Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: We're live. We see the little red block. That means it's section by section. Welcome back to Dana Moore, who's here. And with that, I will turn it over to you and head to the administrative budget and wherever else we end up.

[Jayna Morse (Director of Administration, Vermont AOT)]: So

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: thank you very much.

[Jayna Morse (Director of Administration, Vermont AOT)]: Thank you. For the record, my name is Jaina Morse. I'm the Director of Administration for the Agency of Transportation. And I have with me today I brought with me today Secretary Flynn, Maureen Parker, our Deputy Director of Administration, Brad McEvoy, Director of Facilities, and Todd Eaton, the Manager of Vermont Local Roads. So Todd and Brad will both be presenting their budgets, and I'll be going over the overview. So we have several appropriations within the Division of Administration, but let's talk about the people and who we are first. So we are a division of currently 136 positions that supports the entire agency, including the Department of Motor Vehicles. We interact with the public. We interact with our contracting community. We do a lot of work internally. And we work a lot with our municipalities as well. Our scope is broad, and our agencies' critical functions are supported throughout all of the work that we do. So this depicts a snapshot behind me of our leadership team who is responsible for the functional areas of occupational health and safety, emergency services, facilities, hazmat, financial operations, budget, and business support, communications and public outreach, continuous improvement, our advances in artificial intelligence, business intelligence and performance, civil rights and labor compliance, contract administration, audit and records management, learning and development, Vermont Local Roads and our administrative hearings team. We also liaise quite regularly with the agency of Digital Services, Human Resources and the Attorney General's Office on our administrative matters. So this year, our administration division, for those that use the white book, this is white book section four, and there's one page behind it. Our budget this year is 25,000,000.4, In our total budget, that breaks down to about 24,000,000 in transportation fund and 1.3 in federal funds. So overall, this is a decrease for our budget of $1,100,000 or 4% of our budget. The decrease is primarily attributed to a reduction in force from both the fiscal twenty six expenditure reduction plan and the conversation that Secretary Flynn introduced earlier today with the additional eight positions this year. Our budget also includes the attorney general's office salary and benefits for five staff attorneys who support the entire REPRESENTATIVE agency. References. REPRESENTATIVE BLOYD:

[James "Jim" Casey (Member)]: Did you say are they with the attorney general's office or are they embedded in your?

[Jayna Morse (Director of Administration, Vermont AOT)]: It's five assistant attorney general positions that are embedded with our organization. So we fund the position, but they report to the attorney general.

[James "Jim" Casey (Member)]: Okay, thank

[Jayna Morse (Director of Administration, Vermont AOT)]: you. Yes. Thank you for clarifying that part.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Gina, still got 136

[Joe Flynn (Secretary of Transportation, Vermont AOT)]: positions. Do have a

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: ballpark idea of how many are open and how many are Are they all filled at this point?

[Jayna Morse (Director of Administration, Vermont AOT)]: They're not all filled. We have about 14 vacancies, some of which are under active recruitment. That mean there's some that's not under active recruitment? There are some that are included in this year's reduction in force plan. Thank you. Yes. So our budget breakdown, just a little bit different with you. We have our funding profile over my right shoulder and our spending profile over my left shoulder. So again, this is the $24,100,000 in T Fund and the $1,300,000 in Federal Fund. And then our spending profile is primarily personal services. We have some operating costs as well and then our grants. So I'll start with the grants. The $50,000 is a Federal Fund grant that goes to our National Summer Transportation Institute program that's managed by our civil rights and labor compliance team, bringing in young students from across the state and out of state into Vermont for several weeks of learning about transportation at both the middle school and high school level. And then the other portion of our budget, we're about 95% operational and about 5% we have a little bit of discretion over how we spend our funds. So the operational includes those personal services, service level agreements with digital services, human resources, and anyone else that we might need to have an MOU or operating agreement with, like the attorney general's office. We have mandatory certification trainings for some of our employees, so those are included in the 95%. We have printing, postal services, phone services, and leased operations. We have respirator training. Those are some of the examples that are in our core budget. And the things that we have for that 5% discretionary, we do have some funds in here for nonmandatory training, for ad hoc fleet rentals, and contracts for services that we leverage sporadically. So it's not something that we have a consistent pay payment for every month. So we budgeted for a 136 positions, and then we accommodated the reduction in force through $1,200,000 in additional vacancy savings. And that for us is eight positions, five of which are filled and three of which are vacant. So this just looks a little bit differently at our spending profile details in transportation fund and federal funds. So you can see how our breakdown of federal funds are allocated. So you'll see that in personal services. Some of our operating expenditures like travel, training, things that are associated with our they're called 504E funds. It's a federal bucket of funds that's dedicated explicitly for the training education of our employees to ensure that they can deliver the services required by the federal administrations. And then as I mentioned before, that $50,000 grant is for the NSTI program, National Summer Transportation Institute.

