Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Conservation districts and Beijing. So we've invited the conservation districts to come in and just I I think, first of all, make sure that they're okay with that and then see if there's any questions on that section from the committee. Again, remembering that somebody in this room will have to stand up and report on that section to the we'll have. So we all wanna make sure that we have a good idea of what's happening there. So thank you for joining us. Good morning.

[Michelle Monroe]: Thank you for having me. Good morning.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: And why don't we turn it right over to you?

[Michelle Monroe]: Sure. So for the record, I'm Michelle Monroe, the executive director of the Vermont Association of Conservation District. So the conservation districts have requested a change to our statutory language. So the Soil Conservation Act was passed in 1939. There were model legislation provided to every state in the country, and they all adopted some version of it. But in Vermont, they added language which prohibits the districts from having a mortgage. And as districts are growing, we're finding that we need office space. We've been co located. We generally have been historically co located with NRCS and USDA, But we are outgrowing the space that we have there in many of the districts. And we also are being it's become a struggle with the shutdowns. So having a forty seven day shutdown and districts couldn't get their mail, they couldn't access their equipment, it was a real challenge. So districts are increasingly looking for other options. And so we're asking that the legislature remove the language that bars us from holding a mortgage so that to make it easier for districts to either purchase buildings or even if they are gifted a building to be able to, say, take out a small loan to do repairs or that kind of thing. And this is also essential because one of the most promising sources of funding districts buying buildings is the USDA Rural Development Community Facilities Program. And that is a loan, a forgivable loan. So they forgive a percentage of it based on the socioeconomic conditions in the community. So we are looking at that potentially as a source of funding, depending on how some other requests go. We are seeking funding from the Capitol bill to support Orleans County purchasing a building from the Fairgrounds in Barton. And this is a tremendous community project, lots of support, multiple partners. But that one of the best alternative sources of funding for that would be this community facilities grant program. And we currently can't borrow in that program because we can't get a mortgage. So it would because it's a forgivable loan, we first need to take out the loan and then they would forgive 75% of it. But we can't take out the loan currently. So that's why we are asking for the ability to hold the mortgage.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Representative O'Brien? Have you discovered

[Rep. John O'Brien]: in the historical archive why 150 farmers decided that this conservation district, which was going to help them, shouldn't trouble for a mortgage?

[Michelle Monroe]: We honestly have not dug back into the record to determine why that was. But we are the only state where conservation districts can't hold mortgages. And comparable organizations like solid waste districts and RPCs hold can hold mortgages. They can I mean, RPCs can they or solid waste districts can even bond? And yet so it's just sort of us. It's it's an odd thing. We're not entirely sure what the what the rationale is for it, but we can certainly do some research into that.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Well, if if we're the only state that that at the moment doesn't, then it seems like we should get on board with what others are doing. Representative Gregory.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt]: So you're in the post office in St. Orleans now?

[Michelle Monroe]: The Franklin County District is located out by where the second People's Trust office is. I forget the name of that development. Out where the American Legion is. You go past that. And so they're one of the districts that has moved out. So they're currently leasing. So we're leasing that. And they're planning to purchase a building. So they are also not.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: So it might be more than one district that would be affected? Yes,

[Michelle Monroe]: absolutely, as other districts are increasingly looking at moving out of NRCS offices and getting their own office space. Yeah. It's on the long term plans for multiple districts. Orleans and Franklin are the ones that are closest to being able to do that. They're two of our largest districts.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: So if districts in other states, conservation districts, haven't been restricted or limited by similar laws in other states, have they not shared space with their They do.

[Michelle Monroe]: And a lot of them also share space with county governments. And because we don't have county governments, in some states they're even county employees, they often get a share of county taxes. So we don't have that connection. So it varies quite widely across the country where districts are located.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Could, I suppose, ask the USDA if they have any concerns. But are you aware of anybody objecting to change?

