Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Speaker 0]: I don't know how I feel. It's like we love that song. Yeah. That's great.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Oh, good morning. Good afternoon, everybody. It's till the January 22, and this is the general and house committee. This afternoon, first, we're going to, with the assistance of our esteemed legislative council, we're going to review reports that automatically come to us for questioning whether we want to continue that, and then we're going to hear a number of introductions of those by their authors. Cameron, do you want to introduce this and explain to us what the hell we're supposed to do?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I will do my best. For the record of Cameron, had Office of Legislative Counsel. For starters, you all know as legislative members of this body, ask for numerous reports to come from state agencies, our office, external entities, etc. A lot of the reports that are requested are asked, they're not just one time, there is some sort of ongoing nature, whether it's annually, biannually, etcetera. So many years ago, this body recognizing that fact that there are many reports that are asked and they continue on into perpetuity, you all enacted language to state that it is the intent of the general assembly, and I'm just reading from a section, and this is in two VSA 20 D, so I can pull this up if you all would like, but I don't know, I'll read it to you real quickly. It's the intent of the general assembly that except for reports required by interstate compacts and except as otherwise provided by law, whenever an agency is required by law to submit an annual, biannual, or other periodic report to the General Assembly that the requirement shall no longer be required after five years or after five years from the last date that the statutory recession law section containing the report was amended whichever date is later. In each biennial session, the alleged counsel shall prepare for the general assembly a review prepare for your review a list of reports subject to this subsection. So the key words there at the very beginning are it's your intent to do this. So it's your intent that reports that are required on an annual or biannual basis be repealed after five years. But that doesn't actually take effect unless you all actually review the reports themselves. Because this is just intent language, it doesn't actually have any force of effect. So our office typically will provide a reports review to have all the committees of jurisdiction review the reports that come to them on this basis that are subject to this five year limitation. My understanding is this hasn't been for quite a while. There was COVID impacts among other reasons, and so that's why if one of the questions you're asking, the reports that you have that come to this committee, well these seem to be pretty old. One of them is from 2012, one from 2013. It was amended in 2016. We think so. We're all beyond five years. Why are we still looking at these? My understanding is that I'm not sure that this practice has gone from beginning to finish line in quite a while. So the House Government Operations Committee has reached out to this committee, as with every committee, to request that you all take a look at the reports that are currently in statute or session law coming to you that meet the criteria outlined in that section 20D annually, biannually, and beyond five years from the date it was enacted or the date it was amended. So you have, I believe it is one, two, three, four, five reports. I think technically there are six on this page, but I believe one of them may be a duplicate. Mr. Chair, you would ask that I just kind of come in and walk through these very quickly. So I have the language of each report. I'm happy to share them. We can look at them very quickly. And really, it's just an assessment of whether you all at this point feel that this information is necessary to continue to come to you or whether you would be comfortable with adding in, or I guess it would be having a bill add in that this report can be repealed. Okay,

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Let me ask you a couple of procedural questions here. One is, actually I remember a few reports that we've asked for that really mattered to us. For example, we asked to know where the Vihat money was going. They don't appear here, I take it, because they haven't expired, because it hasn't been five years, right?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Could be two reasons. One is exactly as you just mentioned, the five year cap hasn't come, so it's not going to be revealed or it's not going to be added to this list. As you all know, with the legislative body, you enact things and then you can easily not withstand that because you all have the power to do that. It's just magic that happens. So what you also see frequently now is you'll see a report created and then you will add language in that says this report is not subject to And so you can have something put in that will then the eligibility because it's that important.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Right, Tom, are you missing something? Looking We're looking for that document. Yeah. I'm sorry.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: I'm gonna

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: put a general information section on the website, but it should be posted in there today.

[Speaker 0]: I can print copies for everyone. I don't think it's

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: She has none other today. Other documents.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Cameron, well, we're looking for it. Oh, I see. Other question I have is on the chart, there are several fates assigned to potential fates assigned to these repeal, extend, or retain. What happens if, because it looks like it's the case, there are things that go to multiple committees, let's say human services, and we say we don't need it, but they say they want it, what happens? Does it still come to us or just to them?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: A few things is my

[Rep. Michael Boutin (Barre City)]: thought. Manage I

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: this process, but my assumption would be and I can get you a permanent answer if that

[Rep. Michael Boutin (Barre City)]: would be helpful. But my assumption would be,

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: one thing is the section can be amended to remove you as a party receiving the report. Or otherwise, it could be extended and if the committee doesn't feel like that's necessary, you will get the report and then you're not obligated to do anything with the information. You're just a recipient of it.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: So, if Teresa wants a report to continue and we say repeal it, it'll still come to us.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: My understanding is if one committee wants it, it's not going to be repealed because one of you, one of the bodies here is asking for it to contest it. I don't know is whether if you're not looking for it, human services wants it, because a lot of these are some overlap between this committee and that committee. Whether they would strike your committee, I'm not sure whether they're going to go through that effort. If somebody wants it, I assume they'll just continue to allow it to come.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Right. Any other questions before we actually dive into these? Yeah.

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: When we get reports, I'm looking at this RDAP report from Thursday, January 15. Why don't we receive notice that the like I said, exclusively on us to know that the reports keep track of what their due dates are? Is it exclusively on us to check back on that tab to notice their reports,

[Speaker 0]: or do we? Yes. I've seen emails come in occasionally, the report is ready.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It's a great question. I don't know if there's anything in statute required or anything like that. When I was at the Department of Labor, I would always let the committee know or try to let the committee know, at least the chair submitted it, because most times we would be asked to come in and speak to it if it was an annual in particular. But I don't know how other committees operate. It could be something that you ask your committee assistant to keep an eye on and make you aware of if anything comes in during session. You could ask me to do that as well. Will do my best to do so, if that would be helpful.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Thank you.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes, ma'am.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Other questions before we get into the particulates?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay. It's still not on the

[Speaker 0]: I sorry. It's under reports and

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: It's under what? Reports and resources. Reports and Under reports and resources. Resources on our page for those online.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It's under Tucker's, so it's not group by date.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: have pulled up each report, and so we'll just run through them. So this first one here is from 2012, action results 01/1962. This was in the budget of that year. So that's what this act is, an act relating to appropriations for the support of government. And within this, this is a general assistance program at the Agency of Human Services. Understand that generally, these programs are not under my purview. They're under shouldn't say purview. It's not under my portfolio. It's under a different portfolio of a member in the office. My understanding are these general assistance programs for the agency of human services, as you can see here, purposes to mitigate property, homelessness, etcetera. So in the budget, they were creating this. Could you make it a little bigger? Yes, sir. Thank you. So apologies for the scroll, But what you can see here under the subsection B is the program can operate 12 districts designated by the Secretary of Human Services, but then at the end of this sub paragraph shall report annually to the General Assembly on the findings, its recommendations for changes to the general systems program, and a plan for further implementation. I believe I'm going to review these first three together. So in the budget, you had this created, there has to be a program, it has to be provided annually because you can see in the sub D fiscal year 2013, the agency shall make its annual report and the report shall specifically provide data of the number of persons and families served, causes and circumstances that result in individual or families requiring housing assistance, primary drivers for the need for such services, inventory of existing services. So I'm not going go through everything that's in this report. But this was in the budget, money for this program, annual report to provide information on the individuals who are being served, the reasons they're needing to be served, etc. Which budget? This was in, this would have been, I'm assuming it would have been FY 2013. So if it's only in the budget and not in session law, does it still exist? So it's in session law because it's in the budget, as you know

