Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Good morning. This is the House Appropriations Committee. It is Tuesday, 02/10/2026. It's just about 09:00, and we are getting started again with the FY 'twenty seven budget. And this morning, we have the Ethics Commission with us, some folks from the Ethics Commission, and I think somebody from the agency of administration as well. So Ethics Commission and friends today. So welcome to all of you. We will introduce ourselves because I don't believe you've come to our committee before, Paul. And then we'll have you introduce yourself and colleagues, and then we'll talk about your request.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: Thanks so much.

[Paul Earlbaum (Chair, Vermont State Ethics Commission)]: So Dave. Good morning, Paul. I'm David Yacovone from Mooresville. I represent the Lamoille Washington District.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: Good morning. Good morning and welcome. John Kascenska from Burke, and I represent the Essex Caledonia District, 10 towns. Good morning. Mike Nigro.

[Michael Nigro (Member)]: I represent Bennington and Powell.

[Michael Nigro (Member)]: Good morning.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: Tom Stevens from Waterbury representing the water of the Washington Chittenden District.

[Paul Earlbaum (Chair, Vermont State Ethics Commission)]: Good morning. We met briefly last week.

[Martha Feltus (Vice Chair)]: Martha Feltus from Linden. I represent Linden Sutton, Sheffield, Lee Laroche. Good morning.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: And I'm Robin Scheu from Middlebury. Good morning. Tiffany Bluemle from Burlington.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: Good morning. Represent Peggy, Franklin, Berkshire, Richard, who Mike Mrowicki, Windham, Ford, Good morning.

[Paul Earlbaum (Chair, Vermont State Ethics Commission)]: I met you briefly with Will Stevens last week. Oh,

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: great. And Trevor Squirrell, I think, is at another meeting from Jericho and Underhill next to Wayne, and then on the other side of the mic is Lynne Dickinson from St. Alvin's Town. So we kind of covered the state here. So if you all would introduce yourselves, that would be great.

[Paul Earlbaum (Chair, Vermont State Ethics Commission)]: I guess I'll start. My name is Paul Earlbaum. I serve as the chair of Vermont State Ethics Commission. Unless you want to hear it, I'll skip my autobiography.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Thank you. We appreciate it. Will and Brenda. Brenda?

[Brenda Barry (Financial Manager, Agency of Administration – Financial Services)]: Go ahead, Will.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Fine print there.

[Will Stevens (Commissioner, Vermont State Ethics Commission)]: Good morning, everyone. Greetings from a snowy, sunny shore in Vermont. My name is Will Stevens. I am one of five ethics commissioners. I was appointed by the Senate Committee on Committees a little over a year ago. Hi,

[Brenda Barry (Financial Manager, Agency of Administration – Financial Services)]: I am Brenda Barry, and I work for the Agency of Administration Financial Service Division. I'm a financial manager, and the Ethics Commission is one of my clients.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Great. Okay, thank you. So we have till about 09:30, just so you know what the schedule is. And we'll turn it over to you.

[Paul Earlbaum (Chair, Vermont State Ethics Commission)]: Thank you so much, and I'll keep my comments brief and leave plenty of time for questions. And really just very big thanks to this committee for inviting me to address the budget and the status of the Vermont Ethics Commission. I I have and you you should have our budget book. I submitted a written statement. Hopefully, you'll have that. And my written statement details our budget numbers and our request for additional funds. The ethics commission in Vermont has existed since 2018, and and every year, our budget has been really quite, you know, relatively tiny in relation to the state budget. But, also, our staff is quite tiny. We have one half time executive director and one half time administrative assistants. And, frankly, there's much more work to be done than these two half time people can do. In 2024, this legislature passed a bill that was largely authored by the Ethics Commission. The bill, which became act one seventy one, included a statewide municipal ethics code and assigned the ethics commission to, the task of training municipalities and advising municipalities when they had questions regarding this new new municipal code. And act one seventy one also included a commission investigatory powers. Really, it might be baby teeth, but the first teeth granted to the ethics commission, and also hearing powers for the ethics commission regarding all three branches of government.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: Basically, this was the commission's wish list. This almost everything we asked for with one big exception, funding to implement the new mandates.

