Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Good morning, everyone. This is the Brumayas Committee on Commerce and Economic Development. It is Wednesday, 02/25/2026 at 10:20 in the morning. So we're here to take a look at an amendment proposal by Representative Hendricks on H two zero five. Representative, if you'd like to join us.

[Emily Carris Duncan (Member)]: Thank you, chair. Good morning.

[Rep. Troy Hedrick (Chittenden-15)]: As stated, I'm Troy Hedrick, state representative for Chittenden 15. Grateful for this opportunity. So thank you to the committee as well for taking some time to hear this concern. Big thanks to the SOP and legislative council for sort of helping me navigate a couple attempts at this amendment and to a few on the committee who helped me tease out perhaps the best route here between changing H 205 itself or 16 BSA, 1752, which is where I'm going to spend my time here. Two zero five is primarily I'm I'm grateful that you all did the work on two zero five. Huge, huge No. No. What? Huge fan of taking a look at the non compete legislation. So thank you. And by and large, incredibly supportive of the work you've done on this. I worry, as I said yesterday, that we have an opportunity here. I don't worry that we have an opportunity. We have an opportunity here to make sure we include teachers. For me, two zero five is primarily a worker mobility legislation, reflects clear policy direction that non compete agreements restrict opportunities for the workforce and that restriction can lead to wage suppression, wage stagnation over time. Teachers currently, in practice and I'll get to this shortly are excluded from those protections. I don't know that that was necessarily the intent of 16 BSA seventeen fifty two, but in practice, that's what's happening. And the amendment that I'm proposing here ensures that teachers are not treated differently from any other workers in Vermont when it comes to seeking employment, especially for the subsequent school year. That's what this is about. Current law I'm talking now about 16 BSA, seventeen fifty two A states that a teacher who fails without just cause to complete their contract term. It requires that. And a teacher who fails to do that is disqualified from teaching in a public school elsewhere, especially for the remainder of the school year. As I said, on its face, this, I think, is intended to address midyear abandonment of that contract. However, in practice, there's worries that that's being interpreted in ways that discourage or restrict teachers from even interviewing for positions in other districts or accepting employment for the following year. There's a very narrow window between when contracts are set to renew and when acceptance of that renewal is required. So that practical effect is currently creating and can resemble a de facto not complete, which is problematic. So what this amendment does, or more importantly, what it does not do, it does not allow teachers to leave midyear. It does not eliminate the requirement to complete the contracting term. It does not remove, the without just cause standard. It simply clarifies, and it it is as simple, that while under contract, the teacher still has the right to intervene for, be offered, and to accept the new teaching position for the next school year. And that interference with this rate would constitute a licensing misconduct. Briefly why this matters, under H205, we are eliminating noncompete arrangements across Vermont. If we believe that workers should be free to seek better employment opportunities, and I do, that principle should apply to our teachers, our educators as well. Two zero five highlights the equity components at play here. Teachers are largely female workforce, as much as 80%. This most certainly has an equity component to it. Percentage of female paraprofessionals in round schools is even higher. Teachers are public employees. They should not be excluded from the same labor protections extended that were not extending This to up their

[Emily Carris Duncan (Member)]: amendment closes an unintended loophole and aligns teacher contracts with the broader policy levels of the bill of two zero five.

[Rep. Troy Hedrick (Chittenden-15)]: So looking at the amendment itself, it's a one sentence amendment, and it's right on 16 DSA seventeen fifty two a. It adds the following sentence. While under contract, a teacher shall have the right to interview for, be offered, and accept a new teaching position for the next school year. An interference with this right shall be caused for licensing action under section seventeen nine sixteen ninety eight of of 16 BSA. It's a very narrow clarification. It preserves the completion of the current contract. It protects the right to seek employment for the following year. And I think it aligns really well with the purpose of h two zero five. It just brings teachers into both protections, brings consistency to our labor policies. That's it.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Questions for the other independent?

[Kirk White (Ranking Member)]: I just have one question. So I appreciate this. I appreciate the conversations. I appreciate the holistic way that you're looking this bill in the context of the state. And so my only question, the first sentence that you There are two sentences that are The second sentence, I looked up 1698, and that's some pretty gross misled up things. It's a lot of very

[Emily Carris Duncan (Member)]: gross

[Kirk White (Ranking Member)]: negligent misconduct type things that are listed in there for somebody to lose their license. And I think that's what we want or to have issues. I don't think we want anybody who has a license to lose it over something that isn't world's misconduct. And so I'm wondering if this fits there. That's my only the first sentence, I think, is perfectly reasonable.

[Rep. Troy Hedrick (Chittenden-15)]: Yeah. Mean, that's going to be ultimately a committee decision. And I would encourage you to listen to any thoughts on that. From my perspective, I think 1752A is being misused to keep teachers from searching. Whether or not you want to call that gross misconduct is policy interpretation. I think it's problematic.

[Kirk White (Ranking Member)]: Problematic and gross misconduct are not necessary.

[Rep. Troy Hedrick (Chittenden-15)]: I'll let you all wrestle with that.

[Kirk White (Ranking Member)]: I

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: guess just further, you don't feel that saying that while under contract, the teacher shall have the right that we also need to add the cause for licensing action as well. Would think that superintendents or whoever the administrators are will look at that and say, we can't, we have to allow that bad. What other ramifications would there be without the last sentence?

[Rep. Troy Hedrick (Chittenden-15)]: That is the remedy for infringing upon a teacher's rights that I'm trying to create here to be able to search and interview and accept, even while under contract, a position for the following year. If that right, which I'm suggesting it is a right, is interrupted, infringed upon, there has to be a remedy. The remedy I'm suggesting with this amendment is review for licensing action.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: There may be other remedies that are there. It's pretty clearly spelled out now with that that first sentence. Yeah. What the expectation is, what the administration has to follow. And so it I'd like to know other areas where the administration doesn't follow the law. Are the remedies? Right? And so we may not have to go Jump into that. Right. But yeah. So we'll we'll explore that a little bit.

[Anthony "Tony" Micklus (Member)]: Jonathan? Is there consistency on when a school year begins?

[Rep. Troy Hedrick (Chittenden-15)]: There's consistency on contracting. Whether how that intersect and this is mostly about that contract, right? When teachers are being asked to renew their contracts. When a school year begins, I would imagine that's defined, yeah. And the

[Anthony "Tony" Micklus (Member)]: thought being that, is it the case that in Vermont, a school year for your current and where you're currently employed begins on a day that is different from when the school year begins at a place that you're contemplating working, and this is part of the problem? I'm just trying

[Rep. Troy Hedrick (Chittenden-15)]: to I'll defer to the other folks that you're gonna be hearing testimonial from on when those are. But I know there's pretty consistent parameters in and around the contract.

[David "Dave" Bosch (Member)]: So what I'm I'm trying to to see here is currently, you can interview. Correct? And you can accept an offer for a new teacher position for an upcoming year.

[Rep. Troy Hedrick (Chittenden-15)]: In practice, I don't think that's necessarily consistently the case. And I'll defer again to some of the testimony you're going to hear, especially from NEA about instances where 1752A as written is being misused. And that this clarification is pretty simple, narrow, and would help that.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Question?

[Kirk White (Ranking Member)]: We have a whole list of people testifying, so there'll be lots

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: of Yep.

[Anthony "Tony" Micklus (Member)]: No. That's fine.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Thank you, representative.

[Sophie Sedatney (Office of Legislative Council)]: Good morning. Sophie Sedatney from the Office of Legislative Council. I believe you have the amendment on on the website, but if anyone needs a copy, I also have copies. Is it okay if I go ahead and share my screen?

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Please.

[Sophie Sedatney (Office of Legislative Council)]: So and just to be clear, it is two sentences because I just separated. Put a put a period in the middle there. Right. So as as representative Hedrick explained, this would add language in to explain that while under contract, a teacher shall have the right to interview for, be offered, and accept a new teaching position for the upcoming school year. And any any interference with this right shall be caused for licensing action pursuant to section sixteen ninety eight of this title. I did take a look at sixteen ninety eight. I don't have an answer. This is not my area of expertise, so I don't have an answer on whether there are other remedies that could be used. But I would point out so this is $16.98 right now. Is it that large enough for folks? Yeah. So there are two things, unprofessional conduct, and then at the bottom, subsection two is incompetence. So I believe that probably the one that would apply here would be under e, a pattern of willful misconduct or a single egregious act of willful misconduct in violation of duties and obligations of the position. And the others are dealing with convictions and crimes. I don't know that this would fall under a place in the student and emotional jeopardy. So I'm guessing that's where it would land up. There are extensive due process provisions through the rest of this subchapter. So there's a lot of hearings and notice, etcetera, on it. So it's, as far as I can tell, and again, just very short turnaround time, but there are a lot of protections, due process protections within the statute. But I believe that sixteen ninety eight, this is what it currently provides.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: If we use this, wouldn't we I mean, it's we're saying all of sixteen ninety eight. Would we just create another subsection or or, say, six e?

[Sophie Sedatney (Office of Legislative Council)]: Those are possibilities right now. Yeah. It just refers to this section as a whole, which, again, is unprofessional conduct or incompetence. Then it spells out any one of the following, or any combination of the following. So it is limited to what's listed.

