Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Good afternoon. This is the House Appropriations Committee. It's Tuesday, 02/10/2026. It is about ten no, it's not ten. It's 02:15. We've already been at ten 02:15 in the afternoon. And we have the folks from Vermont Access Network who bring you public television across the state to come and talk about their budget and any reflects that they have. So welcome to both of you. We'll go around the table and introduce ourselves because I don't know that both of you have been in our committee one way or another before. And then you can introduce yourselves and take it away.

[Rep. David Yacovone]: Welcome, I'm David Yacovone from Borestown, and I represent the Lamoille Washington District.

[Rep. John Kascenska]: Good afternoon and welcome, John Kascenska from Burke, and I represent the Essex Caledonia District, 10 towns. Hi, Mike Nigro, represent Bennington and Powell. And Tom Stevens from Waterbury, representing the Washington Chittenden District.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: And I'm Marty Beltus from Linden, and I also represent Sutton Bee Lodge at Bay Alarm. I'm Robin Scheu from Middlebury, and MCTV is my local community television station. Because I don't get to say a lot of town. Tiffany Bluemle from Burlington salons.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens]: There's a few people missing here. I'll pick it up here. I'm Mike Mrowicki. I'm from the Windham Ford District Of Putney in Dummerst.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Hi, I'm Lynne Dickinson. I represent St. Olmestown. Great. So welcome.

[Rep. Eileen Dickinson]: So if you two would like to introduce yourselves.

[Paul Snyder (Executive Director, Northwest Access TV; Vice Chair, Vermont Access Network)]: Yeah. Thank you very much. I'm Paul Snyder. I'm the executive director for Northwest Access TV. I'm also the Vice Chair for Vermont Access Network. Thanks for having us today.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Great. And my name

[Lou Mulvaney Stanick (Director, Central Vermont Community Radio – WGDR/WGDH)]: is Lou Mulvaney Stanick. I misspelled my name in the Zoom. I'll fix that in a second. Oh my goodness. I'm off to a great start here.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: It's okay.

[Lou Mulvaney Stanick (Director, Central Vermont Community Radio – WGDR/WGDH)]: And I'm the director of Central Vermont Community Radio, which is better known as WGDR Plainfield and WGDH Hardwick.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Great. All right. Welcome to both of you. So, I think what we have is two memos from you. Is that right? That's correct. Okay. Orient us to what you want us to look at and what you wanna say.

