Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Speaker 0]: Context here is that we're we asked the department to give us some additional information beyond what was provided during the budget testimony, looking specifically at a comparison between the FY 'twenty seven budget and FY 'nineteen, which was the pandemic, obviously, and to see how has staffing changed in that time, how has programming changed, whatever obligations you either taken on voluntarily or involuntarily, and then interest rate would look at. Of course, costs would have gone up even with flat staffing. So that's what we were after.

[Commissioner Danielle Fitzko (Vermont Dept. of Forests, Parks and Recreation)]: Okay. For the record, Danielle Fitzgow, Commissioner of Forest Park and Recreation. Appreciate your interest in looking at the change in positions from FY19 to '27. We had to go back and do some research on it. And I'll share that we have I did submit document, so you have that. We have additional 25 positions since FY19 to FY27. That seems like it is a lot, and it is. Of those 25 positions, 20 positions are limited service positions. So what we do is we get additional funding in probably from the federal government. We would go to the joint fiscal committee and show that we have funding for a certain period of time and request a position to help us implement that grant.

[Rep. Richard 'Rick' Nelson (Ranking Member)]: What what is your total Roland employee number?

[Commissioner Danielle Fitzko (Vermont Dept. of Forests, Parks and Recreation)]: We have currently, right now, a 144 year round staff.

[Rep. Richard 'Rick' Nelson (Ranking Member)]: 144 year round.

[Commissioner Danielle Fitzko (Vermont Dept. of Forests, Parks and Recreation)]: So we had 119 and we have 144 now. We still have a high summer seasonal employment with big parks. I can kind I can go through some of the drivers of the change if that's helpful, and maybe I'll do it by programmatic area. We have four divisions. Our administration division, which is really what the circulatory system, it does all our grants, contracts, budgeting. They were very under resourced. I think they now have five new positions in there. We had we actually did some organizational restructuring, moved the position from Forestry over to administration, and converted an exempt position into, administrative position because the programs can't do the work if we can't get the the money and the grants and the paperwork moving. So that was a dedicated organizational performance sort of effort to in administration. In forestry, the story's a little bit different. They have been very successful in receiving federal grants from the Forest Service, and particularly through the infrastructure IRA, Inflation Reduction Acts, and the bilateral infrastructure law, the IRA, BIL, we've received over $10,000,000 in funding. So they're one time sort of competitive funding sources that will time out within the next two to four years. Because of those funds, we got around nine new positions in forestry to support that work. That includes implementation of our forest action plan, which is a fifteen year vision for our state forest. So we hired a climate forester, outreach and education because we knew we need to do a better job talking a story, and introduce a base of species coordinator because we know we have a lot of introduced pests sort of coming in and at our borders. We hired a wildland fire specialist, and then we hired specific staff around private lands and ed and forest economy. So there's a suite of new staff that will eventually these positions will time out within the next two to four years. In state parks, when we were implementing the parks modernization study, which was parks celebrate the hundred years. Last year, we did a modernization study, like what does it look like for the next hundred years going forward? And the analysis came back and said we were very heavy on seasonal staff, which we know. And they recommended we try and convert some seasonal staff to more year round staff. And so we did convert four positions. These are classified positions that we went to the legislature to get approved. So we reduced eight seasonal staff to be able to hire four year round staff because there's so much that happens in the off season. As you can imagine, we're basically opening and closing a business every year. And I can tell you the HR stuff behind the scenes is a lot to hire that many people on. So state parks does have four new classified positions. And then the last division is lands administration and recreation. And they actually saw probably the biggest increase in staffing, in particular, two new survey positions because they do all the work on state lands surveying boundaries. We were able to use funds from other departments and federal funds through conservation efforts to get those two positions limited service. The federal government, through the land and more conservation fund, has now recognized that the administration of this program, and we get about $3,300,000 a year, is pretty heavy, and they never gave us admin money. They have now started to do that. We were able to bring on limited service staff for that.

[Speaker 0]: Representative Nelson?

[Rep. Richard 'Rick' Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Survey staff. You got you got a 100% of my attention. I'm on the waterfowl advisory board, and, you know, we're out buying plants and swamp lots down in Otter Creek. And they were talking about who you know, they gotta find someone to survey those. How come does Fish and Wildlife partner with your folks?

[Commissioner Danielle Fitzko (Vermont Dept. of Forests, Parks and Recreation)]: Yes.

[Rep. Richard 'Rick' Nelson (Ranking Member)]: And and then they just take money from, like, our waterfowl fund money and use that to pay your people when you're working for them?

[Commissioner Danielle Fitzko (Vermont Dept. of Forests, Parks and Recreation)]: Yeah. We don't we don't do all the work for Fish and Wildlife Department, but we do have a an MOA, memorandum agreement, to partner with them. So when we have the capacity overall, we have four survey staff. We will do work on fish and wildlife lands as well. And it's mainly to do the due diligence for any new conservation projects so we understand the boundaries. And also for, you know, we manage a lot of state land, we have to do, like, boundary marking and keep up to keep up on that.

[Rep. Richard 'Rick' Nelson (Ranking Member)]: I I think you and Jason need to get or commissioner and bachelor need to get together, because I think you could put on another person and have them working for them almost all year.

[Commissioner Danielle Fitzko (Vermont Dept. of Forests, Parks and Recreation)]: I think they do contract out quite a bit.

[Rep. Richard 'Rick' Nelson (Ranking Member)]: I yes. They do. And it some of it's reasonable and some of it extortion.

[Commissioner Danielle Fitzko (Vermont Dept. of Forests, Parks and Recreation)]: But we are we are glad that we went from two to four in the past couple of years, but I think there is more opportunity to it's and it is difficult to get the physicians established because you have to show you have dedicated funding to support it for a certain period of time.

[Rep. Richard 'Rick' Nelson (Ranking Member)]: You could be the surveyor for everything statewide except for ALT.

[Commissioner Danielle Fitzko (Vermont Dept. of Forests, Parks and Recreation)]: I was considering what we're statewide, we need a lot more. But they I mean, so we made it an area that's a focus area for us, and we do provide the agency sort of support for survey work. We've also seen funding come in for conservation work, so like Act 59 that supported a limited service position. That's the 30 by thirty, fifty by 50 conservation goals, and new funding from the Forest Legacy Program. So we have two new positions in conservation. One is vacant right now, we probably won't fill. And then we have some positions in recreation grants. That was what I was saying. That's why I was talking about the land and water conservation fund is providing admin funds to give us sort of that in house capacity to support the granting. So overall, 25 new positions. I will say most of the positions are driven by new funding available to us. And so it doesn't necessarily always align with where we actually need more staffing. In particular, I'll share, like, with state lands. You know, we have a growing land area that we're planning and managing, and you really don't get federal funds for that. So that area is not one that's really been able to grow as much. So it's just we go after what we can to support the overall mission of FPR, but it doesn't always align with where we have capacity needs.

[Speaker 0]: Those federal funds that come in through grants or other programs need a state match, typically?

[Commissioner Danielle Fitzko (Vermont Dept. of Forests, Parks and Recreation)]: Most of the time, yes. 50% match.

[Speaker 0]: A 50% match.

[Commissioner Danielle Fitzko (Vermont Dept. of Forests, Parks and Recreation)]: Both are all a little bit different for us. Legacies probably 25%, so that we match it with other staff time or in a lot of times, in kind work that we'd be doing or a lot of the money we also grant out to, others that will be providing match. We do have to provide match.

[Speaker 0]: Representative O'Brien? Yeah, Danny,

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: when you talk about certain positions timing out, so are they just gonna sunset or would the federal government maybe re up them or does this body here have to come up with them?

[Commissioner Danielle Fitzko (Vermont Dept. of Forests, Parks and Recreation)]: We always are trying to maintain them if we can, but we'll need the resource to do that. Right now, a lot of the funds are from the Biden administration through those big laws that passed. And so they will time out. We're always looking for opportunities to bring new resources in. So it's kinda like soft money, but they are limited service. So if we don't bring in additional funds, they will, sunset, those positions. But where our goal is, like, it's all really great work that they're doing. I can't imagine losing our climate forest or our watershed forest. We're always act we're actually actively looking at all the time.

[Speaker 0]: Presented us.

[Lana Kintorsky (Trustee, Vermont State Fair - Rutland)]: No. No. I'm I'm feeling good, Alex. Thank you.

[Speaker 0]: Yeah. Something you said earlier just made me wonder for a non limited service position. I'm not sure what that's called.

[Commissioner Danielle Fitzko (Vermont Dept. of Forests, Parks and Recreation)]: Yeah. It's a permanent classified position.

[Speaker 0]: Classified position. Other than having the governor put it in his budget and you coming to us and going through the normal process, here's here's what we're interested in. Is there something else that has to happen to to add a classified position?

