Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Welcome everybody to House Education. This is 01/16/2026. We are continuing our discussion of h five forty two, which is an act relating to terminating testing at schools in Vermont for PCBs. A couple of days ago, heard from legislative council, we have heard from sort of the status of things from the perspective of the Department of Environmental Conservation and their work with schools and a bit about the current state of funding. Today, we're gonna hear what the situation is on the ground from a group of superintendents, well versed in this matter. I am assuming you all haven't said we want to go in this order, otherwise I'll just draw off the agenda, which Elaine puts you up first.

[Leanne Millington]: I'll be brief.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I'm sorry, Leanne. I said Elaine.

[Leanne Millington]: Oh, sorry about that.

[Elaine Collins]: Good morning, folks. Thanks for the opportunity to speak to you today. For the record, I'm Elaine Collins. I'm in my fourth year as superintendent of Bird Country Supervisory Union. As sort of building context, the sites and schools in my supervisory union are Brighton Elementary School, Charleston Elementary School, Coventry Village School, Field Elementary School, Lowell Graded School, Newport Town School, Newport City School, North Country High School, Los Branches Junior High School, the Career Center, and Troy. So it's only taken me four years to remember that list without having to look at my printed list. So we have approximately 2,630 students in our supervisory union as of yesterday. Of the 12 sites that were mentioned, five of them were identified with PCBs during the 'twenty two-'twenty three school year at varying levels, Brighton Elementary School, Charleston, Derby Elementary, Newport City, and the high school and the Career Center. The high school and Career Center share a site. So when we talk about one, we're talking about both. I don't know how much you've heard about specifics. I'll just give you sort of a context around the numbers and what the numbers mean. So for pre K, the upper end of limit is 30. For K to six, it's 60. And for seventh grade through adults, it's 100. Anything over those levels, between those levels and 3x the limit, or something called a school action level. Anything 3x over those limits are immediate action levels, which means that you likely need to do something in terms of occupancy. Limit the amount of time that kids are there or not use those rooms at all. The other thing that happens when your school is tested is that your school is broken up into groups, and it's grouped according to like building materials. So things that have the same unit events, same paint materials, same building materials, those are all grouped into one. 30% of those rooms are tested, and then the data is extrapolated. And if you have two rooms that are tested within the same group and one is higher than the other, you use the higher number in order to determine occupancy in that particular group of rooms. My first year as superintendent, welcome to the superintendency, we had these five schools that tested high. And so Charleston and Derby had PCB numbers in both a boiler room and or electrical room. They already had prior work scheduled in those rooms. And so just worked with the agencies to figure out a way to get rid of the PCB containing materials at the same time that that construction project happened. That was a brilliant way to take care of it, by the way. And I wish the rest of that had played out. Rest of our schools had played out that same way. Newport City had PCBs in a janitorial closet and then a primary wing bathroom. And so no occupancy requirements were needed because, first of all, the numbers weren't super high. And second of all, kids hopefully aren't spending all day every day in the bathroom and certainly not in the janitor's closet. By the way, Newport City hasn't never identified what the source was, and the numbers have continued to go down. So right now, we're not doing any remediation or mitigation project. It's just air sampling on a quarterly basis. Brighton was in a similar place in that they never identified a source, but Brighton had much higher levels of about 200 in their pre K room, which was worst room to find the highest levels because then we had to end pre K. It was May of that school year. We ended pre K's year early and came up with a plan to have pre K off-site the following year while we tried to figure out what the source was, what the mitigation plan was. K to six could not be in the school building for any longer than twenty hours a week. And so we had to do great. It was great it was May, and we could do some outside learning opportunities and field trips and the like. Over the summer, installed those carbon air filter systems, did some work to try to identify a source. No source was identified, and the numbers came down. And so K to six was able to magically reappear in the classroom with no occupancy limits. And pre K, we kept off-site. While we were trying to figure it out, we started the lease process for getting a modular building onto the school site so that we could have preschool students that were close to their school for lunches and safety and all those things. Still didn't identify any kind of source. Because of still lingering COVID supply and demand issues and the flooding that happened. It took a long time to get that modular unit there. It was the '4 before we got it on-site. Preschool students moved there. And at the same time, the PCB levels magically came to a place where they weren't problematic anymore. So we're in a place where we had a modular unit we didn't really need, and pre K is in there, but they really could be in the school building and no identified source. So all of that work with those four schools was about 500,000 So that included quarterly air sampling, included consultants fees, which are fairly hefty, and the modular unit lease, as well as the site prep and all of that. Then there's a high school. You've heard me speak about the high school before, so I'll just try to be give you a little bit of a time line.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Can I just interrupt for one quick second and ask if that $500,000 was reimbursed through the money that you set aside for this?

