Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Speaker 0]: I think we're done.

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Alright, everyone. Welcome back. House government operations military affairs. Apologies for that break in action. There was a small fire, so that was a necessary evac of the building to get everything situated so we could return. So here we are. We're back, and, we're gonna pick up the conversation with director Sievert. But first, wanna hand over to rep Waters Evans for a moment.

[Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: Hi. Hi, Chris. Thanks for coming in this morning. You know, it was a it's it's an effort for you. It's appreciated. I I just wanted before we went any further with this discussion today and just based on what we did yesterday, I I wanted to focus a little bit on the fact that I think, in my mind, we all have a similar goal, I think. And the goal is to get this form available to candidates so that they can file properly according to what we've laid out already in statute because it still exists in statute right now. You know what mean? By next week, you know, starting next week. So I think that that we all have that same priority. I think secretary of state, ethics commission, and this committee, we are all on that same page. Right? So I think that's a good place for us to start working. I think it's really important. I'm only speaking for myself here, but I think it's really important that we don't diminish the importance of these disclosures and the importance of the ethics commission and this process and everything. And I just wanted it to be clear, at least for me, this is not trying to not have this form exist. This is the opposite of that. It's trying to make sure that it exists in a way that it's accessible and available for candidates, but also doesn't present any barriers to them either in the way it's created or the way it's executed as people are filling it out and getting help for it. You know, like, I just I think it's really important that we keep those things in mind. And I think I think there's general agreement that we need to resolve the issue. Think there's also a general understanding that the ethics commission and the secretary of state's office are coming at it from two different viewpoints. And as a committee, we're lucky enough to be in the middle of of that situation with kind of the decision making ability to work it out as best we can. Because it does seem like we've identified the problem in a lot of different ways many, many times. And I think I would like to think about solutions moving forward. Like, how can we get it to a place compromise? How can we get it to a place where it works for the candidates? How can we get it to a place where it works for the people who are going be looking at these forms, so that they have access to this information in the interest of transparency, which is why we did this at the first place. I just wanted to kind of put that out there as, hopefully, a direction for the way that we're moving forward as a committee. Because it's easy to get to get on these little side journeys that we've been taking about, well, who should do this? And what's the responsibility? And we don't want to do this, and we don't want to do this, but whatever's happening. And those things are totally understandable. And also, it's clear that even if we thought we were being clear, it wasn't clear for some people. And so it's important that we rectify that and solve the problem. I think I would like to as much as we can focus on finding a good solution to this that works for everybody. And that's the mindset that I'm using to approach it. I hope that we all can too.

[Chris Sievert (Executive Director, Vermont State Ethics Commission)]: Sure. And I can give you

[Speaker 0]: my Sorry.

[Chris Sievert (Executive Director, Vermont State Ethics Commission)]: Yeah. Course. I can give you my Hold

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: on one second. I was gonna ask the committee if they had anything to follow-up with on that before we got back to it. So, anything to add from the table?

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Since then I knew, has anything changed in the requirement from this form that's shown, that we've shown in 2019 to today? Yes. So there are additional questions that need to be added.

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: And the thresholds don't seem to be matching on the disclosures like the various income streams, financial instruments, etcetera.

[Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: Okay. So that was my question. But yeah, what has changed?

[Chris Sievert (Executive Director, Vermont State Ethics Commission)]: So again, yeah, I should make it clear that the form has been created. So we moved on to we went to an online system three years ago, two and a half years ago. And so we had a model form that we created for that online system, because we don't use the PDF form anymore. We don't use the paper form anymore. There was, you know, the history of going back and forth with the Secretary of State's Office about whether they wanted to use the online system or not. The ultimate decision was no. It kind of dropped off, I think the radar. We don't track the election cycle and when the forms are needed. So the week, the day actually I was leaving for my sabbatical, I got a call from Sean in the Secretary's office asking for the form. And so I shared with him the model form, it's the final version of the form that we use to create the online system. And I said, you know, I'm leaving, it's my last day. It's all the questions as they should be, you know, laid out everything there. And so they have that form. I advise them if they wanted a fillable PDF, we just didn't have the technical, we didn't have the people in our office in terms of numerosity, but also the technical skill to be able to do the fillable PDF, not in any kind of, you know, immediate way. So my advice was, if you have some in your office that, you know, is technically capable of turning this into a fillable PDF, if that's the version you want to use, my advice would be to do that. We heard a few weeks later that they preferred to have it coming from us as a fillable PDF. So our administrative assistant, Peggy, who I think is in the meeting today, did her best to create it. So I wouldn't say it's a perfect form in terms of like formatting. I know there was some unhappiness with maybe, I don't know, spacing and things like that, but the form is completed. And so it it's done. So there it's just a question of how it's going to be posted. I think for

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Do do you have the updated form? Because I what I was seeing is does not appear to be an updated form.