[Jackie Colson (Lobbyist/Secretary, Vermont Fairs Association)]: There's there's there's two

[Commissioner Danielle Fitzko (Vermont Dept. of Forests, Parks and Recreation)]: pathways to do that. You could go through what they call the position pool and make a case to HR that you have the resources available. And there's a certain number of positions in the pool, which is it's not very deep right now. We actually are actively seeking one right now, and I don't think there's very many positions to go that way. So that's limited, or you go through the legislative process and the governor puts it in a recommend and it gets through the big bill, are the two pathways.

[Speaker 0]: So the pool is essentially taking an existing It's been budgeted. And then when you're looking ahead to next year, it would be Okay.

[Commissioner Danielle Fitzko (Vermont Dept. of Forests, Parks and Recreation)]: It's not necessarily budgeted in a sense because it's vacant position that you have pool of positions. Uh-huh. What's vacant and available, you can go try and get one of those positions because they don't wanna increase the number of positions within state government. Really love Steve.

[Rep. Richard 'Rick' Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Thank you, Danny. I'm not asking questions I know the answer to, but it's really informative to all of us. The representative of the revision had some comments about surveying surveyors. Is it more economically efficient to have in house professionals, whether they're surveyors or foresters, contracting from outside firms?

[Commissioner Danielle Fitzko (Vermont Dept. of Forests, Parks and Recreation)]: It depends on what the work is. We do believe in surveying. It does serve us well because not only are they there to do, like, the on the ground work, but they are great expertise they provide us in looking at deeds and looking at survey records, and we have a lot of times we need to go doing that. So having in house expertise just available is important. An example right now, mentioned we'll go into the position pool, for an archaeologist position. We do a lot of archaeological reviews for all projects on state lands, and we feel like the amount of money we're contracting out, we could bring on an in house capacity to do that, which would serve us in reviewing the project, but also just having that in house expertise to ask questions to at all times. Work really closely with the Department of Historic Preservation, which is our partners.

[Rep. Richard 'Rick' Nelson (Ranking Member)]: So you believe it's more efficient to have and more productive to have in house staff?

[Commissioner Danielle Fitzko (Vermont Dept. of Forests, Parks and Recreation)]: In in some cases, we do contract out. It's a ton of time. I mean, millions of dollars have contracted out in our that we don't have the capacity for. And, frankly, professionals can do a really good job when we contract out, like our trails work. We will contract out some vegetation management work that we don't have the capacity for. So it's trying to find the right balance of when it makes sense for the state to do it as a public service and when it makes sense to support the workforce in Vermont. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah.

[Rep. Richard 'Rick' Nelson (Ranking Member)]: The representative from Stowe, I I cherish your knowledge, but serving on the waterfowl advisory board and seeing some of the amounts of money we gotta put towards surveying a 10 acre swamp lot would make you wretch. And if we can partner with someone like FP and R and keep the money in house and moving it from one organization in state into a valued partner is is a great deal. And and I know it's a money savings and, you know, when you're looking at $25,000 to survey a lot that you're paying $5,000 to own, it hurts.

[Lana Kintorsky (Trustee, Vermont State Fair - Rutland)]: So would that be That's very critical.

[Speaker 0]: Yeah, and if I'm getting the gist of this, though it sounds like it would be up to Fish and Wildlife to make that request.

[Commissioner Danielle Fitzko (Vermont Dept. of Forests, Parks and Recreation)]: Well, we do currently, just for some background, we do have a state lands innovation working group right now that is looking at all of our state lands responsibilities and looking for efficiencies with staffing and coming up with a plan for that. And we have identified some positions that would be beneficial to have. I will say if you're bringing on a survey person full time, it's probably at least 150,000 a year. That's just the reality of like and that doesn't probably all include the truck and everything else you're gonna need to actually get that out of the field.

[Rep. Richard 'Rick' Nelson (Ranking Member)]: You don't have any watch where behind it's surveyed down at the Otter Creek Swamp, up, forward.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: I'm just wondering if you mentioned a $10 federal grant that you've received for, I didn't catch all the details on that, but is that reflected in the budgets that you present to us? Yes.

[Commissioner Danielle Fitzko (Vermont Dept. of Forests, Parks and Recreation)]: And our biggest one was a $5,000,000 grant, but we had several that's over 10,000,000 in just forestry. We present in our budget each year what we anticipate spending in that fiscal year. So we have a big $5,000,000 grant now, we put $1,100,000 in the budget this year, we'll probably have another million dollars next year, depending on what we'll use in house or what we'll either grant or contract out.

[Rep. Richard 'Rick' Nelson (Ranking Member)]: So basically, expenditures are what's in the budget

[Unidentified Committee Member]: that you present to us, and that might include federal dollars.

[Commissioner Danielle Fitzko (Vermont Dept. of Forests, Parks and Recreation)]: Oh yeah, 30% of our budget's federal dollars. And then a lot of it is also park special fund dollars, the revenue that we bring in from state parks.

[Speaker 0]: I think that the information when you were here last night that you shared broke down in some detail by group, division or department, how much was that or how much was

[Commissioner Danielle Fitzko (Vermont Dept. of Forests, Parks and Recreation)]: I think it's probably about 30% general fund. And this year, we only had a 2% increase in general fund overall.

[Jackie Colson (Lobbyist/Secretary, Vermont Fairs Association)]: John? Danny, how many seasonal employees do you have?

[Commissioner Danielle Fitzko (Vermont Dept. of Forests, Parks and Recreation)]: Approximately. We approximately say four fifty, probably a little bit more than that because that just includes parks and we bring on trails crews and we bring on forestry staff.

[Chris Vance (Caledonia County Fair)]: So how does

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: that, I always think of legislators or seasonal state employees. So do you have, is there a pay scale for them if you have experience in a certain position? Or what benefits do they get?

[Commissioner Danielle Fitzko (Vermont Dept. of Forests, Parks and Recreation)]: Yeah. So they get health care and those sort of benefits, but they do have benefits of being a state employee. They get access to like, a ERP employee, like, if you have health care I mean, like, mental health needs, you wanna talk to somebody of those kind of benefits. We do have a relationship with HR because we we'd like to have people return. We have at least 50% of our park staff are returning each year. So we are able to give them step increases based on if they're been in that position before, which is which is great that we have that ability. That is not standard across.

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: Yeah. They get paternity leave or

[Commissioner Danielle Fitzko (Vermont Dept. of Forests, Parks and Recreation)]: I they're I don't know that all the ins and outs and HR pieces, but they do certainly, I think, get some sick time.

[Rep. Richard 'Rick' Nelson (Ranking Member)]: John?

[Commissioner Danielle Fitzko (Vermont Dept. of Forests, Parks and Recreation)]: Yeah. I was wondering in terms of the 30% you get from the federal government, has that changed this year with some changes in federal funding in lots of other places, or have you guys been pretty steady? We're pretty steady. Certainly, we were unsure for last year, but with the FY '26 federal budget passing, we are looking steady and in some areas actually a little more. Awesome.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: So in 2019 you had about 125 full time?

[Commissioner Danielle Fitzko (Vermont Dept. of Forests, Parks and Recreation)]: 119.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: 119, now you're at 150? Yeah, 144.

[Speaker 0]: Now it's at 25.

[Commissioner Danielle Fitzko (Vermont Dept. of Forests, Parks and Recreation)]: Twenty five? Twenty five. For 20 limited service.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: And what do you and I know you've described some of the the programs that that have been put in place since 2019. Are they mostly federal programs then that have kind of brought about the increase in 25 employees?

[Commissioner Danielle Fitzko (Vermont Dept. of Forests, Parks and Recreation)]: They are federal opportunities that we go after to meet our goals here in Vermont. So for example, the climate resilient we have an inflation reduction act grant, it's called the forest resilience. So we are that was the 5,000,000 grant. With those funds, we're working with UVM and they're creating resiliency standards for forest management because we feel like it's really important to have that in the state. We're also gonna be doing a certification program for loggers and for forests to say like we're resilient certified. And then we're gonna be paying loggers to do resilient strategies. So we feel like it's a we're gonna do really solid management. We're gonna be promoting that. And then we're gonna pay the practitioners to do that good work. So it supports the first economy and also good stewardship. So we we kind of we identify sort of our goals and then seek the opportunities the federal government providing us.

[Rep. Richard 'Rick' Nelson (Ranking Member)]: And you have one or two staff

[Commissioner Danielle Fitzko (Vermont Dept. of Forests, Parks and Recreation)]: to add that out. And this one in particular, we had three that we brought on. We had are approved before, but we're only gonna fund three just recognizing we're still trying to be fiscally responsible because we're not quite sure what the future holds with federal dollars.

