Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Matthew Birong]: Alright. We're live. Okay. Welcome back, everyone. It is 01:30, and our next order of business is, taking up many discussion on the budget letter, but we're joined by, Devin Neary via Zoom and Charlie Baker live and in person. Some questions came up in and around the organizations that you gentlemen operate and represent. And, we're so folks at the table are looking to get a deeper understanding of sort of your inner workings from like a budgetary perspective.

[Charlie Baker]: Great. Yeah. For the record, Charlie Baker, I'm the executive director of the Cheney County Regional Planning Commission and kind of head our legislative committee. So which is why you see more of me and

[Matthew Birong]: Evan's there. I I did see him. Yes.

[Devin Neary]: Hey. Can you hear me okay?

[Matthew Birong]: Yeah. Yeah.

[Devin Neary]: Good afternoon. Sorry. Can't be there in person. Devin Neri, executive director of Rutland Regional Planning Commission and chair of VAPTA.

[Matthew Birong]: Alright. Close. Gentlemen, the table is yours.

[Charlie Baker]: Yeah. Thanks. How much time do I have, mister chair? We

[Matthew Birong]: have thirty minutes to watch for this conversation.

[Charlie Baker]: Thirty minutes. Okay. So I'm sorry. We just did a budget, had a scheduled, budget presentation in house commerce. So this is the same presentation, apologies, that I don't think I've sent it to Nick, but I will share it with him after maybe update the committee's name on it. So we were created to serve municipal governments back in 1968 in statute. We provide staff support and technical assistance, political subdivisions of state, and really work to help all of our member municipalities. All municipalities are members of an RPC that sit on our boards. These are the kinds of topics that we typically deal with. I think of them most as the place based services. So we don't deal with healthcare. We're not dealing with education or kind of services to individuals. We're really dealing with, how does Vermont grow and develop on the landscape, and working with other towns. And also, what do we protect and preserve also, right? Both sides of those things. Some quick facts. So this will maybe get a little bit more helpful for what I understood some of the questions to be. 11 RPCs, about 135 staff, plus or minus, I haven't done a head count, real recently. So that gives you some sense of the scale. It's almost, almost think about it as almost as a state agency. That's probably, I think maybe about the same as the agency of commerce staffing. We have one of the things we do, this is FY '25, we do an annual report, mostly reporting to all of our funding agencies, but particularly ACCD, because that's where the Regional Planning Grant funds that is part of the budget request come through. So this is just a quick map, the numbers of staff. Our boards are made up of representatives from each town. So we literally work for the towns in aggregate. The boards approve our budgets, set policy, including our regional plans. We each have an executive committee. So a subset of the board that is responsible for the oversight of the executive director. And then we all have committees that work on specialties, transportation or brownfields or permits. That really means how do we engage in act two fifty, or the regional plan, clean water, etcetera. Any questions on governance? Okay. Okay. Funding. So I think we're gonna get down to the tax that some people wanted to talk about. We have no general tax revenue. We have no ability to tax or anything like that. So about 95% of our revenue comes from state and federal grants, and about five percent from town dues, which are technically voluntary. We'd have no way to force a town to pay. I haven't heard about any situations where an RPC has had a challenge in getting a time to pay, but it's also really, largely around, we're a service provider and we're only getting paid when we provide services. Sometimes we talk about ourselves almost as a public sector consulting agency. We only get, we bill every hour that we work, it's billed to a specific performance agreement, and that's how we get paid. It's all reimbursable. And so if we aren't doing our work well, then agencies or towns don't want to pay us to do the work. So it's kind

[Unidentified committee member]: of transactional in that way. And at the bottom there, see, sorry for all the acronyms, but state agencies, OCCD, VTrans, ANR, Remote Emergency Management, the Administration, Building General Services, Public Service, the Health Department, and

[Charlie Baker]: then federal agencies also, USDA, Economic Development Administration, Environmental Protection Agency, US DOT, and Northern Borders Regional Commission, are probably, those are probably the typical, revenue sources. And for some of us, we may have grant agreements going at any time with all of those agencies. And, Devin, I don't if you wanna pop in. I think, like, my, my agency, I think we have probably, like, 40 funding contracts at a at this point in time. Devin, I don't know how yours looks.

