Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Peter Luneau.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Welcome to This is House Corrections and Institutions Committee. It has been staged January 21. We're working on h 50. We passed this bill last year. It deals with BGS doing an inventory of state owned buildings to see if any of that could be used for other purposes. We were thinking possibly housing. Came back from the senate. They added or state leased buildings and land. And we had a question on that. And they also added that the inventory would look at any buildings that are vacant or whether any land is unnecessary for the statutory purpose of the agency, not just for it's unnecessary for the agency. It was statutory purpose that they added. In the meantime, the governor put out an executive order back sometime in the fall, I believe. September. September. To expedite housing. And one of the things in the executive order was doing an inventory and looking at state owned property to see if any of that could be used for affordable housing or for housing projects. So we asked our legislative council to go back, take a look at the executive order, the language, and possibly amend the senate version. So the process would be that we concur with a senate proposal of amendment with further proposal of amendment. So it basically strikes everything out that the senate did and everything that we did and puts in new language. So the question was, what is the process of an executive order? Can we weigh in on the executive order, but also to look at the executive order language and see if it's a possibility to use that language in our stricel. So that's where we left it last week. So, John, please introduce yourself for the record and then walk us through in terms of what you found out about the executive order and where we are.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Sure. So John Gray, Office of Legislative Counsel. I'm gonna screen share with you guys. So one thing I'd Obviously, you can access the executive orders in different ways. But one thing I might point out to you guys is if you're on the legislative website and you go to the Vermont laws, obviously we have our different titles that you can look at. Just know that there's a Title III appendix in which you can find all of the executive orders that have been issued, whether they're active or not, and they correspond effectively to chapters that align with our titles. So in this sense, because it deals with housing and conservation and various things, it's situated in the title three appendix chapter 10, which is your conservation and development. We don't have to go through all of the whereas resolutions and the likes, so I'm just going to jump to the key part of this, is section four. So what you'll see in the executive order is this state land utilization and inventory of available properties by 12/01/2025, each state agency and department owning real property. So that is a constraint that you're not going to see within the proposed language here. I've kind of aligned more, as you'll see, with the way that we had set up the inventorying process already. But each state agency and department owning real property shall submit to BGS and DHCE, Department of Housing and Community Development, complete inventory of un- and underutilized properties suitable for multifamily housing development, housing infill, mobile home park and shelter construction and rehabilitation as defined by the Secretary of Commerce and Community Development, which is agency within which DHCP is located, an assessment of multifamily housing development feasibility and infrastructure capacity, and then recommendations for disposal or long term lease arrangements to support meeting the state housing unit generation goals. Separately, there is this expedited disposal process and fire safety inventory within the same section, section four, but I really just focused on one, the inventories, which I think was kind of the more core component that you guys were focused on. I'm not gonna do a broader analysis of the validity or correctness of the executive order. People do take positions on whether it's something that's within separation of powers, whether it's within executive authority to do so. Think the intuitive catch here is it's sort of like sensitive falls within an executive power, but at the same time, don't think you have to take a position on the validity of the executive order because to the question as to whether or not you can do a similar thing, of course you can. So that's the real resolution you need, is if you would like to do the same strategy within a bill, of course you can. So that's the approach that I have. And you're going see that while I've tried to maintain similar style of language, I've slightly cleaned up some of the approach. So I'll jump to the actual drafting.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I think obviously we can do that, John, we have a question.

[Rep. James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Just a simple question. When I'm reading that, this is a one time thing.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Exactly, so that is different. That is different. So that is one of the key differences to point out is you have the owning real property constraint, and this is a one time check, but what's being proposed in the draft is a regular, you'd annually receive well, BGS would annually receive the inventory, and they would have to maintain that biennium, so they'd have to compile that data twice a year. And then biennially, so every biennium, the legislative committees of jurisdiction would receive that update. So that's true in terms of impact, administrative burden on the agencies to fill out this information. The proposal in the bill is substantially heavier than what you see here, which is a one time check. So if the proposal came into effect, you would have this recent data available because the executive order contained these measures for 12/01/2025. But that's absolutely right that what's being proposed here is a regular process. So this is gonna look fairly familiar because it's basically a mashing together of the executive order with the existing inventory in process. So section one, we're looking at the same section that we were looking at previously. You're gonna note that I have cut, although I can step this if you guys would like it. Given the questions around the state leased, I've returned it to the house's original vision, which is BGS to maintain an inventory of all state owned buildings and land. If you wanna have that state leased in there, you can, but just note some of the gap between proposing the development of affordable housing on leased lands as against owned lands. So I've returned in the initial paragraph, it's an inventory of state owned buildings and lands, and that's bi annually compiled and updated using the actions that the agencies undertake to provide that information to BGS. James?