[Rep. Richard 'Rick' Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Slow part of

[Commissioner Danielle Fitzko (Vermont Dept. of Forests, Parks and Recreation)]: Slow camp is a legislative driven program, which we think is fantastic. That's all general fund dollars. SLO camp is infrastructure for water quality best management practices and resilient infrastructure. So a little bit different because this is bench management work as opposed to the heart more harder infrastructure.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: This position changes document that I'm looking at that you, I guess, provided talks about maybe you said positions that will sunset. Did you say how many?

[Commissioner Danielle Fitzko (Vermont Dept. of Forests, Parks and Recreation)]: We have 20 limited service positions. So those actually have an end date that's attached to them. Some of them will hopefully get more funding in that will maintain them.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Funding you can keep.

[Commissioner Danielle Fitzko (Vermont Dept. of Forests, Parks and Recreation)]: Yep. But if we don't, they will sunset. Mostly concerned about some of our Forest Street positions.

[Jackie Colson (Lobbyist/Secretary, Vermont Fairs Association)]: Full

[Unidentified Committee Member]: time. On 44? Yes. 20% increase in staffing over eight years is pretty high.

[Commissioner Danielle Fitzko (Vermont Dept. of Forests, Parks and Recreation)]: I would tell you that we probably have some areas that could still see some more savvy.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: We won't see that again in another eight years, another twenty. Unless the pendulum swings again.

[Speaker 0]: If you're down 20.

[Commissioner Danielle Fitzko (Vermont Dept. of Forests, Parks and Recreation)]: Could be. We look at the opportunities in front of us, I said, should we not do good work? We take advantage of the funding and try to do good work while we can.

[Speaker 0]: That certainly makes sense. We've kept you well back on your time today. Is there another quick question before we Do you share any

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: of your employees with, say, UVM Extension or with other victims of ANR?

[Commissioner Danielle Fitzko (Vermont Dept. of Forests, Parks and Recreation)]: We do certainly do collaborative work. We do have a relationship with UVM Extension and our urban and community forestry program, where we provide them funding to staff with permission for us. So we certainly look for partnership opportunities, particularly in our state lands work. We had staff in our land division that supports all of ANR's planning and management for state lands. They work across DEC and Fish and Wildlife Department.

[Speaker 0]: Senator Jordan Lurn was in yesterday. There's some money in the base budget, I believe.

[Commissioner Danielle Fitzko (Vermont Dept. of Forests, Parks and Recreation)]: Yes. We had $500,000 last year that was put in base that is maintained this year. Right now, there's no additional general fund base dollars or one time funds in our budget.

[Speaker 0]: Nothing additional? Correct. Yeah. Okay. And it is in your budget, the FPR budget?

[Commissioner Danielle Fitzko (Vermont Dept. of Forests, Parks and Recreation)]: Yeah, the 500,000 is in our FPR budget.

[Speaker 0]: Okay, all right. Well, thank you for making the time again.

[Commissioner Danielle Fitzko (Vermont Dept. of Forests, Parks and Recreation)]: I'm happy to follow-up with any questions you have. Thank you.

[Speaker 0]: You know what, it just occurs to me we have lots of interest in and we hear testimony from organizations that think we should be spending more on this or more on that. What we don't have is anybody coming in and saying, and because the administration can't say this, but coming in and saying, we think FPR should be funding more in this area, for example, like surveying or in land. Yeah. Yeah. Well,

[Rep. Richard 'Rick' Nelson (Ranking Member)]: the surveying, it would be Fish and Wildlife is gonna spend the money. And and like I said, some of those contracts, look at them, you're like, oh,

[Speaker 0]: out there. And if they're gonna spend the money, spend it in house. Yep. And they get it done for 70% of the cost. Yeah. But spend it in house, and then that helps fund that position that because we were so far behind in all our survey and on our state lands. Yes. And And it could remind me of the and I was thinking actually before this evening came up about the forestry positions and how far behind that job was that we went for that visit we had last year, like a decade or more. I do believe there could be more more staffing than would address that issue. But nobody comes in to make that case. I mean, we just sort of comes up and we say, yeah, maybe, but

[Rep. Richard 'Rick' Nelson (Ranking Member)]: The way logging forestry is going, we're gonna be at a four to one before we know it.

[Speaker 0]: We are on schedule. Wow, what do you know? Thank you all for being here on Guy Jackley. Hi, good morning. Do you wanna kick us off here?

[Jackie Colson (Lobbyist/Secretary, Vermont Fairs Association)]: Michelle, thank you very much. Tell

[Speaker 0]: us which hat you're wearing.

[Jackie Colson (Lobbyist/Secretary, Vermont Fairs Association)]: Well, you don't

[Rep. Richard 'Rick' Nelson (Ranking Member)]: have a

[Jackie Colson (Lobbyist/Secretary, Vermont Fairs Association)]: green jacket on, okay? So Thank you very much, committee, for having us in. My name is Jackie Colson today. I am the lobbyist and the secretary for the Vermont Fairs Association, and I'm excited to bring in some representatives of our fairs. I probably will also start this out by saying we're probably the only organization that is coming in not asking for money and not asking for more. Although if you'd like to write us in, that would be wonderful. But you're going to hear from the fairs that are here today about what they're doing with the stipends, which is $110,000 out of the House or out of the Agency of Agriculture budget, and also the we get $300,000 in capital grants from the institutions committees. That has been the same for the last four years. And these folks are going to tell you what they do with it and how they capitalize the funds that they do receive. So we have a little different group that is on your agenda. I don't know if they're all on the agenda, but some people became ill. Some people are still trying to get in through the building because we weren't expecting single entry today. That on top of parking in Minneapolis, it's become a real issue. I do have information. Every year we hand out an Economic Impact of the fairs. And when the fairs apply for their capital grants and their stipends through the agency of agriculture, they have to fill out a form with information about their attendees, how much they spend, a lot of different things. And then I make them fill out an economic impact survey about specific things that we know you're interested in. So I do have to say that there is a huge misspelling on here that I expect you all to find when you read this. And that's the only reason I did it. You know, I really screwed up. And you also have this on your website. We have today representatives from the Bonneville Fair, the Caledonia Fair, the Vermont State Fair in Rutland and Champlain Valley, and Lamoille. Sorry. Struggling, you guys. And I'm going to ask Chris Vance to start off because he's doing double duty today. As soon as he finishes here, he's gotta run downstairs and testify in front of senate agriculture. So if you have any questions for them, please ask. They've been told you're going to be asking really hard, difficult questions on bears, which is so much fun. So, they're here prepared, and, hopefully they'll do a great presentation and get you updated. Thank you very much. Chris?

[Speaker 0]: Thank you, Jackie. Good

[Chris Vance (Caledonia County Fair)]: morning. Chris Vance. I'm with Caledonia County Fair. Just a point of information. Jackie mentioned stipend and the capital grants. For those that don't know that that money is split evenly amongst every fair. So no fair gets, you know, more than another fair. So I just think that's an important thing. A couple of things that I just wanted to mention when it comes to the stipend money, you know, that's important to us. I would just share that, you know, Caledonia County Fair spends $71,000 a year in just premiums and that's, like everything, has gone up significantly over time. What's

[Jackie Colson (Lobbyist/Secretary, Vermont Fairs Association)]: that?

[Chris Vance (Caledonia County Fair)]: No, no, this is premiums that we pay out to exhibitors. So horse pullers, cattle, rabbits, floral haul. So that's what your stipend money is there to support. And I think we each get around 17?

[Jackie Colson (Lobbyist/Secretary, Vermont Fairs Association)]: It's about 12,000.

[Chris Vance (Caledonia County Fair)]: So I'm just I'm just throwing out what's that?

