Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Chair Matthew Birong]: Alright. We are all back. Alright. Good morning, everyone. Welcome back to house government operations and military affairs. It is Wednesday, February 11, just after 9AM. Our first order of business today is with Human Rights Commission. We're joined by Big Hartman, executive director and general counsel for the Vermont Human Rights Commission. And today's Disability Advocacy Day.

[Big Hartman, Executive Director & General Counsel, Vermont Human Rights Commission]: We haven't seen And Have we seen any of this here? I've never been in this committee.

[Chair Matthew Birong]: You've been in this committee when we were down in Room 10. I feel like we've

[Big Hartman, Executive Director & General Counsel, Vermont Human Rights Commission]: seen We each pass each other all the time, but we have testified here before. Really? Yeah. Must have been four. Have been four? Perhaps.

[Chair Matthew Birong]: In, like, one of my previous committee incarnations?

[Big Hartman, Executive Director & General Counsel, Vermont Human Rights Commission]: Oh, yeah.

[Chair Matthew Birong]: Alright. Well, anyway, welcome. There we are. You found us. So, yeah, table is yours.

[Big Hartman, Executive Director & General Counsel, Vermont Human Rights Commission]: Okay. Well, hello, everyone. It's very nice to meet you all today. My name is Big Hartman. I use theythem pronouns. I'm the executive director and general counsel at the State of Vermont Human Rights Commission. I was very honored to be invited by the Vermont Coalition for Disability Rights to speak with you today on Disability Advocacy Day. So I'm going to go ahead and share my screen as we'll go through some slides. Beautiful. Technology is cooperating. That's a good sign. Yeah, so just by way of introduction, I have been an attorney here in Vermont for twenty plus years now. And I joined the Human Rights Commission as a staff attorney investigator in 2021, and I became executive director in 2023. So today, I thought I would give you an overview of what disability discrimination laws we have in the state, what our office does to enforce those laws, some stats on our recent disability related cases, and some recommendations from the twenty twenty five Civil Rights Summit that the Human Rights Commission put on in November. So the Human Rights Commission is an independent commission of state government. We have nine state employees. Our mission is to advance full civil and human rights for Vermonters. We are seeking to protect people primarily from discrimination. We investigate complaints. We help trying to resolve complaints. We file lawsuits. And we do what we can with our limited resources to educate the public for prevention of discrimination. We have three main buckets of jurisdiction when we're talking about anti discrimination laws in Vermont. So we have our fair housing protections that prohibit discrimination based on legally protected categories in housing, places of public accommodation, and employment. So the Human Rights Commission doesn't have we have limited jurisdiction when it comes to employment discrimination.

[Sophie Zidatney, Office of Legislative Counsel]: As you

[Big Hartman, Executive Director & General Counsel, Vermont Human Rights Commission]: probably know, the attorney general's office civil rights unit processes complaints of private employers in any non state of Vermont entity. But for state of Vermont employees who feel they've been discriminated against, they file their complaints with us. Other than that, we are the sole enforcement authority for fair housing and public accommodations. Just a quick overview of the HRC complaint process. And I'd love to come back to the committee another time and give you a broader conversation about what other work we do and our non disability related cases. I did mean to bring hard copies of my annual report and our summit report with me today, but those are in the back of my car, buried in the snow, far away. So I'll potentially drop them off later today. HRC receives complaints on a daily basis, or rather requests for complaints. We have a pretty extensive intake process, because we do not have the resources to accept all the complaints that Vermantras would like to file with us. So we do vet complaints before we accept them. And that's with our full time intake coordinator, a new position that was actually created just this fiscal year. Then we have staff attorney investigators. This year, we have four full time investigators who are conducting all of the discrimination complaint investigations throughout the state. They conduct pretty extensive investigations, interviewing witnesses under oath, document reviews, and then they write an investigative report that summarizes why they believe that there are grounds or no reasonable grounds to believe that discrimination occurred. Those reports are reviewed by five commissioners who are appointed by the governor and meet once a month. Our chair is Kevin Coach Christie. And they will make the final determination about whether or not there's reasonable grounds to believe that discrimination occurred. If they find that there's no discrimination in a case, that's the end of the matter, and, our work on that matter is is concluded. The entire existence of the complaint is confidential by law. However, if we find reasonable grounds to believe that discrimination occurred, that determination is a matter of public record. And we are still involved with the case. We have a six month period in which we're trying to work as a party to the case at that point to try to resolve the matter. And if we're not able to do that, we do have the authority to enforce violations of our anti discrimination protections in court by filing lawsuits, where the Human Rights Commission is the plaintiff. And up to that point in time, I just want to highlight that we are impartial investigators. We are not representing complainants or respondents in these cases. We are really a neutral fact finder. As we speak today, the Human Rights Commission has 14 cases that are actively being litigated. So I'll turn over to disability rights. We're gonna cover housing first. Basically, people with disabilities have rights to apply for housing and be offered housing on the same basis as tenants who do not have disabilities. They have the right to be free of harassment based on their disability, discriminatory statements, and any other discriminatory treatment in housing because of their disabilities. And many of our cases involving folks with disabilities involve requests for reasonable accommodations. They also have a right to modifications in housing. We typically will defer to HUD guidance in how to interpret our statute because our state law is comparable to federal fair housing law. However, I will say, as of lately, HUD has started to pull back a lot of its previous guidance. They are withholding funding as we speak today for a cooperating agreement that we have with them to do fair housing work in the state. And in general, we are feeling that fair housing is being effectively dismantled on the federal level, leaving the burden on Us state agencies across the country to fill that void. Just a little bit of a definition here. Because so many of our housing cases involve reasonable accommodations, I thought I'd share with you that that is defined as any change to a rule practice or service that is needed to give a person with a disability an equal opportunity to use or enjoy a dwelling. This is where we're talking about changes to how a housing provider does things, typically. Some examples of common reasonable accommodation requests in housing might be a request to have an assigned accessible parking spot, a request to be able to have a service dog in a building that has a no dogs policy, maybe a waiver of a pet fee for an emotional support animal, or for folks with different communication barriers, they may ask that the landlord communicate with them in writing instead of verbal. Just a few examples to illustrate what that looks like. We also less often find cases involving reasonable modifications. This is where there's a need for some kind of structural or physical change to a physical space in order to ensure that someone with a disability can use and access their dwelling. This can be things like grab bars in the shower, a fence in the yard for a service dog, maybe a wheelchair ramp, or for a person with hearing loss, they may need a light strobe for their fire alarm. Just a few illustrations of that. Of course, housing providers don't have to grant all reasonable accommodation or modification requests. The law does provide some defenses or legal basis to deny those requests. First, if there's no connection between the disability and the requested accommodation, you don't need to grant it. If granting the request would impose an undue burden on the housing provider, they don't need to grant it. Or if granting the request would fundamentally change their services or their business. But we do expect housing providers who are going to who are even contemplating denying a request, that they're going to engage in an interactive process with the person who's making a request to see if there's some other way that they can meet that person's disability related need without having such a burden on their operations. We do see housing providers sometimes get that step, just given outright denial. And often we're needing to educate housing providers about this obligation. So I'm flying through this. Let me know if you have any questions along the way. Just wanted to give you a primer of our anti discrimination protections. Moving on from housing, we have protections in places of public accommodation. This is gonna include so a place of public accommodation is extremely broad under state law, and we do not have a federal law counterpart to this. This is purely state law antidiscrimination work. And a place of public accommodation is basically any place that serves the public. We're talking about schools, businesses, hotels, restaurants, any kind of government office. All of this is going to be considered a place of public accommodation, and people have a right to be free of discrimination in those places. Here's a list of your legally protected categories in public accommodations. But disability is by far the most represented type of claim that we see. I will note, I just noticed this is a slide that I used from last year. Since this law was passed, we now have two new legally protected categories. Does anybody know what they are? You passed it last year. Immigration status and citizenship are legally protected categories now in Vermont, helping make our state one of the most expansive anti discrimination laws in the country. In general You

[Chair Matthew Birong]: guys answered my first question. Like, how do we match up nationally? So thank you.

