Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Chair Matthew Birong]: Alright. Good afternoon, everyone. 1PM on Tuesday, March 31. Picking up our first and only order of business for this afternoon. We're doing an introduction walk through witness testimony on s two thirty two enact relating to public libraries and the Department of Libraries. We have with us Senator Hardy, sponsor of the bill.

[Senator Ruth Hardy]: Hi. Thank you for having me. Mr. Chair and committee. I'm Senator Ruth Hardy from the Addison District. And we are talking about S-two 32, which is a bill about public libraries. And I have introduced and you have worked on I believe this committee has worked on all of the previous or the two previous bills a series of library bills, maybe a system of library bills, I don't know But some bills to just get more attention paid to public libraries. As you all know, they are a crucial resource in all of our communities, big and small. And they often don't get very much attention. So I've tried to bring conversation to the state house about how we can best support and appreciate and acknowledge and work with our libraries throughout the state. And this is the latest in those bills, and it does a number of things. I'm assuming you'll get a full walkthrough from Tucker. Okay, so I won't go into all of the nitty gritty details, but the bill starts with some findings, talking about the role of libraries and why they're important. And there are places communities depend on for centers of learning and social connection. There are places of public accommodation so that they share their services with everybody. Everybody is welcome there regardless of who you are and what circumstances you live in. They are important parts of early literacy, points of early literacy. Thinking about all the little preschoolers who go for story hour and take out books to bring home. And it's essential that people know about their libraries, so they know what they can do there. And then one that was added in the Senate, the last one is that public libraries have provided diverse after school and summer programs for many, many years since their inception. And that these programs include literacy, arts, technology, science education, nutritious meals, and creative activities. Those are the findings. The first thing that the bill does in Section two is create a Vermont Libraries Day in October. And this is not an official holiday. There's not a day off for anybody, but it's just a day to celebrate libraries and for libraries to do programming and things to bring people into the library and let the communities know about the libraries. I love that there's a baby in here. You guys are the best. Maybe you have a baby. And this coffee bar.

[Representative Philip Jay Hooper]: Hi, baby.

[Senator Ruth Hardy]: And then the next section of the bill is about the universal afterschool and summer discussion.

[Chair Matthew Birong]: Part of

[Senator Ruth Hardy]: what this bill does is give libraries explicit access to some funds that they have technically been eligible for, but never have been able to access in the past for a variety of reasons. And this section of the bill, section three, is probably the part of the bill that the Senate spent the most time on. And you may have heard some grumblings about it. But I think where we've arrived is, I'm not going speak for anyone else, but I think there's consensus on this and that people are okay with this. And you can certainly hear from others about this. But this was an amendment that went through a weird Securitist route in the Senate, but that I helped to broker with a number of people to get this bill to move forward to y'all, and not, die in Senate appropriations. But essentially, this does give universal after school and summer special fund is the fund that is funded through the cannabis excise tax. I believe that's the right funding source, cannabis excise. No, sales tax, sales tax, cannabis sales tax. And it's used for summer and after school programming. A lot of that is done in schools or local community organizations like the Boys and Girls Club, etcetera. And it's also braided with federal funding. So that's made it more complicated and harder to access for small organizations, including libraries. So while libraries have technically been eligible for it, they've never gotten it. I'm not even sure if they've applied because the application has been daunting. And the agency of education, which oversees the fund, hasn't been as receptive to helping them access it. You can certainly get text messages if you want, but the Senate Education Committee had a lot of complications with the agency of education, let's just say. So, what this language does is make explicit that libraries are eligible. There's not a percentage or amount that is put aside for libraries, but it makes them explicitly eligible for it and says that the agency could allocate a certain amount to the Department of Libraries, the state level Department of Libraries, that the Department of Libraries could sub grant. Or a coalition of libraries could apply, like all of the libraries in Franklin County could band together and apply for a county level grant. But it doesn't say they have to get the money, but it just sort of makes explicit that they are eligible. It also tells the agency of education that they have to, they shall create a simple application and reporting process that reduces barriers to grant program participation for small community based organizations, such as rural public libraries, volunteer mentoring programs, and similar organizations. Apparently, mentoring programs have had similar problems that libraries have had. So it just makes it so that there's a process that is more accessible to these small organizations. It also adds the state librarian to the advisory committee that oversees or advises the agency of education on this fund. And then it asks that advisory committees or tells them to solicit public input on the grant program and procedures every year. And then to take that feedback and put it into play. So, that is just to make sure that these organizations are getting a chance to give feedback on how it's going. And then there's another grant program on early education. And this adds public libraries explicit to it and includes that this funding can be used for training public library staff. As I mentioned before, public libraries are often sites of early education, early literacy, all the preschool reading groups and everything. So it's important that they get access to that funding. The next section, Department of Library Duties, just makes clear that a library collection is a digital or physical collection. Previously, just a collection, and it was interpreted to mean just books. But we all know that libraries also have a lot of digital collections these days. And this is important for our Department of Libraries to continue to access federal funding that might be for digital library collections. And the state librarian can tell you more about this than I can. The next section just makes clear that there two kinds of public libraries in the state. There are public libraries that are municipal public libraries, and then there are public libraries that are nonprofit organizations. And you would not know which yours is unless you were on the library board, maybe. They function the same. They're all open to the public. They have the same kind of programming and standards. And often, the nonprofit organizations get money from the municipality as part of this town budget process. But this just makes sure that it keeps clear the sort of who has oversight of those libraries. And again, Department of Libraries can speak to this better than I can. And it just also makes clear that all libraries are eligible for municipal bonds if the municipality decides to go for a bond. And finally, it repeals the Audio Visual Revolving Fund, which is a fund that doesn't really have money. It doesn't do anything anymore. This was a fund that was used to mail out VHS tapes and cassette tapes and things like that, the old school technology, old time