[Abbey Duke (Member)]: So my question is, what would it mean if in the amendment, instead of it added something like, this rape shall be cause Or something like, it could be considered willful misconduct under section sixteen ninety eight. So it wouldn't mean creating anything new, just because there's that piece about a pattern of willful misconduct. So if this could be considered a piece of a pattern of,

[Emily Carris Duncan (Member)]: I don't know, it's just

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: a thought.

[Kirk White (Ranking Member)]: I should

[Emily Carris Duncan (Member)]: have the wording.

[Sophie Sedatney (Office of Legislative Council)]: Talk to the committee, I'm happy to do whatever you want me to do.

[Herb Olson (Member)]: So thinking about remedies and things like that, and we're probably both a little in there about it, to the extent that I'm not that familiar with the bargaining process and what typically is in an elected bargaining agreement. But I can imagine that there might be some clauses that says, everybody has to follow the law. And

[Rep. Troy Hedrick (Chittenden-15)]: we have a law,

[Herb Olson (Member)]: now subsection a creates about maybe there's something stupid about what I mean, but for violation of lies and clear remedy under for the bargain, isn't there a bargaining unit remedy process for when one side or the other feels that the other

[Sophie Sedatney (Office of Legislative Council)]: side Right. Of So this would be this would be in in the statute.

[Herb Olson (Member)]: I understand.

[Sophie Sedatney (Office of Legislative Council)]: So there is a a labor relations act for teachers and administrators. And under that act, there are a number of different collective bargaining agreements around the country around the state. There isn't just one single one that covers the whole state. So those can be negotiated. I don't know the extent to which whether every single teacher is covered by a collective bargaining agreement, but there are multiple different ones. And, again, if if if there's a violation under a collective bargaining agreement, you know, you can file agreements, etcetera. I would say that what I just looked at in 1698, there are a lot of protections in there. So I I think it's similar, and it talks about just cause. So, again, the same kind of language that you would have in connection with a collective bargaining agreement before any discipline is taken.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: I'm thinking of

[Herb Olson (Member)]: alternative remedies and so on.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Other questions for Sophie?

[Sophie Sedatney (Office of Legislative Council)]: It may be that some of the other folks that are testifying who are much more familiar with this environment would be able to cast some light on what may be a good solution.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: It

[Anthony "Tony" Micklus (Member)]: pertains solely to individuals employed in Parkinson's.

[Sophie Sedatney (Office of Legislative Council)]: I don't know the answer to that. It says in a public school, so yes. 1752, a teacher under contract to teach in a public school.

[Anthony "Tony" Micklus (Member)]: I don't know the entirety of the chapter.

[Sophie Sedatney (Office of Legislative Council)]: I believe so, but I don't know. Again, it's not my title. I'm not as familiar with Title 16. Think it covers independent schools as well, most of the provisions in that. But this one explicitly talks about public schools.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Questions? Thank you, Sophie. Jade?

[Jay Nichols (Vermont Principals Association)]: Good morning. You hear me okay? Yes. All right. Appreciate you making the opportunity for me today. I want to start by apologizing for the noise at the beginning of the representative's testimony. My boxer dog came in here who's a very nice old dog. I'm working from home today. She was attacked by my puppy dog. So I yelled at her and it was not meant for the committee. So with that said, for the record Jay Nichols, Senior Executive Director of Vermont Principals Association. I'm here to testify to an amendment around grounds of procedures for suspension and dismissal 1752. You've been talking about that and so I'm just gonna jump into it. The first point I'd like to make is that if we're gonna have a conversation about 1752, I think the proper venue for that would be House Education Committee. And if that needs to go there after this, that I think that would be okay. I think a change of this magnitude should not occur as an amendment to a bill that doesn't really have a lot to do with public education from our perspective. There are valid points on both sides of the issue on whether teachers should be required to fulfill contractual obligations, as well as whether school districts should be required to fulfill those same requirements. I believe that Vermont and NEA would agree with the EPA that we need further discussion on this and then perhaps it should take place in health education. Additionally, I spoke this morning with both the directors for Vermont School Boards Association and Vermont Superintendents Association, who both agree that the proposal in this amendment should not be considered as amendment to this bill at this time, at least the way that is currently read. Having just learned of this amendment yesterday, I want to point out a few concerns if it became law. First, teachers that have signed a contract could leave at any time prior to the start of a new school year and take a position with another public school in the state. This means that a teacher who signed a contract in April could break that contract in early or even late August and accept another position. This puts the school district that agreed to a contract with a teacher in a perilous position. In a time in which we are worried about education costs and student performance, this change will exacerbate those issues. We already have an incredibly high number of teachers on provisional licenses and we already have a very tough time hiring teachers, especially in our most rural and poorest communities. These are the communities, and most importantly students, that will suffer the most by a change like this. Secondly, teacher turnover is directly correlated with instructional loss. Training a new teacher results in a loss of instructional continuity and pacing. Training a new teacher, that is even if you are fortunate enough to hire a licensed teacher just prior to the start of the school year. We also have the issue of curriculum gaps increasing with teacher turnover. The less planned for the turnover, the more likely the gaps are. This is especially true for sequential subjects like math, literacy, and world language. And again, our most rural and most vulnerable populations are often the most impacted. Teachers rarely seek to break contracts to go work in a more rural or poorer community. Late hires ultimately end up leading to more work for other professionals in the building. New teachers have gaps and need support. The later they are hired in general, the tougher it is for them, other staff, and the school leader. Additionally, parents become very frustrated when they expect they are going to have a highly qualified teacher in their child's classroom and just before the start of the school year they find that the teacher has decided to break their contract and leave. This often ends up with substitute teachers covering the classroom, or a teacher with little training and experience on a provisional license, or a combination of the two. Finally, the law already allows for teachers to break a contract for just cause. Know of dozens of cases in which teachers have been let out of contracts. As a superintendent for over a decade, I let many teachers out of contracts, sometimes well into the summer when they had a good valid reason. Superintendents and school boards have and will continue to use common sense when making these assessments. So in summation, I think this discussion brings up some important questions and policy considerations that probably should be discussed in detail in the committee of jurisdiction. For education policy decisions, I think that should be the Health Education Committee. I realize there's calendar concerns and maybe that's why it's here. So because of that I'd be glad to answer any questions or give any thoughts to compromise language that you might be considering.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Questions for Jerry? Addison?

[Abbey Duke (Member)]: Thank you for your testimony. How long are teacher contracts?

[Jay Nichols (Vermont Principals Association)]: Teacher contracts are one year long. Collectively bargained agreements can be up to three years long for teachers and for principals. If your committee was a faculty staff working in a school district and you signed a three year contract, you're not buying for three years. It just means that's the conditions for your working agreement as a collectively bargained unit for three years. But if Herb decides, you know, I'm only going to stay one year, at any time he can say, I'm going to be done at the end of the year, going be done at June 30. Once he signs a contract saying he's going to be there the next year, that's when the issue becomes germane. School districts don't usually have people sign contracts too well after town meeting day because if they lose their budget on town meeting day, they often have to make cuts.

[Abbey Duke (Member)]: From that.

[Anthony "Tony" Micklus (Member)]: Jim, I am trying to understand why this isn't something that's covered by or maybe it is covered by existing, you know, bargaining or other contracts, agreements. But when you mentioned letting people out of a contract, is that just the standard? What usually happens, someone makes has to make a request to be Yeah.

[Jay Nichols (Vermont Principals Association)]: So yeah. It depends on what's in the collectively bargained agreement, representative. My last gig as a superintendent before I came to the VPA, we had in our contract, I think they had two weeks to consider a contract offer and then if for any reason at all they want an additional two weeks to interview for other jobs they get that automatically. So they got thirty days. Then if they wanted to do more than that, like say I'm a finalist for another job and it's May 10 and you know they're going decide the next week or two, then they could come to me and ask to be last to continue in the process and keep interviewing. And my position always was I'm gonna left them. If they're coming to me in you know late June, July, August, then I don't think I should be letting in because I'm hurting the kids in my own system. I don't have the opportunity to hire a qualified teacher in the summer. It's much, much harder.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Questions for Jay?

[Kirk White (Ranking Member)]: So Jay, I appreciate your testimony. I think I'm struggling with this a lot because I appreciate the difficulty in schools. We're trying to fill positions and plan for the school year and how much time before the school year starts that it takes to onboard and get a classroom ready and do all of those things. I think that is real and schools deal with that all the time. At the same time, we're trying to set up a state where the balance for employees and employers balanced than I think it is in schools today. And so I'm really struggling with, you know, maybe this isn't the right language, but maybe there is language that does this. And I hear you, right? Like education is where most of this is done. But we also but as you mentioned, right, to teachers are some of our we have so many teachers in the state and economic development and workforce is all under the purview of this committee. So I think that if we can figure this out here and get it done before crossover, it would make sense for everybody. I would be very interested in compromised language that might find that balance.