[Chris Sievert (Executive Director, Vermont State Ethics Commission)]: I think Peggy sent it around yesterday.

[Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. I'm

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: sorry. Yes. Peggy, would you like to

[Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: help? Sure.

[Peggy Delaney (Administrative Assistant, Vermont State Ethics Commission)]: Hold on one second. Hi, Peggy Delaney, administrative assistant for Vermont Ethics Commission for the record. I did send as well as I believe Lauren sent it to Nick yesterday and he said he was gonna get it to the committee. So I assume that you guys did get it.

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: So we got it by email? We got by

[Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: email from Nick.

[T.J. Jones (Consultant to the Vermont State Ethics Commission)]: Oh, yeah.

[Sarah Copeland Hanzas (Vermont Secretary of State)]: From Nick yesterday at

[Mary-Katherine Stone (Member)]: 04:43PM.

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Gotcha. Okay. Yep. So I was looking at the is this? It's the same one. So the form is the one that has the header, this consent of candidate, your financial disclosure form, asterisk, and your statement of nomination petition. No. That's not

[Speaker 0]: that one. No. We're

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: down here.

[Mary-Katherine Stone (Member)]: 3PM time stamp from Nick yesterday. See?

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Okay. Thank you. We have a bunch of different forms of time here. Alright. I'll pull that one up. No. Thank you, Peggy.

[Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: This is the one? No.

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: That's nothing.

[Peggy Delaney (Administrative Assistant, Vermont State Ethics Commission)]: No problem.

[Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: Okay, I'm gonna print it out for you.

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: You're welcome.

[Peggy Delaney (Administrative Assistant, Vermont State Ethics Commission)]: I will say it was a bear to do taking it from the online system to a fillable PDF. It sounds like it's not a difficult process, but yeah, it's and it took me hours happy to do it, but it was a bear to do it.

[Chris Sievert (Executive Director, Vermont State Ethics Commission)]: Yeah, I think it's one of those things where if, you know, you're used you're used to converting like Word docs to a fellow PDF, then you're used to it. If you're not, then you're not. But I would just say my proposed, you know, compromise solution would be I mean, I've I've shared my reservations about, you know, taking over fully the responsibilities of disseminating the forum because we don't have jurisdiction over elections. And I don't believe that the forum is, you know, an ethics commission forum in the sense that it's an ethics commission requirement. It's a statutory requirement, and we happen to create the forum. So my suggestion would be that both entities post the forum, because I do think it should be a part of the actual, like, candidate application. It just makes sense to have all the information in one place. We both jointly post it, include it in the application as it has always, you know, been included. And then when it comes to the questions, we do a joint FAQ. We can post them, you know, on both websites. And we're willing to say that if people after reading the FAQ have additional questions, then they can email our office and we will handle them to the best of our ability.

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Reporters Evans.

[Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: Thank you for saying that. Was about to ask a question and then you answered it, which is I was a little concerned yesterday after the chair of the ethics commission's testimony saying that if we decided as a committee to charge the Ethics Commission with answering questions about it, that you were that there would just be something on the website that said to hire a private attorney. And that got some eyebrows raised. And so it was a worry because that's hopefully not how we are ever going to operate with creating a financial barrier for people running for office. So it seems like a compromise. I mean, that seems like a doable thing. If we're saying we can post the form in both places, because we have a form. We can post it in both places. We can post the questions, the FAQ document in both places, and then direct people to your office only for questions about that one particular form and not about any other elections related stuff. That I believe the secretary of state's office testified yesterday they would be those are the things they answer anyway. And that it was just the campaign finance form that they were concerned about answering questions on. But it sounds like you might be able to do so by people reaching out by email.

[Chris Sievert (Executive Director, Vermont State Ethics Commission)]: Yeah, yeah. I think email is just the best way so that we can triage questions coming into our office. Because we're office, have people, to be honest, people are gonna be unhappy about filling out the form. So it's just when we get somebody who wants to talk for half an hour, it really impacts our core work if we only have, you know, four hours available a day. So we just like to direct them to email, and then we'll triage them that way. And that's our compromise just to move things forward, because we do want to make sure that people are able to file a form. You know, at the end of the day, it's in the interest of the public and the ethics commission to make sure that those forms get filed. Mean, it's all about public transparency. I would also ask though, staffing is a real serious issue. I mean, I had to take the sabbatical because I just couldn't do it anymore. So I would like to request that there's some language in the bill that creates a position for us next year. Because if we are gonna be answering questions, it's going to be me doing it on my vacation and on my sabbatical and doing it for free. Like, that's the reality of it. So I would love to see just some effort to acknowledge that we are so severely understaffed that we can't keep up with our current responsibilities, and this is going be something new that we're taking on in addition to all the work that we already can't do.

