Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Good afternoon, everyone. This is the Vermont House Committee on Commerce and Economic Development. It is Wednesday, 04/01/2026 at 02:10 in the afternoon. So we have our legislative council with us, Rick Segal. We will take a look and walk through the new language that's in s three twenty seven. Now we had some discussions about it. They now's an opportunity to walk through.

[Rick Segal (Legislative Counsel)]: Okay. With the office of the council and I did catch some of the testimony this morning. So I'm aware some, maybe questions you have about the section and we're just talking about the new section, Mr. Chair? Yeah. So this is draft 1.1 of three twenty seven dated March '10. On page seven, so I want to maybe give you a little bit about what I've done here because I don't if you've had this happen with the building here yet. So this program, the Rural Industry Development Grant Program, is that what we're going to call

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: it? Okay.

[Rick Segal (Legislative Counsel)]: Was created in session law in 2023. Have you all had the primer on session law versus I could use it. Okay, I won't spend a whole lot of time, but I do want to explain this thing, just maybe a good opportunity, right? This interestingly, when I researched this amendment, I discovered that this was put into the budget in 2023. That happens a lot where you have things are negotiated and a bill is across the line at a crossover at the end of session, but then

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: it gets put in the budget.

[Rick Segal (Legislative Counsel)]: The budget, there's like nothing that's not germane to the budget. If they're money, it's, you know, it's in the budget. So this this had a bill number, I can't remember, but they had a bill number and it was put in title 10, but this session law, the bill once we got the votes, got taken out of Title 10 and put it in the session law. So session law is the same, it is law, just like the DSH, like the Green Books. But session law, the copy journal, Do you have axe

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Oh, we don't

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: have anything over here. Oh, oh.

[Rick Segal (Legislative Counsel)]: Okay, so we have 2020, 2023. So Acts 78, if you go to this Acts result from the 2023 session, if you go to Acts 78, you'll see this along with every other law that was passed in 2023. Session law is the same as the law that goes in Green Books, but typically we use session law for temporary one time things. It's used for budget, know, one time appropriations, it's a great place for that. It's not as common to put a program that you think is going to last longer than a couple of years concession. So I imagine they did this because it was

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: easy to just put them, let's

[Rick Segal (Legislative Counsel)]: just do it, and then maybe it lasts for two years, three years, and then we won't have worry about it. But it is a program without a sunset, so in my opinion, I think it should be in the Green Book, especially if this committee wants to keep it going, which I heard testimony this morning, sounds like you may want to keep it going, especially if you make it a revolving, or if you don't make it a revolving fund, if you want to appropriate money to it, it would help to have it in statute, and plus people can find it. If you are a local development corporation and you have heard about this program, if you Google it, you can probably find it and find the web page that, this page here, talks about programs, but the log is going be kind of hard to find. So with that said, what I have done is I've struck through the entire session log that created this program in 2023, that's section 12, and section 13 I am putting it based on copy and paste with youth attendance into a new Title X section six. That's our economic development chapter in Title X. It's the first chapter in Title X, it's kind of nice, right there, economic development. And this is where it was going to go in 2023 until they took it out and put in the budget. So that's my long winded way of saying this is why I'm doing this straight now and kind of putting it back in. Okay, so the language I had changed has been highlighted in yellow. So even though this is all underlined, it's new law, right, because we're moving it, it's not new language. The language already exists from the most part. So the Rural Industry Development Grant Program is created with an ACCD, you know that it already exists. So the current language is that it is used to for business relocation and expansion efforts, including the purchase, demolition, and renovation of property for industrial use. That's where it would stop. The new language suggestion is to include commercial or in the case of a federally impacted property, which is a bind, residential use. So you're expanding how this grant money could be used. Definition two or paragraph two has not changed. The agency shall make grants to the program to assist LLBCs with business relocation and expansion efforts throughout the model. Now you may wanna consider updating this so I didn't catch the first time. If you want, Derek, you wanna include not just residential, sorry, not just business, but if you wanna include residential use, may wanna add that in there just so you don't miss anything.

[Kirk White (Ranking Member)]: So sorry, just going back to that first paragraph. Anything after including is not an exhaustive list. Is adding residential use there? Was it available for residential use before? Is this an actual So if it's an actual change, does it have to be before including?

[Rick Segal (Legislative Counsel)]: Well, so if you go out to provide grant funding through LDCs for business relocation expansion efforts, so we might need to amend this more. So that's the kind of bumper I'd like, right? The business relocation, then that includes this business. So you may want to clarify that and say for business relocation, residential use.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: I guess the question is, do so I think we're looking at maybe two different things. At the 50%, this is what we're looking at, and at the 100, we're including residential as an app.

[Rick Segal (Legislative Counsel)]: Right, but this is the entire program. So you had this the why this program exists. So you do want to include the potential for the residential use here.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Well, think that's the question that do we want, right? Do we want it?

[Rick Segal (Legislative Counsel)]: I would recommend you mention it here because if you don't mention it here and then you say, well, if you have this federal impact property that you can get this much money for this use, think you probably want to just mention that this grant can be used upon certain conditions, criteria, but we can talk about how you would do that.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Yeah, I don't know if that was intentional.

[Kirk White (Ranking Member)]: Or there is the piece that I wasn't really reading previously, because it's after break.

[Rick Segal (Legislative Counsel)]: You're talking about the last sentence of the

[Kirk White (Ranking Member)]: Yeah, first don't need to nitpick language at this point. I'm trying to really get my brain around.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: I'm on the same page now. Yeah. I'm just seeing, I think what it's saying is that for the 50% would keep us at a higher level so that we're looking at industrial commercial properties. Think The discussion we heard this morning was that they wanted the ability to be able to provide grants to build warehouses or commercial property. And then looking at the case of federally impacted properties and you want residential component to match. Right? And that's

[Rick Segal (Legislative Counsel)]: The commas help. Is, now the more I

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: read it. Like actually I will.

[Rick Segal (Legislative Counsel)]: It is. So for business relocation and expansion efforts, comma, including this, and then you have a new set. So the business relocation is specific for the purchase demolition and renovation that's under business relocation. The commercial or residential are outside

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: of that. That makes sense.

[Rick Segal (Legislative Counsel)]: So I think it's okay as we're, you may be making more clear, I don't know if you need to, even though we were all confused with Yeah. Well, think we're saying industrial and commercial. Yes.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Right? But if it's a case of federally impacted property, then we're also going to include residential. Right.

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: And does the reality that construction will blend the two make a difference? Would you only be applying 100 to the residential portion of a project that has commercial and residential both.

[Rick Segal (Legislative Counsel)]: And to clarify that.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: It could be industrial, commercial and residential, it could be all three in most cases.

[Rick Segal (Legislative Counsel)]: I'll take it's gonna be clear. Okay, there's enough here that we probably need to I think I know the intent is that you want it to be any of these things. They're Yeah, not all. Any or all. Usually, inexpensive, right? You don't want lump them all into one.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Right. Okay.

[Rick Segal (Legislative Counsel)]: Jonathan, thank you.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Well, I just add, it just says relocation and expansion, it doesn't specifically say Vermont. I

[Rick Segal (Legislative Counsel)]: believe you have to be in from it later on. But I'll flag that in my

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: mind

[Rick Segal (Legislative Counsel)]: and

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: I'll come back to it. I had a question on page 11, line five. Are we

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: there yet? Or is that where

[Rick Segal (Legislative Counsel)]: you are right now? That's where we are, so it's I think

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: you've mentioned the, of there being the throw up a month. I'm wondering, do we need the phrase with business relocation expansion? Could it be to assist global corporations throughout the month? If one is specifying what it's for, then do we need to make mirror language in two to specify what it's for again,

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: or can we merely

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: remove those five words so that two is more flexible?

[Rick Segal (Legislative Counsel)]: I see, yeah, I could see the potential confusion, right? Because two is existing law. So if

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: you look

[Rick Segal (Legislative Counsel)]: at one and two as currently as current law, it makes sense. But because you're adding in the commercial and the residential use I can see, so maybe we can, I'm not sure it's striking it is what you should do or if you want to say those things again, the business relocation or residential use, relocation expenses, job lot

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: and then maybe go down with the uses.

