Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: That that we just opened up that document. We can project that.

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Minnesota planning rights?

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: Yeah.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: K. Pollution control.

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Pollution control.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: Yeah. That's lot for folks.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It's always good to get a list. Welcome back folks. This is House Corrections and Institutions Committee. It's Wednesday, March 18. And I always ask Department of Environmental Conservation to send over their list of proposed projects for both. And I know we made the agreement for the Clean Water State Revolving Loan Fund, but we didn't talk about that yet.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: But

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: what the Clean Water Fund Board recommended was 1.577 plus. And then for the municipal pollution grants of $3,900,000,000 So for the Clean Water Revolving Loan Fund, that's a one to five act with the feds, the same as your drinking water revolving loan fund. For your pollution control, your municipal pollution control grants, that's an all state money. That's not used for a match. So what you see up there and we can make paper copies of this if people are interested, which I always like to have a paper copy because legislators from different towns will ask. They have a project, and they wanna know where it is in the pipeline, which is really helpful. So for the first one, this is for the Clean Water Revolving Loan Fund. The first section of this is priority listing as of the February 12 for the loan status for these projects. And total state revolving loan fund project costs, those are the total cost that's involved Oh. That's involved. So what the total cost of the project is, I don't it's not what the state share is. That one, you're getting into 31,000,000 or 34,000,000. So this is what is projected to be funded through the S fiscal year twenty six budget, which includes the 4,000,000. No, we didn't put anything in because they had enough backlog. So if you look at our spreadsheet in the gray section, for FY '26, we did not put any money in for the Clean Water Revolvement Loan Fund because they had enough that they could match the Fed's. But this is where they're projecting the projects to go. And if you look on the very bottom of the screen below funding level line as of February 1226. So the money that they have available, they can go down as far as that is South Burlington. Anything after that, they're likely to start funding, hopefully, with what we put in for FY '27.

[Unknown Committee Member]: Yeah. Thank you, Solomon.

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: I have a small and probably insignificant question. What is I feel like it says PFP. M is obviously municipal, but what does PFP mean for a code?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Where are you?

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: It's third

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Oh, yeah.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Old Valley Community. Is

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: I mean, this probably really matter, but I'm just curious. Private for profit?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: No. It's a private She's private for profit.

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Is it really? Yeah.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Okay. Private.

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: P and P

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: and P is right here.

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: At the bottom. Well,

[Conor Casey (Member)]: I know.

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: I didn't mean to get too far. I was just curious if somebody I would think.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Dead wrong with what I thought.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So these so if you look on the line below the dark dark black, they're projected as far as the money goes, it's gonna go down to these projects. And they've been approved. The question is sometimes that we used to see is for these projects, they all gone to a bond vote. And they used to show that.

[Unknown Committee Member]: Do know what bypass means? Bypass likely to go to state fiscal for '27? Does that impact that line at all? Probably Brown's in state?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It would. It would bump it down.

[Unknown Committee Member]: And there's one from Barton too.

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. Yeah. So the '14 and the 2,000,000?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So they're what these are are ranked by priority? Point six. They are ranked. They are ranked. Yep. By priority points. The higher your priority points starting with Heinzburg

[Major David Peterson (Vermont State Police)]: That's right. Gotcha.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Top there Mhmm. Gotta scroll up. But Alright. It's good. There's a chunk of them at the beginning. Mhmm. This is a continuing project. And then when you get to Heinzburg, it says NA. But then after that, those, like, two, ninety, 89, 88, those are priority points. So the higher the number, the higher your priority to get the project done. So that's why those are listed. And the money is gonna go as far as it can down that priority thing. And as far as it goes to South Burlington. Yeah. And they have a 64 priority point. So some of this is they may not, for some reason, they may bypass likely to apply. Now maybe they didn't have a bond vote yet, or maybe they were waiting for a bond vote. I don't know.

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Didn't they talk to us about that last year? I feel like the

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Well, every year, they talk to us.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: In our case, and then they would just move down to the next priority.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: Right. Right. This

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: I feel like it did say the last year. I could be wrong.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So it's always handy to have this list because there will be people that might ask, I have a project in my town. Where is it? And it's always good to have this list.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: But, you know, I remember I I had some folks in San Alton City had a question about the class two paving grant program, and it's a very similar scoring system. And it also factors in how much money your community's got in the past.

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

[Conor Casey (Member)]: Mhmm.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Which is so you can explain it.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So that's for the Clean Water Revolving Loan Fund. And what the Clean Water Fund Board recommended was 1,577,600. That would be our federal match for money that goes into the revolving fund that goes out and grants and loans to these projects. We all right with that? So if you keep scrolling down, the next that starts with Franklin Town, this is for your municipal pollution grants. Guess they didn't have enough cash to bring it up to 4,000,000. So it was 392,244. But these are the projected projects

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: And this is the this is

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Municipal solution grants. This is what's in the pipeline

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Mhmm.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: For that available through us. Why? Okay. So these are the actual amounts.

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: So, Alice, do you know on this list, so multiple, the first one is a good example, where it says, so it says total SRF project cost is empty and then

[Emily Connor (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: where are you?

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Top line, like Franklin for example, and there's plenty of them like this, whether the one, two, three, the fourth column and the sixth column are empty. That

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: That's mean that state fiscal year '26 total state revolving fund project costs, so they're not getting any money from the state revolving fund.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: So

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: they're getting money from the might not get money from the municipal pollution grant because they can get money from both places. So what we're looking at Gotcha. Is a column that says PC grant eligibility.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: Mhmm.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: That ties into the 3,900,000.0.

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Mhmm.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Ties into the 4,000,000 from f y six and the 3,900,000.0 plus in f y twenty seven.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: Yep.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Okay. So you wanna look at the PC eligible because the SF is your state evolving fund.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: Okay. Thank you.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So these are the projects for the municipal pollution grants. And that 3,900,000.0 get you just. This is for the FY '26. And then if you scroll down. This next one. Oh, that's your drinking water. This is your drinking water. So you got a lot of projects in the pipeline. And there was 4,000,000 in f y twenty six. So they expend the money as far as it goes, and then they pick it up the following year. Mhmm. It's as best as you can do it. So, like, Shelburne has a couple projects. South Burlington has a couple projects. Saint Albans has a couple projects. Franklin. What else for here?

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Yeah. That Saint Albans project is is is happening right now.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So it just helps you as well. Berlin has a has a project in my hopper.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Solomon's kinda interesting. They've taken an entire football field in a park. It's not functional right now, but they're putting a huge this stormwater collection tank underneath it.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So if folks want a paper copy of this

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Yes, please.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yeah. Let Tate know because this is good to have. Please. Do have any folks on a paper copy?

[Unknown Committee Member]: Did you post it?

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: I have not yet, but I will.

[Unknown Committee Member]: Go ahead, it's posted.

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: I found it there. These programs said they requested

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: by the town.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Oh, yeah. They're working with DEC. They have to be approved. They have to go through a whole priority list. But I think you need to initiate the request. Yes. You gotta go to DEC. So make about six copies. So that's very helpful. So are we Okay with months '88 and '89?

[Conor Casey (Member)]: Okay,

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: let's bump up to agency of AG. Water quality, and I know that there's also money in the general fund bill for this. This goes really directly to farmers. Those sorts of calculation for water quality to meet benchmarks.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: That was the two representatives from the Pittsburgh Academy in the waiting room.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Okay, they're zooming in? Yeah. And they're scheduled for 10:30, right?

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: Yes.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Let's come back to this because I know that Scott's doing some work for because there's money in the appropriations bill. He's like to know what's going on at the door. So before we let those two folks in, we're gonna shift gears for the firing range. K? We Nine eight. Mhmm. Thousand. We zeroed that out yesterday.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: Yeah. Got you. 8000

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: zeroing out.

[Unknown Committee Member]: And

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: the reason why we were thinking about it is it doesn't really need to get done. The project is to make the firing range a little longer. It is used for training. And it would be putting on a new roof so that the water, snow doesn't drip down and then turn into ice on the firing range, which makes it dangerous for those officers who are being trained. And it's designed it's only to go to design documents. It's not to do construction. So the thinking is we've got a lot of other projects that need to go forward, and let's hold off on design efforts for this. Is that accurate on where we were yesterday? It is. Okay. So let's let the folks. Okay, we have anyone else besides Ken Hawkins and Michael DeRosier? So anyone else due to come in today?

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: Just the

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Just the two? Oops. Welcome, and thank you for spending being able to adjust your schedule real quick to come in. We appreciate it. That's one more. Okay. I just wanna get the documents from yesterday. We had a question yesterday. We're doing markup of the capital bill, and we had a question on the 200,000 that's being proposed for the firing range at the academy. And our understanding is it's for design documents. And it is to put on a new roof with icing that's happening on the range now and to extend the length of the range. And we just had some questions about what the $200,000 would get us And what the plan is, our understanding the 200,000 would be for design documents. And when do you anticipate those design documents to be done and then ready to go out to construction? And also to really validate what the need is of this money for the range itself. So I don't know of the three of you, which one would be going first. So I'll leave that up to you folks. Okay. Michael DeRosier, welcome. And Michael, if you could just identify yourself for the record.

[Mike DeRosier (Executive Director, Division of Fire Safety)]: Yeah. For the record, I'm Mike DeRosier, the executive director for the division of fire safety. And I'll lead off first with just some real high level information for the committee. But I also chair the legislative governance committee, which looks at capital construction projects down there at the training facility. And if you recall a number of years ago, representative Shaw helped in formulating this governance committee down there at the training site so that we could provide a single voice to the legislature on issues that concern the facility in Pittsford. So the Governance Committee has selected the shooting range as a high priority item to be repaired because of the number of safety concerns and the functionality of this aging structure. So I'm not going to pretend here to be an expert on the shooting range specifically. So so we did bring Ken Hawkins and and Major Peterson on board here to talk specific to the needs of the law enforcement entity. But the governance committee did vote and approve the this capital request to help law enforcement out on getting this facility brought up to meet their needs.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Thank you, Michael.