[Paul Snyder (Executive Director, Northwest Access TV; Vice Chair, Vermont Access Network)]: Yeah, I believe I'll go first and then Lou Great. Will take over from Alright. Well, thank you all for the opportunity to even testify on behalf of Community Media in Vermont. New to us this session, Vermont Access Network, otherwise known as VAN, is joining with nine nonprofit radio stations in Vermont to request $1,890,000 in base funding as part of the Secretary of State's FY twenty seven general fund budget. This new partnership was recommended to VAN by members of the legislature and Secretary of State, and while our goal to receive funding together may be new, our mission as community media organizations remains the same. Community media is a general term that includes Vermont Public, Educational, and government access management organizations traditionally funded by cable TV subscribers plus community radio stations operated over the air, cable, and online largely by volunteers and in some cases operated by those PEG organizations. We know that the Vermont legislature recognizes the important role community media plays in informing, educating, and connecting Vermonters. All of you have been involved in community media at your local AMOs or radio stations in some capacity, whether it be through a Canada forum during campaign season or even sharing your thoughts on Vermont politics while attending a community favorite and delicious legislative breakfast. We also don't soon forget and appreciate that the legislature has awarded grant funding for community media since the COVID-nineteen health emergency. For that, we thank you. Vermont's 24 community media centers and nine community radio stations deliver a range of essential media services to Vermonters across the state. From live broadcasting and streaming of local news, public meetings, and event coverage to weather reports, live sports, emergency information, these media outlets are part of local emergency response, constantly greasing the wheels of local democracy and preserving community history. Community media programming and services amplify the arts and culture of the state and teach everyday Vermonters how to be media makers, gaining valuable job and civic skills in the process. Vermont Community Media covers 176 cities, towns, and villages in the state and 13 counties, covering 94% of the state's population. It's also worth noting that as a group, we employ more than 200 Vermonters that serve their own communities. I, for one, am very fortunate to live just minutes from my organization and find myself volunteering endless hours throughout the year keeping my community connected through media. In 2025, Community Media provided thirty five thousand hours of original, locally made programming. Hundreds of Vermonters are engaged in being media producers of this content, creating real time engagement with their municipalities and neighbors that is uniquely possible through community media. Just a few more quick stats I won't bore you with, but 70% of Vermont municipalities have access to live public meetings. 24 PEG centers operate 80 plus cable channels, a dozen online outlets, and a statewide channel, Vermont Community Television, that makes up fifteen thousand hours a year of local TV. Our partners in community radio have volunteers producing 300 regular shows and vital emergency messaging each year amounting to twenty thousand hours of locally made programming. Fortunately for that 94% of the population, Vermont Community Media is available over the air, on cable, and online. Case studies show the numbers of people involved in media creation and reach are viewers and listeners, so allow me to get specific to put a few names to these numbers. Central Vermont Community Radio, which includes WGDR and WGDH, engage 115 volunteers who help produce 135 programs each week, resulting in more than eight thousand seven hundred hours of live programming listened to by 12,000 broadcast listeners and another 17,500 online listeners. BCTV based in Brattleboro celebrated fifty years of community service, supported 44 community producers who, with BCTV staff, produced nearly 1,300 programs watched by more than 250,000 YouTube viewers. CCTV in Chittenden County covered more than 500 municipal meetings, trained 65 interns and volunteers, and reached 536,000 online viewers and another 500,000 views of its extensive community archive of 53,000 programs dating all the way back to 1984. GNAT, serving parts of Bennington County, produced eight twenty four local programs and 110 news project segments, trained 140 community members, posted nine fifty seven events on their community calendar, and had more than 300,000 online video views. And my organization, Northwest Access TV serving Franklin County, has been serving the sports loving community for more than a decade. In 2025, Northwest Access TV produced more than a 130 live streams, mostly high school sports watched by more than a hundred hundred and sixty thousand people with a following of 10 and a half thousand social media members. So that's who we are and what we do, but I'm sure you'd like to know why we need the funding in the first place. The legislative funding we hope to achieve helps address economic and structural issues facing local media access in Vermont. The Governor's FY '27 budget recommends level funding at 1.35, which we received in FY '26. This falls $540,000 short of our original request of $1,890,000 The full request helps to close the gap of declining revenue from cable subscriptions, cost of living increases in expenses, and additional operational support for Vermont community radio stations. This funding we hope to receive is crucial for our groups to help Vermonters stay informed, educated, engaged, entertained, and connected. There are already fewer local media outlets like newspapers that connect our communities, and we fear that as cable revenue and secondary funding sources continue to rapidly dwindle, our communities will suffer to have a source of local media to call their own. After our most recent round of quarterly funding from cable providers, many of us are already coming to terms with potential organizational restructures that could severely impact our services to Vermonters. This funding helps alleviate that concern and delay it for another year. We are a group of passionate, media loving, democracy devoted, community minded individuals that are fighting to keep community media available for all Vermonters. So I just want to thank you again for your consideration of VAN and Community Radio's $1,890,000 for FY '27. I'm happy to answer any questions you may have. Otherwise, I'm sure my colleague, Bluemle Veny Stanek, has more details to share with you from the community radio point of view.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So I do have a few questions and maybe some of them will ask. So of the 1.89, how much is dedicated to the community radio piece?

[Paul Snyder (Executive Director, Northwest Access TV; Vice Chair, Vermont Access Network)]: So it's 90,000. Our original request was for 1.8. And through our conversations with the Secretary of State, we added the 90,000 for community radio.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Okay. And was that the community radio that we gave, like, 50,000 to last year to keep it going or get it started? I'm not trying to remember.

