Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Alright. We are live. Okay. Welcome back. A little after ten. Slightly longer recess than we, anticipated, but hey. We're here. We are joined by council now, to do some review on these concepts. And, let's see, on the committee page, council, where would you

[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: like to start, Sarah? Good morning. Tucker Anderson, Legislative Council. I can start wherever the committee would like to start. From what I understand, I am here in my physical person to, get instruction on the committee's omnibus emergency management bill and then later omnibus alcoholic beverages bill. So starting with the emergency management pieces, if there's specific instruction that the committee has, probably a good place to start. Otherwise, I can show you, some drafted language of the technical rescue micro grant program that you just heard about from the fire chiefs. And then I can show you recommendations from the public safety communications task force and 2023 Act 78, which was the budget. So it's not always helpful just to reference that number because there are like a thousand sections, but specifically sections C. 114 and C. 115, which established the Public Safety Communication Task Force, charged them with making the recommendations that we'll cover, and then appropriated funds that are held in reserve for the task force until further authorization is made by the general assembly. To make sure to highlight that upfront because if the committee does move forward with some of these recommendations, you will need to specifically authorize the use of those reserve funds. Okay. Let's start with that one.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Yes, let's start with that. And I wanted to go. Well, start with that. I wanted to just check-in with community assistance, not something with

[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: a. Alright, so I will share with you all. This is the Act 78 Public Safety Communications Plan Task Force recommendations that were submitted to the General Assembly on January 14. I don't represent the task force. I did not follow the task force. I did receive these recommendations and I have processed them to the best of my ability before being here this morning. And what I can cover for you is the specific asks that have been made and big picture what the task force is asking for is the creation of a board. It will exist indefinitely to oversee a statewide system of public safety communications. From this point forward, I'll just refer to that as dispatch because that's likely the term that you're familiar with. The task force has made some comprehensive recommendations both for rulemaking authority around creating a uniform system of dispatch throughout the state, having regional cross coverage in case of emergency staffing issues, standardization of job classifications for those who work within the dispatch centers, and a whole host of other technical details around security personnel systems. They've also made, some recommendations about requirements for this potentially existing board to create guidance documents, templates, and forms to ensure uniformity dispatch throughout the state. And finally, they've made some recommendations around the adoption of uniform systems for purposes of dispatch. So that would include some automated computer systems, some, interoperability with geographic information systems, which the committee is definitely familiar with based on the state plan coordinate system bill from last biennium. And finally, for continued use of funds that were appropriated in Act 78 and its predecessor in 2022 to establish the task force, allow for certain pilot programs to take place, and research into developing this statewide communications platform. Before jumping in, the one thing that I would note, and I don't know if this is the biggest charge that you would have as a committee in structuring this, is that the task force did not submit any recommendations about the composition of this governmental body. So that means how many members? Who is the chair? Is there any representational overlap with state agencies? Finally, who has the appointing authority? So you're familiar with all of these in specific contexts when you see commission, board, committee, task force legislation, you have an enumerated list of who the members are. Basically, you're starting from scratch there. One thing that I will note is that there are members of this task force now. So Act 78 did require the appointment of, for example, the Commissioner of Public Safety, the chair of the Enhanced nine eleven Board as co chairs, and then five other members representing local and statewide public safety organizations and municipal government.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Doctor. Franco.

[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: I just want to build on that and just say that I have reached out to the task force that made these recommendations to specifically ask those questions.

[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: Wonderful. So within the recommendations, the task force didn't break this out based on the type of authority or duties that this future board would have. They broke it up conceptually. So I'll follow what they've done and I'll note for you where this might fall into, for example, delegation of rulemaking authority versus recommendations and policy that the board would be making or potentially expenditure of funds authority that would be granted to this board. The other thing that I would just quickly note is that there's no recommendation for where this board would be housed. I assume based on the work that the board would be doing, that it would be within the Department of Public Safety. So the request is to establish a governance board that operates as an independent entity. Again, not housed anywhere. However, you've heard many times this biennium that there is no such thing as an independent entity. It has to be housed within a branch. You could create it as a commission that is not within a department, but, there are some risks associated with that, such as having to designate specific resources administratively and legally to support one of those independent commissions or boards. Or that has decision making authority and the authority to approve minimum technical and operational standards and promote service improvement and organic consolidation based on common performance benchmarks within the sphere of public safety communications. Alright, in the part of the chart labeled reliability, the board would be tasked with establishing minimum set of policies, procedures, protocols to be followed by all dispatch centers serving Vermont. That sounds like rulemaking authority. Sounds like rulemaking authority because it has the external force of law that would apply to other bodies throughout the state. Standardized QA process. I, reading this through a couple times, assume that stands for quality assurance.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Yeah. I was about to ask, like, what the application was.

