Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Morning. This is the House Appropriations Committee. It is Wednesday, 03/18/2026. It is a little after 08:45 in the morning, and we are going to hear another bill that we had hoped to hear yesterday, but we got behind. And so we appreciate everybody's flexibility in hearing it this morning instead. So this is age eight sixty one, an act relating to establishing an Americans with Disabilities Act coordinator. And what we will do is we'll have Katie from Legis Council talk about it, and then we will have Chris Root from Lancaster tell us about it, and then the sponsor of the bill and reporter of bill, Elizabeth Burroughs, or Representative Burroughs, will come up and talk to us a little bit about it as well. So that's how we're going to work. Okay, come on up. Good morning. Good Again. Also mentioned that I have an amendment, but let's hear the bill first. Okay. Committee amendment if we want a bill.

[David Yacovone (Member)]: You need to plug in? Are you good?

[Katie McLinn (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Know, I'm giving a call in this morning, so I might take all the

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: I know.

[Joint Fiscal Office analyst (name not stated)]: You implying that age?

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: I'm sorry. You need better.

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Thank you. So

[Katie McLinn (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Katie McLint, the House of Legislative Council, here is the committee report from the House Committee on General and Housing. This creates an ADA coordinator within state government. This position is created in the agency of the administration for the purpose of coordinating across state government and in collaboration with agency partners, all state programs, services and activities accessible to and available for individuals with disabilities. Subsection B talks about the professional requirements for this person. So this is a person with a lived experience of having a disability, somebody who's completed a recognized ADA coordinator certificate program, somebody who has comprehensive knowledge of the ADA and Section five zero four of the Rehabilitation Act, any other related federal state disability rights law. The coordinator is familiar with the structure of programs, services, and personnel of state government and alternative communication formats and system technologies. Subsection C says that in hiring the coordinator position, the secretary of the administration is to consider only candidates that are nominated by the following entities. And then there are four entities listed. And then subsection lists all of the responsibilities of this coordinator position. I'm happy to go through them. Or if you'd like me to move on to the appropriation, I can do that.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Why don't you just It's not a very long bill, so let's Okay. Do Yeah. Sure.

[Katie McLinn (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Responsibilities of the coordinator: to work directly with state agencies and departments to advance, coordinate and monitor statewide compliance efforts act as a consultant for state employees, boards, executive, legislative and judicial leadership Ensure communications with individuals with disabilities are as effective as those with individuals without disabilities, giving primary considerations to the individual's preferred method of communication. Educate state employees on their legal obligations, disability access requirements, ableism, and prevention initiatives. Top of page three, audit programs, facilities, and activities for ongoing compliance, oversee self evaluation processes throughout state government to identify incorrect violations, monitor federally required transition plans to ensure timely completion of structural accessibility and improvement, provide federally required public notice of rights under the ADA, and provide contact information for a governmental entity's coordinator, maintain collaborative relationships with disability advocacy organizations and stakeholders, and facilitate partnerships among governmental departments and disability advocacy organizations to align policies, programs, implementation strategies that support compliance with the ADA and accessible services. This position is to have the administrative, legal and technical support of the agency of the administration. And then in section two, there is a fiscal year twenty seven appropriation from the general fund of 150,000 to establish the ADA coordinator position. Obviously, this is a one time appropriation, but to have continuation of this position in the future, there would be an ongoing expense. Takes effect July '26.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So if you could sit there, I want to have Chris come up, and then after that, I want you to go back to Bennington and want to ask people about that too.

[Joint Fiscal Office analyst (name not stated)]: Good morning, everyone. Our sister from joint fiscal. I think this fiscal might no. It might be even shorter than the one I presented yesterday. Long, short, long, short. Yes. You we can we keep things interesting. You know, the the underlying issues involved are fairly complicated, but the bill itself is fairly straightforward. You know, this creates a new position at AOA. I really just wanted to draw your attention to a few things. You know, it's a new position, which is squarely within this committee's jurisdiction. It appropriates a 150,000 in f y twenty seven from the general fund. But as Katie mentioned, know, it's a position. It would be an ongoing base pressure in future budgets that would need to be accommodated. And, I just wanted to note that, given that positions are something this committee spends a lot of time looking at, that the hiring process contemplated for this position is unusual for state government positions.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Oh, in the sense of who nominates for

[Joint Fiscal Office analyst (name not stated)]: the positions. Right. I'm not aware of any other examples where the agency shall only consider candidates that are nominated by outside advocacy organizations.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: And so I can understand the thinking behind that. The word only, I'm wondering, is there any legal issue, Katie, If they can only is does yeah.

