Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Okay, good morning. Today is May twenty first, twenty twenty sixth, and this is a meeting of the three day conference, which includes the Senate institutions and the House institutions and corrections. And we had a couple of items that were pending, mostly pending language because we did agree on dollars. And so we're gonna discuss that. Senator Plunkett has another meeting right now, but we'll expect him shortly. So let's hear from the council. Perfect. Okay, on the language. Thank you.

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Morning, everyone. Good morning. Chagraha, I'm supposed to counsel. I just sent a document to be taped. I haven't pulled up. I don't know if it's been posted yet, but it will be posted shortly already.

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Thank you. It doesn't work. Know you're in Poland.

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Scott is making my life much happier than it otherwise would be, so I appreciate all for

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: yes. We're appreciative of the Hampshire. What

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I've done this morning is I think we're talking about language related to one ten state train.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Oh, you shared it there.

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: But I wanted to note that I put together a document that contains all the policy language sections for which there were changes. So it's not all the policy sections of the bill because some were undisputed between the companies, but it contains all of the policy sections. I can show you all of the language updates, but I'm happy to start with one tenth state, that sort of advice. Please do. Okay. This is what you're going to see. That's a big policy topic. Me just jump in.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Actually, know what, I'm sorry. Me propose Senator Blumke is going to join us in a few minutes. Let's start with the other policy pieces.

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Sure. So the first policy piece, this was discussed yesterday, and you'll remember that my colleague, Mike O'Grady, was in here talking about the Little River State Park lease. The agreement that was reached was related to sort of a reporting mechanism, you could ensure that everything's going as you would hope, and so organizationally, you need to add a new subsection header, but the real change is this new subsection P. E, and this is that the Commissioner of Horse Parks and Rec shall report to the chairs of these committees with a report on the status of the lease negotiations under the section on or before 08/15/2026, which was the date discussed yesterday, and immediately prior to execution of any related lease agreement, and it shall provide to the chairs of the lease agreement promptly following execution. So I think that captures the discussions yesterday.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It does. I need to check on that date. I might need it to be slightly earlier just because not being accessible on that date. It would just be

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: When talked to them they figured they'd be about midpoint in the negotiation.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I understand and I hadn't thought about that in terms of my schedule but it would just be

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Yeah, it's just honored before August, I think it would be a phone call or a Zoom meeting. I mean it's not going to be something we have to come

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: up here for. Right, no I understand that but I'm just giving you a heads up because I know we have other language and I'll talk to them to make sure that would work for them. Okay.

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So, there may be something on the day. Just the day. I'm gonna jump over this one because it sounds like we're waiting for Senator Blumke to come back. This is the core thing he wanted to discuss, but one thing I'll go ahead and say, some of what you're seeing in here, because this is just standalone language for purposes of presentation, trying to get myself direction as to what to do. I wouldn't have included section 14a here because there's nothing to show. It's deleted. I'm just noting to you that because the presentation is going to change,

[Unidentified Senator (Senate Institutions)]: and this is going to be

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: in the form of acceding to the Senate proposal amendment with further proposal amendment because you're accepting one of the basics there. I think it's going to be simplest, although we can talk about that too. We'll need to delete section 14 a, which is the repeal of authority to sell Washington State.

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Okay, so we don't accede to the Senate.

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So it just depends on how you want to, you guys are free to ask whichever way you would like it to be. If you would like it to be recede, and then you have the proposal amendment set out all the sections with the changes, you're welcome to do that.

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: That's the difference between doing it this way versus a strike off.

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: If you want to do a strike off, that's also totally doable.

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: I think the strike off. You know, I'm just thinking, now that I'm at this point, because earlier, we I were at that think

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Certainly easier to see all the things that you've agreed, and if you have the strike all in front of you.

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Yeah, I think the strike all is gonna be better, because then you got the whole package there. Yeah, think the strike all is

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: better for us knowing what we did, and then it's also better for future people looking at this.

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: I think it's just better to do a strike off.

[Unidentified Senator (Senate Institutions)]: Happy to do that. The way we would do it, it would

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: be

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: received from the Senate proposal of amendment with the of amendment to the House bill.

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Yeah, and it's a strike off.

