Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Speaker 0]: Alright. We are live. Alright. Good afternoon, everyone. It is shortly after 01:30PM on Tuesday, February 3, picking up committee work for

[Paul Earlbound]: the week. Everybody

[Speaker 0]: had a nice weekend. Brave the cold. So first order of business today, we're joined by representatives and interested parties from the State Ethics Commission, And we're going to have our guests come up and speak to us about priorities and concepts in and around state's ethics commission. So start things off with Paul. Paul, how are you doing? Very well. Thank you. Yeah, please join us. Thank you

[Paul Earlbound]: so much for inviting me. Appreciate it. And I saw you had written testimony here as well. I did submit. Thank you. Appreciate that. And, also, we've submitted a chart that TJ Jones, compiled for us, and TJ will be testifying as well, I hope. Yes. He's on the list. Wonderful. Tom on? Alright. No. You're on. Yeah. Just identify yourself for the record, and the table is yours. My name is Paul Earlbound. I'll spare you my autobiography, but, I'm the chair of the ethics commission, the Vermont State Ethics Commission. And I'm here today to urge this committee to make a recommendation to the Appropriations Committee to help us, to further the cause of good government policy, and by prioritizing an ethics commission. We currently have an ethics commission that's understaffed, toothless, and with two major unfunded mandates. In in I I know I know this committee is focused on policy appropriations, is focused on money, but the two interact. So the the ethics commission has been operating with a very very small staff and a very small budget for since 2018. First, we had just one halftime executive director who took care of all the photocopying and administrative assistant stuff by himself. That was Larry Novins. You might remember him. In '20 late twenty twenty one I guess it was in late in 2021, the legislature appropriated for a halftime administrative assistant, which was a great boost, but we are still at a halftime executive director, a halftime administrative assistant. And two years ago, with act one seventy one, the legislature gave us the assignment of responding to municipalities who were making inquiries about the new municipal ethics code, which created a bit of a flood of inquiries for us. I'll give you the numbers. Again, with just half time staff, beef before in May 2025, we had to say, can't handle this. We're just getting a flood. But we got just in terms of municipal requests for guidance, we got 62 requests. We got 50 complaint inquiries that did not turn into complaints, and we received, although, generally, complaints can go directly to the municipalities, they can also come through the ethics commission. We got 28 complaints filed through us. Much more, many more complaints and requests for guidance that we got from state players. But on May 7, we posted on our website, with regret due to lack of staffing, the state ethics commission can no longer provide advisory and complaint services to municipalities. We keep getting we've gotten a few more requests, but the number of requests has fallen off since we've posted this, of course. Also with act one seventy one, two years ago, the legislature gave the ethics commission some teeth, maybe baby teeth, but still teeth. It gave us the authority to conduct investigations and authority to hold hearings about what we've investigated. Without additional staff, we cannot begin to do that. So those are two major unfunded mandates. We totally understand. This is a very tight budget year, but we've been given these mandates. We're trying. We would certainly appreciate getting the staff so we could fulfill the mandates the legislature have given us. And we do think that I'll just speak for myself. I think that ethics should be a legislative priority, along with the other priorities. Right now, the situation of the ethics commission is precarious. We are barely treading water. If we do not get additional staff, I don't know if we're gonna survive past the through this calendar year, frankly.

[Will Stevens]: Hey. I have a hand up here.

[Paul Earlbound]: So, I mean, that's about it for me. I mean, just we're we're in a tight situation. You folks, the legislature generally is in a tight budget situation. Advise me, but I'll I'll take questions. Yes. Please, and I'm sorry.

[Rebecca (Committee Member, unidentified)]: Yes. So you currently have a part time staff. Can you tell me what that consists of?

[Paul Earlbound]: Sure. We have a part time executive director, as Christina Severin, who you may have met. She she, by the way, is simply burned out. She's taking a leave of absence. She'll be back in June. But so we have a half time executive director, and we have a half time administrative assistant, somebody to answer the phone, answer the the basic emails.

[Rebecca (Committee Member, unidentified)]: And then your commission, how many folks are on your commission?

[Paul Earlbound]: The legislature has created seven slots to be appointed. Right now, there are only five of us. One of those positions could be appointed by the speaker of the house, but is the speaker has not made that appointment yet. And, also, there's an appointment available to the Vermont Bar Association. That individual, Chris Davis, resigned several months ago. So we're down to five commissioners, though potential for seven.

[Rebecca (Committee Member, unidentified)]: And has there been any inquiry as to when they expect to appoint folks to take those places?

[Paul Earlbound]: We have not although we have made inquiries with the speaker, we have not gotten a response. I I need to do a bit of a segue. One although getting staffing is our preeminent concern, another thing on our list of recommendations is to actually transform that Vermont Bar Association appointment power to give that to the governor. Right now, the house has appointment power to appoint a commissioner. The senate, the committee on committees does, but the executive branch does not. The legal community is represented in two ways by way of appointments to the commission. One is the chief justice can make an appointment, and currently at the Vermont Bar Association. We would suggest we would urge, the legislature to switch up that from our bar association appointment to give that one to the governor.

[Speaker 0]: Yes.

[Rebecca (Committee Member, unidentified)]: Sorry to keep asking questions, but been a while since. It's been a while since Ms. Severit was in and we had asked questions of her, and I'm wondering if I even ever asked this question: what is the actual what are the actual duties of the commissioners?

[Paul Earlbound]: Of the commissioners? Well, the executive director and the administrative assistant, but we we basically have higher and firepower over them. And for all critical decisions, the commissioners will deliberate. Sorry. I'm searching for the word. The executive director, of course, has a fair amount of leeway to to operate, but the the commissioners aren't brought in on so, for example, tomorrow is our monthly meeting monthly commission meeting, and the house ethics panel has asked us for an interpretation of a statute. We'll deliberate on that tomorrow, and I will get back to the panel thereafter. So we meet monthly. We deliberate over, for example, for each advisory opinion that goes out, we review those, make suggestions, and the executive director brings other questions to us rather than just making those decisions on her own.

[Rebecca (Committee Member, unidentified)]: Can I ask one more further question?

[Lucy Boyden]: And then I'll seat the floor. Thank you.

[Rebecca (Committee Member, unidentified)]: So, the other positions that you are advocating for, and I should say that the Ethics Commission needs to write a formal budget letter to this committee if you're requesting new positions just like you do to the appropriations.

[Paul Earlbound]: Oh, I did not know that.

[Rebecca (Committee Member, unidentified)]: Yeah, kind of unspoken in the past, but we're really asking for it this year so we don't miss anybody's request. So what other position are you asking for?