[Elaine Collins]: It was, with the exception of about $12,000 for dismantling of the modular and kind of cleanup of the site. So the school did front about $12,000 of that money. Because by that time, of course, this year, the money is shrunk and there's nothing left. And so it's out in the school. So seven twenty students in the high school and career center in grades nine through 12. So January '3, air tests were high. In '23, we installed 134 carbon air filters. It's about $150 per carbon air filters that gives you kind of a general idea. August '23, more air tests confirmed that the high tests were true and actually they were higher. So in September, they did more air tests to confirm the accuracy. Every time we do an air test, it's about 50 or $60,000 in the high school because it's a large building and requires a lot of testing. Data was getting worse, not better. So in December '3, the B wing and C wing mitigation project was to basically polyurethane all of the windows, the doors, and the expansion joints, because the caulking that was used in the building was the highest emitter, especially the window caulking. So that was encapsulated. January 24, more air tests and more mitigation with more polyurethane in April '4 because the numbers are still going up. May '4, we sit down with our partners. There's a group of probably 15 or 20 of us talking about what we should do to mitigate C wing. And by the way, we're going to test B wing. The mitigation project was $3,100,000 for C wing. And so my question for the group was, what's going to happen if we test B wing and the numbers are high? And they said, well, we're going to hope they're not high. And I said, first time I used this term, hope is not a strategy. What are we going to do if the numbers are high in B wing? Because that's our academic wing. And if we can't use those rooms, we need to know now. And so they made plans for upscaling the mitigation project to $5,200,000 to include both B wing and C wing, gathered together a group of probably about 100 or 115 folks to be on-site to basically epoxy paint all of the walls, to strip all of the caulking around the windows and recaulk and then seal that caulking. So $5,200,000 in B wing and C wing. In August, we test again. Did it work? Guess what? Nope. It was higher in some rooms than it was in others. So we were told in August, we had been planning for what's the backup plan if we can't use the rooms. And so we come up with this marvelous idea that we should educate kids in tents, given the time of year and that we have the room on campus and there's no other options. It's not like we have Macy's anywhere around. We were given the suggestion that we should truck our kids to Linden State College campus, which is, if you've been in our neck of the woods, it's a long distance. We don't have the bus drivers to make the multiple trips a day back and forth. We've got kids going to the career center, to the land lab, to the And the idea of having active college students with high school students on the same campus with no real protections or systems in place was a bit daunting in my mind, so we did not do that. So we did have the tents. The tents were about $500,000 by the time we got the six wedding tents, the walls that were put up, the flooring, all of the Wi Fi, the wiring, the heating, the cooling, all of that. It was about $500,000 So the theory at that point was we hadn't let the air sit long enough in the rooms to let the literal dust settle. So we tested that theory and that was in fact, there was some truth to that. So in addition to letting the dust settle, there was also these wind tunnels that were created with these huge wind machines put in a zero gravity situation in each classroom to replace the air six times an hour. That took several days to run through all of the classrooms, retested. Hallelujah, October 15, we're ready to go back into the class. It snowed the next day. We can't be intense during the snowstorm. So it was great timing and worked out for us. During the 2025, so this current year, more air testing was done. We had air tests that were about 1,800 this summer that it was high, and we had to move out of classrooms. This summer, guess what? We had similar numbers, some rooms that were 1,800, some that were slightly more than that. And to ask the question, of course, this is really nerve wracking, no occupancy limitations this summer. So it's curious, right? We're in the same place that we were last summer, but this summer we're okay to be in the classroom. No one is complaining, right? Because nobody wants to go through a similar summer than we did before. The interruption to learning, amount of time it takes to arrange all of those things and the logistics behind the scenes is just, you can't underestimate how much harm that might have done or did do. But we were told there were enough data points to make averages of data points so that we could factor in the high averages and with lower averages, that would determine occupancy. And also there is a correlation between hot temperatures and humid temperatures and higher PCD levels. So when we test in June, it shouldn't be a surprise that numbers are higher. So it is complicating though, when teachers union looks at the numbers and says, why is it that these numbers weren't safe for us to be in the classrooms last year and this year it is? And so our partners from DEC and help came up and talked with our folks. There's a little bit of a cynic in me that wonders how much funding sources or lack thereof might have to do with the decision points. But just a wondering I have. For this current school year, we have two additional projects that are slated to be completed. One is in an unoccupied career center classroom that for an HVAC work, which will cost up to $220,000 Another project for the outside of the school, there were 130 samples taken of soil, and it was determined up to 10 feet away from the building and up to three feet down in the ground PCBs. The levels that are appropriate for soil is less than one part per million, and we had some that were 1,800. So one of our, if you'll excuse the phrase, one of our board members calls us putting a huge prophylactic around the high school. Basically, it's the rubber mat that you would put on a roof that the rubber mat will cover the ground. They'll put P stone on top of it to encapsulate the PCBs in the ground. I have wonderings about that because they're going to attach it to the school. Will that just cause PCBs to go out further? Will that cause other issues? I don't know. So right now, those two projects, the 135,000 for the rubber roofing mat and the $2.20, on top of the $560,000 bill, we just got approved for air duct cleaning, air sampling and consultant fees for this school year so far. We're up to about $8,700,000 in the high school. So between the five schools, about $9,200,000 in PCB mitigation and remediation. And the high school has PCBs up to five inches in the superstructure of the building. In the end, it's complicated that where the windows connected to the pillars of the building is where the PCBs are at their greatest concentration because that's where the window caulking seeped in. So it's not like you can go in the middle of the concrete pillar and shave out five inches and say that the structural integrity is still going to be great. So it's very likely that we'll end up having to level the building and start over. It would have been a really great long term strategy if we had thought about this in long term and not short term running from test results to test results and really thought about this for construction. If we know that it's a 60 year old building, all of the major life systems in the school are beyond their life expectancy, why would we put $9,200,000 or $8,700,000 into a building that we're likely going to have to start over with? We might as well have just put that money into a big pile and burnt it. I will say that currently, the money is gone. We've been told the money is gone. That $560,000 bill that we got for consultant fees, air sampling, sort of the ongoing progress monitoring stuff. If the funding doesn't be, if we don't get funding for that, that would be additional money that would need to go into our local budgets, because it's a union high school. That means that each town in our union would need to contribute to that. And it feels like a real punishment in this current environment of educational spending crises to say, we're gonna add more money to your budget for a reason that you have no control over and that you've had no say in. So I appreciate the bill in making us whole if that is able to be put in because that can't fall on our education spending plan. We're already trying to cut spending without interrupting programming and to have to cut spending because of PCB seems like the wrong move.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I might just interrupt a question. When you say they say the money is gone, there have been various pots of money. There was the money that was appropriated to the Agency of Education, sort of the initial tranche of dollars, which I do believe is gone. Then last year, within the Agency of Natural Resources, they moved money around and created $10,000,000 fund. That does seem to still have $3,000,000 left in it, which they feel will cover sort of the ongoing needs at the schools currently.