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yep. Then

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: you can just possibly don't know. Just do

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: it Yep. I have a report in this format, basically, so what I could do is once everything's agreed, swap out the sections with these highlighted sections. But

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: it would show more than just what changed? It

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: would show the full of the bill. Obviously it wouldn't show things in Act 33 that were untouched by both chambers because those just weren't amended. But it would have the full size of the House's bill plus new policy exceptions that the Senate Committee added. I actually think this way of doing it is going to be simplest where we just have policy sections, then we have money sections. There's agreement, then I compile based on agreement. I can maintain the highlighting so you see everything that you agreed and then strip it out for a vote, basically. So I'll come back to this, but this is the 100 stage. There are a couple of other pieces here, one related to what I just turned some discussions on. So this is one I did want to pose a question on. This is the language that is intended to mirror the language of the budget.

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Their language is different right now.

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: There's been an updated language, which I received through a call yesterday, and my understanding is that human services agreed to this, BGS was comfortable with this, AGS was comfortable with this, so I have just typed up what I saw in that email, just to go over it, instead of monthly, a requirement of reporting to try to get that full operating budget, it's at the August, October, December 2026 meetings of the Joint List of Justice Service Leg Committee, DCF, BGS shall report on their plans to develop the Green Mountain View facility. Similar, sub A, sub B used to be the prohibition on expending any funds in FY '27 until you got the budget, and that would happen either you would have approval off session or you would have had the general or something to sell or take legislative action during session. That's been updated to say that notwithstanding any underbrushment involved. Contrary, before DCF and VTS approve design jobs for construction, and prior to approval of the lease for the facility, VTS shall submit their approved design to the House Committees on Department of Institutions and on Human Services and the Senate Committees on the Institutions and on Health Welfare. At the same time, DCF shall submit a draft operating budget. I think the concepts are pretty intuitive to understand. Instead of a threat, basically, who's deciding to Do this. The point I wanted to raise is that up to this point, the reason this language was traveling in two bills was to ensure that you guys had a place at the table when the discussions happened. So I don't know if you still want this section, that's I guess, okay.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yes. Yep, thank you.

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Because this is going be important to keep track, because we need to keep working with PGS to make sure they're represented at the table as this continues, the new legislature next year understands the conviction. I've also spoken to the chair of appropriations this morning about this because the same language needs to be in the big bill.

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So that's why I went to raise it as I did just because of Russian compiling this, while I did follow exactly the email that Cole sent me, but for stylistic things that require updating, I do wanna make sure there's no divergence between whatever happens in the budget, and I had a chance to talk with, but I know that she was on the email chain and agreed with the language. So let me just Yeah.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: The two people that had

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: to sign off on this was the chair of Human Services, the Senate Board and PGS.

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: That's all both on the other piece here, which is highly relevant, is the conversation that you guys were just having. This is your DFC report on the WiFi installation. This is tied to the final appropriation, which I think is now at $7.50 ks cash. Previously, the language said, so ignoring what you see in front of you, was that the Commissioner of Corrections and the Chief Information Officer of Digital Services in consultation with VGS would report monthly to Joint Legislative Justice oversight committee in consultation with the chairs of the institutions committees on the installation of Wi Fi. I've stripped the reference to any consultation of the chairs because I think you're both on pointless and justice, so no need to duplicate it, but the restructuring that you see here is really to make the primary entity that's reporting ADS, if that's what you're saying here. Instead of Commissioner of Corrections and Chief Information Officer of Digital Services, this is saying the Chief Information Officer is the one reporting. Yes, they are doing it in consultation with the Commissioner of BGS and the Commissioner of Corrections, but it's on AES to be the one reporting. This is saying that the Chief Information Officer to report to Joint Justice Sector Site Committee at each scheduled meeting of the committee in calendar year 2026 on the installation houses. I think it's closer to what you guys were.

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: So, I just gotta know, hey, the person caliber and ADS, they made it to the next.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: That's when we go to the floor? So depending on what, well, can't take three

[Unidentified Senator (Senate Institutions)]: of those.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Oh, actually, but Yeah, we don't need right, right.

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Okay, right. We'll probably have a little bit more time to adjust. And we can also show on this language too.

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I've told folks this morning that I am trying to maximize time for this process, so for the time being, I'm sticking around with you guys. So 10:00 would be great. I will plan to be there at ten unless

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Whatever. Your office or We can

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: be there. It's me right here. Okay. If you're done with Justin and and Denise now. I see it right here. It be quieter because probably quieter.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: People will be looking for you.

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: No. My my committee members are

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: gonna go up. Have a committee about

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Would you like for me so those are all the policy updates that I have. There are obviously some

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: There's a lot part.

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Some language changes within the money sections themselves. If you would like for me to wait for senator Pluneau to arrive to talk one ten State Street, I did send tape an incredibly quickly compiled full money section changes, including the language updates to the money section, so I could jump to that if you would like to see that instead of talking 110.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yes, well does anyone want talk about 110 1st? Sure. Okay. Let's do 110.

