Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Unidentified Committee Member (Mad River Valley district)]: Welcome

[Phil Pouech, Ranking Member]: back to the Transportation House Committee. This afternoon, we'll be talking about agency of transportation, public transportation adjustments moving from urban to rural services with Green Mountain Transit. Ross McDonald is here. Do you want

[Ross McDonald, Public Transit Program Manager, VTrans]: to go ahead and start? Thank you. Ross McDonald, public transit program manager at VTrans. And this is a, we're getting to the culmination of a two year program, whether it's the, legislative study to assess options that we're discussing today. Working with all the boards to gain concurrence and support for these types of changes. These weren't easily arrived at. But for B TRAN's role, what we've done is other than legislative report and advocated for this change, We have contracted a consultant to help all three entities GMT, TVT and RCT to help with the waterfall list of all the items that are required for the transfer. And Dan Courier, our lead coordinator, has been assigned to be the coordinator for all three of those entities at once so that we have internal coordination abilities. And we've already been making changes to the grant agreements as RCT has taken on Franklin Grand Isle so that we can adjust and assign awards accordingly throughout the building of this new structure. So with that, I would just turn it back over to the committee and hear from the people doing the actual work is we're kind of along for the ride at this point.

[Phil Pouech, Ranking Member]: Yeah, I mean, just before we do that, just a quick overview here, the rural areas that are gonna be taken over by, are gonna take over from Green Mountain Transit and sort of the timing, unless that's actually in the presentation.

[Ross McDonald, Public Transit Program Manager, VTrans]: No, and absolutely for us, we approached GMT thirteen, fourteen years ago when one of the providers went out of business in this region and asked them to stand up a rural division and take on not only the urban 5,307 program, but one of the entities for the rural services. And they did that. And sharing resources, looking at the management of those two distinct entities. The FTA requires that all the funds are separate and distinct. And after so many years with RCT and TVT that used to be actor and stagecoach, they got together. We had two strong rural entities that were now in a better position to take on those rural services. They also have a different cost per hour and do the same call center for the O and D program and others. So we thought this made a lot of sense conceptually. And as we work through these iterations, it has been heartening to see that a lot of the benefits that we were expecting do seem to be coming to fruition at this time. Is there any other context I can provide? I think that's good. Okay, thank you. Think Mr. Ted Plate's next.

[Clayton Clark, General Manager, Green Mountain Transit]: Hello, everybody. So happy to be here talking to you about what has been a really great experience. And I have just about everything I'm going to say is positive. And I want to start off with by letting you all know that in September, we did an employee and a board engagement survey, which is something that we routinely do just to make sure that we're sort of in alignment with our workforce and where our board is at. And when asked, is GMT heading in a positive direction? 0% of the respondents indicated that they thought that GMT was moving in the wrong direction. And so it just pleases me immensely that our workforce and our board really sees this direction from the rural transfer as the right thing to do, that there is not dissension about the approach. And so internally, we have this broad support. Externally, it has been a really great experience working with VTrans, TBT, and RCT. I'm going say something because people may have noticed sometimes I'm argumentative. I want it for the record that we even had a great experience working with VTrans. We sometimes struggle with our frenemy relationship with VTrans, And but this experience was great. We had a lot of positive work with Ross and Dan, and they've been good partners with this process. Been so impressed with RCT and Caleb's group of folks. As I'll let him talk about the fact that they're able to accelerate the transfer really just shows how coordinated and organized they are. And I couldn't be more impressed with how they've operated and taking on our service in Franklin and Grand Isle County. And also have really enjoyed working with Jim Mollton. And one of the things that we've tried to do is to try to manage Washington County somewhat jointly, so that as we move forward, that whatever it is that GMT is trying to do to improve things in Washington County is going to match in alignment with the direction that TVT wants to go in. And so you have a memo from our board of directors that kind of highlights all of the goodness. And so I feel like it probably makes more sense to turn things over to my better looking counterparts at RCT and TVT so that they can talk about their experience, but

[Matt Walker, Chair]: also certainly happy to answer any questions that you all may have.

[Ross McDonald, Public Transit Program Manager, VTrans]: RCT is the first time they've been doing it.

[Matt Walker, Chair]: A lot of you have to pick up where we're at. It looks like we're going to Caleb next or we're going to Jim next. That's where we're at with the question. My apologies for the meeting that the vice chair and I were at to be a little bit late. Thank you very much for getting things started. Ross, thank you for the summary and claiming. So yes, Caleb, why don't you come up and hear about anybody on time delay or time constraints so we can go from here. We're talking about transferring Franklin and Grand Isle and Ken Wells. Right? Yes. And anywhere else you wanna go in that direction. Thank you.