[Elaine Collins]: Yeah, the projects that I've mentioned that are for this current school year will be covered. We have been assured of that and guaranteed that in writing. Worry about the long term impact. So this is a really timely bill because of that. Regardless of whether the new testing is stopped, the high school's bell has already been rung, right? We know we have PCBs, the EPA knows that we have PCBs. And so that gives us a timeline for either encapsulating and testing in perpetuity and being responsible for mitigation and remediation should the encapsulation fail or just getting rid of them entirely. And then, as I said, in a building this old with this level of outdated life systems, we would likely need to rebuild. And it would have been wonderful to have used the $9,000,000 and counting towards a building project rather than the short term mitigation that is going to have to be undone if you have to rebuild. So it's hard to know what the right move is. It's a hard place to be for the legislature, for schools. If you're a school that hasn't been tested for PCBs, do you have them? Are they gonna cause health issues? And there's so much unknown about them and unknown about the science that it's a really hard place for your community. Certain communities will demand that you test for PCBs, even if they're not being paid for because of the health risks. And then what does that do to schools? So this it's a hard place, right? The horse is already out of the barn. You've likely already heard my dad saying before, but he makes the saying makes my final point. And that is sometimes you have to stop chasing the cows long enough to build the fence. And my dad was a lifelong dairy farmer and was nothing but pragmatic if he wasn't pragmatic. In some schools, this process will, like the high school, lead to our eventual rebuild. So if so, we should be stopping whatever this short term mitigation remediation business is and put that money towards a school construction project. That just seems like common sense. And so partnering this with school construction is really the smartest way to go. And in other cases, like Derby and Charleston and Newport City, they did Well, if they found a source, they got rid of the source quickly and partnered that with their own construction money and got rid of them. We should be thinking about this in terms of long term strategy and not short term strategy. That chasing each sampling results seems like really short term strategy to me. So happy to answer any questions, but that's our story, at least at this point.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Next week, should be getting, once the governor gives his budget address, find out what the plans are for FY '27 funding for the schools that have been affected already. Questions committee? Great. Thanks a lot, Leanne. Appreciate it. Sure. Alright. Katie is up next. We'll a little geographic tour around Vermont.

[Unidentified committee member]: The testimony that was uploaded up to our page for Katie when you click on it just says that it doesn't exist.

[Leanne Millington]: I had to read all of down so they're pretty Okay. That they should be back

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Welcome, floor is yours.

[Katie (Superintendent, Hartford School District)]: Thank you. Thank you very much for the opportunity to testify before you today. You're going to hear us reiterate a lot of the same points. I can say that I am a new superintendent. This is my first official year in this role. So as an interim superintendent, I was responding to the recent test results we got that indicated that we had to relocate three of our programs at the Hartford area Career and Technical Center. Those programs are still relocated. Two of them we were able to relocate in the facility itself and repurpose some other learning spaces, which means that we have some spaces that remain offline. At that time, we were considering building on our Building Trades program to double the size of it. We always have a lengthy the wait list. We have 32 students in the program now. We were hoping to expand it to 64 and we were right on the brink of doing that when we got these results. So that has come at considerable cost for our students. The other two programs are in repurposed spaces, as I mentioned, but that has limited our ability to grow other spaces as well as to expand upon our adult education opportunities, which also focus in on career opportunities for our local community members. So that's also led to some impact on our overall community and our lack of ability to grow programs that actually aid adults in our community in getting gainful employment for areas in our community that actually really need it. We're talking about nurses. We're talking about builders. We're talking about electricians, plumbers, etcetera. So that's been really challenging and ongoing, presents an ongoing challenge. Additionally, our third program, our culinary arts program, had to be relocated fully off our campus. So we had to, in a matter of three weeks, repurpose and fit a space with commercial equipment to accommodate our program. The long term impact of that, as well as that the students who are in those program are losing about ten hours per week of instructional time because of the transportation that we're having to offer in order to get students there and back. We're a half day program, so it's a loss of time. That's another program that often has a wait list. And so in all of our programs, we're having to cap them in ways that we didn't have to before. And not knowing when we're going to be able to use our spaces again has been really challenging for our community and for the ability of this tech center to grow. And in Hartford, our tech center is very successful regionally. It continues to grow. And so that is felt throughout our community and among the regional schools who send their students to us. So this summer, in addition to the three programs that have been impacted in our Career and Technical Center, the other building in our district that has been impacted that is connected to the Career and Technical Center is the Hartford High School. So that building also at that point, as Elaine mentioned, we were at what was called the school action level. So it was we can still occupy the spaces, but we have to continue to monitor through the quarterly air sample testing. Right before we were starting school, we got our lab results back from our most recent quarterly error sampling. And all of those spaces, our academic spaces, 12 classrooms had to go offline. So right before we were starting the school year, we had to shift our master schedule and hundreds of students, countless educators to relocate those classrooms into spaces that had not tested at the immediate action level. Elaine also mentioned that those testing blocks are in groups and are fairly arbitrary in the way in which they are set up. So in our case, there are some spaces that are adjacent to one another. One space hasn't been tested. The other has been tested. This area is at the immediate action level. This space hasn't been tested. So you can use the untested space, but you can't use the space that's at the immediate action level. So as you can imagine, our community has had a lot of questions about the seemingly kind of arbitrary nature of, you can use that space, but not that one. And that has led us to pursue some independent testing on our own to determine the safety of these spaces because we are answerable to our community. But even more importantly, as school and district leaders, we don't ever want to imperil our students and their health and safety. So we went ahead and have done some independent testing, including testing a facility that in So we have in the Hartford School District, just to back up a little bit, we have three elementary schools, Stothanbrook, White River and Addison. We have the Wilder School, which is an alternative in autism program. We have the Hartford High School, Hartford Memorial Middle School, and we have our Career and Technical Center. So all of the schools had been tested in the district except for the White River School. And so the White River School was left out of the testing. And then when the state paused testing last year, it still hadn't been tested. And the writing was on the wall that it wasn't going to be tested even at the beginning of last school year. So we felt it imperative to pay for that testing out of the local fund because we couldn't look at our community members and say, weren't going to follow through on the testing in all of our facilities. So that came at additional cost in our local fund too, because our request for payment on that testing was not approved. So we also did material source testing to try to determine what the contaminants are. We are able to determine to some degree where it's coming from. And as Elaine mentioned, it's caulking. I think what's really challenging for us is we did a bit of a deeper dive and did determine that a lot of those source contaminants are then leaching into the walls, the concrete walls adjacent to those source contaminants. And as mentioned previously, it's not as if you can chop these blocks in half and remain with a building that is actually structurally sound. So we've also looked into what it would cost, what the market value of our building is. Because again, the writing is on the wall. If we really want to remove the contaminants, we have to rebuild. That's the only way possible. And so what we were given as an estimate for our building, and this would just be construction, is 104,000,000. That does not include architectural or planning work, which is typically around 12 to 13% more, or any kind of contingency, which is typically another 15%. So it's at huge cost if we were to pursue that option. The state has directed us to engage in a process called the evaluation of corrective action alternatives. That's a process by which they present to us through study what our options are. And so we're not able to actually pursue actual cost estimates for any of this project work until we get that back from the state. We're in the process of doing that right now. It takes a while. It's been challenging. The timeline has been incredibly challenging, particularly when we are trying to plan for our budgets every year. So we don't know when we're gonna have to add this in or when the taxpayers may need to assume responsibility for the costs associated with this. And that has been really challenging in terms of communication, not only in trying to present data in relation to the results we're getting as far as contamination, immediate action level, school action level, but also the community's belief in that data and their ability to wrap their heads around. I I know I didn't think that as superintendent I would know as much as I do about PCBs. So it's a long shot to think that anyone in our community can even understand it to the degree that we do. And at this point, I feel like I'm still an amateur in so many ways. So that's been really challenging and that really does erode at trust because we're presenting this information. We're following the state directives. We're following the state analysis of the data that they are processing in labs. But again, it comes back to that room's safe. That one isn't. I can't really tell you why. I think one of the things, and this is a bit of a segue into the human cost of this in many of these conversations that hasn't been added in as a cost. But I can't tell you as a first year superintendent in this role and as an interim superintendent last year, how much of my time has been spent on this topic, how much of the time of my director of facilities, how much of the time of the director of finance in our district, the principals at the Hartford High School, the directors at the career center, our administrative assistants, all of our educators who are relocating on a whim to pivot and not able to rely on these proven spaces that are allowing for learning and growth among students. It's really disruptive. And the cost and the human toll is really something that is difficult to quantify, but it impacts things like our ability to hire. It impacts things like our ability to retain staff. And that is not something that I believe has been discussed enough as a part of this. Those of us who are in this pipeline, and we are very nation in this work. Elaine is way further beyond where we are. We're right at the start of this. We're trying to learn from other districts that have already experienced this, but it's really difficult because the process that we have to go through both with testing and with this ECA process now and in being reimbursed and submitting for payment, all of that takes an inordinate amount of time on everybody who's working on this, including our board. There has been some discrepancy between the amount that we require for testing and what the state has provided us with through what are called not to exceed letters. So for example, our most recent not to exceed letter for our last round of quarterly testing was for $89,516 But the invoice from the firm who did the testing was $103,922 We also, as I mentioned previously, felt like we had to test the last facility in our district, the White River School. That up with That was another $26,191.53 out of our local fund.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I'm going to just back up a quick second. So back to the required quarterly testing that costs $103,000 Does that mean you only get reimbursed for the $89,000 because that's what the do not exceed' is?

