Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: Welcome

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: everybody to the Committee on General and Housing. It is Thursday, December 9 I mean, nine. I'm sorry. I'm not all here. 2026 all day. We're gonna spend the day on '3 20 '8 and s 80 '9. And our first part of '3 20 '8, which is an act relating to housing in JET, has a number of housing elements to it, and one of those issues will be addressed by our first witness, who is the distinguished chair of the House Committee on Agriculture, Food, and Resiliency in Forestry. David, take it away. Good morning.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resiliency, and Forestry)]: David Durfee, chair of the house committee on April 28. The chair had asked our committee to review section of S-three 28, I think it was 9A. 9A, yes. And we did take testimony yesterday. We had Ledge Council come in first and walk us through the language in brief paragraph or so. And then we heard from the Housing Convention Board with a recommendation for change in the language that I think your committee also heard, if I understand correctly. And then we asked them, or I asked if while they were there, they would give us a little refresher on the background for the report, the assessment, I guess they called it rather than a report that they had done five years ago, and it was referenced in the language. So they shared that with us. We then took some testimony later in the day. I will say, just because of the case, that our committee supports the recommendation that they've made to slightly change the language that's in the ordinance or in the amendment that we got from the Senate.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Right, so this language, just for the committee's benefit, remember, I'm going to refresh your memories. The original language clause, there was a housing needs assessment that was a detailed assessment that was done in 2021, and the original language asked for a kind of a really substantial update of that full assessment, and BHCB came and testified to us that while they didn't have the resources to do that, they were very interested in evaluating the successes and possible changes to their current effort, and they had substitute language, and my understanding is that language is the language that your committee supports.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resiliency, and Forestry)]: Yes, and I had seen the language earlier that was shared with your committee, they shared the same language as of yesterday, and we support that.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Right, and we have that language, and so with that, with the committee's permission, when counsel, I've alerted counsel, and the counsel is in the midst right now of preparing a next draft of three twenty eight, I alerted counsel that probably they should start with language proposed, with 5B8C B, and that we would see what the Chair of Agriculture Committee's recommendation was, and his is favorable to that language. So I think when Cameron comes later in the morning, we will see that. Okay, the second area that I just alerted David I wanted to bring up was the whole issue, to just go back, the agriculture committee, after a lot of work, did not reach a conclusion on whether to require minimum wage for farm workers. One piece of what they, and so this issue is going to be revisited in the future. One issue that they, just a small part of that, was a request to various Department of Labor and others that they just let us know a little bit about what the origin was and the methodology was of the deduct for housing from the wage that you could take, which

[Cameron Woods (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: is a deduct that is theoretically applicable statewide, but also, of course, particularly important with farm workers who frequently are provided housing, and possibly more food as well, and the

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: deduct is ancient, although it's been altered by an inflationary formula, I think. So David asked us, me, would you consider putting this in the bill so that at least we have that piece of information? However, that issue members here expressed some concerns over that, so I wanna raise that issue while you're here, David, and talk. Leonora, in particular, had some concerns, if I could turn to you, Leonora, and ask you and David to carry this conversation a little further, because we have the opportunity that he's here, and I think we have to decide whether, you know, we have to decide about the text of 03/28, it's not a super rush,

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: but we need to decide. Yeah, so I guess my question would be, the way that that portion of our bill is worded, in the list of who we want to consult, it's ag, not just the Department of Labor. But then the way that the questions that we would seek for the report back are generally around employer housing. But then the third one or the last point in the measure is, or in statutory language, and should there be a different rate set for ag workers? And to me, it just seems like yet another way to undervalue the workers that are in that industry that already lack a lot of the other protections that workers in areas get, and for historic reasons, and especially in the dairy industry. There are definitely challenges for the farmers that are stuck with a price that they can't gain more. But from the conversations that we were having about what the deduction rate is, it seems to basically add up to about $200 a month if you're lodging somebody in a room. That seems like somewhat reasonable of a cost, my concern is that we are going to try to have an even bigger deduction without ever having set a minimum wage. So that's my unease about trying to reach a deduction amount Now. Yeah, go ahead. Thank

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resiliency, and Forestry)]: you, I think that's a valid concern. And I don't know that I know exactly what is in the language that if the committee has worked on any changes to what we had in our bill.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: No, it's pretty much. Okay. The only difference was, in your language, asked them to make recommendations for legislation, and we took that out because we just wanted the info. In other words, there was this list of three or four things, and I think we took out the list. Okay. And in fact, I don't have it in front of me right now, I don't know why, but anyway.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resiliency, and Forestry)]: I think that just

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: sort

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resiliency, and Forestry)]: of stepping back, the thought was that we had trouble getting a bill or legislation that would impose a wage when there was a deduction that didn't seem to our committee in any case. It seemed grounded in anything real. It was a number that was supplied by the Department of Labor. The Department of Labor said, we're just using a formula. So not that they weren't taking responsibility for it, but nobody was able to really say why this is the right number. And to be clear, housing varies. And this is not just agriculture or farmworker housing. In statute now, any employer who supplies housing can deduct this amount. So we can all imagine there's different in a perfect world you would deduct something with more like a market value or something that made sense, and this just seems like a temporary number. So that was barrier to the idea of moving ahead with setting or applying minimum wage to farm workers. So that's the background, just to review that. I think that if the concern is if we if we went through this process and gotten for back, then that would become the new number. Well, we would have to actually legislate that. So if you wouldn't have it automatically, that's one thought I have there. I will say I don't know what the solution is. I think you've raised good points and it's a

[Cameron Woods (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: challenge.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resiliency, and Forestry)]: I mean, it does seem reasonable to say to someone, if you're providing housing, providing shelter that is actual shelter, that that has a value, you ought to be able to take that into account, which is basically what we've said now, but then we've applied this random, seemingly random number.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Can I just ask a couple of questions here right now? Whatever this number is, is it some sort of regulation that that's all you can deduct? That that's what you can deduct, that's a safe harbor, or is it from a DOL? Well, mean theoretically you could get in trouble if you deducted more, and you can deduct less. What's the deal?

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resiliency, and Forestry)]: My understanding is that you can deduct no more than that, and that you could in fact get in trouble if you tried to take more from the paycheck.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Right, and is there any rule that says you can't just say to people, I mean, let's say it's $50 a week, I'm just throwing a number out, okay? You couldn't say, Fine, we're not gonna charge you anything, we're not gonna deduct anything, but the rent's $100. In other words, pay rent. Is there anything stop that?

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resiliency, and Forestry)]: Yeah, I think that's a question, that's a great question. I don't know that I can answer that accurately.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Do you know anything, or did you take any testimony on whether when a farmer files their taxes, they can deduct the actual cost of providing the shelter as a cost of doing business?

