Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Good afternoon, everyone. This is for the White House Committee on Commerce and Economic Development. It is Wednesday, 04/08/2026 at 02:37 in the afternoon. So we're here now to continue discussions on S-three 27, and we have our legislative council in SADA with us. That is a new language, we can look at that and then have some more conversations about other things that we're planning on over there. Rick, good afternoon. Good to see

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: you all again. Rick Siegel with

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: the Office of Lipset Council.

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: You have draft 1.3 of the committee amendment to S3.7. This is the economic development bill you got from the Senate side. There's not a whole lot of changes to the first, really 10 pages of the bill. I will skip ahead to the first change, which is in section seven, this is the business growth study conducted by the Department of Economic Development. I listened to the testimony of the commissioner and something that it made sense to me when I run it by you all is in the study, one of the things to look at or to review is to determine how best to communicate this inventory resources. The bill has passed the Senate,

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: I'll compare

[Unidentified Member (Committee)]: it

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: for you, includes

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: the phrase market or communicate, and he seemed to think that right here. So I removed market and. So the urge now is just communicate. And in here he groans when he suggested that and it made sense to me. So curious if you all are okay with that

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: change. Pretty good. Okay, seems logical.

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And I didn't catch any other recommendations from his testimony that at least everyone seemed to be on board with?

[Herb Olson (Member)]: I have recommendations, but this is not. Is this time? In this section.

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: This section.

[Unidentified Member (Committee)]: Is it this section? I think it is. Okay.

[Herb Olson (Member)]: I was wondering if we could add in there as part of the study to review what businesses are struggling with regulations and for this study to produce recommended legislation that helps for economic growth by reducing our regulations that are in our statute, because that's the only thing that we really have any control over besides spending money.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: It's cheap to get rid

[Herb Olson (Member)]: of regulations. So for example, this is just like a stupid regulation. A restaurant can't vacuum seal stuff because the minute they vacuum seal it, it becomes a manufacturer situation. So they can't have vacuum sealers in their restaurants. So that's just ridiculous. Is it a statute or a rule? I'm not positive, but the study could review that. And if there's a rule that needs a change and it requires legislative action to change it, then the study should show us that. Again, vacuum sealing at a restaurant, you can't do.

[Jonathan Cooper (Member)]: The recommendation for the language

[Herb Olson (Member)]: Well, I don't know how to word it, but to pull in businesses to find out what regulations, rules are preventing additional growth. That's just a pain point that really doesn't need to be there.

[Abbey Duke (Member)]: I 100% get it as a need. I'm just concerned that it's a totally different scope than this study. This study is focused on available resources, needed resources for technical assistance. But that said, I I get it. I understand what you're saying. And I get it as identifying pain points and identifying regulations that could be looked at is for sure a worthwhile thing to do. It's just I'm not it would be different. The people involved in it would be different than the economic development specialists that I think would primarily be involved in this study.

[Unidentified Member (Committee)]: My other thought is,

[Jonathan Cooper (Member)]: I mean,

[Unidentified Member (Committee)]: they all know the speculation. I'm just wondering about the breadth of that. And I think maybe a little bit to what Abbey was saying, we're trying to focus on what these businesses need in terms of being able to go forward, know, management operations, things that interface maybe with the corporate code or liability, you know, that kind of stuff. And so if you wanted to have some review of regulations, maybe you'd be able to, I mean, that would potentially be huge, huge scope. Maybe think about narrowing the scope of that to some of the specific topics that are that are here in the bill. And that might be an error scope.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: I do.

[Unidentified Member (Committee)]: I agree that it looks like it could be a huge, huge project. So let's get started now.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Here we go.

[Abbey Duke (Member)]: Well, I think Herb's got a good point about if we can include language in here where anything, any barriers that are identified, really opportunities for improvement, the group should be identifying all of those. It's just I'm not sure that their scope would be to go out and survey businesses to find sector specific regulations, whether it's permitting and development or whether it's food safety or whatever it is. But they should be identifying barriers to business growth within the scope of the study and identifying legislative fixes or potential legislative fixes.

[Jonathan Cooper (Member)]: Does that make sense?

[Herb Olson (Member)]: Yeah. I'm not suggesting to do that, we're asking a bunch of businesses. Think as part of

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: the report, it

[Herb Olson (Member)]: would be nice to have that part of it where, because we heard from manufacturers, one of the problems that they have besides is regulations. And my personal, about the vacuum sealing was just an example of just a regulation that somebody might have, or that might be a problem. I mean, was a small problem, that would not filter up into the study, thinking of big problems, big regulation issues. That's what I was thinking of. As a part of a business resources and growth inventory study, that's just kind of what I thought could also fit in there. But if it doesn't, then it doesn't. Think of the Chamber of Commerce did a study of you know, or not a study, they pulled their members and one of the things was taxes and regulations. We're probably not going to fix the taxes. You know, I think that there might be some taste or appetite for maybe fixing some regulation issues,

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: especially in this committee. It's easy to say taxes and regulations, but what's the specific regulation issue that is hampering business growth? But I don't know how deep of a dive, I mean, you're getting into a rabbit hole there. Tony? One way we can bridge this gap is I agree with

[Anthony “Tony” Micklus (Member)]: both of you that I agree with all

[Herb Olson (Member)]: of you.

[Anthony “Tony” Micklus (Member)]: I think this is something, but this is a maze of rabbit holes. What if we what I see how we can is what kind of resources do we have that are like Q and A? For example, I'm starting up a restaurant business. Is there someone in the state I can call that says, hey, what are the regulate what do I need to do? And maybe focus it more from providing whatever resources we have that are experts already in existence to help with all these different industries.

[Abbey Duke (Member)]: Yeah, and I think that's the idea of this proposal, is to really identify all those resources.

[Anthony “Tony” Micklus (Member)]: Yeah, because it would be really good, I mean, in my ideal world, I'd love to call a phone number or go on a website and it asks me, What do you need help with? I type it in and it sends me to the place that's gonna be the best help.

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: I just wanted to point out that at the end of the report, it says the study, so we're on the bottom of page three, findings pursuant to the Business Resources and Growth Study, along with any recommendations for legislative action. So I think that there is a way for them to communicate it back to us. I wonder if there might be something in the first sentence for the purpose of determining how the state can better enable and support the growth of business. I mean, it's loosely in there. It's not directive. There's not a directive to it, but it is loosely in there where if they find something that is an impediment to business growth, it should. We could say identify barriers. We could say identify But I agree with a concern that it could be it's on study, because are you looking at which regulations specifically do you want, and which group of people are the right people to understand that group of regulations? So I don't want this to get lost in something else. Yeah, that's my concern about sort of mission to treat. So I wonder if when we talk to them next, we can ask them, is there a way that they can do that too?