[Paul Earlbaum (Chair, Vermont State Ethics Commission)]: In 2024, we were told the budget was just too tight, but several legislators said to us, surely next year. In his 2024 signing statement, governor Scott said he allowed act one seventy one to become law without his signature because while he liked the substance of the law, he really did not like those unfunded mandates. A a request is modest, really, with and and Jones, who I don't think you've had testified, but he's a national, governmental ethics expert. He said, really, to fulfill our mandate, we need a minimum of four and a half staff, but we're asking for two attorneys. So after we were told in 2024, surely next year in 2025, we dutifully came before the legislature. And, again, we asked, you know, please, can you provide us with staffing necessary to fulfill the mandates you placed on us last year? And we were told the budget was just too tight. Come back next year, surely next year. So all of a sudden, it's next year again, probably with a tighter budget, but here I am. Here we are. And once again, we're asking the legislature whether it wishes to fund the mandates it has placed upon the ethics commission. I I should backtrack a bit to May, about, what, ten months ago, because at the beginning of twenty twenty five, the ethics commission mandate to advise municipalities clicked in, and we got a flood of requests. So we did our best. Our little staff did its best. And we commissioners, we volunteer commissioners, did our best to to respond adequately to these requests. On May 7, we posted on our on our home page saying we can no longer provide municipal advisory and complaint services because we just don't have the staff. We've continued to respond to requests for state advice, but municipal advice, again, the flood was just overwhelming. We just could not take it. So, unfortunately, we're not fulfilling that mandate. And because we didn't have staffing last year, the legislature through, h one, house bill one, pushed our investigatory and hearing powers to 09/01/2027. Hopefully, this year, we'll get a couple of attorneys so we can fulfill that mandate on 09/01/2027, get ourselves ready for that. I don't know if you've looked at other ethics commissions around the country, but most, well, most ethics commissions around the country are well staffed and effective. Just one little example. I I Rhode Island has a little less than double for Monk's population. They have 12 staff members on their ethics commission. Again, we have two half time people. We just can't do what we've been told to do. And I suspect most Vermonters would like a robust independent state ethics commission, and I hope this committee and the legislature agrees. We urge this committee and the legislature to appropriate funds for two attorney positions for the ethics commission. And I'm gonna stop there and and just invite any questions. I'll do my best to answer, but maybe Will and Brenda on screen can do better than I can. But any questions?

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: And I wonder if Will or Brenda wants would like to make any comments, and then we I'm sure we have some questions. I know I have a couple of questions. But if you'd like to say anything now, you're welcome to.

[Will Stevens (Commissioner, Vermont State Ethics Commission)]: Well, me, I'm fighting a cold here. I'll jump in on the non fiscal aspect here very briefly. We have asked the governor to include our request to fund these staff positions prior to the legislative session, we did not get it, which is why we're here today. I just want to also mention that we see our role on the Ethics Commission as being partners with the legislature and the executive branch and the judiciary branch in good governance. But without adequate staffing and support, we can't be the partner that we think that the public would want us to be for that mission. Nationally, some ethics commissions have been around for fifty or more years. Some of them are actually constitutionally embedded so that ethics is kind of a constitutional standing, as it were. We, as you may know, we're late to the game. We adopted ours in twenty eighteen ish. Finally, I just want to say that, and TJ brought this up before the House Gulps Committee last week, that basically the kind of natural progression or normal trajectory of ethics commissions involves education, advice, and then enforcement or investigatory powers. And we are kind of between the education and advice portions of those three pieces of work. And we can't go, as Paul has said, with inadequate staffing, we can't really deliver on the advice. It's getting to the point where we're challenged to deliver on the education and to all the municipalities and state officials that statutorily we're required to do. So that's it for me. Again, like Paul, happy to answer questions, but thank you.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Thank you. Brenda, do you have anything you wanna add?

[Brenda Barry (Financial Manager, Agency of Administration – Financial Services)]: I'll just speak to the fiscal, but the governor's recommended budget is a 12% increase, about 26,000. About 16,000 of that is fringe benefits health insurance, which they have absolutely no control over. It's a very modest budget.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Right, so it's just the standard sort of increase for what?

[Paul Earlbaum (Chair, Vermont State Ethics Commission)]: Nothing new.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Correct. Yeah. So I know Tom has a question. Keep track. Go ahead, Tom.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: So first of all, did the halftime positions receive benefits?

[JB Leduc (Financial Manager, PSD/VCBB)]: Yes.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: And

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: you're requesting, again, to I don't wanna say fully staff, but to staff this up at a higher level. Is will these positions if if funded, will they be sufficient for just the near future? Or do you think that this is just something that that in two years we may find that it's unnecessary or it's more necessary. I'm just it's a tough position. I mean, think my experience following the the creation of funding, the recreation, the reshifting of what an ethics commission in Vermont can be or should be based on the people who are being I mean, we're determining what we think should be looked at for as an ethics commission. It's never gonna be fully independent as long as we draw the lines. So is two people enough for what you've envisioned

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: going forward here?

[Paul Earlbaum (Chair, Vermont State Ethics Commission)]: I'll do my best to answer. I didn't bring my crystal ball along, but I'll do my best. I I I do think that two attorney positions will see us through the near future. And from there, I think we just have to see what happens to see how many complaints we get, how much training we're able to do, how many municipal requests we get. Again, our national ethics governmental ethics expert, Thomas Jones, TJ Jones, has said, really, the Vermont Ethics Commission needs a minimum of four and a half people. With these two positions, we'll have a total of three full time equivalents. We're making a modest request so that we can just see how that works, if that is sufficient, and I I I can't predict the future. We might need four and a half people in the not not too distant future. But for the time being, what a relief it would

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: be to get two attorneys on board. And just a follow-up, if I could. You mentioned that you mentioned the Rhode Island I did. Commission. And in a one dimensional way, what little I know about Rhode Island is that they're probably very busy down there with an ethics commission. They've had a lot of issues.