[Rick Segal (Legislative Counsel)]: The important thing here is that this gives the agency authority to make the grants. That's what this is, is what it's actually creating a fund. That's what this is doing. It's saying that we have this fund and now you're going to be able to make grants from it.

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: This

[Herb Olson (Member)]: is the program that potentially could help the Montpelier post office and plus Dupla. Well, I remember the mayor talking about a bunch of different uses that weren't only business relocation and expansion. Did I get something out? I mean, they were talking about the pit, right?

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: Pit hole. There was some

[Herb Olson (Member)]: And the first step was actually buying this property. And it didn't, I don't know, you have been too bit anarchy, but I didn't see that. Okay, demolition. What about the perk? I mean,

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Or you can use They they're looking

[Herb Olson (Member)]: for some money to purchase.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: The purchase, demolition, reservation of. So the funds can be used for those purposes. Right? And they can be an industrial, it could be a commercial, or with federally impacted property,

[Rick Segal (Legislative Counsel)]: it could be used for residential.

[Herb Olson (Member)]: I see. I see. I was having a disconnect between the lead in Okay. Expansion and the purchase. That's fine. Okay,

[Rick Segal (Legislative Counsel)]: number three, this is new, I forgot to highlight it, but three is new. As used in the section federally impacted property means real property, that is A) owned by The United States or by any federal agency or an instrumentality thereof or P) under the custody or control of a federally appointed receiver, trustee, or conservator, and includes property subject to federal court

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: jurisdiction. That's

[Rick Segal (Legislative Counsel)]: me. Okay, B is current language, no change to B. Grant considerations and making the grant awards, the agency shall consider the real estate needs of growing and relocating businesses, including nonprofits in the Abilance region. The ability of the proposed project to meet the site specific needs of businesses considering whether to expand or locate in the state, the funding that the applicant has identified or secured to leverage a grant award, and the readiness of an applicant to move a project forward. Okay, it's all current. Eligible applicants. To be eligible, an applicant must be a local development corporation as defined in two twelve-ten secondtion located within the state. So I have what the section is in case you're curious. So a local development corporation means any nonprofit organization incorporated in the state for the purpose of fostering, encouraging, and assisting the physical location of business enterprises within the state and having as its principal purpose the industrial and economic development of one or more political subdivisions and channel clues the Northeastern Vermont Development Association and State Development Company. However, for the purpose of providing assistance to small business incubator facilities, any non profit that enters into a written agreement with the authority to establish, operate, and administer a small business incubator facility, including municipalities, local or regional nonprofit development corporations, and higher educational institutions shall have the rights and obligations of the LTC under this chapter. So in order to get the grant, you have to meet this definition of a local general corporation, which is pretty specific.

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: Can I ask you about that subdivision between 1613? Is expanding its Who else is that? So I

[Rick Segal (Legislative Counsel)]: don't know, but I'll pull it

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: up so we can look at it. Okay, so this

[Rick Segal (Legislative Counsel)]: is VIDA's general authority. To cause to be incorporated in Vermont a nonprofit

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: that will qualify as a

[Rick Segal (Legislative Counsel)]: state owned company under 15 U. S. C. Six ninety five

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: and regulations propagated pursuant.

[Rick Segal (Legislative Counsel)]: The voting members of the authority shall be members of the company, shall constitute the board of directors of the company. The company shall be organized and operate under the nonprofit corporation laws of Vermont to the extent not consistent with the shall have the power to contract with the company to provide staff and management needs of the company. The authority is authorized to contribute to the capital of the company in an amount the authority, deterrence and necessary and appropriate is disputed. This is under VIDA.

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: So is that just referring to how beta works most them? Going back to the dev machine.

[Rick Segal (Legislative Counsel)]: And any stage development company organized under the and And I don't know how many there are. If you were there.

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: Yeah, was sort of worried just where that, the tool was right. I

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: hope that answers for you. Okay, back to the bill.

[Rick Segal (Legislative Counsel)]: Okay, number two, submission two, this is still eligible applicants. The Secretary of Commerce and Community Development may designate projects and agreements as first priority based on rural communities that continue to experience insufficient economic and grand list growth.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: What's the definition of your community policy?

[Rick Segal (Legislative Counsel)]: Not sure if to bind here. It isn't because it's an infection ball, so we don't have that definition. Do you want to propose this?

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Understand if we would consider inferior or Newport as a little company.

[Anthony “Tony” Micklus (Member)]: Put a population cap on that. Yeah, that's nice.

[Emily Carris Duncan (Member)]: Also, what are the town or city blueprints? I don't know what's happening at the edges.

[Rick Segal (Legislative Counsel)]: It is called the Rural Industry Development Grant Program. That could be You could also rename it.

[Anthony “Tony” Micklus (Member)]: Population cap of 10,000.

[Kirk White (Ranking Member)]: Oh, incredibly problems the whole time.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: The other thing we could do is, I wanted to do like a population density, where you take population divided by the square foot, square miles of the town, and that would define what rural is.

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: I'm sure the feds

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: have one so much.

[Rick Segal (Legislative Counsel)]: It's gonna be different than this. It's the whole state. It's state.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Burlington's not considered an urban community, really. No. How much how many people are in Newport? Three,

[Kirk White (Ranking Member)]: four. 140. 10,000.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Four is 10,000.

[Anthony “Tony” Micklus (Member)]: Less than 10,000.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: That's only a first priority. Priority, that doesn't stop it.

[Kirk White (Ranking Member)]: He testified earlier on who has gotten money already and I was curious to see what those areas were, but we don't have the request.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Is that original language, Rick? Was BCC, I think. Yeah, they guessed two. These are the four.

[Kirk White (Ranking Member)]: Wilmington. Wilmington. For Wilmington. Wilmington. That's what I mean about city limits.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Take a look and see what the GAVIN statute defines rural community.

[Rick Segal (Legislative Counsel)]: So subsection D eligible activities. A grant recipient may use funding for the following. So the new language is yellow, like it's a little bit confusing, so I'll reach at the new language and I'll tell you what the old language was. To purchase real property for potential industrial use or commercial development or for residential use as set forth in subsection F of the section. The previous language is to purchase land for potential industrial use. So real property was land and then the rest was the yellow part was new.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: What's the difference between use and develop? Because industrial and residential we say use and commercial we say develop.

[Rick Segal (Legislative Counsel)]: In this context, not a significant difference. So maybe, yeah.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: If we say industrial use or commercial or residential, does that mean we have to pick one?

[Rick Segal (Legislative Counsel)]: Yes.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: But if we had piece of property that they were gonna develop for commercial residential? That.

[Rick Segal (Legislative Counsel)]: I don't know if that would limit you. I mean, if you're gonna do one of those three and it's got to be two to three, I don't know if that limits you to stick. Can make it how you want. I read this as just one of these is enough. Yeah, it has to be one of these, at least one of these three, right? Right. If it's more than one, don't read it as like limited just to one.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Okay.

[Rick Segal (Legislative Counsel)]: That's my, but I would need more time to think about

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: it.

[Rick Segal (Legislative Counsel)]: I think as written, the development piece, I think we can change that to if you want use word development, but I don't think it limits you just to one.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: But you have to have a piece once.

[Rick Segal (Legislative Counsel)]: Right. Because there's other activities, but if you wanna use subdivision one, Azure activity, any of those three.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Isn't development is actually building or constructing and uses use? So wouldn't you want it to be potential use or development or use or industrial It doesn't matter anyway because it says they may use funding. The grant recipient may use funding for the following. It doesn't say you shall. It's true.

[Rick Segal (Legislative Counsel)]: This is why it's recommended that the word shall be used as the legislature because if you want something to be done a certain way, you simply

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: shall. So saying the money can be used to purchase property, the cost of development permitting, or project that supports future. So it's, you are saying you can use it for one of these three or four. Yeah,

[Rick Segal (Legislative Counsel)]: that's it. That's actually. Yeah.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: So we should be saying for image shall be funding for the following. Because then if you have May, they could come up with the seventh. Yeah. After the fact and say, Oh, I should

[Rick Segal (Legislative Counsel)]: change that. That's why shall is the preferred word. And then do you want to say development versus use?