[Rep. James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: As we learned last year from our wordsmith down there, biannually can actually mean twice a year or every other year, so which way are you meeting it?

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I will just So that's right, there is confusion as to what biannually means. I would say if you're just asking for what the most common usage is, and I can bring in my Brian Farner books, typically biannually means twice a year. Biennially is the term we would typically use if you want to say every other year. But it is true that sometimes folks say biannually and mean every other year. So, you wanted to know what BGS is doing, I would just ask them. And I would suggest if we want it to be every other year, would propose amending this from biennially to biennially because the common usage of biennially is twice a year. The common usage of biennially is every other year.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So we have colonists, and I'm gonna put you on the spot. It comes through this Facebook. You do that every year, right? Yes. So it's annually.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. I mean,

[Rep. James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: I don't guess,

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: but I believe our reports to the committee regarding this would be fine. That's correct. Report itself would be biennially, which we'll come to, but this is just for BGS maintaining and compiling that information. So this is an internal process in subsection E. And I can scroll down to the biennial part.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Right, so hang on. So this is, go back. This is just what BGS gets.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Exactly.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Does BGS get this inventory right now, twice a year?

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I believe it's just once a year before the creation of the space.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Because this is you'd maintain an inventory and compile and update the information.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah, so it might be nice to also So go to g. So you can see g. Because in existing law, this is for the head of each agency to prepare and forward to the commissioner when requested the inventory. So perhaps that's done on an annual basis. And perhaps that's the basis for proposing that it's just done annually. But currently in existing law, that requirement for the head to provide the inventory is upon request. If the information already has to be compiled, and it would be sort of natural to request it on that basis. But e is saying BGS, biannually, twice a year, compile this. Head of each agency, provide this information annually. So

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Why wouldn't we just track it annual to annual?

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Totally free to do that, and that's I

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: mean, by annual, it's creating more work on BGS's world when you're only getting that information annually.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: The other way to say it is that if you leave it as biannually and you have no information to compile an update, the second time in the year in which you have to do so, kind of already met the condition. There's nothing to compile or update if you only receive it annually. But if you would like it to be naturally in sync, I would say just change it to any. That would be fine.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So, Cole, can you relay back I mean, we're not gonna take final action on this today because we'll have to have BGS to come in and run on this to begin with. Could you flag this and ask if we change this annually, how that impacts your internal operations in E and how that would play out with Qi?

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Can I offer why not knowing anything about how it operates, why someone might have put biennial in here, which is that multiple things are contemplated? So one is receipt of information from an agency as to what it is doing with its properties. And then, of course, the section itself is about BGS being efficient with use of space. So if there's directives that go out to use space in a particular way, BGS would have that information and could update its compile and update the information. You would compile the receipt of information from the agencies and then update it if it was used in space in a particular way. But yeah, I think that is my best guess as to why you have the gap between the two, because why would you have a biannually and then an upon request? It's that you would be updating the information per the efficient allocation of space, which is the point of the session, is the efficient allocation.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Well, you could have a major event like a flood that takes five buildings off your inventory because it can't be used. And then you've gotta figure out where to move those folks. Yeah. That could happen right after. If it's biannually, then you can catch up on that, not wait for a year to go by. Kevin?

[Rep. Kevin Winter (Member)]: Is it possible other government agencies rely on this list? I mean, if the value of Vermont's holdings need to be known by the federal government compared to Connecticut's or Massachusetts. Know that nobody else uses this information than us.

[Rep. James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: It's not what this it's not what this bill is about.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: You're talking about the M.

[Rep. Kevin Winter (Member)]: DCS. DCS is maintaining BGS. BGS is gathering this information already. Who else uses this information other than Conor who wants to find out whether we can

[Rep. Conor Casey (Member)]: Me and the governor? The federal government.

[Rep. Kevin Winter (Member)]: I'm just asking if somebody else uses it. Maybe that's why it's finanularly because they look at it. By annual.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah, mean, the purpose of the section, if you look at it as a whole, is about efficient allocation of space. So identifying if agencies aren't using all of the property that they have. And another part of it is that intention is that you wouldn't lease land unless you've used upstate owned land essentially. So it's for BGS purposes. That's not to say that BGS might not use it in other ways, but it's not hard to make sense of kind of logic at this point.

