Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Good afternoon. This is the House Appropriations Committee. It's Friday, 03/20/2024. It is just after 04:00, and we are continuing to work our way. Emily from Joint Fiscal is going to give us some update on some numbers. Sometimes things change at the last minute. And we have two more bills to hear, which is age 67, the government accountability pilot bill, which we'll talk about. And then age seven seventy two, which is the landlord tenant bill. And then we're going to have some other spreadsheets, I think, besides what we're talking about today. I don't know what else we're going to get from Emily. And then at some time, they're going to tell us we have all the stuff we're going get from them, and we'll do a stop hold. That's where I think he lied. Okay. Emma's going to share her screen and pass out. Can you send me to Zoom? Yeah. You. Okay.

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office)]: For the record, Emily Burns from the Joint Fiscal Office. So I have a quick spreadsheet, the late break ins, what's been updated since we last met yesterday to talk about the numbers. I'll email a copy to Autumn. I realized I didn't do that yet.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Put this

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office)]: up on the screen.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Am I in the meeting?

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: Yep. Okay.

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office)]: So since we met last night, there have been a few updates on the budget front. So your colleagues in house government operations passed the FY twenty twenty seven Pay Act bill earlier this afternoon. In that Pay Act bill, the numbers were finalized regarding how much the Pay Act bill was going to cost between the executive branch, the judicial branch, and the legislative branch. Your budget construct was carrying a $2,000,000 increase in anticipation of needs at the judicial and the legislative branches. When the final numbers came in from the executive branch, they actually had about $2,000,000 decrease in their Pay Act need. So the net impact of they could lower the governor's recommended Pay Act number, which means the 2,000,000 that you all had set aside for anticipated additional needs is no longer needed. So the net impact of the executive branch's changes and the additional needs in the legislative and judicial branch mean that there is a $2,280,000 difference between the version you guys were working from and what's actually going to be appropriated in the Pay Act. So there's another $2,000,000 available to spend in FY 'twenty seven. So if we take that additional funds from 2020, the updated pay act numbers, plus you had a little bit of money that was unallocated on the bottom line when we finished up yesterday, just shy of half $1,000,000, It brings the available funds to the budget to $2,780,000 And then I can do want me to walk through these? Do you want to walk through them?

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So I can talk about this. We had age 67, which is the government accountability pilot project, on our spreadsheet that we had liked at the time for $150,000 I recommended taking it off because they actually needed $150,000 for two years. And I didn't think that we would be able to come back next year. There are people in the buildings who think this is an extremely important bill. We're going to hear it in a moment. And so in talking with the joint fiscal office, who would be the ones who would be getting this fund, rather than doing one time this year and hoping we had one time for next year when they have to hire a limited service position person, they don't really want to say to them, well, we we have you for a year. We hope we'll get money for the next year. It just makes sense to do one time for $300,000 so that will just cover the project and cover the bill. And then the next piece is the towns that I'm calling it the Northeast Kingdom flooding that I was not here when Doug Farnham came in. We're not using the 50,000,000, but this seemed like an appropriate way to, without setting precedent, to be able to support those towns with the numbers that he gave us on the sheet. So that's there. And there was also, we learned that I am not the expert on this. There was a hope that this supervised visitation program was going to be able to get money from the Chittenden. And can you explain this? I'm not going to do it justice.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Actually, Trevor is the best people to explain Chittenden's money.

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: No, I mean, I can explain it. Yeah, the money part. Okay. Yeah, the Chittenden's project, the interest rate.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: And what does Chittenden stand for? In need of Children in need of supervision.

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: Anyway, that money was there, and the use of that money has to be connected to the juvenile docket and district system, whether it's a judge, whether it's, it's gotta be related to that. I didn't determine, so I reached out to the judiciary after talking to other folks about this and asked for their opinion back. The opinion I got back from Judge Sowen, the administrative judge, is that there's not enough of a nexus between what's being asked and what that's for. It's not available.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So it wasn't available? Not available. Okay, and then actually, Mrowicki, do you want to explain what this is about, the program?