[Lou Mulvaney Stanick (Director, Central Vermont Community Radio – WGDR/WGDH)]: Yep. So there was one time funding last year for emergency upfitting for gear. Yep. Yep.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: And I think maybe I'm jumping ahead of you, Luke here, but that also helps in emergencies where people don't have access to cable or whatever. They have local messaging in emergencies that they know what to do or where they can go. That's part of what you do, right?

[Lou Mulvaney Stanick (Director, Central Vermont Community Radio – WGDR/WGDH)]: Exactly, Madam Chair. Essentially, the best way to think about it is that some of us are putting generators in, some of us are putting new transmitters in, and it ensures we're on the air during and through those emergencies. Yep.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So since my questions seem to be about your area, why don't you

[Rep. Thomas Stevens]: go ahead and

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: talk, and then we'll get back to the whole budget thing.

[Lou Mulvaney Stanick (Director, Central Vermont Community Radio – WGDR/WGDH)]: Got it. Well, since I'm the radio person here, unlike Paul, I'll be looking at my printed notes here because I'm used to doing this just on microphones. So again, thank you so much for having us here today to talk about community media and this wonderful partnership and collaboration that the state has actually invited and encouraged us to take part in through the Secretary of State and our legislative colleagues. So of those 31 AMOs that Paul was just talking about, I want to highlight that three of those organizations are going to have both TV and radio together. It's a new trend that's happening nationally, and by the end of the year, there'll be two additional radio stations that are part of public access centers. The sense of collaboration and the opportunity to collaborate is stronger than ever when those things come together. So that's just an extra factoid to give you to start off along with what Paul shared. So I wanted to speak a little bit more specifically about this missing $140,000 between what we asked for and what's currently in the budget and why it's important for us to work towards bridging that gap. First of all, we're all very grateful that there's general agreement from the secretary of state, from the governor, from your colleagues, and this committee that public funding for community media is something that's good a good investment of state dollars. So first and foremost, thank you all very much for having us be part of state funding. And I know everyone in this room is very acutely aware of how much it costs to not only live in Vermont, but the high cost to do business. And doing business as a nonprofit is even harder in a state that's this expensive. So the true cost of doing business when it's mission based, noncommercial and nonprofit work like community media means that we have to get very creative about how to keep doing the critical work that we do. So one part of this is bridging this $140,000 by adding that 90,000 to include the nine community radio stations along with this funding. That's gonna allow for statewide collaboration. That's gonna add that live emergency response we were just briefly talking about. It's gonna dramatically increase civic engagement through the hundreds of local and live radio shows that are done by actual Vermonters, not AI, not algorithms, not soon robots, you know, whatever's coming next year, but by real live human beings here in Vermont and they're people from their own actual communities. And the topics of these shows and I was tempted to play you some clips, but maybe next time when I come back, I'll play you clips. But the content that you hear on community radio is the unique sound of the communities of Vermont. There's just nothing like it. You're gonna hear people talking with local leaders about the local issues. You're gonna hear people being held accountable live on the air with folks getting getting at it with the questions and live calls. You're gonna hear people cover local events, really local weather. I mean, let's be real. It's Vermont. It could be dramatically different two towns over than than two towns over. You're gonna hear people talking about mutual aid needs, and you're also gonna hear people fiercely debate the differences of backyard composting. I mean, this is the true flavor of Vermont here when you tune into community radio. This funding is also going to meet in part the increased cost again to operate community media organizations in Vermont. Like everybody else, utilities, rent, licensing fees, staffing costs, it's just it's continuing to really go up, and we have to be able to meet those costs by finding funding partners like the state to help us keep pace. And then finally, it addresses the decline in other revenue sources. As I was mentioning, the nonprofit sector in Vermont is really struggling to keep pace here with the increased cost to do what we do for our missions. And in community media, that specifically is tougher with the defunding of Corporation of Public Broadcasting last year. The impact that that had on Vermont public really did a big pull philanthropy wise about who was funding what, and the first place to go is the much smaller organizations like community radio, which on average have a budget of just $25,000. So that $90,000 is a little bit of funding for all of us, and it's a little bit of funding to keep kind of like help us keep those doors open and continue to diversify how we fundraise in many other ways. So it's not it's a small portion of our overall budget, but it's a deep breath financially