[Rep. James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: I think, Harrison, once Cole goes back and asks the commissioner, he can talk about this a little more in detail, no sense of really beating it to death until it gets back to

[Rep. Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: I just have a quick question. So back up to line nine on page one. It says space allocation inventory and use leasing property, but then you go down and say, like, so

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: But you've got a b c d and e. No. A b c that we're not seeing.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Would you like for me to pull up the statute if you wanna see the

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Full statute.

[Rep. Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: Oh, I see. Yeah. That's the

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: a b c

[Rep. Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: Oh, gotcha. Gotcha. Okay. Sorry. Thanks.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah, because one of the sections is about what's done for leasing, and if it's helpful, I'll

[Rep. Kevin Winter (Member)]: get you as well.

[Rep. Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: Okay. No, that's helpful. Thank you.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I would suggest too that if it's I try to restrict drafting of the amendment just to limit the text to those pieces that are being touched. Yeah. But sometimes, it's in the context of the whole

[Rep. Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: It's okay, John. Thanks. I can look at the older ones that are right here.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Uh-uh. Up there. We have to go to the statics.

[Rep. Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: Oh, I see. Oh, I gotcha. It's a '29 BSA.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yep. So this is what the whole statute looks out. A, sets up the definition for agency. B is for BGS to implement all reasonable and necessary measures to utilize all available space before any improved property not owned by the space is leased. So this is kind of efficient allocation of spaces. Commissioner has the sole jurisdictional authority and sole responsibility for making those space allocations, sets off some provisions where that kicks in too, even though it's not state owned. Commissioner to establish by rule procedures which all agencies would follow in the leasing of real property. See he

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Gina, I wanna read that. Agency shall enter.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Pre approval required, which is also in the section heading. We've seen E, which is the maintenance of that inventory compiled under subsection G. F is for an inventory of existing rights of way. G, we see here that's the process for the head of each agency providing the information, and that's what's being supplemented.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So that says when requested by the commissioner.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: That's current law. Yep.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So ahead of each agency shall prepare and forward to the commissioner in a format prescribed and inventory. So we've changed

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: When requested.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: To annually.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: That's right.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: We haven't changed that piece, have we?

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Which piece?

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It's G. Okay, yep, I thought that was another exception. Okay.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And then the last pieces here, no state owned space, any state owned building structure, other real property under jurisdiction of BGS may be leased, like better license for less than its fair market value, except ending of conditions where you have exceptions. Yep. And then I just sets out, if there's conflicts, this section controls. So this is meant to be the determinative section on leasing and allocating properties. So jumping back to the draft, just noting again, because we talked about a bunch of things at this point, I did exclude the state leased language, but let me know if you'd like me to put that back in. And then in G, the updates to the inventory, you see this new on line 18 Subdivision 1. It's gonna make sense once we get to the next page. But the change you see in G as existing law is that the head would prepare and forward to the commissioner that inventory annually instead of upon request. And then we have the language that closely tracks the executive order language for the initial eight fifty. So on page two, starting on line five.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So to get there, folks need to have the version that's from the Senate in front of you, because it does delete, I think, what the head of each agency shall additionally indicate in this inventory whether any building is vacant, whether any land is unnecessary for the statutory purpose of the agency. That got struck.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: That struck and replaced with different concepts for identifying what is vacant and underutilized. And it's no longer tied to statutory purpose. Now, clear purpose is the conversion into affordable housing. So let's talk about some of the This is trying to track the executive order. I did make some decisions to try to make this more practicably implementable, but there's still obviously gonna be, as Gregoire pointed out, some administrative burdens. This is a regular process. Head of each agency shall additionally identify in its inventory whether any property is underutilized and suitable for conversion into affordable housing, which may include and then it lists the same sets of callouts that you see in the executive order. You don't have to do this, but because I think the request was to look a lot like the executive order, that's why it's here, which may include multifamily housing development, housing infill, mobile home park, shelter construction, or rehabilitation. Again, you don't have to have those callouts, but if the goal is to foreground, but this and the executive order are doing the same thing, that's why you see it there. Then the tweak you see relative to the one time request in the executive order, if you recall in the executive order, it's BGS with DHCD undertaking some particular tasks. Because this is a BGS inventorying process, I've left it in the same structure that it is, head of each agency providing the information, but knowing that the heads of each agency may not be best positioned to make that determination, it leverages the same partner that is identified in the executive order. So what you see starting on line eight, when requested, so unlike the prior provision, which is the inventory needs to contain this assessment of whether a property is underutilized and suitable for conversion, This would only be upon request. When requested by the commissioner, the head of an agency with the assistance of DHCD shall provide an assessment of a property's infrastructure capacity, suitability for affordable housing development, and a recommendation for use of the property to support meeting Vermont's housing production goals. So practically, the effect of the whole process is in your existing inventorying under this section, each agency would continue to provide what it currently does, but now it would do it on an annual basis as opposed to upon request. And in that inventory, the head of the agency would identify whether they have property that's underutilized and suitable for conversion into affordable housing. That would be a determination they would be making. If the commissioner then saw that information and had further questions, could request that the head of the agency, with the assistance of DHCD, provide a deeper assessment, looking at infrastructural capacity and suitability for that development and recommendations for how you might use that to meet the housing protection goals. I would probably continue to ask the question, does this align with BGS's purposes? You're getting into an inventory and build, But you can think of this as creating a more regular process than is envisioned in the executive order. And I think you'd naturally want to ask questions about administrative burden and how you'd want to talk to DHCD and BGS about this.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: For the executive order, how long would that be in effect?

