Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: You're invited.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Hey. Welcome, folks. This is House Braxton's and Institutions Committee. Is March. It's our 08:30 meeting, and we are finishing going over the language for our capital bill. In draft 10.1, and it was from the March 24. So, John, we got as far as bottom of page 10.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: We were about to start page 10.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: We're about to see how this is the cash section. Okay. Sorry, I went right over to page 11 because I started by 27 cash. So we'll go to page 10. And this is where we've allocated general fund dollars for our capital projects. Welcome, John.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Good morning, everyone. John Gray, Office of Legislative Council. If you don't mind, I'm just going to stay on the paper, if that's okay. I can pull up, but I think on the committee. So we are on page 10, draft 1.1. And this is yesterday, what we completed were the bond funded sections of the bill. We also went through the reallocations, and now we are starting the cash funded pieces of the bill. I did wanna flag a high level piece here, which is that in the past, as you know, when we have dealt with the cash sections, we've used very specific language to start these sections. We've said that we're authorizing as opposed to appropriating, and then essentially the process is duplicated in the appropriations committee where they make the outright appropriations that track what is done in the capital bill. So I just wanted to flag that because the budget has already moved, if you just use the language authorized here, you may not have appropriated the actual line item. So just wanted to flag that you may need to change the language, you may not, depending on the agreements that people have. But just know that if the budget passed as it currently was, and this language passed as it currently is, you wouldn't have the appropriations for these So specific

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: what they did in the big bill, there is a line item that appropriates 17,000,000 plus for these properties. Not specific projects, but it's a line item that blocks 17,000,000 plus infrastructure.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Doesn't

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Good morning, Scott. Good morning, Crystal office. I think the language just says transfers. Doesn't

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

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: it's federal funds to cash. It doesn't have any authority or anything. It just says, here's your money. Like we have to decide a little bit.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Because usually what we end up doing is the appropriations bill will appropriate the money and they will list the projects. We also list projects because people, we list it also in our bill in the end because if folks are looking for the project, they're gonna put to the cap, not the appropriations. So just flagging if that is the way that it is,

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: you technically wouldn't have the appropriations. So you would have the funds in the cash fund, which is where you need the money, but you would need to outright appropriate. So just flagging that's something to think about. But I just today, we're just trying to get through the actual decisions of the projects themselves. So the first update I have is at the bottom of page 10, and it is an expansion of an f y 26, spending authority for cash. That's your best home design and construction of the a wing, 1,500,000.0, and the expansion that you see here is to add in Anne's sprinkler system configuration. So expanding the line item itself, but not changing that FY 26 cash authorization. On page 11, we have an update here. I just wanna be clear. The update here was included by me as a placeholder. This is not a decision that the committee has made. I was just trying to find places to store the cash that was available. So just know that the committee's current position on page 11 for major maintenance, which you see highlighted, is still the gov rec.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: The 1.21200000.0.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Exactly. I've just I added overflow cash money here just to have a place to store it, but that is not a decision that the committee has yet made. So just know that I've used that as a placeholder, but that can easily be updated. It doesn't reflect anything that the committee has committed to.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: The only thing we did for major maintenance at this point was we put in an extra half million bonded for FY twenty seven.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And in both the bond and cash, that's where I have stored what I'm calling the overflow, the extra unallocated funds essentially. But in both instances, that's just a placeholder. And the reason for that is to ensure that the aggregate totals on the first page reflect the correct aggregate rates. So the first updates you're gonna see from the gov rec, because as noted yesterday, the underlying language that you see here is from the GovRef. If it's highlighted, that's a committee change. So the first updates you're gonna see are on page 12, on top of page 12. And the first that you see is door control upgrades set at 700 k. I wanna say that this was a Correct. Yes, because we were moving some money within the audit sections as well. And I will pause there. Facebook's now. Stress. I'm looking by separate.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Do we have do we have I'm trying to remember here because I know for door controls. Did we want language to connect us to make sure that we finned the Rutland? Because there's St. John's Prairie in Rutland, folks, you look on the spreadsheet. There's St. Jay in Rutland. And what I remember, they're gonna finish St. Jay, and whatever money's left over is gonna be added to the half million that we've put in in Rutland. And then this 700,000 also would go to finish Rutland, whatever's and left over, 700 will go to another facility planning. Did we want language to indicate that? I would say yes.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Can I offer what I recall of the discussion? So when we talked about this, one of the things we were noting was the gap in flexibility between the cash and bonded sections flexibility you would offer. And then specifically, the language that was used here, door control upgrades at correctional facilities, was sufficiently broad to allow for both facilities. So at the time you guys don't have to take my position, but at the time, my position was the generality of this language actually allows you to do exactly that, and therefore, you wouldn't need it. Unless you wanted to say exclusively use this for Rutland, I would say that this captures this gives the flexibility to do exactly that. Right.

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

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: The the other thing I would note here is that and Scott had flagged this for me a couple of times. There had been a request just to reference DOC. The current language just says to BGS or AHS or door control upgrades at correctional facilities, which has been generally the way that these appropriations have been listed. You could include language if you just want the DOC call out to say to BGS or AHS or DOC or right? Sometimes we have this, like, triple I don't think you need to do that. But if you wanted it, this is the place that that would be included.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So I'm trying to recall how we want this conversation yesterday or yesterday? About giving the commissioner of BTS more authority. Did we want her to come in to give us a more detailed thought of what she's looking at? Because we did not want to give the broad authority to move. And I think we were going to have her come in to be a little more specific on what she's looking for. I'd say that

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Bennington was able to maybe talk about it yesterday, we didn't get to it because of the discussion with the parking. But I do know that they had mentioned something about specificity of what they

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: were looking for. What they were looking for. So, Tate, maybe they can come in and spend it. We don't want to give the broad ability to move money around because we might not we might as well not be here. But there may be a little bit that she needs to be freed.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: Yeah?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Okay. Well, let's let's keep going.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So the next line item on page 12 is your boiler replacement. We now have that one mill. So split it.

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

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: We're good there?