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Can you do both? Development or use? Like, in the sentence? Development or use.

[Kirk White (Ranking Member)]: Probably when it would be use versus development. I I don't I think we want we want these properties to be able to be purchased to be developed into

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Right. Yeah.

[Kirk White (Ranking Member)]: Isn't it only development?

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Or would you be buying a piece of property that already has an industrial use?

[Kirk White (Ranking Member)]: So that another business can leave. That's what I'm trying to

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: get my brain around. Buy this property and some of it is for use, but you're also going to develop additional piece of that property. So I feel like you should have both in that. Think both is the safest. Let's Rick Noodle. That's right, legal documents.

[Rick Segal (Legislative Counsel)]: I don't need to

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: buy it.

[Rick Segal (Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah, think the problem is the underlying, the current law says industrial use period for semicolons. We'd added these other things that are not just industrial use. I think we can make it more clear.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Rick, do you have a time constraint? No. Can we stop for a second? We have Nick Bennett is on, and he's got a hard stop at three. We wanna hear from him on this section of the trails.

[Kirk White (Ranking Member)]: Remote so you don't have

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: to move. Okay. Let's stay there. Hi, Nick.

[Nick Bennett]: Hello. How's it going? Can you can you folks hear me alright?

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Yes. We can. Sorry we couldn't get to you this morning.

[Nick Bennett]: No worries. Not a problem at all. It sounds like I mean, it was educational to say, and there's a lot you guys have a lot on your plate, so I appreciate you all making the time today. Sure. Alright. Let's see if I just made a request to share my screen, prepared a couple of couple of slides with some background and some information to share on the particularly the outdoor rec economic impact study is envisioned in 03/27. So give me just a second. Make sure that's can you all see my screen?

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Yes.

[Rick Segal (Legislative Counsel)]: Great. Alright. I will

[Nick Bennett]: try to be relatively swift here. Just wanted to quickly note that I'm here so for the for the record, I'm Nick Bennett. I'm the executive director of the Vermont Mountain Bike Association, and I am the chair of the Vermont Trails and Greenways Council. And I'm here with two hats on. The PTGC, is a statutorily recognized body and official adviser to the agency of natural resources, has been around since 1989, and sort of represents the collective trail and green waste organizations in the state. My day job, the one that I get a paycheck for is the Vermont is working as executive director for Vermont Boutin Bike Association itself, also a five zero one c three, been around for just about thirty years and represents about 9,000 individuals, as members. So just wanted to kinda give a little context as to where my perspective is gonna come from, which involves both sort of all trails and all stewardship organizations, but also specifically with Vimba with my Vimba add on. To give a little background and these these are numbers that folks would have seen most think a lot of you were at in attendance at outdoor rec day. You've seen these in the past. And until when I when we first prepared this testimony for the senate, about a month ago, these were the numbers we had to work with from 2023, which out direct contributing about $2,160,000,000 to Vermont's GDP. That's close to 5% responsible for almost 17,000 jobs. And we just saw some data or just received some data from the Department of Tourism based on their intercept survey that showed that close to 40% of the visitor visits that coming to Vermont are driven primarily by outdoor recreation. So if you take that 40% of 15,000,000, that's a lot of people coming to the state with a principal desire to to recreate outside. The numbers on the right, this is if you look at the ranking of Vermont as a percentage of state d GDP outdoor rec as a percent of state GDP. For 2023, we were second in the nation. And if you look at the growth, one of the things I had prepared and touched on in outdoor rec day was the fact that amongst those top 10 states with Vermont being number two, we were in the middle of the pack in terms of the growth of outdoor rec, as a percentage of GDP from, in that same period from 2022 to 2023. So this is a very quick rehash, and that put us right about in the middle, of all states twenty first nationally as a percent of GDP growth. That's the data we had back when I present when we spoke it out directly and when I, spoke with the senate earlier this month. And I think it's it's relevant because just a few weeks ago, we got the 2024 data. Now this comes from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. This is an app it's called outdoor recreation satellite account. To quickly recap kind of what the numbers spoke, we we actually slightly increased the overall contribution. So from 2.16 to 2.18, a very small increase in overall outdoor rec, as a contributor to Vermont's economy. As a percentage, that actually went down slightly. This gets into the some of the interesting aspects of looking at percentages. But what what was important, we actually lost, and I think Kelly will speak to this later, we lost as for that data, close to 300 outdoor recreation jobs. So it's still over 16,000, but a but a decrease in jobs, and actually an increase in visitor visits as we looked in in that same year. The data on the right, and this is points to really really directly to the rationale and the need for the study as envisioned in '20 in 03/27. Vermont slipped from number two in the state in the nation, out direct as a contributor to GDP to number four. So previously, we had been right behind Hawaii, Montana, and Alaska slipped ahead of us in those rankings. Now percentages are could be strange. You could you could imagine a scenario in which, well, perhaps Alaska and Montana, their overall economy shrunk, and therefore outdoor rec was a greater contributor. So percentages don't themselves tell the story. What does tell a much more compelling story, though, is the chart on the right, which looks at GDP growth. So looking from 2023 to 2024 and 2024, again, these numbers just came out. They're the most current ones we have. Vermont's outdoor rec economy grew by less than 1%. Whereas if you look at and that ranks forty eighth nationally as a percentage of GDP growth. If you look at the other states in the same top 10 as a proportion of GDP, Montana, Alaska, they're at the top. So the reason they leapfrogged us in those rankings is because their economy was growing well above the national average of about 2.8% and certainly a lot more than than Vermont. And so knowing that we our outdoor economy remains a vital and a super important piece of the overall economic picture, but the rate at which we're able to grow that economy is lagging behind other states. So if we ended kinda double double click on the BEA data, and all this data is, again, coming from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. This is a very top down view on the data. It comes from existing economic data, and, essentially, they look at this commodity splitting approach where they apply a share of outdoor recreation industries across or outdoor recreation across all various industries and use that to kind of extrapolate what the outdoor recreation economic value is in each state. So it the the nice thing about this approach, a, it's top down, b, it uses existing data, and it does capture total GDP impact. It's not just spending. It's not just wages. It looks at the overall tries to look at the overall, impact of outdoor rec on the economy, but it does not it doesn't necessarily look at multiplier effects. So this is really it doesn't necessarily get into the level of community views where the person that comes to a community or moves there and then spends money or a person who is working for an outdoor recreation has, you know, outdoor recreation industry, let's say, their individual economic impact. So it's limited in subways, but it's it works well in that it it is sort of top down. I'll note again that all this data, we're relying on the federal government. It was supposed to come out last fall. It came out because of the, shutdown later this spring, so we were late to see it. But, again, looking back at the comparison between those 2023 numbers and 2024 numbers, I think it tells a pretty, compelling story as to sort of where Vermont is headed relative to other, states in the region and and in the country. And to talk for a minute about other states, what they're doing, the reality is that that many other states and regions are pursuing analysis or studies to better understand and really better better harness their outdoor rec economies as a driver of economic growth. And I highlighted just a few here that are from the last two or three years, North Carolina, Minnesota, Arkansas, New Hampshire, Washington, and Oregon. All these states investing in better understanding what are the true sort of levers they can pull to to continue to to grow the how outdoor rec is having an impact and what are the opportunities to invest, further and and really to continue to to to grow outdoor recreation as a as a sort of pillar of their economies. The final bullet I added here at the bottom is the the last effort we made at all as a state here, the Trails and Greenways Council actually commissioned a study back in 2016, so now a decade old, that looked at just four of our trail organizations to try to get at at somewhat of a comprehensive view of the impact of, those four organizations on the state. Very limited in scope to begin with and now, you know, essentially irrelevant when we look at how much has happened sort of pre COVID to now. So the reality is Vermont has never conducted a detailed outdoor rec analysis despite or a way to and really envisioning this as an sort of investment toolkit or investment sort of study, has never conducted one despite outdoor recreation being such a significant part of our economy. So what was in the original 03/27 request, and what's still noted in the purpose, was to is to have this, impact study that would focus and provide an analysis on a couple of things. One is to better sort of define the actual pathways, the benefits to Vermont's local economy. So, again, this the data that exists now is extremely top down. No level of geographic specificity or how the sort of local impacts take shape. To really identify and rough and then clarify input, risks facing the sector, and I'll touch on some of those in a minute, but we know from the the flooding that occurred certainly in 2023 and some of the more specific storms in 2024, risks like climate change, risks like landowner access are significant threats to this big economic driver. Really, the third bullet's critical to to really focus on strategic outdoor recreation investments. So to identify for both public and private organizations, what are the ways that we can best support economic growth And linking those, the state does have a comprehensive outdoor recreation plan, the store a statewide comprehensive outdoor rec plan. That's the the SCORP often referred to or kind of captured within Move Forward Together Vermont to link to those priorities. But those priorities are not driven are not really sort of coupled to economic development. And that's what we want this really study to focus on is how can outdoor recreation help help further Vermont's economic development. One thing I should have noted, and I will jump back just quickly because I think it's kind of the most important takeaway. If you look at this slide that notes Vermont's growth again and outdoor recreation sector growth was less than a percent, if Vermont had merely grown at the national average of 2.8%, that would have been another 43,000,000 into Vermont's economy. And if you even look back at it, considering most of that is sales, that's close to 2 and a half million dollars in just in in just tax income to the state of Vermont. So thinking if this kind of looping back to the importance of of OutDirect as an investment tool, had we merely grown at the at that national average, that was a significant amount of of overall revenue the state could have seen and could have helped address a lot of the economic austerity challenges we're facing right now. Linking back to the sort of priority of thinking out direct as an investment tool. Couple of the quick notes wanting to take a regional sampling extrapolation approach. This study were the request was $200,000 and being mindful of that's limited in what it can accomplish. So thinking about how we can really leverage sampling to to get the full picture and focusing a couple of aims that were targeted and they were thinking about stewardship. So what does it take to maintain what we have and to continue for that to serve as an engine for our for economic development. But specifically, of the things we we had a bill introduced last year, worked on a bill that was focused on private landowners specifically to recreation access recognition that would help secure access to private lands. We are continually at the risk of losing that access despite the fact private landowners play. They host 70% of outdoor recreation and the public access recreation trails in Vermont. Also, specifically looking at outdoor recreation business, so better understanding how the myriad of outdoor rec businesses actually drive economic benefits in the state, and then certainly specifically take a hard look at climate risk mitigation, and the investments necessary there. And and part of that is to mitigate risk, but also part of that is to better understand how Vermont can be positioned to really as as an opportunity as climate, takes to as climate changes the base of our landscape and more people perhaps come to Vermont to escape climate pressures elsewhere to really be in a position where that can continue to to actually help Vermont's economy grow. I won't go into too much detail here, but noting that stewardship, one of the big parts of that the, study would focus on, we've seen huge increases in use since and through the pandemic and since, we know that from the Move Forward Together Vermont survey work that over 90% of Vermonters engage in outdoor recreation in some way, shape, or form that's well above the national average. We know that over 6,000,000 visitor visits are being driven primarily for recreation, and we've seen across put my VTGC hat on trail users, usage has doubled and in some cases tripled since before the pandemic.