[Paul Earlbound]: We're asking for two positions. We're asking for two attorney positions. One who will focus on municipal matters. The other to focus on two things. One would be state matters, which believe that we will simply get less state inquiries and complaints and requests for advice, less state requests than municipal, but that other attorney would cover both state and investigations generally. Because the where the statute is written, the ethics commission would not be doing municipal investigations, only investigations with regard to state matters. That answer your excuse me. That answer your question?

[Rebecca (Committee Member, unidentified)]: That does answer my question. It brings more questions, but I wanna let other people have a chance to

[Paul Earlbound]: And if I could ask a quick question. This is news to me that we need to submit a budget letter. We we have submitted a budget book to the appropriations committee. Should I just submit that? Mhmm.

[Lucy Boyden]: Okay. Be fine. Right?

[Speaker 0]: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's all.

[Paul Earlbound]: Okay. Will do.

[Rebecca (Committee Member, unidentified)]: It's kind of a new a better way of us trying to keep track of all the asks that Sure. Committee because the appropriations committee asks us to write a letter.

[Paul Earlbound]: Yes.

[Rebecca (Committee Member, unidentified)]: And we wanna make sure that we've heard from one who's making requests in advance of writing that letter. And sometimes groups can fall through the cracks that we hadn't heard from.

[Paul Earlbound]: Understood. Thank you so much for the tip. Really appreciate it.

[Rebecca (Committee Member, unidentified)]: I'm happy

[Chea Waters Evans]: to let Rebecca finish her questions. If you've got them in your mind and you want to ask anyone who's here, it's a good time.

[Rebecca (Committee Member, unidentified)]: Yes, just one more then. Thank you. So, the Commission does not have the power to investigate. Is that correct?

[Paul Earlbound]: As of 09/01/2027, we will ostensibly have that authority, but we won't have the staff to do

[Rebecca (Committee Member, unidentified)]: it. Okay. Because I understood you to say that you want, two staff, one to do municipal matters and one to do state and investigatory matters. Yes. But it didn't sound to me like anybody was, designated to do municipal investigations.

[Paul Earlbound]: That's because we're not authorized to do municipal investigations.

[Rebecca (Committee Member, unidentified)]: And that's what I'm asking about. So that is in statute that you are not allowed to so even with new staff, you will not be in statute allowed to investigate municipal matters.

[Paul Earlbound]: Investigations of any town or city are done in house according to statute.

[Rebecca (Committee Member, unidentified)]: K. Thank you. I'm good. Thank you, Rutland, Evans.

[Chea Waters Evans]: Oh, thanks. Actually, I could answer your question a little bit too. I believe we gave them the authority to advise on municipal matters. Somebody could call, ask for advice, and then the ethics commission would say, yes, this seems like it could be something you could bring up with your municipality or that's maybe behavior you don't like, but it's not an ethical violation as far as what our opinion is. So that's what they can do.

[Paul Earlbound]: Can I build on that just for a second? Just to say, we we offer informal guidance, but also to miss municipalities, but also written advisory opinions. Mhmm. And statute requires that we publish on our website those advisory opinions. Sorry to interrupt. Oh, no,

[Chea Waters Evans]: you didn't interrupt at all. So right now, as it stands, the executive director is on leave of absence. Yes. Is she receiving a salary while she's on the leave of absence? No. Okay. And then you have a part time administrative assistant? Yes. And that person is supporting, what does that person do?

[Paul Earlbound]: That person is answering the phone and taking all the emails, and at this moment in time, any questions of law and policy to me. Okay. She has a lot to do, by the way.

[Chea Waters Evans]: I was my next question was there's one part time person doing all of the being clear, the administrative work for this entire commission.

[Paul Earlbound]: Oh, yes.

[Chea Waters Evans]: Okay. And does are they offering support for the commission in its entirety?

[Will Stevens]: Yes.

[Lucy Boyden]: Okay.

[Paul Earlbound]: Yes. So that that administrative assistant has set up, for example, set up the Zoom for tomorrow all the commissioners will join in on and, you know, sends out the agenda, sends it to me, how does this agenda look, you know, takes care of all those little details.

[Chea Waters Evans]: Okay. And when you say that the commission won't be able to last for a year without new funding, is that with or without additional funding?

[Paul Earlbound]: I'm speculating and frankly, I'm speaking personally as well. I've been banging my head against the wall since March 2019. I I I don't know how much longer I'm gonna keep going. And I've I've heard some rumblings from the some other commissioners just you know, maybe we should hang it up. Why? Why? Yeah. We we've we've been asking the legislature for to become a robust ethics commission for for years, since 2018. We've been requesting I I don't I I know budgets are always tight, but I don't think that the ethics commission is asking for too much, I ask I say humbly. And I know here I'm coming before you in a extremely tight budget year, but it's only after we've been denied, denied, denied. And not only denied, but promised the last at least two years ago, maybe it was three years ago. Legislators on the appropriations committee promised, oh, Oh, yes. Next session, you'll get it. Next session, you'll get it. And, you know, the budgets are only getting tighter, and we are I I said this to you earlier today. Just in 2019, I attended the COGO conference. I forget what the acronym acronym stands for, but it's the national and international gathering of ethics commissions, state ethics commissions around the country, provincial ethics commissions. It was embarrassing to be there because there's so many robust ethics commissions that do things and not only do things by way of enforcement, but more more importantly, do things to avoid having to go to do enforcement, whether it's through advice, guidance. They do so many informal resolutions that seem to make dollar and cents sense to me.

[Chea Waters Evans]: Can you explain on that a little bit how it makes dollar and cents cents to support financially ethics commission.

[Paul Earlbound]: I I can, and I'm gonna give just a brief response because TJ Jones, who is a national governmental ethics expert, and who has worked with many ethics commissions could probably address that much better. Certainly, those ethics commissions, I'm thinking of Oregon, for example, where they're empowered to impose penalties, they're actually moneymakers for their state, for a commission that does not have the capacity to impose a fine or a penalty. I don't I I don't know. I I I'm not in a position to give dollar figures on savings, but it kinda makes sense to me that if people can avoid getting into snarls and kerfuffles, that it's it's it would save it would save all of us time and money. It it's my intuitive in you know, my instinct, but I cannot give you dollar figures. Maybe TJ Jones will be able to.

[Lucy Boyden]: Thank you.

[Paul Earlbound]: Sorry for an incomplete answer.

[Lucy Boyden]: No, no, no.

[Kate Nugent]: I was just wondering if you could talk a little bit more about the role of the board and the staff and how you I don't know if you were involved in the creation of it, how you developed policies and procedures and how that all kind of, works together.