[Big Hartman, Executive Director & General Counsel, Vermont Human Rights Commission]: Yeah. We we're doing pretty well. There are some jurisdictions that have a few more additional legally protected categories. And there are certainly states that do a better job of education and enforcement. And it's really about resources for our office to be able to do that. But in general, in any place of public accommodation, no one can be denied or refused the services of a place of public accommodation because of their membership in a protected category. So when we talk about disability discrimination in places of public accommodation, like I said, we're often talking about some type of denial of an equal opportunity to use or access that place. The law provides So this is like our state version of the ADA when we're talking about the disability rights. And in general, the ADA and our state law requires that accommodations and services should be offered in the most integrated setting appropriate for the needs of the individual. And that the public accommodation needs to take some steps to ensure that folks have access to their programs and services. So these laws were not on the books until 1991. And they only became laws because the disability community fought extremely hard over decades of advocacy and organizing and political pressure to ensure that first a federal law was passed, and then we could have some state level protections following from that across the country. So they use the concept of reasonable modifications in the context of places of public accommodation. It's very similar to what we were talking about with reasonable accommodations earlier in housing, which is basically sometimes we're going to acknowledge that folks with disabilities may need changes in how things are done in order to ensure that they have the same access to the place of public accommodation as everyone else. We have those same three exceptions that we saw in housing that we have in places of public accommodation. And there's also a set of accessibility rules, accessibility statute requirements that ensure that public buildings as well as dwellings are meeting the standards of accessibility. This is where we have things like requirements about accessible parking, ramps, features such as water fountains and signage being accessible for folks that use wheelchairs or have other mobility challenges. And then there's also a requirement that if your public accommodation space has architectural or communication barriers, that you will remove those if it's readily achievable to do so. And of course, attorneys will dispute all day whether or not something is readily achievable. These days, we don't see that many accessibility complaints. Most of them tend to be in the issue of either being treated differently because of a disability or being denied access. But not because of an accessibility issue. I have a slide about service animals, because there is actually a growing body of cases we are processing right now, and have been processing over the last few years, where folks with service animals are being turned away from retail restaurant establishments and hotels unlawfully. So people have a right to have service animals in public places. That is typically going to be a dog, although miniature horses are qualifying as service animals. If you ever see a miniature horse service animal, you need to take a picture and send it to me because I really want to see this. They live longer, they're larger, they're house trainable. I don't know. It's really interesting to me. I wanna see the horse. Okay. So there's still a lot of education work to do for businesses, especially to understand that they have an obligation to ensure that folks who rely on service dogs have the ability to use and access their place of public accommodation. And there is a limited number of questions that are permissible under both federal and state law. And a lot of employees of places of public accommodation get no education and training on this until all of a sudden someone comes into their premises with a service dog and is often the person who needs to do the education and advocacy on the spot. I've worked with a lot of folks who rely on service dogs to be able to access civil life. And my experience with those folks is that when they experience a denial or refusal to be permitted access to a place, it has a very lasting, potentially traumatic effect on them. And when it happens again and again, and people question whether they need a service dog or whether they are disabled, can really weigh heavily on folks and actually present a bar from them even feeling like they can go out in public.

[Chair Matthew Birong]: So this actually answers, I think, a long standing question for me. So I'm a thirty year hospitality industry veteran. And so I've been in those dining room environments before. So if I heard you correctly, you said that only dogs and miniature horses qualify?

[Big Hartman, Executive Director & General Counsel, Vermont Human Rights Commission]: As service dogs. As service animals, yes.

[Chair Matthew Birong]: What about the emotional support definition for that application?

[Big Hartman, Executive Director & General Counsel, Vermont Human Rights Commission]: Great question. We are talking about this all the time in our office. We get questions from the public about that all the time as well. So the way I look at it is assistance animals is a broad category of animals that folks with disabilities need to ameliorate or support them with their disability. And under the broad umbrella of assistance animals, one type of assistance animal is a service dog, and another type of assistance animal may be an emotional support animal, or some other assistance animal. In housing, folks have a right to assistance animals. Okay, so it's broader, right? Because we're talking about where you And your needs at home might be different than your needs when you're going out in the public. But when it comes to service dogs, so emotional support animals typically do not qualify as a service dog. However, there are folks who have psychiatric disabilities that the dog may be trained to assist them in those situations and also qualify as a service animal.

[Chair Matthew Birong]: Does that go beyond the dog and the miniature horse, though?

[Big Hartman, Executive Director & General Counsel, Vermont Human Rights Commission]: Not for public places. Now, a place of public accommodation, yes.

[Chair Matthew Birong]: That's my question.

[Big Hartman, Executive Director & General Counsel, Vermont Human Rights Commission]: No. Okay. The requirement the bare minimum legal requirement is to ensure that folks with service animals can access that place. Yes. Places of public accommodation can do more than the bare minimum and allow other types of animals for that provide emotional support if they choose. And we would see that as a more inclusive practice.

[Chair Matthew Birong]: No, no, no, for sure. But also being someone who has broad reach into the industry and the sector with the education is lacking, I feel like I'm a good resource for those points of contact. And I'm going back more than ten years, more than ten years now. And and this was a real situation. And I'm not saying it is like a laugh track, but we had somebody in the dining room who had an emotional support ferret. And I was really wrestling with that concept on how to handle it because it was a difficult sort of difficulty with the table next to them. Mhmm. With that, the presence would be air. Mhmm. It was like beached, very present on the person and very present on the table. So a situation like that, would that have been discretion of the proprietor as to whether or not allow?

[Big Hartman, Executive Director & General Counsel, Vermont Human Rights Commission]: Yes. And I think there could be accommodations you could make some modification to say, you

[Unidentified Committee Member]: know what, right in the

[Big Hartman, Executive Director & General Counsel, Vermont Human Rights Commission]: middle of the dining room, this might be a little hard on folks. Would you mind seeing if there's another location in this facility that might be easier on folks. I don't think you have a legal obligation to allow that animal, especially if it's disrupting the situation.

[Chair Matthew Birong]: I mean, it was a very unique scenario. Yeah. That definitely has not happened since. But it just is the one that stood out in my mind because I really just didn't understand what the sort of like what the parameters were for engagement, I guess, the best way to put it. So that actually clears a lot of work. Thank you. So I'm going to Hango, then Hooper approached it.

[Vice Chair Lisa Hango]: Thank you. So the questions you had up a few minutes ago about the two the two questions oh, they're right there. Yep. The two questions that are permitted. Are those only for service animals? So how would you know the difference between a service animal and an emotional support animal that's on your premises, and whether you're allowed to ask those questions? So you're allowed

[Big Hartman, Executive Director & General Counsel, Vermont Human Rights Commission]: to ask those questions no matter what. That's Okay. Those are the legally permissible questions. Where we see people run a field of that is saying, why are you disabled? Show me your certification for this animal. I need a doctor's note. Those types of things for places of public accommodation are going too far. When we're talking about folks who need permission to have an assistance animal in their housing, You can, if you need to verify the need for the animal, can ask for verification documentation.

[Vice Chair Lisa Hango]: But what work or task is the dog trained to perform is an acceptable question? Absolutely.

[Big Hartman, Executive Director & General Counsel, Vermont Human Rights Commission]: Yeah. And you also don't have to ask those questions

[Vice Chair Lisa Hango]: if it's The person has to answer them?

[Big Hartman, Executive Director & General Counsel, Vermont Human Rights Commission]: Yeah. And the folks that I've interacted with have those answers ready to go. And genuinely would not be able to go to a lot of public places if they didn't have the benefit of their animal.