[Rep. Richard 'Rick' Nelson (Ranking Member)]: How much you

[Chris Vance (Caledonia County Fair)]: 71,000. And again, you know, I would just share that, you know, it's an ongoing situation that we all find ourselves in. It's harder and harder for people to afford to participate. And so to entice, you know, people to come, you know, premiums, you know, need to be increased over time. So I just share that for what it's worth. The other thing is capital grants. And so again, I thank you for the support of the capital grants. I would just share with you last year, we had a chance and I would just pass this around for anybody that wants to look. This is just kind of shows you what Caledonia County Fair has done with their capital grants as you know, just kind of a reference and I would just share this with you. This is in 1993. This was before my time. But that's when Caledonia County fairs grandstand burned down. And I would tell you that at that point, most likely our fair would cease to exist if it wasn't for the support and benefit that we have have experienced from the state of Vermont. So I thank you for that. Because at that point in our, you know, in our existence, we were really in tough straits and, you know, infrastructure had declined and, and we really didn't have any financial ability to replace our grandstand and continue to operate. So I would just share that, you know, due to the support of the state house, we've flourished and not to be biased, but I would tell you that we are probably one of the nicest looking fairs in the state of Vermont. That's just my opinion. But just to give you a couple tidbits over the last couple of years, actually five or six years, we worked on exclusively our cattle department, and transforming every building in the in the cattle department, as most of those buildings were, know, had been there for many generations. So we just finished up our last building, which was an extension to Lawrence Arena. And we took our existing Show Arena that was built in 2002, and put a 14 foot extension on either side of it so that we could move our seating area of spectators outside of the show ring for safety, and created a small animal barn and the judge's booth, again, outside of the show ring, making it one of the larger show rings in New England that we're aware of. And I haven't had an opportunity to present in front of this committee. But we were able a few years ago to pull the New England Holstein show that has been historically held in New Hampshire that is now being held in Vermont for the last two years, and they've signed up for three more years. So anything we can pull out of New Hampshire back into Vermont makes us very happy. Again, we you know, we're doing that. The year before that, know, so this year we will be putting some more space, God willing, onto our Antique Pavilion Building so that we can house more antiques, and we'll be putting in a new wash rack in the cattle department to kind of finish that up for the needs of that area. So again, capital improvements. Why is it important? Why it something that I believe is truly special? I think it's what really continues to push us in a direction of every year having to come up with how we want to improve our grounds and our facilities. And as we all know, you have two choices. You can either continue to improve and create something that people want to go to, or you can decay and go the other direction. I think capital improvement, in my opinion, has always been important because it is that one thing that gives us that seed money, that that that push to say, what are we doing this year? What are we doing next year? And it just keeps us focused. It keeps us on task. So again, I think it's critically important. Other things going on at Caledonia County Fair this year. We are in the process. We started last year. Construction will start in the spring, but we are working with the University of Vermont on putting up a weather station in Lindenville, mainly because they came to us with a desire, because there was a lack of monitoring in our neck of the woods at keeping track of what the weather conditions were, and needed to have something that would better alert the community of what was going on. So we agreed to, you know, they asked us if we would provide some land. We agreed to do that and we've gone through the town and so that will start in the spring and that will be a 30 foot tower that will be going up that will track all sorts of things. So that's that's kind of exciting and I think it's very beneficial. Beyond that, I think I've chatted way more than I probably should unless there's questions.

[Speaker 0]: It's very informative. Representative Nelson had a question,

[Rep. Richard 'Rick' Nelson (Ranking Member)]: I think. Yeah. So the the money you get from institutions, that's the money that y'all split up to use for your infrastructure and whatnot. Explain to the committee how we leverage that money. I know I know in Barton at your length county fair, which does have the greatest sports pool of pavilion in New England Okay. Which was built a 100% with private funds.

[Chris Vance (Caledonia County Fair)]: I wouldn't disagree, but go ahead.

[Speaker 0]: Okay. My father built it.

[Rep. Richard 'Rick' Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. I'm fine. But, anyway, you you leverage you explained to the committee how much you leverage your money and then then that and the donations you get from your your community and your agricultural community people.

[Chris Vance (Caledonia County Fair)]: Yeah. So it's you know, as I said, seed money, I look at, you know, seed money as we talk about, you know, capital grants around 30.

[Jackie Colson (Lobbyist/Secretary, Vermont Fairs Association)]: 30 to 35,000.

[Chris Vance (Caledonia County Fair)]: Yeah. So 30 to 35,000, which which again is, you know, is a lot amongst all the fairs, but, know, I'll give you some examples. But, you know, it's it's a way for us to, again, it to my point is to come up with the idea, you know, what is it we wanna do? What's the project that we hope to do? And then to use, you know, that, you know, the process and the money to then go out in into the community to solicit sponsorships and and and local businesses to support the rest. So so some example, the thing that I always find interesting, the entire Lawrence Arena that we built in 2020 or 2002, the entire, show arena cost Caledonia County Fair 56,000, the entire building. The 14 foot extensions that I just told you that we put on on either side of that 14 feet extensions off the sides of the building cost us $120,000 So once upon a time, capital grants, know, or capital projects at a fair, at least in our fair because it's small, you know, we're in the $40.50, 60,000, 80,000. It's physically impossible to really do anything anymore that's under $100,000 But again, the importance of capital grants, I think, is just that we get ourselves you know, busy at coming up with things and then using the money to start the project and then go out and solicit other things.

[Jackie Colson (Lobbyist/Secretary, Vermont Fairs Association)]: Lawrence, Rita and Kate, yourself, you hear that by our member of representative Dave Lawrence, That's who that was named after. Was instrumental for years and years and at the fair.

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: Chair of House Ag.

[Jackie Colson (Lobbyist/Secretary, Vermont Fairs Association)]: Chair of House Ag. How old are your fair, Chris?

[Chris Vance (Caledonia County Fair)]: 180 years, I believe. Bonneville claims to be going longer, but I would just tell you, I just had to do a I spoke in front of the Linden Institute kids the other day, I had to do research. 1859 is when Caledonia County Fair started in St. Johnsbury and was used as an encampment during the civil war, so I found that quite interesting. Go ahead. Just

[Unidentified Committee Member]: curious. And across the pairs, a building is named after someone, is that because they funded it or because it's honoring them or kind of both?

[Chris Vance (Caledonia County Fair)]: Can can be a combination, but mostly I would just say in our situation it's because they gave a significant donation towards the project.

[Jackie Colson (Lobbyist/Secretary, Vermont Fairs Association)]: They built a new building with a new cattle barn a couple years ago, they named it after Diane Norris. So some of you might remember representative Terry Norris. She had nothing to do with it, but she's a long time president of Addison Fair, and so they named that building after her.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: So it can be honorary or financial or All both of

[Speaker 0]: right, thank you. We've

[Jackie Colson (Lobbyist/Secretary, Vermont Fairs Association)]: got until ten after five, so ten after five after five.

[Speaker 0]: You need to be in another committee, Jackie? He does. Okay.

[Jackie Colson (Lobbyist/Secretary, Vermont Fairs Association)]: But the rest of them are good.

[Speaker 0]: And we have a little time at the end so we can, you have time.

[Jackie Colson (Lobbyist/Secretary, Vermont Fairs Association)]: Yeah, we have plenty of time. Scott? So now you're gonna come up and argue who's got the older fair, right?

[Scott Bashi (Bondville Fair)]: We know. Bonneville was 1797, that

[Rep. Richard 'Rick' Nelson (Ranking Member)]: was the first fair. Jed Lurszere?

[Scott Bashi (Bondville Fair)]: Yeah. My name is Scott Bashi. I'm the representative for the Bonneville Fair. The sentiments are pretty much echoed what Chris said about the capital grant projects. We operate on nine acres, three of them are parking. We do a three day event. And when I took over five years ago, the very first year, we made a five year plan. The very first year, we spent $80,000 in electrical upgrades without the capital monies for those types of things, it wouldn't happen. There's just no way. Our fair is entirely run by volunteers. We are a three day event. And what the what that like, what Chris said about the seed money. So when we look at that, yes, we have we have upgraded all of our electric, which is huge. I mean, we were sorely lacking our breaker boxes when you opened them, the breakers fell out. It was it wasn't just a matter of that we were underpowered, but it was a safety issue. You can't have a good fare if your people aren't safe there. So we started with that. And then this last year, we actually completely redid our cook jack again, that was just in horrible disrepair. And this year, we're moving on to redoing one of our oldest buildings, the Quill Hall. The monies that we get, we know. Okay, we can put this much into it, which saves us that much. We go out, we do other things. We are fairgrounds. We put on four concert series in the summertime. It's free, but we charge vendors to set up there. We have a dance recital, we have a country jamboree this year, the Peru fair is no longer in existence. They're done. So we actually picked up all their vendors want to come in and do a street fair at on our grounds. So that's how we, you know, we also bring in the money. But like last year, we were able to bring in and I don't know if any of you are familiar with the samples, the band. They were a local band that started here, hit it big nationally, globally. We were able to bring them in on Friday night because that you free money up that you can then take and invest in something like that. And I think on that Friday night, on our tiny little grounds, we we did 71,000 at our gate for just that Friday night. And it sounds great to start with. Our system is set, though, that we split everything at the gate with the carnival people. So it's a half split. And then what you figure out is like Chris said, every year to get prepared to know what monies, premiums you're going to pay out, we actually ended up in our account with a whole whopping 15,000 when all was said and done. So it really is true, without your continued support, without the stipends, without the capital grant monies coming in, fairs, my fair especially, would we would just cease to exist. And this will be our two hundred and twenty eighth year continuous. And we held the fair during COVID as well, because we figured out a way to open up our floral hall, had people bring in their exhibits. We went in afterwards, we judged everything, and then we contacted them to come back, get their ribbons, their money, whatever. It becomes a source of pride. Like all of our people are volunteers as is of most all these fairs. And the reason they do it is they do it for the love of the fair and they do it for keeping that tradition alive. And we're losing so many of our traditions because the cost is just astronomical. It costs us $5,000 to just bring in a sled for the pulling exhibit. And it doesn't matter whether it rains or not, he gets his $5,000 So as always, every year I've come up here, I've always, you know, really just want to thank the committees on this because it is it really is imperative. It's money that we can count on to move forward, continue to improve our tiny little biggest little fair in Vermont, oldest fair in Vermont. And yeah, so it's a pleasure to be able to come here and actually speak with the people that make the decision.

