chance to vote on these issues, and it's it's still moving forward. That's what we're we're interested in reducing those appeals. Sorry. [Chair ]: Well, it's us that's, taking your time. But just for the committee, we I think Nothing scheduled. Yeah. We have nothing scheduled. In other words, we had we had you scheduled until eleven thirty Mhmm. Which it is. And you've only gone through two or four bullets. Yeah. I'm feeling they'll be questioning the others. [Tom Charlton ]: Yeah. [Chair ]: No. I don't think you should be. Okay. I well, of course, you wanna be efficient. But, I mean, I think if it's okay with the committee, we'll run, but we won't run past new. Okay? [Tom Charlton ]: Are we [Chair ]: People okay with that? Totally. Yeah. Alright. Josh, are you okay with I'm okay [Speaker 9 ]: with that. [Chair ]: Absolutely. Alright. So we've talked about somewhat about your second bullet. [Tom Charlton ]: And let me let me talk about short term rentals from the league's perspective. We do want to allow for municipalities to have more options for regulations and fees and taxes, but we want this to be implemented at the municipal level. We don't want a statewide approach to this because there are some municipalities that, need some reinvestment, need some support. There are others that wanna slow short term rental growth. We want this to be something that municipalities can choose, how to regulate short term rentals in their community. We know some communities are doing this already. They're having inspection regimes, registration regimes. Those work for more resource communities with staff and ability. There's an easier way to do it. Right? The state just authorized a three percent sure charge on short term rentals. Then it goes to the Ed Fund. The municipalities we hear from that are having the most impact from short term rentals are saying, gee, wouldn't it be nice if we could have a way to have a surcharge and then use that money to mitigate the impacts of short term rentals in our own community because we're the ones suffering from the impacts. It's it's not really serving us well for the communities that say they're having the proliferation of short term rentals. Every new thing that comes on the market, someone's buying, and then they can't use any of that money to help solve the affordable housing challenge in their own community. So a simple way to get at this is to authorize municipalities by their choice to add their own surcharge to short term rentals. [Chair ]: Is is right now is the is it the opinion of the league that the state surcharge preempts local surcharge? [Tom Charlton ]: We don't have the authorization, to do anything more than a one percent option tax Okay. On rooms. And the challenge there is [Sonia Lamont ]: You have to get people to to approve. [Tom Charlton ]: Approve that. And we we wouldn't do anything without voter approval. But the difference there is you have some communities I'm gonna this is public in in a public from their perspective. The town of Fairloot. You know, they have a very major employer, Lake Mortgage Resort. They have very good coordination with that resort. A lot of public people work there. That resort is already being charged the one percent room to meals fees. Right? And then they have lots of second homes and others' homes around the lake that, they're also, charged a one percent option fee. They would like to be able to just add a one or two percent additional fee just on the short term rentals, not on the resort. Because the resort already pays other taxes, already has other licenses, and we don't have that authority. And, the the town could set up a registration regime, charge each of them a hundred dollars, do an inspection, but that is probably more costly to hire the staff person to do all that work than it would generate revenue. If you authorize just like the state did for itself, a surcharge just on short term rentals, The state is collecting the money already. They just share it back with the municipality that is the one most impacted by too many short term rentals. They can put that into a fund to help support their municipal infrastructure, to build more affordable housing, a first time homebuyer program, whatever they want. We would, I think, be comfortable with saying, put that back into a resource that mitigates the impacts of short term rentals. And what's so important about this is we don't want a statewide requirement because I know of one community, I'll keep their name out, that they they actually still have some housing they would like to see investment. They want to support short term rentals. We have plenty of other communities that feel like they're up to here with short term rentals. And so they want to maybe they would apply this surcharge, use it to help support affordable housing. The other would not apply it because they feel like they have some room to welcome visitors to spend money and help grow their economy. Got it. [Sonia Lamont ]: Yeah. Thank you. So I'm a little bit curious how you manage, like, when there's a competitive bucket of money, how do you manage, [Hannah Schwartz ]: you know, [Sonia Lamont ]: I'm thinking about, like, the, the way that, like, the bus routes work where everybody, you know, there's a municipal assessment fee. And if there's a threat of cutting the bus, each each municipality has the choice of whether to, you know, add more or not add more. Do you help communities kind of talk amongst neighboring communities when you're when they're all, or is it like every community kind of you're helping them act in their own best interest? [Tom Charlton ]: I mean, both. If they want some advice on how to, you know, regionalize on an issue, we'll provide