[Jay Nichols (Vermont Principals Association)]: Well, would suggest that if you're going to try to do that, that perhaps, certainly I don't like the cost for licensing action under this. That's a pretty severe consequence for a principal or superintendent who's trying to provide services for students. But if you set a date in here, you know, that might make sense. So, you know, while under contract a teacher should have a right to interview for or be offered to accept a new teaching position for the next school year by the date of, you know, whatever you set. The further you go towards August the worst it is for kids. So if you set a date that teachers could apply up until say June 1 or something like that, and everybody knew that was a date, then to me that makes it very clear. Right now it's not clear because districts offer contracts at different times. Some districts don't even vote on town meeting day. Some vote in April. I think Essex Westin might still vote early May. So you know you're taking a risk if you hand out contracts before you even know if your budget's going to pass. Those are factors that need to be considered. I will, you you mentioned about protecting teachers. I have a lawyer that comes in and meets with my new principals. I teach a new principals class. And one of the things he talks about all the time is how protected employees, many employees are in education. And that his firm, if he doesn't like the color of somebody's socks, can just fire them. Teachers get a lot of protection and they should. But absent a statewide teachers contract, we're always going have the issue where small rural poorer districts that have the toughest, most challenging needs of students, if don't we have some kind of protection for those systems, they're going to keep getting more turnover and the later that turnover is, the tougher it is on kids. That's the one thing I'd like to see us try to protect here if we can.

[Abbey Duke (Member)]: Does each school district decide its contracting schedule separately?

[Jay Nichols (Vermont Principals Association)]: It's negotiated. It's part of their collectively bargained agreement. Places will say a contract has to be at a certain time, some places or some CBAs are silent on it. And what's really interesting in Vermont because we still have this antiquated concept called supervisory unions, you could have districts that are the same supervisory unions that have contracts go out at different times, which is really a lot of fun to deal with.

[Abbey Duke (Member)]: A lot of the friction is a misalignment of contracts need to be signed.

[Jay Nichols (Vermont Principals Association)]: I think so. Vermont NEA and I met with Chris Leopold. We formed a group several years ago and we talked about ways to try to resolve 1752. And we just couldn't come to an agreement that we would all live with and then we had the pandemic. You know I think if there was a date in there that was this is the date for everybody, at that point you know you've accepted a contract. School district you have to abide by that contract, you have to keep that person employed and employee if you're going to teach in a public school it has to be that school for the following year. If there was a drop dead date, part of the terminology, then I think people would respond to that. It would just be that's the way that it is. I think that would be better than going this route where let's say I issue my contracts in late March. My budget passes, passes overwhelmingly. I want to make sure my teachers are all set. I issue the contracts. I give them the 30 that they have to apply for other jobs and whatever it is. And then people start in May and June, start applying for other jobs. Now I've got a backfill when the pool is even weaker and especially if I'm in a poorer district makes it very hard to do that. There was a certain date that people had to, you know, abide by the contract both ways it makes more sense to

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: me. Yeah, thank you. I

[Jonathan Cooper (Member)]: admit I don't understand this process very well, so if you could help me. My understanding, So correct me, Abarak, is that the teacher signs a contract in April, you said? Somewhere thereabouts?

[Jay Nichols (Vermont Principals Association)]: It depends. It could be later, it could be earlier, but typically most of them are in April.

[Jonathan Cooper (Member)]: But presumably they sign that contract that somewhere between April of one year to the following April 15, that is the contract?

[Anthony "Tony" Micklus (Member)]: No. No.

[Herb Olson (Member)]: It would

[Jonathan Cooper (Member)]: be until the following June

[Kirk White (Ranking Member)]: or something. Right.

[Jay Nichols (Vermont Principals Association)]: The contract will be for the following school year representative. So if I sign a contract on 04/15/2026, that's my contract for the 2627 school year. It's exactly the same for my members, principals, and exactly the same for superintendents. So they are under the same thing here. They can't just walk away from a contract either without being released by their board.

[Jonathan Cooper (Member)]: So as I'm trying to read this, both what the current says and what is proposed, it currently says is that the teacher contracted child be disqualified to teach any public school for the remainder of the school year. So that's whatever they signed for this now would go through that, as you said, that following school cycle, right? That's correct. That's how that works? Yep. So then what I really think proposed here is that while under contract, that teacher has the right to interview for something, it says for the upcoming school year. But I'm wondering if really what that's supposed to say is for that subsequent school year at the end of what this contract would have indicated. Does that make sense?

[Jay Nichols (Vermont Principals Association)]: Well then you're in a situation, so let's follow this out. I'm applying to be a, I was superintendent of the Richford area and before that at one point I was superintendent of Essex. So let's say I'm a teacher in Richford and it's this current school year and you're giving me a contract on today, February 25, on February 25 for next year. I sign that contract. And then I find out the job's open at Essex Middle School and I want to be the social studies teacher there. So I apply for that job, I interview for that job, they offer me that job in August. Are you saying that I'd be able to take that job the year after that?

[Jonathan Cooper (Member)]: That's how I read this.

[Jay Nichols (Vermont Principals Association)]: Yeah. So I think that that would not work well for anybody either because the school district is in need of a teacher. Now they'd in a situation where they'd be in a holding pattern waiting for me to be out of my contract before they could hire me. I think cleaner language would be to have some date that, yeah, if you sign a con if we're gonna allow people to break contracts, that's another question. I mean, my friends that are lawyers will all say, we have a contract. Once I can break it and the other can't, is that really a contract? That's up for you guys to to discuss, I guess. But if we're gonna have a contract and we're gonna allow the employee to break the contract so they can interview for other jobs, which are almost always going to be going to places that spend more and pay teachers more, which totally understand, unless at least have a drop certain date that you have to have taken a job someplace else by X day or you're going to abide by the contract that you already signed. Because the school district has to abide by the contract. If the school district has a situation where the all of a sudden fifty third graders move away and they only need two third grade teachers instead of three, they still have to employ that teacher because they already gave them a contract. So I think the system already is in favor of employees, which I'm fine with. It's hard, teaching is a tough job but I don't want to become so slanted that way that our poorest and most rural communities can't find teachers and it's already very hard for them.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Thank you. Don't You're welcome. Well, a couple of things first. So, education committee has jurisdiction, but we also have jurisdiction over workforce.

[Emily Carris Duncan (Member)]: Our teachers I are know. Apologize for that.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Yeah. So, and and of course, the non competes are part of the workforce. I I think the intent here is to allow a teacher to interview and be offered and accept another position in another school district prior to them signing their contract. I think that's what the thought is here. But I see your point where if they're signing a contract on April 1, and then in May, there's another position that's open, they interview for that, then then they're going to break their contract. If it's prior to that, it's prior to signing their next contract for the next school year, then they're really not breaking their contract because they haven't signed the new one. And I think that's where the hang up is. I'm not sure we'll hear from Jeff as well, but maybe we need to make things clearer.

[Jay Nichols (Vermont Principals Association)]: Yeah, I'd be glad to be part of that conversation.

[Anthony "Tony" Micklus (Member)]: Okay. Other questions, Jonathan? I think I'm in the same boat as representative White. I'm just making sure I understand what the remainder of the school year is versus the upcoming school year and they seem like they're the same thing.

[Jay Nichols (Vermont Principals Association)]: Yeah, guess I think that I just would say the remainder of the school year is the rest of the year you're currently in. The contract's always for the following year. Following school year.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: But I think the problem some of the problem we've heard is that while they're in their current contract and if they wanna talk to another school, sometimes they're not allowed to do that.

[Jay Nichols (Vermont Principals Association)]: Well, don't think any superintendent has the authority to do that. I do know that as superintendents, one of the first things I would always do would be say to any potential employee, are you under contract in another district? That included when I was hiring a principal. If they said, yeah, I've got a contract to be principal of the Meadowood Community School next year, I'd be like, well, then I can't interview you. You're already under contract.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Yeah. I understand that next year the next year, but if you wanna interview during your current year before you sign the contract for the next year.

[Jay Nichols (Vermont Principals Association)]: You absolutely can. Okay.

[David "Dave" Bosch (Member)]: The way that I understand it, the school year starts on June 1 or July 1. We're talking

[Jay Nichols (Vermont Principals Association)]: that's that's not clear either. When you say school year, know you really I think you're talking August 25 or twenty sixth or something like that. That can be interpreted different ways too. The fiscal school year starts on July 1.

[David "Dave" Bosch (Member)]: So that to me is a little scary as someone that was signing contracts in May. It takes months to do the whole process of hiring a teacher. So if somebody backs out right before the school school time starts, we're

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: we're behind the eight

[Jeff Fannon (Vermont-NEA)]: ball. Yes. I

[David "Dave" Bosch (Member)]: If the school year started and they could July 1, that would give two months to find somebody. I still think that's pretty short to find teachers. It's hard to find them. And yeah. I think we

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: need to understand what we're trying to fix here. Yeah.

[David "Dave" Bosch (Member)]: The well, I think I think what it's trying to fix, it's to allow teachers to cancel their contract. Right? It's not what I that's not the way I understood it.

[Jay Nichols (Vermont Principals Association)]: When I read it, it says they can cancel their contract and take another job Correct. Right up until start of the school year.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: That's how I But I don't think that's the intent.

[Jay Nichols (Vermont Principals Association)]: Yeah. I'm not disagreeing. I'm just saying that's how I would read this and that's how it will be interpreted by people applying for jobs.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Yep. I didn't see that. Maybe we should hear from Jeff. Morning. Good morning. Morning.