[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: I am discussing this with some of my colleagues. I assumed that it was quality assurance simply because these are very advanced fall centers where members of the public are seeking emergency services. Alright, a list of approved initial and ongoing training programs followed by a statewide certification program. Again, this sounds like rules and when I read this, I assumed it would be something parallel to what the Vermont Criminal Justice Center does for law enforcement officer certification. Similar process there. Or what the state librarian and the Department of Libraries does for its, library and certification programs. Different ends of the spectrum maybe. Alright. Templates to standardize job classifications, job descriptions and promote dispatcher professional reclassification doesn't necessarily need to be a rule. Definitely could be if the intent is for the board to have the force of law behind these uniform job descriptions. Dispatcher training and leadership workshops, support for hybrid staffing across centers for resource backfill and staffing emergencies. Also sounds like it might be rule based unless this is going to be voluntary guidelines for cross coverage between dispatching centers. It's going to have the force of law, it's likely going be in a rule. And solutions and best practices to facilitate statewide public safety communication system technical and operation fail cover. Best practices, those are guidance documents. Do not need to be part of a rule. See a lot of this particularly with the secretary of state. A lot of best practice directives from the general assembly. Alright, interoperability. This is veering away a little bit from rules and into some other areas, including expenditure. Securing a new computer aided dispatch system, which has the capability of interfacing with location data mapping, state record management systems, and then paging and alerting. Unless it's the incorrect term from this point forward in the existence of this proposal, I'll just refer to that as broadcast alerts, the ability to send SMS and other forms of alerts to the public. Expanded use of RapidSOS and state GIS resources and updating the land mobile radio infrastructure while taking into account existing systems and expansion plans. Those are all duties that may involve the acquisition of other resources to be deployed throughout the state. Okay, under sustainability, the board and its operations would be covered by remaining act 78 funding for a three year period at which time the proposed dispatch fee assessments will continue to provide funding. Gonna pause there and try to share something different, which is X78. Representative Hango.

[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: Sorry, could you repeat the last part of your sentence? The Act 78 funding would continue over a three year period and then?

[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: And then dispatch fees would Okay. Occur for continued operation. If that's the model that the committee considers moving forward, the discussion that might need to be had is whether those fees are going into a fund that specifically supports this board or whether all of the funding comes from the Department of Public Safety's appropriations on an annual basis and the fees are going into the general fund and DPS just continues to cover the existence of this board regardless of whether the fees cover the operating expenses. Is

[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: that a decision that this committee will have to make for this bill since this bill would really cover a three year period? Should we state the intent? That's still really soon. Okay. So I just want to know that's a big conversation that

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: was in the context

[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: of this bill.

[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: Yes, so I just want to know very quickly right now that what I know of the system is it's very patchwork. There are some municipalities and other regional entities that do not pay anything for dispatch at this point in time. And there are others that pay a lot. So it's very equal across the state. And there are entities that we can bring in that are asking for more equity in terms of payment. So, you've got it pulled up. What's that, Bob?

[Rep. Robert "Bob" Hooper (Member)]: It's just a scoop in your existing

[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: state cop system. What does that mean?

[Rep. Robert "Bob" Hooper (Member)]: State police dispatching Yes, so

[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: because some are getting dispatched out of VSP. Some are getting dispatched out of regional dispatch centers. It is an extreme patchwork.

[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: Sure.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Works offices.

[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: Back when we were in Room 10 a few years ago, we heard a really great presentation on how fragmented it is. And that's why a lot of times there are issues, maybe not a lot of times, but there are issues of falls falling through the cracks.

[Rep. Robert "Bob" Hooper (Member)]: The genesis of the question is that historically there's been some resistance on the part of the state. We

[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: would certainly bring them in to talk about it.

[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: So in Act 78, following the creation of the task force in section c one one four, the General Assembly amended 2022 acts and resolves number one eighty five secondtion b 1,100 to alter some of the appropriations that were made under that budget for the Department of Public Safety and to add some additional funds specifically for purposes of the task force. So in 2022, 11,000,000 was appropriated from the general fund to DPS for regional dispatch funding. Up to 1,000,000 under the 2023 act 78 was made available for the retention of technical experts to assist the task force. And the task force was given the discretion in 2023 to submit a request to the joint fiscal committee for additional funding and JFC was authorized to approve up to an additional $1,000,000 for the purposes requested by the task force. Further on in the subsection, up to 4,500,000.0 was available to provide funding for pilot projects related to this. And finally, there was a statement of intent subdivision four of this subsection that the Department of Public Safety seek to draw and deploy $9,000,000 in congressionally directed spending to support Vermont's transition to a modernized regional communications network. Alright. So why did I share that? I shared that because all of those funds were dedicated to the task force And in order for them to be available for the board moving forward, the general assembly would need to authorize the continued use of any funds that were held in reserve by the joint fiscal committee for purposes of the task force to carry over for the use of the board for the three year period. I'm noting that because JFO may have some analysis on funds availability and how to craft that language to achieve the intended ends. Gotcha. Tell you're all with me, rap detention.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: This is a big multi year project, Rap Hinsonault.