[Paul Earlbound]: I'll do my best. And, another ethics commissioner, Will Stevens is here today, and he's only been on the commission for a year. He might have a clearer picture just because it's due. But at least from my perspective, we, the commissioners, make all the important decisions. I'll put it that way. We we approve or disapprove of advisory opinions that are generated by the executive director. We make policy decisions, You know, even including, you know, should we take take up this case or not? You know, this such and such a complaint came in. Please review it and, you know, your thoughts on this, please. You know, the it it we're in a both the consultation and decision making capacity with the executive director. Trying to think how to flesh this out. Will, what else would make this clearer? I'm talking to Will Stevens, our other commissioner.

[Will Stevens]: You're doing

[Paul Earlbound]: great so

[Will Stevens]: far. Yeah.

[Paul Earlbound]: I'm I feel like I'm not answering your question fully. We're volunteers, but we we do a lot. We're called upon frequently by the executive director to weigh in. We have to be careful about the open meeting law. We can't weigh in over email, you know, so it does have to wait for our monthly meetings, so we don't collaborate without announcing it's an open meeting. But so our our our work is largely at home alone, but then once a move. What else can I say or or should I yield the floor? Any other questions for Paul? Yeah. I'll yield the floor. Yes. Thank you, Paul. Thank you so much. And so it seems Will is with

[Speaker 0]: us live and in person. Yes. How are doing? Great. I got you next on my punch list.

[Will Stevens]: Okay.

[Speaker 0]: Feel free to join us.

[Will Stevens]: Afternoon, everyone. Thank you very much, mister chair and committee for taking my testimony. My name is Will Stevens. I live in Shoreham in Addison County. I'm an ethics commission commissioner. I was appointed by the senate committee on committees a little over a year ago. And, I also was a, state representative, served in body here for eight years from 2007 to 2014. So, I need to thank you for your service, because that's what we do. And now that I'm not here, I appreciate it. So yeah. If I may, I have written testimony, I'll kind of stick to the script, but I also I'm gonna take a stab at answering some of the questions that came up. One is on this, this COGO group, the Council on Governmental Ethics Legislation. And, I mentioned that because I was at their conference last December. And, the theme of the conference was, how to stay sane in a time of chaos. And there were four thirty people from all over the country, from South Africa, from Guam, Hawaii, there, down in Atlanta. And, weirdly, came back energized and not depressed. I'm still trying to figure out why. But maybe, maybe my presence here right now, doing what I can for the Vermont Ethics Commission is one of the reasons. The, to, to the question of, of kind of why would spending the money on staff save money? I, was a vegetable grower for forty years and, in my business setup is everything. And that means front loading things. So, you don't end up, you can avoid problems and so forth. And that would be my answer to why spend money now, because it'll pay off later. I think another thing that, is not in my testimony here, but it was in my testimony before Senate gov ops, last week, which was just the comment that it's a time honored tradition, to brush an entity by giving it more to do with fewer resources. And that's where some of us on the Commission feel like we are today, which is why we're here. So, so I'm gonna go kind of high level. Why does Rutland need an ethics commission? And, I've got seven seven answers to that. But I'll just start by saying that just like locks on doors, the ethics commission can help keep honest people honest. Kind of that simple. First reason is, Ethics Commission's, when they're fully staffed and effective, can act as bulwarks against shift shifting cultural norms. And, in our everyday lives, and I'm going to just talk about prop bets, which people know about. Prop bets are bets where athletes are paid, to, throw certain pitches, or not score points, or shave the final results of a game, and so forth. The message by those who participate seems to be, nobody's hurt, why should I care? And, I think that that's, that attitude is kind of seeping into our culture and people are noticing. And, they notice that this kind of behavior doesn't really get much pushback or have many negative consequences. And so the attitude is kind of like, hey, well, if they can do it, why shouldn't I? So, I mentioned that because, besides feeling like a race to the bottom and, you know, we're all lemmings kind of going over the cliff because everybody else does it and that's our justification like a five year old would used to tell me. You know, ethics commissions can provide predictability and important bill and importantly, security in stressful and uncertain times. Okay? Second reason. Ethics commissions are blind to party status and party interests. Ethics commissions are interested in good governance, not partisan gain. It's typical that whatever party is in power feels like the ethics commission is after them. Understandably, because they're meant to be a check on power And, regardless of the party in charge, and it's just that simple that that ethical behavior is not a partisan issue. Third third reason, frankly, it's, to hold state officials and administrators accountable. In the present moment, especially at the national level, as I've already alluded to, we're seeing a shift in how our representative democracy is both kind of behaving and being perceived. And we see our leaders flouting traditional ethical norms and pushing boundaries to see what they can get away with, what they can accomplish, how far they can go. And they're kind of by using kind of a transactional, what's in it for me approach. And the scenario there is, you know, the winner wins and the loser is like, well, it sucks to be a loser because you're a loser. Not everyone is represented in that kind of a government. And while voters conceptually have the power to hold their elected officials accountable through the ballot box, sometimes a principled outside third party perspective is is needed to help with the balance of power, especially when questions of conflict of interest or self viewing come up. Robust ethics commissions offer their perspective in support of transparency and good governance. Fourth reason, they can set the standard for best practices in government. An ethics commission acts as a principled advisor in a state like Vermont, where the relationship between the public and their elected officials is kind of like that of neighbors. What you do is more important than what you say. The commission is not the morality piece. It's important to say. It's the backstop for accountability and the arbiter of best practices. It's a partner. It's not an adversary. It's a good governance teammate in a setting where we hold each other accountable to do the best and to be the best in service to our constituents, the citizens of the state. Fifth, we can act as consultants and manage situations before they become problems. Outreach is this hasn't been talked about yet, so it's important. This is an important one. Outreach. Outreach is an essential job of an ethics commission. And ethics training and education is a two edged sword. The more outreach that's offered, the more inquiries are received, which results in increased workload. And And that's a good thing because it front loads guidance, it builds trust, and it encourages communication. It becomes difficult, however, when the inflow overwhelms staff, which is where we're at. Whether the inquiries are legitimate ethical issues or matters more suited to HR, equity, justice, fairness issues, a commission needs to respond quickly and accurately. An ethics commission that's under resourced gets caught in a downward spiral of being unable to conduct outreach and respond to inquiries in a timely fashion, both of them. If ethics representatives are trusted and responsive, leaders will be more willing to proactively come to them for clarification or guidance. That's the front loading part. This can actually make our leaders look good, if only by helping them avoid situations that could lead to complaints, bad publicity, or worse. More often than not, the absence of drama is a win. Sixth, confidentiality. By design, the Ethics Commission works confidentially, especially at the earliest stages of its work. When early inquiries are handled confidentially, questioners can avoid public scrutiny over sensitive issues. Assuming that officials follow the Commission's guidance, they will know that the Ethics Commission will have their backs in cases of public concern. The teamwork piece again. And last, the a good fully staffed effective ethics commission can help ensure the public's confidence in their elected leaders. After Watergate, which exposed corruption at the highest levels of government, a number of states reacted by establishing ethics commissions in their constitutions, which is to say ethics and ethical behavior at cost has at that point in those states has constitutional standing. That was about fifty years ago, which is the same time this COGO group was stood up, coincidentally. Unlike unlike other examples of Vermont's perceived first to the post exceptionalism, we were very late to the ethics game. Vermont adopted a statutory code of ethics, state code of ethics for the first time less than five years ago. The last two meaningful pieces of ethics legislation became law without the governor's signature. It's starting to feel like our State Code of Ethics is a performative facade. And does anyone care? It doesn't feel to me like it's mission accomplished. The reason I'm here to come before you today is because in 2024, when the legislature passed x one seventy one, which is, you know, added municipalities to our charge, It failed to provide the resources needed to adequately handle the additional responsibilities and Paul's already gone over this. As we're, you know, so basically, we've had to suspend our services. Last year, the legislature's H1 bill gave the Ethics Commission a one year extension on our enforcement responsibility, excuse me, investigatory responsibility, acknowledging the stress that our under resource commission was under at the time, and we're still there. We're here today to ask you to support our request to the Appropriations Committee to fund two additional staff for the State Ethics Commission. I'll just repeat again in my words, not Paul's. Specifically, we want to add two full time attorneys, one for legal counsel, who'll be able to handle the state affairs and eventual investigatory work, and one for a staff attorney who'll be dedicated to municipal affairs. The goal of any ethics commission is to serve its constituents, and that's all we're asking for, A chance to bring Vermonters good governance while providing good value. Finally, and as a matter of comparison only, here are some staffing information from other Vermont state commissions. And I went online. It's it's all right there. The Human Rights Commission, nine staff positions. The Office of Racial Equity, seven staff positions. Vermont Truth and Reconciliation Commission, seven paid commissioner and staff positions. The Vermont Ethics Commission, two half time staff positions. Right now, at this moment, our great state cannot afford to not fully staff the Ethics Commission. Thank you.