[Chair Matthew Birong]: The Matrix?

[Senator Ruth Hardy]: Yeah. So this is a fund that's now been used for a long time. And so it's just cleaned up to repeal it. And then it takes effect on July 1. And that is the bill. And I did a little bit of Tucker's job, but he will be a lot funnier and more detailed than me. So I'm happy to answer questions about it, especially any of the things you may have heard about what was going on in the Senate. I think the bill has come to a really good place. And hopefully, you all can maybe make improvements to it, but just move it right along.

[Chair Matthew Birong]: Pistol.

[Representative Mary-Katherine Stone]: Is there a maximum amount of grant money that will be designated each year

[Senator Ruth Hardy]: to those who apply? Or is it To the libraries? There's The grant no program itself gets all of the money, I think, from the cannabis sales tax. You should get testimony on that because I'm not an expert on that. All of the cannabis sales tax goes to this fund, and then they give out a certain amount of money to a bunch of organizations. And you'll get more detailed testimony from people who know it better than me about how much they give. But you may have heard that when this bill came out of Senate education, it did have 5% of the money was supposed to go to libraries. And that caused some concerns from people who some of the after school programs, from the Agency of Education, from other people. So that's where we worked on this amendment to remove this explicit percentage and just say that they could give a chunk of money to the libraries, and the libraries could the Department of Libraries could sub grant it, but they don't have to. So, there's no requirement for an amount or a percentage. So I guess then my next question is the same with the percentage of sales tax. If all of the sales tax from cannabis is going go into this fund, and they could deplete it every year, or is it a percentage of what they collect is going to be dispersed? That's the question. And that I don't know enough. So I would get some testimony on people who know that fund better than me. Thank you.

[Chair Matthew Birong]: Brett Stone, sorry.

[Representative Mary-Katherine Stone]: Are these public libraries?

[Senator Ruth Hardy]: Either both? They're public libraries. There are two kinds of public libraries. And so there's municipal public libraries, and then there

[Representative Mary-Katherine Stone]: are public libraries that are technically overseen by a private nonprofit organization, but they function as public libraries. They don't have any restrictions on them. So full disclosure, when this went through Education Committee last biennium, I was concerned that we were moving things away from public schools over the

[Senator Ruth Hardy]: Yes, I remember this. Yes, it's

[Representative Mary-Katherine Stone]: the same fund. It's the same are these programs going to have to go through the same process of having some kind of I think it's kind of weak sauce, but having some kind of attestation that they won't discriminate and that they will accept all kids. So we're not giving more money to institutions that don't serve the public.

