Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Welcome everybody to House Committee on Tremblant and Housing and today is Tuesday, 05/19/2026, well into May. We're discussing S two thirty, and the question before us, which is, what's the fate of two thirty? It's come over from the Senate with, and we're discussing two amendments. One was an amendment that talked about, they asked me for conversations around access to a parking lot at the Department of Corrections, and Sarah Clark is here to talk to us about that, Secretary of Administration. The other has to do with having eliminated the provision of the non compete part that dealt with non exempt. And those are the two. Allison was going to be here, Senator Clarksons, she's downstairs right now wrestling with landlord tenant, which we deemed more important. And I can report what I learned from her on Friday. It's pretty straightforward. Sarah, take it away.

[Sarah Clark, Secretary of Administration]: Sure. Good morning. I'm Sarah Clark. I'm the Secretary of Administration. This is my first time on your committee, so thank you for having me. I believe I was asked to testify specifically to language that was added by the Senate related to solicitation at correctional facilities. The language that was added requires the Commissioner of Corrections, the BSCA, to meet to consider solicitation in parking lots at correctional facilities. It asked the Commissioner of Buildings and General Services to facilitate and coordinate those meetings. First, I want to report that actually on last Thursday, the Commissioner of Corrections, the Commissioner of Buildings and General Services, and the VSEA did meet to discuss this topic. They had a productive conversation about how to move forward related to solicitation in correctional facility parking lots. So the language requiring a meeting has actually already heard. This is what was communicated to the Senate prior to the inclusion of this amendment. I think in general, the executive branch, we have the authority to and this is, in fact, what we do convene meetings with the union with relative parts of state government in order to work through a whole variety of issues. Here to say, it would be our preference to not have the language. We actually already have done what the language is requiring. So I don't think any harm is caused by the language other than the power of the executive to actually run state government and have these types of meetings as appropriate. Essentially, we don't need the legislature to tell us because that is what we do. And we have done that after consultation with Senator Clarkson. Questions?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yes.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Is there solicitation happening? What solicitation are we trying to stop? I guess I'm just a little bit confused.

[Sarah Clark, Secretary of Administration]: I could tell you my understanding, but I do think you should actually Commissioner Murad, who is the commissioner of corrections, would be best suited to answer that question. But I can tell you my understanding. That would be helpful. Also would and I know that you're at the nth hour. The union, I believe, is the organization that requested this language. That's my understanding. I should preface all of this by saying that's my understanding, that the union requested this language and that it has to do likely with unions of any variety soliciting employees at facilities or in the parking lot facilities.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: That's the subject of the discussions that began. Correct. So what I'm just reflecting back, what I'm hearing is your preference is you don't love the language because you don't want the legislature telling the administration who they should meet with, etcetera. You don't consider the language harmful to an ongoing discussion process, but it's not ideal. Correct. In fact, we've already done it. Right. Although that's a process that may be Yes. Questions? Any further questions? Sarah? Thank you. Thanks so much for coming. Of course. I just want to report on the other portion of this just for your information. So as you remember, the Senate amendment took out non exempt employees, left in the medical. And we expressed, I think, a certain amount of concern over that in our So, on Friday, I met with Senator Clartz. She's unable to testify, as I said, because she is right now at

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: And when I walk by, they're in the thick of

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: They're in the thick of landlord tenant. Anyway, she said that it wasn't that they opposed it, but they didn't have time, and I said, why not? Right? Push it further. And what came out was, and I have permission to say this out loud on the record, Senator Chittenden felt very strongly that he was unable to support the bill as a whole unless they dealt with the teacher provisions and brought teachers into this. His spouse is a teacher and he feels very strongly about that. Senator Chittenden, it's his bill on the floor, he reports it, and so he would be on the conference committee if there were a time. Allison Clarkson felt that given what happened with, is it 208, what was the number? 25, which is a long attempt to deal with the whole teacher thing, and with Association of Superintendents and that it just, she felt like, given that that failed and the short time they had, they couldn't deal with it, so they took it out. And her feeling is, you know, we'll try to deal with it next session, but she couldn't do it then, because the teacher thing killed two zero five. So that's my report.