[Mike DeRosier (Executive Director, Division of Fire Safety)]: Yes, ma'am.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Any questions of Mike before we go to Ken? Okay, Ken, welcome.

[Ken Hawkins (Deputy Director, Vermont Criminal Justice Council/Police Academy)]: Good morning, ma'am.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So if you could just identify yourself for the record.

[Ken Hawkins (Deputy Director, Vermont Criminal Justice Council/Police Academy)]: Sure. My name is Ken Hawkins. I'm the Deputy Director of the Remodel Justice Council and the Vermont Police Academy.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Okay. So we just heard a broad overview. Is there anything in specific that you'd like to add?

[Ken Hawkins (Deputy Director, Vermont Criminal Justice Council/Police Academy)]: I think to keep it brief, there are significant concerns with our ability to train all of Vermont partners with regard to firearms training throughout the state. We don't just serve state entities, we serve all municipalities at the same time to provide the space available for required rule training or that happens every year. Every officer in the state is required to complete an annual training that includes firearms training and we are one of the only entities still available for any of those agencies to come and complete that training. One of the things that we've identified was exactly what Chittenden Rocher just talked about is that environmentally our range is a three sided concrete port structure with a series of baffles at the end that contain all of the rounds that go through from the firing line down through the end of the range. It's currently a 25 yard range, The baffles get cleaned out about every other to every three years depending on the number of users of the range and the number of rounds that are fired annually just to ensure that we don't have issues with cleanup at the end. So what we've discovered is that in contracting this out in 2010, one of the issues was to ensure that we never had a round leave the range. So to that end, we hired a contractor. I know it was Megan Systems that came in and created this space for us. It is a 16 lane range that has overhead baffling systems that are all armored plate so that a round cannot leave the range no matter whether you're prone or standing or kneeling and facing downrange. The rounds physically can't leave the range at that point. The end baffling system is also gauge steel with rubber trocal that collects and traps those rounds and keeps them from leaving the range. It is a 25 yard 16 lane range. So as you can imagine in a giant cooler box made of concrete, anytime we start getting into December, January, February, March, it gets a little exciting down there. The baffles do not keep out the weather and the entire firing lane is or excuse me, firing and is exposed to the elements. So we have all of the precipitation, whether it's rain, snow, sleet, whatever it might be coming down on the midline between the firing range and the target line, which in that season can get very exciting as we try to get students to go down range and either change targets or if we're firing from the five yard line, whatever that might be. We're asking students to go up and down hills of snow that are created by the baffles. It might be ice. It might be just pools of water. Either way, we are having a difficult time completing that training during that time frame, which reduces our ability to have other agencies and ourselves who run three part time and two full time classes per year, each one of which has a week long firing range block attached to it. So that's one so environmentally and from a safety perspective, that's one of our concerns. It's not uncommon to have students slip and fall on that range between the firing line and the target line. Most of our firing occurs forward of the 25 yard line And to provide the best training we can that that needs to be a thing. So there's a couple a couple issues there for environmental and safety factors. We also worry about the size of the range. Freeman French and Freeman did a great job in analyzing and providing us with three different options, all of which were were varied in cost, but one was to cover the range which would help that environmental shift to get the the Bay clean of ice and snow. The second one was to increase the size and the length of the range, and I believe the third option was to include a firing range outside that would be for patrol rifles only. Each one of those are are necessary and each one of those are important. I think it's the $200,000 that you're referring to now would give us those better equipped options to see how much the cost would really be now for each of those options so we can move forward.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Questions?

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: We wait till everybody's done?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: They're gonna ask. Just ask.

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: So Ken, I got a couple of questions. One is, you might have said this and I missed it. So on your range, is it all stationary or do people move through it?

[Ken Hawkins (Deputy Director, Vermont Criminal Justice Council/Police Academy)]: We have, it's a move, so it's an open bay. So we move through it. If they're only completing the rule qualification, then it's the typical starting off with a three yard line, moving back to the five, moving back to the five, moving back to the seven, the 12, and then the 25 for the annual qual. But that's not what we do our basic training gap. We are moving throughout all 16 lanes of the range. So, we're not always on the X.

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Thank you, and the reason I asked that is obviously it's much more of a safety issue if people are moving with a loaded pistol or rifle than if they're stationary and in the line. And the second question is, you have, I realize that the documents aren't done yet, but are you guys ready and able to start building soon? I guess Alice is telling me no.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: You need money.

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Well, I mean, I know the money, but like from your perspective, doing this and wanting it, you're prepared as soon as it's built or is there some kind of delay on your end too? So I guess if that makes sense.

[Ken Hawkins (Deputy Director, Vermont Criminal Justice Council/Police Academy)]: Nope, that absolutely makes sense. So you're absolutely right in that we'd have to adjust our training schedule to make sure that it doesn't interfere with whatever that build out might look like. I think right now it would also depend on what the build out is going to be. That 2022 document that outlined the three options, it would 100%, I think, depend on what the options came in at with a revised analysis of cost and what we were going to be able to do based on the cost estimates that they provided at that time. If it's just a covering, would be one thing. If it was pushing it out from the 25 yard range that is now to the 50, then it should be. That would obviously be a different time frame and a different cost. I think all those variables would add up to our having to readjust our scheduling and agencies throughout the state readjusting their scheduling to whatever that might look like.

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Thank you. So let's

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: get into the flow of the money. The 200,000 you've already from 2022, you worked with Freeman French Freeman. They've come back with three different options. So the 200,000 would do allow you to do further design work, design documents to figure to narrow down those three options. So then if you did that, then in the next fiscal year for the capital budget, you would come back for a request from us for the money to do the work to extend the range and close the range, put a new roof on, whatever you decide from refining these three options. So it's up to the capital bill to pay for future construction of the range. Correct? Michael, you're shaking.

[Mike DeRosier (Executive Director, Division of Fire Safety)]: No. That that would be correct.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Okay. Just want the committee to know we'd be responsible for billing this because this is a state owned piece of property. It's the criminal justice training council in Pittsburgh. It's where we train our law enforcement, both state and municipal, as well as our fire departments. And it's a state owned operation. So, Ken, can you do you know off the top of your head for what Freeman French Freeman, those three options, what price ranges we were looking at for the construction? I know they're old numbers.

[Ken Hawkins (Deputy Director, Vermont Criminal Justice Council/Police Academy)]: I do. And if I can squint real hard, I believe the top the top covering was 1,077,000.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: That was just for the enclosed covering or just the roof?

[Ken Hawkins (Deputy Director, Vermont Criminal Justice Council/Police Academy)]: That was the roof, sound attenuation, seal structure, some lighting, and bird screening. It also included a target transport system that we are not in favor of, so we might have some cost savings there. And again, I don't want to preclude the major from chiming in here. So at any time, sir, please jump in. The second option was a 2,082,000 option which would add the 25 yards to make this a 50 yard range which it should be. We shouldn't be training to just 25 yards. That's not a national or excuse me, a national standard. That would again include the sound attenuation, the concrete slab, LED lighting, the structural roof that we talked about during the first option, bio screening, a new bullet trap system that would have to be incorporated at the end of that 50 yard range line, and the third line would include the exterior patrol rifle range which would be 100 yard outside range that would be attached to the right or left side of the range.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Any questions before we move to Major Peters? Major Petersons, yours. So if you could identify yourself for the record.

[Major David Peterson (Vermont State Police)]: Good morning, committee. Thank you for hearing me today. My name is David Peterson. I'm a major with the Vermont State Police in charge of the Support Services Division. I wanna say Ken's done a fantastic job of outlining many of the remarks I was going to make. I'll just quickly say that for VSP and our training staff, firearm training is a high liability topic. Getting practitioners to be proficient is paramount and the existing range structure at the BPA just has its limitations that impact that. I was down there with our new class that's going through, the academy currently in January, and I'm out on the range watching some of their, proficiency exercises. Water's tripping on them, water's tripping on me. It's a distraction. It just, it it makes a challenge a challenging learning environment. Ken highlighted well already the distance of the range and how that impacts things but it really precludes being able to develop proficiency with patrol rifles in particular, which is now a standard issue for the Vermont State Police. So we're we we recognize that, you know, any move to, enhance that facility would be beneficial, not certainly for our organization, but also for law enforcement throughout the state.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Well, I don't want to be facetious here, but at least it's giving real life training.

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: At the same time.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: At the same time. Right. So, hang on. I do have a question, Kent. For the numbers that you put out, the Freeman French Freeman gave us options, are those total project costs or is that just construction costs?

[Ken Hawkins (Deputy Director, Vermont Criminal Justice Council/Police Academy)]: I would defer to the chair on that. I believe those are total cost for it looks to me as though that's just scope and to provide for permitting preconstruction time. I believe that's in total.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: It would

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: be the total project cost, not just the construction.

[Ken Hawkins (Deputy Director, Vermont Criminal Justice Council/Police Academy)]: That's my understanding, ma'am.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yeah. And it would be BGS that would be doing going out for the work. We have the commissioner of BGS here and she's nodding. So it'd be a BGS project. Because

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: of the site and location and we would have oversight of this and the Because we own it. I believe we hold the contract with Freeman French treatment now. I I could I don't have it in front of me, but I'm pretty confident. Kevin? How do

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: we currently do the long range training, the 100 yard? We have a facility, I assume, or we have a location or we don't have anything at all.

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

[Ken Hawkins (Deputy Director, Vermont Criminal Justice Council/Police Academy)]: So I think agencies have taken upon themselves to partner with a lot of the rifle clubs and the hunting clubs throughout the state to try to find that 100 yard range where possible. I know that the Ethan Allen firing Range as part of Montgard attempts to make their ranges available where they can, Even their operational tempo now is so high that it's very difficult for a lot of agencies to be able to get time on those ranges. So what we've done is produced a qualification standard on reduced targets so that we can still maintain the patrol rifle qualification on our range at 25 yards by using those smaller or reduced targets. It is 100% not ideal.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: And what's the utilization when you have this long range? How many days or weeks out of the year would it be utilized?