[Michael Mrowicki (Member)]: Sure. There are situations where there are visitations arranged for parents who have either at least temporarily lost custody of their children, or there's a situation domestic violence where it's felt that a visit has to have supervisor aspect to it, where children or their partner might be at risk. And sometimes even just a drop off where the parents are not there together, but one parent's dropping off the kids. So these are held public places, neutral sites, these visitations, and there's somebody there, something that I have done to be that presence there to make sure that things go well. Kids can have at least some contact with the parent.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Well, there's never been enough money to really support this statewide, and there are five counties in which it's not operational, because there isn't enough money. And this is really an equity issue, as it's been pointed out to us.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: And

[Unidentified Committee Member]: there is language in the human services memo that would ask DCF is going to receive money from the Center for Crime Victim Services that goes to the network facilitating these visits. It has $100,000 in its own budget, so the Office of Child Support. That together isn't enough. But human services would like to ask DCF and its partners to come up with a plan for long term sustainability. And so that would be language that I kept out thus far since we didn't know if it

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: was going go into the budget. Now So this would be one time money for $125,000 It is a priority of the committee. We thought we had a funding source and we didn't. So do 125,000 here.

[Michael Mrowicki (Member)]: I think it has to do with maybe reduced federal funding. Will become a fee for that. And

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: then the remaining balance at the moment is planned to go into the CIT fund deficit over ABS. Something bear with us. Even Adam. So, any questions

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: or comments? Would it be inappropriate in the web section where the notes are, or a little comment to say that Memorial County should be priority area.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Appropriate. Or appropriate. I know it's desperate. I mean, don't know what the language is, but I would, is it, is the intent for counties that are not, that are underserved? I think there are five areas.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: There are five counties, and I I don't actually know which ones they are. Think one of them.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yeah. They have to. I

[Unidentified Committee Member]: think it's in my stuff. Alright. Somewhere.

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: Forgive me for reaping. I went out of my lane again.

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Be careful. Do you want the language to say for underserved counties specifically or just generic for the program?

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Let me just look that up,

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: and I will get to the language. So for now, I'm Okay. Could ask something. Here's Tim. Thank you. I'm just pulling rabbits out of this house. So I want to get a temperature check. Are we Okay with putting this in the budget? Not seeing no. So let's add this to the budget, the spreadsheets. And so, Emily, we're going to get one big spreadsheet from you today, or what are we going to get? So many. What else are we going to get from you today?

[Emily Burns (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Well, have We can put all I can put most of it into the sort of big spreadsheet that we need to go through, and we you can decide if you want to walk through every single line item that we've rehashed a few times or not, or just say, yep, write a bill that has these in it.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Right. I don't think we'll need to go through every single line item. But it would be good to just see the big picture of it. So we can send you a way to go do that. Is that what you need? I know we still have a couple more language things that were talked about with Grady this morning. One of the things that came out was the and maybe you can share this with Grady if everybody agrees. VSAC asked for spending authority to spend up to $400,000 on that aspirations program. It's not changing their dollar amount. It's just they've been level funded in that particular area for many, many years. Their budget goes up, but they haven't been allowed to raise that up. So I'm comfortable raising that to 400. They would just be able to language change from 300 to 400, but no new money. Are you okay with that?

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: Yeah, maybe Brady knows

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: about Yeah, okay, so Brady knows about it? All right, so I think we're set with that. We're going to do skills. Let me just see where we are on that. Close to almost on time. Tim here? Oh, good. Age 67. Oh, wait.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: The initial we were talking about with the secretary of state. If it stays in the fund, anything that's not swept, I can inject the fund that can with the Secretary of State. Right.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Age 67, and before we get to amendments, we need a refresher on the bill because somebody asked me what was in it and I could say a sentence, it's like another big picture, but I've lost the rest of it.

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: Happy to provide that.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: Age 67, that would be like last February.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yes. It came to us. It came to us, and then it went back to GovOps, and then it came back to us this year.