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: So if we include determining barriers, and or should we include some, for instance, where it's not exclusive but inclusive, so such as regulations, taxing, such as what are the barriers that we're identify barriers. I don't think we want them digging in, our regulations barriers, sorry, taxes barriers, our, you know, homes barriers, know, the lack of homes, the lack of Or are we asking a question that we already know the answers to? I think we know regulation can be a barrier. We just don't know what regulations are the barrier.

[Kirk White (Ranking Member)]: I'm wondering if So it's not I think, yes. If we give them the charge to look for barriers, derailed the purpose of just see how we've gotten too much mission drift, I think. But I wonder if you could just put it in there for them to, I know it sort of implies it on the last sentence of the report, but if it's more explicit and to report on any barriers that were identified or something wrong or impediments or however you want to do it. So not telling, go look for a whole bunch of them, but if you find,

[Abbey Duke (Member)]: tell us what they are. Yeah. And

[Unidentified Member (Committee)]: I also think this is a group that we're asking to do a lot of identification resources and how you can use them and all that sort of stuff. It might sort of narrow the scope with the regulatory review if you ask that. And by the way, as you're identifying this, are there any specific regulatory or other barriers that businesses might face if using those resources, that's But still pretty broad, isn't somehow tie it into the work group that's identifying these resources, and oh, by the way, when you're talking about the resources, are there some problems? Regulatory fear.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: That's maybe still pretty bad. Yeah, because we're asking, identifying resources available to help us invest the capital, is that Correct. On the reverse side, are there things that we could do to lessen the burden on businesses that we wouldn't have to provide more access to capital and more grants and more? Yeah.

[Unidentified Member (Committee)]: Or even being able to access the resources that these folks identify. To me, it

[Jonathan Cooper (Member)]: feels like we are coming into a second study, another document, another group of people that is really identified as task of looking out for a specific to what any kind of notion of rulemaking or deregulation or understanding that what's happening in each industry. It feels a little bit like what we're talking about is how a patient has those policy, each individual member of the community has those policy areas of expertise. And then that may be something that we, I don't know if that's something that we wanna know more about, at least we have sector areas that we dive into, but that is like, I see section seven as being the thing about moving up, whereas some other study would be about moving things out. And that it is, it feels to me like too much for a December timeline to try to get them both in there. And the point is because you wanna have a really good study of what's in section seven, and then a really good study of what you're articulating now. And I think one to two might be, for me, I see that as being how recognizing that it's important, we need to do it. And I'm wondering how we can really help. We'll know that it's out there. And I think as I should mention, there's some language here that allows us to think in that direction. And maybe it is the case where we do wanna have people say, we need to know more about this, get into it, to now with the time we had. But it feels, I think I'm thinking my last point of, I was just wanting to have it be like, let's get a really good what's in here. And then knowing that we have another really good thing to come. And that's, I'm having trouble thinking of that language that gives the umbrella shade that lets us bring it just a tiny bit of it becoming difficult to meet the obligation in a meaningful way.

[Herb Olson (Member)]: Maybe a clean bill next year for us to pull people in that are affected by the regulations that we pass here, hear what they say, and then draft a huge bill for the second session of the biennium and make significant changes in the regulations that are burdening our businesses. And that would bypass a study, we would put brick under the gun for

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: a bunch of work.

[Herb Olson (Member)]: He's all good with that, right Rick? No barley. Hope Michael doesn't get elected again.

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Exception, am all for it. Exception. He gets paid by the word.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: To a millionaire, by the way. But if you do something like that, you need to be very specific, whoever comes and testifies needs to be very specific of what the regulations are, what are the, you know, we always hear regulations, but you never hear what regulation it is. It's regulation, yeah. Like you were saying, that at a restaurant you can't vacuum seal because they consider it manufacturing. It's ridiculous to manufacture if it's a thing. We hear that from restaurants, that an issue? Maybe It's

[Abbey Duke (Member)]: a little more complicated than that. Yeah,

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: mean, Abbey, you know, Abbey is, I would say, an expert, she's had a business for a long time and, you know, did that hamper your business, so is that an issue for your business?

[Abbey Duke (Member)]: Well, we vacuum seal the stove. There's issues if you get into starting to need acid. It has to do it's more than just the vacuum sealing. It has to do with whether or you're doing sous vide or you're reheating it. And there's HACCP requirements. And it gets very confusing about what's federal, what's state. And that's part of the challenge, is understanding what's rule, what statute, what's federal, what is food safety regulate. It's really difficult to figure out where something is. But I have lots of opinions about specific regulations related to my former business that improve things. Not totally beyond board, incredibly. But it's an interesting idea down the road, and figuring out what is the right process to actually get to some good substantive changes that

[Jonathan Cooper (Member)]: could make a difference.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: But you're right in the seat also.

[Jonathan Cooper (Member)]: Yeah. Sure. And you may have some of those regulations on the books that

[Anthony “Tony” Micklus (Member)]: are just kinda loose, and, you ask 10 people,

[Jonathan Cooper (Member)]: and there's 10 different invitations.

[Abbey Duke (Member)]: And some of it is how the regulator interprets it. Right? So that A fascinating thing for me was running the business. It was a very noticeable change when we had a new commissioner of liquor and lottery who had a more customer service focus, and things changed. But also who the liquor inspector was, there were some differences in interpretation of some rules. So that's the other piece, is it's like there's statute, there's rule. There's federal, state, statute, rule, and then implementation. You want to sell? Oh, boy.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Oh, boy.

[Abbey Duke (Member)]: But it would really be a worthwhile project. You'll be our specter guest.

[Jonathan Cooper (Member)]: Is the chair to take it up next year.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: You you yeah. You let me know when that's gonna happen. I'll watch you

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: on this. Maybe

[Jonathan Cooper (Member)]: you don't need you any chance. That's not happening.

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: All right, so we're okay with communicating. All right, so no other changes to section seven of the study? Is

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: there any more language to be more specific?