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Representative.

[Unidentified Committee Member 2]: I just I'm trying to understand, like, your level of staffing at the moment. And are you so you're on leave. Is there an interim executive director while you're on leave, or who is filling that role?

[Chris Sievert (Executive Director, Vermont State Ethics Commission)]: That's a really good question. So our chair so you divide it so first, I should say, we looked for months to find somebody to serve as interim executive director. Nobody wanted this job. And that was even with the idea that maybe it could become permanent for them. Nobody was interested because they all understood that it's a full time job for part time pay. We tried for months to find somebody. So the solution we came up with is that our chair and TJ Jones, our consultant, are splitting their responsibilities, which isn't, you know, for our chair, our commission is a volunteer commission, right? But he understood that I had to have the time off or, you know, I was not gonna be able to stay in the position anymore. So he volunteered to take on those responsibilities. And then TJ is assisting in some cases where, you know, people are requesting advice. So we've we've split the duties between those two. But just to see show how precarious the ethics commission is, like, people really understand that the workload is so high that no nobody wanted to take this on even temporarily or even the idea that it could become permanent.

[Unidentified Committee Member 2]: Is that impacting your budget currently? Or

[Chris Sievert (Executive Director, Vermont State Ethics Commission)]: Is it impacting it? In what sense? I mean, it's it's a non paid leave. I'm not getting paid. And so any additional money that I'm not getting paid, like, we've we've set aside so that can help, you know, pay, you know, TJ for his additional time that he's putting in to help out with the ethics commission.

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: I

[Mary-Katherine Stone (Member)]: just wanted to point out that access via email only is often considered prohibited for people in the disability community, because it can act as a digital barrier that limits independence and privacy and speed of access. So I just want to point that out as somebody who works as a healthcare worker and oftentimes has to provide education to patients in different formats. Oftentimes just giving them digital information does not suffice. So I worry about taking away the phones as an option.

[Chris Sievert (Executive Director, Vermont State Ethics Commission)]: If somebody says if somebody says that

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: they give you an opportunity. She she was so are you finished?

[Mary-Katherine Stone (Member)]: I mean, I can be. I just have concerns about that. I recognize in recognizes the staffing barrier, but I also really want to lift up the accessibility barrier for folks who email may be a challenge for one reason or the other. They still may be very qualified to be in office, but mean, if you hold our body right now, there are some people in this body who may prefer communication verbally versus written technology.

[Chris Sievert (Executive Director, Vermont State Ethics Commission)]: Yes, and I have had people email in before and I say, and I've said, could we do a call? And they say, I prefer email. So the reverse is true too, right? So somebody says I prefer to, I have reasons I prefer a phone call, we're not gonna say no.

[Mary-Katherine Stone (Member)]: Okay, just wanna make sure that was an option for folks. Okay, that's fine.

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Alright. Any other questions for this portion? So, on the table? We do have this form, And it sounds that we're your position is email response capacity to questions and curiosities via email, but no capacity for phone?

[Chris Sievert (Executive Director, Vermont State Ethics Commission)]: Capacity for phone, if somebody strongly prefer, if there's a reason why somebody wants to call us, then yes, but email is a much quicker and easier way to respond to questions like these.

[Speaker 0]: So

[Unidentified Committee Member]: I think we've expressed a solution here of posting the form both on the EPIC submissions website and the Secretary of State's website along with the packet for filing and then joining FAQ. What would be the best timeline to prioritize this getting posted? So the filing the opening of the filing is is coming up for

[Chris Sievert (Executive Director, Vermont State Ethics Commission)]: I mean, soon as they wanna post it, we can we can both post it at the same time. I mean, I would say, you know, why not today? I mean, Peggy would be the person who's posting it. What her what's her availability? But if that if they say we're gonna post it today at 3PM, and, know, we can do it today at 3PM as well, you know, why not?

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Represents.

[Mary-Katherine Stone (Member)]: I was also just wondering for clarity if we could have a hyperlink to the form on the secretary of state's website that directs to your website where the actual form is maintained instead of having, like, a PDF link on the Secretary of State's website. So just a hyperlink that says, this form has underlying the hyperlink. You click it, and it automatically directs you So that it's, you know what I mean? So that it's less confusing.

