Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Good afternoon. This is the House Appropriations Committee. It's Tuesday, 05/12/2026, at 02:10PM. And we are back to talking about a particular section of the budget, H. Nine fifty one. The Senate put something in the budget that we had not been made aware of at all during our course of going through budget activities. So we've asked people to come and give us some more testimony so we can understand what the project is. It's related to Section C113, an emergency management project. It's money that was in carryforward for $2,450,000 approximately. The balance. The balance and the dispatch. And so I think we have the people here that we need to have here to tell us what their project is. And I know we have folks from nine eleven and emergency management listening so they can understand what the project is as well. So we're not making any decisions today. We are getting information so we can understand what the request was and why it's in the budget. So I have Keith Cuban is here. Christian Meyer, do you gentlemen want to come up to the And then online, we have Joseph Altsworth from the City of Barrie, Barbara Needle, and Paul White. So welcome to and when you first speak, if you look at yourselves for the record. But we'll start first with Keith and Christian. So welcome to our committee.

[Keith Coven]: My name is Keith Coven. I'm in emergency management, and I do emergency management and transportation planning at CDRPC.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Which is CHAM?

[Keith Coven]: At Central Vermont Regional Planning.

[Michael Mrowicki (Member)]: Okay.

[Christian Meyer]: Thank you. Christian Meyer, executive director of Central Vermont Regional Planning Commission.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Great. Welcome to both of you. And tell us about this shift, if you would. We have some things. Could these yours?

[Keith Coven]: Yes. Okay. So just talk Yeah.

[Christian Meyer]: I'm going to let Keith and probably Joe weigh in on the details of the project

[Keith Coven]: because they got that information.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Okay. Great. Thank you.

[Keith Coven]: Okay. For about three years now, we've been working with Capital Fire Mutual Aid. They'd come in to us and ask for assistance trying to find funding for upgrades to their 09:11 dispatch, the tower equipment. We have tried to pursue multiple federal funding sources to assist them with that. We haven't been successful.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Could you just back up for a minute? Because I've never heard of Capita Fire Mutual Aid Dispatch System. You just tell us what that is? We're kind of new at this.

[Christian Meyer]: Would It'd be a good time to have Joe introduce.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yeah, yeah. Joe, if you want to introduce yourself and talk to us about that.

[Joseph Alsworth]: Yes, thank you all for having me here. My name's Joe Alterith. I'm the president of Capital Fire Mutual Aid and the chairman of the Vermont EMS District six. Capital Fire Mutual Aid, it comprises of 33 towns in Central Vermont, Washington and Orange Counties. We have been incorporated since 1970. We currently organize mutual aid response throughout the area of the fire departments. We do not charge each other. It's a nonprofit. We also have a users group that is representative of 17 municipalities that contract with the city of Montpelier. The rest of the municipalities that are in Capitol Fire contract with the city of Barrie to do their fire and EMS dispatching. We represent all the way from Randolph and Chelsea, all the way up to Woodbury and Roxbury those municipalities.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Okay. And how do you interact with the Public Safety Department? Department of Public Safety?

[Martha "Marty" Feltus (Vice Chair)]: Yes. I think that's a question perhaps we'll have separately. The reason we're interested is that the money you're talking about is being reappropriated from three different acts that were passed in 'twenty two, 'twenty three, and 'twenty four, which authorized the force, the joint task force for the public communication system through the Department of Public Safety, trying to come up with a comprehensive statewide system that would cover everybody across the state, obviously. And so they had been working quite some time on coming up with a plan. They've had several major reports issued with long term plan of how they might get to where they want to go. And in this year's current emergency management bill, are, at least the house site has appropriated $6,000,000 of this total 11 that was issued at one point to advance that system. And then in the bill that we had, we left that last 2,500,000 to come back to later on after DPS did what was authorized in this current bill to see what more needs to be done to complete the whole project. So that's why in the budget. And we need to understand what your project is so that we can tell how it might relate to the larger projects in the whole state. So, we determine where the money should go. That's If why we're interested in your particular

[Joseph Alsworth]: I may, I can answer that question currently, if you would like.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Sure, please do.