[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: Yep.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Mitch? Because this is all tied into the three acre parcel piece for the stormwater ponds, and they I forgot how much money they have already in the bank for the project. So we nipped them a little. It's cut them in half.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: The remainder of page 12, as you can see, matches the gov rec.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: To give a heads up to the committee, I know we're not reading this line by line. Just looking at the numbers. Before we go the bill out, we're gonna be reading it line by line. Not this draft, we're changing. Capital bill before we vote it, we're gonna read it. Okay? Yep.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Next changes we come to page 13.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yeah. That's some things don't work.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And this is a a big piece at the end here. I believe we did cut one of the GovRec cash allocation pieces. Let's see. Final piece that we have added here is installation of Wi Fi. And I think the piece noted about working on language is just that currently it's two BGS for AHS to work with DOC to install Wi Fi in state correctional facilities, 3,300,000.0. Don't know if folks wanted more specificity on language.

[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: Question. Thanks.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: We're gonna have to work on this. I had a request yesterday from the 5th Floor that we just allowed us to go through Vermont Broadband Board, like we did last year, and said, We did this here. We wrote a letter of support, and it was denied. And I said, The committee is pretty strongly, feels quite strongly, we're gonna put plenty in because we really need WiFi in our correctional facilities. We've received a letter, it's been Two things have been sent to our emails, Tate. They've been sent to the committee emails or not?

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Not the emails, they're

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: on the web page.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: They're on the web page. So Brian found the letter that we sent in conjunction with the energy committee last March to the Vermont Broadband Board supporting a $1,000,000 request. That's on our webpage. And also, I got a communication from the agency of digital services on Wednesday, it was yesterday, right, Indicating why they don't support the 3.3, they don't support putting money in, because there needs to be more planning. So those two documents are on our web page, and I want us to look through and maybe what we do, not put in the full 3.3 because that lets the broadband board off the hook. Mhmm. But if we put in some money and we do language indicating what ADS and DOC needs to It may be a way. So we'll spend some time as a committee to work with those two documents, the letter we sent last year and what came from ADS yesterday. That's the reason why they don't want the money put in. Yeah,

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: can you say a little bit more about where you think that would go if we shift this to broadband?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Well, I'm not saying we zero with F.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: No, I'm not hearing that either. But just I want to know a little bit more about the motivation for this suggestion, if you have any thoughts on that.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I don't think they want the money in the capital. Yeah. We've I indicated that Minier feels quite strongly about we put the money in the capital. And what I'm wondering, let me find this letter from yesterday. What they're saying briefly is they're saying the planning right now, this is coming from ABS. Planning is it for this initiative is still in its early stages. Significant work remains to fully understand the scope, risks and required safeguards necessary to implement such a system. They're concerned about the system needs to be designed to detect highly sensitive information, including criminal justice information and also some protected health information. And they say ADS in partnership with DOC does support the long term goal of enabling secure wireless connection to our facilities. However, at this stage, these fundamental elements still are being evaluated and developed. So, I'm just thinking we create language around these concerns with our money. And I'm not sure if And just leave it at that. Or maybe indicate to go before the broadband war. I'm not sure.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Yeah, I am not in the early stages of this. Been in the early stages of this since I began here, and that's not acceptable to me. I'm highly motivated and committed to getting Wi Fi it's ridiculous that in 2026, we don't have Wi Fi in those buildings that allow us to and and it's a workforce issue. It's it's it's it's an issue for the people who are who are housed there. I am interested in some very strong language that says we're we're moving beyond the early stages. I can't

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: believe that we're a we're a forerunner in putting Wi Fi in correctional systems. Whether they're correctional institutions or prisons throughout the country, probably my guess would be that most of them have Wi Fi.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: We use

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: It's all the same challenges that we have from security perspective.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Do you want to send anything, Brian?

[Brian Minier (Member)]: No. It's roadblock to everything we're working on right and we've been asking for years. I'm really surprised we're getting

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: the pushback that we are. So back when we were in COVID,

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: we're on Zoom. It was kind of twine. A lot of COVID money coming in. And one thing that we worked on is using some of that COVID money, that was the first round of COVID money, to work with DOC to find hotspots in each of our facilities for the future installation of WiFi. So, that work has already been done. And that took a couple of years to do. So, that's already been done. The chart that we got from ADS on Tuesday, it was 2023 earnings that they were strong. So I think I wanna push it. And, I think we put in some language around the dollars. What I'm afraid of, if we put in the full 3,300,000.0 and they wanna go to the broadband board, it lets the broadband board off the hook. So I don't know. That's something we'll have to balance.

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: Regarding the idea, I mean, it it really feels like party or parties aren't being candid with their actual reasons for objection here. You know, somebody doesn't have all their fingers on the table.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Welcome to the

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: world. This is a maybe more obvious scenario in this case.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: We're living this with DCF in our juvenile facility. This is what we struggled with. We'll make the best decisions we can with the information we have as legislators at the time, and that will change.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So my understanding of the current request, I'm gonna leave the dollar figure as is for now until I get an updated figure. But for the actual call out itself, what I might propose because you wanna keep the pedal down is probably wanna leave the to install Wi Fi instead of correctional facilities to make it clear that it's a directive. Also to ensure that it's clear that this is a capital expenditure. Right? That's helpful too. Because if you just said this is a planning type

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

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: You know, without some tie, it might not seem like a capital expenditure.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: But I would propose leaving what

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: you have here and then expanding it basically to say, install Wi Fi and state correctional facilities including and then address the ADS can like

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: To require the agency to work together.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes, I can throw in ADS here as well. And we can have some including call out to talk about the design to protect sensitive confidential information, including both criminal justice protected health information, something like that.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So look at the memo on our webpage, look at the letter that we sent last year, and then look at the memo that was sent. James?

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: I'll just add my voice, I guess. Oh, you sound like you have a cold.

[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: I think water's cold, but anyway.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Were you party till water? No.

[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: I'm back home, I'm fine. Or you snort too much. There's just some truth there. But anyways, I'd like to see us Risk of getting myself in trouble with the wrong people, I'd like to see us draw on the language just because I don't I'm not saying anybody's lying. I hate feeling that way. It shouldn't be as Joe said, I mean, to other jokes aside, 4Runner, that it shouldn't be this hard and we're definitely not the first people to do it. And it has a pretty decent size value for both incarcerated people and for the workers. I just don't understand what the delay is, that answer may be true, but it doesn't Things can be true and still don't agree with, and I don't agree with it.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Read what was posted on our webpage. Came from the Secretary and State Chief Information Officer for Agency of Digital Services.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Is it on? It's on our webpage. Is it unreasonable to ask the person who drafted that letter to come in

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: and testify? We've tried. They don't want it to be. They don't. They've tried. We've trying we've been trying since Monday too soon.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Can we do a report back either to join justice or to these committees? I would like some report backs as soon as possible.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: But we so read the the memo. It was sent on the twenty fifth, child. Read that and pull up some strong language from that.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I'm sorry, what was the date of the letter?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: The twenty fifth, but it's been posted on our committee webpage today.

