Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Chair Matt Walker]: That's okay. We are live. Good morning, Wednesday, 01/07/2026. And we have with us this morning, commissioner of the Department of Motor Vehicles, Andrew Collier, and the deputy commissioner, Matt Russo, and legislative affairs, Jordan Villa. Villa. And I appreciate your quick turnaround flexibility. I knew that we were going to get our DM free presentation. I just know when exactly we'd be on the schedule in the first week. We certainly welcome you to the witness stand. And my hope is that we're going to hear about sort of an update of the DMV over the last six months since we left, seven months, whatever, since it's seven to eight. Somebody want to tell me exactly since we left. What's happening? What happened? I'm particularly interested in the course of modernization rollout of November. And also kind of the requirements and the pieces that were in the bill for last year that you had to do. And so we're hoping you can give us a state of the DMV for the last six, seven months. And then whether you want to take questions hearing it, we've got quite a bit of time available for as long as the members and questions or as long as you and your team are available for this morning. Really want that. And then I also would like to encourage the members that we'll have the commissioner's team back after the budget comes, and then we won't really see them again until the miscellaneous DMV bill comes back from the Senate after crossover. So today is kind of about what's happened since we've been out and anticipate maybe happening and updating, and then sort of what do we want them to be ready to bring to us when they come back after crossover with the DMV bill. So sort of a one, two, three piece for this morning, and I am happy to use a full hour or as long as we need to make sure everybody's ready for the pieces that they want when we're moving forward. So again, thank you very much for joining us this morning, Commissioner, and we'd like to pass it off to

[Commissioner Andrew Collier (Vermont DMV)]: Andrew Collier, Commissioner of DMV for the record. And thank you, House Transportation. Thank you, Chair. Happy

[Deputy Commissioner Matt Russo (Vermont DMV)]: to

[Commissioner Andrew Collier (Vermont DMV)]: be the first individual in the seat for the session. I think I'm the first. No, I'll take it. So, state of DMV. My first year here, I can't take any credit to the team at DMV. It's had a phenomenal year. I think Vermonters are seeing the fruits of the investment into the DMV. Our law enforcement teams are busy out there. Our modernization project, I don't want to steal a thunder and pass off to Jordan Villa here shortly, who was a DMV lead on that project, but that came in on time and under budget, I won't get into that.

[Chair Matt Walker]: So

[Commissioner Andrew Collier (Vermont DMV)]: I will start out with the early renewal. I know that was where we left off last year on the on the licenses. I just have some numbers that we will touch on for that. Since we rolled that section out, we've had three junior operator licenses that have done the early renewals, 42 of the non driver ID. That is just the ID card. Know we had a big presentation last year on different licenses classes we had. Then the operator licenses, we had four forty eight early renewals that were handled for a total of four ninety three. Those all went off without a hitch. Certainly didn't hear anything in the public side. I know our team worked extremely hard to make sure we rolled that out quickly and were accommodating to all the folks that came in for that. So I'm proud of DMV for rolling that out as quickly as we did.

[Chair Matt Walker]: Do have a breakdown of the counties or locations or you don't have that?

[Commissioner Andrew Collier (Vermont DMV)]: I don't have that. That's something we can dig into. Curious of

[Chair Matt Walker]: where the most of those transactions took place. Representative Pouech had the question for you too.

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Yeah, could you just give us a reminder for everybody else, but for me mostly, this allowed you before you only had thirty days that you could, your licenses, your IDs coming up and you had thirty days beforehand to do it. And now how

[Commissioner Andrew Collier (Vermont DMV)]: So this would allow an individual to come in during kind of any time frame within that license period and renew for an additional two to four years

[Deputy Commissioner Matt Russo (Vermont DMV)]: going out.

[Rep. Candice White (Member)]: Okay. Four years is the maximum.

[Chair Matt Walker]: Yeah. That's a good example of seniority has its privileges, can ask whenever they want. The rest of us all have to wait our turn to

[Jordan Villa (Director of Strategic Planning and Legislative Affairs, Vermont DMV)]: call them.

[Chair Matt Walker]: Representative Thompson.

[Rep. Candice White (Member)]: Thank you, Terry. I just wanted to share a lot of gratitude for the smooth rollout I heard from constituents who went and did the early renewal process, and they were really grateful for the opportunity and felt that it went through the D and B staff.

[Jordan Villa (Director of Strategic Planning and Legislative Affairs, Vermont DMV)]: That's great. Thank you for

[Commissioner Andrew Collier (Vermont DMV)]: the feedback. The team worked really hard on making sure we accomplished what that goal was.

[Chair Matt Walker]: So I can make sure that I understood and you'll probably have the data when you come back again or far as on the spreadsheet and then the county. So basically 500 Vermonters took advantage of the law that we passed within the time frame since we left till now. Since it became effective until now, which it was effective upon passage. Yes. And so basically 500 Vermonters felt that was something they needed, and we delivered that. Okay. I just wanna make sure I understood it. Thank you very much. Thank you. Oh, representative what?

[Rep. Candice White (Member)]: I just have one question. So of those four ninety three early renewals, were any of those real IDs or are these all?

[Commissioner Andrew Collier (Vermont DMV)]: We can also give that breakdown for you. Inspection stickers. I know we're gonna I know this is gonna open up a big can of worms. We're going come in here and have a good chat about inspections shortly. One of the items that I, just coming from my law enforcement lens, found was that the inspection sticker, way with the QR code and the way the lettering was on the current sticker. And that's not saying we have a stock of that yellow. So letting that go to waste or spending money, I wanted to make a change so that trying to make it more visible for law enforcement to be able to see. So January 1, rolled out with a

[Chair Matt Walker]: new, improved or larger scope of pocket. That's right.

[Commissioner Andrew Collier (Vermont DMV)]: Numbering. We got rid of the QR code. Honestly, was working the road when we had the QR code. I never knew what that was for. No one really used it. So we got rid of that. We we blew up the month, and then the year should be a little easier to see as well when you're quickly passing by a vehicle. So we're hoping this is an incremental change in trying to move that needle in the right direction on the enforcement side. I know we're gonna be back in here talking about inspections a lot more, this is just one area we were quickly able to kind of make a change in. Hopefully we could see shortly if a positive effect that is. Hemp tags. Represent

[Rep. Candice White (Member)]: what? The inspections, can you remind me, does law enforcement pull over a car for an expired inspection statement? Yes.

[Commissioner Andrew Collier (Vermont DMV)]: Just to clarify, you mean as like a Routine. Routine, not like

[Rep. Patricia McCoy (Member)]: a secondary offense, primary as

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: If they

[Rep. Candice White (Member)]: see a car driving by and they see an expired date, is that enough reason to pull over a car? Yes. And give them a warning, a ticket, something? Yes. That

[Commissioner Andrew Collier (Vermont DMV)]: would be a primary probable cause.

