Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Unidentified speaker (committee/staff; multiple brief interjections)]: We're live.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yeah. Welcome back, folks. This is House Corrections and Institutions Committee. We are it's what day is today? Tuesday, February 10. We are shifting gears. We are looking at House Bill H-six 35, which is our supervisory fee bill for DOC. We have John, our legislative counsel here with us. We, he is here with an amendment to the bill, which basically changes the effective date. And prior to that, there was a communication that I emailed to all of you folks Yes. That I wanna clarify. John will help me clarify. So I sent you this email about 12:00. And there was concern from Michelle Pelletier, who I've gotta get to her email here, the curriculum. She deals with the restitution unit, and she's the manager. She had some so I sent you the email. Everyone has this on their legislative email. She had concern about the restitution fund and concerned a little bit that maybe this piece of legislation impacts the revenues of those that fund, as she is the manager. Hi, Laura. Come on in. We've we're working on a bill, so it's gonna take us a bit to do this.

[Laura V. Trieschmann (State Historic Preservation Officer; Director, Vermont Division for Historic Preservation, ACCD)]: Take your time.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: We may have to take some time here. There was concern on her part that the restitution fund, the victim restitution fund that she manages might lose some revenues on these supervisory fees. I did send her concern to John Gray for his take. My understanding, if you go through the DOC testimony on the supervisory fees, that the revenues from the fees are deposited in a corrections super fund fee fund. It does there's none that goes to the restitution fund. And I had tape send along, copy of the bill to indicate you pull out your bill. H two. Pull out your bill. So we're gonna do a line by line reading of the bill before we go about. Gonna be a strict school teacher here. Okay. Six thirty five. If you go to page two, we are deleting the fund the supervisory fees that are collected by the department could go into the victim restitution fund. K? So we're deleting that completely. So we sent Michelle the bill indicating that we didn't think that there would be an impact of her revenues at all. So we didn't receive testimony that there was any fees going into that front. So I'm going to turn it over to John to give his legislative presentation of the language and the concern possibly from Michelle Pelletier.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Sounds good. Afternoon, everyone. John Gray, office of Legislative Council. I'm gonna screen share just to orient the committee, talk a little bit first about the bill. Then we can talk about the letter, and then we can talk about the amendment, which is quite simple. But the bill itself, H. 35, this is eliminating supervisory fees imposed by DOC, and that is key imposed by DOC, these supervisory fees. We're entitled 28. We are not entitled 13 where your classic criminal and victim restitution spaces are. And so the core of the bill is on page two, as the chair has noted. And it really starting on line seven, the commissioner for actions is charged with the following responsibilities in existing law to collect a fee of up to the amount of $30 per month as a supervisory fee from each person under the supervision of the department who is on, and then we have a set of conditions, probation, furlough, pre approved furlough, supervised community sentence, or parole. So this is the authority for that supervisory fee collection. This is just eliminating the authority for that piece. An additional part of this subdivision 14 speaks to a fund, and it says that supervisory fees, speaking on line 12, supervisory fees collected by the department shall be credited to a special supervision and victim restitution fund established under our special funds chapter. And then lastly, to adopt rules governing the collection of those supervisory fees, which you heard testimony on. So the letter that you may have looked at spoke from the Center for Crime Victim Services perspective on their concern. And I think it was just a generally stated concern. Restitution. This came up during testimony. We wanna make sure, this is my understanding, they want to make sure that nothing about this is touching the restitution fund that they rely on. And I will just say that this the testimony that you guys have heard is that the supervisory fees that are imposed, which don't even go up to $30 they were charged at $15 if I remember correctly, are not applied by the Department of Corrections to restitution. So it's not going to the restitution fund. And so the removal of this authority would not affect any existing restitution pieces. And for my own part, just because this is not an area that I work in, I pulled up and I'll switch over to it. The Center for Crime Victim Services sub chapter entitled 13. I don't know much about this, but I just wanted to show you guys so that you could see they do have a restitution special fund. And this is the set of things that compose it, that comprise that fund. And you can see it's monies that are collected pursuant to, and then the references are two sections of title 13. And that's the thing I just really wanna draw out, is is that the monies that are collected for this restitution special fund, are references within Title 13, there are about fees imposed by the Clerk of Court that designate for deposit under Title 13, monies donated to the restitution unit, sums appropriated. This is classic restitution, right? Restitution is imposed as part of the judicial process. So nothing about H635 is disrupting that. It's not touching those pieces. This is truly just about supervisory fees that DOC imposes. And so my read is, I think the center was just expressing a concern. Hey, we hear that you're talking about restitution. We wanna make sure that you're not disrupting any funds. I think that you're safe with the language that you have. And again, just to be ultra clear, the sentence on lines 12 through 14 is not removing any restitution fund. This is just striking the authority to impose a supervisory fee, Any victim restitution fund that exists elsewhere or even within this title would continue to exist. This does not remove any special funds. It just removes the authority to collect the supervisory fee. So I think you're in the clear here.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: We have Troy and Kevin.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: I would just point out too, in the last paragraph of Michelle's letter to us, she also acknowledges I'm just going to read it here. DOC she's talking about DOC. They have not been responsible for collecting or dispersing restitution since unit her unit was established in 2004. So she does acknowledge that DOC does not collect or dispose any restitution plan. I do think there's just a bit of maybe a worry confusion.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yeah. Kevin?

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: My education. Line 12, it says, the department shall be credited to special supervision. If it hasn't been happening

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: They do do a special supervision. But if you keep reading it, this is where it's really important that we're gonna do a line by line so people can understand what the language means. Supervisory piece collected by DOC shall be credited to a special supervision, and it should say fund, establish and manage pursuant to 32 VSA Chapter seven, Subchapter five, which that 32 VSA Chapter seven, Subchapter five is where special funds are sort of established.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah, that's the authority for

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: That's the authority for special funds. So what that sentence is saying, they could put in a special supervision fund if it's and it would be managed pursuant to 32 VSA chapter seven sub chapter five, which is the authority to set up your special funds. They do deposit the revenues in the corrections provision fund, which is a special fund. So that's where they're putting money.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: There's a I can give a broader answer to this if that is helpful. Thank you. Which is that you could have a number of interpretations of this. So one is you could say fund should be included here. The way that I read it, special supervision and victim restitution fund, a fund that contemplates multiple purposes, and then they've used it for one particular purpose, which is it's a supervisory fund. Meaning that you could have a title that encompasses one, two, three things, and as long as you met one of the conditions of the thing, you're within the scope of that. So that's the way that I read it. The other way to read it is, let's say that they were supposed to do a special fund exclusively for victim restitution, and they haven't been doing that, then that still wouldn't affect the Center for Crime Victim Services. And by repealing the authority, you would only be linking up with existing practice. So to me, any of the interpretations would lead you to feel safe with the language that you have in front of you, if that makes sense.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: And I appreciate that. Sure. And second interpretation is where I'm coming from, whether it's right or wrong. But if the legislation says they shall do that and they're not-

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: That's what I took you to be getting at.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Enforcing our laws. Yeah, this is like I think we've

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: had this exact discussion before that when the state is the actor, right? You're policing yourself essentially, right? And the way that that Just to draw a general example of this, when agencies misbehave, or I'm just gonna use the language misbehave, not to speak in a derogatory way, but just hypothetically, agency misbehaves. The legislative process is you guys call them in and ask, are you doing what we've asked you to do? And then you change the practice to account for that. So that's the process as I've typically seen it.

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Just to clarify, so to your question, you can do one of two things basically. You can say, all right, does the law really comply or is it necessary that they comply with this law? And say, No, it's not. Then you say, Okay, the law is kind of silly, let's get rid of it. Or you say, Okay, we're gonna put some teeth into this, and we're gonna make you comply. Exactly. You know, those are basically your two options. And not every case is the case where you're gonna go, we're gonna put teeth into it. And not every case is where we're like, okay, well, you're right, the law didn't make any sense. But that's what we come in. That's what John was trying to say.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And just to clarify, since we are on the record, no one's alleging here that there has been misbehavior.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: No, they haven't. Set up

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: a fund. They

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: did set up a fund, the Correction Supervision Fee fund. And it's a special fund. Yep. Yep. They did set it up. So

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. But you keep going through the

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: No. Not yet. So we did get an email back from Michelle at quarter after one today. She said the repeal would not result in a loss of revenue for the restitution unit. However, as H-six 35 moves forward, we want to ensure that any of the changes made to the collection of supervision fees doesn't negatively impact our current revenue source.

[Unidentified speaker (committee/staff; multiple brief interjections)]: It shouldn't. It shouldn't,

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: and it doesn't. So before we move on to new language, want the committee to go back to page one and start reading, do a line by line, starting on line 13. I know this is boring, but the committee really needs to understand the language and whoever reports the bill needs to understand this. Okay? Any questions? P12.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Yeah.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: entering into contracts with private collection agencies. For the collection of what fines and penalties and restitution?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Imposed under title 13. So you have to go to title 13. Okay. It's not title 28. You have to go, and that's our criminal statutes.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And the way to think about when I approach drafting something like this, just trying to take the targeted minimal approach. So you're not disrupting existing law, you don't really have to take a position in this case on those fines, penalties, and restitutions. You just wanna make sure that you don't disrupt the process of collecting those. And so this is just removing the part about entering into contracts with private collections agencies for collection of the supervisory fee.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: Gotcha. Okay. Thank you, John. That's very helpful.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: The other thing to say on this is even if you didn't strike this language, it wouldn't particularly matter because you're otherwise removing the authority to impose the supervisory fees and separately in the session law provisions, forgiving those. It's just for cleanup. Thank you.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: To see where this is crossed out, that means no longer Right,

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: it's just that, though.

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

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: you repeat the phrase you say targeted what?

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Targeted differentials to make sure. I don't know what I said.

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: Well, no, I think I understood

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: what you I just meant that when drafting and we're trying to just remove something from a section, is meant to be kind of surgical. That's the other way to say it. Only remove the very thing that you're trying to eliminate and preserve the existing structure, ensure that the law continues to work in the way that it does. And so in this sentence, this is an authorization for the commissioner of corrections to entering contracts with certain entities for particular purposes. And you're just eliminating one of the purposes, but you're not otherwise eliminating the ability for the commissioner to enter into contracts with those entities.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So let's go page two and read section 14 lines nine through 17. This is what we are repealing. So in this section, not only are we getting rid of the fees, but we're also telling the commissioner of what department, DOC, to, if they've implemented rules, that they will need to rescind those rules. It doesn't say that directly, but by eliminating that language, they're gonna have to do work to rescind their directives.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It does say directly coming up.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: No. I know that. This one eliminates the they don't have to adopt rules or directives because they interpret that as doing their policy and directives. So by getting rid of the language, they're gonna have to redo their directives. Okay?

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: Yeah. Well Just to clarify, because I'm sure this will come up. When we are striking out on lunch twelve to fourteen, supervisor fees collected by the department shall be credited to a special supervision of victim restitution fund established and managed. That does not mean that the funds being terminated. Correct. It just means that the fees that

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: are still in compliance. That's correct. The other way to think about it is to describe this section, this subdivision, which is the core of the bill, you really only need to talk about the first sentence.