[Joseph Alsworth]: So Capital Fire Mutual Aid has been involved with the task force from the inception. I was actually on the initial development committee for it and testified throughout the several years now to the task force. I participated on behalf of Capitol Fire in Vermont EMS District six, and a number of the public forums and a number of their fact finding with their with Tel Aviv, who is their vendor.

[Martha "Marty" Feltus (Vice Chair)]: So can you tell us what is the project that you have in mind in order to utilize these funds?

[Joseph Alsworth]: So our current project is a 17 site simulcasted system that is p 25 compliant that will cover portable on hip coverage for our fire and EMS agencies. It's fully integratable with the state of Vermont's proposed system as Televate has laid out in their proposal to the task force, is completely integrated with P25 and digital, and it allows them to upgrade into potential LTE, which is cellular technology, as it develops down the road?

[Martha "Marty" Feltus (Vice Chair)]: Okay. Go

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: ahead, Keith. I'm not sure of thoughts. So,

[Martha "Marty" Feltus (Vice Chair)]: have you been in contact with the task force recently regarding your particular project or your plans?

[Joseph Alsworth]: We have always been available for them to be able to reach out to. I have attended several meetings. Unfortunately, due to my schedule, I have not been able to attend the daytime meetings, and so I've been kept apprised by the minutes, and I was always available to work with them. I have been working with them on request, and I have spoken to deputy commissioner Batesy on many times about this.

[Martha "Marty" Feltus (Vice Chair)]: Okay. Can you explain your budget to us? We have a proposed budget here.

[Joseph Alsworth]: Yes, ma'am. I'm gonna refer that back to our fiduciary, Southern Vermont Regional Planning.

[Keith Coven]: K. Okay. We they submitted an RFI out of so a way to back up Central Monk Public Safety Authority, it was an entity that dissolved in 2022. They had done an RFI, press for information, to try to come up with a budget for this development of building out a new network within the region. They'd worked with Motorola, was the actually, it was the sole entity that replied to that RFI. So, they developed a budget. That budget primarily comes from directly from that information we're able to receive from Motorola, from their that request for information. And then that budget goes through, you know, both the equipment hardware, microwave connections, or, e line. So to cut costs, we actually scaled back from a full microwave to a, e line or or not we, capital fired it. And then the, simulcast optimization and the one year warranty, that is part of that of what, when priced out, we're getting all that equipment up there and guaranteeing that it actually works through. Now the antenna installations and programming, in the in the full budget on the left, that 4,807,000, that is not including any budget there. It's there's a note there that we were thinking of trying to utilize the state radio services for that piece to to cut costs. Otherwise, if we were to go out to a contract, that's when we priced that out, that was out, around 386,000 to have people actually come out, install all the equipment on the towers, know, that obviously takes specialists for climbing those towers. Then that, you know, this the equipment for any of the racks and the actual equipment that isn't up on the tower site preparation shelters, or making sure there's generator backup, not all the I think there's one or two sites that don't currently have generators, so making sure that's all installed. We we, generate the contingency just to be it's a like, it was we used a 5% value on that just to, you know, try to make sure we had enough wiggle room to make sure it happened. Resident engineering, yet again, we were hoping to utilize that, Televate contract already that the state has to, possibly save some costs there. Otherwise, when we shopped that, we came up with that price on the right number, 72,000 to have an engineer that verifies that everything's being installed, you know, that isn't a part of the original contract to verify. You know, this is common practice, you know, on bridge projects, anything like that. You have a second engineer to verify the first engineering. Legal would be if this money is flowing through CVRPC to make sure because we don't wanna be the end owner. You know, we're not we're definitely not set up for that to make sure that we have all the legal paperwork aligned. I reached out to a legal firm that deals with this sort of equipment, and they said their rate is about $345 an hour. So we are sending around fifty hours just to make sure that piece is good. And then just the staff management cost for this would be about a two year project, but it's a pretty quick timeline. So, our budget was 35,000, for staffing to make sure that that could be completed. How does this fit in with available funding, including the appropriation of incident? Capital fire has been they've been actually they've started a capital plan for this equipment, so they do have some funding available. Joe could definitely speak better to where that's at and how that's accruing. And then we've been as I said before, we've been shopping. We've tried applying with the USDA. We applied to the CDBGDR money that came into the state, trying to find other sources for this. There's not many out there. Most of the fire department funding will pay for the radio that the fireman carries. Well, doesn't touch anything on the towers. And that's how most of the federal funding is.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: We have a question here. Wayne, you have a question?