[Jeff Fannon (Vermont-NEA)]: Hi. It's good. Morning issue. Let's see if we can navigate this and land the plane. First off, Jeff Fannon, executive director of Vermont and EA. Thank you for having me this morning and to have this discussion about this issue. First off, age the bill, age two zero five that you're working on. Thank you. It's a great bill. Wasn't watching it, perhaps as closely as I should have. Acknowledged that yesterday. And I was in getting a stitch at UVM on Saturday, and somebody texted me the bill and said, What do you think? And I said, I have a question about page two, line 12, and the version I have about teacher contracts and where did that come from, how did they get in there? Nobody asked us about it. I appreciate being here and having the conversation. And I appreciate the conversation you just had with Jay. It has been a thorny issue for my members for some time, for frankly, decades. And I think it's As the bill that you're working on is saying that's a matter of public policy for the state, we don't think non compete clauses are advisable or in the best interest of the state, except for rare instances. We support that. We think that's the right move for the state. It's a little bit ambiguous, I think, for business on non compete clauses, whether they're valid or not. You've tackled it well. I thought you've done a nice job with that bill. So as it relates to this particular issue, let me go back a little bit and give some background to this. Teachers each had a conversation about teacher contracts. They they it is right. It starts, July 1 to June 30. It's a teacher contract. Under law, all teachers shall receive their contract for the next year on or before April 15. Some contracts, collective bargaining agreements, allow for an earlier time by agreement. And I'm joined by Eric Krell, who's a local leader of ours at teaching English at MMU and has bargained a lot of contracts. If I falter, I'm gonna turn to Eric and phone a friend here, if you will, about the details. But most collective bargain agreements, CBAs, as I call them, do allow for a time when teacher contracts shall be offered. And, and by default, the loss is on or before April 15. So let's assume for a minute all of them get their contracts on or before April 15. April 1, whatever day you wanna pick. You usually get two weeks, Jay's right, to sign and and return your contracts. And yes, I wanna teach for the next school year, which begins July 1. Of course, the contract usually says, something to the effect of, yes, the contract signed July 1, if you will, or effective July 1. But you don't have to report till sometime in August, whenever those days are. And so you come back in August, then you teach for that year. The way the law was written, I think, pre-nineteen sixty eight, before there was the collective bargaining law, it said teachers had to have a contract. And if you didn't, you were not renewed or you were fired for just cause. You had a process that went to the courts. Well, in 1968, all of our betters, years ago, decided that we wanted to collect a bargaining law for teachers to make some uniformity in it or simplicity, I guess, or whatever they were looking for. And the collective bargain agreement law was adopted in 1968. It didn't adjust this law. And it's led to some confusion over the years, I would say. So I think it's right now for some conversation about how do we fix it and make it consistent with today's world where we're saying we don't think non compete clauses are good public policy for the state of Vermont. So when you get a contract in February April, it's for the next following school year. Unfortunately, when somebody doesn't, sign their contract or they decide to retire or or whatever the case may be, they move out of state or something, the school then gets notice of that by virtue of not getting that contract back from that teacher. And then the school says, Ah, we need an English teacher. So they post a position sometime, typically in May, because they usually give people two weeks. So then in May, you've got a posting for a position that's available. You're a teacher in one district and you see that posting, you might think, Wow, that's right down the street from me. I could be closer to my kids, less of a commute, whatever the case may be. Sometimes Jay points out, better pay. That's true. And I might wanna apply for that. But I've already signed my contract for the following school year. And the way this has been interpreted by the superintendents, and it's their code of ethics, contract. As Jay pointed out, they believe in the sanctity of the contract, as do we. But the fact of the matter is these teachers may have good and valid reasons, just cause, to seek a new position. But if they're prohibited from interviewing from that position, and some superintendents have taken this to that extreme, to interview for a new position, they can't get those new jobs. And we've handled many, many cases over the years. I've been at Vermont in the area as general counsel before I was executive director for a long time. We've had those cases where teachers were told by their superintendent they could not interview for a new job. And that's the problem we're talking about here. So that's a non compete, essentially, provision that we think should be fixed. We weren't aware of this provision till, I say, Saturday. We weren't watching it. But I think the opportunity is ripe. I think Representative Hedrick's attempt here is a good one. Should it be adopted, as Sophie suggested, to narrowly tailor it to e under the unprofessional thing? I think that probably is a good suggestion to focus it a little bit even more. But we do think that teachers should be allowed to interview for new jobs. And I think that's I think we all agree that otherwise, they're in a never ending cycle. They're never not under contract by virtue of that. Because when they sign their contracts for the following year, they're already under a contract until June 30 for the current school year. So they're never not under a contract. How does one get out from under it if it says, You've breached the contract, you can't teach the next school year? That's the problem. That's the dilemma here. And we think it's worthy of the fix. So people should be allowed to pursue their lives, their best interests, within reasonable with it being reasonable. And certainly, applying for a job is something that should be allowed to happen, simply put that way.

[Anthony "Tony" Micklus (Member)]: It seems like at that point, someone makes a phone call between superintendents and is like, you know, I've done it. Jay, he lives down the street. Like and and it seems like that's sort of how this That's the remedy right now. Is an educator ever have a licensing action taken against them? If it really just makes sense, someone got sick, my kid goes to

[Jeff Fannon (Vermont-NEA)]: the hospital. It doesn't does it ever our superintendents really say, under no circumstances, will I ever allow this? Over the years, Vermont and I represent teachers who have been taken to court for for liquidated damages, which of course have denied. Superintendents have called. I had a member in a Chittenden County School District whose husband took a job down at Dartmouth. She wanted to be in the Upper Valley. Less pay. The superintendent called four other superintendents and said, Don't interview her. She's under contract for next year. This is all in the spring. So it does happen. I've made those calls as she suggests. There are times, certainly in Jay's right, where superintendents have said, Yes, go for it, for various reasons. But it shouldn't be up to that. It shouldn't take a call from an EA, their superintendent or their lawyer, frankly, and say, Can that person interview for another job? By then, job's probably been interviewed and offered to somebody else. And they're out of luck. And that's what happened. And so what it leaves is people having to quit or excuse me, not sign their contract for next year, risk it, and hope that they can get a job in some other place where they they wanna make their home. So that's what's happened. And I think more and more people are willing to take that chance, but we shouldn't allow that. Mean, that's that's not good public policy.

[Kirk White (Ranking Member)]: Are we

[Emily Carris Duncan (Member)]: losing people out of the field because of these these rules? Like, are there folks that would you know, if they can't make this this change, would they just rather kind of leave altogether? I

[Jeff Fannon (Vermont-NEA)]: think we are. Mean, think Jay's right. It has been more and more and more difficult to hire teachers because there are fewer and fewer. I heard a representative Brady last week in Ways and Means say that she teaches in Colchester, represents Wilson, your colleague. And she said when she was hired in Colchester many, many years ago, there were 5,100, still a lot of people applying for the position. And now they're lucky to get one or two to apply for a job. So it's a real problem. And people have other options. Remote has allowed people to take jobs and stay in Vermont and work elsewhere, if you will, remotely. And I think that's the way of the future. And teaching as an in person You've got to be there in the classroom to work with kids. So if people find that they cannot look elsewhere, I think we're losing people even going into the profession. The number of people going into teaching has declined steadily. Steadily. Vermont MBA, with the AOE, Vermont Rural Education Collaborative, has worked very hard to harder than anybody else, I would say, in training up paraeducators who live and work in a community, for example, in a school, who have a bachelor's degree to help them go through peer review to become licensed teachers. We've graduated, if you will, and that's not the right word, but we've helped people become licensed more than the state colleges have in the last few years. We think we have 80 some people in that program this year. We're we're making sure that there's a a group of people coming up through, and and that's good. But the number of young people going into the profession has declined nationally. So making it harder for them to have a job and maybe change jobs within it and stay within teaching ranks, we think is not good public policy either. I mean, it's gonna lead people to suggest, I think. Fine. I'll just leave and go go elsewhere outside the teaching profession.

[Kirk White (Ranking Member)]: So Jeff, thank you again for having lots of conversations about this and for really trying to understand how to thread this needle. The more I think about it, the more complicated this issue is. And this is where I'm stuck right now. So we have a teacher under contract right now to finish out this school year, and they want to move maybe somewhere else for the next school year. They can start looking and talking to people and saying, I might be in your area next year. Are there going to be jobs open? But the district likely doesn't know that there are jobs open until April when they don't get their contracts checked. So this whole thing is concentrated in this time period where contracts are open. And leaving the contracts open for longer doesn't necessarily mean there's going to be more clarity. That's one of the conversations we were having earlier because you still don't know, the district doesn't know if they have an open position until somebody tells them that they're not coming back. So you have a teacher who wants to make sure they have a job and they sign a contract. And if we put this in law, we could be setting up that it's legal to break a contract in our laws.

[Jeff Fannon (Vermont-NEA)]: Say that again, is it illegal or legal?

