Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Unknown Member (House Agriculture Committee)]: Ted, what does TFO do when, say, the federal government, like the temp, does something that affects revenues of the state? So

[Ted Barnett (Joint Fiscal Office)]: now that we're on live, I will say Ted Barnett joined fiscal office. And the fiscal note does discuss the overarching uncertainty about what's going to happen with hemp regulation. And yeah, I'll go to the fiscal note and get to that question a bit later on. The other thing in context of fiscal notes, will just flag for the committee is that if a bill has come up on the House floor and you're like, oh, is there a fiscal note for this bill? If you go to the General Assembly page and go to the specific bill on the general assembly page at the top, there's a fiscal information tab. You click on that, all the fiscal notes for the bill as it's wound its way through the legislature are available on that tab. So if you're ever curious, if there is a fiscal note, that's probably the easiest way to find it is for a specific bill, fiscal information tab on the general assembly website, then that'll show you if there's a fiscal note or not. And if you're curious, if you think there's a bill that somehow might have a fiscal impact to the state and there isn't a fiscal note, you can reach out to a JFOer and they will talk about why there may or may not be one. Yep. And now for fiscal note. So, I'm going to hop down to the fiscal impact section. Overall in the bill, we're seeing three fiscal impacts, and I will talk about one that isn't in the notes because it's more of a tangential fiscal impact. So, there is this provision that would change the Act two fifty exemptions for accessory on-site businesses. We include that it adds, I think, a provision that yes, that include improvements for the preparation of processing qualifying products if the sales or public value does not exceed $250,000 So, if you're making the exemption more generous for these on-site businesses, fewer of them would need to get Act two fifty permits. Act two fifty permits are a revenue impact to the state. They flow to the Act two fifty permit fund, which the Land Use Review Board uses to pay for staff costs in reviewing Act two fifty permits. We don't know ultimately what that impact would be because it depends on in any given year who would have applied for an Act two fifty permit if it was under current law compared to what actually would happen if the bill were enacted, if more people are exempted. We don't know the universe of accessory on-site barn businesses and how they would fall on that new threshold. So we don't know, but it is certainly a revenue loss state. The second piece is there are changes to pesticide application fees. Under current law, they had to pay the $25 fee at second and third examination, and this brings it up to the first one. Again, it's quite minimal in terms of revenue impact, but we want to make sure we're dotting our I's and crossing our T's and flagging it for people that this could bring in more revenue for the pesticide monitoring special fund, at $25 a pop for the first examination, it's not going to be large. And so when we say minimal, you may have also heard in your times as a legislator the word de minimis. Minimal here is just a synonym for de minimis within the context of that special fund. The amount of additional revenue they would see is kind of a minimal contextual value to the special bonus. So we say minimal, it means de minimis, and so that's the second revenue impact there. And then finally, which is the one y'all are interested in and why I'm here, is the fees for processors, producers,

[Unknown Member (House Agriculture Committee)]: and products.

[Ted Barnett (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Again, within the context of the Cannabis Regulation Fund, through cannabis fees, the Cannabis Regulation Fund gets about $2,500,000 from cannabis fees annually. It is hard to know for sure how much these new fees would bring in for regulation of hemp products. However, In the current structure, where interstate commerce is not permitted and we're relying on a local Vermont market with Vermont products, Vermont producers, and etcetera, that revenue impact would be minimal. If there were changes federally that allowed for interstate commerce of hemp products and the whole universe, which I think Chair Pepper talked to you all a bit about, I found a presentation where he was talking about all the different variations of hemp derived products that are made by Snoop Dogg and Chi Chi Chung and the whole cast of characters there. In that universe, where there are thousands of products from other states that would need to be licensed or sold in Vermont, this is this last sentence here. This could mean that revenues would be $90,000 per year, 90,000, 100,000. And those would flow to the cannabis regulation fund. But that's maximum level with Vermont's much smaller market. We don't know for sure, but it would be pretty minimal. It would be a much smaller amount than that $90,000 And then finally, the piece that was more tangential. The bill increases the dollar threshold that would trip a farm into having to adhere to the required agricultural practices for water quality. There are certain grant programs to support farmers to meet their reps or learn about them. I think it's the farm agronomic practices grant program. And so there would be fewer farmers who would be eligible for that grant program. I don't think it actually changes feed revenue on the ground, but I just wanted to note that because you're changing the scope of folks who could be eligible for state assistance, that's a potential impact. But the amount of money is a specific appropriation that happens in the budget and money in this year in the budget, I think about $9,000,000 is transferred to the agricultural water quality special fund. So it doesn't change that number, but it impacts who's eligible for it.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: It didn't make it into the actual note, did that?