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Well, so this is a one time thing, so by 12/01/2025 each. So this is already happening.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So by putting in that date, December 1, it indicates it's only a one time

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: shot. Yeah, it's a one time request for each state agency and department owning real property to submit that inventory of underutilized properties suitable for multifamily housing, the assessment of development feasibility and particular capacity. And you can think of the other pieces of that section four. So BGS and AOT to develop streamlined procedures for utilizing surplus state land suitable for housing. It's a thing you complete, right? The thing you complete rather than an ongoing obligation. Bill is an ongoing obligation.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: But how long does an executive I know what that little clause How long does an executive order stay in effect?

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So just as a general matter, an executive order is law and stays in effect till repealed basically. So a future governor can repeal a former executive order, the legislature itself take action on it. But generally, an executive order is law like other law and states. So that's in fact why we have That's part of why we have this appendix in which you can track the executive orders, and you'll see them listed if you go through title three appendix, whether they've been superseded or repealed. It'll indicate if if they're still in effect, basically. The

[Rep. Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: Department of Housing and Community Development, who heads that?

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So commissioner Farrell is the the person you already

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: three b's?

[Rep. Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: Yeah. That is an appointed position. Correct?

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yes. From the government. And it's under the secretary of the agency of commerce and community development.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And I just want to Obviously, you guys will have positions on the draft, whether it's practically worthwhile. I just want to note that I did, obviously myself, make decisions as to how to mesh the two. So you can do this in different ways. I tried to do something I think sort of eases the annual burden on this more providing an assessment of infrastructure capacity and suitability for development recommendations for use felt a bit greater than the burden just to identify if something is underutilized. So I proposed when requested, instead of just a regular process for every property within that inventory. But you wanted to have that as part of every inventory, you could have that too. But know that if you're leveraging GHCD, you get into questions as to just how realistically can this be done.

[Rep. Conor Casey (Member)]: So John, I like that you have affordable housing in there. The question was, did the governor say affordable housing in the executive order? And I think there's been some debate in the building with the definition of affordable housing means.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I think in this case, I went back to the original H50 concept. You're correct that the executive order just says complete inventory of underutilized properties suitable for And then it has this as defined by the Secretary of Commerce and Community Development. So you could potentially leverage these same definitions that were used for the executive order process. That's what I was envisioning. You can intentionally use generic language if you want it to be left to the agencies themselves to make this determination. There's nothing wrong with using undefined terms, but you may want to have greater specificity. We have existing definitions of affordable housing throughout the statutes. Title 24 has a definition of affordable housing that varies based on whether it's rental housing or owner occupied housing. I think for rental occupied, use a 30% of income, like a standard 30% spent on housing. So the affordable housing for rental is up to 80% of AMI, and then for owner occupied, it's up to 120% of AMI. But we have other programs that use different thresholds. I want to say that the community housing CHIP, the last year's TIP program, uses It may leverage the existing Title 24 definition, but an earlier version used up to 150%. So there's ways to If you want to be specific as to what affordable housing is, you can do that. If you don't wanna be specific that it's affordable, you don't have to do that. It could just be suitable for conversion into housing. There's all kinds of ways you can approach this depending on what the committee wants to achieve.

