Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Good morning. This is the House Committee on Commerce and Economic Development. Today is Friday, February 27 at nine a. M. And as is our custom, we get a report from our legislative interns on Friday mornings. And so I don't know which one of you want to go first. Bailey? Bailey sent a report. It's in documents if you want to follow-up.

[Bailey Davis (Legislative Intern)]: Good morning, my name is Bailey Davis. I'm the committee intern from Norwich. So this week, I went over the funding mechanisms surrounding CTE. Of course, you can get into a whole rabbit hole here, but of course, in the time I have here, I'm going to try to do kind of a crash course on some of the funding models throughout the country. So I've actually used some of the research I talked about a few weeks ago on the ECS, Education Commission of the States. They have that data set that I showed, I think it was two weeks ago, and I specifically filtered it by the funding mechanism. That's one of the variables that they have in there. And so that's broken up into four different categories: student based funding, a hybrid model, a resource based funding, and then there's also another category for states that may not fill or may not fit into one of those categories and might kind of have certain aspects of all three. So for student based funding, obviously there are some nuances to this. Again, can't go over every single state, but for the most part, based funding typically refers to funding based on the number of students enrolled in whatever center that is. Vermont made some changes to that through Act 127, which just kind of promote more equality depending on where the location is. But, of course, like like I said, there's nuances to each of those systems. So it's not like, say, the system in Arizona is gonna be the same as the system here in Vermont. But generally speaking, they can be, for the most part, wrapped up in that category. Then there's cost based funding. And so what that does is it provides the cost of equipment, materials, special supplies. And so it takes a a whole cost approach to where it's not just talking about the student, necessarily like the tuition for the student. Talking about, well, if I have this number of students, how many teachers do I need? How many, let's say, laboratory equipment, how much lab equipment do I need, how much this, that, the other do I need. And then the hybrid model kind of combines aspects of both of those into its funding mechanism. It's kind of similar to the ones that aren't identified, but except it draws more from those first two categories. And of course, I mean, you pull up my report, I have every single state listed that falls in each of these categories. Now granted, this is from ECS, so they analyze this, but it is from 2023, and I know some states have made changes to their funding model since then, and I'll go into a little bit of that. So Texas, for example, introduced a three tier system. So what that does is it puts certain industries and certain professions into tiers. So it says, okay, well we need more it's in its needs space, it's demand based. So if there's a more need for, say, welders or plumbers or electricians, they're going to put that in a higher tier relative to, say, other professions. So that's and it assigns funding based on that. So Indiana did something as well in regards to funding, obviously. They established career scholarship accounts It allows students to receive 5,000 state funds that could be used towards the pursuits of those careers. Florida does something kind of similar. There's a $1,000 bonus for every student who earns a certification in a high demand industry. And so another thing I want to mention too, again I can't really go over everything just for the interest of time, but Massachusetts, I've studied Massachusetts, Connecticut in particular in comparison to Vermont, and that's because here in Vermont a lot of these CTA centers aren't necessarily in and of themselves school districts. Instead they offer certification and then obviously the student would then go on to earn their degree as well, or their high school diploma In Massachusetts and Connecticut, I know obviously I'm from Massachusetts, they do it to where the technical schools, the CTE centers, are their own districts, and they issue their own diplomas. So it allows them to receive funding like a normal school district, and it allows them to not be secondary to those school districts in terms of funding. And so, yeah, like I said, workforce alignment is something that Vermont could do as well, just like Texas, because particularly here where we have somewhat sparse resources compared to a big state like Texas, it's important to prioritize that funding. Another thing I think that's important to mention is that, and again, there's more information here if you guys want read through it. But another thing I want to mention real quick is some states do something and they take the funding for education as opposed to giving it to the school districts and then use per student on a per student basis, they just take it off the top from the CTE center so that they dedicate to CTE. So that way, when school districts send kids, they're more likely to send kids because they know that that's not going to come out of their funding. There's already money set aside for that. So I think that's something important to mention as well. So at this point, I'll just open up to any questions. I know it's, know, I definitely didn't do it justice here, but it's old rabbit.

[Unidentified committee member]: I was just curious about the Texas with the tiered. Did you get any sense as to what metric, how do they determine what a high demand job is versus a low demand job?

[Bailey Davis (Legislative Intern)]: I'm not mean, I'm not sure exactly. I can look again, I can look into it more. I'm pretty sure it's they take, like, job reports and stuff like that. So, like, people who are you know, who wanna hire, but they it's not because they it's it's because they just can't find the people, essentially. So they and I'm pretty sure they use job reports. I think I read that while I was looking into this. Okay. They use the job reports. Nice.

[Monique Priestley (Clerk)]: Appreciate it.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Yeah. Any questions? Great. Thank you. Thank you.

[Cabot Sales (UVM Legislative Intern)]: Good morning. Cabot Sales, UVM intern. I will be going over the senate committee development as usual, or it should be in there. I'm not gonna go over every point on your but if

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: you're in report. Do you think?