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: Right. For the record, Tim Devlin, legislative counsel. I last spoke to the committee on this, I think it was ten days ago, it seems like.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: It's only been ten days.

[Catherine Bennington (Joint Fiscal Office)]: But, we were

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: happy nevertheless to provide that refresher. This is a bill that essentially will task the joint fiscal committee with a certain project to be called the Pilot Government Accountability Project, which aims to examine governmental practices, make recommendations on improving those practices, and develop effective tools for evaluating government accountability. Indeed, there is a long history of various iterations of was the Government Accountability Committee or GAC. There was Government Accountability, it was sunset replaced by a summer GAC, and that was sunset. And then there were various proposals to bring forward those recommendations ultimately resulting in this project to be conducted by the Joint Fiscal Committee.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Welcome email, Floris. It's not on our committee page. Autumn's going to

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: put it up. Not a problem.

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: And here we have it.

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: It's not a

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: very long build. It's only five pages. Right.

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: So we have of quoting some of the language from the assessment right there. We have some kind of purpose language beginning, which is aspirational by nature. And then we have the charge of the committee supposed to be going through specific for this project. Items like examining issues selected by the committee, review of program performance, consideration of evidence and evaluation, identification of effective practices and improvement opportunities, and support for alignment of policy, funding, and outcomes, monitoring of following follow-up actions, coordination with existing oversight entities, surveying of data, and data impacts.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Let's see, there we are.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: The big thing for me is that there's this assignment with a joint fiscal committee that in addition to its other duties, we'll conduct a pilot government accountability's Joint Fiscal Committee to examine the practice. But the idea is to pick a project that's pretty small in consultation with the chief fiscal officer of joint fiscal and speaker and the president pro tem, leaders of major political parties will select an issue. And I would guess that it's going to have to be a fairly narrow issue. It's not gonna be like, let's look at DCF.

[Catherine Bennington (Joint Fiscal Office)]: I know it's two year term, the contract, but then obviously we have $150,000

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: and

[Catherine Bennington (Joint Fiscal Office)]: I have to get you here noted down that was for one year, but are they going to pick two projects like one for one year and one for another year? Maybe,

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Catherine, you can come to the table if you don't mind. Thank

[Catherine Bennington (Joint Fiscal Office)]: you, Catherine Bennington with the Joint Fiscal Office. I guess it's what I envisioned. I think we should do the first thing and figure it out. Maybe we do two this second year. If you remember, we talked about modeling this on the IT consultants that we started with. So the first year would be a year to figure out how you're measuring things, what the report looks like, what you do. And so I think it depends a little bit on what we find. And whether it's a big one or two small ones, I don't have a strong opinion on that. And I will work with people like I try to work with a broad range of people to reach some consensus on what the topic should be.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: This is all fictional, just take it for The auditor does their reports. They pick a department, and they study some piece of it, not the whole thing, and then they come out with a report. That's the auditor's opinion. They've got a different point of view of what they're looking for. How would the projects that you would take be different? What we

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: get as a work product?

[Catherine Bennington (Joint Fiscal Office)]: So this will be a part of the discussion about building what you want and talking through all that. But in my mind, it will be things like, for example, trying to figure out when you all pass a policy, what is the goal of it? How are you measuring success? And so the auditor has I don't want to go on an audit to see if you've paid your bills appropriately and things like that. This is more like you passed one of these policy bills that you passed today. And so what did you think would happen? And did that happen? And if it didn't happen, was it because there wasn't enough funding? So there wasn't enough state employees to do whatever it is or whatever? Or is it because the just didn't work out? Or is it because that isn't the thing that would actually solve the problem? And I'm being a little vague here. But it's a little bit more, to me, less accounting. I know the oddity does more than accounting. It's a little bit broader. Trying to also, I think, as I understand the Government Accountability Committee, and I did not staff them. So I would want to get input from them as well. But to help you all, as you craft bills, to think about how you're crafting them and what you're asking for and how you're going to expect to see success of whatever it is you are working on.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: It sounds like it's an echo of actually doing the work of rebuilding based accountability to see if it actually is working.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: That's right.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: Okay, thank you.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: And if you cast the net pretty wide in terms of couching the questions you want to look at, you could get some things. Any resistance within an agency for getting something done? What impediments are there? So it could be a lot of other things. I think it would be a cool project, especially if you flush it out well and brainstorm all the possible avenues to go down. So