to ensure that we've got some public investment in such an important public infrastructure that is community radio. Finally, I just wanted to, again, speak specifically to community radio here. You know, we're about as democratic as it gets. This is a this is the airwaves for everybody concept that the FCC officially gave us. Like, the the charge of the FCC for community non profit profit radio is to provide content for the good of the community. So that means you could be in disagreement, but you're not gonna be disagreeable on the air because there's an account direct accountability to our communities with community radio that people will let you know if they disagree with what you're doing on the air. This is not the place for people having private podcasting where they get to just say whatever they want and say the sky is pink. This is the place where people are held accountable and actually called in to have actually civil discourse. And I cannot overemphasize how important this is in this time that we're living through, where that in a state like Vermont, we still have the opportunity to disagree with each other, but to do so with respect and connection and a way forward together, or in other words, way to yes. And having these conversations live on the air is just one of the beautiful ways we do this and bring the community together, no matter if they are right next door to us or down the road. In a rural state like Vermont, radio really helps connect people over these airwaves in that way. Again, I have to emphasize we're free, and we are one of the only free media outlets that are still out there. There's no paywalls. There's no subscription fees. We do what we do because we wanna make sure that everyone has on no no limitations to how they can access the information that they need from their community. Again, not to spend too much time on this, but we also are the go to place during real time emergencies locally. I've talked about this briefly last year when I was coming through the State House speaking on behalf of community radio, but WGDR and WGDH had the misfortune of being at the epicenter of both of those massive flooding events in 2023 and 2024. The entire town of Plainfield went underwater while we were just I've I've you know, it's like I think it was quarter mile up the hill. The station could have gone underwater if we were just located slightly differently. And as harrowing as those moments were, it was crystallizing what our mission was about. We were right here, right with people as people were having the immediate impact of those floods in their homes and the days and also the weeks afterward. We were connecting people with mutual aid information, where to get potable water, how to connect with, where to get food, shelters. And those weeks that came afterward, it was things like, we still have to muck out basements, folks. We still it's still not safe to go into certain places. How do you even apply to FEMA? We had a lot of that content on the air for people to keep, to keep getting that information. But I have to say, despite being part of the help, really, it was the providing the solace for people by having music shows and a little bit of humor in dark times that we actually got the most thank you notes about, that, like, it didn't have to just be about the most urgent critical things happening. It was about the care that we had for our community during that time. And I will forever be honored to have been part of the station during those critical moments. Lastly, I I wanna respect our time here today, but I wanted to say that despite what's happening to media in Vermont, you hear about newspapers closing, you hear about, commercial stations and TV stations being bought out by corporate entities outside of Vermont. Community radio is growing. I wanna be clear. We have seven stations on the air right now. By the end of this year, we'll have another three join us on the air. So we're not only growing kind of with the number of stations around the state, but we're growing with the number of Vermonters that we're gonna be able to reach. And, actually, thanks to that funding last year, WGDR was able to buy a brand new antenna, and it's breaking news. You're one of the first to hear this, but the FCC just approved it. And I will thank the federal government. They've done something great. I know they don't get a lot of credit right now, but they did something great by approving that. And that means that in your your committee room, at this time, in about four months, you're gonna be able to get 91.1 crystal clear in Downtown Montpelier, and that has not been the case for fifty three years. So the state is investing, you know, critical tax dollars for critical public needs like community radio, and we're gonna be able to be there in the everyday and again when when and if there's another emergency in the communities of both Montpelier and Barrie, thanks to that antenna that we were just able to purchase. So again, a huge thank you to you all as being part of that last year, and I'm really proud to be part of Community Radio representing that here today. So I'll leave it there for now. I'm sure you all have questions, but thank you very much for the chance to speak today.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Thank you. Questions, comments? Yes, Marty then Tom.

[Rep. Martha “Marty” Feltus (Vice Chair)]: Yes, thank you for your presentations, and I certainly understand the need for both of your services. I do have a question, however. You've requested 1.89 and apparently there's 1.35 in the budget. So, we're short $5.40. If you only get the 1.35, how would you split that between TV and reading?