[Speaker 0]: I have a question. Sure. With the budget process, I have not been able to review anything that's come out of the governor's, budget recommend. Are any of these spoken to in the governor's budget recommend?

[Will Stevens]: No. We did, ask for the last two years we've asked that the governor put it in because we do know that that's the easiest way. And that's why we're here basically hand in hand to the legislature because the governor doesn't put it in.

[Speaker 0]: Requires Evans.

[Chea Waters Evans]: I understand if maybe you don't want to answer this question, but I'm not sure it is. I respect your your your I would respect your reasons why you wouldn't want to. Sure. But in the beginning of your testimony, you said that often, you know, government will squash a program. I don't know if that's the word you use or disable a program by not funding it.

[Will Stevens]: And

[Chea Waters Evans]: just kind of leaving it to flounder until it disappears. Was what and you said you thought that's what was happening.

[Will Stevens]: Yeah, if I could be clear. What I didn't say government, I just said it's a time honored tradition to do this. And so this happens at universities, it happens in businesses, it happens in governance. And I can give you an example. When I was here, I was on the Ag Committee, all eighty eight years I was in legislature. And at the time, UVM was looking to share themselves of soil testing, their soil testing lab. And they had two full time positions, and they added more and more and more to their workload, which is more than two human beings could have possibly done. And eventually, they just basically threw up their hands, declared failure. And UVM got what they wanted, and they shipped the soil testing lab at the time to Maine. Because it was a cost savings thing. They've since gotten it back. But I mean, it was just it was just a classic. It's kind of this happens all the time. So

[Chea Waters Evans]: my question, my follow-up question.

[Will Stevens]: Yeah, sorry.

[Paul Earlbound]: I

[Chea Waters Evans]: want to answer. No, appreciate the clarification. Do you have any theories or ideas about why that might be the case in this situation?

[Will Stevens]: In this situation? I don't think that there's some evil plot. I'm not a conspiracy guy, never have been. I just think that there's your job is to balance priorities. And this is not one. And so, we're bringing it to your attention that this outcome could happen, because we're just asking to amp it up as a priority. That's that's really what's going on from our perspective. I I there's no there's no evil thing, I don't think happening here. Yeah. You know, and I you know, honestly, when when I was in the house, we didn't have the ethics commission. It wasn't an issue back you know, way back when. But, but we're just asking to up it as a as a priority. Because because it's a statute. It's it's, you know, kind of one of the things that I didn't put in my testimony was, you know, if in fact, and we've been told by frankly, I've been told I can't speak for other commissioners. But I've been told there are folks in the building that would care don't really care, you know, if the ethics commission disappears. And that's fair. We all have our opinions. But if that's the case, would you put a bill in and just be transparent about it? And it might be a mercy killing if it went away in some ways because otherwise, this isn't what we live for.

[Paul Earlbound]: Yes. Thank you. Thank you.

[Speaker 0]: Anything else for Steve?

[Will Stevens]: There you go.

[Rebecca (Committee Member, unidentified)]: I think I just want to say, because I've been on this committee for a while now, back when we gave the commission authority to look into certain matters. We really took, I guess at that point, this committee took it very seriously that we're a policy committee and not a money committee. It really wasn't our decision to not fund whatever. And it's the same thing with any other positions that we might authorize or authority that we might get. So I think we just need to remember that a previous legislature may have set up this scenario, and it's really hard to tell a future legislature, we're not even supposed to do that, what they're supposed to do. So we're in a really hard position of having to backpedal and say, okay, maybe that wasn't done the way you all wanted it to be done, but it certainly wasn't with malicious intent.

[Will Stevens]: And and believe me, I I hope I did not give you that impression. It's it it is not I I'm not here to ascribe fault or blame. There's no use in that in my mind. I'm trying to just kind of spell out the situation as we find ourselves in. And I do know that, that, you know, when when the additional responsibilities came down, there were promises made and and then we went into a new biennium. I I understand that that's how it works. It's I dealt with that when I was here as well. I understand. And I appreciate you bringing it up. I absolutely

[Rebecca (Committee Member, unidentified)]: wanted people who might be watching that have not been following this issue at all to not think that the Vermont legislature doesn't want to do anything about ethics and ethics complaints, because nothing could be farther from the

[Paul Earlbound]: truth. Great, thank you. You're welcome. Appreciate that.