[Ken Hawkins (Deputy Director, Vermont Criminal Justice Council/Police Academy)]: So, I think if we're talking just the patrol rifle range, sir, my guess would be it'll be in use at least one day a week, if not more. Right now, the range itself, the enclosed portion that we're talking about the upgrade for is in use at least two to three days per week.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Yeah, the long range at least once a once a week. I I hear you. Thank you.

[Ken Hawkins (Deputy Director, Vermont Criminal Justice Council/Police Academy)]: Thank you, sir.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So if you were not to get the 200,000 this year, what then happens? You're just on hold until next next year for the new cycle of the capital budget? Can you do anything going forward, or do you need the 200,000 to refine those three options that you've had? Can you refine those three options without 200,000?

[Mike DeRosier (Executive Director, Division of Fire Safety)]: I would I would answer that by saying no, we cannot. We would need the $200,000 to advance this initiative. I don't see any other funding source at this point.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: What would a 100,000 get you? Just putting stuff out.

[Unknown Committee Member]: No. Right.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: No. Why would 100,000 get you? Would it still get you to construction documents, or is it 200,000 you need to get construction documents?

[Mike DeRosier (Executive Director, Division of Fire Safety)]: I think I would defer to BGS on on that particular question. I can't I can't answer that.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yeah. Commissioner. So good morning, everyone. For the

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: record, Wanda Manoli, Commissioner of Buildings and General Services. I almost said to you. I call myself. I'd like to actually Emily and I just had a great meeting with Joe. We were going over some projects. This one came up. So I do wanna We'll have an answer before we will answer. Absolutely, madam chair. So we'll go back and look at the 200,000. And the question is, can you continue if you've got less money, how far could you advance this in order to bring it into the capital build next year? And so we will have an answer for you.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: We are here to serve.

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: Thank you. There you are.

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Wonderful.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Other questions to these three folks on the screen. Did this help the committee?

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Yes. Thank you, sir.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Thank you so much. So we'll circle back with BGS on this. We haven't made any decisions. We're just in the first walkthrough of markup. So we had some questions yesterday. I really appreciate the three of you taking time out of your day to come in and bring us more up to speed on the information. We really appreciate it.

[Mike DeRosier (Executive Director, Division of Fire Safety)]: Chair, if I could say one thing. I really do appreciate the support that your committee has given to the governance committee down there at the training facility, the support of the renovation of the East College and and all that you do to support us. Thank you for for the time this morning to to be able to discuss this with you.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Well, there was a lot of work that went into establishing that governance committee. So I really appreciate the work that you folks are doing. Thank you. Anything else? Okay. Thank you, the three of you. Thank you. You. You. Thank you. So we'll wait to get some more information back from BGS on this. And let's see what I got to get papers. Need to find my agenda.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: So

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: taking we have a ten.

[Unknown Committee Member]: The thirty is the AgFair.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It's the AgFair at

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: sorry. Eleven? Yeah.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Eleven. Yeah.

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: That's minutes away.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And BGS is at 11:30. My agenda. Oh,

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: listen. I maybe I took yours.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: Did you pull one?

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Well, can

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: He prints one out for me too, but I might have taken yours. I

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: just wanted to Just being proactive.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Yes.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: How much do you folks have for time here? Because you're scheduled at 11:30, but we wanted to talk about fiscal security enhancements. We're looking at that. Did you want to weigh in on 120 State Street or not? We

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: Hello, everyone. So I actually We had an opportunity to review and discuss with Joe and pull some of the questions you were asking yesterday. And there's a few items that we can share with you, Madam Chair, or with the committee that you'd like to bring some clarity to.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: You can share it

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: with the committee.

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: I don't chair. Just say, I don't know

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: what your schedule is because I can hand you this. We're markups. So do you wanna get on the witness?

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: Would you like us to make copies? Yes.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Why And don't you do We

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Okay, why don't you make copies and prepare? Are they coming online for Franklin County Field Days?

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: They're a mix of us.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: The county field days wasn't listed.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: We're doing

[Unknown Committee Member]: the their updates.

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: Yeah. Updates. And then Emily would like to present to you the security at 11:30, just so you know.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Can you do when we finish with the ag fair, we're talking about Franklin County?

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Lunch. I don't know if it's a pillow.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Talking about Franklin. They know they're just talking about Franklin County. Right?

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: If you're doing that at eleven At eleven. Can we roll in from there?

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

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: You shut everybody and even the team on security. Oh, Of course we can.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: When you say roll in, before they come in or after? Yeah.

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: Can just start security early.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yeah, pick up five minutes from security now.

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: Yep. Do you want to

[Emily Connor (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: do okay, security? Yeah. Sure. I can be as quick as you want me to do. So

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: for physical security, what we have that's line three for folks. And we have two fifty bonded

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: in

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: '27 and the governor's proposed $2.25 cash be added to that. So welcome. You just identified yourself, Emily.

[Emily Connor (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: Hi, Emily Conor Deputy Commissioner of Buildings and General Services for the record. It's nice to see you all. It's been a while.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: We haven't worked on this a long time. I know. So We're starting over.

[Emily Connor (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: The reason for the proposal for increased funding to physical security enhancements is really because we have a demonstrated increased need for security enhancements as well as the cost of those enhancements. And when I'm talking about physical security enhancements, I think the most common example would be our state badge readers and access keys, which are very important for, again, maintaining control that is to the building as well as identification of who's in it, as well as our security cameras. Those play a really important role for our ability to monitor our state buildings across the state where we can't always have a physical presence, but the cameras allow us to see what's going on and record where necessary. So those are the most common examples. But other examples could include, for example, fortified glass, like if we're having a client services window for an AHS meeting area, like that's another example, barriers.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Like those are

[Emily Connor (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: the types of things that we're talking about. And what we're seeing is that we are overspending that typical annual appropriation of $250,000 What that results in is the cost being shifted to fee for space when really in our recommendation, it is a capital bill item. It is a physical infrastructure improvement, and we should be budgeting for it instead of shifting it to the fee for space operating cost. Just in the past few years, security has been really moving forward in an admirable way with projects that, again, have gotten costlier over time. And so they did have some old money like around from the COVID years that they have worked through. And as a result, I would say we have in the past two years overspent our capital bill appropriation balance that we spent in excess of that amount has come either from shifting funds from other areas or again, putting those costs towards fee for space. Again, this we've already overs we've spent over our appropriation for for FY '26. We also just if you wanted a flavor of some of the projects that we've done recently that have a high cost. We did enhancements at Middlebury State Office Building that just didn't have appropriate security up to our standards. We did camera work at our welcome centers, which are sometimes in remote areas. We have state employees who are sometimes on their own. Again, having the traveling public come in, they didn't have camera or appropriate secure areas to go into. And so we sent about $75,000 doing upgrades in those areas. And then we have a list of anticipated projects that we could tackle now with appropriate funding that are over $450,000 So again, really, we're seeing the demand. And just as a reminder, these enhancements are built into our project costs when we're doing a new construction or a new renovation. This need is really for if we're having to upgrade, replace existing systems, if we have an older building or a lease that just isn't adequate, not even close to our standards, we're fine more frequently where we come in and make an assessment. And if it's our if we agree with the occupant that it's really not up to par, it's not secure enough, we really try our best to find the funding to make it happen for them. So we're just, again, seeing that more and more. And so we're requesting additional funds so we can carry out some of these upgrades.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Questions?

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: I guess maybe I have

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: a question.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So if you didn't get the full $2.25 on top of the $2.50. So if you didn't get the full am I looking at the right yeah, the full $7.25, you would just dole out your projects within that within that amount of goods available.

[Emily Connor (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: Yeah, we would just, again, we follow a normal practice of sort of prioritizing projects based on where we see the highest security needs. So we would follow that approach. We would spend what we have available to us. And in some cases, work is truly necessary, shift those costs to keeperspace.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So how much you said $400,000 Is that about what average you're spending over a two year period or a one year period? One year period. And Madam Chair and Emily has been working

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: really closely with Bill, and this is one of our programs resetting and trying to address the security concerns outside of what's in a normal project. And I don't know if you highlighted the shift of those costs to other programs that aren't funded, which is fee for space.

[Emily Connor (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: Yeah, exactly. So again, if there's something we really feel needs to go forward, but we don't have our capital funding available for it, it can get shifted to fee for space, which again, ultimately

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: can burden operating funds. And I think it's important that our fee for space program gets funded out of appropriation and we have to pay the real cost. So we have to go in at the end of the year, do an excess receipt. And it's been fairly high for quite a few years. And we're talking about in the millions, which has an impact on appropriation. So we're really trying to align the true cost with the programs and which funds they should come out of. There are security enhancements that may belong to fee for space. There are security enhancements that belong in the capital project. And then there are expectations on security that we maintain statewide in all of our buildings. And that's where the capital.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So so how much you you had in f y twenty six? You had 250,000 in cash, and that's all you had. And I'm just looking at the sheet that came in when we took testimony here. And it showed that with bond bonded and cash for both f y twenty seven and f y twenty six. There'll be 725 total. And this was as of the January 22, but definitely only 64,000 has been expended And then there was 103,000 that would be committed. So there's about 550,000

[Emily Connor (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: left. Are these figures still accurate? As of this morning, we and again, they were working on cleaning up old money. But in the 'twenty five cash fund, there was 167,000 left. And I'll just say, I am working with our finance director and our security director, Bill McSalis, after getting this information to look at some costs that have recently gone into fee for space that perhaps should be shifted over to this money to, again, cover that old money that was sitting there and really is a capital fund. Because as of this morning, was money again that had gone recently to fee for space that again, we think should go towards this money. So all that to say, I think that money will be zeroed out. 160,000,

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: you mean? So you're going to use that to backfill what came out of fee for space? Yeah, recent charges to fee for space. That's FY '25. Yes.