[Michelle Monroe]: When we discussed this at the National Resources Conservation Council, which Agency of Ag and ANR sit on, they wanted to ask the state for its to weigh in, the administration to weigh in. But we were like, we just need to get this done. We're not going to wait for the administration. Council, council is going to do that. There is a portion of the law that says that if a district fails, then the Natural Resources Conservation Council will assume any contracts of that district, any outstanding contracts, which could include any loans. But our position is that a mortgage would be better than an unsecured municipal loan, which is the other thing that which is what districts currently have used when they've needed to borrow money. So that is what the bank that Franklin the Franklin District has been negotiating with Peoples Trust around. They've been talking I have long conversations with them about borrowing money for a building. And they've said, well, we can give you a municipal loan. That's unsecured. So I think from the from our perspective, it's an advantage to have a secured loan so that if something does happen to the district, there's collateral for the loan. And we can just then the council could either sell the collateral or turn the collateral over to the bank, but you could there's a method for recouping any remaining amounts of money on a loan.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Durfee. Thank you, chair Durfee.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt]: You know, having borrowed to survive my whole life, I understand a lot about commercial banking. Typically, an 80% loan to value is a base. What you're talking about when there's a 25% after getting this federal grant, 25% loan to value represents an unimaginable low risk for a lender. So this is an opportunity to establish that collateral and have that equity and access to your operations to Yeah. Collateral. And for Michelle to access that collateral, it has to be for a good purpose that the lender will agree to. So I think it's a great idea of zero risk and will help sustain the.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yes. Representative Greg?

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt]: Bank with a heart.

[Michelle Monroe]: People's trust?

[Gina Clitherow]: I will

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt]: Who am talking to there?

[Michelle Monroe]: It's Lauren, the district manager, has been doing those negotiations. She just tells me about them.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt]: They floated me. I hope They're really good people.

[Michelle Monroe]: So just to say that Rural Development Community Facilities Fund, all the districts can access that because it's available to municipalities, and technically we qualify. But the forgiveness level wouldn't be the same for every district because it varies by town and the socioeconomics of the town. But still, we think, you know, that would be a good, a really good source of capital for us. Representative O'Brien. Michelle, what what is your tax status? We are are the the districts themselves are municipal entities. They are local government entities. They are divisions of subdivisions of state government.

[Rep. John O'Brien]: You belong to the league?

[Michelle Monroe]: Some of the districts do belong to the league. About half, I think, are league members. And, yeah, not all of them choose to. But then VACD is a five zero one c three as there are but the others are

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Just wanted to note that the administration or the agency agriculture agency brought us this proposal, brought us the language. So in terms of the state supporting it, I think it's applied.

[Michelle Monroe]: Yeah, I mean, the language was included by the Senate, included it at our request. We requested that to get added to the bill. So the Senate Ag Committee added it on our ask. And I think the the position of the agency of AG and ANR representatives at the council meeting was we support this in principle. We just would like to because we're we work for the gut for the state, we need to say that you should vet it with the state before you can ask. But we had already at that point, it was already in the bill on the Senate side.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: We will just thank you for saying that. We'll just make sure that if they haven't already, that the Ag agency has a chance to speak to this, that she'd have that. Good. I see you brought a guest, and I don't

[Gina Clitherow]: think Yeah, they're

[Michelle Monroe]: Farib is just in the building today, but Farib is

[Rep. John O'Brien]: Farib Farib is

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Farib Thanks for joining us. All right, if there aren't any other questions, I think we can move on from this.

[Michelle Monroe]: Thank you very much. We appreciate it.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt]: Thank you, Michelle. Thank you for everything Sarah done for us.

[Michelle Monroe]: Oh, you're welcome. I shared with Corey that she's your favorite. There's some competition there. Thanks very much, Stephanie.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt]: All right,

[Betsy Rosenbluth]: I appreciate it. See you.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt]: Thank you.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: All right, now we can shift from section 26 in this bill to an earlier section, and I'm gonna let Gina maybe tell us what that section number is, because I don't have it in front of me. Good morning. Morning.