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resiliency, and Forestry)]: We did not take any testimony on that. Another good question, and anything, I suppose it might matter whether they've deducted it somewhere else, just as a matter of force in filing.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I would add, I'm just gonna lay on the table, I have several concerns that I also have no idea what to do with. I mean, this is an area that's obviously fraught, right? I mean, your committee is thrown at me. One is, it seems to me that whatever the number is, it's probably going to be higher because of the cost of housing. Two, and and we I don't know how we can ask people to earn less, so we couldn't, in good conscience, allow the deduction, and I'm not sure what you do with that. I could see if the number is tied to what people are allowed to deduct from their own farmers from their own taxes, there might be some value there. Another is I'm a little worried that the Department of Labor really doesn't have any idea how to deal with this problem, in that they just have a number and they don't even know where it came from, and so they're not housing experts. And so if we ask them to value, Let's say we said to them, with respect to farm worker housing, please come up with a range of three numbers. I'm just They'd be pulling it out of their ear, they're not housing experts. How would they know that? I don't know who would know it. Maybe VHCV, I'm not sure who could come up with that number. And then the third area that worries me is that from an administrative point of view, they don't want a range, you know, how can they administer that, they just want a number, and the number is not going to be able to deal with the difference between, you know, a rundown farmhouse where, you know, 10 people are sleeping versus a nice little single eye that's new, you know, I don't know. So, anyway, I'm just laying out my concerns, I do not have an answer to that. Yes, Debbie? Gayle. Gayle, my apologies. You would think, I'm sorry, today is just not my day, yes.

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: Because I was out last week, this may have been answered, but is that deduction for the farm worker automatic whether they are being housed or not? David?

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resiliency, and Forestry)]: No, don't believe so. And it's not just for farm workers, but the law provides a number against a tax amount that were capped, that an employer can withhold from or deduct from a paycheck. The initiative providing has

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: to the form of form the court. They approve. How does everyone know if they're even asking to get an employee deduction reduction from someone's salary? Probably a complaint. Amazed. I'm sorry? Sorry.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resiliency, and Forestry)]: No, I

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: think Eugene said.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resiliency, and Forestry)]: Yeah, I know how that's verified. That would be a good question to the Department of Labor.

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: Did you say complaint based?

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: I mean, I think that a lot of labor issues, you bring it to the attention of the Department of Labor if you're being, your wages which you can talk to advocates. They deal with this a lot for folks that show up at the doorstep and say, I wasn't paid, or I was fired after a week. They told me I would get paid at the end of my first or second week of work and I've done those two weeks and they fired me so that I They work the

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: would file that complaint?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Well, or they wouldn't?

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: Well, if they're brave enough, they would. Yeah,

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: or if they're not worried about getting deported.

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: Yeah, well, that's my that's specifically my why my question.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah, yeah. Well, on your taxes if you It's what? So it's also lying on your taxes. Right. The the the employer. It is a complaint basis. Right.

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: But her question is how would the tax department know whether you did or didn't? And so the point is, like, it only comes to light if somebody

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I mean, have to decide what to do with this. If we decide, maybe not for now, is that a major problem

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: if we were to I

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resiliency, and Forestry)]: think that one thing that might be, if nothing else, might be useful to know, and I don't think we would need legislation to do this, is better handle on to what extent are employers withholding, providing housing, and then withholding or deducting something to probably the amount that's in law?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Is that? Who would know that?

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resiliency, and Forestry)]: I think that, well, I think the Department of Labor would know that, and if they don't, then maybe we wouldn't want to consider putting something into law that would give them the ability to know that and report back. We think of this as, we're thinking about this in the context of agricultural workers. And I keep saying it's not just farm workers, but maybe it is. Maybe there are no other employers who are providing housing, I don't know. What about ski resorts or summer camps? We've got workers on seasonal visas, H-2A visas, also No, but is this happening? That's governed by federal contract now. That's all I wanted to say. Yes, that's definitely happening. Just want to keep that separate in our minds too when we're reaching out and saying who else.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Go ahead. I would just

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: say real quick, a lot of medical fields, nurses, doctors

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: provide housing. Medical housing, yep. Provide what? Was a

[Cameron Woods (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: whole house.

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: And my understanding is that

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: they pay rent for those. No, not all of them,

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: but maybe not all of In my experience, and the job that I had had, that they were paying rent. Right, for very specialized positions, maybe Correct. It's like a temporary situation while they find a place of their own. Yeah.

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: Or it's part of the cost of traveling nurses.

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: The tax department may be able to isolate data based on the if your housing is part of your compensation to go box on the W-two that it should show up in.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: What if I'm just yeah.

[Cameron Woods (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Go ahead.

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: Just to state this oh, I'm sorry, Tom.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resiliency, and Forestry)]: I think on your text up too,

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: along with your payroll, the other payroll deductions. So if it's being recorded as a payroll deduction, it should show up there. It's not being dealt with as payroll and just the business expense that would be so marvelous.

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: I I think I part of my I think I'm really encouraged by our ask of the HCB to give us a full report and update on the housing, the home improvements and creation of housing. I think that just very preliminarily, the information that they gave us is that they've only been able to upgrade 90 of the 600 identified needed units. And so even if anecdotally we hear some farmers are doing beautiful, like buying homes nearby or that the vast majority of farm worker housing isn't

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: super comfortable, new

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: units. And so, I think that if we're talking about a deduction, we're assuming that there's a real identifiable value that is guaranteed, that is being offered in exchange for that deduction, and I just don't know that we have eyes on the ground to know that that's really

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I agree. Emilie and then Gayle, and I have a thought about what we might do, David?

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resiliency, and Forestry)]: Just that I You gotta go. They should be soon in my committee to kick things off, and I am happy to stay if there are questions, or if you would like me to be part of the conversation, but if not, then I might.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Well, I wanna then just ask you point blank, I wanna follow-up on something you said. Supposing we should change this wording, which I don't have in front of me, and instead of asking them, and then I know, Emilie, you've got your hand up, and Gayle, what if we, David, we just said to them, tell us who this number came from, A, and B, and put the Department of Taxes in there, and B, any information you have on number of people actually deducting and how much, and didn't ask them for a new number. Because our basic issue is, God, I don't know, we don't even wanna know what the new number is, because we don't wanna expose the possibility of

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resiliency, and Forestry)]: I would certainly defer to the committee on that. I appreciate your hearing me out. I wonder whether they could just answer that question, both of those questions, without you having to write anything into statute.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Okay. Interesting thought. Alright. Any other questions? Questions of David before he walks out the door.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Well, yeah, kind of for David. I guess I just, maybe I'm missing something. I I don't understand. I thought that this was just getting more information, but there's concern from committee that the information might not be what helpful. Is that I I guess I I don't understand the downside of of of doing it.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I think that's a committee discussion which we can have right after David leaves. Okay. I think we I understand that, and we can talk about that in a minute. Okay. Did Gayle, did you have a question today? Might. Discussion. Okay. David, a thousand thank yous. One is enough, thank you. And we will communicate with you what we're talking Okay,

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resiliency, and Forestry)]: thank you.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Very briefly, Emilie, just to be brief, because our distinguished counsel has walked into the room, and we have other things to do this morning, but there were a whole host of concerns raised about this yesterday, and Leonora and I had a conversation with David on the floor about it after the floor, but basically they are really wondering whether DOL really had any information to give us. They don't even know what the origin of this number is much, and then a second was, did they have the wherewithal to even come up with an adequate range of numbers, given that they aren't housing experts and don't have the limited information they have? Another concern was that they just wanna if we ask them to create a new number, that it'll just be one number no matter what the quality of the housing is, and that that we if that number is larger, we wouldn't wanna see more of a deduct authorized, perhaps. So we asked David what is valuable, and David did just now, I think, raise a really interesting question, which is, can we get state agencies to tell us, well, how many people, how much deducting is going on and how much is it for? And that that might be a useful piece of information. How many farm workers have something deducted from their salary? What on average is it? And then David, as he left, said, Well, I'm not even sure you need legislation to ask for that. You can just ask. I'm just summarizing. Gayle and then Joe.