[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: Okay, okay.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And so has the letter that this committee sent to the Vermont Broadband Board last year at this time. It was about March 20, March 19, March 20 we sent that letter on. So

[Conor Casey (Member)]: I agree with the vice chair about strongest possible language. I'm just flashing back to our requestdemand for DOC to work together with

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I can't remember if it was the Vermont Isle

[Conor Casey (Member)]: of Assistance Project or whoever. And we were told them no uncertain terms to stay on our lane. So I'm curious. Like, I wanna press it as far as we can without right. So We

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: have a bill to

[Conor Casey (Member)]: Yeah. I'd wanna make sure

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: that we're doing it effectively. That's all. Yeah.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Okay. That makes sense, but wait.

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

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Okay, let's keep going because you've got four minutes.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So we would jump next to the policy sections. So maybe we can try to go relatively quickly through these. The what you're gonna see on the bottom of page 13, this is the DEC piece. As you'll remember, we did not include Getter proposed section nine, which would have deemed certain new developments kind of automatically eligible under rule or pollution abatement control. This is just addressing the advantaged loan terms for certain kinds of mobile home park water systems. Mhmm. And I've tried to strike a balance here between using the language the DEC is familiar with, that vague privately owned nonprofit community type system. You'll recall that we spoke about that, and there was appetite to retain it even though it technically means nothing. I say I say that that's a it doesn't mean something just as the words. It means something to those who administer it, and that's why this is being maintained here is if folks are administering the program using this language in the way that's intended, don't accidentally disrupt what they do by adding a new defuncturer. So this is a cleanup to the DEC proposed language. This aligned with what they were proposing to do, and the substance of what you can see the proposal is really on page 15.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So before we go there, and I want more clarity on this, at the bottom of 13, page thirteen, ten BSA 62 of 54 is the registration process for mobile home parks. That's correct. So we reside in a nonprofit, and they said manufactured home community. Yes. That's not here.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes. Because that's not the current term and statute.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And we're gonna wait to make sure that the other bills go through?

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I it it actually doesn't matter either way because if the other bill does not go through and there are no conforming updates to the statute, which is what happened in the absence of those bills, this would be the correct term, mobile home park. If the other bill does go through, what it includes is a provision over the summer for our office to update all reference to mobile home park, which would include this reference to mobile home park to be manufactured also.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So can't BSA substitute specific for mobile home parks to register?

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

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Would including, say nonprofit manufactured housing communities if that gets through?

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: I'd.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Also, it would be pursuant to that process. Does that mean they would then be, just like mobile homes, they would have the ability to register through the same process with Department of Housing and Community Development as the mobile home parks?

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: This does not change anything about the registration process for mobile home parks. This just says that certain kinds of water systems that serve registered mobile home parks will be eligible for this.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So are the if the manufactured community housing, the nonprofit, they would be registered the same as a mobile home park through '10 via

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: 6250. They are a kind of mobile home park that would be registered with the Department of Housing and Community Development. Yes. It's subset of mobile home parks. That's the idea is that certain water systems so we're talking about subsets of things. It's something part of what's confusing here. We're talking about a certain kind of water system. It's a community water system, which means it serves a certain minimum number of folks. It's privately owned rather than municipal, and the ownership structure is that it's nonprofit owned. So that subset of water systems, it's receiving these advantaged loan terms. Water systems of that kind that serve the majority of residents within a subset of registered mobile home parks. So nonprofit or resident owned mobile home parks. They register just as any mobile home park does. They just have a particular ownership structure. That's what this is speaking to. Subset of water systems serving subset of registered mobile home parks would be eligible for these advantaged loan terms. And I say advantaged. It's it's longer loan terms with lower interest rates.

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: It includes co ops too?

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: I I would think resident Resident owned, I would think. I

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: should run probably.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: Wait a few minutes.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Are you asking me to wait a few minutes to run?

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

[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: then run faster. Just

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: some of the others. So mean, we gotta get some of this.

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

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Quickly just go through it. Get it. So Language we've already got.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes. So you what you will see here is bigger in presentation than what DEC showed you because I wanted to get the context of the statute and also because I identified an issue with the existing statute, which I'll describe on page 15. On line five, you see the notwithstanding. This was not included in DOC's proposal, but it should have always been here. I added subdivision one to the notwithstanding language, and the reason is for that is that what subdivision five is saying is that you may qualify for a certain term, forty year loan term at a certain low interest rate. In existing law, we have this notwithstanding subdivision four, which is what speaks to the minimum interest rate. So it's obvious why you need to not withstand that. This Subdivision 5 is saying you can go even lower than what's in four for these particular sets of communities. The thing that was missing is that Subdivision 1 speaks to a maximum term length of thirty years. Because this is allowing a forty year long term, you need to not withstand that as well. So that is something that clearly has been implicit all along. It wouldn't make any sense to be extending these for forty years with a prohibition, but you should have that.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: The

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: this is consistent with the substance of DEC's proposal in Subdivision 5, but I think it's easier to read because we have now created this defined term eligible mobile home park water system instead of having a long call out to a water system that serves mobile home parks that are for residents of, you know, such and such. We can just say, those who would fall into the subdivision are, and I'm gonna read from line nine, the applicant system meets the income level and annual household user cost requirements of a disadvantaged municipality. It's existing law. We're maintaining that piece. Mhmm. Or is an eligible mobile home park water system. That's what DC was trying to add to this subdivision. It's just a simpler way to read it than if you put the full call out. And that's what part of why I proposed just using a defined term here. It's easier to read.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So that that would encompass the language on page thirteen and nine. Correct. You say nonprofit or resident loan?

