Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Speaker 0]: We are live. Alright. Good morning, everyone. It is just after 9AM, Wednesday, February 25, house of government operations and military affairs. First quarter of business today is h eight forty one, an act relating to miscellaneous animal welfare procedures. And we have with us, mister Fitzpatrick, legislative council, and we've got some new words on a page to go over. How are you, council?

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Legislative Counsel)]: Doing well. As the chair said, Eric Fitzpatrick with the Office of Website Council here this morning to chat with the committee about possible new language for H eight forty one. I'm not totally sure. I probably phrased the introductory language incorrectly. I'm not really sure the posture of the bill in here at the moment. It's a bill, it's phrased as a committee strike all, but it should be just proposed from representative. So, I may have missed that. Representative Waters Evans? Say it again, sorry.

[Speaker 0]: Say, a proposed strike off from representative Waters Evans?

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Legislative Counsel)]: I think so.

[Speaker 0]: Yeah, that's how I

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Legislative Counsel)]: can answer that. Yeah, yeah. Right. Yes. So that's what we're looking at. And this proposal, you'll notice and you may see other amendments that use the same sort of tool, which is a yellow highlighting tool to indicate where the possible changes are between the draft that the bill was introduced and the version that you're looking at right now. So I would tend to just indicate and focus on what the changes are, unless there's a different preference. That sound good?

[Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: I think that sounds good.

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Legislative Counsel)]: Just a

[Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: bit of confusion. Save time.

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Legislative Counsel)]: That makes sense.

[Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: Saying what's different.

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Legislative Counsel)]: Okay. Perfect. So, the first section of the bill has to do with the authority of the Division of Animal Welfare, the Director of Animal Welfare, which is in statute right now, which this committee spent a lot of time on a couple of years ago. So, if we turn to page five, you'll see that the couple of major changes here proposed to this part of the bill, under the existing, or the bill was introduced, I should say, there was a section of law in that bill that established a certified rabies vaccinator program. So this was this program that permitted the Division of Animal Welfare to oversee and establish a process by which veterinary technicians, humane officers, people like that could be trained and educated and certified as rabies vaccinators. So, what this version of the bill does, or what this amendment does, I should say, is rather than have all of that in statute, you'll see it proposes that the Division of Land Rover adopt rules to establish this program. So that's what's going on page five, lines three through 17. So, that's the standards that are proposed for what would be involved in this rabies vaccinator program. So, B, C and D are these sort of guidelines that the rules would have to follow. So, director would consult with Vermont veterinarians for purposes of developing the rules. Subdivision B program permits licensed vets to train and authorize veterinary and animal shelter staff to administer vaccinations under the veterinary direct or indirect supervision. Authorize direct event and welfare to do the same thing with humane officers. And the program has to include training in properly storing vaccines, issuing certificates, etcetera. That's subdivision D record keeping. So it leaves the details to the rules, but provides broad guidelines and standards that the rules have to be consistent with. So that's what's added to the rulemaking authority. You'll see bottom of page five over on the page six, bill has introduced had permitted the division to adopt rules requiring a bottom of page five outdoor cats, basically vaccination, spaying, neutering, licensing. So that struck. So the outdoor cats provision is struck. I was about to say the outdoor cats are out, but it's kind of redundant.

[Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: They already are.

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Legislative Counsel)]: Right. No change needed. Top of page six, the rabies vaccinator program. Again, we just went over that. Piece of it is much more expanded. Subsections F and G and page six are struck also. Subsection F had to deal with, the Director of Animal Affairs authority to conduct inspections of various entities, pet dealers, animal shelters, etcetera. So that struck same thing with subsection G, which had given the division the authority to impose fines, suspend licenses, etcetera. So that's out. A new addition is subsection F, which also has to do with the authority of the director of animal welfare. And it requires that animal shelters, rescue organizations, dog breeders, and any other person importing domestic pets into the state for adoption, sale, transfer. So it's basically not just for personal use, but adoption, sale, transfer, that kind of thing. Anyone importing them for those reasons have to register with the division of animal welfare. No fee required for the registration, but, there is, some information that has to be provided, animal intake, production, inventory, and disposition. And then bottom of page six over on top of page seven, if the person who's importing the domestic pet fails to register, then first violation is a warning, that's top of page seven. And second or subsequent events, there can be a fine and a cease and desist order. So that's that piece. I can pause there in case there's any questions.

[Aaron Collette (Fire Chief, Williston; USAR Task Force 1 Rescue Team Manager)]: Any questions from the table?

[V. L. Coffin IV (Member)]: Thank you. So I just want to be clear on this. So going back to the, f one. Yep. For for shelters, rescuers, and dog breeders, any other person importing domestic pets into the state of Vermont for adoption, sale, or transfer, does that so say if I go somewhere to pick up a dog down in down south. I go down there as a private individual, go down there, adopt a dog, and bring it home. Do I have to register or is that or or particular, you know, are single individuals who are just rescuing a dog have to register or does that the way that reads, it could go either way?

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah, I think I think that the intent is that person would not have to register and leave.

[V. L. Coffin IV (Member)]: Right. But it's not clear.

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Legislative Counsel)]: But it could be read either way. I think that's right.

[V. L. Coffin IV (Member)]: Yeah. I want people if someone wants to rescue an animal, they should be allowed to rescue an animal for themselves.

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Legislative Counsel)]: Mhmm. Mhmm.

[V. L. Coffin IV (Member)]: To make sure that that is I think that needs to be cleared up.

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Legislative Counsel)]: Right. Our border is over.

[Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: Thank you, rep Coffin, because the intent was not for one single adoption. It's I think the It's I think the word importing is, is what was saying, like implying that it's more than just like one pet, even like bringing them in for the purpose of adopting them out. Right. That's what the intention was. But if there's a way to clear up the language so that that's clear to people, that would be helpful. Thank

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Legislative Counsel)]: you. You could, because the idea is that it's, you don't want to cover the person for their own adoption, that sort of thing. Is the idea to cover someone who's bringing the pet in for transfer to somebody else?

[Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: Yes, like to adopt them out. Yeah. Like there are people who will get a van full of puppies from South Carolina, bring them here and then allow people to adopt them.

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Legislative Counsel)]: Right.

[Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: That is the kind of situation that should be registering.

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Legislative Counsel)]: Right. Mhmm.

[Speaker 0]: Alright. Well, there's no. Sorry. We're moving targets right now.

[Sandra "Sandy" Pinsonault (Member)]: I was watching. I think if you read it carefully, it kind of makes sense that we don't need to make any changes to this. Other person including domestic S, meaning plural, which most people would get around and get pets for themselves, or adoption, sale, or other transfer, or other breathing shall have to register. So I think an individual kind of takes that out of the sentence. That's why I'm reading it.

[Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: Yes, I feel like counsel is the person who individual knows best what the language implies. I felt fine with it the way it was, but I don't want anyone to be. I don't want it to be misinterpreted anyway, or to someone to face some kind of penalty for just adopting a dog.

[Speaker 0]: I guess the question for counsel, is there a way of clarifying the intent?

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Legislative Counsel)]: There must be, but for some reason it's not immediately leaping to mind. Okay.

[Speaker 0]: But in your brain for a

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Legislative Counsel)]: solve Right? We're gonna

[Speaker 0]: we're gonna try and solve for x. Right?

[Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: Okay.

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Legislative Counsel)]: Unconsciously, something is working on Alright. Of language.

[Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: It's early. Right.

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Legislative Counsel)]: But I I do think that that as kind of illustrated by the different readings by the members, that there is at least a chance it could be read more than one way. So it would be worth probably trying to clarify it, could be done. I represent

[Speaker 0]: Pinsonault and I just want to let everybody know I got to go down to appropriations in fifteen minutes

[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: on one of our other bills.

[Sandra "Sandy" Pinsonault (Member)]: After the sentence ending with division of animal warfare, welfare.

[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: Period. That's an older division.

[Sandra "Sandy" Pinsonault (Member)]: Perhaps the sentence, just one sentence saying, an individual for personal rescue is exempt, or something like that. Just one simple sentence saying that

[Lisa Mailet (Director of Animal Welfare, Dept. of Public Safety)]: an individual is exempt from this,

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Legislative Counsel)]: for personal rescue. Yes, I was leaning toward that same thing I had written down so far, this section shall not apply to, and then I haven't gotten to the rest of it yet, but I see the concept we're aiming for. And is it really any, I'm wondering, just curious though, it be accurate to say, is it really only for rescue? Or is it more like you don't want it to apply to an individual bringing an animal into the state for personal purposes? I mean, that's really what you don't want covered. I think it's like regardless of rescue or if you're buying from

[Speaker 0]: a breeder, if I'm understanding the intent, it's like, yes, no.

[Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: Right. The intent is, is Any one person or group that is bringing animals here for the purpose to Vermont, for the purpose of adopting them out, allowing people to rescue them, selling them, giving them away, breeding all of those things. It's it's the moving of. The larger here for that purpose,

[Speaker 0]: a larger animal mass for the purpose of like, sure, yes, not for a family or an individual who is looking to attain obtain an animal for their personal purpose.

[Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: That's right.

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Legislative Counsel)]: So about this section shall not apply to an individual importing a domestic pet for personal use.

[Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: Yes, personal use.

[V. L. Coffin IV (Member)]: Personal ownership, personal use. Personal purposes.

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah, I know. I'm trying to bring it up

[Speaker 0]: with you. It's a little weird.

[Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: Did have his property though. Sure. I know a lot. Okay.

[Speaker 0]: I'm just playing with words right now.

[Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: Yeah.

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. Purposes works too.

[Speaker 0]: Personal purposes. Because I think just like use, like infers that you're like trying to like like like is this

[Sandra "Sandy" Pinsonault (Member)]: a working animal? Like, is this like a working cat?

[Speaker 0]: Yeah. Working cat back to the working cat thing or working dogs. You know what I mean? Because it's like, I just think like use infers. Something other than a personal.

[Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: But like companionship or something. Session. All right. Well, we only get the chair for ten more minutes. Can thank you. This is important. You. I appreciate everyone's thoughts.

[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: We'll see that on

[Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: the

[Speaker 0]: next Thank you, Kessel. Yes.