[Katie McLinn (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Is that Unique. I when I drafted it, I sort of ran some questions by my colleagues, and they confirmed that this was unique. They were the ones who finally gave that language to craft what general housing was So trying to I feel comfortable that the folks with the subject matter expertise were the ones who put together the language. But I have heard from my colleagues that this is unique in statute. I get the unique.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: I just want to be sure that it's legal. So it seems to be

[Katie McLinn (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I feel confident relying on Tucker and

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Tim. Great. Okay. Great. Thank you. So pretty clear fiscal note, 150,000. And so I've talked to representative Burrows about this, and she will come up and talk about the bill also. Actually, don't I have you come talk about it, and then we'll do our amendment? Because your stuff falls along the line, so don't go too far away to hear of you. Please join us for us tonight.

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Windsor-1) – Bill Sponsor]: Morning, everybody. Introduce yourselves for the record and For the record, my name is representative Elizabeth Burrows, I represent Windsor 1, which is Heartland, West Windsor, and Windsor. I didn't want to just redo my lower speech, so I'm gonna just give you my very quick pitch. Vermont has and has since around 2013 been out of compliance on many different levels of out of compliance with the ADA on many different levels. I say 2013 because that's the last time that Vermont state law was updated to reflect adherence to the updates to the Americans with Disabilities Act. So current state law, applies, only back to 2013. Okay. A few data points. More than one quarter of all Vermonters, which is about a 150,000 more than a 150,000 Vermonters, have at least one disability. Sixty percent of the Human Rights Commission cases, or just about, sixty percent of the Human Rights Commission cases, are related to disability discrimination. Approximately fifty nine percent of adults with a mobility disability and fifty sixty five percent with a co disability in Vermont earn less than $25,000 a year, which means that they are reliant on state agencies for supports, and those supports may be covered across several different agencies without coordination or consistent understanding of the ADA. For example, human resources applies to employment, and BGS covers building accessibility. The Agency of Transportation covers transportation issues. Meanwhile, other agencies cover other services. And there is no coordination among those things. And that actually was the original impetus for the ADA having come to life in the first place.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: A

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Windsor-1) – Bill Sponsor]: statewide coordinator at a high level of authority creates a permanent and authoritative voice for that one quarter of our state's population, which is left out of decisions that directly affect them us, I should say. A statewide coordinator would create a hub for consistent ADA training and procedures at all state agencies and municipalities, which could in turn avoid costly lawsuits. It creates the ability to locate grants, including federal accessibility grants that we are not currently accessing. Those could also be accessed by municipalities for compliance and and for upgrades. It creates a way for municipalities of any size to grow capacity to address disability by pooling and coordinating research and resources on a larger scale, which saves municipalities time and money. It saves money through efficiencies within state government by coordinating programs between and among state agencies. It saves money through lawsuit avoidance from nonadherence. It helps municipalities, prioritize how to address complaints. It prevents complaints from state agencies and municipalities through prioritized planning. It educates all low level of governance on ableism, which also saves money. It creates a level of accountability where none currently exists today. It provides advisory resources and capacity for the legislature, And it could provide guidance on digital access and adherence to new federal rules, that are currently in effect. But because of the way that our agency of digital services is structured, ADS doesn't necessarily have a plan that covers accessibility of the whole state website.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Think about ADS. It's not just responsibility. It doesn't have, yeah. Thank you. That is good to have some data and some numbers and all of that. Any questions from committee, John?

[John Kascenska (Member)]: Just real quick. So when new rules or guidelines are created through the Americans with Disabilities Act, receives that information in terms of the state currently?

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Windsor-1) – Bill Sponsor]: Right now, we this is the whole point is right now, we don't have one centralized place. And another problem is that because so the federal law requires that, any entity, a municipality or a department with 50 employees or more, must have an ADA coordinator position. We don't have an overall entity that coordinates all of that training or all of the, information dissemination that is actually individually interpreted. And that may be a position, or it may be an add on for, like, an HR person. So there it's it gets interpreted differently by each Yeah. Area.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: Just kinda you know, because when the information's created, you know, you know, updates on things, they're gonna send it to someone or someone. Is that how it's currently used? Does AOT get a notice If they have by AGS separately and send out that

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Windsor-1) – Bill Sponsor]: If they have a designated

[John Kascenska (Member)]: If they have someone.