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: That's helpful. Thank you.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Because if you think about it, what you're doing is just removing the authority to collect that fee, and then anything else in the subdivision is incidental to that. You would have no fees to deposit anywhere.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: You

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: would have no basis for meeting rules of the fees that you no longer can. Sure. Hopefully, when statutes are drafted well, the organization of a subdivision will indicate to the reader what the core of it is, but

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: it does require some more accurate.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Let's go to page three. This is all new. Okay? This is all new. It's still statute. It's under title 20 no. It's session law. It's session law. It's a session law in terms of how you do the transition from charging supervisory fees to to suspending them, doing away with them. K? Mhmm. So why don't we just read a, then ask questions of John?

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: I mean, it just makes it pretty crystal clear.

[Unidentified speaker (committee/staff; multiple brief interjections)]: Right? Yep. In its simplest form. Yep.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Wipe it clean.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And I can I don't know if it's helpful to give additional context, but maybe it will be? I you know, you guys give direction to the executive branch. So you have removed the authority to undertake particular actions. Language like this, to your point, is just being extra clear that that authority no longer exists and you're prohibited from doing this. So you've removed the authority, but maybe the executive branch could make an argument that under some generic language in the statutes, they do have the authority to continue doing this. So to be extra clear, this is saying, no, there's a prohibition. You shall not do these particular things. And if in the future someone wanted to start imposing these again, you would need to not withstand or you would need to repeal this language. Even though it's not in the green books, you would need to repeal this language because it doesn't You have repealed

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: the authority

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: This to do is the law. Yep. But, yes, it's just saying you can't impose these supervisory fees.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Let's go to b. Sure. Hold on.

[Unidentified (tech/staff interjections)]: Hang on.

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: Can I help you with that? Mhmm.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So, William, you have a question?

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: We still comfortable and I don't know if this is more a question for John, but I'm still not fully on board with the word all being.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: What do you mean?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I didn't hear that.

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: I'm sorry. I just said I don't feel fully comfortable yet with the word all being there, because when I received that data from DOC about the information, I kind of wanted to have a little bit more of a discussion about how that money could be recovered to help the restitution fund.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: But the money is not going into the restitution fund.

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: No, the debt that is now going to just be erased, there's a portion of it that's not And

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: you're not getting that debt?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: You've got 3,000,000 that's out there.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: It's just

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: money that's never been collected. That's all it is. It be. Just And credit's not that it was going to the restitution fund.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Right. And it wasn't going to the

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: restitution fund. It's accumulated over the last twenty five years. Twenty years, twenty five, twenty three years, has been an

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I think it's potentially longer than that. I think that we heard about information from 2004 or so, but the actual, I wanna say the statute's been around since the '80s.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: But I think, oh, I don't know. Was that accumulated for the whole time? I think it was accumulated for the whole time.

[Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: Alice, you might have started it. I might have started

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: it. Yeah. Think it was accumulated for the whole time. Other folks? How are other folks feeling?

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: Okay.

[Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: Are

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: people comfortable with the term all?

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: Absolutely. I actually agree that it needs to be there. All. Driving the point home. Yeah.

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: Well, I'm not gonna be the only one to dissent, but I still disagree with it. Okay. For the

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: record. Even though Shawn Sweeney

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: We're recording. You're on record.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So my notes for the three people crime force, we should have been receiving this over many, many years. So it's more than just FY '25.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. Lifetime. Lifetime. Yes.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yes. Lifetime. And the and the law became effective around 2005, 2004, 2005. So if you haven't got it in twenty years.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I will just note, Representative Greer, that

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: I did not put in here a reimbursement of all

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: You gotta think about that because that's why I'm so upset about it because all these people paid into it over the years, and they have not paid into it. And we could have been several physical positions. So,

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: don't what my You can do an amendment.

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: And I'm thinking about it because I really do think that what we're saying is for all

[Jamie Duggan (Director of Preservation, Vermont State Historic Sites)]: the people that have paid That's who I'm talking

[Unidentified speaker (committee/staff; multiple brief interjections)]: But about

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: what I'm saying is the people that were about to wipe their debt clean should also pay a portion of that. That's what I'm trying to say, because that's not fair. I don't think we want to open that.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: If we were to reimburse everyone,

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: then that's different to get rid of the $3,500,000 of debt. But I don't know, it's just a slap in the face of everyone that's paid into it. That's why.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Other folks?

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Don't disagree in principle, but the financial or logistical side is it's gonna cost you more money. First of you're not gonna get the money, but it's gonna cost you just as much or close to it to get the money back if you ever did. So there's that pragmatic side, but I don't disagree in principle with either one of your issue. So

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: where can we sit at committee?

[Unidentified speaker (committee/staff; multiple brief interjections)]: Good.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Are we okay with the current proposed language that all outstanding fees would be eliminated? Yeah. Yes. Okay. Well, Let's go to see lines eight through 11. This reinforces b. Yeah.

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: Other d.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And then 12, this lines 12 through 14, this is just belts and suspenders, basically. What's that c? D d. We've gone to d

[Unidentified speaker (committee/staff; multiple brief interjections)]: already. Yeah.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So the if if it's up with the way I think about it is a is stating clearly your outright prohibition, and then B, C, and D are responding to questions you might have about practical implementation of ceasing efforts to collect these. So B is saying, well, if there are those already out there, forgive them. That's under B. Under C, if you're already in the process of collecting, cease the efforts to collect them.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: then we call out the specific mechanisms that are regular mechanisms for DOC to collect. And then B is saying, we don't even think this is the case, but if someone's being dinged for not paying their supervisory fees, this is affecting their probation, make sure that doesn't constitute a violation of their probation of allegation.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Any questions on section two?

[Unidentified speaker (committee/staff; multiple brief interjections)]: No.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Let's go to section three. This is for rules review. This is where if they adopted rules or they implemented their own policies and directives to implement the supervisory fee corruption. Yep.

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: They did, they're gonna repeal it.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So the way that rulemaking works, an agency has to identify the specific authority that they were granted to conduct rulemaking. And so this is saying each rule that you've adopted under the authority that we just repealed in this bill, let the secretary of state know that we've repealed that. And so by operation of law, the rules that were adopted under that authority would be repealed. And in fact, they would be repealed even if you didn't include this provision. Again, this is just being extra clear.

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: So is section three essentially reinforcing that we've repealed in section one, that last line of stuffs in one?

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: There's a way to describe it in that way. I would say that if you just struck the language in one, any rules that you would adopted under the authority of section one would be sort of meaningless in the absence of the authority. But section three is clarifying that the rules you adopted on the basis of that authority should be removed? It's kind of like a cleanliness, like clean up your books type situation.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So they did not adopt rules, don't believe.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I think they did one related to collections agencies.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I know that they did some policies. They did some directives as well. I don't wanna change anything.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And and and page four addresses, I think, some of what you're talking about because it's more expansive than subsection a, which just speaks to rules, which you would actually need to appeal. Page four subsection b, this is saying that DOC needs to review its rules, policies, and procedures clean up for any references to supervisory fees.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: People are clear with the language of the bill?

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Yes, ma'am.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Let's go to the amendment, which is pretty simple.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Well, we omitted the most important section of effective date under the bill. Due to the effect, the act would take effect on passage. And then I'm gonna show you this very sophisticated amendment. Yes. Six lines. On line five, you can see recommends that the bill be amended in section four effective date by striking out the word passage, inserting in the blue thereof 07/01/2027. So this is substituting for passage, which is your prior effective date. Now your section four would say this act shall take effect on 07/01/2027.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And that's to compensate and keep the fees in place so that the revenues, the DOC budget is based on those fees coming in for FY '27. So if the law takes effect 07/01/1927, that's for your FY '28 state budget. Probably that next budget cycle for that. Are people comfortable with the amendments? Can I just see a raise of hands so a straw vote? Okay. That's eleven zero zero for the straw vote for the amendment.

[Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: I don't know who's reporting. We must be hoping to

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: You were reporting something else. Oh. Not this one. You weren't reporting something else. So if folks are comfortable with six thirty five as amended, I would

[Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: So moved. I second.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Then seconded, is there further discussions? Sorry. If not, probably. Representative

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: Casey? Yes. Representative Galfetti?

[Beth Mauch (Chancellor, Vermont State Colleges/Vermont State University)]: Yes.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: Representative Greer? Yes. Representative Gregoire? Yes. Representative Hedrick? Yes. Representative Luneau? Yes. Senator Minier? Yep. Representative Morrissey? Yes. Sweeney, yes. Representative Winter?

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Yes, with explanation.

[Unidentified speaker (committee/staff; multiple brief interjections)]: Well, well, well. There's always a funny guy. And share on

[Gina Galfetti (Member)]: this. Yes.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: That's why we have discussion. So +1 000.

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Look at us go. Take him with gas.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So this bill needs to go to Ways and Means. It may have to go to Approach. So I am open to who would like to report the bill. I'll do it, Shawn.

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: Yeah, I'll do it. Did

[Conor Casey (Member)]: you feel the presence of my eyes on you? No, I'll

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: do it.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I was looking over here.

[Unidentified speaker (committee/staff; multiple brief interjections)]: No, I'm not with this.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Okay, it's going to have to go to ways and means, and it's going to have to go to the book.

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: An hour. If I mean to see

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: you We read it. Definitely

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: get a B. But

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I'm gonna get it right now.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: SB. It's not

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: It's a difference.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Speak to the bill first.

[Unidentified speaker (committee/staff; multiple brief interjections)]: Yep.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And then you introduce the event afterwards.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: I will have to talk

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

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yes. Okay, let's get Bennington Battle Monument up. Please be kind. You'll be fine. Is it you, Laura, that's coming up? Jamie. Okay. Jamie? You're mine up.

[Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: We only want good news.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It's all there is, Mary.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And we had some colleges after this. Are state colleges in the building?

[Unidentified speaker (committee/staff; multiple brief interjections)]: I saw her. Sea insurance got us under at lunch.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: The chancellor? Not the chancellor. Is the chancellor I

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: saw I'm

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I'm sorry. Are they doing is the chancellor doing it? Just worried about this time here. Jamie, introduce yourself, And we are also back on the capital bill. We are so there's no budget adjustments. But last year, we put in 425,000. We're planning and design in terms of how we're gonna go forward with taking care of the moisture issue in our Bennington mines. Well,

[Jamie Duggan (Director of Preservation, Vermont State Historic Sites)]: while we're waiting perhaps for the PowerPoint. Okay.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Handout. Okay. Do have it on their web page.