[Rep. Patricia McCoy (Member)]: Okay, thank you. Stop for a vehicle.

[Chair Matt Walker]: Representative Wells.

[Rep. Ken Wells (Member)]: We met with law enforcement in Orleans County about six weeks ago and state police, county sheriffs, and Newport City police, they basically said wasn't priority one, but if you're picked up for speeding and you don't have a sticker, you certainly will be ticketed for that too. Yep.

[Rep. Chris Keyser (Member)]: Just a quick question. When you decided to revamp the

[Chair Matt Walker]: inspection stickers, one of the things that we heard was originally the color. Why was yellow picked?

[Rep. Chris Keyser (Member)]: So when you redid this, did

[Chair Matt Walker]: you think about doing green or something like that for Green Mountain States? Absolutely.

[Commissioner Andrew Collier (Vermont DMV)]: And that's something we are looking at. We have such a large stock of the yellow right now. I can come back with some more solid number. Think was around $300,000 we would kind of just blow away. That's something I'm trying to work on because the colors really are what catch your eye. It is something we're looking at, and it's just how do we make that change and how do we do it in a fiscal lens to make sure we do it appropriately.

[Rep. Patricia McCoy (Member)]: Are you thinking of each month would have a different color or switch to another all green?

[Commissioner Andrew Collier (Vermont DMV)]: It would be, I'm not sure exactly how it would be, either yearly or back to the way it used to be where it was every, even month Yeah,

[Rep. Patricia McCoy (Member)]: green one year, Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Representative Casey?

[Rep. James "Jim" Casey (Member)]: How much how much money does the the state make off the inspections? I can get

[Commissioner Andrew Collier (Vermont DMV)]: that number for you.

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: That was $8.

[Rep. Patricia McCoy (Member)]: Yeah. It was

[Commissioner Andrew Collier (Vermont DMV)]: we've watched it was 3,800,000.0. I can the per sticker fee, once Matt knows off the top of his head.

[Rep. James "Jim" Casey (Member)]: Was was is that is that after all the expenses are paid? I is that what we Yeah.

[Rep. Patricia McCoy (Member)]: We can mess from there.

[Rep. James "Jim" Casey (Member)]: I want to dive in a little bit but not too much.

[Rep. Ken Wells (Member)]: Andrew can I keep that sample because that's just about my rig right there?

[Chair Matt Walker]: Right there and slide that right into the is

[Rep. James "Jim" Casey (Member)]: it is there extra toppings?

[Rep. Patricia McCoy (Member)]: Funny, every transportation member has exactly the same. Excellent,

[Chair Matt Walker]: excellent. Inspections of course, we've probably put our body and certainly across there's a huge swell and obviously across the river they decided to make changes and do away with most of their inspection, not all of it, which gets lost a little bit in people's comments. I remind people they didn't entirely do away with an inspection program. But I know that that's a big topic of conversation going ahead and I think the Senate's gonna get the first crack at it. But that doesn't mean that we don't have our thoughts about what could or shouldn't happen. I certainly hear about it, well for the last twenty four hours I've heard a lot about it. Emails before that I've heard significant about it. So I'm not sure where we're going with that exactly. Yeah,

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: I think it would be good to plant the seed that we will be wanting to look at, okay, how much income comes in? What are the costs to do all the behind the scene programming of all the stuff and track everything, approve everybody? Absolutely.

[Commissioner Andrew Collier (Vermont DMV)]: We're afraid to spend a lot of time talking about inspections. So trying to find my correct words to use on this. I think a lot of people have noticed in at least this past year, a lot of vehicles had the printout DMV temporary license plates. And all those vehicles, you had a daily community stuff, never seem to upgrade those to a green plate. I worked with our team, worked with our legal. As a commissioner, it was determined that as long as we are making a change to the program, I could pause the issuance of those. So I'm just being open and honest with you all here. So we made a pause to that program for the issuance of the temporary tags while we work to adjust it so that you have to pay all your fees upfront in order to be able to print that. Think we have anecdotally seen a decrease in those paper plates. We have seen, I don't have any firm numbers yet to come in here with you. Will, when we come back, an increase in people coming in for their actual registration and walking out with their plates now. So, think this is a move in the right direction. I will say, again, when I come back with the numbers here when we present, but back in napkin, we had roughly two thirds of people that had a temporary plate, never came in to get a that never translated into coming into a real registration.

[Chair Matt Walker]: Does that also mean that the fee and or possibly the taxes due to fee that you were

[Commissioner Andrew Collier (Vermont DMV)]: you were used to tax and? So your purchase and use was not getting paid, registration obviously was not getting paid. What we're seeing, you could see a lot on front page form, on Facebook marketplace, people were selling vehicles And they would cycle through family members with their licenses to get a new $6 temporary license plate and just put on the vehicle and run it. Use someone else's it three months. And that's if they wanted to try to be legal with it. We're just printing did not get a clear update either. So it was an area that it was kind of a loophole, if you will. So we're working on making that change to the system. It's in the queue to get worked on the system. I don't have a timeframe, though, on that yet. But outside of kind of maybe social media comments when we first launched that on Facebook, there really hasn't been much communication from public saying it's really affected.

[Chair Matt Walker]: Would be on all applications. We all are pre owned and used vehicles.

[Commissioner Andrew Collier (Vermont DMV)]: So for any instance that you would want to have a temporary registration or a temporary tag printed out, you would have to go in and

[Chair Matt Walker]: It's private sales.

[Deputy Commissioner Matt Russo (Vermont DMV)]: Yeah, private. To do with

[Commissioner Andrew Collier (Vermont DMV)]: the dealership. Not for dealerships. No, they have their own set of tags. Because again, I think unintentionally, when it came out, again, this was during COVID, so it was a lot of things were going. It was good at times. I think it unintentionally created a separate user experience for Vermonters, right? Because if I go to a dealer, you go to a dealer purchase vehicle, I have to write a check or get their finance in and all that's done there. And a lot of people were realizing I don't have to do that option anymore. If I do a private sale, I can just go spend $6 and print out my attrition. So it was creating, unfortunately, a separate user experience for Vermonters. And also, I think unintendedly was setting up some Vermonters to create kind of a criminal action, if you will. Right? Because they ran these thinking they were good. But now, you know, now as enforcement was starting to step up and you're kind of creating a situation where you're putting Vermonters in a kind of awkward position as well.