[Katie (Superintendent, Hartford School District)]: Yes.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Okay. I've got a little trouble with the logic here, not your logic. But it is a state requirement that you quarterly test. Is the state the one who hires the contractor to do that work?

[Katie (Superintendent, Hartford School District)]: Yeah, I mean, they make recommendations from us. So we often go with that recommendation. We have done a little bit of independent research into some of the different options, but the firm we've been using is well known and is one that the state usually contracts with.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Anyway, that's kind of troubling.

[Matt Foster]: I mean,

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: it's a small amount of money in the grand scheme of a school budget, but when you're counting every dollar, that's money.

[Katie (Superintendent, Hartford School District)]: Yeah, I mean, that's why I'm breaking it down to the cent. So it really does matter. And it's also worth noting that that cost of testing this year is a 20% increase from the cost of testing last year. And we expect, I mean, we can only expect that that will continue to increase. So that was an hourly rate that increased by more than 20% from last year.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: And just gonna interrupt, interesting, just for the committee, please, folks, remember that we can ask a question about that when we have the folks from the state back in. I forget.

[Katie (Superintendent, Hartford School District)]: Additionally, one thing that hasn't been, I think, brought up is that if we were, and we do have many projects in the pipeline, we have a bond that was passed two years ago, 21,000,000, that is for project work in the district that is largely dedicated to deferred maintenance. And so it's worth noting again that any time we engage in project work, we are potentially going to have to abate and remediate any PCBs that are found in order to move through with that project work. So you have to add on layer on a very large percentage on top of the cost of the project work in order to get the actual cost and truly understand what it's going to cost. So that's also been hindering us in limiting our ability to use the bond funds because it's hard for us to anticipate what the costs will be. And as Elaine mentioned too, what's the order of operations? We don't wanna throw good money after bad. And so we've tried to think very thoughtfully about, okay, we have this bond money, but primarily right now, we've been using it on deferred maintenance in the other buildings that have not been identified to avoid throwing good money after bad. So that's stalling our progress on that deferred maintenance, which again, those are life safety maintenance updates that we absolutely have to make. We just want a better and more clear understanding of cost before we do that and what we're actually going to be doing. Are we building again? Are we trying to remediate? What are we doing? And how can we avoid falling into the trap of spending a lot of money on a building that we're going to tear down and rebuild? So very similar to what Elaine is going through. So to date, we've received and $8.793100 dollars from the state. This includes the first round of testing through the relocation of programming, ongoing testing, and the current development of the ECA. Since the state paused testing, again, we spent the $26,000 to test our last facility, which luckily did not come back over the exceedances. Current outstanding expenditures are $135,000 with FY '26 quarterly air sample testing and the ECA process amounting to around $129,972 We've been told these costs will be covered, but of course we are unsure about the future, very tenuous and nervous about what it is we are gonna have to continue to absorb into our local fund versus what the state will cover. And I can only imagine the complication and where we will fall kind of on the list if the state doesn't pause testing. And if more schools and districts are tested, are positive for these contaminants. And now we've got billions of dollars that need to come from somewhere to rebuild, remediate, abate, whatever the process will look like. So I was very hopeful to see this proposed bill come to fruition for that reason. And my hope is that at the basic level, the state can follow through on their promise to cover these associated costs. I know that my community feels unduly penalized financially and emotionally, frankly, for going through these iterations and contortions related to, are we using a space? Are we not using a space? What is the science behind the health impact? No one knows the answers, and that is not reassuring to our public. And as I mentioned previously, it really has potential to erode the trust between the school district and the local community. And that would be such a tragedy as we're navigating all of these other external things that may come to pass where we're really gonna have to rally around one another and work together.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I appreciate all of you who are all the rest of the superintendents who are waiting. Just one more question. As we look at things at much higher level here, you've got this issue with your high school, Woodstockton in high school has its own giant set of issues, which when we think about a bigger strategy, lots of talk about comprehensive high schools that are more regionalized. Is there conversation going on between the two districts about the fact that we both have significant high school needs and you're connected at a minimum by the fact that it's a CT center that serves that