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: Yeah. I'd like to just step backwards for a second now. We we have a statewide task force that's to develop a statewide system. And that's running through the agency and Jim Morrison. Who's in charge of that task force? Or who's the chair? I assume that somebody is who's authorizing the expenditure of money through that task force now. And the question is, I'm getting to the procedural place of whether or not the task force that this fits in with the overall planning that's coming out of that task force. If so, then why didn't Jen Morrison come in and request this change? It looks like it may be something disjointed here. And I wouldn't want to have I wouldn't want to jeopardize a big system that we want to have done in any way. That's my concern.

[Martha "Marty" Feltus (Vice Chair)]: Barb Neill is the co chair of the task force. She's on the line. And Paul White is also on the task force. So, I invited them to help us sort that out to some extent.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: So, maybe they could explain, does this dovetail into the existing plan that we have? Or are we taking pulling money out of something that was going to be used for something else and applying to something that doesn't That's

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: kind of why we're here today. Exactly. I have another question from John and then Barb, I see you on the screen.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: Yeah, it's just a real quick question to kind of dovetail on what Bush was asking there too. So this project was just generated out of the task force or was this outside of the task force? Because I know I'm aware that you've been meeting and trying to figure out the best way to kind

[Michael Mrowicki (Member)]: of work to get together collectively here.

[Keith Coven]: Originally, this, predates the task force, actually. And at the at the senate hearing, we advocate actually for a pilot from the task force work and, you know, would like to to see this align with that. Sure,

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Barb, do you wanna fill us in a little bit from your perspective?

[Barbara Neal]: Well, a couple of questions came up. One was who's-

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yes, could, it's first for the record.

[Barbara Neal]: Sorry. Apologies. Yep. Barbara Neal, co chair of the, public safety communications task force and also executive director of the nine one one board. So a couple things, who's in charge of the task force would be, it is led by myself and co chair Dan Batesy, the deputy commissioner of public safety and Paul White, who's also with us is the vice chair of the task force. And there are other members of the task force representing various stakeholder groups. And the next question was how I believe was how this aligns with the task force work. Unfortunately, I can't really answer that question because I have not seen the level of detail that even you've been presented with this just now as far as budget and what the project entails. Think that listening to what I've heard so far, potentially it could, but I'm not an LMR expert. I would need to consult with the rest of the task force and with our subject matter experts to really be able to answer that question appropriately. And I'm trying to think if there was another question in there already that I should be addressing. Maybe I could defer to Paul to see if he has anything to add on at least those two points.

[Paul White]: Sure, my name is Paul White. As Barb mentioned, I am the Vice Chair of the Public Safety and Communications Task Force. And prior to that, I chaired the Regional Dispatch Working Group, which was the predecessor to this task force, which it was created by the legislature in 2022. And then this task force sort of launched from it. Like Barb, I mean, I'm vaguely aware of the project that they've been trying to get off the ground in the Central Vermont area. But I have not seen any kind of a plan or a budget or really can't really I can't speak in favor of it or opposed to it because I don't know how it would dovetail with what we're trying to do on a statewide basis not having seen any details of it.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: Okay, Wayne. So did the has the task force looked at this area as this area part of the overall planning for the entire state?

[Barbara Neal]: We we have looked at recommendations that were presented to us by our subject matter experts, mission critical partners, and our, project management partners at Televate. And all areas of the state have been under review, but we had not identified specific localized or regional system projects to advance at this point. So, you know, the entire state was under review. The specifics of this study or any other had not been reviewed in detail by the task force as a whole because we're not at that point.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: So so you really don't know whether or not how the dominoes might best fall in terms of, you know, money to proceed towards a statewide system in order to start spending, you know? Are you spending it in the right place? Do you know where the right places are to start? Where would be no harm done if you worked on some elements? Or where you might run afoul of systems or whatever if you started too soon?