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Exactly. So generally, this subdivision is saying privately owned nonprofit community type water systems may qualify for these special kinds of loans, forty year lower interest rate, right, it can go down to minus 3%. But the condition for qualifying under this subdivision is now that you meet the income level and annual household user cost requirements or you're an eligible mobile home park water system. You still have the other conditions. At least 80% of the residential units served by the system continuously occupied below for residents. At least 80% of the water produced is for residential use. And then the that's just kicking them in to be eligible for these kinds of loans. The actual change one

[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: of the

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: changes that you see here is an even further grant to these kinds of order systems under subdivision c, the bottom of page 15. So starting on line 17, if the secretary determines that these privately owned nonprofit community tech systems qualify for a loan under that subdivision five, the piece we were just talking about. They'll certify that loan term and interest rate to the Economic Development Authority. I'm gonna pause and skip the new language here just to set up what the actual current is. In no instance shall the annual interest rate plus the administrative fee be less than is necessary to achieve an annual household's user cost equal to 1% of the median household income. So under existing law, what you get under five A is you can get these special terms, but they have to be certified under the subdivision c to VIDA. And in setting that interest rate, it cannot be lower than this particular setup described in c. The addition that's proposed here by, DEC is to say, except for these newly eligible mobile home park water systems, they would not be subject to this same constraint. And so that's the language you see at the very bottom of the page. Mhmm. Except as applied to an eligible mobile home park water system, I am not being summoned. Page 16.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: You mean when you're in some other community, we could summon you? If you have an appointment.

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

[Conor Casey (Member)]: well it's going for them.

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

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: You guys can try whatever you would like. Just follow the mysteries of this steakhouse. Good answer, John. Page 16. This was, I think, relatively uncontroversial for you guys. I did want to flag one thing. This is the addition of solicitation of for the state historic preservation officer. So I changed the style of the presentation here. I've created two subsections. One is with approval, you can accept and solicit these grants, gifts, donations.

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

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And then added separately that and this is requested in the gov rec that the request for approval for solicitation was just required. Right? That's the first clause of sub a with the approval of the secretary of administration. The state historic preservation officer would need to specify what the project is has a prohibition on public officials soliciting guests. Right? As you can imagine, for obvious reasons. So it's easy to get around. You just not would stay on that particular call out, but I just wanted to flag that that is something under the ethics code. Maybe helpful background to know is that this would not be the first time a state entity has been granted the ability to solicit funds. That's something that is present in a couple of instances. But I just wanted the committee to know that it is not as, we do have existing

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

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Law to address. And as you can imagine, it can have an feel when you have a public

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So let's flag that for the committee to talk to that.

[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: The

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: next piece is Boris Parks and Rex. This is something that you would have heard yesterday morning from Yes. McCrady.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Is Came from BGS.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay. Okay. So this is Southern State Correctional Facility transferring to the town of Springfield. We not withstand the existing statutory language, which describes the way that transfer sales leases occur. Commissioner BGS authorized to transfer to the town of Springfield, a portion of the Southern State Correctional Facility property, and we have to call up to what that is. I'm assuming this is as specific as you could get at this point, consisting of approximately two 22.9 acres to be used for municipal purposes, including economic development as an industrial parcel. And then we have a proviso that's these are the contingencies that would need to be met for that transfer.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So we have to I'll leave it up to you, but we put in language in '24 that allows this transfer to be done to the town, to their 24, we have to transfer the forty eight different years.

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

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So they've renegotiated because they're almost paying to use that property for a different use. And it was only 10 acres in the previous language, and this is 22 plus.

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: So this is a little more expansive than the original one.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It's more expansive. We had testimony in from BGS and the town manager in Springfield to explain this, and then they negotiated. We didn't negotiate. PGS and the town negotiated, and this is what both parties have agreed to, but we have to amend or repeat the previous

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Completely agree. Those are the two avenues. You could have a standalone section here and then just separately repeal that, or you could go in and just like we're adjusting all of the existing provisions from last year, you would be amending a policy provision from up there.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: We got it. But it'd be little clear on that one. The

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: contingencies themselves are set at the bottom of the page. State to obtain any state or local zoning or subdivision approvals required for transfer. I did you know, I included the word state here, but I did wonder if you wanna be specific. Who needs to do this? Is it BGS that needs to do this? We can just say state, but I

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I would send the language to the commissioner of BGS, and let's also send it to the Springfield Taplin to If you've got email on that.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay. State and the town to negotiate updates to the 1999 agreement to and these are fairly vague updates. I just wanna flag this. I'm not sure what it means to negotiate updates that explore the maintenance and upkeep. Right? Like, does that mean they have to actually commit to something, or do they just need to

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: because they're still negotiating. Okay. They're still negotiating what happens to that road that goes up there as well as the water and sewer lines. Because there was an amendment made to this agreement that the town, if this land swap occurred, the town would take over the road. And does that also include water and sewer? So that still needs to be negotiated.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So the question I would have just from a drafting perspective is, what are the things you're committed to having considered as part of the negotiation process, and what are the things that are required to be the outcome of the negotiation? So is it negotiate updates, taking into consideration maintenance and upkeep of the access road and water and sewer service lines, facility and transferred property, or is it negotiate updates that define maintenance and upkeep upright? Like, that's are you committing to we need a particular outcome. Are you saying as part of the negotiations, need you to think about this?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So that was a conversation that you somebody needs a BGS because you folks BGS and d and Springfield are the ones doing this. So I think maybe, John, you need to work with the commissioner of BGS and see where we are with the town of Springfield. Okay. This is language that came from BGS.

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

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And I checked with our town manager. The town manager was fine with us. BGS is fine with us. So these nuances need to be worked through with those parties, not us.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So there's that and also mitigate impacts at spring. Again, kind of amorphous, but sounds like those are just questions. Lastly, one of the contingencies, and this wasn't the way that it was set out in the language that I received, but it it's a separate prohibition. It makes sense to have it as a contingency for transfer TV because it has the practical same effect. Transferred property shouldn't include any brownfields. Then on page 19, what happens if the property is transferred and nothing is done? If the town has not begun developing a transfer property for purposes of economic development by the March 2030, town shall consult with the commissioner of BGS to examine alternative uses for the property. And tied to this same section, I have what you see on line five here, prospect of repeal of transfer authority on 07/01/2030. So if by that point, nothing has happened, the authority for transfer would disappear, basically.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So that was part of the agree that was part of the language you got?

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It was stylized differently, but that was what was contained is that the transfer authority would go away on July 2030. I think it's simpler just to repeal the sections.

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: Was there a previous land use that would make one suspect that part of the parcel could be a brownfield?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Could be. That property was used when the interstate was built. And that property, we called it Hojo's Pits.