[Katie (Superintendent, Hartford School District)]: right I know that our boards met at one point in the region to discuss the potential. Beyond that, there haven't been serious conversations about what that could look like.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Very much.

[Unidentified committee member]: I'm sorry, yes. I just want to share something. You probably already know this, but the school that you tested without having to approve of the test and all that. If schools are, I understand that if schools are having to go through that process, because some are, community, as long as the same rules are followed throughout, you can still apply for the funding for it through the agency of natural resources. As long as everything is done the way the state requires in the testing, all I'm saying is please pursue that app. That 26,000 may seem like a small drop of it for some, but it's huge for many

[Andrew Haas]: of us.

[Katie (Superintendent, Hartford School District)]: Just We were told that because we were opting as a district to pursue testing when the state had paused it, that we would not receive reimbursement. And I hear that and I'm just saying follow-up. Okay, thank you. Thanks

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: a lot. Really appreciate making the trip up here. Lynn, you are next. Welcome. Good morning. Good morning. Thank you. Thanks for having me today.

[Lynn Cota]: For the record, I'm Lynn Cota. I'm the superintendent for Franklin Northeast. I'm in my ninth year as the superintendent and my thirty second year there in Franklin Northeast. I apologize I'm coming to you from my car between meetings today. There are some emergency vehicles that have been going by, so in case you hear that in the background. I also serve as an officer in the Vermont Superintendent's Association. My system is located in the Northwest Corner of Vermont. I have nine schools in six towns, including Bakersfield, Berkshire, Ennisburg, Montgomery, Richford, and Sheldon. I intend to be relatively brief today. I think that the scale of some of the projects that you have heard about and will hear about are a little larger than the scale I'm going to share with you today. I'll tell you a little bit about our experience with PCBs. So of the nine schools that I serve, two of our schools did not have to do testing because of the age of their building, so they were exempt from those testing requirements. Six buildings in our system have been tested, and of those, three did not have elevated levels of PCB. Ennisburg Elementary School, one of my pre K five buildings tested below Vermont's threshold in all spaces. However, we were required to do ongoing testing in one room, because test results were close to the threshold. So I think there were 27, and the threshold was 30. So even though we were below, we were required to continue to do testing for a year. So we were undergoing those repeated testing cycles. The agency funded the testing for that first year. One of the tests came back higher than the 27 partway through that year. So we were going down a path where we were going to have to have ongoing annual testing, that we were told would not be covered. Only that first year was going to be covered. So we ended up doing an asbestos abatement in that school last summer. So we, all the flooring in half of the building, and that room was one of those. And the testing result is far below, far enough below now, where we've been released from the monitored testing requirements for PCBs. Berkshire Elementary, another of my pre K through eight buildings, had elevated levels in one sample. As a result, two classrooms were closed off for, and it's been, we're in our third school year now. Students that were displaced into various spaces throughout the building. This year, we've got some growth in that building, and we needed additional space. So we had to rent a modular classroom. So we brought that in between the electrical work, the handicapped ramp, the stairs, and the modular delivery and rental that we're incurring. We have spent about $55,000 so far in expenses, with that ongoing rental cost of around $2,000 a month. None of that has been, we've not been able to get any of those costs back from the state. So the, where we're at in Berkshire is that the Department of Environmental Conservation is going to need to sign off on our plan. So we've done multiple rounds of testing. We've been told that there is no funding for our project, that we expect that the remediation in that school will be in the 6 figures range. And right now, without more money going towards PCB remediation, we'll be left to figure out how we're going to pay for that locally. Sheldon Elementary also in the same district, we're not quite as far down the road in Sheldon as we are in Berkshire. They tested positive for PCBs, and it's essentially within the entire envelope of the gym space, but they're at levels that don't require that we could still have people in there because they're just short amount of time that people have to be there. So it is involving the cafeteria, the gym, locker rooms and the boiler rooms. They were all above the allowable admits for PCBs. We've been told there's no money to remediate in Sheldon, so we still have some work to do to figure out where the source material is in Sheldon, and then figure out what we're going to do for remediation, and then how we're going to pay for that. So we find ourselves having to replace boilers in Sheldon, in a school, in one of our largest schools, in a space that we really don't know the future of. Ennisburg Falls Middle and High School, our largest system has not been tested for PCBs yet. I think it's important to note that in our case, I'm not sure how many other cases around Vermont, our impacted schools were all under the federal PCB action levels, but they were above Vermont's threshold. The impact of having to fund remediation projects without state funding is being felt throughout the state. Our two impacted schools are both in the Northern Mountain Valley Unified Union School District. Remediation will have a significant impact on our taxpayers and ultimately on our students. The two districts we serve are among the very lowest spending per weighted people in the state, 100 and one hundred and eleventh out of 119 districts in Vermont. As a state, we find ourselves in a conundrum. We're on a path of remediating schools for elevated PCB levels in a state that has to consider affordability and scale. And that's certainly a message I've heard from Elaine and from Katie this morning. So we may be remediating buildings that may not be, they may no longer be serving as schools in the next five years. Although our woes and F and E issue pale in comparison to systems like Elaine's in North Country, we could find ourselves in the very same place with our largest school, the one school that has not yet been tested. If as you're navigating this bill, one of the thoughts that I had is if a compromise needs to be made regarding age five forty two, maybe testing could be tied to future state construction aid. So I wanna thank you all for your work. I know that you're, this is really complex on top of Act 73, also incredibly complex. I appreciate you taking it on, and we're here to help and support you any way we can. So I appreciate the opportunity to testify before you today.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Thanks very much. Just a question clarity. You have been told that some of the work you're doing does not qualify for state reimbursement. And is that because there's actually, because of the way the room is used, you're not limited in using them? Or you mentioned that the gym has elevated levels, but because people aren't in there for only short amounts of time, that it doesn't really affect your operation and therefore remediating might not be reimbursable.