[Devin Neary]: Yeah. That's very similar. I think we have, like, 50 open agreements right now, but those can range as low as a thousand dollars all the way up to our biggest one. So we typically align across the core areas like our state grant. Eccd, V trans through the transportation planning initiative. And traditionally, it's been the Department of Public Safety too as well through Vermont Emergency Management. And then we have a lot of one offs as well, depending on a specific initiative or new legislation that might be implemented through the RPCs.

[Charlie Baker]: Any questions about who pays us? More questions about how we spend our money. And then just to get more specific about the budget requests that we submitted, and thank you for giving it consideration. So this is the primary source of funding is the Regional Planning Grant Program. It's, and that is funded it's not in the general fund. It is it's funded through the property transfer tax, portion of revenue. So we're in a bucket with, Vermont Housing Conservation Board, Vermont Center for Geographic Information, which I'm not sure may appear in some people with that as Agency of Digital Services. I'm not sure I have that acronym right. And then municipal planning grants. So, the four of us are in that property transfer bucket. I think that got created maybe going on close to forty years ago with, like, hey, those or we, the the four of us, are kind of related to land development activity. Like, we're helping towns with their zoning and, and the permitting process and things. And so, the legislature made a decision, let's put that in the property transfer tax. Property transfer tax is kind of a indicator of what's going on in our real estate market. So I don't know. That's my sense. I don't know that for sure, but that's my sense of how we all got put into that kind of, specified bucket. And there was a a statutory formula for lots of years. It got amended in the last couple of years. And so, I don't think we've ever gotten what the formula said. So it's always been a notwithstanding, here's how much you get. And so last year sorry. This current fiscal year, seven point seven three quarters almost million. The budget adjustment act that you just voted on And my understanding is that there was a a 1.10.3% decrease in the property transfer tax revenue. And so I think the commissioner of finance kinda came back to the legislature and said, let's reduce all four of those organizations that get money from the PTT by 1.3%. So there was just, a little haircut of 1.3% that just happened, in the House. I don't think it's I don't think the BAA is fully approved yet, but I'm sure it will. And then turning to FY '27, consistent with what the governor had kind of directed his agencies of like 3% increases, we asked for 3%. The governor recommended 2.6%, which is 7.8 and change. So that's kind of the the budget specific request. I know that looks like a big number that and it's used by 11 of us spread across 135 staff. Yes.

[Matthew Birong]: Yes, please. So

[Unidentified committee member]: that's, I was the one who questioned it yesterday. Was like, wow, dollars 7,800,000.0, what do they do? So my question is, is it divided up evenly? Is it based on the population? Is it based on the number of talents that are in each region? I was just curious as to how that gets divided. And then I was curious as if it wasn't increased what you previously had asked.

[Charlie Baker]: Yeah, hopefully that answers that question.

[Unidentified committee member]: So

[Charlie Baker]: to your first question, the really simple answer is yes. There's actually a formula that does factor in, population and the number of towns. It's also, I think, the number of towns that have, approved plans. Don't know. Devin, you may know this better than I do. Pop, please chime in. But it's basically those three or four factors. So there's a formula that that ACCD, the Agency Commerce, keeps. And then so they they sort this amount by the formula. The outcome of that formula has, two regions that get more, which is The Kingdom and Chittenden County. You know, they have more towns. We have more population. And then and Devin, please pop in. But I think and the rest are somewhere in the middle of that of the in terms of how it's divided up. Yeah. We do have a couple smaller RPCs in that they have 10 towns. Kind of their more typicals around 20.

[Devin Neary]: Yeah. Yeah. So Charlie, I think it's a 50% equal share, 50 variable based on number, population, number of towns, and then the property transfer tax receipts is like the the rate at which the receipts are the proportionate percentage. It's like a fifty fifty breakdown generally between the equal share, and then those town population and number of town factors are the basis. So that explains sort of the discrepancy between regions with a lot of towns like Charlie had referenced versus not. And we range. So, our two smallest regions, Lamoille and Mount Of Scutney have 10 towns, and then our largest NVDA has 50. You said 55 right and then most of us land somewhere in the middle in the 20 to 30 range. Like in my region, have 27 towns, Charlie, you have 18, I believe. So we're somewhere in there.

[Unidentified committee member]: So, my next question then is what is your total budget?

[Charlie Baker]: I don't think we know the answer to that question, because there's 11 boards making independent decisions, but I think a good estimate would be up in the $30,000,000 range.