[Chris Sievert (Executive Director, Vermont State Ethics Commission)]: Well, I think to ask that's more confusing because it is an elections requirement and we don't have jurisdiction over elections. So I think in the sense that we post resources, general ethics resources on our website, like we post, you know, DHR's personnel manual, we post a lot of resources on our website. So us posting, you know, a form like this isn't out of line, but in the sense that we're exclusively the ones posting and other people linking to it, I think that does lead to a sense that this is an ethics commission requirement. And I personally am seeking to avoid that because the financial disclosure requirement is required for public transparency, is requirement in statute. And I worry that if people start seeing these things as only associated with the ethics commission, that they're not gonna see the broader need for it. Because if the ethics commission ceased to exist tomorrow, these would still be requirements by statute. Somebody else would just have to handle the executive officer disclosure. And same, but there's no secretary of state, somebody else would handle the candidate financial disclosure. So that's why I would prefer that we both jointly post these things.

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: But I've been refamiliarizing myself with Act 171 from 2024. And the title of the act, laid out these new thresholds in what many of us perceived as being, a requirement for the peer office to maintain is is titled an act relating to the state's State Ethics Commission and the state code of ethics. So that seems like it is predominantly in your wheelhouse.

[Chris Sievert (Executive Director, Vermont State Ethics Commission)]: No, I would not say it's predominantly in our wheelhouse. I think when we talk about, I mean, I'm glad you brought up the maintain language. So we specifically asked for the created and maintained language. And we asked for this, it was mainly discussed on the Senate side, because we were getting questions about the forum, and we didn't feel like it was our, you know, jurisdiction, it wasn't appropriate for us to be answering them. So we said, we're getting these questions. We want to make it clear that it's not our responsibility. It's not us who should be answering these questions. And so because the language we felt was vague, it said, you know, the ethics commission prepares the forum. We felt like that left it open for people saying we had a higher level of responsibility related to the form than we actually did. So that was language that we specifically proposed with the understanding that it was limiting our responsibilities related to the form and not expanding them in any way. But I will say when it comes to Canada financial disclosures and looking at what other states do, the through line is is that whatever entity handles campaign finance, they also handle financial disclosures. So that is the way other states handle it. And so if we were to I mean, that leads to questions, right? If we were taking over candidate financial disclosures in their entirety, what's going to happen to campaign finance, right? So in other states, some ethics commissions handle candidate financial disclosures, but they also handle campaign finance. And the states where they had where the Secretary of State's office handed handles campaign finance, they also can't handle candidate financial disclosures. So I was not here when you know, this was set up. But my feeling is that the reason that candidate financial disclosures went to the Secretary of State's office and executive officers went to ours is just because of that, you know, line of demarcation where this office has jurisdiction over state, this office has jurisdiction over elections. So I think TJ can talk about this later. I mean, he's the one who looked at the other New England states, because we wanted to know the answer ourselves, like, who does do candidate financial disclosures? We know there's a variety of ways to do it. And looking at the other New England states, that was the through line. Candidate financial disclosures go with the entity that handles campaign finance.

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: I don't want to make a comment from two year old memory. Any other questions from this stage? Anything further to add before we move to TJ? Rep Pinsonault.

[Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: How long have these been retired? Disclosures? Yeah, French disclosures. Like, when did they start?

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: That would be a question, a historic question perhaps for counsel. It's been a while.

[Speaker 0]: And

[Sandra "Sandy" Pinsonault (Member)]: who has handled them in the past?

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Various aspects of financial institutions. I'd have to take a look at the statute.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: I

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: believe that would be Act 171 of 2024.

[Chris Sievert (Executive Director, Vermont State Ethics Commission)]: Yeah, I just want to make it clear because this came up with discussions with Secretary of State's Office where the created and maintained language came from. We specifically asked for it, and we specifically asked for it with the intention of creating the understanding that we did not have responsibility for answering questions. And I don't know if Paul mentioned it yesterday, but he went to the chair of that committee to ask what their recollection was, and their recollection that came back to us was that the Ethics Commission could answer questions, but we weren't responsible for answering questions.

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: So are you referring to Senator Hardy, the previous chair?

[Sandra "Sandy" Pinsonault (Member)]: Yes.

[Speaker 0]: Thank you.

[Chris Sievert (Executive Director, Vermont State Ethics Commission)]: Mhmm. But when it comes to who's done this previously, we we have not been responsible for posting or disseminating the forum at all. The most interaction we've had with candidates about this is we answered five or six questions back in 2022 and none during the last election cycle.

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: All right. With that, I think we're going to shift over to TJ if everyone is with that at this stage of the game.

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

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: All right.