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: the budget mean, me, but doesn't it expire when the budget expires? No.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Session law, just like the green book, can go into perpetuity. In theory, if it does, it should go in the green book, but it doesn't always fit together exactly in such a I

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: mean, if we worked if human services if house human services were if the legislature were to pass a bill that did away, for example, with totally did away with, emergency housing vouchers, I mean, a, they should be encouraged to disinclude that from the report, but would automatically be disincluded from the report on its own? More broadly, if a program is canceled or you can't report on it,

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: become, does does the report automatically get subsided? My response to that would be by law, don't think no. Practically speaking, are you going to continue to get it?

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: Well, like many reports, on the House Discrimination Prevention Panel, we have to report whether, we have to produce a report annually whether there's an incident or not, so that people know that there was no incident.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Right. But that is something that is, the panel still exists and will continue to exist until you take it away, until you dissolve it. What I would say is, and I can give a more definitive answer if you would like, what I would say is probably before this process, there was something in session law or in the budget and then the program went away, would it be repealed? Probably not. Would it technically sit on the books into perpetuity? Yes. Would you continue to get the report? No. But practically, you're not going to receive it, but legally it would be required. Our office began this process many years ago. I actually went through this when I was a law clerk, so this was ten years ago plus for me the last time I did this, forgive me. But when our office began to track it, now we track all of these. Every time the general assembly creates a report, whether it's one time or ongoing, we now track all of that information. So we're better organized to make sure that these things are repealed if they're no longer needed, if the program is dissolved, etcetera. What I will say though is going back to this, the first three reports on this list are all associated with this general assistance program. Again, this is not in my portfolio, so I don't know whether these are exact iterations of the same program or whether there were slight differences in the budget. So AHS treated them slightly different, etcetera. What I can say is this first one in 2012 was in the budget. The next one is from 2013, which was also in the budget, and it's similar. Emergency housing, the agency of human services shall develop the following systems with respect to general assistance emergency housing services. And then on or before January 15, here is a report. And then it's on or before January 15 and July 15 of each year, beginning 2014, the Agency of Treatment Services shall report statewide statistics related to the use of emergency housing vouchers during the preceding calendar half year. I'm not going go into detail of everything that's in the report. I can share this information with you all if you would like it.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I'm going

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: to get to this, which is currently in statute. So as I mentioned, the first two I just looked at were in the budget. This is actually current law, which is on or before September 1 of each year, the commissioner of DCF shall submit a written report to these entities, which includes this committee, an evaluation of the general assistance program, recommendations for change, plan for continued implementation, statewide statistics, etcetera. So I'm bringing this up to say I'm not, again, the attorney of record for these programs. So if you wanted more granular detail about whether each of these are the same thing or different, I'd have to defer you to human services or have that attorney come in and speak to you about them or I'm happy to take questions back to that individual. Katie McLennan, I would just comment that it appears to me that you have something in statute, I'm not sure that the first two would appear to be necessary at this point.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Okay. Comments or thoughts or questions?

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: I just have a question. I'm trying to find the different reports because I only have the one and I see you pulled up what looks like different ones, but I'm not finding the different reports themselves. And so that's what I was trying to find to compare. The actual report itself? Well, yeah, because you have is the statute.

[Rep. Michael Boutin (Barre City)]: The statutory language, just

[Speaker 0]: a matter fact. Okay. You open up the document, there's links.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Does it go to the reports?

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Or it goes to the statute.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: And so that would be

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: so piggybacking off the comment from the representative Burrows, I don't know that these agencies are submitting these reports. Right. Okay. And so that would be a question for maybe the Human Services Committee or the agency itself.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Well, just don't understand how we are supposed to make a decision about reports that we don't know the status or standing of or contents thereof. You know? Because if the information in said report is beneficial and informing our work, then it would be useful. But without having the report in front of us, it's really challenging to make that determination. And so that's where my barrier is, if So that makes

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: one thing I could do is I can ask the agency or work with Katie, who is probably reviewing the similar information with the Human Services Committee. I could try to get an answer to that question. Would ask, are the first two reports subsumed by this statutory section? Are they just kind of an ongoing thing of the same program? And if that's the case and you all would like to receive disinformation because it is related to housing of these individuals, then it could be you repeal the first two and you make this one permanent. So you continue to get that information. I will try to get those answers for you. Elizabeth?

[Speaker 0]: I have two quick questions.

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: The first one is, let's say for fund zoos that there was a report for a law enacted that required that our committee be copied on a report, but the report actually kind of like this, but goes to another committee, but we're copied on it. Is there any way like, it baffling to me that we would be included in reports, but not notified of them. Miss reports. I read reports, and I'm really disappointed in myself for not knowing that these reports were even here, should I have

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: been Ordinarily, I'm not saying it happened, but ordinarily, if a report is submitted, it usually goes to Miriam, and then she distributes, either notices the committee that's put on the web, or transmits it to the committee. I mean, that's the way it should work. When agencies submit a report and it has to go to multiple committees, it goes to the committee assistant, maybe to the chair.

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: My second question is, so if the report is based on a 2012, for example, statute, is there any way of updating the contents of the report, the requested contents of the report? Do you have to pass another bill to Yeah.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: This is one reason why I'm Well, here's what I suggest, at least with these first three. I think Katie, we ought to have Katie in, and the questions for Katie, because I'm with Saudia, the questions for Katie is, obviously, I'm sure that the Human Services Committee is very interested in the performance of the GA program, emergency vouchers, the whole emergency housing program, and they have been locked in a continuous effort with the relevant state agencies to get information from them, and I don't even know if these represent the most recent sort of iterations of reports. For all I know, they don't care about this anymore. They have some new report that they're using, and they don't need these anymore, or that this is what they use, I have no idea. And I think we need Katie to tell us really at this point, what does human services get? What do they need? And did they feel they needed to think? Then maybe we can make a decision as to whether we also want to get them. But they may be no one I wouldn't be surprised if one or more of these reports hadn't been supplanted by some other report. The agency just never responds to them, but we have no way of knowing.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And it just simply hasn't been cleaned up at this point in time, because as I mentioned, the process is such that the annual report gets created and then you all would review it when it comes up to the point of repeal And again, the first time that would have been done would have been 2017. So if some of these things simply haven't been cleaned up, leave it as was mentioned, Mr. Chair, you, I mean it could simply be that there's a subsequent report that has subsumed the therefore the dose may not be necessary.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: And it just wouldn't show up on this. So I think we are interested in collaborating with an effort to clean it up. It's a good idea, it's the kind of thing that isn't usually done, it's good, but we can't do it without a little more information with respect to these three.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I will touch base with Katie and circle back to the committee. Okay.