[Jamie Duggan (Director of Preservation, Vermont State Historic Sites)]: For the record, my name is Jamie Duggan. I am the director of preservation at Vermont State Historic Sites. I'm here today to talk a little bit about the Bennington Battle Monument. And I guess a good place to start would be, as you know, we did a number of components to a pretty comprehensive investigation and analysis project over the last four years and had a number of recommendations to move forward from that team and have started in that direction. One of some of the items that we are completing presently are an update of the monitoring equipment that's in place. I think a number of you had noted the sort of dry and warm conditions that we saw at the monument this year in the summer when we were all down there together. And that is some important data we are trying to get our hands on. One of the situations that has affected a number of these components is that that large contract that we had with the team that was led by Stevens and Associates has now completed the work there. And so we do not have a firm yet leading the charge on the next step of those recommendations. We are in the process of seeking those folks. It seems as if that there are a couple of entities in the previous team that are interested in continuing and perhaps some that are not for various reasons. So the monitoring is part of that work that's happening now though. Two reasons. One, we were looking to get some better equipment in place, a little more accuracy and precision, and there was an issue with the hosting of that data. So under the initial contract, Atkinson Nolan associates are the experts who have been dealing with the monitoring equipment and installed it in place that the hosting of that data was with a third party to them. And I've instructed them to obtain that data because that contract ended, as I said, when the major contract ended. And we've had a number of delays getting this contract back up and running with some issues in BT buys. We have worked with the contractor now, though. We have a contract signed. That equipment has been ordered and it is on its way. Meanwhile, the previous hosting entity has come and removed the their equipment from the monument at this time. So right now we're in a period, hopefully of just a few weeks where we're gonna not be able to collect the data, but I think we have enough information above, before that and after that, that'll help us to at least continue on looking at some of these trends.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So, Jamie, let me just interrupt you there.

[Beth Mauch (Chancellor, Vermont State Colleges/Vermont State University)]: Yeah. So do we do

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: we have the data from the first entity doing the collection?

[Jamie Duggan (Director of Preservation, Vermont State Historic Sites)]: We have the data up until, I have to check when that ran through. I believe it was through November.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: When did it start collecting the data?

[Jamie Duggan (Director of Preservation, Vermont State Historic Sites)]: They started collecting the data a few years ago.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: '24.

[Jamie Duggan (Director of Preservation, Vermont State Historic Sites)]: I think it's when we had that installed initially.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: What did the data show for this summer and fall compared to the previous few years? Well, so that's the problem, we're trying

[Jamie Duggan (Director of Preservation, Vermont State Historic Sites)]: to get that data. So the contract, I think that contract was up in the beginning of the year, and we've been trying to, we tried to extend it with Atkinson Nolan that we weren't allowed to do that. So we started a new contract directly with them instead of going through the contractors that we were initially.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Why have we not been able to get the data from the SAR through the fall

[Jamie Duggan (Director of Preservation, Vermont State Historic Sites)]: with with them? There was a lapse in the monitoring when the larger Stevens and Associates contract ended, and we were not able to get the contract with Atkinson Nolan set up until just a few months ago.

[Laura V. Trieschmann (State Historic Preservation Officer; Director, Vermont Division for Historic Preservation, ACCD)]: It's the data.

[Jamie Duggan (Director of Preservation, Vermont State Historic Sites)]: The data is on the machine. The data is on the machine. And my understanding is that those machines have about a year, the capacity to hold about a year's worth of data. So we do not have a whole full year lapse. We only have a short lapse, but it's important data that we're not currently able to access because it is the data from the summer. And did we pay them for doing this? So again, monitoring period ended when that contract ended, the equipment was still in place taking readings. So I'm trying to get ahold of that data that happened, that was collected after our original contract was over.

[Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: But my question is, did we pay them if you were at the process?

[Jamie Duggan (Director of Preservation, Vermont State Historic Sites)]: There well, yeah, there was a fee for the hosting. It's in that contract period.

[Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: We paid the whole thing for it.

[Jamie Duggan (Director of Preservation, Vermont State Historic Sites)]: We have. Yeah.

[Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: We have nothing to show for

[Unidentified speaker (committee/staff; multiple brief interjections)]: it.

[Laura V. Trieschmann (State Historic Preservation Officer; Director, Vermont Division for Historic Preservation, ACCD)]: They haven't. It's not lost.

[Beth Mauch (Chancellor, Vermont State Colleges/Vermont State University)]: Okay. So

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: is a free,

[Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: but we should have

[Laura V. Trieschmann (State Historic Preservation Officer; Director, Vermont Division for Historic Preservation, ACCD)]: analyzing it's been analyzed by them, but not given to us.

[Jamie Duggan (Director of Preservation, Vermont State Historic Sites)]: So I specifically asked for the vendor to reach out to company that just took that equipment to get that data. And we may have to pay a certain fee for that because, again, it's outside of what the period that was originally contracted under that master contract.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So let me do a step back. So the first contractor is with whom? What's the name?

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Sorry?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: The first contractor, what's the name?

[Jamie Duggan (Director of Preservation, Vermont State Historic Sites)]: Atkins Atkins and Nolan.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Atkins and and Nolan.

[Jamie Duggan (Director of Preservation, Vermont State Historic Sites)]: ANA. Atkins and Nolan Associates.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: We had them from when to when?

[Jamie Duggan (Director of Preservation, Vermont State Historic Sites)]: They were part of the initial team and continued through until that contract ended with Stevens. I'm forgetting the exact date that I

[Laura V. Trieschmann (State Historic Preservation Officer; Director, Vermont Division for Historic Preservation, ACCD)]: 2022.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Calendar year.

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

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And then in 2024, who then do we contract? Did we stay with A and M?

[Jamie Duggan (Director of Preservation, Vermont State Historic Sites)]: Correct. A and N is the firm that is still providing the monitoring equipment, and they will now be taking over the management of that data on their server as opposed to having the data live at a third party third party server.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I'm confused. No. They went to 'twenty four, calendar year 'twenty four. Who did 'twenty five?

[Laura V. Trieschmann (State Historic Preservation Officer; Director, Vermont Division for Historic Preservation, ACCD)]: They did. Their monitors are still there. We have a lagging contracting, so they're not giving us the data.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So for all of '25, when did the contract end, in '24 or '25?

[Laura V. Trieschmann (State Historic Preservation Officer; Director, Vermont Division for Historic Preservation, ACCD)]: Think it was the '25.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And they left their equipment there for almost a year?

[Laura V. Trieschmann (State Historic Preservation Officer; Director, Vermont Division for Historic Preservation, ACCD)]: Because we've been in the contracting process with them. They got stuck in VT buys.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: VT buys was a new system that we had on a state level that delayed a lot of contracts and paying bills and

[Laura V. Trieschmann (State Historic Preservation Officer; Director, Vermont Division for Historic Preservation, ACCD)]: So all they knew we were going to continue the contract with them directly, rather than through Stevens and Associates, who subcontracted them originally. So they kept the monitors in place. We're still collecting the data, just not providing it to us yet until we get the contract in place.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And that would be with A and M? Yes.

[Jamie Duggan (Director of Preservation, Vermont State Historic Sites)]: That contract is in place. And they have ordered the equipment, and so the new equipment is on its way. Should be installed in another few weeks, and then that will be the start of our new data protocol that we'll be collecting similar data as we have been in the past, just easier for us to access it.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And it's the same contractor that we were working with in twenty two to twenty four? Correct. So there's different equipment that's gonna be put in Correct. By the same contractor. Correct. But we're still working to get the data from this past spring, summer, and fall. Correct. And we've paid for that.

[Jamie Duggan (Director of Preservation, Vermont State Historic Sites)]: Not yet.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: That's why they're holding back because we haven't paid back.

[Laura V. Trieschmann (State Historic Preservation Officer; Director, Vermont Division for Historic Preservation, ACCD)]: Yes. Exactly.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: But you have the money to pay for it?

[Unidentified speaker (committee/staff; multiple brief interjections)]: Yes.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And the reason you haven't paid for it was because our internal government system of invoicing and billing the BT buys screwed everything up, basically.

[Laura V. Trieschmann (State Historic Preservation Officer; Director, Vermont Division for Historic Preservation, ACCD)]: Exactly.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Everything did all messed up. Okay.

[Jamie Duggan (Director of Preservation, Vermont State Historic Sites)]: The only vendor that happened to feed the

[Unidentified (tech/staff interjections)]: So, well, is it Kevin Bird? Kevin Willis dropped.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: So we're what I'm understanding in layman's term is is we're slow in paying for it, but the contract includes data and analysis that'll tell us what we've learned from the data? Yes. Okay. We're not just buying data. We're buying results and recommendations. Yes. We're just slow in paying for it. Thank you. That's better than what I was hearing. Okay.

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: Got it. Yep. Well So I'm just looking at these plans. This contract is supposed to be fully enclosed.

[Jamie Duggan (Director of Preservation, Vermont State Historic Sites)]: It's With ANA? Yeah. It is in place. It is. It just was executed a few weeks ago.

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: A few weeks ago.

[Jamie Duggan (Director of Preservation, Vermont State Historic Sites)]: And I immediately asked them to order the new equipment that they've recommended. So the equipment's been ordered, and it's on its way. They will be coming to install that equipment in a few weeks.

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: So just clarify, Jamie, that the contracts in place that would give us the data along with the analysis, but they haven't given that over yet? Are we talking about two separate?

[Laura V. Trieschmann (State Historic Preservation Officer; Director, Vermont Division for Historic Preservation, ACCD)]: The current contract, because it was in process for a year, does not include requests for the data from 2025. So we're trying to add that to the contract, pay them for it, and get the analysis

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

[Laura V. Trieschmann (State Historic Preservation Officer; Director, Vermont Division for Historic Preservation, ACCD)]: So we're gonna close that window.

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: Okay, and so that will be done in a few weeks?

[Laura V. Trieschmann (State Historic Preservation Officer; Director, Vermont Division for Historic Preservation, ACCD)]: Yes. Okay,

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I'll make enough.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Hopefully.

[Unidentified speaker (committee/staff; multiple brief interjections)]: Shawn? Jamie,

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: thanks for coming in. You don't have data then for this past last year, '25?

[Jamie Duggan (Director of Preservation, Vermont State Historic Sites)]: We haven't obtained it yet. Yeah. We're it's out there. Right. We'll get it to not yet, though.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: But you do have data from '22 and '23 and '24. Correct. Do you have that for us? In an easy red graph that shows us everything that we've been paying for in the sense of masonry, the pectography testing, study of rocks, the geotechnical. Do is all that stuff, like, the the the moisture content inside of it. Do we have that data?

[Jamie Duggan (Director of Preservation, Vermont State Historic Sites)]: The what's been analyzed to date so far would be in the the massive report that came out last year under the section of ANA that it talks about all of the monitoring and testing that they've done.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: Okay.

[Jamie Duggan (Director of Preservation, Vermont State Historic Sites)]: As far as and if there's a a a larger collection of data you're interested in, we can No.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: I'm I'm just wondering, like, on a month to month basis, do we have moisture content inside the rock and inside the masonry?

[Jamie Duggan (Director of Preservation, Vermont State Historic Sites)]: Yeah. I'm interested in that as well.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: Yeah. Is that in an easy read an easy way to get? You said it's a it's a sizable document. What does that mean?