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Windsor-1) – Bill Sponsor]: If they have someone, that's who it would get. Yeah.

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Thank you.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Wayne and then Dave.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: Since I was a commissioner back in the 2000s and we dealt with ADA there. Did you take testimony from different agencies to find out the differences between them? Well, and wildlife, we had to have ADA even for some of our wildlife management access areas. We even had a program for disabled people to go moose hunting, right, where we had that set up. So we've been dealing with it for years. And I'm suggesting that there's a lot of variability amongst the agencies in terms of what they need to do for ADA. We're all responsible for it. And with the federal money that we have and with the audits and things that we get, we were audited for ADA things too. So I'm just skeptical whether a coordinator position would be able to look across all agencies, find all the different things that each of the individuals are doing. I don't know that we would beat that beyond what we're already doing.

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Windsor-1) – Bill Sponsor]: Two things. One is, yes, there are some departments that are doing a stellar job and understand the reason for the ADA and why it's important to create autonomy. It's a baseline for autonomy. But not every agency does or department does do a great job. That's number one. And number two, one of the things that's required of the federal law is an inventory. And then a statewide ADA coordinator could it's supposed to be a self evaluation or self inventory of departments. And a statewide ADA coordinator could, ensure that those self evaluations are consistent. Because it's hard to it's hard to self evaluate, especially if you don't have a thorough knowledge or understanding of what you're actually evaluating.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: And I would imagine that they should be handling things differently. So fish and wildlife are dealing with something different than BGS is. And at the same time, there are some universal things that need to be happening regardless of where you are.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: And that's BGS. BGS does. Because BGS, our buildings, because we have fee for space, BGS.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Right. But they may not be talking to other departments and agencies about what's needed as well. I mean, there's we do a

[David Yacovone (Member)]: lot of siloing around here is what I've guessed. Dave? Two questions. Did you take any testimony from the Commissioner of Aging and Independent Living?

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Windsor-1) – Bill Sponsor]: We did not. We took testimony from, Kate McGlynn, and we took testimony from, Big Hartman from the Human And Rights then we also took testimony from Kim Ray, who previously worked at the Vermont Center for Independent Living, who's also a community member and a person with long standing personal experience. And that's who

[David Yacovone (Member)]: Just curious. I'm curious there. Would this position have the authority to be responsible for ADA compliance across state government?

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Windsor-1) – Bill Sponsor]: I wonder whether that's a question for Katie.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Was it your intent when you

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Windsor-1) – Bill Sponsor]: put the building council? That the coordinator would that office itself would be responsible for other offices.

[David Yacovone (Member)]: Does it have any authority to say, Hey guys, your web page isn't in compliance.

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Windsor-1) – Bill Sponsor]: Here's the

[David Yacovone (Member)]: place to go to get the standards.

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Windsor-1) – Bill Sponsor]: Yeah, that's the idea. That's the idea. What is some authority?

[David Yacovone (Member)]: Yes. To do that. Okay. Yep.

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Windsor-1) – Bill Sponsor]: The other thing was just last week, I some students at Dartmouth put together a presentation on affordable housing in the Upper Valley where I live. And they, you know, they had their research methods, but one of the recommendations that they, included with was that our state should, put money towards the Vermont Center for Independent Living or apply to existing housing. And I'm thinking as a member of house general and housing, well, we already have that in BHIP. And then I thought, BHIP hasn't been able to administer that pool of money because, they don't have, definitions of how it should be administered. But we also have BCIL. Wouldn't it have been great to have had a person who could have said in the drafting of that provision, you guys ought to work together on how this works out?

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: And if we had had

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Windsor-1) – Bill Sponsor]: an ADA coordinator, we could have done that, had that kind of overarching view that could have helped us.

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Just

[David Yacovone (Member)]: a quick follow-up. Who would this position report to?

[Katie McLinn (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Secretary of administration.

[David Yacovone (Member)]: What was that?

[Katie McLinn (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Secretary of administration.