[Rep. James "Jim" Casey (Member)]: I saw I've seen I think we've all seen vehicles ride around. It looked like it looked like these vehicles are on their last ride and and they got and I and I'd see them around for a while around around my area. It's like they always had a paper tag on so that answers some questions for me. You just tell me. So you guys are kind of getting gained a little bit on that.

[Commissioner Andrew Collier (Vermont DMV)]: Yeah. I mean, it was it I was

[Rep. James "Jim" Casey (Member)]: saw lots of them. I saw

[Chair Matt Walker]: lots of There was lots. We heard from our vehicles around that didn't

[Rep. James "Jim" Casey (Member)]: look like they were gonna pass inspection and I don't know. I saw some rough vehicles with paper plates in the back.

[Commissioner Andrew Collier (Vermont DMV)]: And outside, there was just Vermont. We had a a lot of feedback from partner states having an issue with it with fraud and and and criminal nexus people getting taxed. So

[Rep. James "Jim" Casey (Member)]: out of state you could obtain these?

[Commissioner Andrew Collier (Vermont DMV)]: Technically you're supposed to be insane, but because it was so easy to get.

[Chair Matt Walker]: I'm glad

[Rep. James "Jim" Casey (Member)]: you guys did so. That's good.

[Rep. Candice White (Member)]: So just to clarify, so this procedure change happened during COVID and not as part of the IT upgrade in November?

[Commissioner Andrew Collier (Vermont DMV)]: Right. So this slide, I believe it was 2020, 2021, was a change to allow them to print out.

[Deputy Commissioner Matt Russo (Vermont DMV)]: Then

[Commissioner Andrew Collier (Vermont DMV)]: we just made the change to pause it January. So anything that you'd see now, if it's saying it's printed, it's unable to be printed.

[Rep. Candice White (Member)]: I would imagine that you all have a database of all the people who printed out those temporary registrations and license plates? Is there an opportunity for you to have your team follow-up with them on the phone?

[Commissioner Andrew Collier (Vermont DMV)]: Guess, can you expand?

[Rep. Candice White (Member)]: Well, say I printed out my temporary registration and license plate three years ago for $6 and I'm driving around my bar with that. If I'm in your database, could someone from the DMV call me and say, What you currently have is not valid. You're going have to come in.

[Commissioner Andrew Collier (Vermont DMV)]: So I think during the process, was clearly stated this was a temporary tag. It was on you to come in. It's only good for X amount of time. You need to come in and pay your fees. I don't know if we would have even all that information to contact. And I think the way I mean, we're talking since this was started, over 200,000 temporary tags have been issued.

[Rep. Candice White (Member)]: Wow.

[Commissioner Andrew Collier (Vermont DMV)]: So it's not a small number, and it's hard, I think,

[Rep. Patricia McCoy (Member)]: resource wise, it's I gotcha. Yeah. Wow. Yeah.

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: This is a fascinating topic. It was a Did you say it was $7 to do the temporary? And it's good for seven days?

[Commissioner Andrew Collier (Vermont DMV)]: No, it was good for

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: sixty days. Yes. Sixty days. And about 200,000 would have been issued over the five years, four or five years. I think what the representative is saying, you know how many were issued, and you should be able to cross reference who actually went back and got real plates.

[Commissioner Andrew Collier (Vermont DMV)]: And that's what we have tried to do. It's a rough number, but we've tried to take the VIN at least and cross the see. That's where we come about two thirds. It's over 200,000. I don't want give the exact. About two thirds never came in. That never translated into a real registration.

[Chair Matt Walker]: Some of

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: those vehicles may have been resold or stopped running, but there's some out there haven't paid their fees.

[Rep. Patricia McCoy (Member)]: At least two thirds haven't. Of 2,000?

[Commissioner Andrew Collier (Vermont DMV)]: Yeah. The number's over 200 I don't wanna give you exact number. I know it's over 200,000, so it's not.

[Chair Matt Walker]: Don't you also testified that we passed that vehicle through the whole family several times?

[Rep. Patricia McCoy (Member)]: It's really it's tech.

[Chair Matt Walker]: Just curious, is there a timeframe of your authority to suspend this program as a commissioner before legislation has to take place?

[Commissioner Andrew Collier (Vermont DMV)]: So I was told as long as we're able to say we're working on it, which we are, it's in the queue for the programming piece, that is okay. Happy to have it. Yeah, I don't have an exact time frame yet because we do have a list of items we're still working through. Is on the list. But certainly happy when we come back

[Chair Matt Walker]: to have a conversation more about this. Coming to the committee, I guess. Pretty much. Is it coming to the committee this year or not? Some Is language headed our way for this year? Does that a preview of the language will come our way? To be determined, I guess. Make sure I understand. I understand what you're asking and if you're saying, you're not sure that you're coming

[Commissioner Andrew Collier (Vermont DMV)]: with language this year or not? Yes, not sure. As we're cracking it, there is undetermined. There's also a price lag, so I do want make sure when I show back up, at least the committee is aware of how much that changes for fees and stuff and whether we want to have a conversation, whether or not there's other ways of doing it.

[Rep. Chris Keyser (Member)]: Just doing some figures here, but it appears that we may have lost almost $9,000,000 over five years of revenue. Just an insight.

[Chair Matt Walker]: Well, guess I'm on it. These people pay their $6 or whatnot, whether they didn't ever pay the purchase and use tax is the question.

[Commissioner Andrew Collier (Vermont DMV)]: So if they never transitioned into a Vermont plate, then we never would have received the purchase in use.

[Chair Matt Walker]: So when you It's based on the value, which we wouldn't have anyway? So,

[Rep. Patricia McCoy (Member)]: representative Keyser, your calculations based on just the registration of $93 not

[Rep. Candice White (Member)]: the purchase and use tax?

[Rep. Chris Keyser (Member)]: What I understood was that 200,000, 7% of them did not renew. So we missed $6 on 134,000 vehicles. And then if you take an average value of $1,000 on a vehicle, and multiply it times 134,000, that's $8,000,000 of sales and use tax that wasn't paid. So this is not insignificant. Well,

[Chair Matt Walker]: the value were generally $1,000 in use use tax, of the capital. These are private sale vehicles, and potentially values could range dramatically.

[Deputy Commissioner Matt Russo (Vermont DMV)]: And

[Rep. Patricia McCoy (Member)]: just one more thing in that, we're all debating.

[Chair Matt Walker]: This is our first opportunity to remind everybody we only get to

[Rep. Patricia McCoy (Member)]: make it all over the country.

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: If

[Rep. Chris Keyser (Member)]: I can obscure the issue anymore, I will.