[Speaker 0]: Yeah. I see that there's another one about the judiciary.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Well, yes, that's what I'm moving to.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Oh, sorry. So did we, are we, we're putting the first four in that bucket right?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: The fourth line appears to me to be a duplicate of the second.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Okay, you know, whatever. Okay, have

[Rep. Michael Boutin (Barre City)]: a or I should say

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: it this way, the report required by the second line requires a report twice a year, so it's the second line and the fourth line

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: of So whatever, either we'll hear from Katie from the horse's mouth so to speak, or we'll hear from you about in hearsay what you've heard from them. Yes, sir. All

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: right. Okay. So the next report on the list is from the judiciary. And I have it here. It is in statute, Title IV, judiciary, section 40. And it is annually, state court administrator submits a report to these committees, including this one, for each of the two prior calendar years, total number of individuals employed by the judiciary on a temporary basis who have exceeded work in excess of twelve eighty hours in the prior calendar year, total number of temporary positions in which more or more individuals have been employed for a combined total of that number of hours, total number of hours worked by each temporary employee identified in those subsections, and the total number of years during which each temporary employee identified has worked at the judiciary. So for temporary employees, that information this was added in 2019. So it was up for a five year repeal or a five year review in 2024.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I have to say, it's difficult for me to imagine what the motivation behind this was, but I have a feeling part of it may have been, I remember three years ago hearing that there was a real concern generally across agencies about the use of temporary employees instead of permanent employees. But otherwise, I don't know, does anyone else have any idea why this is here?

[Speaker 0]: Not necessarily that it's here, and I absolutely can understand that that might have been the case. Think not to belabor the point similar to the Z. So to speak. Yeah. The VHIP conversation that Commissioner Farrell has been in, those temporary employees are because most of these programs are one time funded. But it's just interesting because temporary or limited service employees or contracts often can be longer than a full year. Sometimes it's two years. And it's just interesting that the twelve eighty hours is used because that is the number that we often use when calculating FMLA benefits, any sort of benefit, even a lot of times medical. So I

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: just Wait, just to clarify, twelve eighty is the number Is that the cutoff? Is that the cutoff? So is it twelve eighty one would be a more appropriate number than twelve eighty?

[Speaker 0]: It's twelve eighty. At twelve eighty, you don't get the benefits?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: No, that's when you start.

[Speaker 0]: That's when you start.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: If you work less than twelve eighty,

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: So it's end up just part time at

[Speaker 0]: twelve eighty. Yeah. Those are just my thoughts when I see it. Like, that number is telling me that this probably has to do with some sort of benefit. I think we have to be conscious of the fact that most, I would say there's a good majority of our state employees who are on limited services, and I'm not entirely sure why it's just judiciary.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah. Are there other people, Elizabeth, I'm going call on you, and others that have feelings that they want this? I I don't, but maybe others do.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Anyone in here ever read it?

[Speaker 0]: Nope. Nope.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Bet you're implying that we didn't never read it, that it might not be useful.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: But you're not gonna miss anything then.

[Speaker 0]: That's what I thought. Well, now that

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I see it's here on the other hand.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Exactly why we've got everyone's got pages worth of reports. Yeah. The labor, that was there was a lot of information going back and forth all over the place, and that was one of my favorite sayings. It's like, well, shut it off and see if it screams.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Is there anyone in the committee who feels that they would really like to retain this report? I think you can safely check the first box. Then we, do we have, we have one more.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: More. Yes. Retirement funds, so this is also in statute title 32. So this is the governor shall include as part of the annual budget report, statement to the extent by which recommended appropriations to the Teachers Retirement Fund or the Vermont Employees Retirement Fund differ from the amounts as recommended by the Vermont Employees Retirement System Retirement Board?

[Speaker 0]: That one goes to three different committees.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Not seeing a committee in your role, so that's wrong.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: House appropriations that says, House General, government ops, economic development, But

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: it's not in the report.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: It's not in the statute.

[Speaker 0]: At the request of House or Senate, Gayle Pezzoille, Appropriations, State Treasurer.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah, but in the statute

[Speaker 0]: Yeah, at the bottom, it's under B.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: It's the supposed to

[Speaker 0]: Committee's vote

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: in his yearly budget, and that's who requested him to do it. I'm not sure why this one's on here. It's not adding up to me. It's saying, as part of the budget, this information has to be required. But then it's saying that at the request, those committees shall present to the requesting committees the recommendations submitted, and this committee is not even on there. So

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I'm

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: not sure if this is a mistake. Yeah, I'll ask the holder of the Reports Repeal database what we have going on here. Actually,

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: I don't feel

[Speaker 0]: strongly whether we keep it or get rid of it, and as a body in general, I will say I don't think it should come here. If it has, it should be going to commerce, it's my Yeah. Virtual

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I mean, I remember when I was on Approach, one of the things, I was actually the person, because of my assignment, I was the person assigned with making sure that all the numbers for the pension plans matched what they should. And of course, I had Chris Rutland and others advising me since I had no idea of myself. And it's part of their job, is to true all this up and make sure that it makes sense, and I don't think it has anything to do with our job.

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: It doesn't have anything to do with labor?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: But indirect, it's not, yes, but we would be duplicating, we would have to duplicate what Probes does and we would have to have Chris Roop and JFO in here giving us the exact same information they're giving them.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And changes to retirement system are under the jurisdiction of the House

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: of Ops Committee. Yeah, I was gonna say, I think it's because this was probably instituted when we were a house general and military affairs. But since we're not anymore, it would go with the box. Because since the separation of the committees, that's how long ago it went there.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I think is there anyone who wants to keep this here?

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: No, this is not jurisdiction.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Get some information. First columns, check, go on. So I need to gather some information from Katie, if it's a simple answer I will provide it back to you, if not I I will have her comment to her that you all would like a little bit of information on the spiritual bills. All right. And we will circle back.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Thank you. And some folks would actually like the reports if we can actually find the reports if they exist.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: So, I see Chloe is not here yet, but I do see Debbie is here. Debbie, I'm just wondering, how would you feel about, I mean, you don't have

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: to You mean going out

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: of water? Out of water.

[Speaker 0]: You're all out of water.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: May I ask what the cake is?

[Speaker 0]: Happy birthday. May have cake. I

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: hope you all have a wonderful afternoon.