[Joe Flynn (Secretary of Transportation, Vermont AOT)]: Just a clarification on notifications from the people that are being let go. Assuming that process plays out June 30, it's not like they haven't been notified now, are you?

[Jayna Morse (Director of Administration, Vermont AOT)]: No, we're still working through the labor relations and collective bargaining agreement process, but it's anticipated that notifications will go out before June 30.

[Joe Flynn (Secretary of Transportation, Vermont AOT)]: Yeah, was sorry at the time. So they could theoretically be gone before Before fiscal twenty seven starts, that's correct. For King White? Sorry.

[Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: Yeah, thank you, Jay. Would you just repeat what you said about federal grant for training of employees? Where was that all here?

[Jayna Morse (Director of Administration, Vermont AOT)]: So that's accommodated in our operating and some of our personal services. So we do have $500,000 allocated in 504E funds. That's a specific category of federal dollars that is allowable our employees to receive training and education to further their leadership, their technical skills in the space of transportation. It's eligible for all modes. The entire agency is eligible to participate or utilize those funds for training. There also, as I added it into personal services as well, some of this into personal services as well, because there are travel components that would be considered part of that personal services versus operating breakdown in the back end.

[Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: And is that completely federally funded or is there a

[Jayna Morse (Director of Administration, Vermont AOT)]: state It's match as 100% federal.

[Brad McEvoy (Director of Facilities, Vermont AOT)]: Thank you. Representative Pouech and then representative.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. Thanks. And just so I understand, so the total budget for this apartment is 24,000,000, and you're only able to really leverage federal funds for 1.3 Okay, within yeah, so the rest of it's state

[Jayna Morse (Director of Administration, Vermont AOT)]: funds. Does

[Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: grant funding, are they competitive? How do they get allocated? How do you

[James "Jim" Casey (Member)]: decide who gets what training?

[Jayna Morse (Director of Administration, Vermont AOT)]: The $50,000 for training, it's a one time allocation to the agency from Federal Highway, so we apply for it. And then that is given specifically to the NSTI program. So we administer that program and that grant pays for the university that we partner with. So there's no really competitive application process for it other than every once in a while we go out for bid for who we would do the services with. We partnered with Vermont. So the $50,000 is solely for those it's the Summer Transportation Institute. So it's a week for I might get this backwards. It's a period of time, either a week or two weeks for the high school program and then a week or two weeks for the middle school program. And that's the only program that that $50,000 supports.

[James "Jim" Casey (Member)]: Yes. That's right. Yes. Currently, we don't need contractors.

[Jayna Morse (Director of Administration, Vermont AOT)]: Vermont State College. Thank you.

[James "Jim" Casey (Member)]: The universities. Oh, yes. You're correct.

[Jayna Morse (Director of Administration, Vermont AOT)]: Or you don't. I stand corrected. So that's all I have, but I'm happy to take any additional questions before trying to over Yes, to sir. So one of the

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: things we don't talk a lot about in Merit is how we structure and compare to other states and other, obviously highways in every state and whatnot. If this is approximately $25,000,000 out of our $317,000,000 T funds, so 8% of our money that we how does that compare administratively, you think, to other states or similar sized states? Or do we look at it that way at all?

[Jayna Morse (Director of Administration, Vermont AOT)]: I haven't compared the budget. I've looked at some of the services that our department provides versus what other administrative services. Like, how do we look as an organization compared to others, not necessarily from a funding perspective, but are we working on similar things? Are we prioritizing similar things? And there's a group of peers that I meet with several times a year through our American Association of State and Highway Transportation Officials as an agency administration managing committee. We collaborate on issues that are relevant for all of us. And what we're finding is that many of us have a core set of functionality that we're all responsible for. And then almost all of us has one little tangent that might be a little bit different. I'll use, for example, I have safety and emergency services. That's not always in administer what we would consider an administrative bucket. Facilities might not be in an administrative bucket as many organizations look at that as the financial operations, the contracting operations. And then we will say many. There's at least a handful that have a separation there. But then we look at others and they also have everything that our administrative department is responsible for and then some. So it really varies depending on each state, but there is a group of core functionality. So would say it wouldn't be fair to compare apples to apples financially because the services that we provide are so different. I hope that's helpful.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: I'm curious how it might compare and how you might look at it because there is some that would push back and argue that perhaps we're too top heavy and that every dollar that we spend here is not a dollar that's being leveraged in federal money or work on the ground. And it's hard for us to look at a big number like that without really understanding everything that you do than ask, what are the right questions to ask that is that '25 and projected to be 26 and 26 and 26 for the next three, four years? Is that how can we dig into knowing whether that is or is not the right amount of money for the amount of work that happens? It's a tough question from an oversight perspective, and I'm not sure how to dig into that.