[Chris Sievert (Executive Director, Vermont State Ethics Commission)]: Thank

[T.J. Jones (Consultant to the Vermont State Ethics Commission)]: you. Mr. Jones. Good morning committee. Thank you for having me back. I had the pleasure of meeting many of you the last couple of sessions. So it's good to be back. Thank you for inviting me. For those of you who I haven't met, I'm a national consultant with states and municipalities on governmental ethics law. I'm previously a board member of the State Ethics Board in Connecticut and the executive director of California's Fair Political Practice Commission, in addition to being Connecticut's first ethics prosecutor. I also, in my limited free time, I teach government ethics and accountability at the University of Connecticut. I'm here today and I'm hoping to do very quickly because I'm respectful and mindful of your time. Two things. The first is to give you a general overview of how other states have handled this. And the second is to give you a short list of reasons why states have taken this approach. Almost half the states in The US require candidates to file personal financial disclosures during an election. Among those states, it breaks down with respect to jurisdiction of agencies, similar to what we're talking about here. Chris is right. The general overview is that it usually stays with the campaign finance agency for the state. In some states, such as California, the same agency does both, and so it's not really a question. All the candidate forms go to where the public official forms go. In states where there's a specific independent agency for each, one for ethics, one for elections, The typical breakdown is that ethics takes the public official disclosures, and the elections agency takes the candidate disclosures. The third pattern is that even if there's a state ethics committee, the Secretary of State takes all public officials disclosures as well as candidate disclosures. That states like New Mexico, Nevada, South Dakota, New Hampshire is another one that does it this way. And then there are states where, such as Kentucky, Louisiana, Texas, where candidate forms and public official forms go to the ethics office, even though the ethics office doesn't have jurisdiction over elections. So that's roughly the breakout, but in each of those situations, with the exception of, I think it's Texas, the forms follow who does the campaign finance. Also, Louisiana, they don't follow campaign finance. But the general rule is public official forms go to the ethics commission, whatever that is, and candidate forms go to whoever handles campaign finance. So there's a reason for this that other states have taken into consideration, actually settled. And it sort of backs up to what the function of the candidate form is, cause it's slightly different than the public official form. The candidate form in contrast to public official forms is there not only for candidates to make disclosures, but it's for voters to be able to find the information. And the reason most states have opted for campaign finance offices to take candidate disclosures is because that's where voters are gonna look when they're trying to vote. The obligation for the candidate doesn't change. I mean, the disclosures are the same, but there's a focus on how voters can get information during an election. The second reason that The second thing that states take into consideration is consistency. Because often, states find that even if they create a form that's both for public officials and for candidates, those forms diverge over time. With subsequent legislatures and and new kinds of assets, there's the forms tend to take a different path. And at that point in time, to have an ethics agency that doesn't oversee elections, it's very difficult for them to keep up with what's going on on the election side. There's the efficiency I'm sorry.

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Would just wanna interject there. How is it difficult to keep up on the election side? They're in statute. They're in a timely two year fashion. Well, much like struggling with where the disconnect would be on understanding the election cycles.

[T.J. Jones (Consultant to the Vermont State Ethics Commission)]: Sure. No. The election cycles are not the issue, but the forms themselves start diverging, meaning that the questions on the candidate forms no longer are the same questions on the public official forms. Vermont has the luxury now that all the questions are are virtually the same. But over time, many states have found that the questions they want to get from candidates are not the same questions that they want to get from their public officials. And at that point in time, if they're going to separate agencies, you have, at a minimum, an inefficiency. You have an ethics office trying to learn what campaign law is, and what the obligations for the candidate forms are and the reasons behind those candidate disclosures, even though they don't have jurisdiction over elections. The same wouldn't be true if the elections office were all of a sudden tasked with reviewing public official forms that are different from the campaign forms. The functions are different, and over time, many states have found that the questions are different. So that in and of itself is not insurmountable. It's sort of a state resources efficiency and accuracy question.

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: If One you moment, back on one moment. Representative Hango has a question.

[Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: Thank you. I don't see this as being an immediate problem that we need to solve now, because the forms are virtually identical in Vermont, according to Act 181 of 2024. I don't I'm think that's sorry. Proclivity. Sorry. My mind is

[Speaker 0]: on 100

[Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: The 71 of twenty twenty questions are just about identical. So I don't see that this is a problem that we need to solve. And we have a Monday deadline that we need to solve a problem for. So I'm not really sure how that's relevant.

[T.J. Jones (Consultant to the Vermont State Ethics Commission)]: You're absolutely correct, Vice Chair Hango. Right now, they are the same. The the only point I was trying to put in is some states have found that they they diverge over time, and I agree that that's not the situation right now.

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Right.