[Paul Earlbaum (Chair, Vermont State Ethics Commission)]: But Yeah. True enough. What is

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: the difference between not what's going on, what is the difference between the legislation that created their and and the actual actions of their ethics commissions commission versus what's in our statute and what was created for for us?

[Paul Earlbaum (Chair, Vermont State Ethics Commission)]: You know, I I I don't have that research lodged in my head, but I believe that Rhode Island back in the Watergate days, post Watergate days, I believe that they are one of the few states that passed a constitutional amendment creating an ethics commission, requiring an ethics commission. I'd have to double check.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: I think I was curious, again, as an ethics commission, shaped through ideas and debate and compromise that's come out to something that is at least financially it's not supported so it's insufficient in your opinion. And there are others that would say, we don't really want a strong ethics commission so we won't fund it. Understood. So I just want to make sure we all understand that that's the question that we have here is, we really want an ethics commission? And the way to begin to answer that would be funding it to our value that you're asking for.

[Paul Earlbaum (Chair, Vermont State Ethics Commission)]: Yes. If I could just expand on that a little bit to say that because we have so little staff and are able to do so little, a great many people who should know that the Ethics Commission exists do not know that the Ethics Commission exists. And representative Stevens, I think you might have been the the person the representative we asked, do you think anybody would notice if the ethics commission disappeared? And I were you the person who said, probably not until there were headlines showing the gravesite and the tombstone? Think who the name.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Sounds like John. Okay. I'm gonna move us along. I'm just curious. What kinds of things are you not able to pursue?

[Paul Earlbaum (Chair, Vermont State Ethics Commission)]: Right now, we have drawn the line. We can't deal with the many, many, many requests we've gotten from towns and cities asking for interpretation of portions of the new municipal ethics code. Is it okay for, you know, a select board member to sell a piece of his or her property to the town? Is that allowable? Is it kosher? Just being able to, and know, we ask for more information. There's some back and forth. It's never it's just a yes or no, of course. It's most at this point, it's municipal complaints where we've drawn the line, and we are still accepting complaints and requests for guidance from state public servants, all 8,000 and so.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: And so I'm wondering, Paul, you said it was, like, May 7 you were forced to close. Did you keep track of how many, municipal complaints you got from when the time the doors crashed open to when you had to close?

[Paul Earlbaum (Chair, Vermont State Ethics Commission)]: I did. We got 62 municipal requests for guidance, 50 municipal complaint inquiries, and I wasn't sure of this number, but somewhere around 28 municipal complaints that were filed through us. At that time, just by way of comparison, for all of 2025 and by the way, all those municipal figures I gave, those numbers dropped off sharply as of May 7. Right. Know. I just wondered up

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: to then. So that's that's in, you know, four months and a week. You know, that was what you got.

[Paul Earlbaum (Chair, Vermont State Ethics Commission)]: And just by way of guidance for all of 2025, we got 17 state requests for guidance.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: State requests. When you say state requests, what is that? Not municipal. That would include the legislature or administration, the executive branch?

[Paul Earlbaum (Chair, Vermont State Ethics Commission)]: The three branches of government. All of the government. Yes. Okay.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So way more municipal then? Way more. Yeah. Okay. Say Wayne Linn oh, no. John was first. Do you have a question? Yes. Yes. John, Wayne Linn.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: Thanks so much. So part of your mission is to provide training here as well. Has that been

[Paul Earlbaum (Chair, Vermont State Ethics Commission)]: Not not nearly as robust a program as we had hoped. Because we don't have the staff to actually go in person, What we've done as a a minimal measure is there is an online training for municipal officers as well as an online training for state public servants. We've done a very few in person trainings, not nearly enough.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: Just kind of self training information you're providing at this

[Paul Earlbaum (Chair, Vermont State Ethics Commission)]: point at least. The best we can do at this point. And there's a requirement that state public servants and municipal executive officer municipal officers, rather, attend at least this minimal training. Thank you. Thank you.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: The example you gave about someone wanting to transfer property to the town or whatever. That sounds like a question for the town's attorney. So my question is, are the town's going to try to shuffle off their attorney work to you?