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Legislative Counsel)]: All right. So, simple change on page seven, you see that it's just expanding the animal welfare fund. The previous, the bill was introduced to provide the fund with the ability to accept donations and gifts, and just adds grants to that authority. Over on page eight, we have a new section, and this has to do with sexual sterilization of stray cats with no known owner. And as I say, this is new both to the law and to the bill as introduced. So this provides that an animal shelter or rescue organization that under a contract with a municipal legislative body, impounds a stray cat with no known owner may have the cat sexually sterilized no sooner than one day after the impact. So can't be done within the first twenty four hours, but after that, the sexual sterilization could occur.

[Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: Yeah, the director of animal welfare is going to speak to that, I believe, we go through the bill to explain why.

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Legislative Counsel)]: Something that was sort of touched on right there, but on the next page, you'll see, because this happens throughout the bill. Look, for example, at page nine lines five and six, the phrase that's used in current law is spayed or neutered. And it comes up in a variety of contexts. That phrase has been replaced with the term sexually sterilized. My understanding is that encompasses a broader range of procedures than spaying and neutering does as far as sterilization of an animal. That's a more inclusive term for those other procedures. So you'll see that happen throughout the bill. Just really a technical change to line three of page nine. And this has to do with the provision that's in the bill that prohibits a person from owning more than 35 dogs. It had been 35 licensed dogs, but it's really just clarifying that 35 dogs is the limit period. So that's what that first sentence is. And you see several instances of the sexual sterilization language being added. Also on page nine, right now, under existing law, rabies vaccinations are required for all dogs and wolf hybrids, at least six months of age, six months of age or older. So, something new to this amendment is that it requires rabies vaccinations for dogs and wolf hybrids, period, for all dogs and wolf hybrids. It supposes to remove that six months of age cut off, though that would apply. Certified rabies vaccinator language is removed because remember that that's being moved to rule anyway. Program doesn't exist yet. So it doesn't make any sense to have that in statute yet. Over on page 10, seeing two examples of the same two changes we just talked about. The six months of age, actually, sorry, this is a bit different. This has to do with the wolf hybrids having been sexually sterilized. There has to be a certificate of that, provided before they can be licensed. And under the proposal they just looked at last time, they'd only apply to wolf hybrid six months of age or older. So this is all, regardless of age, there has to be a documentation that animal has been sexually sterilized. Over on page 11.

[V. L. Coffin IV (Member)]: A question.

[Sandra "Sandy" Pinsonault (Member)]: Before obtaining any kind of dog license is required right now, you have to have a license. And before you can license any kind of dog right now in State Vermont, you have to show a certificate that's been vaccinated.

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Legislative Counsel)]: I'm not sure why. Regardless of age, you mean?

[Sandra "Sandy" Pinsonault (Member)]: Vaccinated. Rabies. Rabies. Is about Yeah. So, vaccination. Sorry, I jumped ahead. Oh, that's good.

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Legislative Counsel)]: So, you'll see that the, page 11, the, authority of the director of animal welfare to this inspection authority is being removed. We talked about that. That also was struck from the rules piece. So it's been struck here as well. Pages twelve and thirteen, that's the certified rabies vaccinator program. Recall, I mentioned that that was in statute and the bill was introduced. So it struck here because it's in rule instead, the rules, we reviewed in the beginning. The next couple of pages, thirteen, fourteen, all examples of changing the term spaying and neutering to sexual sterilization. Also on page 14, there's one other piece besides that.

[Speaker 0]: No, just the sexual sterilization crease. I understand why we're using it. It just really didn't mean out. No, it's like existing reflex from work we did on a Eugenics and Politie bill years ago.

[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: Oh, shit. Yeah, that's just like, just bring it back old same testimony. Sorry, that's the story. Kind of didn't know.

[Sandra "Sandy" Pinsonault (Member)]: So you're really answering your seat?

[Speaker 0]: Yeah, I was like, sorry. Go on, counsel.

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Legislative Counsel)]: Sure. Sure. Well, I'll defer to the experts on that. The there's one other thing under the terminology. Oh, yeah. So, top of page 14. So, current law, agency of human services is required to work with, qualified organizations on the spaying and neutering program. And the proposal, line two, page 14, is to make that discretionary. The agency may work with these organizations on the program, not required.

[Speaker 0]: More of the

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Legislative Counsel)]: terminology on those two pages. So nothing else until page 17.

[Speaker 0]: I'm gonna hit the pause button right there. I have to go down to house appropriations. So I'm gonna hand this conversation off to rep Waters Evans, to continue, the process through this. But, also, so I will sneak outside door now. Good luck.

[Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: It's very sneaky of you. Yes. Page 17?

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Legislative Counsel)]: Yes, that's where we are. So, this has to do with the requirement that had been in the bill as introduced, state, basically that state licensing requirements for importing domestic pets. So it had added that. So this strikes that. So that licensing requirement piece isn't in there. There is a part added though, and that's further down on page 17. So currently, importers of pets have to provide a health certificate. And there's a list there of the different pieces of information that have to be in that certificate. It's lines eleven and thirteen. And what this proposes to do is add one additional piece of information that has to be in that certificate, specifically for wolf hybrids, see that line sixteen and seventeen. So if the wolf hybrid is more than four months of age, that the wolf hybrid has been sexually sterilized, that has to be in the certificate as well, for both hybrids specifically. All right, so that brings us to page 18. And here, this is the advertising section we're talking about now. Remember, for advertisements of animals for adoption in Vermont, there's some requirements in the bill that was introduced, what the advertisement was required to include. Let's see a numbering problem there, five should be four. But those two pieces, one and four, were in the bill was introduced. So the advertisement has to include the current location of the animal and the advertiser's license number, if any. So the proposal is to add two and three, which is the municipality and state in which the animal was located at the time the advertisement was placed, and the advertisers rescue or shelter license number, if any. Also clarifying in subsection B there that for purposes of social media advertising, that requirement only applies to advertisers located in Devon or transferring or offering transfer animals in New State. And lastly, I believe this is the last piece, is a reporting requirement that's on page 20. So, of Animal Welfare is basically going to report to this committee, and Senate Committee on GovOps on the next steps necessary for the creation of the comprehensive animal welfare program. Requires the director to consult with stakeholders and registrants for purposes of the report.

[Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: Thank you.

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Legislative Counsel)]: You bet. I think that's all the changes that I have in this draft anyway.

[Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: Does anyone have any more questions? No. All right. Great. Thank you so much.

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Legislative Counsel)]: You bet.

[Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: Lisa, I think you're next. Thank you so much.

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Legislative Counsel)]: You bet. Happy to help. Let me know if there's any other questions.

[Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: Oh, there will be.

[Lisa Mailet (Director of Animal Welfare, Dept. of Public Safety)]: Lisa Mailet, Director of Animal Welfare for the Department of Public Safety. I've looked at Phil in terms of the revisions you made since last time and thinking about it in terms of what I can realistically do with the given resources of division. So first of all, I think that overall it looks like it's proceeding in really good directions. I think that the changes made are really helpful ones. I'm happy to not be in charge of a licensing program at this point. That just seems a little bit premature. With respect to the two main obligations, this puts on me developing a program for the certified rabies vaccinators by rules and setting up a registration system for really pet animal industry players. I think both of those are things that I can do without worrying, without needing, without additional people or additional resources, and without some cumbersome regulatory regime. I have to dig into the registration a little bit more, but I preliminarily think that those are things that I can do with existing resources. I just had a couple of either responses to questions that were asked while Eric was talking, or one or two suggested word tweaks, but it's your call. So if we go to page six, lines 14 through 19, you were talking about importing domestic pets into Vermont for adoption sale, other transfer of breeding purposes. I think the revision you made is a really good one in terms of accepting making it clear this doesn't apply to an individual who is going to adopt an animal in another state and bring it back or even buy an animal in another state and bring it This is for people bringing animals to Vermont for the purpose of conducting a commerce of some sort, either adopting them out or, or breeding them or, selling them in another way. So I think that the revision that, you all added makes a lot of sense to make that really clear. And just know in terms of my interpreting the language, I would not expect to interpret it to include registration of individuals who are bringing animals into the state for their own personal purposes. And I also said personal use, but now I have changed my terminology. All right, then on page eight, line five. With the language, this is about the sterilizing stray cats that come in without a known owner. I think allowing a brief period of time. So if there is an owner who did not microchip their cat, for example, didn't put IV on it, but they really don't want it sterilized, if they look for their cat quickly, it's not going to happen the same day. And I think that's all good. It's not going to get spayed or neutered same day. I wanna make sure, though, that with that language of no sooner than one day after the impound, that this is authorizing shelters and rescues with impound contracts to spay and neuter the next day. And here, it sounds like it's more prohibition on what they do. You can't do it on day one, but it leaves open permission to do it after that. And that's really the change that this provision would be providing in the law. So no sooner than one day after impound. I don't know, but they do so after that. That's cumbersome. I don't know if there's a way to make it clear that they are authorized on day two to do the have the surgeries done.

[Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: Oh yeah, of course. Thank you. Did we hear earlier in testimony several days ago that most cats, if they are not picked up after three days, are considered feral, stray, whatever, but most owners pick them up within three days?

[Lisa Mailet (Director of Animal Welfare, Dept. of Public Safety)]: Yeah, so the data from Central Vermont Humane Society for 2025, which matches national data, It matches up with them is that cats that come in a stray and are already altered, are reclaimed. About 50% of them are getting reclaimed within three days or they aren't at all. Cats that come in though that are intact have not been sexually sterilized, at least at Central Vermont Humane Society, this is pretty consistent again nationally, almost never get reclaimed. And so the cats that this would apply to, the ones that are not sexually sterilized and don't have ID on, they already have an almost zero rate of being reclaimed.

[Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: Thank you for reiterating that for me.

[Lisa Mailet (Director of Animal Welfare, Dept. of Public Safety)]: Yeah, and the other part of it is that intact stray cats are much more apt to be fighting and spreading disease. They also hunt at much higher rates because, for example, pregnant queen had much higher protein needs. And so there's a public health aspect to doing this, not just the practical, are they going to get

[Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: Okay.

[Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: Then

[Lisa Mailet (Director of Animal Welfare, Dept. of Public Safety)]: I wanted to explain briefly the change that Eric mentioned on page 14, line two. It's a change from the agency of Human Services shall implement the program through an agreement with qualified organization to the agency may. Currently, the program is being administered by the agency of human services. No vendor bid on the administration contract for this year. So the way that's being run this year is inconsistent with the way the law is written because there were no other options. And so I had suggested behind the scenes to Eric that perhaps changing this domain would make sense so that if this situation happens again in the future, law and practice are aligned. This gives a little bit of flexibility. Then on page 18, line 12, the advertising provision. I wonder if it would make sense to say all advertisements of animals for adoption or sale. And if it should be domestic pets. I'm not sure you're trying I guess I'm not sure what animals this is trying to reach. Domestic pets means cats and dogs statutorily right now. Animal would include cow, horse, everything else. So I'm wondering if all of the references in this provision should be to domestic pets because that's a defined term. And if it should be advertisements of domestic pets for adoption or sale. Okay. And that would avoid inadvertently including any agricultural livestock. Right. Domestic pet means cats and dogs statutorily, whereas domestic animal even means including livestock and then animals is just like if we were bringing in some trout from somewhere in pond,

[Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: we would have to Okay, we don't want

[Lisa Mailet (Director of Animal Welfare, Dept. of Public Safety)]: to do that. You don't need

[Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: to register every trout. Yes, right. How does this pertain to a horse rescue out of state?

[Lisa Mailet (Director of Animal Welfare, Dept. of Public Safety)]: This would not apply to it if it says domestic pets. Horses are actually considered livestock statutorily. So you could say domestic pets or horses. I don't know exactly who you want to include, but that would be the way to include horses if that's for you.

[Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: It was just a question, and I'll defer to Bill's sponsor on that one. Domestic pets is where we're trying to go.

[Lisa Mailet (Director of Animal Welfare, Dept. of Public Safety)]: But I would say adoption or sale, because adoption doesn't really have a good legal definition with animals. But rescues and shelters don't think of it as sales, even though technically they are. Then finally on page 20, lines nine through 15, thank you for giving me responsibility. I will have a report to you in December. Feel free to point to specific things in the comprehensive plan if you want, like which legislative priorities you're concerned with or anything like that. I'd be happy to have you point to that, those specific things to do. This is something I can definitely do within the confines of my existing resources.

[Speaker 0]: All right, that's it. Thank you so much. All

[Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: right, and I apologize to this. We're running a little behind. Next we have Trevor Whipple. Thank you.

[Trevor Whipple (Vermont League of Cities and Towns; Animal Cruelty Investigations Advisory Board)]: Morning. For the record, Trevor Whipple, currently employed by the Vermont Lake of Cities and Towns. I'm here as a representative of the Animal Cruelty Investigations Advisory Board. For those that I've not met prior, I was a police officer here in Vermont for thirty eight years, the chief in Barrie City in South Burlington before I came to VL Coffin. So my testimony is rather brief. I think that, certainly, as I see, particularly the the newer draft today, see some elements in it that I think are, helpful when it comes to, responding to situations involving animal welfare, certainly helping cities and towns kind of manage this. And I'll go through them just in the highlights of the the current draft. And, certainly, the first is, rabies vaccination. I think that the more we can do to, to make this accessible in a more expeditious manner such that having these additional folks potentially authorized or licensed to provide rabies vaccinations would, make this easier. Certainly in our shelters, as Lisa had mentioned, as we move forward potentially even with, humane officers, those local city, animal control officers that might meet that definition down the road. This would just make it a a whole lot easier to accomplish that, ultimately, keeping our communities safe. We certainly don't want, rabies in our communities. When it comes to to registration, the registration section, I'm personally, and professionally very much in favor of that as a police chief in two communities, previously, to not really know sometimes what's going on in your communities. It's, I think helpful to know. Certainly in South Burlington, we had a couple, kind of pop up rescue situations that became problematic, and we we didn't know they were in our community till all of a sudden, got notified of problems and complaints by neighbors or potential adopters of these animals. So having that registration, just having it on record so that you would know, who's in your community, and, that way if if something did arise, it wouldn't be a surprise or a shock. Very much in favor of the the next section being able to accept donations. We know that not a lot of new money here in Vermont. And when we look at, you know, my dream, certainly as a as a police chief and also as working at Vermont League of Cities and Towns supporting our police departments and animal control officers, anything we can do to move the needle here such that, we have, better mechanisms to respond to complaints against animals. And maybe someday in my grand vision down the road, places to to to take animals that have been seized, to rehabilitate or care for them without putting, you know, undue burden on the the local taxpayer. So anything we can do to at least start to develop some sort of a fund, so that our director of animal welfare has something to work with. And this certainly is a way to to do that without requiring financial burden to folks. The sexual sterilization of stray cats, again, I think anything we can do to control some of that kind of uncared for populations in our community, The whether it be breeding, whether it be fighting, we used to South Burlington, we get complaints about the hunting and killing of songbirds. So anything we can do, I think, to confine that is is helpful. The numbers of dogs, again, 35, pretty pretty good number, but I think, you know, we have to start somewhere. And at least that I speak to, sometimes folks in some of our more rural areas, and there are concerns for, large scale breeding operations coming to Vermont. And, you know, if we have individuals that have 35 or more dogs that are not sexually sterilized, at least then, they would have to be registered. Folks would know that they were doing business in our in our state, and, could could be aware of that. And, you know, the the other components, certainly the the disclosure. I have seen a number of circumstances where people were either standing up these kind of, at home rescues, or or frankly, breeding breeding at their own homes and putting out advertisements or trying to, you know, communicate, with potential buyers and not knowing where these animals come from. I know, certainly in the pet dealer law, we made some great strides there, and this just continues to develop some line of accountability for folks that are doing this, so that we can make sure that they're being ethical and appropriately caring for these animals. With that, that's kind of a rapid fire delivery, but just really wanted to to come today to support this. I mean, certainly, just the whole development of the division of animal welfare has been a bit of a sigh of relief that that we've we've started. We've had it somewhere, and we're extremely fortunate that, Lisa agreed to come to Vermont and be our first director. And, you know, already, we're seeing the needle start to move, I think anything we can do to continue that is extremely helpful.

[Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: Thank you so much. Does anyone have questions? Thank you. I appreciate it.

[Speaker 0]: You for being

[Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: here. To know we're on the right track here.

[Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: We're ready for switching topics totally. Yes.

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Legislative Counsel)]: Okay. I haven't been with this question before. Yeah, of course. So my question is, I see this is on the agenda for vote tomorrow morning. Would you want me have a clean-cut? Think I have the amendments that we just talked about that are pretty straightforward. For example, I could change the language and have that new draft approved by the editors and sent over. Does that make sense? So you guys can have it whenever you might go if I pop up. At least you have it inside whenever you want do next.

[Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: That would be fantastic.

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Legislative Counsel)]: Oh yeah, sounds good.

[Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Legislative Counsel)]: All right, we'll be in touch.

[Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: Thank you.

[Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: Thank you all.

[Dan Batsie (Deputy Commissioner, Dept. of Public Safety)]: Thank you.

[Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: Great, so changing direction. Thank you so much for your patience. Sorry to keep other witnesses waiting, but that was really important too. We have Representative Elizabeth Burroughs here sponsoring H-nine zero one. And the next several, and I mean several witnesses, their bills and the language are potentially going to be included in an omnibus bill on emergency management and disaster response. So excuse me. Welcome, Rep Burrows. Can you tell us about your bill?

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows]: For the record, my name is Representative Elizabeth Burrows, and I represent Windsor One, which is Heartland West Windsor of Windsor. And I'm here to tell you about bill, which is currently short form, but I have it's H901. But I handed in the actual proposal, which was supposed to be the one long form, and it's posted to your website. So thank you so much for listening to this introduction. Again, this is for a short form bill that was supposed to be a long form, but I misunderstood the filing deadline in December. And so it is a short form. This bill is extremely important to me, and so I appreciate this opportunity. I began researching this bill last year during the off session when I started to ponder the actual implications of the fact that Vermont municipalities rely on lists or registries of people with disabilities during emergency. I started to research best practices around the country and found that registries are actually ill advised. And if you think about it, it makes sense. After all, life with a disability is a state that is both permanent for some and temporary for others. And in an emergency, it's considered to be more efficient and effective and cost effective to thoroughly plan for accommodations rather than relying on a frantic search for people on a list that's neither consistently updated nor definitively accurate. Additionally, registries provide a false sense of security for both municipal officials and people who take the time to register. For what other demographic is it acceptable to create a registry that's held by government at any level? When I dug a little deeper, I learned that while representatives of people with disabilities are listed for emergency planning boards, none have been appointed. I then put word out to advocates and people with lived experience that I was pulling together a bill, And I asked people to send their experiences with disasters, such as recent flooding, and their recommendations for what would be included in such a bill. I received an overwhelming response, about half from people who had been forgotten during the floods or whose accommodations had been wholly ignored once they'd been rescued from their homes and recovery had begun. During the flooding events, they were abandoned, forgotten despite having been listed on registries. They were not allowed to bring service animals with them, in many cases told no pets allowed. Service animals are eyes for someone who can't see well and trained alerts to dire medical states, not pets. They were placed in inaccessible housing such that they could not reach the bathroom. They were carried with no access to devices that would enable mobility. And even after initial search and rescue phases, their needs were ignored, instead being told that they should be frightful. Setting aside the fact that these more than 90,000 Vermonters are actually our most vulnerable, these actions and lack of inclusive planning are violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Most of the items that I have included in this proposal are nuanced interpretations of the ADA requirements that have come directly from disabled people themselves. Thank you again for hearing this. Having communicated with so many people who have been impacted by our current system of emergency planning, I feel a deep responsibility to make sure their voices are heard. Thanks. Thank you very much for bringing this to our attention,

[Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: because while it's shocking, I know that there are many folks out there who are in positions of responsibility that haven't been educated in how to work with the disabled population, and that's really a shortcoming. So, hope we can work towards rectifying that.

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows]: I appreciate that. And a lot of the recommendations that are in here are not costly. There are things like asking to make sure that there's accessible parking near a food distribution site, and that if a person who has a disability comes to get food or water, that they are able to either have a place to sit or cut the line if they the easy things like that. But also, I spoke with a woman who recently left the AHS. She was a disability planner for AHS. She was not appointed to any of the emergency planning boards, but she attended a lot of the state and regional level meetings. And she said that disability was, in the eight years that she served at AHS, was never brought up, even one time. And not that she would have been consulted because she wasn't serving in an official capacity. But So that's part of the reason that I made sure to include that it has to be included in agendas for those

[Speaker 0]: meetings.

[Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: Does anybody have questions for the representative or should we go to Leg Council? Would you like me to walk through the proposal with you? Mean Leg Council That's we have

[Sandra "Sandy" Pinsonault (Member)]: Tucker here for. Tucker, are you here to

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows]: talk about the bill or about the

[Dan Batsie (Deputy Commissioner, Dept. of Public Safety)]: About the bill.

[Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: Okay. Do you have additional information you'd like to provide to us before Tucker does that?

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows]: That's the proposal that I'm talking about.

[Sandra "Sandy" Pinsonault (Member)]: What would have been the long form?

[Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: Okay, yeah. It's linked on

[V. L. Coffin IV (Member)]: That's what

[Dan Batsie (Deputy Commissioner, Dept. of Public Safety)]: I was

[V. L. Coffin IV (Member)]: reading while you were talking.

[Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: Thank you so much for bringing this to us.

[V. L. Coffin IV (Member)]: Thank you.

[Barbara Neal (Executive Director, Enhanced 911 Board; Co-Chair, Public Safety Communications Task Force)]: Thank you again. And

[Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: you're welcome to stay in case anybody has any additional questions, if you want to.

[Sandra "Sandy" Pinsonault (Member)]: Alright, excellent. Thank you, I appreciate that. Thank you, Tucker. Yes. Good

[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: morning, everyone. Tucker Anderson, Legislative Counsel. You should have in front of you H. Nine zero one, which in its current form is a short form. The short form gives you a high level overview of the purpose of the bill that representative Burrows was just discussing in its more detailed long form. So what I'll do is I'll cover each one of the proposals that is contained within the short form and give you a little bit of background of the statutes that might be affected by these amendments. And then I'll reorient you to the work the committee did on some of these subjects last session so that you know where in titles twenty sixteen, 24 and a few others, these changes may need to take place. So the first proposal is that all regional and municipal emergency management plans would be required to utilize an access and functional needs framework and ensure that the plans apply the C MIST, which stands for communication, medical needs, independence, supervision and Transportation Process to identify needs, provide accommodations and operationalize support. These provisions are contained currently within 20 VSA Section six, Subsection C and D that reflect a mandate on both local and regional emergency planning committees to develop these plans. That is where these amendments would take place. The bill also proposes to require regional and local emergency management organizations to include both members with lived disability experience and those who represent organizations serving vulnerable populations. There is currently only one set of requirements that relates specifically to the regional committees, and it's divided between voting and non voting members. It's the same section of statute 20 BSA section six. It's in subsection D, and one of the policy considerations for the committee if you're going to amend this section of statute is whether these new members would be voting or non voting members advising the committee on the development of the plan. The third proposal is to require municipalities to partner with disability led organizations throughout all phases of emergency management planning. This goes beyond just section six of Title 20 and may require some additions throughout the emergency planning chapter, which is chapter one. The fourth proposal is to require the division of emergency management, also referred to as Vermont Emergency Management according to our statutes, to update local emergency plan templates and guidance to explicitly address shelter citing universal access considerations, and the inclusion of individuals with diverse functional needs as a component of the municipal emergency management plan. Something to note here is that the general assembly has already, throughout the emergency management statutes required shelter citing to be specifically addressed in all levels of the plan. So there may just need to be some clarification tweaks around those components of the emergency management statutes to address the specific criteria set out. There is no mention of universal access considerations as part of the current emergency planning requirements at any level. And this is where I was going to pause and reorient you to the structure that exists currently. There is a requirement for the state to adopt an emergency management planning framework under FEMA guidance and FEMA rules. And that plan, if you recall, has to be updated annually by Vermont Emergency Management and sent to FEMA. And that was the source of some issues last session that you addressed because there was an auditor's report about a missed annual report that was supposed to be submitted. So you updated those state level planning requirements. And in fact, there is a, in person reporting duty. If you recall, Vermont Emergency Management is required to come report to the General Assembly on the status of those plans. There is also an all hazards mitigation plan that has to comply with some of the federal requirements. And then as we build our way down, there is a state emergency management strategy framework that goes into place. There is a regional plan that must be adopted by regional committees. And then there are local emergency management committees that adopt local plans. So at every level of government, from federal all the way down to your municipalities, there are planning requirements. It could be amended below the federal level to reflect these requirements. One thing that the committee may want to hear is whether those state level plans already incorporate some of the Americans with Disability Act requirements that representative Burrows discussed since they are in fact reflecting federal requirements for all hazards mitigation and emergency response. Moving on to the fifth. This would require, excuse me, this would establish minimum standards for municipal emergency management planning. They govern shelter citing, training, accessible communications and alerts, and coordination of services. As far as the, communications and alerts, the committee heard last session what some of the limitations are at the state level for disseminating some of these, alerts and technologies down to the local level. Next, to require all educational corporations to develop emergency management plans that include evacuation plans for individuals with disabilities, continuity of services for students with disabilities during emergencies, and the inclusion of emergency plans within IEPs. Educational corporations, as it's used here, is broad enough to capture not only those public agencies, so what you would think of as your school districts, but also those private and independent schools that are captured by the definition of education corporate educational corporations broadly. So this would be universal requirement. And these amendments would take place not within the emergency management statutes, but within Title 16. Next to

[Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: Sorry, was there a question for the witness? Sorry, for the counsel? Sorry.

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows]: I was just wondering why it would go into Title 16.

[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: Because Title 16 contains all of the statutes related to the organization creation and authority of educational corporations within the state.

[Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: And would there be a cross reference to the In all likelihood, yes.

[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: And many of the details, if you were to amend statute to reflect all of these criteria, are fairly granular duties that are associated with definitions contained within Title 16. It would not be the cleanest thing to do to do this within the emergency management statutes exclusively.

[Sandra "Sandy" Pinsonault (Member)]: Rep. Pinsonault has a question. Is there I'm just trying to get my head around this. Is there a place that somebody with a disability would register that they have a disability so emergency management would know that they have a disability? How is the town's emergency management coordinator supposed to know that

[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: Joe Smith and how do they know who's who in this disaster plan? Is my question. So, yes, I'm trying to figure out how people get on that list to know that, gee, we got to go get Mrs. Stead because she's wheelchair bound and whatever. So, I'm not entirely certain about the current status of registries, but in a moment, we'll get to some provisions around the exclusion of registries and avoiding that as a possibility. And if you look through what representative Burrow submitted in its longer form, there is some discussion about going away from those sort of lists and registries. And the framework that the bill uses overall is to ensure that governmental agencies at all levels are providing resources that can be accessed by individuals instead of identifying and targeting specific individuals within the community.

[Speaker 0]: Gotcha.

[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: Right. The next proposal is to amend various statutes related to housing and high rise evacuation strategies to prohibit the use of disability disaster registries, establishing housing first principles, and aligning statutory provisions with the ADA. The only flag that I have here, statutorily is that there might have to be some overlap in consideration, same department with, the authority of the Division of Fire Safety around some of these issues specifically for, housing and evacuation strategies for structures. There are municipalities that have adopted discretionary authority related to codes for buildings, and that might also have to be taken into consideration, but all of that could be addressed by some general overlapping requirements within title 20 and title 24. Next, establish inclusive planning and inter agency coordination requirements for emergency management planning, including required designation of state and municipal access and functional needs coordinators. Completion of disability led training programs, accessible communication systems, inclusive emergency response exercises, and after action reviews to address accessibility gaps. It's a longer list, all of these are fairly straightforward and narrow adjustments to existing programs and training requirements as a state. Finally, the bill proposes to require state agencies to inspect all emergency shelter spaces for ADA compliance. Now, this was the high level version put into a short form. You have the longer, more detailed version. It does contain some additional proposals, increased, clarity, and focus. So if there are questions about how that would be implemented in some amendments to the various titles identified, happy to answer that moving forward. And, with the committee's direction in the future, draft it up, waive the drafter's pen.

[Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: Hey. Any questions for time right now? Okay, great.

[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: Thank you all.

[Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: Very timely. Thank you. And thank you, Rep. Burrows, again. Thank you so much, Tucker. Now we're going to hear from a number of different witnesses, again, relating to emergency management and disaster response. We're building a committee omnibus bill. Draft number is twenty six-five fifty. It's on our web page. And the first person we're going to hear from is Barbara Neal, co chair of the Vermont Public Safety Communications Task Force. Welcome, Barbara. Thank you.

[Barbara Neal (Executive Director, Enhanced 911 Board; Co-Chair, Public Safety Communications Task Force)]: All right. Are you ready for me to launch right in? Yourself again for the record. Certainly. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for having us back to talk about the recommendations from the Public Safety Communications Task Force. I am Barbara Neal. I'm co chair of the task force and also Executive Director of the Enhanced nine eleven Board. And joining me here is the other co chair of the Task Force, Deputy Commissioner Dan Batesy from the Department of Public Safety. And on the screen is the Vice Chair of the Task Force, Paul White. So just to recap how we got here, we were last in front of you in the January when you had received our recommendations preview, which was followed up later in January with a more detailed system design concept and recommendations report. So, we recall, and I watched the presentation by Tucker Anderson of the draft legislation, which appeared to be based on that recommendations preview. And then further recall that you received input, additional input from commissioner Morrison outlining the Department of Public Safety's perspective on the task force recommendations and specifically voicing some concerns about the governance structure that was proposed. So

[Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: let me just interrupt for a minute. We're not going to refer to any proposed legislation at this moment because there's a discrepancy. That's why we called everybody into the room today. Okay, great. To just present your view. And then we'll go forward as to how we would like to proceed with legislation writing it, because that was a very preliminary draft based on what we thought the report reported on, but really didn't have any specific recommendations to go by. So consider this sort of starting fresh, and you were going to tell us what you would like, what the task force would like to see as recommendations. Perfect.