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Scrolling back up, fourteen ninety will be, actually won't be deleted since we're doing a strike call that'll just work different.

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: So,

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: what we have here is an amendment to the existing authority, which was previously repealed in the Senate proposal, to sell 110 State Street. That's near 2023 Capital Bill Act 69, So we have to go in and amend that underlying session long provision. Subsection A is the exclusive subsection that deals with 110 State Street. Actually, section 22 in which it relates to other properties as well, so we want make sure that you don't disrupt those. I think it's helpful if I read through and not talk about the current changes, so just ignore the strike through and underlings, and I can just do high level. The existing language says, Notwithstanding 166B, which is the provision of existing law that relates to the process for going out to sell or transfer property, and in particular mandates that it be sold at fair market value, that is not withstood in the existing language from Act 69 for 2023. Currently you could sell for less than F and V with that notwithstanding language. The other pieces of the language here, so it extends authority to sell the property, but at that time it extended, it said that the commissioner shall first offer in writing to the city of Montpelier the right to purchase the property, and then it had particular conditions related to that. So that's the high level you need to know from the existing. Obviously, you're stripping out here the pieces related to first offering and writing to the city the right to purchase that property.

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: But when we also take our opera as to sell property. Oh, it's in

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: the city. In the city. Exactly.

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: A credit law.

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: No, you're thinking it the right way. Yeah,

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: got it.

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So what you have now is you've struck the notwithstanding language, that's one of the court requests from yesterday, so that is what would have allowed selling below market. When you strike the notwithstanding language, this now has to follow the full process in 166 B, which includes the requirement for FMV. It also requires other processes that BGS would have to follow, including either a sealed bid process or public process. So you're getting a more fulsome process by removing the notwithstanding language, and you're gonna get F and P. So that's the first big change, is just striking the notwithstanding language. So now it's, the commissioner is authorized to sell the property located at 110 State Street in the city of Montpelier, which is the call out for its location, so we're giving the correct piece. It's unrelated to extending to the city the right to purchase, but it now applies particular conditions. It says, You're authorized to sell it provided that the commissioner includes in any contract for sale, and then we have two conditions. I'm sorry that this is just hard to read. Yeah. In subdivision a, appropriate interior and exterior protective covenants developed in consultation with the division for historic preservation and the Vermont Advisory Council on Historic Preservation pursuant to 22 ESA section seven forty three. So the request was to, ensure that there are interior and exterior protective covenants. When I looked in title 22, I didn't see anything prescriptive as to like, these are, as you might expect, there's no list of covenants that I came across. Admittedly, this is not an area I typically look into, but I didn't see anything in that place. But in title 22 in the historic preservation chapter, there are measures included to reach out to, and you're required to consult with the advisory council for a number of things related to properties of particular historic value. Those some of those would already be kicking in if it's on historic value. The department would already be obligated to speak with these folks, But this is saying something further. It's saying you need to consult with these folks and develop appropriate interior and exterior protective covenants. And you may be asking why is the word appropriate there. You could do with or without. If you just said interior or exterior protective covenants, technically you could meet that condition logically by just including two covenants of extremely limited value, right? So with the appropriate modifier, you're trying to say we want these to be active robust covenants protective of what should be protected in the property.

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: So John, can you just go back up just so the introductory

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay. Co insurance authorized itself provided that these conditions are met essentially. So including the contract, appropriate covenants developed in consultation with the Division for Historic Preservation and the Advisory Council. Senator Harris and I had some communications this morning. Initially I drafted this just with reference to the advisory council, but Senator Harris was reaching out, and I think the division for historic preservation, as I understand it, would be staffing them anyway, and so we just have to call up to both. The statutory reference itself that you'll see just references advisory council, which is why the reference is maintained to them. You could probably just say, Division for Historic Preservation, if they're the ones who are gonna do the work, because it's nice to have the cross reference to statute, I think it's useful to maintain the quality literature I think it's fine.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Can we go back, because I had, there were four things, and one of them was to make sure that it was sold at fair market value but that's in the statute process. So we don't have to say that here.