[Kirk White (Ranking Member)]: It is legal to break a contract. Because if I sign a contract in May for the next school year, but in August, but in July, I get a job. So I'm under contract for the next year. We can't set up a system that says it's legal to break a contract that you're in. It has to be after the contract is over, and then that doesn't make sense anymore. And so we're in this really, I don't know, chasing our tail. I'm not really sure how to get out of this spiral. The more I listen, more, like I said, the more complicated it gets. And I cannot say that we can have a law that says it's legal to break a contract for anything other than gross negligence or something like that. So I really would love to come up with a way to do this. And I'm not sure that there is a claim. That's where I keep going. The more we talk about this, the more I

[Jeff Fannon (Vermont-NEA)]: It's interesting. You do point out the circular nature of it, and I get it. One can breach or break the contract with just cause. That's in law now. So that's permissible. The problem is not that. It's how it's operating. And the operation is superintendents are then taking that provision or 172A and saying, You're always under contract and you must seek permission from me to apply for another job. And you don't know about those openings until typically May 1. And there's a period of time, you've been on a school board a long time, you've probably had hundreds of application processes. And they take time. And so somebody won't even know about an opening in Mount Mansfield Unified School District.

[Kirk White (Ranking Member)]: All the u's in there.

[Jeff Fannon (Vermont-NEA)]: You got all the letters. Until May. And so if somebody wanted to apply to your district, they are almost always under contracts elsewhere, if they're a teacher in the system, in the state. And there may be a teacher out of state. There may be a new teacher who hasn't yet been working in another place and does not have a contract elsewhere. But my experience has been teachers who want to change jobs do it typically for family reasons, pay, improvement of life, work conditions. And those are valid, good and just cause reasons. I would say that the law already permits them to not fulfill the terms for the next school year. But if they're blocked from even interviewing, that's operating as a noncompetitive agreement in some way. And that's the hang up. So the law is good now, I would say.

[Kirk White (Ranking Member)]: Trying to change practice.

[Herb Olson (Member)]: We're trying

[Jeff Fannon (Vermont-NEA)]: to change the practice by saying that and it is a practice. It does happen. And we and if the policy of this state is going to be that we we think non competes or any provision to non compete, is not good public policy. We ought to look at that practice and say, we don't want to do that anymore. We don't think that's advisable.

[David "Dave" Bosch (Member)]: I think I have a way to thread it. Maybe. So just allow, you know, for thirty days after signing the contract, if allowed, within the collective bargaining unit. This way, it gives the the unions the ability to bargain that in, and it gives that thirty day period after signing it after signing the contract, which allows the district to find out who's actually gonna be on there. And it doesn't cause that much of a struggle for the district to find somebody, and it gives you the option to bargain.

[Jeff Fannon (Vermont-NEA)]: Interesting to see the language. I'm not yeah. I get the concept.

[Abbey Duke (Member)]: So I think that's an interesting idea. And then my question is, what is just cause and who decides?

[Jeff Fannon (Vermont-NEA)]: So the courts who have weighed in on this have said seeking a new job is just cause. I mean, it's pretty broad in that respect. Those are cases where school districts were seeking damages for somebody who did breach at some point and break the contract. So I have a better opportunity. That's just cause. I think that's how

[Abbey Duke (Member)]: the courts have interpreted it. So potentially, we made it clear that teachers were allowed to interview and consider another job, and then they could get out of their contract if they had just cause, that was another potential.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: I think that's right. Think that's right.

[Jeff Fannon (Vermont-NEA)]: Words matter. This context, words are very important.

[Anthony "Tony" Micklus (Member)]: But Yeah. Get

[Jeff Fannon (Vermont-NEA)]: it. Representative Duke, that's a good idea to explore.

[Anthony "Tony" Micklus (Member)]: It seems like what I'm understanding is that April is not a great time for us to be doing the contract stuff if the fiscal year is July 1 and the class begins in August. Is this just pointing a lack of so there's good reasons for the April date that seem to be running into the crummy reasons for that April date. This is one of the crummy reasons. And so are these negotiations between unions and public structures contemplating moving the timetable for this purpose? Or has that always been a nonstarter everywhere for what reason?

[Jeff Fannon (Vermont-NEA)]: I don't know if it's a nonstarter.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: It's a it's a it's a

[Jeff Fannon (Vermont-NEA)]: Feature. A feature of the current system. That's a great way. Thank you. Virtuistic major, perhaps. But can bargain or Eric, for example, MMU could bargain a contract that says, We're going get And some do this now. The teacher contracts are now issued earlier and earlier to teachers for the next school year, sometimes in February. Right now, some teachers are getting contracts for next year. And that's by agreement. The problem is, down the road, district down the road, Montpelier, they may subscribe to the April 15 deadline in statute. And so say, That's good enough in law. We're gonna stick with it. So they find out on May 1 that Jeff is not gonna come back as the English teacher. That would be a good thing, I think, for the kids. And the person at the other district where they got the contracts in February and has had to sign them by March 1, for example, she's under a contract and doesn't even know about the position right down the street. If I live in one building, I can walk to school and walk my kids to school with me or something like that.

[Anthony "Tony" Micklus (Member)]: Is that statute that we have about April whatever date, is that why we're having this issue? If that statute is that the thing that needs to shift? We're not looking at this set of circumstances that the vice chair described as going in circles.

[Jeff Fannon (Vermont-NEA)]: Yeah. I mean, I think that's what representative Hedrick's amendment would do is say, look, you still leave that in, in 1752, which is where it is now, under Title 16. And But still allow people to interview for other positions. That shall be permissible. Not sure if I answered your question totally, but have to have the conversation.

[Anthony "Tony" Micklus (Member)]: What's causing this challenge and appears to be that there's three calendar dates that are relevant here. There's that statutory date, there's the fiscal year date, and then there's the school year date. And that seems like a thing that Well, I'm not sure who's setting it up that way, but I wonder if if the stack where the if they're addressing it here kinda does that or if addressing it somewhere else makes a bigger shift, but one that might see less make the limbo calendar days fewer, and we'll have people in less limbo. It's sort of the thing I'm thinking.

[Jeff Fannon (Vermont-NEA)]: Less limbo is good. But allowing people not to be subject to the whims of a superintendent as to whether she can interview for a new job. I think that's a somewhat antiquated belief system that we I think this bill, h two five, is trying to address.

[Kirk White (Ranking Member)]: Happen another can of worms?

[Herb Olson (Member)]: If

[Kirk White (Ranking Member)]: we're looking at 1752, and we have teacher contracted to teach shall be disqualified to be in any public school for the remainder of the school year, shouldn't it be in any school that receives public dollars?

[Jeff Fannon (Vermont-NEA)]: That's an interesting conversation. Just

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: so you

[Jeff Fannon (Vermont-NEA)]: know, Vermonenier represents teachers in the public school system. I think all. Most all, if not all. We also represent the teachers at Bedford Academy, one of the four historic academies, well as Byrne Burton. So two of the four historic academies are employees in those schools who are members of Vermont and EA. We, with their assistance, collective bargaining agreements in those two schools. So they're subject to that. So may be giving you some guidance, perhaps, in your answer.

[Emily Carris Duncan (Member)]: It seems It's

[Kirk White (Ranking Member)]: another place where our law doesn't, perhaps, treat people with the appropriate treat all the systems with the appropriate oversight. I'll leave it there.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: I won't argue with you. So if there is a practice out there, and I think from what you said, how the courts have interpreted suits that have been brought up and saying that if a teacher wants to go to another school for a non treatment job, that that is just cause. Does the NEA assist the teacher in those lawsuits, in those discussions with superintendents? If this is a practice, how do we change the mindset of principal and superintendent?

[Jeff Fannon (Vermont-NEA)]: I think what you're talking about under H2O5 is the right approach. You can say, Look, we don't think, as a matter of public policy, it's advisable for businesses or schools, for that matter, to say, Thou shall not compete. And we're going to have provisions that put that in place. And I think what you're saying is we're going to put in law that is not permissible. I think that's the elegant way of doing it. It's covering anybody, except in rare instances. I get that. There are good and valid reasons for those. I don't think a teacher contract is one

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: of those good and valid reasons.

[Abbey Duke (Member)]: So my question is, when you just boil it down to the problematic practice, is the problematic practice not allowing teachers to interview? Because if the just cause allowance, right, and the courts have interpreted just cause to be, you know, pretty broadly interpreted. So the so then the practice the problematic practice is saying, no. You can't even interview for another job while you're at her.

[Jeff Fannon (Vermont-NEA)]: Well, the practice is having to go to your boss and getting permission to interview.

[Abbey Duke (Member)]: Yeah. That's what I'm that's what I'm saying. So that's the that's the but you wouldn't if we hadn't statute, teachers are allowed to interview, then they don't have to ask permission to code.

[Jeff Fannon (Vermont-NEA)]: Yes. And I think the Superintendent Association's code of ethics says that they'll agree

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: with

[Jeff Fannon (Vermont-NEA)]: the sanctity of contracts. So if I'm a superintendent in a hiring school district, I'm like, Okay, you're employed in Burlington, and you wanna go to Essex. I don't know. You apply to Essex for a position. That superintendent, by their code of ethics, is saying, I gotta call back to Burlington and see if she's under contract for next year. And I can't interview her. Burlington's superintendent might say, Yeah, go ahead. He doesn't know, but you don't have to tell him that you're interviewing. But the Essex superintendent pursuant to their code of ethics is obligated, I guess, to their code. Say, I gotta call back to the Burlington School District to get permission to interview you. And we just wanna I think H two zero five is saying, we don't think that's good public policy in any shape or form.