[Jonathan Cooper (Member)]: I did want to talk about number eight on line 12, identifying investor education opportunities for high net worth individuals interested in investing in Vermont businesses. I can be officially read this stuff, but that seems like it was really a different kind of a, that felt very different from what the other elements were. I'm not sure how we can pull together this committee, that might not necessarily be something that all members of this group should have a lot to say about. Do others feel like they know exactly what, is there anything encoded in that that I'm not aware of? Like this investor page on two, is really talking about specific things in the plot already? Or if this is, I'm just, that one seemed like it could lead to a section, a fairly weak section of the world. I'm sort of almost advocating for its exclusion and simply is, unless I have, actually I haven't really, I couldn't think of why that's an amazing thing to do. Because aren't there already portfolios and companies that do that, that, you know?

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I'm

[Emily Carris Duncan (Member)]: also with Jonathan on this. Have, I was kind of curious about that myself, I'm wondering if that is a job for ACCD rather than this study.

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: I might lump six, seven, eight as roughly the same thing with different tilts of the head, perhaps.

[Unidentified Member (Committee)]: Yeah, I noticed six, seven, eight seem to

[Jonathan Cooper (Member)]: be talking about capital, having its capital.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Yeah, but

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: I'm of two minds on it, right? Like if the agency is happy to do the study as it's listed, I don't have strong feelings about it. And does it make sense to have Is not enough capital to invest in startup businesses or businesses at different levels really warranting a third of this study. Don't have an answer.

[Emily Carris Duncan (Member)]: I also think that there's a longer term issue on how exactly we're gonna get large stacks of capital to Vermont. And I'm also thinking, is this the treasury also needs to be in on this conversation?

[Abbey Duke (Member)]: Back to the idea of this high net worth, opportunities for investment from high net worth. There are some interesting models out there that are creating opportunities for investment. For example, there's a farm in Richmond that right now is in the process of raising, I think, half $1,000,000 as a very interesting sort of It's like equity with They've got a long term transition plan of employee ownership. And so it's this kind of really innovative Some innovative ownership models and capital raise models that maybe the idea here is to identify some people who are doing that, whether it's Community Foundation or some other places, I think, to provide that information to help raise the wheel, so to speak, about high net worth individuals investing here in small businesses. So I see value of having it in there. Sorry, go ahead.

[Jonathan Cooper (Member)]: I was thinking that as we were talking, that trade opportunity zones are now, I think, becoming permanent. That temporary mechanism of 25 census tracts per month, that was a five year thing that's now going to be kept under the current treasury guidelines. And so, oh, there's an example about, what could you get in, sorry, eight, it could be if there was some more robust unified way in which Vermont is seeking out qualified opportunity fund investments. Maybe that's something that is under eight, and that could also be part of a seven, etcetera, but the thought being that the Putnam block required some opportunity fund investment and it was able to get it through certain circumstances, But that particular program doesn't have a lot of reporting, so we don't know exactly how much investment there was in the state of Vermont through qualifying opportunity funds, because it's private, it's not public investment, but maybe that's something that it could help us work towards a more organized approach to.

[Emily Carris Duncan (Member)]: I was gonna say, I think to Abbey's point, this feels like it could be kind of its own study.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: You're breaking up, Emily.

[Emily Carris Duncan (Member)]: It's also to me kind of leading Oh, uh-oh.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Can you go back and start over again? Because we were getting like every other word.

[Unidentified Member (Committee)]: Okay.

[Emily Carris Duncan (Member)]: It also talk it feels like it's a bigger conversation and maybe needs to be its own study because it also touches on, like, the conversations about regionalization and how we're and even conversations like we were having earlier about the convention center and performance art center. And because we don't have county governance, we're gonna have to think about some interesting and creative ways to attract money and what kind of products that we're gonna have to have available.

[Jonathan Cooper (Member)]: I'm not that educated with how to

[Unidentified Member (Committee)]: raise business capital, so I just want to be out of there a little out of limb, but it certainly, I mean, I certainly heard from folks my negative words, that sometimes,

[Jonathan Cooper (Member)]: you know, from people who have

[Unidentified Member (Committee)]: some money to invest, whether that's high net worth or whether, is sometimes the way they need or could go as opposed to going to traditional cattle mix and things. I'm not a perverse at all to keeping that term in there. I know it makes sense, but you know, it just seems like there are people that, they're looking, know, there's a neighbor, a relative, or a friend of a relative, something that is looking to do good, or, and make somebody- It's called raising for friends and family.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Yeah, there we go. Patient,

[Abbey Duke (Member)]: patient annual investment.

[Unidentified Member (Committee)]: I just assume keep it in the mix.

[Unidentified Member (Committee)]: It seems to me that if your question last week in our joint session had been a follow-up question

[Abbey Duke (Member)]: Too much.

[Unidentified Member (Committee)]: Where to find capital,

[Unidentified Member (Committee)]: you would have had the same response or maybe one fewer hand. And I can see it being important to do that study. And I can see one of the fruit of the study being that we, they do have to develop a

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: marketing plan

[Unidentified Member (Committee)]: to grow more outside capital. That's beyond the scope of this, but people need to know what is out there and then both the appropriate, administration people and the industry group need to figure out how to improve that.

[Unidentified Member (Committee)]: It should stay. It does explore one of my boss.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Reads funny, that's how I guess. Who who wrote that?

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: I was gonna say, like, system like that.

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I'll find the person.

[Unidentified Member (Committee)]: Might be Cameron.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Are investor educational?

[Abbey Duke (Member)]: I don't think that that line would be a huge lift. Would be like

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: I mean, how work is?

[Abbey Duke (Member)]: What are you looking for? Well, would imagine, so they're looking for things like Vermont Community Foundation maybe does a reach out about, hey, here's how you can be an angel investor, or some of the local private equity companies like what KARM does. So I don't think you're looking at you can invest in the Oh my gosh, my brain. What's it called? Flexible funding. Anyway, it used to be through not Scample Jobs Fund, but they've gone off on their own. But they raise money locally to invest in local companies. I don't think that piece of the study would

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: You have

[Abbey Duke (Member)]: Yeah, BSAP. PSAP. Like, they would just Flexible capital funds. Flexible capital funds. Yeah, flexible capital funds. Which is these innovate and there are more people trying looking for some new ways to do

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: local investments. More identifying

[Abbey Duke (Member)]: those Yeah, versus education opportunities. Yeah,

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: and this is like I think what it's saying is identifying so for their education, we provide some education opportunities or by network individuals interested in investing.

[Abbey Duke (Member)]: Yeah, the state's not

[Jonathan Cooper (Member)]: checking on us.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: It's more like, do we know who some of those angel investors are and flexible?