[Speaker 0]: Representative Lipsky. Yeah. Thank you. I used

[Rep. Richard 'Rick' Nelson (Ranking Member)]: to live in Bonville in the

[Speaker 0]: Yeah.

[Rep. Richard 'Rick' Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Nineteen sixties and early seventies.

[Scott Bashi (Bondville Fair)]: So you remember a different kind of fair. That's

[Rep. Richard 'Rick' Nelson (Ranking Member)]: wanna congratulate you. I came down this year. Been almost fifty five years since I've been there. Saw a lot of friends. Beth Jenks. Yep. Bartholomew.

[Scott Bashi (Bondville Fair)]: Yeah. She's my ex wife.

[Speaker 0]: She's also

[Scott Bashi (Bondville Fair)]: the vice president. I'm the president. She's not

[Rep. Richard 'Rick' Nelson (Ranking Member)]: my But, anyway, that Floral Hall, and I go to pretty much every fair in the state. You talk about a postage stamp and a floodplain at Windham River against Yeah. Angry at Bristol. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And it just I'm a little nostalgic, though. It is a very wholesome place, you know, and beautiful. And I Thank you. Good friends with your neighbor, Bob Will Greer and Yep. And other than the truck poles, which shake the dishes in their cabinet, that are down that Yep. It's just great.

[Scott Bashi (Bondville Fair)]: Yeah. Peter will stop me on the street once in a while and be like, you know, it's like a replacing plates. I'm like, I I get it, Peter. I get it. So once a year.

[Rep. Richard 'Rick' Nelson (Ranking Member)]: It it is a pride for that community, and I'm encouraged that you've expanded a whole I Cathy, explained all of it. Yeah. Different festivals.

[Scott Bashi (Bondville Fair)]: Yeah. We've yeah. We've tried to push as much as we can on our tiny little piece, and and yeah. Well, thank you. I appreciate that. I will make sure I

[Rep. Richard 'Rick' Nelson (Ranking Member)]: take that back. As regards to that I will do. Who's been Larry Latson and back in I worked for Larry Jenks for seventeen years. I worked for him in Windsor, and I'm gonna

[Chris Vance (Caledonia County Fair)]: have to have a chat

[Scott Bashi (Bondville Fair)]: with Larry then. Anyway,

[Speaker 0]: thank you. Thank you. You mentioned the Peru fair, which is right.

[Scott Bashi (Bondville Fair)]: Our neighbor in town. Yes.

[Speaker 0]: So that was not a fair that was part of

[Scott Bashi (Bondville Fair)]: the organization. So the Peru fair was really what it was is they would take on their main street, and they would basically line it with vendors and, you know, food and crafts and things like that. Real loose use of the word fair. I think it should have been the Peru gathering because outside of that, there really wasn't anything, but they had such a huge following of the vendors that they actually reached out to us for a space to continue what they're doing.

[Jackie Colson (Lobbyist/Secretary, Vermont Fairs Association)]: The definition to receive a stipend or a grant in the statute is you have to have a three day fair and you have to have competitions. So Peru, when I started with the Fairs Association, they were what we call an associate member. So we used to list them on our rack cards and promote them but I went down one year it was a homecoming. And Bonville actually it was Beth that got them involved a couple years ago because they not part of our association, but she heard about the grants. And so they have been really, I mean, one of them always comes to our meeting now and they've been very, very active in the association. So we're very grateful that they found us.

[Speaker 0]: I don't know the the history, but as somebody from Bennington County, Windham is it's in Bennington County. And there isn't a county fair. There's no Bennington County fair. I don't know whether historically the Bonneville fair sort of served in that, somehow that picture.

[Scott Bashi (Bondville Fair)]: Yeah. Yeah. Plus, I mean, you you know, you you're right in the heart of the ski country there. And a lot of our year to year people are actually folks from Connecticut, Mass that come up just specifically to make sure they go to the fair. All right, thank you very much. From

[Jackie Colson (Lobbyist/Secretary, Vermont Fairs Association)]: the smallest fair to go to the largest ones. A

[Tim Shea (Champlain Valley Exposition)]: mere 103 years old.

[Rep. Richard 'Rick' Nelson (Ranking Member)]: That's supposed to be the Vermont State Fair?

[Speaker 0]: Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

[Tim Shea (Champlain Valley Exposition)]: You for your time. Tim Hsieh, Champlain Valley Exposition, and I will probably just echo what our friends before said, thank you. You know, the grants that we receive, we pay about, I think, 60,000 in stipends. So the $11,000 or in premium, I should say, $11,000 in stipends helped to offset that. And the capital grants are critical as well. We've taken a strategy a few years ago to invest them in some of the things our fair growers don't see exciting things like water and electric infrastructure, which are just critical to our existence to be able to operate the fair, HVAC units. But what that does is it frees up other money to spend on pools and items we need to run a fare, tractor, side by sides, that type of equipment that may not qualify for the capital grant, but because of the shelf life of some of those assets. But if we can put some of the money into things that aren't that fancy, the fairgoers don't see, but are critical to our mission, it frees up all their money. About three years ago, we had a big horsepower in our back that we really only used for the ten days of the fair. We host a couple of other horse shows. Was It in dire need of repair, and we thought it would be a 40,000 to $50,000 repair. It turned out to be $150,000 once you start to peel back that onion. And then we asked the question, well, why repair it? Because we need it for the ten days of the fair and to replace it with renting a tent, renting all horse stalls, you just couldn't do it. And now we have a great barn that we host forage events for that we do throughout the summer and that we don't charge for. It just allows us to continue to be an asset to the community outside of the fair. We also do quite a bit of work for local public safety because of the facility that we have. We have state leases there all the time, you know, free of charge, obviously training. National Guard is there. This past summer, we're in Essex Junction, obviously, and the fire department approached us. Guess in the state of Vermont, it's really lacking for fire training sites, and we have kind of a back part of our grounds that we don't use at all. And they asked us if they could place some conics boxes there and stack them to replicate, you know, a burning home, which we were more than happy to do. So they placed the conics boxes last fall and they'll start training this spring where they'll, you know, burn hay to get smoke and then, you know, cut some holes. So you have a second, a two tier building for Essex Fire Department, but they're also gonna make it available to other fire departments in the area. Again, that space is all we provide free of charge, and we're more than happy to do it. And that's why the funding that we receive from the state is so helpful, because it allows us to maintain some things so that we can provide that space to local community groups. We host the city of Essex Junction elections now, and again, all free of charge, but because we have monies coming in from the state to pay for some of the infrastructure, and then we have other special events to help subsidize some of the events that we can provide on a complimentary basis. So I'll be brief, others are speaking behind me, but happy to answer any questions.

[Speaker 0]: CZ Top. Yes.

[Rep. Richard 'Rick' Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Uh- Start growing your beard, Richard.

[Jackie Colson (Lobbyist/Secretary, Vermont Fairs Association)]: Yeah.

[Rep. Richard 'Rick' Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Went two years ago to Florida, which I had no idea where I was going, and I never had so much fun. So my wife was so but anyways, thank you for doing because of your size and your proximity, the things that you do and the things you bring to us so that we can escape the Northeast Kingdom or or other parts of the state and go in and have a fun day

[Tim Shea (Champlain Valley Exposition)]: Thank you.

[Rep. Richard 'Rick' Nelson (Ranking Member)]: In in in that kind of situation because it it is much appreciated. And, you know, the North, North American Dairy Expo was there last year, and unfortunately, they made a bad choice in our movement.

[Tim Shea (Champlain Valley Exposition)]: I agree.

[Rep. Richard 'Rick' Nelson (Ranking Member)]: But, that was a wonderful event, and, you know, we'll get the farm show back going and get back to your house, and thank you for all of that.

[Tim Shea (Champlain Valley Exposition)]: We're excited that the farm show will return in 2027, they're looking at, which we're thrilled about

[Rep. Richard 'Rick' Nelson (Ranking Member)]: been for a long the all chair, Durfee. Maybe a milking competition, I can whoop Eagles.

[Jackie Colson (Lobbyist/Secretary, Vermont Fairs Association)]: It's one the fairs that is part of the three acre and perfected service. Mhmm. That

[Rep. Richard 'Rick' Nelson (Ranking Member)]: that's yeah. When you go to these fairgrounds, and I know they have roof area, and I know they have driveways and roadways and whatnot. But the amount of green area you had at all these fairgrounds, I can't imagine it would have to be a twenty five year storm event for you to have runoff at that fairground or at Martin or at Rutland. So who's from Rutland? Pierre. Yeah. Or Rutland and and and Caledonia and a lot of these other

[Jackie Colson (Lobbyist/Secretary, Vermont Fairs Association)]: We tried to, when this came up a couple years ago, we tried to argue that the amount of open green space was larger and was mitigating the water.