[Paul Earlbaum (Chair, Vermont State Ethics Commission)]: It's a good question, and it might be that because Vermont State Ethics Commission is the state expert on the municipal and state ethics codes, I think it would be, frankly, it would be wise for that town's attorney to contact us for our interpretation if there's any lack of clarity in the statutory language. If I could just bounce off of your questions just a little bit of a segue, just to say, because the Vermont State Ethics Commission is now unavailable to municipalities for these bits of guidance and advice, to the grapevine, I'm understanding that people the the towns and cities are turning to the Vermont League of Cities and Towns, a wonderful and reputable organization. No complaints. But if I may, they have a conflict of interest in giving this sort of advice. They also serve as insurers to towns and cities. There is value in having a state ethics commission that can give independent, nonpartisan, unbiased, not economically involved advice in contradistinction to the Vermont League of Cities and Towns, however wonderful they may be.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yeah, thank you. It's nice to see Will. Or legislators.

[Eileen Dickinson (Member)]: I just want to say that I remember when that bill passed, and it was highly controversial. And it was very prescriptive as to what municipalities had to

[Paul Earlbaum (Chair, Vermont State Ethics Commission)]: do. Yes.

[Eileen Dickinson (Member)]: And there was a lot of discussion at the time about the fact that many of our communities were not really equipped to do all this stuff.

[Paul Earlbaum (Chair, Vermont State Ethics Commission)]: Understood. I'm

[Eileen Dickinson (Member)]: just wondering if, like so many things that we have come in here, something that happened four, five, ten, twelve years ago is suddenly now showing the logical consequence of what happens to hoops like yours. Municipal conflicts of interests probably occur in every community in the state. People are related to each other. People go and have expertise in something, and they sit on the select board or the planning commission. And they give valuable information in the discussions because they have been there, done that, they have that lived experience. And yet that should not be considered a conflict of interest. So the question becomes, somebody's got a beef with someone, they're going to complain. They can complain to you, they'll complain to you, they'll complain to the town attorney they see in the supermarket, they'll complain to everybody else they know. And mean, the same thing happens with our schools. We have teachers who sit on our school boards, who's right, or to themselves, are included in the bargaining unit. Have we created something that's a monster here?

[Paul Earlbaum (Chair, Vermont State Ethics Commission)]: If I may clarify one little bit, that might at least partially answer the question. The Vermont State Ethics Commission is not empowered, and there's no prospect of it being empowered, to investigate complaints within cities and towns. That is left up to cities and towns to do complaints about a city or town might be filed through or with the ethics commission, but we simply relay that to each town's ethics liaison. And it's really up to each town now to have an investigative protocol, which is a new demand, a new protocol required by state statute. The the town is required to post its complaint procedures. If you have a complaint against that select board member, here's how you do it. But it's investigated by the town or the city, not by the state.

[Eileen Dickinson (Member)]: So with all these municipal complaints, request 6212, whatever, that education and that advice part that you are supposed to be providing, You're saying, am I hearing correctly, that you are unable to provide that to those ethics coordinators or whatever it was supposed to be? That's a big concern.

[Paul Earlbaum (Chair, Vermont State Ethics Commission)]: That is a big concern. Yes. We'd love to be enforcement should, of course, be the very last thing that an ethics commission does. We would really love to just be training, educating the public, the municipalities, the municipal officials. We are just not able to do that. So,

[JB Leduc (Financial Manager, PSD/VCBB)]: yes, it creates problems. And there's

[Eileen Dickinson (Member)]: a conflict for VLCT to do it?

[Paul Earlbaum (Chair, Vermont State Ethics Commission)]: In my humble opinion, yes.

[Eileen Dickinson (Member)]: Another copy. Thank you.

[Paul Earlbaum (Chair, Vermont State Ethics Commission)]: Sure. I hope I answered your questions thoroughly. Yeah.

[Michael Nigro (Member)]: Mike? Thank you for coming in.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: I don't have a question. I do want

[Michael Nigro (Member)]: to make a statement, though, that I hope our committee can seriously consider this with me. I believe it's important for us and as a state to say that ethics matters to us. And, you know, we talk about budgets being value statements. And I think this is an area where we can show how much we value this. And I don't know to what level we could or should increase this, but I feel like it's clear that they need some more resources because of what we put on them. So I hope we can seriously consider this request and take up some further discussion beyond just this testimony.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: You have any questions for these guys either or

[Michael Nigro (Member)]: just to say? I don't. I just want to

[JB Leduc (Financial Manager, PSD/VCBB)]: make Okay, all right. That

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Any other questions for folks here?

[Will Stevens (Commissioner, Vermont State Ethics Commission)]: If I may?

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yes, please, Will.