[Chair Matt Walker]: I gotta remember to keep going that way, but Representative But

[Rep. Candice White (Member)]: the registration fee, the $6 was just the temporary cost. Just the full fee is

[Rep. Patricia McCoy (Member)]: the full point. Then plus

[Rep. Candice White (Member)]: the purchase and use. So I guess I would just say, good job that you have identified this pretty significant loophole. And think whatever we can do to try to It sounds like you've stopped it, but also try to recoup some of the money and find some of the people who took advantage of it would be financially beneficial to.

[Chair Matt Walker]: Sounds like that's one that we'll hear a lot more about. So we're going hear more about license renewals. There were some questions. We're gonna hear more about a little bit more about inspection there within the tags, and we've got some more questions on this temporary license or license plate. So you have lots of projects going on. Yes, we do.

[Commissioner Andrew Collier (Vermont DMV)]: Last two items before I hand it off here. This past December, we started at our new St. Albans office. We are reusing the old AOT building off Lower Newton. And that kind of worked out perfectly with that shuffle with them moving out. And then our lease, we were told over the summer that our lease at our old location up by the St. Louis Barracks was going to we had to be out by October. So there's a short window where we were closing St. Albans, but that office is back open and looks beautiful. Lots of parking spots up there, and I'd say happy to have that open. And then the last item, it's just more of a I know we're all law enforcement side of being here, but just something I'm proud of our team with the governor's Burlington initiative. Our team was down there. We weren't on the news as much, which we're fine with, but we were working the traffic end of that detail down there, and our team did a phenomenal job. Had some reps down there, a lot of great interactions with the public, and just something I know our team will be in here shortly to talk more about what's been going on on their side of the house this year. So which is something I they were great, stepped up. I know we have a smaller team than other law enforcement agencies. So just something I'm proud of.

[Rep. Ken Wells (Member)]: That enforcement in the Church Street area, that's done as of January 1. Yes. Is that correct?

[Commissioner Andrew Collier (Vermont DMV)]: Yeah. Our team was primarily out on the Beltline, North End, and then Route 7 Corcoran.

[Rep. Ken Wells (Member)]: They did a great job. Too bad Burlington was foolish enough to chop off a third of their law enforcement a few years ago. No comment.

[Commissioner Andrew Collier (Vermont DMV)]: I'm going pass it off to Jordan Villa. He was our department lead for the modernization project. And now that that is done, way back when the project started, was doing legislative affairs, so now he's back into his original role. But he's going to give a phenomenal update on the modernization project, then we'll pass off to Matt Russo, who will give an update on the e permitting, which is another big initiative we got going on.

[Jordan Villa (Director of Strategic Planning and Legislative Affairs, Vermont DMV)]: Good morning. My name is Jordan Villa. I'm DMV's director of strategic planning and legislative affairs. Like the commissioner said, I have led our even my modernization efforts for the last four and a half years. Prior to that, for about five years, I was right here in this room directing our legislative affairs. So I'm glad to be back. It's been a long four years, but it's been great. We've made a lot of so much progress. It's unbelievable how much we've been able to grow as a department. So it was a three phase project. I'm not sure how much you guys know about it, but it was a three phase project beginning in 2019. So 2019 to 2020, we launched our commercial vehicle operations project, and then 2021 through '23, we focused on vehicle services, so vehicle registrations, title, purchase and use tax, revenue categorization, and document retention. And then beginning in the 2024, we started to work on our driver services project, which is our final phase, which launched successfully on time, under budget, November 13 of this past fall. So excuse me. With that, we were able to retire our fifty plus year old mainframe, numerous numerous Microsoft Access databases. Just prior to the project, if you looked at our IT systems, it was a giant spider web. Nothing really talks to each other. Paperwork had to be touched seven, eight, 10 times by numerous individuals from start to finish. It took three, four weeks up to sometimes for once we received an application for the applicant to have an actual registration document titled credential, whatever they were able for. Now that we are live, you can come into our office, any office around the state. As long as you have the requisite paperwork, it will walk out with your registration, your title, a temporary license since credentials are not printed on-site. But we have seriously streamlined many, many processes. And with that, the public is seeing numerous benefits. Like I said, they get their documentation immediately just about. When you do come into the office, once you get to the counter, things proceed far quicker than they used to. We have eliminated numerous opportunities for error through the integration of eligibility checks, such as the state to state verification service. So when an applicant comes in, give us a license from New Hampshire. We switch it into Vermont. We communicate with New Hampshire and all around the country, verifying their eligibility, bringing their license into Vermont. So it ensures that this person has a Vermont license. They do not have a license anywhere else. We also verify through the drug and alcohol clearinghouse to make sure that commercial drivers have completed their medicals. There's just a lot of other checks in the background like that that I don't

[Chair Matt Walker]: need to go into.

[Jordan Villa (Director of Strategic Planning and Legislative Affairs, Vermont DMV)]: We have also expanded online services. So prior to our our launch, we were very limited in what you could do online. And when you did complete a transaction online, it seemed to the public as though it was done. But that was just the beginning, and it had to be touched multiple times in the background by our staff. And now that we have gone live and integrated, everything is actually seamless, done online, hardly ever has to be touched by an individual. There are still some instances where it needs to be touched just to verify, you know, various issues that are that may come up, but very seamless. We've expanded the options for things you can get online, so you can now request your driving record. You can check-in to see, you know, where is my license? I came in three days ago. Has it been printed? Where is it? When am I gonna get it? So we've limited the need to call. You can also verify if you're a lienholder on the vehicle. You can just go right online and see, hey. Am I the lienholder on this vehicle? And vice versa, if you're purchasing a used vehicle, you can verify that it does have a lien, it does not have a lien. You can find out who the lienholder is so you can reach out to. In addition, we have, I would say, not to say that there was ever a risk to Vermonter's public data or personal information, but we've strengthened our systems to ensure that it is even more safe. When So we were doing our development for the last phase, we had numerous conversations about what should be shared, what shouldn't be shared, how am I going to verify who you are. We've definitely tightened that up.

[Chair Matt Walker]: Representative McCoy, you have a question?

[Rep. Patricia McCoy (Member)]: So we register a vehicle, and obviously most of us will have the auto alarm, so there is a lien on bracket. And when that gets paid off, we get the title from the insurance company or somebody How that does do you find out that there's no lien there? Is it up to the insurance company to let you know, or you don't care until that title, until I either sell the vehicle to somebody else, or what happens? Because you know there's a lien on it, but then don't, do you know when it gets paid off?

[Jordan Villa (Director of Strategic Planning and Legislative Affairs, Vermont DMV)]: We know it gets paid off if you tell us

[Rep. Patricia McCoy (Member)]: how And it's paid how would, what, what do you do, just bring in the title and say, Here it is, or do you have to pay a fee to say, Take it off?