[Matthew Birong]: Yeah. So

[Charlie Baker]: oh, do you have that? Yeah.

[Devin Neary]: If I can share my screen screen quickly, and I do have to hop off here in a second. I'm so sorry. I got pulled into a meeting. One of our staffers is out for. You see this screen?

[Matthew Birong]: Yes, if you can blow

[Charlie Baker]: it up a little bit, that would be helpful.

[Devin Neary]: Yeah. So this is from just so you're aware, this is available on our VAPTA website, but this is the statewide regional planning commission assessment that was done last year. And it's a great report. It was required in statute. There's a bunch of great information in here, but excuse my scroll. Don't. Go blind here. It's always a tricky one.

[Charlie Baker]: It

[Devin Neary]: was just at this page. I'm sorry. There we go. Okay. So FY '25 here is the and again, this FY '25, not FY '26, but this is the total budgets for all of the rpcs. So you can see the ranges there. It's important to note, though, that many of us have significant pass through funds. So, I will share with you our approved fyi '26 budget from the Rutland rpc. So you can see here the a ccd funds $716,000 that's out of 2,800,000.0. So it's a significant chunk, our or chunk, sorry, geez, our local incomes or town dues are 60,000. That's a dollar per resident in our region. But to show you that sort of pass through of our funding, dollars 1,200,000.0 are passed through. So that's, funding for things like brownfields that we care the funds for, or clean water projects through the crisp. So a ccd funds are by far most important most flexible and most applicable to doing town work that's not directly tied to significant grant deliverables like we see in other grants. Then I just want to highlight to you as well. We've mentioned that we've had last year we had reduced funding from Vermont emergency management. And this actually has been reduced even further since we have not gotten the funds. We actually have $0 in this line. So hopefully that gives some better context. Sandy.

[Sandra "Sandy" Pinsonault]: Yes.

[Devin Neary]: Okay. Great.

[Charlie Baker]: I

[Devin Neary]: will. Am I stop sharing? Am I still going

[Matthew Birong]: Still sharing.

[Devin Neary]: Why is that happening? There we go.

[Matthew Birong]: Existential question for you. Representative Mango has a hand.

[Sandra "Sandy" Pinsonault]: Thank you. Devin, before you leave us, I have a quick question for you specifically. Why was your funding from a lot of emergency management reduced?

[Devin Neary]: So both reductions, last year's first reduction and then this year, were a direct result of FEMA reductions. So VM's total bucket was reduced. So we saw a proportionate reduction. And then obviously now with the funding freeze, total funding freeze, they're not getting any money. So neither are we. And so some of our RPCs have actually tried to cover that gap using these state funds, which are, as you know, are already very limited because we're using so many of them for act 21 in our new regional plan updates. Didn't get necessarily new additional funding to do all this extra work. We just sort of baked it in. I just can't stress how important this money is for us and it it is direct investment in our towns at the end of the day.

[Sandra "Sandy" Pinsonault]: Okay, great. Thank you. And this is for either of you, Devin, if you have to jump off, that's fine.

[Devin Neary]: Thank you, I apologize. I appreciate it.

[Sandra "Sandy" Pinsonault]: Thanks for being here.

[Matthew Birong]: You bet.

[Sandra "Sandy" Pinsonault]: Charlie then. There's something called

[Charlie Baker]: Last man standing, yeah, got him.

[Sandra "Sandy" Pinsonault]: There's something called the local planning assistance in that budget.

[Charlie Baker]: In his budget?

[Sandra "Sandy" Pinsonault]: Devin showed us. And maybe you don't have it in your RPC. My, question was gonna be, do all the RPCs have that line item and offer those services?

[Charlie Baker]: I'm gonna say my guess is yes. And I'm, you know, I'm not I don't know what exactly what's in Devon's budget, but, I guess, yeah, we call that, municipal assistance, and it's where towns, actually contract with us. So above their dues, they might hire us to work on their town plan or their town bylaws or typical ones, or sometimes it might be something else. Sometimes we do municipal project management, like managing a sidewalk project per town. So I'm assuming that's what that revenue source was for him.

[Sandra "Sandy" Pinsonault]: And in your RPC, since you probably can only answer for yours, is that paid by town dues or is that from state money?

[Charlie Baker]: That is a third category. So there's dues that we kinda get that are just, generic, I'll call them, to help with our operations. And then these are, project specific contracts from the town. So it's town money where they're hiring us to do a specific project.