[Ted Barnett (Joint Fiscal Office)]: It didn't make it into the actual note because it doesn't actually change the dollar amount there, but I wanted to you saw the change to You all are the ag committee, so if you saw that change to the threshold by which they have to follow the practices and said, Oh, I remember that there's this grant program for those farmers. Wanted to tell that for y'all that that's out there.

[Unknown Member (House Agriculture Committee)]: And Ted, our CFO, hasn't seen our potential carve out for graph processors, which would have an impact.

[Ted Barnett (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Has that language been posted yet? Okay, it's been

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: possibly posted, but we haven't passed anything.

[Ted Barnett (Joint Fiscal Office)]: So this is reflective before. I think I saw the language where it's like craft. Is that the Okay. Yes, exactly. So that language would further narrow the scope of folks who would have to get permits. And so, it wouldn't change the minimal revenue impact here. But yes, it certainly would make it even more minimal of a revenue increase. Of Perprenant and Bartholomew?

[Unknown Member (House Agriculture Committee)]: I don't know that we would not require them to have the, what do you call them, permit, but it relates to the product fee. So some of these craft processors have a whole bunch, a whole line of products and if they've had to pay $75 for each one, it can get onerous. And the example that got used is some huge processor that only has one product, only has to pay $75 and a small business has 10 products. So that's the one that might, I think change that $90,000 at the end. Yes, and that And that would probably be also true for a craft business out of state because of the whole interstate commerce stuff.

[Ted Barnett (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Yes, it would potentially, yes. And I put the $90,000 there as kind of informational. Fiscal notes are always intended to reflect current law federally, right? There would be no interstate commerce for hemp products under the current law structure federally. And so moving regulation to the control board, we would be looking at Vermont producers. And so, yes, it would be in that kind of very minimal. I could certainly follow-up with exactly how minimal we're talking about. But yes, totally understand the thought process there. In your work, Jed, do we have any indication of

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: currently how many of the products that are for sale in Vermont and products are Vermont products and how many come from outside the state?

[Ted Barnett (Joint Fiscal Office)]: I would have to check-in with Cherry Pepper on that. I think because this has operated in a bit of a liminal space, it's hard for us to know exactly where products are coming from. I don't think there's systematic tracking unless this bill would certainly add where it enacted would add more information. But yeah, could check-in with Chuck Epper and see what's

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: the sense in the market right now. I think you've mentioned this somewhere in the text, the status quo at the state level is there isn't a fee being paid at all. And that hasn't always been the case. Earlier when the ag agency wasn't charged, they were collecting a fee, a set

[Ted Barnett (Joint Fiscal Office)]: of fees. That is helpful, yes. I should have let in with the fact, yes. There was previously in the background and details section of the note here, this first paragraph talks about, I think it was before 2022, the agency agriculture regulated hemp producers and charged a fee based on the amount of acreage cultivated and that fee schedules still found in statute. Then in 2023, hemp producers just hadn't registered with the USDA. And so

[Unknown Member (House Agriculture Committee)]: there was no associated The pilot went to the USDA then, right? But you had to pay

[Ted Barnett (Joint Fiscal Office)]: a fee to grow it? Back in Europe.

[Unknown Member ('Bill')]: Yeah, to the age of that.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Remember that Nelson? You had a hand up earlier? No. No. Chat. Thank you.