[Emily Connor (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: And then for FY '26, far, 330,000, which again is more than our appropriation. So that's money that's been shifted over from other projects. So for FY '26, you already are saying that

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: there's over 400,000 for projects?

[Emily Connor (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: Anticipated projects, additional to what we've already done. So again, I just got some examples from Bill. Like, what are some examples of some recent work that we've done that total two ten? And then anticipated projects that are on our priority list, which come up to $455,000

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: You've expended everything of the two. For FY '26, you had 250,000 in cash. And you've already expended most Yes. Of then on top of that, there's an anticipated 400,000.

[Emily Connor (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: There's of need of identified projects that we'd see coming. So that would roll over into FY '27. Correct. And that doesn't even include our normal updates or repair for like the badge readers and cameras. These are like areas that are we've identified sites that we don't think have adequate security based on our standards. So that 450,000 is examples of sort of special or priority projects.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Questions? Does this help, folks?

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Yes. Yes?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So if you don't get the money, all the money that's been asked, then you just don't get as many projects out the door. That's right.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: But I'm seeing a reduction. We had 250,000 in cash for '26, and now we're saying only $2.25. So in a way, we're going in a long direction if it's getting more expensive and security needs are going up.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: But we're adding. FY '27, there's $2.50 in bonded, and we're adding $2.25 for a total of $4.75 for FY '27. You, Emma.

[Emily Connor (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: Anything else?

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: Would you like to Oh,

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: one second.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: We got the ag fairs. I want to talk to the ag fairs and specifically for Franklin County. So we're in the building community grants, but it's, you know, that's true for the three fifty. We do have folks on. So the 300,000 for all the grants, and I really want to have a conversation about the Franklin County Field Days because there's been money that has been appropriated in previous years. Some of that money was put on

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: hold little bit

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: last year. And I'm not sure if the year before the committee that works on the ag fairs determines the amount of money to go to each of the fairs. I think last year there was nothing that went to Franklin County, and I said true for the year before. I'm just not sure. We've been dealing with this a lot for the last four or five years. I just wanted to bring the committee up to speed. And the other piece that plays into this for the Ag fair specifically, there's a three year window that once the grants have been approved and the entity has three years to encumber those dollars. And if they haven't encumbered those dollars, the money goes back to the grant program. So, and I know we made an exemption, an exception for Franklin County Field Days a few years ago because they were hitting that trigger, and we made a little exemption. So I just wanna know the history of how much money is gone and when it was held back. And so we can make a decision how to put it forward here.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: Sure. So

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: whoever wants to speak, we got three folks from the agency, a bag, and there is a process that these Ag Fair grants go through. It might be good to start what that process is and then focus in on the Franklin County field.

[Unknown Committee Member]: I'm happy to speak.

[Trevor Lowell (Agency of Agriculture)]: For the record, Trevor Lowell, I'm the Assistant Director of the Development Division with the Agency of Ag. So our team manages the capital grant program and the stipend program for the fairs and field days. Yeah, so the process is we actually we have a committee. It's made up of it's in statute who those members of that committee are. So we have some representatives, Jackie Folsom from the Affairs Association. We have some other folks who've been involved in the fairs of the past. It's a competitive grant program. So the fairs apply every year in the fall. They apply both with a capital project and they provide information that informs how we distribute the stipend funds. Our agreements go out where we actually lump the capital award in with the stipend fund, but they're actually two separate channels of money. The stipend is related and driven by attendance, the costs of their plant improvements, and some other calculations. So that's not a competitive fund necessarily. It's more of a kind of a calculus that we do to figure out how much they're awarded every year.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: But that doesn't come out of our Ag Fair grant through the capital bill.

[Trevor Lowell (Agency of Agriculture)]: Correct.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It's being very clear for folks. That's a separate funding.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Yeah. Where does that come from?

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: I

[Trevor Lowell (Agency of Agriculture)]: believe so, yeah. The capital projects, they submitted application. They tell us what they want to do with that money. We have requirements that are related, some of which are very much tied to the funding source. So there's a twenty year useful life requirement for these projects. And we have a 15% match requirement as well. There's quite a big range there in how much money they're contributing. Sometimes it's that minimum 15%. Oftentimes we see up to, I think, 80% was the highest match we saw this year. And the projects really run the gamut. They're often just improvements to infrastructure. We've seen everything from ADA accessible bathrooms to an improved pool barn to a pulling track to bleachers for the arena, lots of different projects that have come through. They typically have one year to complete that project. And we have extended these grants over the past as things have happened, flooding, different setbacks, supply chain issues. So we work really closely with the fairs with this goal of trying to help them succeed and make sure these projects go through really well. So this year we awarded 10 capital grants or nine, actually, excuse me, nine capital grants. And then two additional organizations received just the stipend. This year, we did award Franklin a grant. They put it on Children's Life Fair at an insightful field. Worked with them to confirm that. That's one of the eligibility requirements, is you have to actually hold a fair, and it has to be held for a minimum of three days. Before I maybe pivot more to Franklin, are there any questions about the granting program or the process there? That review committee, we meet with them in January to review all the applications, and then it's a committee decision around whether to award those grants or not. Sometimes there's some follow-up to get more information about a project. If the committee has any questions, we'll do that follow-up before we make final decisions. But we've since made those decisions and have executed most of these agreements for FY twenty six already.

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Are there any questions?

[Conor Casey (Member)]: Okay,

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: let's go to Franklin County.

[Trevor Lowell (Agency of Agriculture)]: So the history of Franklin County, I'm just going to speak very much from the ag perspective here. I think there are lots of other players. Franklin Firtides themselves. I think B TRANS has been involved in this conversation over the years as well. So just to kind of emphasize, I'm very much speaking from the ag agency standpoint and our role in managing these programs and holding these funds. FY22 was the first year that we held some funds with them. There was a $26,000 capital grant made in FY22. There was never any money expended under that grant, so they never claimed any from that. This was kind of the beginning of this process of Faire having to move off of the airport facility. And so that project never went through. It did get executed in a grant agreement. So both parties signed that agreement, and that agreement has since expired. So that $26,000 is an expired agreement at this point from FY 'twenty two.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And where is that money right now, that 26,000?

[Trevor Lowell (Agency of Agriculture)]: Believe that's still being held in our coffers, ending a resolution to kind of what we wanted, how we want to work with this money. There's two other buckets of money subsequent years, FY23 and '24, where we actually didn't sign an agreement with them. We worked with the fairs and this committee a little bit, and the decision was made to hold those two fiscal years worth of capital funds for the fair to be able to apply that money to land purchase if they were able to find a suitable piece of land.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So let's go through this again because I want this to be very, very clear. So the first 26,000 was from FY

[Trevor Lowell (Agency of Agriculture)]: '22.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: FY '22. And that was twenty six ks. So that right now is being held within the agency of AG.

[Trevor Lowell (Agency of Agriculture)]: Yes.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So. And then in FY '23, how much money?

[Trevor Lowell (Agency of Agriculture)]: '23, there was 30,000.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Then FY '24?

[Trevor Lowell (Agency of Agriculture)]: Twenty seven thousand two hundred and eighty. Twenty seven thousand three hundred and eighty. Yes.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And. And they're holding that 60,000, almost 60,000 that's being held by the fare itself?

[Trevor Lowell (Agency of Agriculture)]: No. FY23 The and '24, the distinction between the FY22 money and the '23 and '24 money is that first, the FY22 was actually executed, an agreement between the agency and Franklin Fairs. That money, they never drew any money down from that agreement. No money was paid out. That grant agreement has since expired, but the money still sits out there. Yes, I believe so. Yes. The '23 and '24 money was never actually put into an agreement. So the decision was made to just hold that money in anticipation of some resolution in Franklin Fair, I think, finding a suitable place to relocate the fair to.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So that money right now is basically on hold. So is it being held within the agency?

[Trevor Lowell (Agency of Agriculture)]: I believe so, yes.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Because there's no agreement with the fair. FY '23, by statute, if money is awarded to a fair, they have three years to encumber the money and spend it. And then if they don't, then we reallocate can reallocate that money. Sure. Shall reallocate that money. So the FY '23 of 30,000 is will be coming up more next year because we're we haven't finished this fiscal year. Mhmm. But there wasn't an agreement. The agency has been holding on to it anyway.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: Yeah.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Just to say a little bit of background and James, you can expound. But so the Field Maze was held for several decades at at a site that is part of the Highgate Airport property, which the the state is in the process of of doing a lot of work with. And so subsequently, field base had had to relocate. And one thing they had been looking at was purchasing a piece of land contiguous almost to to the existing site. And the advantage there would have been that they couldn't move through their buildings. So a lot of their buildings simply can't move to the new site. They're gonna end up getting demoed, which is, I think, the primary reason why this has been delayed so often with Franklin County field days.

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Well, I have a question. So and maybe, Alice, you're the right one, and maybe, Trevor, you're the right one. So we just mentioned twenty three, which is coming up on the verge of needing,

[Trevor Lowell (Agency of Agriculture)]: you

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: know, reallocation. But '22, what's the deal with that? It's over three years, but does it rule different because it was an agreement even though it's expired? Or is that money gone? Like, is it still there allegedly? But what process do we have to do to make sure that basically it's the entirety of this $90, roughly $90 or 85,000 is still in existence?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So the agency is holding it. They haven't freed it up to be used for other factors.

[Trevor Lowell (Agency of Agriculture)]: Correct, yeah. And that FY 'twenty two, we've had some conversations with the Agency of Admin and some other state partners around this question that you're raising. I think where we've landed is that FY 'twenty two money at this point would need to be reallocated. Because it was put into an agreement, that agreement expired and we've passed that three year threshold at this point.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So I'm assuming it would be reallocated to our capital bill. I've got to look at the list.

[Unknown Committee Member]: I have it right in front of me.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I think it comes back to the capital bill. It doesn't say within the act there is for them to reallocate it.