[Abbey Duke (Member)]: Yeah, flexible capital. Vermont Community Foundation.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: It's more like identifying those resources in Vermont. Think there's out, I think, Senate was thinking something different than what we're thinking maybe. Ricky were there, so. I was there.

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Having trouble remembering the intent behind that to be honest with you. They had a lot of witnesses come in from these, I'm not sure if Ellen Taylor came in, I'm guessing I can't remember a witness, that idea, but if I can change it, would you all want it to read?

[Jonathan Cooper (Member)]: I don't know if you thought about why it needs to be individuals, seems a little bit limiting of a high net worth individual sounds like a personal network of people. And I'm just wondering if, do we need them to be individuals? That, was that meant to be to the exclusion of private equity firms? I'm just trying to tease that out. With successful capital stacks come lessons learned, then that becomes a slideshow that goes on the circuit that's being presented at the next Low Income Housing Tax Credit Summit or whatever it is, and people see, oh, this project in Vermont that panned out, hey, they pulled it off, it's this, this, and this. And maybe that's the kind of thing, road show of what, where there have been any successful projects that been taken off or reuse of whatever it is. This seems much more white glove, or it's talking about a concierge service kind of thing, and that's what I'm trying to

[Kirk White (Ranking Member)]: figure I keep this as sort of, there are venture capitalist conventions where basically it's a cattle call or whatever, or it's shark tank.

[Abbey Duke (Member)]: Startup when I'm up.

[Kirk White (Ranking Member)]: Right, basically. And so that's how I read that, is identify those scenarios where that kind of thing is happening. So that then you could set your, that's Yeah, how I'd be

[Abbey Duke (Member)]: me too. Or somebody's doing, like somebody from the Community Foundation is doing some kind of investor education. I pulled up what Maple Windham is doing. They're offering community, it's a community equity offering, where it's basically they are selling I think it's like $10,000 buys you 1% of the farm. And then you get your money back when they sell it, ideally, to employees in ten years. Super interesting. But so I can imagine if this is successful and they're able to raise the money they need, and this then becomes something that somebody will do a seminar about, like helping other businesses set this up. And it's an opportunity, even for high net worth individuals to say, I'm gonna put my money into this instead of

[Emily Carris Duncan (Member)]: Well, I'm wondering if we wanna say something like identify investment opportunities, because I, while I agree, we need high net worth individuals. I think this also highlights the point that, you know, there may be more kind of community funded options, there could be other ways of bringing an investment. And I think also to Kirk's point that about like, you know, the sort of dog and pony shows and things like that, and getting a clear inventory of what is available, I could see a real benefit in that.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Let's think about this. We've been talking to some people who might be able bring in Helen to the conversation. So I talked to her. You you look at six and seven, they're really the same thing.

[Abbey Duke (Member)]: Yeah.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: What resources are available to access capital, determine the state of capital access opportunity? Is there a lack of

[Unidentified Member (Committee)]: capital

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: access to businesses?

[Abbey Duke (Member)]: There is, for certain kinds of businesses and scale of businesses, for businesses without significant assets, without the collateral, is definitely is. And I think it would be valuable to.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Especially when you're talking about, you know, not physical, but, you know, when you're talking technology. Yeah.

[Abbey Duke (Member)]: Talking working capital or talking, you know.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Which you said comes in, others. Okay, that's okay. Can I have

[Abbey Duke (Member)]: a comment about another part of the study? Just number three. And I think this is the spot that Linda was highlighting this morning, which is right now, it's very much current moment in time, and it would be great to have something that says, to help us identify what we want to invest in that could do more. You know, that so her idea was to change that to poised to serve, but it could be create the inventory and then also identify identify places we want to invest that can do more that are needed.

[Unidentified Member (Committee)]: Sorry. Due to condition.

[Abbey Duke (Member)]: Yeah. Like, here's opportunity opportunities to expand. Where where would where do we wanna invest?

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: That's creative. Yeah. Create in resource, the inventory of resource that, I think she said, that are poised to serve businesses for each stage of development.

[Abbey Duke (Member)]: Yeah, that's true. That was actually kind of an elegant switch, is that that is forward looking when we say poised.

[Unidentified Member (Committee)]: Better, free

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: line 20, better poised to serve businesses.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Linda had some others too, she talked about the succession planning. She's going to send us

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: what she talked about. I think under three though, also the piece of identifying gaps in resources is going to be important. So identify gaps, Definitely. In number three? In number three. So another sentence of three. Create a resource.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Create an inventory of resources and gaps, but resources Well,

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: yeah, resources, I would just say. I think even at the end, identify where there are gaps.

[Abbey Duke (Member)]: And that would be resources

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: for business development.

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I think that might be in

[Unidentified Member (Committee)]: two, that we could maybe put it better, that

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: it fit better in two, identifying the resources and the gaps that exist.

[Abbey Duke (Member)]: Two? Identifying the public and private resources available for those reasons.

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: Yes. So

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: two is you identify. Different resource and then the gaps.

[Abbey Duke (Member)]: Yes. Thank you.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Just identifying what the resources are, but what the gaps. Right.

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Anything else in section seven?

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: I think there's a few more that Linda suggested that she's gonna send over on.

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Linda Rossi? Yeah. Okay. Okay. All right, section,

[Jonathan Cooper (Member)]: I was wondering about seven. Do we feel like the investment environment in the New England region? That's quite a lot. Like all of

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I think I have an answer for you. Because you have at least one country, is it Taiwan that's indicated they want to invest in New England, and not just Vermont necessarily, but New England

[Jonathan Cooper (Member)]: is my understanding. I see.

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay. I see if it

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: is for that. All right.

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: We've also had, yeah, corridors where we are part of, you know, the Montreal to New York corridor. The detox stuff. Yeah.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Okay. What's Boston? Okay. The tech hub. There's a tech hub in Boston now. There's there's another one being formed in Burlington which will have reason do that.

[Abbey Duke (Member)]: Yeah. I think that they

[Jonathan Cooper (Member)]: have similar Vermont and New York's economically pretty divergent. Is there anything that gains by including New York State in that segment? I mean, it can be much more work. I know that's a relevant geographic proximity to where I

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: live, Good, sure.

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: Should talk to Tim.

[Jonathan Cooper (Member)]: Yeah, okay, that's so we can.

[Abbey Duke (Member)]: Or live. Okay.

[Jonathan Cooper (Member)]: Alright, makes sense. For

[Unidentified Member (Committee)]: me. Okay.

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: All right, section eight remains to lead in. Section nine is the veggie perspective repeal. So no changes there, just repeating veggie.

