Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Alright. Welcome back to the House Environment Committee. We are now to discuss, our budget letter, which is on our web page now under representative Kate Logan's name, the latest version of it. It is similar to what we looked at on Friday before we went home, but there are some highlighted changes that we need to discuss. I don't know if you would like to start with that or you want others to start with it?

[Kate Logan]: I'm happy to explain the changes that got made. So there was a request, this top highlight, there was a request to add a phrase here about encouraging sufficient funding for conservation efforts, and representative Chapin could speak more to that. And then this top bullet point, making it a critical needs list, was because virtually everyone voted, in favor of including base funding in the amount of $450,000 for the three additional FTE. I think it is actually I think it does require an apostrophe s there because it's full time equivalents.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Yeah. Well, definitely an s. But I think the question

[Kate Logan]: is Without an apostrophe. I think you're supposed to put an apostrophe after an acronym before an s. I'm not sure.

[Ela Chapin]: I'll Google it.

[Rob North]: I always have to.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Yeah.

[Kate Logan]: So anyhow, that's how that got here on this list. But the reason I highlighted both of those things is because those were requests that were kind of made not with the approval of the whole group at the time.

[Rob North]: Yeah.

[Kate Logan]: And then I reordered the priorities for additional funding in the order

[Rob North]: of the

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: votes. Okay. Representative Chapin, do you want to speak first on those changes? Sure.

[Ela Chapin]: Just the top one on VHCb's funding, it's actually the Just there's a split between how money that goes from the state to the Housing Conservation Trust Fund gets divvied within VHCB targeted towards housing and conservation. So I think traditionally each committee sort of speaks up for their side of that equation. And so we're just sort of saying, you know, we particularly care about conservation here as a committee and want to make sure that conservation is is getting well funded through the state funding to VHCB, not really weighing in on exactly what that means. So I did hear that other committees are doing that also. Ag committee's letter also says basically the same thing. So that was suggested, I thought that made sense and reflected things that we hear about in our committee and intentions we have in our committee. So that was just a suggestion. And then while I'm speaking, I'll just weigh in and say, I totally support putting the base funding Feet for a couple more FTEs to ensure the implementation of act 121 as the flood safety act. I think we heard a lot of testimony in our committee about a lot of programs that both are trying to implement that act and also are responsive to floods when they happen. It's just I want to see those anyway. I support that being a top critical need. I know it's a lot of support and I think it makes sense for it to be at the top of list.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Yeah, and I guess I would add that the conservation districts are kind of a split between the ag committee as well as our committee, so it's almost like it's a Title six section of statutes, not even our title. Like, we don't operate in that directly in the ag sector. They come to us because we have overlapping interests around clean water. But, obviously, funding for ANR is 100% in our wheelhouse. And, also, I think we took so much testimony thanks to the Flood Safety Act or Flood Safety Act, but then also the the bill that representative Chapin introduced on where we're where we're at with the Flood Safety Act. And the reality is that ANR said they need more staffing, and neither the administration nor the legislature has really given them the staffing they need. We are hearing that they need additional capacity. Other thoughts on the letter?

[Sarah "Sarita" Austin (Clerk)]: I have a question. I bought transportation, house transportation was doing at Coral as well, having this into the. I'm not sure if it's the same program. Not saying we should change it, but I'm just wondering how that works. You know, if they are.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: I'm not quite sure what what you're talking about. We've had a request from a member of house transportation to do a shared hearing, which I would like to do on a program in Lake George or in the Adirondacks, I think it's Lake George area, that has helped reduce chloride contamination in that watershed. That's the only thing I know about crossover in terms of that topic.

[Sarah "Sarita" Austin (Clerk)]: It's that I remember reading a short transportation bill, and at the last item was, you know, a chloride program, but I mean, maybe, I don't know.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Other thoughts on the letter? Representative Labor.

[Larry Labor (Vice Chair)]: Further down under can we move down?

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Yes. Wherever you're

[Larry Labor (Vice Chair)]: The one time funding for 200,000 to DEC to implement the initial stages for chloride contamination reduction. Why should we spend $200,000 to buy less? Isn't this an educational program we looked at in New Hampshire? Yeah. And they have a program. And have we contacted them to see their educational materials and see if they were purchasable with the degree?