[Barbara Neal]: Well, yes. So for some background here, there were recommendations, there are recommendations, I should say, in h nine thirty five, the emergency management bill that representative Feltus just, mentioned. Some of those recommendations could be impacted by this amendment that you're considering today to h nine fifty one. So the task force recommendations in h nine thirty five directed the Department of Public Safety with input from the task force to use the already appropriated funds to advance essentially advance three statewide One is the procurement and implementation of a statewide computer aided dispatch system, specifically aimed at better serving the fire and EMS communities in Vermont statewide. Also, two was the expansion of statewide mapping and GIS integration to enhance dispatch operations statewide, and to implement strategic infrastructure upgrades to the land mobile radio network across in various areas of the state to align with already planned work from the Department of Public Safety. So the task force recommendations were designed to strengthen the statewide system, but as I mentioned, we hadn't identified specific regional or local projects to advance that The work that's being recommended now is more foundational, in our view, than area specific. So the funding for those three projects I just mentioned was to be drawn from the previously appropriated funds, which of which approximately 9.5 ish million remains. We knew that this funding would not solve every issue, but it would provide meaningful steps toward completing that foundational work that would support long term improvements. So after those three initiatives were completed, the ones I just mentioned, there was or is potentially the remaining 2,500,000, which is a question here. That was in H935 intentionally left flexible to support evolving statewide priorities and future phases of the project, which could include pilot projects and more localized or regional efforts potentially. We haven't gotten to that point yet. So, know, having listened to what I've heard so far with the Regional Planning Commissioner, Commission and Deputy Chief Alsworth, it certainly seems that the work in Central Vermont is legitimate and likely needed. However, we do note that it wasn't part of the task force statewide prioritization process. We are concerned about two things really, it boils down to from the task force perspective. One is the siloed use of statewide funding. And two is be, we wanna be cautious. We recommend caution in departing from a collaborative statewide planning process. So, those are the bottom line concerns from the task force, perspective. Of course, the task force also recognizes that the legislature ultimately controls how these funds are allocated and we will abide by whatever rules are made and decisions that are made. So if the decision is made to direct the 2,500,000 to the Central Vermont Planning Commission project or any other local effort for that matter, We think, I think, I should say I think, because the task force as a whole has not had an opportunity to get together to formulate an opinion on this amendment. But at least in my view, for what it's worth, it should include a minimum of two things. One is some mechanism or mechanisms that will ensure that the Central Vermont work aligns with the task force recommendations for the statewide system and prevents further siloing of communications infrastructure improvements and initiatives. And that requires within that framework or mechanism, a collaborative approach to moving forward. And then the second thing would be some sort of guideline and report back requirement. So we've noted, actually Paul and I have discussed this, that the amendment as currently proposed does not seem to include any guidelines or requirements on specifically how the money is to be spent nor any requirement to report back on their progress. So we would suggest, if the decision is made to to advance this 2,500,000 to this this project, that the the RPC provide the task force with a copy of their current plan and also provide regular updates on their progress. And again, I do wanna be clear that the full task force hasn't had an opportunity to discuss the amendment as a group. So this last bit of input is more my opinion than anything else. And Madam Chair, if it's okay with you, I'd like to defer back to Paul again to see if he has anything to add. Yeah, absolutely. Paul?

[Paul White]: Thank you. No, I mean I concur with everything Barb said. Know as far as the task force goes in the previous working group, we had certain report back requirements where we had to have a report back to the legislature by a date certain. We had certain guidelines that were given as to what we were supposed to accomplish with the funding. And the amendment as it's written just seems like it's just here's some money to the RPC, go fix your communications problems. I think we would really appreciate knowing that whatever they're working on, which I don't question the validity of it, for future planning how that dovetails or doesn't with the future work of the task force.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Great. Thank you. And raise your hands again if you have other questions as we go along here. I appreciate it. Yes. And I, Joe, I see your hand raised, Joe. Go ahead.