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: And the teacher thing needs a lot more work, like in general, it's not an easy just to do it.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: So, at this point, given that Saudia and Mary, can you hear? Just checking. Again. Okay, Mary, can you hear? So, if the committee would like to have discussion, I do think our choices are as follows: one, we can refuse to concur and request a conference. Two, we can refuse to concur and send back a further instance of amendment back to the Senate, which would in turn be referred to, I think, the Economic Development Committee, back to that committee. The third is we can concur, in which case it goes to our floor and that's done. Well, it has to go to our floor no matter what. The only thing I want to say is, although I am far from sure, it is my impression that things are moving along at a speed such that I don't know that we will be here longer than Friday. And if that occurs, I'm not sure how much time there is for anything. So we're at some risk of losing the bill entirely. So that's And I think we can have twenty minutes or fifteen minutes for discussion. If you want to vote now, we can vote now. If you want to vote at eleven, we can vote when the floor is over. Even if there are Bless you. What? Someone sneeze, I said bless you. Even if there are caucuses, we'd have to ignore the caucuses, come back here and vote on a straw poll, so we can go on the floor and let them know what the situation is. So, discussion? Joe?

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: I think we should do

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: a further inference of amendment, strike out the last addition of the meetings that have already taken place, and send it back to them today. Makes it real easy.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Concur. Can't. We can't. I'll have to find out. I don't think we send it back to them. I think we tell the full report to the floor, and I don't know whether that would be today or tomorrow, that there's a further instance of amendment that we reced, and the floor adopts it and sends it.

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: I know we've created this manufactured rush here like we always do, but I think it's a quite simple thing to

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. I don't think it'll take much time. It's a

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: well, either way, has to come to the floor.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Right? Either way, it has to come with it.

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: So it can come to the

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: floor. It's a very simple change, and it could go over there today.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah. I don't think it's blocking

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: it up. I think that

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Other thoughts?

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: I'm I'm fine with that.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yep. Memo from

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: EGS indicates all parties are committed without the need for legislation. And

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: look, if there's something next year and people are here

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: and want to do

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: something about that and we're food to people, they can. It's not an emergency.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: It's not an emergency. And we also have over 900 bills that have been introduced in the House alone, let alone to include almost 200 in the Senate. I think at some point there needs to be part of the conversation of we need to focus on what is our priority, and just Christmas treeing things doesn't work. This And should have been brought to us if it was truly an issue months ago, when we had a joint hearing with Corrections and we had the VSEA come in and testify. Once again, it's the last minute.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Any other questions, Saudia, Mary, anything you want to say?

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: I mean, I'm good. I agree. I think, you know, I concur. I think it's I think it's not a sense of urgency. We have I think we we just heard that, you know, it's being addressed. I hope it's not a one and done because that one meeting happened. They're not gonna address it further. But, you know, I think that shows me goodwill that things are occurring and can occur and that doesn't need to be legislated. So I'm good. I agree.

[Mary E. Howard (Clerk)]: Marc, can you hear me?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I can hear you clear and steady. Oh,

[Mary E. Howard (Clerk)]: okay. I think we should just concur. I mean, they have already met. I think it's an important issue and I feel that at this point we should just concur. And if there's anything further next session, it should be taken up then.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Okay, any others? I'll just say my piece. I think we should concur and the reason is very simple. I am completely sympathetic to the reasoning behind those of you who want to strike this and send it back. Oh, the way, before I say what I think, I just want to clarify. So, your view is you want to strike the union part and leave the rest? Well, it's not the union part, it's solicitation paragraph. Which, again, don't leave it, but you're okay with the rest of it.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: I mean, no, but