[Rep. Conor Casey (Member)]: I'm kind of into the simplicity of this one and to mirror the governors as closely as possible, because if the intended purpose is that this come back to the legislature with a list, you know, it'll be carte blanche what's suitable for housing or not. Yes. And then the different entities working on that can determine if it's affordable or not, you know? I agree.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So is that a general request to strike affordable? I would just strike it. Yeah.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So I'm wondering, I do have concerns that executive order had that specific date for the inventory. What we're putting in here is changing a law for ongoing. So I'm just wondering for this particular piece, if we do it and have a sunset.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So there's different ways you could do this. One would be to have two sections in this bill, but a third, which is your effective date.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So you're really gonna confuse institutions over there.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I think in my and others' explanation of it, I talk about it as a concept. I'm always talking about how the bill works rather than as a concept. The concept is simple. So I think start with concept explanation. But one way you could do what you're saying is to return to something like the draft you currently have received from the Senate. So you would have this amended process for inventorying. You don't have to do this, but I'm suggesting you could do this and then have a session law provision. So it's not something that's going into statute that basically has something like this and it says, on such and such date, report to the committees of jurisdiction information that you've currently seen too. Wouldn't be an ongoing obligation, it would be a one time thing, or you could make it a multi year thing if you wanted to do that. Exactly, could have every year for five years.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Then we don't remember that we asked for

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: That's a you guys problem, not a Doesn't bother me.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Right. It's true. There'll be different people sitting around the stable next year, or the same people.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: You know, if you guys see the turnover that happened in the last.

[Rep. James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Are you gonna depress us, John?

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yeah. So what's another way?

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Way is to maintain this structure that we currently have, but changed the regularity of this particular inventory piece. I'm just thinking it may be nice to segment out from the standard BGS inventory process this specific request related to housing, is a specific request of a limited temporal duration and the sort of thing that I would naturally put into session law because it is not an ongoing BGS obligation. But there's ways to maintain this current structure and just have this be every two years, every five years, whatever it might be. Could change the regularity of this second piece so that it wouldn't be as burdensome. Just depends on the approach you wanna have, whether you would like a permanent but different duration of regularity reporting, or if you wanna have a simple inventory and process, and then separately just say, we'd also like some updates on housing. And you could also send those updates not just to the committees of the corrections institutions committees, you could also send that to the housing committees.

[Rep. James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Can I ask Conor a question? It was your original bill, I think we all support it. Would you be the cut off?

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

[Rep. James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Can't It's okay. I don't need it. I just would you be opposed to that provision being biannual? Not biannual, but biannual.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yeah, you know, that's the beginning of

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: the Yeah,

[Rep. Conor Casey (Member)]: I think that's fine. And like you said, five years for a sunset, I think that's reasonable. The origin of this is we're in a housing crisis, right? And I think that the governor and his executive order also conveyed some urgency with that. But we also know that the housing crisis isn't gonna be over like in another year or two. So I think it makes sense of a sustained period where we're really scrutinized at the state land, coming up with some ideas in partnership with the executive branch at the legislative level, because nobody knows our communities like we do. And it makes sense that we would see what would be appropriate for housing in our different districts there. So it's a partnership. And five years seems like a decent period.

[Rep. Kevin Winter (Member)]: Do I dare go back to the beginning? Cut me off. But if we do nothing, the executive order is law, and BGS is working to

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: it now? One report, one time.

[Rep. Kevin Winter (Member)]: So if we do nothing, December 1,

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It's this year past December. Yes.

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: It's done. It's passed.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Did we see that report? Doesn't come to us, opposed to the administration.

[Rep. Conor Casey (Member)]: That's why you bring it into the legislative realm. We want that report as well.

[Rep. Kevin Winter (Member)]: Okay, you just have to

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: ask for it.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I was going say, if you literally just want that report, you can also ask for it absent making any chance to.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Shawn?

[Rep. Kevin Winter (Member)]: Well,

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: the question is, do we want to change statute in terms of how they

[Rep. Conor Casey (Member)]: Because I can tell you, the snapshot of that report right now is not going be reflective of the city of Montpelier as an example. Once we decide what we're doing with all those buildings and everything, right? It's going to be very different every year for the next few years, especially with a flood impact the communities. So

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I'm still thinking. You're still thinking, aren't you?