[Barbara Neal (Executive Director, Enhanced 911 Board; Co-Chair, Public Safety Communications Task Force)]: So yes, so we did have a very recent task force meeting on February 18 to finalize our feedback to you and our recommendations to you. So, I sent over this morning a PDF that might be helpful for you to view as I go through the task force recommendations. Thank you. And the committee has that in your inboxes. Okay. So, the recommendations that we presented to you, and I'm presenting to you again today, are intended to address the various strategic objectives that were outlined in Act 78 of 2023, which was the legislation that created the task force and set direction for our work. So, those strategic objectives are effective governance, reliability, interoperability, sustainability, equity, security, and accessibility. So, So, I'm going take each of those one by one, and give you the recommendations that we have in support of each of those. So, after many months of regular meetings, stakeholder engagement, consultation, and collaboration with subject matter experts, namely our, consultants from mission critical partners and our project management team from Televate, the task force developed the following recommendations to move this work forward. Number one is the establishment of an independently operating governance board. And I want to clarify a little bit what I mean by independent board. I don't mean a board. We don't mean a board. That is not accountable to anyone. The intent here is the governance board would be held accountable within the executive branch, but would be separate from any existing agency or department. And that would be supported by an executive director and two staff members who would be responsible for implementing the directives of this board and for navigating the state's requirements related to things like purchasing, contracting, legal, administration, cybersecurity, and the like. We recommend that board member, or at least the chair of the board, is what's been agreed upon so far. That the chair of the board be appointed by the governor in order to establish that line of accountability. We recommend further that the board have the authority to hire the support staff I mentioned a minute ago, who would then of course be accountable to the board itself. The board should be given decision making ability and the authority to develop and approve minimum technical and operational requirements for public safety communications. And the board should have the authority to enter into contracts and agreements to advance its work. So, the task force believes this framework, that independently operating board, will provide the appropriate environment for focused and foundational work that needs to be done at this point. And there have been well, I don't wanna go too far into you said you didn't wanna go into, like, responses to additional input. So let me think for a second. In in some of of the feedback that we've received since the the recommendations come out, there have been concern voiced about redundancy and unnecessary growth of government. And so, one of the recommendations that the task force had discussed, but neglected to include in its original submission to you, was that there be a sunset provision added regarding this board. So that at the appropriate time, once this board has completed this foundational work, has gotten some stability under it, that consideration should be given to either merging that work with that of the nine eleven board, or with some other entity, if that's determined to be in the interest of public safety communications at that time. So, we thought that the addition of the sunset provision might alleviate some of those concerns about redundancy and growth of government. So, in support of the strategic objective of improving reliability, the task force recommends that the governance board be required to establish a minimum set of policies, procedures, and protocols to be followed eventually by all dispatch centers serving Vermont. That the board, be required to establish a standardized quality assurance process and associated resource materials. That the governance board identify a list of approved initial and ongoing training programs followed by the development of a statewide certification program for all dispatchers. The board should be required to create standardized job descriptions and promote, provide, materials and opportunities to promote professionalism within the workforce, develop ongoing dispatcher training and leadership workshops, and support a hybrid staffing program to assist with backfill and staffing emergencies, where possible. And finally, identify solutions and best practices in support of, technical and operational failover across the state. So, is, that is the strategic objective of improving reliability. The next objective is, related to interoperability. And the task force recommends in that regard, procurement of a new multidisciplinary computer aided dispatch system to allow for CAD to CAD interoperability, integration with the existing nine one one system, and records management systems, and paging and alerting systems in use in dispatch centers. We also recommend expanding the use and accessibility of a solution called RapidSOS, which happens to be the nine one one boards mapping solution, providing accessibility into the dispatch centers, which are not nine one one centers, and investing in improvements to the land mobile radio system infrastructure to improve coverage for fire and EMS and, provide some foundational investment in that regard. Okay. And then moving on to the next slide if you're following along in the presentation. The next strategic objective was sustainability. So our recommendations here, will note that the funding for the governance board that we're proposing would be covered by existing act 78 funding for three years, at which point, the dispatch fee assessments that are also discussed in the recommendations report would continue to sustain government's entity operations. And I'll pause here and say until such time a decision is made to potentially merge this with the nine eleven board or some other appropriate entity, once this work is foundational work is done. In support of the strategic objective of equity, the task force recommends that the governance board establish a fee formula that incorporates the towns not currently paying for dispatch services. And give consideration to rate adjustments based on the level of system utilization, And which is designed to offset the cost of ongoing common systems like CAD, LMR, and shared statewide, technologies and services. So the framework for that free fee structure is discussed in the proposal. And it also includes incremental funding support for several years using the existing Act 78 funds appropriations that will allow those impacted entities, I. E. The ones that are not currently paying for dispatch services to have support, to make so that they can have time to make the necessary adjustments on their end. The sixth strategic objective is security. The task force recommends the establishment of a statewide cybersecurity governance risk and compliance network compliance framework, excuse me, within which to operate. That would be the work of the governance board. And finally, in support of the strategic objective of accessibility, the task force recommends that over time, all dispatch centers would provide dispatch service in accordance with specific policy and technology benchmarks that have been established by the board. Collected dispatch fees would support technology and shared resources for all centers. And the government's board would work with the Community Broadband Board and the Public Service Department to provide coverage gap data related to public safety communications to cell providers. So, we feel that those recommendations support the directive that we were given in Act 78. And the next slide in your presentation gives line item budgetary amounts that we would propose for each of these activities. And as I mentioned before, funding proposal would provide ongoing operation of the governance board for three years, funds for the development of or investment in operational standards, training and technologies, including CAD and LMR, and support the impacted entities as dispatch fees are further refined. On the final page of the presentation, is a summary of the request, the asks that the task force has at this time from the legislature. We do believe that our recommendations align with the strategic objectives outlined in activity 78 and will be an effective mechanism for moving this work forward. I would like to check-in if it's okay with Vice Chair Hango, with the co chair and the Vice Chair to see if there's additional information or all the things I've forgotten.

[Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: But he Sure. Has any comments?

[Dan Batsie (Deputy Commissioner, Dept. of Public Safety)]: I just For the record, Dan Batesy. Debi Kunal, thank you. Barb, I just wanted to mention, did we talk about the recommendations for system upgrade infrastructure upgrade stuff?

[Barbara Neal (Executive Director, Enhanced 911 Board; Co-Chair, Public Safety Communications Task Force)]: The the LMR. LMR. There is yes. In the in the recommendations, there's a $5,000,000 line item, to support some foundational work in, the LMR system that would improve access for especially for our fire and EMS communities. So that is outlined more in more detail in the system concept report. Yes.

[Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: Any of the other folks referenced by you need to make any comments? So, see a bunch of questions from the committee. So, Rep Coffin, I saw your hand.

[V. L. Coffin IV (Member)]: Just one, and it's nothing major. I just Could you tell me what hybrid staffing is?

[Lisa Mailet (Director of Animal Welfare, Dept. of Public Safety)]: The idea

[Barbara Neal (Executive Director, Enhanced 911 Board; Co-Chair, Public Safety Communications Task Force)]: that's being discussed is to have a core core of group of people who would know how to operate the systems in play across all dispatch centers eventually, right, in Vermont, and would be able to move, physically move perhaps from place to place in support of staffing shortages or other events that might result in a need for more staffing. Or the way technology is advancing these days, they could be able to do that even from a different location. They would be able to support another entity from afar if we have standardized systems and standardized operational and technical requirements in place.

[Sandra "Sandy" Pinsonault (Member)]: Does that help?

[V. L. Coffin IV (Member)]: Yeah, I was just trying to figure out what that actually meant.

[Dan Batsie (Deputy Commissioner, Dept. of Public Safety)]: You may. Just want to be careful that we're not giving you a picture of a home curve where people are sitting on a bench waiting to go to dispatch centers. That's, I think the bigger picture and the most important part of this is standardization. Building a common governance model, we will have standardization among all our dispatch centers across Vermont, so that a person who works for South Burlington could come to the state police or vice versa in a time of crisis, a time of need. And we think that the building of those standards will break down some of the barriers that make it difficult currently to do that. But it's a broader global picture, it's not like there's table waiting.

[Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: Any other questions from the table? Rep. Pinsonault, is any of this in the

[Sandra "Sandy" Pinsonault (Member)]: governor's wealth of money?

[Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: This money is a chunk of money that was already appropriated and good question. So, Barbara, could you remind us where this money lives right now and how much is left of it? If I have all my numbers in order, there was an $11,000,000 appropriation in 2023 that went to the Department of Public Safety. Actually, it

[Barbara Neal (Executive Director, Enhanced 911 Board; Co-Chair, Public Safety Communications Task Force)]: might have been even before that, that it originally went to the Department of Public Safety. With Act 78 or some subsequent legislation, Those funds were some of those funds were made available to the task force for its preliminary work. So I think we've used I'm gonna look to to deputy commissioner about 2,000,000. Okay. Of those funds for, the system consultants and and the work that we've done to date. So right now, those funds still are with the Department of Public Safety.

[Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: Which is within the executive branch. Yes, that answers your question. Yes. Does your vice chair who's on the screen have anything to add to your testimony? Mr. White?

[Paul White (Vice Chair, Public Safety Communications Task Force)]: Morning. Thank you for having me. Yeah, my name is Paul White, and I am the Vice Chair of this task force. Previously, I chaired Regional Dispatch Working Group, which was created in 2022 and was sort of the predecessor to this task force. The only thing I would add, I think Barb has done an excellent job of laying this out. I would just remind the committee that this short presentation that you've seen is only a very thin slice of the body of work that this task force has completed. You should also have access to two very large documents. One's titled the options and plan recommendation, which is over 200 pages long. And the second is the system inventory and assessment document, which is over 500 pages long. But in the interest of time and varying levels of interest and in trying to take a bite sized piece of this that could be accomplished this year, we're coming to you just with this thin skin off the top of the overall body of work. And thank you for the opportunity to talk about it today.

[Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: Great, thank you. I think there was some issue with trying to communicate those very large reports electronically to us. But they're certainly available if we need to refer to them. My general sense, given the time of year and how rapidly crossover is approaching, is that we will try to do what we can in a very high level overview to continue the use of that funding going forward to continue this work. So, now, if you have nothing else to add, I'll call up Mr. Batesy, Deputy Commissioner, please. Thank you, Barbara. Yes, thank you very much.

