Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Michele Boomhower, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: Yes. And

[Rep. Matt Walker (Chair)]: we're live again on Thursday afternoon, 02/05/2026. And we have two of our regular our special guests with us. We're talking about and reviewing, and I suspect they're going bring it up on the list or not, maybe if we're looking off the same type of list that you gave me or not, or how we're going to go. I believe we're talking about the reports that we require and that this body didn't require any last year. And we don't want to look to pile on to reports, especially if we can reduce the burden at the agency with all of the difficulties and financial pressures that are out there. But that doesn't mean we won't add any this year. But we have a list of them, and there are lists and lists. And we are sort of going to spend some time talking about what can we reduce or not reduce and which ones are more valuable enough that perhaps we need to look at again. But we're gonna talk about reports for the next twenty seven minutes or less or more, but not more. So Damian, it's all yours or Michelle. Don't know how you guys are tag teaming this. We're looking to see for the committee which ones we want to maybe we can or can't get. Well, maybe I should look at can or can't get rid of or that we need to see more of or we need to look at again or we can pause and maybe send out.

[Damian Leonard, Legislative Counsel]: Sure. So for the record, I'm Damian Leonard. I'm the Office of Legislative Counsel.

[Michele Boomhower, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: And I'm Michelle Blumhauer with the Vermont Agency of Transportation.

[Rep. Matt Walker (Chair)]: And there was a directive from the Speaker's Office that was then pushed through the Government Operations Committee about accountability and about review of previous work. And there was a piece that had come over from the chair of that committee saying, look at these reports and whatnot. And we are taking a little bit of a step beyond that, but that's where the spirit of this was driven from, is that are we asking agencies for things we don't need? It was part of accountability, it was part of review and whatnot. So it did come out of that summer committee on accountability and whatnot, it's a message that the speaker comes back to regularly. So I apologize to interrupt there, but that's the setting of why we're doing this. What's my dream up business, the speakers.

[Damian Leonard, Legislative Counsel]: And as part of that, we do have a standing statute to the S. A. 20D, which provides that for long term reports where you say annually the agency shall submit a report on blank. After five years, those reports expire unless you specifically provide otherwise in the statute. So every biennium, we have a reports repeal questionnaire that goes around to the chairs to say, here's a report that your committee's been receiving that's due for repeal. Do you want to keep it? Should it be repealed? And the idea, the whole intent behind that section was that when it was first enacted, we have reports that were on the books from decades before for programs that no longer existed. And people would call up asking, where's the report on this? And you'd go back through and say, well, the program got repealed, but someone left the report in the statute books. Or the agency has done things completely different for years. So that is there. But it doesn't hurt to also go through your reports periodically and say, are we actually using this information? Knowing too that anytime you can send a letter to the agency or email the agency and say, could you give us an update on how this is going without having to do a, you know, 20 or 30 page report? So without further ado, I thought I would start with the one time reports that have been requested and are due to this committee before I switch to the annual reports, just so you get a sense of how many reports are out there at this point that are due to this committee alone. So this is a three page document. Let me go back to page one. So just to note for anyone who references this, this is something that my office prepares every year. We do not guarantee that this is a complete and total database of the reports so that if if you do use this, it's on you to make sure that that there isn't a report requirement that we somehow overlooked when we were putting together the statutes at the end of the year. The reason we give that disclaimer is because in the past, there was confusion about whether reports were due or not and if someone had overlooked it and then would say, well, it's not in the database, but it is actually in the law. So that's with that aside, you'll see that we've got a variety of them. H four eighty eight was the miscellaneous motor vehicle bill or no, that was the t bill from last year. Sorry about that. So there's the canceled local projects. I think you've heard a little bit about that. Inventory assessment of local transportation asset needs, which is due next year. State highway aid efficiencies. Medicaid non emergency transport services, which is both Diva and the Vermont Public Transit Association. So that's not AOT. Although, I think you guys are consulting on that. Going on to the next page, another report on coordination of medical transportation and medical appointments. There was a report on ultra low volume vehicles. Are you looking for the report there?

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: Yeah. It's like I've got

[Rep. Matt Walker (Chair)]: Heard the

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: I don't see any of the under the record. Committee annual reports. Am I in the wrong document?

[Damian Leonard, Legislative Counsel]: Yeah. The one time reports. Okay. Alright. These are the one times.

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: I see. I get it.