[Herb Olson (Member)]: Yeah. Sorry to have missed your early testimony. You mentioned, though, that there were some court cases that had opined on with just cosmet in these these circumstances. Would you be able

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: to provide those? I will.

[Jeff Fannon (Vermont-NEA)]: They're I'll have to print them out. They're they're they're old.

[Herb Olson (Member)]: Oh, okay. Well Just recording. Okay. It'd be it'd be nice for me to

[David "Dave" Bosch (Member)]: I'd be happy to.

[Herb Olson (Member)]: The second question I had was, is any of this how does collective bargaining come into play here? For blush, it always looks like folks are arguing about what the interpretation of current law is. And I guess my question, without making any assumptions as to the answer, is that, why isn't that subject to collective bargaining? It potentially is.

[Jeff Fannon (Vermont-NEA)]: Well, the problem is I explained to Rutland Duke, for example, I'm in Burlington. She's employed in Burlington seeking a job in Essex. Right. Her collective bargaining agreement is with Burlington, not with Essex. And and the exchange, I think you were here for that. Like, the the Essex superintendent is making a callback, and that's what happens.

[Herb Olson (Member)]: I'm I'm kinda thinking about the teacher the contract. Under the collective bargaining agreement with the teacher with a current teacher, I guess. It looks like there's a statute that talks about that. But maybe it's not being is there are different interpretations of what that kind of of that what that statute means. And just sounds like something that could, maybe not. Maybe the reasons why I can't or not get into collective bargaining. Kinda sounds like something that usually would. Well, there are some

[Jeff Fannon (Vermont-NEA)]: things that are in contracts, collective bargaining agreements, and others that are not. Is, Jerry. The bill, H2O5 and the language at issue here is it was unclear to me what that was trying to do. So in an effort to try to get clarity yesterday, trying to figure out what it was doing and not doing or could be doing, The issue is seventeen fifty two, a, is being used as a a non compete provision, essentially. And I think that's I'm not sure what whether the language in in the H two zero five currently is addressing that sufficiently.

[Herb Olson (Member)]: I'd say thank you.

[Jeff Fannon (Vermont-NEA)]: In fact, I would say I don't think it is. I have not spoken with Sophie, but I would imagine we would have a disagreement about that. That's okay. But therein lies the ambiguity. I think if we're the policy is to suggest that we don't think non compete clauses are a good idea, then let's make

[Michael Boutin (Member)]: it crystal clear in this context. So I wanna go back to the code of ethics. So what you're saying is code of ethics says that if a superintendent is interviewing a teacher, they, like, their code of ethics need to call the district that's losing the teacher potentially and and make sure that they are not under contract? My understanding is that phone those phone calls are happening. Okay. So why is there is there and maybe you're the wrong person to ask for this, but wouldn't it make sense to have I mean, why isn't their code of ethics saying you can't take another teacher who's in a contract? You know, I I sell real estate. I can't go to someone who's selling a house down my street and say, hey, I'm gonna give you a lesser commission and take that out from under the person. That would be very much against code of ethics. So my question is, how come we don't have a similar code of ethics? Because if we do, then maybe we that kind of covers the situation.

[Kirk White (Ranking Member)]: You mean for teachers? Yeah.

[Jeff Fannon (Vermont-NEA)]: So I'll just read you the code of ethics. I mean, honors superintendent honors all contracts, including letters of intent, which is not a contract, but they include it as as part of this. For licensed positions, teachers, until fulfillment or release within the superintendent's, singular possessive there, school district or any other school district. So, their code is saying the superintendent must release a teacher. You have to get permission to get released in order to know what it's been operating as to get an interview.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Got a question for you. And, Kevin, they and you I know Yeah. The one here is representing the superintendent, Jeff. Can you, all three, sit down and work this out by next year? Year. I hope so. I mean, it's really think Okay. So my suggestion is, and I for representing Hendrick, is that this will go this language will go in, but it won't take effect for another year, giving you the opportunities to work together to fix this and bring it back to the House Committee on Education and on general and housing and our counterparts in the Senate

[Jeff Fannon (Vermont-NEA)]: before this goes into effect. I'll, offer an amendment on the floor, if you will. Potentially, I like the year. It gives us time. Fair enough. But the problem is it puts us in a position if it goes into effect in a year from now, as as a matter of bargaining, if you will, and that's what we'd be doing, they and another side could just say no, and it's operative. So

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: if Well, I think the other side really not interested in having this in law.

[Jay Nichols (Vermont Principals Association)]: Can I can I speak

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: to that real quick? Sure.

[Jay Nichols (Vermont Principals Association)]: So first of all, I wanna be really clear. I'm not a superintendent anymore or nor do I represent the Superintendent Association. So, this law does affect principals too. We have principals asked to get out of their contracts and what happens is they go to their superintendent and ask to be released. Same as teachers do And if it's late in the year and the superintendent says, you know, it's too late. I I wouldn't be able find anybody. We're going to hold you to your contract. Then, they they fall underneath the same provision. I should also mention so do superintendents. So if the superintendent tries to leave, the school board can take action against them. And Jeff's right, you know, well, he's wrong when he says his side, but for our side, you know.

[Jeff Fannon (Vermont-NEA)]: Thank you, Jeff.

[Jay Nichols (Vermont Principals Association)]: This is not good for this is not good for, yeah our worry would be this is not good for kids and if it just goes into effect as it is, we would negotiate fairly to try to find a date that would work. But what's the incentive in this particular case for Vermont and EA to do that? Cause if this happens then basically teachers can leave whenever they want and school districts are just out of luck. That would be my worry. I'm fortunate that our mission statement says we get to try to make decisions based on what we think is best for kids. Our employees deal with this too. Principals and assistant principals end up in these binds too and it is difficult and we always advocate for them. We even go to school board hearings with them and try to get them out of their contracts. And Jeff mentioned just cause. If we have a good reason, like I'm moving closer to my family, superintendent and I don't have a good relationship. I'd rather work for this different superintendent. It's gonna be a $15,000 pay raise. I've been doing this nine years. I've had zero superintendents not let a principal out of contract when we've gone to them collectively and asked them to release the principal.

[David "Dave" Bosch (Member)]: Final comment about this. The argument that's being made is that we think it's good public policy to do not competes, to know to non competes. And that philosophy is actually valid all the way through the entire year. If we're talking about no competes, we don't like them, it would apply for the entire year for teachers. I mean, honestly. I mean, if that's if if if we're saying it's public policy that no non competes are bad, then it would actually fall all the way through for the entire year. We should not be doing no competes even for teachers. We don't like that because If

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: you did away, I think what are you saying? If if you did away with seventeen fifty two That would be within our follow under two zero five. Right. And I don't support that. It would be non competes unless you follow under

[Kirk White (Ranking Member)]: Which is why we

[David "Dave" Bosch (Member)]: But that is what the policy that we're putting forth is. And if that's the case, I mean, that's

[Abbey Duke (Member)]: I I think the intention, the idea is we don't want non competes for teachers, but we also want to recognize

[Emily Carris Duncan (Member)]: the public benefit of having a teacher there for an entire school year. We wouldn't want them to be able to leave halfway through. I

[David "Dave" Bosch (Member)]: get it. Like I said, I think the best way to do it would be to pump it up to the collective bargaining unit, put some guardrails in, say thirty days, and we can address it next year if it's not working out. Think that's our public company. I

[Kirk White (Ranking Member)]: think if we're in discussion,

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: true. Colin's

[Abbey Duke (Member)]: not here.

[Jeff Fannon (Vermont-NEA)]: Colin's unable to be here. Eric? Yeah.

[Rep. Troy Hedrick (Chittenden-15)]: Actually, I I think I did have a couple of clarifying things. It may may

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: simplify the issue.

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: Edye Graning, at the I teach in the MMUUSD school district, and and I serve as, president of our local affiliation of of Vermont and EA. Been a lot of of questions, and I can certainly clarify, I think, almost anything that's been asked about the contractual process. The the practical reality of what is happening, and I can speak specifically to our contract. So as stated, you know, contracts are issued to teachers on or before April 15. Our contract stipulates that we have two weeks to sign and return those. And that's fairly standard practice certainly for Chittenden County. I can't speak beyond that. My understanding and I've had a very steep learning curve this morning, but my understanding of of what this bill before this committee is attempting to do is is eliminate noncompetes. The practical reality of teachers looking for new jobs is that because many jobs are not offered or even listed until after budget season, or when a teacher decides not to return, and if they do that under contract, it's April 30, but but there could be a job someplace else available posted on May 1. Hey. We don't have this teacher coming back. Let's post the job on May 1. I, under the practice, would have to get superintendent permission to be able to pursue that job. Sometimes hiring committees or the hiring process can be very lengthy right now. I could begin the process of of interviewing for that job well before the April 30 date or whenever the two weeks after the contract is issued, but not complete that be cut without superintendent permission. The other piece that I think is important to note, our contracts, as we talked about, run from July 1 to June 30. I'm not working under a contract until July. I'm not working under next year's contract until July 1. Yet my window to be able to pursue other opportunities without superintendent approval is two months earlier than that. So, you know, it again, I think somebody spoke to kind of the timing and the overlap of all of that, and and that and that's, you know, problematic. You know, I don't I can't speak to the world of real estate, but if I'm if I'm signing a contract to work with you, your example was true. I shouldn't go down to this other but I'm signing a contract. It's not actually taking effect until two months from now, and a lot can change in two months. So I just worry about the restrictions being put on future mobility, whatever the reason. And I and I totally respect and and understand, the perspective of principles, and it it absolutely is hard. It gets harder as the year goes on, or it gets closer to new school year to to find good good people and to fill those positions. However, my contract is not starting till July. And for me, perhaps the committee can begin to look at that date as kind of that's when we change. That's where one contract has moved to another contract. Should a teacher have the opportunity to pursue other employment without restriction, without special, permission up until the end of their existing contract.