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: You wouldn't change that. Okay. So, back to what I think. I am completely sympathetic with this coming to us at the last minute and being probably unnecessary. My problem is I feel like the Senate is it's like anything that goes over there, have no idea whether it will ever come out. That committee has, for example, taken a dozen days of testimony as a landlord tenant bill and it gets a little stranger every time, I'm worried that if we send something back to the Senate, it'll just get lost before we because it'll go to their committee, the committee will have to hear it whenever that is, and then it'll have to go to the senate floor and it'll get scheduled on the senate floor. And then if they can they can concur. And if they concur, if they could do it by Friday, well, then I guess this bill would survive. If they don't, I'm worried it might not. I don't love the language, but I consider it harmless. And the rest of the bill is I know I just wouldn't wanna lose the rest of the bill, but I will follow the committee on this. Saudia.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: I'm just I'm just because I'm just I I hear you, And, also, I feel like, we did we did we just hear that senator Clarkson had there were conversations that happened, and and there's, a mutual understanding. So if if that is the case, I don't I don't know. I don't see why it would be too problematic for them to agree to to the language. But I'm I'm not pushing for either way. I would like to see the bill passed. I think the language for the solicitation is unnecessary. I don't think it's it's needed to be in there. We could have done more with this bill, and it's, like, it's the bare minimum as it is. So, yes, let's get it through. But, I mean, not with unnecessary language. I don't think it should take them that long if they if it's on their radar that this is unnecessary language and the reasoning why it shouldn't be that hard for them to review. I mean, I'm not I'm not saying I know they have a tight schedule and they have lots on their I don't know. I I digress. I'm sorry. I apologize. My bad.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I should just say, just to clarify to what you said, Saudia. I agree with Saudia in that I don't think they'll have I could be wrong, but I think they'll just agree. In other words, if we send it back, they'll agree. In other words. That's not my problem.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Yes.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: It's just the counting dates. In other words, tomorrow it's on our floor, it gets to them on Thursday, they agree, it gets to the senate.

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: We are suspending rules for everything. Yeah.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Well, if we can suspend rules for this bill, okay, then it would get to them if we act on the floor on Wednesday, then it would get to them on Wednesday. And if they act on Thursday and it gets to the floor, senate floor, if everything goes right on Thursday or Friday, it just in my mind, it's getting close. And so I'm only asking all I'm asking is that everybody ask themselves whether it's worth it.

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: I don't think it's any different with my schedule though if we send over a proposal of amendment.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: No, no. If we concur now, it goes to the floor, So and that's

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: that's what we're saying, at this point, it seems like the committee is going to concur, but there's either a proposal of amendment or not.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Right. But all I'm saying is if we I don't want to sound like too much of an advocate for this. I'm just trying to lay it out. If we concur Let's say we just concur. It goes to the floor tomorrow, we announce we're concur, we say what the vote was, the House decides, that's the end of it. If the House concurs, it's over. It doesn't go back to the Senate. If we have another instance of amendment, it's the same thing, but it goes back to

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: the Senate.

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: If the House votes in favor of the instance of amendment.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Well, I'd hate to have a floor battle on that. I don't think they do This is Senate. Okay, you don't think what? Nothing. No, I think the House will go with this either way.

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: It looks like Tom has some Santa.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah, I think the House will go with this either way. Don't get me wrong. I think that if we go for an instance of amendment, we'll get support on the house. It'll say, you know, go back. I'm just worried it'll never get out of the senate. That's all that's the beginning and end of my concern. Tom?

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: I agree. So I'm just noting in the memo from BGS that they testified before this amendment was tacked on, that it was not necessary. The senate tacked it on anyways. So for whatever reason, they prefer to include it. I I don't know if it's now that they've had the conversations, if they're gonna be content letting us take it out, great. If they're gonna if it's gonna take any amount of deliberation or testimony on their end, that they'll never get it.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: The only thing I can say is if you given the hour, we can reconvene for a vote at eleven, and I'll do everything I can to get in touch with senator Clarkson if you'll trust me to be in neutral on this in light of my concern, and just ask her, if we send it back to you, for instance, an amendment to get rid of that, is that gonna be at all controversial?

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: So, I mean, I don't know that leaving it in is just innocuous.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I wouldn't say so. Wait. Say which?

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: I didn't hear the word precedent said, but I think the point of administration coming in was like, don't really want this to start showing up in bills of telling us who to meet with and when and where. They've already done it. So whether it's innocuous or not, I think just even having it

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: here, it starts a little ball rolling. If we can do it quick.