[Mary-Katherine Stone]: I just want to clarify, I'm not in this last biennium, but act 171 was twenty twenty four. This committee, I wasn't here, tasked y'all, I'm simplifying this down, simplifying it, tasked y'all with stuff to do, but then didn't fund y'all to have the people to execute what we ask you to do. That is a classic thing that the legislature does. I'll say it as a legislator who sat on the Ed Committee, and so I'm not surprised that this is happening. I just wanted to make sure I was reading that correctly. We gave y'all more work to do, but didn't give you the resources to do it as soon as like reset as 2024.

[Will Stevens]: Right. And if I may add to that, the governor let it pass without his signature in his letter says this feels like an unfunded mandate. Okay. And I'm not gonna sign it.

[Paul Earlbound]: So Okay. Thank you.

[Speaker 0]: Anything else for Steve? Oh, thank you, sir. Great.

[Will Stevens]: Thank you very much. Appreciate it.

[Speaker 0]: Next, got TJ Jones joining us via Zoom. Hi, TJ.

[Thomas "TJ" Jones]: Thank you, Mr. Chearer. I'm glad to be here and I thank you for the opportunity to present to you. Some of you may know me. I've appeared before the committee in past sessions. But for those who don't, my name's Thomas Jones. I'm a consultant and instructor in ethics law and government accountability. Previously, was the executive director of the Fair Political Practices Commission in California. And before that, I was the first appointed ethics enforcement officer in the state of Connecticut. I'm here today to sort of try to give the committee some perspective in two different ways, both by looking at other New England states and where they are currently in terms of budget and staffing, but also looking at this in terms of other states who have agencies on the same trajectory. And there have been four states that have also set up commissions within the last ten years. So I submitted testimony and it's got three comparative charts on it. And I hope that they can assist the committee. The first is a comparison of the Vermont budget and staffing in relation to the other New England states that have Independent Ethics Commission. New Hampshire does not, and that's why it's not included here. But you can see with respect to both the budget and the staffing, the differences between Vermont and its peers in terms of budgeting for ethics. The second chart does the same thing, but this time with other ethics agencies that are on the same trajectory. Both New Mexico and North Dakota set up similar to Vermont, an absolutely new commission. Wisconsin and New York dissolved their previous commissions and then spent a little while without an ethics commission. And then they reformed with these two commissions, the State Ethics Commission in Wisconsin, and the Commission on Ethics and Lobbying Government in New York. And again, this is just a comparison of the budgets for those commissions in relation to Vermont. In terms of size for a state, North Dakota is probably the most similar to Vermont. And you can see that in their brief period, now have a staff of three and Vermont is still at the equivalent of one. To me, perhaps the most telling chart here is the third one. And what this tries to do is it tries to measure how many employees are at the commission in relation to the people who they are supposed to be assisting by providing advice. And you'll see that Massachusetts and Rhode Island also have jurisdiction over municipal employees. And so those numbers are included here. But that right hand column, you'll see that by a long shot, Vermont has the equivalent of one employee trying to handle close to 46,000 state municipal employees. And even if you back out the municipal employees as the commission was forced to do this past year by telling the municipal community that they couldn't provide advice to them anymore. Even if you back that out, Vermont is still at roughly 16 and a half thousand state employees for one staff attorney, which is still more than any other New England state. And at this point in time, the Commissioner Stevens mentioned the comparison to other agencies. And ethics commissions are a little different from other agencies, and in particular the one in Vermont. Ethics commissions have a certain trajectory that's kind of special for ethics commissions. That you begin with the next ethics commission, and their real jurisdiction is to give ethics training to let people know that there's a code that exists, and to try and give them a baseline education so that everybody knows exactly where the boundary lines are. But then that expands to providing advice to all of those people who have received the education. And the advice function is there for people who have individual circumstances that they've come across that they want to get some direction on. And this is where the Commission finds itself right now, because as education grows, requests for advice grow too. And it's the commission's job at this point in its trajectory to try and guide people to set them on the right track before something goes wrong. It's it's very easy to unintentionally cross over boundary lines. And again, completely unintentional, but that's what the Commission is there right now to do. And in a normal trajectory, that would then expand to an enforcement function. You teach people about the code through education. You provide independent advice to people so that they can apply to their own circumstances. And then for those very few people who don't wanna follow any of the rules, there has to be an enforcement function. And that's usually the thing that legislatures, in my experience, focus on most, but it's kind of the tail wagging the dog. The commission's there really to make sure that there are no enforcement matters, except for those few people who just deliberately do not want to follow the code. Education for everyone, advice for the particular individual and enforcement to the people who don't want either of the first two. So Vermont is right in the middle of that trajectory right now, but it's trying to do so with the equivalent of only one employee. My advice to the commission was that right now the minimum number of people that they need is the equivalent of four and a half to do the job right now. And that's a full time executive director, a full time state council, a full time municipal council, one half time paralegal, one half time office administrator, and one half time ethics trainer, so that the annual training can keep going apace. That obviously will have to change in 2027 when the Commission is scheduled to take an enforcement function on. And at that point, I've advised them that they'll need at least one enforcement attorney and one half time investigator, just to keep up with the work that they have. Again, this isn't luxurious. My travels across The US, I have not met any ethics agency that complains about having too much budget to spend. Just simply not something that's there. This agency right now, in order to do the work that it has right now, cannot accomplish it with the two halftime employees that it has. I'm happy to answer any questions that the committee may have of me, but I thank you for your time.

[Speaker 0]: Did you have a hand up on? Yes, Nugent, Stone, then Robert Hooper, I guess. I

[Kate Nugent]: was just wondering if I see the comparisons in terms of total staffing and budget for the ethics commissions with the other states. But I was wondering, have you compared in terms of state budgets, like the overall state budget of each of those states and or maybe the I size of

[Thomas "TJ" Jones]: have not done so. And again, I'll admit upfront that this is a rough cut just to try and put things into perspective. It's not a perfect science, particularly in the realm of, if you look to the state of Maine, their commission also has jurisdiction over elections. So that's more jurisdiction that they have that Vermont has no intention of having with the commission. So you can factor that into your calculations. But no, I haven't done an independent analysis of the overall budgets.

[Mary-Katherine Stone]: Yes, I was actually just running those numbers. So it's funny that you asked that. It looks like for Rhode Island, it's 0.014%, roughly 0.015% of a $14,000,000,000 budget for their ethics commission. And I just wanted to clarify, the number you're asking for is $350,000 and the governor's proposal for the budget this year is $9,400,000,000 So that actually comes underneath what, if we compared it to Rhode Island, which was mentioned in your testimony, that comes underneath their percentage for how much y'all are asking. I just wanted to So I'm basically asking what you asked, but just clarifying those were the numbers. 350,000 out of $9,400,000,000 budget. So to me, it seems like you're being pretty conservative with your ask, especially in comparison to the state that was referenced in the testimony, that being Rhode Island.