[Caleb Grant, Rural Community Transportation (RCT)]: For the record, Caleb Grant from Rural Community Transportation. I

[Matt Walker, Chair]: feel a little

[Caleb Grant, Rural Community Transportation (RCT)]: bit about, like, the weather reporter saying standing in the middle of a hurricane saying it's raining. But we did accelerate the process. I believe the recommendation was to transition in July '26. Just working with GMT and some of their staffing challenges, in the call center, it seemed to make sense for us to transition, a little bit expeditiously. So on January 1, we officially made the transition to be the provider for Franklin and the technical provider, although Cider, does the bulk of the work in Grand Isle. And the Stowe Mountain Road will transition in July 1, as well as the OND subcontract for Chittenden County as of July 1 as well. So it has been a fantastic experience. The Franklin community is an engaged and impassioned community as it relates to both transportation, but also human and health services. Really welcoming as far as including me in community conversations. We've contracted Stedman Hill to update our transit development plan to include Franklin and Grand Isle County, and was actually able to partner with a planning commission who was doing a parallel study on transportation needs in the county. So we're combining those two efforts and we'll work collaboratively to address the transportation landscape of Franklin County and how that relates to the transit development plan for rural community transportation. So 100% of the GMT employees which we extended an offer accepted and, have joined enthusiastically. We begin union negotiations this Friday. So the drivers, chose to continue in a unionized unit and look forward to that process and their opportunity to advocate for what is nine drivers and a bit more of a concentrated evaluation of their needs and wants as opposed to kind of being lumped with a larger representation of Burlington drivers as well as Berlin drivers. So interested to see those outcomes, but very optimistic. I think from every experience I've had with the drivers, they remain very passenger focused and care very much about the outcomes and seem to align very well with RCT's mission, which is critical to the success of the expansion. And other than that, it's really just battling against technologies that seem to fail. Verizon SIM cards, miscomputed and transitioning phones, which don't want to get past firewalls and things like that. It's kind of like buying a new house where you find that the previous owner may have been used to things and all of sudden you're go, what is this? But in reality, we're working through all those bumps and it is by every shape and measure a positive experience in the first two months. And

[Matt Walker, Chair]: hopefully, we'll continue to improve as we go forward. What was the official transition date? I'm sorry. Didn't write that down. January 1. It was.

[Caleb Grant, Rural Community Transportation (RCT)]: Which, for future reference, is a terrible time to transition everything just because all the little things that have to get done leading into that, having large federal holidays leading into that can complicate things. But from a budgetary standpoint, made perfect sense and remains to make perfect sense. So all learning aside, I think I'd still make that same decision.

[Matt Walker, Chair]: What's your point person for Franklin County? How does that work within your structure? Do you have a particular project manager or whatnot versus what are you guys running the entire organization? How does

[Caleb Grant, Rural Community Transportation (RCT)]: So I think the easiest way to answer that is I've put 6,000 miles on my car in the past month. I'm spending about three to four days in St. Albans week. But we do have phenomenal leadership. The entire administrative portion of Franklin Grand Isle from GMT joined RCT as well. So there's an operations manager who led Franklin for GMT and is now leading Franklin for rural community transportation. And my job is to really support him and make sure he gets all the resources he needs and help him cross barriers as they arise.

[Matt Walker, Chair]: Present what?

[Unidentified Committee Member (Mad River Valley district)]: So just to make sure I'm understanding, RCT now oversees Franklin County, Grand Isle, Stowe Mountain area, and OND and Chittenden County?

[Caleb Grant, Rural Community Transportation (RCT)]: So currently, as of January 1, we have completed the portion of Franklin and Grand Isle. July 1, we will officially transition the Stowe Mountain Road and Chittenden County 0 And D. Okay. Pending the VTrans grant application. So leading into this next cycle, RCT will include those portions in its next fiscal year grant application. And I would anticipate GMT will remove those from their grant application and then VTrans will make their determination at that point.

[Unidentified Committee Member (Mad River Valley district)]: And one other question on the union negotiations. Are you anticipating any difficulty with that, with the union negotiations? For example, what you're paying drivers, are you having to level that up, which would just increase costs? Just trying to get a sense of what you foresee.

[Caleb Grant, Rural Community Transportation (RCT)]: Entering into the transition, we kept the driver's wages, the union's driver's wages, as well as benefits level, which are often the most contentious elements. My anticipation of where the kind of changes may be are gonna be purely operational. RCT monitors its drivers using AI dash mounted cameras, which notify drivers when they miss a stop sign or are not wearing their seatbelt, all those types of things. That possibly could be an issue of negotiation, overnight discharges, weekend work. You know, typical things, I I think those fundamental, we kept level in anticipation and to make sure there was consistency of service. So I think it's gonna be mainly focused on operational expectations and trying to capture some of those efficiencies, which we were looking for. And again, I mean, when they negotiated prior, they were negotiating with much larger units with diversified interests and a much different looking service, whereas now it's much more concentrated. So RCT can advocate for the specific needs of the region, and the drivers can advocate for their specific interests of the nine individuals represented, as opposed to trying to cover what is greatly diverse from interest needs services across GMT Urban as well as Washington County. So I think just the narrow of scope and interest should by nature make those negotiations far more amiable.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Yeah,

[Phil Pouech, Ranking Member]: thanks. So this sounds good. And I was wondering if did you run across any unforeseen or larger costs as part of this transition? How were they covered? And then I'll assume Ross at some point will come back and say, hey, here's what the bus rates are, which I guess is where we're hoping to see some benefit. But it sounds like there might be some benefits just simplifying things for Green Mountain Transit and allowing you to do more of what you already are doing fairly well. But my question there with any unforeseen costs and how are they handled?