[Rep. Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: So I'm frustrated that we have a crisis of housing. We walked through buildings last year that were basically mothballed, John.

[Rep. Kevin Winter (Member)]: K?

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Well, not quite mothballed.

[Rep. Kevin Winter (Member)]: They were

[Rep. Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: all juicy last Let me say they were empty.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: They were not now, though.

[Rep. Kevin Winter (Member)]: Not at all.

[Rep. Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: That I'd like to know where we're at right now, Because it seems to me that there were places that this could happen, yet we have not heard anything yet of one floor of one building that we could use.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Well, we looked at the Waterbury Complex. We looked at National Life, which we do not own. Right. I know. Looked at the ag and and A and R lab. Where else did

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: we look?

[Rep. Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: We were in the the state police barrack, the state police building. Was that the

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: That was in

[Rep. Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: Middlesex. No. We were in the one over in Waterbury.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: That's Middlesex.

[Rep. Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: Right. But we're we're the woman who met us sat downstairs and walked us through there, and they have the

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: We were in the archives, and then we went over to the state place. Yeah. That's Middlesex.

[Rep. Kevin Winter (Member)]: Okay. There were a lot but there were a lot of

[Rep. Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: places that we saw a lot of unused space.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Waterbury is full now with a return to work. In fact, they're leasing space because we had moved the health department there. And natural and National Life is not state owned. So a lot of space in National Life was through their own company Our that they weren't space was empty, but if people have come back to work for that. I don't know what other unless you're getting into state office buildings, but we didn't tour any of the state office buildings in our local communities.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: But you might be able to know if you received the report.

[Rep. Kevin Winter (Member)]: Right. Let's at least look at what we got to see if it's not adequate.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Why is this bill taking so much time?

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: There's guys tell me.

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: I'm in favor of running with the edits we did today with a sunset of, I would say, five to eight years.

[Rep. Kevin Winter (Member)]: So let me put it simple, by

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: the way. Statue

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So that's what I going say. If you propose a five year sunset, that's a fine way to do it. But I would suggest if you're just doing the five year duration, I would probably just do that as a session law provision and say that under the inventory that each head of an agency provides pursuant to 29 PSA 165, provide what we see in two here for each of the next five years, basically, and then you could leave existing 165 the way that it is or go back to the version that you

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: At the setup?

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. You could make this update that adds the and land and changes this to annually, and depending on what you wanna do with the final sentence that you've received from the Senate, you can absolutely do it this way where you have this and just have a five year sunset. I just think typically when you have a five year duration, it's appropriate to put it in session law because it's not an ongoing obligation. And then it also preserves the structure of 01/1965 so anyone looking at it knows this is what section 165 is about, and then we just happen to be leveraging for five years, 165, to get some additional information. Does that make sense?

[Rep. Kevin Winter (Member)]: And just so everyone knows, we very rarely sunset anything that spilled my mind. A statin

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: law would go away.

[Rep. Kevin Winter (Member)]: Know, I know.

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: How are you feeling about five years? You wanna go eight?

[Rep. Conor Casey (Member)]: Yeah, I'm okay for five years, I think. Think it's gonna be useful information.

[Rep. Kevin Winter (Member)]: And I

[Rep. Conor Casey (Member)]: people might be inclined to extend it, but see what we get.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Tay, I wonder if you could ask the administration to see if we could get the report that was submitted 12/01/2025 on the inventory. I don't think it's in that book, though it might be, but maybe. Oh, that. The new space book.

[Rep. James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: It's probably

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: seven certifications.

[Rep. Kevin Winter (Member)]: Space Book.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yeah. If we could get the report, that inventory do you have that at all, Cole?

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I not personally. But

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Does BGS have it?

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So maybe connect, maybe work with Cole and see if we can get that. And what are the committee members feeling about doing that session law, but then you keep the statute and we update the statute. We haven't figured out how we're gonna update the statute yet, but we do the update in the statute, and then we have the session law for the next five years.

[Rep. Conor Casey (Member)]: Might be the cleanest. It also gives some institutions about what their edits, right?

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Well, we haven't decided for using their language.

[Rep. James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Right. But that's a good idea.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: What are the folks feeling?

[Rep. Kevin Winter (Member)]: If the law sunsets, does that automatically tickle the committee that is responsible to look at it? Or do we have to remember that it sunsets?

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Well, it's not necessarily sunsetting. Sunsetting is a review. Session law, it's gone after five years.