[Damian Leonard, Legislative Counsel]: So these these are all reports that were due this year or next year, or we do have some from 2025. Ultra low volume vehicles, if you all remember the manufacturer from Milton, you'll see they look like a c two body Corvette, but it's modern, modern everything underneath the carbon fiber body replica. So we had a report on getting those registered, which just came in. That's a 47 page report. Early renewals of operators licenses and IDs, that's something that your committee added last year to the motor vehicle bill. Purchase and use tax and annual inspections, this was in the motor vehicle bill last year. The ATV registrations, that was in the motor vehicle bill the prior year.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: The fact sorry. Fact purchase and use at some annual inspection. So those two different things. Were these like the number?

[Damian Leonard, Legislative Counsel]: This was multiple reports that got merged into one. So so that's a DMV report. They were supposed to look to add some issues with annual inspections and also issues around the purchase and use tax for folks who moved to Vermont.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: And the annual inspections, was it the number of annual inspections versus the number of reregistered vehicles that?

[Damian Leonard, Legislative Counsel]: I have to look back at the exact details that were asked for in that.

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: That's okay.

[Damian Leonard, Legislative Counsel]: But, yeah, there were these were my memory of that section, which is admittedly a little cloudy now, is that we took a couple of different issues that different members had concerns about and merged them into a single report. So I think it may have been a one or two house reports merged with one or two senate reports and then sort of trimmed down. So then there there is also another report on right of way fees for broadband telephone companies. And then going on to page three, there's an ANR report on end of life programs for batteries from EVs, battery storage systems, etcetera. So that impacts this committee because of the EV work. And then transportation impact fee report, which was also submitted this past January. And these date back a little bit to the prior biennium, so some of you didn't work on them. So that's just the one time reports. These are all going away after they're submitted.

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: They didn't submit it yet.

[Damian Leonard, Legislative Counsel]: Or is there Some of them have. Some of them have not. So I can take you in a minute to the website Yes. And show you where the reports are. No. It's actually on the the general assembly website.

[Rep. Matt Walker (Chair)]: Okay.

[Damian Leonard, Legislative Counsel]: And I'll send you all the link after I show it to you at the end of this. Can

[Michele Boomhower, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: I just say the report on early renewals of operators licenses and IDs, That report was just submitted about a half hour ago? And I said, have we submitted this yet?

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: We've got a little bit of room. We haven't

[Rep. Matt Walker (Chair)]: maybe I thought we received it because we did get the update.

[Michele Boomhower, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: They gave you a verbal Within

[Rep. Matt Walker (Chair)]: a couple weeks of the implementation date, we could ask

[Damian Leonard, Legislative Counsel]: for a report.

[Michele Boomhower, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: Yes. And then there was another follow-up report that we were supposed to give you. So there was two reports there.

[Damian Leonard, Legislative Counsel]: And so this gets to the point in the presentation where Michelle and I will probably partner up here. And so I'll identify the report, and then she can talk about the agency's perspective on whether it makes sense to continue it or not and answer questions about the report there. So the first is a report that we added last year in the T bill, and this is an annual report on revenue from the lease of state owned railroad rights of way.

[Michele Boomhower, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: And I would just say this would be a report we would recommend retaining. We have a system for generating that fee information Dan Delaborate has been in to report on it. What's that? No, retain it. Retain Retain okay.

[Damian Leonard, Legislative Counsel]: And then the next report is a report on the results of an annual review to ensure that reported images are used only for permitted purposes. And I believe this relates to the automated traffic law enforcement.

[Michele Boomhower, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: Yes. That is correct.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: This will be an interesting report to see.

[Michele Boomhower, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: Because it doesn't exist. Right. It's never done. Since the program does not exist

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Well, the program doesn't exist. The law doesn't exist.

[Michele Boomhower, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: The law does. The program was not advanced due to the lack of funding and lack of staffing to address the issue. And so therefore, we've not advanced it and we've not prepared any report related to the images. So our recommendation would be to repeal this report unless and until such a time that there is a firm room.

[Damian Leonard, Legislative Counsel]: The next report was also enacted in 2024 in the I believe this was in the T bill. And this is a report on the state's efforts to meet the EV infrastructure and deployment plan and the goals that are set out in Title 19 related to that.

[Michele Boomhower, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: So this one we would recommend retaining. As you heard this morning, talking to Bronwyn, and as you've already heard from, I think Andrea and Hillary have been in to talk about our status in deploying the EV network with both the NEVI program and the program run by ACCD that you heard about this morning. And those goals of having a high speed charging station within three miles of every interstate interchange and every 25 miles on the state highway system are ones that are still important.