[Matt Walker, Chair]: I think

[Caleb Grant, Rural Community Transportation (RCT)]: any unforeseen costs really lie in the technology, negotiating purchase licenses. Going back to original contracts from 2010 to see if there was unused licenses to be carried over. And so that type of unexpected costs, but I think largely we're in line with what was expected. The efficiencies will take over time. Anecdotally, I think is a good example of where we will gain the efficiency. So I walk in the bus garage the other day and the hood's up on a van. A one of one within the GMT system, but a one of seven in the RCT system, and immediately recognized the code and was able to systematically address. And it's that consistency of type of service, which I think the efficiencies will be gained as Franklin is so much like Memorial and Orleans in many ways related to transportation services. So I think we're going to gain some efficiency there. We're already pulling, there may be a volunteer driver who lives in the May. There is a volunteer driver who lives in Jay. And does it make more sense for him to drive to Newport to pick up a passenger or to hop over to Richford and take them down to St. Albans? The cohesion within Northern Vermont will fundamentally create efficiencies. And then I think some of those operational costs and addressing those over time. I think working with providers and addressing certain Medicaid compliance and needs is maybe an unexpected cost. What are the demands of the area as far as overnight discharges and things like that? But both the service community as well as our RCT are getting to know each other and scoping what those expectations may be. But we have chosen at RCT to segment all of Franklin And Grand Isle's finances. So when we make our V Trans grant application, OND will have a specific line for Franklin and Grand Isle and Chittenden. When we receive Medicaid payments, we're receiving Medicaid payments specific to Franklin County. The intent of this is to really be able to provide measurable progress as it relates to whether we are gaining efficiencies as intended. So instead of letting it become brackish water of RCT's current operations, we're really as much as we can targeting segmentation of finances and expenses to create measurable outcomes. We've also recently received some planning funds from VTrans to do a RCT wide efficiency study, which will establish KPIs for what is the foundation in Franklin County, And are we pulling the appropriate levers to make the progress that is intended from this transition?

[Phil Pouech, Ranking Member]: Yeah, thanks. That's pretty complete. I don't know if Ross wants to add anything from his side, anything unexpected or that you learned from this to apply again somewhere else.

[Ross McDonald, Public Transit Program Manager, VTrans]: The artificial timeline is something that I regret saying this should happen when the start of the fiscal year happens well fifteen months down the road ish. I'm very thankful that Caleb and his organization and GMT both agreed why wait let's do it some of that to those workforce anxieties, really we just had to do it and then assuage those concerns. So that's one of the takeaways. We've been able to coordinate like the DMV transfer of 22 vehicles. And so Dan was down there, we got their appointment, two people waiting for us and turned that around. We didn't expect that, we didn't really have that on the radar, so we were needing those level of details for any other consolidations. This is we had 13 providers when I started, we're down to six providers, that sounds about right. I don't expect a lot of additional consolidations, we are going to be saving some money on the administrative oversight to train the processing of invoices from one fewer providers as we get operations admin, those types of things. And lastly, the setup of that foundation of baseline metrics to see really what are the differences in costs and efficiency at some day we're gonna have to look in the rearview mirror and see how did we do, what did we expect to save and what did we save and all credit to Jim and Caleb for putting these things together. Thanks.

[Unidentified Committee Member (Mad River Valley district)]: Since we were just talking about OND this morning quite a bit, I'm curious if any of the volunteer coordinators are shifting as a part of this transfer or how that fits into this, if at all. And also, could you just explain how SSTA connects with this? If you're doing OND for If RSOT is taking over OND for Chittenden County, is SSTA still working with GMT or how is that gonna work?

[Caleb Grant, Rural Community Transportation (RCT)]: Yeah, so the first part of your question relates to volunteers. So given RCT's geographic nature, we have onboarded a Lemoyle and Franklin volunteer coordinator since those are the most geographically, and makes sense to drive across that area from an outreach perspective. As it relates to SSTA, so SSTA will maintain its ADA relationship with GMT, Whereas in RCT will be the recipient of Chittenden County OND funds and subcontracting SSTA to both administer the OND program and provide the transportation services within that region.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Okay. Thanks.

[Matt Walker, Chair]: Yeah. Yep. You talked a little bit about KPIs in terms of some mention there, but also what's do you measure user success? Franklin County, obviously, I'm a big county rep. I hear a lot about services for Swan, but I'll get into that at some other points. But how do you measure where user satisfaction is today, and what's your plans to measure it a month or two months from now, four months, and how do you do that and how do I answer if issues come up, etcetera? How do you measure the users of Franklin County, the transition? There was a lot of anxiety. Probably moving quicker than expected, probably helps people not have to worry, a lot of people don't have to worry because it's happening. But how do you measure where you're at today and how you measure how is this going to be defined as successful is one thing. How do you explain more specifically to the actual users in FranklinCathlon? So how are you measuring it, and what's total success gonna look like?