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: I think we just have a better understanding of the project, or the bill. Sorry. We don't know the project yet. Okay. So I'm losing my camera. So there was an amendment from gov ops, and then there's our amendment? Do I have that direct?

[Tim Devlin (Legislative Counsel)]: Yes. The bill, as you probably have it, is actually a strike all amendment brought forward by the House Government Operations and Military Affairs Committee, and then amendment from this committee that I hear right now. So we have this impacts section three penultimate section having to do with the legislative joint fiscal office consultant or which enables the in support of this project, JFO to either contract with a consultant for the two year term or create a new exempt limited service position for a two year term. The highlighted portion here just indicate the new text. It did say temporary service position, which has been changed to limited so that the position may receive benefits. And then the appropriation has was a 150,000. It's been changed to 300,000, and then to be used for project personnel over a two year period. That's been specified actually.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: That was pretty clear what we're doing, right? The reason I'm confused, we don't need to post, let's unpost that government ops amendment from last year. It was from the wrong year, and it was throwing me off entirely. That's why I was so confused, but it's irrelevant to this bill. I've spoken to Supreme Court. Opposing the bill and not the amendment that they had from a year ago with Yeah. A different So it's the bill and it's our amendment. It's the bill and that's it. Lynn? Go off, try to straighten all of them in. Just Right, that's the bill. Yeah, thanks. Lynn? So we're authorizing essentially $150,000 in 2027. And we're doing a one time appropriation, a one time appropriation of $300,000 that can be used over a two year period, FY 'twenty seven and 'twenty eight. So we're not binding future legislators because we're appropriating the money now. So where does that come to work? That was the $300,000 that was on that spreadsheet that Emily just gave us, the thing that looks like it says 30, age 67. Yes, okay. So that's already So we've been counted, yes. Okay, just want to make sure. I am not going to spend more than we do

[Unidentified Committee Member]: have a lot of zeros.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Do you have the right number of zeros?

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Yes, there's

[Catherine Bennington (Joint Fiscal Office)]: a period. It's got the sense in

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: that too. We had a bill this morning that had 300,000. It's a made up number. Anyway, nope, that's the right number. All right, any other questions on age 67 from the committee? Are we ready to vote on our amendment and then on the bill?

[Catherine Bennington (Joint Fiscal Office)]: So moved.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Thank you, that's on the amendment. The amendment. That's the John and Dave show. Dave and John. So we are going to vote on our amendment, which is the one that you see on the screen. Not seeing any further discussion, when the clerk is ready.

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: Representative Bluemle?

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yes.

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: Representative Dickinson?

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yes. Yes.

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: Representative Feltus? Yes. Representative Kascenska? Yes. Representative Vogt? Yes. Representative Mrowicki? Yes. Representative Nigro? Yes. Senator Squirrell? Yes. Doctor. Allen Stevens? Yes. Representative Yacovone? Yes. Senator Keisha? Yes. Eleven-zero-zero-one.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Thank you. And then I'll entertain a motion to approve age 67 as amended by gov ops and further amended by appropriations.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: I'll make that up.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: They'll do John and Dave this time. Okay. Let's call the roll, please.

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: Representative Bluemle? Yes. Representative Dickinson? Yes. Representative Feltus? Yes. Representative Kascenska? Yes. Representative Laroche? Yes. Representative Mrowicki? Yes. Representative Nyberg? Yes. Representative Sperle, yes. Representative Steven? Yes. Representative Taxoni? Yes. John? Yes. Have a seat.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Thank you. Ask the legislative. Doctor. Tom, this is your bill. Pardon me? While we're just here, I just texted Mike Nigro, who's distracted. I think Mike actually did the yield bill last year because it's tax. Trevor's sliding seat job. So, one You are speaking here, but whatever. We'll switch it over to nine table footing.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: What are we doing?