[Jordan Villa (Director of Strategic Planning and Legislative Affairs, Vermont DMV)]: You bring in the title with, either the lienholder can sign off, visit on the front of the title saying no one was satisfied, or they give you

[Rep. Patricia McCoy (Member)]: just a form letter saying it was satisfied, and there is the associate with it. Okay, just checking. But not necessarily, you don't really, that mean you can think that there's a lien on the property until the owner trades it or sells it. Correct. They don't care, really. Okay. Thank you.

[Jordan Villa (Director of Strategic Planning and Legislative Affairs, Vermont DMV)]: Just a couple of little statistics I'd like to share. Since we launched the MyDMV system in November 2023, 98,000 accounts have been created, and we've completed nearly, as of this morning, nearly a million transactions online.

[Rep. Patricia McCoy (Member)]: How many?

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Yeah, and so we've been hearing about project all along and I'd really like the part that I'm hearing about less touching, which is less errors, all this sort of mistake proofing, simplification, optimization. But of course, it costs a lot of money to do. And it's got to be producing savings of time, people's time. And so is there any analysis that shows, hey, this was here's what it costs, but here's what it's saving over time. I'm sort of curious if any of that has been maybe initially to say, hey, this is what we need to do or was it, hey, these mainframes are going to crash and freelance for something now. So just looking for just the justification and going forward, are there long term savings there?

[Jordan Villa (Director of Strategic Planning and Legislative Affairs, Vermont DMV)]: We haven't conducted any analysis as of now, I can tell you that much. And I know I don't want to speak out of turn, but the plan was we would not be eliminating any spending for jobs. And

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: other customer surveys that have happened over time, it's always the joke, the DMV, but I can say doing stuff online, registering my vehicle and all that, I'm all for it. It's simple, it's easy. But do you have customer surveys that show, hey. Now satisfaction has gone up.

[Jordan Villa (Director of Strategic Planning and Legislative Affairs, Vermont DMV)]: Anecdotally, I can tell you that I've seen numerous reviews that are very appreciative. I mean, sure, you're still gonna get the ones that say DMV is what DMV is. Yeah. But I don't think we have done a comprehensive survey of our Out

[Chair Matt Walker]: of the you mentioned there's 98,000 accounts. Do you have an estimate or a goal of what you might think that number should grow into? Is there a certain amount of users that you how many users does DMV have? In other words, any idea what that percentage might be compared to people still in a manual process or haven't yet hit their license or registration renewal and whatnot? Is there an idea that that number should grow to 150 or 200? How many Vermonters are we thinking that that goal should be or that are staying in a manual process? That

[Jordan Villa (Director of Strategic Planning and Legislative Affairs, Vermont DMV)]: number includes businesses, just so we're all clear. It's not just individual Vermonters. We had 7,500 create an account last month.

[Deputy Commissioner Matt Russo (Vermont DMV)]: So it's Yeah.

[Jordan Villa (Director of Strategic Planning and Legislative Affairs, Vermont DMV)]: Still growing quick. Yeah. So once more Vermonters understand the benefits to have in the account, I would expect it to continue to grow. So, I mean, you can do far more transactions through your MyDMV account than you could do if you're not logged in, as we call it. So once we really get the benefit out there, I think we should see it grow significantly.

[Chair Matt Walker]: We don't have, so 7,500 just last month. We don't have an idea of how high that might get. There 300,000 DMB? How many customers does DMB have, I guess, is kind of a real generic question. I'm not sure what that would be. How many people have this, oh you got the account set up. Sit down and get out of the front. It's very easy. Room for a break. I got one. I do, I Representative White?

[Rep. Candice White (Member)]: Has there been a public outreach campaign to let the public know about this new fangled rate system that the DMV has created for them?

[Jordan Villa (Director of Strategic Planning and Legislative Affairs, Vermont DMV)]: We did one in November '23, and then we did another one October, November timeframe of 2025. And what about, was that like Front Forge Forum, The

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: Mount Pablo? How do you

[Jordan Villa (Director of Strategic Planning and Legislative Affairs, Vermont DMV)]: So we partnered with Place Creative out of Burlington. They did media buys, so it was across social media. I'm pretty sure it was on local television. Is

[Chair Matt Walker]: there a preview or as we gather this data, enhanced reporting capability and sort of data driven piece that we can expect having. It's been a challenge from my perspective when the time I was in the chair or even earlier in the chair. What we have, what's trending, what's up, what's down, what we're missing. Data out of that mainframe has been pointed as a reason for not having a whole lot of, I guess, significant information on our terminology. What can we anticipate as think, or can you speak to the repainted porting capabilities and the data mining that's going to be available or is becoming available to us? We

[Jordan Villa (Director of Strategic Planning and Legislative Affairs, Vermont DMV)]: have always had inordinate amount of data. We just couldn't actually access it or analyze it effectively. The system we have now is extremely robust as far as reporting whatever we need. So this is like, for example, the early renewals and stuff that the commissioner reported on this morning. We have a report built. I got those information this morning, click of a button, took me, I don't know, twenty seconds. So we have hundreds of reports already built. We're building more every day, basically. So if there is specific information that you are looking for with a little lead time to develop it, we can tell you just about anything you're looking for.

[Chair Matt Walker]: Well, for the committee, we're certainly obviously very interested in the number and the revenue associated with it over time. And those are sort of the data points that whether it be in licenses or in registrations or in the commercial side of it, and of course in sales and news, we're looking for that of what are we missing. There is, I guess that will be more directed towards the commissioner in the future conversations. We did a 20% DMV fee increase and we haven't seen anywhere near a 20% increase in revenue. Substantially below the 20%. I understand you're not going to get all of 20%, but to see revenues being in the 11%, 12%, 13% above where instead of 15% to 16% or 18% as an example, and not having any data to support what is up, what is down, and what is missed. Those are the kind of things that I'm hoping for future committees will be much more obvious. Even before the committee, for your own selves, what actions need to be taken to address that? And that's a concern, I guess, I would say, is that how can we be so far below 20? I get we're not gonna hit 20, but how can we be so far below 20 is a concern for me. But I don't think that that data has been hugely available in the past. So those are those are the type of things that I would be looking at. We can't answer that inspection information as easily as we'd like. We can't answer the number of licenses broken down by categories as easily and the renewals wise. And I'm hoping that we're going to see some significant presentations when the finance portion of your group comes back. Don't And think that was necessarily directed for you as much as it is for the whole team. But I

[Rep. Chris Keyser (Member)]: think the team's already well aware of

[Chair Matt Walker]: what it's been like and what it needs to be like. Sounds like though we're going to have that. Yes.

