Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Representative Matthew Birong (Chair)]: We're not on yet. Oh. We're live. We're live. Practice? Good. Now we're live now? We are live now. Yes. Hi, everyone. Welcome back to the house government operations and military affairs. We are picking up this package. And our first order of business is h seven six two, an act relating to the county and regional governance study committee. We've been working on this one for a couple of weeks. I had asked senator Harrison to join us as the amended language that we are considering. The vote is something that we had worked on together. Senator Harrison has been on the study committee longer than I have, so she has more experience with the nuance. So, we were bringing her in just to speak a little bit about the the words on the page, but also a little bit of context within the project itself. So with that, Senator Taylor.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Windham District)]: Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, for the record, Wendy Harrison, and I represent the Wyndham District, and thank you for having me. And I was on the original committee, and, we only had three meetings. It seemed like we did more. But if you're interested, I would recommend watching the video of the third meeting. I think we made some good progress then. So, would you like me to go through the changes?

[Representative Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Yeah, mean, we already reviewed them with counsel, but if you wanted to, you could discuss, like, a little bit of just the thought process behind it.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Windham District)]: Okay, I will. So, I think the legislative intent is important, because Vermont has a special situation with the state and the towns, in my opinion. I've lived in other states and worked in other states in government. And the state can be very accessible to towns. And so, when I've heard about folks' concerns with this thought or this idea, they've been worried that this would create a barrier between the state and the towns. So, I have a really complicated, Oh gosh, I did it wrong. Okay. We're gonna have a structure where you show the state and the town. You have connection. I believe county governance should not be here in between the state and the town, but rather over here, where it is currently, actually. There's very few areas where you have to go through the county to do a state function. But we could certainly be a lot more effective, in my opinion. Have, there are some state agencies that are, some state functions that are done by agencies that are not agencies of the state, like transit authorities, for example. The state contracts for those transit authorities, but the funding is federal. It has a lot of strings. And so those entities are required to do things in accordance with the federal government. The designated agencies are similar to that, where they provide a state function through contract. And then there are other types of contracts, just like purchasing contracts, that are not in that category. So it does get complicated, but if we focus on the authority and the responsibility of our services with the goal to make our services better and simplify the systems, that's where I think we can make the most progress and bang for the buck.

[Representative Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Yeah, thank you. This is just, as we've discussed many, many times, this is just setting this study committee up for future work tailing off of what's been done to this point. Rev Hooper, bro.

[Representative Philip Jay Hooper (Member, Randolph)]: Aren't there already existing links between, like, the transit authority, transportation, designated agencies, mental health, it's still a feeder system through state government for those. Right?

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Windham District)]: Yes.

[Representative Philip Jay Hooper (Member, Randolph)]: Is there anything to your knowledge that actually stands alone that has a county locus?

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Windham District)]: I doubt it because of the funding, because the funding comes from the federal government and that would come through the state. But there probably is. There are lots of There are so many When you start looking at all of the entities, the conservation districts are a good example, because they actually are a state entity, but they're not in a They have to find their own house or their own place to do operations, and their funding is separate. It doesn't go through the county tax model. But no, I don't. And a concern that I have with some of the agencies where the state contracts, there's not local accountability, even though they're providing local services. And again, I'm pretty focused on transportation, but that's not the only thing. And something that we did this year in the Senate was we had, and we did it with House committees too, we had committees of different jurisdictions have joint meetings to talk about the same thing. So for example, health and welfare and transportation got together to talk about the transportation needs to access healthcare, because those are significant. And so we made some progress actually, and we changed some laws and provided some funding, And folks are able to access medical care better because we did that.

[Representative Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Any other questions from the Senator?

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Windham District)]: Do want you me to talk about just public safety and the sheriff at all? Please. So, obviously, I'm sure this committee is well aware of our situation in regard to dispatch. I'm not suggesting that this committee solve that. That's a big issue. But I do think that this committee needs to at least acknowledge it, because it's important. And the genesis of this committee originally had a pretty big public safety focus, to it. And, we just passed out, the sheriff's bill, the pilot for It's Wyndham just a pilot, just for Wyndham County. But it does include a measure of at least transparency with, there would be a board established of towns who would want to have services. And so, that board would meet in public. It would be made up of select board members. So, is some transparency in that. And so, depending on how that works and what they find out and what they recommend, that I see that group feeding into this group.

[Representative Matthew Birong (Chair)]: What's that field number?

[Representative Lucy Boyden (Clerk)]: I think two fifty five maybe.