[Senator Ruth Hardy]: Yes, all that language is still in there. It's still in the law. That wasn't touched in this. And just to be clear, all these public libraries do serve everyone. That's why they are designated as public libraries. Just wanted to tamper with that. Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, in my community, which I know the best, obviously so for example, in Middlebury, there's the Illsley Public Library, which is a municipal library that's a department of the town of Middlebury. And it has a library that everybody can go to and is your typical public library. In Virgin's, where Rep. Birong lives, and we both serve together, there's the Bixby Public Library. It's actually a nonprofit organization that serves the five towns in that district. You would not know that that library is run any different than Illsley if you walked in to pick out a book. They operate in the same way. It's just that one of them is municipal and one of them so it's different than in the school context, I'll just say. And I'm saying this as someone who you and I have it's different than in the school context. So the libraries are indistinguishable, and everybody can go in

[Representative Mary-Katherine Stone]: and use them. Great. That's Mondays. You. All students have access to it, especially if there's a finite amount of money that we're not blocking some kids from enjoying those benefits.

[Chair Matthew Birong]: Anything else for Senator Hardy before we shift over to counsel?

[Senator Ruth Hardy]: No. Awesome. Thank you all for taking this bill off. I used be up in your Shishi Committee room. I took

[Representative Philip Jay Hooper]: a candy as my. Thank

[Senator Ruth Hardy]: you.

[Representative Philip Jay Hooper]: Stay safe.

[Senator Ruth Hardy]: And Tucker?

[Chair Matthew Birong]: I always say we have a nice conference room with them. Good