[Speaker 0]: Thank Thank you, Cameron.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: By the way, Cameron, this is Section eight, so No? We're working on it.

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: You have to have the window open?

[Speaker 0]: No, I'm waiting for a transition. He was very helpful. Was totally following

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: the Yeah,

[Speaker 0]: it really was warm. Has like

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Hi, Emilie. So what we're doing, Emilie, is the first bill to consider age 67 is Chloe Tomlinson, and she's not here, and Debbie is here, actually here, in the flesh. And so we're going to ask Debbie to just if you could introduce your bill on evictions, and just tell us what your thinking was, why you did it, later on we are going to do, we're going to hear all of the landlord tenant bills that are before us simultaneously, and we'll have a side by side, this will be probably in two weeks, at least it'll be two weeks out, we'll have a side by side analysis by Cameron of the bills, and probably I suspect the witnesses will be the same for pretty much all the

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: bills, and then we'll decide what we're gonna do. So take it away, Debbie. Thank you, chair, and thank you to the members of the General and Housing Committee for inviting me to introduce H six eighty eight. For the record, I am representative Debbie Dolgin and I represent the towns of St. Johnsbury, Concord and Kirby. H six eighty eight is a bill intended to support both renters and landlords by streamlining the eviction process in cases of non payment of rent, lease violations and criminal activity. These are limited and clearly defined circumstances, and the goal is to create a more efficient and predictability process for addressing serious violations of a lease. This bill does not change the fundamental rights or responsibilities of tenants or landlords. Instead, it provides protection for landlords when tenants abuse lease agreements. As a result of our current landlord tenant laws, housing is coming off the market because landlords, particularly small private landlords, cannot afford to operate under the existing system. With our current law, it is costing landlords, private and non profit thousands in lost rent, repairs, attorney fees, court costs, and sheriff fees. In St. Johnsbury, our rental registry shows that in the last three years, over 200 units have come off the market. This also affects nonprofit housing providers, which means it impacts taxpayer funded housing as well, taxpayers. When these providers struggle, the consequences ripple throughout our entire housing system. H six eighty eight is a necessary step towards stabilizing Vermont's rental market and ensuring that housing remains available for those who follow the terms of their lease. Several other states, including Florida, Texas, Ohio, Utah, among others, have already implemented streamlined eviction procedures for those same issues. Vermont is long overdue in addressing this imbalance. Thank you, and I look forward to legislative council walkthrough with the committee. Thank you. Thank you, Debbie. Kelly, you're next.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Thanks Debbie. Welcome. Khloe, you were out. Come sit down and then I'll tell you one thing before we start. Just for your information, it's just fortuitous that you're here for this,

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: we are

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: going to hear all the landlord and tenant bills at the same time, and it probably will be like two weeks out, but we'll let you know. Yours is one of them, Saudi has one of them, Debbie has one of them, there's a couple of others. I have one bill as well, it hasn't been introduced yet, but it will. We'll hear them all at the same time. We'll ask counsel to do a walk through. When they do a walk through, they'll do a comparative analysis of what's the difference between the bills. My suspicion is the witnesses will be pretty much the same, you know, there'll be landlord advocates, there'll be tenant advocates, there'll be others, they're pretty much the same, but we'll let you know, and if there's something where you think, oh no, I have another person I want to testify, know, be able let us know, but we'll make sure there's plenty of time. So meanwhile, you want to state your name for the record and introduce six sixty seven.

[Rep. Chloe Tomlinson]: Great. For the record, representative Chloe Tomlinson from Chittenden 21, which is Windham, and thank you, chair, for the background on the landlord tenant issue. The committee is taking that up this session. And today I'm here to introduce a hopefully refreshingly brief bill, which is number six sixty seven. It's an act relating to collective home ownership resources. So as I'm sure all of us in the room are very aware, it's becoming really, really challenging to purchase a home in Vermont and particularly for people who are trying to buy their first home. And so this solution of sort of collective home purchasing has emerged as somewhat of a trend. It was featured in seven days as a unique solution to our housing crisis around this time last year. I mean, personally, I know a number of folks who have gone this route or exploring it. I have explored it myself at one point. So what it looks like is with a group of friends or in some cases, two couples going in on buying a home or a duplex together, making it easier to pull together resources for a down payment and other things. So it's an interesting approach, but it comes with a lot of challenges. And many of those are related to lenders and navigating kind of a unique scenario with lenders. So they're a bit outside of the scope of what we can deal with in legislature at this time. But one piece of feedback that I heard from folks who have gone through this process successfully, that is something that we can take some action on is the challenge of coming up with articles of incorporation for cooperative housing or an agreement for establishing a tenant in common homeownership arrangement, which is just an unusual arrangement, not sort of your standard that real estate lawyers are used to drawing up for a regular purchase. So one of the folks I talked to noted that in some other states, they offer sort of a template for that, that then folks who are pursuing this don't have the unknown of how to structure that agreement and also have a baseline to work from, which helps in saving costs in working with lawyers to draw up that agreement. And in kind of navigating the multiple barriers that there are to collective homeownership, this can help with saving time and resources and addressing one of the unknowns in going through that process. So this bill requires that the Department of Housing and Community Development create such resources to be available to the public.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Questions for Chloe, yes.

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: Not in the drafting of this bill, but have you talked to Joe do you know who Joe Adriano is? He's a former legislator.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Right. He's a lawyer.

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: And he is mister co op. That's what he's known for. Might be a good, should we take this up, he might be a good witness to how co oping is done in the state of Vermont.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Right. Other questions? Yes?

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: Have you spoken to any of the bankers, is it exactly the same criterion that it is when somebody is purchasing a home on their own or do they lift that?

[Rep. Chloe Tomlinson]: Yeah, so I didn't talk to lenders about it, but some of the challenges related to the loans were around refinancing. For example, if someone is coming out of the agreement, there's ways to do that currently. For example, if a couple gets divorced, there's ways to of get out of a mortgage without refinancing. But in this situation of tenants in common, there's not. That was one thing cited. There's another just related to the way that income is calculated when applying for other loans. So for example, one person I spoke to who's in a collective homeownership situation wasn't able to get a car loan because of the way that their income Getting the same from them. Yes. So it's actually, I didn't hear anything now that I think about it specifically about getting the initial loan, but just challenges navigating once you're in that arrangement, some kind of challenges that have come up. But there might be others that I didn't include in my notes, so

[Speaker 0]: I could look in my longer notes about that.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Other questions? Chloe, so this is DHCD, right? They're supposed to create a template for articles of incorporation or a tenant in common arrangement and do you know what their, well, if we take it up, guess we'll deal with that, but there's no appropriation in the bill. I will say from my own experience since I have owned several properties, in fact, do right now in common, there are a lot of issues. I mean, the problem with tenancy, and some of them are, I'm not even sure exactly how they're resolved. When you're a tenant in common with someone, any tenant in common can demand that tenants say they want to leave and demand that the other tenant buy them out or that it's put on the market and they get their share. And when you have a rapidly rising market, it can be very difficult to conserve the operation because the other tenant can't afford to buy them out. This is why a

[Speaker 0]: lot of family cottages.

