SmartTranscript of House Transportation 2025-01-29 - 10:20 AM

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[Chair Matt Walker ]: Always a little scary. [Colleen Montague ]: Yeah. That's not a good thing. Oh, god. [Chair Matt Walker ]: So Look at that. Good morning. It's Wednesday, January twenty ninth, and looks like we are live now here at the house transportation, committee. And, I apologize for being fifteen minutes behind as our morning event went a little longer, but we will jump up and go moving forward for hearing about civil rights, labor compliance, and equity. And Colleen Montague is all yours. Welcome. [Colleen Montague ]: Good morning. Thank you. My name is Colleen Montague. I am the director of our civil rights bureau at the agency of transportation. So good morning. And I am going to share my screen, I believe. Just trying to see if I can get this to share. Same night? Nothing. Looks like sharing. Awesome. Okay. Presentation mode. So I can actually see the screen. Alright. So good morning. Again, calling Montague Agency of Transportation. I've actually brought with me our deputy director, Rachel Campbell, who's sitting in the room with us, and our director, Jane Morris. So Oh, yeah. I have been the director for probably the last almost two years, and have worked in our civil rights section for quite a number almost for my twenty seven years at the Agency of Transportation. And so a little bit about, who we are. I'm just trying to move this over here. We have a team of eight. They take responsibility for a lot of our labor compliance, contractor compliance. As you can see on the on the screen, we really try to go above and beyond compliance, and we promote education, culture of respect, stability, inclusion. We do a lot of interactive training. And so a lot of things that we've been doing over the last year is, we have equity champions across this across our agency. We have a total of forty. These are folks who are really working with the public, working within our agency, that are making decisions on behalf of the agency. And so looking at that, how do we make sure we're not unintentionally creating barriers or anything for the the Vermonters that we serve or the public that we serve. We also do translation services or work based translation entity to make sure that, you know, driver's manuals and signs, if if they get, you know, pulled over by DMV enforcement, that there's information there that help navigate access to programs and information. We do a lot of our outreach. We've been very involved in this for a very long time, and looking at, how do we go to events, how do we bring people with us? Typically, we go to an event. We bring you know, somebody can show somebody how to navigate the online system and actually apply and get past that that hurdle, but also talk about the jobs. Right? They wanna hear from the engineer. They wanna hear from somebody who is out working on the roads. They wanna hear from a planner, whoever it might be. So we go to quite a number of events, throughout the year. You can see a couple, that are mentioned here on the slide. Women can do is a a really big event. We have a National Summer Transportation Institute, which I will say very proud of. Vermont is a national model, for this program. We get federal funding for that. We also tend to go to a lot of our local universities, UVM, Norwich, and Vermont State Universities. Those are our main, feeder for a lot of the positions we have. We had a a vacancy rate of eight point six, which has been the lowest that we've had in the last five years, which has been really nice, but something we need to still look at. And we also worked on the transportation equity framework, which was developed as a guide to inform actions that can achieve transportation equity and future investments. A little bit about who we are. This is oh, let's see here. Sorry. Apologies. So a little bit about the equity, the transportation equity framework. It can be understood as a positive extension of title six, that prohibits recipients of federal finance assistance from discrimination based on race, color, natural origin, or any program or activity. And we worked with, our awesome planning folks. We worked with our public transit. We worked with people within our agency and a consultant to really look at our our practices and look at so how do we, you know, summarize our equity efforts? Where do we find stakeholder in all our our, partners that we work with for public involvement, making sure that people have access when we're coming out there to tell them about work that's gonna be done in their communities. And, also, the pillars are organized into actions and strategies to achieve the vision for transportation equity framework. And we implemented the plan that identifies the key foundation foundational actions and the sequence of recommended strategies. So that's something we've been working on over the the last almost year plus with some really great success. And the idea is to really be looking at, you know, rectify past discriminations of things that maybe, you know, in our our history, long term history that has maybe had some inequities based on it. And we also ensure representation in the decision making. Right? The different people who are gonna be impacted by whatever the change might be in their community or or activity. And then just really build that sort of strong risk, equity, inclusion across network and state government. So we really look at that. Like, how do we be respectful, civil, see people where they're coming from, and understand a lot of