[Vice Chair Lisa Hango]: I just wonder about an emotional support animal. Can everyone who has one really answer that second question? Are they able to? They

[Big Hartman, Executive Director & General Counsel, Vermont Human Rights Commission]: often are prepared because they know that those are legally permissible questions. For an emotional support animal, second question seems very specific to me. I will say not all emotional support animals are actually trained to provide emotional support. A lot of cats, for example, provide emotional support at people's homes. But it's very hard to train a cat to do things. I mean, depending on

[Chair Matthew Birong]: the

[Big Hartman, Executive Director & General Counsel, Vermont Human Rights Commission]: cat. So there is a distinction there that there may be What I've seen is folks who have service dogs who can sense when their blood pressure is rising or when they're about to have a panic attack and are trained to come and do comforting nudges or get pets so that they help them regulate.

[Chair Matthew Birong]: Rev Hooper.

[Rep. Robert Hooper]: So you mentioned certification. I'm under the impression that there really isn't a certification process for emotional support and possibly even service that's recognized.

[Big Hartman, Executive Director & General Counsel, Vermont Human Rights Commission]: That's correct. You can certainly get a lot of service animal training, And maybe at the end of that training, you will get a certificate. But you can also just go on the internet and buy a certificate pretty easily. And it's not necessarily a reliable means. And it's not required that someone have certification to be able to qualify as a service animal.

[Rep. Robert Hooper]: So you could be Amazon to buy an I'm a service dog.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Jacket? Yeah.

[Big Hartman, Executive Director & General Counsel, Vermont Human Rights Commission]: And so, the more meaningful question is really, is it trained? What is it trained to do? People love talking about assistance animals. Always happens.

[Chair Matthew Birong]: We're in Q and A. Yes, no, totally.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: I think this is one of the, and I feel bad for those who need the animals, because I think too many people have taken advantage of this service

[Big Hartman, Executive Director & General Counsel, Vermont Human Rights Commission]: animal dialogue and come up with any excuse they can to put a leash and a jacket on their dog. I mean, you see little tiny Pomeranians and I wanna, I mean, they're more an emotional support dog. They're certainly not gonna tell you that there's an opening or your cabinet door for you, or what some of the angles are doing. I think it's, and it does a disadvantage to those who really need it. And it's too bad that people have taken advantage of that label. It's very true. I think that because there's an association with people scamming this system, that all people who have legitimate service animals bear the stigma of that. And it really presents a lot of barriers for folks. I will say also, though, service animals don't always physically help with things. Sometimes folks, for example, will have a seizure disorder, and they need an animal to be able to alert them to go get help with someone else and things like that. So there's actually a broad range of services that these animals can provide for folks. And the many folks who have had complaints with our office, there has never been a question of the legitimacy of the animal.

[Vice Chair Lisa Hango]: So I just want to build on something Rep Hooper said. So anybody could go get a service animal vest and put it on their animal and claim that it's a service animal, and there's no procedure that violates?

[Big Hartman, Executive Director & General Counsel, Vermont Human Rights Commission]: No, the vest is also not required for service animals. So the vest is sometimes used,

[Vice Chair Lisa Hango]: but not appropriate to require someone to have. I agree with Rep. Pinsonault that that really takes away from the people who have participated in training with their animal, got certified, and have a real need for that animal. I've known people who need service animals before. And I think that leads everybody to questioning all animals now, which is really a shame. It is a shame.

[Big Hartman, Executive Director & General Counsel, Vermont Human Rights Commission]: Yeah, I totally agree. And I've seen the effects that that kind of stereotype will have on folks with disabilities. And we always look at it that for every service dog case we hear about, there's probably another 10 or 20 that we don't hear about. So I do believe that the folks that are not being authentic about their need for a service dog are the exception and not the goal. Just like any right, there's going to be folks that kind of take advantage of the system at times. It's like that 20 foot giant python that That is their service animal, their comfort animal. They have him on

[Sophie Zidatney, Office of Legislative Counsel]: an airplane and he comes

[Unidentified Committee Member]: in with the thing for breakfast.

[Big Hartman, Executive Director & General Counsel, Vermont Human Rights Commission]: Sounds comforting. I'm conscious of time.

[Chair Matthew Birong]: Yes, thank you.

[Big Hartman, Executive Director & General Counsel, Vermont Human Rights Commission]: And I did have a few more slides I wanted to go through with you today. So this is an overview of our HRC cases. So in the last two years, the last two fiscal years, out of all of the complaints that we accepted for investigation, as you can see on this pie chart, well over half of them have involved disability discrimination. And then in the bar chart, you will see when we did find reasonable grounds to believe that discrimination occurred, how many of those cases involved disability. And it is a substantial portion of all of our cases and a substantial portion of our reasonable grounds cases. And then I have one more slide about our casework. And this is a snapshot of today. Our current cases that we have open, about 60 of all of our current cases involve allegations of discrimination based on disability. So you can see the breakdown of how many cases we have that are under active investigation. And in blue, you'll see that forty four out of sixty nine of those are based on disability. The cases that have found reasonable grounds in the last six or so months are, we have 10 of those that are based on disability, and a smaller portion of them are in litigation, likely because they have settled. Okay. Any questions about HRC data? And again, I'd be happy to come back in another time and give you some more breakdown of what our cases look like in the various areas of jurisdiction that we have. So I'm going to just briefly breeze through a few slides that relate to our Civil Rights Summit. And I'm going to come by later today and drop off the booklet that I meant to give you.

[Sophie Zidatney, Office of Legislative Counsel]: We actually have them electronically. Beautiful. So if you can't make the trip back, we're good with electronics and stuff.

[Big Hartman, Executive Director & General Counsel, Vermont Human Rights Commission]: Free. Yeah. Some committees really like the hard copy, so I always try to have them available. And the snow threw me off this morning, I think. I'm right down. So our office is right on Baldwin Street. It's halfway down the block here. I'll just say that in November, to address what we all feel is a federal civil rights crisis, we convened a three day civil rights conference in Randolph, where we had over 300 people participating both to bring community members together and to strategize solutions for what we can do to ensure that we do have strengthening civil rights protections here under state and local law. We covered a range of issues, and I'm just gonna highlight a little bit on the two panels that we're discussing, disability rights. When you scroll through the document itself, there are QR codes with active links that you can use to actually watch the panel discussions and hear from folks in the disability community and their advocates about the proposals they have for ensuring better access and overall disability justice. So I'm just going give you a quick overview of the four recommendations that arose out of the two panels that we had about disability justice. We had a panel about voting access for people with disabilities, which I highly recommend you watch, that I moderated. And this was highlighting the voices of people with disabilities who have actually denied the ability to participate in their state and local elections because of their disabilities. We actually rank as one of the worst states in the entire country for accessibility of our voting. That mostly is going to our local elections. Individuals with disabilities are routinely and systematically denied access to their local elections and town meetings when only in person participation is permitted. So there are folks who do not have the ability to physically attend town meeting and are routinely denied reasonable accommodations to be able to participate in those meetings or even watch them remotely. And when they do get those accommodations, their disability is then made public to their entire town. So we are encouraging in the voting rights bills that are currently being considered. I think they're on the Senate side right now. We do encourage some additional provisions to ensure equal access for folks with disabilities. And in some ways, that will mean prioritizing resources to towns so that they are able to provide the reasonable accommodations within their means. But in many cases, advocates are calling for Australian ballot in all local elections. And without that, there is not a way for folks who are remote to participate in their local election. And so the first two I'm sorry, did you have a question?