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: We don't have to say that here but we do say it here in a second. You'll see. Oh good, okay. We don't have to say it here because the statute provides the process, but for clarity there's a new subsection, I think C or B, or subdivision three that sticks to it. Okay, good. So we've got an MOB, we've got covenants, the other condition that needs to be included in the contract, terms extending the Department of Buildings internal services, a right of first refusal on the next proposed sale of the property. I think that they would be the entity who would be conducting the purchase, so that's why the reference to them rather than state. So the extended Department of Buildings and General Services a right of first refusal on the next proposed sale of the property. So I do want to call out a couple of things. Right of first refusal, I think folks are familiar with. It is not something that mandates that you go out with terms that only BGS could meet, right? If I was trying to sell a property and Senator Harrison had a right of first refusal, but Senator Bennington approached me and said, I want to buy your house for 500 ks, the right of first refusal means that I extend to Senator Harrison the house at 500 ks. It doesn't mean I have to negotiate for 300 ks with Senator Harrison and accept a worse offer. It's just literally that I need to make available that first offer.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And so is that process well enough? Yes. You don't have to? Okay, good.

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And if folks come back and say, we want more, can but this is like quite That's my understanding. Yeah. The next piece to note about this is that typically rights of first refusal, as I understand it, although I'm not a real estate attorney, typically aspire. If you just did it yearly, you could do something like a yearly condition, but in this case, the modifier agency is on the next proposed sale of the property. So this is meant to persist until a subsequent sale, which would allow you to check-in at a time and give the state essentially an opportunity to repurchase if they were able to. That is the idea.

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Has there been any indication that something like this has been put in place before that the state would have the right to do something on a property that they used to own that they sold?

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So there's two things I would note. One is unrelated to the state itself specifically, but this condition previously had a, a sort of write a personal refusal to the city in Montpelier, but to your question, which is about the state itself, tried to search through some capital bills, did not come across exactly this, although I didn't have a ton of time to be really rigorous in review. The one thing I would note though is that 29 DSA Section 152, which the authorities for VGS, and I can pull this up if we need to, but specifically contemplate conditions that apply when the commissioner is receiving a right of first refusal on state property. That suggests to me that at least the idea has been contemplated before, and I'm happy to pull that up if you would find that useful. But I guess my point is, someone has thought of the idea before and statute has considered this fact or I have not found in previous capital bills, although it may be there, and I can spend more time looking into it, that's another writer for refusal.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I could see limiting this to a certain, like, a hundred years would not make sense to expect that. So I could see limiting that having a time.

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Time frame of twenty five or thirty years? Yeah, even ten years I think.

[Unidentified Senator (Senate Institutions)]: Yeah, you could leave both in occupancy for sale or set the timeframe, twenty years.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yeah, up to twenty years. Yeah, the point is that it doesn't get flipped.

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So you wanna do just a time period? I think if you do the time period and it's meant to be a prescriptive time period, then that will capture the first sale, so it doesn't make the time period in which it's not a restricted time period. Right.

[Unidentified Senator (Senate Institutions)]: The only difference is we put a time frame. It could have locals

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

[Unidentified Senator (Senate Institutions)]: Period. Yeah. You could do

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: the Oh, that's a good point.

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: You could do the earlier of

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

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: The earlier of first sale or

[Unidentified Senator (Senate Institutions)]: Right. So you could be booked over.

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: The first sale, well, they have ten year period. Wonder.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Well, let's go with twenty and then think about it. You know we will be coming back. I want these. No. Well, I'm thinking later today.

[Unidentified Senator (Senate Institutions)]: Although my mother lived to be 105, so I don't know. Never know. It's like your brain works.

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Gotta contemplate mortality right now, so

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Waiting for the sessions now.

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Up to this point, we've covered FOB, we've covered covenants, we've talked about right of first refusal. Subdivision two speaks to those assurances. So BGS shall provide to the chairs of the Senate Committee on Institutions and the House Committee on the Corrections of Institutions copies of any related request for proposal, and any executed contract for sale on January, and promptly after each becomes available. So that's your notice provisions.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yeah, and let me just say, so we're doing that in lieu of a agreed contract because we understand that those are not public records.

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: You're saying under negotiation? Yeah. So this wouldn't interrupt the hardening process. Right. Contracts already been agreed to

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: something. No,

[Unidentified Senator (Senate Institutions)]: so far what I've seen seems like what we talked about. I'll be back in a few minutes.

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Sub three is just to try to tie the conditions together and make clear why the provisions are being included. It is the intent of the general assembly to ensure that once in State Street and the City Of Monteculiar is sold at fair market value, that historic attributes of the property are protected for future generations, and that the general assembly receives timely notice of updates to the negotiation process to ensure that the disposition of the property is in the best interests of the state.

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

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Excellent. Can leave it here for now. I know you guys want to discuss more. If you would like to, I'm happy to show you the money sections, including the language updates there. We don't necessarily have to come through all the money pieces if they've already been agreed. I do want to touch base with Scott, but

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Can we go over the image that we've talked about so you can start Well, we have a list of language things, so I don't know if you've done this or not because this has been some fractured here.