[Michael Boutin (Member)]: I I I guess my question is, what about on the other side? So now we have a school

[Jeff Fannon (Vermont-NEA)]: Mhmm.

[Michael Boutin (Member)]: And this person hasn't necessarily or maybe they have accepted the contract like you're talking about, and they have until, you they pursue. And then on June 30, they contact school and say, yeah, I found this other job. Now this school that lost that teacher, they they have no time to react.

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: Well, I mean, they have six, seven weeks to to to, you know, figure that out. And I and I'd say I'm not saying that's necessarily enough time, but the question is I understand it here is that that in practice, the way the way things happen now with teacher teachers are restricted to even, in some cases, follow through on the hiring process without superintendent permission. That's that's happening. That's that's kind of the way this timing issue goes. So, you know, that that's that kind of human take question. What is a reasonable amount of time for teachers to have the opportunity to pursue other options while also honoring the difficulty or the challenges that come up with hiring teachers in general, I guess?

[Kirk White (Ranking Member)]: Okay, here. Again, the more we talk about this, the more I find myself in that almost death spiral of this is impossible to fix. But I guess for me, I just have questions about the relational nature, right? Because I think what we're trying to do is fix a procedure and not a law. We're trying to fix something that's outside of the scope of the law right now. And it's hard to do, right, in this context. And so there's a relational relationship that teachers have with their principals, with their superintendents, depending on the size of the district and all of those cases. And this is directly impacted by that, or that is directly impacted by these relationships. And again, I guess I don't know how you're going to answer this, because I don't know how to answer the question. But how do we create a law that tells people how to have a better relationship? Mean, that's kind of what we're stuck with here. And this is incredibly, I don't see a solution. And I think that Jeff and Jay talked about meeting for a couple of years to try to come up with a solution for this and not quite getting there. So, I can see that each side see a way to make it better for them, I don't see anything making it better for the system. And that's really

[Emily Carris Duncan (Member)]: what I'm struck.

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. I think that piece is fair. As, know, as far as the relational piece, I have a very good relationship with my superintendent. Very productive. New to Sharon, and and I've been very pleased. And

[Abbey Duke (Member)]: Glad to hear.

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. No. And I think there would be some circumstances where I could go in there and argue for a member or or advocate for a member, and that would be accepted or strongly considered. Let's say that. But it's still dependent. It's dependent on you know, I've seen I've seen the situation come up with positions that may be harder to hire for, special educators, tech ed teachers looking to pursue something in a in a nearby district. They didn't their their interview wasn't until May 14. You know, they're they're not it's it's it depends on the relation relationship nature of whether it's gonna happen. And I think the the noncompete consideration here being made kind of takes that out of hands a little bit and and says, okay. The current practice right now is too restrictive. Does that fix the whole system? No. It doesn't do it doesn't fix anything with within the system. But is it is that two month window between when I have to have my contract in and when I'm actually start or officially working under it is that two months effectively creating a noncompete situation.

[Kirk White (Ranking Member)]: I appreciate that. I think that's a good reframing. I worry that because our schools are so necessarily relationship based, we can't teach kids without having those relationships. We can't have high quality schools without having those. If we put something in place that disrupts that, that could be a really horrible unintended consequence. And coming from a district that has really strong relationships, we might not see that as clearly. Right?

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. Think that's fair. I wanna honor Jay's point. I think where this becomes a a particularly acute issue is is in our smaller rural schools. It's that enough to effectively restrict seeking options for, you know, the how many tens of thousands of educators in the in the state salary?

[Herb Olson (Member)]: Excellent. Trying to clarify the two month period that I think you did about it. Yeah. It sounded like you were fixed on July 1, right? So as I understand what you're saying in the company from lunch, you're okay. You'd you'd like to have a teacher have the ability to even if they signed the contract in April, to be able to accept that other position somewhere else up until July 1, but not thereafter?

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: I mean, I think that's for this committee to decide. I that's what what that the significance of that date for me Yeah. Is that my current contract that I work under goes to June 30. Sometime in April, I hope to get a contract offer that, you know, that needs to be signed, but I don't begin working under that contract until July 1. Correct. So am I saying that's the solution? I don't wanna I don't wanna say. However, for me, it is significant that that is those are the dates in which one contract ends and another contract begins, committed here, should I still have flexibility here? Yeah. Thank you.

[Herb Olson (Member)]: I was just trying to clarify whatever's here. Mhmm. Thank you.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Only problem is that if you signed a contract with one school district and then on the thirtieth decide you're going with another one, you just shut the door on school district that lost that teacher from being able to interview another teacher unless the superintendent decides that. I'm

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: not sure. You mind restating that just so I I'm I'm not clear at what you're suggesting? Unless

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: we pass this language, but I think what you're saying is if we set dates so if we set July 1, and that's when the new contract takes effect, so on June 30, without changing the language, we're just putting dates in, that you have the opportunity to interview and accept up to June 30, that the new the district that hires a new teacher from another district, you now put now the new district has a problem because they can't interview another teacher unless the superintendent that's starting July 1, right, gives permission. And so you're putting a restriction restriction on that school district. I would say based on the current practice, that restriction already extends two months earlier when when I have to get now No matter yeah. But no matter what, no matter where you switch shift the dates, you're gonna there's gonna be an issue. Yeah. Yeah.

[Emily Carris Duncan (Member)]: Emily? It seems like I could be Please correct me if I'm wrong because I'm rather confusing. But it seems like a lot of this is coming down to the interpretation of this clause about teachers not being able to It's the just cause thing. And I wonder, it also seems like the statute does not fully align with what the rules of superintendent's association is dealing with. And then on top of the fact that superintendents can also be affected by this and principals can be affected by this, I feel like this is more an issue of how we are interpreting the first part of this statute within the rules of these external organizations, and maybe that's where we need to look because it does seem like sticking an actual I've been confused about the date thing because so many well, it sounds like each school district kind of operates on their own schedule and calendar a little bit to some degree.

[David "Dave" Bosch (Member)]: To a degree, yeah.

[Emily Carris Duncan (Member)]: And so that actually kind of wouldn't work until we were on some sort of unified calendar as a state, which is a few years out, it seems.

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: Although, just to clarify, I I think contract issuance dates are fairly consistent, I believe, statewide that that that July 1 to June 30.

[Kirk White (Ranking Member)]: Jay had mentioned that there

[Emily Carris Duncan (Member)]: was some variability, so I'm not sure.

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: There may be some outliers for sure, but

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Yeah. You can go a little bit there.

[Jay Nichols (Vermont Principals Association)]: Well yeah I was going to just actually address something else I think it's important for the committee to know that the law right now does provide protection for employees if they've been in the same school district for two years. So if I've been a teacher you know with in Edye's system for two years, I'm going to get a contract unless you tell me by April 15 that you're not going to give me one. That's in statute. That's in the law. That's right in 1752. You go down a little further it's in Section C. And for principals, if I've been a principal at Anytown Elementary School for two years in a row, that third year you have to let me know by February 1 if you're going to non renew me. So there already is some protection in there for employees. It's not protection that I can just apply for anything I want whenever I want it, but there is there's protection on the other end where employees have have protection to at least have a job. I think you know I'm not a school board member but from the school board's perspective on this and maybe from the superintendents there's not a lot of protection if somebody wants to leave late if you change this language. So if you're going to change this language I would suggest that you have a certain day that people can't be looking around for other jobs without release from the superintendent. Because otherwise you're just going to keep adding more chaos and turmoil to a system that's already experiencing lots of ambiguity.

[Anthony "Tony" Micklus (Member)]: I've been struggling with this a little bit. We talked about 1698, I think, as the stick in this, the licensing action. But I hear school boards are a relevant player in these determinations. School boards are subject to 1698? I don't think So they just wondering how

[Jay Nichols (Vermont Principals Association)]: 1698 is for licensed professionals. The school board should not be saying to Jay we're not going to let you apply for another job. But what does happen sometimes is the superintendent goes to the board and says, hey, Jay is our science teacher. He wants to he wants to go to another job. He wants to go teach someplace else because it's closer to his home or whatever. And the school board might say, especially if it's late in the year, might tell the superintendent, no, don't let him. So now you get the poor superintendent caught in middle.

[Anthony "Tony" Micklus (Member)]: I'm trying to focus in exactly on that practice that you described. If the school board is the decider, it feels like the language we're including won't in any way affect them as the amendment specifies 1698, which doesn't touch school boards. So I'm just wondering if the mechanism you've articulated is actually going to be meaningful. Am I making that I'm worried about it.

[Kirk White (Ranking Member)]: I think what you're pointing out is that there's a whole chapter on education law and who's responsible for what that we're looking at one tiny piece of, and we don't know how, if we change this, what else it can impact.