[Unknown Committee Member]: So notwithstanding 32 BSA, which I believe is the capital bill, seven zero one, if after an entity awards grant funds under this chapter, the entity now being the agency, the funds remain unexpended and not subject to a grant agreement and I don't know what an expired grant agreement means here, but the entity may reallocate the unexpended funds within its grant program. So you could have given it to another within three years of the original award date. Any unexpended funds remaining after this three year period that are not subject to a grant agreement shall be allocated in future acts relating to the capital construction and state bond, so bottom line.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So the 26,000 gets reallocated within our capital budget.

[Unknown Committee Member]: Unless we not withstand

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: We haven't made a decision on that.

[Unknown Committee Member]: And this is title 24 24 BSA 5601. James just sent it to you.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So did the repo committee look at this at all?

[Unknown Committee Member]: Why was this not I don't know why.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Good morning. For the record,

[Scott Moore (Joint Fiscal Office)]: Scott Moore joined fiscal office. This is not on the report the agency administration gave us, but probably because it had been within the line item for the grants. But once it's submitted line item for the grants, it's gone to the agency and therefore we don't

[Conor Casey (Member)]: keep track of that micro detail. So

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: the question is for us, for the FY22, do we reallocate that 26,000 to our bottom line? Troy,

[Unknown Committee Member]: trying to get a sense on where the land purchase is at this point.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: But the what?

[Unknown Committee Member]: Where the land purchase options are?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: The millions.

[Unknown Committee Member]: Yeah. But where do we have?

[Trevor Lowell (Agency of Agriculture)]: Yeah, I can share what I know. We've talked to Franklin a couple of times. They do have an active lease on a piece of property in Swan right off the interstate. I believe the property is currently on the market, but they have an agreement with the property owner to operate the fair on that property under a long term lease agreement.

[Unknown Committee Member]: But that doesn't meet your twenty year?

[Trevor Lowell (Agency of Agriculture)]: Right, they don't own that land. So that would preclude us from really So the capital grant that we awarded to them this year was for the purchase of three mobile trailers.

[Unknown Committee Member]: So they're going

[Trevor Lowell (Agency of Agriculture)]: to run the fair in this field, basically.

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: So that

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: came out of the FY 'twenty five?

[Trevor Lowell (Agency of Agriculture)]: No, the grant that was this year came out of FY '26.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Came out of FY '26. And how much was that for?

[Trevor Lowell (Agency of Agriculture)]: Their grant this year was 28,430.

[Unknown Committee Member]: And that all went to trailers?

[Trevor Lowell (Agency of Agriculture)]: Yes, and the idea there was that allows them to

[Conor Casey (Member)]: have

[Trevor Lowell (Agency of Agriculture)]: one trailer for an office and staff bathrooms and then two storage trailers. So we talk to the manufacturer and confirm that those trailers have a twenty year useful life. If the fair is able to find a permanent land, permanent piece of property to move the fair to, they could then move those trailers quite easily and continue to make use of that. But right now, they don't have a new piece of property that they own. So that really limits kind of how we can support them through this capital program.

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: James, you had something? Well, I mean, have a question about the overall money because we know, at least from the outside, know that this is allegedly a two year lease agreement. But so this money, the 85 roughly thousand, is there something, some way we as a committee or however it's gotta be done can reallocate that for to go toward purchase. Now they may not purchase it, but that is that it reallocates, gets it back in the system that it's not like already three and four years old, which is what it is now. And would they express the purpose of going toward the purchase of a property?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: The 26,000?

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: All three years. Would be Or at least the first two years, which

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: That would be a real shift in terms of what the Ag Fair grants could be used for. Correct? Well, the reason I mentioned that

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: is because Trevor mentioned these in the last two having

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: But that's on hold. But what you're saying is take those three years and target that for them to purchase property going forward. And is that allowed within your Ag Fairs grants to purchase property?

[Trevor Lowell (Agency of Agriculture)]: This is starting to get outside of my lane of expertise. Know in the past, we've had some conversations around using bonded money to purchase land and capital bill money to purchase land. I can't speak to the resolution of that conversation. I think that's just an aspect of this ongoing issue, though, is whether that's something that this committee of the state supports. My specific, I guess, doesn't, I only mentioned land purchases because you had mentioned it. I just wanna make sure that those don't fall off and that we can get them back in the system for even for the original purposes perfectly fine,

[Conor Casey (Member)]: as

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: long as we can let the fair know that we are trying to make sure that the money doesn't go away like we promised. Not you guys, but we promised them that we would try to do.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Well, 26,000 has already hit that timeframe for reallocations. You'd be making an exception. Once you start doing that for one, you're gonna end up doing it for everybody else. And also, this is part of the building community grants program. Mhmm. So there there are deadlines for all the other grants as well that have to be encumbered. So if you do it for one, you're gonna open up the door to do it for everybody.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: That's fair. Oh, okay. So I think we

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: have to be, you know, gotta be cognizant of that.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: It's an unusual scenario, though, because the fact that they just weren't using the grants all along is because the state basically mandated that they move from their site.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: That's the airport.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: That's the airport.

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

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Which was not there. I mean, that's they they were just on a lease. They didn't own the site. But nonetheless, it's they didn't create their own hardship. It's kinda tough to relocate it, I think, helpful fair. So I it's an unusual scenario.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It's policy decision we're gonna have to make. I mean, what what's facing us right now is f y 22 monies of 26,000 has hit that trigger, it's more than three years old, and it shall be reallocated to the cap. And then FY 2324 money is on hold. There was never an agreement executed. And for FY '25, there was no money at all because they were closed. Not operating. So then you've got almost 60,000 that's on hold right now. Was there the intent of the committee for how long that money would be on hold, that almost 60,000 or what the thinking was for putting it on hold?

[Trevor Lowell (Agency of Agriculture)]: I think that's still unresolved as well. I think the hope and the intent of the Franklin Field Days is to be able to purchase a piece of land. The timeline for that, I think, is very much up in the air. It's my understanding that they like this spot, the leased land, that they would potentially move forward with that. But I can't speak to their financial position and whether they feel like they could afford to buy that in the next year, five years, if there's other properties that they're looking at. I think that's part of what's at play here, too, is just kind of an ambiguous timeline around what they're able to accomplish.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Trevor, do you the information we need or not, but I was just curious, do you know how much they're asking for for property that they're now leasing?

[Trevor Lowell (Agency of Agriculture)]: I think it's upwards of $2,000,000 Wow,

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: 60,000. I was in the July.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Okay, that's helpful to know.

[Trevor Lowell (Agency of Agriculture)]: I know it's I just would offer that. I'm not. I'm gonna have to go back and look, but I believe it's in that range yet.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Okay, thank you.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yeah, you're talking millions, and that's been part of the issue right along. And I know Franklin County field dates, folks have been in here looking for money We're helping them purchase property. But when you're docking in the millions, that's that's where the rub comes in, Joe.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: And I don't think that make up a number, a $2,000,000 ask is reasonable. But, potentially, when they do locate this site or another, there's an amortized thing. You don't need to have all the money up front, In which case, whatever resources could be made available to that end are useful.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Those grant dollars do not go to making payments on a property. It goes to infrastructure improvements. Just to know that it doesn't go to paying your mortgage. Cannot. No. It goes for infrastructure upgrades, not to pay your mortgage.

[Trevor Lowell (Agency of Agriculture)]: Oh, nonetheless,

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: I mean, there are going to be improvements needed, so you could frame it in such a way that it would be compliant with the parameters of the grant program.

[Trevor Lowell (Agency of Agriculture)]: Yeah, mean, I think our standpoint is we're very supportive of trying to help Franklin through this transition. And I think they're in a very tough spot. It's a historic event, has a lot of importance to the community, and it's unfortunate. But I think where we're at is we have one small role to play and manages these funds and these agreements. If there's a role for us to support Franklin, I mean, we continue to talk with them and try to understand their needs. But I think there's a handful of other players too in this challenging situation.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Because we've also asked them to reach out to the local economic development entities or regional planning commission folks, because it is an economic engine for that part of the state, that ag fair and to bring other partners to the table to maybe put together a package of grant money or monies to help them purchase property to move forward.

[Trevor Lowell (Agency of Agriculture)]: Yeah.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: That seems to maybe have worked or maybe not have worked. But just to have a board of volunteer folks for the ag fair itself doing this kind of work is a pretty heavy lift.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: Mhmm.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And they really need the partners. And that's the conversation we had through that in twenty two, twenty three, twenty four Mhmm. With them and the delegation from Franklin County. You gotta bring in partners to help you here.

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: And at home, we've met with them with Franklin County Industrial Development and other entities. So yeah.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So what's before us at least for FY22, there's 26,000 that really is up for reallocation. The FY23 and FY24, there's no agreement that's been executed between the agency and the Franklin County field days, but the agencies put that money, you have it, and you're just holding onto it, that's almost 60,000. FY '25, there was no money from the Ag Fair Committee to go to Franklin County because they weren't operating. So that money was distributed evenly across all the other fairs. If you hold money back from Franklin County, like 'twenty three and 'twenty four, you're holding that money back from other fairs. Because you have 300,000 a year and it gets divided up equally. So in FY 'twenty six, the current fiscal year, there was 28,000 plus that was awarded to the Franklin County fairs for the purchase of three trailers. So that allows them to have the fair for this year, next year, following. The question is, my 6,000 is up for reallocation. And then the f y twenty three and '24, we haven't hit that trigger of the three year yet for the f y twenty three.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: That

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: will be next session for that. Are folks clear

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: on

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: the move in? Shawn?

[Conor Casey (Member)]: I mean,

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: my question is, like, does 26 is $26,000 gonna make much of a difference, you know, going back into the cash flow?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Went back into the cash. It goes to the bottom line of the capital bill.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Oh, the bottom line of the capital. Well, you know, or do we just leave it there, right?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Well, we shall reallocate. It says by law.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: We can we just reallocate it back to them,

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: You have to reallocate it back to the Ag Fair grant, which means you should also increase all the others. Because if you look at the building community grants, we've always been clear that the grants receive the same amount.