[Rick Segal (Legislative Counsel)]: So a lot of

[Nick Bennett]: pressure on existing assets and wanting to better understand what investments are necessary to continue for those to deliver economic benefit to the state. Private landowner front, I mentioned that three quarters of the trails in Vermont are hosted by private landowners, with really no direct benefit or recognition to to provide that trail access. And in many cases, we might have we either have handshake or written access agreements to work with landowners, but not permanent easements or otherwise permanent security for those trails. So that represents a huge risk in terms of if landowners and and highlighted a couple of examples in the past. If landowners withdraw access, that can have huge impacts on on local economies, that are relying on outdoor recreation. So better understanding to what extent are private landowners responsible for providing this this these economic benefits, what are ways we can better secure that access on on private land. I mentioned climate resilience. We saw in 2023 and 2024 how devastated, all of Vermont really or much of Vermont was by, climate change or the, the summer flooding after recreation and trails were certainly no, were not were one of the primary targets of those impacts and needing to better understand and help identify ways that we can, be better prepared for the next historic storms. And also, as I mentioned before, not purely looking at this as a as a cost sink, but thinking about this, where can we ensure that Vermont is positioned to be and to continue to be a destination for recreation, even in summers like 2023? So thinking about really, again, the investment tool, our investment tool mindset for this study, thinking where our investment's gonna yield the greatest economic returns when it comes to climate resilience. And the last thing I'll note, though, is that we have the one of the huge benefits we have going into this, the Vorak Community Grant Program, along with some with several other grant programs have funded a lot of specific projects in the past. We really view this study as an opportunity to use those as a dataset and to build and to better understand which of those to what extent those investments are yielding economic returns and helping inform with that regional sampling approach sort of where are the most valuable ways for us as a state, at the public level and then also for to to guide private investment that are gonna yield the greatest returns, when it comes to economics. So we have a lot to work with, I guess, is the, the sort of takeaway in terms of forex, RTP, LWCF funding. There's a lot of data we can work with to study that puts us in a good position if we're able to have the resources to to conduct this or the fork is able to have the resources to conduct this, sort of detailed impact assessment. Then one more note, we have had a recent study. This wasn't this was statewide, at least in the sense of looking at adaptive recreation, but Vermont Adaptive had a study funded by Vorak. It's just published this past spring. They referenced it at Outdoor Rec Day that did look statewide across their specific impact. So we and this was working with CRO planning and design. And they found just purely looking at Vermont or at Vermont Adaptive, the programming they host, the events they host, over $10,000,000 in economic impact, 72 jobs supported, and close to $2,000,000 in overall taxes being generated through their activity. Again, purely looking at Vermont Adaptive, but provides a bit of a a template and that these type of statewide studies can be successful and noting that this one to one return, for every dollar invested in VAS in in Vermont Adaptive in in overall economic benefit. And I think that is it on slides that I had. And I just want to thank everybody again for the time and certainly for helping support Outdoor Recreation Day earlier this month. And I'll stop there for questions.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Thanks, Nick.

[Kirk White (Ranking Member)]: Thanks, Nick. I know you have a hard stop at three. I'm looking at so many thoughts. I'm going see if I can just point that. I We have a couple of issues with the initial language in that it's so broad and it doesn't really say how we're going to look at how does the Vermont outdoor recreation business more impactful, more expansive, more It just says we're going to look at it. And when I look at the adaptive program, it's like, Oh yeah, we're doing good things here. And there's no like, This is how we can make it better. And so it's really hard for us to fund a study in a time where there is no money at all that isn't going to bring us back a return on investment and give us a direction for how to get that return on investment. And so just for future, that was one thing that really jumped out at me here. I love our outdoor economy. I love our outdoor businesses. I use them all the time. I think this is one of the things that makes Vermont such a special place. And we can't just talk in circles, right? Hawaii also didn't grow their outdoor economy much because maybe there isn't a whole lot more growth to do, and maybe there isn't a whole lot more growth for us to do either. I don't know that answer. But I can make the numbers make sense to my brain in all kinds of different ways. So I appreciate this and I appreciate this thought, I just would like it to be a lot more pointed on improving that return on investment.

[Nick Bennett]: No. That's a great it's a great point. And I think one of the things we wanna cast this as is really as we look, we now have a list of priority actions for Move Forward Together Vermont, is, you know, that's rec plan for the state. We have nothing to really provide as an investment guidance for those decisions. So things are gonna be informed in terms of how do we prioritize those priorities and what are the specific things we do. And I like the way you framed it and noted that what we really want and need is something that's going to inform return on investment and help understand as the state and private organizations look at investing in these outcomes, what are the ones that are gonna move the needle, most for Vermont, not purely looking at, as you mentioned, how it works, which is important. We don't have a great sense of of the the actual pathways for impact, but understanding isn't enough. It needs to I think that's language where even noting that and and I I can't recall if it's in the language here, but that coming up with a specific through the bill set of recommendations, what are the top 10 or what have you investment priorities? What are they worth? How does the state help support either through public private partnerships or through grant funding, have you? What are the mechanisms that are gonna go after those investments? So I think that's very much our desire too, I guess, I would say is for this to be action oriented, not purely, you know, for the understanding of of how all this works. You. For the academic. Yeah.