[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: Try to catch on here. So, the goal of this is to have one dispatch? Is that what they're asking? So,

[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: I think right now we're not talking about the goals of the task force. All they're asking for is to be authorized to continue their work to try to build something that works in the state of Vermont without being so fragmented and without it being so inequitable across the state. So they first need our permission, legislature's permission, to continue to use money that was already appropriated to them in 2024. But because it's sort of expired now, we need to figure out how to let them continue to do their work without any additional cost.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: There is money that exists from appropriations in years past and that was spoken to earlier in testimony a few weeks ago. So basically what we're doing right now is trying to swear the peg on how to reconfigure this, to reconfigure an entity to allow the work to continue. And I'm

[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: digesting this correctly. There is that existing pool of money that's already been appropriated that can prop up this work for roughly three years time. And then, but then it's like that it's talking about that dispatch fee service theory as a concept to continue the funding stream. Because if there is a, even if it's a regional, It doesn't have to be one dispatch service. Whatever they envision to be the best scenario, they need to have it funded.

[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: That's what's happening. And right now, as I mentioned, there are municipalities that are paying nothing for dispatch. And there are others that are paying a lot. So I just want to say that and sorry that not everybody's here to hear this. But we received this report, and I read it. And I realized that this could be one of those reports that just sits on the shelf that nobody pays any attention to. And I was here for the commissioning of the report, and we were really anxious to hear what they had to say because we really couldn't go any farther without experts weighing in on what might be best for hunters. And so we got the report. We heard the report delivered to us in early January. And then it just sat in my inbox. And I just felt like we really needed to bring this forward and talk more about it, or the report was going to go away. And so here we are.

[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: And

[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: we're hoping to hear from them some more. Thank you.

[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: So to wrap this up for the committee, the task force goes on to recommend the adoption of a fee formula. Some of the details that represented not going as discussed. What's that?

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: The effort did not go unnoticed.

[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: Stability and order at all costs. Greet canceled. They also recommend that the board be empowered to establish a statewide cybersecurity governance risk and compliance framework for dispatch and to perform periodic reassessments and direction. Finally, under the category of accessibility, there's a recommendation for all dispatch centers to provide services subject to specific policies and technology benchmarks defined by the board. Again, is an area where because it has the force of law, this would likely have to be a rulemaking authority and to collect dispatch fees, support technology and shared resources for all dispatch centers. One of the things that I would notice note, excuse me, about the recommendations around fees is that it's not entirely clear whether these are intended to be fees that are collected between the dispatchers themselves or whether this is a state fee that is going to be collected by the board or the Department of Public Safety. Important to note because those fees would have to be set in statute or with parameters set for the rulemaking process that the task force is asking for here. At the end of the report, the task force has a series of requests and I would quickly summarize this as requests for transition between entities and authority. I encourage the committee to take a look at them. The transition between the task force and the board is not something that is necessary unless there is a time gap between the creation of the board and the seating of its membership. In which case you would want to fill that time gap potentially and allow the task force to continue its duties with funding. One of the things that I previously noted is that if the board is comprised of the same membership as the task force and what you are doing in effect is transitioning this task force into indefinite status as a state board, many of these transitional provisions may not be necessary outside of staggered terms for the non ex officio members. Anything for counsel? No, that's

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: just like that was a great tee up to the scope of this work that we're getting into with this. So we I mean, the legislature has for this process to be deliverable for this committee to be charged with the duty executing upon said reports and recommendations. Hey, here we are. It's dense, it's big and it's vital. I

[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: just want to thank council for distilling that in such a short time frame. So much appreciated.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Yeah. No. No. There was a lot of memory lane in that presentation as well.

[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: I was like, oh, yeah. That. Yeah. That. So thank you

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: very much, counsel. So I'm gonna call a time out till we get to our next order of business to give us a break because that was very, very dense work. And, yes, take us off until

[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: yeah. We'll call it Mhmm. Ten four