[Rep. Kevin Winter (Member)]: But I thought we were talking five or eight years of sunset. So does that automatically say, hey, you gotta review this, or do we just have to remember that?

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It would be incumbent on the committee to know that you're not gonna receive it the next year, basically.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Institutional memory. Which won't be around. Good luck. But

[Rep. James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: I'm going somewhere.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Other folks, is that a direction that people are interested in having John spend some time drafting? Yes. Yes. So

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: five year session law for, cut affordable.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: For the housing to take out affordable.

[Rep. Kevin Winter (Member)]: Now

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: that brings us back to our language, which we wanna keep, correct? The question is, do we accept what this because you're gonna have to go back to the Senate version. Do we accept what the Senate has added, which is also an inventory of state leased buildings?

[Rep. Conor Casey (Member)]: That makes

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: any sense. I agree.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It's what we're trying to do.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: But this is current law. This is the going forward after the five years, right?

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I think if you're just trying to achieve some timely information for the next few years on conversion into affordable housing, meeting housing goals of the state, you can do it through the session law provisions. And then you have a separate question as to whether you think you can enhance 01/1965 perhaps by adding and land to E, you may not need to touch G except for depending on the regularity that you want to achieve. Because the final line, and it's you guys' call, but you had included and the Senate had amended that final line of G to the piece that you were just talking about, including in its inventory an assessment whether property is vacant or not suited for the statutory purposes of an agency. That had been included to try to get at in an indirect way the affordable housing goal. So if you're getting it through the session law provisions, I don't know that you have to keep pursuing that sentence. You just have the separate question, what do you want to do with existing Section 165? Do you wanna change the regularity with which this information is compiled? You may or may not. And then do you wanna add land to the inventory and or the senate had proposed state leased, right, in subsection e. Subsection E. And it's not in the draft that you guys currently My

[Rep. James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: issue with that merger is leased because not that I don't care that say for I assume it means that we lease stuff. So natural life. But just having that, we can't convert that to anything. But it

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: just gives us information we're not gonna use. What's my point?

[Rep. James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: We're not going to use it.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: But for the sake of legislative procedure that has to go forward, it doesn't matter if we

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: mess with it or not, I guess is my point.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: To the extent that it's helpful, I think you guys already have it in front of you, but I pulled up the Senate proposal amendment that we went through last week, and you can see the or state leaves that you guys are discussing.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: That's what what's highlighted in yellow is what the senate is proposing.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: That's what they proposed that is different against what passed the house. Exactly. And you can see the change on page two, the final line. Says, as passed the house, it said the head of each agency shall additionally indicate in its inventory and format prescribed by the commissioner whether any building is vacant and whether any land is unnecessary for state purposes. That was the generic language that was used for the house, and it had been narrowed by the Senate to this statutory business.

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Did you have a

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: question on the term statutory? Does every agency have a statutory

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: That's what we were talking about before is if y'all want me to look at that, that's something I can think about. I don't know definitively that they do, in which case Our language was the utility of the But the broader language also does mean that the head of each agency has to ask the question

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Can this be used by the

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: state any state purpose, and they may not be well equipped to they may, but they may not also be well equipped to answer that question. So part of it is how useful is their compliance gonna be, if that's what you update it to. Because if they're just making a determination as to whether it can be used for state purposes, I don't know the utility of that information. Maybe they're good at it, maybe they aren't.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: When we went through this, if any, you remember that, Mary? We do. We went through this a number of years ago with the facility in Windsor, where we owned the land. We had BGS go out and ask the other agencies and departments and state government if they had any use for that property. So we requested BGS to go out and do that.

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: That's what was done. And we got an answer.

[Rep. Kevin Winter (Member)]: Fish and wildlife on it.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So Well, that was a little later, and then that pulled out.

[Rep. Kevin Winter (Member)]: Mhmm. Well,

[Rep. James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: doesn't the local community want

[Rep. Kevin Winter (Member)]: it in these hours?

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: No. Yeah. But that's not

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: in the state of India. I know.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So that's how we approached that issue before. We had b PGS in the lead asking agencies and departments if they needed it for their own use. For their own use. But PGS was the hub to get that information.