[Anthony “Tony” Micklus (Member)]: You know, as we talk about outdoor recreation, I feel like we miss a section of outdoor recreation, is snowmobiling and ATVs.

[Kirk White (Ranking Member)]: Ask the question. Is that included?

[Anthony “Tony” Micklus (Member)]: Is that included?

[Nick Bennett]: Yes. It definitely is. Yeah. And and both VAST and VAST are members of the council, and they're very much absolutely a big part of that. Both studies and vision here, the work we do. So motorized recreation is a huge driver of that overall account economic impact.

[Anthony “Tony” Micklus (Member)]: I know that ATV trails are few and far between in the state of Vermont. And I think they're few and far between because the ones in the Central Vermont area, I've ridden them all. And it gets people outside and all that wonderful stuff. But I also think of places like Kentucky, which have huge trail systems. And it brings, I just quickly looked it up, like 1,900,000,000 to their economy according to Gemini. Whether or not that's true, I did see a PDF that said something about transportation.

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: One of the challenges, like not with impact studies is that they're very good at giving you a huge number. I mean, that's just sort of how we go. And I wanted to ask about the adaptive economic impact study that you did at CRO planning and design. I think you've done a couple of projects with them perhaps. Is that component of reducing dollar VASS spends earns an additional $1 of economic impacts. Did that surprise you in terms of this quantity? Because a lot times we hear that number, every dollar gives us that. And today we heard that it was like over $40 And so, but this is about component of the outdoor economy that's like very specialized and one that can provide people with experiences that they cannot have otherwise. So it's also in a money well spent kind of bucket. So I was wondering if by including that point about the one to one, that surprisingly good news for you? Had you expected it to be more of an investment than a breakeven or boom? I'd just like to hear more about that.

[Nick Bennett]: Yeah. No. Great question. And the reality is those numbers are I wouldn't say all over the place, but we see estimates. I think National Park Service had something like seven to one when they looked at investments in park infrastructure related to economic activity, so things that were very high. When you kind of average out, I honestly, that doubling or in that sort of at least generates a net return, if not twofold return, threefold return, those are what studies often kind of land on when they look at the specifics. That it's not surprising, I guess, I would put it that way. I think your question's a good one. They sometimes it depends on what you look at as economic activity, and one of the importance of conducting a thoughtful study is are you looking at you know, it's important to, example, focus on net dollars actually coming into Vermont. It's not just people moving around and money they would have already spent on food here. They're spending there. These are some of the nuances of the study, but looking truly at net dollars coming to the state. So I would say it's not surprising at all knowing in a lot of Vermont adaptive, their economic activity is driven by things like events they host, which brings and I think they had data in their report that looked at for every outing they have, which includes an adaptive you know, an an athlete, they often bring two or three people into the state with them, and they're bringing a lot of people from around the region. So when you start to factor in those sort of multipliers, it doesn't surprise me at all. And that's where a lot of this impact really will be. It's going to be from people coming into the state. Again, 40% right now currently being driven by outdoor rec as a primary driver. And then the other thing these studies don't touch on at all, and another thing we would love to have baked into this, is the relocation element. This is a huge reason. I mean, I'm an example. I lived out in Washington State until 2020. One of the main reasons I moved to Vermont was because the proximity and accessibility of outdoor recreation. That's how we're gonna drive younger youngish people with families and kids to the state. It's a it's a big attractant. So the short answer is, like, it doesn't it doesn't surprise me. It is important to dig in and and and understand what that number is including and and the ability to conduct a study where we direct that is really valuable.

[Rick Segal (Legislative Counsel)]: Thanks, Nathan.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Any other questions? So, Nick, I don't feel that we're gonna be too successful in finding dollars. Have you been able to look at maybe NBRC or any USDA money that may be available to do that study?

[Nick Bennett]: Looking everywhere we can, I think it's a good point? Some of the those funding sources are constrained in terms of what we're able to look at, the sources we're able to use, but, we are turning over every cushion because, again, I think particularly when those 2024 numbers came out, they and I your point is a good one that they're not you can look at them in couple different ways, but the the for us, I think that signaled that we're definitely at risk of falling behind here. So, yes, we're looking elsewhere to the extent those dollars are available. And I think the the the challenge of those dollars is is everywhere. And I think for us, we're hoping too that in very much understanding that this is an extremely austere environment environment, dollars are hard to come by. That element of if we're able to this is such a significant driver of economic activity in Vermont that small gains, in that overall impact can result in significant both GDP, but then critically the tax revenue that can help support this. So I think the that's a long winded way of saying yes. We're looking everywhere, but I don't think we have any hot leads that were that were likely to fill this need anytime soon.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Yeah. K. And I think we can have the conversation, but I don't feel too confident, unfortunately.

[Nick Bennett]: Well, more than anything, we we appreciate the time and consideration and really just being able to sound, I don't wanna say the alarm, but at least the call a little bit of that again, if this we've never really invested in understanding and leveraging this as an economic engine. We've we've it's been nice to have. It's it exists. We kind of rely on the nonprofit stewardship organizations primarily to to generate a lot of the the reasons people are coming to the state. The opportunity, if we're able to really lean in and and use it as a lever, I think is one that we're really keen to continue to work with this committee legislature and as you noted, the other funding sources to pursue that because I think we believe that's a huge opportunity and potential to get to help pull us out of the austerity or at least an aspect of it.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Yeah, I agree. Emily?

[Emily Carris Duncan (Member)]: You may have covered this. Hi, Emily Carris Duncan, Wilmington, Windham Health. I'm curious to know with the outdoor industry kind of being in a lot of other states that can accommodate it, and just looking at your numbers, it seems like we're experiencing increased competition from other states. Is that fair to say?

[Nick Bennett]: That's absolutely fair to say. Yeah.

[Emily Carris Duncan (Member)]: Okay. Yeah. So I really do appreciate you bringing this to us. I feel like the outdoor recreation industry in various capacities has been something that Vermont has always leaned on. But I do also just have to register my agreement on the record that we could be leaning into this. I think it would be a really important economic driver in addition to the arts and all the other stuff we do.

[Nick Bennett]: I think that's a great point. Mean, we do have concern too that if we're outpaced by our neighbors in the region, you know, that this 40% of people of those 60,000,000 visitor visits coming to the state, if they decide to take a right turn and go to New Hampshire instead, that's gonna have real impacts on Vermont.

[Emily Carris Duncan (Member)]: Yeah. We also don't have a coastline like many of

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: our other

[Nick Bennett]: neighbors. Or a volcano like Hawaii or, you know, we or a

[Rick Segal (Legislative Counsel)]: volcano. Yeah.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Yeah. And we have a border that's people aren't coming coming across either.

[Nick Bennett]: Yeah. And Canada is a great example too. Mean, part of this study should look at those assessing elsewhere, Quebec has invested a tremendous amount in their outdoor speaking specifically for mountain biking, the trail centers that they've developed that that those people aren't coming from tariffs and other political reasons, but they might not come back in the same numbers because their their home province is investing significantly in in infrastructure.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Well, when you look at just the ATV trail system that they have up there, it's incredible compared to what we have. They do embrace all things outdoor events.

[Anthony “Tony” Micklus (Member)]: There happens to be a bill on

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: the wall, I don't know where

[Anthony “Tony” Micklus (Member)]: it is, it's probably an environment, about ATVs.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Mine. Okay. Anything else for Nick? Okay. Nick, thank you.

[Nick Bennett]: Thank you so much for the time. I appreciate it.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: We appreciate you as well. Kelly? Is Kelly on? Yep.