[David Yacovone (Member)]: Secretary of administration, thank you.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: That's where the office of racial equity also reports into, so this makes sense that that would be.

[Tiffany Bluemle (Ranking Member)]: Tiffany, you had a question. Well, first a comment, actually was surprised, children, that we did not have this position in state government. That kind of coordination seems pretty basic, a basic need. I'm wondering what you know about what other states do. Does this position exist in a lot of other places?

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Windsor-1) – Bill Sponsor]: Well, there are about 15 other states that have this position. Not every state has this position. Out of the 15 other states that have this position, or roughly 15, I don't know whether that's the exact number, They're split about half, rural or populous, because every state has a rural area, populous and nonpopulous. And I can't really give you a rationale for why each state did or didn't do it. I will say that I have a friend with whom I went to college who has become an ADA coordinator, and she took a look at what we do and don't have in Vermont. And she felt that we do need to have an ADA coordinator because we don't have a consistent implementation, across all agencies. Again, some are in add ons to another role. Some are stand alone roles. It really varies from agency to agency and department to department in our state. So that's part of the reason for the need for an overall coordination. Just

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: following up on that, did you take testimony from, any of the state agencies about this?

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Windsor-1) – Bill Sponsor]: That's what representative Yacovone just said.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: But not the agency administration or

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Windsor-1) – Bill Sponsor]: No, we did not. Okay. Lynne?

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: Would this be an administrative role for the governor's office? I have the secretary of administration.

[Katie McLinn (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It would be in

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: the agency of administration. Yeah, so I would probably report to the secretary.

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: Did you get any testimony from the administration people, like from the Secretary of Administration or anyone that

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Windsor-1) – Bill Sponsor]: No, we took testimony from the Human Rights Commission and from a former employee of the Vermont Center for Independent Living.

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: Did you get any testimony about who does this work now? Is it a variety of people? Is it just a couple of people? Is it

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Windsor-1) – Bill Sponsor]: Again, it really varies widely from agency to agency. And that is part of the reason the impetus for creating a role in the first place is that variance, which was why the ADA was created in the first place, to avoid that kind of shifting. There is no we don't currently have a place that is accountable for adherence to the ADA. We don't currently have a way to actually besides through lawsuits, we don't actually have a way a way to, create accountability right now. So this would this would create that. And the last question I have is I'm really curious about this unique way of hiring.

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: Can we dictate to an administration, any governor's office, how they can look for people to fill a position like this? I

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Windsor-1) – Bill Sponsor]: I don't know, maybe Katie can answer that. But what would be the normal hiring practice? And why would we want

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: to go? And what kind of testimony did you get to determine who does this only suggesting kind of?

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Windsor-1) – Bill Sponsor]: We did not take testimony on it, But, part of the question was, if this person is going to rather, part of the reason behind it was the phrase nothing about us without us. So, we wanted to make sure that it was the actual members of the disability community, 150,000 people or one hundred and twenty five thousand people, who are being represented there. And so it's not like a regular hire. It needs to be ensured that the role is actually representing the people that I represent.

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: Because it appears to be more of

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Windsor-1) – Bill Sponsor]: an advocacy role than an administrative role. There may be people that are administrators, probably, than necessarily coming from an advocacy back. But that it seems to be these are advocate an advocate position more than it is an administrative position? I would say it's both. You could say it's advocacy, but it's adherence to federal law, if you want to call that advocacy. I don't think it's the same as hiring for It should be a role that advocates for adherence, but it also is a role that represents a group of people. And so it it has to that process has to walk a certain line. It's not that the suggested groups that are to be consulted do the actual hiring. They won't have the final say in who gets hired. They just get to help vet the candidates for the role. Okay, thank you.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Tom?

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: Yeah, it just strikes me that to have a coordinator at the top of the pyramid, what I'm hearing from you is that it's going to regulate or make more consistent things that are not consistent. If there's a difference in eating, you know, fish and wildlife that there is from BGS, it strikes me as having all those different silos interpret the same law differently puts us potentially at a legal disadvantage because there's not that simple coordination from the top down or advice or I don't see it as advocacy as much as it is here are the rules and here's the way we're choosing to interpret them. Is that accurate? Is that an accurate description of what the talk is what we're trying to do?