[T.J. Jones (Consultant to the Vermont State Ethics Commission)]: Well, the last reason the last thing states take into account is mission creep. That if they put out by statute that certain agencies are supposed to be responsible for a core function in some place, they don't want the agency's mission to creep. And I agree that this is not a question for now, but it does put the ethics commission in Vermont in the awkward position of having jurisdiction over candidates for solely one purpose. And if that mission creeps that they become responsible for elections in other areas, it again becomes inefficient and not conducive to voters receiving information in a timely manner. In general, that's how the states break down, and those are the reasons that they take into consideration. The one thing that I might add is all of these states where the responsibilities are separate, they have figured out an informal mechanism to make it work so that candidates are getting the right information, and more importantly, voters are getting the right information. And one thing that you may wanna consider is simply putting up for clarity's sake, the form on both sides with a clear explanation of ethics commission doesn't answer voter questions. Secretary of state doesn't answer questions about the form, or will try to help answer questions about the form, but ultimately the Office of State, the Ethics Commission will take care of those.

[Speaker 0]: Can

[Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: you just repeat what I thought you said? I'm going to say it back to you. Did you just say that you think that the answering of the questions about the forms, the financial disclosure forms, should lie with the ethics commission? Or did I just totally misunderstand that?

[T.J. Jones (Consultant to the Vermont State Ethics Commission)]: I don't think that's States have found that that's best practice in terms of all the reasons that I listed. However, it does seem that this current bill is going in that direction. And if that's the case, the committee may want to consider having the form available on both sites, having both websites state clearly to candidates and voters who's responsible for what. Include the form in candidate packets, so candidates aren't confused at that point. And even include in the candidate packet where candidates can go for the different types of advice. And then, although this doesn't have to be in the statutory language, there will come over time, I suspect, a mechanism for both of the agencies to work together. I don't think there's a conflict on either side. Some states have discussed whether an elected official would have a conflict and have sort of dismissed that because, again, typically that person is saying in campaign finance forms as well. There are other states that worry that the ethics commission independence will be sacrificed if they're giving advice to candidates. That's also been relatively dismissed, as long as the forms are fairly similar to one another, like Vermont's are right now.

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Any questions for Cheager right now on this page? Right, thank you for your time, sir. And yes, feel free to stick around as we navigate our next witness.

[T.J. Jones (Consultant to the Vermont State Ethics Commission)]: Thank you very much.

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: The table is yours.

[Speaker 0]: Thank you, Mr. Chair, Audit Committee. It's been a while since I've been back in this building. My name is Jim Condos for the record. My background includes eighteen years on the South Burlington City Council, served on the Vermont League of Cities and Towns Board of Directors. I served eight years in the state senate, chairing both senate education and senate gov ops. And then I spent twelve years, as you all know, as Vermont secretary of state and chief election officer, now retired, thankfully. I also served on the National Association of Secretaries of State as as their president, and I was for five years the national co chair for this, council of state governments overseas voting initiative and working to provide, better voting access to our military and overseas voters. Back in 2015, even before the current secretary was chair of this committee, I was strongly advocating for Vermont to set up an ethics commission. At the time, Vermont was the only state in the Northeast, not just New England, but in the Northeast without an ethics commission. And we scored very poorly on most data driven surveys. I stated then, and I state to you again now that the ethics commission needs three things. Independence, in other words, separated from any elected office. Authority to receive, investigate, and adjudicate, any complaints that are received, and the last one, which is resources, and that's both staff and funding. At the time, 2015, I was suggesting that you needed to fund an ethics commission with at least $500,000 that would provide for three to five staff, one, a full time executive director, a full time administrator, and two to three attorneys. To the discussion here, first of all, I'm here sort of between two houses. So between the Secretary of State's office and the Vermont Ethics Commission, as I was recently appointed to the Ethics Commission as a commissioner by Speaker Koremski, maybe a month ago, and I see this kerfuffle that's been going on as one that should be able to be resolved and should be able to be resolved rather quickly. Cut to the chase, think the Secretary of State's office should set up links to the Ethics Commission website for the form and disclosures. But I also think that when the legislative when when the secretary of state's office and I I you know, actually, Pinsonault, you know this as well. When we start looking at the calendar for the election year, we start with December 15. That's the last day of this election cycle. And then we start backing up all the different dates that we have to see going forward. As you all know, there is a date that starts on Monday for candidate disclosures, application, whatever. And over the next four weeks, approximately 400 or more candidates will file. The majority of those will be filed in the last week. And I think there is a timing issue. I cringed a little bit when I heard that, it was gonna all be done by email. Someone needs to answer a phone. Mhmm. Because when you have, a candidate filing a report on the deadline day, you don't have the luxury of waiting for an email. You need to talk to someone right away to get an answer. Hopefully when the FAQs are posted, that will resolve a lot of this. But I do think, that there's an issue there that needs to be addressed. And as I was listening to the conversations, between campaign finance and the financial disclosures, there is, I think a pretty significant difference, although both are somewhat public. The campaign finance disclosure is a very public document. The financial disclosure is personal. So I think there is a difference there between those two. I'm just going through my notes here. Back, I think it was 2018 as this was coming to fruition, I was called as secretary of state by the the pro tems and senate approach chair over to the pro tem's office, and they said, we're ready to give the secretary of state a $100,000 to take the ethics commission into the secretary of state's office. I didn't even have to think about it. I said no. First of all, was it enough resource? Secondly, I'm an elected official, not independent from that standpoint. Yes, I ran an independent office as does the current secretary. We run a very nonpartisan office, but it's still, you don't want that proceed proceeding of conflict between the different sides. We ended up with where we are, and it hasn't changed since. And I'm not blaming this committee, but that falls that falls to the legislature not doing its job to fund the ethics commission properly and provide the resources it needed. So I I will say you you guys you guys in general, backed yourself into a corner and that's where we are now. I think I will stop there and take any questions that you laid out. Yes, so I have from Rutland.

[Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: Thank you for coming in. So it's interesting to me that you can see this from both sides now, Like that you're you're operating from the ethics commission and that you're extensive background, secretary of state and managing this. Can you do you I'm going to put you on the spot. Feel free to say no. But do have any thoughts to what we heard some testimony about yesterday about the possible because I think you're in a perfect spot to answer this question, about a possible conflict of an elected official overseeing these campaign finance forms and stuff and what that might mean from a conflict of interest standpoint or a political even like the challenges to always, I think, to take something that's slightly politically charged and make it much less so. So I was wondering, you know, our goal is to make this not political at all, these forms, you had any thoughts on that.

[Speaker 0]: Well, let let me say that the comments you received yesterday may have been misinterpreted from a conversation I had had. And I think, and I'm not blaming anybody. I just think that, that, when you're on a phone and you're talking, going back and forth quickly, that things can be said that maybe you wish you hadn't said or you wished you had said differently. Having said that, I do believe that there could be, again, I'm going back to the campaign finance as a public document, financial disclosure, yes, it's public, but it's a personal document. It's your personal information, and that needs to be guarded in a certain way. So I do think there is the possibility of a conflict of interest. I think it's pretty minimal, but I do think there is a possibility. But I don't I don't I really you know, in this particular instance, the ethics commission from my view. Now, understand, I am one member out of five on the ethics commission and, and I was newly appointed. So I really haven't had, I haven't even attended my first meeting yet. So, it's, it's difficult for me to actually get into it. But I think that, that there is, you want to make sure that these lines are clear. And my belief is the form should have from ethics commission at the top, and it should say pursuant to is the next paragraph or line pursuant to whatever the statute is, here it is. I don't buy this idea that we can't put our name on the topic because it's not our form. I think it's created and maintained by the Ethics Commission, whatever the term maintain means, still comes out of the Ethics Commission. I think it should say Vermont, if you look at a lot of the election forms, they say Vermont Secretary of State Election Division. I do think that's a minor issue, but I think it's something that is pertinent.

[Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: It's interesting always because often like policies that talk about this, about conflict of interest, they often say a conflict of interest or the appearance of a conflict of interest. And that's that always is where the sticking point is. But it's also. It acknowledges, I think that the appearance of it is just as is potentially damaging or or misleading as an act like that itself.

[Speaker 0]: The word appearance of the words are important in that context. So it is, you you'll find that across the country, That that that won't be any different. It's it is a direct actually, I think your own rules, the house rules and the senate rules, say a perceived it's either a direct or perceived conflict of interest. I mean, you know, at the time that I was a state senator, I was working for Vermont Gas Systems up in Chittenden County. If there was an issue that came up that had anything to do with, the gas distribution stuff, I backed away. I didn't vote on those items. I didn't participate in those discussions because I felt that it was important. But I not. And this whole issue of the ethics commission, I was so happy when it first came into play, but I was so sad when I saw how little it was received in support.

[Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: I just keep talking, but that is one thing I also wanted to acknowledge just in general, as we talk about this. I think We've tried to get more funding, for the ethics commission, I think it's something we're continually going to battle for out of this committee. Think in general, just support the ethics commission to do all the stuff that we've asked them to do. And I think we all understand that you all are in a tricky spot and it's really frustrating to say, do all these things and also we're not going give you money for it. Not okay,

[Speaker 0]: the state government.