[Thomas "TJ" Jones]: Correct? I think that's right. I've not done the math. Apologize. But again, my own personal opinion based on my travels through The States is that this is a modest budget increase, and it will still the Commission will still have difficulties performing its function right now. I've had the benefit of knowing the last two executive directors, and I can assure the committee that they have worked on their part time schedule well more than a full time schedule because of their commitment to the commission.

[Mary-Katherine Stone]: It's pulling up 0.0037%, roughly 127,000 of the total of our budget is your proposal. If nobody cares, I'll show my numbers.

[Robert Hooper]: Actually, do care because my question was the same as Rep Nugent's, and thank you for answering. So that's helpful. It seems to me that we have an inordinate number of employees within government that these folks, even though that tiny portion of the budget would appear to pay the salaries of those attorneys, they would have a much larger responsibility because it looks here like 45,941 government employees per each commission staff as compared to the other states. So that tells me a little bit about the size of our state government. But that wasn't my only question, and that was just a comment. You, Mr. Jones, are a consultant. So is your consulting fee coming out of what is already in the EPICS Commission budget?

[Thomas "TJ" Jones]: In my role with the Commission is primarily getting intermittent phone calls with questions like, how do other commissions do this? And yes, I I have, take, I charge the commission one quarter of my normal fee in order to provide those bits of advice.

[Robert Hooper]: Thank you. I don't think I have any more questions right now.

[Chea Waters Evans]: I don't have a question, but I do have a comment, which is that it is interesting to me that we are talking about this amount of money in these positions, and whether or not we're financially supporting the Ethics Commission, and that we are later this afternoon going to hear about the Public Records Act and how we are trying to make some changes to that act. Part of the justification for wanting to make changes to that Public Records Act is that municipalities are being inundated with public records requests, that state government is being inundated with public record requests. Our Legis Council is doing this all the time. And I wonder and people say they can't afford to pay the lawyers because they need to go through all these records and that everyone is taxed. And it just makes taxed not in the way that we tax. People get taxed in the way that there's pressure put on them. And it makes me wonder, I just have been thinking as I'm listening to you all speak, that perhaps if we did put some money into the system now, then if we were supporting the ethics staff to give this advice and investigative opportunities that we've empowered them to do, then perhaps the municipalities wouldn't be suffering so much from having to pay for lawyers to kind of come up with this, going through all these emails themselves. Or that people, that Vermonters wouldn't feel like they had to make these requests, because they had access to advice about municipal ethics and state ethics. That's just what's occurring to me now that if we're paying for it upfront, then we're not putting the burden on the municipalities that we are supporting them the way we intended to when this first came about a couple of years

[Paul Earlbound]: ago. It

[Chea Waters Evans]: seems like we talk a lot in when we talk about healthcare, we talk about preventative care and how treating people early on and seeing them before things go bad is a great way to not have to invest a lot of money in triage kind of care later. And I feel like it might be a good metaphor for ethics in this case.

[Thomas "TJ" Jones]: That's an excellent point. The research on that is fairly nascent as to the interactions between ethics bodies and their impact on not just other agencies' missions, but their impact on economies. And the nascent research is that there's a net benefit in states that have a vibrant ethics commission. In terms of the Public Records Act, I can tell you anecdotally, I don't have numbers on it, but I can tell you anecdotally that that's very true. That people who call up the ethics commission are largely those who want to get things right. But there are also people who are are just mad. Something's happened with government and and they're mad about it. And if that's a municipal official, the ethics commission is not there to calm them down and say, I appreciate that you're upset, but that's just not an ethics violation. And so those people who are mad, they have, they wanna go somewhere where they can get somebody to listen to them. And quite frequently, that's the Public Records Act. That they'll go back to their municipality and say, well, the Ethics Commission hasn't helped me, so I gotta help myself. And so anecdotally, there are a large number of those situations that happen where the ethics commission can act as a buffer to say, I appreciate that you're hurt and you think this is wrong, but it's not a violation of the ethics code.

[Paul Earlbound]: All right, thanks TJ.

[Thomas "TJ" Jones]: Thank you again.

[Speaker 0]: Yeah, apologies to our guests on the next order of business, but I want to finish this up. So, we're running a little bit long. We did notify our guests via Zoom that we were running along with this testimony. And our final witness on this for today is Pat McDonald. How are you? Fine, thank you.

[Pat McDonald]: Thank you, Mr. Chair, members. For the record, my name is Pat McDonald. I am here as the President of Campaign for Vermont, And in the audience, in the viewer section, is Ben Kinsley, who's our executive director. So I'm glad he's here in case I make a mistake or something. But anyway, for those of you who don't know me, I have been in state government for twenty years, had seven appointed positions under Snelling, Dean and Douglas. And then when I retired in 2006, I ran for the legislature won, and served on the with, chair Donna Sweeney. And here I am, among other things, as the president of campaign for Vermont. I look at, of, I, first I have to back up a little bit. Our two commissioners, I I don't think got into the education requirements. By statute, they are supposed to be educating and training people in the municipalities, in in the legislature, and state government setting about what ethics is and what they should be looking for. And they have not been able to do that because of the lack of staff. And I think if anything, that's one of the most important things to I hope to have people understand what ethics is. And I have a different take on ethics than you may have heard in testimony. I have been looking at ethics from a Vermonters perspective, from employees that work in state government, judiciary, legislature, and all around Vermont. If and I'll tell you how I came to really looking at it from a Vermonters perspective. When I was Commissioner of Motor Vehicles, I would mandate that any new employee would come over to the state house, because we'd look at it all day long out of our windows, because we're right across, and I explained, we took a tour around, and one time I had this young lady with me, and I could hear her breathing. I mean, was ridiculous, just out of breath, and just and I stopped and I said, are you okay? She said to me, I'm a nervous wreck. And I said, why? And she said, because I've never been in this building and I don't know what to expect behind the doors. And, of course, all of us were just, just, oh, go to the State House today. Don't you don't think about it, but there are people, like my staff, who were afraid to come up here and to meet legislators and whatever the mystique is that people have about the state house. So, while she was fairly dramatic about it, I started asking all the other employees I would bring up, and they pretty much said the same thing, not quite as dramatically as the first young lady, but they pretty much said the same thing. And then when in campaign for Vermont, when I became involved and we started talking about ethics 2017, thereabouts, I thought this is for Vermonters. Who is going to come up to the legislature? And I think I picked up Vince and Lucy, at the time. Who's gonna who's gonna complain about senator Lucy, or in in the judiciary, a judge, or even in state government. I mean, they don't know what to expect. And developing a confidential place for them to go out of the way, with people that know and are experts in ethics, and they can find out whether they've got a case or not, whether what they're saying is is, an ethical violation. I think they need that, and they need that confidentiality until at whatever point in the process it it becomes public, and they would know that they've got people behind them that are supporting them, that they're not making things up. But and on the other side, we were talking about municipalities. I am sure most people around this table have served locally. I served in the Berlin Select Board for many years. We all know who the Select Board members are, and they all know us. And I don't know about your town, but one secret, and it's all over in, oh, maybe a day and a half. So if you have to go to the town manager, I'd be a little nervous myself, and this way I get to go to a confidential place where I can be protected to up to a certain degree, because it's a very hard thing to do. And you also need to know that you're not just kind of making things up and just using ethics as a reason that perhaps isn't as valid as it should be. So I think it's very important to sponsor and to support the ethics commission. We've had an F. There are three states that had an F for years, and I don't think it's changed much because we don't have enforcement capacity. And that was a discussion that was going to happen about about two years ago, I thought, woah, that's gonna be quite the discussion. But it has to happen if if we really want to support ethics. And I think Vermonters deserve it, because this way, I think it would help them trust government more. I don't know that it's, I think it needs to be bolstered up a little bit. And I think if, they knew about the ethics committee and, knew how the process worked, I understand the municipalities are keeping everybody busy, which I can see why, because you don't want to go to the go to the present to the committee council. I wouldn't do that myself. And it's it just has to happen. So I thank you very much for your time. And if I can answer any questions, I'd be delighted to.