[Cabot Sales (UVM Legislative Intern)]: There. It just get added. I sent it in.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: I'd like to follow along. Yeah. Sure. Yeah. Any two

[Cabot Sales (UVM Legislative Intern)]: I could also try and join if it's not up there and

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Okay.

[Monique Priestley (Clerk)]: Okay. That's good. I guess it's spring break.

[Cabot Sales (UVM Legislative Intern)]: This week. Well, no. The week after next week. Okay. Yes. Next week's time meeting.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Hello?

[Monique Priestley (Clerk)]: There's a there's generally a

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: bit of a delay to give it. Right. I know. It's all better. Okay. Interpersonal. Alright. Got it. Alright. Are we out? Thank you. Okay. Great.

[Cabot Sales (UVM Legislative Intern)]: Yes. Cabot Sales, UVM intern. We're gonna be going over the senate economic development starting with s three twenty eight, which is their act relating to housing. They discussed municipal housing targets and planning. And I'm not going to go through every point yet but if you'd like to look at more but what I'm going to talk about is the down payment assistance tax credit. They are proposing a five year extension for the tax credit and a possible increase of a $100,000 in allocation for that. And there's broad support from the committee for that. They also discussed Vermont Housing Special Fund, which would authorize the state treasurer's office to increase the economic development credits. They currently offer from 10% to 12 and a half percent of the state's cash balance. And then the interest from those additional loans would be used to create a Vermont housing special fund that could bulk purchase off-site constructed housing. There was some concern from the committee over the risk associated with that. They also discussed HOAs and some zoning considerations for multi unit housing. And moving on to S three twenty seven, act related to economic development. Downtown village and village center tax credits. There's very broad support for that. But just some specific considerations of moving it from 3,000,000 to 5,000,000. There was there was broad attitude in the committee of let's be very aware of how much we're actually allocating, how much we're spending, and understanding what that is in aggregate before making any final decisions. There was strong support for the small business and or or allocations towards business support systems like the Vermont Small Business Law Center, Small Business Development Center, and Vermont Professionals of Color Network. There was also discussion of a $295,000 allocation to Common Good Vermont. There were concerns over nonprofit bureaucracy and that allocation, and they suggested that Common Good Vermont makes their case to house commerce for that funding. There was strong support for brownfields remediation, an outdoor recreation economic impact study. They were proposing a $200,000 allocation for that. And there was strong support for the study, but some questions as to whether current existing funds can be used for that instead of an additional application. Creating a culinary education task force, strong support for that as well at now that NECE is no longer around. International trade, they were supporting a $150,000 for the Montreal office. Some uncertainty about hiring a full time rep for Taiwan, but they talked about contracting a representative as needed. They are supporting the repeal of the Sunset Veggie, and they will not be supporting enhanced veggie incentives for employee owned businesses because that will require upfront capital rather than a post performance incentive. And they also will be extending or proposing to extend the convention center task force through the end of the year and looking to add a representative from UVM. And finally, we talk about s two thirty and act relating to flexible working arrangements. What they discussed was adding teachers to be eligible under the Vermont Rental and Family Leave Act and the Federal Family and Medical Leave Act because teachers work hours outside of the traditional day that can make it hard to prove that they've worked hours. So they would be assuming teachers are eligible. And they also discussed self attestation as qualifying victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, and stalking as being eligible as well. So that's it. Can I answer any questions?

[Monique Priestley (Clerk)]: The outdoor recreation economic impact study. Yeah. Was that was the community fully like, that's a great idea or is anyone thinking we have outdoor outdoor rec economic impact studies already? Yeah.

[Cabot Sales (UVM Legislative Intern)]: I think that that question was really, do we need to allocate more money there? The the reason they were so supportive is just because of hearing how impactful economic or the outdoor recreation is. They heard some testimony from that earlier, and I think they really wouldn't want to focus on that because we're looking for any way to really push economic development through anything. But, yeah, there's you know, the the additional funding request is a question.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Questions? No. Thank you. And thanks for your your report. So both note, but just want to speed it up, you know, to the record that the legislature's off next week. So so we won't be here next Friday. And and Bailey's also on this week. And then Cabot's off the following week, so we've probably had to Cabot for a couple weeks. I hope you have a good break from us and from school for Bailey, and thanks for everything you do. Thank you. So, Monique, any reports from your shadowed committees? No.

[Monique Priestley (Clerk)]: Not not from my committees. They neither one.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: I got nothing. It's all about regulation stuff.

[Unidentified committee member]: Yeah. My committees my committees were working on their budget. I asked about force management for corrections and institutions, and apparently they reclassified a couple upper level jobs, but beyond that, there wasn't anything of import to us.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Alright. Well, very good. So just so the committee knows, we have Floor 930, and then after the floor, we'll come back here where we'll be receiving more testimony on H211, the date of birth and case documentation bill, and then we'll do that before lunch. And then this afternoon, we'll be doing H385, an act relating to remedies and protections for victims of course death. I will be receiving more testimony, and the hope is that we will reach a place where we can mark it up possibly voted out this afternoon. So that's what our afternoon currently looks like, and let's have a great last day before we opt to