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Yeah. Know. Want to also want to say for the right and wrong answers conversation. Yeah. Our budget, though, we did fully support both the requests and positions out of this committee.

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

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: that was dealt with differently in the money committees and on in the senate. So we did support the positions themselves at the policy. This is not the place to to debate where that money went elsewhere, but I just wanted to did want to make that point for this budget, Navo.

[Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. GovOps, we've got your back on the ethics commission. And just my this has nothing to do with this, but just we spent so much time earlier this year talking about public records requests and how people are it's cost so much money. It takes so much time. And it's like blocking everything. I know you have thoughts about that. We can't get started on it now. We'll have you back next time. But I really think that investing now in supporting the ethics commission to do all of this work would really alleviate the financial and time pressure on those requests. So hopefully, it's all related.

[Speaker 0]: It really is. Frankly, I think this issue of, well, I'm going to just say real quick, public records issue, think a lot of the fault falls on the government who doesn't keep good records. Because if it takes them hours and hours and hours to put together the results of a request, it's probably because the records were poorly kept. Some of the changes that we made required cities and towns to post their minutes within a certain time frame on websites and to keep them there for at least a year, and then archive them. But that's a whole different discussion. As far as the costs go, it's ongoing, but when you stop to think, I know there was one town recently in the papers that said that they had a $6,000 request. They got a $12,000,000 budget. Are you telling me that you can't find $6,000 in your budget? I beg to differ. I was in that hole at one time. But that's another Questions?

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Deep well of knowledge in front of us.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Absolutely.

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: No, thank you very much for coming in and helping out with this, and I really appreciate your willingness and participation on the ethics commission. So, I want to

[Speaker 0]: thank you. My successor is doing a great job as secretary of state. She believes in this because she helped this in play, and I think that it's a very worthy topic, and I just wish you received more resources.

[Mary-Katherine Stone (Member)]: Yeah.

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Thanks. Thank you very much. So sort of the four points. I wanna rehash this with the committee right now, I'm just gonna open this up for a little formally informal table discussion. It's sounding like amenable points are form posted on the ethics commission website. FAQs posted on ethics. Ethics commission answers questions by email and phone, and the secretary of state has federal links to all of the above on their site. Seems to be the path we carved this morning. Any feedback or thoughts? I know if

[Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: the Secretary of State would have an objection to also posting FAQs on their website. Are received. Yeah, Adam, Secretary, please, Jarvis. Thank you.

[Chris Sievert (Executive Director, Vermont State Ethics Commission)]: This this I love the path

[Sarah Copeland Hanzas (Vermont Secretary of State)]: that you've laid out. Sarah Copeland Hansos, Vermont Secretary of State. And I apologize. I'm gonna talk pretty fast because I have a delegation from North Macedonia coming to my office in four minutes.

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Our guest.

[Sarah Copeland Hanzas (Vermont Secretary of State)]: I will. But what I wanted to say, is just a technical clarification to what you said, rep Hango, because, assuming that new questions come in over the course of time, I would presume that, you know, it would be logical for the ethics commission to update their FAQs. And if we have two separate documents and there is a miscommunication in terms of updating the documents, we wouldn't want old versions of either the form or the FAQ sitting on our site. It is virtually identical in the experience of the user to click on the link on our site that then takes them to the document on the Ethics Commission site. And so just I mean, this is the way we do things internally. If we know something is not static and may change over time, we put it in one place. And then we point to it from multiple locations.

[Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: That's reasonable. Thank you You very probably don't have time to answer other questions, so I'll save those. I'm happy to

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: come back. Thank you. Thank you so much for the time, Madam Secretary.

[Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: Good luck.

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

[Speaker 0]: Right, team.

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Given this work, and we have an understanding of this, we will see how we want to craft this directives, draft language, the charges of duties. So, we'll get that ball in motion, barring no objections, and we'll have something to revisit in draft form, hopefully sooner. Good work today. Great job navigating an actual fire. Yeah.

[Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: That was exciting. Metaphorical.

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: I'll just leave that as a jump ball for everyone as we sign off. We will be back after the floor today. Let's see. Are scheduled two p. M. S one ninety eight act relating to the regulation of tobacco products and tobacco substitutes. This is the bill that we're not gonna take possession of, but we do have functional jurisdiction over a couple of its provisions sections. So we're gonna run through that with council. And, let's see. Yeah. Running through with council, and we have, slug of witnesses. So that's our that's our afternoon. And we'll have something to review up for on this conversation because we really gotta get this one buttoned up for people to start handing paperwork. Thank you so much for the work. And with that, Nick.