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: Wasn't there any specific number?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Now it's about yeah. Now there's a number.

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: It's $5.41 a day.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: $5.41 a day. Well, was that $40 a month?

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: Because if you multiply that by five days a week or whatever, it's, like, about $50 a week ish. Or wait.

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: And where did that number

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: originally come from? We nobody knows.

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: Nobody knows.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: They don't know.

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: Just 4 okay. 123.

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: We don't know. They don't know the history of the number. Was from the same people that About

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: ten years ago, and it's been pegged to inflation. It's been pegged to inflation ever since, and we don't know where it came from, and they don't know.

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: Even Department of Labor does

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: That's even why we're wondering how much we're gonna learn.

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: This is the

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: problem. That Joe?

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: I'll just put out there.

[Cameron Woods (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I think this is very valuable. Number one, it would behoove of us to change some language in there, I think, and maybe ask for some different things.

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: I don't think the idea of we don't want to know the actual number is a good idea. I think we can know what the actual number is and decide what we should do with it. And maybe then what we should do with it is completely scrap it,

[Cameron Woods (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: and that's not even an option to do. Maybe that's what we do with it. Because right now

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: What do mean? My we don't

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: Maybe it shows up, and

[Cameron Woods (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: it's like, you know, right now, it's at $5 something. Any year from now, they show up, they're

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: like, it'll probably be about $85 a day

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: or 50 I'm pounds a sorry.

[Cameron Woods (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And we and the questions we should know is

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: conscious. Would this be beneficial to an employer to say, well, now you make $10 more an hour, but I'm gonna deduct it. And you know why? Because tax reasons, it's beneficial for both

[Cameron Woods (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: of us to do it that way. You're gonna make

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: the same amount of money. My guess is right now, nobody uses it, and they just pay people accordingly. Yeah.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Right now.

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: Because you're still under landlord tenant law

[Cameron Woods (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: when you're whether you're an employee housing or you charge them rent or however you do it. But that really doesn't matter too much. I think just knowing I mean, either scrap the number or have a real I everyone knows that that's a ridiculous number. So what's the point of having

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: it in the first place? I want to get the existing language and the proposed language. One of the requirements

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: We can find it.

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: To identify oh,

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: oh, you mean the actual state?

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: Yeah. To identify barriers improving and expanding out of farm housing. One of the barriers

[Cameron Woods (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: we're looking at

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: is we don't know how the value of this impacts the workers. We have two goals that need to not derail each other. One is to make sure the workers get paid sufficiently, but we also want to improve the housing. And the profit margins being as slim as they are in dairy, we need to figure out how they

[Cameron Woods (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: can improve the housing and

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: maybe not write that cost in payroll, write it off somewhere else. Because if they spend $200,000 on new housing, and it's not a business expense somehow or another, that's expensive.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I would And it won't happen. Yeah.

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: If we want it to happen, we need to figure out how to separate maybe the two questions and and how to do that. I think it's implied But I in the language that that's one of the things we need to unravel.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I am, Leonora, gonna ask you to speak in just a minute, but I wanna raise an issue. I think this merits more discussion, but I would like, rather than negotiate the language in the whole committee, I'm wondering if there's a couple of people here who could just get together and come up with see if we could come up with a consensus proposal. That's all. In other words, Leonora, I'm just wondering if you could sit down with somebody else in this committee, not me, I'm the chair after all, that's all I do, and just kind of work something out that would, would answer the questions we really want answered, including who's asked. Anyway, Leonora, that's my

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: I'm just still having trouble even finding the language anywhere in our bills. Yeah. I know. Do you have any idea where it might live? Because I remember seeing it

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: yesterday's folder, Amenden stat. It

[Cameron Woods (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: is

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah. It's not in the bill. Well,

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: there's so there's a document from yesterday that shows the existing language and the proposed language. And I think that's the proposed language. Okay.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I had it on my desk now. Personally? So Okay. I'll tell you what I'd like to do. Yeah. Okay. What I'd like to do is

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: Three twenty

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I'd like to move on for a minute. Hear me out, everybody. I'd like to move on to Cameron's latest draft, which doesn't have this in it, I don't think. Or does it? Does it have the request of the Department of Labor for no. Okay. It doesn't have it in it. I'd like him to be able to walk through it. We have time this morning. Then I'd like to go to S89. Well, no. Then we can return to this issue. I'd just hate to have Cameron sitting here for a long, you know, discussion over this. Is that alright? So let's let's table this just for a minute and go on to the next item on the agenda, which is a markup of three twenty eight, or a preliminary markup, and then come back to this and think about, in the meantime, Myriad, could you distribute to everybody a copy of the proposal as it now stands?

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: Not the VHCb Not

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: the VHCb thing, Okay, one that you just thank you.

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: Oh, it's in 02:30.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: It's in 02:30. It's under our labor. It's under labor.

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: Okay. Could see it's three twenty eight and I was like,

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I know I've seen it on my desk. Know, I had two. Under 02:30. Wait, Mary, you might not have to, hold on. Yep. 02:30. Thank you. It is, where is it? Page four. Okay, yeah, we've got it, don't worry about it.

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: Thank you.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Alright, so we'll come back to that. And everybody think about, please, how we can get you a draft, either that or not. Cameron, have, all of us have in front of us, your masterpiece, which is Progress. His masterpiece in progress, which is draft 1.1 of three twenty eight, and remind the committee, this is, remember, I'm going to back up for a minute, Cameron, in this role, one of the problems, one of the issues facing ledge counsel is who is their client? So, like when you're working on a bill, for example, when Gayle was working on her bill on manufactured housing, at that moment in time when she works with Cameron, she is the client. He responds to her. Then the bill is introduced and referred to committee. At that point, she is no longer his client. The committee is his client. So, and this is one of the sticky points about this role, is who do you represent? I know I'm being a little punctilious here, but it's important to always remember that. So, when when Legis Council does a markup, he's representing the committee, no individual. That does not, so then, how do we turn that into reality? The reality is that I, as chair, often will sit with him and say, Let's go over what we think, where we are, what testimony we've had. If I think the committee has approved something, I'll tamper, preliminarily, I'll tell them to put it in. If it's something that the committee hasn't approved yet, but I think the committee is going to want to see, I'll tell them to put it in. If it's something I know that we're gonna send over, we're not gonna act on, or we're gonna give to environment, I tell them to take it out. But it's all preliminary. So, for example, and there are things where but then I always try to go over with you, like I did yesterday. Remember, he was here, and I went element by element through the bill, saying, well, here's what I remember being in, and here's what I remember being out. Then we have the issue of what happens when an individual member has an idea. So, for example, Emilie, as you'll hear today, Emilie has an idea that she wants to put in a bill, and Cameron has helped her draft it. It isn't in here yet. It is in here, okay. So, I'm saying right now, this is one thing you're going to see, you're going to see an Emilie Krasnow idea in here. So, it's a little messy in practice, but the whole idea is in the end, this is a device that lets everybody see things in writing, and then when we finally get to a point where we all agree or we agree that this is a good draft to act on, then we can know we have our draft, and then finally vote. So, when we do a markup, it's an evolving draft, is what it is. The fact that something's in there doesn't mean it stays in. Something is out doesn't mean it can't come in. It's just an evolving draft. Is everybody with me? Excuse me for the diversion. Yes. But no changes could be made after a certain point. Changes can be made until we vote it out.