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

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Howard Johnson's was at the foot. And there was a lot of gravel up there. And when the interstate was built in the early sixties, they pulled gravel from there to build the interstate and left this great big pit there. So growing up, it was called Joe's Pits and it was a party place. And then when they were looking for a facility in the southern state of Vermont, BTS saw this property, it was privately owned, this property and said it's a perfect property to build on because the soil consistency allows you to perk. Out of the way, it's up above, you don't even see it from the road. And we purchased that property with discussions with the town at that point that whatever acreage is not used for the correctional needs could be transferred to the community for economic development. That was part of the agreement in 1999, agreement between the state and the town. You

[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: need a little more testimony on those parties. Hope it fits. Here. I'm sorry. I was actually saying it could be a little bit.

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: And so if part of it is a brownfield, would the scope of the transfer just be narrow?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It could be. I don't know. I mean, a lot of that land is not built because it's so steep. Part of it, the back of it. I don't think there's any brownfields up there. I don't believe. I mean, BGS would know more of that because before we built the facility, did a lot of tests tests, drilling in that in the property just to see where would be the best place to put the facility, what environmental issues might be there. So all that testing was done back in nineteen ninety seven, ninety eight, ninety nine. All that testing was done prior to actually doing buildings. So d BGS has all those documents from there. Because the facility was being built around nineteen ninety nine, two thousand. So BGS did all of our test scores.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Forgive the ignorance. What's what is Brownfield? It's just the definition of a Brownfield.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: You know where Jane Al used to be in Springfield? Oh, yeah. That's a Brownfield. You get a lot of oil

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Environmental containers, essentially.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: In the in the

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: So many different load

[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: different Brownfields.

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: Any any old downtown is 80% of it's

[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: a brownfield. Joe's backyard.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Any any Many cheaply plants. St. Albans is all

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: brown roads. Right? So the whole downtown is brownfield. That's a purpose.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Effective on passage.

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

[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: Thank you.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yay. Have you been stopping?

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I mean, they're gonna stop it. I

[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: I it's a nature. You

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: have direction enough for somewhat of another draft, we but have to really make a determination on the broadband, but you're going to look at that and put some together.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah, I mean, I think at this point I'm not going have a new draft for you by the time I come

[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: back, right?

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I think just getting ready commitments to decisions will help me bring back the most useful draft possible.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: We're going to also try to meet this afternoon. We do have approval to leave the floor, we're number one. Finally got

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: bumped up. We made it up.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: But I'm not sure what time.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Katie's been keeping me in the loop.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And you may have to be on the floor for some of that.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: For yield bill, I'll be on the floor, but I expect you guys will be back on the floor at that point.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: We've got a lot of floor. Yes. Thank you. Do folks want to look at the money real quick? Or do you want to take a quick break?

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: Which money? All the money? That's specific case of money.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Well, what we've got right now, if you look at our spreadsheet, we have put right now, the thinking is the excess bonded dollars, the 1,800,000.0 can change. We propose putting half 1,000,000 in major maintenance of that, that would be funded. And then the $1,300,000 for the entryway here, for bondage. The question is, do we want language in terms of the entryway, what that is to be used for?

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: Well, there was some discussion yesterday regarding that.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So what will we back for language?

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: I mean, design was fine, but I if if and I someone correct me otherwise, but just wanna make sure that that part of that decide include what's going on outside, you know, specifically parking configurations to include ADA spots and ingress egress for for, you know, truck deliveries, both of which are clearly compromised by or displaced by the proposed entryway.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Is there anything else that folks are interested in? Those things.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Okay. Yeah. That's good to hear. Yep. Agree.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And I'm not sure if John got that language or not.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: You can check with him on that.

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: But I'd be really disappointed if they did this beautiful design and figured out the roof problem and the drainage and then didn't have an answer on that because it's

[Conor Casey (Member)]: Well, perhaps I'm being naive, but I feel like they're absolutely going to take the truck consideration, but then decide the two parking spots.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Parking is not part of it.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: I'm sorry?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Trucking does not really have been part of this, from what I've heard.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: That's my large concern. If I were to solve the truck shit

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: If I were standing here and you were asking to fund the bill and that wasn't solved, I would be opposed to it. I wouldn't support a bank.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: I would agree.

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: So please plan that before you it's giving you a year's head up.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: You're planning the structure first. Not really planning too much.

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: Well then, mean, I'm not gonna assume an argument that doesn't need to occur yet, but

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So it's for design documents, and it gets us to the beginning. It's for design documents. So we would need the language design documents, but it's also would get us to the beginning of instruction documents. Yes. We need to get that language. So then the other big piece is the We have not had the conversation on the recovery. Two and twenty thousand.

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: That one sounds easy to me. And now, you're going to the same class as everybody else.

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

[Brian Minier (Member)]: a little less crass, but I I agree with you.

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: There's nothing wrong with the project, but it's again,

[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: you know, there's a process. There's a process.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: And if you don't follow

[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: the process, you go back to the old days. You guys worked so hard

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: to solve. Yep. I cannot disagree. Worthy

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: as it is, I agree with you.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Zero. Okay. Wi is the biggie. What might be really helpful to understand this is for John folks, I want you to read that letter that we sent last year as well as the document memo that came from ADS yesterday. I think it would be helpful. We looked at the membership of the Vermont Broadband Board, and one of our colleagues is on that board. I know they really want for a few of us to reach out, between Troy and I, from you and Troy, could reach out to more severely. We could kind of talk about the process. Why don't

[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: you Yeah, I'm sorry, I'll do that.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Why don't you reach out to us and talk to her what the process would be and I knew she could weigh in as the wire was denied.

[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: My second part to that, just solved it in a couple of days unfortunately, I don't necessarily care where the money comes from. It's not a fact, So I have no problem checking and saying, you know, which we'll do with Fidelity. But if they're like, here's why and it doesn't look like it's going to change, I have no problem putting the money in from our side. What else are they going do? We could put more money into major maintenance, but they're not going get to the projects anyway.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So why don't you two reach out to Laura? That might give us a little bit more direction. The Wi Fi?

