Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Good afternoon, everyone. This is the Jamalhan Committee on topics for economic development. It is Thursday, 04/02/2026, at 02:10 in the afternoon. We're just chatting before. We've had an interesting discussion with a manufacturer this morning, took a trip down to Los Technical College and met with Building Futures, and what the lumber dealers are doing to help recruit students from the CTV centers of them around the state. Very interesting. But just we're not really here to look at anything. Just thought we have a little discussion of where things are and what to expect in the next few weeks. We will just so the committee knows on s 71, which is the data privacy bill. We're starting with Edye and I are trying to put together a small working group with the Senate and some of the players in that round to see if we can get to a place where there's agreement on some of the things and then bring it back to the committee and have those discussions. We're not here to circumvent the committee process. It's trying to zero in on what the issues are and how we can get around them without having to take up weeks and weeks of testimony and committee time. So we'll start that next week and we'll keep you apprised of what's going on. We also on S-three 13, which is the CPE bills that came over. We'll have more discussions next week. Edye and I met with Julia and Ezra from JFO. We're gonna ask them to come in and chat with us also. And then I think we'll make a decision on where we're going to go. We're going to hear tomorrow at 08:45 with the caucus of the whole of what education is coming up with. But I think we're kind of in a position where it's hard for us to really, in my view, come up with a governance system without knowing what the costs are gonna be, and we won't know that until next December. And is that the right governance system that we should be on? There's a lot of questions there. So, you know, I'm thinking we should be looking more at guidance recommendations, which is, you know, it's more of a rule making that happens this year. And then also, you know, a working group over the summer and fall, a legislative working group, so then we had JFO and legislative council working with the group and looking at that governance system, looking at possibly other ones and see what corresponds with what might come out of here. Has the education reboot, the beginning of it? To me that is more prudent than trying to dive into really changing the whole government system without knowing the landscape yet. So I think that's something for you all to think about for next year, then how are you gonna do it?

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: Yeah, I mean, I really feel that same way. It's I've been poring over different drafts and maps, and and of course, it isn't even that. And some of those maps, I think, are maybe closer aligned with, you know, what this committee has been talking about, and some of them are not. So I I don't know what to say about, I mean, I I I can't see diving into the governance right now without, number one, the the financial data and knowing, you know, how how those potential districts are gonna end up. They don't, as far as I can see, the districts right now don't line up as much as I had hoped they would with some of our CTE areas.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: But that could change.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Of the things that we keep coming back to is what are the questions that we have that need to get answered in order to make decisions? And if you think along those lines, that will help us to bring in the right witnesses for testimony. Just trying to be thinking about what fits and what doesn't fit for you, and let's think about how we can think together, right, going forward.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: And some of those questions may be questions that the working group needs to answer. They may not, we may not have the time to really dive deep into things because we're nearing the end of the session. So those may be questions that charge the working group with doing.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: I have a few thoughts. I kind of feel like if you've ever had relative say, Hey, I need to stay at your house for a little while. Don't tell you how long they're gonna be there, but they will be moving out eventually. And I feel, I think the biggest thing for me is I think that we all agree that we want, in the end, have these regional high schools that are all integrated.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: And

[Unidentified Committee Member]: I'm not filled with exuberant confidence that that's what we're gonna be if we implement this. And when you pair that with when things happen, they tend to stay that way. And of course, the longer they're entrenched, the harder it is to change. So one thing that I would love to see is much more reassurance that this is just a means to an end, and a lot more talk about how we're gonna get to the end game. On our CT thing?

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: Yes. Yeah, and that's what I was trying to allude to. There are some things that I've seen that don't really align, I think, all that well with the concept we've been talking about in terms of confidence or integrated. And so,

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: how can we influence that? If we're building a bridge, we wanna make sure that the bridge isn't overly overbuilt. Right? That it that it gets us from point a to point b without having a whole hoop in the middle or a stop sign. Just what you said, it's

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: Or leave CTE on an island in the middle.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: There's so many that are correct. Yeah,

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Like if we're building a bridge and the island is still moving.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Yeah. Was there an F two fifty for the branch? That's the question.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Maybe there was. Maybe I can put my way into the. Okay. So we're gonna bring JFO in next week and some chats with him. Ezra has put together five page five pages that we'll have consented to you so you can look at it over the weekend. Yeah. Yeah. We'll post it. And we'll chat with June. And we'll start moving from there. S 173, we'll give some more testimony next week from Kelly and from Katrina that was supposed to speak with us yesterday. She said so we'll schedule them, and then we'll have more discussions on where we think we should go with that. I think there's a lot more questions than there are answers than I feel. And, you know, I'm thinking we need to really shape this screen. We're just gonna look into this. So I'm not convinced that our worker comp system, as far as VR goes, is working well.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Yeah.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: I wanna make sure it's not run by by the insurance, not not run by the VR counselors.