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Okay.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And they're all at 300,000. So if you raise one, you really need to raise all the others to be fair.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: Gotcha. Okay.

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Though it's not really raising them, it's just keeping the money that they're they're shared that they already got that ran out because everybody

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: But else got their share and spent they didn't carry through on their agreement.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: I hear you.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And and that would be the case for other other grant money that would go out through the building community grants. If it wasn't spent a period of time, then it comes back.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: So then take it and put it into the capital book.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So those are the decisions that we'll have to make. So people care on that?

[Conor Casey (Member)]: Mhmm.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Anything else, Trevor or Amy or Nicole? Online there?

[Nicole Dubuque (Agency of Agriculture)]: I don't think so. For the record, Nicole Dubuque, Agency of Agriculture. Trevor, we seem to cover it all, but happy to answer any questions that you have. And, yeah, we're available for any follow-up. Thank you.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And I know in the past, when we did come up to the timeline, we tried to work with them, but then the money still wasn't expended.

[Nicole Dubuque (Agency of Agriculture)]: Yeah, think it's been an ongoing process of trying to navigate new land.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yeah. Anything else? Thank you, folks, for coming in on such short notice.

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Thank you.

[Trevor Lowell (Agency of Agriculture)]: So much. Thank If we can provide any follow-up, just let us know. Appreciate the time.

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Thanks, Trevor.

[Emily Connor (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: Thank

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: you. Thank you.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Thank you to online. Appreciate it. Thank you.

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: Madam chair, while deputy is prepared to go over our list. I'm gonna let her lead, and I'll be on the sideline. If I could speak to the committee from here about the firing range. Yep. If you're ready.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yeah. I put this. Yep.

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: Okay. So I I know you heard testimony and we've been working closely with, know, on this particular project and for the fire and rain. I appreciate that it is one of the areas that you have live practice. I get that, ma'am. Spoke with Joe Luneau, our Director of Design and Construction. The original report that the members were presenting to you from is from 2022. Right. And so that that's an important date for me. It was a report that gave options. I think you understood that there were three, I believe three options in that report. The working group chose the option that has the roof, the covered roof. At that time in 2022, it's a $3,000,000 estimate. And the numbers that they were talking about.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: That's with the roof and the extended firing

[Nicole Dubuque (Agency of Agriculture)]: So

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: what Joe said, the option they chose is a $3,000,000 project cost estimate. And so Joe and so then I discussed what the money the request is specifically what so the request for $200,000 is to take that choice, that option, and to take it to the next design level to be able to get through costs and come back next year the capital bill with a potential request. So reducing it will not get us to that goal.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So it takes you to construction documents.

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: We'll call them construction documents with a defined budget and it will be that exploration. And I spent some time with Joe on the phone and I said, can we look at making it smaller? A smaller amount extends the time of when we will be ready to present you a better number and a true plan on that project.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So the governance committee already weighed in on those and decided to go with the option of the roof. And I think the extension of the firing range.

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: And my note just says roof option. I'm gonna agree with you because I did hear some of the testimony. Yeah. And also, said there were three options and the governance chose one as the roof option.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: The governance committee chose that. So that's not what came through in testimony. Because what came through in testimony, they had the three options and they need to look at it closer to figure out which option to go forward. So there's a little mis communication there going

[Conor Casey (Member)]: on.

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: But if they voted on an option and we were to advance the project, I don't think. I'm very comfortable with the request of 200,000 is reasonable to bring back to you their chosen option with construction design with estimates you so choose to support.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So in FY in '22, that particular option with a roof and extended fire range was $3,000,000 cost at that point.

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: Correct. Was the don't know if there were inflations in there. There are decontingencies. I just tried to get as much information for you, madam chair, as I could when I when I stepped out. You know? But you right. Is that does that does that cost carry forward in today's dollars? I can't confirm that right now.

[Unknown Committee Member]: It's sort of for the room. I'm not sure if it's for the commissioner. But so there was talk of the roof. There was talk of the extension. There was talk of the 100 yard firing range for rifles. So this sounds like the last is not being pursued. I I'm thinking of almost like an a la carte menu. Like, yes, we're gonna cover it. That's 1,000,000. Yes. We're gonna extend. That's 2,000,000. And I can't remember the cost for the rifle range. We're not doing that. I

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: would say it's probably a la carte. It was probably a clear, you could just do the short one and it's here. So I don't think you can take option A and then add to B and then go to C. And knowing the site and the location,

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Yeah, I don't

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: I've been there several times. I can't envision being able to do that either. Think you're you're very It's a very linear shooting range.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And you gotta have the roof over the whole extension.

[Unknown Committee Member]: Yeah. And and so the rifle, though, either way is not a part of what we're talking about. Right?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: The rifle either way?

[Unknown Committee Member]: Yeah. So they were talking about a 100 yard rifle range outside of this No.

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: No. No.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: This was the current range just to extend the length of it. Not to do an additional one on the outside. It was not my understanding. My notes was you do a roof and the longer the and you extend the range. That was my notes from January. And also maybe the baffles.

[Ken Hawkins (Deputy Director, Vermont Criminal Justice Council/Police Academy)]: Yes.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Those three things. It wasn't enclosing the whole range. It wasn't doing an outside one.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: Yeah. It was. Okay. So

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: where are we folks on this one we have to reconsider or not?

[Unknown Committee Member]: I'm keeping it. I have

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: that since yesterday. You have what?

[Unknown Committee Member]: I've been since yesterday, keeping it. I was not in favor of zeroing

[Conor Casey (Member)]: You understand?

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Yeah, I think you gotta keep.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yeah. Some folks wanted to zero this out yesterday.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: On further Yeah. Yeah. I'm I'm fine with you today. Yeah.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Okay. We made one decision. Definitely welcome.

[Unknown Committee Member]: Sorry for

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: that for three hours. I'm sorry.

[Emily Connor (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: We, as the commissioner said, we followed up with poll and director Asia and listen back on some of the conversation yesterday. So there were just a few points where we heard some question or discussion that we wanted to follow-up on in your markup from yesterday. So I'll try to move through quickly. Regarding 120 State Street No, I can. I was just going to walk

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: through it, probably. Okay.

[Emily Connor (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: Regarding 120 State Street, we this morning had reviewed the prior appropriations of that. Most of the previous funding has been reallocated or recommended for reallocation, and there's no additional prior appropriations to be reallocated. BGS is recommending that we retain the $2,000,000 in FY 'twenty seven funds. And the reason for that is because we still have question marks around what is going to happen with the capital complex rebuild once we have our information from FEMA and what that design is going to look like. And so some of the work that's anticipated for the 01/2020 renovation in HVAC may depend on what happens with that, specifically around some of our goals for MEP replacement from flood damaged equipment. So that we really just would like to retain again, knowing that we may have to do some redesign work, may have to change our approach based on what's happening with that flood rebuild. And the timing of our spend for that will depend on the timing of our work with FEMA and when we receive and accept an offer.

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: That's

[Unknown Committee Member]: my question. When are we anticipating that offer being on?

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: So I think it's important for

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: the

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: committee. So we have responded, we have applied, we've put in our application for our request for FEMA. We've done all of the evaluation of the buildings. I think all of you know the amount of paperwork. We've responded. They've reached back to us and have responded and asked us to respond to additional questions, which is a normal process. And so we are waiting for an offer from them for us to evaluate. So I will tell you on behalf of the state, they have been going through our numbers, our details, the evaluations of what our loss were and all of that. We are waiting for that. There's a periods of times where they have to respond. There was an extension. There's potentially another extension. I do believe in Doug Farnham did mention, and I can confirm with him, but I'm going to put it out here on the record that it's his understanding that FEMA has identified that while they have a slowdown, they are working with Vermont. They're putting effort and time into looking at our plan.

[Unknown Committee Member]: When did you last send them your most recent update?

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: We are in communication with them. Our team at Guidehouse are constantly going back on a weekly. So we're responding. It is a back and forth. We have weekly check ins with them and

[Emily Connor (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: we send all information all the time. The most recent extension for the offer, I want to say is through mid April, and like the commissioner said, there could be an additional one. So our expectation is that we will have that clarity very soon within the next few weeks. But we do not control the process.

[Unknown Committee Member]: Right. So FEMA has asked to extend to perhaps mid April,

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: But it's like a thirty day. They're small windows. They're not large windows.

[Emily Connor (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: Correct. They're shorter extensions more recently.

[Unknown Committee Member]: Have you noticed a difference in FEMA organization administration responsiveness over the past six months?

[Emily Connor (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: There have been some changes in their ability to travel, certainly.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Some But that's

[Emily Connor (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: Yeah. So we we've continued to work closely, at least with the region one team. So they've been consistent. There have been some change. There has been turnover in the point people that we've been working with. And so at times that has impacted the process. Those are the folks we work most closely with. And we we do know that there were some, again, limits on their ability to travel, but they've still been willing to meet with us virtually and communicate.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: I

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: think it's really important for the committee to know we have a very clear strategy in Vermont. We have a really strong team working with FEMA. We've had success with the project and we will continue to have this. I think if you really, BGS is going to oversee all of this construction and this work and we're part of the team. But if we really want to get into the strategies, I think Doug would be, Doug has been in here before. Think if you want to have some time with him, he can talk about it. The efforts and the amount of work that we put in to meeting the needs and evaluating has been is very very good. We know that we had to provide information on replace and repair of each individual building, but we've also put in an application for 04/28. And I'll simplify the 04/28 is the methodology that we went into Waterbury, where we will end up agreeing to a lump sum of money, but we'll have some flexibility on how we utilize it within the capital complex instead of doing each building by building. And I'd like to well, go ahead.

[Unknown Committee Member]: I just want to say I have zeroed out or concerns with BGS organization and capacity to be on top of this. I have significant concerns about federal responsiveness.