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Is it helpful I'm happy to go either way. You could tell me the things you have, or I can show you what I have, and you can tell me if I'm missing something.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: But just before we do that, Senator Franklin wasn't here when we were

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: talking about the Wi Fi.

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Yes. We've got at 10:00, hopefully.

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: They moved to LN 50.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Oh. It

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: may become harder and harder too.

[Unidentified Senator (Senate Institutions)]: It

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: gets kinda harder and harder. So, ADS came to me this morning wanting to talk about the Wi Fi, the DOC. What they're saying is that DOC really needs to have the resources to work with ADS to really look at what is needed within DOC. It's not just Wi Fi, but how they're gonna use it. And ADS was saying, we just don't have the resources to do this. So the thinking is ADS has contractors already that can do some of this. And the extra money we put in to the WiFi line would help get those contractors. I wanna hear from DOC to hear what resources. Is that inventory in terms of what's needed? Is that how the delivery of how they're gonna go from a paper system to a digital system? So I wanna bring DOC and ATS together at the table. And because they want some I think we need to put in

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: some

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: language for this. And we're trying to get Kristen Galfetti, Deputy Commissioner at JMC, and with Denise from ADS so we can have this conversation. I was thinking just our house conference because that's who we were reached out to.

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: We'll be

[Unidentified Senator (Senate Institutions)]: on the floor anyway.

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Yeah, we have more flexibility to be off the floor because there's more dollars of us. Not, but now it's 11:30.

[Unidentified Senator (Senate Institutions)]: Correct.

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Do you know about the order of things for us upstairs? No. No. 193 is up second. Second.

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Second this morning, which is probably 11:30.

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It should be. Maybe.

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Because it's gonna be there's some amendments coming

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: up here. Just,

[Unidentified Senator (Senate Institutions)]: sorry, my limitation is absolutely hard to stop

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: before war.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Well, it won't be Today.

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Today's a Yes.

[Unidentified Senator (Senate Institutions)]: I mean, I think we can agree on everything, but this this last thing

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: with Wi Fi just popped up, and I think it's real opportunity to get some language to make sure they're gonna work together. Because if DOC's problem, let's put that on the table. And, you know, it's like, why wait till the eleventh hour? We've been talking about this since last year. So, do we have language that we want? That's what we're gonna work on.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Right. But, maybe we should just propose something We in real

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: don't know where the discrepancy is between the DOCs and the EDS. We need to get both of those folks together so they're both on the same page. Because we can do language, but it's gonna be just

[Unidentified Senator (Senate Institutions)]: Mhmm.

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: So I'm concerned with John's time that we have language that we wanted with the women's correctional facility about priorities.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Do we have that?

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Well, that's my question. He may not be aware of something.

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: This is for bathrooms?

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: For bathrooms, and the DOC needs to be involved.

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

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Well, DOC

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I I hear you.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Well, the the

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: other piece is dealing with, that's right, it was a correctional, other correctional facilities and dealing with the overcrowding and also to give a review to drug justice.

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay. Yeah, let's go through these and then I can pull up a link that you have and we can talk Okay. About

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: And then you did the forest and parks, did the juvy. And then for the state house renovations, before any finalized construction documents, that it has to come to the legislature before any completion documents. So for legislative approval. And BGS is working. I'm gonna have to have a bad language.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And that's both houses. That's both houses.

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. Okay. So that comes to the institutions committees.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: But just the committees or to the

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Well, the committees, institutions committee needs to fund the money and the capital bill for it. So we need to know that those construction darkenings are created for the cause.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I mean, it can come to the general assembly, but it's our committees that make that decision. Yes, but I guess I've heard a lot of stories about the carpets and how You're not talking about the legislature as a whole having to approve that. So, what's the plan now for that?

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: So, the way the process works is if you're gonna have construction, major construction in this building, you're going have schematic design, design development documents, and construction documents. The funding for that comes through our two committees. So, it's our two committees that need to see those documents and we reach out for inequalities and weigh in, but the ultimate decision in terms of how much money is appropriated for that fiscal year and subsequent fiscal years comes from our two committees from the capital. Sure.

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: This is one where I'm in the rush, but this is one I don't have in the language right now, but I think what you would do, because it picks up the natural legislative process, you're just trying to mandate that something occurs for the natural legislative process. On or for 01/15/2027, you get an update on the status of design, documents related to the entryway, and the egress, the whole piece.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: The whole thing.

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: The whole thing, and estimated construction costs. That's really all I think that you need to say.