[Rep. Kevin Winter (Member)]: But if the laws in place and the commission can't figure out whether land or property that they have or are responsible for is usable or not, they have an obligation to ask the question and get that answer. They can't just ignore the law because they don't know. People do. I understand. But we can't write laws because people are ignorant. I that's not

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: You can't. I know what you're saying. I guess what I'm saying is you may think about, in how you want to approach this, the feasibility of folks complying. And in this case, it's a question of whether the head of each agency, if they're the one making the determination, whether the land is unnecessary for a particular purpose. So you could imagine that the head of some agencies might be quite good at this, and others might say, well, why not?

[Rep. Kevin Winter (Member)]: So then they should be obligated to find somebody who is good at it. If the law is the law, theoretically, you're figuring out how to comply with it. You already

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: did? Welcome to

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: United I like that, yeah. To

[Rep. Kevin Winter (Member)]: be making laws for what people can or can't do is

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Things change. Things change. So I'm just trying to figure out how to work through this. So we've got such a lot piece, which we need BTS to weigh in on. So if we could set up some time. I don't know what we got for the remainder of this week or next week for this.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: We have an hour on Friday.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: We have an hour on Friday morning. I don't know if John's available. One second. Is Rhonda Eleven two.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I could do that.

[Rep. Kevin Winter (Member)]: I could do that.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Someone from PTSD here. I think so. Okay. And then if you could get the language today's what? Wednesday? If you could get the language and shape for the session law,

[Rep. Kevin Winter (Member)]: just

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: look at a little different structure than this and take out affordable housing, put it And in then the underlying real law flag in section e biannually to annually, flag that, just have the commissioner weigh in on that. And I don't know what we want to do with state leased buildings and land. And then the statutory purpose. I don't know where we are as a committee on that.

[Rep. Conor Casey (Member)]: I thought I generally heard scrap leased, keep land. Yeah.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: K. So if we scrap lease, state leased or state leased. And then what about the statutory purpose instead of we had state. Right?

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. Whether any land is unnecessary for state purposes.

[Rep. James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: My take on that, I mean, I don't want you to have to go through and look at every single statute in every agency. I mean, like, no problem. Nothing to do on a Sunday. But it seems like a big deal, and I don't know what that's gonna look like, and I hate for you to do that, and then come back to be like,

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: some of

[Rep. James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: them don't have a statutory that's that clear. I don't know.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I mean, we can say we wanna go back to our version and negotiate that conference committee.

[Rep. James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: That was where I was going. More vague is

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So go back to our our language. So we accept one thing from them to add it to the plan.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I think you guys have to pay land. It's actually doing an entirely house It's sticking with what you sent over plus session law provisions, rejecting all of their admissions.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: We gave them land.

[Rep. Conor Casey (Member)]: It's not our fault. We're so

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: good, John. Don't contest that.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So why don't we if you could do a draft like that and get that to BGS so they could weigh in on it prior to Friday. They will schedule to Friday, eleven to twelve. Are we working Friday afternoon?

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: We have scheduled for 12:30 to one.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: 12:30 to one. We take a half hour lunch.

[Rep. Kevin Winter (Member)]: It's 11:30.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: No. It's twelve. Next week, we'll kick that over to 11:30 to twelve next week. Okay.

[Rep. Kevin Winter (Member)]: Thank you. Thank you, John.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Not that bad, Mr. Patti.

[Rep. Kevin Winter (Member)]: I was just going to say, John

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Be proud

[Rep. James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: of us an entire day, John. We're

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: almost done with session.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Feel free. That's a good week.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: My mantra for this session

[Rep. Kevin Winter (Member)]: is six. It's better than perhaps. Fifteen weeks left.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So tomorrow, I will need some clarity here on BGS. You're not doing updates. You're starting on the capital bill?

[Rep. Kevin Winter (Member)]: We're overdue. Yeah.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So that title has been without change. So we're doing section two of BAA tomorrow.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: See you guys.

[Rep. Kevin Winter (Member)]: See you. Thank you, Have

[Rep. James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: a good weekend because one is not he's just not

[Rep. Kevin Winter (Member)]: coming in.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: No. They are coming.

[Rep. Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: Oh, they are? Okay. Yeah.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It's just Just a title.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It's not budget overview.

[Rep. Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: Oh, I gotcha.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It is governor's capital FY 2627 budget adjustment. So it's section two. So we've already got that scheduled. So we don't have to worry about it next week, but we'll see how far along we get. Mhmm. K? So 09:00 tomorrow morning. Alright. Here. Thanks.

[Rep. Kevin Winter (Member)]: We call at 08:30.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So we're off

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: of