[Sophie Zidatney, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Yeah, I did. What do

[Big Hartman, Executive Director & General Counsel, Vermont Human Rights Commission]: you mean that their disability is exposed to the entire community? So a few different things that I've heard reports of. I've heard reports of local select boards discussing somebody's disability related request in open session, so that the person's name and their disability is then discussed in the public, and it is in the minutes. Also, if they are the only person who is allowed remote access, then they're essentially outed to their community as the one person who needed remote access.

[Sophie Zidatney, Office of Legislative Counsel]: How would the public know that they got remote access? In town meetings,

[Big Hartman, Executive Director & General Counsel, Vermont Human Rights Commission]: they will be visible. In virtual meetings.

[Sophie Zidatney, Office of Legislative Counsel]: I would yeah. I guess I could see that. Unless just their phone number or some pseudonym is on the screen, like their real name isn't on the screen, but it's known to the moderator who's letting them in. That could be a way around that. I'm just thinking through this also, the select board should know better to not discuss somebody's personal health information on record. I encourage you to hear the stories from the disability community directly, some of which

[Big Hartman, Executive Director & General Counsel, Vermont Human Rights Commission]: are highlighted in that panel discussion about voting access.

[Rep. Chea Waters Evans]: Thank you.

[Big Hartman, Executive Director & General Counsel, Vermont Human Rights Commission]: And I know that they would be happy to provide some testimony if you'd like to hear it. Rev Hooper. So

[Rep. Robert Hooper]: the changes that were made

[Unidentified Committee Member]: in open

[Rep. Robert Hooper]: meeting executive session sort of include this or exclude discussions in executive session are off the public view for these things?

[Big Hartman, Executive Director & General Counsel, Vermont Human Rights Commission]: Yeah. Executive session is supposed to be out of public view. The stories that I have heard is that they chose not to go into executive session to discuss those reasonable accommodation requests

[Rep. Chea Waters Evans]: that were made to them.

[Rep. Robert Hooper]: In the new statute, it's one of the allow I'm

[Big Hartman, Executive Director & General Counsel, Vermont Human Rights Commission]: not I'm not sure about that, but I'll take it one I more

[Rep. Robert Hooper]: don't I don't remember that being specifically included.

[Big Hartman, Executive Director & General Counsel, Vermont Human Rights Commission]: Instances I'm aware of occurred in the last year. And are part of a longer pattern of voters trying to be able to vote and not being able to because of their disabilities.

[Rep. Mary-Katherine Stone]: Just came in late. Hi. That's okay. Parenting duties. But I just didn't know if you talked about the Secretary of State's working groups that she's created. I'm on one about improving accessibility for folks who are differently abled and we've had some really robust and great conversations and we'll be bringing that information, I'm pretty sure to this committee soon. But yeah, we're hearing a lot. The physical access, it's what lack thereof is what led me to be on the working group. Because yeah, a lot of our places where people go to vote, I don't know who surveyed them back in 1800s or whatever, but a lot of them are not ADA compliant, even though they're listed as such. And I know that as an OT who's been at the polls myself and thought, there's no way people in a wheelchair could access some of the ones even in Burlington. I've had to help people up sidewalks that are not ADA compliant. So I just want to I don't know if you knew that was those working groups were happening, but they are.

[Big Hartman, Executive Director & General Counsel, Vermont Human Rights Commission]: Absolutely. HRC had a designee on the Act 133 working group. We've been actively involved with those conversations, and we'll be happy to talk more about that working group process anytime.

[Rep. Mary-Katherine Stone]: A lot of stories are coming out of it, though, that would be helpful Yeah, for folks

[Big Hartman, Executive Director & General Counsel, Vermont Human Rights Commission]: we did select a designee who was a person with lived experience who had been denied the ability to vote in their town. And so that was really a voice that we really wanted to highlight. Thank you. I'll just quickly, I don't want to go over time too much more here. There was another panel about the Olmstead Commission. Olmstead refers to a US Supreme Court decision from 1999 that declared that unjustified segregation of individuals with disabilities violated the ADA. In response to that, many states created an Olmstead Commission to systematically assess their state and how we were going about preventing unnecessary institutionalization of people with disabilities. Our state plan has not been updated in twenty years. And the incarceration of people with disabilities has just gone up and up since then. So the disability community is strongly urging lawmakers to create a permanent Olmstead Commission that would be able to study and report on that issue. And then there's also a concern about in home care providers for folks with disabilities who are able to stay in their homes and in their communities because of in home care only. In home care providers are not earning a livable wage, and it is making the stock of folks who can do that work limited, and it's not a sustainable model for ensuring long term in home care. So I believe there is a House bill about this that would ensure a livable wage for in home care providers. So those are the four recommendations that came out of the summit. Again, I encourage you to hear from the voices of the disability community who have been working on these issues for decades, and are both having much more expertise than me, and also have that lived experience, that is really valuable to hear from. Any

[Chair Matthew Birong]: questions? No, thank you so much for the time.

[Big Hartman, Executive Director & General Counsel, Vermont Human Rights Commission]: I'm sorry for going over, and I'd be happy to come back again anytime.

[Chair Matthew Birong]: Okay. No. No. Thank you very much. Alright, folks. So up next, we have h 93, an act relating to the creation and maintenance of a database for veterans in Vermont. This is a reintroduction walkthrough. This is something that was put in by representative Hooper of Burlington, and we have counsel here with us. This is sort of a refresher as we're working on the broader military and veterans affairs bill just to, get subject matter, time to that purpose back in front of us. Good morning, counsel.

[Sophie Zidatney, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Good morning. Sophie Zidaknis at the Office of Legislative Council. Happy to be here again. I'm just gonna is it okay if I go ahead and share my screen?

[Chair Matthew Birong]: Absolutely.

[Sophie Zidatney, Office of Legislative Counsel]: This is the chair noted. This was a bill that was introduced last session, and it comes from it reruns a portion of H. 168, which was an act that was passed in 2023, but it didn't pass. And this simply requires the development and maintenance of a database of veterans residing in, and it would create a new chapter for veterans within Title 20. And it provides go through this this would be a new chapter which would provide that the director of the Vermont Office of Veterans Affairs would work with other agencies, offices and departments to develop and maintain a database of veterans in Vermont, All the agencies, offices and departments shall, to the extent practicable and consistent with state and federal law, provide information on veterans in Vermont to the Director of the Vermont Office of Veterans Affairs. Any personally identifying information about veterans collected for the database would be exempt from public inspection and copying under the Public Records Act, and then it has the that particular exemption would not be repealed. So that's it in a nutshell. It's a short bill. There was testimony last session on the bill, and I know that Robert Burke, the director of the Office of Veteran Affairs, did come in and testify in March about the bill. He did raise some concerns in terms of how the data would be collected, how it would be maintained, the need for IT support, software, etc, to manage it. So, was just what I recall from his testimony last year. That's the

[Chair Matthew Birong]: bill. Senator Pinsonault, then Representative Nugent.

[Rep. Sandra "Sandy" Pinsonault]: Thank you very much, Sophie, for bringing this back up. I had not remembered fully the testimony, but this is bringing it back to me. So, would you say from that testimony, that the biggest concern was IT support for this? It was not some other issues? It was the resources. Additional resources would be needed. I think human resources as well as IT software hardware resources. Thank you so much.

[Chair Matthew Birong]: Thank

[Unidentified Committee Member]: you. As far as the data that is not accessible to the public, would it be accessible or what entities in the government would it be accessible to? Could it potentially be sold at any point? Or is that

[Sophie Zidatney, Office of Legislative Counsel]: covered in this bill? It's not explicitly covered. I think the goal would just be that somebody couldn't request it, to do a data scrape on it. I think the goal would be and, again, representative Hooper is right here to talk about the the the goals behind the bill. But my understanding was it was a way I mean, other states have have these kinds of bills, these registries, and the goal for those bills is to share information, resources, with the veteran community. So it's a way to make sure that the states are reaching out to all the veterans in their state, and the veterans have all the information that they need about what services are available. Is it voluntary? Some states it is. There is language that they can opt into a database. There isn't anything specific in this bill draft on that.