[Tucker Anderson, Legislative Counsel]: afternoon. Tucker Anderson, Legislative Counsel. Don't have any comments about how fancy the committee room is. I missed most of it, but I assume you got an excellent overview from Senator Hardy. So what I'll do is I'll orient you to each section of the bill and answer any in-depth questions that you might have about the words on the page. Something that I would flag up front is that a good share of the bill, non substantive changes. It calls out libraries where they already, qualify for certain grant programs or for bond backing, but it makes the terms of those statutes more express so that, people out in the world, municipal government, within the library system itself are aware that these statutory programs are available to public libraries. I'm going to skip through section one because I do not walk through findings because they are your legislative findings. I would encourage you to review them. And if there's something in there that you think is not factual or does not represent the investigations that you all have conducted related to public libraries, then you can ask me to change them. Section two on page two, and I'm working off the as passed by Senate version, adds a new one VSA section three seventy nine to establish Vermont Libraries Day as the October. Something to qualify and clarify here is that this adds this day as Vermont Libraries Day, but this is not within the section that designates specific state holidays. Under the Reader Assistance heading for After School Summer Reading and Early Education Funding for Public Libraries, section three amends 16 BSA section 51 related to the universal after school and summer special fund. The first instance of amendment is in subdivision A1 on line 19 that states that the fund shall be used to establish a grant program that supports sustaining or expanding after universal after school and summer programs. Moving into page three in subdivision a two, this deals with the allocation and use of the funds. And as Senator Hardy mentioned, this particular fund, contains revenue from the cannabis stacks. And there are materials available from your talented and hardworking joint fiscal office, as well as some reports from the working group that assists the agency of education and agency of education itself, detailing the amounts that go into this fund on an annual basis, the amount that has been issued in grants, and then the prospective plans for how funds will be granted from the grant program in the future. In that subdivision A2 at the top of page three, the list of eligible recipients is amended to expressly call out public library schools and volunteer mentoring programs as eligible recipients. All three of those already qualified under the existing terms and statute. They're just getting express call outs now. New language is added to the end of the subdivision stating that the agency, here the Agency of Education, may allocate a portion of the funds annually to the Department of Libraries for the purposes of providing sub grants to public libraries for these summer and after school programs. A coalition or group of public libraries is authorized to, cooperatively apply for grants from the agency or department. In Subdivision A2E, this is all new and it is within the list that representative Stone talked about of the specific requirements that are attached to the grant program. This is a new procedural element added in. The agency shall create a simple application and reporting process that reduces barriers to grant program participation for small community based organizations such as rural public libraries, volunteer mentoring programs, and similar organizations. The way that this was framed by the chair of Senate Education on the floor in front of the Senate is that currently the juice is not worth the squeeze, That's the direct quote for many of these small organizations because of the complexity and length of the existing application requirements for grants from this fund. In subsection B related to the advisory committee that assists the Secretary of Education in the management of this fund, that advisory committee has a new member in Subdivision 9, the state librarian or designee. Finally, at the end of this section, and we are on page four now, in subsection B, annually the advisory committee shall solicit public input on the grant program and procedures established pursuant to this section. The advisory committee shall hold a meeting to discuss the public input and any plans to implement recommended changes to the grant program. So a public participation requirement that is expressly provided here, for soliciting public input and holding at least one meeting to discuss the input that has been received. Alright. Section four, amend 16 VSA section forty fourteen, to dealing with early education grants from the agency of education. First, in subsection a to call out training for public library staff as one of the, eligible, ACs for applying for a grant, and in subsection b to expressly call out public libraries as a community organization that qualifies for this program. Your talented and hardworking joint fiscal office pointed out that this is a discretionary fund, so there's no mandate that, the secretary issue these grants annually. It is completely at the discretion of the agency to carry this on. So I think if you take a look at the fiscal note, they were unable to hone in exactly on what the annual expenditures would be to support public libraries because this is a discretionary fund that isn't tied to specific appropriations. Under the reader assistance heading for Department of Libraries duties, section five amends 22 VSA section six zero five related to the duties and functions of the Department of Libraries. If you move on to page five right at the top, you'll notice that in the first two subdivisions and then throughout this section, there are amendments to clarify that the collections that are held by the department may be digital or physical. Currently, the way that term is used refers to physical collections. They wanted to make sure that this also encompassed digital collections as far as their duties are for maintaining those collections. Further on in the section all the way at the end of Subdivision 4, there is some cleanup related to the distribution of materials. So in that last sentence, it states that the department shall provide materials to other libraries in the state through interlibrary loan and shall encourage the sharing of library materials between libraries, and it eliminates reference to book service by mail and the book wagon.

[Chair Matthew Birong]: Right

[Tucker Anderson, Legislative Counsel]: at the end of that section in subdivision five at the top of page six, duty is eliminated here. Currently, the department is required to provide services and consultation for libraries at the regional level as well as the state level. That is struck. The duty is going to be purely at the state level, no longer breaking up consultation and advice reach. Section six, midway through page six, amends 22 VSA section 143. This is a section related to the relationship between municipalities and public libraries. Now the question came up earlier about what exactly is a public library, and how is that term used? Well, in title 22, public library is defined fairly broadly, It includes association libraries, municipal libraries, and library corporations. In this subchapter that Section 143 is in, there are specific procedures for forming what is known as a library corporation, And it allows the local level trustees to form the library, register with the Secretary of State. They're effectively a nonprofit corporation, but typically, they are based on a specific endowment. So, there used to be comprehensive statutes about positions in local government known as the trustees of public funds. And that is because it was a common practice in the past for a decedent's estate to have in the will or the trust a gift to municipal government for purposes of keeping a library or collection or a set of books, something like that, available for the community in perpetuity. So these library corporations typically have what's known as a res, which is property that has been left for purposes of establishing a library that is open to the public. These corporations have their own boards of trustees that operate similar to any other corporate board for a private corporation. The issue that came up is that an omnibus library bill from last biennium amended the definition of public libraries and used a consistent term throughout title 22. The reason for that is there were all these grant programs administered by the Department of Libraries to try to support things like after school and summer reading programs or collection modernization or the general assembly required every library to adopt a selection and reconsideration policy for removing books from libraries. Well, all of that was supported through these grant programs, but there were so many different types of libraries out there that there needed to be a consistent term that could be used for the department's authority. Unfortunately, there was some collateral. The collateral damage was in this section one forty three, which some municipalities were reading as, authority for the municipal corporation to take over control of private library corporations simply because they appropriated some funds on an annual basis to keep the library open to the public. To resolve any ambiguity and ensure that the corporate library trustee boards were kept separate from the municipal corporations. There is a construction sentence to guide courts and municipal corporations at the end of the subsection states that the subsection shall not be construed to apply to public libraries that are privately established, chartered, or incorporated pursuant to subchapter two of this chapter. With that sentence, the general assembly is guiding municipal corporations saying, just by virtue of appropriating however much, $1, $1,000, $100,000 to the library corporation in your town, you do not get control over the membership of the board of trustees of that library.