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: Were a bunch of questions that were listed in the Senate bill, but I don't think it necessarily affected, you know, what what this committee was thinking about as what the questions need to be.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: I think, you know, I think and to dive a little deeper, we have more time than we need Right. S three twenty seven, which is the economic development bills. We'll keep working on that. We are going to get s one thirty seven from energy and technology. Oh, it's the C PACE. C PACE. We're just talking with the chair about that. I think that I've asked her once she's done sending over. If that's something we should look at, talk to her, it may be a good addition to the economic development bill as well. So we'll have more discussions on that. I think everybody else is learning what PACE is. We already have an R PACE residential one that does not work. Yeah. I think that's it for what we're gonna work on.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: What if I get one with the Senate? We'll see.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Oh, you might get that. They passed yesterday. Which one?

[Unidentified Committee Member]: It's 918.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: 190? Don't know. 98? Okay. It's a flavored tobacco. What's that? Is it flavored tobacco again? No. It's vapes.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: It's the vapes that aren't shaped like Yeah. They're shaped like game boxes or It's not the cartridges,

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: but the It's the packages. Themselves. But there's other pieces in there. It's a few years ago a few years ago maybe, there was a bill in services and they wanted to increase the penalties on retailers. And it really wasn't coming. The issue of kids getting vapes wasn't from retailers. They were buying them online. And so there was a pilot program that if her lottery and the AG's office were working on. So they had funding provided for a half time investigator. So they would get online and they'd start ordering this stuff. Right. I think in three years, they they issued fines of over $900,000. I had I had drafted an amendment to the bill that would have put a full time investigator using tobacco funds that would then get backfilled by the fines that they came up with. I think liquor lottery said we can do this, but I don't see where things are moving in right direction for that. So we may have those discussions. There's other pieces in there that talk about the tobacco stamp, tax stamp. So if those cigarettes are the only piece that's tobacco, that has a stamp on it, the dates have their own stamps, the cigars, snuff, the chewing tobacco, none of those have stamps and I know there's retailers that are purchasing product outside the state at a lower rate and they're not paying the tax on it. When I think the state's losing out on a lot of the tax dollars. And it's really for the retailers that are doing things the right way, It's it's not not right. So so we may be able to get have have a piece of that. Have some discussions on consumer protection issues. There's timing that makes its rounds. We'll see. I think that's the way of the land. But I think we've got plenty of work to keep us busy till the end of the session, we're gonna try to get a a field trip going for the end of the month or May. Things are slowing down when there's not much floor going on because everybody's working so hard. And let's see if we can get there. Any questions from anyone?

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Our interns, they've only got about three weeks left.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: So many. Seems like we just sat down here at January when we started. We're getting we're talking again in session. Yeah. That's fast. Yeah.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: It's been dense. Dense.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Yeah. I

[Unidentified Committee Member]: have a question for with 03:27. Know we had talked about, again, kind of having some kind of working group or whatever to look

[Unidentified Committee Member]: into how to make the RBC, RPC, whatever that process has worked better. Is that is that something we should be talking now to the pledge council or something about to sort of figure out

[Unidentified Committee Member]: how we want that?

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Or Well, it's in there. It's in it's in 03/27, but do we need to put more shape to that? I think we do. Just think the response was good. Yeah, was terrific. Was really good to see. Well,

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: It just did remarkable, there we

[Unidentified Committee Member]: go. Yeah, it's

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Disturbing, but not surprising.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: It's an N of one. And one question, one minute, and who knows who was listening to us at that point. But still response rates, one hand

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: went up.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Yeah. I mean, it is like, it's tough because I feel like we hear a lot from the heads of organizations, not the organizations. And so that, where is the stuff happening and where is

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: it not happening?

[Unidentified Committee Member]: We all have our own personal experience

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: with these things that also inform complexity.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: And it is wild that, know, some of other region that I state, there's so much variance in physical size and structural scope and in like services provided. It's a little funny how apples to come quasi gets, which is why it's good to ask more questions.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Yeah. Is the RDC, the fair expected to do, is that statute?

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: They are not political,

[Unidentified Committee Member]: the vision is not stated, they have a contract.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Yeah, there's a performance contract they have with DED. And so, you know, they asked DED to come out and give us a Sandler contract. We did that. Remember, you're here for challenges to change. We don't staff that. It was during the administration. They might have moved my van. They did a lot. Well, I moved. Might have moved too. I don't know if you were on budget councilor it. Don't think so. Don't think so. It was early on. It was, like, 2008, I think.

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: I'd gone over to that books for then, Bishka by then. 2008?

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Yeah, well, it would have been part of that, because all the agencies and departments had to go through this whole process of challenges for change.

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: Were Must have assigned to someone else. I was just being mean to banks and insurance companies.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: We really dug in on it. So, yeah, we should be having those conversations to put those contracts required. If there needs to be updates, when was the last time they updated, how do you really determined if

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Of course.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: They're fulfilling the contract. So okay. Anything else? I don't know. We can go