that advice. If they want advice on, their different budget constraints, because that's a real example, there's some parts of the state where public transit does ask for a municipal contribution, but it's not a standard formula. And there isn't a special fund that comes to the state, that comes to the municipality from the state to help them support their public transit. It's sort of like self, benefit. You know, they have to say, yeah, the benefit is worth our investment or it's not. And that's a theme that, you know, when you go talk to the transportation committee, we're gonna tell them, you know, instead of having these competitive grant programs and having these different funding formulas to bring your state collective transportation money back to each municipality, just share some of it upfront. You know, share the registration fee. And then the municipality uses that just to help maintain their roads because that vehicle is driving on their roads. They you know, we have a convoluted process of collect, statewide, distribute, and there's winners and use losers. And capacity is often part of the challenge. You know? So that that wasn't a direct answer, but kind of the way we see it. [Chair ]: Still on the Yeah. Short term rental question. Are you aware can you let us know? Do are there a significant any significant number of towns that have either prohibited short term rentals or drastically restricted them? Prohibited? Outright. No. I don't think they have [Tom Charlton ]: the authority to do that. There is a growing list of towns that have added some sort of registration requirement and inspection, and it's not often as you think, like, to stop them. Killington is one of the most regulated short term rental towns in the state, but they live off of short term rentals. Sure. Right. Eighty percent of their housing is not resident Yeah. Occupied, but they wanted them to be safe. The fire chief didn't want fires and people burnt septic systems overflowing. So they're doing it for health and safety. [Chair ]: And I'm sure I imagine Stowe is the same. [Tom Charlton ]: Exactly. Health and safety reasons, not, not to stop them because they, they thrive on that economy. They're a resort based community. But as I said, smaller communities struggle with being able to stand up that that. It's just adds it's unique capacity. [Chair ]: I guess one of the things again, we haven't heard this issue that's just out there, though. Yep. I mean, some argue that what we we need state regulation because there but we it needs to be it needs to be carefully allowed for variations. In other words, recognizing that maybe a mod just wanna put one, you know, an an ADU and not come down on ADUs and let them use the ADU as a unit, but not allow, on the other hand, someone to come in and buy two hundred units of housing and turn them our problem is we're seeing rather large investors come into Vermont and turn acquire a lot of units and turn them all into short term rental. And the court, I'm not sure people argue you can't deal with that on a town by town basis. Has the, has that been discussed? [Tom Charlton ]: I mean, you know, you you if you look at Burlington's regulation, they they require owner occupied. [Chair ]: That's one end. [Tom Charlton ]: Yeah. And so very, very regulated. We believe that municipalities have the authority for land use regulations, including short term rentals. [Chair ]: So you do think you can do this, but you think they have the authority. You don't think they have the authority [Tom Charlton ]: to ban [Chair ]: or ban parts of them types of them. [Tom Charlton ]: No, we can restrict sort of, sort of, owner occupied sort of conditions like Burlington's done. That's the first one. We could have certain certainly life safety inspections, charge a fee. Absolutely. But, you know, our approach is we don't think a statewide threshold maximum minimum is the right answer because there are communities that have different interests in this. And we just had a survey and the survey spells it out exactly. They want to be able to regulate themselves, and they want more authority, including the ability to tax them because they they suffer the impacts of too many. They're requirement to enforce them and don't get any tax benefit from them to solve their own problems. [Sonia Lamont ]: Would you be able to share that survey again? [Tom Charlton ]: That results particularly on this issue? [Sonia Lamont ]: Yeah. Yeah. [Tom Charlton ]: Yeah. We can we can follow-up. It's it's not like a scientific No. [Chair ]: No. I think it'd [Sonia Lamont ]: just be great. Let's get testimony. Yeah. [Marla McQuiston ]: You know, having to grab Yeah. [Hannah Schwartz ]: Every minute's not gonna be in here, I [Chair ]: think. Right. [Tom Charlton ]: We're we're very careful. I mean, I remember not too long ago, you know, meeting with the folks in Richford, Vermont that they have they can dilapidated housing. They're looking for investment. They're on the Canadian border. They wanna support folks coming in with tourism dollars. They don't wanna be told, no. You can't add anymore. Woodstock, different story. [Chair ]: Yeah. So That'd that'd be great. Thank you. Yep. Thank you. [Tom Charlton ]: GA hotel motel program, homelessness issue. This is impacting municipalities despite the fact that in the sixties, we created HS and said poor farms went away, and we said that the state's responsible for for homelessness. Well, municipalities are spending money, impacts, public safety, responses. We're not getting any special aid to deal with it. We're absorbing those, and we have budget sort of crises where people are cutting their budgets. It's it's it's a it's sort of a tenable position right