[Chair Matthew Birong]: Representative. Thank

[Rep. Kate Nugent]: you. You mentioned other states. Do you happen to know any of the other states that have the registry? We can also look it up. Yes, so I looked at Indiana, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, but there are a list of other, and this is, I will admit, this was an AI quick search, that said, several states have established veterans registries to track, honor, or connect veterans with services, including California, Connecticut, Florida, Indiana, Kentucky, Oregon, Virginia, Alaska, Arizona, Delaware, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, and Maine. And then, as I say, I look specifically at the ones in Indiana, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania. Thank you very much. Yes. Do either of you, Rep Hooper or Sophie, want to speak to the reason behind this bill, why it came to us. I know it, but maybe the public would like to know the backstory, because this is not the first biennium that this bill has been introduced.

[Sophie Zidatney, Office of Legislative Counsel]: It's been several bienniums. And I think it has to do with being able to locate veterans after they separate from the service. Is that correct?

[Rep. Robert Hooper]: Say the last part again, please.

[Sophie Zidatney, Office of Legislative Counsel]: I believe the intent or the reason behind the bill was to locate veterans after they separate from the service because there is no record of them past that point. Is that correct?

[Rep. Robert Hooper]: It's kind of complicated. People who ETS and either have a residence in Vermont or coming to Vermont or d t two fourteen sent to the state office. People who come into Vermont who got out of the service in different jurisdictions there, by 02/14 was in Pennsylvania, to have it transferred up here. So there is the genesis of this request came from the Governor's Veterans Advisory Council. I have yet to hear back from the Governor's office whether he actually has his stamp on it or not, but the most common reference to the necessity is, like, the burn kit legislation that we passed that, you know, passed by word-of-mouth, passed by American Legion, but there was no mechanism for the state of Vermont to actually let residents, veterans know that this benefit or this concern was available. So it's a tool for notification, as well as having accurate records of how many veterans we have, what their status is.

[Chair Matthew Birong]: I

[Sophie Zidatney, Office of Legislative Counsel]: would just add that from the research I did, my sense was that a lot of the other states that have registries, it actually did come about in connection to the burn pit issue, because the just the timing of when those statutes were passed, like around '20 Now,

[Rep. Robert Hooper]: even now a lot of the VA has changed its determination practice for Vietnam, Korea. People who were exposed to Agent Orange, they've really revised the accessibility disability for that. Who knows?

[Sophie Zidatney, Office of Legislative Counsel]: And I would add too that very recently, I believe it was Kosovo was added to the countries that the PACT covered. So, there are veterans out there who may not know that, who served in those areas, who are not part of any registry and can't be reached. If they happen to be in communication with their VFW or their American Legion or their Disabled American Vets Organization, they might learn about that. But unless they read the news when it came out, they may not know that their medical conditions are covered of this pill.

[Rep. Robert Hooper]: I think the problem that we had with this back in March was that Bob came in and looked at the administrative burden of, how do you get the paper to me? What do I do with the paper? I need another person. I've been in touch with IT, and they're doing stuff now that I think would make this a lot easier, electronic processing and disseminating the information. Bob still may need a half position to deal with that. But quite frankly, that office needs more people, period, because you wait a long time to get service from

[Unidentified Committee Member]: I believe the federal government has this database. And the reason I say that is because when D and E was diagnosed, they told us to make sure we got into the burn pit registry and one other registry, she slipped my mind at the time, but as soon as I put in his social security number, Ben, every place he'd ever been, where he could have been exposed to toxins was listed. And all of the other things that he could have been exposed to. So it's like, they got it. So my argument was at the time was, why aren't they going through their database and contacting all these military soldiers and saying, look, you've been exposed, you need to get on this registry, and you need to It was mind boggling. Was that or VA? I believe it was VA, it might have been DOD, I don't know, but it was just amazing, all the different things that came up. Something Yeah, like they've got the database, so why aren't they

[Rep. Robert Hooper]: Which includes language, they have the ability to get rid of those.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: But anyways, that's like, they know. Well,

[Sophie Zidatney, Office of Legislative Counsel]: I can remember from years ago having this conversation right after the PACT Act, and during that time of the Burn Pit Registry being established, that it's quite complicated. And so, we will need to hear from all those witnesses again to find out what the story really is.

[Rep. Robert Hooper]: Well, I just said, I think should amend the bill to include authority for the local office to tap into order for your federal resources are available.

[Sophie Zidatney, Office of Legislative Counsel]: It doesn't the current language isn't limited to state offices. I mean, it says the director of the Vermont Office of Veterans Affairs shall work with other agencies, offices, and departments to develop and maintain a database. And then in the next sentence, it says shall, to the maximum extent practicable and consistent with state and federal law, provide information on veterans in Vermont. So it's not it wouldn't preclude the way it's written right now, wouldn't preclude obtaining information from the federal government. Another branch. Yes.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: I just want to take it one step further. Up until Vietnam, the state of Vermont used to put out a book that told of every Vermonter who served in that period of time. There's World War I, a World War II, Korean, there's even the American Revolution, and it lists all of the Vermonters that served, it's an alphabetical order by their last name, their rank, their hometown and their rank. And then if they did Foreign Service, it would tell Foreign Service what what's the word I'm looking for, guys? Theatre? No, theatre, that's the word. What theatre they served in, whether it be an Asian American, Asian Pacific, whatever. After Vietnam, they stopped doing that. Since then, we've got the Gulf War, we've got the Iraq. So, I don't know who, I believe they were out by the veterans of VA or the Department of Veterans Affairs. I think it was put out by the Secretary of State's office or I I could look at one in the town clerk's office, but have all those books. Vietnam is the last one they published.

[Rep. Robert Hooper]: Vietnam puts a crap to a lot of information. But

[Unidentified Committee Member]: they're a great resource.

[Chair Matthew Birong]: We have any other questions for rep, Hooper, or counsel right now on this? So and apologies. I'm a I'm a little foggy this morning. Feel like a little under the weather. My brain's moving a little slow. So it has the ability to coordinate already drafted in my scratch. Then I guess my question is we're doing one more bill, but we're doing one more bill right now with the gold star, and I wanna be cautious at the time. So I definitely wanna flag this for consideration, possible, to talk about possibly including that next time we talk about what we're gonna include further with that. So if everybody's excuse me. If everybody's cool with it, we'll flag this for a conversation. Sound good? Mhmm. Lars? Yep. Wonderful. Sorry. That was a lot of words to get to a small point. Alright. Alright. And next this is probably the end. Up next, we are doing an introduction walk through and witness testimony on h eight eight four, an act relating it to the definition of Gold Star family members. So, yeah, rep Stone, please.

[Rep. Mary-Katherine Stone]: Good morning, everyone.