[Caleb Grant, Rural Community Transportation (RCT)]: So I appreciate that question because it's an important conversation. I'm a KPI's data guy, and and rider experience is one of those that's difficult to capture. I I think, you know, principally, it's important, you know, on New Year's Eve, we were not me, luckily. Although I did have to install all of them, but, you know, representatives from our TV trans and GMT were sitting in DMV to change over 23 vehicles. It was negative five when I was all the screws were ceased. But aside from that, when the riders got on the vehicles, they were very familiar. That's kind of the administrative shift that I think there carried a lot of anticipation and anxiety for riders of how's this gonna change for me? But, you know, aside from a red plate to a green plate and, you know, the uniform changes, it's the same drivers in the same vehicles. Where we are running into some continued hesitation of experience is operational. You know, what the call to verify a trip the night before, oh, no, it's a different voice, or, you know, as we try to gain efficiencies, well, I was picked up at six twenty three for six months, and now RCT wants to pick me up at 06:20. Those types of habit forming, how can we gain efficiencies of scale and providing more transportation? I think one important factor is, are we providing more trips to a larger variety of individuals? That is an execution measurement. That is the quantitative KPI that I'll be presenting to this group. The qualitative aspect will take time, right, is individuals who call and they're like, well, I just gave that information to GMT. And it was like, well, you know, that document wasn't carried over in the transition of technology. And I appreciate your frustration. And we work very closely with Diva to make sure there's not a duplicate of effort by riders to make sure that I already proved that I'm Medicaid eligible. I've already proved that I don't have a vehicle. And so those backend things to make sure that the burden of the transition is not experienced by the riders. But the types of transitions, never had to do this before, is really the diligent work to maintain RCT's Medicaid compliance, to work through our commitment to data integrity and all the kind of principal differences in the way organizations operate. As much as we can try to not carry that burden over the riders, little bit that will. And my hope is that on day one, they were getting into the same vehicles with the same drivers around the same time. Month two, month three, there's gonna be procedural differences or or slight changes in time. But my hope is by month four, month five, month six, they're bought in to the mission centric operations and understand the intents behind what we're doing and we're approving and providing more rides. So luckily through the OND program, we do customer surveys. Through the transit development plan, we'll be reaching out to communities for input and feedback. We also plan on holding community hearings so people can give us direct feedback of, hey, you changed this thing and I don't like it. But our best resource for that feedback and that qualitative measurement is from our drivers because you better believe that they're hearing every dissatisfaction from the drivers. As much as all of you here, I I I could guarantee you that the drivers get a little bit more of it because, you know, a trip down to Burlington or or a trip to Boston provides plenty of opportunity for feedback. It's that open communication with the drivers and and their safety and feeling they can share the feedback from the riders and making sure that we're keeping the rider centric focus. So, it'll be difficult for a couple months. Change is hard. But my my hope is that measurement of the the qualitative comes out in, within the next six months.

[Matt Walker, Chair]: Well, on January 26, there's Franklin County delegations community breakfast, the legislative breakfast. On the twenty sixth, suspect that this will come up as changes in the county and public transportation have almost always come up in legislative breakfast. That might be an event that you find the way one of your people likely might already be there, but that might be a piece. My colleagues in the delegation are looking for me to make sure I have the answers that the public's going to have at that piece. So that's why I delved into it a little more than maybe some other subjects that I do. So usually, I keep my chair hat on. But today, I'm just rep from Swanton. Is it working? Is it going to continue to work? I hear regularly additional services to Swanton. I hear that all the time. But also, the delegation's expecting me to answer to the people who are getting in and out of NNC, our Flushing Medical Center, and they're getting to their appointments. They were all very nervous, but I haven't heard anything but it already happened. So you're not in the right track

[Caleb Grant, Rural Community Transportation (RCT)]: from the convo's perspective.

[Matt Walker, Chair]: But now there's the letters to the editors and the comments on the discussion pages and whatnot. To be fair, I went a little further than I usually do as the chair saying, if you mentioned committee hearing, they're gonna wanna know when. And this one's pretty specific to me.

[Caleb Grant, Rural Community Transportation (RCT)]: And I appreciate that and please continue to do so.

[Jim Moulton, Executive Director, Tri Valley Transit (TVT)]: A question about the O

[Unidentified Committee Member]: and D program. Sounds like regionally they decide what they wanna cover and what they don't as far as trips. Is there options broad? And is there anything in there that we should take as much as we should take out of that discussion? Don't know, sounds like they sort of get to choose of what they wanna cover or where they're gonna go, no? Or am I incorrect in that analysis? Sounds like they get, or they're gonna go to Boston or wherever, they have some leeway there? As these regions, these all the-