[Lynn Cota]: No, I don't think they've said that. What we've been told is that there isn't money available for the remediation down the road. We still have to do the work to figure out the source materials in those spaces, but Berkshire is the one with the classrooms and with what we have heard, there isn't money for that.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Okay. Great. That's that's an excellent clarification. Thank you very much.

[Lynn Cota]: You're welcome.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Any other questions? Alright. So we'll continue our tour around the state. Andy Haas, you are up next. We thought we heard some good news about Bellows Falls the other day, but you can update us.

[Andrew Haas]: Well, I'd like to hear that good news too, so you can update me. So, for the record, am Andrew Haas, I am the superintendent for Windham Northeast Supervisory Union. We serve the towns of Rockingham, Westminster, Athens, and Grafton. I have six schools in our district or our SU. One of our schools was exempt because of the date it was built. One of our schools has not been tested due to the suspension, so the other four were tested. To note, three

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: of

[Andrew Haas]: our schools were all built in the 70s and only the high school came back as having extremely elevated levels. Our middle school, which was built in 1926, actually came back with one area, which was the original safe in the middle of the building. So very limited, and we're able to address that issue. So really, our issue has been the high school, and I guess I'd be interested to I don't know what news you've heard, so that would be

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: It was just that the levels were down enough at the high school that the fans have been turned off.

[Andrew Haas]: Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. So that actually was last year. Our levels did come down dramatically, and we believe that the reason for that was the investment of $5,000,000 in ESSER funds for our HVAC system. And so one of the things when we first learned that we had PCBs in our building, we were looking to invest quite a bit of ESSER funds into that building. And so we had a tremendous amount of work to try and coordinate between the testing, where the PCB levels were, and could we even move forward with the construction projects. And we almost lost out of the ability to use those ESSER funds. Unlike other testimonies you've heard, we actually had a pretty decent movement with our contractors NDEC. Partially we hired a project manager, to work our construction projects and so that allowed for that coordination to happen, because I don't think it would have happened without that. And we did use ESSER funds for that hiring of that person as well. I think the one thing to note is we would not I would not be sitting here talking to you because our high school was not even scheduled to be tested until the '25, and the suspension had happened before that. The only reason our high school was even tested early was because we were going to be doing this construction project. And the board felt that it was important to see if we could get it tested. So should we invest those dollars? We have invested between bonds, local bonds and ESSER funds, dollars 9,000,000 into our building. And we've had to coordinate all of the PCB testing around that piece, but our numbers have come down significantly to almost undetectable. It was determined that the PCBs were in the fire retardant that was on the expansion columns throughout the building. And if you're not familiar with Bells Falls Union High School, it is an open concept building. So, up until we built four classrooms with the ESSER funds, we had no walls. And so, columns are surrounding the outside of the building. They're steel columns, and they're expansion columns so that the wall can kind of move and breathe a little bit. And the fire retardant was on them. We have 75 columns throughout the entire building. And so, in coordination with all of that, one of the other pieces, it was a local bond that we were doing, was redoing the roof, because the roof had 75 holes in it and needed the new membrane. And as we were going through, we had to pause over the gym because the PCBs, the main source of PCBs were found in the gym, not only in the steel columns, but in the underside of the roof with the material used to put the paint on the roof. And we were trying to determine should we remove the entire roof of the gym, or should we just encapsulate the material? And we were getting to a point where we were actually going to lose our contractor on the roof project, because they completed everything. And working with DEC and our consultant, the determination was actually made to go ahead and do the roof, put the membrane on the roof, and we are going to be encapsulating the underside of the gym roof and hoping that that will be enough to keep the PCBs back. The big piece here, and you've heard quite a bit, is we have been approved for about $2,000,000 to remove all of those PCBs in the fire retardant. And so that work is going on right now. And so to date, we have been reimbursed for, I would say almost every dollar we have spent. And my board has taken the position that they will do no work unless they have a written letter saying that we will be reimbursed. And so what that does is that puts us in a position that we have a lot of secondary sources for PCB. So the gym floor, we have done core sampling, and we know that there's PCBs sandwiched in between the different layers of varnish that goes on the floor, and we want to put in a new floor, but because of the PCB remediation that would have to take place, it would be too costly just to do a typical gym floor replacement. And the stage has the exact same problem, where the PCBs, we've done core sampling, and it's in the actual wood material in the stage. And our stage has been sanded so many times that it's at a point that it needs to be replaced, But because it's a secondary source, the cost of removal is so high that we're trying to figure out how we can move forward. So the ongoing unknowns are probably our biggest concern. And then, you know, I think the only other piece I would like to emphasize, well, two things. Is what you've heard also is that invisible cost. The cost that we have put in labor of, like, as Elaine said, and as Katie said, our cost, and I can't even measure it. We think it might be around $200,000, but that's being lowballing. Just the amount of time just before I was in this testimony, I was in a meeting for PCBs. And it's every week we're in a meeting on PCBs. And that's time that's taken away, that's the administrator's time taken away from working with kids. And I don't think that was ever thought of, and how much work would have to go into this. And the costs that we have, like, we're going to be stuck with $130,000 in annual testing with those quarterly tests. I mean, to put that in perspective, that's the cost of a teacher. So we're going to take on a burden. That's one less teacher we can have that's working with our students. And I think that is a piece that needs to be just emphasized. And I think Katie kind of touched on this, and I think it's important just to emphasize, is I can't even calculate the cost to our students, and the loss of education. And with all the disruptions that have taken place, when we had those filters in our building, you could almost not hear. And so we're now at a place that seems to be good. We want to continue to move and put up more classrooms inside the building. But I think wears that balance of how much do you invest in your building, which you've also heard. But, you know, I also worry about the fact that so much money has been invested in that building, and if we walk away from it, you know, what does that look like? Again, I thank you for your time. Know there's been a lot of testimony, and there's other people, so.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Thanks very much, Andrew. Appreciate it, and all the attention that you've put on this, and kept us up to date as well. Okay, Matt Foster. Matt, is this your first time testifying in front of our committee?