[Chair Matthew Birong]: All right, pumped. Any questions on that one? That was a little dense with some backstory and context. Yeah, we good? Those of you who are returning members may remember that era of testimony.

[Tucker Anderson, Legislative Counsel]: I will flag for you that aside from the summer and after school grant program, this is one area where you may hear some questions from some of your colleagues in the house, because there are some house districts where there are conflicts between these library corporations and local select boards over this very specific issue. Sufficient enough tension that it rose to my attention while the bill was on the Senate. Okay. Section seven, twenty four BSA section seventeen fifty two a is amended to expressly call out public libraries as potential, recipients of bond revenue. Municipal corporations can currently take out bonds to support library infrastructure. This gives them an express call out in the bonding chapter in title 24. Section eight repeals the audiovisual revolving fund. Senator Hardy gave you a great description of that. The one piece that I flagged for senate finance that I thought was somewhat funny is that the only revenue that goes into this fund is the postage that has to be paid for shipping the DVDs, the HS tapes, and Betamaxes.

[Chair Matthew Birong]: Thank you for that trifecta, Councilman.

[Tucker Anderson, Legislative Counsel]: Yes. Laserdiscs. Section nine sets the effective date as 07/01/2026. And that is all that I have for you.

[Chair Matthew Birong]: Knowing that we only have Tucker for one word a, utilize them now for any queries. Just 12 questions. It's a

[Tucker Anderson, Legislative Counsel]: two week break. I know you'll miss me.

[Representative Philip Jay Hooper]: Horribly. It already can't function, but

[Chair Matthew Birong]: We are alive.

[Tucker Anderson, Legislative Counsel]: All right. Thank you, sir. Thank you all.

[Representative Mary-Katherine Stone]: Thank you, doctor.

[Chair Matthew Birong]: Thank you. And we have

[Tucker Anderson, Legislative Counsel]: one guest. How are you? Good.

[Chair Matthew Birong]: How are It's good to see you again.

[Representative Mary-Katherine Stone]: Nice to see you all. It's very nice to be in this very cozy and spacious room that you all have. Good afternoon for the record. My name is Nicole Miller. I'm the executive director of Vermont After School.

[Nicole Miller, Executive Director, Vermont After School]: I have usually been in this committee on behalf of the State Youth Council, which is part of the work that Vermont After School does. But today, I get to talk to you about the after school summer special fund that, as counsel and Senator Hardy have both mentioned, is a piece of S-two 32. Vermont After School is an organization that works to strengthen all after school and summer programs, empower youth, and expand access so that any child or youth in Vermont who wants to attend a program can do so. We work with all types of after school and summer programs, including childcare programs, schools, public libraries, and now all of my understanding about all the complexity around libraries, parks and recreation, YNCAs, I could go on and on. I'm also a member of the After School and Summer Advisory Committee that is tasked with supporting and advising the agency of education on the use of the Act 78 funds or the cannabis revenue from sales tax. So we are really happy with where this bill has landed after the Senate and hope that you all will be able to support this bill moving forward. Libraries are a very well known community resource. And as the Bill's Finding shares have long been a part of the after school and summer options in Vermont's communities. I ran an after school and summer program in the Hardwick area, and our libraries were integral partners with our after school and summer programs. And so really want to help support this move moving forward. This bill is passed by the Senate. It includes an amendment to the after school summer special fund, has already been referenced. The way that I see it, it does several things. One, it clarifies the eligibility for the grant program for the After School and Summer Special Fund. Again, they've already been eligible, but just clarifying the language so it's really explicit for folks so that they understand that there is an opportunity there. It does update the membership of the After School and Summer Advisory Committee, who the Assistant State Librarian has already been attending the meetings for the last year as a member or as a guest public, and so formally inviting them to be part of the committee. As Senator Hardy and counsel referenced, it tasked the committee with annually soliciting public input on the grant program and to provide an opportunity to make sure that those smaller community based organizations, as well as rural libraries, are able to be successful applicants for that funding source. So again, I just really believe that this bill supports the intent of the After School and Summer Special Fund, is in line with establishing universal after school and summer programs for any youth that wants to participate, regardless of where they live and many other factors. I really feel like we've landed in a good spot of compromise And certainly happy to answer any questions, but just wanted to be on the record to say we're happy and support still where it is right now.