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Because they can't go forward in construction until they get money.

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

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: a $27,000,000 project.

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I understand. You don't have to provide us, I think, conditions. Just need to receive the information. Right.

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Because we're the ones that have made the approval to take the next step because you gotta have the money to take the next step. But we wanna see those documents in case we wanna tweak them. Or maybe the price comes in at $30,000,000 We go, wait a minute. We can't afford it. So, can we tweak in the designs? We've done this many times with construction projects through BGS we've done this and Department of Public Safety. No, it definitely needs

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: to come to the legislature. Was just, I wasn't sure about what authorities you're wanting to put in or if there are already authorities for the actual design itself separate from the funding.

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: But they're kind of intertwined because your design is not a dependent your funding level. Right. And your funding levels kind of don't determine what tweaks you might put in that design.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: No, they're definitely, but yes, they are together, but I don't understand or I'm beginning to understand that this is going to be a check back, not a formal approval or it would be a formal approval by the you're talking about by the committees not by

[Unidentified Senator (Senate Institutions)]: the whole By the chance that if

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: you put money in your capital bill or not if you're not putting money in the capital bill construction, you're saying you don't approve. If you put money in the capital bill to continue construction, you're approved. So, the issue is you've got to get money to take the next step

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: to go out to bid. So the money is the approval of the design? Because sometimes you could do it separately, but that's what I'm trying to figure out. But that's how we normally do

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It'll be normal, like I process. You guys, the committees will be the ones to receive a request so you'll be the one approving it in that sense, but the legislature as a whole

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: When you vote on

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: cap and they'll be period.

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Second, so it'll be standard legislative process. You're just getting an update that will help you make that decision with Facebook.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Okay, thank you. Hey, I

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: think that's all there was. Am I missing anything for language at all?

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Would you like to see what I do have? Yeah. And I wish that I had already included that one, but I

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: No, that's fine. I just know that things are happening so fast. They do that focus. It's fine.

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And again, because we're I just prepared documents for presentation purposes. It's actually easier to understand them than if I'm showing you in the form of a report or some strange instance of amendment. We don't have to go through all of these, but I'll just hit them as we go so maybe you can tell me that I've got it wrong. Aggregate total, this will be just something that Scott and I confirmed, but there's been updates there. You stay within the Senate's box with that reauthorization of the August, but you've changed the FY '26 and FY '27 poodles, they slightly shift that piece.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I love that. Okay.

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: First thing is the FY twenty six three eighty for partial stormwater compliance. I think the Senate had this at 1.1, and maybe the House did as well. That's dropped down to 500 ks. There's also a cash in paying this one. Yeah. Statewide major maintenance. The figure I heard, I know there was a bunch of back and forth on this, and maybe this one is not useful for you guys because it's kind of a bank. It's the result of all the other decision that we've So we'll just confirm that at the end. Okay, here's what I do currently have the update to the state house entryway upgrades. It admitted 1.325 in the Senate proposal, and there was the reference to 2nd Floor egress design. I heard a slight rejiggering of the language and then a drop down to 1,300,000. It's now designed docks including conference and parking plan and delivery truck access, and design of cloaked rooms, second floor egress. I don't know that I have to say 2nd Floor, that was just to maintain a tie to the prior way that it was sport loaded.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: The 2nd Floor is fine, cloakroom, I would like to have flexibility. That's the point of this, is to see if there's another way to do it. It could very well end up in the cloakroom, but the idea was to give the architect another chance to look at other ways to do it. So I would like to delete cloakroom from this. You guys aware Yep. Of Yeah. Okay.

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Excellent. Thanks. Do we want to just return it to the Senate, which was Senate floor Egress design? Yeah. Sure. Yes. That will certainly.

[Unidentified Senator (Senate Institutions)]: Say that's eagle ear listening to the discussion on that. Pick up book.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: We talked about book.

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: We did. We actually did.

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: And we agreed. So I'm just going around in circles.

[Unidentified Senator (Senate Institutions)]: Yeah.

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay, so let's drop down to 1.3 and our results and changes to the aggregate totals to both FY '26 and FY '27. Would the change to make sure make sense?

