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[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Five, six, seven, Welcome everybody to House Committee on General and Housing, and today is Tuesday, 03/24/2026. We have the House floor in fifteen minutes, and what we are doing here is, Representative Van Noyes is the sponsor of an amendment to H-eight 61, which we have had to have. H-eight 61, which Representative Burrows is the sponsor of, is an act that establishes an ADA, an American with Disabilities Act coordinator statewide. One of the things the act did was list all the activities, the responsibilities of the ADA coordinator. Dan has a I think a pretty straightforward amendment. Dan, you wanna introduce yourself and take it away.
[Rep. Dan Noyes (Human Services Committee, Wolcott)]: Absolutely, thank you so much. Dan Noyes, representative from the Human Services Committee and resident of Wolcott. With the committee, we heard from representative Burrows and went through this bill, excellent work. And one thing that we thought might be helpful is if we were to add just one of additional duties of the coordinator position is to apply, allowing them to apply for grants and accept donations to support the work that they're doing. This was something that was brought up in the Human Services Committee when we heard and we asked just that you consider an amendment. We voted on it this morning on a straw poll of nine zero two. Yeah. Are you interested in any questions?
[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Elizabeth, do you have any,
[Rep. Dan Noyes (Human Services Committee, Wolcott)]: if anybody have questions over there? And this language mirrors kind of what we passed in August, which is the animal welfare bill that was on the floor
[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: a couple weeks ago.
[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: And when I brought the bill to the committee, we talked about adding this on. Oh, great. That was my question. How do you feel? It's not a surprise, and I think it strengthens the Oh, great. Okay. Yes, Debbie. Okay. My question is,
[Rep. Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: can this not be done if we don't put this in as amended? That's a really good question.
[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I have to look carefully at the list. In the real world, I think it could be done, because who's going to sue to stop them? I mean, if someone applies for a grant and gets a million bucks, is someone going to
[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: say, oops. Yeah, but that's only half of it. The other half is donations. Yeah, except donations. And that's a different So
[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I guess my feeling was when I looked at it, it's at worst harmless. At best, clearly authorizes. Also, it means that when they interview for that person, someone who says, there's going to be a question that there might not otherwise be. Do you know how to apply for grants? Which is probably a good thing. Is your experience with fundraising?
[Unidentified Committee Member]: Yes. Were you going to ask how many have to get donations anyway?
[Rep. Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: Right, I mean, got my data. Preach, and I asked them, can we do for you? They were like, we always need money, but right in here here it says they take donations, volunteers, they take all these people. They use all their resources.
[Unidentified Committee Member]: But they're authorized somewhere to do it. I think soliciting donations is a little bit different than writing for grants. And it's, if they clearly have the authority to do it, it puts them in a a
[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: clear And might
[Unidentified Committee Member]: there be a difference tax wise?
[Rep. Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: Yeah, you might have to be like a non profit.
[Unidentified Committee Member]: They'll have to set up a Right.
[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: That you
[Unidentified Committee Member]: don't have to pay taxes on the donation. Yeah.
[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: Yeah, this is similar, as Representative Dwight said, to the Animal Welfare Fund.
[Rep. Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: Well, can we take donations?
[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: The Animal Welfare Fund in the new bill will be able to not make donations.
[Rep. Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: You can't, as someone you're, if you're a donator, you can't write it off because it's not to a nonprofit? How do taxes work on that?
[Unidentified Committee Member]: It's up to the agency to set that up with the bank paperwork. But
[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: there are lots of places you donate where you can't write it off. Anyway, for this, it does not require the person to solicit donations, but it creates a possibility, which I think is really healthy and good. And I appreciate you creating more options for the position without creating more demands for the position. So I move to
[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Where do people stand on this?
[Rep. Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: I just feel like we don't know this.