that. And then my last slide is really just a little bit about some of the numbers of things that we've done. I mentioned that we're very involved in our, recruitment and outreach. So in the last year, the agency of transportation has onboarded a hundred and forty six new employees. We actually call if if they've been in state government and they are new to us, we still have an onboarding process for them. So they may have transitioned from another state agency. We have ten on the job trainees, graduates. They are members of the contractors workforce. They're identified at the time you go out to contract that there are really great training opportunities on that contract, and we work with a contractor to kinda support them and and help inform that industry and give people the tools and resources so they can be successful in that industry. And we currently have two that are enrolled, but their projects maybe have not started yet. We also, will receive some funding to get commercial driver's license vehicles for people who are interested in working in this industry. And so this past year, we had twenty who received their permits and eighteen which actually received their CDL licenses. And our hope is they're either going to us or that they're going to the contracting workforce. Right? Or they're part of that transportation infrastructure in and around Vermont. As I mentioned, we do, language translations. And so there are fourteen languages. The most populous languages used in Vermont, are available for public accessibility statements, our Title six, ADA complaints, the driver's manual, places where the public is gonna interface with state government, specifically with transportation. This past year, we went to about eighty six outreach events, and we had twenty one internal training events that we get involved in. We work very closely with our training center. I believe they were here last week or the week before. And that whole embedding, you know, presupervisory, leadership training, you know, they're managing people, how do they do that well, and understand all the different ways people communicate and all those things that come into into that. And our National Summer Transportation Institute that I had mentioned that we served last year twenty five middle school students and a total of twenty three school students, which was an amazing event. I I just realized what I did not put in the slide was because of the flood the year before, we were able to several of the high school students were sent home. We were able to offer about fifteen of those students an opportunity to come back and redo and get to see the parts of the program. They did not get to see when they had to evacuate. So that was a real world lesson, unfortunately. And I have to say our host of Vermont State College does an amazing job, with connections with and advice from our agency on on what to do and help us to get those students home safely. And that's in the part of my presentation. I believe I can stop sharing. [Chair Matt Walker ]: Representative Burke has a question [Colleen Montague ]: for him. Yeah. I'm just curious. Reading about the transportation equity framework how that might be impacted or not by recent pronouncements from them. I think we're still at that early stage of knowing and understanding what's gonna happen. So I think we're waiting to get informed and see see what happens. If you think about the the true impact of the transportation equity framework, it's really looking at the customers that we serve and how do we make sure we are not unintentionally putting up barriers for access to services or work in their communities, whatever that might be. So I think it's it's really worth that point right now where it's stay tuned, and we'll see what happens and what impact that has on us in Vermont. Thank you. You're welcome. You're welcome. [Chair Matt Walker ]: I'm sorry. Representative Couch was next. [Colleen Montague ]: I represent Can you just say what happens at the National Summer Transportation Institute? What kind of things do you Absolutely. Yeah. It it it's an amazing so the idea is to introduce students, to transportation related fields, everything from flying a plane. So they actually we work with Vermont Flight Academy. They get to go off the plane. We've taken them to beta. So you get an opportunity to see how that all works together and new technology that's coming. We do a VTrans day where they really get to come and they get to, you know, be in and around our equipment, see what it's like to use an excavator. We do, sort of, a texting and driving activity where we use a golf cart, and they get an idea of what it's like to text in a very safe environment, what that looks like. They get timed. They hit traffic cones, and those are, you know, penalized. It could get a person to drive, whatever. You know? Just telling them that, informing them. We have some of our engineers who do, like, crash test dummies. So they'll build a car or a vehicle, and then they will have some eggs in it, and they will run it down a ramp. And, hopefully, the egg does not crash. Right? Because they built the car well as well. We do critter crossings to get an idea of what it's like in Vermont to you know, it's beautiful state, and we have a lot of animals in it, but we also need to get from a to b. And how do we not impact their, like, you know, their their homes and their mating, right, and so that they have access. So we have people who come in and talk about that. We use a few simulators. So they really get a gamut of so many different things. We've even done a