[Rep. Richard 'Rick' Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Absolutely.

[Jackie Colson (Lobbyist/Secretary, Vermont Fairs Association)]: We were not hurt.

[Rep. Richard 'Rick' Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Well, we assume worse than others.

[Speaker 0]: Status of the, pushed it.

[Jackie Colson (Lobbyist/Secretary, Vermont Fairs Association)]: So there was a $2,000,000 amount that the legislature put through towards the fairs before fairs. So that's Orleans, Champlain Valley, Addison and Burtt. And Tim, you're shovel ready, you're ready to go, right?

[Tim Shea (Champlain Valley Exposition)]: We're completing good amount of the project so far. So we all received $550,000

[Jackie Colson (Lobbyist/Secretary, Vermont Fairs Association)]: And so Addison actually, they had an engineer who overbuilt their system and they went back and said, can we just do, because Addison made a lot of brain space. So they went back and kind of did riprap through some of the drainage ditches and that apparently was approved. So they're not going to use the entire 550,000. Orleans, think they just put, I think they just worked with their engineer. I don't have anybody here today from them. Are you Art? Yes. Oh my goodness. Art, hi, I've never met you. So I will let you speak. So and it's Rutland, that's the poster child for what I think is wrong with this.

[Rep. Richard 'Rick' Nelson (Ranking Member)]: We passed some legislation last year making a carve out for Rutland on Friday.

[Jackie Colson (Lobbyist/Secretary, Vermont Fairs Association)]: They eliminated the impact fee that they were going to have to pay which was like 50 some thousand dollars but there's actually a bill in the building now to eliminate the impact fee on everyone that's in the system for three acre. So they eliminated the impact fee but they're still under the gun for having to do the program, which we're fighting.

[Speaker 0]: Any other questions for Tim? Yeah, John. Tim, how many weekends a year

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: do you have something going on at Champaign Valley?

[Tim Shea (Champlain Valley Exposition)]: That's a great question. I don't it's rare that we don't have something going on, and we're fortunate to be able to host Cub Scout camps that we don't charge for. So a lot of the events we have all weekend, host horse event centers, but we're happy to make the space available to some of these events. That's why the special events we have are so important. They subsidize our ability to host these events free of charge. So like anything, you try to keep the place as busy as you can, because you have to, you know, the ten days of the fair, you have to maintain the infrastructure and you have to keep the place busy, the other three fifty five to help fund the fair and the operations.

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: Just to comment, the capital grants then, when they go to sort of boring important stuff like, know, our septic, whatever, they're being used all through the year.

[Tim Shea (Champlain Valley Exposition)]: No question. No question. No. It's critical.

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: I think a lot of these fairs I mean, I know Tunbridge is when you look, it's not just the Tunbridge fair. It's the sheep and wool festival. It's a Morgan horse, a tractor pull.

[Tim Shea (Champlain Valley Exposition)]: It has to be in order to maintain the infrastructure you need for your fair, you have to keep revenue coming in other times.

[Rep. Richard 'Rick' Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Jed? You know, Jared Durfee, not only did Champlain host the dairy show, but, you know, early May, they're gonna be hosting the North Skin Waggers Expo, which happens every two years there. Relevant to our committee, the forestry.

[Tim Shea (Champlain Valley Exposition)]: It's a great show if you haven't come. It's a great show to tell.

[Rep. Richard 'Rick' Nelson (Ranking Member)]: It's a revenue generator for fair. I

[Unidentified Committee Member]: just wanna say something you said earlier because it's so important and why I think this funding is important, and that is that infrastructure improvements are largely invisible to the public. Stormwater runoff, a new roof, electrical, sewer, you fix that. Who notices unless, you know, the sewer line doesn't work? They don't they don't notice the sewer unless it doesn't work. So I just wanted to emphasize. I think that's a really important point that this money's so important.

[Tim Shea (Champlain Valley Exposition)]: Replaced a culvert three years ago for $100,000 and we would have locked the gate had we not done it.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: They're so expensive. Okay.

[Speaker 0]: Thank you.

[Jackie Colson (Lobbyist/Secretary, Vermont Fairs Association)]: Chair, I don't know how you want to do that. I have three beers left in five minutes.

[Speaker 0]: Well, if anybody's able to stay longer than the five minutes, anybody who can't stay longer,

[Jackie Colson (Lobbyist/Secretary, Vermont Fairs Association)]: maybe No. Everybody's fine.

[Lana Kintorsky (Trustee, Vermont State Fair - Rutland)]: We have

[Jackie Colson (Lobbyist/Secretary, Vermont Fairs Association)]: our next committee of sitting back and they're all down

[Unidentified Committee Member]: there. Okay.

[Tim Shea (Champlain Valley Exposition)]: Actually, Jed, because I was

[Rep. Richard 'Rick' Nelson (Ranking Member)]: supposed to be going to the senate.

[Randy Beam (Lamoille County Field Days)]: And I think you've scheduled me in Yes.

[Jackie Colson (Lobbyist/Secretary, Vermont Fairs Association)]: So we can knock the corner down there, and then we'll eliminate one fair.

[Speaker 0]: Yeah. Or if you wanna just

[Randy Beam (Lamoille County Field Days)]: wanna talk I could take a brief moment. Yeah. Let's Let you know

[Speaker 0]: what we're planning this year.

[Jackie Colson (Lobbyist/Secretary, Vermont Fairs Association)]: This is Lamoille.

[Randy Beam (Lamoille County Field Days)]: My name is Randy Beam from Lamoille County Fair. This is my fifth year being involved with the fair. My main objectivity before was keeping the grounds clean, ready for field bays. And then myself and my great granddaughter, Jenna, she will be 14 next month. She has helped me in the animal barn for the past five years. Back in October, I was elected president of Field Days. So I came to field days. I do want to thank you very much for the grants. I know I am looking forward to this year. Normally, we have our field days, and then we don't utilize our fairground. This year, we are planning a car show the August. And then also the September, we're going to host a working dog trial competition. And like with our capital grant this year, we just erected fixed up one of our existing buildings, Harlow Hall. And when it was erected, I mean, like the center of it, it's a 30 by 40 center that's asphalt. And then it's a nice concrete. One of our projects, the asphalt is gonna be removed, taken away, and it'll be one concrete pad. I mean, it just gives it a better look and more secure. We also, on our back gate, which is our main entrance during the winter, we have a sliding gate. And trust me, it's not fun when I'm there trying to open that gate. I got a flamethrower now so I can loosen up and otherwise we're going to be changing that to swinging gates. We also in our 4 H Building, at the moment we have two sliding doors that come together. We going to be putting in overhead doors, just ones that you push up manually, pull down manually, just make it more secure.

[Speaker 0]: I And think fair.

[Randy Beam (Lamoille County Field Days)]: Our fair, I believe this will be sixty four years.

[Rep. Richard 'Rick' Nelson (Ranking Member)]: I'm I'm sure sixty four years.

[Speaker 0]: That makes you the youngest fair. Yes. Yes.

[Jackie Colson (Lobbyist/Secretary, Vermont Fairs Association)]: Is also around there.

[Speaker 0]: Okay. Representative Burtt. Yes. Do you have your fair? It's a pretty early

[Randy Beam (Lamoille County Field Days)]: Our fair is July this year.

[Rep. Richard 'Rick' Nelson (Ranking Member)]: So that's one the earliest. Yes. Yep. Yep.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: It's nice to have that spread Yes.

[Rep. Richard 'Rick' Nelson (Ranking Member)]: With folks.

[Randy Beam (Lamoille County Field Days)]: Yes. And one thing, and it looks like it will happen this year. I attended the Vermont New Hampshire trade show, and there is a company. The name of the company is Little Digger. And basically what they do, they have a 40 by 60 area where it's like an excavator, different types of heavy machinery that are basically a swing set slide. But they also do workshops for the different trades, like carpentry, electrical, and things like that. And we are hoping we will have them this year at field base. I mean, trying to just bring in new things, deepen interest up. And one thing I cannot stress enough and heard this at the Vermont trade show. Thank God for my great granddaughter because if we did not have these younger people, so many young people now, it's like, no. We don't wanna do that. Or how much are you gonna pay us? Ours is volunteer basis. We do not have any employees part time or full time. It's all volunteer. I know just within the past month, we have a very large increase of volunteer interest of people who want to get involved with helping out at field day. So we are open to anything. We love to bring you on.