[Will Stevens (Commissioner, Vermont State Ethics Commission)]: Thank you. Just two things I wanted to follow-up on only because I didn't hear them mentioned. Around to the town attorney question, one of the things that happens is that as Representative Dickinson mentioned, people sometimes just don't know where to turn to get advice. And it's a little, it's just more than an HR issue. There are lot of pieces involved. And so they're not sure they're going to get the right answer or the answer that might be as unbiased as they would hope for from a municipal official. And this is where a state ethics board can operate. We treat things confidentially that way. So somebody can come to us from a place of trust to get good information. Secondly, to Representative Stevens' question about sufficient staffing and so forth, There is a virtuous cycle here that involves education and advice. And that the more outreach the Ethics Commission does, the more likely it is they're going to hear complaints or questions or requests for services. And so, in terms of sufficient staffing, yes, short term, we think that the two positions will get us to where we want to be, which is a better place, whether or not it'll last, or it kind of depends on the numbers. So thank you very much.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Great. Thanks, Will. Okay. Well, we really appreciate you coming in today and talking to us. It's helpful to hear what's happening. And you've already met with House Government Operations. It sounds like you met with them last week.

[Paul Earlbaum (Chair, Vermont State Ethics Commission)]: We have.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So we will be continuing the conversation. And we will get back to you if there are questions.

[Paul Earlbaum (Chair, Vermont State Ethics Commission)]: Thank you so much for your time, everybody. Appreciate it.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Okay, thank you so much. Thank you. Take care. Bye bye. Bye bye.

[JB Leduc (Financial Manager, PSD/VCBB)]: Thank you.

[Paul Earlbaum (Chair, Vermont State Ethics Commission)]: Okay,

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: I think we've got one more and then we're going to take a break. We have Christina and JB Leduc. Yes. Hi. Step right up to the table, please. Have you been in our committee before? I know Christina's been here, but not Yeah, last

[JB Leduc (Financial Manager, PSD/VCBB)]: was more of an observer last year because I had just really started in the role.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: All right, well, welcome and we'll just introduce ourselves since it's been a year and you haven't been here in person. Fun, yeah. Great.

[David Yacovone (Member)]: Good morning. I'm David Yacovone from Mooresville. I represent the Lamoille Washington District. Greetings. Good morning. Good to

[John Kascenska (Member)]: see you. John Kascenska from Birth and represent the Essex Caledonia District, 10 towns.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: Tom Stevens from Waterbury, representing the Washington State District.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Robin Scheu from Caledonia, five towns in the Northeast Cajun. Robin Scheu from Middlebury. Tiffany Bluemle from Burlington.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: Wayne Laroche, Highgate, Franklin, Berkshire, and Richter. Good morning. Michael Mrowicki from the Windham Ford District of Butler University.

[Eileen Dickinson (Member)]: Hi, I'm Lynn Dickinson and I represent St. Albans Town.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: And so if you two will introduce yourselves and then we can take it away.

[Christina Sweet (Director of Regulatory Compliance, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: Hey, I'm Christina Sweet, I'm the Director of Regulatory Compliance at the Vermont Community Broadband Board in the Department of Public Service.

[JB Leduc (Financial Manager, PSD/VCBB)]: JB Ladue. I'm a financial manager working for PSD and BCBV, both.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Okay. So I think we have your budget either on the screen or in paper, so if you want to tell us about it. Can I bring up

[Christina Sweet (Director of Regulatory Compliance, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: our just for our reference?

[JB Leduc (Financial Manager, PSD/VCBB)]: Yeah, probably.

[Christina Sweet (Director of Regulatory Compliance, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: We'll both

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: take your screen here and pull it up.

[Christina Sweet (Director of Regulatory Compliance, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: So, you know, we have till about 10:00. Great. I think we will be fairly efficient. Great. Okay. I'll just pull this up for our reference and see how it'd be printed copies. My computer's freezing a little bit, I think it's adjusting to the weather. Thanks, everyone, for having us here today. We're really excited to talk about our progress at the Vermont Community Broadband Board since ACT seventy one established the board in 2021. At that point, we had identified over 20% of Vermont's addresses as unserved or underserved by broadband access, and now we are at a point where we can say that there are less than 1% of our addresses in Vermont that are really left without a funding commitment to provide broadband access, that they don't already have broadband access. So we've made tremendous progress. Over the past year, we've also responded to some major federal shifts, both in the ways that we are receiving federal funding, and in one case, one of our federal grants was canceled. We had a grant from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration for digital equity capacity. This was a follow-up grant to the previous grant that we completed for digital equity planning. Digital equity is an umbrella term that could incorporate everything from workforce development to digital skills training to helping people get access to broadband and the ability to, for example, have a telehealth appointment or apply for jobs, any of the myriad reasons why you might use the internet today. That grant was canceled, and we are continuing to move forward with digital equity, what we're also calling digital empowerment work, to the best of our ability without those funds. That was a grant that was on the smaller side for us. It was a $5,300,000 grant over five years.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Had you spent any of the money?

[JB Leduc (Financial Manager, PSD/VCBB)]: Yeah, we spent around $215,000 of the money before it was canceled, and then a further about 20,000 that we were allowed to claim for closeout costs.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Okay, so no clawback, just to determine whatever you hadn't spent.

[JB Leduc (Financial Manager, PSD/VCBB)]: But that since April when the news came through, or May, maybe May Yeah,

[Christina Sweet (Director of Regulatory Compliance, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: was canceled on May 9.