[Joseph Alsworth]: So I'm very sensitive to the task force work, and I support them 100%. I see this as a opportunity, one, to initiate the statewide system into a phased approach. I see this as on behalf of Capitol Fire and the regional planning, I fully applaud and encourage full transparency with the task force. I think it's very important. Our project would not be able to be effective or Sorry, do you hear me?

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: You're breaking up a little bit. Try again.

[Joseph Alsworth]: So I I I applaud full transparency with the task force, and working with them in partnership is essential with, making this, work just for a lot of loan for Central Bank, but for the statewide process and network. I think it's very important that we take a look at how this is going to integrate. We do have ability to provide the task force with a complete update and an ongoing updating them with this. Behalf of Capitol Fire, we totally will work with them, and we've already identified radio frequencies, and I've been in contact with Corey Chase, which I believe is essential for the statewide system being moved forward.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Great, thank you, Joe. Wayne and then Marty. So

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: there's no emergency situation or something that's really pushing for this particular amendment I'm at this just curious as to why it came down this way. Was there something really pressing this that's that's driving what was driving this originally or not? Then sort of ancillary to that is you can feel that the task force and everything that is going on in terms of developing the statewide system is moving fast enough.

[Christian Meyer]: I can jump back in a little bit there. And I'll let Joe fill in more if he if he if he can. But in his testimony, he kinda lays out some of the issues that were run into that the capital fireman delayed ran into in the 2023 flooding event in his written test. And in in years, the work they've been doing to track down the funding to get this design built that they they as designed by their vendor, We've helped with two of those grants. Unfortunately, they haven't gone forward, and I think this is was the next logical step. I don't know if it was did I miss anything in there, Joe, in terms of that acute need?

[Joseph Alsworth]: No. The system was, first designed in 1988 from senator Jeffords, congratulated directed spending, appropriation. We are now at a point where that system, we have to buy parts off of eBay. So it's really down to our critical part. Capital Fire has acknowledged that we pursued well over 10 different avenues of trying to get grants and correctly directed spending requests, so that has not come forward. We did implement a capital plan, which currently at the end of this coming year, we'll have well over $350,000 to put forward. In conjunction with city of Barrie and city of Montpelier, we've already invested over $1,200,000 in this project. So we have a lot of skin in the game on this. So what we're trying to do is to move this project forward and move the state's radio infrastructure forward for fire and EMS. And I think this is a phased approach would be essential in really aiding the task force to come back to the legislature to say, hey. Listen. We have a three to five year plan to implement this statewide radio system. We've studied Central Vermont. We've looked at the the hills. We've looked at what is done. Central Vermont's already invested the engineering part. We just need to put up the infrastructure or reinvest in the infrastructure to make sure it works so that it works for the rest of the state.

[Martha "Marty" Feltus (Vice Chair)]: I understand certainly your willingness to work and I understand the task force willingness to try to sit down and understand what your plan is and to make sure it would mesh with the statewide plan. I am a little concerned about the money. If you're talking about your total project is 4.8 plus another 500,000 perhaps if you can't fill in those other holes. How would you go about phasing in this project and perhaps using this 2,500,000? Where would you start on this project to try to complete your budget? What would be the most important things to do?

[Joseph Alsworth]: So we've already been contacted by the USDA for $772,000 Mr. Cuban's working on securing the paperwork on that. Capital Fire Mutual Aid would appropriate the $350,000 that we have currently. And then with the efficiencies resulted with cooperation with the task force using the radio communication services for the state of Vermont, and the oversight of their vendor, Televate, for the engineering confirmation from Motorola. We received a $1,200,000 discount. I'm gonna look at Keith for that from Motorola. So we'd be pretty close to what we need to launch the project and finish it.

[Martha "Marty" Feltus (Vice Chair)]: So you have a commitment from the USDA for 700,000?

[Keith Coven]: Or you're still No. We'd received a phone call back, and I've been trying to track that down from them, that we were supposed to receive disaster money due to the the changes that the federal government, have not been able to lock that in for sure. Yeah. I received a phone call from their office saying they thought we'd qualify for this money and haven't been able to get anything in paper.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Don't believe it till you see it. Exactly.