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Yeah. I mean, this is this is to run the training programs and get it started. Precisely. That's that's what I'm getting at.

[Larry Labor (Vice Chair)]: I think similar to those dollars for an educational program, maybe gonna be Does not make any sense to me.

[Ela Chapin]: Right. They'll be training all I a mean, voluntary training program, so municipalities as well as private.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Well, just the municipalities are already doing the trend if it's like our system.

[Ela Chapin]: It's just for the private for the private applicators. And it

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: would be so they want this.

[Ela Chapin]: It's our understanding it would be modeled off New Hampshire's program, and it would be expanding training that VTrans already does. So I think that they would need added capacity is what we heard. Yeah. It's a little bit of money, but it's not a lot of money. It's initial money. Our understanding this wouldn't be an every year,

[Sarah "Sarita" Austin (Clerk)]: if I recall. Maybe we

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: No, I think it was a one time. One time. But I

[Sarah "Sarita" Austin (Clerk)]: don't know.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: I hope it's alright. Alright. Further discussion, representative North? Yeah.

[Rob North]: I I guess I'm as much as I I understand works act one twenty one making sure we get the river corridor as soon as you take map. When I voted to move that up in priority, I voted to move it up in priority within the top priorities for additional funding, not as a critical need. So I'm not in favor of putting that up in a critical need area.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Yeah. Well, I actually anticipated we'd probably have another vote on it because we didn't the thing is, the Conservation District, Ela, did a great job articulating the need, which we all agreed with. But then we took it out of the voting round. So I figured we'd have another voting round today. I

[Rob North]: am in favor of having that as the top need under top priorities, but not in favor of having that. We identified the NRCD as the critical critical need. Right.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Yeah. So we will vote on that difference. Representative Ted, we do

[Michael "Mike" Tagliavia]: I'll go with that one too. I like that.

[Ela Chapin]: There's

[Larry Labor (Vice Chair)]: All in the same category.

[Kristi Morris]: That's what we talked about.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Senator Sekowitz.

[Larry Satcowitz (Ranking Member)]: I I appreciate having the those three DC positions being our top our top priority, if if only because of how for how long we've been hearing about staffing needs in ANR and how how understaffed they are and how this will really be so incredibly helpful for them to get their work done or work that we've asked them to do. Well, this is really important work.

[Rob North]: I guess I'll just type up and say yeah. Think I just died. Exact number off top of my head, but deputy secretary, it was very, very

[Michael "Mike" Tagliavia]: 682. 682

[Rob North]: FTEs. That's one out of every out of every thousand men, women, and children that live in the state of Vermont works for ANR at an average of yeah. I need to get to my emails with us.

[Michael "Mike" Tagliavia]: 80 k plus 60 k in benefits. Yeah.

[Rob North]: A $140,000 per person. 692 people. I don't think we can claim they're understaffed. That is I think that's a lot of people. And to to claim that we're not adequately supporting them, I don't think it's correct. I think we adding yet another three FTE to the VIX, means every year that's gonna be included. I don't know. I just I'm really loathe to do that. Just really, really struggle with that. Even in a year, I mean, as you can see from the numbers as we put in our letter, that everything keeps getting more people keep getting more expensive to the tune of 6.8% per year. So the increases of FTEs remained flat, but salaries, wage benefits gone up by 6.8%. Yeah. That 6.8% more money we're collect from taxes from people. Just yeah. I don't see how we can save or not support. Literally, one out of every thousand people Work. Agency. Just one little slice of recovery. That's just a lot.

[Ela Chapin]: Definitely. It's a really big agency. I just know that the Flood Safety Act is intended to stop things from happening in communities like mine, where people's homes were been unlivable for two years. They were still waiting for support. We need to start supporting a different way of building and developing in our floodplain. So I guess I'm just, we know the agency wants to do this work. It's critical. It's public safety need, not just an environmental need. It's really a lot of push. There's a lot of need in Vermont to address how people relate to floods. I just don't I think it's reasonable to think that an agency of the scale and size of ANR both be good at, we do expect them to be good at looking for efficiencies, creating efficiencies within their team and working with the governor's team to sort of figure out how to do that and live within the means of our budget and speak up when they can't meet the needs of what the legislature is asking them to do for flood resiliency and public safety. And that's what we heard from a number of different teams within DEC that address aspects of public safety and permitting and planning and rulemaking that we've asked them to do. And so I guess I just, me, this feels rational and reasonable. And so I I it feels critical to me, literally, that public safety and the flood flooding issues to me make this align with the word critical.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Representative Tagliavia?