[Jayna Morse (Director of Administration, Vermont AOT)]: I would say that we are right sized for the services that we provide and that those projects and programs can't be delivered without my team. There's not going to be anybody there to pay the bills. There's not going to be anybody there to put out the RFPs, to draft those contracts, to monitor the contracts, to audit the contracts and the services that we provide without funding the team and so many other aspects of the work that they do. So those projects and programs just won't be delivered without my team.

[Joe Flynn (Secretary of Transportation, Vermont AOT)]: Thank you very much. You're welcome. I'm sorry, broke your own.

[Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: Yeah, just one more quick question. Jana, you've been in this position for, it sounds like a long time, it's been about four, four and a half years. And so can you just speak to when you first came in, what was the size, how many total positions you had? And do you remember the total budget then? Just kind of curious for some historical comparison.

[Jayna Morse (Director of Administration, Vermont AOT)]: I'm not entirely sure. I know we did grow in positions. I don't know the exact number, but we did have a number of limited service positions that we received through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act that were then terminated earlier this year. And since I have been with the agency, my position prior, I had gained a couple of positions, but I can only speak for the role I was in prior and what I had changed there. But I'd be

[Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: happy to follow-up with you on Maybe just five years ago versus now, and that'd be super helpful.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Secretary Flynn is going to

[Joe Flynn (Secretary of Transportation, Vermont AOT)]: jump in, and then you're going to be next. Thank you very much, Joe, and Secretary, to your questions. Thing that's important to mention, when I came into this role, one of the things the management team looked into was the number of business offices within the Agency of Transportation, primarily V trains. And I believe there were like seven business offices. The highway division had a business office, rail had a business office, maintenance had a business office, project delivery had a business office, and we consolidated that into one business office. Now we didn't necessarily shed every other vacancy, we repurposed some people elsewhere, but we cross trained the people that we had, that we kept, so that you knew how to do some of the work, the specialty work that Highway did, for example, if you came from the other business office. And I bring that up because I think it speaks to the questions, sort of the surrounding point to the questions that are being asked at this moment. There's always ways to perhaps look to become more efficient, but we did take a look at that and look at it, as it just didn't make sense to me that we had six or seven silos that processed paperwork sort of independent of each other. Just So some of our team, to Dana's point, she's been the director for four years, was started doing this in 2017, so just for the community to see.

[Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: That makes a lot of sense, thank you.

[Jayna Morse (Director of Administration, Vermont AOT)]: I'll also add to the, sorry, Representative Keyser. I'll also add to the response when I send that to you, some of the changes that we've made operationally, you can see that we gained positions, but these are the programs that were shifted as well.

[Joe Flynn (Secretary of Transportation, Vermont AOT)]: Theresa, representative? Yes. And Representative Pouech, I'm gonna represent you.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Yeah, I think it's for this information. I assume the federal government audits their programs and all that. And I'm guessing it mostly comes into your area, the auditing activities. So my question is, how much of that is happening? Have there been any changes over the last couple of years on, assuming we continue to do a good job and pass all this, and any recent changes in auditing programs or adjusting programs to meet federal expectations or standards?

[Jayna Morse (Director of Administration, Vermont AOT)]: So we have a really great relationship with our federal partners, particularly Federal Highway. And we collaborate with them monthly, at least, on how is our program doing? Where are we heading with things? What could we do to do better? And so we've initiated several different continuous improvement projects over the years to understand project closures. For example, how can we shorten the project closure time so as our projects are closing, it's freeing up those funds that might have not been spent to go back into our budget and be able to be allocated to additional projects or to new projects. As part of that, we also recently hired a new audit section chief, and she's been looking at all of our processes, our procedures, diving into some of our programs a little bit differently. And our audit chief, it's not a gotcha program. This is how can we catch things and make sure that we are compliant and that we are ahead of any audit that might be coming our way. So maybe, Maureen, if there's anything that you'd like to add on any initiatives that the audit chief is working on now, or she reports directly to Maureen.