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: No, we're repealing the repeal, not repealing repeal.

[Abbey Duke (Member)]: Repeal the repeal. Repeal. That's

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: ways in me, stopping to the chair.

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Have I? Yeah. So it's reverting to China. Do I need to?

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Just where you came up with that language, wondering if that's what you're getting.

[Unidentified Member (Committee)]: Nothing.

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: A prospective repeal being repeated.

[Unidentified Member (Committee)]: So that is the legal

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: thing that is happening there. Okay, sections 10 is on the Polinary Institute study. I see the deputy director of Fort Worth Strategy Development here. No changes on her.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: So representative White represents she very much work with you and with Drake.

[Abbey Duke (Member)]: Yep. Early next we're doing it early next week. Yeah. Definitely.

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: There might be a few tweaks to that section.

[Abbey Duke (Member)]: Yeah. Okay. We might be rereading.

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes. Okay. 11 is the Vermont need work

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: economic connection that my understanding is that there may be a recommendation saying how strains would take things to the appeal or to delete them. Okay. I will hold off the course until that. Yes. That's my understanding, but it's not official yet. Okay.

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Then I'll move on in the meantime. Section 12 is the removal of that session law that we talked about last time, private rural industry development grant program, putting it into statute, so that remains repealed. Okay, this is where the majority of the changes are, and it's draft. So on page 11, line one and two, there was some talk about the wording being a little confusing, maybe not the easiest way to explain what's happening. So the new language is the purpose of this program to provide grant funding through local development corporations, no changes there, for the purpose of business relocation and expansion activities set forth in subsection D of the section. So before it listed out industrial, commercial, residential, I didn't think it needed to be mentioned multiple times, and it kind of led to confusion that why aren't these aligned, why don't they read the same, so what I've done is we already explained those things in subsection B, so I want to refer to what actions, activities are, that we've already laid out in Subsection B. Once we get there, maybe you can let me know if that makes sense to you all. Submission two, adding the word fund. I just want to make sure that you are creating a fund here, and session law doesn't make that clear even though it's already been created, there is a program fund, so adding the word fund just to make clear that was what was being done. No change.

[Unidentified Member (Committee)]: A state fund or special fund? Kind of fund is that?

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It's not a special fund, it's not a state fund, it's a fund within ACCD that they match. That is separate. That's right. I get it. Subdivision three, federally impacted property, excuse me, no change to that definition. Subsection B, the grant considerations, no changes. Subsection C, top of page 12. This is your eligible applicants, No changes subsection D, eligible activities. So earlier the draft said a grant recipient may, the committee wanted it to say shall. So the grant recipient shall use any funding provided through the section only for the following. I added the word only because I felt it was that you want to limit the grant funds that you've awarded just for these purposes to make that absolutely clear. The previous draft just to make sure you've seen that. Said a grant recipient may use funding for the fall. That's the previous draft. So provide it through the section only. One, to purchase real property for potential industrial, commercial, or in case of a federally impacted property, residential use. So this is kind of cleaned up from the previous version, which was commercial development, sorry, industrial use, commercial development, or for residential use asset fourth and subsection F, which was not the clearest way to explain, in my opinion, what the grant would be for. So curious if you all think that is what you wanted to read. And does it match what you want it to be? I think use includes development. You know, if you use development one time and you use use another time that could be not super clear.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Okay, good, Jonathan? Not yet. Yeah,

[Jonathan Cooper (Member)]: for residential use. Is that as written there, satisfied that ongoing, it's just to purchase it. It's just to purchase for potential. And the point is that, okay, and the term use is applying to all industrial consumers. I think I'm set.

[Unidentified Member (Committee)]: Okay.

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: No changes to two, three, four, or five. So application section, no changes. In the award section, there's some changes after the first part, which currently in session law reads an award shall not exceed the lesser 1,000,000 or 50% of the total project cost. Clarifying this kind of excess award. An award may exceed $1,000,000 but shall not exceed $2,000,000 if the property is classified as a federally impacted property and the secretary certifies that the project is located in a designated, sorry, I, a designated downtown development district, that's required, and one of the other two, either a Rural Economic Area Partnership Program, a REAP zone, or a federally declared natural disaster, provided declarations made not more than five years from the application date. Two.

[Abbey Duke (Member)]: Five years. Okay, I'm looking at wrong thing.

[Unidentified Member (Committee)]: Five.

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So the previous version, it can exceed 1,000,000,200,000.0 or 100% of the total project cost. The total project cost could be $20,000,000 and there's not obviously that much money in the fund. So in this case, it would be up to the Secretary to determine how far it should

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: be above 1,000,000. It could be 1.5, it could

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: be up to two, as long as it meets those downtown districts and then one of the other two categories. I'll do one thing, classic.

[Jonathan Cooper (Member)]: Jonathan? With this one here, I'm turning on, do we need to change the name of the program?

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I mentioned that last time, and I'm happy

[Jonathan Cooper (Member)]: So it's it's an irony for me as written that this is departed from rural industry. It's a magistrate, so I want you to visit that when the time comes.

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Just one more. So the previous, currently concession law, you may remember that it's actually a revolving loan fund to where if the grantor or grantee, excuse me, sells property that they got

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: the money for and a profit on it,

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: those profits come to gain it back to the state into the loan fund. The change here is to not make it a revolving loan fund, just make it a pure grant, and therefore because the law currently says there are deed restrictions, subsection ensures that any of these that do exist, I'm not sure if

[Unidentified Member (Committee)]: they do or not, but if

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: they do exist, they are void because this new version does not require the decreeption.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: We heard from Adam Gruneau this morning asking that the 50% total project cost be retroactive to the full projects that are already out there. They've already gotten money for that? Or would be so? Even if they did not increase the amount of money

[Jonathan Cooper (Member)]: at all, but that's what they would consider that you pay this $100 to get them. Therefore, they would pay fewer dollars.

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Maybe talk offline about it all. They didn't count this. That's fine.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Yeah. Because I was trying to figure it too, like, just not quite there yet. What thought is He's pretty funny, though, that

[Jonathan Cooper (Member)]: his I didn't quite understand until he was acquainted this morning, thought I thought, okay, that if you had a $2,000,000 project and you receive an award of $175,000 and you had to, it's that $20.80 split in order for every eight dollars that you spend, sort of like there's that, get that $2 turn. If it goes to fiftyfifty, then you simply need to have put in less money to have drawn to have been awarded the full amount in the ACC. The just get the full amounts for having at a dollar for dollar rate instead of a 100.