[Rep. Matt Walker (Chair)]: Is this an annual semi annual? It doesn't say annual?

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: I say annual.

[Rep. Matt Walker (Chair)]: Annual. Yes. Okay.

[Damian Leonard, Legislative Counsel]: Yeah. I apologize. Some of the I just pulled this from our database, so some of the fields are not fully filled in. So the next is a semiannual oral presentation on the replacement for the Vermont State Design Standards. And I'm not sure if this one was term limited after those are fully replaced, but I'll

[Rep. Matt Walker (Chair)]: let Michelle talk about it.

[Michele Boomhower, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: Yeah, I did not go and look at the specific language on this, but I was going to suggest that once the document is finalized, you heard a presentation on the draft document and this timeline, but then once the document is finalized and that is the standard that we would repeal this this section.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: I think we did get this already, right? We had no This draft, yeah.

[Michele Boomhower, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: Yeah, oral report on the draft. Yes.

[Damian Leonard, Legislative Counsel]: The next provision relates to the state owned railroad rights of way. And this is a notification when there's twelve months remaining on an operating lease or a lease extension for a state owned railroad right of way. There is no specific annual or semi annual designation on this because it's contingent on the lease reaching the final twelve months. So this will be very depending on the lease.

[Michele Boomhower, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: And we would recommend retaining this? And

[Rep. Matt Walker (Chair)]: it's not a large number.

[Michele Boomhower, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: Number of leases? No, there aren't a large number.

[Rep. Matt Walker (Chair)]: I think we saw them last year. Yes.

[Damian Leonard, Legislative Counsel]: Yeah, there's four.

[Rep. Matt Walker (Chair)]: It was I'm pretty sure we did we spent some time on this last year, and there weren't very many of them and wasn't a lot okay. They're

[Damian Leonard, Legislative Counsel]: they're all on five or ten year renewal cycles at this point, so it's a periodic periodic thing.

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: Once again, is you.

[Damian Leonard, Legislative Counsel]: This is this is a

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Ongoing.

[Damian Leonard, Legislative Counsel]: Ongoing, I I think is the best way to describe it. Yeah. Some of them will Per recurrence. I would say you'll see this four times a decade, basically.

[Rep. Matt Walker (Chair)]: But we should still know about it. For Yeah.

[Damian Leonard, Legislative Counsel]: Okay. The other one is a semi or the next one is a semiannual report on alternative options and implementation plan for public transit services from Green Mountain Transit. And I don't know the details of this report off the top of my head. This was enacted before my time.

[Michele Boomhower, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: I believe this refers to the reorganization of the rural transportation elements that Green Mountain Transit had been in charge of in Franklin County, Grand Isle in Central Vermont. And as of July 1, those transitions to move the rural service to other providers will have occurred. So I think we could recommend repealing this one.

[Damian Leonard, Legislative Counsel]: The several are similar. The the first of them is the vehicle incentive report, including marketing and outreach. This is an annual report. And then the two after that are electrify your fleet and the ebike incentive programs. I think these are all fairly closely related. They're all annual reports, all enacted in the same T bill from 2023.

[Michele Boomhower, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: So these three reports we would recommend repealing since the funding for the programs has been expended and the programs are no longer active?

[Rep. Matt Walker (Chair)]: I would assume that then what you're saying is that they mean electric, you mean electrical vehicle incentive program? Yes. Yeah. Representative Burke?

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: Yeah, Michelle, did there be some statement or something that would say that the funding ran out in this year? At the end of the report, that the funding ran out in, I don't know, there's no more money left for this fund. Something like that. Just for historical record. Like a final report.

[Michele Boomhower, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: Yeah, final report. Think we, I'll have to check and see if we prepared and submitted a report or are planning to that makes those statements.

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: Mean, somebody's looking up, oh, they have these programs, what happened to this?

[Michele Boomhower, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: Let me check on that screen.

[Rep. Matt Walker (Chair)]: That's not the only comments we would have ESI. These are actually in statutes, programs. There used to be discussion law. Right. That's right. So if they're still in statutes, is there a way to just put the blame and say, hey, don't gotta report to

[Unidentified Committee Member]: it? If

[Rep. Matt Walker (Chair)]: money was to come our way, then they

[Damian Leonard, Legislative Counsel]: would be triggered against these reports.

[Rep. Matt Walker (Chair)]: Something like that. They are in statutes. Such a thing as suspended? Yeah, suspended.