now. We want proportionality in the state using the GE Motel program. Just because Rowan had seven hundred extra hotel rooms, they just had a seven hundred percent increase in homelessness because the state moved folks there. That's not a fair way to distribute the problem and challenge. So we want, more proportionality, and we want the state to take the lead on homeless prevention and response. Just saying, well, we're we're we're adding this many homeless individuals to your community because you happen to have motel owners that are willing to work with us and good luck is not the way to deal with this. And so we've been working across municipalities and with some service providers to come up with some, a sort of where we can meet in the middle with recommendations even for the BAA that we should be coming out with a joint memo soon. It's it's not likely you see municipalities and almost agree on everything, but we can agree on a few principles, and we're gonna be presenting that soon. [Chair ]: It is, right now, as I understand it, there's legislation in existence that limits the ability of municipality, requires that municipalities allow shelters in within one zone as of right. [Tom Charlton ]: Yeah. The recent legislation over the last couple of years, there was a first attempt in the HOME Act and then in the last one, municipalities have to allow homeless shelters. [Chair ]: And but they can pick this [Tom Charlton ]: They can pick the most appropriate zone, but the provisions also state you can't functionally, by adding all these other requirements, eliminate them. You can't say, oh, you can't have twenty four hour lights on. You have to allow it. And Right. Just in the last few years, three communities that never had shelters all have them now. Saint Johnsbury, Morrisville, there has been an increase in homeless shelters. And I'm not hearing from municipalities that, like, they're looking to stop that or there's looking to be, sort of they're putting up issues that aren't allowing it to happen. Sure. There might be slight safety issues. You know, where is this building? Do we have is it a four story building? Well, this part of town, we don't have a fire station that has a truck with a like, there are things that obviously worked out, but, new homeless shelters, new emergency shelters are going up in communities and it seems to be working. But, if you're hearing different, you would love to to hear about it because there was some slow starts to it, but now they're happening. [Chair ]: I think there is some discussion about this, but I don't know anything about it. [Tom Charlton ]: Yep. K. Specifically on the lower property taxes, I know this isn't, you know, your committee, but you're gonna hear things. And we think we have some easier solutions to at least have maybe some wins that are non, you know, not as quite political as some of the others. Last year, there was a big win. We authorized municipalities to vote in local option taxes everywhere in the state. Before last year, you had to have a charter. Only half the towns have a charter, and you had to have it amended and approved through the legislature and the governor to sign it. Now at annual meetings, municipalities can approve local auction taxes. But the state keeps thirty percent of the local auction taxes, to pay for the pilot in lieu. So the property in lieu of taxes that pays for when state have buildings in your town, they don't pay property taxes. They pay you a payment in lieu. That payment in lieu has ballooned to about eleven million dollars surplus. The formula obviously needs to be revised. They're collecting too much money. More towns are coming forward, and that surplus should be returned to the communities that produce the revenue so they can solve their budget challenges without having to raise property taxes more. This is a win. It could be a windfall of budget money to your municipalities this year in a budget crisis year. We've been waiting for Joint Fiscal Office to produce their report because we don't know the exact formula revision. We think that's something like eighty five fifteen, but waiting on their guidance, they were supposed to come out with their, brief in the fall. Then it was supposed to be the first two weeks in January. Now they're saying February. But this is something that, in our perspective, is a win win. We would lower property taxes. People get a surplus returned. We still pay the pilot fees. So wanted to put that on your radar. You know, municipalities are the tax collectors for the state. The other seventy to eighty percent that we collect from property taxes, we send to the state. But we have to pay it in advance even if we can't collect it because of delinquent property tax payers. The delinquency rate is going up. Montgomery just is astounded at how much the delinquency rate is going up. In order to collect property taxes, we need to take the property owners to tax it. Last year, a piece of legislation, we, we, we modernized it, but it extended the tax sale process by two years effectively and an additional waiting period. We are have delinquent tax collectors that are just resigning. And they're saying we're not collecting taxes. If we can't collect the taxes, we can't pay the state, and the Ed Fund is in trouble. Not saying the sky is falling yet, but we can't collect your taxes if you don't let us collect. And I know the issue behind this was protecting lower income homeowners from losing their homes or property to taxes. But unless we're throwing out our entire tax system, if you own property, you have to pay property taxes. There are systems through the rebate that you get reduction based on your income, but they're not working. If we