[Maureen Parker (Deputy Director of Administration, Vermont AOT)]: Thank you, partner, deputy director. There are several things we've been discussing, but right now she's really acclimated, getting familiar, networking with the AASHTO groups nationally to get best practices in place, and it just means having to settle all this, but allowing the horizon.

[Joe Flynn (Secretary of Transportation, Vermont AOT)]: This may, Jane, dovetail into some of this stuff. Is there any application for AI in the things that you do? There any Because we're getting Generally, my experience has been that the general AI isn't very helpful in specific applications. Anyway, that's my question. Have you got anywhere with that?

[Jayna Morse (Director of Administration, Vermont AOT)]: We have. So we just recently hired a new artificial intelligence and business intelligence program manager. She's got a really big title. She's the BIP, as we call it. Business intelligence and performance is the BIP manager. So she's only been with us for less than six months. And in that time, some of the initiatives that she's working on are she's working with our leading our data governance program. We can't really do anything unless we understand what our data is, where it is and how it's being managed and then categorize that data. So we've done we've made some strides in that area already, just forming the data governance committee, engaging in participation across the entire organization. And then one of the areas that she and I have piloted I've been part of her pilot. I can't say she and I have piloted. It is her pilot that I've participated in is understanding how we can build job books for future. So a lot of our positions have job specifications that are posted online that we can bring in language from. And then coupling that with an interview that may be recorded or a completion of a worksheet by an employee. This is where I've participated in establishing a job book for my role. So were I not to be able to come to work tomorrow, somebody might know how to pick up the work that I'm doing, who my key contacts are, what are my primary responsibilities, what is my job? So we're using AI to build that job book by capturing and bringing in the various files and then using the the language dialogue that we've recorded to be able to do something like that. And then there's a few other data applications, but I'm not the best person to explain this.

[Joe Flynn (Secretary of Transportation, Vermont AOT)]: There is Bennington. Thank you. Representative Moore?

[James "Jim" Casey (Member)]: So if Representative White doesn't mind that you send that information, she's requesting to our committee assistant, then she can distribute it to the rest of the committee. Thank you. And then my last question is, did you say that public safety and emergency? We have

[Jayna Morse (Director of Administration, Vermont AOT)]: a safety and occupational health and safety and emergency services team as part of an air medical department. Is that unusual? Occupational safety is very usual. The hazmat and emergency services might be a little bit different depending But on the what I've seen is it's about fiftyfifty. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. I'll turn it over to Todd.

[Todd Eaton (Manager, Vermont Local Roads Program)]: Good morning. Thank you. For the record, my name is Todd Eaton with the branch manager for Vermont Local Roast. Thank you for the opportunity to share our budget overview with you. It's the arrow buttons, Dana. So largely as far as fiscal year twenty seven is concerned, we've started over the last few years, we've started a few new programs. And so our focus for this next fiscal year is to focus primarily on our continuous improvement. And so I've divided that the three different areas as far as where we're gonna looking to continue to improve. One is the enhancing our leadership capabilities or enhancing leadership capabilities of the municipality specifically. Over the last couple of years, of some of the job market, things that volatility that's been present within that, there's been a lot of turnover with municipal road foreman and municipal road crew. And I've had a lot of requests and I've even had the opportunity to individually mentor some of the newer road foreman. The reason being is because oftentimes because of the competitive market, the municipality was only able to attract a younger road foreman. And so they didn't have leadership experience or management experience. So I've been able to come alongside of them and help them increase their understanding in that. Three years ago, we started a leadership academy, which is a 10 session ongoing over the course of six months program, where we focus specifically on all of those leadership capabilities, increasing that with a cohort of up to 20 municipalities, they have to apply for it, they have to get their select board support, they have to provide a resume, basically there it's, it's, it's, we structure it in a competitive manner to, to, I guess, weed out who's, who's really serious about working on that, working on those skills. The final project for that is to do a presentation. One of the things for as far as leadership capabilities, being able to do public speaking so that they can do presentations for both the committees within municipality, select board itself, so on and so forth. As far as work zone safety, we've started grants to both provide more assets and to municipalities, especially the smaller ones. These smaller grants are focused on, they're competitive grants that focus looking to help benefit most of the smaller municipalities that don't have the financial capability to get a lot of the safety equipment that they're required to provide further workers a safe environment while they're working in the road. So we have a grant for signed packages that provides four different municipalities with funding for a full sign package. And then there's also another grant alongside of that, that is a temporary traffic control lighting grant, provides up to $10,000 for temporary traffic lighting like the temporary stoplights, which are proven, you know, through all sorts of different studies to be far safer than using flaggers. And all of those drive to further training to, you know, drawing those municipalities into expanding their understanding and experience and capabilities as far as how to set things up safely to protect the municipal workers. And finally, to promote roadway rigidity, this year we're bringing up another 10, up to $10,000 grant to help municipalities with different pieces of equipment that will help make more stable roadways. And that also again drives municipalities to some of our training programs that would also help with that as well. So specifically, this is the breakdown of our budget. This, as you can see on the bottom of the slide, we're asking again for a level funding. The program, myself, our program coordinator, Holly Hayden, and we also hire on a temporary position throughout the summer to provide some of those technical training services alongside myself and other contractors to, and so that's the salary and benefits portion of that. The rest of it's personal services, professional services, excuse me, which is primarily contracting other trainers and other ways in which to bring information and training to the municipalities and then the other smaller amounts as you see there. The breakdown between federal and state as it is. And with that, I'll take any questions if you have any.

[Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: Thank you. I have two questions. When you're talking about work zone safety and working with municipalities to apply for grants to get these lights, for example, that are better than flyers, when a municipality is able to purchase one of these, do they then have it in their possession so they can do it for other road projects?

[Todd Eaton (Manager, Vermont Local Roads Program)]: Yes. Yes, that becomes theirs.

[Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: Because my understanding is that flagging is pretty costly as well as labor intensive.

[Todd Eaton (Manager, Vermont Local Roads Program)]: So since I believe this is my thirteenth year with the Vermont Local Worlds program, my fifth as its branch manager, since I started as the technical training service professional or whatever. One of the things that I've tried to promote is just those lights because municipalities on average is between 5 and $7,000 to bring in flaggers with all of the different paraphernalia that they would have to provide for like a one, you know, one daylight period project on the road. So the $10,000 grant, some are most of the the lighting systems that I recommend to municipalities run somewhere around 60,000. And so obviously the cost benefit analysis there works out pretty quickly as far as the value. I suggest to municipalities that they partner with their neighbor, share them because obviously one, many of our remote municipalities aren't gonna need them constantly. So that just brings a cost, makes it more, and the grant is open to that so that they can, one municipality can get the benefit of that, but they still can share the cost with the Navy.

[Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: And does the grant, is it a $8.20 or is it a?

[Todd Eaton (Manager, Vermont Local Roads Program)]: It's up to $10,000 and so depending on the lighting systems they go for is where it of ebbs and flows there.

[Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: Thank you. And then one other question. So you're working a lot with municipalities. Are you doing anything with salt reduction and helping that? Is that your kind of purview or does that fall under our needs for somebody else's?

[Todd Eaton (Manager, Vermont Local Roads Program)]: Yes, so winter maintenance training, we provide winter maintenance training, we provide what we call snow and ice training, and it's right on par with a lot of what you see in Connecticut or New Hampshire as far as the Green Snow Pro programs curriculum. And yes, we've been in conversation with ANR as far as the, I believe it's S-two 18.

[Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: And are you familiar with the salt use program that's used in the Adderall Dex and New York State?

[Todd Eaton (Manager, Vermont Local Roads Program)]: I can't say that I am, specifically.

[Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: Okay, and one other question, just when you're working with municipalities on salt use, many asking for your help with that? How many municipalities are actually engaged in that?

[Todd Eaton (Manager, Vermont Local Roads Program)]: It changes with, I would say we run on average about 70% engagement through with municipalities with all of our training, and that includes winter maintenance. And so that changes depending on leadership changes, you know, turnover, things like that. You know, sometimes you have leadership in a municipality that's much more open to partnering with Vermont local roads or training. Sometimes you have leadership that comes into a municipality that finds it to maybe it doesn't match their, you know, cost benefit criteria.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Thank you. Representative Pouech? Yeah, thanks for this. And I'll say, I mean, programs, I can say, have helped Heinzburg a lot. I think we've got one of them, traffic safety, one of those. You just said about 70% of municipalities participate in the program, which is good. Is there, I got a couple of questions. One, is there anything that requires municipalities to participate in any particular programs to get, you know, access the road funds or grants? Is that a step along the way that said, hey, you know, if you want these grants, you have to do this program. That's just one. And I'm not saying you need to make it mandatory. I'm just asking that question. That would be one question anyways. So the