[Martha "Marty" Feltus (Vice Chair)]: I agree. There's lots of options out there, but it takes a while to put the whole stack together. Exactly. Certainly have that.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: John? Sure, second question. So question here for Barbara and Paul here, Joe, so much for outlining other things that you're looking to help fund the overall cost of this piece right here. But for Barbara and Paul here, so the task force continues to meet, right, to continue your work as you're considering next steps. Some of those things need to be specific at some point in time here to move things along to actually physically create, right, the statewide program here to improve what we currently have here for sure. What kind of timeline do you see that to be here? Not so much about what you know here today, here, but just to kind of add to what you've been working on and thinking about and kind of outlining the specifics of a plan that has the funding available here to support everything statewide.

[Barbara Neal]: I would say it's a multiyear process with kind of incremental steps along the way. So the the the LMR work, the land mobile radio work that's part of h nine thirty five would lay important foundational work that could be built upon in future years. I think there's $4,500,000 allocated if you will to that work. There's a total projected cost of a fully realized improved LMR network statewide in the $35,000,000 range. So this is foundational work. It doesn't do the whole project. At least in my mind, I'm not sure, and maybe Paul can refresh my memory, if this is actually written down in one of the reports, but I would envision that there would be pilot projects or regional approaches either after or along with this foundational work that's going on. But I think that there are some steps that need to be completed first. And to the deputy chief's point about the dire need, there is I'm sure a dire need in Central Vermont for improved communications. And one thing we learned on the task force is very, very similar needs exist throughout the state. It's, that that actually I should have mentioned when I was, explaining the task force position on this. There is a concern about having heard from all these stakeholders and then not being able to fund each and every one of their projects in the manner that's being kind of contemplated here. So did I answer the question?

[John Kascenska (Member)]: Yes. Yes. I was just gonna I know we've thought we've gotten some information previously about all kinds of things here through public safety, what they're looking to improve over time here. So I really appreciate that, review.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: Okay. Madam Chair, could I

[Paul White]: Okay. Yes, go ahead. So, I mean, kind of covered it. If you look back at the original legislation that created the task force and put this whole thing kind of in motion back in '22 or '23. It does make reference to test to pilot projects, for sure. And we just we haven't reached the point where we thought we were ready to launch a pilot project. But also looking back at that old legislation, really the sort of the purpose of this what really the impetus of this whole thing was was to reach the point where we had regionalized dispatch centers. Know, currently there are some I forget thirty five thirty seven different entities around the state of Vermont that provide dispatching services. And you know it's important to recognize the difference between nine eleven call taking and dispatching. And so we have these 35 plus or minus dispatch centers around the state providing dispatching services to the various first responders. And the goal is to narrow that number down to regional dispatch centers so that we can achieve more efficient dispatching, standardized practices, standardized training, economies of scale amongst those various dispatch centers. But we quickly realized that before we can condense those 35 dispatch centers down to five or 10 or 15 or whatever the magic number is, there's a lot of technology changes that need to be accomplished before we can consolidate all of that work. So that's what we have the task force thus far has been focusing on, like Barb called it foundational work, putting things in place to allow us to build upon the work year after year as more funding becomes available. That when we feel that we're ready to pull the trigger and condense the number of dispatch centers down, that the infrastructure is in place to be able to handle that. Currently, it wouldn't work.

[Martha "Marty" Feltus (Vice Chair)]: Joe?

[Joseph Alsworth]: I agree with Paul and Barb, but the capital fire met with both city of Barrie, city of Montpelier, the town of Barrie way back. And we decided that before we move forward with any discussions about regionalizing dispatch or potential of that, We felt that the infrastructure was critical and need enough that we needed to address that first prior to that. And we had actually invited regional planning to that meeting to have that discussion. And that was what we decided is that the infrastructure first, and then the need to talk about the consolidation.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: Okay.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Is there more that you guys wanna tell us at this point?