[Rep. Robert Hooper]: Thanks for

[Rep. Mary-Katherine Stone]: the opportunity to speak about HAD for an act relating to the definition of Gold Star family members. For the record, Stone with Channel fourteen. This bill, which has bipartisan support, seeks to fill a gap in Vermont law by establishing a clear statutory definition of who qualifies as a Gold Star family member. Right now, Vermont statutes use terms like Gold Star family in contexts such as license plates and recognition programs, but there isn't an explicit legal definition in the statute books. That absence can lead to inconsistent interpretation, confusion for families seeking recognition or benefits, and potential barriers when other laws or programs reference this status. This bill proposes to ensure that when state policy refers to, quote, Gold Star family members, end quote, there is a clear of what it means. Under this bill, a Gold Star family member would be defined to include those who have lost a loved one who died in service of the U. S. Armed Forces or as a result of a service connected injury or illness. Burn pits, Agent Orange, those type of things. By modifying this definition and statute, we're not changing eligibility for any specific benefit today, but we're laying the groundwork so that future laws, benefits, recognition programs, or supports that refer to Gold Star families are grounded in consistent and respectful language. Language matters when families who have paid the ultimate price for a country seek recognition benefits or even just clarity about their status. They deserve a clear statutory foundation that does not require administrative guesswork or subjective interpretation. By defining the term in statute, we honor their sacrifice with greater certainty and help ensure that state policies intended to support them do what they are meant to do. In short, this bill is a foundational housekeeping bill. It's the way I see it, ensuring that our state operates with consistency and respect for families who have endured profound loss. And before people ask about, is there a federal definition we could use? There is not a single uniform federal legal definition of Gold Star Family. Federal law and practice recognize and honor these families in many contexts, but the statutes don't define the term consistently. And that's why this bill is needed, in my opinion, because it would give Vermont clear inclusive statutory definition so that state law can treat families equitably and without ambiguity. So just housekeeping. This is an oopsie daisies in my opinion. It should have lived in statute the get go, but it didn't. And that's what this is trying to do to clean things up.

[Rep. Robert Hooper]: What's the DMV criteria to get a license plate?

[Rep. Mary-Katherine Stone]: That's another question. We're another bill that we talked about that's very different than this. As far as Gold Star, I feel ill equipped to tell you, but maybe Sophie could, but I

[Chair Matthew Birong]: Okay. Yes. Fighting for counsel. Anything else else for?

[Rep. Mary-Katherine Stone]: And then Ms. Huston is behind me on the screen. Good

[Chair Matthew Birong]: to see you, Joan. How are you?

[June Heston]: I'm good, thank you. How are you?

[Chair Matthew Birong]: Good. No, thank you for your patience. We did run a little over time, but it's really great to see you come in again.

[June Heston]: Thank you. It's my pleasure.

[Chair Matthew Birong]: Yeah, table is yours.

[June Heston]: Thank you so much. Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today relating to H eight eight eight four regarding the definition of Gold Star families. As you know, my name is June Heston. I'm the surviving spouse of Brigadier General Mike Heston. Mike passed away in 2018 as a result of service connected illness due to exposure to toxins from the burn pits while he was deployed to Afghanistan three times between 02/2012. Shortly after Mike passed away, I was contacted by a staff member at CAPS, the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors. This organization serves all military survivors regardless of their cause of death. The resources they've provided helped me with my grief, my children's grief, survivor benefit questions were The resources were immensely impactful. And I'm not sure where I would be here today if I wasn't made aware of that organization. I depended on CAPS to provide the guidance, the support and understanding ear when I needed it. Since then, I've become much more involved with CAPS on the policy level. What you have in front of you is the Gold Star Family Compact that lists five key priorities to ensure our military survivors are treated with respect, dignity and recognition for their loss. In 2024, I presented the compact to the Governor's Veterans Advisory Council, where they voted to accept this as a priority to move forward. I also met with the Adjutant General, Major General Greg Knight, who was also in favor of the compact. And I met with Governor Scott, who was in agreement that this compact would make sense to support. Since then, TAPS has continued to present this compact to the National Association of State Directors of Veterans Affairs with the objective of getting states to sign on to this compact. The second through fifth key issues already have federal legislation introduced that TAPS is working on. This one issue has not had federal legislation introduced yet. So we're here today to discuss the first issue on the compact, adopt a respectful and inclusive definition of Gold Star. The U. S. Department of Veterans Affairs doesn't distinguish by cause of death. There's no differentiation of government benefits to survivors based on the location or circumstances of a service member's death. In contrast, the state and territory definitions of Gold Star are more narrow in scope, with some only including those killed in combat. This disparity, as Representative Stone spoke about, causes survivors to face barriers to state and territory benefits and assistance. Now in Vermont, for Gold Star Family Recognition, it's only for the Gold Star plate itself. Vermont follows the federal definition found in US code, meaning if the service member died as a result of service in war hostilities recognized under, 10 USC subcode eleven twenty six a, the family qualifies for Gold Star family. Next of kin plates, which is sort of the next level, has a broader state recognition. Vermont also has next of kin plates separate from the Gold Star plates, and these are available for family members of service members who died while serving on active duty, active duty for training, or assigned to a reserve or National Guard unit in drill status, or they died as a result of injury or illness incurred during such service or assignment. This second part is important. Vermont's law explicitly provides a category for death resulting from injury or illness incurred during service or assignment, even if that death is not covered under the stricter federal 10 USC subcode 1126A or noncombat operation definition. If you're wondering why this is important, I will give you an example. I was struggling with finding an answer regarding a benefit or some of the benefits shortly after Mike's death, and I called our family readiness office and spoke with the survivor outreach service employee who I knew personally. When I asked if she could help me, her exact words to me were, Nope, you're not Gold Star. So if you just had felt an emotional reaction to what I just said, multiply that by 100. And that's how I felt. Why is my loss less than? Taps encourages the adoption of a respectable, inclusive definition of Gold Star that encompasses all service related deaths with the phrase died while serving or from a service connected injury or illness. As states sign on to this compact and adopt a more inclusive definition for Gold Star, TAPS will gain leverage in their work on introducing a federal definition legislation for a federal definition that's inclusive. Today's warfighter often brings the battlefield home with them. Families and survivors are most often the ones that continue to pay a price for that service of their loved one. Vermont's often been at the forefront of legislation that addresses addresses respect, dignity and recognition of others. And I urge Vermont to be a leader in this effort. Thank you very much. Thank you to representative Stone and all the reps that signed on to this bill. And if you have questions, let me know.

[Chair Matthew Birong]: You got questions for June?

[Rep. Mary-Katherine Stone]: I put a lot of legislation forth, and a lot of it focuses on supporting veterans and their family, because I don't think that we can ever do enough. But this is one of the most important bills that I've had the privilege of sponsoring. If this is the new bill that passed out of this committee, would be happy.

[Big Hartman, Executive Director & General Counsel, Vermont Human Rights Commission]: That's all I can say.

[Sophie Zidatney, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Thank you. Thanks for bringing this forward. I just wanted to note for people who are watching that just because reps didn't get a chance to sign on to bills doesn't mean that we don't support them. So I want to make that really clear, because I've had some people approach me about, why aren't you on this bill? Or why am I not on this bill? So there are so many bills out there that we don't always get the opportunity to sign on to all of them. Yeah, very supportive of this. And I'm really happy that Rutstone brought this to our attention.

[Chair Matthew Birong]: Any other questions or comment right now before I move with the council? Yes, I

[Rep. Chea Waters Evans]: just wanted to say thank you so much. It's difficult testimony to give and thank you to others maybe in this room who've been affected by it. It's really important that you're doing this and helping others even though you have been in pain. Thank you.

[Big Hartman, Executive Director & General Counsel, Vermont Human Rights Commission]: Thank you.

[Chair Matthew Birong]: All right. No, thank you very much, June. Please feel free to stay with us for the rest of the conversation with Council if you like. Council, thank you.

[June Heston]: I'm sign off because I'm on vacation in Florida.

[Chair Matthew Birong]: Oh, okay. I was I was looking at the backdrop. We've done enough Zoom time. I'm like, where is she? That's unfamiliar. That makes more sense. Alright. Enjoy your trip, June. Yeah.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Thank you.

[Big Hartman, Executive Director & General Counsel, Vermont Human Rights Commission]: Bye bye.