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: Changes can be made on

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: the floor. Then then they can be made on the floor.

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: And that would be an amendment.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yes, but it's

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: We just can't make sure that a brief review of the bill that's not been considered yet anywhere. If you asked life counsel to write a brand new bill that's not connected to any of the bills that

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: were That's not

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: germane. It's not gonna make it across to the other chamber. So it's never so that's it's too late for that. If there's something germane to the bills that we are taking up that have been sent over, then you can put something in, you want put something in.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: So, like, for example, if you had a bill that you wanted the state to hire people who were experts in moon launches

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: For manufactured houses.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: You couldn't put it in this bill, because it wouldn't be germane. If you wanted to have felt that we had to provide housing for moon launchers, maybe you could.

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: Right, no I understand that point, but was that with my bill, when we were speaking you said after this point, no changes can be made. Oh, so

[Cameron Woods (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: for the record Cameron Woods, Vice President of Council, you all have specific points where the bill through its life stage can or can't be changed. So you all put in a bill request And then at some point during the first year of the biennium and then at the second year of the biennium, you have to, as the sponsor of the bill, you have to approve its contents for it to then be introduced. And that's really a workflow mechanism for you and for our office because there becomes a point in time, particularly in the second year of the biennium, where you have to introduce the bill. You have a deadline when you have to submit it to the clerk for submit to our office for introduction. And so in your rules, you all have put in that you can't amend your own drafting request after a specific date. You have to approve it for our office so we don't make any more changes. And that's because you have the introduction deadlines that you've imposed upon yourself. And so it becomes very problematic if we're working on a significant number of bills and you're asking for changes at the last day before the introduction deadline. We can't turn around the work product fast enough in that event. So you've given yourself deadlines to say, you can't have any more changes to your bill, even though it hasn't been introduced yet. You have to prove its contents by a specific day and then you have to introduce it by a specific day. And then at that point, as you know, it gets referred to committee and then the committee works on it. And then once it gets approved by the committee, once it gets voted out of here, now you as a committee can't work on it anymore because it's left. But amendments can occur. But then amendments can occur. And you can do those on the floor. So this bill is, it's a Senate bill, so it's come over from the other body. It's been referred here. So now we're at the committee process, and you all can make changes that you want. And as the chair was mentioning, you all can suggest changes as long as that germane to the bill. And similarly, once this gets voted out of here, committee can't make any more changes, but individuals could propose changes in the court.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Does that answer your question? Yes. Cameron, you want to walk us through this?

[Cameron Woods (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Be happy to. This is a strike all amendment for S-three 28, so it's an amendment from the committee, it's a strike all. Before I jump in and get started, I'll comment on a few things. For starters, I've done my best to try to highlight the changes in here that are different from either seven seventy five as you all passed it out of the body or three twenty eight as it came over to you. So what I've done with this bill is I've merged sections of three twenty eight and July together. So if you remember, are some sections that you all had in July and 03/28 that were slightly different. So sometimes I've used 03/28 version. Sometimes I've used the July version. And I'll point out which version I've used as we do this quick walkthrough. Some things were not in conflict. They were just different. You had things in your bill, the pilot program. That was in July, wasn't in 03/28, so that's here. There was some language in 03/28 that wasn't in July, that's here. So with that, as I merged the two bills together, the other thing I did is I rearranged. So I rearranged the sections to be numerical. So we're starting as you can see, the first few sections are amending three BSA. Then we get into 10 BSA, later on 24 BSA. So because I was merging the two bills, I thought it would just be easiest to go numerically down sections in the BSA statute. So there's no hidden meaning behind, well, why did you this was the first section in our bill. Why is it Section four in this bill? It's simply because I was trying to keep some numerical rationality to the sections. And the last thing I would just comment on is we do get requests to add things into the bill. And if the sponsor who's asking for that amendment approves it, and then the chair gets comfortable putting it in the next draft for considerations here. So as the chair mentioned, there were two recommendations from Representative Krasnow that are reflective here. They're highlighted yellow. He had approved them for this version, and he asked me to include them at this point for consideration. Think that's the only thing

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Do you all understand when he says strike out when he needs? In other words, if he didn't do a strike out, every single change would become an instant from amendment, and there wouldn't be like one document to read. It would be really, it would be When you just do instances of amendment, it works as long as it's like really simple amendments, very end point amendments. But when you are dealing with substantial changes, you'd go nuts trying to read it. So, strike call, you know, are you guys familiar with the track changes version of Word? It's like when you look at sometimes when you're looking at changes, you think I can barely read this, I wanna see what the final looks like, and it will show you the final, that's what the strike ball is.

[Cameron Woods (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So just to jump right in, we're going to look at section one, which is neutral, so common interest community resources, so section one adds a new section BRE BSA 119, that is the sections related to general provisions for the Secretary of State's office. So this would be adding that in, adding this section in there. The Secretary of State shall create and maintain a free website to provide information to the public about Lamont's Conan and his communities. The website shall include information on matters of organization, governance, conflict resolution, transparency, and the rights and responsibility of owners and associations. This is kind of similar to a bill that was introduced by representative Krasnow about creating a common interest community resource center. So it's a little more narrow in that it wouldn't have a center that the Secretary of State contracts out, it's just requiring Secretary of State to provide that information available to the public. I will just comment that I've shared this with the Secretary of State's office, They've acknowledged receipt of it. They haven't provided me any direct feedback, and what they told me is they reached out to try to get on the agenda for testifying on this. And

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: if I may, I spoke with, I think she's the deputy. Lauren is the deputy SOS yesterday on the phone.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah. So

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. They just wanted me to, like, explain you know, just explain more, and we're positive about it. So they'll come in, I believe, Friday.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Refresh my memory here. Refresh my memory. Didn't we have what's his name? David Hall. Hall. Didn't David Hall testify on this and say, yeah. We could do this.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. So they just wanted to see the final so, again, this is a trimmed

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: There was

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: no language. Yeah. Okay.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Right. So this is a trimmed as Cameron mentioned, this is a trimmed down version of the bill after hearing testimony with their concerns that they didn't want to, you know, be, like, the center for this. They didn't wanna receive more annoying calls. The I've said annoying. That's my own word. With a lot of questions. This is just very simply a place in state government that has all the information. I asked Lauren as well, does that mean that your office then, if we make changes in the future legislature, will be able to update? Like, let's say, like, after we get Cameron's report on HOA stuff for those who are still here, and we make change in HOA law, will your office be able to update that? And she said yes. So they have to the the maintenance part is staying in tune with what is going on if there are changes. So it'll be very basic information about HOA for the whole state, not because every community's different. It's not gonna get into that. Doesn't have any budgeting stuff. We removed that part. So it's just but yes. So she will come in and say that she just wanted to clarify that we're on the same page after reading the language. So I believe she'll be in Friday. But yes. So right now, I think is the time if anyone on the committee doesn't like it or have a concern before we move forward. I I believe it's open to to debate on this piece knowing that they are okay with it, and they will come in and say that. And it doesn't cost any money. Just time on the state agency.