[Rep. Michael Boutin (Barre City)]: Is why a lot

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: of vacation homes that have been in families for generations, where you have more and more and more owners, they disappear from joint ventures because one owner who lives in California says, I went out and no one can afford to buy them out. So, it's actually a very It's absolutely right that this is an area that I wonder whether or not DHCD can resolve all the issues, but I think it's really interesting. Thank you very much. We will certainly let you know if we take it up.

[Speaker 0]: Thank you all

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: so

[Speaker 0]: much Thank for your you.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Michael, the team is I

[Speaker 0]: think, just on this Bill, I just think it's great that we have some creative solutions to And this certainly seems like a low cost, even if the legislative barriers, the regulation might be challenging. April.

[Rep. Chloe Tomlinson]: Excited. Also, inspired to have conversations with real folks who've dealt with it and come up with something they've seen.

[Speaker 0]: Like a model that you can replicate. Thank you all so much.

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: It could be combined with writer's place of refusal kind of

[Speaker 0]: and you could forgo some kind of Right? It could be like

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: There are all kinds of rather ingenious ways that things have been dealt with, which I'm not sure would really be available in this situation, people put their land in land trusts, they provide that they can't be sold for more than their conservation value. I mean, there's solutions, but

[Speaker 0]: You can set it up like know, I'm not going to expect a huge return on it, you know, like a trust. So,

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Michael, you need audio visual help or are you going to do it?

[Rep. Michael Boutin (Barre City)]: Was quick for a

[Speaker 0]: Hi!

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Identify yourself for the record.

[Rep. Michael Boutin (Barre City)]: Michael Boutman, Barrie City representative. I'm the one that submitted six seventy eight, just got the message. So

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I do apologize. We expect perfection.

[Rep. Chloe Tomlinson]: I it's one paragraph.

[Rep. Michael Boutin (Barre City)]: Am capable of providing. Let me get my pen out.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah, okay. If you look, I'm gonna need

[Speaker 0]: it right now. Is this the dumpster fire?

[Rep. Michael Boutin (Barre City)]: I'm fine, everything's fine. So the bill establishes a housing pilot program in Washington Lamoille Counties to finance the construction of two fifty dwelling units for homes. The financing would come from the municipal debt that's backed by 100% of municipal and education property increment from new construction. The goal is to increase affordable homeownership and opportunities for lower rentals costs for new housing development. Unfortunately, I do not have the spreadsheet that I have that helps explain how it would work, because we delete our emails after six months, and this was from six months ago.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Check your archive. Sometimes,

[Speaker 0]: if there's a weird folder that's called archive, I have found things there.

[Rep. Michael Boutin (Barre City)]: It's not, sadly, but that's okay, what I'm going to do is I'm going to have the person

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: This is just an introduction, we take it off the wall, there'll be plenty of time to get into detail and then walk through.

[Rep. Michael Boutin (Barre City)]: So the bill was really submitted based on the conversation that Tom Lozon had at City Council about how he would like to see this program implemented to help fund housing in Barrie City. That was certainly the original goal of it. The biggest problem with housing, knows it, right, it's the cost per square foot. I think it's what, dollars 400 now? That's insane, and you can't bring affordable housing to people with that kind of square foot cost, and what this does is it kind of makes it cheaper so that they can pass those expenses on, and it would require the developer to do that. You can't be part of the program unless pass those savings on to either the renter or to the purchaser of the home. It is very TIF like. Unfortunately, like I said, I don't have the graph to give you an example of how it would work, what the cost reduction would look like.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Questions? So this is a tax increment based financing system? It is, except for it's 100%, 100%. So it's 100% of the TI tax increment and 100 of the increment for the town. Correct, yeah. But somehow, it must be different from Chip. Yeah. Chip does eight eighty five and Correct.

[Rep. Michael Boutin (Barre City)]: Yeah. Correct. And it would also I don't believe Chip does direct to the developer.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Well, first of all, it's not for the housing itself, it's for the housing related infrastructure.

[Rep. Michael Boutin (Barre City)]: Right, which this would be for the housing, it would go to the director of development to force the price down, that's the difference with this one, and I'll be, if the committee is interested in taking it up, the person that you would really want to have in here to talk about it is Tom Lozon, he is the developer of Barrie City, he is the mayor of Barrie City, he was basically the architect of the renaissance of Barrie back in early twenty ten. Go down Main Street and everything that's beautiful about Main Street was under his leadership. And I was city councilor during that time, so I can tell you that TIF worked for us, we appreciate it. And I believe and I know he believes that this type of program would have a significant impact on bringing housing that's affordable to Washington and Lamoille as a pilot program. Great, any questions?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Michael, thank you so much.

[Speaker 0]: I just have one really good, sorry, I'm I'm very slow.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Please go ahead. I'm so sorry.

[Speaker 0]: I am curious whether you know what 250 how it fits into your sort of regional housing goals that you've been sort of discussed?

[Rep. Michael Boutin (Barre City)]: Sure, so currently we have a huge plot of land that is, and I don't know if this would be used for that, but I suspect it would. We have the Prospect Heights project and I don't know if you have heard about that. Prospect Heights received $3,000,000 in grant funds from the northern borders. Somebody help me out, northern border. Northern border regional commission. So that amount of money will help drive down the project. And again, might be wrong, it might not specifically be for that, but it would fit perfectly for that type of development to drive down those costs. That's how it could fit in there, as an example. Barrie City is a really small community, right? I mean, our postage stamp size property is about four square miles. We don't have a lot of room, but we have a lot of services that we have to provide, you know, streets, police, fire, all that stuff that needs property taxes, so we definitely could use some love in that area, and of course we hit the flood, you know, we got hammered, housing got hammered in Barrie City. So any tools in our shed that we can use, Barrie City will use

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: them. Who decides, is it the city, who initiates the

[Rep. Michael Boutin (Barre City)]: It would be the city.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: The city initiates the proposal that a given development should be subject to it, and does it go through BEPC or anybody?

[Rep. Michael Boutin (Barre City)]: It probably would go through BEPC, we haven't really dug that deep because it's a concept, but it would probably go through that.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: It's not a short form though, is it? It is a short form, okay. Is, yeah, okay. Question. The

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Lamoille looping, how was that manifested?

[Rep. Michael Boutin (Barre City)]: So, was on, I know the Washington connection, I'm not really sure about the Lamoille connection and I do apologize for that, that's on me. I will do that as a takeaway and get that information off to you.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: But Lamoille was hit with flooding, correct?