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Well, it's the report

[Jamie Duggan (Director of Preservation, Vermont State Historic Sites)]: that we shared with all of you that included all the different chapters from the topic experts that were part of that investigation.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: Did oh, did that have the data in it?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yes. Yes.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: Okay. And if you shared it with us via

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Last year.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Last year?

[Jamie Duggan (Director of Preservation, Vermont State Historic Sites)]: Yeah. And Part of our testimony last year.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: So it is accessible on

[Jamie Duggan (Director of Preservation, Vermont State Historic Sites)]: the It's accessible. Yeah. And on our website as well.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: So then my so is the moisture content going down inside the inside the monument this year just naturally because of

[Jamie Duggan (Director of Preservation, Vermont State Historic Sites)]: the dry summer and the Anecdotally. It sure seems like it does to me. That's that's why we're trying to that's why this that that data from this past summer is critical to confirm what what we were seeing and feeling. Okay.

[Beth Mauch (Chancellor, Vermont State Colleges/Vermont State University)]: Mary?

[Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: So I think I understood you correctly that they are putting new equipment in. Mhmm. Is that to continue to monitor? Correct.

[Jamie Duggan (Director of Preservation, Vermont State Historic Sites)]: So it's they're upgraded equipment than we were using.

[Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: And how long will they be monitoring it until

[Jamie Duggan (Director of Preservation, Vermont State Historic Sites)]: My hope is in perpetuity. We're the the the equipment that we're putting in now has a value a tremendous value right now to understand what's happening with the monument, but it also becomes an important tool as we move forward to monitor after repairs are done, the performance and making sure we're getting the results that we wanna see. So that was one of the reasons for the change of the equipment, is that the equipment, again, it has a bit higher precision and accuracy. I had mentioned we had such saturation levels that it was reading 100% all the time. So that's aimed to do that and to better able to track that over time.

[Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: And the new equipment will last for how long? What's its lifespan?

[Jamie Duggan (Director of Preservation, Vermont State Historic Sites)]: I have to go back and look, but these are monitoring equipment themselves is pretty robust. I mean, you know, certainly a decade or more before I would think technology changes would be in place, but we are seeing that happen all the time.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Thank you. Go on, Karen. Sure.

[Jamie Duggan (Director of Preservation, Vermont State Historic Sites)]: So in addition to updating the monitoring equipment, we also have a seismic study that has been going on. This was triggered initially by the two different seismic events that were affecting the region generally. That is being done by T. Y. Lin, who is formerly the Silman Associates, who are our primary topic expert on the structural side for the monument. They've been to they came and did their site visit on December, early December, and I would anticipate their report sometime in another month or so. They're in the process now of taking the information that they collected and analyzing that and putting that into report form. The next item will be in the spring, we will have vertical access, vertical access of the industrial ropes team that have been visiting the monument for the last few years. They will be once again rappelling down the side of the monument with their equipment, taking, photographs and surveying conditions. They'll also be doc documenting any changes and removing any loose material. I had mentioned when we first got them to come, about two years ago, they removed, the equivalent of about five, five gallon buckets of material off, the monument. And again, these were things that were cracked and sort of stuck in place. Anything that they could move, we had them do so to make it more safe. Last year when they came prior to us opening, they were down to five small boxes is all that was captured at that time. And I'm anticipating even less this spring. I think that shows that that initiative has been positive on two fronts. One, certainly allows us to monitor parts of the monument that are very inaccessible. And two, it's also continues to provide a safe environment for visitors. We have the covered walkway and the safety fence that we've installed and those require regular inspections as well. Everything is going fine with that. We did have an issue last winter that we were we had some of the pieces blow around that that's been more secured, and we haven't had any issues with that since. So that is in a good place. Then we have the elevator, which has been mainly problematic this past year. We have spent over $54,000 in troubleshooting primarily and upgrading some major components. We have an elevator specialist, Lurch Bates. That is another contract that has been tied up in VT buys, and it is actually still not resolved. We're hoping that that that gets settled in the next few days, but, Lurch Bates is scheduled once the contract is in place to come into a full audit of the elevator for us. They will be investigating the car, the shaft, running it a number of times and evaluating what are some of the things that we can do to make the elevator a little bit more reliable than it has been in the past. We have a special scope that we've developed with our elevator technicians and Lurch Bates that essentially has been doing a lot of extra grease and lube treatments when they come for their monthly service calls. Interestingly enough, the cold this season has compounded some of those issues. And the last time the technician was there, a lot of this extra grease that was placed on the cables and stuff are sort of gumming up now with the with the deep hole that has been sustained. So even we're trying our best to keep things. As you know, the the infiltration of water has been the primary culprit of following the electrical system, dealing with a lot of corrosion through all that. And so it's it it is a challenging situation for us to deal with. Offer the numbers at the bottom to show you, as you as we've mentioned in the past, the Bennington Batty Monument is one of our most visiting sites, and it also has one of our highest grossing gift shops, which helps speed the helps to feed the special fund where we play our seasonal employees with. Having the elevator down for the duration that it was this summer put a lot of stress onto the special fund, as well as some stress to our operations there and having to change how people are able to interact with the monument. We did reduce admission a few times as as time went along, but we were essentially at the end of the season, despite replacing a major drive and some other components, uncomfortable putting the public into, the elevator on a regular basis. So, it's an issue that we're gonna have to really, figure out how do we explore having an elevator, essentially an indoor elevator working in the outdoor environment inside of the monument. It's a it's a very hard condition for it to operate in.

[Beth Mauch (Chancellor, Vermont State Colleges/Vermont State University)]: Mary?

[Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: So under its present condition, you will not be able to open in May?

[Jamie Duggan (Director of Preservation, Vermont State Historic Sites)]: And 54,000 paid for what? So about $35,000 was for parts and labor. There was a we did have a a mechanical failure in the midst of this, replaced one of the drives. That 12,000 is the amount of that we pay for that extra that extra maintenance service that I was talking about, extra oil on loop. We do that four times a season as we open, as the summer takes off right before foliage, and then towards the end. And then the 7,500 is for that elevator out of. So that hasn't that has not been spent yet, but that is covered within what we're considering. Yes.

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: I think I misheard you. Did you say the elevator was being used on a regular basis or not being used? Not being used. That's what I was yeah.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So where did the 50 fourseven come from? Unless somebody already asked that.

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Very decisive.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Okay. I'm sorry. Sorry. I was focused on trying to get the bill down to the work site.

[Jamie Duggan (Director of Preservation, Vermont State Historic Sites)]: That was for mainly the the repairs that we had to do this summer to try and get

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: it running again.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Where did it come from? Where did you find the money? The $54.07.

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: That was

[Laura V. Trieschmann (State Historic Preservation Officer; Director, Vermont Division for Historic Preservation, ACCD)]: The fence money.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Sorry. The The fence the fence up. For the fence

[Laura V. Trieschmann (State Historic Preservation Officer; Director, Vermont Division for Historic Preservation, ACCD)]: when it was moved over to ACCD, it included maintenance of the monument. So that's where we That's

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: where you pulled the money from.

[Laura V. Trieschmann (State Historic Preservation Officer; Director, Vermont Division for Historic Preservation, ACCD)]: Yes.

[Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: And that's for good news today. I'm not kidding.

[Jamie Duggan (Director of Preservation, Vermont State Historic Sites)]: Well, the good news is that here is a case though where we do still have money available to help do some diagnostic work and try and alleviate the situation. And as you know, in some other cases we got, I'm trying to keep that as a positive here. So this is just sort of trying to give you a breakdown of those those two pots of money that we do have available to us right now. One being the BGSA CCD Bennington battle monument money, which as Lori just mentioned was previously known as defense money, perhaps.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: That's the $4.25 or a separate corporation.

[Unidentified speaker (committee/staff; multiple brief interjections)]: Then

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: We put in $4.25 last year that we found money elsewhere and reallocated. How much of the $4.25 have you used so far this year at all?

[Jamie Duggan (Director of Preservation, Vermont State Historic Sites)]: Minor amount. We've used up just for the maintenance and the inspections because the audit and vertical access that will be coming out of that in the spring. So we will be tapping into that very shortly. So the other pot of money that we have is the congressionally directed spending from through the National Park Service. And that's taking some of those other items I mentioned previously, the monitoring, the seismic study, and archaeology will be done this summer at the monument. As I had mentioned, there's actually the remnants of the former neighborhood that is surrounding where the monument used to be. Monument Avenue used to continue directly up and through where the monument sits today and then down over that hill. And so there are foundations in the ground adjacent to the base of the monument, and we'll be going to identify those to make sure we understand where they are and what it might impact for any future scaffolding or building enclosure system, as well as to locate these buildings, and in particular, the storehouse that was the ultimate goal of the Battle of Bennington. We have a general location of where that is on-site, but we're hoping to fully define it even in differing materials moving forward so that that is there as a mark. So going back to yeah. Wait.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Just a sec. Did you say there

[Jamie Duggan (Director of Preservation, Vermont State Historic Sites)]: was a specific line? I understand what you guys were using for that. Yeah. We had received $500,000 from the National Park Service in directionally directed spending from senator Sanders' office. So based on the recommendations out of all of the the the components to that big study, As we know, we need to dry out the monument in order to get it ready for repairs. We need to design an enclosure system to be able to help to do that. And both of these things sort of feed into each other in that we have to understand how we're going to dry out the monument to understand how long it's gonna take and and what manner that will be done. And that ties in with some of this other geotechnical engineering that'll have to be done to support an enclosure system when that is that is ready to go forward.

[Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: And how long will that take?

[Jamie Duggan (Director of Preservation, Vermont State Historic Sites)]: Well, that's all to be determined. So where we really are now with getting to that next step is we need to essentially find a champion for this next phase to lead this initiative to to figure out these next fine items. As I mentioned, there are components of the previous team that are interested and appropriate to move forward and some other entities that don't have more to offer this situation or aren't interested in. Right now, as I said, we're we're we're we'll have to put an RFP out for this next section of design work.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: When do you anticipate the RFP to go out?

[Jamie Duggan (Director of Preservation, Vermont State Historic Sites)]: I'm hoping by certainly by the time we open this year, so May, June.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: Jimmy, I'm I'm struggling, and I have been struggling with this, as you know, for a long time. It's hard for me as a tax paying Vermonter to go to my people in Shelburne and Saint George and tell them we are having a hard enough time getting data. And I know there's a lot of extenuating circumstances. But we can't and you said the data's here. I need to look at that. I'm sorry if I didn't see that in the last set of stuff you sent us last year. However, I just wanna see, like I I'm not seeing some really simple information we're looking for, which is like moisture content inside this thing. And I wanna see it on for the last three or four years, every month, where is it at? I don't think that's a big ask. I'd love to see that. Sitting here in this committee, you know I made a stink about it last year, and I'm not gonna back down from that. You guys, if you can get this 5 to $10,000,000 to build a moisture tight enclosure that's gonna maybe or maybe not keep this protected forever, to me, seems I just need to say it. It seems like a waste of taxpayer money in the state of Vermont. I don't have any personal grudge against you or the Bennington Battle Monument. I just wish that we were I I kinda see this it's tough for me to look at, and I need to say that to anyone who's listening on YouTube. I just I'm really struggling with it. And and and we're we're asking and to come in and ask us for this or to show this to us, but also not to be able to show us some really simple data that that that you're, I guess, you're in charge of. It's just hard for me to, like, trust that we are heading in the right direction. So I just needed to get that off my chest.