[Caleb Grant, Rural Community Transportation (RCT)]: Right, and it does go back to that kind of the principal intent of those committees is to examine the demographics of the community and forecast what is possible within their budget constraints. So, you know, I know there are communities within Chittenden County that looked at the constraints and the parameters and said, no trips outside Chittenden County. Right? We have providers who say, you know, these are, you know, we wanna prioritize this type of ride. You know, you have other communities like the Northeast Kingdom where it is every dime we can give to give these bare basic necessities. So depending on what the demographics are and the needs of that community, I will reiterate what was shared this morning is, you know, dialysis remains one of the largest cost drivers of O and D. And so in the Northeast Kingdom, for instance, our dialysis provider is in Lancaster, or we're driving to St. Albans. So those costs tend to drain funds more often. Chittenden County, the dialysis providers are much closer and at a lower cost. So when you ask, is it at the discretion of those kind of regional providers is if they're going through the demographic analysis and forecasting based off of their budget and anticipated needs, they're gonna be able to calculate those constraints in line to get to the finish line of July 1, and have sustainable losses. I don't think any O and D committee, is going forward saying, how do we maintain a surplus? It's what is the tipping point of how many trips and what types of trips we can give to go right up to that edge of the budget.

[Jim Moulton, Executive Director, Tri Valley Transit (TVT)]: You know, that's all understood.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: I'm not big on me, but I think years ago there was big rebuffal about going to casinos and stuff like that. Giving that an option, are those still within the control of these committees to say, oh yeah, we got a little extra, we're gonna make that trip to Foxwood every month or something

[Jim Moulton, Executive Director, Tri Valley Transit (TVT)]: like that.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: I'm just saying those, how broad is served?

[Matt Walker, Chair]: You got Ross shaking his head.

[Ross McDonald, Public Transit Program Manager, VTrans]: I just wanna know

[Unidentified Committee Member]: how that is they're discretion. And I think you laid a quick picture saying that there really isn't that much flexibility after you do the analysis or anything else.

[Caleb Grant, Rural Community Transportation (RCT)]: And that's outside my experience.

[Ross McDonald, Public Transit Program Manager, VTrans]: Yeah, yeah,

[Caleb Grant, Rural Community Transportation (RCT)]: Kind of defer to Ross's broader input.

[Ross McDonald, Public Transit Program Manager, VTrans]: That was the social personal discussion, is how do we not only provide essential services, but some quality of life connectivity too. The idea that we're going to get a bus full of folks from the adult center or the age restricted place and bring them to Foxwoods, that precludes me as well. I'm not familiar with those types of trips, but it was more like I need to see my husband at the care facility or visit a friend, get to church, those types of church service, those types of things for social personal. Moving forward, we got to take a look at those trip constraints and really identify are those trips currently the right set of priorities moving forward and could vocational trips be better served with the recovery and job access program, taking some pressure release off of the O and D program. Those are the numbers we're going to be rolling up and sharing with the committee. Again, at that O and D summit in June, we'll be proposing updated guidance as well as updated expectations on the O and D committees to just try to reset expectations and hear from the other areas in the state to see what they think would be improvements to the O and D program. So

[Matt Walker, Chair]: the transition has happened, it's smooth, it's all the same drivers, nobody lost a job, they're under negotiations, they're starting imminently and service changes. There may be some operational feel as the next couple of months go by and as people work through and realize how many more rides are available on this focus when we regroup and hear again about this in May or the next time we hear back from thereafter. That's currently the plan, and

[Caleb Grant, Rural Community Transportation (RCT)]: that's how things are going in Franklin County. That is the plan, yeah. Would anybody care for me to elaborate on the Stowe Mountain Road service? Is that fair to play?

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Thought you were gonna say it's still access to

[Unidentified Committee Member]: that road. That's a great

[Caleb Grant, Rural Community Transportation (RCT)]: policy of no driving the buses through the docks.

[Matt Walker, Chair]: Take over the Stowe Mountain bus service on July 1. That may be faster. Oh. One other piece, some other part of Chittenden County, some changes on July 1. Part of Orleans County changed for it on July 1 and I think that must be where we're headed.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: One thought, but I just assume we've got a little bit of time. But your KPIs. Yes, sir. Okay, so you developed those early. I mean, are institutional, you do that. Yes, sir. Yes, you do. Okay, so was there any change in the underlying basis for those KPIs? They were the same when you make your transfer. In other words, are you being consistent in your measurements? Am I following? Are you trying to follow what I'm saying?

[Caleb Grant, Rural Community Transportation (RCT)]: I am following. We did do kind of and we're continuing to go through the process. I mean, luckily, the historic data is the historic data, so we can still kind of baseline KPIs from that basis. We are kind of part of our consultation. So, you know, going out to contract, because getting someone smarter than me to assist with it isn't always good sage advice to just say, Hey, are these the right KPIs? Are there additional ones given the transition?

[Unidentified Committee Member]: My concern is that you have consistent relative measures so that you know what you've had before, you actually improved it by changing, right?

[Caleb Grant, Rural Community Transportation (RCT)]: And fortunately, even if we change the parameters, we're able to mine the historic data to compare apples to apples.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Not knowing the KPIs that you deal with, but every business has indicators. And as those indicators change, then you know what you have done, the effect of what you have done. So I'm seeing Ross shake his head, so it seems like we're going to have consistent measurements of the same thing, regardless of what structure you have. You may have said that a little bit better. Yep. Okay, good. Thank you. Thank you.