[Dan Batsie (Deputy Commissioner, Dept. of Public Safety)]: Thank you and good morning. Again, Dan Bates, the Deputy Commissioner of Public Safety. I will keep this rather brief because Barb has set a wonderful stage for everything that I'm gonna say. I do wear two hats in this testimony. First hat I wear is vice chair of the task as co chair of the task force. The second is representing the Department of Public Safety. So first, from my role as co chair, let me just say that I'm grateful for the work that's been done. I think what we've presented to you is a very good foundation, and there is a lot to agree upon across all departments. And I'm grateful for all the work that everyone has contributed, all the stakeholders that have done as well. I think, principally, what I'd like to emphasize is that, I said this when I was here before, but this is a complex problem. It's expensive, it's technical, it's political, and there are no simple solutions to just flipping a switch and and fixing emergency communications in Vermont. But I believe what the task force has laid out to you, at least in this initial set of recommendations, is some foundational steps that will both make meaningful results initially, and also set the stage for future work to build upon. So I believe that as we look to the future, if we do some of the things that we're asking you to do here, we will create opportunities to make it better in the long term. And I think we have to look at this long term because there are no short term easy fixes. Again, I think that the key elements as we think about these recommendations are really the ability to create standards and move towards certification. I think those impact almost everything that we talk about, whether it's talking about hybrid staffing, whether it's talking about failover, whether it's talking about the ability to merge dispatch centers in the future as we sort of reconfigure the system, all of those things rest upon the ability for us to say that a dispatcher is a dispatcher is a dispatcher, and that we have a measure of quality and accountability to be able to say, you're not doing it properly. And I think that with the notion of the governance model that we've put forth here allows us to do just that. Think that there are some meaningful pieces that are very important to this process. The CAD system, the computer aided dispatch system, is incredibly important. In 1994, when I worked as a paramedic in New York, our system was based around a CAD. That is not true here in Vermont, and that was nearly thirty years ago. So I think bringing that to especially the EMS and fire service providers is an exceptionally important step. And again, could be done with relative ease in considering the grand context of this big enormous problem. Same thing with GIS systems as well. I think the land mobile radio upgrades are complicated. We know that we have an infrastructure system. And what I mean by land mobile radio is the antennas and actual towers and things like that that enable this. We live in a state with geographic difficulty. And it's hard for people to hear one another regardless of how we configure our systems. We are proposing in this recommendation a model that enables us future improvements. One of the things that you're gonna hear about or read about is the ability to for us to leverage some congressional directed spending that the Department of Public Safety already has independent of of any of this discussion. We are doing some overhaul. The department is doing some overhaul on the state police network. While we're on those towers, that is we have people going up there to do whatever it is they're doing up there, we have the opportunity to add some elements that would improve future land mobile radio network that's being able to use statewide. It's not going to fix the problem immediately, unless you really want to put some money into it, but I don't think any of us have that appetite at this point. But what we can do is leverage the fact we'll have workers up on those towers already, and if we set the stage right, we can set it to begin to build that process out. And I think that can have some immediate impact as well. I also will introduce Corey Chase, he's our Director of Radio Technology at the Department of Public Safety. So if any of you have specific tech Look, I'm a paramedic, I push a little button on a radio and somebody answers me. That's the sum total I know about radio technology. But Corey's pretty smart on that sort of thing and can certainly answer your technical questions if you have them. Finally, I'll just add that DPS does have and I'm gonna switch hats now. DPS does have some concern around the governance model. We do think that creating a separate independent board is redundant. And with all due respect to to director Neil, I I just wanna reemphasize that we are concerned about that. We think that that the the same stakeholders would be, working for a board that is very, very similar to the existing enhanced nine one one board. We also have concern that for for instance, if we're going to pay this with dispatch fees, the Department of Public Safety is the ones providing that dispatch, and we would then be shifting money out the door to pay for another model without control over that capability. As a co chair of the task force, I'm happy. I think there's a consensus here and I gave my yes vote to a sunsetted independent board, but I think as a Department of Public Safety, I have to voice our concern regarding that independent redundancy. That's all I really wanted to say, I'm happy to answer any questions you might have.

[Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: Can you be able to repeat the sentence that you said about Department of Public Safety already working with dispatch,

[Dan Batsie (Deputy Commissioner, Dept. of Public Safety)]: that comment. So again, it's complicated. There are a number of ways that we will look at funding ongoing emergency communication in the state. And I think that is an open ended question at this point. So we've got to look and say, we know there's a big total cost out there. There are different ways to do it. There are different areas to address. One of the areas that we'll be addressing is inequity. Currently, now, the state police and their two dispatch centers, dispatch for a number of communities. And by the way, when I say dispatch, I mean dispatch not just for law enforcement and and the state police, but also for things like EMS and fire, a number of communities, that pay nothing for that service. At the same time, we have a number of communities, even within the state police orbit, that do pay for that service. And one of the things that makes a fairly reasonable amount of sense immediately is to say, let's come up with a model and say, everybody should pay something, if you're getting that service, particularly if you're asking us to dispatch for something that's not state police. So fire department or your local police department or things like that. I think that's a pretty easy fix. The challenge that we have with an independent board is we're asking to use some of that initial funding to pay for their existence, to pay for their executive director, their staff members, and things like that. The problem is Department of Public Safety would shoulder that cost because we're the ones paying the dispatchers and paying the, you know, the work that happens there now. I wanna be very careful because I think there's a bigger conversation here to have, which is there's other ways to pay for this. There's other other fees. We could look at at at at assessing fees that are beyond just the places that are dispatched by state police. I think and I think, by the way, we should talk about that in a long term fashion. But the easy fix is that one, and that's those concern us just a little bit.

[Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: Thank you for reiterating that. And I just want to be really clear that in the time we have, we're not going to solve the dispatch problem. But what we want to do again is to keep the process moving forward and really appreciate all of you bringing the different components of this to light, particularly the inequity and fee structure and who controls which dispatch. That's really important for us to know for background information that this is much more complex than what it appears to be on paper. Any questions for the deputy commissioner?

[Dan Batsie (Deputy Commissioner, Dept. of Public Safety)]: And just to end by saying, the Department of Public Safety does not wanna be a stumbling block in this. There's plenty of stuff here that we agree on. There's plenty of ways that we wish to collaborate and and move this forward. I think you'll find us to be a willing partner in all aspects of this. We just have to voice some of the concerns that we have.

[Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: Thank you.

[Speaker 0]: Madam Chair. Yes.

[Robert Hooper (Member)]: Robert Hooper. Have a quick thank you.

[Speaker 0]: I have

[Robert Hooper (Member)]: a quick question about I think I mean, it sounds like the nature of the funding is not sorted out, there's a longer term conversation. But Dan, you mentioned something about tower infrastructure, and one of your statements was like, unless you really wanna invest in that, and I kind of want to know, like, what's that dollar amount that you were referring to?

[Dan Batsie (Deputy Commissioner, Dept. of Public Safety)]: Yeah. Well, I I would I would lay that on the hands of the people who know more about this, but it is in an order of millions that I think is probably unreasonable to think about in the current budget context. You know, it it would require please, let me say, I'm not an expert in this. I don't wanna portray that. It would require a massive shift, a massive build out. Now, I think what we should be thinking about is a long term vision of how to do that over time. Right? But to say we're just gonna turn the workers loose tomorrow and fix the system is is probably outside of our reach. But I but I do think there are things. Right? And as we as we contemplate small pieces, and I think we can, for instance, look at places where we know that capabilities are the least among us. Right? We know where there are hollow areas. I think it wouldn't be possible to say, can leverage some of the work that's already ongoing and some some very basic steps to say, let's improve this area. And then let's set the the stage in these improvements so that we can build upon those improvements later on as we contemplate how to make the system better over time.

[Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: Does that help you, Robert Hooper?

[Robert Hooper (Member)]: I think it clarifies the lack of clarity on the sort of Yeah. I think I think that sounds like a candid reply. Like it's going

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Legislative Counsel)]: to take a lot

[Robert Hooper (Member)]: that we don't have right now is what I heard. And that's a good thing to acknowledge. But I guess what I want to do is set us up to understand the best investment we could possibly make the soonest and so on and so forth. Because this is like, there's nothing more important than emergency response infrastructure to modern society. We have to, like, we gotta be as good as we can be, and we're not we're not where we gotta be. And these guys are doing a lot of that really complex work. And I think, like I said, I want us to make sure that we're investing as heavily as we can, as early as we can in a long term fit. So thanks, David.

[Dan Batsie (Deputy Commissioner, Dept. of Public Safety)]: I'm gonna turn to director Neil just to if I'm not mistaken, our our folks at Tel Avate who Tel Avate is our our contractor that's helped us with the technical expertise. Is 35,000,000 the number that they have quoted us?

[Barbara Neal (Executive Director, Enhanced 911 Board; Co-Chair, Public Safety Communications Task Force)]: That is the number that I'm recalling. The 5,000,000 initial investment that's proposed now would come off of that, if that's any consolation. And the other piece that I had asked about during the task force sessions was, will that 5,000,000 investment get us any benefit on the ground now? If the 30 other million doesn't come one day. And my understanding is yes, that it will. I'm not really prepared to go into the specific details of how it will, but it would provide foundational work and some improvement in some areas.

[Robert Hooper (Member)]: Sounds like the answer is around $35,000,000 and that's kind of what I was wondering. Thank you.

[Dan Batsie (Deputy Commissioner, Dept. of Public Safety)]: Thank you. I should be clear that we are not asking for 35

[Lisa Mailet (Director of Animal Welfare, Dept. of Public Safety)]: Right. No. I'm

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows]: not. I totally understand.

[Dan Batsie (Deputy Commissioner, Dept. of Public Safety)]: Right now, the the governor is having a little seizure in his office as I say that. To be clear, we're not. But but I think it is important that we we understand the scope of this. Right? I think of myself in my role is I'm like a contractor. Right? I mean, I can build you whatever house you wanna build if you give me enough time and resources to do so. I think the way I look at this, and and this is my own personal opinion, is that this is, how do we eat an elephant? We take one bite at a time. And I think what we're talking about with the 5,000,000 is is setting up those small bites so that we can say, for instance, Addison County, we know that you have a deficit here. Let's create some infrastructure where we can build upon that. Let's partner with the municipalities who are doing this work already, who may have the ability to invest as well to set them up for a system. Again, that's that that's much farther down the line than I'm prepared to go right now. But I think setting up that infrastructure framework that we can build upon is the responsible way to approach this.

[Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: I just want to clarify one thing. That $5,000,000, is that congressionally directed spending you were speaking of?

[Dan Batsie (Deputy Commissioner, Dept. of Public Safety)]: No. That's so the congressionally directed spending is again, has it has nothing to do with any of the funding that we discussed here. That's money that the Department of Public Safety received two years ago or a year ago.

[Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: Already received.

[Dan Batsie (Deputy Commissioner, Dept. of Public Safety)]: Yeah. And that is designed to upgrade the UHF network, that state police uses across the state. But since we're doing that work already and we have guys up on the tower, we can say, hey. Look. Bring this antenna with you while you're up there. And we know that if we had to do that work independently, again, in another three years, it would cost a lot more money to do it than if we did it while we're already up.

[Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: So where is this $5,000,000 Is it part of the original $11,000,000

[Barbara Neal (Executive Director, Enhanced 911 Board; Co-Chair, Public Safety Communications Task Force)]: Yeah, that's correct. That's what I was going to add. Everything you see on that slide that outlines the funding proposal is probably existing appropriation, no ask for me. Okay, great. Thank you.

[Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: That was my understanding. I just wanted to be really clear about that. Are there any other questions for the deputy commissioner at this point? Okay.

[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: Thank you very much.

[Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: Thank you very much. So moving on, we have Eric Fran. Eric, do you have anything to add also from the Department of Public Safety on Emergency Management?

[Eric Forand (Director, Vermont Emergency Management) ]: No, I'm just here.

[Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: I'm really sorry, Eric, but you're really garbled. We cannot understand you. I don't know if it's your connection.

[Eric Forand (Director, Vermont Emergency Management) ]: I'm sure I think I can answer any questions. Thank you.

[Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: Okay, thank you.

[Eric Forand (Director, Vermont Emergency Management) ]: I think Eric is probably going to touch more on representative Burrow's previous testimony if there's any questions he might have I'm from also happy to follow-up with him and provide him with

[Sandra "Sandy" Pinsonault (Member)]: the testimony

[Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: and any

[Eric Forand (Director, Vermont Emergency Management) ]: questions that he can communicate on here.

[Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: Thank you very much. So does anybody here at the table have any questions about Rick Burrows? Okay, Very good. Thank you for being here with us, Eric. Sorry about the communication difficulties.

[Eric Forand (Director, Vermont Emergency Management) ]: Thank you.

[Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: All right. We're going to slightly shift gears, but still part of emergency management and disaster response. And do we have Bradley Reed here? Thank you. You can have a seat in the witness chair. And tell us who you

[Barbara Neal (Executive Director, Enhanced 911 Board; Co-Chair, Public Safety Communications Task Force)]: are and who you represent.

[Bradley Reed (Fire Chief, St. Johnsbury; Town Fire Warden)]: For the record, my name is Bradley Reed. I'm the fire chief of St. Johnsbury as well as the appointed fire warden for the town. My testimony today is in support of the proposed changes to the current forest fire and fire prevention statute. This modernization effort comes at a crucial time as the fire service seems to be responding to an increase in natural disasters. Incidents related to weather patterns that appear to reach greater extremes and the impact of these conditions and that they have on the wildland firefighting environment. In Saint Johnsbury, we experienced two severe flooding events in 2024 with a one hundred year flood occurring on July 10, followed twenty days later by what has been referred to as a thousand year flood, which was a flash flood, and it caused terrific damage to our community. What we realized after those floods is that there was an enormous impact on the wooded areas where streams became raging rivers, cutting new paths through the hillsides, causing numerous landslides and changing the landscape throughout. What we have yet to visualize are the impacts deep in the woods, which certainly endured similar consequences of the destructive forces of these floods. From a wildland firefighting perspective, the result from these events is an increased fuel package. The additional fuel load laying on the forest floor makes it more likely that a fire could grow to a larger size, which many Vermont communities are not prepared to handle. As with any emergency, coordination with partner agencies is important, especially for complicated larger scale incidents. The current language in the statute sets up a situation where the fire warden and the fire chief may be two different people. There may be somewhat parallel authorities for directing fire operations, except that the fire chief has legal authority over the apparatus and personnel, while the fire warden would ultimately have legal authority for the forest fire. One proposed change to the statute would identify the fire chief as a fire warden, alleviating any confusion or conflict that may arise during a wildland fire operation. Further, the fire chief slash fire warden would have the ability to name deputy fire wardens who could assist with issuing burn permits to spread out any additional workload they may get from this change in statute. Next, the proposed categorization of open burning and who issues those permits provides greater clarity. For people who are seeking burn permits, this will provide them with an understandable clear guidance for what is and what is not allowed. When weather conditions present elevated fire danger, this will give the state a scalable approach to restrict categories, which allows fire wardens to have more uniform burning bans across a fire danger rating area. The proposal to repeal a statute on uniform fire prevention tickets is welcome news. We are not law enforcement officers and should not be issuing tickets. While our municipality enjoys the services of a local police department, not all towns have the same resources that we do. So in summary, the proposal outlined in this bill is a step forward towards improving wildland fire safety in Vermont, ensuring the proper authority having jurisdiction has a legal responsibility and capability to command wildland fires will enable adequate response from resources to incidents of all sizes. It will encourage coordination between many multiple agencies for forest fires that exceed the capability of the local community. Clear guidance for open burning will encourage compliance and it allows flexibility when conditions dictate a prohibition on certain levels of open burning. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to provide you with these brief comments and I'm happy to answer any questions you might have.

[Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: Any questions for the fire chief and fire board? Think we heard testimony earlier on about this a couple of weeks ago, how there's a disconnect between the chiefs and the fire wardens in some municipalities. So thank you. We also have Aaron Collett. Thank you very much.

[Aaron Collette (Fire Chief, Williston; USAR Task Force 1 Rescue Team Manager)]: Morning, madam, vice chair, mister chair, welcome to you again. My name, for the record, my name is Aaron Collette. I serve as the fire chief for the Williston Fire Department. I have, thirty seven years in the fire service here in Vermont, and I also serve as the rescue team manager for the Vermont Urban Search and Rescue Task Force one. I appreciate the opportunity to speak to you today regarding the proposed proposal to merge the town force fire warden responsibilities to the role of the local fire chief. I'm fully in support of this proposal. The role of the fire chief today is far more complex than simply dispatching crews to extinguish fires. Our responsibility is to anticipate risk, prepare our personnel, and manage a wide range of emergencies that are only limited by the circumstances of the 911 caller. My job and the job of our firefighters is to ensure that our team is prepared to respond at any hour on any day to any type of emergency. Wildland and vegetation type fires are among those emergencies. These incidents range from small outside fires caused by improper disposal of smoking materials, the large woodland fires capable of consuming acres of our remote forests. In Williston, our minimum staffing is five firefighters per shift, providing twenty four hours of coverage, three hundred and sixty five days a year. In 2025, we responded to 2681 emergency calls, 1,800 and two of those emergency calls were emergency medical calls requiring our ambulance crew requiring our ambulance crew to respond. When the ambulance is committed to our call, the available staffing in our community is three firefighters. There are few fire ground tasks that can be performed safely and effectively with three personnel. A wildland fire is certainly not one of them. To mitigate wildland fires in Williston, we operate an online burn permit system. Residents wishing to burn brush must first review and acknowledge our rules, they what materials may be burned and under what conditions. For example, wind speeds must be less than four miles an hour, a pressurized water source must be available, and the fire must be attended to at all times, and the fire must be extinguished by dusk. Applicants submit a digital photo of the materials that they intend to burn, and then our officers approve or deny permits remotely from our fire station. The system provides a real time display of active permits on a large monitor in our on duty officer workspace platform, both in a list and in that map. If we receive a report of smoke in the area or a large column of smoke, we can immediately reference that display to determine whether a permitted burn has been issued and underway nearby. During the fire season, we will receive daily Vermont fire danger forecast from our partners at the Department of Forest, Parks, and Recreation. Forest fire danger levels range from low to extreme. When the forecast is high or greater, the Williston Fire Department suspends the burn permits for the day. This is deliberate a a deliberate risk management decision. We recognize that our staffing limitations and understand that we may not have the capacity to manage a complex wildfire without outside assistance. On 10/04/2025, we received a 911 call from the air traffic control office at Burlington International Airport, reporting a fire atop Brownell Mountain. I immediately requested the assistance of the State Wildland Fire Control resources and did so before even arriving on scene, because I understood our staffing levels for that day and the risk, the fire prevent the fire behavior and the critical infrastructure located on top of Brownell Mountain. That early recognition and coordinated response allowed us to successfully control the unpermitted fire. Staffing availability also influences our burn permit decisions. During the 2025, nearly an entire shift of firefighters was out sick due to a virus in our department. With limited personnel available and no operational depth to manage a complex wildfire, we temporarily suspended burn permits until our staffing stabilized. That decision was based on operational readiness and the reality and risk management. These examples illustrate why the local fire chief should be which should serve as the town forest fire warden. The fire chief has the requisite knowledge of fire behavior, fuel conditions, staffing levels, operational capability. A warden who is not integrated into the fire department may lack the awareness of the real time staffing of the department's response capacity. And it is both logical and prudent that the individual responsible for mitigating the fire emergency also has the authority to manage the risk factors that can prevent those emergencies from occurring. For these reasons, I strongly support the proposed change requiring the local fire chief to serve as the town force fire ward. I would also like to briefly discuss proposed technical rescue micro grant program. While I support the concept of the micro grant program, I have concerns regarding the composition of the working group. A special operations working group already exists under Vermont Homeland Security grant program, and I've served on that group for more than a decade. There's opportunity for the program manager for the Vermont Urban Search and Rescue task force to service this chair of this effort. However, I do not support the inclusion of senate house gov ops committees on the board simply because the decisions about specialized rescue equipment and resource deployment should be guided by those who manage and deploy resources during these large scale disasters. My concern is that without coordination, we risk both creating siloed capabilities and duplication of equipment in neighboring communities. We experienced this after 09/11/2001, when Homeland Security funding flowed into communities with limited statewide coordination, neighboring departments purchased identical specialized equipment, and in the end, we accumulated an overabundance of certain tools, yet made limited progress on strengthening our true operational capacity to manage complex technical rescue incidents. Another significant concern of mine is long term sustainability. Specialized equipment requires ongoing maintenance repair and eventual replacement. In prior grant cycles, we observed agencies receiving highly specialized equipment only to find that five years later, they lacked the funding or capital replacement plans to maintain or upgrade. I support the micro grant program. I simply urge our leaders to be that it be developed in consultation with the experienced fire and and special operations leaders to ensure that we're building coordinated, sustainable operational capacity across the state, not simply stockpiling equipment. Thank you for your time, consideration, and continued commitment to the safety of our products.

[Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: Thank you. Any questions? And that brought to mind a couple of other things that we thought about.

[Lisa Mailet (Director of Animal Welfare, Dept. of Public Safety)]: There's a

[Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: question only. Thank you, which were USAR funding and the micro grants. So thank you for putting that in your testimony. Ref Stone on the screen has a question.