[Paul Snyder (Executive Director, Northwest Access TV; Vice Chair, Vermont Access Network)]: Yeah, so we have an agreement between Community Radio and for Vermont Access Network, where Community Radio would receive 4.76, correct me if I'm wrong, percent of whatever funding we do receive. So that's the agreed upon percentage that we have. And that's what 90,000 of 1.89 is.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Oh, I see. Thank you.

[Paul Snyder (Executive Director, Northwest Access TV; Vice Chair, Vermont Access Network)]: So that number would fluctuate based on the funding we receive.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens]: So can you go back a little bit while we still have time here? Can you just go back and just inform us about the change from cable access to the loss of cable for the most part, or the extreme diminishment of cable. The responsibility of cable was to pay for public affairs, was to pay for the cable access where people had this access. But over the last, how many years have you seen the drop? Now that cable seems to be changed, there's no replacement for that. Is that what is that what we're talking about? I mean and that was that was legislated on a federal level, I believe, the the cable's responsibility. And now that media seems to be very diffuse, you don't have those resources. Is that right? Is that is that the right way?

[Paul Snyder (Executive Director, Northwest Access TV; Vice Chair, Vermont Access Network)]: I can speak to my own, experiences. I mean, that's that's what we are are seeing at Northwest Access TV and Franklin County. I mean, we, just received our our funding numbers for this past quarter, and it was, down, about seven to 8%. So that's showing the decline the continued decline of cable subscribers, at least in Franklin County. And that is, pretty much the the story across the state. That's where our funding comes from. A a a very strong a majority of our funding is from cable revenue. And with different means, different, people going to I'm not gonna say, I will say just for the term, but cable cutting is a thing, and we're all experiencing it. But when you hear those terms, it kinda makes us shutter a little bit because that means less funding for our services and be able to provide for, you know, for our communities and be able to give back and be able to cover the things that we do and archive the amazing things that are happening in Vermont. So for us, that's something that we, you know, we were not it's a streaming is kind of like a double edged sword to us because while we receive zero funding from, streaming and how many Vermonters are switching over to a streaming, platform as opposed to having cable, it is our means of being able to get all of our information and and keep our communities connected. That's something that, again, Northwest Access TV, we're we're very fortunate to have such a strong sports loving community, and we stream over a 100 games a year. But we don't receive any funding from that unless someone wants to send a few bucks via a donation or a community partner wants to be able to provide some underwriting for those for those streaming games?

[Rep. Thomas Stevens]: I mean, I'm just I've always been concerned about, you know, no matter how long I serve in the in the state house and as much as I don't always agree with the coverage that I receive locally, it's really important to me and has been the very deep core values since I was a kid, since I delivered newspapers during Watergate. And the importance of shining a light and being able to make sure that we are being watched and judged, in essence, or just at least we're being shown, is really important. And appreciate trying

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: to

[Rep. Thomas Stevens]: keep the flame alive or keeping the flame alive at a time when it seems like all of the courts have been cut and trying to figure this out. I mean, we've seen, obviously, the federal government cut back on public television. Not that public television is completely different than it was thirty, forty years ago. But, no, appreciate your efforts to try to increase citizens' access to being able to do this kind of work and be able to see, to keep shining a light on the world around us, the powers that be.

[Paul Snyder (Executive Director, Northwest Access TV; Vice Chair, Vermont Access Network)]: Thank you.