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: I appreciate that That insurance.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Don't mean to gang up, but we're we're doing all this effort before we know what it will be what the cost will be once we fix it to maintain the right moisture level. If we ever determine what it's going to cost, once it's fixed, to keep it healthy. Until we know that, we don't know whether we want to spend the money to try to keep it healthy. It's $2,000,000 a year to heat it and keep it dry, we need to understand that before we do all the analysis, in my opinion. Do we have that kind of a number?

[Jamie Duggan (Director of Preservation, Vermont State Historic Sites)]: We don't yet, no.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Well, and that's why it became in disrepair years ago because they didn't want to fund it then. So if they didn't want to fund it then, why do we think we want to fund it in the future that we don't even know how much it's going to cost? I love the mine. It's not that I don't like the monument, but we're doing a lot of work and then we may say, oh, it's cost too much to maintain it and we're gonna go right back to zero one.

[Jamie Duggan (Director of Preservation, Vermont State Historic Sites)]: So I can appreciate that very much. I think one of the issues is that the design work is not complete. And I know that that that might sound we've done a lot of work to date, but this is a very specialized structure. It it it is not something that the the it requires careful consideration. I would say because we have I have the same hesitations as as all of you do, think, and which is one reason why we are taking the time to figure out what our next steps are. We're not just rushing into taking the scheme that the engineers have proposed to us for $40,000,000. Quite frankly, I don't think that math is baked in enough for my comfort. However, we're working towards getting more information, getting a better sense of what it's going to take over time. And I, you know, I was hoping to have some of that information for you folks at this point in time, but I'll remind you, this is one of the 75 structures that I manage, and there are a number of other ones that are getting money that have solutions. And so we've been focusing on that honestly. But I haven't lost sight though of the need for knowing what we're getting ourselves into as this moves forward.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: But the engineers that are doing the design must have some options they think might solve the problem. And based on those options, we should be able to determine what it will cost if that's implemented to maintain There may be two options that are on the table. We gotta assume one or the other and say, okay, if this is done, it's gonna cost 6,000,000 every year to maintain it or this is gonna cost 3,000,000 every year. I mean, that's basic. So, but before we have that, I don't see how we can continue to put billions of dollars into analysis.

[Jamie Duggan (Director of Preservation, Vermont State Historic Sites)]: So we're not I'm not here asking for any more money at the moment. I'm I'm asking for the time to be able to spend the money we have available to get those answers for you. And that's that's where we really are. I'm sorry that we're not that far along at this point. But quite frankly, this is not going to be a solution that's just going to appear one day. It's gonna continue to take a lot of work and analysis.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Laura, do you wanna weigh in?

[Laura V. Trieschmann (State Historic Preservation Officer; Director, Vermont Division for Historic Preservation, ACCD)]: Yes, yes, if I may. I appreciate what everybody's saying. We thought this would be an easy study when we started to look at what the problems were. And it turned into a two and a half year long million dollar study that identified all of the problems, not the solutions. And it was 15 plus contractors, all working under Stevens Associates. Now that contract is over, Jamie has been working to assemble a team of the experts who will take us to the more analysis that will lead to the designs. We have not started designing anything. So we wanna make sure we know what the monument can withstand and how much it will cost to do that work. And then really how much it will cost then to maintain it every year. Because to your point, if it's a million dollars every year, it's not gonna be open. We have to figure out what our other alternatives are. How do we best preserve it until it can find a benefactor or we can take it down or what those alternatives are. So we've not progressed into the design stage to really understand and analyze the data. And that's where we're moving now with the congressionally directed spending money that we've got of a half million dollars where we're gonna get that analysis. They're gonna look at what has already been collected, which to us is just a bunch of graphs. They're the experts. The new data will allow us to bring it up on our phone, Jamie's phone, so that we could look at it regularly and see and study. So that even though we don't have that data in hand for last year, 2025, it exists and it will be part of the analysis.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Forgive me.

[Unidentified (tech/staff interjections)]: I don't know.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: The amount of engineering that I remember from fifty years ago, we're talking about rock that's either going to collect moisture or get rid of moisture. You've got a mass. That mass calculates how much BTUs you're gonna have to put inside it to get the moisture out and keep the moisture out. Whether you put a rubber shield over it or you put iron or copper thread, whatever, those assumptions are simple assumptions to come up with what it should be to keep it warm enough so that the moisture doesn't come in. That's not really difficult. Especially, I I disagree a little bit on that. No pushback on you. That's I

[Unidentified (tech/staff interjections)]: I I appreciate that.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I I

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: wanna see it done,

[Jamie Duggan (Director of Preservation, Vermont State Historic Sites)]: but I Yeah. Again, it's it's not just a mass. It's I would characterize it as a 300 foot tall chimney so that there's actually air inside that has its own microclimate that's dealing with those entities.

[Unidentified speaker (committee/staff; multiple brief interjections)]: Right. I And it

[Jamie Duggan (Director of Preservation, Vermont State Historic Sites)]: is it is, I think, that fact that complicates things more than anything else. If this were a massive rock that was, you know, that would be really simple to calculate the the moisture coefficients, how much it it absorbs and reacts. But there are there are other things at work besides just the simple physics of the water and the rock.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: When you size an HVAC system for a building, which is different but similar, can size that heating, So in a worst case scenario, and put a model together that says, got this much rock that's gotta stay warm and moisture free. I understand that, but the rock that's at the base that is in a wall that's 17 feet deep is a lot different than

[Jamie Duggan (Director of Preservation, Vermont State Historic Sites)]: the rock 300 feet in the air that's only 12 inches deep. And so it's the configuration of all that that makes it non standard, if that's an easier That's where

[Laura V. Trieschmann (State Historic Preservation Officer; Director, Vermont Division for Historic Preservation, ACCD)]: we get to the design stage that we're about to get into, where they'll be analyzing, figuring out the best alternative for us, how to dry it out, what HVAC system, how the elevator plays into that. Because when we replaced parts of the elevator a few years ago, we made it worse and we didn't realize what we were doing. So that's why I think we've got caution. But you're absolutely right. We just haven't gotten to that, do the equation tell us how much this is gonna cost and what the system is.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Yeah, I hate to be a wisest. This is not rocket science. So again, I respectfully disagree.

[Jamie Duggan (Director of Preservation, Vermont State Historic Sites)]: This is not a simple situation.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Gonna spend more time on this. I'm really getting concerned on the time frame because we have state colleges here, and I think we're gonna have to have more committee discussion about this and maybe bring you folks back. Folks can think a little clearer. We've had a long day. We still have state colleges that do come here. We have to finish up by 04:30. So unfortunately, I wanna cut this short because I think we really need, I think we need time as a committee to talk and kind of be a little clearer in our questioning and our direction since we're not very clear as a committee right now. What I also wanna ask of Laura is if you could provide us how much money has been we've appropriated money in the previous, not last year, not FY '26, but in previous fiscal years, there's been money expended for this project, for the Bennington Monument, for collecting data Yes. For that. So if you could correlate that, say where it's gone, how much has been expended, and also the $4.25 that was put in last year about f y twenty six. Yep. That that was in combination with some other money that you had, I think, but maybe not. Maybe it was a $4.25 directly. And that was to go towards planning and design for a study another study. So if we could have a timeline on the money previous, the 04/25 for FY '26, and what we've gotten for it.

[Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: I will sign going to my last statement. My concern, and I'm going to reiterate it again, I was very concerned last year when the $40,000,000 price tag was put out there. And, obviously, by the testimony today, we still don't know what we're doing or how we even got to the figure of 40,000,000. So the discussion's been pretty disingenuous altogether. I feel like we've gone not even a step forward, and that's very upsetting to me and probably more upsetting that you're saying, well, we didn't understand what we did a couple of years ago made it worse. Or was that the same situation for it now, with all these supposedly experts doing? And I'm not trying to question your wanting to find a result for it, but this is really just not good and not good for our community, wills and ours. I just That's all they have to say. I'm disgusting.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So, Laura, if you could give us a timeline in terms of what has been appropriated today, from where, and what has occurred with that money, that would be very helpful. And the committee's gonna spend some time, I think, just talking as a committee. So we're a little bit more focused as well. And then we'll schedule you back. Does that make sense to folks? Yep. Agree. Let's do that.

[Jamie Duggan (Director of Preservation, Vermont State Historic Sites)]: Thank you for your time. I appreciate it. And I appreciate your questions as well.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Thanks

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: for hanging in there, Jamie.

[Jamie Duggan (Director of Preservation, Vermont State Historic Sites)]: Yeah. So

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: let's quickly transition to the state colleges. Thank you for your patience. We are running a little late.

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: Thanks for having me.

[Unidentified (tech/staff interjections)]: Good afternoon. We

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: had you folks in last week just to go over the update of your major maintenance requests, which is the same as last year. There was 1,500,000 last year, 1.5 for FY twenty seven. We did get an update on the heat plant situation, but there was another

[Unidentified speaker (committee/staff; multiple brief interjections)]: I

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: don't wanna hear it. And then there was discussion that there is proposal to provide some housing, to build housing unit on the campus, to provide housing for students, but also maybe for the public as well. So we wanted a chance to speak with you, the chancellor, to give us a little bit more detail on this and to answer questions. So welcome. If you could just identify yourself. I'm Beth Mauch. I'm the chancellor