[Representative Matthew Birong (Chair)]: I'm not 100% sure. We will be the committee of jurisdiction once that comes over to us.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Windham District)]: You'll get it very soon. Yes.

[Representative Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Yes, that is a pilot program that, not to keep reusing this term, but I'm kind of like gee right now, it'll like dovetail into this work, right? Like it is something that is within the same vein of what is trying to be sussed out and assessed and worked on. Over to director.

[Representative Philip Jay Hooper (Member, Randolph)]: Well, sheriffs are probably the best example of semi autonomous. Although they still have a funding stream, they also have a independent funding stream, not the state, but their own activities. So it's

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Windham District)]: Exactly. That's And so

[Representative Philip Jay Hooper (Member, Randolph)]: the closest thing I've to And your county

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Windham District)]: the judges and the courts. Yeah. Right. And let me just explain a little bit about that, Bill, since I'm here. In Wyndham County, we're actually really rural. You've got to get off at 91, but we're very rural and similar to the Northeast Kingdom in that way. We found that out in the Redistricting Task Force, just how geographically similar we are. So, we only We have three police departments in the whole county. So, of our towns, vast majority of our towns, don't have police. It used to be that when they would call 911, the sheriff, or not, sorry, not the sheriff, the state police would come. And that really isn't happening these days. They're very, very short staffed. So, towns have relied on the sheriff or on a contract basis, for services, that gets difficult to administer and it's hard to hire people when it's their only one year contracts and they're, when they're specific to a town. So this will allow, it's completely voluntary, towns who want to, contract with the sheriff, they can contract for a longer period of time. There would be a board that would have oversight over the, service. That's where the transparency comes in. They would be able to have longer contracts and just more effective contracts. And it was the towns who want it. The towns want this.

[Representative Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Oh, yeah. Yes. A lot of municipalities there. Yes. Anything else from the senator? Thank you so much for the time.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Windham District)]: Thank you so much.

[Representative Lucy Boyden (Clerk)]: Key team.

[Representative Matthew Birong (Chair)]: So to the words on the page, do we have I'm gonna read through myself just to scan and make sure. So many tabs open. Oh, there we go. You might need Tim to clean this up.

[Representative Lucy Boyden (Clerk)]: You mean highlights or mortgage?

[Representative Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Yeah. The I'd like to take out the highlights.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Windham District)]: But

[Representative Matthew Birong (Chair)]: it's the same draft. There won't be any changes. Procedural question from the brain trust. That can be done after the fact because we're not changing the words. Correct? Right.

[Legislative Counsel (unidentified)]: Yes. Okay. We just did that with June. We're not a draft, that's still valid. It's without the house. So it's just Okay.

[Representative Matthew Birong (Chair)]: No, I just wanted to make sure my brain is processing that more correctly. Okay. So bar the barring any other comment or discussion on this one, I guess I will move that we find favorable H76. Sorry. Oh my god. I'm confused. Rack number 1.2H762. Oh, this question Sure. If it's gonna get cleaned up and the strikeouts removed and the highlights removed, does that change the draft number? No. No. No. Because they're not actually yeah. They're just tightening it. Not amending it again. Okay. That's what we're just kinda that's doing it. Verifying my good. No, no, no, no. Valid. Valid. Yes. Okay. So finding H six.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Windham District)]: Can do it. She's very.

[Representative Matthew Birong (Chair)]: 762.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Windham District)]: There you go.

[Representative Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Draft number 1.2. An act relating to the county and regional governance study committee. That's one and done, brother. Carrying no further discussion or commentary. The clerk will call the roll.

[Representative Lucy Boyden (Clerk)]: Representative Boyden? Yes. Representative Coffin? Yes. Hango?

[Representative Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: Yes. Representative Hooper of Randolph? Yes. Representative Hooper of Burlington?

[Representative Robert Hooper (Member, Burlington)]: Yes.

[Representative Lucy Boyden (Clerk)]: Representative Morgan?

[Representative Michael Morgan (Member)]: Yes.

[Representative Lucy Boyden (Clerk)]: Representative Nugent? Yes. Representative Pinsonault? Yes. Representative Stone? Yes. Representative Waters Evans? Representative Byron?

[Representative Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Yes.

[Legislative Counsel (unidentified)]: Ten zero one.

[Representative Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Alright.

[Senator Wendy Harrison (Windham District)]: Yes. Golf call.

[Representative Matthew Birong (Chair)]: That's great. And I'll put us on break till 01:30, and then we will go into the conversation discussion and possible vote for draft number two six dash zero five five one, an active relating to alpha.