[Brian Minier (Member)]: I can say it's not on if we ask somebody to come in and have a conversation with us and they respond with a memo and that's like end of conversation. There's a lot more to this and we need to be able to sit down with the parties. And I just don't like the precedent of we're not coming in, here's a memo instead, right? They want me to win. Yeah, that's not right. It's or

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: three times they're confused to come in. Then after they knew we were putting the money in, then we get the memo. I got the emails from Tate while we're on the floor. Tate says, well, I guess they heard you. Yep. They do. So why don't you check with Laura, two of you, and that ties up the money, means a little bit left of cash.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Well, depends on how much is we're not doing three threes.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I just I just wanna figure out the broadband piece first. Mhmm. And if there's an opportunity there, and we put in language what ADS and DOC needs to do to address those needs, those concerns of ADS, particularly if was security issues with the system, which is understandable because there is a different security level. Mhmm. You are dealing with personal health care issues. Mhmm. You're dealing with labor issues. There's a lot in there. And I wanna address that. Mhmm. And if they are to go before the broadband board, I'll let the board off the hook if we put in the full amount. Mean, that's the balance I'm kinda looking at at this point.

[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: Joan's not here, he's going to get his copy, but the other thing is that Ag said that they rotate through the grants each year so that they don't have 26,000 in the same way we do of basically running out. And as we talked about, I understand that nobody else is gonna go wobble, this is perfectly fine, but I have to advocate for that 26 that was allocated to the fair that didn't get their money, that I would like to see it still stay with them. It's only $26 out of all the stuff. It's not like, I don't know the breaking precedent, but if they're doing their accounting the way they are, it's anywhere near as big a problem as they started taking it almost the first day.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: And they're in a better position to spend it right now, right, than they were last year? That's question. Okay. All right.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So do we want to reallocate that term of sales?

[Conor Casey (Member)]: What we were.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Okay. With me. Yeah. Okay.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Just to let Scott know. Let's see if we can get BGS in here to talk about if we wanna switch money. I'm wondering, do do we wanna shift gears real quick for Kevin? He has an amendment on a bill. He's in house judiciary committee. House judiciary committee has asked us to take a look at it. It deals with repealing fine time.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Well, actually, Kevin's asking you to look at it because when I was asked to put the amendment forward, I thought I was gonna only be speaking to judiciary. And I looked at it and I said, No, that's our committee. And so, I'm the one that's coming to you because

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Well, I was asked by judiciary for us to take a look

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: at Well, that's fine. But I'm just saying, nobody told me to come to see us. I came to us because we should be the ones discussing this in my opinion. So, I simply gave you what I would consider my rationale that I agree with. I can read through it and you can ask me why I believe what I say or you can just tell me why you don't like it. But that's my purpose of giving you the talking points because I wasn't sure I was gonna get a to speak to it and I'm not here tomorrow. In fact, I have to leave earlier this afternoon.

[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: That'll be funny but just have to introduce himself for the record as a witness. Very very sweet. Just talking formally. I don't get any one pot suit.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: I'm ready for you. Got the chocolate here.

[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: Sorry. So

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: even though this is a rather candid and not so polite, earned time formerly known as good time is well meaning policy intended to reduce prison population. I think that's part of it. It's no longer known as good time because good time is not required. All that's required to earn a week off of your sentence for a month is to avoid bad behavior. You don't have to participate in programming. You don't have to participate in services. As long as you don't engage in bad behavior, you get that one week. If you do engage in bad behavior, you do not forfeit any accumulation of time, as I understand it. You merely lose your week for the month. The clock starts again the following month. Victims, this is the one that really gets me victims and survivors overwhelmingly oppose this constant moving of the goalposts, and that it undermines the sentence finality and creates uncertainty relating to release dates. And I know that from the testimony that I heard, Vince is maybe the major problem here is we can't keep track of who's doing what when, which blows my mind, but I won't go into that. And they feel, the victims feel like they're getting a short change. Judges and state attorneys reported distorting sentencing with unintended consequences. If the judges know there's this earned time and they think that that's going to reduce the sentence to a point that's too low. They just adjust is the wrong word. They lengthen the sentence to account for the earned time. So, it it it's it's a it's a moving target if you will. And the law imposes unproductive administrative burdens on an already understaffed Department of Corrections. It seems to me like there's a more straightforward way to encourage incarcerated people to behave properly and work for their own what's the right word? Remediation?

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Yeah, that's what I would use. Rehabilitative.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: What word would you use to to to Better themselves? Better themselves. To be to be yes. Rehabilitative. So, if if they choose to participate and I'm I'm feeding from ignorance here. So, forgive me. If they choose to participate in a program that allows them to learn a skill so they can come out and have a job and be productive, I would be happy to give some earned time for something like that if they successfully do that. If they come in on drugs and after being in a program, they become clean for a period of time. I would give them earned time for that. But not just because they don't break the rules. Having said that, that's their understanding. I

[Conor Casey (Member)]: mean, the chair and you have already said it, but this is something that so, as is so typical, straddles two committees between us and judiciary. So I'm looking specifically at what I consider to be our part, which is the last bullet point, which is DOC. I thought I had heard and this is going be anecdotal, I'm wondering if anybody has anything on the record or anything like that. But I thought I had understood that this is useful to DOC because it is a way of incentivizing behavior. And so have we heard that DOC doesn't like it because it's imposing these burdens? Or have we heard that they like it because it's good for incentivizing behavior? Or have we heard both? Or have we heard something else? Because I thought I understood this to be a good tool. And

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: that's a valid point. I felt terrible when I realized on Monday night that I was gonna be on the floor Tuesday morning to give an amendment. And there hadn't been any testimony to my knowledge of hearing that. Now, let me answer that.

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

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: When my kids were growing up, I initiated a stack of quarters that said, okay, the beginning late, you can, you can, you can have these at the end unless you break my rules and I'm gonna take one away for every time you break the rules. Sure. I didn't give them something for being good. It's a totally different way of looking at discipline. I don't mean that in a punitive way. I mean that in an incentive way to say, here's how you need to behave to be acceptable in society. And if you don't, you're going to miss out. And a quarter is nothing. But to lose a friend because they spit at them is significant. Is that too corny?

[Conor Casey (Member)]: No, I mean, I think I follow. Okay. Yeah, alright.

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: Would this apply to everyone or certain parties?