[Cameron Woods (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Section two we have the service supported housing advisory council. So this was not in July but it was in 03/28. I have made a few minor tweaks that are highlighted so I'm not going to walk you line by line, I'll just focus on the changes that you have. This is the advisory council that would go within the Department of Aging and Independent Living primarily focused on housing and supporting individuals who receive Medicaid funded developmental disability services. So you have the council, you have the membership, etcetera. So the changes are going to be on page three. The first change is I highlighted the subsection D because I simply moved the subsection up because I thought it was more appropriate to go above the annual report. There's a new subsection E, which was my understanding was a request from the advocates themselves. And how I drafted this is where I said when requested by BHCB, my understanding is the request, at least the language that penciled out and came to me, said the advisory council shall provide advice the board regarding expenditure of funds. And I put in there to say when it's requested by BHCB, I don't know that you want this advisory council dictating to BHCB when they provide advice and when BHCB needs to accept it, etcetera. So I put in there when it's requested, that can be removed. I mean, this policy is intended for you all. When requested by BHCB, the advisory council shall provide advice to the board regarding the expenditure of funds for the production of permanently affordable housing for individuals who are eligible to receive Medicaid funded development disability services. That's new.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: This is the language, somewhat modified by counsel, as is appropriate, that was submitted to the committee after Kristen's testimony yesterday. This is an example of how it's done. In other words, Kirsten said, Remember, she gave an example of when they provided advice. They gave that example. I said, Do you have language? He said, Yes, we'll submit it, and I had it forwarded to Cameron to put it in so you all could see it, and Cameron modified it slightly and is telling you the modification. That's a really good example of how it goes. Okay.

[Cameron Woods (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So then we get to the annual report. Yes.

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: Oh, sorry. I think I might be skipping it.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: We're on D, E. We're on E on page three, we're about to move on.

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: Okay, I have a question about D. Indeed, I think that unless we are talking about all people who need housing, all individuals with Medicaid funded home and community based services in need of housing, and I think it should specify the developmental disability

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: community or individuals. Are you on D or E? D.

[Cameron Woods (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: D is the administrative technical and legal assistant from Gayle. That's from Gayle. Yep. And so where would you want to put

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: Oh, I'm sorry. I'm looking at the on page four. Sorry.

[Cameron Woods (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: No, no, no, that's okay. Okay, okay. So we're to the annual report, which is here. Scrolling down to four and you're saying here, okay so this is part of the report. Part of the report that this council has to provide on an annual basis includes recommendations for future legislative action And then this is where I've added and funding sources. And so, Deborah, let's go back to what you're thinking.

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: Oh, I get it. It seems like it's implied, but you want to make it

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: It does seem like it's implied because of the above, but You just want to make it documented. Okay.

[Cameron Woods (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So where are we, what is your You add some language in?

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: So I know that big D is under F1, but I still think that it should include medicated funded developmental disability population or some such.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Something a little narrower than Medicaid funded home community based services. Because we're not providing that for all people.

[Cameron Woods (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Of housing needed by individuals with Medicaid funded development disability services. That is the change you want to make right here on my environment?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: It would be development, Medicaid funded home and community based services for development. Specifically for specifically.

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: Because we're excluding everybody else in providing housing plans.

[Cameron Woods (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay, so it's going to be obstacles to the creation of housing needed by individuals with Medicaid funded home and community based services and then adding in language?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I

[Cameron Woods (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: just want to make sure I'm making the right change. And

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: I'm looking at the paper instead of at you. I think it would be easier if I just talk to you instead of the page. In this report, I recognize that the report is under F1, and that it's about a report. And that F1, it specifies who the report is about. And on this page, on page three, it looks like it's about people with developmental disabilities. But when you go to page four, under section B, it no longer specifies people with developmental disabilities. Because we are providing housing for that specific narrow population and not for all people who are individuals with Medicaid funded home and community based services, I think it would be prudent to be, even if it's duplicative, to include that narrow population.

[Cameron Woods (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I think being clear is better than being duplicative. Even if it is duplicative, it's good. Okay, so what I would do then is I would propose adding there at the end if we're saying Indy, which is right there on line five, we would kind of identify the population we're talking about even further. I think it would make the most sense to say creation of housing needed by individuals with Medicaid funded home and community based services.

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: I think that the descriptor should go before individuals with Medicaid funded.

[Cameron Woods (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And that's what was just thinking. I'm not sure if it makes sense to go at the end or above that. Would it make sense to say housing needed by individuals with developmental disabilities receiving Medicaid funded? Does that make sense? Okay.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: So

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: this is A, B, C, B, these are all the responsibilities of the advisory council? This is their report, right?

[Cameron Woods (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: The advisory council annually needs to report to this committee as well as human services and the senate counterparts on, and then you go to A, the administrative and programmatic reforms that they are carrying out to better align support services and housing development programs. A housing needs assessment for individuals served by the system of care. If you all remember, that's kind of where this somewhat started from of wanting to create an action plan for the development of housing. And then C, the activities that they've done throughout the year. And then finally D, any recommendations for future action and funding sources for changes in state law or policies that are obstacles for the creation of housing for this population of Indigenous. Right?

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: And we're wanting to be sure to include people that are part of that population. Is that the question?

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: We are wanting to be sure that we only include that population, that we don't imply to anybody that we are including the general individuals with Medicaid funded home and community based services of Windham or many others.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: It's just a clarifying change.

[Cameron Woods (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay, so we will make that change for your next draft. For this one, as I mentioned, I added in funding recommendations. So if they can recommend to you all, you know, if they've identified possible funding for, building housing that's needed here. They've included that. I added a subsection two here, which is a simple it's an annual report. You all are going to want it to be continuing for the life of this council, so language that says that the expiration of required reports doesn't apply to work up administrative language for our office. Now we get to a section 2A, which is new. And this says, as part of the initial report of the council, which would be due on 11/15/2026, so for the first report that they provide you all, the council shall include an analysis and recommendation on implementing a per acre surcharge on lands enrolled in the use value appraisal program that are not used as your primary residence to fund housing for individuals with and I would potentially make that same change that you recommended to narrow the focus on the housing for the specific population we're talking about. So again, just for that first report, here's an idea of potential funding to help build the housing that's needed for this population of people. Give us a recommendation on how this would work. And then I included in there at the recommendation of one of my colleagues that the council shall have the technical assistance of the Department of Taxes, Division of Property Valuation. They're likely going to need their support if they're talking about how to develop a per acre charge for those pieces of property that are not primary residents, they're probably going to need that support from the tax department to make that decision.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: In line 14, you want to take the S off residences. Oh, you're right. Are not used as primary resonances.