[Joseph Alsworth]: I mean, I

[Christian Meyer]: think you've you've shared great testimony. It I think everybody's working towards the same aspirational goal.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: It's just

[Christian Meyer]: better, safer response. From the regional planning perspective, the way we view this appropriation, we're being tasked with building or ensuring that the design of Capital Five mutual aid is built as it

[Joseph Alsworth]: was

[Christian Meyer]: designed. So if that's not the ask, we just want to make sure that whatever project we're managing is meets the intent of the the allocation. So I think that would be my part in words.

[Martha "Marty" Feltus (Vice Chair)]: I just have a technical question. If there were an appropriation for this project or part of this project, would the regional planning commission be the appropriate fiscal agent to handle this for them?

[Christian Meyer]: We absolutely could be. We're used to playing this role often with our municipalities and other partners within the region. We are used to dealing with federal procurement, state procurement. We have the financial infrastructure to manage the the funds. The the one thing Keith hinted that we may have to make sure we iron out is that clearly through this process, the equipment was owned by Capital Fire Mutual Aid

[Keith Coven]: Right. Or by a different party.

[Martha "Marty" Feltus (Vice Chair)]: I'm just wondering. Whether it would be Department of Public Safety that would work directly with Capital Fire or whether

[Christian Meyer]: They could too.

[Martha "Marty" Feltus (Vice Chair)]: Maybe the fiscal agent through you in order to

[Paul White]: I don't know

[Christian Meyer]: that word necessary. We've been working with them all along, but it's no reason I couldn't

[Martha "Marty" Feltus (Vice Chair)]: mean, I know they are separate, obviously, not part of the planning commission.

[Keith Coven]: Of course. Yeah.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: Wayne? So more question for us. What's the intent originally for Department of Public Safety to be the fiscal agent?

[Martha "Marty" Feltus (Vice Chair)]: Well, the intent of the funds that was appropriated back in 'twenty two and 'twenty three was to the Department of Public Safety.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: For the whole project. So, yes, they would normally have been because they're trying to orchestrate the statewide project. And we're talking about an almost 5,400,000 project. And at the moment, there is no actual money in hand for any of this. Is that correct?

[Christian Meyer]: There well, there's three three hundred updates. Yes.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Okay. That's right. From from Captive Fire saved up. Okay. So there's still 5,000,000. And the the 2.45, so that, you know, gets you almost halfway, but you still would have to find the rest of the money. And you, at this point, know about potentially $700,000 but don't know about anything else at this point?

[Keith Coven]: Not currently. There's another federal funding source that realistically, it'd probably be next next year that we could possibly apply for under transportation funding to the it's called Safe Streets and Roads for All. We're doing actually doing a action plan at the region to unlock that potential. Originally, intent wasn't for this, but it's something that can be covered by that federal grant is communications upgrades for transportation safety. We were doing it just on for the towns to be able to access for transportation safety money. But no, not currently. Alright.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So I have Mike Mrowicki, and then Joe after Mike, you can go. Go ahead, Mike.

[Michael Mrowicki (Member)]: In regards to a different plan, but maybe with some similar desired outcomes, we did not see Sheriff Anderson's plan, for regional policing in Windham County because there was not an appropriation of it. They have the money to start with it. Ongoing funding though is going to come from an assessment for each town of the county, and this includes part of his plan is for him to be right now there's I think three different entities that provide dispatch for the county and for the area and part of his plan is to become a unified dispatch and to provide 20 fourseven policing throughout the county. One of the reasons is being, we've got a lot of rural counties that complain it takes an hour or more for the state police to get there.

[John Kascenska (Member)]: So he has put together

[Michael Mrowicki (Member)]: a plan and it sounds like a viable plan. I think one of the challenges will be that there's a lot of smaller towns that feel like any assessment is going to be inhibitive. On the other hand, people want the services.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Right. And so paying for it. It's a way forward. Right. By having the towns contribute to that. Right. Yeah. Okay. Joe?