[Damian Leonard, Legislative Counsel]: We could certainly get creative with the drafting and just say that, you know, the reports are reports are contingent on money having been appropriated or being available to provide incentives.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: That makes sense. Yeah.

[Damian Leonard, Legislative Counsel]: Because if if at some point in the future, you appropriate money into those programs again, then this wouldn't this would leave the mechanism in there. You wouldn't have to add reporting language again. The next report, also from the same 2023 t bill, is an annual report on the Complete Streets program.

[Michele Boomhower, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: So on that one, I would say we retain that. We went through a fairly exhaustive process to create a database and process for reporting police streets activities. The regional planning commissions are involved with collecting information from their communities. And so I would say retain that.

[Rep. Matt Walker (Chair)]: We haven't seen that this year. Right. We haven't seen that one this year.

[Damian Leonard, Legislative Counsel]: The next report dates back to the 2018 T Bill. And this is on the public private partnership pilot program, which is proposed for extension again this year. So and that's another annual report there.

[Rep. Matt Walker (Chair)]: How do you make that of as triggered, like the up above? Like it's only as occurred. When I say that as triggered as occurrence, there's nothing to report unless something happens. So it says annual, but it's really as occurrence or as occurred or whatever. I don't want to overcomplicate it. I'm just saying, it's not going to happen unless something just like the lease trigger is not going to happen until there's something to actually report. It doesn't matter if it says annual. Think for Ignore it the same way you would ignore one of the other ones.

[Damian Leonard, Legislative Counsel]: Yeah. And it's important to keep in mind that this database here, part of the reason we have the disclaimer is because the data it shows is limited. Okay. It's based on a Yeah. It's based on basically a form that's included when we do our act summaries that the public Before the act summary is made public, the form goes internal to fill in databases like this and then gets taken off to the ACT summary. This is just the limit there, that you have annual, semi annual, or one time are sort of the details you can include.

[Rep. Matt Walker (Chair)]: If it's been keeping the secretary up at night, you can let him know not to worry about that one.

[Damian Leonard, Legislative Counsel]: Yeah. The next is this is actually from agency of administration, the Clean Water Fund investments. And this is dates all the way back to 2015. So I don't know if you're able to weigh in on that, Michelle.

[Rep. Matt Walker (Chair)]: Is there one One blank one there.

[Damian Leonard, Legislative Counsel]: What's Oh, the blank one, I believe, is duplicate of the the p three pilot program. If you look, yeah, if you look at the sections I'm sorry. I should have mentioned that. But, yeah, if you look at the sections there, it's 19 VSA twenty six fifteen. Yeah. So this is the an annual report under title 10 that's due from the agency of administration regarding the Clean Water Fund.

[Michele Boomhower, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: I can't speak specifically to this other than I believe that they put out an annual investments report. And so maybe when we go to the website, we check on this and see if they've issued one. I don't know if it would have been sent to this committee specifically unless that is outlined in the language. However, I do know that Joel Perrigo's Municipal Assistance Program does administer clean water funds related to transportation that come through the Clean Water Board. And if he hasn't given you an update on those already, we could certainly get him on the docket to get one.

[Damian Leonard, Legislative Counsel]: Alright, turning to page three. The first report dates all the way back to 2014. And this is an annual consolidated transportation system and activities report or semi annual, excuse me.

[Michele Boomhower, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: So this one will eventually wanna look at

[Rep. Matt Walker (Chair)]: the

[Michele Boomhower, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: language. It's very similar to the one about four lines down, which is section 19 of statute item 12A, the transportation program. We actually, under the consolidated transportation systems report and activities report, all of those elements are things that we report to you on an annual basis. So maybe there's something to be done with the frequency in that language, or maybe there's a way to look at combining 42B and 12A. So I think you'll want

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: to get the language out further.

[Damian Leonard, Legislative Counsel]: And then before I go to the last group of reports here, there's this other report from Title 10, the Petroleum Cleanup Fund, which is a semiannual report.

[Rep. Matt Walker (Chair)]: I don't know if Michelle is able to speak to that.

[Michele Boomhower, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: I am not.

[Rep. Matt Walker (Chair)]: Okay.

[Damian Leonard, Legislative Counsel]: And then the last group of reports here, these are all in the first chapter of Title 19, which governs sort of our it's the basis for our highway law. So one is on the prioritization system as part of the annual proposed transportation program. One is the 10 gs report, which we discussed last year, the multi year transportation program. And then there's the transportation program under 12 a. And then under seven subsection k, there's a summary of information regarding terms and conditions of federal earmarks for the trans for a transportation project within Vermont. And these are all in statute. And I think at this point they were enacted a while back and have been tweaked and amended periodically since.