[Lou Mulvaney Stanick (Director, Central Vermont Community Radio – WGDR/WGDH)]: And if I might just add, Representative Stevens, what you're getting at is, you know, we are living through a transitionary point of how do we fund our public institutions. And one of the ways that we accomplished that through for community media and public media was things like Corporation for Public Broadcasting forty years ago, the the various ways that, again, these taxes were put on Comcast and these big cable companies in order to use the public, you know, lines, literally, the lines that are connecting, you know, us with our cable cords. Literally, with those being cut, we are in this age where we need to figure out new funding sources here and either holding these streaming companies accountable with taxes or something in the future. But but also, it's a as a state, it's, again, what do we value as a state and what what's worth putting public funding into into for a very huge return, in my opinion, for things like accountability of the state government, citizen engagement with each other. And, frankly, I can't overemphasize the importance of this infusion of fake news into the world, you know, this list concept that people could just make anything up just because they wanna make anything up. So where is that accountability being checked down when you when when you have media entities or individuals calling themselves journalists or media entities with no accountability? And as community run organizations, we're accountable through our board of directors, directly to our viewers, directly to our volunteers. There's just so many layers of that responsibility to community that you just don't get with any other media outlet in the state.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens]: Yeah. I think my vocabulary word of the week was, and with respect to some artificial intelligence, is slopaganda.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So I have another question, and that is, when you submitted your budget, this is one time where I'm actually asking for what the changes look like. Did you put in details about how you got to the one point eight nine and what that looks like, where the increases are coming from? Were there salaries? Is there a spreadsheet for what we did that you submitted to finance and management or somebody?

[Paul Snyder (Executive Director, Northwest Access TV; Vice Chair, Vermont Access Network)]: Yeah, it's part of a working process with the Secretary of State. And we do have those numbers that kind of correlate like why 1.8? Why well, last year, why 1.35? A lot of it really is dependent on our lost revenue. So that's that's where that the majority of that number comes through. The number that we're really not, you know, requesting a gap for is the cost of living expenses, the expenses that we have when it comes to increased expenses for our organizations. And we're really just trying to bridge that funding gap. And that's what we're trying to, you know, fill that bucket, if you will, for everybody. So that's really where that 1.35 last year, and it it took on almost the exact amount that we needed. This year with our funding request, it was very close to that 1.8 as well. So that's where it's like a three step process we've been working with with the Secretary of State to get to that funding number.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So you're talking to the committees that like spreadsheets. That's how we understand these things. And so I get where the 90 is going. That one's clear to me. But I don't understand the details from the 135 to the 1.8. So if there's some kind of spreadsheet or something you would send us to show that would be very helpful.

[Paul Snyder (Executive Director, Northwest Access TV; Vice Chair, Vermont Access Network)]: Yep, absolutely. I mean, it's going to break it down based on every AMO, that's 24 of us that are in Vermont. And it's going to account for our revenue loss that we've that we've seen over the years, including and then what will we could possibly do as well as is include some other, you know, factual data and other spreadsheets that will help really make the picture clear for you.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: I think that would be really helpful for us to have.

[Paul Snyder (Executive Director, Northwest Access TV; Vice Chair, Vermont Access Network)]: Yeah, absolutely. It helps definitely back up why we're requesting this funding. This

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: is a very, very, very tight budget here. So anything we can get from you to help you make your taste, that's helpful for us to understand when we have to make bad decisions.

[Rep. Thomas Stevens]: Hard

[Paul Snyder (Executive Director, Northwest Access TV; Vice Chair, Vermont Access Network)]: to say. We

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: hope they aren't bad, but they're just gonna be hard. Okay, thank you. Any other questions for the students? Thank you for all you do for all of us. Pretty great, glad you're there. And we'll look forward to getting what you have. If we have questions, Mike Murphy, this is yours?

[Rep. Thomas Stevens]: Yes. This is the Secretary

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: of State's office. So he's our liaison with you guys if we have more questions. Great. Great. All right. Thanks for coming today.

[Paul Snyder (Executive Director, Northwest Access TV; Vice Chair, Vermont Access Network)]: Thank you for having us.

[Rep. Robin Scheu (Chair)]: We appreciate it. Thank you for your time. Subcommittee, that's all we have for today unless Autumn's next something in that I don't know about. So good time to work on your budgets, absorb what you've heard today. We got a lot this morning from the housing initiative. And then we're back tomorrow morning at nine with Public Utility Commission. Then we have the legislative budget, AOT's coming in, ACCV's we're getting some of the bigger other agencies that we haven't heard from. So that's on the docket for tomorrow. So we start at nine