[JB Leduc (Financial Manager, PSD/VCBB)]: We still haven't heard back about whether we're going to be getting that

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: money or not. You haven't gotten the money used

[JB Leduc (Financial Manager, PSD/VCBB)]: You haven't gotten the money. At first, it was a sixty day period where to close out and everything was was due in September. In November, we were we were notified that this is further information they wanted, which we submitted in November. And then that is where it stands at this time.

[Christina Sweet (Director of Regulatory Compliance, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: So it hasn't been denied, but it's been sort of sitting there and every couple of weeks, JZ diligently sends a follow-up email to say, hey, about that payment request that

[JB Leduc (Financial Manager, PSD/VCBB)]: we It's being processed or looked at. Okay.

[Christina Sweet (Director of Regulatory Compliance, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: All right, continue. Thanks. No problem. And our major federal grant, also from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, is our Broadband Equity Access and Deployment Program, or Bead program, and that is really the grant program for building broadband infrastructure around the state. We have not lost any of the funding from that grant. However, we were subject to new policy requirements from the current administration. And that required us to, after we had completed a subgrant almost completed a subgrantee selection process, to essentially go back out to bid and put out a new request for applications with some revisions. The major revision from the federal perspective was that they wanted us to make sure that we were being technology neutral in our approach, so that we were soliciting applications not just from fiber internet providers, but also from cable internet providers or hybrid fiber cable providers, wireless providers, and LEO or low earth orbit oriented satellite providers. That's we did

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: a lot work over mountains and trees. Well, we

[Christina Sweet (Director of Regulatory Compliance, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: do have some questions about

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: They would think that's a spell. I mean, in some countries, it works beautifully,

[Christina Sweet (Director of Regulatory Compliance, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: and because they don't have trees. Certainly, it can be a barrier. So we have now completed that second subgrantee selection process, and we are waiting to hear back. We believe we will hear back soon from the NTIA on the final determination in that case.

[Paul Earlbaum (Chair, Vermont State Ethics Commission)]: So this is the $100,000,000

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: one? Yes. 100 and Well, dollars 228,900,000.0

[Christina Sweet (Director of Regulatory Compliance, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: total. And that includes some funds that were dedicated to planning. So originally, our first grant under this program was $5,000,000 And our current grant award is for $228,900,000 inclusive of that original $5,000,000 However, that will include the subgrants that we're putting out to build

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: infrastructure throughout Vermont. You did all the revisions and you sent it back, and you're waiting to hear from the federal government on it. And how long have you been waiting? When did

[Christina Sweet (Director of Regulatory Compliance, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: you send it back? We have been waiting a few months. There been There's been some back and forth during that time. And I believe we're close to the end of that. A few more revisions and that back and forth Should be completed soon. Marty, here's a question. I'm from the NEK area. Yes. And we have received maybe premature notice that that grant has been approved. I don't believe I can speak about that until the official folks do this.

[Eileen Dickinson (Member)]: Thank you. Thank you.

[Christina Sweet (Director of Regulatory Compliance, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: And lastly, I wanted just to highlight that we did launch a new program under our ARPA capital projects fund appropriation called the Affordable Long Drop Program. And this is a program that is allowing our communications union districts to fund the cost of what are known as nonstandard or long drops to homes where the the main fiber line will go past somebody's address, but their driveway might be too long, or there might be some other barriers where the standard installation fee wouldn't actually cover the cost of getting fiber to that consumer's home. And in that case, typically the consumer would need to pay that extra cost. So this program directly funds those costs so that more consumers are able to get connected to broadband in their communities.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: So on the satellite, what would you be actually providing Boxes or whatever for downloading satellite signals?

[Christina Sweet (Director of Regulatory Compliance, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: Yeah, so for the satellite awards, many states are going to be awarding some of their funds to satellite providers. There are two major satellite providers in the country, Starlink and Amazon Kuiper, although I think Amazon Kuiper may have just changed its name to something else. And those grants will typically go toward covering all of the costs to the consumer of getting that satellite dish, any installation fees, providing in person installation if needed, so that the consumer would not have to pay any extra costs to get connected if they chose satellite service.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: It gets paid for the service once it's connected. Correct.

[Christina Sweet (Director of Regulatory Compliance, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: The next slide was focused on the deed program. We did talk a little bit about that. I just wanted to point out that on your printed version, there may be a typo. The allocation of these funds is 228,900,000.0, and that's out of the $42,500,000,000 federal program. What page are you on? I'm on slide Slide Slide

[Eileen Dickinson (Member)]: six, yeah.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Is this for your other question, John?

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: I can wait.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Okay. 28.9.

[Paul Earlbaum (Chair, Vermont State Ethics Commission)]: That's a bit yeah. Estimate is twenty two point eight. Okay.