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: General Brian, really quick question. Yes. Your website says you're on 100 C In Johnson, this says Hyde Park. Which town are you in? Actually,

[Randy Beam (Lamoille County Field Days)]: our mailing address is Hyde Park. Okay. But our physical address actually, its physical address is 203 Wilson Road, which is right off 100 C in Johnson. Yeah. I mean, it's noticeable.

[Jackie Colson (Lobbyist/Secretary, Vermont Fairs Association)]: It's a

[Speaker 0]: area. Yeah. Very, for sure. Yes. Thank you.

[Jackie Colson (Lobbyist/Secretary, Vermont Fairs Association)]: I'm gonna yank you because you need to run upstairs.

[Scott Bashi (Bondville Fair)]: Thank you so much for

[Speaker 0]: your time. Thank you. You.

[Rep. Richard 'Rick' Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Art, just to let you know, I'm logged in therapy here.

[Art LaLonde (Orleans County Fairgrounds)]: We're short on time, so I don't think it's gonna be that bad. Thank you your time, Alan. I'm Art LaLonde, New Orleans County Fairgrounds. I want to start by saying thank you. It's my first time here. I'm new as the president of the Fairgrounds Association, and I'm brand new about ten weeks into it. Here I am. So thank you for having me and everyone else here, my friends from the other fairs today. I heard a similar lot stories, feelings, situations that we have. For quite a few years, I have been the buildings and ground superintendent. So I feel the pain of some of these buildings and what we have to do to maintain them. I'm very happy to say that the capital grants stipends have been really a lifeline for us. We have saved and saved some of these for a few years, and we are in the process right now of putting up the largest building on our grounds since the Nelson Pulling Arena was done. This horse barn that we're putting up has 60 stalls, 62 by 150 feet in our area and the center of the Northeast Kingdom. That's a big deal. It's a real big deal. It's not that money's flowing around the state easily, but tight where we operate. Donations, sponsorship, it's just hard to come by. We've had some people that have been very aggressive that have been helping fundraise. So it's going very well. We broke ground in the fall. We have a group of Amish that are working as we speak that are working on it. We've got the building pretty much closed in, starting siding soon. And we're excited that hopefully in the spring we'll be ready to go. We have multiple equine events that nipping at the bud for us to be ready to go so they can have events there. So we're excited about that. We have also another barn that will be coming down that will be an open stall horse barn, 30 by 120. And we had just gotten to the point with some of these buildings that, and I don't know if the other fairs have run across the same thing, but people didn't want to come anymore. They want to bring their animals because maybe some of the conditions of these buildings. Embarrassing, yes, but it's factual. And we just didn't have the ability and the means to write a check and take care of these things. We've been trying really hard. Don't know, 27, excited about. We got some things we're planning ahead for, but '26 looks really good. And as a follow-up, '25, our numbers are rough. Finally, we went through like five years. We just kind of kept kind of coming down and coming down, and we've jumped it back up. We're excited about that, and we were able to do that with a four day fair versus five. We've been a five day fair since 1867, been around a long time. We have a fair amount of original barns that are still on the ground. Biggest barns that we have, most of them were original. So a lot of maintenance issues there to take care of. Of the premiums that we've read a lot today, we still it's competitive out there to get these people to come in and compete. You've still got to be putting those premiums out there at a good rate to get them to come. So we're on $70,000 which becomes a challenge for us. So we're doing the best we can, we're feeling pretty optimistic. We've got some newer people. We just heard that. A few younger people that are coming on board, so we're excited there, and things seems to be going well. And again, thank you for the capital grants. I know we're talking 27 already going to our floor hall. That building was purchased, the product material was purchased in 'sixty nine and constructed. And that's a 60 by 300 foot building that we do a lot in that building, but we know there's a lot of potential there. And our goal is looking at 'twenty seven to totally revamp our South end. It'll give us a commercial kitchen with new ADA bathrooms, handicap accessible, and again, get that complete new kitchen in there and insulate and hopefully heat a part of that building, the south leg, then we can have events all year long here, which is we've got the Bass Trail comes right through. We are open with side by sides and four wheelers. The town is all opened up road wise so we can bring them right in and have events. So our goal is to look at that for '27. And one thing I heard earlier was revenue generators, and that's certainly one for us. So I don't want to reiterate everything everyone else said, but do again, I really appreciate the help and support we get from you folks here. Any questions I can answer, I'd be more than happy to give them a try.

[Rep. Richard 'Rick' Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Okay. Yeah. Thank you. Alright. Thank you for stepping up. And I know it's a it's a big it's a big deal, and it's a tremendous amount of time that you folks put into delivering that fair for us to go to. Can you speak to or I would speak to the revenue driven for the surrounding communities and I believe all that vendor food and stuff got a 90% sales tax off, loads of meal stocks on it?

[Jackie Colson (Lobbyist/Secretary, Vermont Fairs Association)]: We track the amount of money that the rides do, so it's about 10,000, I think it's top of this how not all the fairs total that responded to the economic survey totally their total yearly budget fairs and everything else was over $9,000,000 It's an economic driver in their communities total, dollars 9,000,000.

[Rep. Richard 'Rick' Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Yeah, and so this is money well invested by the state of Vermont into the fair associations between institutions and the money from AAFM for the and and alright. Is there any plans in Orleans to back that into August still, get back to our traditional dates, are

[Art LaLonde (Orleans County Fairgrounds)]: we gonna be? Ben, a very, very popular question. It's always a part of our annual meetings, and yes, it does come up. But to get them back, there's a challenge. As everyone that's involved in this knows, it's not like purchasing a vehicle or anything else. You can't pick up the phone and get an entertainment group in there when you want them. They're going to come whenever that works well for them, and we just haven't been able to do that. And we switched from August until after Labor Day, however many years ago, and we did it for that reason. We had a company, an entertainment ride company, they were retirement age, had everything for sale, and we couldn't get anybody else. So the only way we were able to was switch our dates. It's been a challenge, I know, on the ag side, from the ag shows to happen while the kids are off for summer vacation, it just became, how balance do this? And I think for long term, it seems to be working pretty well. We still have a fair amount of people like to see it in August, but

[Unidentified Committee Member]: We're adapting.

[Art LaLonde (Orleans County Fairgrounds)]: Well, yeah, exactly. And we've actually been able to do a lot better in some areas basically because of that. Because we've had other Some of the fairs that are nearby, we have people that work those fairs, vendors, exhibitors. Then they call us and say, Hey, I got a couple weekends off. Can we come to your fair and put on something before we go south, let's say, to Freiburg or something. And that's worked very well. That's helpful stuff. But again, we do the best we can. Within the past few years, we're able to take, for example, some of these buildings with really all in house. We didn't have any capital money we used for it. We took a building that was going to be torn down that had been our blacksmith shop five decades ago and had been touched. It was what and a half into the ground. We have now moved that, put on a new concrete pad, and we have a fully functional actually, it's a two person station blacksmith shop, trying to work with the local high school to get them involved. And maybe that could be an educational piece and get them a little bit more involved in the fair. But we do things like that because we have to. We don't have any other means. And we fortunately have some really good volunteers and some people that have the means. We've had a past president who was fabulous, Jason Sekard, and he's had a lot of resources through his business that have helped us out. So we've been pretty fortunate. So in tough times, we still kind of made it happen.

[Speaker 0]: I really love seeing it.

[Rep. Richard 'Rick' Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. Thank you, I've spent three times over the summer and fall going up there this year, particularly because some of you may not know the equine energy up there, the Vermont Horse Council testifies. Here comes to us about certain policy, tax status for equine. It's agricultural, but it's not a food product, etcetera. But representative Bartholomew had asked about how one names barns, and I followed the progress on that, you know, spectacular horse barn that you're building. Yes. And have has that been named?

[Art LaLonde (Orleans County Fairgrounds)]: No. There

[Rep. Richard 'Rick' Nelson (Ranking Member)]: There there was a lady who

[Art LaLonde (Orleans County Fairgrounds)]: met her demise. Yeah. Julie Jacobs. Julie. Yes. Yes. That the plan for that, it it will be named after her. She, unfortunately, her and another lady, they're the ones that started the whole project. They started spearheading it and raising the money. She, unfortunately, passed away from cancer at a young age, Julie, and that barn will be named after her. And the hope is we get everything done, ready to be turnkey for Memorial Day. And their event, they won, think, a few weeks before, but that's our goal. So I think we'll get to it. But you're absolutely correct. The equine is just boomed up there, and that's kind of where we are with some of our plants. We just continue progress in the equine area.

[Rep. Richard 'Rick' Nelson (Ranking Member)]: What's great is you and more field day in Southern Maryland, but you engage local or folks inside like in these stores that were just millionaires who travel there for Sure. Five weeks, six weeks through the summer. It's local.