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Windsor-1) – Bill Sponsor]: And going back again to one of the roles of you know, I this is gonna be a touchy subject that I'm about to enter into, but one of the roles for this would be addressing ableism. And ableism isn't always overt, but it is prevalent, and, it can affect, the degree to which adherence to federal law is prioritized. It can affect the way that that law is interpreted. And so it's not about whether you like people with disabilities. It's it's about whether you adhere to the federal law. Could you define ableism for us

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: so we all understand the correct definition, please? Yep. It is

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Windsor-1) – Bill Sponsor]: bias regarding people with disabilities. So it may look different to different people. I can tell you from my own experience just walking with a cane, that even among my colleagues' experience, I hear comments, and, I don't hear derogatory comments, but I hear comments that show that, some of my colleagues don't, understand why it matters being able to get around this building. Why does it matter being able to when the when the elevator when the back elevator is down, why does that matter to people with disabilities? We don't have access to the mezzanine level of this building at all when the back elevator is down. And so it may seem like we're just whining about the elevator being down, but it actually does matter for our work. And so it's it's little things like that that actually, you know, that is ableism. That is brushing off a, you know, a a something that's valid as being

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So minimizing the issue. Minimizing the issue. Okay. Then from a

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: from a it's access. It's equal access. And, again, it's not always intended. It might be unconscious, but there was an incident with someone on my committee a few years ago when we got back from COVID where there was this period of time where some people could testify on Zoom and some people couldn't for different reasons. If you were sick or if you were infectious, you had to be home at Zoom. But that same thing didn't extend, that same allowance didn't exist to somebody who had difficulty walking when we didn't shovel the driveways. No one thought to shovel the driveway so they were safe enough for someone with a disability to get into the building. And then the rules did not, so there was a member of the committee who was not allowed to vote because they could not have access to the same accommodations or the same it just is it's conscious, it can be conscious and derogatory or it could be unconscious and I don't think about it in terms of in terms of making sure that everyone has access.

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Windsor-1) – Bill Sponsor]: It's also about I mean, the ADA creates a base level of autonomy. It's really about autonomy. These accommodations are not add ons. They're not luxuries. They are there to create autonomy. We shouldn't necessarily have to ask for ways to get inside the building. We shouldn't have to ask for, how do I interact with this committee if I can't get into the committee room?

[Katie McLinn (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Or

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: how am I supposed to

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Windsor-1) – Bill Sponsor]: go to the doctor's office when the actual doorway is too narrow for a wheelchair to get inside? Like, I I I may seem like I'm making a big deal about wanting to get inside the doctor's office, but, actually, it's about autonomy, and it should be a right, and it should be not something that I have to make a big deal about. I should have the same ability to get inside the doctor's office as everybody else.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Thank you. This has been very helpful and interesting. If you want to stay there for a second or not, does not matter. Katie, we have an amendment that I'd like to have Katie go over. Okay. We're running late already. Go ahead, Mike.

[Michael Nigro (Member)]: I just wanna quickly say that I I appreciate what you're doing here, and this could apply to any of us in a second.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yes.

[Michael Nigro (Member)]: I have a neighbor who went to Hawaii for their twentieth wedding anniversary and broke her spine body surfing. Happen to any of us in a second.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yes, life can change in an instant and we all have

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: to eat this thing. Just to go? Yeah.

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay. I thought it was going

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: to be a lot more complicated. On this one, the miscellaneous bill, should be very simple.

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Windsor-1) – Bill Sponsor]: Mike, the thing is about that, that some Jessica can change in a second. And also, disability is the only demographic or state where it's both permanent and temporary, which is why all of these facets of the ADA should be adhered to anyway, so that if anybody, if you're in a temporary state, you should still be able to do all these things. You shouldn't have ask for extra.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Should still be able to get to the mezzanine. Exactly. Wayne?

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: I empathize completely. I have family members that are disabled. All of sudden, there's been some that have been and haven't been. And and I know all about that. But the issue here is more about coordinator across all state agencies. We're obligated. State agencies are obligated in the ADA to do these things, and I believe they're doing this. So did you take testimony from the agencies to Get an idea of the broad suite of compliance with ADA, what the agencies are doing and how they're doing it. Did you take that kind of testimony?

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Windsor-1) – Bill Sponsor]: Well, I

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: have answered that question. Several of us have asked that, and the answer is they did not. They took testimony from other places.