[Sophie Zidatney, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Sophie Zidatney again for the office of legislative council. And is it okay if I go ahead and share my screen? Yes, please. As discussed, this is currently just a short form, and what is being proposed is to add a definition of Gold Star family members into, at the very beginning of the Vermont statutes, there is a definition section, along with how you can construction of statutes. So the proposal would be to place this definition in there. So that is really simply what this is seeking to do. I did have a question around the definition. So, there was mention just a short while ago about the license plates. So, this is under 23Secondtion304Ks1, and it provides gold star plates shall be issued to the widow or widower, parents, next of kin as defined in 10 USC eleven twenty six d, who lost their lives under the circumstances described, and that's in federal statute. And then the next of 10 plates is under b. So I did go to look to see what that definition is. And under this under the statute 10 US c eleven twenty six, it doesn't really doesn't really tell you exactly what the definition is, but it refers you to a Department of Defence definition. So this is what the current definition is. So, again, it's the gold star. This is talking about a lapel button, but it's where the definitions are. So, again, it's a service member who lost his or her life, and then it lists out the different situations. And then eligible next of kin. So I had a couple of questions, again, this moves forward, is whether or not we want to spell out, like, when it's gold star family, if it's gold star, like, the definition of a parent or a child, cause it's quite an expansive one here, for example, I looked at the Massachusetts law, so under Massachusetts, they say it shall mean any parent of a member, and I thought, that's odd, don't you just have two parents? But no, it's an expansive definition, because it covers step parents and parents in law and whatever, by adoption, so it's quite expansive. So that was just one question I had for the committee to think about. And then the other one was, we if the general assembly adopts a gold star definition as recommended, really be, again, around, died while serving, or from a service connected illness or injury, I think the committee would also need to look at whether to change the license plate language, because right now, you would then end up with two inconsistent definitions under state law, because you would have one that's referring to federal definitions, and then you would have the state definition separately.

[Rep. Mary-Katherine Stone]: It would probably be another bill, right? Because it would be something that needs to go through transportation, is that what I'm understanding? When you ask, I'm thinking that the license plate would be a different,

[Sophie Zidatney, Office of Legislative Counsel]: it'd be a little tricky. Yeah, I guess it comes out of any of the vans.

[Chair Matthew Birong]: No, that would definitely be something transportation would have to address directly, but we're having that other conversation about one of those bills too, so that could possibly be bundled into that conversation. That's both things. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Because you have those two points of contact to make sure that there's, like, consistency and clarity of the technician. Right. You might have two vehicles doing it, or maybe one speaks to it with, here were the crop records and they just But

[Rep. Mary-Katherine Stone]: it needs to have its own little car, the own vehicle.

[Chair Matthew Birong]: No pun intended. Yeah.

[Rep. Mary-Katherine Stone]: Yes. The license.

[Chair Matthew Birong]: I don't know if the license intended or not. I'll slow to the pulse But Yeah. Yeah. But we're already having conversations with the transportation committee, so this something to try and

[Big Hartman, Executive Director & General Counsel, Vermont Human Rights Commission]: figure I

[Sophie Zidatney, Office of Legislative Counsel]: just wanted to clarify, because if you've got a state definition at the beginning that says this is how Gold Star is going to be interpreted, and then you've got a reference under the transport. Guess what

[Rep. Mary-Katherine Stone]: you're saying, just clarifying that we'll probably need two bills to handle.

[Rep. Robert Hooper]: Okay. That's what we do here.

[Sophie Zidatney, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Yeah. Right.

[Chair Matthew Birong]: So, no, I mean, the mirrored language is obviously important. So, and the continuity is very important. So, any other questions on this piece right now? Seeing no hands. Alright. And that puts us shockingly on time all of a sudden. We made up clock. So we're back to the conversation, with h eight one one, an act relating to the election of the adjutant general and inspector general of the Vermont National Guard. And so, let's go back to this one.

[Sophie Zidatney, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Did you want me to put that back up?

[Chair Matthew Birong]: The 881? Yeah. Yeah. If you could. We got it on our committee page, but that would help. Yeah, and this is back to sort of the common conversations about continuity statute. So this is very much a similar conversation, if not the same. And

[Rep. Mary-Katherine Stone]: I don't want to go wrench in this, but I'm going to. I've had a lot of people ask me about the inspector general and why we were nominating the adjutant general and inspector general. And I did some research. And the inspector general within the Vermont National Guard, there's a federal inspector general within the Vermont National Guard, which is its own position underneath the adjutant general. So to me, I think that perhaps we should entertain the idea of changing the language to the fact that we are just electing the Adjutant General and not the Adjutant and Inspector General. It has been communicated that they are the same thing, they're not. It's a different position. It's like pretending like Warren Hooper and Sarah Copeland Hansen are the same person because they work in the same department. They're not, they have two different jobs. And that's the same with the Inspector General and the Action General. They're not the same.

[Chair Matthew Birong]: Yeah, and we, years ago, had to have conversations around the inspector general position that was I mean, this was maybe a pre COVID conversation going back that far, where it did delay the two. And then as far as yeah. I mean, the question with how it's, like, reference statute, making it look like it's interwoven, Yeah. I guess I differ to counsel on that.

[Sophie Zidatney, Office of Legislative Counsel]: I did. Sorry, I was late last night, but I did take a look at that and then this morning. So I don't think there would be any reason not to clarify that it's the adjutant general and just take the inspector general out from the title. My understanding is, again, it's a historical, you know, thing, that what happened originally was that the Adjutant General was also the Inspector General, and so these two positions were combined. But unless there's some sense from the National Guard that that's a problem to take it out, I didn't see any other concern on changing it, because again, these are two separate positions at this point. So it just seems like a historical

[Chair Matthew Birong]: Yeah, it's kind of a relic that never really got tightened up. I got Rep Hango, then I got Rep Water Zones.

[Sophie Zidatney, Office of Legislative Counsel]: So, think when we did the modernization, we did a really big housekeeping bill, the modernization of the Addison General in 2023, I believe Barbara Murphy presented on the floor. It was really long and involved, there were so many references that needed to be changed. This might be something that was overlooked in that change, or somehow didn't get discussed. Although, I thought there was a really thorough discussion of it. Yeah, so I looked at that this morning. It was Act 10 in 2021.

[Chair Matthew Birong]: 2021.

[Sophie Zidatney, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Was it 2021, Sophie?

[Chair Matthew Birong]: 2021.

[Rep. Chea Waters Evans]: It wasn't when I was here.

[Sophie Zidatney, Office of Legislative Counsel]: It started in 2023.

[Chair Matthew Birong]: That was biennium two for our legislative class, rep, and that was

[Sophie Zidatney, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Yes, so Rep Murphy was in our committee. Correct. Yes, so then I apologize. That timeline sounds

[Chair Matthew Birong]: about right, based on the COVID math.

[Sophie Zidatney, Office of Legislative Counsel]: It used to be like adjutant and inspector general and quartermaster general, and it did take out the quartermaster So, I don't know. And Damian Leonard was the legislative counsel on it, and he was looped into the conversation yesterday, and he didn't recall sort of why it still was adjutant and inspector general. So unless someone else has a recollection as to why that happened.

[Chair Matthew Birong]: Did you have a follow-up? I didn't.

[Sophie Zidatney, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Didn't. No, go ahead. It's a follow-up on the previous. Yeah, so was mine.

[Rep. Chea Waters Evans]: I was just going to ask when the last time we had one, if anybody knows, like an inspector general and an adjective generally, two separate people doing those jobs.

[Chair Matthew Birong]: Now, that's how they do it.

[Rep. Chea Waters Evans]: There are two people doing two different jobs.

[Rep. Mary-Katherine Stone]: Who was the inspector general? I don't have their name. Sorry, I'm just speaking out of term, it's because the guard brought it up and they had heard that people were saying, Oh, it's the same thing. And the guard brought it up to me and said, Fun fact, it's not. There is someone on base right now holding a federal position, and it's actually considered a conflict of interest because of the role of the inspector general. You would not want the adjutant general performing because the they investigate.

[Chair Matthew Birong]: It's an oversight position.