[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Do you want to you have a
[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: We actually have to. If
[Rep. Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: I had more information on how something worked and what our laws are currently, I could make a more educated decision. I can't pretend to
[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: be a super expert on this, but here's what I think. Generally speaking, when you create an administrative position, me put it this way, when let's say you're on a select board, Towns are administering what's called the general health and welfare. It's the sort of basic exercise of governmental authority. And so for them, or for the state as a whole, but particularly for towns, since they're administering the general health and safety power, they're called the general welfare power. Anything that could fit under that, they can do unless they're prohibited from doing it, okay? Administrative law, the administration, administrators live in a different world. In their world, they can't argue, I'm giving you the black letter law, and the practicality is different. They can't say, well, it's true that the law didn't authorize me to do this, but it's kind of implied. It's a very weak argument because generally speaking, they don't have a general governmental health and welfare power. They are limited to doing what the law says they can do. So, what does that mean here? It means here that if, let's say, I was the coordinator and I wanted to go apply for a grant, and the grantor said, you have to send me your act that lists what your authority is, I would have to try to argue that my authority would somehow in implied in the other listed things? In other words, I would have to argue that I had some sort of specific authorization. I'd have to try to argue that it was in the other. So the reason I like this amendment is because it makes it absolutely clear. And if someone, I think grantors often say, when you apply for a grant, you have to include the act that gives you the authority to apply. So that's why I think this is probably a good thing. And the other reason is we don't have enough money in Vermont. Exactly. But what about the donation part? Generally speaking, let's say person, let's say I was the ADA coordinator, and I came to you and said, Debbie, you've got a lot of money. How would you like to give half $1,000,000 to this effort because you love the, you care so much about this issue. You could give money to the state, but as a practical matter, getting that money to this effort, I'm not sure how it would occur.
[Rep. Dan Noyes (Human Services Committee, Wolcott)]: And I often think it could go the other direction. So an individual might approach the coordinator of this position and say, look, I believe in your work and I would like to put some money towards your efforts in helping individuals with disabilities.
[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Right, and they might, one way to do it might be to form a separate five zero one(three) that's dedicated to supporting, they exist. For example, the National Parks Foundation is a five zero one(three) whose job is to support the national parks. So if you want to give money because you think Yellowstone is the coolest thing that ever was, rather than writing a check to the United States government, which might be used for fighter jet, you write a check to the National Parks Foundation. So I do tend to think that if they engage in fundraising activities, it probably would be aiding and abetting the formation of a five zero one(three). I'm just giving you my sense
[Rep. Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: of No, how I appreciate that. That most definitely.
[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: It's okay if you don't want to vote for it.
[Rep. Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: No, I just wanted more Yeah, she wanted
[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: more Oh, no, no, I'm just saying.
[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: That's why I'm trying to
[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: Life won't crumble.
[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: So, is it safe for me to say, how many others are we? 1234567. Can I say 704?
[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: Yes.
[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Okay, 704. Straw hold 70 Okay, and who's gonna, you can, you'll be the person who will stand up and say, Hey Dan, thank you.
[Rep. Dan Noyes (Human Services Committee, Wolcott)]: You heard the amendment. Right. Yeah, because I'll report out the straw poll from the Human Services Board.
[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Okay, cool, thanks a lot. No problem, thank you for having
[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: me. Thank you
[Rep. Dan Noyes (Human Services Committee, Wolcott)]: your consideration. Thank your support.
[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: It's important stuff, so. Yeah, it came
[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: up at our legislative forum last night even. And
[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Debbie, that was a great question. I mean, you're more information, that was
[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: for us.
[Rep. Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: Oh, are we live? Yeah. Mean, I know we make donations and we might say exactly where we want that money to go.
[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: To go, and sometimes it's difficult when the donation is to the state. I'm not sure how it works, actually. Right.
[Rep. Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: I know. Yeah. I I do every year. Yeah, that's fine.
[Rep. Dan Noyes (Human Services Committee, Wolcott)]: Can probably
[Rep. Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: go out live Marc.