[Matt Foster]: Is. You folks Yep, hear me all

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: welcome.

[Matt Foster]: Well, thank you very much. My name is Matt Foster. I'm the Caledonia Central Supervisory Union Superintendent. I serve the communities of Danville, Peacham, Marshfield, Plainfield, Cabot, Walden, Waterford and Barnett. This is my second year in the position. And within the first July 2024, I became aware of the testing that had taken place in RSU and was getting up to speed quite quickly. So it was quite early in my tenure here that I started to learn about PCBs. Mandated PCB testing showed that three of our seven campuses were impacted by PCBs, Cabot being the most impacted, the gym and the outbuilding which holds our art room actually has a closet of all things next to the art room that is contaminated. And we were told we can just lock it and leave it alone for right now. But that's kind of the holding pattern we're in for that particular building. Let's see. Once I got here in July, I reached out to the agency of natural resource and asked them to come and speak to our cabinet board and to give us an update. At that time, they discussed what remediation options were available for our gym which was the most impacted. And as Andrew noted, it's similar to us. The roofing materials for our gym are the most impacted. The paints, varnishes, the caulks, things of that nature. So we were provided with three different options. The cheapest or least expensive I would say of those options was to do similar to what Andrew was considering or is carrying out right now for their gym, which was like I said, to just take an epoxy and encapsulate it after you remove those materials. That estimated cost,

[Leanne Millington]: which

[Matt Foster]: is a little over a year and a half old now is over $900,000 to do that. And the board was being asked to make a choice. Do we want to demolish and rebuild? Do we want to encapsulate? Do we want to totally tear off the roof, put a new roof on? And that was a $4,800,000 or that was a $1,500,000 endeavor or just to demolish, which was going to be $4,800,000 which is an expensive amount of money to demolish and I worry about rebuilding. All those are obviously concerns. When you ask, hey, what's the state able to be able to put towards any of those options? And they are saying, we don't have any money that we can promise towards you because there are other communities that are higher up on the list of needs. We understand that. And fortunately, have not had to have our students displaced to the extent that many of the other schools have had to work around for their kiddos. I'm trying to think, would say the good news is that we can continue to use the gym space right now. As long as we keep our air handlers running 20 fourseven and we limit the amount of time our kids are in or people in general are in the building. So at this point, we're just in a holding pattern. I reached out to the agency of natural resources back in October and I didn't get much of an update. They said if you would like to have some more clarification about options going forward, please ask. And I did ask and I haven't heard back since. I'm sure they're busy and they've got larger priorities to focus on right now. But in the big scheme of things, we've got a building there that's contaminated, it's nearing the end of its useful life and spending $900,000 to keep it operating for a potential fix that's not a fix because we do know that even after we do try something when it comes to PCBs, sometimes the fix doesn't do what was intended. So happy to answer as many questions or any questions you may have.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Thanks, Matt. Your holding pattern has been going on for probably at least two years now in terms of roof at the gymnasium there. And it is a tricky one because it's at the end of its useful life, so why do you put $900,000 into a building like that?

[Matt Foster]: Yeah, and just if you chose to demolish, I mean, dollars 4,000,000 to demolish a building, that's an amazing amount of money. That's shocking. Yeah.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Wow. Thank you very much. Leanne, thank you for being so patient and appreciate that. The floor is yours finally.

[Leanne Millington]: Oh, not a problem. I'll be short. I'm Leanne Millington, superintendent of the Two Rivers Supervisory Union. So we're talking Chester, Andover, Baltimore, Cavendish, Ludlow and Mount Holly. Really what I've been asked to do is read a collective statement on behalf of the Green Mountain School District, which is part of the TRSU. The building in concern, luckily we only have one, but it's our Green Mountain High School. We want to thank the committee for taking time to hear from the education community today, as well as the creators of H-five 42. Our high school is identified early in the state's PCB testing cycle as requiring urgent action. While the state team has been proactive in providing regular updates and supporting our ongoing monitoring efforts, we have not received any assistance with the actual permanent remediation of the PCB contamination in our school. This despite the state's assurances and the high priority status our school was assigned. The lack of tangible remediation support remains a significant concern for our community. We agree with the full spirit of five forty two, especially in terms of schools that have not yet been tested, as it will prevent them from having to suffer the hardships and operational chaos that results from exceeding the state's arbitrarily determined action levels. We however, are on the other side of the looking glass. Years after testing positive, we have not been afforded the promised remediation from the state and this is the concern we would like to present to the committee. The desire and will does exist from everyone we work with within state government around resolving the PCB problems at the high school. The factor that is lacking is funding to get the promised work done. As this bill moves through the legislative process, we urge the inclusion of provisions that require the state to appropriate significant annual funding towards fully resolving the issues at schools that have been identified with PCB contamination. Lastly, we have concerns around the provision of the bill that allows districts to stop remediation efforts if the state fails to provide funding. Once PCBs have been identified, they are a known health risk and because they are known, they must be addressed. We ask that the provision be expanded to explicitly require the state to assume responsibility for any legal liability resulting from the failure to fully fund and complete remediation efforts. That said, we truly believe that the clearest path to a solution is to strengthen the bill with language that requires the state to appropriate meaningful annual funding until the contamination at all identified schools has been permanently resolved. On behalf of the Green Mountain community, thank you.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Thanks very much. When I visited Green Mountain Union High School a couple years ago with your predecessor, it seemed that you were moving sort of from air testing into sort of core testing, trying to find where it was in the materials. So is it fair to say that really remediation hasn't gone on to any extent because that investigation is either ongoing or has sort of slowed everything down?