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: Yeah. So I wanna bring this back to 120 State Street, if I can, and what Emily just said. So, with the 2,000,000 that's in the FY twenty seventh and previous as appropriations, you've identified 5,300,000.0 in total for the 120 State Street project. 120 State Street is a replacement of the heating and cooling. We have a radiator system there. We have walls that are deteriorating to talk about this. You funded it once and it got delayed I think because of the flood and reallocated the money. So you've been back on a curve of getting us the money to do this building. This is a critical structure in your capital complex. So there's a bit of passion. One of the options we have explored is to create a central MEP building. Part of this Central what? Central of one building to house all of the mechanical. Oh. For Vermont Player because as you've toured everything that we've lost in this building is the MEP. Right. So if we go building by building, we're gonna have to do building by building system. But if we can be thoughtful and creative and come up with this solution, instead of spending money separately on DMV, we would bind that project into this alternative use. But that means we're still going to need the money for DMV. We can't take it out of FEMA. You're still going to have to fund it, but we're trying to refresh it, trying to reset it, look at if it's incorporated, what would the cost be?

[Emily Connor (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: So from our perspective, this work needs to be done regardless. The FEMA overlay is really the timing and what it looks like consideration. But either way, we know that this work needs to be done for the building.

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: So when we looked at the reallocations and there was 5,000,000, BGS requested from the administration to hold on to the 2,000,000, the newest money, so we could make that a part of this overall.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So that $2,000,000 what you're thinking would go towards the overall planning of one facility for the mechanical?

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: No, it would say dedicated to DMV and to DMV system. It would be taking, how do we take what we were designing and make a connectivity to this potential one building to support the complex. But we also have to have over here, if that doesn't work, we've got to go back to 01/2020 as planned. So we're in that really

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Do need flexibility if the money is put here in terms of how it's used? I know you want to target it just to 120 State Street, but you need the flexibility and language as to how that 2,000,000 can be used?

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: I don't know. I think that's a great question. Actually, today, mean, I think that that is having the flexibility to align with whatever that is. That's a great question. I don't have a solution to that.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Because the way I mean

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: because it's so madam chair, I know we're not going to probably spend the whole $2,000,000 I'm going be honest with you in the next year. Right. But to have to go back from where we've come from once already is going to be really difficult. And if we get to a place really quickly with this design and negotiate, we get an offer that's acceptable, we need to be ready to move forward. So because it's the newest money, we did not suggest reallocating it and to give us the I would like to have the money there to be able to to go whichever way.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So we're very specific that the money goes to seam line interior renovation.

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: Oh, so you're taught okay.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So so if we're gonna put money here, we really need different language to be really clear what it can be used for. They could noodle something for you I work with John. Work with John

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: on that.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: If we do this. If you do it. Yeah. If we do it. So what would a million get you?

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: What a million gets us is, know, million will I'm gonna say a million will keep the project moving forward, a million builds a bigger gap in finding what the real costs are. And this is one of your critical buildings. This is something in our inventory that you have oversight that we need to address.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: But I also want to put out to the committee that VGS has the ability to move money around between projects and sections of billions. I know.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Within the section. Right?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Within the section. And if and also this is contingent sort of really knowing how you're gonna move forward with FEMA. And FEMA could know something by this summer, so you wanna be ready to be able to do something.

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: We won't have to report this to FEMA. Wanna be very FEMA, we're gonna accept an offer of A or B In offer B of a 04/28, we are looking at creating a one building. So we would realign that. If we do not accept that offer as a state and we accept the standard, we will back be back to this building doing the improvements that were originally designed.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Your design is gonna be different if you're doing it just for 120 State Street or if you're doing it for 120 plus all the other buildings in the complex. I mean, 120

[Emily Connor (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: will have its own individual work that's kind of outside the scope of the potential central.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: But you've got to still that work within 01/2020 with the scope of the potential major building for our mechanical, you're going to have to design what's in 120 a little different. Exactly.

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: Have to adjust our design. Yeah. Right.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Right. So you're really not, you can do some preliminary design, but it's not gonna get you to the end part until you really know what option FEMA's putting out there. And we may not know that we're anticipating this summer. It might not be until the fall knowing what's going on on the federal law. We just don't know.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Just first or second extension from.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: Or more than

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: We asked for an extension because of the request for additional information of the the first. And so Missed it.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Asked for the extension.

[Emily Connor (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: This most recent one. They they did.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So the flooding occurred in 'twenty three or 'twenty four? 'twenty three, right? 'twenty four? 'twenty four? Oh. No, the big one. In Montpelier 'twenty three. 'twenty three. So it's three years old. Yes. So we've been working with FEMA since then. Yes.

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: Well, FEMA's been working with the state, all of the communities, other agencies. It's not just this project. You have to, you know

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And we've seen where some of those decisions have formed. Conor?

[Conor Casey (Member)]: Yeah, I might be getting a bit ahead, but like, is there a plan for relocating the tenants in that building and how much would that cost?

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: So we studied that a couple of years ago, just so you know, and so there is an option that we can move people, if we were to go with the standard design right now, there's an option of moving people between floors, which is not always the best, because it is going to be four by four and then there has been the recommendation by our team could we find an alternative location temporarily for all or for half a bit? That would be in the building cost, the final numbers that we bring to you. We have not made that decision. But you will not be able to do the work where the employees are occupying. And the most difficult program is DMV. So we've looked at how could you move those customer services to the 2nd Floor while you do the 1st Floor. So it's still a dart board but it is on our agenda and we are aware of

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So how much money do you have in hand right now for 120?

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: You have a 5, have? Go to your spreadsheet, would that help? It's 5325. 5,325,000. So you have in section two, just give me a second, in section two, line 11, you have the 2,000,000 of the FY '27. And then if you go to

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: 186.

[Emily Connor (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: Or 26.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: 186.

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: I

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: didn't say the line 186?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: That's the repo.

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: So then if you go to well, the first line actually is Maybe on second, I think it's line 164, but it's 100

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: and But you're talking repo. I'm talking How much do you have in hand right now for 120?

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: Well, because we haven't repoed it, we have 5,300,000. We haven't officially taken it.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: The recommendation You have 2,000,000 and then you're reallocating a million.

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: We're reallocating 0.25. Yeah,

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: but we're don't see

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: Can I share I'm trying to take you to where that is?

[Conor Casey (Member)]: Sure.

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: Okay. So if you go to packs of 22, so that is going to be, I'm getting to the number, line 166. So if you go to line 166 on your spreadsheet, on line 166, I gotta just put my paper this way everyone, I apologize. There's $618,000 that's being proposed to be reallocated. In that 618,000, there is 5 and 25,000 specific to DMV. Then the next line item we go to is acts of 23, which is line one sixty seven. No, I'm sorry.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: 68 or something. One eighty six.

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: One eighty six. 86.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Thank you.

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: There's a million and then you go to line one one ninety two and there's 1,500,000.0. We proposed of the 5,000,000 that you've allocated towards this project that three

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So that 5,300,000.0 you're incorporating the 2,000,000 in FY 2017?

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: Yes, because it was last year's yes, that's how we were looking at the total because I know it's an adjustment this year, but you did agree to it last year.

[Emily Connor (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: So that was, again, the proposal, reallocate the older money, knowing that we couldn't spend it all now, but hold on to the most recent appropriation from FY '27 so we can move forward the work.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Other questions on this one, the committee? Pumping up against 12:00 here with last the numbers. I'll disappear here at four.

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: Do you like us to get our Okay.

[Emily Connor (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: So there was some discussion around the planning and contingency funds. Currently, we have $940,000 available. But of that, 420,000 is committed to various projects. The balance of that funding is needed for contingencies. Regarding three acre storm water, there was some discussion around that. We just wanted to note that penalties for non compliance would come out of our budget. So if there was a reduction in the appropriation, we would appreciate language excusing us from compliance from that, because we believe that the work is mandated and we're required to do it, and the funding is necessary to

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: carry out We the just understand from our team, the notes, there was a conversation that we would get charged with a penalty. And I will tell you, we get charged with penalties all the time.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Right, but it was when the clock starts ticking for when you had the permit to when you actually have to get that project done. And that's what we were looking at. And we wanted to make sure that we helped those projects who were ready to go, that you have the permit, and then there were some that don't have the permit yet. So that clock hasn't started kicking yet. That's what we were looking at.

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: Can we just follow-up on that clarity, and and we'll we'll let you know if we've missed that. We can skip the permit.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: When you receive the permit, that's when the

[Emily Connor (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: five year starts. The thinking was we had more time for some of them. Did you have the yet?

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: Okay. So we

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: missed I've got the permits verified. And that's when the five year starts calculating. Helps, thank you. Asa Bloomer? We have a question.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: Yeah, sorry. Do you mind if I go back to contingency? Yeah, sure. So you probably heard I was the one. The good news is I outvoted on this, I think. But if you could just help me. So, even if you take the $4.20 off the bottom line of what you have in the bank right now, we were looking at 520,000 overall. And I'm just comparing that with the total last for the two years was 500,000. So, it feels like we're well ahead of the game. So,

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: guess I'm not We actually asked for this to be aligned and focused on what's really occurring. So as the chair mentioned earlier, we have some ability to move money around. When we're moving money from other projects to cover contingencies, we're not planning well. And so that is part of the increase. We've also been advancing and I will say to this committee, was clear this money was not being used. We've really focused again and realigned. We're using some of the money to look at some of those buildings and how can we reuse them and what can we do in contingencies because, you know, what is our existing inventory? And I think, you know, we've talked about this, you know, we've been reevaluating the Williston State Police Barracks. How can you reuse it? What's what's the reuse? Could we use that to fill another need instead of building another project? So I don't know if I answered your question. So if we've seen an increase and to sit down and have to take 50,000, 100,000 from a project to improve, to cover another cost, this is the money that allows us to do that.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: So is it fair to say you have some increased demands from when this was initially pitched a couple of

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: years ago, right? Think it's increasing. I don't know if it's the return to office because I always get yelled at Steve.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: Oh, did I say? Thought

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: we just

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: said return to work.