[Todd Eaton (Manager, Vermont Local Roads Program)]: there's only a couple training certifications that are required for certain pieces of their work for municipal road crews. So obviously that generates regulatory training. The grants that we provide are they're competitive and they're based on essay questions. I try to make them more simplified because anticipating it would be a busy road foreman that is, you know, doing dual operation to be filling these out, but they're based on five essay questions. Two of those essay questions are an opportunity for them to articulate their internal training program and how they engage in training and how they can plan on continuing to engage in training if they are to win that particular grant. So it's not mandatory, but it is part of the competitive nature of being able to receive the grant to show how they're pursuing training and building a training program internally.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: And I'm curious on a couple of these grant programs, what percentage you're able to satisfy the grants versus what percentage, you know, what's asked for and how much are we able to satisfy it? So like, is it 25 municipalities asked for it? We're able to satisfy 10 of them, so almost 50% or something. That would be good to know. We don't need to know it now, but it would just to see. Again, I think these are really good programs. I think they really help our municipalities. The other one is, I was gonna ask the question before you even brought it up, sharing resources. I know our town has worked with neighboring towns on a couple of things, sharing things. And I wonder if that's just happening of town by town? Or is there anything that your organization is doing to sort of encourage that? Because it seems like that would be, you buy a big piece of equipment, if it just sits idle for two or three months in the summertime or two months, then sort of renting it out to the other municipality or even we've had people move back and forth a little bit, which has been helpful when we've had the big storm damage. So just, yeah, thanks for that question.

[Todd Eaton (Manager, Vermont Local Roads Program)]: Sure, again, so I've been part of the program for, wanna say going on thirteen years, that has been a message that I've tried to convey since the beginning, because municipalities are always challenged with their financial constraints. In the last five years, that's only become more. So it's become more, it's been a message that's been retained and received much more readily in the last five years, just because of necessity. Addison County, Hindsburg included, has been a good model for that, even before some of the recent, you know, joint equipment purchases that they've done, even with just trying to increase their buying power as far as materials in the area. They've done a lot of good work for that and that is increasing and I've used them as a model for a lot of that, trying to convey that message. So it's something that that I work very closely with the regional planning commissions to try to increase that. Yeah.

[Joe Flynn (Secretary of Transportation, Vermont AOT)]: Thank

[Brad McEvoy (Director of Facilities, Vermont AOT)]: you. Doctor. Noel, do you want add anything more?

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Yeah. Just a final question. I'm wondering, could you speak to whether or not this program is linked in any ways to the general roads permit and to the MS4 permits that are

[Todd Eaton (Manager, Vermont Local Roads Program)]: charged to municipal general permit. So Chad, who oversees that particular program, Part of his mandate is to provide updates and training throughout the year. He does that in direct correlation with me. That's actually, he just emailed me this morning to start setting up our spring training, you know, calendar for the MRGP program. So very closely we work with that. MS4 is a little bit different of an animal for the larger municipalities. And so that's not a program that I work necessarily very closely with that program, but the concepts within MS4 is something that we convey as far as the expectations of that.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Do you see utility in having those two requirements in closer alignment to help towns get credit for some of the work they're doing, maybe encourage them to, incentivize them to do more of these best management practices. I'm thinking as we get into, know, SALT is obviously becoming bigger and bigger issues. It seems like we are, our towns are having to meet these requirements in somewhat of a siloed way. We're starting to talk about funding permitting that

[James "Jim" Casey (Member)]: is more cross cutting. Are

[Todd Eaton (Manager, Vermont Local Roads Program)]: you asking if MS4 and the MRGP should be joined together?

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Yeah, the bottom up view. What do you think? You're working with these folks and I'm just kind of getting a sense as we policymakers try to figure out next steps and we have to figure out how to do more with less if there are any efficiencies that you see kind of coming around the bend. Apologies if I'm putting you on the spot, because I realize I'm sort

[James "Jim" Casey (Member)]: of am. I'm happy to jump in for

[Jayna Morse (Director of Administration, Vermont AOT)]: a second while you give a thought to what you've said from a program perspective. So, Jada Morrison, I'm the agency director of administration. Todd's program has a particular focus, and we really like to partner across the rest of the state where it makes sense. One of the things that I've noticed from the 50,000 foot view is that every municipality just a little bit different. Their needs are a little bit different. The demands on each of the municipalities just vary a little bit. So there may be opportunities in areas where it would make sense to try to streamline some of the offerings to municipalities or the best management practices. And there may be areas where it just doesn't. And I don't have the expertise in this particular avenue to weigh in on where it might make sense. When you asked your question, was the first thing that came to mind is I'm not sure that it's a one size fits all, and that there might be something really daring. Todd, I'll turn it back to you if have anything else you could add that.