[Leanne Millington]: No, we were one of the earlier schools identified, right, kind of in the first round. So they know where the contamination is. And we were one of the highest priority schools. We keep getting knocked down on the list with the limited funding that's available for remediation every year. It's in the caulking, insulation caulking that surrounds the windows. The problem with us is it's in all our classrooms, Right. And so we're in that same situation where the state's been great. You know, they come in, they help us with the testing. We've got the air filters that are up and running. But again, there has been no motion towards kind of a permanent solution to this. We also have done some additional testing knowing that, you know, PCBs outgas into the environment. So, you know, we've got school that's, you know, forty or fifty years that outgassing has been happening. And then those PCBs in the high concentration in the air, they get absorbed into every porous surface within the school, which our testing has confirmed. So while the state is talking about, replacing the caulking around the windows, it's not going to be a permanent solution for us just because the contamination is ubiquitous, it's throughout the entire school at this point in time. Again, the state's been wonderful to work with, but the message is always the same. And we go back, you know, there's limited funding and it's being spent here. So we know the extent we actually have kind of, at least from the state, what their plan is to help us remediate, it's literally a lack of appropriations and funding.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I would, part of it is also a, for lack of a better way saying it, a lack of vision, not necessarily, that's not an environmental conservation thing, that's a legislative AOE thing. You know, we're constantly stuck, Andrew Hassett highlighted, you don't want to just necessarily walk away from a building, yet, for example, the two of you are pretty close together. I think maybe Springfield is somewhat nearby. Is there any talk among superintendents or school boards about maybe the long term vision here is to have a collective new comprehensive regional high school?

[Leanne Millington]: I think we've in the same kind of boat as Katie had mentioned, there has been discussions, but I think a lot of things are sitting in a holding pattern until folks hear a little bit more about the direction that Act 73 is actually going to take. Law is pretty specific, but the details that I think a lot of people were hoping were going to emerge by this time just aren't there yet. And

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: so For I think that that discussion, most important is school construction program.

[Leanne Millington]: Yep, exactly. Because a lot of this, I would argue that containment isn't a solution with the PCBs, which is kind of the path that the state seems to be taking in its recommendations. They'll remove the basic core materials, but the areas that have been contaminated secondarily, the idea is to contain them in place. The problem is that that's going to require, as long as those materials are there, that's going to require ongoing testing to make sure that the containment is doing its job over time.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Well, if you look at North Country Union High School, containment is necessarily the solution. Any other questions, committee? Sorry to dominate.

[Matt Foster]: Great.

[Unidentified committee member]: Just, Leanne, you mentioned about how money is not there, but have you been reimbursed? I'm not sure if I heard you say that reimbursed for the testing and for the filtered system that you've got in your classrooms?

[Leanne Millington]: Yes, have nothing but positive things to say about the work Everything on that has been reimbursed.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Okay, thanks. Great, yes, another question.

[Unidentified committee member]: Maybe it's a question for Leanne or anyone. The freeze keeps getting brought up arbitrarily determined action levels. And I just want to know, is it really arbitrary? Like they threw a dart at a board and I was like, that's the action level we're gonna go with?

[Lynn Cota]: There may be a little bit

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: of bias in that statement. I think that the Department of Health would come in here and argue that they were absolutely not arbitrary. However, I think it is fair to say that there is an EPA level that was determined, but Vermont chose to create its own levels. Okay. The

[Elaine Collins]: difference as well is that Vermont tests air and the EPA rates sampling numbers, their results on materials. So it's much harder as you might imagine to zero in on air sampling because air doesn't stay in one place. It's dynamic. So that makes it even more challenging. And as Kate was saying, the arbitrary decision that you can be in the classroom that's next, that isn't tested or is test lower than the classroom that's next to it, you can't be in the boat. And the air is not going to move. It defies common sense a bit.

[Leanne Millington]: Sorry about that.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Don't know if you'd please go ahead, Leanne.

[Leanne Millington]: Yeah, exactly correct. The EPA standard, they do not have an air quality standard. Their standard is based upon the concentration of PCBs in construction materials themselves. So this was something that the state created, and I'm not quite sure of the vision behind it. One of the factors in the decision that the state has made that has had a negative impact on our school district at least is the differential between students that are in pre K to six versus students that are in seven to 12 because the action levels are different. So I'm in a situation where I've got space within a wonderfully maintained high school, where I could use that to consolidate some of our schools and do some of the savings that folks are talking about under Act 73, but I cannot move the younger students there because while our PCB levels based upon the state's numbers allow us to have our high schoolers and part of our middle schoolers there, I can't bring in the younger grades. So it's preventing us from doing some consolidation that would help out with the efforts to reduce spending across the state.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I have a question. I'm not quite sure who is the best person to answer this, but I'll probably turn to Elaine. So there's a private lawsuit going on representing probably most of you here, your school districts, against the current owner of the company that made PCBs. Where does that stand today? If you could answer that.

[Elaine Collins]: It's still ongoing. Yeah. There is movement, but it's slow, as you might imagine. I've got some depositions scheduled in the February, I believe. So we may be getting a little bit closer. I'm not sure.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Thanks very much. Committee, anything else? Thanks to all of you for making the time today. We really appreciate it and your feedback on the program itself and sort of