[Michele Boomhower, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: So what I would say is the prioritization system as part of the annual transportation program. I think historically we have put information related to the prioritization system in the front

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: of the wait book, but

[Michele Boomhower, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: I think it's been a number of years since we put that process information in the front of the wait book. And with the advent of the BPSP2 Vermont Prioritization, I'm going to get it wrong. It's the new prioritization system framework we use that we spent a couple of years developing with the regional planning commissions. I think if there were going to be information about prioritization put in the front of the white book, we'd want to put that description in. And secondly, as you heard Jeremy testify, there has not been adequate resources to prioritize any new projects into the book. So there has been nothing to report on that front other than the verbal report that we didn't have the resources to add more projects to the program. So that's the status of that one. As I mentioned, I think 10, excuse me, not 10. The 10 gs report, we obviously want to retain that. That's an important piece of use every year. The 12A, I think you should look at combining that with 42B possibly. And then the summary of information and terms related to the federal earmarks, that's in the books under 19, Section seven ks. But Candice let me know that what we do is we follow 32 BSA section five, which is kind of the overarching reporting guidance for receipt of grants or other monies that the agency of administration's, it's kind of the overarching statute of agency of administration reporting functions. And so we may want to take a look at pointing, eliminating nineteen seven ks, but if we want to make the reference to include something that points us to 32 FBSA section five.

[Rep. Matt Walker (Chair)]: Yeah, I was here for that, I forgot what year that was, but Santa was behind it, they said a lot of times we didn't know what we were getting ourselves into, they were going out flying for these cigars, so we just said, you know, let us know, let us us know, know, let let let You're able to hear that. Think I might have been involved in that.

[Damian Leonard, Legislative Counsel]: So it's I can now show you where to find these reports. So let me

[Rep. Matt Walker (Chair)]: so

[Damian Leonard, Legislative Counsel]: if if you're on the legislative web page here and so I'll go right to the home page. So here on the home page, if you click on the reports and research piece, it's going to over under on the reports column here, there's a reports and research overview, which is not necessarily that helpful. It kinda tells you what's available and where to find things. But find legislative reports will bring you right to where you need to go. And then you have a search function here to refine results, because otherwise there's hundreds of these reports. And so what I like to do is if I'm looking for an agency of transportation report, I just type in transportation. And now you've got all of the agency of transportation reports going back. So if you remember a report from let's go let's see how far back we can go here. 2009, you can go back to 2009, or you can pull up the most current ones. And you'll see that there are four AOT reports that are posted for 2026. If you want a DMV, I typically put in just motor, and then it'll pull up DMV motor for the most part. And, occasionally, you'll get things like the motor vehicle racing sunset report, and that's for our board that regulates motor vehicle racing. But right. So you've got three reports from DMV this year. And then there we came across some of the other reports in there too. So you could type in, like, petroleum cleanup funds, and there was a report on the twenty seventh, which is the thirty eighth annual report on the petroleum cleanup funds. So that's basically what I used to find reports. One caveat is that occasionally, the reports go directly to the committee and don't make it to the reports web page. So for that, you can go to your own committee page. And then under reports and resources, you may find additional reports that didn't make it to the overall reports database. And this is just this is just a function of having humans maintain the website and different people getting reports. Things don't always get to all the different places. So this is a good place. You'll see there's about five different reports here. Some of them show up on the report's web page. Some of them don't. So that's usually what I do when I need to find a report. I start on the report's web page. If I can't find it there, I go to the committee. And then if I can't find it in either place, I email Michelle.

[Rep. Matt Walker (Chair)]: That's only going to work for a limited long time.

[Michele Boomhower, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: Yeah, right.

[Damian Leonard, Legislative Counsel]: Don't worry, I promise after that retirement date, I won't be mad.

[Michele Boomhower, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: Yeah, you have a hard time finding me. I believe your cell phones don't work.

[Damian Leonard, Legislative Counsel]: And if you do wanna amend that, just let me know. I can add language to

[Rep. Matt Walker (Chair)]: the T bill. If you wanna get rid of some?

[Damian Leonard, Legislative Counsel]: If you wanna amend any of those report requirements, yeah, get rid of some.

[Rep. Matt Walker (Chair)]: Other thing on your list, think about whether you wanna do that or not. We'll start tying some of those things up at some point. Anybody else? Then we're gonna adjourn for this afternoon and head to floor and be back.