[Christina Sweet (Director of Regulatory Compliance, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: I think that is where up there. Yeah. Definitely not 20 2.8. It's 200 and 28.9. Big difference. Yeah. Big difference. Yes.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Okay. So this is what we just talked about. Yes. So we're one of 14 waiting to hear from?

[Christina Sweet (Director of Regulatory Compliance, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: Yeah, and I do expect that we will hear soon.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Hopefully you'll all let us

[Christina Sweet (Director of Regulatory Compliance, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: know. Yes. Our next slide is some summary of the Affordable Long Drip Program, which we've already talked a little bit about. And I'm going to move to slide nine that shows a summary of our broadband preconstruction grants that have been awarded under Act 71 to date. At this point, we are going to be closing out some of those pre construction grants, because they are completed. All of these CDs are active, and most of them are also already providing internet service to their communities. The next slide is our Broadband Construction Program grants. These are funded both from ARPA, state and local fiscal recovery funds, and from capital projects funds. So we have awarded a total of $196,000,000 in broadband construction grant programs. These will all be finishing up this year, as those ARPA funds do expire at the end of the year. The next slide is just a summary of our current or over the past year contracts that we have engaged in to help us complete our work. And the next few slides really highlight a few different aspects of CUDs. On slide 13, you can see a map of our current communications union district, where their construction projects under their ARPA broadband construction grant funds are complete, where construction is ongoing. And this, of course, does represent our COD landscape post merger between CB Fiber and NEK Broadband, which is now NEK CV. And after that, we move on to the real budget part of this presentation, but I'll pause in case there are some additional questions.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: So so when we had a while ago, just to kinda get a heads up on what might be coming along here. With a satellite installation, can you just remind us what the volume of that what's that you're looking for to do in terms of volume of that?

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: Particular threshold here that they want to get to?

[Christina Sweet (Director of Regulatory Compliance, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: Yeah. I mean, that is a good question.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: That's Some places are pretty good in Vermont for satellite. Yeah. Overall,

[Christina Sweet (Director of Regulatory Compliance, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: I would have to maybe look this up while JB is presenting for our current submitted final proposal to the B program for what that percentage of locations that we are awarding to satellite is, because that has changed a little bit more recently. We have certainly asked the administration if they're looking for us to have a certain threshold like, reach a threshold. We have been told that that is not the case, that they're not looking for a certain percentage. What we have heard is that they were looking for us to bring down the total cost of infrastructure deployment. So that is where most of the discussions have taken place over the past few months.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: Most recent change that we

[Christina Sweet (Director of Regulatory Compliance, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: And I don't want to go on the record with the actual percentage, but I can certainly find that.

[Michael Nigro (Member)]: Thank you.

[JB Leduc (Financial Manager, PSD/VCBB)]: Of course. So starting on slide 15 here, we have the budget development form. We ask for special funds and federal funds. Special funds are our USF fund, Universal Service Fund, and the federal funds come from our the grants that have been mentioned. You'll notice that there's a lot of ups and downs between the two. Fisting over. Yeah. So what happened in last spring, about a year ago, we did an overhaul of expenses that we had been charging to the USF that we took permit to be charged to the specific grants that the work was being done on. So we shifted a lot of funds, personnel costs especially, to the federal source that the work had been being done on. We went back to the beginning of fiscal year twenty five, transferred a bunch of stuff over. So you will notice that it matches pretty close to taking

[Paul Earlbaum (Chair, Vermont State Ethics Commission)]: from

[JB Leduc (Financial Manager, PSD/VCBB)]: the speculum and adding to the federal and the increases there are just the general increases on cost of benefits and things like that. We had some vacancy turnover savings in this fiscal year that really freed up a bunch of money as well. Second, well, slide 16, I guess, not the second slide. This shows some of the operating expenses, which those amounts of those come to us from ADS and the HR increase in vision, ADS, IT help, fee for space, things like that. That's the term in advance and charged to us at the end of the year generally. Our fee for space actually went down, the BCPB pretty gave up their one actual office that they had on that 112 State Street. That was to help with the return to office for the departments that affected. It did not affect BCDB employees at this time.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So I'm finding this a little confusing. It looks like operating expenses went from 105,000 in special, or no, those are both increases, then 700,000 in federal. So we have no idea where they were last year. So you can have all that information somewhere. So it went up by 805,000. Am I reading that right?

[JB Leduc (Financial Manager, PSD/VCBB)]: That's the total.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Is that the roll up? That's the total. We don't. Okay. It literally is rolling up. It's the other way around so you should see it.

[JB Leduc (Financial Manager, PSD/VCBB)]: Yeah. Okay. So if you see the federal funds, the only thing that's increased with the operating is indirect costs, which we hadn't been charging to the federal funds previously, and other contracts and third party services, which we determined there was going to be a need now with the BEAT funding being imminent, there was going to be a need for other third party services to help us manage that. All the other things like insurance, other than benefits, fee for space, general liability, rest of that. That's up close to the USF funds.