want to, eliminate someone losing their home because they can't pay the property taxes, well, then a fund needs to be set up to pay the difference because municipalities can't loan the state money for the taxes we're supposed to collect for them and dissolve it with an increasing property tax crisis in uncollected taxes. So not saying the sky is falling yet, but this needs to be watched. Including there are property taxpayers who pay less than zero in property taxes. They actually get a refund from the state. That needs to be fixed. There's a loophole. Increasing human services that are being distributed to nonprofits to do the state work, the nonprofits are exempt. Property taxes. So if it was a state building, a state agency doing the work, we would at least get payment in lieu of taxes. Well, when they transfer those responsibilities onto the increasing nonprofit human service world, you know, to have community solutions, which is great, there's a decline in property tax revenue because we can't collect in many cases from very large nonprofit organizations. And so, like, how are we supposed to manage? There's some communities that are seeing a growth in their grand list properties become nonprofit, nontax paying. [Speaker 10 ]: Joe? Yeah. I I just we're super thankful for bringing that part up. And I think, tying on to that is with our conservation of land that goes right in the same bucket of towns feeling like, you know, the bigger that pot grows, markets pushed on everyone else in town. Right. [Elizabeth Burrows ]: Like the coming use or just conservation in general? [Speaker 10 ]: Whether it's state owned land or lands in current use I [Marla McQuiston ]: mean, current use. [Tom Charlton ]: Or or town owned land or [Speaker 10 ]: the more you wanna have public open to everybody or nonprofit land, other people's taxes arise if the tax are rising because of it, and it doesn't [Chair ]: Got it. [Speaker 10 ]: Doesn't seem as though the equation seems to be equaling out fairly. [Tom Charlton ]: Yeah. I think, you know, one example in a Samantha's Town in Hancock, they have between six and twelve delinquent tax, property taxpayers every year. Some of those have been on the list for years. They only have a hundred properties total, you know, homestead properties. Everyone else is paying a percentage for uncollected taxes. You have sympathy for folks that struggle to pay, but the way we're distributing the sort of challenge of that is really impacting municipal budgets. And as tax collectors for the state, it's going to come home to roost if we don't solve these problems. These are others, the same thing. When there is environmental mitigation efforts and so forth, if we run out of money, if we make it competitive, you've got to sort of extend those. Don't hold the communities accountable for achieving these goals if there isn't money available, if they accountable for achieving these goals if there isn't money available. If they can't get the work done, put some sort of, cost effectiveness analysis on some of this work so we can get the tax best for the taxpayers. It's not that people don't wanna support these environmental mitigation efforts, but they have to be cost effective enough and they have to be a support available to assist, especially the lower capacity municipalities in achieving these these goals. [Elizabeth Burrows ]: Thanks. As a as a kind of tangential question, does VLCT facilitate discussions between select boards, say, and school boards? Like, does VLCT work with VSBA or Vermont School Board Association to help negotiate what the school versus the town budgets are gonna be? There are two school boards are a municipality independent. Yeah. [Tom Charlton ]: They they really don't. I just heard an example just in our board meeting the other day from Montpelier city manager. You know, their school board is trying everything they can do to keep cost down. Right? The municipal budget is trying to keep costs down, but they don't know what it's gonna increase until the yield's set. [Mary Howard ]: Right. [Tom Charlton ]: So, like, they're like, it could be down three percent. It could be ten percent up. No one knows. So you can do your darndest to do your part on both both bodies controlling their costs, but they don't know if they'll be successful till the end of the year. [Elizabeth Burrows ]: Well, if they're both focused on the best value for the least dollar, to taxpayers, they're both pulling from the same pot of money. A lot of town's school boards and select boards already work together, but I just wondered whether VLCT has any or VLCTs and in conjunction with the Muscular Board Association has a kind of model for how those conversations can [Tom Charlton ]: Maybe. I'll tell you the last bullet on here. We have this is in cooperation with School Boards Association and superintendents. The state has added monetary caps for lawsuits for itself, dollars five hundred thousand individual, dollars two hundred thousand. Say someone gets hurt at a state park because a lamppost falls over on them it wasn't maintained properly, but they haven't allowed that cap for municipalities. We have a lawsuit in Brandon. Twelve million dollars. Our insurance caps don't go up to twelve million dollars. We want the same monetary caps as the state's protected itself, And so do school boards. We need to have because, you know, there are situations there's a case in Georgia right now where thirty six million dollars lawsuit in a small town. The town is going bankrupt. They're happening to have the law changed. And so that's a cost cutting measure that provides the same protection as the state, reduces insurance costs. It doesn't protect criminal activity. You