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So the way that the first, the lesser of 1,000,000, this is currently the way it's worded in the law. So this still allows them to get less than 50%. So guess, is he asking for an exact 50%? So

[Jonathan Cooper (Member)]: I guess he would probably be the best person to be clear about that, but I thought that he was simply getting out is that if your award amount is set and it's set at $100,000 and it is an eightytwenty sort of in order to get the full 100, you would have to spend $500,000 $400,000 to get the $100,000 reward. This would then suit you got to $100,000 you'd be eligible for the $100,000

[Unidentified Member (Committee)]: So

[Jonathan Cooper (Member)]: this is why Adam's the way he's trying this.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: I'll shoot him an email. Okay. And I'll call you and you.

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: You know, you know, so you're aware

[Unidentified Member (Committee)]: of what the issue is.

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And that's the, I believe, that's

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: the extent of the changes. So we'll be talking with Cameron on page 37 which will go into this bill. Also, I talk to, or I need to talk with the Chair of Appropriations about adding back in the convention task force, back into this door, should it be done on the senate side? We'll have these conversations. What else? Is there anything else?

[Abbey Duke (Member)]: Is there

[Unidentified Member (Committee)]: a Brownfield position outstanding?

[Unidentified Member (Committee)]: Only if

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: you can find somebody. I'd

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: be happy to put it up.

[Kirk White (Ranking Member)]: That was that angel. Yeah.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: And again, that's that the money question right now would sit with Senate Economic Development with Senate Appropriations. That's true. That's the budget that's been launched from here. So anything we put in would become do we?

[Unidentified Member (Committee)]: Can I ask you

[Jonathan Cooper (Member)]: a question about session law that the rate of the restricing came from, I think was in 2023? So that would have become a president on 07/01/2023. Or December? 01/01/2023. So I'm just, what I'm wondering was, okay, so it's been less than three years. And we have these new opportunities, I think that's really proposed uses for the funds in Bram. Part of the argument, I think has been what we have, it's sort of just there, the fund, we didn't see the funding wasn't drawn down fully, but I wasn't sure, was it expected to, is two years, is it indicative of a deficiency somewhere, somehow, a limited appetite that two years out still have roughly half of the funds, such that some sort of adjustment is that a modification of this type would be necessary. And that's, just wanted to talk a little bit

[Unidentified Member (Committee)]: about that.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: I think that's what we heard from Commissioner Johnson. And Thank you, was

[Jonathan Cooper (Member)]: trying to remember where we had heard that sort of, all right. It does seem big to me, like a big shift, but I think we're in a moment where we are hearing a lot about pivoting away from rural Vermont at apparel, and I wonder just about if we felt like it really wasn't being advertised and best use. Well, I think

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: because as it was designed, so I think when we designed it with 20%, the uptake rate there, the restrictions all of that. It make more sense to have a plan or have access to funding for industrial parks at 50%, and then it's a grant and not a kind of like a revolving loan. It was sort of a revolving loan. It was a grant, and it wasn't. Held title to the property, then it was basically a grant.

[Jonathan Cooper (Member)]: So, was there an intermediate step where it's okay, let's remove some of the owner's nature of twentyeighty, adjust that to fiftyfifty, would that, and then see how it does in a year or two, or do we, as an intermediary step before we go into taking it out of rural Vermont and making it out for downtowns.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Well, think so it's intermediate steps, we have that 2 and a half million sitting here that because of the issue that reports have and the issues that they're having near my failure that the administration's ask was to utilize the fiftyfifty for those as well. What I'm asking is that because of those two issues that we make that 100% and we create a program that next year, maybe this year, I have no idea, but other funds can be found that could capitalize that so that it it will continue with it.

[Jonathan Cooper (Member)]: Alright.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: So we're putting we have 2 and a half million that's sitting here since 2023 that hasn't been utilized. It's been sitting here, but we have an opportunity to to help two communities right now move forward and putting those funds to good use for economic development. K. So we'll be in touch with any is there anyone that would like to work with Michelin Kepsing? Need to kind of going over that language in section seven? Anybody else like to work with Jonathan? They Jonathan, Berkeley, the break and work with patient injections. Bring anybody else, you know, other discussions to just talk to her about Taylor as well. I understand what really what we want them to look at.

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Hey, Rich. Thank you, Rut. See you all later.

[Jonathan Cooper (Member)]: Good afternoon. Good afternoon.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: For the record Cameron Wood, August of Legislative Council, In the Zoom meeting, we have in just some language for you to review based on one edit that you all requested the last time we were together on August.

[Unidentified Member (Committee)]: Good.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So I've simply drafted this up kind of as orphan language. As you can see, there's no need in here because my understanding is you all will essentially be inserting this into the building. We're just reviewing with my colleague. So I've removed the section numbers because it will depend on where exactly it goes in that bill. I will comment out the gate, I didn't remove it, but if you're inserting this into the other bill, my recommendation would be to remove the short title or to possibly name it something else. It's going into this miscellaneous economic development bill. I want to remove that because you hadn't asked for it. But just as a matter of practicality, that would probably be removed if this were to be inserted. I don't think there's anything wrong with keeping the purpose section. You all feel that that would be helpful, it doesn't harm anything, then I think it may even help, so you could keep that. So we will remove the short title. The only change that I've made is down here on page three, subsection E. You will recall this was initially broken up into two subdivisions. One of the subdivision referenced that the section shall not prohibit a business that has refuted to accept cash requiring that business to accept cash. So you all requested that that subdivision be removed and so it has been. So that is now just a subdivision E or excuse me, subsection E instead of E 1 And