[Chair Matthew Birong]: Maybe

[Representative Philip Jay Hooper]: not a question for you, but I just want to know, is this coming out of the fact that the fund has grown? And if so, by how much? I'm just really cautious about any money that we have.

[Chair Matthew Birong]: Philip, are you speaking to the cannabis

[Representative Philip Jay Hooper]: fund? Yeah, just to get a little bit more information about how

[Representative Mary-Katherine Stone]: big

[Representative Philip Jay Hooper]: the fund is, how much it's grown over the past two years. We put this in place in twenty twenty four, 'five, just to get some data on that.

[Chair Matthew Birong]: Love to.

[Representative Philip Jay Hooper]: Would be helpful.

[Chair Matthew Birong]: Yeah, we could definitely add that to our next level of testimony. Yeah, we can talk to JFO and counsel and people happily rabbit hole us. That's actually a good sort of bounce pass into just the general cannabis work that we do to get a good understanding of where we're at with this fund for after school program that is supported by the cannabis tax dollars. So I

[Tucker Anderson, Legislative Counsel]: think it works in a

[Chair Matthew Birong]: lot of different directions. So that's a long winded way of saying

[Representative Philip Jay Hooper]: yes, good information to

[Chair Matthew Birong]: have. The

[Lucy Boyden, Committee Clerk]: fiscal note is posted on our web page.

[Senator Ruth Hardy]: Does it say how much

[Representative Philip Jay Hooper]: is in there? And how much it's grown? Does it have information?

[Lucy Boyden, Committee Clerk]: It does. Well, no, it's

[Representative Philip Jay Hooper]: a projection out into the future. And I wonder when that next, when they'll get the information from 2025?

[Chair Matthew Birong]: I think it gets updated pretty regularly just because of the inflow from the CCB into this fund, right? Because like, yeah, I go. I think they do it quarterly. I can't remember this. I want to say quarterly, but I don't hold my feet to the fire on that.

[Lucy Boyden, Committee Clerk]: There's a revenue projection annually, and in fiscal year twenty twenty five, the grant program The total amount awarded through the grant program was $2,400,000

[Senator Ruth Hardy]: How much did it bring in?

[Lucy Boyden, Committee Clerk]: Rep Stone's That's question and that's

[Chair Matthew Birong]: not We can talk to, Chearer Pepper, we can talk to JFO. There's like several different points of contact with

[Senator Ruth Hardy]: those It goes back to my question that we don't bring it in 2.4, we don't be spending 2.4. Let's bring it in more than that, then maybe it could be used for education funding as well. Just raises Jeff, how much it's actually bringing in and how much we're spending. Point four seems like a lot of money.

[Chair Matthew Birong]: We can definitely dig into all of those questions. Any questions for our guest? No. Thank you so much for the time and all the work you do. All right, committee. We were kind of consciously taking a little bit of a softer start to the week than we had the previous three or four weeks. So, know, spend the rest of the day checking in on bills that are floating around constituent services, things of that nature. But as far as formal committee work is concerned, we are done for the day unless anyone has anything to add.