[Unknown Member ('Bill')]: Ted, I'd like to go back to section four, accessory on farm structure permit. Mhmm. And I'm struggling with what seems to be a new addition where they have exempted active 50 permits for structures when it has to do with storage or processing. But then, which I think is a strange thing to do, they said that if if your farm revenues exceeded $250,000, that that would be a problem, I think. We're trying to get farms to be sustainable, profitable, and to to worry to make sure they are just staying afloat, maybe breathing out of a straw that we need to cap their revenue. US dollar used to be worth a lot more a decade ago and a lot more than that two decades ago. So I'm very uncomfortable with capping the revenues of 250,000. This wouldn't Sorry,

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: before I respond, Bill, I should say for representative Lipsky's sake and for everyone's sake, we haven't had a chance to dig into this section of the bill at all. And we've been going through sort of piece by piece. So this is one we haven't really had any conversation on. Maybe the Legis Council mentioned it. It was just in the report. Yeah, so maybe Ted with that background. Sure,

[Ted Barnett (Joint Fiscal Office)]: yeah. I would absolutely encourage you to chat with your colleagues in the Senate to see what they were thinking as they were putting this provision in. We're simply looking at it after the work has been done in this policy choice to expand the exemption for folks who are doing preparation and processing. And I think the idea of this $250,000 was to limit, you wouldn't necessarily want to exempt an on-site farm business that was bringing in a bunch of products from other farms to simply qualify for the Act two fifty exemption. And so the $250,000 cap here applies to the annual sales or equivalent value of products that originate off the farm. Yep. So that might be part

[Unknown Member ('Bill')]: of the thinking there. I mean, storm water, it's a very minor production or produce. It's not an issue, but it triggered something because it's generating revenue but has no storm water or other impacts. Yeah. It seems We'll

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: have I think we're we're pointing the overall conversation on this bill where we should be looking at any remaining sections. So this is one and then maybe one other, but we'll have Bradley come in and talk through a little bit more about the background of this and get some testimony next week.

[Ted Barnett (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Okay. Scott was gonna ask, this may not be the time to- Also, have this question here.

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: Yeah, well, it's on section four,

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: so we can dig into this The history or the, just very quick background is under current law, and for some time, not forever, but for some time, it's been the case that if you have a farm stand, so think a farm stand, that counts as farming if you are selling products out of that that come from your farm, mostly. So the 50% mostly comes from your farm. But you can also bring in- You heard the Pennsylvania peaches conversation we had a couple

[Unknown Member (House Agriculture Committee)]: of years ago? It was principally produced at one point. Yes, right.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Pennsylvania peaches, yeah.

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun (Member)]: Yeah, I mean, I can give an example of that. Like in my area, the Denton farm stand, they have three different farm stands. And I would say, I don't know what percentage, but certainly more than 50% of the produce comes from them. Seasonally, sometimes they have pumpkins, Christmas trees, but a lot of the year it's berries, apples, cider, you name it. But they also sell granola that they don't make. They have a couple local products that are like maple syrup is theirs, but they have a couple other specialty products like chutneys or something that are made locally, but that they don't make themselves. And so, I mean, to me, like the number 250,000, like they have three pretty big farm stands. Maybe they do sell more than that. I don't know. But like, I would think we would wanna be flexible about that because certainly the extra bit, I mean, somebody might stop in there because in that community, it's more or less the grocery store. Like you have to go a long way to go anywhere other than Dutton's if you wanna get food, if you live in Newfane. And so I think being a little bit flexible about that might make sense.

[Ted Barnett (Joint Fiscal Office)]: We're

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: gonna have fun with this section next week. All right, we'll take it apart and

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun (Member)]: make a change.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: You're gonna need to take it apart, yeah.

[Unknown Member (House Agriculture Committee)]: 250,000 of chutney, right?

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Represented by the army.

[Unknown Member (House Agriculture Committee)]: I was just gonna point out that probably obvious that Ted can't take any credit or blame for anything that's in the bill. He can only estimate what the financial implications are for what we decide. Yeah.