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: The the the amendment is to refuel the entire section called earned time. Yes. Everyone is my understanding. Gina, correct me if I'm wrong. I don't know what I'm talking about here. I'm going off of pure gut and no testimony and that's unfair to you.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I don't know what to play in, Kevin. I think you're right on track with this as far as I know. I've

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: had a bill attacked about forfeiture of, I think, ertight opportunities for

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

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Didn't Chris forfeit out? We've already carved out about 13 crimes that folks would not qualify for that time. We did that a number of years ago. We also had, prior to this earned time, what's called good time, we had meritorious good time, where they could earn an additional amount of up to fifteen days if they participated in programming, if they participated in education, if they participated in a work program. And what was happening on DOC's side, it was consuming so much. It was two things happening. It was consuming so much of DOC staff to calculate all that. And the bigger issue was it was so subjective. Because if you had some correctional officers that had had a out had a freemium against an inmate, and that person was participating, the correctional officer had to sign off on it. And sometimes they didn't. And then you would have a grievance filed and some legal processes would kick in. So it was really, really cumbersome, taking a lot of time, a lot of money on DOC's part. So when we shifted to this, the discussions in the committee were we wanted to make it as simple as possible and take out the subjectivity of it and be very, very clear. And that we knew that it was a management tool the DOC needed because for folks who are incarcerated, it's hard for them to think long term. It's hard for them to think, well, my minimum's at a certain time. And they need little incentives along the way that they feel that they're achieving something. So if they can get seven days, they behave. If they have disciplinary report as their behavior is off the charts. They're not abiding by the rules of the facility. They get a Doctor, they lose that ringtone for that month. Those little bits of earning seven days a month really helps folks to calm down the tension in the living units, which then helps our staff for that. Also, at sentencing time, victims are part of that discussion at times. And it's we made sure it was very well known that earned time could get calculated. So particularly if there's a plea bargain, the victims have to agree to that plea bargain. And they know that their own time is gonna be calculated in that sentence eventually. Also, we were very clear in the legislation that victims had the ability, they so choose, to be notified on a monthly basis or within a three month basis in terms of how much time a person has accumulated. And that would be up to the victim to make that decision if they wanna be notified or not. Some wanna be notified and some do not. So that's the way the structure of the government is versus what used to be the meritorians. Also, you might wanna balance this and think we have the work camp. Granted that as many people in the work camp, though that starts to pick up a little bit. This has been in place for thirty years. Folks who are involved in the work camp, they get a day off for every day they serve under status. So if they have a three year status and for every day that they work, they're getting a day off. So if they're working for a year at work camp, they get a year off. That's yeah. So and also the other thing is this is not connected to earn time, but again, it breaks into a length of time that goes into someone's sentence. With a detainee, for every day they serve prior to their sentence gets calculated towards their sentence. So as a detainee, if they're in there for two years before they go to trial or a plea bargain and their minimum sentence is five years, they've already served two of them. So that all goes into.

[Brian Minier (Member)]: Yeah, no, thanks for presenting this, Kevin. I worked on this a lot, like about fifteen years ago, I think.

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

[Brian Minier (Member)]: I was representing correctional officers. And just the way it was relayed to me is you're in an institutional setting. You have like hundreds of people who have a background of criminal history, right? Not to generalize too much. Staying above boards was always presented to me as being a little difficult in itself, you know? There were endless opportunities to do bad things, to buy drugs, to identify, to do something. And it was just described to me by the CEOs, it's like, it's a powder keg, and this is keeping the top of the powder keg, this way to make sure people don't do harm, you know? And I think I have a lot of It resonates with me, the move in the goalpost thing with the victims there. And I wonder if there's a way to get at it with more transparency in the front end. I know we're struggling with notification, but okay, this is the lowest amount of time the person could serve, assuming they do good time, right? I just worry about taking this tool away when we have understaffing, you know, and already at capacity, because space is an issue in facilities too. I think it would be tough for me to support just especially without hearing from frontline staff on this too, because it's their lives that are on the line every day when they go to work, right?

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: If I may, it literally is a flip in the philosophy of how to manage the infestrated population.

[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: Are you gonna get me up on

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: another pet peeve? I think the primary goal of DOC with infestrated people is their safety. And even though I understand you can't be 100%, that needs to be solved first so that people aren't able, I'm gonna use the word able, to harm others within the facility. If we can't get that message across to those who have been incarcerated, then we haven't done the job. If they haven't learned and decided it's a better way to treat people properly and not harm them either verbally or physically or any other way, then we've missed the most basic need. And this sounds like you're trying to keep the powder keg from exploding, and we shouldn't have a powder keg, is my point.

[Brian Minier (Member)]: I mean, I guess I just ask myself. Does this language make the inside of a prison a safer place for a more dangerous place? And to me, it's like, no question. This will make prison more dangerous.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: And at first, it may, but it shouldn't be dangerous at all. No one incarcerated has any constitutional right for privacy except for improper search, improper cavity search. So, there should be cameras everywhere that document everything that's going on. And if there's an infraction, whether it's physical or verbal or any other way, it should be dealt with immediately and should be eliminated some way to the best of our ability. We shouldn't be putting rules in to try to keep the call. It should be discipline based on improper behavior, rather than, Hey, you haven't hurt anybody this week, so we're gonna give you a month off, or we're gonna give you a day off for this month. Or, I'm sorry, a week off for this month. It's a flip to accept the fact that people can't live properly with each other is, in my opinion, where the problem is.

[Brian Minier (Member)]: I agree. It feels aspirational to me, right?

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Yeah. An aspirational

[Brian Minier (Member)]: statement. Yeah, no.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: It's the overall

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

[Conor Casey (Member)]: I'm listening to the conversation between Conor and Kevin, and it seems to me that Conor is talking more about process and you're talking more about outcome. And you're disappointed with the outcome, as am I, as I assume are all of us. But then you're assuming a better outcome for the counterfactual, which we don't know. And I think when you're talking about the process, you have to look at what has traditionally been most successful. And if you look at game theory, which I studied in the context of international relations, tit for tat is what works. And so if someone misbehaves, you lose that earned time that you were going to get. When you're back on the straight and narrow, you're back to earning it. That's what proves most effective over time. And so I think you need that incentive, and you need to apply it in that way, or you're working against yourself for the outcome.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: And I agree with you. I'm simply suggesting that we shouldn't even be in the place that we need to get earned time for being okay. I wish we weren't there. Earned time should be for going above and beyond. The norm should be, you will behave in prison or you will feel the pain. I'm being blunt there.