can still go civil, criminal. Give you an example of where this plays out. You know, recreation is a is a great resource. Communities, you know, wanna support recreation, have recreation fields, parks, pools. Those are very risky for municipalities. People get hurt. And lawyers advise, you know what? Don't open that pool. Don't do that. Or building trails, you know, for mountain bikes and other uses. They purposely have jumps and fun things. This is an example. If you build that trail and there's trails like this that get a grant from the state, they're on private landowner. They're completely protected from liability under state law. That trail then goes on to the state forest. The state forest has this monetary cap that the legislature has provided them, where if someone gets hurt, breaks their neck, family, they're thrown capped at five hundred thousand. Goes on to the municipal forest, no caps. Sew away and see if we can pay the bills. So that has been brewing for years, and I think it's a surprise for many municipalities when they hear the recreation that they're putting on their town forest and others doesn't have any liability caps. The LCT insurance only goes up to two million dollars per occurrence, and we're having lawsuits that well exceed that. [Chair ]: And because if someone is paralyzed for life, you know, that no. That's that's awful. Two things. One is you got five minutes. Yep. Think about what would come to us as opposed to either gov ops [Speaker 10 ]: Yep. [Chair ]: Or ways of Yep. [Tom Charlton ]: That's it. [Chair ]: You know, I think those probably most of those issues would either go to ways and means or maybe go ops. [Tom Charlton ]: And judiciary, even some of these, the liability protections. Yeah. Yeah. And we we've talked to all those and we're doing. It's just a a theme as you guys struggle with budget priorities and ways. We're not asking for money. [Chair ]: I guess We're asking. So Right. The other question I have is as the issues of appeals, I think I think appeals and financial questions like how we would restructure TIP if we do Mhmm. Or Yep. Assessment districts, And we wanna talk to we also see their ideas on it. Mhmm. [Tom Charlton ]: Talk to me. We're we're trying to build a coalition with others to have the same asks for these things. You know, we're we're we're along for the ride, but yet we're on the end the receiving end and and implementation end. We know we can't do it alone. These things have to be solved with broad coalitions like we've done with land use reform over the last it's taken ten years. Last few years, we did a lot. Infrastructure solutions needs to be a broad coalition understanding the problem isn't going away, and we're not gonna see billions of dollars drop out of the sky to pay for these. We need to have creative ways to self finance that can pay them back themselves. Right. And we wanna be part of the solution, not out on our own with our own individual. You know? So I I would just summarize it that way. And I'm done. Thanks for for Thank you. [Chair ]: Thank you. Four minutes. Oh, [Tom Charlton ]: yeah. One question. [Speaker 9 ]: And this goes back [Tom Charlton ]: a couple of slides. Sorry. Maybe this one, the property tax one below. [Mary Howard ]: Go ahead. [Sonia Lamont ]: I think higher. [Tom Charlton ]: Okay. Maybe tax year. [Speaker 9 ]: It's regard it's with regard to grants that are competitive grants Yeah. And fund things in municipalities. Yep. It's the state. This grants. With your assistance, are the little communities able to be as competitive to receive those funds at larger speeds? When we talk about capacity Yep. Maybe we have a little town with a road crew too and a part time clerk. Right. A lot of that falls on you. [Tom Charlton ]: Alright. It's your sense. They're more competitive than without help. I can't say that. No. It's a solution. [Chair ]: Input. Right. [Tom Charlton ]: And it's not just us. There's other groups helping. There's the the program that VHTV had, the REDI program. There is the MCAP technical assistance that was, provided from the ARPA funds that some went to be CRD, Preservation Trust, us, the RPCs. It's a collaborative effort. K. But I think our point although it's great we have this technical assistance, it's limited. We would like to still play this role, but we can't really raise we can't really raise our dues to help members solve their problems. That's just a race to the bottom. Right? We need to rethink how we provide the supports to municipalities through less competitive hunger game, prove you have the capacity, prove you can do it. If it's required, you need to provide it. It doesn't need to be a grant competitive and share revenue so we can solve it in a more efficient manner. And there's a lot of examples in the transportation space we could give. That's not this committee, but, it it it's it's a way that a lot of other states, all of our New England states around us have revenue sharing with municipalities where it's just a straight share. So each community doesn't need to compete within the state programs that are set up with their fellow communities for funding. [Speaker 9 ]: And I think it fits into housing funding housing Yeah. In smaller communities, equitably Yeah. Compared to five hundred bucks. Yeah. K. Thank you. [Chair ]: Any other questions by the committee? Thank you. I have a feeling we will be talking to you again Mhmm. [Marla McQuiston ]: Again. And thank [Chair ]: you so much for your time. Absolutely. Good luck. Alright. [Sonia Lamont ]: Thank you. [Tom Charlton ]: Happy start of this session, and keep keep keep your rest because it's a it's a it's a marathon. It's

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