[Unidentified Member (Committee)]: 2.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And then I highlighted subsection F required notice just because that was a piece that we were discussing last on whether or not you all would like to have a notice to be specified in statute and what that could look like or whether you want to direct a specific agency or department to come up with a notice that would be required. Doing a little bit of research and discussing with my colleagues, there are examples of both in Vermont statutes. I'm most familiar with labor. You all require the Department of Labor to provide multiple mandatory workplace posters. And most of those we kind of draft up and provide. But separate from that, there's also in statute, there are some circumstances where you've outlined in more detail exactly what you all would be expecting to be provided to the public. So this is in the health title regarding stem cell treatment of related products. This is a notice that has to be required. So you can see there on the subdivision one, it's got quotations around it. This is the exact wording that must be provided. And then it is required to be in at least eight and onetwo by 11 inches and printed and not less than 40 type. And then you have that the health care provider has to prominently display the notice required to be included at the entrance of the area visible to patients. So you could do something similar that the notice has to be provided at the entrance to the location. You may want to have it at the point of sale. And so then there's a few others that were kind of shared with me from my colleagues. This is in the cannabis chapter. So this is the retailer shall display safety information flyer at the point of purchase and offer a customer a copy of the flyer with each purchase. Not sure you want to get to that requirement, but again just some examples. And then the other one that I can't remember there were a few others, but I only grabbed a few to share just for illustrative purposes. This is in regards to raw milk. So customer inspection and notification requires a sign just provided by the agency of agriculture, but it has to be in eight and a half by 11 inches size with specific words and shall be displayed prominently in a place where it can be easily seen by customers. So depending on how prescriptive you will know how see it, we can grab something up and there are some examples of what that could look like. The last thing I'll mention on this, I mentioned this in my first walkthrough and we didn't really talk about it the last time I was here, but you may want to consider the last half of that subsection F because it says the required notice has to be displayed at the point of sale or on the receipt and I mentioned when I did my walk through the receipt may actually be after the transaction has occurred. So that may be something you want to address in particular if you're wanting to go down a direction of requiring actual signage be in the statutory section. I misspoke there, last thing I'll send is you've also discussed possibly having the Agency of Agriculture be the one to do the sign because the weights and measures actually exist under that agency. They're the ones that go into the locations, do the scanning of the items, you know, when it actually rings up at the register that those prices match up.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: So we've had a conversation with the Commissioner of the LO and they're willing to host a website with the language that is required, or if we decide we want to provide what the notice says, that they're willing to host that on their page. They do interact with a lot of retailers, both in eight zero two Spirits as well as liquor and lottery. It seems like a good nexus. Shoot will fill us in more and more, but they are also, their point of sale is ready to go as well. So her suggestion, she'll confirm this tomorrow, is that this be on passage, wait till July. Because I think we're seeing, and I think we saw Jonathan as example, but they're all rounding down, they're not round, round they up. So I think we have retailers that are losing money, not a lot of money, but. So those are some suggestions, and so I think we can craft it. I think we might be able to ask weights and measures to double check when they go in to make sure that those signs are posted. Even I don't have a POS system, so they don't come in and check, but they do check my gas box. So at the same time, it wouldn't be hard to make sure that if we're rounding that we have the signage, and it could be either posted in the door, the access point of the store, or it could be posted, give the store the option to post it either place. Just some thoughts.

[Unidentified Member (Committee)]: Yeah. I like those ideas. I mean, it's great that liquors could at least suggest, you know, the form beside.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Well, they would post it. So we could we can put that sign. This is pink. I don't think it's hard to figure out. No.

[Unidentified Member (Committee)]: And and I don't think personally, I don't think it's very descriptive, you know, about what it says on the sign.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Yeah. Think just size. It's your font size, depending on if it's in the door, if it's on the

[Unidentified Member (Committee)]: register. I agree with Cameron that having that on the sheet might be after the fact kind of thing, not sure what that does. Yeah. Yeah. I don't

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: think we need to require that, but they do show that around that box, but we don't need to, I don't think we need to

[Unidentified Member (Committee)]: require yeah. Don't know about the other. The only other question I had was in the optional use, and I'm wondering if some, we may have talked about this, can't remember. So was there a reason why we need that phrase unless the person or business has provided notice? So basically, that would be saying that if the retailer is rounding, they don't need to accept cash. Right? Exact.

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: Exact cash.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. So it's the the e year

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: and the word We having

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: some discussion of it last time, this exact point, and

[Unidentified Member (Committee)]: So so I understand. I mean, the first phrase ending at 1¢ coins certainly makes sense to me. I couldn't remember. Maybe we had the discussion about why that next phrase was necessary or exception, I guess, but I can't remember.

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: So because it's optional, it will allow businesses to accept exact cash or not if they don't Exactly, file it,

[Unidentified Member (Committee)]: and I wasn't sure what the rationale was to give them an option.

[Abbey Duke (Member)]: Sometimes they have pennies, sometimes they don't. It's Yeah, they don't have to have pennies.

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: To roll the pennies, if you don't ever have enough pennies to turn them into the bank, yeah. I don't have a cash business. I don't know how hard that would be.

[Unidentified Member (Committee)]: It would

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: be good to hear from

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: someone

[Unidentified Member (Committee)]: on

[Abbey Duke (Member)]: that. Change is a big pain in the neck.

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: I'd agree with you on I the receipts, think there's people nodding around the table that on the receipt doesn't make sense.

[Unidentified Member (Committee)]: What am I going

[Abbey Duke (Member)]: to do without the candy? You can still use it. You can it. Herb, give it to me. I'm sure

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: that there's people around the table that would accept it.

[Abbey Duke (Member)]: Have you seen all the coffee cake? Bring it in. Bring it in.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: I drive to Stacksboro. One other thing on page two, line two, and two, on subsection three. So we're talking about rounding, and we talked about after taxes and fees. And then when we go to

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: GB,

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: on page three, line eight, about taxes, and it says all taxes shall be calculated and remitted. But can we specify fees as well? Taxes and fees above, and then we just say taxes.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Don't think there's any issue with specifying how you want.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Right.

[Jonathan Cooper (Member)]: I don't know who we're

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: remitting fees to. Yeah.

[Unidentified Member (Committee)]: And what and how they calculate the tax.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Well, The tax is gonna be calculated no matter what, and you're gonna remit that no matter what. And so if you're calculating fees along with that Right.

[Jonathan Cooper (Member)]: See, like, a fuel surcharge or something, maybe. If

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: you take the ferry, they're gonna give you

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: a fuse fuel surcharge, which varies with the price of gas. It's conceivable that they exist.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Yeah. So if we're naming it, they are we're talking after taxes and fees and we should Okay. Alright. So I think the only thing left for this is to come up with how we want to poster where to display it on the side, the sides of the room.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Would you like me to try to come up with some language? The other thing I'll look into, so I'll do that, I'll make this change regarding the taxes and fees in the sub G, remove customer receipts there. Thought I heard you say you're okay if the sign is at the point of sale or at the entrance?

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: I think we can give retailers the option where they want to put it. Long as it's either when the customer's coming in, they see it or it's at the point of sale so they see it.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I'll come up with some draft language on possible notice. The other thing I'll double check is whether or not whether or not I need to include some language on failure to post the signage. Does that need to be some sort of violation under the statutory authority for agriculture for weights and measures to enact some sort of bias associated with that?