[Jordan Villa (Director of Strategic Planning and Legislative Affairs, Vermont DMV)]: So I worked on the fee bill, I don't know, couple of times, two or three times in my previous stint. That was absolutely, it was a nightmare to try to get that data for you. We worked really hard to create reports as we've been developing the system now. We have multiple reports now that I looked at just today, and it breaks it down by basically every statute and how many times we charge the fee, how much we collected. Generating So this year's debail report was far, far easier than it ever has been.

[Chair Matt Walker]: I'm not sure where else you were in the presentation for me. Took you off on a few side notes.

[Jordan Villa (Director of Strategic Planning and Legislative Affairs, Vermont DMV)]: Happy to answer any other questions at this time.

[Chair Matt Walker]: So we hear a lot less DMV jokes now. Is that what

[Rep. Patricia McCoy (Member)]: we're saying?

[Chair Matt Walker]: It's a start up and new television show on Right. It's fine where I haven't seen it yet, but I did see a commercial for it, so I might have to track that down. Was it you're saying it was

[Jordan Villa (Director of Strategic Planning and Legislative Affairs, Vermont DMV)]: It's funny. It's funny. Yes.

[Chair Matt Walker]: Does anybody have any other questions? You for the years that you put into the project, and perhaps it's a success story that needs to be written somewhere or share a little bit more, because obviously we hear plenty of the failures and we've had plenty as a state, but this is not one of them. This sounds like we were in the brink of a failure and now we have a robust system that's working every day for promoters. At least 98,000 of them and another 7,500 new each month is something that we would want to share. So thank you for leaving it. Welcome back to legislative liaison work.

[Jordan Villa (Director of Strategic Planning and Legislative Affairs, Vermont DMV)]: Thank you. I would like to just say that this, while it was a huge effort from DMV, it wouldn't have been possible without our partnership from both our vendor and agency did just services. They deserve kudos as well.

[Chair Matt Walker]: Yeah,

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: getting back to sort of the savings and the benefits, we'll call it. I mean, it seems like you could at least calculate how many trips to the DMV are eliminated because people are doing it online. And that's gotta be a significant amount. And somebody could apply a cost to that, to the facility, to the work, the time, just, I like to say, believe it's a success story that's important to say.

[Chair Matt Walker]: I imagine those employees are working on other work, but they're not processing these pieces. And I do know last year's budget had a reduction in workforce or positions. I don't think it actually was actual people, but there were positions in last year's budget that were reduced in the DMV. I believe three was the number I recall, but I could be wrong that they were positions that weren't related necessarily directly, but they are doing work with less positions than you had. The budget last year had reduction positions. I recall that pretty straightforward. Representative White? I guess

[Rep. Candice White (Member)]: I have one more question. And again, thank

[Rep. Patricia McCoy (Member)]: you for this. Sounds like

[Rep. Candice White (Member)]: a great project, and the DMV is in much better shape than it's been in a long time. I would love to see a sample of the public outreach campaign that was undertaken, and perhaps that includes a list of, here are all the incredible benefits that Vermonters are getting from this new online system. Like you were talking about a process that took three weeks, now you can walk in and pretty much have your paperwork except for your license. So things like that that are really meaningful, if you have that on a bullet point or something, I'd love to see.

[Jordan Villa (Director of Strategic Planning and Legislative Affairs, Vermont DMV)]: It'd be done. Thank

[Chair Matt Walker]: you for your work. Absolutely, appreciate it.

[Rep. Ken Wells (Member)]: Great job. Thank you.

[Deputy Commissioner Matt Russo (Vermont DMV)]: Thank Matt Russo, deputy commissioner for DMV. I'm glad to be back. I'm gonna share with you our most recent completed project, our online permitting commercial permitting system. For a little background, I'm not sure how much you guys know about online and commercial permitting. Big trucks, heavy trucks carrying front end motors traveling through Vermont, public highways. Obviously, it's going be wear and tear on the roads. We have bridges that can't hold the weight. There are several restrictions through cities and towns. So what the system does is provides an online platform for those traveling through Vermont with these giant trucks, creating wear and tear to pay for and receive their permit on the spot right there. Previous to that, everything was done manually. So you'd fax, email your application in. Our small team would manually process those permits, check the route, make sure the route was okay to travel through, and make notes on the permit, whether or not you you're traveling through a certain city or town if you needed a municipal permit. All that's done online now. AOT engineers have uploaded all of the bridge restrictions, road restrictions. We work in coordination with the only one five one one for any roadwork that's being done. And all that's done and updated live online. So you can log in, create an account, you can receive your permit on the spot. There's no wait time. Currently, we are I'm not gonna call it our next phase, but the completion of the project in the next couple months will be onboarding municipalities. So all of those municipal permits that you would have to contact the city for or the town will all be uploaded as well. And you can receive that permit at the same time that you're getting your oversized permit.

[Chair Matt Walker]: So

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: are these the I know my town clerk had said it was really hard to do those permits, the overweight permits. Is that what we're talking about? No. It's not hard to do the permit, but it's an extra step to have

[Deputy Commissioner Matt Russo (Vermont DMV)]: to contact the municipality to do their

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: own. Exactly. So now it's all linked together.

[Deputy Commissioner Matt Russo (Vermont DMV)]: So for instance, Chester, I think has some restrictions. You'd have to get a permit from them once they're onboarded and they're in the system. And if you're traveling through that town, you could get that permit at the same time that you can get your oversized permit.

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: And is it being rolled out to the towns right now? Is that what

[Chair Matt Walker]: you're saying?

[Deputy Commissioner Matt Russo (Vermont DMV)]: It will be. We just wrapped up this entire project with all of our own permits. And now we're gonna move on to municipalities. We can move

[Chair Matt Walker]: that out.

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: They sign up one at a time. They say sign up to do it?

[Deputy Commissioner Matt Russo (Vermont DMV)]: They will be signing up one at a time. So we'll work in coordination with the city or the League of Cities and Towns.

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: Representative Burke? Think Representative McCoy was before me.

[Chair Matt Walker]: Well, I was yeah. Let's try. We'll put McCoy in here. Please go ahead.

[Rep. Patricia McCoy (Member)]: So back to the municipalities, so I mean, what lease are permanent? So what happens? Are they paying the state and the state's reimbursing the town?

[Deputy Commissioner Matt Russo (Vermont DMV)]: Exactly. That's what we're working on now is how that's gonna work. They're gonna collect the fee at the same

[Chair Matt Walker]: time and we're reimburse them. Great.

[Rep. Patricia McCoy (Member)]: And then you just left the municipalities now.

[Deputy Commissioner Matt Russo (Vermont DMV)]: Exactly. They'll have access to see their own permits.