[Beth Mauch (Chancellor, Vermont State Colleges/Vermont State University)]: of the Vermont Psychologists. I'm very happy to be here with all of you. And I brought Art Kugo with me today. He's our developer. He works with Hamilton. And he will be able to provide the technical details. But I wanted to start today to really explain where we've been and how we got here. So I arrived just a little bit more than two years ago now. And at a time really when the state colleges had been in a phase where we were trying to figure out how we were going to sustain ourselves. And while we continue to do that, we've really tried to think through what are some ways to meet the mandates of the legislature and the communities and serve our mission, which is for the benefit of Vermont. So there have been many pieces to this. The one that I'm coming to you with today is the key piece of the facilities of Vermont State University. So when the legislature provided us with very generous sums of money in order to sustain us, mandate was that we've maintained five vibrant campuses, which is at Linden, Randolph, Johnson, Castleton, and And C. C. Wilson. Yes. So we've done that. And I have really spent a lot of time in these communities talking to a number of constituent groups about what does that mean. Because as we know, the students at the Vermont State College of Sweeney are older than most folks think. So the average age of our students is around 27, even older for some returning students. And so they have different needs than traditionally we have been meeting. And what that has meant is that our campuses don't always have students living there in the traditional way that we would think of it. So returning students really need the kind of housing where they can live year round, where they can maybe have their families or other members. And so that has gotten us to thinking about what does this mean for the campuses. The project that I want to talk to you about today is on the Johnson campus. I think it's important to talk a little bit more about the Johnson campus because it really has been the campus where we have moved the most forward with some of these projects. And what the idea is, is that we're using those now as a testing ground to see what also might we be able to do on the other campuses. So Johnson was flooded in 2023 and 2024, devastating floods. And that has given us an opportunity to really meet with the citizens of Johnson to talk about how we might be able to use some of the space that we have that is now underutilized. Because with our students being older, again, not only do they need different kinds of housing, they need more flexibility. They need for college to be around their life and not necessarily their life around college. And so over these past couple of years, we've actually had a couple of opportunities that are going to be coming to fruition here in the next couple of years. The first one is many of you probably heard about a congressionally directed spending from Senator Sanders to bring senior housing up to the McClellan Building on the Johnson campus. Downstreet received a grant, a community development block grant for disaster recovery to actually put that into fruition along with the CDS money and another stack of funds. So we will be bringing senior housing to the Johnson campus very soon. In addition, we also had applied for a grant, and we were looking to relocate a health center, the town offices, the post office, a variety of community needs into Martinetti Building. We did not receive that disaster relief money. However, we are looking for other options for that. However, out of that, it really has started to become clear that there are community facilities that are interested in being on that campus. The health center actually asked us if even though we weren't able to immediately get them into Martinetti, was there other space on our campus? And what I'm excited to talk to you about today is the fact that the health center will actually go up to the Johnson campus by the end of the spring. So those are just two examples of kind of what this can look like. And I bring the examples just so you can start to see. What we're here to talk to you about today, though, is an apartment complex. So in Johnson, Vermont and at Johnson State College, there is already an apartment building on that campus that houses students and faculty and staff. And we thought that that was really a good example of what already works. Those apartments are full or nearly full all the time. So we know that there's a demand for those. And so it started us thinking about what other way might we be able to bring housing to Johnson. And so we were looking at building an apartment complex. Again, I'll let Art tell you about the details of that. And the interesting thing about that, particularly on the Johnson campus is that what we might be able to do if we built this apartment building and brought it closer to the campus, we could be putting students in that building and maybe then sell the apartments to someone who could then immediately bring housing to the citizens of Johnson. So that's why being on Johnson actually has made a lot of interesting sense. We're here today to talk about requesting $1,000,000 out of the capital fund in order to do some site work and some other things to get ourselves ready to build a capital stack for this apartment complex. But I'm gonna just turn it over to Art right now and let him take off on the thing, unless anybody has questions for me. Thank you.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It's warmed up.

[Beth Mauch (Chancellor, Vermont State Colleges/Vermont State University)]: Is. Of okay, do want me to sit here?

[Unidentified speaker (committee/staff; multiple brief interjections)]: Just in case there's some questions. Yeah.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: We do have a question,

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Shawn. So you're trying

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: to build a community up there, it sounds like.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yes. You're bringing the health

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: care center up there. So you're trying to establish this not so much as a college campus, but this is more of a hybrid trying to bring the town in there a little bit.

[Beth Mauch (Chancellor, Vermont State Colleges/Vermont State University)]: Treating it like a town that has a college in it, where the town and the college can interact together. One of the very exciting things about this, if we think about the health center, we also have a number of health care majors on that campus. Suddenly, there are internships very, very close. But you're right. There's also a health center where our students can get instant access in the health care. But yes.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Where is the health center going to be built? Is it in a building?

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: They're going to use it.

[Beth Mauch (Chancellor, Vermont State Colleges/Vermont State University)]: We're going to use actually, there's on the 1st Floor, Basement Floor of Senators, is where it will go. And it was already built out for something very similar to that. So while there will be some amount of construction to be done, it's basically almost ready to go.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It's on the Okay. The one thing about this campus and building up there, it's not gonna be flooded.

[Beth Mauch (Chancellor, Vermont State Colleges/Vermont State University)]: That's true. It's not flooded.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Up a hill. It's up a big hill that's windy and it's cold.

[Beth Mauch (Chancellor, Vermont State Colleges/Vermont State University)]: It is windy and

[Laura V. Trieschmann (State Historic Preservation Officer; Director, Vermont Division for Historic Preservation, ACCD)]: cold, yes.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Want to

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: ask some really quick question, Tom, that hybrid. I mean, obviously we need housing, that's no doubt. But how is a state college the best manager, I guess, of a housing development for the public? Is there a plan on who's going to be doing that?

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Great question.

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: I've been thinking about it for a week.

[Beth Mauch (Chancellor, Vermont State Colleges/Vermont State University)]: Question. Maya can answer it.

[Unidentified speaker (committee/staff; multiple brief interjections)]: Yeah. Do you want to go first?

[Beth Mauch (Chancellor, Vermont State Colleges/Vermont State University)]: Just broadly, we are looking for partners. So it may very well be the case that what we would do is have someone actually build this, it would be their apartment complex. We would guarantee rooms in that. And so that would be the person that would actually manage it for us. However, we are already currently managing the Johnson apartments. And so that is certainly something we could do as well. So we're keeping our options open.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: Understood. Thank you. So the million dollars obviously is a cost estimate there. So you don't know how much it's gonna cost. But is there a range that's acceptable for you with the final product? And what would be the ongoing funding source for that? Would you be coming back to the capital bill? Would the town have some stake in it with some bonding? So just wondering, looking forward before we look at the beginning.

[Unidentified speaker (committee/staff; multiple brief interjections)]: Really, really good question. Probably a good point for me to introduce myself. Hi, Art Clugo, a managing partner with Camel's Home Development Group. I come to the the chancellor of Vermont State Colleges and Vermont State University with a background in architecture, engineering, construction, and real estate development. Most recently, managed the first phase of the capital campaign for beta technology.

[Art Klugo (Managing Partner, Camel’s Hump Development Group)]: So the facilities that you see there, those were projects that I led with a great group of teams to support that. Through mutual acquaintances, Beth and I came to chat a little bit about the needs here at Vermont State Colleges, Vermont State University, and ultimately decided to jump on board and try to take on this project in vibrancy. It's not very often that these sorts of projects come along. You have tremendous real estate assets at the university level, whether it's Randolph, whether it's Lincoln, whether it's, in this particular instance, Johnson. And those assets can be leveraged in a way to address the housing issue that we have here in Vermont. So why and how? Right? These assets have been paid for by the state already. This property, there is no acquisition cost for it. And the particular site that we'll look at here, it's a parking lot. It's already impervious. We can actually use that flat site to bring the cost down of the project, repurpose that, and actually improve over time the storm water that goes back into the surrounding area because the new building will be constructed in a way to allow that to happen. You have infrastructure that's already in place. The campus was built to house roughly 500 students or 600 students. There might be two fifty students on that campus today. So you have water infrastructure. You have power infrastructure. You have wastewater infrastructure. All those systems that you need to support a housing project in a place where housing was designed to be. It was designed these campuses were designed to be active. They were designed to be vibrant, and this is an opportunity to go ahead and and bring that back. What that means then is we this million dollars is a is an ask for design permitting and some of the environmental work that needs to get done to create a shovel ready project. With those drawings, so there would not be an ask beyond that because we would end up with a shovel ready project that we would go to investors, whether through opportunity zones or other developers that typically do this type of work, that they would be a partner to the state through the state college system to manage these these apartments. So really, what's happening is this is an investment in bringing this project forward in a very economical way that traditionally doesn't present itself. Typically, you have to go pay for the environmental work because you don't have a flat site and you got to do all your environmental studies, whether they're OWLs or whichever study you wanna throw on top of that, you don't find a place where you have wastewater allocations or water allocations or power allocations already in place that you can leverage. All of this is a way to make the housing project, as Galfetti knows, I prefer the term attainable rather than affordable, because affordable only speaks to one section of the market. What we really need here in Vermont is attainable housing at a whole variety of levels. And we can do that through this market rate housing that could be provided at less than market rate cost because of the infrastructure that's there. And then as the chancellor mentioned, the current apartments could be repurposed for more affordable housing to the Johnson residents that are really in need of that type of relief. Now you get in a strange way, and this doesn't happen very often, these types of projects really a win win win situation, a win for the community, a win for the university, and a win for the state. And it fulfills that state mission that the chancellor mentioned earlier. That's a long way, I think, of answering your question. That that's very helpful. Thanks. Yeah.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So first off, could you identify yourself for the record? Yes. Hi. Art Klugo. And you're affiliated with?

[Art Klugo (Managing Partner, Camel’s Hump Development Group)]: Camel's Home Development Group, consulting firm supporting a variety of clients at strategic and institutional levels such as this.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Your hand about this came from Freeman French Freeman.

[Art Klugo (Managing Partner, Camel’s Hump Development Group)]: Yeah. Have

[Unidentified (tech/staff interjections)]: you been working with Freeman French Freeman on this, or

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: has the university been working with them?

[Art Klugo (Managing Partner, Camel’s Hump Development Group)]: We have both been working with Freeman French Freeman. Prior to coming to this body, we felt that it was important to have a test fit done. This idea that we have, how does it actually work? Will it work in the location that we think it will work? So we went to Freeman French Freeman, who has experience on that campus and said, hey, here's what we're thinking. How crazy are we? And they came back and said, well, actually, here's a variety of options that we could use. And not only could this be used in Johnson, but we have done the similar test fit in Randolph as well and have a site already pre located that could support this. So there's some economies of scale that could be leveraged here beyond the infrastructure.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So the 1,000,000 ask is to do what's specific?

[Art Klugo (Managing Partner, Camel’s Hump Development Group)]: That would be to take this package, complete the design work, complete the permitting work, and do any environmental testing that might be needed just to confirm that the site does not require any remediation. We do not expect that it will be because it is a parking lot. It has been covered for decades. It's I just but the due diligence is due diligence is required until that that fund of money will pay for those services and that exploration.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Once again, site remediation, question mark. What were the other topic, please?

[Art Klugo (Managing Partner, Camel’s Hump Development Group)]: Design and permitting. What we have here is really a concept and a test fit that shows various layouts and how the building might be organized. This is actually for a 60 unit project that could be built in two phases. What we would propose is that we would design for 60 and build 30 with the idea that maybe the developer sees the opportunity here and we build out 60 at the same. But we want to scale this in a way that can be expanded and not commit beyond what the market might be able to absorb.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So do you anticipate 1,000,000 would get you through construction documents, or would that be up to the developer? The develop you would do preliminary work, and then you put this out towards a construction towards a developer to build. The

[Art Klugo (Managing Partner, Camel’s Hump Development Group)]: the intent

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: would have the actual construction documents and and ready to put a shovel in the ground.