[Speaker 0]: Thank you, representative. Any questions? Okay. My request would just be from the previous block of testimony from Paul, just to get us a copy of the budget request that he said.

[Pat McDonald]: Thank you, Mr. Chea. Okay.

[Speaker 0]: So shifting gears, we are behind schedule, but that was an important block of time. So, we have our guests on? Awesome, thank you.

[Paul Earlbound]: Hello, everyone. Can you hear

[Speaker 0]: me all right? Sorry about that delay.

[Bridget Higdon]: Yes, I can hear.

[Speaker 0]: Excellent. So, yes.

[Lucy Boyden]: Okay. Doesn't. Here. It's

[Speaker 0]: It's like we just have our last guest exiting the room. All right. So, no, thanks for coming in today. We've been taking testimony, in and around Public Records Act, just having heard from some various entities around government, municipal, about what they've been experiencing with requests from the public, various stakeholders, businesses, a whole range of things. And, folks from the Press Association and Journalism Coalition yourselves had reached out and wanted to, offer some insight for the committee as we, you know, talking about this. So thank you so much for your time. And again, thank you for your patience on that last slug of testimony going a little long. Thank you

[Rebecca (Committee Member, unidentified)]: for agreeing this.

[Speaker 0]: Yeah. So, I was just gonna go down, the list here. Just, I've got the two of you. If there is a change in preference, I'd say Lisa Lewis could go first, unless you wanna do otherwise.

[Lisa Lewis]: Thank you very much for your time. And let me just ask a clarifying question. I submitted written testimony a couple weeks ago. And do you want me to go over that testimony now or do you want me to just answer your questions?

[Speaker 0]: No. I think going over that would be very helpful.

[Lisa Lewis]: Okay, I'm happy to do that. Yes. I'm Lisa Lewis and I'm the co owner and editor of the Valley Reporter, which serves the Mad River Valley, Sugarbush and Mad River Glen. And I have been successfully navigating public records requests with the six towns and seven schools in one school district in my community for forty years. I'm the president of the Vermont Press Association and a board member of the Vermont Journalism Coalition. And our concern with the proposal from the Vermont Press Association is threefold. The change in the number of days to respond from three to 14 to the changing what constitutes a denial and the appeals process. And in a nutshell, what we feel is that the what the VLCT is proposing is a solution looking for a problem. The VLCT asserts that quote, the number of Public Records Act requests received by municipalities seems to be increasing exponentially as are the types and volumes of records that municipal officials are obligated to maintain. And we would ask you, can you get some valid data to support these claims? Does VLCT have quantitative feedback to share with the legislature that indicates that public records requests, quote, seem, unquote, to be increasing, quote, exponentially, unquote. I guess we would like to know which towns and how many of them are reporting this to be a problem. Quantitative data would be very helpful here. It's also important to note that in 2026, over 90%, if not more, of public records are digital. And to share those with someone who makes a legitimate request involves accessing a municipal database, attaching files to an email and hitting send. The person doing that work is likely already sitting at a computer and already being paid to do that work. It's also important to point out that when you, our elected legislators, slow, delay or make it harder for the public to access the work of their local governments, you are concurrently making it harder for the press to have that access to inform the public. The press does represent the public. Please don't throw the baby out with the bathwater here. Several years ago, the Press Association acceded to a proposed change in the number of days to respond to public records requests, increasing from two to three days. Timely and responsive government is a hallmark of a functioning democracy. Shifting the response time to fourteen days is absurd and flies in the face of good, open, responsive government. The fourteen day limit also makes the records unusable when a government board or official is considering taking action and the records are being withheld by the town. If, for example, a journalist received information about a town development review board hearing an application to construct an asbestos factory in the town, and a reporter wants to get a story published in advance of that DRB hearing so the public can be aware of and participate in the public hearing, that fourteen day response period effectively means shutting out the reporter and the public. These proposed changes are painted with a brush that is far too broad. What logic dictates the proposed change from three to fourteen days? We would like to see that number returned to two days rather than extended to two weeks. We would also ask what is difficult about failure to respond being deemed a denial. Failure to respond is failure to respond. Can public officials not simply respond with an email stating that the request was received and is being acted on? It has worked. It works. Why change it now without a lot of real and valid data points to suggest changes needed? And that leads to clarifying appeals. If in denying an appeal, a town clerk is responding by email, can that public service not include a sentence that says, you may appeal this decision to the select board by emailing townadminwatesfieldvt dot org, to use one of my own towns as an example. Vermont law already clearly mandates the appeal must be outlined in a denial letter, and everybody in all town offices knows the appeal either goes to the town manager, town select board, district superintendent, or intramunicipal board body chair. And we would ask, what is Vermont League of Cities and Towns suggesting is the, quote, true cost of producing records and redaction, end quote. We are no longer talking about photocopying documents. We're no longer talking about copying documents using machines that had counters and governors on how many pages were copied. The majority of what we're talking about is emailing files. What is the cost of an email on a publicly owned machine sent by a public servant? We acknowledge redaction is different as our documents that need legal review, yet VLCT is proposing that all documents be subject to this overly broad statutory change that will negatively impact journalists, as well as the public seeking legitimate access to public documents? Doesn't adding a requirement that deposits for this work be paid in advance for public records just create another layer of work for town clerks and treasurers? We do understand that some towns may have that one person who submits multiple and repeated requests, and that vexatious is a fun word to use, but we caution that that word needs to be carefully defined, and any such policy carefully crafted to avoid penalizing members of the public legitimately seeking public records and documents that a board or body may be reluctant to have made public. In closing, these changes are overly broad, not well thought out, and are a solution in search of a problem. This committee has previously and judiciously rejected these and similar proposals in the past. We urge you to carefully parse the proposed language and not on the side of the convenience of paid public servants, but of the public. Thank you for your time. And I would just like to note that my colleague, Mays, who's the executive director of the Vermont Association of Broadcasters, is also available and in the room with you in addition to Bridget on Zoom.