[Cameron Woods (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes. Not used, it could be Okay.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: No. It's fine. No. No. It's whatever. This is just an idea that was proposed to me, and it was proposed initially as a standalone idea that something that would be, you know, making into a bill, and I just I thought it was really interesting, but it would have to go as a bill, it would have to go to both us and and environment, and, you know, it's it's a big deal. I mean, it might end up being a really stupid idea, but it did occur to me that it's potentially the initial calculations that the individual proposed that said we were talking about a substantial amount of money, north of 5,000,000 a year, and this is a whole effort that's completely deprived of funds. I mean, it's just not enough money. So I thought, okay, let's put it in their report and at least keep it moving a little bit, but I didn't do it as a minimal effort. Who does this report go to?

[Cameron Woods (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: This committee in human services.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Is there a way of saying that this part of the report should go to the house environment and Ways and Means. For Ag and Forestry. Well, if it's enough committees, maybe we just leave it to us, and we'll have to make sure that it goes to everybody and everybody's mother.

[Cameron Woods (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah, as you know, the reports are public, so you all could make sure that those committees are made aware of it. We

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: would have to, I mean, if this turned into a bill, it would go all over its place. So anyway, that's an example where I just heard about this and I said put it in front of the committee.

[Cameron Woods (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Happy to come back to it, but I'm keep you moving for now. Section three is the Vermont State Treasurer's Credit Facility. So what I did was I removed the version from 03/28 and I inserted back in the version that you all passed from July. Primary difference was your version had the increase to 12.5, which was in 03/28 as well, that was the same, but your version had the additional 1% credit facility for off-site, for helping to purchase off-site housing. 07/2010.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Part of what's going on here, ladies and gentlemen, is we are in the process of trying to to make sure, we, meaning the larger of the senate committee at ARC, we're in the process of trying to make sure that July and three twenty eight are almost as closely as possible aligned, because we don't know which one is going to end up being here And Cameron, by doing this, is developing the intellectual capability to be able to instantaneously make sure that that finally occurs when we know which one is to do. Prompt you all read them all best. Yes, or at the very least, if should both come out, then we'll have a negotiation with the senate committee and try to agree on something.

[Cameron Woods (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So, page seven, so second. Tom,

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: are you okay? You look somewhat puzzled.

[Cameron Woods (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah, honestly, I'm still chewing on today.

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: Okay. The use of the appraisal program, I'm not sure I could touch it, and I understand the need for funds. If there are instances in which there is land of current use, that is being used as an opportunity for big landowners to dodge taxis, Most of that land is there because it's active in forestry. Right? This

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: is should be limited to sec this land associated with second homes.

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: But are we discussing Is value

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: of appraisal?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: What? No. That was the idea. It's second homes. How did this Did it not make it into there?

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resiliency, and Forestry)]: Does use value of appraisal program,

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: is that a reference to second homes or is that a

[Cameron Woods (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It says that's not a

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Not used as a primary residence. Not

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: being used as a primary residence to find out yeah.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: And your point is, well Yeah. But you you that might include that might include a lot of land.

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: It include a 500 acre lot that doesn't have any residents on it at all, but is used in forestry agricultural

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Think about changing it. I don't think that was the idea. I don't think the idea was, let's say someone has five acres in forestry with no residents on them. The idea was associated with a second home. The question is whether, I mean, other words, someone has a second home with a bunch of acreage on it, that was the individual we were talking about, putting the fee on, not forestry. See if you can think of a way around that, okay? And no, we can discuss it, but we have to come back to it.

[Cameron Woods (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay, and I believe, I let my JFO counterparts know about it, they may have some opinion. It's just a recommendation from the council. Want to make sure you get it right with what the information you're wanting to get from them if you keep it and it moves forward. So this type of conversation is great for us to make sure the language is right. You may find your JFO if it remains.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Right. Welcome, Saudia. I wanted to let you know if you didn't already, Debbie, you heard yourself. Did you know that? She would take me by ambulance, obstructed, she bit her head, but she seems to be okay, enough to at least be exiting with me.

[Cameron Woods (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Page seven. Are section four, off-site construction accelerator pilot, so this was not in 03/28, corresponding to the treasurer's credit facility above so this is added back in that is into bill seven seventy five. There's a few small tweaks really just recommendations from our editing team. So you can see those highlighted on lines thirteen and eighteen. There's no substantive change. It's the pilot will consider the following elements. We added in utilization of off-site construction. And then it was under line 18, I think it was creation and adoption of off-site building codes and we did creating and adopting the system with the verbiage of those, so no real substantive change. But the one substantive change is on page eight. Now I don't know, I don't recall if Commissioner Farrell mentioned this when he was in your committee, but he did mention this in the Senate committee when I was down there. So I made the change and I'll notifying you all. He had asked the Senate committee to extend that report out one year. It was 2028. He wanted to extend out to 2020 And so I'm happy to take it out and put it back for 2028 if you want. I know that he had made that recommendation on the Senate side, and I wasn't, I know he testified in this committee earlier this week, I believe, I wasn't sure if you had this.

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: I don't know if that's been done in this committee.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: No, I do think my first reaction is positive just because this is actually Sure. Sech on page eight. This is not a pilot where you do nothing but think. This is a pilot where you do. If you look on page eight at line four d, it says the pilot shall occur in one or more municipalities willing to participate. Okay? So it's a do. It's not just think and write and plan. It's a do. And so the idea of giving them a little more time, I think, to make it work makes sense.

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: It does. I think the original thinking was that in November 28, if they needed some tweaking, it could be done midway through. But I think they're gonna tweak it whether we have a report or not. They have the ability to make adjustments on the fly. This is closer to the date, this onset date, which is what we're gonna be considering. Right. What we do with it. Next

[Cameron Woods (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: section, Vermont Economic Development Authority. You all remember this is the section amending the definition of eligible facility or eligible project to allow VITA to fund multi unit housing development. There was some concern about the initial draft of the language. I think BHFA came in with some concerns. It wasn't exactly as it was, as it had come over from them, requested to be in legislation. So I've made some changes here that accomplishes their goal, but I have not shared with them this exact final piece because I just got it back from our editors this morning. So I will share this with them to get the final thumbs up sign off, but my understanding is this is what they're looking to accomplish. So quickly on the change, it's to narrow in to say, Vida, you can fund multi unit housing developments of five or more units if you're jointly financing it with a finance lender. Mine's 18, except you, Vermont Economic Development Authority, cannot finance portions or phases of a development. So we're narrowing in to make sure that they can fund other portions but they can't fund certain portions of a project that either the agency, the HFA determines that that portion or phase of the project is primarily for occupancy by persons and families of low and moderate income as that term is defined or if that portion of the project is utilizing funding from the HFA. My understanding is their desire here is to try to make it explicitly clear in statute that the funding of low and moderate income affordability housing is the purview of VHFA and not Vermont Economic Development Authority. And so they're trying to make sure the language is as explicit as possible in that distinction. And so that's what this clarification is intended to do. Just