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: And we lost, think it has to

[Speaker 0]: do with the flooding. I think it's

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: related to a lot of buried people. We

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: lost 30%

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: of our houses, not feeding floods. And so

[Rep. Michael Boutin (Barre City)]: that's my guess is the reason why he looped in Lamoille a lot better, is it you know, we got to replace that housing stock, and

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: housing that's going to be flood resistant and that's what needs to happen. This, just for the benefit of the committee, an update that's maybe relevant. First of all, the idea of tax increment that goes to the developer, in other words, it goes into their pro form a, their spreadsheet when they decide whether the project pencils with lower rent or lower cost, That was pretty much the administration's proposal, which was then not adopted and instead a proposal by let's build homes, which then became the chip, which said no, it's not going to the developer, it's not going to the development, it's going to infrastructure. I'm not saying this is bad, I'm just saying it's not new in the sense that that happened. One of the interesting things I've heard recently, I mean, we're all waiting to see how Chip plays out, is that and Michael's right, CHIP doesn't deal with the development, it deals with the infrastructure, which is kind of the traditional approach of tax increment, but interestingly, a number of towns who have developers that would like to use chip have been indicating reluctance to use chip because they don't want to give up the municipal tax. And that is one of the concerns about any of this from the town perspective is giving up the tax. I'm just commenting for the benefit of the committee just to bring them up to speed. So this would be kind of pilot or a smaller, geographically smaller version of the administration's original proposal. Anyway, thank you so much.

[Speaker 0]: They stack? Could you get a chip and this?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: You could, you can't use the increment twice.

[Speaker 0]: That's what I'm saying.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah, it wouldn't stack.

[Rep. Michael Boutin (Barre City)]: It's definitely an incentive to push developers into providing lower cost, more affordable housing.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Right, it would go to the developer's bottom line. Right. Any other questions? Thanks. Thank you. You guys have a lovely day.

[Speaker 0]: Thank you for your attendance. Not a problem. And the birthday card. Tom

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: is here. Hi Tom. So our last bill for today, because we took FIBI out of order, is Representative Tom Stevens' bill relating to the tenant representation pilot program of Legal Aid, I believe.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Is that right? Yep. Take it away, Tom. Great. Thank you.

[Rep. Tom Stevens]: Representative Tom Stevens from Waterbury representing Washington Chittenden District. Seven zero four is a proposal to end the pilot program that was started in this committee three years ago. Three years ago we passed this bill that created the structure of what the pilot representation, the tenant representation pilot program is and then in 2024 we were able to fund it, we found funding for it. For those of you who may not know what this is, there's always been a focus on upstream eviction prevention and this is something that this committee has dealt with for many many years and the idea here is that if based on a 2019 report from Vermont Legal Aid, there was a study that this study showed that 70% of all eviction proceedings that go to court are about background and of the remaining 30%, 50% of those are about background personality and then the last 15% is the hardest cases, the ones that are the stereotypical landlord versus tenant battles. The idea here is to keep people out of the court system, not only to free up the court system, but also to save money not only for the state, if someone is evicted and they become homeless or they have to go into the system again, it costs more money to get them housed, it costs the property owners more money, we're talking $7,500 to $10,000 at best to evict and that's even before they received their back rent. What was fascinating about this study was having both the landlord association and legal aid come in and talk about how beneficial this would be for both sides, which is rare when we're talking when landlords and tenants sit across the table from each other. People need a place to stay, landlords need to get paid, this was the proposal for years to bring them together in a way that was slightly different than mediation, but it was providing representation to, mostly to the tenants because in eviction court 80% of tenants when they go into eviction court do not have representation and roughly 20% of landlords don't use representation in eviction courts and so there's this imbalance in terms of what's the language they're speaking and how can they come to a conclusion that's not just I don't like you, I'm never going to pay you, you know, the real tensions at all. So this was formed and as a pilot for Orange And Memorial Counties, the feedback so far been very successful, they've settled close to sixty percent of their cases out of court and people have a choice, they don't have to go into it, but when they do, roughly 60% of the cases have kept a number of people out of eviction proceedings. So the pilot program again is funded through probably October, the way the funding works. And in order to, and they had reached out earlier this fall, this past fall to see if we could if they could use some of the funding at that time for other counties other than Orange And Lamoille County, but the statute's clear, it was a pilot program for Orange And Lamoille, and all this does is basically remove that restriction, and this would allow it to be a statewide tool for tenants and landlords to use to try to avoid eviction proceedings. The catch with anything, this is the language, and then the question will be, can it be funded? Have legal aid, you have them, if you decide to take this up, legal aid will have pretty solid numbers based on their experience with what they've been working with now and how to extrapolate that across the state in terms of

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: what our potential But it's not right now in the bill, there's not an approach?

[Rep. Tom Stevens]: No, there's not an appropriation in the bill and they do have funding throughout the first quarter of the next fiscal year, so there's not, it's not dire, but they, in order to keep it going and expand it, they will need a higher appropriation that would be base, as long as this program existed, and so it's, they can provide the numbers about how beneficial it's been in terms of the people, about how effective the funding has been. We hear how legal aid is funded through grants from many, many different places in state government and given their pressures due to the cuts of the grants from the federal level, it's reflected in what they can get from AHS as well. This is like this is a different program And so they're gonna come in, you know, provided if you open the doors to them, they'll come in and let you know where they are. Debbie, Debbie, Gail?

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: Do you know how mid, what the percentage was that was settled out of court before the pilot program?

[Rep. Tom Stevens]: Not exactly, there were different, there have been different programs over the years. There's been a mediation program that was set up through with COVID era money that was Vermont Landlords Association held offered mediation and that was not well used over time. Basically, again, the numbers change year to year. I know that a couple years ago it peaked, but roughly about 2,000 eviction proceedings a year get filed and most of those do go through the evictions. Do have or have in the past sponsored days where there's lawyers on-site

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: in

[Rep. Tom Stevens]: some counties on some eviction days, but I don't have a number for them, but this has been by providing representation to tenants in particular, this has been, they've seen success rates far greater than what we've seen in the past.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Could you, I mean, we'll get to, if we take this off the wall, we'll get to know a lot more, but I'm still a little puzzled, help me out. What's in this program that's different than simply providing legal representation? I mean, legal aid has the ability to represent clients statewide. My assumption was, yeah, but this just pays for it in, you know, two counties, but does