[Kelly Alt]: Yes. Yes. Hello. I'm

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: here. Hello.

[Kelly Alt]: Thank you so much for taking the time this afternoon, and I appreciate being able to follow Nick on many of the same similar economic development themes. So I can share my screen and continue the conversation. For the record, Kelly Alt, Executive Director of the Vermont Outdoor Business Alliance.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Go ahead, Kirk.

[Kirk White (Ranking Member)]: Okay.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Yep. Here we are.

[Kelly Alt]: Alright. I'll hit slideshow here. Great. Thank you. Well, thank you again for having me. Kelly Alt, executive director of Vermont Outdoor Business Alliance. And as I've shared with this committee before, BOBA is a statewide nonprofit organization established in 2018 to strengthen Vermont's outdoor economy. We educate Vermonters about outdoor recreation and businesses about opportunities to collaborate, develop their business and support outdoor recreation policy that invests not only in our economic development needs, but also the landscape and the recreation infrastructure of which we depend on for our livelihood. So I'm here today to build upon what Nick has shared with you about our $2,200,000,000 economy, which in 2024, as you heard, increased slightly, but really were outpaced by our peers. And so we know that we have some work to do to address some of the economic challenges that have been hitting our state over the years from flooding, and then in this past year from some of the economic challenges, which I'd like to run through, not in detail, but as you've heard it before, but just to reiterate some of the system challenges that our economy is facing, and if not infused with investment or business support, we could continue to see that downward trend in our economic impact and as well as that trend to which we have also flipped in certain industries like retail manufacturing and guiding services. So wanted to share these, some of the main themes that we have discussed before, but just to reiterate that we are looking at some of these headwinds, even though we've had a tremendous winter and that has really buoyed the industry through the holiday season, through the winter season, we still continue to be burdened by the cost of tariffs to businesses. A recent report identified that Vermont companies have paid $110,000,000 in tariffs in 2025. And of course, that's every business, not just the outdoor industry, but the stories told by businesses as they've been able to summarize their numbers from 2025 are significant, not just small companies that are paying 20% of their revenue in tariffs, but well established businesses that were paying $200,000 which was equal to their net revenue for the whole year. So we're really seeing some big impacts which will set companies back and they've had to make some changes by cutting staff, cutting marketing, really also rolling back their innovation. And that has been really a sweet sauce or a special sauce for the industry in being able to innovate and be ahead of the trends. And so we're going to be seeing some stalling on that level. We just talked about outdoor recreation participation and even though we do have some tremendous members, we have had this border issue and the businesses have validated with the numbers that their traffic was down. A Burlington independent retailer is looking at a long time trend of reduced foot traffic in customers, which really impacts their ability to staff up and supply what they need for users of the outdoors. We're also seeing the tourism industry and hospitality industry continue to be hit by 20% less Canadian visitors and higher percentages in terms of specific services or reservations. I think the big one that we have been doing a lot of work on is looking at climate impacts and not only just trying to really address the needs from the big events, like the 2023 and twenty twenty four floods, but also looking at these ongoing shifts in climate and seeing seasonal shifts and seeing heat and drought as being factors in some of our outdoor recreation opportunities, especially in waterways or with fishing. And we have done a partnership with Climate Action Office, Department of Labor that has also involved the Vermont Outdoor Recreation Economic Collaborative, the Office of Workforce Development and Strategy, that has tried to identify what are some of those climate scenarios that the sector is facing, how are they identifying adaptations and resiliency measures for how they can be more stable in an event and even be more proactive and see as positive opportunities for business by shifting some of their business needs. So that's becoming a large opportunity and we're really getting some good information and good data in that area of what are those investments that can be made either by an individual industry or by the industry as a whole, by private sources and public sources, to really support the climate resiliency of the sector and therefore lend those benefits to the communities that they live and that they are located in or that they serve. So we are here to echo the support for the Outdoor Recreation Economic Impact Study, and I don't need to reiterate what Nick has said, except to say that the BEA data has been very helpful and positive in providing this baseline and this overall comparison with other states and also year to year, but we don't really have that multiplier effect in the local communities or in regions. And we know there's great potential to understand the impacts, not just from infrastructure investments, but also businesses investing in their communities and their workforce, which are our neighbors and our residents. We also know that this study can really help us pinpoint some of the alignment and the opportunities for investment in the Move Forward Together Vermont vision. And BOBA's five year work plan is very much focused on economic development and we have a lot of goals in that work plan and it would be great to have the data to really help us think about where can we best put our resources to see those outcomes that we seek. Some of them are in economic development and others are in climate resiliency. And so that's really a value of the economic impact study. The second ask I'd like to talk about today, which is not in S-three '27, but it's an ask that you all supported in your budget memo, and that is to support funding for BOBA's Outdoor Entrepreneur Program. And we would be going into our fourth year of really supporting this technical assistance and business support to small and mid sized companies at all ages of their development. Needs have ranged from strategic and financial planning, market analysis, and access, as well as climate adaptations. And responding to some of the challenges, the headwinds that I just spoke about is the real priority for this work and would continue to be a resource to help them navigate some of the uncertainty that they're currently facing or that they anticipate facing into the future. This is just a little bit more detail on the economic study, although you've heard quite a lot from Nick, so I don't know how much I can add. But just thinking about the business elements, he talked a lot about the stewardship infrastructure and understanding what kind of return of investment we have on that, the relationships with landowners that are providing public access recreation. But I just wanted to reiterate from the business community and the industry side that understanding the direct and indirect outdoor recreation business inputs and outputs would be really helpful for that local decision making, as well as a sector and as a state. And the climate resiliency measures, as I mentioned, we're starting to identify really what the desires of the industry are, and we really want to make sure that we move forward with some of the best ideas for innovation and stabilization. VOBA's Outdoor Entrepreneur Program, I've shared this information with you before. I believe it was last February, but just as a very quick summary that the years that we have been running our business development services have allowed us to serve 100 entrepreneurs and curated a network of 30 business and financial advisors, trade and marketing, and planners offering specific expertise. We've worked closely with some of the other business development providers across the state, and we've been able to leverage support and resources in partnership with the state through the Department of Economic Development, as well as the Department of Tourism and Marketing. We've been able to attend trade shows with some of the STEP grants. We've been able to host an outdoor gearmakers festival with some of the marketing sponsorship, and then been able to host pitch fest coaching, financing workshops, and many other very tailored programs to businesses that are seeking specific, assistance in growing their business and wanting to take time out of their business to strengthen their business. And that has been really beneficial. And this is just another example. We did a capital strategy cohort, and then last May, we did a very large forum around business agility, and that was in response to the tariffs and just trying to put the finger on the pulse and develop some of the experts around the state that could support this sector, and we hope to continue to do that work. So in summary, we would really appreciate your consideration of the investment in the Outdoor Recreation Economic Impact Study. I understand the austerity situation of our state budget and of the many needs that exist, but we appreciate the opportunity to share this need and to reinforce support for it. And the Voba Outdoor Entrepreneur Program also as an example of a small amount of money that can lead to a big impact on the ground in supporting small businesses throughout our state and supporting our needs. So that is what I have to share with you today. I'm happy to answer questions or provide any additional information.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Great. Thanks, Kelly. Any questions for Kelly?

[Kirk White (Ranking Member)]: Thank you.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Okay. Thank you.

[Kelly Alt]: Thank you so much. Have a wonderful afternoon.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: You too. Okay. So Rick.

[Herb Olson (Member)]: Back to me.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Back to Rick.

[Rick Segal (Legislative Counsel)]: So, we'll press on sharing.

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: Talking

[Rick Segal (Legislative Counsel)]: about the Rural Industry Development Grant Program. We're under page on page portal under subsection B, the eligible activities. So we went over one to purchase real property, which by the way, I'm going talk about this, the current language is land, The request is to change land to real property, real properties land plus whatever's on the land. So that could be a building

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: for some kind of structure,

[Rick Segal (Legislative Counsel)]: but it also includes structure. Okay, two, for the costs of site development permitting for providing infrastructure for property the recipient owns, that's current language. Three, for a project that supports future commercial or industrial development as outlined in a development program. This we use the word development so we may want to align these two three in one. Is what I'm talking about. Three is new, bringing language. And I would want to know what a development agreement is, if that's something that is common. We don't have that defined development agreement, so. What that is, I don't quite know. I assume the people that do these things know what that is, but Mr. Chair of the Board Development Agreement at the end is not defined. So I'm not quite sure what that's referring to. Is it just the contract that you have to develop some type of parcel of land, I don't know.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: It seems to me this would be in order for them to get the money they had to come up with some criteria, In an agreement of some sort.