[Mary-Katherine Stone (Member)]: Yes, I'm confused because on the agenda, it references a draft with a number, but it's not posted. So all throughout this testimony, I'm just confused about why there's not a draft posted that we can refer to when people are giving Thank their

[Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: you for that. There really is no draft. We've given it a number, but there's really too much testimony has come to light to refer to any particular piece of written legislation that is no longer relevant because of the testimony we've been hearing. So we chose not to post a draft, but it does have a number and we're going to take committee input as to what's going to go into that draft as it gets drafted. I think maybe you might have missed the very beginning when I mentioned that.

[Mary-Katherine Stone (Member)]: No, I heard that about this is general questions. I was just wondering why there was a number posted because that made it seem like that's something I could look up online and then Right. Came up. So I just wanted to clarify again for people at home because if I was confused even after hearing what you said, I just wanted to make sure I was understanding everything correctly.

[Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: Thank you for that. And we probably shouldn't have a number posted right now because there is no existing piece of legislation. So that may have been a holdover from a different conversation. So thanks for bringing that to our attention. And we probably should take the number off the agenda. Thanks, Nick. Any questions for the witness? Okay. Hi, thank you so much for being here. How would you like to proceed from here? We've had a very long morning of testimony we had. Okay. The only we have not spoken. We have not heard from Tucker yet, but there is no draft, actually, for Tucker to present to us. So we probably don't need to hear from Tucker at this moment, unless you would like to do kind of a roundtable discussion on what we were thinking might be included in this bill and where we might go with it.

[Speaker 0]: Next to you. Yeah. Our next lockup testimony is until 11:15. So, actually, why don't we send

[Mary-Katherine Stone (Member)]: Oh, wait. Hold on. I raised my hand.

[Speaker 0]: Oh, I'm sorry. Yes. Very yes.

[Mary-Katherine Stone (Member)]: So I'm confused. There is something on our committee page, and there was something sent to us by Nick at 09:07AM.

[Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: Yes. So

[Mary-Katherine Stone (Member)]: what is that? Because it's a draft request, and it has the number.

[Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: Okay. So the document sent by Nick this morning was from Barbara Neal, and it was what she was referencing in her testimony. It's something that they have written up so we have an idea of what their recommendation from the task force would look like in legislative language.

[Mary-Katherine Stone (Member)]: So even though it says introduced by a committee on government operations and military affairs, it's her proposal of something that we would introduce.

[Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: It is something that we had written up based on the recommendations of the task force, but then we have heard from others that there are other opinions. So we chose not to put that forth from our committee because we haven't talked about it yet.

[Mary-Katherine Stone (Member)]: And then the fire chief, what he was just referencing the document, Which document was he just referencing in his testimony then?

[Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: Williston? Yep. The one who just funding request that we approved in our budget for USAR and the micro grants, were two separate requests that we approved. And we will need to put that in legislative language. This is very much a bill draft in progress that really has not a lot in it right now because there are so many moving pieces to it. And that's why we left it kind of to the end of this week so we can focus a lot of our work when we come back from town meeting break on this particular bill. Any further questions about clearing up confusion on the drafts?

[Speaker 0]: And so, I wanted to maybe spend the next five minutes or so, just sort of going through those moving pieces, and having a conversation with the committee about what we want to start focusing on for inclusion in this draft. Is that a hand reference to all? Someone ready to start? Yeah, hand reference to all, then reference.

[Sandra "Sandy" Pinsonault (Member)]: Well, I think after hearing testimony today, and testimony previously, it's important that we definitely make the fire chiefs the fireworks. We haven't heard any testimony against that thought, so my suggestion is that we include that.

[Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: And this is where it's helpful to have Tucker in the room also taking notes.

[Speaker 0]: Tucker, would you like to join us today over this conversation?

[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: I wish that I could, but I have to leave in two minutes. Okay. If I can join in the two minutes, I'll be closer to the door. Okay, that sounds like a

[Speaker 0]: great utilization of your proximity. And

[Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: I'll take notes for you when you're not here.

[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: I will watch the YouTube on two times speed

[Aaron Collette (Fire Chief, Williston; USAR Task Force 1 Rescue Team Manager)]: and take photos. Thank you. Reporter zones.

[Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: Super basic question. Can you tell me what the overall objective is for this committee bill that we're creating? What are like the things we're trying to accomplish? I

[Speaker 0]: mean, that's kind of what we're laying out here. So it's just a continuation of the work that we've done over the last three years with all of these. So that's the punch list of, you know, a lot of this stuff came in through budget recommendation. Yeah. And things of that nature. So the components that we're going to like kind of cite right now have been addressed in like different conversations. So it's like, what do we want to include in this?

[Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: Okay, so we're currently trying to prioritize requests and things we've already asked for in the past from emergency management. Then if if we are just talking generally right now about what we're going to do, I think things we've already asked people to do that they need support for or money for or assistance with should be at the top of the list before we end.

[Speaker 0]: Oh, yeah, no, I know. And having continuity with our budget recommendation is definitely a primary function here.

[Eric Fitzpatrick (Legislative Counsel)]: Yes. Okay.

[Speaker 0]: Robert Hugo?

[Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: I don't think there are any new monetary asks that we're going to be contemplating. Okay. Is that correct? I don't believe so. Right. So, or position requests. I see. So, one thing I do want to say is that we needed to wait for the task force to meet two additional times, and it's not an easy feat to bring people together from across the state. So their final meeting was well, not final, but their last meeting was very recently, a couple of days ago. So that's why we needed to wait until today to bring folks in to give their opinions on the recommendations of the task force. So, again, on from what we started to build in 2023 or prior to that. And then there's this big chunk of money that the Department of Public Safety has that they need authorization to continue using. Or my understanding, and correct me if I'm wrong, is that money will not be able to be used unless they're authorized to use it. So, that should

[Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: be the first priority then.

[Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: One of the big priorities. Yes.

[Speaker 0]: Rep Pinsonault and Rep Dugent after that and counsel, you are released to serve. Thank you.

[Sandra "Sandy" Pinsonault (Member)]: So, now that I spoke about the fire chief and the fire warden, if by chance a fire chief did not want to position of the fire warden, would he have something in there that he would appoint somebody? Or an opt out option? I don't know. I'm not those shoes.

[Aaron Collette (Fire Chief, Williston; USAR Task Force 1 Rescue Team Manager)]: Yeah, the provision is that they can deputize anybody underneath themselves. Okay. That's all.

[Tucker Anderson (Legislative Counsel)]: As I walk out the door. Yes, Because I was doing some research while I was sitting here. Okay. If you're going to alter the general statutes governing fire wardens, just going to remind you that there are charters that still require fire wardens to be elected. It will need some cleanup if you are seeing this as a universally applicable requirement for all municipalities in the state.

[Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: You for flagging impacts

[Dan Batsie (Deputy Commissioner, Dept. of Public Safety)]: on charters. Who got you? Virtual charter change in the

[Speaker 0]: So, that's definitely something just for the domino effect. Rep Nugent?

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows]: I feel like I could use some clarity around the board, that discussion, it seems like the decision is to have an independent board, not to have an independent board. And so I'm just curious what happens to And then the third thing might be just leaving things as they are, if I'm understanding correctly. So trying to understand the stakes involved for each of those.

[Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: Yeah, don't think we can leave things exactly as they are, because then that funding will be in limbo. So anybody from the gallery specifically want to address that? And you're welcome to come sit in this chair if you have an answer to that. Do you have something more specific other than, is the decision up to us? Are the two things that we're choosing from, so to speak, is an independent board or not a new board? Because the current board, the charge has been fulfilled. They've made your recommendations. They would like to evolve into a new independent board, with very similar makeup, but it still would have to be created as a new independent board. And the alternative to that would be

[Sandra "Sandy" Pinsonault (Member)]: for

[Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: the agency that currently has authority over dispatch, if I'm speaking this correctly, authority over dispatch to continue to move forward with funding and future plans for how to implement this statewide. Because right now, it's very piecemeal, and as we heard, inequitable across various municipalities and other agencies. Did I do an okay job with that? Yes, please speak up and identify

[Barbara Neal (Executive Director, Enhanced 911 Board; Co-Chair, Public Safety Communications Task Force)]: Barbara Neal, co chair of the task force, executive director of the nine eleven board. Certainly what the task force has proposed is this independent board. But I think there's also an opportunity for the task force as it exists now, if you chose not to go that route, to continue its order, we would ask for the authority I might not be using the right word the authority to use or direct the use of those guns. So I think that is another option. There are a number of I've been calling it low hanging fruit the whole time of things that could really advance improvements across the state, namely the statewide multidisciplinary CAD system is one. And the rapid SOS expansion is another easy one to do because those projects are already in progress at one level of the other. So Dan, did I does that cover it?

[Dan Batsie (Deputy Commissioner, Dept. of Public Safety)]: I mean, I think, first, let me just Nugent, there is no single agency that oversees dispatch in the state of Vermont, and that's one of the challenges that we have. Think Director Neal got it exactly right. Keep the task force together, you give them some spending authority. I think that would be a reasonable compromise. I think you could say we're going to just build an independent board. Again, that's the task force recommendation. I think there's also something else. We could give it to another agency, the nine eleven Boards, Department of Public Safety. Again, I think there's pluses and minuses in all of those

[Aaron Collette (Fire Chief, Williston; USAR Task Force 1 Rescue Team Manager)]: go ahead.

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows]: That's really helpful. Also, it makes me wonder about where the authority if there was an independent board with independent spending capability, would you feel that that would give you would the authority also go with that? Would you have enough to organize and orchestrate what you want to have done? Or would it

[Barbara Neal (Executive Director, Enhanced 911 Board; Co-Chair, Public Safety Communications Task Force)]: make Martens, an agency that already has some of that? I think that that would have to be written into the enabling legislation for a new entity, what their authority would be. I don't want to compare it too much to the nine eleven Board because it's not a task force recommendation to send it there. But if you look at the enabling legislation for our board, all of those things are spelled out in there on what we have the authority to do and spend. So I think those would need to be defined for a new entity as well.

[Speaker 0]: I do want to be conscious of the time. We have our guests for an leg of testimony arriving for 11:15. And I do wanna give the committee a break as we've all been moving our brains nonstop since 9AM. I guess where I'll leave it with this, yes, this is a working draft on a committee bill that we're still trying to identify based on testimony through various bill introductions and our budget memo, how to prioritize a lot of those moving parts into this case. Legislation. That's the step we're at right now. Any questions on that piece? No? Cool. All right, Nick, we are off until 11:15.