[Michael "Mike" Tagliavia]: Out of the other top priorities that we have listed for additional funding, is there any appetite to make cuts from those to bump it into the base funding for the through the addition of GE and DEC. I'm just trying to figure out a way that we can do this and show that we're trying to be fiscally responsible.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Can I just see if I understand? Are you saying, like, take away one of the other the bottom three bullets?

[Michael "Mike" Tagliavia]: Find a way to reduce either one or all of those to find any money

[Larry Labor (Vice Chair)]: for the other.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: I think I I probably could do that.

[Rob North]: Within the other 679 FTEs?

[Michael "Mike" Tagliavia]: No. I'm talking about if you look at the top priorities, the money that's in those three, They can cut somewhere. These

[Rob North]: are all these small addition.

[Michael "Mike" Tagliavia]: Well, the critical need one is not. If it's a

[Rob North]: if DEC thinks it's a critical need, if ANR thinks it's a critical need, are all six eighty two employees employed at that same level of criticality? Or is there a priority in there that they can say, well, they could grant me from one to six eighty two because they all see these three will come up to

[Michael "Mike" Tagliavia]: the critical need. It's a good question.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: I I think I appreciate your concern for the bottom line very much, and I I am open to people looking for programs that are no longer necessary and not meeting current needs. But in the face of not having that information today, I lean towards, you know what? I bet we're gonna find we're getting a heck of a deal. And and something that really resonated for me and what Kristi said about the bottle bill carries over here, which is we can't always see the good we're getting. You know? And and right now, people are looking at challenges of permitting. But there are reasons we have systems set up, it was usually to respond to a problem. Many of those are now gone. I think of how we do wastewater, on-site wastewater permitting in wells. People were polluting their own wells. That that was happening, and we set up systems to avoid it today, and so it doesn't happen today. So people think, what's the problem? I think it's really important when you're evaluating whether or not we can get rid of some department or division or program that we're doing that we don't go backwards, in terms of taking care of Vermonters and their environment, which they've asked us to do. So I'm open to the the cut conversation, the permit conversation, but done responsibly and not at a moment's notice because we just are feeling like we're spending too much money. We need to actually be able to evaluate the costs and benefits of what each program is giving us. Yeah. And everything that I have heard and the urgency with which many people in this room, but outside this room, are feeling about the vulnerability that Vermont faces related to flooding. Feels like an imperative that we do something more, to help DEC respond well because we know that every time there's a flood, they actually get derailed and have to go deal with the immediate disaster. And then it puts off the preventative, the ounce of prevention investments that are quite conservative. Stopping damage before it happens is, like, the most conservative thing we can do. And I think I don't think that this the EC takes it lightly to say, originally, we passed the Flood Safety Act, this is how many people we need. They weren't they weren't fluffing that up, and we we still kind of gave you know, didn't give them what they asked for. So I'm feeling really strongly that we should be supporting that work, especially in this moment. Representative Austin?

[Sarah "Sarita" Austin (Clerk)]: I agree. I think safety to me is the top priority. And I would imagine those three positions, they could be engineers that are specifically trained dam safety, either looking at the dams, determining how far they are before they're going to break and what needs to be done, kind of the inspection process. Because it can be prevented. Flooding from a dam bursting can be prevented, and the thing that would stop it would be a human action, because we either didn't have enough people or people weren't checking up on the dams or weren't doing what needed to be doing to prevent that. But it definitely would be a human error. That is a top priority for me.