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Nine the yield bill. Nine

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: I already signed it.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Did you already sign it? Gonna change it, but we can make the change. You can change it. You can

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: change it. And You

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: then change he can say no.

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: If this come from you, I can't do that.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: No, if you guys can arrange that, that would be great. Thank you. Thank you very much.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: You're very welcome.

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: It'll be very short. Thank you.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: I did see it quickly, but let's thank you. The choice to say my that feels more like the right person. I don't know why. I just Yeah. $7.72. So our last bill, besides our budget, is H772, which is the landlord tenant bill. And we have an amendment. Judiciary had an amendment are we going to see that and did they they don't have possession we have possession they did a straw and will you also come come to the table camera yes ma'am thank you and who else is is there anybody from jfo on this I don't know. I think we really need Cameron for this one for the most part. Phil came to us. Had Martin Malone, chair of house judiciary, came this week Tuesday, no, I'll get to it Wednesday, wasn't it? Two days ago. And talked to us about what they were looking at, because he had talked to the judiciary branch in about days and things like that. I think he actually did you go over his amendment with us at the time? He may not have. May have talked a little bit. Mark?

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: We have, yeah.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: We have his amendment. So we saw that. It's slightly changed. Okay, so we have a new amendment. So let's look at the judiciary amendment. Is that going to be offered on the floor?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes, I believe so.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: And I think Rep Burdick was a sponsor of the Good Show.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: He ended up co sponsoring it.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: I ended up co sponsoring the video. Yeah, I kind of really lost track of that. So it's All the stuff, please.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay. For the record, Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel. I will share my screen and walk through what the judiciary committee just looked at and straw polled out this afternoon. The House General Committee reviewed it as well and did a straw poll finding it favorable for the individuals who were there. And I think they were holding it open for the remainder individuals who were not present. So we walked through this just the other day. There were just some slight alterations from the version that we reviewed. So the version here that you see, as mentioned, it is Oh. Sponsored by the chair and the vice chair of the judiciary committee.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So hang on, I'm not seeing that amendment on our page. Apologies

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: on my end, I did not share that with Paul.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: I don't see it. Draft 7.1, Malone's amendment. Yes, ma'am. Okay, so Malone and Burditt were the two that put their names on the cosponsor's amendment. Okay. Yes, ma'am.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And so the the changes that from the from the version that we reviewed the other day, as far as my recollection goes, was found on page three. If you remember, there was some discussion about the motion that can be filed to require a defendant or a tenant in an objectment action to have to pay rent into court. That is current law. And there were some changes from the House General Committee that would remove the ability of the court to require partial payment of rent into court. And so the report from that committee would require full payment of rent in all instances. And the amendment that we reviewed at the time that was being proposed by the chair of the judiciary committee removed the strike through of the language in the sub G on this page, so it would allow the court to issue partial payment or award partial payment, but it conditioned that sub G under two circumstances. At one point, the individual had to show that there was an undue hardship, and then there was a second subdivision there that would allow for partial payment in the event that the landlord was not meeting the landlord's obligations of habitability or other obligations imposed under that chapter. Just raising that up because that's how the amendment was was looked at when we reviewed it last. All of that information has been struck, the the conditions that were being imposed on the sub g. So so what you have now is this amendment keeps the recommendation from the house general committee of striking partial payment up here in Subdivision D. So if the court initially finds that the defendant is obligated to pay rent, the court has to order full payment of rent into court under this section. However, the judiciary this amendment that the judiciary committee found favorable for the individuals that were there would allow a tenant to request that that be reduced, and it doesn't put any conditions on the court of having to make a finding that either the tenant can't pay or the landlord isn't complying with obligations. So it gives that discretion back to the court to determine that circumstances exist that should require there be partial payment of rent into court. So as you can see, it's not new language. It's just it's recommending that the house general recommendation be undone, essentially, but the language be kept to give the court that discretionary authority. Does that make sense? Okay.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yes, Ben. I'm trying to follow in between the two amendments, and I'm not quite sure where you are. According to what my notes are, is that Section three was eliminated and replaced. Is that correct?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Go to the top of the next page, page three. TAP, violated language, has been removed in this 7.1.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: That's fair. Right. So is that the G that's crossed out here, or where is that G?