scavenger hunt with them in the past where they use the technology that we would use to find our culverts, and they kinda go around campus trying to find things. Right? So it's it's a very interactive we've had some amazing students over the years. They love it. The counselors also get to learn a lot, so it's fun, and it really energizes our agency as well. I find that anybody who's asked to be part of it, they're so excited when they come back all pumped up. Like, that and they're so proud of the work they do, and and that just speaks volumes. Thanks. Which is great. You're welcome. Yeah. It's a bunch of rugby. [Chair Matt Walker ]: Yeah. It's easier than me. Yeah. Explain to me the certified disadvantaged business enterprises. [Colleen Montague ]: So that is a program that's been around for quite a number of years. I've been here twenty seven. It's been around for a bunch more than that. And so the idea is there's a lot of federal dollars that come in to the state for contracting opportunities. It is a historically white male dominated type field construction, that sort of idea. And so the idea of the program is to allow small businesses to come in and have an opportunity to bid on those dollars to be included in that either as a subcontractor that maybe historically they would not have been able to participate in. So there is a very robust certification process. They need to be fifty one percent, woman or minority owned. They have to come with under a certain net worth, threshold. We do a site visit. They need to know the business and be integral to that decision making. So somebody can't just set somebody up in business and set their daughter or wife somebody up in a business that somebody else is making the decisions for. So it's a pretty robust. Every state has one. We have a unified certification program. So if somebody is, say, certified in in New Hampshire is a we share a lot of similar contractors, Maine as well. If they are certified and have gone through that process there, we get their documentation, and we can do a reciprocity certification as well. So [Chair Matt Walker ]: Thank you. [Colleen Montague ]: You're welcome. [Representative Mollie Burke ]: Thank you. It's great to see that the Vermont driver's manual is translated into fourteen languages. I was just curious what that looks like for the driver's license exam then if someone is maybe not fluent in English. [Colleen Montague ]: Are there accommodations made? So that would not be an answer I could directly answer Okay. On that one, so I apologize for that. I'm happy to see if we can find out some additional information if that works for you. I think our DMV is very well versed on access to translation services Mhmm. But what their process looks like, I unfortunately don't know the answer to that. Okay. [Chair Matt Walker ]: Thank you very much. I appreciate your time. Appreciate you coming in today. Our apologies for getting you for having to have to wait outside the security room. [Colleen Montague ]: That's okay. Happy to, yeah, happy to be able to have the opportunity to share a little bit about what we do. Yeah. Thank everybody. [Chair Matt Walker ]: So Thank you. [Colleen Montague ]: Yes. I mean, you're welcome. [Chair Matt Walker ]: Are we any other pieces of you're our presenter for today? I know you're listed on the agenda, but you're here for support. [Colleen Montague ]: I'm just here for support. I'm just calling you and the only one on here. I always I always just engage the support. You know, our our our agency is all about, like, you know, knowledge transfer and and learning. And so Rachel is new to our agency, and this is her first opportunity to be able to come and see what testimonies look like and a little bit about what we do. [Chair Matt Walker ]: So We're gonna get you in a witness chair outside. [Colleen Montague ]: At some point. That's She's retired. Mary Malvern. Yeah. Lori is retired. Lori retired while. And you're in the street? Yes. My team was Lori a couple years ago. So Yeah. Not for Lori. Yeah. Great. Yeah. Thank you. She is happily loving retiring. [Chair Matt Walker ]: Mhmm. Excellent. So for the committee, we're going to head into a break for this morning. The senate, transportation committee is gonna join us online for the next section, which is secretary Flynn and his entire crew will be here, to outline the big picture on the budget that was presented yesterday, which includes the two large, books that are on your desk. And secretary and his team will spend the next hour from eleven to twelve kind of walking through the high level, and then we'll have each piece broken down thereafter. And you'll have your chance to ask questions and dig in further to that. I highly recommend that as all him and his all of his lieutenants, come in. That's an opportunity to, build relationship in particularly areas that you have interest in and wanna dig a little further into. And so we will definitely start on time by eleven, but they will be filtering in by a quarter of. So it's worth your potentially worth your time to be there and to meet, and they're all listed on the the agenda piece, but they will be back in to go deeper into their sections. We will then at some point have a few minutes to talk about these two huge binders that are on your on your desk. So again, thank you for your time. And the rest of it, we will be starting on time at eleven. So make sure we're in our chairs a few minutes early and see if we can get through our technical difficulties. And we are adjourned for this portion.
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