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: This is great. Section

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: three, AHS, there is a change to FY26, so this is a new addition. This is some door controls. This is results from movement from the big bang for general door control statewide, not prescriptive as to what specific location. So now you're bumping up the St. John's Berry door control systems. In bonded dollars, there's further updates later on in bonded dollars, bumping up that door control by $4.80 ks to 1,480,000 in FY twenty six. In FY twenty seven, you also have the update to the Saint John's Berry Border Control System, so that's a $3.20 ks bump, to get you to 2,920,000. Something you're not going to see here, this is previously where the recovery house piece was included, so that has been struck. I really should have left it there for presentation purposes, and we were still thinking about it. The language change I did make, I do have pieces for this, so there's more than just this. So first is the line in and of itself, maintenance replacement and renovations at the Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility, and then some pretty big increases in specificities to the other facilities, or other correctional facilities utilized in response to overcrowding for the incarcerated women's population. It creates kind of a waterfall. These funds are the Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility. You can do maintenance or repair there, but if you need to respond to overcrowding and go to other correctional facilities, you could use those funds in some issues.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So just the overcrowding impacts the Chittenden facility itself, so that should modify the maintenance replacement and renovations because the overcrowding is part of

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: the renovation. I hear you, but the funds are available for the facility to use them for those purposes. They don't, I think of the condition being applied to ensure that you don't extend these funds to sort of random other facilities. You do want the funds to go to the Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility as I understand it as the priority, so that's what it allows, but the modifier, you're correct that they're dealing with overgrounding, which is why the funds go there, but you don't need to restrict their uses to overgrounding as I've heard it.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Right, no, don't want to restrict.

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: But you do want to restrict the kinds of other facilities to which the money could be extended, so that's why you have the modifier there. There's more this. Among the uses of funds appropriated in the subdivision we just talked about, Department of Buildings and General Services shall prioritize bathroom repairs at the Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility. I know there has also been talk of drains, but I hope that that is picked up here. If not, we can add in and drains.

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Would it be bathrooms and showers? Or is showers incorporated in bathrooms?

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Do need to speak bathrooms?

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Because the drains are ruined with

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: the showers. I mean, I commonly take the showers in the bathroom.

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Right. Know the drain. How it's designed.

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. No. For sure. You can have a strange.

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Because the showers are separate. They're separate units.

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I mean, just plumbing or is

[Unidentified Senator (Senate Institutions)]: that a step too far?

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It's Pull that. Pull that.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: They're not designed like that.

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: I would put in because you've got separate showers. Cupboard. Yeah. Bathrooms and

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I love your incredibly pragmatic attitude. I

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: have found it

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: very helpful throughout these lessons. Bathrooms and showers. So prioritize bathrooms, prepares the bathrooms and showers at Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility, and then you have a conditional kind of report if BGS applies funds to respond to overcrowding. Here you might wanna add at other facilities.

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: At other correctional facilities.

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: At other correctional facilities. Yes. It's really important. In response to. Yeah. The commissioner shall provide an overview of the use of funds to the Joint List of Justice Oversight Committee. You have one of the committees regularly scheduled meetings in calendar year 2026. If they do decide to use those funds beyond CRCF, they would need to come and get a review of that disclosure. Does that seem okay to folks?

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: I'm just wondering by using the term at one of the meetings regularly scheduled because it could take more than one. I'm just wondering if that really

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah, I wonder if there's a way to make the condition specific, so basically there's a trigger each time, like if you were to elect to go to a different facility, you would need to come back, or-

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Yeah, find spots to respond. For

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: each, you know?

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Or just at the committees where we schedule meetings.

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

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Instead of just saying it one, because we meet her at six times, we just

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah, I was, the orientation here was distinct from the other, you're mandating at every regular scheduled meeting, so this would be a less burdensome process, but it Results and changes to the aggregate totals. Okay. Section four, you did commerce and community development. You I believe the way that this works is that you pulled 200 k from the buildings and community springs, which you'll see later on, or not see, actually. Very deleted. And you plug them in here to the main Romanians and statewide historic sites, so that results in an increase to seven fifty k in the point seven appropriation. Change to the aggregate total, the thing you can see, weighted building training constraints. This is just here because the presentation of the document is to show all sections, like you will see in a strike all. There's nothing here in section six. Section 5A, I wasn't sure on this one, but this was the last I had heard, is that the 110 ks for technical support to ANR had been updated. And because that was the only update to that particular section, we would leave the full reference in this.

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Have you had a chance to talk you agreed to this, right? Yes.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Well, we agreed, yes. We agreed to, yes. Okay.

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Nothing in section six, clean water initiatives. Nothing in judiciary. Nothing in the reallocations. My understanding is there is agreement to the Senate's proposal by the 868. Cash.

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: And for this to be clear, appropriations committee has been kept abreast of the changes in the cash.

[Unidentified Senator (Senate Institutions)]: The records got more than fiscal. Once we're done the language here, we'll give them the patch changes. There's not a lot of patch changes, so it's not that they have a lot to do, but we'll lift it from here and then give it to them at the conference. So

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: we also keep the language in there. Okay.