[Unknown Member (House Agriculture Committee)]: Along those lines, was thinking one thing we haven't really talked about in here is that the whole intoxicating hemp on that subject, right? That seems like both CCB and I would say this committee are not in favor of the Chittenden Shang Snoop Dogg intoxicating hemp products. So I don't know if we'll at some point try to discourage them or ban them from coming in, but we haven't really talked about if there's an intoxicating hemp in state, you know. Producer. Producer, right. Okay,

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: so you're not talking about selling it in the-

[Unknown Member (House Agriculture Committee)]: No, I'm talking about the hemp section.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Okay, good.

[Unknown Member (House Agriculture Committee)]: Just because if we banned the Snoop Dogg products, intoxicating hemp, that 90,000 figure would go way down too.

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: Well, we don't have to ban it and just put it on the dark side.

[Unknown Member (House Agriculture Committee)]: I think that's what the conversation is. It will just fall

[Ted Barnett (Joint Fiscal Office)]: in It's intoxicating with going to the CC. Yeah.

[Unknown Member (House Agriculture Committee)]: Isn't that illegal? Like, I can't buy Colorado THC, can I, online?

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: Theoretically, you're not supposed to. That's actually a

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: good question though. Yeah. I mean, I think now that you've said that, I'm not sure what the answer is. Any other questions about any of this? Very helpful,

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: honey. Really and I didn't know, you know, on my first by adding them in here, I wanna go back and look at the fiscal note on September and just blow my mind up.

[Ted Barnett (Joint Fiscal Office)]: It involved, yes, absolutely. My colleague Julia Richter, who you've seen, know, the Senate seats and she's the one who's done the work on this bill and has done a lot of incredible work on this bill. And so yes, I would absolutely suggest taking a look at the fiscal note. Which one did you say? Yes. I went back and looked at the Act 73 fiscal note for My Entertainment recently and it's 16 pages. For 73, Act 73 last year. Yep. And so they absolutely, they're not all two pages. So a question if I may. Sure. There's

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: a lot of, you know, political gamesmanship and posturing, and and you maybe are doing things for what ifs. So if there's a bill coming and you like it or you don't like it, and then you hear a threat of a an amendment come in that you really don't like. So you counter with an amendment, a different amendment, but you don't know if you're gonna bring it or not. So you have ledge counsel drop the amendment, then they say, well, you better drop a fiscal note to go to this amendment. And you're like, well, how much work do I wanna create or something that may never leave the holster? You you follow what I'm So should that fiscal note be prepared or should it not be and then if it needs to be, then you call. If you have to pull, go nuclear.

[Ted Barnett (Joint Fiscal Office)]: So what I would recommend in those situations, and you're talking about a floor amendment, yes, is as you're working with your Ledge Council drafter, let them know that they can discuss an amendment with JFO, particularly if you think there's a fiscal impact. We'd love to know about potential fiscal impacts sooner rather than later. That

[Unknown Member (House Agriculture Committee)]: floor

[Ted Barnett (Joint Fiscal Office)]: amendment may not and likely will not result in a fiscal note, but JFO can provide you with an estimate depending on the scope of the amendment and, yes, if you're going in front of the money committee. So if it is practicable within the timeframe of because a lot of times, a floor amendment is happening right before you go on the floor within less than twelve hours. So it may not always be possible for us to Could be be less three. Could be less than three, yeah. It could be real fast. So, we're really admiring my colleagues. We're not magicians. And so we will absolutely, if it is something that needs an estimate, we will absolutely provide you with one. But given the short timeframes, I don't want to promise that every time you would be able to

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: But it would be prudent on us as legislators to send a heads up.

[Ted Barnett (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Sure. Yeah. And you can also typically just inform the drafter that you're working with. Have a Y'all are their clients. And so you have to give them permission to loop JFO into conversations. And we do, yes, we do like to be looped in. Something else is going back. Thank you.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: So, I mean, that's a good point, and for Representative Reagan who might not have worked yet with Ledge Council one on one. If you have an amendment or if you have a bill beginning of assessment, or if you have an amendment later and you talk to Bradley or any of the others, conversations are confidential with them. And it's one instance, I think, where you can have conversation on our alleged email that is protected, not subject to FOIA. FOIA. FOIA. And so they won't tell anybody unless you give them permission, and that includes JFO.