[Matt Walker, Chair]: Thank you very much. Thank

[Unidentified Committee Member]: you for your time.

[Matt Walker, Chair]: We will now hear from Jim Mollton on the transfer in Washington County, I guess, or some pieces. So welcome, Bennington.

[Jim Moulton, Executive Director, Tri Valley Transit (TVT)]: Thank you, Chairman Walker. I appreciate it. Thank you to all the members of the committee. For the record, I am Jim Mollton. I am the executive director of Tri Valley Transit. We currently operate in Addison, Orange and Northern Windsor Counties, and as we're here to talk about, we'll soon become the operator for Washington County as well. We are on the market transition date of July 1. We are not as fast moving as Kelvin RCT. I will tell you that a major reason that we're not moving faster is because we are a unionized shop, already have been for well over twelve, thirteen years. And our current Tri Valley Transit Union contract is expiring on June 30, So we are in the process of beginning negotiations, not knowing the parameters of that. We wanted to make sure that we're integrating the current GMT workforce because they'll be obviously affected by the negotiations of the new contract. So we're providing an opportunity for their participation and input and making sure that all of that will be taking place. So we remain on a July 1. I think things are going well. We've had a lot of meetings between GMT leadership, Clayton and his administrative team, as well as my management team and other management staff. We've been having regular meetings and conversations for well over six months. It's all been positive. We've had visits between sites. GMT staff have come to our locations, our facilities in Middlebury and Randolph, we've gone to the Berlin site and we're ongoing with those. Clayton hired probably two years ago, it's a different title for them, but we call regional director. We have a regional director for Addison County, we have a regional director for Orange And Northern Windsor, and Monica White is the person who GMT has been relying on as their lead manager and director for Washington County. I've been working very closely with her for the past year, developing that relationship and setting her up for the expectations of how TBT operates and functions. It's been a great relationship and I'm really excited to have her coming on board to be part of our team and provide consistency for all of the Washington County employees in terms of leadership on the ground. They're going to be working with her and she's working closely with us. As part of our transition, we have already added the GMT board member, current GMT board member for Washington County onto our transition committee. So there's board representation from GMT already in terms of ensuring that what's been important for GMT employees remains in our site and we're taking into consideration not only the employees but the community members. So that's an integration that we've already started. As Clayton noted earlier, there's been a lot of close conversations where he's been very good about giving us heads up about they're looking to make certain changes. With this work with TBT once TBT becomes responsible. One of those has been developing an MOU with Sugarbush. There had never been an actual written document between Sugarbush and GMT outlining the responsibilities of both entities and primarily, and most importantly, I think the level of fiscal support that Sugarbush would be providing. As you've heard in many years in committee meetings, all of public transit requires local funding to match and draw down federal funds, and those funds from Sugarbush are a part of that mix, but we were part of those conversations, which was great to begin the relationship building there. I heard a question earlier about volunteer coordinators. We have already worked closely with GMT to help them leverage an aging grant that they'd had, but hadn't been able to execute upon to hire a volunteer coordinator for Washington County. So that position has been in place since October, which is great to add that into the mix. You've all heard in many forums about how important volunteer drivers are in terms of not only delivering service, but helping to manage costs. We've also established a new position that Washington County has not had before, something we call the community relations manager. This is a person whose primary role is to be the liaison with community members, with all of the human service agencies, with the select boards and with other community members. That's been a critical role in TBT's prior success to have somebody whose 100% focus is around that. You get to hear from, as Caleb noted, certainly drivers hear a lot, but it's great for people to have a liaison that riders can talk to, talk about what their hopes and dreams are for service. And we can work and plan and modify services that are currently in place or build upon services that are not yet in place. So in a small twist of, I don't know quite if irony is the right word, but we had an open position for that in our Orange And Northern Windsor office, we made a hire over the summer, that person actually happens to live in Montpelier and as we have moved towards the integration of Washington County, we're already going to be moving her from Orange And Northern Windsor, which will be lost there, but into her own community and be the community relations manager for Washington County. So another resource that we're implementing even in advance of our official takeover to build upon the promise of Washington County. So getting the volunteer coordinator in place, getting the community relations in place, We've just seen these as really important things to do even ahead of our official assumption of the services. We've actually been helping GMT also leverage some grant money to fix some critical facility flaws that they've had in their Berlin office. Anybody with some historical knowledge knows that it's in a flood plain in Berlin and was hammered originally by tropical storm Irene, and certainly again, in the heavy rainstorms in the past few summers. So we're helping coordinate the use of those grant funds to fix some flaws in the building. Again, I guess an example of how we are collectively working closely to leverage our knowledge and information and expertise to help continue to rebuild Washington County services. We've also had our IT consultant go in and do an initial assessment of all of the GMT hardware and software systems and help us develop a transition plan. Caleb alluded earlier to technology is a really big element of these transitions because so much of information, data communication happens through newer information technology. So you may have heard in prior sessions also about a statewide dispatching software project, TVT was the lead agency for all the providers around the state in implementing the new dispatch software. It's being spread out around the state, it's not yet at GMT in Washington County. We are actively working with them to get that installed and implemented prior to the July 1 transition date as well. So again, another example of even though we are not the official operator there, we are partnering very closely to move and build and expand on what's going on there. The partnership already is paying benefits both directions. You know that GMT in Washington County operates a micro transit service, MyRide service, their software provider Via has worked really closely with them and really done a great job with helping them build a really successful program. We have a different software program in Millbury that we're using that we have been struggling with, and so we are working now with Via to take advantage of their knowledge and skills and probably on a pathway where we'll be implementing that software in Middlebury. So another place where the scale that Kaleb often alluded to of being a larger organization will pay benefits. TDT, a number of years ago was the recipient of a grant for implementation of electric vehicles. Some of those grant funds are still available and we're gonna be using those grant funds to get a couple of electric vehicles for operation in Washington service as well. So another great example of what the partnership can do to leverage resources that one or other entities may have had, but been able to not use to this date cross pollination there. And it's really exciting from my perspective. And probably the last formal comment that I have is that we've certainly been paying close attention to Caleb and his team and what they've been learning in the transition around January 1. So good lessons learned there for what to look out for as we get closer to July 1. I will say that TVT does have historical experience in transitioning services and operations. Ross mentioned that, gosh, now it was about thirteen years ago that I was the executive director of only ACTR Addison County Transit Resources, and the agency came to us and asked if we would be in a position to help manage what was then stagecoach in Orange, Northern Windsor in the Randolph area. They were going through leadership transitions and financial challenges. We took that on as a management contract for three years and then merged together to form TBT. So we've been through the experience of taking on another region and working to do that. I'm really proud of how seamless we made it. Kale began, spoke very strongly about And representative Pouech knows this, but we also transitioned a couple of years ago, we had a collaborative service between Burlington and Middlebury on Route 116 through Hinesburg, and we transitioned to become the sole provider of that service and has been very successful, and I feel good about how we've partnered with the town of Hinesburg in terms of their local support. We've seen in the couple of years, we've already seen a 20% increase in ridership. So again, another positive element of these types of consolidations and partnerships. So I'm happy to answer questions from anybody and everybody.