[Sandra "Sandy" Pinsonault]: Okay. All right. And one last question for you, because we did get a request that we're thinking about approving from the Vermont Council on Rural Development for a one time ask for a municipal technical assistance grant for funding. And that I would assume, would help those towns be able to pay for your services.

[Charlie Baker]: Yeah. And I think you should ask VCRD a little bit more about what they intend there. Because I think even as I've heard them talk about that a little bit, I think, you know, I think we are one of the group

[Sandra "Sandy" Pinsonault]: Yes.

[Charlie Baker]: Of municipal technical assistance providers. So, yeah, I'm not sure how they're thinking about either splitting that or sharing that or, what they're thinking about in detail with that. But, yeah, so I think it might be more to provide services to organizations like ours or VCRD to provide services to that town without the town having to come up with

[Sandra "Sandy" Pinsonault]: more money. Right. And that's my understanding. And I think what I really wanted to clear up with you for myself is these municipal assistance line items or local planning assistance line items were not state money that you were giving to towns. It's actually towns paying you for various contracting services.

[Charlie Baker]: That's right.

[Sandra "Sandy" Pinsonault]: Great, thank you very much.

[Charlie Baker]: That kind of gets back to, are we being a good service provider and people actually want to hire us to provide services or not, which is a constant customer service challenge for us.

[Sandra "Sandy" Pinsonault]: I guess one last thing just to build on that to be perfectly clear, because I was having a discussion with commerce committee, individuals from our commerce committee today. And I think that there was a little bit of confusion about the RPCs having a program where you provide services to towns in terms of technical assistance. Do you have a program within the RPCs that is funded by our state money that we put in our budget for that?

[Charlie Baker]: It's more than a program. To me, that's our central purpose. That's why the legislature created us. And this $7,000,000 is that money. And that's why we will start to talk desperately about it because it is that core program that helps us provide if a town calls us, we don't ask them to send us a check first. We use this money to answer their questions or try to help them. So this is that core, municipal assistance money really.

[Sandra "Sandy" Pinsonault]: And have you seen demand for your services increase at all recently?

[Charlie Baker]: Yeah, if I put 181 aside, which has been an insane demand of work, or amount of work. I will tell you that our I know for me, like our my budget grew almost doubled pre COVID to now. So things yeah. More requests have been made for sure and more things. We're more involved in like clean water work than we were maybe that was maybe a coincidence. Can't remember was it 2018 that the clean water service provider law came through. So like that's been a chunk for those of us in Lake Champlain Basin. But yes, I'm sorry, the answer to your question is yes.

[Unidentified committee member]: That's great. Thanks. Anything

[Matthew Birong]: else from the committee for mister speaker?

[Charlie Baker]: Right, thank you very much, Charlie. Yeah, we all have audits and stuff, up on our web pages. Happy to share any of that if there's more questions. Okay.

[Unidentified committee member]: Thank you.

[Matthew Birong]: Thank you so much. Yeah, no, that was a lot of very, very helpful information. So we still have some time till the next order of business. So, any discussion around this request?

[Unidentified committee member]: Okay. I

[Matthew Birong]: think it's really important. Yeah.

[Unidentified committee member]: I do think it's helpful, though, with being bigger ask to just understand where other money sources are, the fact that it's just the way that you want to distribute it around different areas of the state. That's just helpful for us

[Charlie Baker]: to

[Unidentified committee member]: understand instead of, even though we respect your organization, saying, because of the DPOG, have to check the money. This is helpful.

[Matthew Birong]: Yeah. No, no, it was very educational. So, have, like, yeah, more nuances always. So, this was something, taking a position on this as a committee for the budget request was something that we had on hold. We feel comfortable taking a position on this? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, I will call for favorable thumbs. I am seeing all favorable thumbs. Yes. Thank you for that. And you have, several things in front of us, so I guess I'll ask for a committee. Any judgment on this one? Do we wanna take a five minute break now, or do we wanna talk about more line items? I heard a yes side of representative at Joe on a five

[Unidentified committee member]: minute break. Motion for five minutes. I

[Sandra "Sandy" Pinsonault]: Thank you. Appreciate that.

[Matthew Birong]: Okay.

[Unidentified committee member]: Yeah. We'll go off

[Matthew Birong]: or