[Rep. Patricia McCoy (Member)]: Okay.

[Deputy Commissioner Matt Russo (Vermont DMV)]: So they can log in as the town, and they can see what's going to shoot.

[Chair Matt Walker]: Is it something that you work through that a lot leads the cities and towns with or individual towns? Is this one of these eightytwenty rules where 20% of the towns get 80% of the permits because they're on Route 4 or Route 7 or

[Deputy Commissioner Matt Russo (Vermont DMV)]: It'll be we'll be working in coordination with the league of cities and towns.

[Chair Matt Walker]: Just curious how that works with I'm sorry. Representative Burke, I'm sorry. Your turn.

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: Yeah. I may have met with a constituent recently who is you know, set the amounts, the permits that people, like trucks are paying, it's not enough to,

[Jordan Villa (Director of Strategic Planning and Legislative Affairs, Vermont DMV)]: you know, give

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: in damage to the road, I wanted to ask about that. And I guess you're going to ask about it. We have, Route 9 continues to be a huge issue. These over wide trucks, I don't feel like they should have a permit to go on Route 9, but I guess it's that part of the initial highway system, you can't restrict it. Is that correct?

[Deputy Commissioner Matt Russo (Vermont DMV)]: You can't, although it needs to be legislated.

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: We what?

[Deputy Commissioner Matt Russo (Vermont DMV)]: Need to be legislated. Same as the price, the fees.

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: We could restrict over wide over wide trucks on your hand. You

[Deputy Commissioner Matt Russo (Vermont DMV)]: could. I'm not sure if it's it's a a busy route.

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: It's yeah.

[Deputy Commissioner Matt Russo (Vermont DMV)]: It is a lot of traffic in the area for industry.

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: Between Marlborough and Battleworld, the barrel just like that, and there's no shoulder. There's a

[Rep. Patricia McCoy (Member)]: wedge and there's a breakthrough.

[Chair Matt Walker]: But it is a beautiful brand new. And

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: come barreling down there, and then they come barreling into the populated part of Brattleboro, I mean it's a speed enforcement issue, but, and it's, you know, they're they're driving too fast. But let's separate out the issue of the amount that is paid. Have you looked at that in terms of, you know, is that adequate to

[Deputy Commissioner Matt Russo (Vermont DMV)]: I can't say that we have, but the fees would need to be legislated.

[Rep. Candice White (Member)]: We'd have to change or

[Deputy Commissioner Matt Russo (Vermont DMV)]: at least do some research.

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: How would I start? I mean, I guess what I'm interested in is how do you determine what's a fair fee given the damage that it may cause to the roads?

[Deputy Commissioner Matt Russo (Vermont DMV)]: I don't think I would know it. I would say if I had to guess, you'd have to do the research on the air repairs to the roads over the years. How much has been spent?

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: I mean, have the fees gone up in a long time? I mean, I guess

[Jordan Villa (Director of Strategic Planning and Legislative Affairs, Vermont DMV)]: I don't recall that they've

[Deputy Commissioner Matt Russo (Vermont DMV)]: gone up for the permits recently.

[Rep. Candice White (Member)]: Well, guess I'd like

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: to be able to answer my constituents in some way.

[Deputy Commissioner Matt Russo (Vermont DMV)]: Yeah, I can get some answers

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: from Okay, you that'd be great.

[Deputy Commissioner Matt Russo (Vermont DMV)]: At least when the fees were changed last.

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: Okay, and whether, you said know, adequate, I guess you could ask a challenge, usually that's people from one to 10 or Along the Okay, thank you.

[Chair Matt Walker]: Do the things alternate by the weight, the load, or the Once you

[Deputy Commissioner Matt Russo (Vermont DMV)]: get past a certain weight, it becomes an an oversized load, super load, essentially. And you there is a survey fee, which is, I think, 1,500 done. It has to go to the engineers to make sure that the axle spacing is correct, the weight on each axle is correct. So there is a higher fee for those super loads, and we're talking way

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: over 8,000 pounds. Wind turbine. Wind turbine. Exactly the thousand. Yeah. Yeah.

[Chair Matt Walker]: Representative Pouech is up, and then it's representative White, and then it's representative Keyser, and back over here, representative Lalley, if she had

[Jordan Villa (Director of Strategic Planning and Legislative Affairs, Vermont DMV)]: a question.

[Chair Matt Walker]: I'll talk to If you were done, I'm like Me too. You still have the floor if you want it.

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: No, no, it's alright. I'll come around. Okay.

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: The database has the bridge limits, road limits. Does it have the temporary closures of town roads? It does. In there too. And bridges. Pretty comprehensive. Bridges. Yeah, bridges. Yeah. So all right, thanks.

[Rep. Candice White (Member)]: So just a clarifying question. So these commercial vehicles, are these only oversized overweight trucks that are traveling through Vermont that are required to get these special permits.

[Deputy Commissioner Matt Russo (Vermont DMV)]: Correct, over a certain weight, over a length. And

[Rep. Candice White (Member)]: following up on Representative Burke's question, it sounds like you've got a database that knows what roads are open, what bridge weights are, etcetera. Is the state doing anything to prioritize, we want these heavy trucks on these specific roads that we are maintaining at this level, that we wanna keep them off of these other roads? I guess you kind of answered that already, So but just a state, we do have the ability to push them to certain roads.

[Deputy Commissioner Matt Russo (Vermont DMV)]: Our engineers have all that information on that. I'm sorry? Our engineers work on those at AOT. And so they have the ability to decide whether or not a road can take so much weight. And that's what we would reroute somebody. And that's all done behind the scenes automatically. So when they put in their route or their destination, I should say, it's going route them to the best route, not according to which routes can take which routes.

[Rep. Candice White (Member)]: So your team will tell them, Here's the route we want you to take. Correct. Okay. Is And there a map? We see what roads are available for these over?

[Deputy Commissioner Matt Russo (Vermont DMV)]: You could. Actually, New England five eleven page has all that information.

[Rep. Candice White (Member)]: Okay. It does. And it's labeled just virtual vehicle trucking route?

[Deputy Commissioner Matt Russo (Vermont DMV)]: You'll see little symbols on there and tells you what the restriction is for a length or width a or a weight.

[Jordan Villa (Director of Strategic Planning and Legislative Affairs, Vermont DMV)]: Okay, thank you.

[Rep. Chris Keyser (Member)]: Representative Keyser? Yeah, thanks for this. And to continue on some of the talk about how much it costs and such things like that, what you're

[Chair Matt Walker]: talking

[Rep. Chris Keyser (Member)]: about is transit permits. In other words, transit through the state with overweights, is Okay, now do you deal with the permits, the overweight town permits that come out in the spring? Will this be part of this part of what you're doing?