[Eileen Dickinson (Member)]: So

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: does this free up money in the universal service?

[JB Leduc (Financial Manager, PSD/VCBB)]: It sure does. We have been very conservative in the spending of the USF and are trying to make sure that everything that can be charged to the federal funds gets charged there. And the USF has been very healthy. It is

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Who's in charge of the USF? Is that about public service? Service department, I think.

[Christina Sweet (Director of Regulatory Compliance, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: Yes. I know that the BCBB receives a percentage of that fund. Can't speak to I'm not sure if you actually I don't know the ins and outs of it. Yeah. Yeah.

[JB Leduc (Financial Manager, PSD/VCBB)]: It was managed by SOLIX, and they they send it. I know the PSD the part that I see PSD is E nine eleven. It's the majority of the USF funds, then a smaller percentage comes to the VCBB.

[Christina Sweet (Director of Regulatory Compliance, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: Part of, I think, our efforts have been obviously focused on charging the federal grants wherever possible, because that's why we have these federal grants, but also to be conservative because of the risks of losing additional federal money. We're not feeling very anxious about that at this point, but certainly want to be

[JB Leduc (Financial Manager, PSD/VCBB)]: conservative. The last slide for the budget development form basically shows compared to last year in the USF, we're expecting to be budgeting $707,000 less than what we did in fiscal year twenty five excuse me, fiscal year twenty six. And $1,400,000 more in federal funds with the 40,000,000 or the $43,000,000 of grant funding expected that we are acting for spending authority on, basically. There's no general funds. And yeah, we think that that was pretty conservative numbers. The next many slides.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: We

[JB Leduc (Financial Manager, PSD/VCBB)]: don't need to. Would think they're for your reference, but we don't need to go over those. Are there any questions?

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yeah, so this is John. So John wants to look at all those details.

[JB Leduc (Financial Manager, PSD/VCBB)]: Well, there's many details there.

[Michael Nigro (Member)]: Going back to your coverage numbers, is there a map we can look at to show that? And I mentioned because I live in a I represent two towns who still woefully understood, including large segments of towns who are providing just on copper lines to get dial up for

[John Kascenska (Member)]: just for email.

[Christina Sweet (Director of Regulatory Compliance, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: Yeah, we do have a GIS Hub website that has the details for all of the addresses that have funding assigned to them, and I believe some degree of timeline for when they're likely to receive service. I also recommend you can always call your local CUD with questions about particular addresses, and they can share more details about the timeline. But I can share, after we leave, the link to that website that has really all of the maps and details on the funding assigned

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: to the I have been in contact with DB Fibers, and we've been told they don't know.

[Christina Sweet (Director of Regulatory Compliance, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: Okay. Well, we can feel free to. Alyssa Matthews is our GIS Nathan, and has access to all of the details about specific locations and funding.

[Michael Nigro (Member)]: You also mentioned Amazon satellite system. My understanding is there's a waiting list to get on now, but they're not active yet.

[Christina Sweet (Director of Regulatory Compliance, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: I believe that is what I am aware of as well. We did initially receive applications from Amazon for BID funding, and they withdrew their applications during our subgrantee selection process.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: So just wondering about policy. Is there any would there be any mixings? For example, you've got fiber built out in an area, but somebody's it's either too costly, whatever, would you build a satellite? And that those instances are gonna keep everything the same in certain geographic areas, say, county or whatever it be in the town.

[Christina Sweet (Director of Regulatory Compliance, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: Yeah. With our Bead funding, each address that was eligible for funding under Bead is going to be assigned funding and that as part of a sub award to a provider that could be a, in our case, a fiber provider, hybrid fiber cable or satellite. So the location will only receive funding in one instance, but that certainly doesn't mean that another provider couldn't also offer that service offer a different service.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: So does the user determine decide which they want or do you

[Christina Sweet (Director of Regulatory Compliance, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: The user certainly decides if there's more than one type of service available, whichever service they prefer.

[Paul Earlbaum (Chair, Vermont State Ethics Commission)]: And we

[John Kascenska (Member)]: talked about some limitations with that too. You shed sky and degrees, it's like, was heavy. Anyways, as well.

[JB Leduc (Financial Manager, PSD/VCBB)]: If Ms. Alplis was here, she could give you all the signs and

[Christina Sweet (Director of Regulatory Compliance, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: Yeah, it's a good time.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Well, I'm not seeing any more questions. We'll connect you to John, and we'll connect with John if we have more questions going forward.

[Christina Sweet (Director of Regulatory Compliance, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: We thank you very much

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: for coming in and we look forward to hearing good news on us.

[Christina Sweet (Director of Regulatory Compliance, Vermont Community Broadband Board)]: Yes, I agree with you. We'll hear good news soon. Yes.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: The committee, we're going to take a break until 10:15 from the Housing Initiative.