[Will Stevens]: Thank you.

[Speaker 0]: Any questions for Lisa from Liguini? No, thank you, Lisa. And yeah, if you want to hang out with us for the rest of this, just

[Paul Earlbound]: in case something pops up.

[Kate Nugent]: I will.

[Paul Earlbound]: Thank you so much.

[Speaker 0]: Bridget, how are doing?

[Bridget Higdon]: I'm doing well. Thank you for having me. All right, great. I will be reiterating some of the same points made by Lisa here, hopefully that really drives home the cause of journalists on this issue. My name is Bridget Higdon. I'm here today as the vice president of the Vermont Journalism Coalition, which is a new nonprofit dedicated to supporting and sustaining Vermont journalism. Founded in June 2025, the VJC represents more than 40 professional newspapers, television stations, and radio stations across the state. Its mission is to represent the shared interests of news organizations and to advocate for the principles of journalism. I am also the publisher and editor of the St. Albans Messenger, the Essex reporter, the Milton Independent and the Colchester Sun. The VJC opposes the proposed changes to the Public Records Act as put forward by the Vermont League of Cities and Towns. We believe the current Public Records Act has served Vermonters and the media well by allowing relatively prompt access to public records. But the legislative proposal from VLCT would effectively create financial barriers to accessing public records and undermine the essential watchdog function of journalism in Vermont. Extending the response time from three to fourteen business days hampers timely reporting. Stories delayed by fourteen days can lose relevance and public interest. And we all know how rumors and misinformation can spread in online forums and on social media. Timely access to public records ensures Vermont journalists set the record straight as quickly as possible. VLCT also asserts these vexation requests place an undue burden on municipal staff. And while we sympathize with this problem, please do not let a certain few ruin this essential public service for all Vermonters. We believe any attempt to rewrite legislation as a result of those requests should require data collection in support, which is the same as Lisa just said. Gathering data from government entities, both large and small about the number of records requests and the time required to respond to them would seem an appropriate way to begin to evaluate this issue. The cost of responding to records requests might also be evaluated by quantifying the current costs in terms of the number type and required time to respond. Please keep in mind that any added fees for public records requests would create financial burdens for Vermont's small news organizations and for individual citizens. Vermont's small town and county newspapers are proud of the effective working relationships we have with municipal staff across the state. Those relationships have been hard earned over years of building trust and mutual respect. The Vermont Journalism Coalition looks forward to working with this committee and the legislature as a whole to ensure those important relationships continue and that Vermonters and the media acting for and with them continue to have access to public records in a timely and cost effective way, so that we can all be accurately informed about our communities. Thank you very much. Appreciate your time here.

[Speaker 0]: No, thank you. Yeah. Yeah, trying whatever we wind up doing with this, having your insight in the process is going be a vital component. So I want to say that like first and foremost. Any questions for our two guests on Zoom? Because I think I would like to afford some time if when do you want

[Lucy Boyden]: Or no? Oh, well,

[Speaker 0]: submitted They threw it out though.

[Rebecca (Committee Member, unidentified)]: I mean, I submitted, public comments. So, if I did come to the chair, it would just be to highlight the things that I had said in there. So, I don't know.

[Paul Earlbound]: Okay. So, what we'll do

[Speaker 0]: is we'll just post a comment to today's page then.

[Paul Earlbound]: How does it sound? That sounds great. All right. Cool. Just wanted to put you

[Speaker 0]: on the spot for a second. Throwing the microphone, so to speak. Any questions for our guests on Zoom at the moment? I

[Chea Waters Evans]: do not have questions for the guests. Although, thank you very much for your testimony. I do have a comment, but if you want to do other stuff, first. It's so I just looked it up and the peer research center said that Americans trust in the federal government right now is the lowest it's been in almost seventy years. It's at 17%. And I really am struggling to figure out why we are. I'm struggling to figure out why, instead of finding ways to help Americans and specifically Vermonters, in this case, get access to public records and help people, as we were talking earlier about ethics, make sure there's an avenue for their ethical complaints. I I feel like it's it's going in such the wrong direction to say this is a problem. So we're going to restrict access to those records instead of saying, how can we help the process be easier, less expensive, more accessible for people? We should since public trust in government is so low right now, we should be doing, in my opinion, everything we can to make sure that we are bolstering that trust for for people at Vermont. And I just I I am we've been talking about it for a little while and, you know, over the past couple of weeks. And I just really feel like I'm so uncomfortable with the the direction that public records act changes are taking, and I just wanted to let everybody know that.

[Will Stevens]: I

[Rebecca (Committee Member, unidentified)]: think in answer to that, we're just looking at suggestions to solve some problems that came to light over the summer and fall about those vexatious requests. Not average requests, but the vexatious ones. So I think we're not really going in a direction yet. We're just fact finding. And it's really helpful to get the different voices from around the community. And we've heard from a lot of different organizations, journalists, state agencies, you name it. So then our job is going to be to figure out what the balance is. So it's good that we're getting all this information. We haven't gone anywhere with it yet.

[Kate Nugent]: Rebecca? That was basically what I was gonna get up to. Any

[Speaker 0]: further comment from the committee? No. Thank you to our guests. And before we take up our next block of testimony, the county regional and government study committee bill that we did a walkthrough on last week, that's for 03:00, but I think I want to take twelve minutes of back at 03:05 to pick that one up. We push two heavy items back to back. So thank you so much for your time. We'll definitely be in further discussion with you folks, and take us off till 03:05, please.