[Matt Walker, Chair]: Thank you very much. Representative Pouech, please. Yeah, thanks, Jim.

[Phil Pouech, Ranking Member]: Any I'll ask the same question, I guess. Any particular surprises and or cost being, you know, kept whole through this process? Maybe, you know, you mentioned the facility in Berlin, which I know for years has been a challenge for you. I don't know if that would be something you bring up, but just surprises and and the financial changes, making sure it's not impacting Tri Valley Transit.

[Jim Moulton, Executive Director, Tri Valley Transit (TVT)]: Sure. I think this is gonna sound a little funny, but I think in some ways the biggest surprise, I will be frank and for two years or so, there's been a tremendous amount of media coverage around the struggles of GMT. And it's certainly been portrayed in the media as like, it's really bad, it's really this, it's really that. When I walked in to meet all the staff in Washington County, I was just incredibly impressed by the commitment of everybody there to the mission, to the service, the quality of people that have been serving, Clayton hired Monica, it's been a fabulous hire. I'm really incredibly lucky to be inheriting someone with her talent and commitment. So I think that some of the media reports that have been across the past couple of years have been portrayed in an unfair way. It's been a great positive surprise. And it's just really energized me and the TBT teams and the Washington County employees to feel like we're all on the same page. We all want the same successes for our riders and for our communities. So that's by far for me that biggest surprise. I wouldn't say from a negative, like, oh my God, I just looked under that rock and there's an endless pit. We have not had any of those. And his team have been very transparent from the beginning and that's been great. So yeah, I think the financial piece that has certainly been talked about in prior sessions about one of the goals and one of the hopes and dreams is that this transition will allow for some savings within operating the services there. Again, as Caleb mentioned in his testimony, we'll have to see as that works out. But I think some of the things I've mentioned already, taking languishing grants and being able to leverage them to be able to cross pollinate with electric vehicles or to cross pollinate with micro transit software, those are the types of efficiencies that we can come up with, which will inevitably lead to cost savings, which given inflation may not always be really obvious right up front, but even if costs stay level, that is in an inflationary environment, would deem as a success.

[Phil Pouech, Ranking Member]: Yeah, and I was gonna sort of say this to the end and just let this committee know and anybody listening. I've worked with some of the transit agencies and seeing Caleb here talk about his agency. I'm really impressed on how passionate the people that I've met in this group are to provide transit. In a way, it sort of reminds me of like when you run across healthcare workers who like just seem to be working really hard and they must be passionate about it to put themselves out there. I do see that same thing. So Jim, as you had said, you know, there's a mission and people are dedicated to this mission to provide transit for people who need it. And, you know, it's making our communities that much better. So even though we hear the complaints, every day thousands of people have gotten their ride, their much needed ride, and can get on with their life.