[Kirk White (Ranking Member)]: Yeah, but they may not have the development agreement ready. Like, before purchasing the pen, they're not gonna have a development agreement. Yeah. They're gonna have an intention.

[Herb Olson (Member)]: But I would think with a grant program, you're the grantor and someone comes back, I need some help here. And they apply for it. And the grantor would say, well, that's fine, but here's what we want you to do. And I would think that could either be in the form of the grand agreement they agreed to fulfill or some agreement like Rutland starting, probably could be you.

[Rick Segal (Legislative Counsel)]: I not a thing right.

[Herb Olson (Member)]: It could be a better specific one way or

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: the other. Yeah,

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: my point is that this is not

[Rick Segal (Legislative Counsel)]: a term of art. This is a development segment,

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: which could be

[Rick Segal (Legislative Counsel)]: oral. There's no I probably wanna be more specific on what's if you have something in mind,

[Herb Olson (Member)]: what is this thing that we're talking about? Grant definitely needs to be a little more specific about what's intended, what are they intended to, what's gonna be fulfilled.

[Kirk White (Ranking Member)]: Sorry. I'm not sure how it's different from one potential development in the emergency room.

[Rick Segal (Legislative Counsel)]: Well, in one, you don't have that phrase limiting subways. Don't know, I guess my point

[Kirk White (Ranking Member)]: is Right, it's kind of limiting that one. Right.

[Emily Carris Duncan (Member)]: Yeah, right. It also feels like with the development agreement for getting into Czech territory.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: I was thinking the same thing that we had that discussion last year with Czechs, right? Thank you. It's a valid municipalities and the developer can get together, come up with a development agreement.

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: Makes sense for us to look at the RIDB application? I mean, it exists, we're modifying an existing program, see what they ask for. Maybe we, I mean, if you wanted to just On your own time. I think it'd be worthwhile to see that they just how it is that we're that currently the funnel is bringing in, you know, at this point, it sounds like there were six, four of which have been awarded, maybe this two to five or and whether this language is how this language is interfacing is what we're expecting.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: So it's again, that may word is still there. That's probably mission to change the shall. And then it's these are the eligible activities that you can apply for. So if you're doing if you're purchasing real property, if you're having site development, if you have a development agreement with a developer to do something commercial or industrial, If you're using it for an equity investment to get a loan transaction through. Do you get a I mean, there's

[Rick Segal (Legislative Counsel)]: Oh, think about that. I'll to four. This is current language, for the equity investment required for a loan transaction through VIDA, which a couple of loans, there's the,

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: what was I gonna go,

[Rick Segal (Legislative Counsel)]: loans for speculative buildings, small business and care facilities, and loans for industrial park planning and development projects. Current language. Five, for the matching requirement of another state or federal grant consistent with this section.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Are we saying matching requirement for are we talking about state of Vermont or another state?

[Rick Segal (Legislative Counsel)]: So capital S means Vermont. Okay.

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

[Emily Carris Duncan (Member)]: are we still imagining that this would be administered by Aveda?

[Rick Segal (Legislative Counsel)]: No, this is ACCD.

[Emily Carris Duncan (Member)]: Oh, is ACCD, okay.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: That's a grant, we're turning it into a great program. Right, okay, that's old.

[Rick Segal (Legislative Counsel)]: Okay, six is new. For purchasing, holding, and renovation of property for the repurposing or redevelopment of a federally impacted property,

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: which we have defined.

[Rick Segal (Legislative Counsel)]: We don't say for residential use here, it might, if you want to make sure this is aligns correctly. Yeah. So sorry, I'm going back to the first part of the statute where we say industrial commercial or if it's a federal impacted property, residential. But apparently the bill would not limit it to just residential, it's federal impact, they can be still commercial. Right, or industrial. So that's okay. But residential only if it's heavily impacted. That's the limitation if you want it correct. Currently that's the way it's written. Right. Okay, no changes to the application process. They shall include a local and regional market assessment that demonstrates reasonable need for the proposed development and identifies imminent potential for existing business growth opportunities. An applicant shall submit the following to demonstrate a readiness to begin and complete the project: A. Community and regional support for the project that grant funding is needed to complete the proposed project, an ability to manage the projects with requisite experience and a plan for fiscal viability, and a description of the per venue required to proceed with the project and a plan for obtaining the permits.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: So no changes to that.

[Rick Segal (Legislative Counsel)]: Keep moving on. Awards, some changes here. Okay, so current law, nothing is struck through because again this is new. I'll tell you what the current language says. An award shall not exceed the lesser of 1,000,000 or 50% of the total project cost subject to the exception in Subdivision B. So currently it's the lesser of 1,000,000 or 20%. So this bill would increase to 50% of the total project cost. However, an award shall be 100 of the total project cost, but shall not exceed 2,000,000. So you have a limitation there.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: So if, say, a project came in at, they were talking 2,000,000 that met all the criteria, Can the secretary decide that they can only use 1.5?

[Rick Segal (Legislative Counsel)]: Well, you're talking about B? Yes. So if the project costs 2,000,000, this would restrict it to the 2,000,000.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: But can the secretary lower that amount?

[Rick Segal (Legislative Counsel)]: Whatever the total project cost is.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: So they could tell them that you're not meeting something in the criteria, you have to come back with another. You want Or we don't have 2,000,000 left. Right. If

[Rick Segal (Legislative Counsel)]: you want the secretary to be able to make that decision, could say up to 2. Yeah. There's a different way to word that. I've worded this to restrict the secretary to say if it's got these and I'm gonna get to it, didn't meet this criteria, it's 100%. But you can't exceed 2,000,000. Okay, so 100%, but not exceeding 2,000,000 is the property is classified as a federally impacted property, which again could be commercial, industrial, residential, and the secretary certifies that the project is located within at least two of the following: a designated downtown development district, a rural economic area partnership program, a REAP zone federal program. I believe it's settled. A federally declared natural disaster area provided the declaration was made not more than, that should be five, not two if that's my mistake, more than five years from the application date. So two to three, if it meets two to three, the way it's currently written is that the secretary and it meets the other criteria would have to fund it 100% up to 2,000,000. If there's only 500,000 left, then it would

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: be 500,000. I guess maybe one question would be should it be, if we're looking to do a 100%, should it be in a designated downtown period? And then it needs to meet one of these other two criteria. Because we're talking about allowing residential as well.

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: How does that connect to the proposed switch? If

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: we're going to 100%, so we're saying it has to be a designated downtown and well, it has to be either a designated downtown, or it's in a REAP zone with a federally declared natural disaster that happened more than five years, within the last five years.

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: Do you wanna be sure that it will have, that it'll be in a part of Vermont where that amount of residential addition will be desired and like no slumps. Right, so we're talking tier ones. Yeah. That, so. Okay, I get that. Right?

[Rick Segal (Legislative Counsel)]: So you want room in Edye and then one of the last two yeah so does that

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: make sense to everybody no

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: located within a designated downtown development district and at least one of the following? Right, yeah.

[Emily Carris Duncan (Member)]: This is specifically dealing with the federally,

[Kirk White (Ranking Member)]: what are calling?

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: The federally impacted property.

[Emily Carris Duncan (Member)]: The federally impacted property or is, okay, it's not for the rest still. No. No. Okay. My only one question is, do we have federally impacted any other federally impacted properties that are in non designated downtown areas?

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Sure. When you're looking at floods that have happened. Yeah.

[Emily Carris Duncan (Member)]: I'm wondering if we are designing this to go forward, if that limits things too much.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Well, this is for 100%? But previous, the 50% doesn't have these limitations.