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: as a clarification here, The negotiation between the two agencies occurred under the auspices of the House Economic Development Committee, and so, all of a sudden, and they reached agreement, the two agencies reached agreement on language, what happened was the original language was simplified, and that agreement was simplified, but inadvertently oversimplified, let's say. It didn't really quite reflect what the parties were, and as you may recall, last week we had testimony from VITA telling us that they'd like to return to the language as originally agreed upon, and our counsel has been in correspondence, quite a bit of correspondence with both parties, attempting to get everybody on the same page, and this is the quasi final attempt. Hopefully the final, we'll I

[Cameron Woods (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: think this is, they've read to this in principle, I just want send them the final version and make sure they're clear. Okay, page 10, next section, B HIP, no changes here. So just including what you all passed in July. Page 11, special assessment bonds, No changes here.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: So just to make sure everybody understands, remember what we're doing here. We're turning 03/28 into a vehicle that is consistent with our work in July in case that's all that ends up happening. You know, July runs into some weird roadblock on the floor. They never get to it on the floor or of the senate, and we have this. So that's what's going on here. And since section six, no change, we're just putting it in.

[Cameron Woods (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Well, the next section is municipal plans, section eight. This is going with the language that was in '3.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Wait. I thought you were on oh, the assessment bonds you've

[Cameron Woods (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: got Assessment bonds haven't changed. Haven't changed. Or you all passed in July. And it's in it's word for word the same.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Word for word exactly the same. Okay. Great.

[Cameron Woods (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So then we get to the next section, municipal plans. This is the version that was approved by or was passed in 03/28, which is a much more narrower, not as much language, requires the housing element to include this. It doesn't have any information going to DHCD. This was the language that was supported on the Senate side by VLCT and the Planning Associations, etcetera. So my understanding from our conversation yesterday was you all were okay with this version. Well, not quite. Okay,

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: again, by way of background, clarify. Generally speaking, as a general matter, Senators Clarkson and I tried to start in the same place, you know, so we wouldn't have too many Senate, House problems, or at we started in the same place. And so, there was some basic language we started with on this. My experience has been that we have more time to work with language, and we tend to be later, and so that the Senate bill sometimes is an earlier version of a draft that we can improve. In this case, that's not true. In this case, they actually took testonomy after we acted, and this latest version we hear was supported by VLCT and by the regional planning commissions. It's simpler. Joe raised an issue yesterday, which is, I will paraphrase in an attempt, however incomplete, to represent Joe, who's not in the room. Joe said, this means these guys don't nobody has to do this until they update their plans, and that could be eight years from now or seven years from now. Exactly what he wanted to do about that, I'm not sure, so I told him to find Josh Hanford and talk to him about it. We'll see what the results of those conversations are. It is true that there's no requirement here that anybody do it sooner than they would otherwise, you know, amend their plan, which is a policy decision.

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: But the data will be there, because they'll be collecting it when they do it.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: When they do it, but everybody's on a different schedule as to when they But do their plans

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: then it's not, when they come time to do the plan, then it's not

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: a runaround of where's the data, because it's there.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: And we're not telling them, oh you have to do it all next year, or something like that.

[Cameron Woods (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: One second. The next section is and I'll pull it back up in just a second just trying to pull up seven seventy five.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: By the way, what are we doing, if we're coming back to, after we're done with this, we're gonna come back to 03/28, the section on the housing deduct, and continue that discussion. 02/30, just to clarify. Yeah, okay, 02:30, I'm sorry, you're right. Yeah. And that means that, oh, and we've run out of time of our labor council on S79? Eighty nine? Eighty nine. So, what we're going to do is discuss, we can talk about S89 today if we want, and I certainly can describe what Council has done, which is great, but the actual vote will be tomorrow, okay? Alright.

[Cameron Woods (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay, we are almost done with this, we're on page 13, next section is section nine, this is municipal summary. Okay, so a few things first, I included the first change in this section that was in 03/28. So this is similar to what you all passed in July in the manufactured homes bill which makes changes to what you can see there on lines one and two to clarify that the municipality has to allow current language, mobile homes, modular housing, manufactured housing, prefabricated housing from any district that allows year round residential development. That's similar to what you passed in July, you didn't have the words manufactured housing. That's technically what we're going to do based on if July passes. If you remember, there's some statutory revision language for our office to go in and change the words mobile plan to manufacture phone. So simply because Senate didn't have that, they didn't have seven fifty seven. They included it here to clarify their language would keep mobile home. It would keep manufactured housing. I would recommend going with this version because seven fifty seven isn't included here. So you don't know what's going to happen with seven fifty seven. And so this would, at a minimum, would include manufactured housing and then it would include the language that you had in that bill. And then if both pass, both seven fifty seven and this version were to pass, our office will true it up. True it up, we'll train it up.

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: So suppose

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: seven fifty seven did not pass. So that mobile home kind of mean an RV then?

[Cameron Woods (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It depends on what this section refers back to as far as the definitions go. As we talked, mobile home has a specific definition in Title 10, which is what the federal manufactured housing definition is. Before 1972. I have to go check, I believe it's trued up to what the HUD manufactured housing definition is, but I will double check that.

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: So the point I'm trying to make is that when you say mobile home in any bill, then you're also referring to RVs and homes that are mobile. It depends, it's just going

[Cameron Woods (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: to depend on what the definition section refers back to if there is one.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Can you just find that out? I will double check. Okay,

[Cameron Woods (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So then here, page 14, what's not here? What is not in this amendment to three twenty eight is all of the other pieces that were in three twenty eight that Ellen is working on. So

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: And that and that we have referred. Here's what happened. I sent you all a copy of the letter that I sent and hand delivered in hard copy to House Environment Committee. I sent you all a copy. What I said in the memo was, you and I, to Amy, cc all of you, you and I have talked that these are these are areas that are primarily in with your committee's expertise. So I'm giving them to you. Here they are. They're not gonna be in our bill. However, we do have some comments, and I transmitted because I remember particularly you had some concerns. I transmitted our concerns to them and left it like that. And I have consulted with the leadership to make sure I didn't do something I didn't commit an original sin of some sort by doing it that way. Apparently, that's the way to do it, so I did it.

[Cameron Woods (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So that's not here. If you all want to include it in, you can insert it, you know, where it's appropriate, insert it back in, but just letting you all know I've taken those sections out.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Question before we move

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: on from that first. When that transaction took place, was there any inclination on their desire and or abilitycapacity to take into consideration the

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: language that we disclosed?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah, no. Okay. That is, there was literally, Amy was not in the room when I delivered it, and I think it's fair to say, the idea was that they could incorporate it into 03/25. What I understand from talking to members of the committee is that three twenty five has become somewhat controversial, and that's the Act 181 bill. Somewhat. Yeah, somewhat, and that they are continuing to hear it next week. They will be spending a considerable amount of time on this. Are they going to include this language? Are they going to what are they going to do? I don't know.

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: So, would hope that given tomorrow's conversation and seeing what that would look like, maybe before a final draft of this is done, to consider how things are transpiring in that committee and putting those aspects back in this piece, depending upon what that looks like.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: We can consider that. I do want to say I consider those issues outside of our expertise, we'd have to have quite a few witnesses.