[Joint Fiscal Office analyst (name not stated)]: Right. So, have

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: to go to the restroom. Yeah, okay. So,

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: what I would like to do, and I've already Rep. Burroughs already knows that I'm going to be doing this, is, I have asked Katie for an amendment to take the money out and send it to the Senate. I would like this to get over to the Senate. The whole thing is going be dependent upon the money, obviously. But I think we need to move it along. This may come up at the committee of conference with this committee at the end of the session. But we know that we have the money at this point. But rather than have the bill die on our wall, I would like to get it over the Senate so that we keep it in play. And then by the end of the session, we will know whether there's funding available for this. So Katie, is

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Windsor-1) – Bill Sponsor]: that what's up here? Our It's your amendment. Yeah.

[Katie McLinn (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So this, if you remember when we just walked through the bill, sections two and three, two was the appropriation, three was the effective date. So this amendment strikes out sections two and three and replaces it with just this section two. This has the Act taking effect on 07/01/2026, provided that the sum of $150,000 has been appropriated in fiscal year twenty seven budget for the ADA Coordinator position.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Any questions on that?

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: Another, if I may?

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah, it's okay.

[David Yacovone (Member)]: I have mixed feelings on this, not because it's not important to check the bridges. Was wondering, part of me said, well, we could ask the secretary of administration to find a position in the position pool out of the whatever 8,000 positions in the funding and redirect it here. Then a part of me said, maybe this should go. And I know these words won't set well with you, but I appreciate it. Maybe it should go to government operations to find out what's the best way of doing this in government. Somebody needs to hear from aging commissioner, they need to hear from the secretary of government. There's a lot that has not yet been done around this. Yeah. Now so in the end, let's get we pass this without the money. It comes at the end of the year. I have no confidence any of those it could happen in the senate where Go senate. The happens. I feel like I'm passing a bill that's incomplete to the senate. Won't be the first time. Won't be the last time. Yeah. So I can acquiesce.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Okay. So I'm gonna suggest that we maybe not vote right now. And I maybe do a little more talking about how this can proceed. At the end of the day, if we can get this over to the senate, I would like to do that, and maybe they can take a little more testimony over there. We're we're running up against the deadline with Friday to get things out of this body. And so that's what I'm concerned about. So this was kind of a We're way to do not committing the money, but we want

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Windsor-1) – Bill Sponsor]: to keep moving the bill along.

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I appreciate that. So that's

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: where I ended up. Okay, so thank you very much all of you for coming in. More to come on this one, we'll let you know, and we'll take it up later. Thank you very much. Okay. So next up, not what I thought it was, but here we are. Eric, you up next for us? Think so. Okay. You're gonna hear nine thirty seven, a walk through of miscellaneous judiciary procedures. And the chair of house judiciary has trusted this to Eric, so we'll go with that.

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Thank you, I appreciate that.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Is this a fiscal note for this altro?

[Joint Fiscal Office analyst (name not stated)]: It's not a fiscal note Madam Chair, but I can speak for the ladies in the back

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: of the system. Okay, that sounds just fine, thank you.

[Chris Rupe (Joint Fiscal Office)]: So there will be one coming for a ways and means.

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Is this

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: in Ways and Means now? Yes, they're going to vote it somewhere. Okay, so this is one of the ones we're going to hear but not vote on as we try to get through everything. Yeah, and by the way, the other committee voted ten-one on that coordinator bill. Meant to mention that in some just FYI. Okay. Hi, Eric.

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Hi, good morning, everybody. Eric Fitzpatrick with the Office of Legislative Counsel, here to talk with the committee for a few minutes about the annual Miscellaneous Judiciary Procedures Bill, H. Nine thirty seven. And as you might expect with the miscellaneous bill, there's a number of different pieces to it that are sort of discrete, 30 ish discrete pieces involved in the bill. And I'm not entirely sure what the committee's interest is,

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: to be

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: honest. So I don't know either.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: High level and tell us about the money.

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Windsor-1) – Bill Sponsor]: I would just say Okay. Meet you.

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Should I skip right to the money? Because high level and I could do it, but it's gonna take a little bit, and most of it is really not to do with money at all. In our committee. Do we know why The only speculation I would have is sec sections 15, and I guess that would be 18.