[Rep. Mary-Katherine Stone]: So it's a totally different job. It operates under federal orders. It is completely different. So to me, this raises a transparency issue with what people are voting on. Because like I said, it is like pretending like Warren Hooper and Sarah Copeland has that they're the same person. They're not, they do two different things.

[Rep. Chea Waters Evans]: Thought it was two

[Rep. Mary-Katherine Stone]: different roles, two different from one person. Two different roles, different sets of orders, and one is an oversight

[Chair Matthew Birong]: It was historically, not necessarily. It seems to evolve into a different structure, or it has a lot of structure. Is language, as I refer to it, it's a relic. And this came up, if I remember correctly, within the context of a conversation in and around on base and off base policing, and continuity or lack of continuity between, like, those entities at the, like, military level of the community. So that was just a little context as to what I recall this conversation being years ago. But yes. So it seems they are separate.

[Sophie Zidatney, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Yeah, so right now there's someone called Jonathan Elias, is the inspector general currently. And based on the email from someone over at the National Guard or Military Department yesterday, it sounds like that's a federal position, not a state position. So again, I think the title is just a novel title, but the duties are separated at this point. I feel like we need to fix that. Totally

[Chair Matthew Birong]: right there, yes. No, and that's the thing, it's like we're using this, you know, this is why I like doing these, like, sort of on those bills with the subject matter, so when we define things like this, we have a relative vehicle for presumably a smaller conversation, but a necessary conversation. Rebecca, slow down.

[Sophie Zidatney, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Yeah, I just wanted to make sure, because I wanted to confirm with the house clerk because when we held clubs as a whole, she repeatedly used the term adjutant and inspector general. And I questioned her after, and she said that's what the statute says. So I just want to make sure we cover all of our bases. But my recollection of the presentation on the floor for the modernization of the National Guard Adjutant General was the removal of the Quartermaster General. It wasn't the Inspector General. So thank you. I believe this election would be for an Adjutant and Inspector General, because that is the current title. So any change you make would be for the next election.

[Chair Matthew Birong]: Right, I have Rep Stone, then Rep Boris Evans.

[Rep. Mary-Katherine Stone]: I'm just gonna say, I recognize what it says in statute. I also recognize that our house clerk doesn't work for the Department of War. I'm just saying like the inspector general is a federal position. And I know, I just There are things that live in statute that are not always correct. And this is one of those things. So I recognize that our clerk may be referring to statute, but it doesn't mean that their statute is correct and reflects what is happening at the guard base. You've heard people who are holding positions at the guard base. That's what's happening with boots on the ground, is that there's somebody who holds a federal position, it's the inspector general whose job duties are very different than adjutant general. So when we go in to vote, we are not voting on I forgot this person's name. Inspector General. We're not voting on Jonathan. His name is not on the ballot. So it just feels disingenuous.

[Chair Matthew Birong]: I got Mars Evans at Hango.

[Rep. Chea Waters Evans]: Okay. Now I'm getting So, it says in statute, the title of General Knight, who has that job right now, is His official title is Adjutant and Inspector General. Right. Okay. So So there's an inspector general and there's an adjutant and inspector general. Right? Those are two different titles. Right. Okay. All right. That helps me a little bit. I don't think it's urgent right now, but I was actually confused about it as well. So maybe for the next time around, we can take out that in inspector part. But right now, maybe just clarify for everybody in the body that it's that adjutant and inspector is one. Those are two adjectives modifying the word general. Right? It's one person,

[Sophie Zidatney, Office of Legislative Counsel]: but their official title includes Inspector General, even though they are not the current Inspector General. All comes down to parts of speech.

[Rep. Chea Waters Evans]: Acting and inspector as opposed to inspector. Those are two different titles. Okay. Yeah. Sorry. I got a little mixed up for a second, but now I get it. Thank you. Yeah.

[Chair Matthew Birong]: No. It's like as far as the charges and duties within the actual execution of the court itself, they seem bifurcated that the ones that exist with the end. It's just sort of a relic of time past with Wilson in the role. Yes, Rev. Lawrence Evans. Hango. Sorry.

[Rep. Chea Waters Evans]: Just a follow-up here. So then if we are talking about this particular bill, I wonder if if this is something we need to address in the future. And would it be? I guess if then we would have to make a change again to this next time around or whenever we introduce the language to change it, because right now it would have to remain adjutant and inspector, because it's what it already exists in statute. Right? This election, yes.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Okay. I

[Sophie Zidatney, Office of Legislative Counsel]: mean, just make sure everyone understands, it's one person doing one position, and part of the title someone else is doing. Okay. They're not doing both.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: So next year, bring it back as a housekeeping.

[Chair Matthew Birong]: No, I mean, I think we do it in house. Let's do

[Rep. Robert Hooper]: it, but

[Chair Matthew Birong]: it's not the vehicle. We got it in front of us.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: And I just like

[Chair Matthew Birong]: It's just not going to impact the language for the title until it goes into law. Gotcha. Gotcha. Yes.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: So the election stays the same. It's just the same.

[Chair Matthew Birong]: Alright. How about Nugent?

[Sophie Zidatney, Office of Legislative Counsel]: I just wanted to go back to my conversation with the house clerk. I think it's just a misnomer of the position. I wasn't suggesting that it was anything other than that. So I'm great with the change as long as it doesn't affect the upcoming election setting law process. I'm sure the ballots are being printed now.

[Rep. Kate Nugent]: So, wanted to cover all bases.

[Chair Matthew Birong]: That was

[Unidentified Committee Member]: similar. I think my question's answered. Just wondering what the stakes are if it's not by the time that we get the health election.

[Sophie Zidatney, Office of Legislative Counsel]: I guess it's been this way for some time. Yeah.

[Chair Matthew Birong]: Because we dropped the quartermaster last time, and it didn't really have any impact on the function within the inspector general in its federal position being separate from the adjutant general themselves. Know, and this is just the stuff that you when you do, you and your mind is this stuff you start finding. I mean, we're we're an old state, got a lot of old statute, and you find some old things sometimes. And you're like, wow, that's still here? Yes.

[Rep. Mary-Katherine Stone]: I'm just saying, I just learned about this So I'm not saying it's malicious intent that somebody's trying to hide. It's just like, I mean, we don't work on the guard base. We don't have an Inspector General bebopping around here. So I'm not saying that anyone is doing a bad job. It was an honest mistake, I just uncovered it this week, and I let the cat out of the back. So, thanks. Job.

[Sophie Zidatney, Office of Legislative Counsel]: So I have a question, in terms of, so this is a short form bill, do you want me to go ahead and turn that into a standard form bill and then include this change as well? I don't know how you

[Chair Matthew Birong]: The conversation we're having right now. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Let's see the yeah. Let's see the long form of lenders, please.

[Sophie Zidatney, Office of Legislative Counsel]: For inclusion with Yes. Other

[Chair Matthew Birong]: I've Yes. Got the Correct. So right now, have continued work on it at 93.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: I

[Chair Matthew Birong]: have, continued work in inclusion on Gold Star, and continued work in inclusion on the inspector general.

[Sophie Zidatney, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Okay. So do you want me to one bill with all those in it?

[Chair Matthew Birong]: But can we look at the language separately, then we're gonna, like

[Sophie Zidatney, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Okay.

[Chair Matthew Birong]: Put them into the larger one that we're working on. Okay. Okay. That would be helpful.

[Sophie Zidatney, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Great, John. Giving you what you what you're looking for.

[Chair Matthew Birong]: I so appreciate clarifying that Alright, committee. Let's, before we go into this next slug of work, I wanna call it five minute, seven minute. And so let's call it a go off until 10:40, and we'll pick up work on five eighty eight, our OPR bill.

[Sophie Zidatney, Office of Legislative Counsel]: It's heavy here.