[Cameron Woods (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Great, I'm going bring you back here, section 10, page 14, the last few sections here are reports, some of which are new. This is a report that was in 03/28 regarding common interest communities. So I've just clarified the section heading, that's why that's highlighted, and then added in that part of this analysis that you're asking our office to do would include legal, conventional financing, and funding compliance issues related to requiring a common interest community to do these things. There are specifically some mortgage and underwriting and financing limitations on allowing leasing within a common setting. And so my understanding is some of the external stakeholders wanted to ensure that that was part of the analysis that you're asking ARPs to do. So that's some clarification there. The remainder of that report is the same. Now we have the Vermont Housing and Conservation Forward farm worker housing report here in section 11. I haven't changed this. As you all remember, the House Ag Committee took some testimony on this yesterday. I'm not sure if they testified to that this morning. They did. I haven't received any new language at this point, so this is how it came out in 03/2020 with the committee's permission,

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I would request that the next draft reflect section nine a as proposed by the EACP. Because that is the wording that they approved that supported.

[Cameron Woods (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I've been happy to do that. I have that language. I just didn't do it because I hadn't had direction from house ag, and I hadn't had direction from you. So okay, that's easy. The next thing is the second request or second piece from representative Krasnow and I'm just going to make a quick note about the report so I have it. Okay, so this is, if you all remember you took some testimony. It says 06/2007. About 06/2007 and what this report would do is it says on or before 11/15/2026, the Department of Housing and Community Development shall submit a report to this committee and your senate counterparts, lines 18 here, with information on the purchase in Vermont of single and two family residences by institutional real estate investors. As part of the report, the department shall provide the following information. Moving on to page 16, bills introduced in other states implementing restrictions on limitations on the corporate purchase of single two family residences, the number of covered entities operating in Vermont, the number of single and two family residences owned by covered entities in Vermont, the number of single and two family residences purchased by a covered entity. So how many of these entities exist, how many homes they own, and how many homes have they purchased between 2020 and 2026. If you're asking why those years, I just simply tried to go back five years.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Then

[Cameron Woods (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: proposed the sub E there proposed methods of enforcement to ensure effective implementation of statutory restriction on the corporate purchase of single and two family residences. If you're going to move forward with something, what's the most effective mechanism of enforcing it? And then sub two here, if the department cannot provide the information that's required, the department may come in and say, we have no way of going back five years and determining how many homes were purchased by these entities, the information doesn't exist. The department shall identify methods of gathering that information for future use.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: And now this piece is very important that I added because I was concerned, what if the department can't find that information and data? We don't want them to feel like they had to produce stuff. So this just is, like, what were your methods of trying? Because they may not be able to find that data and information even after they look. Right? So what they will be able to find is the the previous things, like what other states have implemented. You know, that'll be public information with a little research. And then, you know but this part, I just we just don't know if if they'll be able to find it. So this isn't out for them if they can't. Is why that's in there.

[Cameron Woods (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So the last two things I'll comment here, the subsection B is simply copying over the definitions of these entities from 06/2007. So that's why it's not highlighted because there's been no changes there. And then the last thing I'll comment is at Representative Krasnow's request, I've shared this with the Department of Housing and Community Development. I just did that late last night, so I haven't received any feedback today, but you may want to hear from them Well, this is something that they are comfortable with or could could support. They have indicated any formal conversations that they would support. And that's the bill. So when you get to the end, effective date is July 1.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Can I interject quickly?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Please.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Just so we don't lose it in the entirety of the bill. How do folks feel about that piece in on the committee, you know, six zero seven is was was and is a very big lift, and we had a lot of other bills. You know, we may have something federally coming down as well. We don't know. But this basically is so we don't for Vermonters, we don't lose track of learning more and knowing and recognizing this issue. It's certainly something that I hear about from constituents. And while we're not taking any action, I think it's important to get more information. And we may end up whoever's left, you know, in a couple years doing nothing. But and and or we may have something happen in the federal bill, but I just think that it would be important. And I'm grateful that it didn't seem like too much of a burden for the administration, but they can talk about that further. But does anyone have an issue with gathering more information on institutional investors added to the bill?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Thoughts by members of the committee.

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: Well, we all know how much I love a study.

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: That's why it's not called that.

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: That being said, I think it's something that we're hearing in all kind of jurisdictions of the work that we're doing, whether it's healthcare or housing. And I would much prefer that we are prepared as a legislator to handle it on a Vermont and be specific for Vermont rather than having things like this dictated to us from the federal government. So I applaud your tenacity in following this, and I appreciate that you're not calling it a study.

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: Yeah. So thank you.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: No. Definitely not. Yeah. I think that's the intention. I really appreciate that, and I think everything we do is should be data driven and accurate, and rushing to do things without that is not the best form of legislation. So I I felt like this was still keeping the conversation gathering a lot alive, but not rushing to anything. And I'm really happy to have that in there so that we can continue those conversations with our constituents.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Alright,

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: back to the rest, effective date.

[Cameron Woods (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I was just going to comment one thing that's not here that you had asked, but I was seeking some guidance from JFO, there was my understanding is there's a recommendation to tweak the one time appropriation of funds to BHCB.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yes, the BHCB language. So

[Cameron Woods (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I have that, I simply didn't include it yet because I was getting, I was seeking guidance from JFO about if there are any issues, I'm not aware of any, but just in case if there's any issues with doing an amendment in this bill to appropriations that have occurred now, know, maybe like three fiscal years ago and so I'm just, once I get that feedback from them, we'll discuss how to incorporate this program.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Everybody remember what he's talking about?

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: Yep.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: He's talking about the reallocation of funds that couldn't be used for, there were a lot of money that was used for a shelter, but some couldn't be, and it would be reallocating it to continue to contribute towards funding of the pilot program for disability housing.

[Cameron Woods (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And so I think there's been a college for you all that I have that request to include that, and I just, when I was pulling this together for this morning, I wanted to just make sure I'm doing it the right way. So we'll Yes, so there's

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: a Just to clarify, housing for people with

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Developmental and mental health. Yeah, it's

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: in there. It's same language from them.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: And to clarify, generally speaking, our budget, the House budget, it's gone. It's in the Senate. So, as a general matter, we just decided to throw $30,000,000 into a bill here or something, it's useless. But the advantage of this is my understanding. I've talked very preliminarily to the chair of House Appropriations. This bill will go to House Appropriations for various reasons. It will go to Ways and Means. House appropriations may or may not, I don't know what they're going to do with that provision, but the point is to get it sent back to the Senate, so that they, when they're putting together their response to our budget, can put this language in, because this is not adding money to it, it's not adding cost to the budget, it's just reallocating some money.

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: And that's part of what

[Cameron Woods (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I asked JFO, I mean, don't think there's anything that prohibits you all from making the change in this bill. Obviously the bill will go to appropriations anyway, and so I was just trying to get some information from JFO about, you know, if there's anything

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I should be aware

[Cameron Woods (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: of or making sure that I'm drafting it correctly because you're missing the budget from the due fiscal So the next draft, I'll probably have something in there with the proposed language. Right.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Any further questions of

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: camera