[Michael Nigro (Member)]: So I'll give you a moment

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: of background as to what's going on in these two sections.

[David Yacovone (Member)]: Okay, maybe why. Page 17. Thank you. Yep.

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So what's this involved? It's what's known as the Crime Victims Restitution Special Fund. And this is a fund from which crime victims can be reimbursed for their pecuniary losses that they suffer as the result of a crime. There's also an avenue within the existing law that because ordinary, if you think about someone being a a victim of crime, in order to have their full range of pecuniary losses reimbursed, that doesn't happen till after the criminal conviction takes place. Right? Because, there has to be this, legal decision that the person actually that the crime actually was committed, and the person was a victim in order for them to get their full range of losses, reimbursed. However, there's also a provision in existing law for what's known as an advance, an advance payment. So before the full criminal proceeding has been completed, before a conviction has been had, crime victims can get a small or I shouldn't say small, because it all depends on the case. A portion of their losses reimbursed up front before the end of the case. That's been existing law for a number of years. However, that amount of the advance when the law was initially passed was capped at $10,000 So $10,000 per loss associated with a crime could be reimbursed could be advanced to the person out of the fund. A few years ago, that advance cap, the maximum amount that could be advanced, was reduced by the legislature from $10,000 to $5,000. And I think it was an issue related to the solvency of the fund and how many claims were being made. And rather than advance them be advance as much money as they had been prior to the conviction, they wanted to advance a little bit less. So that happened a few years ago. As is often the case when, we're amending statutes that have a bunch of different references in them, we didn't catch all the places in statutes where $10,000 had to be changed to $5,000. So that's all this is. Purely technical. It's something that's that was a law that was passed a few years ago, but we didn't and so it's in practice. They've already that's already existed that the the $10,000 cap has been reduced to $5,000 ever since the the change was made. But there's a few other places in statute where we didn't make a corresponding conforming change to reduce the 10 k to five k. So that's what's going on in the miscellaneous judiciary bill. Sections 15, you'll see there's one two places in section 15 where the $10,000 cap is reduced to five. Well, actually, three places, to subdivision two. Right. Because that's a

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: that may be why it's in ways of being threatened.

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. I think it is. Yep. And now there's also there's a connection to a a fee issue, a small fee issue

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: as well. And the other one is section 18,

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: which is another example of the money. Yep. Thank you. And you'll see, again, it's just another correction of $10,000 being changed to $5,000. I have it online sixteen sixteen, seventeen, I guess. And I think, as far as I know, I could certainly give the committee a high level walkthrough of the rest of the miscellaneous stuff if

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: you're interested. But thank you for the offer. Don't go away, though. Yeah. Yeah. I've got Mike, Lynn, Wayne, and I do want to have Chris mention whatever he needs to mention for the fiscal note. Go ahead.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: I want a move to approve.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Let's wait until we hear the rest of it, but thank you. Yes. No, we actually don't have possession of the bill, so we can't do that. This is part of our hearing all the bills. You can come back and just, in forty five minutes, vote a whole lot of bills. But, yeah, just real quick.

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: Yeah. I remember discussion about this restitution fund.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yep.

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: Where does the what's the source of that?

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: There's a number of different sources. There some appropriations are made, but also there's I just happen to have pulled that up. So so any funds appropriated by the general assembly, donations, there's a there's a fee. I don't know if anybody has ever looked closely, I myself, when if you've ever had a speeding ticket or anything like that, you look at the ticket for all the list of fees that are added to the actual offense, and there are fees for the Victims' Competition and there's a fee for the Crime Victims' Restitution Special Fund. So those fees go in there as well.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: Wayne? I think you just answered the question. It's two funds that money goes into.

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes, the victim's compensation and this one. Yep. Exactly.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Chris, tell us about this. It's even shorter than the last fiscal.