[Kirk White (Ranking Member)]: It doesn't have those, okay.

[Emily Carris Duncan (Member)]: So then my question is, are we treating the federally impacted properties the same? Do we need to be treating them the same? If the conundrum is sort of similar in that the federal government is not taking responsibility for them?

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: I don't know that there are the communities that have building is owned by the federal government that is impacted.

[Emily Carris Duncan (Member)]: In the same way. Right. Okay, that's what

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: I was curious about. Okay, thank you. I've been wondering about that as well, because as Houston's section, federally backed property, it's really just two things. It's just any federally owned building, or it's under the custody or control of an appointed receiver. Right. And so it did seem like, well, when was the last time? I'm thinking of the various armories and readiness centers that the National Guard is using. How long ago were How many of them have been in a I guess there's a town that had a disaster declaration or But would they be in the designated Yeah, so now it's sort of helping winnow it a little bit. Right. Also honestly, would prefer that there be some, that there'd be a variety of potential, you know, that feels good. If our criteria are not so specific, that this is a viable thing that one encounters in Vermont.

[Rick Segal (Legislative Counsel)]: Okay, we'll continue. The rest is as currently written, and there are a couple

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: of things that are removed that I

[Rick Segal (Legislative Counsel)]: want to highlight when I finish this part two. This is the award section. A recipient may combine grant funds with funding from other sources. The agency shall release grant funds upon determining that the applicant has met all application conditions and requirements. A grant recipient may apply for additional grant funds if future amounts are appropriate for the program and the funds are separate but eligible use.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: And also, if I'm not mistaken, this language would turn the roughly 2,500,000.0, and it's already been appropriated into grant funds as well. Is that correct? So,

[Rick Segal (Legislative Counsel)]: yeah, so that's where I was getting to next. Hard to read. This section is removed, so it's not struck through because this is new language, Current law at the end of the grant program says the agency shall include deed restrictions that require the return of the principal amount to the state. Work it just for some reason and may require the payment of a percentage of the sales profit. So that's kind of law. So if any of these four projects that have been currently awarded, the deed restriction should have in it that if they sell the property that you would pay back the grant. That's one thing, if this were to pass It has a deed restriction.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: There's one other paragraph that's been removed. Yes, but they may require the payment.

[Rick Segal (Legislative Counsel)]: May require. But it can go up to, this has also

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: been removed so it wasn't in

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: the English language.

[Rick Segal (Legislative Counsel)]: The agency does not end the new bill. The agency shall ensure an accounting of the respective state and grantee shares investment in the property be maintained to refund the state an appropriate share of any net proceeds resulting from the future sale or transfer of such property acquired or approved through such a grant awarded on this program. So I think that's pretty clear that if you sell it, you have to give the money back that you will grant it. So removing this line and removing the deed restrictions would at this point make it a pure grant program. Right. And now it's a loan,

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: it's kind of a loan fund, although you wouldn't call it that

[Rick Segal (Legislative Counsel)]: because you have to sell

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: it in order to give

[Rick Segal (Legislative Counsel)]: the money back, but if this were to pass as written, they would just be a grant. And if you sold it,

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: you wouldn't have to return.

[Kirk White (Ranking Member)]: Is that requiring notice to the people that

[Rick Segal (Legislative Counsel)]: Good question. It's a good question. I don't have an answer for

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: you. Yeah.

[Emily Carris Duncan (Member)]: If it requires notice to the current recipients.

[Rick Segal (Legislative Counsel)]: You may want to add something. That section dealing with that. Because you may have beads that have this, if they did it where the law tells them to do it, then the deed restrictions are still in there, and I would need to research how to undo

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: that. Right. There's a few questions, Rick, but I'll check out for us. What the definition of rural community.

[Kirk White (Ranking Member)]: Oh, was gonna Colchester is 17500 and they've already received money.

[Emily Carris Duncan (Member)]: So I think

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: It's hard to understand how

[Kirk White (Ranking Member)]: All of Vermont is rural.

[Emily Carris Duncan (Member)]: There is a There is a definition

[Kirk White (Ranking Member)]: don't mind the name of the program.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Yeah. But

[Kirk White (Ranking Member)]: We can just use the federal recognition.

[Emily Carris Duncan (Member)]: Yeah. The federal definition is pointing Change to the

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: it. Yeah. I mean, when I think of rural, I think of small communities.

[Kirk White (Ranking Member)]: Yeah, we could just take the name out, change the name.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Think about that too.

[Anthony “Tony” Micklus (Member)]: Under 10,000 is a small community.

[Kirk White (Ranking Member)]: Is Michael's that a rural community?

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: World. Under 10,000 what? Sure.

[Anthony “Tony” Micklus (Member)]: And you can put it at 8,500. I'm fine with that too.

[Rick Segal (Legislative Counsel)]: It is called the rural industry development, so you are also adding president. Yeah, so maybe consider renaming the program. You think it's gonna help?

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: It means for development. We'll think about it, Jonathan. And I think it is worth, I guess it's good to think a little bit about how the program, the idea of having this industrial development activity was that we would have more places add jobs and to, it feels like it's just important to sort of think through how that's still a need that we have. Right. And I think so, you know, I just wanna make sure I'm talking about that program assistance for a need that we have. We just made it, I think, to perspective to really get the uptake on the scene. So I'm glad to see thinking flexibly as

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Yeah.

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: Doesn't do anybody any good in the bank.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: I don't know they're running do any good. That's you know what mean? Sitting in a fund that's not what you do. That's what

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: I I do. Yeah. That's

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: what I do. Do. And, hopefully, we can get more money into the brand and some point. Yeah. Okay. Thank you, Rick. And we'll I think next week, we'll continue to discuss more. So What are we going to include? I think we need to talk with appropriations as well. Do we need language around the appropriations, like the perfection of color, the 150 to the Montreal Investment, the Montreal Initiative or Canadian Initiative or whatever. International business. Yeah. What else? Small business development center. We don't have money for that game.

[Kirk White (Ranking Member)]: Need Vermont. Yeah. There's some money in the budget for them. Right? For Well, they're they're

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: they're regular. It's Yep. Their Yeah. There's no extra dollar, but they're in banks already. I don't I don't think we need any language for that. But K. But the one time dollars that are

[Rick Segal (Legislative Counsel)]: in there, I wonder if

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: we need we'll have to talk to the folks and see if we need with that.

[Kirk White (Ranking Member)]: And Linda had told me that there might be an opportunity for more federal money if they have more of a match. I can ask her if that's correct, and she They have

[Emily Carris Duncan (Member)]: just under 400,000 in base, which is, like

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: And it may be yeah. Don't know. It may be something that gets hammered out in conference. Maybe something that something they wanna do. I don't know. Okay. This language that we just wanna hear because people are okay with continuing that discussion. I think it's a good program and I I'll move that's not one of my counters. Certainly do appreciate because the board's really taking down the chin. Yeah, it really

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: has. Know, just

[Herb Olson (Member)]: try to stay. My only questions are, you know, the money issues. You know, we've just been through a budget process, and we couldn't find the money for lots of stuff. And you guys know better than I, you know, what opportunities are out there. But this is existing dollars, but they're

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: not asking for new money. So

[Herb Olson (Member)]: And I think, you know, if they start getting application, think

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: they do the administration to really look at that program next year when they're developing a budget situation. I think that's what they can do. Okay. So tomorrow, 09:00, we're in Room 11.

[Nick Bennett]: Right.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: 09:10, and we are going on to the DC, Randolph, MagicBlast for the the MagicBlast is gonna be our class of building building futures. And we're back on here at the on the Floor 1. I I don't think we're going to have anything after this floor to go on. There There is is a caucus. The kitchen, so I I don't know that we'll plan on anything for that. And, again, Friday, we're done. It's later than noon. So Sorry? Sorry about We won't be working Friday afternoon. But it's Good Friday. Today's best, so it was Alright.

[Kirk White (Ranking Member)]: I like that. It's Friday. I usually

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: I know. Pretty Friday. So Friday. So with Love to break Friday. That