[Emily Connor (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: It's not

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: that. It's really having a strategy on our buildings. And I think there's been a little bit of lull at VGS because of the floods and because of COVID and paying attention to our infrastructure and doing strong planning upfront. And that's one of the things that we are working together really hard on in our leadership. And that does take money. Don't just say, well, we're not going to use a building or sell it. Let's evaluate how can we use it. Is there a better use? When our customers come to us and they ask for this, we work to really push it back to what's reasonable. And so, I think some of the cost estimates, because they were done a while ago, where you guys were in full, we're seeing increase in that. So that's where the contingency is really the safety belt to keep something.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: Thank you, reassurance.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Thank you. Let's move on because we have lunch and

[Nicole Dubuque (Agency of Agriculture)]: we have to be on the floor at one.

[Emily Connor (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: As a bloomer, we have a contract to move forward with the roof. Any reallocation of funds would likely require us to break a contract. And we believe in the end, cost the state more money because we're having to do frequent patch repairs due to the failing membrane and leaks from the roof there go directly into DOL, AHS workspace. That has happened this year. It is not a good situation for anyone involved.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: We work on phase of building. Okay.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: When we were talking, they put on a temporary roof.

[Emily Connor (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: We saw some notes that there was conversation.

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: We had a major patch, a 2 The $100,000

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: contract that you're under, is that for a brand new roof to take care of your patch?

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: Yeah, we're doing a whole building. We are literally on bucket patrol with the roof there.

[Emily Connor (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: Big buckets. Youth stabilization facility, we noticed that there were some conversation and questions around the request there. Just wanted to note questions around sort of the policy staffing costs and contracts for staffing are best directed to DCF. We did go out

[Conor Casey (Member)]: to

[Emily Connor (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: bid recently in the last few months to move the project forward after we had to pivot from Virgin's for the build to suit lease approach that we've discussed with you before. We have a letter of intent with a developer. We're working very aggressively with them and with our partners at DCF to move the project forward. Right now, we're looking at the scope of the design, seeing if we can find some efficiencies. And the funding request is to cover a portion of design costs that will not be rolled into the lease rate.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: we have not signed a contract. We can all know the rules around contracting. But we have, as Emory said, a letter of intent. We meet every Friday. We are working closely with DCF. We are looking at, we've done a cost analysis, we've talked about affordability, we are looking at how can we make this more efficient and meet the needs. And once we get to that place, we're going to go into a design function.

[Emily Connor (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: Yeah. And we have, again, great partners, both on the developer side and in DCF. And we have renewed energy around this and a viable path forward. So we feel optimistic that we What have a

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: do you think we'll hear? About?

[Unknown Committee Member]: Like a sign contract.

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: It's in Well, we need to come to agreement on the size and scope and the cost of the annual lease. That's where we are right now. We have a pretty aggressive schedule. So what I'm going to tell you is that we do need to do a little bit more of a permanent updating. I want to say by the end of summer, we'll have, I'm going to say, I'm guessing right now, maybe June. I think June would probably be the parents. And here's the thing, representative, it's either going to work out, we're gonna have a contract or we're done. And so we are working

[Emily Connor (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: All hands on deck.

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: All hands on deck on this.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So you have money already. Do have about 300,000? And that's all expended?

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: No, so we

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: need match it and you would put it on top of this. On top of this and it's- You got a million?

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: Right and what Emily said is really important when these costs are not blended into the lease nor do you want it

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: to We need a million to finish up these designs. It's for the

[Emily Connor (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: design build, developers. It's not

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: a design build, It's a design with a developer. We're designing the space and the programming and what it looks like.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And the developer is gonna build it to our design. And lease it back to us. So are you getting information from DCF in terms

[Emily Connor (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: of what you really need? And that's what we're doing right now. So we're having these very focused sessions to review the design because, again, they had a design that from previous attempts that we're now working to refine, find efficiencies, make sure that we're going to be moving forward with a build for the right space. And so again, we're working very heavily with DCF looking at the programming needs. And again, before we move forward with that design process, make sure that we're all on the same page with the right with the right programming. So again, that's those very focused meetings in person weekly at this point that we're all around the table, making sure pencils are to paper and we're doing taking the right approach. But again, that funding is for like the time period between now and when we're signing a lease for the design work, some of the permitting process, etcetera, that we'll be going through and again, not wrapping into the lease. And I

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: think it's really important for this, you know, there was always a design, right? It was one design, they expanded it, but it was a visual design. It wasn't a functional design and the schematic. And so this money takes us to because we have to pay for that design work. It takes us to construction design. If everything is successful with this, we and everything lines up, this is the most aggressive positive project with a schedule that you're not looking at five years out if everything lines up. There's other things that need to line up that's out of

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: the down a warehouse the down of a staff as I recall that so our role is to get

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: that signed to them and this is what we in order to meet the we did an RFP with this in order to advance to the contractual obligation of doing it further. This is the funds that are needed.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: But there's other things at play here. So that's my train of thought. So how many beds? 14? 13. And the developer owns the land. Is that been permitted? It's not permitted yet. The

[Emily Connor (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: building. Zoning, they believe it's appropriately zoned.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And they have sewer site? Yep. Yep. Phase three. Whatever. Three. There may have

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: to be some realignment delineations with the Act two fifty permit because there are some wetlands, but we're not, there's enough land that we'll be able to

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So the lease and then the developer would build the building. Correct. Yep. We design up. Yep. Developer will build to our specs what we need. Then we lease it back for the land and the building or just the building. The land

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: and our our RFP that went out the response is the state reserves the right to purchase.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Right. So, we're paying a lease. We don't know. Might be just on the building or it's on

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: the Yeah. Main And it's also a triple net proposal where they're doing maintenance. They're taking care Yes, of yes. What's important is that we've been doing financial analysis on affordability, you know, what did we anticipate it's going to cost? And that's part of the discussion because you have to look at that to say, are there savings? So, I mean, they're doing plowing. I mean, it's and it's a proposal. We have not negotiated the details of what that lease would look like.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So that's not all kind of get we saw. You'll know in a month if we're still going to go forward with this developer. Right? We have every intention with

[Emily Connor (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: this and developer. I think it's some of the broader policy questions that you had talked about. But from the BGS perspective, we're moving forward.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So you hope to have all the lease agreement, everything in place by June, June?

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: No. We'll have the outrunning the lease. It's important. So how these projects work and how they should work. We will end up doing a development contract for the design. And we will continue to negotiate, talk about content of lease and work on that. We don't sign the lease document until the building is built. Correct. And so we don't want to get into all of those layers. And so again, this is what the money is for, is to carry forward that design piece. Our intent is to enter into this agreement with them. That's the letter, but

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: there's some very clear phases. Yeah, it's for

[Emily Connor (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: the To fund essentially a services contract like A and E to do the Again, that design work before you get to the signing.

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: And Madam Chair, I don't want to go into the past, but I know you had a smaller project. Had some We were approaching this project in other ways. We did not do it in this contractual manner. This is one of the resets. This is the appropriate way to do the development, the design agreement, and then move it to the leasehold design.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I'm not questioning EPS. I I think you do agree. I think the other question is where DCF is and trying to figure out their operating costs. And that's a discussion with some of our colleagues and other committees that they're having some trouble. So we don't want to get too far in advance ahead of all of that conversation. So that's that's sort of what it's a chicken and egg situation in a way we wanna we do wanna continue with the building. But on the other hand, if it's gonna be such a high operating cost for staffing, there may be some different decisions made So in the I just want to say

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: to the committee that part of our job is doing an app, looking at costs, looking at operating, looking all of this and what's affordable. Desire programming pushes construction design, which changes what the cost goes, You can either expand or you can Yeah, what is that word? Contract. Contract, thank you. We have been working very closely with the deputy secretary. When I say me, I talk about Emily and I, with the secretary of administration. And I would just encourage, if you wanna a conversation with the Deputy Secretary on the operating costs, she's aware of how that can impact the overall long term cost of operating this building.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Deputy Secretary of the Agency of Administration? Human Services. Well, I think upstairs are trying to get through to that. So anyway We've got a gift to lunch, and we're losing members. Last So

[Emily Connor (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: two things we had on our list were there was some discussion on 108 Cherry. Wanted to just reflect there may have been just a misstatement, miscommunication. Just wanted to know we have extended the existing purchase and sale with the buyer on the property. We are planning to move forward with the sale. It is taking longer than expected due to some site analysis working contract discussions, but that is still moving forward. And then regarding door controls, we are working to cut scope for cost reductions in St. Johnsbury, but we do believe we do recommend that the funding remain as is so that the funding is available if we need it to complete the project in St. Johnsbury. And then the 500,000 for Marble Valley will be used for design and pre construction services. So again, requesting that we keep the funding as is for the door.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Do you have a copy? Yeah,

[Emily Connor (Deputy Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: I can share a Just based on our conversation, I do wanna make some updates again, knowing if you want copies, I'm happy to share. But again, we learned some things today. Can leave some

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Yeah, just sleep. It's cool. Cool,

[Wanda Minoli (Commissioner, Buildings & General Services)]: And Madam Chair, please let us know if you need ventilator I do BGS policy or BGS might be in in the room and Paul knows that. Yeah. But and we tried to be here yesterday and our apologies.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: That's fine. So our schedule we're trying to get the bill out. It's first time we've taken a look at it since February. So we have some time. We need to get up to speed. We're on the floor for a long afternoon, but I've said to the committee if there's some real boring times, which there could be, I'm gonna ask the speaker to see if we can come back into committee for some of that. I just don't know how the rest of today is gonna play out. Tomorrow, we're definitely here at 08:30. We're just So you'll get a note to us in case we're going back to the community. Correct? We'll text. I think we need to get our staff have some lunch before We all need lunch. So be on the lookout for BGS. Just connect with Tate because Tate will Yeah. Let you know. Maybe here.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Thanks for buzzing through, though. Thank

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