[Gina Clitherow]: I actually am not sure what the section number is. Abby, do you know off the top of your head?

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Section six.

[Gina Clitherow]: Okay.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: So that's on page 11.

[Gina Clitherow]: Okay.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: For those two I both know up. This is the to school program contracts. We had the agency in yesterday to explain why they were, in this case, they did request, so I misspoke earlier, origins of the language in that section we were just looking at. But this was something the agency requested, I believe. So Steve Collier was here yesterday, and I think he suggested it would be helpful maybe that we had some questions. It would be helpful to have you come in, Gina. So thank you for being with us and Abby. And then we also reached out to the Farm to School network and Betsy is standing by as well. So maybe I'll just give you a chance, Gina, to say a few words, if you'd like, about what's happening here and why it would be helpful to have these changes. And then we'll see if we have any questions from the committee.

[Gina Clitherow]: Yeah, sure thing. Hi, everyone. Gina Clitherow, for the record, I'm the farm to institution program manager at the Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets. And, thank you for inviting me to share more about S three twenty three. So as you all heard from Steve Collier yesterday, this change that's proposed is really just about adding some flexibility so that we can make, strategic investments when it makes sense. So historically, the agency has only had statutory authority to execute grants. And grants and contracts are two different legal document structures that sometimes a grant is the right fit and sometimes a contract is the right fit. In the case of the grants that we've been offering, there have been times when we've funded farm to school service providers to perform specific services for an agency program. And if state is asking an organization to provide a service to us, the best practice would be for that to be a contract rather than a grant, which was really meant to be more a grant is meant to be more open ended. More, you know, an organization applies with an intention of fulfilling general objectives that are going to benefit their organization or benefit the community or the public, rather than providing a service to the state. So that was why we wanted to just add in this flexibility. There wasn't necessarily direct goal of, yeah, let's definitely make a contract next year to do this specific service, or to say, let's do away with service provider grants altogether. More so, we want to have the flexibility to decide what is the best tool for the job. And so that's the intention. And it's really just about the agency every year is trying to make continuous improvements in the way that we are granting. We are trying to follow best practices for making sure our agreements have deliverables associated with them, have measurable outcomes so that we can communicate to legislators and the public the impact of the state investments and being really responsible with those dollars. Making sure that we're using the right tool is really just in alignment with that continuous improvement process of making sure if we do want to make a strategic investment that we can. Just to share a little bit more, heard Steve had suggested it might be helpful for me to bring some examples of where we used a grant, but a contract would have been more appropriate. There have been times where we have solicited competitive grants for projects that service providers would do that are actually really important services that the agency knows we want to be done for the public. We want to have a harvest of the month resource be publicly available and well maintained and for that to be a real stepping stone that every school and early childhood community can access in order to help them integrate farm to school into their classroom and into their cafeteria. But when we're relying on a competitive process, what happens if the grant is really competitive and the agency doesn't totally steer that? We have a lot of external reviewers who come in and maybe the application isn't so well written. Now a project that is really valuable and we wish we could have just directly solicited isn't actually going to be rising to the top and end up getting invested in. So that's an example of where if the agency knows what resources are important and we determine that in partnership with the Department of Health, the agency of education, our farm to school network partners, then in some cases it is more appropriate for us to directly say, let's have somebody make sure that we're maintaining this harvest of the month resource, for example. And there were a couple other examples provided in previous testimony as well. So I guess I'll just leave it there and open it up for questions.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: All right, thank you, Gina. Representative O'Brien.

[Rep. John O'Brien]: Thanks, Gina. Just continuing along what you just gave us as an example, and you could send us, I think, just to our committee. It'd be great to, if you could pick out a successful grant and where those dollars went, who were the recipients, and then the same with a contract, because it'd be great for our committee, I think, just when we report this to maybe describe to the audience, this is what, this was a good fit for a grant. This is how it worked. Because I think a lot of people don't even understand sort of what Farm to School does. I think it gets confused with like food school authorities a lot and it's like, oh, these parents are going to this school instead of a lot of the sort of technical service provider work that gets done there. So just, when you have a chance to send us a couple of concrete examples, real places, recipients that are either award or contract.