[Rob North]: I

[Kristi Morris]: spoke to this on Friday, I think, and I apologize for not being here, But I mentioned the number of FTEs that we originally were looking at. That was causing me some heartburns relative to my town budget and what we're trying to get past this year. So, I appreciated where this committee was migrating to, to come up with a solution. And I like Representative Tagliavia's option. If these are critical positions and we see the need for that, and I'm not sure this committee has the authority to suggest that we offer funding from some other program, but I like that idea. This is three new employees, full time employees. Or if there's a way to compensate that, I think it does have merit. I think it is valuable. It's just adding three new, on top of what we got, and if we can restructure, or the agency can restructure employees to shift for whatever, I like that idea. That's the direction that I was leaning on Friday, and I could still bear, I think. So, I can support this, but where does the money come from?

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: I think what Representative Tagliavia was saying was he would like to get rid of one or all of the people that's at

[Michael "Mike" Tagliavia]: the bottom. I just want us to be able to send a message inside of the budget crunch that we have that we're we're trying to do our part as as the environment committee. There are 13 other committees that are wrestling, I hope, with the same issues.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: I think they are. Yep. So can have that I think I'm hearing that an openness to the conversation about the top priorities for additional funding. Could we take $500,000 away from the Well, none of this money's going anyway. This doesn't exist. So I think it's more just

[Sarah "Sarita" Austin (Clerk)]: So we could record

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: So it's I think putting an exclamation point behind our critical needs, if we remove the bottom list, I'm open to that. Serve, learn, earn.

[Rob North]: Doesn't change the bottom line. Doesn't change the bottom line.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: We're not asking for things we are sure we're not

[Rob North]: going to get, Pretty sure.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: So, I mean, should we just stick to critical needs? Representative Hoyt?

[Michael Hoyt]: I would support that. I I do support the additional FTEs just based on the testimony that we seem to have gotten from ANR that they just don't have the staffing to do what the legislature has asked them to do. So I do think that's critical. I'd be okay if we got rid of the top priorities. Some of that is I mean, that, like, the governor asked for, like, 500,000 for circular or so there is some money there. It's, like, if you get in for a little bit. Yeah. I'd probably just focus on the on staffing. I think that seems to be the most important.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Yeah. And in our area, representative.

[Kate Logan]: Yeah. I don't support eliminating the additional priorities. I also don't support the austerity language that we're using around this budget right now. The reality is that the top income earners in Vermont received over $700,000,000 in tax breaks from the Big Beautiful Bill Act. And many other states are seeing this as an opportunity to increase revenue from top income earners to fill crucial state needs, because it seems like the federal government is evolving some of their responsibility to states. So I would support raising revenue that would be more than sufficient to pay for what are relatively minor needs in the face of hundreds of millions of dollars.

[Sarah "Sarita" Austin (Clerk)]: I just don't think the government is gonna sign it. You know what I mean? I don't think he will I'm sorry. Just sign a bill where Sign a bill?

[Ela Chapin]: It's a letter.

[Sarah "Sarita" Austin (Clerk)]: Well, you know, the budget he won't sign a budget where we have to raise taxes, which is I mean, he's made very clear. So

[Larry Satcowitz (Ranking Member)]: If we're talking about sending them a message, because this is just gonna our budget letter to a translations, and they're gonna take this as as an advisement.

[Sarah "Sarita" Austin (Clerk)]: So you wanna send them up.

[Larry Satcowitz (Ranking Member)]: We're send we're saying all these things are important, and we and we and we ought to be trying to pound the money to support these things. I'll tell you about Logan just very simplified that.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Senator Chapin.

[Ela Chapin]: I think it's important to acknowledge that the letter is not just a communication to appropriations, but it's a public statement on things that we believe are important and have what I would consider a good return on investment. And I wonder if identifying the lower list as things that we believe have a really important return on investment and are going to save the state money in the long term would be a different way to acknowledge those missed, what I would consider missed opportunities. And, yeah, I guess I wonder if there's something that a statement that still sort of acknowledges that there is specifically, if I look at those three, I can see the return on investment. It just takes me two seconds to be like, that will save us money in this way, that will save us money. So I guess I just wonder if there's a different way to articulate that as opposed to saying we want the appropriations. I don't think it is our intention to communicate to the appropriations committee that we expect them to try and fit that in, nor that we think that that's even doable or possible or reasonable right now without raising additional revenue. But I do think we could be messaging not just to that committee, but to everyone who reviews this bill that we do see the value on the return on investment on those three programs.