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Yes, ma'am. That is this one here.

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: Yes, ma'am.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: And the little I?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So the little I is being recommended in the amendment. And it has, in some instance, been there from towards the beginning of the work on this amendment coming from the chair. That is the other change, though, is there was a second sentence in the little I here. So the I was initially put there to allow the parties to come to an agreement. So again, initially, the House General Committee was taking all authority away from the court to issue partial payment, but they wanted to allow the parties to come to some agreement and for the court to honor that. And so that's why the little I was initially put in place to say, if the parties come to an agreement at any point, they can motion to the court to reduce payment. That's still remaining. Right. And then there was a second sentence in that subdivision that said that they needed to provide an affidavit to the court outlining the facts of the agreement. Some of the parties felt that it wasn't necessary. I agree. It isn't necessarily this isn't necessary if the parties have come to an agreement. And if the court wants the information about the terms of the agreement, the court can ask them for it at that point when the motions are filed. So it wasn't absolutely necessary to have. Some of the parties wanted it struck. I didn't have a legal concern with it. So that second sentence is similar.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: And

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I believe my recollection is those are the two changes from the amendment that we reviewed previously with you all earlier this week from sponsor. So the remainder of the changes here, the change to the process, which requires if you remember, we talked about this new ejectment process and the language being put in and the threatening behavior for the expedited hearing. All of this information remains the same from when we reviewed it last. And then the other big change from the House General Committee's recommendation is the strike through of the appeal of a trespass order. That's the third instance of amendment there on the bottom of page eight.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: The bottom of page eight.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And this hasn't changed since the last time we discussed, just highlighting that these are the other amendments that are in this proposal striking the appeal language under the new trespass so a landlord can issue an order against trespass to an individual under certain circumstances. There was some appeal language in there in the committee and hearing testimony from the judiciary and understanding that there is no appeal in the current trespass statute for when an owner of property issues a no trespass against an individual, they don't have appeal rights to that. So they structured that in the g two. And then the last instance of amendment, if you all remember, the chair walking through was removing the confidentiality of ejectment records provisions that were in the house general report. So as I mentioned, the main changes from what you reviewed the other day are the two things I mentioned about partial payment into court and then the fact that the vice chair of the committee has now signed on to the proposed amendment.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: The straw vote out of this is on page seven zero four?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I believe so. No one who was present voted against it. And I believe it was six or seven members at the present.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: This was judiciary.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And the General and Housing Committee was seven-zero-four. I know that.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Oh, no. That doesn't oh, yes, seven-zero. So they were both seven-zero-four.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I believe so. I don't remember if judiciary was six or seven. I remember House general was seven.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: I remember being told that judiciary from Martin, actually, I used seven-four. It sounds like they're both Seven-zero-four. Tom, did you have a question?