[Gina Clitherow]: Yeah, yeah, I could share just off the top of my head some examples. So this was actually a farmed institution market development project. But the Northeast Organic Farming Association of Vermont, NOFA Vermont, applied for a grant to from

[Michelle Monroe]: one

[Gina Clitherow]: of our programs in order to really explore this issue of how to get local grains into schools. And it was a really creative project. They applied for a pretty small grant. It was around $20,000 that they ended up winning. But they had this project of, okay, we know that schools wanna be increasing their local purchasing numbers. We know that there are some bakeries that are using Vermont grain flowers, but they're creating products that aren't actually well suited for the school community. How can we kind of like crack this nut of how to get more local grains into schools? So they created a project to really explore that, that was working with child nutrition directors and with bakeries. They organically created this project that was in response to what they were seeing in the community and put it forward to the agency. We said, that's a great idea. That's gonna really support Vermont grain growers. It's gonna support schools and having high quality products available to them. Let's go for it. So that's an example of a grant that really furthers the farm to school movement. And in comparison, a contract that the agency might want to offer in the future or a contract that we have done in the past was we said, we want to explore more about this topic of agency said, we want to explore more about this topic of summer camps and how they can support summer camps like farm camp. How do we support more dairy farmers and exploring this topic of starting summer camps and the agency had this idea. And so we went out and sought a contract, not through the Farm to School Grants program, which we don't have the authority to seek contracts through right now, but through Vermont Dairy Promotion Council funds separately. We said, want to explore this issue. Is there any contractor who can research what's available, put together a best practice guide, and then provide that guide to interested dairy farmers. Those are two examples. The key differences there are the origins of the project concept and who the services are being provided to. In the case of the VDPC project, it was the agency wants someone to create this resource so that we can support farmers versus in the case of the NOFA project, it was we wanna create something because we know there's a need for it and we wanna propose the agency to help us in our project.

[Rep. John O'Brien]: That's really helpful. Thank you.

[Gina Clitherow]: Yeah.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Any other questions committee? But, Gina, anything else that you wanted to add?

[Gina Clitherow]: I think the only piece that I would share is I just to clarify that we aren't necessarily looking to not have grant options for farm to school service providers still like we might still want to keep the door open for creative projects to come through from the community. But we also know that there might be some projects that we do strategically want to invest in. So I just want to clarify that because I think I might have heard the conversation going in a different direction yesterday where it was like grants to schools only, contracts to service providers only. And that wasn't actually the entire vision. It was more so we may want to do this for service writers, but we also might wanna do grants for service writers, but just we wanna have the options and statutory flexibility to use the right tool for the specific job.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Is it fair or accurate to say or to characterize the changes here as giving more flexibility that might lead to a broader impact, then more students and more schools could be positively affected? And if that's not the case, you don't need to say that it is, just thinking aloud here.

[Gina Clitherow]: Yeah, I'd say yes and no. I think we have such strong statewide organizations, nonprofits like Shelburne Farms, Betsy's on the line right now, who are doing really impactful work that will reach every school, have the capacity to reach every school. So there are still organizations that are working statewide and have the intention of creating these statewide resources, whether or not the agency is directly soliciting them. And there might be situations where the state is able to say, I think what's important about the contracts is that it creates, we can create more reliability around what resources are available when we are directly soliciting those. There could be a risk of there is a statewide resource that's been funded via competitive grants over the years, but then we have a really competitive grant year and those projects don't end up winning out. So I think there's some potential for a broader statewide impact. But I think what I see most significantly is the opportunity for more consistency and consistent access to those resources being available and further developed over time versus being kind of like at the whims of whatever other funding might be available to support those really important tools for farm to school across the state.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Thank you, Gina. Abby, was there anything that you wanted to add?