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Okay. It sounds like the majority of the committee would like to close the nests of amendment and just take the risk.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I don't agree.

[Mary E. Howard (Clerk)]: I don't agree. I think we should concur. We we don't know what's going to happen in the senate. We know how things go there. It's not, you know, it's it's not a critical, critical deal. They have already met, and, I think we should just concur and get the bill passed. We're you know, we we just don't have enough time and, it seems like I don't like the hurry up bills, but I don't I just feel that this is good bill and and the administration agrees. So I just I I vote to concur and and pass it along.

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Mary, do you have a case of why we should have it in? Is there a reason? Well,

[Mary E. Howard (Clerk)]: I'm sure that, you know, I'm hearing from people that have said there have been incidents in their parking lots. And I feel that, you know, we shouldn't give in to passing a bill back and forth with amendments.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: That's our job.

[Mary E. Howard (Clerk)]: You don't need to tell me what our job is, Ashley. I've been here ten years.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Tom, did you have something you wanted to say? And then Or are you just looking for it?

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Maybe we should go back.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah. Well, if we're

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: in a hurry, let's just go, let's figure it out.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Can I

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: ask a clarifying question? Sure. Mary, could you just follow-up? Can you speak a little more? You said you've heard that

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: there have been incidents in the parking lot. And I don't know what, maybe I missed that if that's already been discussed. What could you talk more about? Why this language helps respond to whatever those incidents are?

[Mary E. Howard (Clerk)]: Oh, there have been groups that have shown up in parking lots and people are, you know, and they're in their way to work and they have been, you know, it's been uncomfortable for them to to walk into their place of work. Groups. Well, I really don't want to go into the naming the groups.

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: Okay. Going into the parking lot and soliciting Yes. What were they soliciting? You

[Mary E. Howard (Clerk)]: know, I really don't wanna get into the detail of that. Well, I just

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: think it's interesting that this is apparently a really important issue and we haven't heard any testimony and we are not getting any details on what's being solicited or what groups it is.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Under the impression that this is compromised language, actually, that there was originally some substantive legislation on what was allowed or what was not, and that this was a kind of watered down version, is you gotta talk about it. I really actually am not very close to it. Anybody else want to comment on their thoughts?

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: No, but I'd like to either take a break so I can have a few minutes to collect myself for

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: a floor or vote.

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: I'm ready to do either.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I think I'd like to come back at eleven and vote. The reason I say that frankly is I just want a chance to talk to Allison and see if there's anything else she has to say. I'm really sorry, she wasn't here. Believe me, I'm okay with whatever the committee decides. So I'll just talk to her and we'll reconvene right after the flood.

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: And I'm curious how landlord tenant vote is done. I watched yesterday.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: God help us. Also, just so you all know, before we go off the record, seven seventy five is in Senate Natural Resources and it's Senate Natural Resources in the meeting.

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: It better not die down

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: the road. So I have no idea what's going to happen with 775. 775, if it came over to us, we could not concur because they took out the the housing accelerator, which is the, so okay. The alternative is 328, which we control here as 328. That is scheduled to be voted out of appropriations tomorrow morning. I have asked that we I have asked leadership to suspend every rule they can, so that it can move as quickly to the Senate as possible. I have told Alison Clarkson that my hope is they would just concur.

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Thanks. If we can't call a committee of

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: conference on July, it never gets off

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: on If their it doesn't get to us, we can't call for a committee of conference.

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: They would have to call for

[Sarah Clark, Secretary of Administration]: it if they want to amend.

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: They would have taken it up and say, we want a committee conference.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: They could just say, we want a committee conference, right? But I don't see that in the cards at the moment. It's in front of natural resources. They are hearing it. I don't know what's going to happen. So let's convene right after the floor, okay? Mary, if you can be here, I hope you can. I will double check, but I think I hear where you are coming from. And I have to find out I'm getting contradictory evidence of what we're allowed to do with the straw poll

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: stuff.