[Rep. Tom Stevens]: it do more than just provide legal representations? It provides the legal representation that legal aid doesn't, can offer, but doesn't often, they're not often able to provide it to every person who comes to the door, because the lack of capacity, the lack of lawyers, so you're hiring more lawyers who are focusing on this, you're providing the funding, it can come through this or through PSHA, I'm not sure who holds that bank account and we are talking about the same $10,000 if it's a $10,000 process, they're settling for roughly $3,000 between $3,500 a background just because rent has gone up so much in the last few years. So it's but they yes, they've always offered that service, but it hasn't been well funded. And so many people would call in fact, if you've had I don't know if you've had Human Rights Commission in at all, but they, everybody's lost money this, the last two years and so they're seeing, you know, legal aid is actually referring people to Human Rights Commission, but Human Rights Commission can't get paid for many of the same proceedings. So it's saying as a rule, it's reaching out to people as a rule to say that representation is available if you so choose to do it. It's not mandated. It's up to the participants. So it is funding it so that it is available.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: But to me I mean, I I know I understand that the mere fact of representation of the tenant can lead to settlement. I used to be a legal aid attorney. I settled lots of cases, you know, that may have just ended up without me and the tenant not bothering to show up or the tenant going to court and losing, but my impression is that there's nothing in statute in this program that changes the obligation of the attorney to seek settlement. It's just a funding device that provides a broader base of legal representation for tenants. Is that right? I think that's just about right. Yeah.

[Rep. Tom Stevens]: Okay. If there's no change to landlord tenant law and

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah. Yeah.

[Rep. Michael Boutin (Barre City)]: And when people say no,

[Rep. Tom Stevens]: they say no and it goes forward.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah. Right. I understand. It's broader based representation. Yes. Joe?

[Rep. Tom Stevens]: I just wanna be clear so that any Orange folk listening this was Lamoille and Windsor County, I believe?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: That's what it says. Lamoille and Windsor County.

[Rep. Tom Stevens]: Yes. Okay. It's Orange County folks. You didn't miss out on the program. I I no. I I yes. Thank you for the correction. I mean, they did, but it was and it was sorry. Orange has been on my head because there were there were requests from Orange County. Can this be used? That's on my Yeah.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah. Right. Right. And so to sum up, though there is not a there is not a appropriation at this point in the bill, there is if we were to take it off the wall, probably by then there would be a suggestion by legal aid as to what that preparation should be, and the committee could either include it or not,

[Rep. Tom Stevens]: right? Absolutely, and they will give you, I mean, they've given me, well, do we ask the questions of, do we ask for status quo, do we have, it's like, well, we want to get rid of the pilot program, do we do two more counties? I think if there's no hesitation or limitation on the counties, then internally, they would decide based on what funding they receive, what counties they can cover. Right.

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: Yes. Thank you. As a member of the Appropriations Committee, can you just answer a simple question about how legal aid is funded? Is it do funds go to legal aid as an entity, or are the funds earmarked for each program?

[Rep. Tom Stevens]: Their programs are earmarked. They receive grants. When they receive grants, they receive it for particular silos of their programming.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Okay. I think we have a very complex one. Any other questions? Yes. Saudia.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Thank you. So just to clarify, this if this goes in effect, it would just remove the pilot and expand the services so that more folks can access the services that are not within that catchment. So Orange will be essentially able to, to hopefully access the services. And then it would be up to legal aid to determine what that appropriation would need to be. But essentially, we just were just looking to expand the program services within the current existence so that it can expand for more folks outside of the pilot area?

[Rep. Tom Stevens]: Yes, it gives legally the opportunity to expand it based on their funding. But again, they wanted to expand it this past year and they couldn't because of the limitation. Right. I mean, it

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: would be interesting if we did take it off the wall to hear alternatives in that regard. I mean, what the full funding would be if we went statewide, you know, it's 7,000,000 or whatever, and then but I think that everybody any other questions? Tom, thank you. Thanks for having me. Thank So, a lot. It is now 02:40. We are done for the day. We don't have any more testimony today. So you have, just because, you know, we are lazy and whatever, Actually, you have time to do all of that work that you don't, you have forty whole minutes before the floor, thirty nine before the floor. Just to review tomorrow, tomorrow is an interesting day. The floor is at 09:30. After the floor, we're going to hear from the Human Rights Commission. And at 11:30, we're going to actually have a walk through on 05:48. That's the bill that adds a mediator position to the office of BLRB, not taking testimony, just having a walk. And after lunch, at 01:00, we are going to begin the manufactured housing bill that Representative Pezzo has worked so hard on, and we're going to have an introduction and walkthrough by Cameron Wood and John Gray. It's a long bill, it's not an easy bill, and we don't have witnesses, right? No witnesses. Not yet. Think it's safe next week, what we're aiming at and we'll know more detail soon, but what we're aiming at is a combination of more witnesses and a field trip where we will go to facto homes, which for those of you who don't know is about a mile from here, and we'll, there are no buses available to us as a committee, Miriam has found out, so we will arrange carpools. I went myself, just pulled in one day, my memory is that it is fairly, but not totally acceptable. That is, there are a few steps that lead up to the and so, you know, there's I don't know whether there are ramps or not, but I think there's

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: There's three steps, it's a fiberglass, and it has

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Three steps, so it's not completely accessible, but we will arrange carpooling probably on Tuesday, and it's Thursday, it'll be Wednesday morning, at 09:30, we'll go, I think the whole thing will take, I mean, my experience was getting, saying, meeting them, getting a walk through of a single wide and a double wide took me fifteen minutes, twenty minutes. It was an experience, it was a real eye opener for me, and I think it will be useful. Our intention is by the end of the testimony next week and the visit, this committee is going to know more than anyone else in this building about manufactured housing, And then we'll see what we're going to do with the bill. Questions? So it starts on Friday with a walk through, and then we're going to get into it. And I think it's, I'll just say for me, it's really important because manufactured housing is the only housing in Vermont at this point that is actually affordable to much of the middle class and certainly people without a lot of means, without subsidy. Yes. And with this.

[Mary E. Howard (Clerk)]: And what? With this.

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: If you're talking about new housing.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Right, although manufactured homes that are used, that existing are even less expensive.

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: No, no, that's not

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: true.

[Mary E. Howard (Clerk)]: Oh really, new homes are That's necessarily true.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Okay.

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: It can be more expensive. Depends. Depends where, it depends.

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: Right. But just to state, we also have the nation's largest inventory of underused housing that we as a community like vacant, abandoned Or or just my mother rolling around in a house that's an inappropriate size for her.

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: That's right. Apples and oranges.

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: Mean, apples and oranges in terms of new housing versus existing housing that we haven't tried to address.