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: FY twenty seven CAT authorizations, and in this case, did do the kind thing of including blue highlighted interval labs you can delete it. The first changes to your statewide major maintenance, I don't actually recall off the top of my head what this previously was.

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: For which one, the blue?

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: The yellow 1.781.

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Oh, but we put more money in.

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Right, and I thought we

[Unidentified Senator (Senate Institutions)]: were taking the 200 out of what you put the extra money in to remove as much.

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah, exactly. This is the cat word. It looks little different in the presentation of the bill itself, I think, just because we jumped through all the bonding sections and now we're in the It

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: came out of the bonding for historic maintenance, not for cash.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So this is the number that's actually there now?

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: For cash, yeah. Real PSUC is zeroing out the cash FY 27 per sale only three per personal insurance compliance, and we talked about the ticker bottom and bonded section, that 500 ks. Also have zeroed out what used to be 2,700,000 for the door control upgrades generally, and you see pretty naturally where that went. St. John's Ferry Northeast Correctional Complex door control system replacement is 2.7 there. We have one more. Yes, Wi Fi. China has a more than common, but the line item itself, the cache is seven fifty ks. That had been two fifty k in the center proposal, three eighty mills in the house. You know, that's $7.50. And that is it for the money sections.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Well, I'm kinda going back. I'm trying to think how to

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: best disclose this. Would it be better just to keep this document, not just start?

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I don't know. I think going back in four problems.

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Just to be clear, it will look slightly different than this because I did this for presentation purposes, and if you assembled the policy sections I showed you and added in the underlying stormwater and those leases, which were agreed as I understand it. Then you had all that we just walked through, that would be strike all. What I just showed you is all of the money sections, even ones that are unchanged.

[Unidentified Senator (Senate Institutions)]: But

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: it's you guys' call, it's just whatever you would like to see. I don't have an opinion on that. Are you thinking in terms of what you'll need to do onbecause one thing I think about an advantage with conference committee is that it's just yes or no.

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Yeah, some things can be printed in the calendar. The conference committee report just wants to be printed,

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: simply by So, the House

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: do we have a whole bill printed in the calendar or just those changes that we've done? What's gonna be

[Unidentified Senator (Senate Institutions)]: What would be the fewest bill flowers from you?

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

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: when the all of a sudden, both bodies have voted on to sound by sound is signed by the governor. We're gonna have a complete bill present, we're gonna have a complete bill anyway that you can

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: access. Correct? Yes, so the way that it would look if you just did the instances is any unhighlighted sections that you just saw in the money section would be removed and each of the highlighted sections would become its own instance of amendment, and then the policy piece I showed you, plus any updates that we'll have in this discussion with ADS or DOC on the WiFi, you would just have those sections as instances of amendment. I don't know that it's actually less work to do the instances of amendment because I had to formulate them each as an instance, and it's still huge, it's still a big document.

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: I'm just thinking, how is it going to be the easiest to report it out? I

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: think it's easier to report when you have the whole bill, when it's a strike call. That was my experience, reporting this The

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: other thing to do with that is to, you can have the strike all, and then when you get to sections that are agreed, mean, know that section six isn't agreed, not gonna say anything here, since it's already Right. It's included here for purposes of having the whole presentation, but there's no dispute over this.

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: And I think it's good

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: for the body to understand the whole bill.

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: The other thing I would offer just on the staff side is sometimes I compile the full thing so I can check all the numbers. Obviously, Scott checks in the spreadsheet, and then by halftime, I like to check manually through the language.

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: So let's do this.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yeah. Yeah. We obviously gotta run. So we're adjourned.

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So when are we getting this?

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Well, when are we meeting the conversation with ADS. And s one ninety three is a bill on reporting on the floor, alarm of pastor. There's gonna be an amendment. I gotta talk to You said a second.

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Well,

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: they they said we'll push it to the.

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: They pushed it.

[John (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: No. No. The 193. Oh, oh,

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: That's 193.

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

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: So 1130. I

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: have a a different Congress Committee at noon. But 11:30,

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Kristen Calvert and Denise can meet.

[Unidentified Senator (Senate Institutions)]: Correct.

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: So, if one of your committee members Yeah, could

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: we'll do our best for that. But then so we really need to leave now. We can say one as a tentative time for this next meeting and then likely there's a fair amount, reasonable likelihood that we'll have to change it, but you want that before we get offline, right? That's right.

[Rep. Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: So 01:00 today

[Rep. Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: is