[Jim Moulton, Executive Director, Tri Valley Transit (TVT)]: Yeah, I do wanna actually, representative Pouech, you prompted me to remember that Chairman Walker, had asked specifically about customer satisfaction, ridership and sort of the before and after. We are already working with Monica and her team, we'll be doing a survey of bus riders in the upcoming spring, in March. It's something that TVT does every year for all of its riders, so it's something we're very user satisfaction, rider satisfaction is a really important metric. We have our standard set of questions that we ask in terms of do people feel safe? Do they feel it's convenient, it's flexible, is it meeting their needs? All these kinds of things. So we will be doing a sort of before version of that. We also do ongoing surveys of our dialyriders. And so gathering that information now as a baseline, because I know that the committee feels that's important, but then also we do that annually. So we'll get that kind of feedback going forward as well in fiscal year 'twenty seven and beyond. So I just wanted to make sure I followed up on that question as well.

[Ross McDonald, Public Transit Program Manager, VTrans]: Thank you. Clayton,

[Matt Walker, Chair]: wasn't

[Caleb Grant, Rural Community Transportation (RCT)]: sure if I'm sure your hand

[Matt Walker, Chair]: was up or not there. Did you have something you wanted to add?

[Clayton Clark, General Manager, Green Mountain Transit]: I was going to add to the answer of the question that Representative Pouech had about a surprise because I wanted to share a surprise that I had that shows really how human this work is. But before I do that, say, I want to say, Phil, we miss you on the GMT board, so thank you for your past service there. On New Year's Eve night, I was at St. Albans and I was super impressed by the RTT staff that were working late there to get things running. But I was also talking with the people that were leaving because we had family members of ours that were leaving to go to RCT. And the thing that I heard over and over from them was how excited they were about RCT's jackets because they were so

[Matt Walker, Chair]: much nicer than the ones

[Clayton Clark, General Manager, Green Mountain Transit]: that GMT had. And that they're in these jackets, like ten, twelve hours a day and how that improves their life so immensely. And it just like, it's the simple things that often really are the most important.

[Jim Moulton, Executive Director, Tri Valley Transit (TVT)]: Yeah.

[Matt Walker, Chair]: Represent what?

[Unidentified Committee Member (Mad River Valley district)]: Yeah, Jim, thank you for your report on the transition. I look forward to TBT coming into the Valley. So comment and a question. My comment is we would love to see one or two of those electric buses in the Mad River Valley, if you're looking for places to deploy them. We have a lot of enthusiastic environmentalists there. But my question, you had talked about in the transition, you identified some grant funding that hadn't been deployed to use for upgrading the bus facility, and there was something else. So I'm just curious, how does it happen that there are grant funds that came from Tropical Storm Irene that hadn't been deployed.

[Jim Moulton, Executive Director, Tri Valley Transit (TVT)]: No, didn't mean to indicate that those grant funds had been sitting around for almost ten years. No, there are situations where grant funds can be awarded that they can't be leveraged at the beginning of like when they're first out there, just random circumstances come up with our electric vehicles as an example, they were originally intended to be used for cutaways, the type of vehicles where they're basically built on the platform of Ford trucks, but for a long time, were not available anywhere in The US that were FTA approved as a very special process to go through FTA approval and we couldn't get ahold of cutaways. So now we're purchasing smaller vehicles, electric vans. So sometimes there are those kinds of situations where funds may be awarded, but for whatever reason, something gets in the way. And where I was really trying to emphasize is that by bringing GMT and TVT together, even in this collaborative process before the transition has enabled us to generate the use of more resources. The teamwork has really been a way for us to jumpstart some of these grant funds that haven't been necessarily used immediately. There's a million things that go through procurement, our procurement staff at either organization, procurement in the transit arena is a very complicated thing, the rules and regulations we have to abide by, the process we have to go through to do that. Sometimes one staff person or one staff department may be overwhelmed, but the other staff department has some capacity. And we've been using those situations to take advantage of some of these situations. So more a testament to what the working together and collaborative process has been to the goal of this whole transition, as Ross sort of began from the beginning was like, how do we take the resources we've got and do a better job with them, be more efficient, be more effective? And these are just examples of how that's happening through this process.

[Unidentified Committee Member (Mad River Valley district)]: I understand, thank you.

[Jim Moulton, Executive Director, Tri Valley Transit (TVT)]: You're welcome.

[Matt Walker, Chair]: Anybody else have any questions or input or comments?

[Ross McDonald, Public Transit Program Manager, VTrans]: No, okay. Well, I think

[Matt Walker, Chair]: we got through this portion of our agenda quicker. Certainly went that positive. It goes faster. So thank you very much for being here. Clayton, thanks for coming in multiple times today. Same with you, Caleb, Ross. That's part of your day to day job. Did I miss I'm sorry. Dan Currier was on the list. Did you cover what?

[Ross McDonald, Public Transit Program Manager, VTrans]: We're just providing and making sure there's somebody here. Okay. So

[Matt Walker, Chair]: there, anybody else have any last comments? Then thank you very much. And we're going to adjourn for a short break. And we're going to come back for committee discussion at 02:15.