[Joseph Alsworth]: To answer that. So the Capitol fires had an effective governance and system to be able to charge for dispatching and the infrastructure upkeep, and we've maintained that for well over twenty years. Some of the efficiencies that we see to save money on our project is to work with the task force as far as utilizing Televate for oversight and engineering, and also see work with public safety and radio technologies to do the actual installation, which I've had some preliminary conversations with Corey Chase about. And I think we can realize those efficiencies and save money that way in the end.

[Martha "Marty" Feltus (Vice Chair)]: Well, I think it's obvious that capital mutual aid just by your name indicates that you have a good cooperation with all your neighboring towns and you have a history of doing that and you have the governance that's already there to be able to effect a reasonable plan for your community. Our only concern from the budgetary perspective is how this fit in with the longer term plan and the wider plan that the Department of Public Safety had. And we were just trying to determine how that fits and how this money could be deployed or saved for a future use, maybe as pilot or something along those lines. That's what we wanted to find out a little more fleshed out.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Great. Anything else? Go ahead, Joe.

[Joseph Alsworth]: I'd just add, we've already invested in the engineering portion of this to make sure that what we've designed will work. And one of the the specifics we've emphasized on is the inter gauge inter to be able to integrate the current capital fire system with the statewide system, and that was something was our bedrock from the beginning.

[Martha "Marty" Feltus (Vice Chair)]: Will obviously be important. Thanks for that part of the planning.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Anything else from anybody? No, I really appreciate you all coming. There may be some follow-up questions. You've probably figured out where Feltus is the lead on this one and our resident expert who's also working with House government operations. We have a rep from here as well. So we'll reach out, or they will, if there are more questions or clarifications that we need. And I'm sure we'll be chatting with Barb and Paul also as needed. So we're not done with the conversation, but I think we have enough to go on for the moment. Get started. Yeah, to get started. So, thank you all for coming. We appreciate it.

[Barbara Neal]: Thank you very much.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: Thank you.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Okay, take care, everybody. So committee, we're changing things up for tomorrow. This is the last thing for today. Tomorrow morning at nine, President Trump is coming in to talk about the UVM multipurpose. I had sent a bunch of questions. I can share those with you. I'll send you an email so you know the sort of things I was personally looking for, and I'm sure you'll have some questions. So we're going to be doing that. And then we're doing oh, so S243, the bill that we passed out last week with an amendment, which I can oh, the language justice project. We did an amendment. Everybody was fine with it. Well, it turns out that it should have been done a different way. So, what's going to happen is, on the floor tomorrow, Marty is going to ask for permission to withdraw our amendment, and there's going be a substitute amendment by House Human Services. And we need to do a straw poll on removing our amendment and staying Okay with the amendment. So alleged counsel and people are coming in. Do we have them all set tomorrow Not yet. Okay. So maybe at ten, we're hoping for 10:30. So the bill that we had on for tomorrow, we're moving to Thursday so we can get this thing done. So it'll be on the floor tomorrow. So we're not going to try to rush it out today because we don't have Leg Council and we haven't seen the whole thing. So I can actually, we can send you the amendment because that's been sent to Nigel, the clerk's office. So it'll be there, but we have to go through our steps and make sure that from a straw poll

[Michael Mrowicki (Member)]: that we're okay doing those things.

[Martha "Marty" Feltus (Vice Chair)]: It's not changing the money at all. I mean, the money is still gonna come from the office of racial equity in the long run. And they have money for this purpose of providing language translation services for not only health, but emergency management issues. So it's all fine.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So I'll go figure out if we're doing two straw polls, one to withdraw and a straw poll on the new amendment, or we're just doing one. So we'll get that figured out before tomorrow morning, but that's on the schedule after UPM. So the two fourteen bill will go to Thursday morning. So that's what we have. And there will be bills. I talked to Chair Kornheiser earlier today, and she has a bunch of bills that are going to be coming to us. They may be voting out three or four of them today, a couple more later this week. So they got backlogged because they were working on some other bills that had to get through yield and all sorts of things. So at any rate, we'll be picking up the bill thing for a little bit. I don't know what those bills are yet. We can push on their agenda and see what they're voting out so we know what's coming. So we will have a little more work to do. So that's what I got for you for right now.