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: Aren't we, though?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: We have a bill, one bill. We have taken testimony on that problem. What? We have one bill which I've introduced, which is nibbling around the edges of it. That's it. It's the bill that makes it easier for towns where there's truly an abandoned house, and somebody, an owner, who's just not paying their taxes and hasn't for years, makes it easier for them to use a tax sale to then force it into new ownership. But Did we have

[Speaker 0]: the info on that one last session?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: No. I thought we did. No. I just haven't it's entered I've given it to alleged counsel to introduce, but it hasn't been introduced. Joe?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Can I speak of, the last bill we just heard?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yes. Yeah. Okay. I mean, it's

[Rep. Michael Boutin (Barre City)]: No. We're just taking off

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: the wall or anything. Just

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah. Go ahead. Yeah.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Wasn't gonna say anything, but I will. I really struggle with the notion of giving legal aid money for this. I got to witness a couple apartment units in Orange, where this program isn't even done, where what landlords were put through every single delay possible way you could think of to keep a tenant who is destroying a property and not paying rent for a year and a half in that property. $15,000 later, that's not lost rent. That's cost of lawyer fees, everything else, maintaining the property, fixing things that were health hazards because they broke them because now there's a health hazard and I get another three months. To see that happen in a place that's not even getting this program, I can't imagine how many more there's a lot of people who get evicted. There's a lot of people who need to be evicted. I I I really struggle with the notion that if they're not getting money for Orange and it's still happening, I'd hate to see what happens when they do get more money to put landlords through that. Because I can guarantee those landlords are tightening up who they rent to a lot. Or not renting. And you're gonna say, they're discriminating against going through that again. That's what they're doing.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: So You think that would you don't think that

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Every person

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: would help that situation?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Not at all. The relationship is gone. Yeah. There is no relationship. There is no most of these landlords, I could care less about the rent.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: That's true.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I just want them now. Yeah.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I think that it's fair to say that that is a real problem, and it was one of the motivations behind Senator Clarkson and I spending the time we did trying to put something together that would be fair to both sides, but would address exactly the issue you're talking about. And one of

[Speaker 0]: the problems

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: is, I mean, I have represented tenants, and I have, you know, I can't tell you how many tenants came to me, and let's not even talk about the tenant that's destroying property. You know, there were tenants who came to me and it was so not always by any means, but often just a variation on, I don't have any money, how long have I got? It just that, I mean, perfectly good people, for various reasons out of their control, out of money. And so, what's your obligation as a legal aid attorney? Your obligation is to try to keep them in the unit, and that is not, your obligation is not to balance the interests of the landlord against the interests of the tenant, your obligation is to represent the tenant, and so that is why I think that it is my own view, I'm speaking my own view, I think it is up to us to change the law, so that we know what the law is for everybody, and that when someone is represented, their obligations are, their abilities and obligations are clear. So But, Joe, I don't think you're saying anything that is unusual, unfortunately.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I hope everyone has at least the chance to walk in film.

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: Do you wanna know what

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: it Just that

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: a lamp that the Saudi has been in for a year not paying and destroying. Because I can guarantee you they didn't rent it like that. They didn't walk in the door signing a lease and being like, hey, look at this. The place is half destroyed. I'll take it. Pretty sure it's not the landlord going there and wrecking the place.

[Mary E. Howard (Clerk)]: Yes, Mary? I see Joe's point. And there are good landlords and bad landlords. Through my constituents, I've heard some stories about one landlord won't turn the heat on until November. There was a situation in a housing development where they had a tenant that was causing all kinds of problems, all kinds of problems, they brought it to people in charge, and they were told, what do you want me to do? Where do you want me to send him? You know, there's no place for him to go. Meanwhile, he's causing all these problems. You know, you run into that. To go back to the, tax sales, I have a constituent who has been, went through the tax sale procedure, put his money down, the money's held in escrow. A year later, nothing happens. Six months later, the former owner of the property decides to file bankruptcy. It's now two years. So these tax sales don't happen very quickly. There's something that's gotta be done about that. And the house and the yard was a disaster. That was the motivation behind the bill, to try to fix that. I do want

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: to say, and then I'll on your next side, we will have plenty of time to talk about landlord.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I just have to I'm sorry to drag us down

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: that road.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: After that presentation, like, I have to say something.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Debbie? Well, I just wanted to

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: tell I thought

[Speaker 0]: Gayle was next.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Okay, you are next, Gayle.

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: Yeah, I'm sorry.

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: I just wonder when someone is evicted and they have nowhere to go, how much it winds up costing us. And I know it's a long process, but this is just playing devil's advocate, if you decide to be a landlord, there's risks that you take with becoming a landlord. I don't think the system is working well, but I wonder about, they wind up homeless, they wind up in emergency room, so finding a balance is, I don't know how we do that.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: We try. I just wanted

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: to respond to Mary that I believe that there is a law about when landlords have to turn heat on and it's not by a certain date, it's by the temperature outside. So they would have to, I guess it would be the code officer would have to be notified, and that landlord would have to turn on the heat.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Okay, yes. Just I want

[Speaker 0]: to end with a plug

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: of I think we're framing conversations around landlord tenant issues around specific type of tenant and specific types of problems. But we know how many renters there are in the state, we know how many people rent. And so those situations are not the norm. And I think if we are framing a conversation around problems that we're trying to address, we, no one wants, I don't think anyone in this room wants someone's property to be destroyed or wants people's neighbors to be unsafe. And

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: think if we can frame the conversation around safety and respect, just like we did our respect training, right? I think if we are framing the conversation around mutual respect between two parties in an agreement, if that is breached, we're trying to address the issues, the barriers, for people to address these problems when their contracts are being breached. We're trying to set up good structures, good boundaries, good laws, that protect both parties, because we want, hello, we're humans. Humans need a place to live, humans need to make money, humans need to protect your investments. We all have to exist and coexist. And so it's our job to discern that information and frame it under, if you don't do these things, or if you engage in things that are harmful to people or people's property or damaging, you lose the privilege. And I think that's a goal that we should be ascertaining to, is to how do we help folks so that they're not going a year without being paid? Or their neighbors are being terrorized for a year for our neighbors who are being disruptive and causing problems? That is what we need to be looking at. How do we address the problems? Not looking at the simple like, you know, I'm not saying one or two, because the way it's presented is there's many, right? But we know that's not the norm, because most of our communities are majority renters than homeowners. So, how do we frame this around? This is a problem. It is up to us to address it. We're going to finally have this conversation this year, 2026, because the legislature's been avoiding it for so long. So, let's do this. Let's have the hard conversations. But let's just keep in perspective that this is not the norm. But I think if anyone in this building was going to tackle this issue, it should be us, because I feel like we have the most discernment around what will be best and the best outcomes and finding that medium, that middle ground and meeting that mutual need of both parties. So I just wanted to say that before we go into those conversations, because I don't want us to go down the rabbit holes of a specific demographic of tenant, right, because that's not the whole picture, so I just wanted to just do that.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Well, at this point, thank you all for your comments. It is very difficult to make policy in such a broad area, and we will try. So, at this point, again, we are convening tomorrow after the floor, and we will first hear from the Human Rights Commission, and then Bill walk through, and then we're going to launch our manufactured housing. I really look forward to that, manufactured housing. So, see you all tomorrow, the way to the floor. We are off,