[Deputy Commissioner Matt Russo (Vermont DMV)]: Once we start working with them in February and onboard them, it will be.

[Rep. Chris Keyser (Member)]: Okay, now to Representative Burke's point, having done this in the past, that it was Hubbard and that we dealt with, we paid $10 to be able to run on dirt roads. It seems like there's an opportunity if we reexamine to maybe update some of these prices that we're charging. So this is a good thing, we can consolidate and look at what we're charging for such things. And I do remember that when we did overweight stuff, most of that, all that traffic typically was on interstates. They did not let us get out onto the other side roads and such things like that. It pretty prescriptive. It was prescriptive.

[Chair Matt Walker]: Yeah, thank you. I'm sorry, Commissioner Collier? We'll come back around here.

[Commissioner Andrew Collier (Vermont DMV)]: I just add, the conversation I know our agency friends, AOT, are going to be here first before us. The initial two phases of this e permitting was done with Gary Reed and his team, the chief engineer, I would target some of those more how do you decide traffic and routing more to them. We're kind of the front facing, if you will, but all that's on the engineering side, And I just don't want to get too far too far in front of our skis because

[Jordan Villa (Director of Strategic Planning and Legislative Affairs, Vermont DMV)]: it's kind of a little

[Commissioner Andrew Collier (Vermont DMV)]: bit outside hours. Got a hospital to see

[Chair Matt Walker]: To administer the interaction with the requesters and the back and forth, but policy and the setups is done by highway engineer departments and whatnot. That makes sense. Just like you're the front facing on all of our interaction with monitors and whatnot, but you don't set the piece in the back. Got We all set up with her, and then it was back to the representative Burke if she was against, and then back to the representative McCoy.

[Rep. Patricia McCoy (Member)]: Allowing to make it for me. Yeah,

[Rep. Candice White (Member)]: I just because it seems like you guys have the data to be able to do ports and answer questions, I was wondering how is this, maybe just anecdotally, is this helping to keep some of the trucks out of the notch?

[Rep. Patricia McCoy (Member)]: I mean, that's been a huge

[Deputy Commissioner Matt Russo (Vermont DMV)]: Completely. A whole another situation.

[Chair Matt Walker]: Part.

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: We need the picture of the four people from The

[Rep. Patricia McCoy (Member)]: Wizard Above, the lion's character, and just say, I turn back.

[Rep. Candice White (Member)]: I swear

[Chair Matt Walker]: The things they did put up certainly work. I went through them on a regular basis. It's far easier to go through the other side at night. Doctor. Burke, you're up.

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: Yeah, instead of following up on this, this actually a topic that I started before the pandemic because I had another constituent who was really concerned about traffic on Route 9, and I got a lot of data from DMV about where trucks came from, where they're going, and a lot of it was, you know, homes, what do you call it, manufacturing homes.

[Jordan Villa (Director of Strategic Planning and Legislative Affairs, Vermont DMV)]: Modular homes, yeah.

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: And modular homes, and it's like coming from places like Pennsylvania. And the issue was that for some reason, and I never really thought this, when the pandemic interrupted and I really got the final answers, was they were going get in touch with the mass pipe, they said apparently the bridges on the mass pipe do not allow for a certain height and that's why a lot of the trucks are going crossing over Route 9 instead of the Mass Pike going to Springfield and getting on 91. So they're taking Route 9 at which end of the year. So I don't know if there's a way to find out, is there a restriction on roof, on the ash pipe? And can we encourage, well whatever, trucks to go that route? It seems like that would be a good anyway. Anyway. So I'm concerned about, basically, about the safety issues, particularly with the over live trucks, and somebody coming, you know, snowstorms, I mean, I've

[Rep. Candice White (Member)]: heard people who live up

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: in Marlborough just terrified of running into one of these people by trucks, so I'm just trying to figure out how to keep on this issue, I guess. Maybe this is for Be Trans, he would ask them about getting in touch with the, even what the commissioner just said, maybe it's a meeting for V Trans in terms of planning room to take and get in touch with somebody from the nearest pipe to see.

[Deputy Commissioner Matt Russo (Vermont DMV)]: Agreed, yeah, like the Commissioner said, would agree In it's probably

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: design or for example.

[Deputy Commissioner Matt Russo (Vermont DMV)]: And they do work with our partner states all the time, so

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: Yeah, okay, great, thank you. Picking up the spreads, five years ago, six years ago.

[Rep. Patricia McCoy (Member)]: Right. Doctor. McCoy? So the municipal permitting, do you know, does every town, when they issue an overweight permit, is it $10 or does it vary from time to time? How do build this system?

[Deputy Commissioner Matt Russo (Vermont DMV)]: I believe it's $10 for all of them, for statewide.

[Rep. Patricia McCoy (Member)]: That's my question.

[Deputy Commissioner Matt Russo (Vermont DMV)]: And again, up to them to change if they wanted to, but no matter what.

[Rep. Patricia McCoy (Member)]: Well, that's what I Do they have that ability or is that something that's set through our community? That's the other question I had.

[Deputy Commissioner Matt Russo (Vermont DMV)]: That'll be interesting when we start working with the local cities and towns. And what's great is that they have the access to go in and do their own work and research in there through their portal.

[Rep. Chris Keyser (Member)]: Thank you. Representative Keyser? So now we've got this thing online, or we want to have this thing online. And to the Route 9 issue, and we all understand what that is, it might be also Mendon Mountain or it might be 15, it doesn't matter. Can the approved permit be amended based on an event like if we had a event like this, a snowstorm or something? Can we amend so that they don't travel or they've been restricted? Is there any modification of permit once it's issued?

[Chair Matt Walker]: So technically, you have to apply for

[Deputy Commissioner Matt Russo (Vermont DMV)]: a new permit. With that said, though, we have amended them for situations like that. But it's good for a week. So we issue it. You have a week in order to move. And in that time, something could happen. So we have to put a statement out or issue something. If the road's closed, for instance, the road's closed, is that something we could do about that?

[Rep. Chris Keyser (Member)]: That may be something to consider. I know this is, I mean, how are gonna contact people on all But those it seems Anyway,

[Jordan Villa (Director of Strategic Planning and Legislative Affairs, Vermont DMV)]: thank you. Of course.

[Chair Matt Walker]: Anybody else have anything else? Well, would say Commissioner Collier and Deputy Commissioner Jordan, appreciate very much joining us this morning. Appreciate all obviously, you sparked a lot of interest with the questions. You probably have a pretty long list of follow-up questions in there as well.

[Rep. Chris Keyser (Member)]: Thank

[Chair Matt Walker]: you all very