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: No, I know.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: I personally believe that spanking my children was the right thing to do. Before they got to a point where they were gonna go and hurt someone or hurt themselves, they needed to learn that the rules are in place for their opinion.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: Not every student's a straight A student and for some getting to it's

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: a miracle.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: That gets

[John Gray (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: to be rewarded too.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: And that wasn't how well they did on their tests. It's their basics. You have to live to be in society and avoid hurting yourself or other people.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: Including effort and including improvement from whatever your baseline is.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yeah. Joe, I'll add Troy. Yeah. So

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: and I can certainly appreciate that this is a very useful tool for for corrections officers. And I wouldn't wanna I don't think I'd be supportive of taking it away from them. But I would be very curious what the carve out exemptions are for those not eligible. And I don't even need an answer for that right now.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: I think

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I've got that.

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: Because if you've got somebody who's made several they're frequent flyers. They've made several different visits to a facility over the years. At a certain point, they're not getting it.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: No, it's what they've been for convicted of.

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: Oh, well, I understand that.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Let me read it to you. I can get up here because it doesn't

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: I think it's murder. Let me No, read

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: it's not. Let me read it to you and also get We did that carve out, then was in response to victims being concerned. And we did that carve out. So, we just do that here.

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: For capital crimes, primarily. It

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: is disqualifying offenses, murder in violation of a certain statute, voluntary manslaughter, kidnapping, lewd and lascivious conduct with the child, sexual assault, aggravated sexual assault, and aggravated sexual assault. They do not earn earned time. Is convicted of those crimes.

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: And, honestly, this isn't something we're gonna resolve at a table today or even discuss it on a more granular basis. If you've got somebody, in my perspective, who's, I don't know, if you somehow were incarcerated for several different drug offenses, like drug distribution offenses, at a certain point, that individual doesn't get and and maybe, you know, there are some other parties that should be on that that exclusion list. So I would entertain some some testimony to that to that effect, But a blanket repeal, I I don't think it's something I can support at this time.

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

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. I mean, I don't think it's gonna surprise anybody. Certainly, the sponsor of the amendment here, that I can't get behind this. And you're not going to go into depth on the behavioral modification components of this and the difference and the nuances between operate conditioning and punishment, negative reinforcement and the nuance of the differences between that and punishment, positive reinforcement rewards. But those all play into this and touch on some of what Brian was talking about. And and I'm not gonna get into either, and I'm happy to have this conversation side on on the side of of about my thoughts on even the, sentence minimums. I can talk a little bit there about how those impede rehabilitation and restoration and how those compete with a restorative approach to incarceration, which we don't do. And I can talk a long time about the benefits that I've seen in committing to a restorative process. And my only context, I work with students, I have for a very long time, who are violating the policies that we have in place on a university campus. And I've done that at small privates, I've done that at small state institutions, and I've done that at land grant state institutions. I know one of the reasons I've done it for so long and the job security that attaches to my job is because I know students show up on a college campus at a developmental process. And I know they're going to violate the policies, despite the fact that the policies are pretty clearly outlined. Job is to tap them on the shoulder and to say, hey. We need to reframe how you're approaching this. We need to talk about the impact that you're having on the community around you. And I take a very educational approach to doing that. I do the same with my kids. I can talk to you about times where I've had to play that role with my kids, and we disagree. I I don't think spankings are effective. College campus and the behavioral sort of implications of not violate or of violating policies on a college campus are different, not a correctional setting. I don't think the principles are at all I I I think the principles work regardless. I'm I'm incredibly committed to what it means to be a restorative institution. We are not a restorative institution nor have we ever tried to be in the Department of Corrections. So I can't. There are so many reasons tied up into why I wouldn't be able to support this amendment. If we're going to consider the amendment, and I'm happy to consider the amendment, there is a myriad of testimony that I would need, and that's gonna take far longer than before we can resolve this amendment with the miscellaneous judiciary bill. So I'm happy to open up that process and to start having those conversations. But yeah, I can't support this amendment to this particular bill.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: James?

[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: I would say, I'm not sure that I feel this is the right avenue for this. It's not that I don't look at this and say that some of it doesn't have merit or that it's not worthy of consideration. I like the idea, the concept of good time, but it also, as Alice explained, that there's much more subjectivity in it, and I can use, there's not many places in society where you can't just walk out of, You're in corporate America and somebody treats you bad, you can walk out of. You can't correctional institutions. And for thirteen years, I was in something else where you could walk out of it, it's called the military. And if you have somebody who is, let's say, playing favoritism, and it happens every day, one person gets all kinds of rewards for their alleged good behavior, or they get the opportunity to go do those good behaviors. And the person who's not on the ends, not because they did it to the bat, but just because they're not on the ends, doesn't get that opportunity. So it's not completely that it's not a good thing, it's human nature and it's not the inmates that are doing the negative on that side, it's just human nature. The fact that we get drugs inside of prisons tells you that there's a problem with human nature, right? But in a bigger issue, I think that if we're going to do something like this, this would be something that I would want to look at in the future, God willing, whoever comes back next year. That would be a thing where you'd have a bill and have actual testimony that's in-depth, as Troy had mentioned. And you had actual consideration risk, as Conor had talked about, figuring out ways to have more transparency for victims. I certainly agree with that. But I don't know that this is the right avenue. And certainly if we repealed this, then it leaves them nothing with the end of care because it's gone. And so we're not saying we're repealing it and trying to replace it with something else and we can't ramp it. So for that reason, I can't support it, but it's not that I don't support the conversation at some point or in some way, but it's a much bigger, way bigger than it doesn't seem like it should be, but it is a huge conversation. And I would agree with you.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: I will beat the drum one more time. It's unacceptable for us to just say, well, we can't keep drugs out of our purses. That's unacceptable.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So, we've had a good conversation. I don't know where we're gonna get with this. I don't know what next step to take. Just give a flavor of the committee. I'm not feeling a whole lot of support at this amount. Tell me your style. Just tell me how many people would support the amendment.

[William "Will" Greer (Member)]: Right. I can't. It's written.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: People are opposed to me. It's known too.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: You for hearing from me.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Okay. So let's take a quick break. Benning here is on Saint Perry. Let's take a 10 break. You need a BGS with us. There's a couple of questions that we've had. One pertains, and I don't know if, Emily, you can weigh in on this or the commissioner about more specificity in terms of moving money for those projects that are like in human services or public safety that BGS does the work for. If you don't have the flexibility of moving funding, we want a little bit more clarity on what the contractor is looking for. And now we have questions about the for this for that. So those are the two things to co connect with you on on those. Are you ready to answer those? Or okay. Let's take a fifteen minute break.