[Rob North]: I like that idea, especially within the critical needs area, to identify what we see as the reason why. We shouldn't just ask for what money, we should tell them why. There's no why on this anywhere. And if it really is leveraging multi billion dollars worth of savings that at a flood event, or how many houses could they move out of flood zones? That translates to real dollars. So I think that would be helpful to add, at least to the two critical points. At the same time, that same thought, we should also, I believe, ask

[Larry Labor (Vice Chair)]: A and R and

[Rob North]: friends of A and R that have come to us every year with lot of asks. I would like to ask A and R back to say, if you're going to come to us with asks, come to us with offerings as well. Here's our top needs, here's our ranked activity that we're currently doing, and here's the bottom 10% of things that we're currently doing but really aren't returning much. So, maybe we because we never hear about the bottom performing. If you ranked it, there's got to be a bottom 10%. We just asked it. We never hear about that. We never hear about the op things like, we might be able to save some costs to the taxpayers by shaving off, you know, shaving off 25% of the FTEs on this program because maybe they're a little overstaffed now. We never hear about that. We should hear about that. It's an ask the the ANR to provide that information to Yeah.

[Kate Logan]: Representative Logan. Just a quick response to that. I would expect that this budget reflects what the administration thinks is most cost effective.

[Sarah "Sarita" Austin (Clerk)]: Mhmm.

[Rob North]: Yes. I've been in business many years, and I know we're putting budgets together. It's like, take what you spent last year, and you just look at what you wanna do the next year, and then you add to it very, very rarely. Unless you're really forced by some external owner or somebody in top managers saying, You gotta cut 10%. You have to. You gotta have a roof or whatever. You don't bother to look at that. You just add every year. That's just the way you do your budgeting.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Representative Chapin.

[Ela Chapin]: I mean, I couldn't agree with both of you more, and I really wish that, and I think we're trying to make some improvements in what we get from the administration and the different agencies and departments that come in to share with us, and it's such a challenging exchange of information from administration with teams the size of 600 plus employees to come into a committee that meets for five months to help us understand. So I think we're trying to make improvements on how we get that flow of information. And I do hope and expect that each agency is doing the work that Representative Logan just described, they've actually already gone through and done the efficiency. But we don't know that. We do want to know about it.

[Rob North]: They're doing it. Let's see it.

[Ela Chapin]: So I really do think it would be great to see more evidence of that. Like fifteen years ago, the state tried to institute RBI. Results based RBI. And I was on that state set, like running a program that used those, that I think it was an effort to sort of like get at this, where are we always evaluating? Evaluating every program on a regular basis so we can find those efficiencies, find things that are no longer needed, programs that put themselves out of business, just like nonprofits might. Anyway, I totally agree. I think we just don't have. So I think it'd be great to have more of that input from agencies to the budgeting process, and I hope that there is a lot of that happening. And I do think that process can encourage it if there is a more transparent process. Yes.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: This is great conversation, representative labor.

[Larry Labor (Vice Chair)]: Thank you. Sure. Maybe it's in the verbiage. If you look at the top four bullets, it's accumulated savings there at 49.

[Sarah "Sarita" Austin (Clerk)]: You talk a lot of things.

[Rob North]: Well, if you add if you look at the decrease.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Oh, the decreases. Yeah. Look

[Larry Labor (Vice Chair)]: at the decreases. You're saving 49,000,000 overall.

[Rob North]: I would say we're not saving 49,000,000. We we $49,000,000 worth of outperformance have been spent, and they're gone. We're saving nothing.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: It sort of changes our those dollars are changing our perception of our budget.

[Rob North]: Looks good on paper.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: So back to this, because we want to all We need to get this to the appropriate committee. So I heard suggestions for some just presentation changes more than the words we're using to describe. I think the why is a really important suggestion. Why we think it's important, why we think it's a worthwhile investment for Vermonters.

[Ela Chapin]: Ready to type. I'm ready. Maybe we cannot do that committee style since I think we heard a lot of great testimony on these things. I'm happy

[Kate Logan]: to propose it. Yeah. And we could bring a draft back. Are we trying to do that today?

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Yeah. Yeah. Fifteen minutes. Yeah. Could do that. We're gonna take a break for