[Art Klugo (Managing Partner, Camel’s Hump Development Group)]: Yes. Really good. So the the package would be what we call a bridge package. Call it 75% construction documents because you're going to want to then issue an RFP, get your developers, go through that process. You want them to own the last 25% because there might be some risk in there. So, to put a whole package out and then go through some amount of redesign based on where the market is at that point or what their experience is or what they believe they can build less expensive just puts the university in a in a place that we would not want to be.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: This is a template from Freeman French Freeman. So the million dollars, if you get the million, would you continue working with Freeman French Freeman to get you through the permitting and design documents?

[Art Klugo (Managing Partner, Camel’s Hump Development Group)]: We would have to issue an RFP. I I believe that exceeds the the statute, and we would issue an RFP. And if Freeman French Freeman just is the the best value, then we would be happy to continue working with them. It's been a great project so far.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Then once you get through, you think the million will get you through up to 75% of the construction documents, will get you through the permitting stage, will get you through any remediation or environmental studies. So you'd have all your ducks in a row, and then you go out to bid for a developer to carry it through for the next 25% of the design documents and then actually do the build the construction itself.

[Art Klugo (Managing Partner, Camel’s Hump Development Group)]: Yeah. That's correct. And

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: on the building. The state colleges went on it?

[Art Klugo (Managing Partner, Camel’s Hump Development Group)]: There's there's a couple of models there. Right? Institutional developers, sometimes they'll pay for everything, and then they own the building for twenty five years, and the institution receives the it back for a dollar. Really, we're open to any discussion there and would, you know, welcome the model that best meets the housing needs and the financial needs of the state and the university.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: And whatever the design is, the resulting apartments would be rented by students and non students?

[Beth Mauch (Chancellor, Vermont State Colleges/Vermont State University)]: I think our idea is, that this will be designed first and foremost for our students, because that's who we are serving. However, what we are noticing in the current Johnson apartments is that right now, which is our faculty and staff, there are non students who are also interested in these kinds of apartment buildings. Would be nice about this is, as the need for student housing on ours ebbs and flows, we can move up and down for how many students versus non students there are. So as opposed to the residence halls that we have now, which have the bathrooms at the end of the hall, which don't tend to work for many other folks, this would be something where you could use it for a variety of constituents.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: That would be a revenue stream.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It depends who owns

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

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It could be a revenue stream, but the tenant would be paying for whoever owns the bill. Correct? So it might not be the college. May not.

[Art Klugo (Managing Partner, Camel’s Hump Development Group)]: And so in there, there's an interesting opportunity as well. As the campus transitions from 100% students, now we have the clinic coming up, We actually have a a great Vermont business interested in leasing some space in the Martinetti Hall, even though the grant was not approved, that you'll start to see and and they wanna do workforce development on the campus in addition to setting up some of their manufacturing, low impact manufacturing operations. So as the campus starts to become this upper village, you're gonna have the the cultural and tourist center in the Lower Village. You're gonna have community services and a different type of atmosphere on this Upper Village. That housing piece starts to become more more traditional market style housing, which will unlock the opportunity to either do the phase two or another building such as this in a similar area because there is more parking that could be utilized for more housing. And this is really the first step in transitioning to this new vibrant campus.

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: Will and Right now, what is total enrollment at Johnson's campus?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Have So there's about 200

[Laura V. Trieschmann (State Historic Preservation Officer; Director, Vermont Division for Historic Preservation, ACCD)]: students who are living on campus right now. And then we have the way that Swansea University works, the students are enrolled, whether they're in face to face classes or in hybrid classes. So it's difficult to denote specifically how many students are enrolled at the Johnson campus, but living on campus are about 200 right now. So

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: it sounds like you guys kind of ebb and flow with being kind of like not a full residential college campus, but you guys can kind of accommodate that with the hybrid learning with the remote This

[Beth Mauch (Chancellor, Vermont State Colleges/Vermont State University)]: would allow us, I guess, to ebb and flow, I think.

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: Okay. Okay. The reason I asked that was because we had a similar thing at Bennington College, where we were contracting for a separate department unit, and we've actually moved those back into the private market so often to college, and I know it caused a lot of disruption for students. So I just kind of wanted to know what that ebb and flow you know, model looks like. I I shouldn't say there's huge disruption, but I think, you know, options will decrease. People will expect to move back on the campus. And so just wanna know what you guys were planning for that, you know, because it sounds like you guys are wanting to make it meet a 100% in weeks. So I'm curious, would the contract if you guys project what the expected contract is to look like?

[Beth Mauch (Chancellor, Vermont State Colleges/Vermont State University)]: I don't know that we know what the contracts would look like yet. I would say, obviously, we are an institution of higher learning. And so our students are our number one concern. And so for us, we are thinking of this as student housing. I would say the ebb and flow piece of this at this point in time would be when we have excess capacity, suddenly we would have this ability to fill those.

[Unidentified (tech/staff interjections)]: I'm

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: going to have Shawn Conor, then Kevin.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: The floor plans are are brilliant. The sizing's really well done. Is this similar to, like, what Netty did up in at UVM? Did you do you know, like, the one of the big dorms that they built up there? I don't know if Troy

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: But we have Redstone Law Center. Well The original Redstone Not the original. The new one.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: The the more modern. It's you know?

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: It seems like it's a good model. Think those are more driven towards single students, though. Right?

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Well, they're designed for primarily juniors and seniors. And but no. I mean, single rooms.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: They are single rooms. They're not, like Within a shared park.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Oh, okay. Primary venues.

[Jamie Duggan (Director of Preservation, Vermont State Historic Sites)]: I'm not

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: Alright. So it's I just wasn't sure. Like, it's there exam like, is are there examples of this?

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

[Art Klugo (Managing Partner, Camel’s Hump Development Group)]: How does this compare to, like, redstone walls? Probably this is more this is different. It is different. This is really market rate apartments. You would go online in Burlington, a brand new building, and you would expect to see some of the things that you have here. Now, what we've done is we've said, we don't need that much space. There is this overbuilding in a little bit in today's world. So how can we design something that's small, efficient, compelling that that people want and do it in do it at scale? So 12 foot module, you just keep repeating that. If you need a two bedroom, great. You got two twelve foot modules. If you need a three bedroom, you do that. But this is very intentionally designed to support folks actually like myself. I went to school a little later in life. And for those of us that do that, we want education to revolve around our life and not our life around education. And so this really is single family housing, but apartment style.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Conor and then Kevin.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: Sounds like a great vision. It really does. And I'm excited hearing about it. I think it checks boxes for the legislature, the governor. The big question, I think it's more for the colleges, right? We have a capital bill and this isn't in it. So the question is, the agency administration sends this to us. Do they support this? And I asked this for process, right? Because the second year of a capital bill, we have little room to play around with. So, it would need to be a collaborative process, probably working with the administration to see what do we sacrifice in place of this. So, could you just explain how the processes work? Are they on board with this?

[Beth Mauch (Chancellor, Vermont State Colleges/Vermont State University)]: Is something that we've told, yes, the agency of administration. We have really been working with the legislature on this project. I know that Senator Groot has been very interested in it. There are opportunities for this to some of the CHIP funding and Opportunity Zone funding in it. And so it is just this unique piece. I know in the capital bill, is really a two year bill together. And so the idea being, we realize we're late to the table with this, and it's why we're coming here now to give you all information on it.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So I'm gonna ask more specifically.

[Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: I'm gonna ask more specifically.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: When the governor put out the request for capital needs

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: Correct.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Other was also this issue. Was this in your request to the administration to include in the capital bill budget budget adjustment to the administration? We did not do that. Yep.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: We all want more affordable housing. Is it too early to ask you what kind of target monthly rental fee or annual fee you're hoping to get to with whatever design you have?

[Art Klugo (Managing Partner, Camel’s Hump Development Group)]: No, it's never too early, because that's where you got to build your pro form a off of it to figure out whether it's going to actually work or not, right? Pencil out, yes.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: That's why that's been the question.

[Art Klugo (Managing Partner, Camel’s Hump Development Group)]: And so part of that is going to be how fast we can move on the project, because right now our schedule is aggressive in trying to issue. We would likely issue the RFPs before the funding was approved if there was a sense that this might be moving in the right direction so that we could be breaking ground in the fall and bring these apartments online later next year in '27 and avoid another 5% increase because escalation happens roughly at 5% a year. The rents that were that were targeted are gonna vary a little different here. Roughly. I I not specific. I mean,

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: you got a one bedroom, two bedroom, three bedroom, roughly.

[Art Klugo (Managing Partner, Camel’s Hump Development Group)]: Right. So if you were to go online and look at what a one bedroom for a college student at Vermont State University is, I want to say it's like $6.75 or $6.25 a room. Because this is market rate, we would be looking at $1,900 a month up to $2,500 a month. Per room? Per Oh, so 1,900 for a one bedroom, 2,200 for a two bedroom, 2,300 for a three bedroom. Now, because this is college style apartment housing, that would translate roughly to depending on whether you're going to have two people in a room or one person in a room, somewhere between 600 and $1,000 a bed, which is the typical metric for university or apartment style housing. We have to build the pro form a on a market rate in order to make this attractive to a developer to come in and support this. Now, these numbers are rough order of magnitude. They were used to build a model to answer questions like how far does the million dollars get us? And we know where that's at.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So 1,900, those rent include utilities or utilities on top that?

[Art Klugo (Managing Partner, Camel’s Hump Development Group)]: That would include utilities. Yeah.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Lynn Dickinson is member of the board, State College Board.

[Lynn Dickinson (Legislative Trustee, Vermont State Colleges Board)]: Yes. Director Lynn Dickinson represents St. August Town, legislative trustee. Just to clarify, I went with the CFO and the chancellor to the governor's office to present our budget request. And we did in fact talk about this. When did you do that? We talked about our proposal and our request for the shared budget. While we were there, we did mention this issue of the apartments and trying to create a housing situation that would be appropriate for the college as it is now. The other thing is that this is not just for the married student housing that's there now, is not just used by students, it's also used by staff and faculty. Another important piece that when you want to hire someone, you find a place to live and those are the kinds of things that we could use to help the existing staff and faculty.

[Unidentified (tech/staff interjections)]: So there's more than just student dorms. They're not really student dorms. This is an apartment building. The students we have now are often older and they aren't going live in a traditional dorm. I mean, we have one of the things been doing for six years, as you realize, is that we have gone through a transformation because we are overbuilt, under populated, and it's really important we find something that students want to use, want to pay for, want to live in so they can increase our enrollment and have the colleges remain successful.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Thank you. Thank you for that. And that was

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: the quick question, which you just answered, Lynn, is does this increase enrollment, you think, at Johnson State, this building?

[Beth Mauch (Chancellor, Vermont State Colleges/Vermont State University)]: Yeah, I mean, yes, I don't know that I'd put a correlation on it. With a 30 unit apartment building, I said we have space right now for 500 in the residence hall, it would be in a normal drive.