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: Triple rules. And then JFO is the same way. They don't tell anybody. We

[Ted Barnett (Joint Fiscal Office)]: have the same relationship that Legis Council has with you all, but we obviously will hold to confidentiality and we not going to start.

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: And you are nonpartisan.

[Ted Barnett (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Absolutely. Yep.

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: And so for your benefit, you could come up with an idea that you want every tap to stay every month to pay every tap in the sugar bush 50¢, and you you could go to alleged counsel and they won't tell anyone and,

[Unknown Member ('Bill')]: you know Is that coming?

[Ted Barnett (Joint Fiscal Office)]: I can't even imagine that.

[Unknown Member ('Bill')]: Well, we could pave more than 70 miles. Mhmm. If we

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: charge them.

[Unknown Member (House Agriculture Committee)]: Yeah.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Okay. Ted,

[Unknown Member (House Agriculture Committee)]: it sounds like an estimate is is more of a ballpark than the really thoughtful and researched fiscal note.

[Ted Barnett (Joint Fiscal Office)]: In in our fiscal note, there are different certainly different ranges. We will try to indicate, right, there may be on a very short timeframe with limited data, we might provide like a more, we'll call it a preliminary estimate that then gets final. We would provide more

[Unknown Member (House Agriculture Committee)]: of a preliminary look. And can say ways and means hold up an amendment until they get a fiscal note?

[Ted Barnett (Joint Fiscal Office)]: I don't know about hold up. If it is something where they would like to see an estimate, I would absolutely do my darn best to get them that estimate when they were looking for the timeline. Don't know. That is more of a conversation, I imagine, with floor timings and that's a whole other universe that we don't get involved in. Yes, Ways and Means is looking for the information, I'm on the revenue team, and so Ways and of Finance, those are the two committees that I'm most responsive to. And so yes, if they were asking, I would absolutely get to work.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: I can remember a few times where somebody during an interrogation said, Is there a fiscal note for this bill? If there isn't, then that could conceivably sort of bring things to a halt. Yes.

[Ted Barnett (Joint Fiscal Office)]: And I have done, two years ago, there was a lot of conversation around the property transfer text and there were a couple floor amendments that made changes to the property transfer text and ways and means wanted to hear about those. And so I did do some estimates for those amendments and waste means when they're doing their shuffle. That was part of the consideration.

[Unknown Member (House Agriculture Committee)]: When I've been looking

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: for this yesterday, I pulled up an earlier version of a Cisco note that I just realized today is out of date. I think the difference is that it includes a section that ended up being pulled from the bill. This is a section on fees, I think, for CAFO, large, Yes. Even large I think I know why it was pulled. Can you speak to that?

[Ted Barnett (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Sure. And so, yes, this is another, if we're talking more broadly about this process in fiscal notes, what happens a lot of times is when a bill comes out of the policy committee, money committees will make changes. Then usually in the appropriations committee, if the bill is getting to them while they are still either they haven't received the budget in the case of the Senate, so this bill happened during crossover. The Senate had not received the budget yet. What Senate appropriations did is in the bills that made it to them, they took out the money provisions because they weren't sure the decisions they were going to make as part of the budget. They weren't sure whether they were going to, if a bill contained an appropriation, they have to look at all of the appropriations are considered in the budget that comes to them, has come up through the Senate policy committees, and so they're making tough decisions about what to fund. And so they'll take out the money provisions. And so on that particular piece, the bill, as it came out of Senate agriculture, got rid of the fees for medium and large farm operations. And that was part of the governor's recommended budget for FY27 was to get rid of those fees and provide the agency of agriculture with general fund. It's about a little bit more than

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: $200,000 to make $230,000

[Ted Barnett (Joint Fiscal Office)]: of lost revenue to make the agency of agriculture whole. The conversation in the Senate and Senate appropriations when they were looking at this provision is that the House in their past version of the budget adopted the governor's recommended construct and they just preferred to have that fee change live in the budget because it incorporated the backfill of general fund. Within this bill, if you just get rid of the fees but don't provide the general fund, as enacted, this bill would have gotten rid of the fees and not provided the associated general fund. So the appropriations committee would prefer for that construct to live in the budget. And so that was the trajectory. Okay, good. So