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: No question, yeah. Oh, okay.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Your hand was doing its I have a question thing. Okay. I don't want to miss somebody if they have a question. Okay, so that's the amendment from there. And then the last amendment is our amendment.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes, ma'am. I took the liberty of drafting something up, anticipating the possible desires of the committee. And what I've done here is I have a draft 1.1 of this bill. It has three instances of amendment. The first two instances there in section seven and then in section nine are adding the contingency language that you all put into certain programs to leave the program language in place, but indicate that there's no requirement to implement said program unless there's an appropriation that is made in the budget. And so section seven, if you all recall from a little while back when we did the walk through of the underlying bill, this is a credit reporting program through the state treasurer's office, where the state treasurer would work with landlords and tenants to report those rent payments onto the individual tenants' credit reporting to help them build credit. There was a $100,000 appropriation in the appropriation section for that program, and the treasurer's office has indicated they would need those funds to administer the program. So I've added that subsection g at the bottom of that session law section to state that the duty to implement is contingent upon an appropriation in fiscal year twenty seven. And then section nine is requiring CVOEO to do both tenant and landlord training development or to develop a training program for tenants and landlords and to offer that to members of the public, and there was an appropriation for that as well. So I added that subdivision d under the second instance of amendment that the duty to implement that section is contingent upon an appropriation. And then, in the third instance of amendment, I'd struck the appropriations section entirely. Okay,

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: because the 1,000,000 is in the budget for the rental arrears program, and then the fourth one was the 200,000 to CDOEO, and because that's going out to other entities just by striking it, that takes care of that problem. We can't tell them to do something. It's contingent, because they're not a state. Okay. So are people clear on what we did? The money is out. The parts that we wanted to keep are in the budget. Dave? I'm

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: guessing wrong. No, you get it right. I didn't want to pull this off with my indecision. I'll decide on the spot. Yeah,

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: okay. So any questions about our amendment? Okay. So what I'll ask is for us to vote on our amendment. I believe we cannot vote on judiciary's amendment because it's not going to be ours. We can do a straw poll on judiciary's amendment. And then we will vote on the bill as amended. And I think that covers all the amendments.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes, ma'am. There's just your amendments and then the proposed amendment from the chair and vice chair of judiciary.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Does it matter what order we do those two amendments in?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: They do not conflict with each other, so no, ma'am.

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: All right.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: How about we vote on our amendment? We clear on our amendment. I'll entertain a motion to support the appropriations amendment to seven twenty two, seven seventy two. Wayne, is there a second?

[Michael Mrowicki (Member)]: I'll second.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Thank you. Any further discussion on the appropriations amendment? Seeing none, the

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: clerk may call the roll. Representative Bluemle? Yes. Courtland Dickinson? Yes. Representative Feltus? Yes. Representative Kascenska? Yes. Representative Rose? Yes. Representative Roecki? Yes. Representative Nigro? Yes. Representative Squirrell? Yes. Representative Stevens? Yes. Representative Yacovone? Yes. Representative Shout?

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yes. Eleven-zero-zero on our amendment. And now we'll do a straw poll on the judiciary amendment, which Cameron went through also. Do we have any questions on the amendment from judiciary or comments that anybody wants

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: to make? I have comments. Sure. Go ahead, Tom.