[Todd Eaton (Manager, Vermont Local Roads Program)]: That's exactly along the lines that I was thinking as far as the difference between the regulations for the MS4 and the MRGP. I think they are suited well as far as where they're targeted right now. The MRGP, my perspective, and I'm not sure how Chad would say, I would assume he'd say something similar. I think it's doing very well, especially in showing the value, one of the value that all of these best management practices provide not only for water quality, but for what we call roadway rigidities, and just making them last longer to all of the different wear and tear that they experience.

[James "Jim" Casey (Member)]: Just a quick one. A comment. Frank has his privileges. I think as a former municipal employee, VLCT plays a big hand in this, as well, reaching out to the local roads program. You know, the road for me has access to road scholar program. So think the LCT is a great asset for any community that's looking to even start looking at that. Reach out to the LCT and they can put you in touch.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Briefly. And just one other question, and I may be wrong, but I know in our town, they hire new people and they've got to get their license. Is that something you guys help with too or not?

[Todd Eaton (Manager, Vermont Local Roads Program)]: One of the, so this is a leadership specific, but in the last three years, we started another program that we call the new employee onboarding program, which provides virtual resources to provide all of the awareness training for safety to do that work and then to certifications that they would be required to Yes. Be

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Move along in that. Yes.

[Joe Flynn (Secretary of Transportation, Vermont AOT)]: As quickly as possible to get them up to speed.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: So you have that program for any municipality that says, hey, we've got a new employee who needs it. Yes. Can we sign it up?

[Todd Eaton (Manager, Vermont Local Roads Program)]: And as per state legislation, for all of our services to the municipalities, they're at no cost. Thank

[Joe Flynn (Secretary of Transportation, Vermont AOT)]: you very much. Thank you. Thanks.

[Jayna Morse (Director of Administration, Vermont AOT)]: Secretary Flynn? Oh,

[James "Jim" Casey (Member)]: sorry. If I

[Joe Flynn (Secretary of Transportation, Vermont AOT)]: could just do a slink your prop this morning behind me. To your question about are there things that are common sense tenants can do, I think one of the realities is that's what we see in Vermont about our desire for independence as far as county government or not having county government. There's a couple of things that I When we met with the Senate before Christmas, They had a few town officials on the line, and I don't want to embarrass any particular town, but there was one town official who opined that it would be nice if they could take advantage of the state pricing on things. If there's anyone in the room who's not aware, your towns can buy through the PGS contract price, we buy trucks, that we buy salt, that we buy greater blades, that we buy tires. And this was a sharp person. I mean, it's just, you know, there's 50,000 things people need to know. But I wanted to just make you aware of that, if there was any question that had been viewed as good. That's not going to necessarily solve the big question. I think we would urge every town to do everything they can to work with a neighbor, for especially the big equipment. And I know that having come from the Volunteer Fire Service as a volunteer, that's a conversation that a lot of communities have as well, just infrastructure and off a big investment, especially for small communities. So absolutely, I think we certainly would support the reasoning behind that. I don't think it really changes the way Todd or anyone delivers the services that we provide, it makes a lot of sense. And we do backstop a lot of towns as well. Four or five years ago, Sherlock, I lost everything in the fire ten days before Christmas. We gave them three trucks to use for the entire winter. We just locked them in the B TRAN trucks and they used them for the whole winter. When Lowell woke up and saw their building burning last week, we reached out, they had a neighboring town that supported them. We are in a bit of a spot on equipment, but we still made a gesture that if there's something you need, let us know and we try to figure it out. That's not a long term answer to the smart question that you asked about municipal cooperation. We try to partner everywhere we can as well in these sort of extraordinary circumstances. I just wanted to share that. Thank you. Thank you very much.