[Art Klugo (Managing Partner, Camel’s Hump Development Group)]: Adding to that, this becomes a forcing function for Johnson Health Clinic, which is looking to expand actually. They want to bring two or three additional folks on board to expand their services into a wide variety of places. They may stay here. That's not direct enrollment, but it is a direct use for the apartments. The the company that we're talking about, which has a manufacturing and workforce training need, they're looking to stay in Johnson because they have a specific person that lives in Johnson that's very important to the company. They're going to bring that workforce house training or workforce training on board. They're going to have some manufacturing. They may have folks that want to move in there. So the the direct correlation isn't necessarily to more students, but it is to a more active, vibrant campus, which is really what we're setting out to do here.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Completely different context. I want to acknowledge that upfront. In many ways, the University of Vermont is looking at a very different, almost opposite, literally opposite of overbuilt and underemployed right now. But they recently embarked on a project not dissimilar from this in South Burlington, close to the rugby field there. And they eventually pulled the plug, saying we just we can't make it work. The costs are going be too high. What's different about this? How do we avoid, eight months from now, the state university saying, you know what? We up we were right. I don't know the details. I just know how it was he presented at Burlington and the surrounding community.

[Art Klugo (Managing Partner, Camel’s Hump Development Group)]: You know, I I I thought that question might come up, and I don't have it. I don't have the I have the answer, but I don't know that I'm at liberty to share it, but I know a little bit too much about that project. I will just say that the reason that project didn't move forward was not just because of cost.

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

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Was that on UBM owned property?

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

[Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: It was? Okay.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Well, there

[Art Klugo (Managing Partner, Camel’s Hump Development Group)]: was a land swap there. It was on the hotel's property. In And order to make that go, the hotel was going Yes. And that was the reason, if you've been on the Doubletree lately, you see the new hotel or the additional rooms being built up front. That was so that the back part of the hotel could be demolished to support Catamount Woods, I believe, is the the project there. I'm a South Burlington resident, so a little interested in

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: that Alright.

[Unidentified (tech/staff interjections)]: That project.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: But can you talk a little

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: bit more about how this project avoids

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: some of

[Conor Casey (Member)]: the So

[Art Klugo (Managing Partner, Camel’s Hump Development Group)]: one is being very aggressive on a timetable, acknowledging there's a housing need. There is a little bit of a leap of faith here, but we believe we're solid in the work that we've done to date and why we selected the location that we did. By doing that, you remove escalation. The other part of it is you need to have the right partner. I've talked to several developers. There are probably 600 units of apartments that have been built recently in South Burlington in city center that were done for less than $300 a square foot. There's a certain model it takes to get to that, It and takes a certain developer mindset to be able to do that. You will hear numbers like you can't build it for less than 4 and $50 a square foot or $500 a square foot. With the right partners and the right structure, we can do that. But it takes takes some effort and some investment. But it can be done.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So what if you don't get the million? What do you do? Where do you go? Because that's a big ass in a middle of a two year budget. So we got other asses as well. So if you don't get the million, what happens?

[Art Klugo (Managing Partner, Camel’s Hump Development Group)]: I would would say there would be a little bit of a retrenching here and trying to figure out what the next steps would be because there are a series of as I mentioned, we view this as a forcing function to support the city of Johnson, the town offices, village offices. There are other things that we're trying due to this campus to support that. It's not really the impact here isn't just on Vermont State University. It's on the town of Johnson. And so because we've talked to partners, as chancellor has mentioned, we would have to reengage that process and try to figure out what the next steps would be out.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And what if you don't know what the amount would be come May, either way? What then happens to your time frame of putting a shovel in the ground and fall? Because no decisions will really be made until the May.

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: I keep hearing a whisper that they'll come back next year. I keep hearing

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: You need the million. You need a million or something to get going. But what I was hearing is a shovel in the ground by fall, which means you need a million now, which our legislative process doesn't

[Art Klugo (Managing Partner, Camel’s Hump Development Group)]: Doesn't work. Like that.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And nothing will be decided really firmly until, excuse me, April or so in May. So that right there bumps it out. Your fall date bumps that out. At least you can find the money elsewhere.

[Art Klugo (Managing Partner, Camel’s Hump Development Group)]: I think my counsel to the chancellor and the Vermont State College team would be to move forward with the RFP. We could just need to go through the process and understand how we want that structured. We don't necessarily need to issue the RFP, but be prepared to issue the RFP. From the time that you issue, it usually takes about six weeks to make a selection.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So RFP to

[Art Klugo (Managing Partner, Camel’s Hump Development Group)]: Request for proposal to the design team.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: For the design team.

[Art Klugo (Managing Partner, Camel’s Hump Development Group)]: That's right.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: To get to 75% of the construction.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Right. That's enjoy thinking we've got the million dollars. When you move forward, Where is the capital that are gonna come to build this design?

[Art Klugo (Managing Partner, Camel’s Hump Development Group)]: We will Private be money? Yes.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It'll be the developer.

[Art Klugo (Managing Partner, Camel’s Hump Development Group)]: Yes. It'll be the developer.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Developer bills it, and then the college leases it back. And those rent payments will go to the developer or to the college?

[Art Klugo (Managing Partner, Camel’s Hump Development Group)]: Well, it would go towards the developer to the debt. Right? We would need to and then would there be a a shared arrangement on any revenue there? One of the challenges with housing today, as you're probably all aware, is that it it's tough to build housing that's attainable at the level that we're trying to get to. So typically, what happens is you need to rent it for some period of time. And then as wages increase enough and value is enough, you can recapitalize that project and do some different things with it. And so we're trying to get through the initial period, which is get it built, get it stabilized in the first eighteen months to two years, and then go forward from there. And we believe having been in I've spent a lot of time on that campus. I talked to both the village and the town, and think you'd be surprised how well this project would be received in the community. Is this any opportunity to No. No. Grab

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: the other

[Unidentified (tech/staff interjections)]: This is

[Art Klugo (Managing Partner, Camel’s Hump Development Group)]: essentially part of a chip project? Yeah. Yeah.

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: Is this is this a chip project, potentially? It's chip project. I

[Art Klugo (Managing Partner, Camel’s Hump Development Group)]: think there could be some funding coming out of the chip piece then.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And who would apply for that? Would that be the community at Johnson? Would that be system? Would that be the developer or partnership of everybody? Usually, it's a community that applies for that or some organization.

[Art Klugo (Managing Partner, Camel’s Hump Development Group)]: So I've been counseled that the university is in a unique position as a quasi municipality, so it has some flexibility in terms of how that may play out.

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: Sounds like shit. It doesn't work cut out.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yeah. I agree. It would certainly

[Laura V. Trieschmann (State Historic Preservation Officer; Director, Vermont Division for Historic Preservation, ACCD)]: work with the town of Village to make whatever makes them most sense, whether it's the community that makes them with LCPC, so the local commission in conjunction with that, we're doing that ourselves. As a component unit of the state of proponents, you have a little bit of a unique relationship as part of these processes, but we would work together with all of those entities to make sure that we were doing whatever was in the best interest of the community and the Vermont ecologists on the state.

[Art Klugo (Managing Partner, Camel’s Hump Development Group)]: How much of the private do you think you could amortize with with with the increment? Somebody knows that. Out of the chip piece? It the chip we're not sure how much of the project would actually qualify for chip dollars yet because we haven't gotten that far. So we've gotta get some details around what pieces might we be able to put in the chip buckets right now. But infrastructure on most projects might be in in a project like this, infrastructure might be 5% of the total project cost. Not gonna be the same as it would be from a greenfield site where you're trying to extend up the infrastructure to that site because a lot of it's already in place. But it helps the capital stack, and we would not want to not do that. It's just a different structure. Kevin? It's probably a dumb question,

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: but what what do you, project cost to build this one room housing rental unit will cost.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It's a one bedroom apartment.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: You're gonna rent for $1,900 with utilities. Well, the

[Art Klugo (Managing Partner, Camel’s Hump Development Group)]: total project to a first phase, 30 units.

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: Yes. Okay.

[Art Klugo (Managing Partner, Camel’s Hump Development Group)]: So it's not completely in half because you need to build a little bit of the support structure for phase two. Yep. At So the range is gonna be somewhere between 10 and 11 and a half million dollars when all said and done. And the reason that there's a range there is for and that's just for direct construction. And the range there is because we've got to right size the units. We've got to right size the public and support space so that we get the right square footage, because the biggest impact you can have on a project is square footage. Keep that square footage low, it becomes much more attainable in terms of what what it is. So it's a you know, from a construction cost right now, that's where it's at. And the base model is built on $300 a square foot plus contingency. And so that range is based on square footage, not on construction price. So we never do math in here, but that translates to me about $750,000 per person.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Well, you get some apartments there. There are two bedrooms. You got some apartments that are three bedrooms. You got some apartments that are one bedroom. So, a two bedroom apartment could have grapple in there.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: 51. So I'm looking at your $30.31. I

[Art Klugo (Managing Partner, Camel’s Hump Development Group)]: I will so a a thousand square foot unit at $300 a square foot, and this is a going rate, is $300,000 regardless of how many bedrooms you put in there, because the most expensive thing, the bathrooms and the kitchens. You're going have that in a one bedroom, a two bedroom or three bedroom. Right? You're going to have you can do a two bedroom, one bath. You can also do a two bedroom, two bath. I wouldn't advocate for that in this particular instance, you but probably have a three bedroom, two bath. So there are things that are scalable, there's things that that are not. That's why the the base rent at $1,900 isn't that much different from the $2,500 at the the three bedroom.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: I'm just old with the mortgage. I don't know whether this is affordable or not.

[Art Klugo (Managing Partner, Camel’s Hump Development Group)]: Yeah. Well, we we probably bought our houses where you didn't spend more than three times your your take home for the house, and that whole market's not yeah.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Just don't know whether this would be considered affordable. I'm assuming this is affordable.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Well, if it includes the utilities. Yeah.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: So

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: we've run over. I know some folks need to go to other commitments. Thank you for coming in. We appreciate this. I don't want to speak to any promises. I know this is percolating out there. And we'll just have to see where we are as a committee when we do markup. I'm not making promises one way or the other.

[Art Klugo (Managing Partner, Camel’s Hump Development Group)]: If you go through that process, if you have any questions, obviously, don't hesitate.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I may reach out again. Who knows?

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: I'll Absolutely. Take

[Art Klugo (Managing Partner, Camel’s Hump Development Group)]: The more the merrier.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I changed them off. Get

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: rid of

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: that closet, make it a mudroom.

[Art Klugo (Managing Partner, Camel’s Hump Development Group)]: There we go.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: How about it is Vermont, right?

[Art Klugo (Managing Partner, Camel’s Hump Development Group)]: Yeah. More closet. Okay.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Yeah, Mr. SDB.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Good to go.

[Art Klugo (Managing Partner, Camel’s Hump Development Group)]: Thank you.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Then chocolate clad the

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: outside closet. Stomach is

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: in line.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: There's actually

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: a bigger pantry now, too.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I love it. I love it.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So thank you all. I know we've

[Unidentified speaker (committee/staff; multiple brief interjections)]: Appreciate got a it. Thank you. You bet.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: We've got a busy, busy week on scheduling. So tomorrow, we're back here at start out with the agency of ag with a good water quality grant. Thank you. Great to get started. So we're done for today, and we will be back