[Thomas Stevens (Member)]: They're kind of both for both the amendment and the bills. On a hard no on the judiciary amendment and on the bill at large, I'm not a landlord, and I'm not a tenant. So I just want to make that clear. I'm not coming at it from any particular angle, except for the work that has been done in this building for the last sixteen years. And the rush to change the jurisprudence here in one session without any kind of, in my opinion, without any kind of balance to the stakeholders is disturbing to me. While the judiciary amendment makes some improvements on the changes that are being imposed, The fact that we are proposing to take away, we're trying to, we're taking away at a time after a whole lot of time going back to COVID especially, but even before that, where we were trying to improve relationships between landlords and tenants who were involved in an eviction proceeding, including understanding that 70 of all leases or all tenant landlord relationships are solid. And of the remaining 30%, maybe 15% of that is really hard. That's what this is addressing, it's the really hard pieces. But this bill, in my opinion, changes the power structure here. Landlords always have an advantage over tenants from a legal perspective. Tenants have protections in the law that landlords feel outweigh the temp to landlords strengths. But the fact is by shortening the eviction proceedings, especially for non payment of rent, will create more homelessness in the state Without removing the right to no cause eviction or capping rents, this bill does not offer a continuation of a tenant representation program nor does it propose funding for continuation of a tenant representation program. 80% of all eviction proceedings, in eviction proceedings, 80% of the time a landlord has an attorney and less than 20% a tenant has an attorney. These changes are so substantial to the process that to ask anybody who's being evicted to be able to master procedures is basically asking them to accept their eviction and to move on without any kind of due process. I speak out of my experience with working with these two advocacy, with these two groups, with these two stakeholder groups. Most of the relationships are great or they are at least sufficient. But when it gets to this point of no return where eviction is necessary, it's still my opinion that this bill is going to take away some of the time needed, especially again for nonpayment of rent. I am sympathetic to landlords who have, first of all, to the nonprofit organizations that do not have the same tools as private landlords. They cannot raise rent over inflation. They cannot evict people with no cost. Those two things alone that a private landlord has gives them an advantage over the nonprofit housing providers. So what I'm left with is just feeling like any landlord, and there are landlords that we saw post COVID that would use no fouls eviction as a way to empty out their apartments in order to make them better. They don't have to worry about any of the other four causes. For the people who have suffered through landlords and tenants, who have suffered through the violence that has increased, the damages to the property, I think there's merit to having expedited eviction processes. But this bill doesn't discern between those separates it out, it describes it, but then it includes nonpayment of rent and other reasons for evicting on a short term basis. So I can't support anything that I don't feel has gone through a legitimately long process understanding what this can of worms is and who we're dealing with. And I think in the end, in the simplest way of putting it forward, this will create homelessness at a time when we're trying to reduce homelessness. And I don't believe in pouring gas onto that fire. So I'm going to vote no on this bill. It's not ready for prime time. There are elements of the bill that we're funding, which are sufficient, which are fine. But I think at heart, this bill contradicts all of the work that AHS is doing on creating a program to help end homelessness. Because it's just going to add people to that system. So on a hard no.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Thank you for your comments. Appreciate it. Anybody else want to say anything? Okay. Did we already have a motion on the, we're doing a straw poll on the judiciary one?

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: Yeah.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Is that where we are?

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: Yeah.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Okay, so not hearing any other comments on the amendments, let's take a, this is a straw poll on the judiciary amendment itself, by itself. Okay, let's call the roll.

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: Representative Bluemle?

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Yes.

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: Representative Dickinson? Yes. Representative Feltus? Yes. Representative Kascenska? Yes. Representative Roche? Yes. Representative Mrowicki? Yes. Representative Nigro? Yes. Senator Crowley, yes. Representative Stevens? No. Representative Yacovone? Yes. And Representative Chuck?

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yes.

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: Ten months. Okay.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: And then the final vote for this bill and today is H. Seven seventy two as amended by House district. We can't, but it's false. And I'm trying to see the original bill, can't remember. Did they have an amended bill?

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: That was a surprise call. So amended by House General and Housing, Military Affairs, further amended by House Judiciary,

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: I mean Housing in General. And further amended by Appropriations. Okay. Is there a motion?

[Catherine Bennington (Joint Fiscal Office)]: So moved.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Is there a second? Second. Any further discussion? We know what we're voting on. It's the bill as amended by us. Okay. When you're ready, call the roll, please.

[Trevor Squirrell (Clerk)]: Representative Bluemle? Yes. Representative Dickinson? Yes. Representative Feltus? Yes. Representative Kascenska? Yes. Representative Laroche? Representative Nigro? Yes. Representative Quirrell, yes. Representative Stevens? No. Representative Yacovone? No. Representative Scheu? Yes. It's 920.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: 920. And is this yours?

[Catherine Bennington (Joint Fiscal Office)]: He does a lot of bills. Okay.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Thank you all very much. With any luck other than the budget, that is the last bill that we are going to have to look at. Good job, everybody. Not forever. That is it. So we did another one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. I think we did nine today, and we did nine yesterday, so 18 bills. Excellent. I'm going to confer with Emily at the moment before we or should we take a break? Yeah. Okay. And then how much time do you need before we come back with language and spreadsheets? Just need time to. To decide or to come back? Why don't we come back?