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: at the end of the day anyway, in this specific case, the House passed budget, which is in the Senate now, did concur with the governor's recommendation to move those speeds. And I don't know whether the Senate is looking at that specifically, whether that's come up or not, since it's a change. Yes,

[Ted Barnett (Joint Fiscal Office)]: and they are in the very final processes of finalizing. They're working within their budget process, and I think the goal is to make some of those decisions in the near term. So I can absolutely follow-up with you all to let you all know if

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: the Senate has Thank you. Other questions you have, Richard and

[Ted Barnett (Joint Fiscal Office)]: the team?

[Unknown Member ('Bill')]: I'll start with you, Chair. This is about fiscal notes, but it's a sort of a tutorial our committee are getting, but it's not about the ag bill. Would you prefer

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: to meet or Yeah, I think, think, so

[Unknown Member ('Bill')]: Ted, I have sponsored a bill that's circulating, it's now in Gov. And it only, the fiscal impact is more for a single municipality town of Stowe, and two or the less, if you increase maybe our rooms meals and alcohol tax by an additional 1% and I the 1% additional sales. Mhmm. Now in theory and and the graph shows my community pays more in these categories than by far than any other community with Burlington. So it has a very positive impact on the state's revenues. It has a very positive impact on the town's portion of the revenue. But there are it impacts the people who are consuming in my town and possibly those who live there and consume. But it's a tourist based economy town, so it'll it allows the town to benefit from revenue from business hours. But the state has concerns about the precedent for if it may impact in the long run the taxing capacity of the state if municipalities start getting their, you know, charters changed to allow them to tax. So it's complicated, but it has to do with there's a positive impact on the state and the slingers. It's a the governing group that's wanting to tax itself as choosing Would could I have gone to the JFO for impacts on this?

[Ted Barnett (Joint Fiscal Office)]: You are absolutely more than welcome to, and I'm very familiar with the On the '31. Yes, with the specific bill you're talking about. And so that would be a case, right, it's house, Cabox? Permanent. Okay, so in that case, because local auction taxes are relatively There's been a lot of interest in that topic this session. JFO does track municipalities that are considering local option taxes. There were a lot of interest in the potential new revenue that could be generated through local option taxes. So we provided estimates for municipalities that voted to adopt the 1% that is currently authorized in statute. 75% of that revenue goes to the municipality, 25% to the pilot special fund. And so since that 25% goes to the pilot special fund, it does bring it into the realm of having a state revenue impact. I'm pretty sure the proposed charter change in STOW would subject the additional 1%. So to go from there 1% to 2% would continue that 75% municipality and 25% pilot special fund split. So this would bring it into the realm of JFO. And absolutely, if the chair of government operations wanted to hear testimony on that, they wanted to hear our estimates on it, I would absolutely provide that information to the committee. It's not always in that case. Would be aware of it once the committee chair asked for that testimony. Sure. Yes, if you're considering I think why I'm hemming and pawing a bit is you don't always have to let JPO know about every bill you're sponsoring that may or may not have a fiscal impact. It's helpful for us to be involved in the early stages if there are certain if you're thinking about brainstorming or you have, let's say, a special fund that you're looking for revenue sources for, that's where we can be more helpful in working with the legislative council to make sure the money aspects of the bill are lined up for that particular charter change. Our rule might, but if you were curious about an estimate, you're more than welcome to reach out

[Unknown Member (House Agriculture Committee)]: to me and I can provide that estimate. You know, you know what's made.

[Unknown Member ('Bill')]: He's

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: sitting there and you see him look up like this, you know the calculator, And the dollar sign, you know, plus or minus, the dollar signs are going. Yesterday, we had doctor Brian brought her in here, and when she looked up, you could see the chemistry symbols.

[Unknown Member (House Agriculture Committee)]: I like to Larry.

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: Molecular structure going in. And and it really is because I'm sure when you you know the context of this and you probably got some knowledge in there about the income and the impacts that will have.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: It is quite a deal. We are by the way, you won't be typecast entirely that way. We are very fortunate to have as many experts as we do at our fingertips. They'll just come in.