[Chris Rupe (Joint Fiscal Office)]: It is. Mine will be verbal right now. Please object fiscal. There actually will be a very brief one paragraph fiscal note that my colleague loathing was drafting for waits and means. As for this committee's jurisdiction, I have nothing to add to what the council said. There's really no impact of aligning those statutory provisions to the current practice around the restitution fund. And that's why the House Clerk Senate here, Why it was sent to ways and means is due to one really small provision in section two that has to do with automatically reinstating extended driver's licenses then get it there for people between the ages of what 12 and 18 or Globally when kids are using update ID under restricting there's a series of violations there one of which is a license suspension, this provision would automatically reinstate that after various time periods. By making that automatic, it means a $96 license reinstatement fee would not be

[David Yacovone (Member)]: paid to

[Chris Rupe (Joint Fiscal Office)]: BMG and Logan estimates just on the number of people involved that this would be an impact of the T fund of like the ballpark of about $8,000 of foregone revenue, which in the scope of

[Joint Fiscal Office analyst (name not stated)]: a $320 plus million fund is.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Right, okay. So if we had this bill in hand, would be asking us to vote on it, but we don't have it yet. Do we know when they're voting it out of Ways and Means?

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: This morning, I think, right?

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Okay, so we will get it based by today. We're on the floor this afternoon. It'll come to us this afternoon, I'm guessing, and then so we could vote on it this afternoon. I'm going to try to get us voting out as many bills with no money as we possibly can. So I have this handy little list that autumn is organized, so we have a lot. Yellow means no, we've heard it, but no vote yet.

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: So we do have a

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: few of those. There's a total of 19 or 20 bills that we have to get out of this committee by Friday. And a lot of them, at one point, I'm going to set aside forty five minutes and we'll just wing through a whole bunch of them. But whether they have money, there may be some things that we want to talk about in the committee as a result, because some of it's on your priority list also. Yes? We only have three left that we need to hear. Okay. We actually have Excellent. Three left Yeah, so we're working on that, and I'm in close touch with the chair of ways and means about when they are voting their bills out. There may be one or two bills that they're not going to vote out until Friday morning. So it'll be on the floor.

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It'll get referred to us, and we

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: will have to vote them out right away Friday, which is why I want us to hear them ahead of time so we aren't hearing them for the first time Friday at 09:35 and then trying to vote them out. Giving us all a little bit of time for that. So we're working behind.

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It's week. It's good time. Yes, for sure.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So thank you, Eric. I appreciate it.

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Absolutely. Happy to help. Any other questions? Let me know for sure.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yep. We will do so. All right. Good to see you, Eric. Thank you. Okay. So committee, let us take has scheduled now. That looks good. Let's take a break, and we'll do a little bit of committee discussion on the budget. It's not going to take an hour, unless you all have a lot

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: of things you want to say.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: It may not take an hour. And then we're going to hear a bill that's ultimately going to the plan is to put the appropriate language from that into the budget. So we wouldn't actually vote out the bill. It would be part of the budget. Medicaid, this is the transfer of Medicaid school based services. It's going to go to Diva? Yeah, the Age of Human Services, where they can administer it more effectively. And they're still at Park for AOE. It's not canceling a program or anything. It's just of tracking. So that's going to go probably in the budget. And then this afternoon, Douglas Farnham is coming with a disaster recovery proposal to support some of the Northeast Kingdom towns that were hit by the flooding that FEMA has refused to support the state of Oman in. So that as well. And another bill Theresa Chairwoman will be in this afternoon, I think, to finish up with the money piece of the homelessness prevention bill that we heard yesterday. There'll be time to continue working on your budgets if you have language that you need to be doing or you need to dig deeper into some of the things within your priorities. I've been in contact with James about a couple, like was this actually new money or is some of it new money and some of it was in the governor's budget so that we understand exactly how much we're talking about various things and other sources of funds. So we'll come back and have a little conversation about all of everybody's priorities. James will have the list completed of what everybody did. It's anonymized. So your names are not on it, but we'll take a look and just have a chance to review that and make comments and see what we are all seeing and observing that. That's not posted, that's going to be for us. Dave?

[David Yacovone (Member)]: When we passed the BAA, we used some money from the Nursing Home Extraordinary Financial Relief to fund the ERC-one. Yes. And I can't recall how we funded the case management. Same thing. Same then. I don't think as I recall, looking at the list, not sure if those made any of the priority list, they may have and I overlooked them, but I don't know where they are in the process. Have a special price for for those.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: We funded them, that was when we did that. So we'll make sure that that's initial. It was on some of our priority lists and others didn't remember that we did it or whatever. Thank you, so we got it. That's going to have to be taken care of

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: outside the budget. Thank you.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Okay,

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: so

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: let's take a break.