[Anthony "Tony" Micklus (Member)]: I was sort of seeing that in the bill version, is, oh, this is why we have that exemption for educators. Because the contracts are, this is, you haven't really spent much time in this rabbit hole, and there's a lot there.

[Kirk White (Ranking Member)]: Chapter sixteen's not a tiny

[Anthony "Tony" Micklus (Member)]: chapter. Yeah, as I'm swimming a little Like, I am over my skis right now.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: It's not a rabbit hole, but I plan on skiing down these. So I have to give this some thought, figure out where we're gonna go. Think we may delay action today on 02/2005 to get to think about this a little bit more and see where where we wanna go. So I appreciate the conversation, I appreciate the issues, I appreciate both sides' issues with I can see both sides very clearly. And if there was a way that I could force you all sides to sit down and figure this out by holding something over your heads that

[Anthony "Tony" Micklus (Member)]: would

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: be difficult for all of you, then that's what I would do. I don't have that ability. Can pull on one side and it favors the other. So I can put a sunset on this or I can push it out a year. But no matter what, it's gonna favor one side or the other. So I think we need to think about this a little bit more and we'll get back to everybody. So thank you all. Thank you, Eric. Thank you. Jay, thank you as well. Thank you. It's been an enlightening discussion for us when we only get into workforce, but I think this is diving deeper than workforce.

[Jay Nichols (Vermont Principals Association)]: Well, for the invitation. Glad to come back anytime and it feels good to be in a kind of committee meeting where I'm not running the meeting and Herb Olson is firing questions at me. It feels good to be away from that. So Great.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Thank you. Thanks for the opportunity. Representative Hendrick, thank you for your question. Yeah. I'll let you know what I

[Rep. Troy Hedrick (Chittenden-15)]: appreciate all the color.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Committee, we have our letter from Rick for appropriations. Before we go to lunch, I want us to go through that and it's posted on our web page. Jonathan, can you give us a bullet on our

[Rep. Troy Hedrick (Chittenden-15)]: One clerk I'm gonna let the clerk's office know not to post the amendment. Yeah. You're definitely gonna do aye.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: I think hold off. I'll let you know. I gotta I've gotta have a couple of discussions. Okay.

[Emily Carris Duncan (Member)]: If

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: you look at the letter. Five minutes. You can pull this up. I just want everybody to take a look at the letter. Okay.

[Rep. Troy Hedrick (Chittenden-15)]: See. Update it. Okay.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: I think it does what we want it to do.

[Jeff Fannon (Vermont-NEA)]: It looks

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: like it. Butters up on the screen, so if you can just scroll down a few, go to the first one. Let's see. The BHCD, the BHA program, high priority. DHFA, down payment assistance fund, three fifteen tax credits for five years. Continuing the homeowner tax credits, We find that think we support that. Mobile Home Improvement Repair Fund, dollars 800,000 one time funding. We support it high priority. DE, the nonprofessional of the color, 200,000. Do you support it? So

[Emily Carris Duncan (Member)]: And the International Business Office should be It's like $2.25. Yeah. Okay. It's just not clear.

[Kirk White (Ranking Member)]: It looks like we're only asking for 150 to request Because for

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: these are two different funding streams. So we're asking 150 for the governor's recommend, and we're also saying, and we want to start a new thing, and we recommend taking the money from the reversions from Department of Labor.

[Emily Carris Duncan (Member)]: Oh, gotcha.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Assuming they Yeah. It first had it at 2 '25, but it wasn't clear. Then it just talked about the reversion, so it made it sound like we wanted all the money to come from the reversion. But that's not we support the governor's recommend, and then we're also suggesting that we start a new office in Southeast Asia. Department of Labor, we support the governor's recommend, and we're telling the Appropriations Committee that the one time appropriations that are in the reversions going to the general fund were saying we saying we that should take some of that money to do some of the things we want done. EFR recommending a 3% increase. Letting appropriations know that there's a need for IT projects in the Department of Financial Regulation so that they have that upfront now that there'll be some money that's going be needed there. Department of Health, I think we're saying that those three funds, workforce funds that were in there, that we do not support that reversion, and basically keep the thing going. That was a choice that the Department of Health made, and they're saying, No, we don't agree with that. And medical student piece that's up there, we're saying remove the sunset. Then UVM, so we're supporting well, the multi use center, the 15,000,000 allocation. We support the purpose, but we don't support where the allocation was coming from, which was on the Huntington Trust Fund. They are also requesting 1,000,000 to expand in rural communities, and we're saying take a look at the full health care transformation federal funding for that money. Vermont State University's, we're supporting the Freedom and Unity Scholarship that was started last year, and we're suggesting that they get that money from the Higher Ed Trust Fund. These act supporting dual enrollment again, high priority, Advance Vermont, 600,000 permanent funding for my future VP and graduate with a plan, support that, suggesting it comes from reversion dollars of Department of Labor, high priority. Higher Ed, UVM, VESAC, and DSC, supporting governors recommend, a 3% increase to their base funding. AEL, Agency Administration, recommendation formula would be 85, student count 15, seat time. And we're recommending that funding formula be for two years, and then starting in 2029, be 100%. Beth St. James is drafting that language now for appropriations. CAP agencies, what they're seeking, we support the request and give the reasons why we support it. It's our priority. Cooper.

[Anthony "Tony" Micklus (Member)]: I've been sharing with that bullet point about the community sports's request a little bit. I think it's about provides economic benefit to Vermonters or just significant benefit to Vermonters. I don't really see this as a to state. I don't know if it's a high return on investment with respect to the taxes. We're supposed to file our taxes, and this is helping. I just have, this has been on my mind as not all of these points, but some of these points are more social work than consumer protection or economic development. And so I would be cautious about significant economic benefit to the state. It it feels like we could just support the request and that. But it's assertions that the committee may feel are the case, but I just want a voice that I see it different.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Economic benefit does provide significant benefits to the state because we're getting people off of poverty. They're able to provide tax dollars to the state. They're not taking dollars.

[Emily Carris Duncan (Member)]: And they're starting a business.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: I was hoping there is some economic benefit to it too.

[Anthony "Tony" Micklus (Member)]: Oh, there's many things that come in for me, for sure.

[Emily Carris Duncan (Member)]: They're also starting businesses with the micro business development. Yeah.

[Anthony "Tony" Micklus (Member)]: It's a life cycle that's a risk finding.

[Kirk White (Ranking Member)]: Economic benefit to the state comes from so many different things, but it also comes from taking people off of poverty or getting people out of poverty is an economic benefit to the state multiple levels. And so the financial coaching and the micro businesses are direct to our committee, filing taxes and getting larger returns than you would otherwise get is a benefit to the individual, and it helps. So I think, which also ends up back in the community.

[David "Dave" Bosch (Member)]: Right, and in economy.

[Kirk White (Ranking Member)]: So I feel like I could argue this part.

[Anthony "Tony" Micklus (Member)]: Yeah, think those are And my thought was really that the tax work is a different animal than That's not really showing me how to do your taxes. Financial coaching, business development is how to you're building skills. And when we give someone our taxes to do for us, that's what we're doing. And that's a different thing to me, but I don't So I just thank you for letting me sort of say what's on my mind with this.

[Emily Carris Duncan (Member)]: I'll just tie it up quickly on the text side. I think the process, especially given the population of community that they're dealing with, getting somebody to get to the point where they can hand in their tax information on time with all of the information is actually pretty big. It does feel like a social services thing, but it's also about creating those reliable forms for the state.

[Anthony "Tony" Micklus (Member)]: Yeah, definitely need to use it on your own subscribers.

[Emily Carris Duncan (Member)]: Yeah.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: The HCV, 40,400,000 high end, it's full funding, recommended high. The RPC's, we're good with that, high priority, serve, learn, earn, supporting an extra $500,000 utilizing the reversion dollars from Department of Labor, and Vermont Arts Council supporting that so that they can draw down federal funds, working lands, support and the request that there are funds available. Downtown tax credits, continue to support the 3,000,000 tax credits and also support increasing the credits to six months annually. Program has received more applications than they've been able to approve. Priority high, DOREC, supporting the governor's recommended $500,000 one time, but we're saying that we're recommending that it be placed in base funding, the LongHepital Business Alliance, 100,000, support the request, and then we need reversion dollars, need buy from that, it's the median prior NOFA, $500,000 one time fund for crop cash, crop cash costs, and farm share, support that request. See the benefits to both farmers and food insecure of the monitors. I think it was a high priority by everybody.

[Herb Olson (Member)]: I thought so too. But I just didn't see it at the end.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Okay. And the CRD yeah. I think we had a good discussion about that support request that it provides a bridge for regional technical assistance for small rural communities. If not, through the agency of Congress and Community Development, the future committee would like the agency to provide comprehensive and integrated support technical assistance for all small towns so they can fully avail themselves. The agency should develop a framework in collaboration with current technical assistance providers in this committee, and I think that's something that we need to remember when the economic development bill comes over from the Senate, that's something that we can place in there to get that off the ground. Then common good Vermont. Right now we're waiting to see what that economic bill looks like. So we'll have them put the priority high on NOFA good to go from everybody?

[Rep. Troy Hedrick (Chittenden-15)]: Yep.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Okay. Good. Thank you. Have a good one. Yep. Yes. Yep.