[Unknown Member (House Agriculture Committee)]: Much more than municipal government. Any

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: other questions or comments for Ted? Thank you very much. Of course. Yes,

[Ted Barnett (Joint Fiscal Office)]: just before I go, I want to highlight that we are here. We like work for the legislature. And so like, do not be afraid to, I know, representative, you were, you know, like thinking about, I could tell him part of your response, like thinking about the extra work you would be doing on staff, we want flag that we do work for you. We are happy to provide that service. And so, yes, do not be afraid to reach out with any kind of money questions. We're happy to help.

[Unknown Member ('Bill')]: All right. Thank you.

[Unknown Member (House Agriculture Committee)]: Great job. In statute, can do and town's gonna do a 1% local tax, but you'd have to change the charter, the Trump state government in order to do two?

[Ted Barnett (Joint Fiscal Office)]: I don't know about Trump, but the legislature would have to give that authority to go beyond what's currently The bounds that are currently authorized within statute, and Stowe's 2% would be above that threshold. Yeah, and they would join the Burlington, Rutland, who have their own different

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun (Member)]: yes. Bracket.

[Unknown Member ('Bill')]: Yeah. Different structure. It's an awful dirty word.

[Ted Barnett (Joint Fiscal Office)]: What? Charter?

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: No. Four letter word. That's the prior. All right. Thanks, Ted. Thank

[Unknown Member ('Bill')]: you.

[Unknown Member (House Agriculture Committee)]: Jack's got his pockets loaded with gold from any local office. Helps out at Walmart, right?

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: Actually Walmart and the law isn't that much because it's

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: a whole new law. It's under our debt. So just next week, so we are done for the day. Next week we'll, as I mentioned, go back and look at the remaining sections of three twenty three that we haven't taken testimony on, including one related to the Exemption for Accessory Act for our Businesses, which is expanding the exemption. Just want to be clear, we'll get into this next week. It's not breaking anything restrictive. It would be more expansive than municipal ag piece, which we'll get to one way or the other next week. We may have a little more testimony on PFAS, just for background. Cam, I saw your message that the Department of Health had declined our invitation and I'm not quite sure about that. We may wanna go back to them and say, We've got a whole month and they can come in many times. So would like to hear from the Department of Health and from the state toxicologists. That person's name has come up several times. Although I imagine maybe there's a scenario where that person is so overworked that they can't make time for us, but hopefully that's not the case.

[Unknown Member (House Agriculture Committee)]: Could we also find time to talk about two sections that got cut out of this on the Senate side? Oh, yeah. If the Senate committee approved them, think it'd be solar and automated. Yep. I would love to hear from them.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah. So we are we are gonna say to Greg earlier, I do wanna hear from the PEC a little bit more. Yeah, and then we can talk about that.

[Unknown Member (House Agriculture Committee)]: Why food donation got cut

[Ted Barnett (Joint Fiscal Office)]: out with some discrimination?

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Well, think it's current use, and nobody wants to raise education taxes by expanding curb use. I mean, I think that's the lie. I don't know whether that's our position or not. We also have the stakeholder group plan, where we an x-ray.

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun (Member)]: David, are we able take any more testimony around the I guess we haven't done it yet. Think it's your bill, the one about compostable stickers. Weren't we talking about that as a possibility that we could add on to municipality?

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: I am happy to take more testimony. I'm not sure who it is. So I think I was hoping that whoever was interested in- Okay,

[Unknown Member (House Agriculture Committee)]: I'll try to find some.

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun (Member)]: Yeah, it's John's.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Looking at that. Yep. Yeah. Okay. Good. So I think next week should be sort of a normal week without any long afternoons. Is everybody still good with April 29? Can we confirm that up for our trip to hardware? Yeah. That would be the morning. Wednesday? Wednesday, yeah. So

[Unknown Member (House Agriculture Committee)]: get back by floor.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: We'd be back in time for people to have lunch or we'd figure out maybe lunch on the way back. All right, good.