[Brad McEvoy (Director of Facilities, Vermont AOT)]: Welcome, Brett. Good morning, everyone. Brad McEvoy, AOT Associate Manager. I'll try to be brief so we can have a little time for questions, keep people on time. So our program priorities, we do have a building portfolio about four thirty buildings, but we maintain from anything from a old storage shed, know, family centered garage project, which is going to be built in a future date. But our priorities are to maintain them in a good safe repair, support sustainable design, construction and well maintained infrastructure, and use life cycle cost analysis to produce informed budget decisions. We're utilizing getting all of our data in the system and try to be predictive on the budgeting, at replacement cycles for heating systems, roof, those types of things. This year's budget, we will be getting the head of the slide here. We're looking for money to replace the Barton Salt Shed. That's going to be about 600,000. That structure is 50 years old. As you can see the 50 old Kwanzaa, I believe this is the last one in the state that we're going to be replacing with a new structure. That one was planned for replacement. And we also have 1,000,050 in there for statewide maintenance that include new heating systems, new roofs, maybe some LED lighting upgrades in some of the garages, some of the bigger projects. And that also includes aviation buildings too. Some of those funds are directed to aviation. Those are only couple of slides I had. Happy to answer any questions on where that money might be spent, anything that we've been working on.

[James "Jim" Casey (Member)]: For example. You mentioned aviation, are those buildings included in E400M? They are.

[Joe Flynn (Secretary of Transportation, Vermont AOT)]: They are. Yes. You.

[James "Jim" Casey (Member)]: I'm still waiting on the enlargement of the Rutland Airport.

[Brad McEvoy (Director of Facilities, Vermont AOT)]: Yeah, six thirty is 10 airports, there's about 80 buildings that fall under airports.

[Joe Flynn (Secretary of Transportation, Vermont AOT)]: Representative what?

[Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: Could you just repeat how many buildings you are?

[Brad McEvoy (Director of Facilities, Vermont AOT)]: Four thirty.

[Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: Four thirty. And you're going to maintain them with a budget of 1,700,000.0?

[Brad McEvoy (Director of Facilities, Vermont AOT)]: That out of, that part is fertile. We also get an appropriation at our new Pat Mills maintenance budget or smaller repairs like the melty calls, the plumbing repairs. I believe Ernie's budget of 1,500,000.0 this year for, it's called major maintenance, which we also oversee for the facilities program.

[Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: Thank you.

[Brad McEvoy (Director of Facilities, Vermont AOT)]: That captures a lot of the smaller budget.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: How

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: many people work in your group?

[Brad McEvoy (Director of Facilities, Vermont AOT)]: I have a field manager with two staff under him that cover all state, as well as a maintenance mechanic that helps on some smaller projects. So really working on buildings itself for.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Just sort of curious, the Barton salt chair, and there's a picture of it. It doesn't look that bad. I'm not saying it isn't, but our salt chair in Nijnsburg was replaced and it's not galvanized. It's like a tent. If I

[Brad McEvoy (Director of Facilities, Vermont AOT)]: were to do some close ups, we had some other photos too, there are all the concrete is cracking, a lot of the joint connections where the steel meets the concrete have all kind of rusted out. So it's time.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: What's the new building gonna be what's what's that made of? What's that? Is it wood or is it a metal or

[Brad McEvoy (Director of Facilities, Vermont AOT)]: The new building? It's a salt the salt shed. Oh, the new salt shed. Sorry. It'll be concrete, it'll be wood frame, but the new walls on the concrete, you can see the Barton Shed, the walls are pretty tall. The new concrete walls on our new design sheds are 14 feet high with wood 10 feet of wood on top of that and then a wood truss. Smart side, synthetic siding, we can probably get seventy five to one hundred years out of them. So just staining them basically.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: But is is there electrical and is there is there plumbing? Is there anything like that at those?

[Brad McEvoy (Director of Facilities, Vermont AOT)]: We do minimal electrical, just some LED lights inside to light the inside of the shed and one of the overhead door.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: And there was competitive bidding on that?

[Brad McEvoy (Director of Facilities, Vermont AOT)]: There will be for this project. It'll go up for a competitive bid through BTS.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: It'll come in less than a 195

[Brad McEvoy (Director of Facilities, Vermont AOT)]: or $4 a square foot? We just completed in the last three years, four salt sheds about this size. They all came in around 6 to $6.25. The concrete alone is a big chunk of it. It's pretty beefy, but it's so pronounced. They get double the life out of these.

[Joe Flynn (Secretary of Transportation, Vermont AOT)]: Okay, anybody else have a meeting? Thank you for your

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: whole team, Jenna, and

[Joe Flynn (Secretary of Transportation, Vermont AOT)]: we are adjourned for this

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: whole