[Art LaLonde (Orleans County Fairgrounds)]: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely right. We're we're fortunate. We've had a few ladies, not just fundraising, but some of the horse shows and clinics that are extremely high charges, and they're really taking it, you know, taking charge and actually making these things come together. So we're we've got some good things coming ahead.

[Jackie Colson (Lobbyist/Secretary, Vermont Fairs Association)]: One more group, if you can squeeze

[Speaker 0]: The Vermont State Fair?

[Jackie Colson (Lobbyist/Secretary, Vermont Fairs Association)]: The Vermont State Fair. While it's coming up, I know that representative Nelson is not only can you move this fair back, we're still getting comments about can you move the bombshell back there. How long ago was that, Tim?

[Tim Shea (Champlain Valley Exposition)]: Was 2012 was the first year in Champlain.

[Speaker 0]: So nice.

[Rep. Richard 'Rick' Nelson (Ranking Member)]: It's still known as Barry Farm Show even though we're going to Champlain Valley Fair.

[Jackie Colson (Lobbyist/Secretary, Vermont Fairs Association)]: I know. But we still all proved that when they were working on what are we gonna do, what are we gonna do, it was, gosh, could you just move it back to Barry?

[Tim Shea (Champlain Valley Exposition)]: Okay.

[Jackie Colson (Lobbyist/Secretary, Vermont Fairs Association)]: So the last but not least, we have the Vermont State Fair

[Speaker 0]: in Brooklyn.

[Lana Kintorsky (Trustee, Vermont State Fair - Rutland)]: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I'm Lana Kintorsky, I have with me Rick McCurrier. We're both trustees on the board of the Vermont State Fair. I just wanna first start by, like everyone else, saying thank you, thank you for the stipend and the capital grant money. We gave out $21,000 almost 22 in premiums this year. We're not quite as high as everybody else because we had to grow our premiums back. We had to slash them probably about nine years ago. Had to really slash them badly. So we slowly brought the amounts up, every year we look at it and see what more can we give our exhibitors. As far as the capital grant goes, we have done repaired water infrastructure. We've repaired sewer. We've done electrical. Now our latest project is geared toward the grandstand. The Division of Fire and Safety has indicated that we must put handrails on that on the grandstand, and our grandstand is huge. So that's gonna be a a a big project in itself. The other thing we're looking to do is, building footings for a couple of the cattle barns. They are very old. They're way over a 100 years old. Our fair is a 180 89 179 years old. So looking to do that too. And we also have to erect re erect what we call the machine shed, which is like a covering that we have on the grounds. Can during the fair, we do use that. Let's see. We had have we dump about $325,000 in into the community for the whole year through food vendors. We've done donations for a couple of things. We pay quite a bit for security and police all year round. So that's just an oh, we also donate to the stuff of us in the Christmas fund. We go out and we get sponsorship money to help offset some of that stuff and for the fair. And this year, we've got about $37,000 and we're still working on it. One of the things we did do, I mentioned the handrails for the grandstand, but we did put in a new handicap restroom, which was going to take the place of porta potties. So we now don't have to have any porta potties on the grounds at all. And a cost saving for us. Concerns or challenges we have? Well, we're in the process of attempting to comply with the three acre rule. It's it's been a real challenge. Right now, we're in the process of hiring an engineer who can't do the work for the next three or four months to do the feasibility study. And that's that it like I said, that's a challenge. We have how many acres? 17 acres of impervious surface, and we're being very cautious about no more buildings or driveways or nothing going up because we're we're a little paranoid about that. But we're in a situation where we don't have really room to build the catch basin or for the runoff. We have the railroad on one side, we got Route 7 on the other side, we have bright smack down in the middle of the city. So we're we're surrounded by things that we we have no control over. Plus, have a brook that runs right through the property. And there's been some issues that the city's had with that brook. What we have

[Rep. Richard 'Rick' Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Upstream issues.

[Lana Kintorsky (Trustee, Vermont State Fair - Rutland)]: Yeah. Yeah. And there's a culvert there that doesn't allow for smooth flow, but the culvert belongs to V trans. So there's nothing that we can we can do about it. But anyway, so we're we're just gonna take a deep breath and we're gonna see what the engineering study says, and then we'll have to go from there. I think it's gonna we have a lot of underground infrastructure, sewer, water, electrical. So and it's like a if you ever saw a map of it, it's just a maze. And you don't know where half the stuff is because the fairgrounds are so old. So but it it's all underground. And then let's say we were to build one of those, I call basins, we would lose a lot of ground as far as the fair is concerned. We would lose some rides. We would lose a lot. But anyway, one of the nice things we have is during the fair, we have what's called a passport program for children to learn about agriculture. They get a passport when they come in. Different buildings have a stamp. And when the kids go around and get their stamps, they are given a prize afterward. So that's been it's grown every year. It's kind of fun. We partner with, diamonds and more. They help us to pay the cost of that. We do have other events during the year. We start usually, our events start the April, and we will go through the end of near the October this year with something going on almost every weekend, whether it's horse events or people renting the grounds like relay and stuff, things like that. So that goes on all year round. Let's see. Another source of income that we have is camping. We do offer camping during the months that we're open. We have many campsites that are available for people when they come for a show or if they're we've had people just wanna come to camp, and it's a fine. You can come and camp. You know, that's okay. Let's see. What have I forgotten, Rick? Nothing? A rodeo.

[Rep. Richard 'Rick' Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Oh, yeah. The rodeo.

[Lana Kintorsky (Trustee, Vermont State Fair - Rutland)]: We are having the rodeo again this year. Yes.

[Rep. Richard 'Rick' Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. It should not

[Speaker 0]: be

[Lana Kintorsky (Trustee, Vermont State Fair - Rutland)]: done. August 17, this Tuesday, if I'm not mistaken.

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: Is that Pond Hill or it's a different?

[Lana Kintorsky (Trustee, Vermont State Fair - Rutland)]: It's Pond Hill comes and does a rodeo at the fair. Yep. So as far as we know, we're having them on Tuesday.

[Rep. Richard 'Rick' Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Maybe maybe down there.

[Speaker 0]: Can make that happen.

[Rep. Richard 'Rick' Nelson (Ranking Member)]: And last year, you had the Great American barbecue thing there. Mean The barbecue, Andrew. I wanted to go to that, and I just couldn't get down. How did that go, and they're gonna do it again?

[Lana Kintorsky (Trustee, Vermont State Fair - Rutland)]: I don't know. I mean, I think they were gonna give themselves three years. Now we rented the grounds to them, So I I'm not privy to Yeah. You know, tell well they did, but I I do know that they were gonna try it for three years. And I think this was their third third year. So we'll see. Yeah. But we're having some more horse events this year. We have one lady who's a member who started having horse events, but then we have had the opportunity to have a conversation with somebody who does multiple events throughout the year, and we're gonna see what she has to offer for us because we do have a pretty large horse community down in our neck of the woods too. Yeah.

[Jackie Colson (Lobbyist/Secretary, Vermont Fairs Association)]: Yeah. I did want to add about the three acre challenges that they're facing. GEC has been down for a site visit and we were trying to get them down for another one before we had to go with the engineer. One of the things we noted, they're also backed up into a wetland back in the back. There's absolutely no place to go and DEC seemed to think that in some of these places they could just dig up the ground and then put stuff over on top of it. But the other challenge that's in DBC is what did you construct during the fair season? So they would be closed down all of their events for at least one, if not two years. And we said, is there going to be compensation for that? They didn't think so. So that's still, it isn't just the $2,000,000 for the infrastructure they're looking at them to build. It's the total lack of income for one, if not two years while this is being constructed and then loss of possible line areas, loss of possible parking areas. Just the, know, Chamblin Valley's got the space in the back and that's where they're putting theirs and it's not really affecting what their repair is happening, but these guys are really in trouble. So we're still negotiating, we'll see what

[Lana Kintorsky (Trustee, Vermont State Fair - Rutland)]: they're We're

[Speaker 0]: gonna capture a tree, so we not only, we have to capture wine plus trees, cause it's gotta ultimately go back into the brook. And our biggest problem obviously is the fact that we can let it back into the brook, but until B TRANS will replace that, coking underneath the railroad that's not sufficient to handle water, It's not in the situation. That's under the track, under the railroad track.

[Jackie Colson (Lobbyist/Secretary, Vermont Fairs Association)]: The road is impaired also.

[Speaker 0]: Thanks very much. Yes, not from them.

[Jackie Colson (Lobbyist/Secretary, Vermont Fairs Association)]: It's a city issue. So they're caught, they're really caught.

[Speaker 0]: We're running a bit over, so we should probably wrap up, but thank you everybody who called

[Jackie Colson (Lobbyist/Secretary, Vermont Fairs Association)]: in. We

[Speaker 0]: need to take five minutes here. Yes, thank

[Jackie Colson (Lobbyist/Secretary, Vermont Fairs Association)]: you.