[Abby Willard]: Thank you, Chair Durfee. Abby Willard from our agency of agriculture, food and markets. I think Gina's really the expert on the farm to school grant program and has worked for years with the various partners and applicants and sort of has the best sense of that right tool for the specific need. And I think she's described it well. I think the example that you gave, Gina, was really clarifying. So, we can still send the committee, you know, a written version of that or two additional examples, if that would be helpful. But unless you don't have other questions, think Gina did a nice job describing it.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you both. And now we're going to turn it over to Betsy Rosenbluth. Welcome, good morning.

[Betsy Rosenbluth]: Morning. My name is Betsy Rosenbluth. I'm the Farm to School Director at Shelburne Farms and the Co Director of Vermont FEED and part of the Vermont Farm to School and Early Childhood Network. And thank you, Chair Durfee, for reaching out to us, for commenting on this language change in the grants program. We really appreciate the opportunity to know what's happening and to talk about how that might affect farm to school in Vermont. I do want to just say that part of the success of Vermont's grant program is the marriage of the grants with technical assistance. I know you've heard that a little bit before, but it's really part of that formula for success. So for example, we saw a pretty substantial increase in the local food incentive applications this year. And that's at the same time, for the last couple of years, the agency has been able to have an agreement with Vermont FEED to provide technical assistance to schools and school nutrition in particular to do, it's really customized to do anything from connecting, school nutrition staff with farmers or producers, or how can they get product delivered to their loading dock or, you know, let's look at the menu and see where you can start to swap out items for local items. Shelburne Farms does a number of curriculum integration workshops so that schools don't feel like farm to school is added on top of an existing really crowded curriculum, but that they can integrate food and agriculture education, nutrition education right into science and literacy and math. And I know you've heard from the students directly, you know, how successful that's been. So that that is some of the technical assistance. There's a number of other, list of things that we do. So I do appreciate what Gina was saying, that contracts can be a tool to be more efficient in securing technical assistance and making that technical assistance available statewide to grantees. There's been some, you know, we work with what we have. You know, we've been using the grants as a tool. I think some pieces when you have a competitive grant can fall off easily because you're as a nonprofit organization, I'm weighing, well, for this grant and this limit, you know, what do we want to put forward? It might not be what the agency has seen as, you know, a consistent need that needs to happen because we're weighing, you know, the options and competing against each other basically for the grants. So overall, I would just say we support this language change to the grants program in S323 to provide that flexibility to allow contracts as well as grants, especially in light of the technical assistance that's been so successful.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Thank you for that explanation. We so we understand that you support the language. Are there any questions from the committee? Betsy, you just alluded to our committee having heard directly from students. And in fact, I don't know what happened to that. They're over there. Okay. Of A several 100 postcards that we received from students at CDU at Champlain Valley Union, ninth through twelfth graders that we shared with the committee, including some very nice artwork drawn on some of the postcards. That was meaningful to get that. Yeah. Thank you. Good. All right. Well, is I think it's fairly straightforward. So thank you, Betsy. And thank you to, again, to Gina and Abby for joining us. I don't see any other questions, so I think we can let you go.

[Rep. John O'Brien]: Sounds good.

[Gina Clitherow]: Thanks for the great day. You.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Have a nice weekend.

[Betsy Rosenbluth]: You too.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: All right, so we don't have any other witnesses scheduled for this morning. Did have one other, maybe you heard me say this, witness who were put off for next week. So we're gonna wrap up for the day. We will be back 10:00 on the House floor on Tuesday, and should have a pretty full agenda, I think, next week in committee as we continue to look at this bill and take up other other testimony. Don't forget to hold Friday next Friday for committee lunch. We'll build that new agenda.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt]: Are we going out? Are we eating in the committee? We're going out. Yeah. Red hen. That's for