[Abbey Duke (Member)]: I just Well

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: they're going to have to determine whether or not the store is round. True, yes. If the store is not round, there's no need to post the sign, right? Correct, I'm just

[Jonathan Cooper (Member)]: saying in the

[Unidentified Member (Committee)]: event Weights

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: if and Measures is going in and we're validating that your prices are matching and then we're rounding and we're saying okay well then show us your sign and the retailer is like Especially if they're in there checking POS, making sure that prices are accurate and everything, and they they're buying products. And then if they see they're rounding and there's no sign, that's where they Big hammer. It's a big hammer. It could could be a you know, the first time is a warning. The second time is Okay.

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: I just have two thoughts. One, I think it's a little bit of a throwaway, but I'm gonna say it anyway. The sign, I was thinking at least at the point of sale makes sense, because some places like a farmer's market or something like that, you can only have a point of sale. You don't have an entry. But people who are focusing on customer awareness may want it on the way in too. So I don't know what we'll think about that. That isn't a question for you, Cameron. I'm just throwing that out there. But the other question is, if a business is not accepting exact change, could they be providing notice to the customer also on that? That to me, I think that's a good business practice. But should we legislate good business practice? So I would hate to go in with exact change and be told you can't pay that way and there's nothing official.

[Abbey Duke (Member)]: That would feel wrong. I would hate it, but I wouldn't mind it. Sorry.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: If it was in your favor.

[Unidentified Member (Committee)]: You know, that's life, you know? And I was disappointed.

[Abbey Duke (Member)]: I mean,

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: I'm thinking about the 16 year old working behind the counter and feeling There could be just an imbalance. There could be all kinds of issues. So I'm just wondering if that's another area that we do. But there's no notice required for that. You can just do it.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Well, no, because if you're rounding, you have to provide notice.

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: Right, but if you choose not to accept exact cash, you don't have to provide notice.

[Abbey Duke (Member)]: Well, this says optional use, this section shall not pay to the customer from tender and. Unless? Unless.

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: So there are some.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Yeah.

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: So if you round, you don't have to accept exact cash, but you don't have to tell people that you're not accepting exact. That's what I'm trying to say.

[Unidentified Member (Committee)]: You have to tell them that you're

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: You have to tell them that you're

[Abbey Duke (Member)]: I

[Emily Carris Duncan (Member)]: just want to say that I agree with Edye. I think that it's I mean, the problem is that pennies are not being produced, but they're still in circulation and they're still legal tender. And,

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: you know, I agree.

[Emily Carris Duncan (Member)]: I personally probably wouldn't be, you know, deeply upset, but I can see the frustration for sure.

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: What what Like a creamy stand. Right? I pay for cash

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: for creamies. But what's the issue with

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: More often than I should.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: A retailer, if someone gives them cash and exact chain, even if you're rounding. I guess I guess issue with the POS stuff.

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: You don't have to round.

[Unidentified Member (Committee)]: No. Because I I

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: think we heard from on Friday that you're gonna punch in if it's 1001, then you get 1001, you punch in 1001. I would also say

[Unidentified Member (Committee)]: sorry, I don't know that this section is actually necessary. You're telling a business in the section, we are providing you retailer guidance that if you want to round transactions because there may now and into the future be a shortage of pennies where you can't have access to them or a transaction, If your business want to round, you can, and here's how you do it. So the business can round or not, and somebody may come in and like I talked last time, I mean presumably the person is going to be told the price of the product at the end, and it's just going to end in a nickel or a dime. And so I don't really know what the E1 is there to do. It says that it doesn't prohibit a customer from tendering exact cash. Sure, it doesn't. There's nothing that stops somebody from doing that now. And I think if someone this bill, there's nothing in the bill that says that a business can't take pennies. So what I mean by that is, let's say you round the transaction, and I want to use 5 pennies instead of a nickel. The business still has to take that cash. And so from just my legal standpoint, I just don't know what e-one is intended to do. I guess it could provide some notice to someone that if the business isn't rounding, then you can still provide exact change. But I don't know that there's any concern that people can't do that now or wouldn't be able to do that if the business started to round.

[Emily Carris Duncan (Member)]: I think the concern for me is having businesses that are like, we don't take pennies anymore.

[Unidentified Member (Committee)]: But I don't know if there is anything in the section that mandates or changes or would alter the requirement. You have some businesses that don't take cash now and that's, I don't have any expertise in that area, I'm not going to offer any. But I know that that has been a point of discussion before. So could a business turn around and tell someone, we don't accept pennies anymore? And the person says, well, it's legal tender. You're obligated to take it. I would want to go do some research on that. But I don't know that the bill itself, even if you were to remove e one or keep e one, I don't know that the bill is going to have any impact on that analysis or the legal outcomes of that argument? And Rutland, I'm sorry I jumped in front

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: of the point that you were gonna make.

[Herb Olson (Member)]: I think it was something to do with the PO system, but it doesn't matter because we're taking it out. So we're all set. Yeah. That's all you had to do to shut me out.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: I something new every day.

[Unidentified Member (Committee)]: You can't remember that.

[Anthony “Tony” Micklus (Member)]: I'm fine with taking it out.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Okay. Is that Maggie, do you see that as an issue?

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: No, I guess I don't, and maybe it's just because it's late and I'm a little confused. Feel as if the Latvian Breast Association, I guess I just think there's a sign there that is posted clearly that says that the business is using this practice round, bang up or down, that of is an issue that's being solved, I think that's the disclosure right there.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: And it's between the business and the customer of whether they would accept it, that can change or not. I don't know why they wouldn't. I don't think that's something we need to be involved

[Unidentified Member (Committee)]: in. If you find something

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: different and there's a different explanation, you can let us know.

[Abbey Duke (Member)]: Yeah absolutely, I will. I think maybe my brain is working a little bit better tomorrow morning. I'm trying to follow along with this issue and maybe we'll look into it.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Okay, great. Okay, so we'll let you come up with a sign. Let us know when you have the sign. Give us a sign when you have the sign. Alright. So I think that's it for today. Tomorrow, be taking Jeremy on S-one hundred ninety eight. Should be interesting. Just remember that what we're doing in S-one hundred ninety eight, the regulation of tobacco products and substitutes, we're looking there's some pieces in there that deal with consumer protection, so that's pretty much going to be our purview, but we'll hear the whole bill from Jen Carter against the last question. Okay, any questions from the people? We're done for the day, we'll be back at