Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Good morning. Here it is Tuesday. Bless you. Thank you. 02/17/2026 in house transportation. First thing on our agenda is a bill introduction, H894. And we have representative paid, representative labor. Welcome to committee. Intro Bill eight ninety four. Wow, eight ninety four.

[Unknown guest legislator (Newport/Derby area; H.894 sponsor)]: Thank you, chair, and thank you, committee members, for having us. We'll get right into it. And we have some slides. Wow!

[Ashley [Last name unknown], Acting Deputy Director (Maintenance), Vermont Agency of Transportation]: Okay.

[Unknown guest legislator (Newport/Derby area; H.894 sponsor)]: Our purpose is to prohibit the use of snowmobiles on the DB Spur rail trip, and this is it during the summer months. I want to point out the steep banks on either side. On the other side of this there are rocks that's granite. If you should fall or walk beside, you're going to hurt yourself. Well, generally it's a very nice trail. It's used for pedestrian purposes, biking and walking. I'm

[Ashley [Last name unknown], Acting Deputy Director (Maintenance), Vermont Agency of Transportation]: sorry. The

[Unknown guest legislator (Newport/Derby area; H.894 sponsor)]: rail trail, I'll call it rail trail, but it's formerly called the BB Spur Rail Trail. It's 3.75 miles long versus the Vermont Association of Snow Travelers that has over 5,000 miles of snowmobile trails. And this trail was created as a pedestrian path twenty five years ago. And until recently, all motorized vehicles had been banned on that path. Matt from Agog Trails has maintained the trail as part of its cross country skiing network of trails. In the package that I sent you, there is a letter dated 09/30/1997, and it does talk about the trail's use. And in that letter, I'm sorry, it's in 11/17/1997. It's from the Agency of Transportation, and it says, they have plans for the project that are, and I quote, are so settled in intention and purposes that it can be called ready to commence. They were talking about starting building this trail after the railroad let it go. And it goes on to say that signage was being placed at the beginning and end of the trail to include, and I quote, motorized vehicles are not permitted anywhere on the trail. And that was the case since the trail was created twenty five years ago, up until recently. So can we thank you. Well, you don't too far. There we go. So here's our trail that goes from Newport just outside the hospital in Newport to the border. Not quite off to the border, have to get off the trail and there's a regular road that you go through to Cousins. And then the rest of this is the trail. This is five to 10 miles around our railroad spur. Next slide please. This is 25 miles outside our Railroad spur, very small area. And finally the next slide, and then 45 miles out you don't even see our trail there. Now we can go on the next slide. Sorry, represent me. On the red

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: lines, those aren't other trails or are they roads?

[Unknown guest legislator (Newport/Derby area; H.894 sponsor)]: Those are other trails. Snowmobile Those trails. Are

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: these, is this the Bass network?

[Unknown guest legislator (Newport/Derby area; H.894 sponsor)]: Bass network, yes.

[Kate Lalley (Member)]: Okay, yeah.

[Unknown guest legislator (Newport/Derby area; H.894 sponsor)]: So we did a petition and currently as of Saturday we have seven ninety three individuals that have signed this petition prohibiting snowmobiles on the track. The most number was from my district, Newport, with two seventy four followed by Derby Derby Line 153, and then the next ones are Charleston at 16 and Morgan at 14, all in four, which is all part of Representative Labor's district. And for Newport voters, the petitioners that's 14.18% of the twenty twenty four vote. The Derby Derby line was 5.67%. Here's a picture of a nicely groomed trail. Here again, look the embankments here on either side. Next slide. It's not really focused, but it's when a snowmobile has gone through. Representative Casey, Who's grooming it? Who did the fixture, the slide before? It's part of Memphremagog Trails. They groom it for cross country skiing purpose. They have their own ruler? I believe

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: so. I

[Unknown guest legislator (Newport/Derby area; H.894 sponsor)]: should mention when you compare our BB Railroad Spur to other railroad trails that have been converted to pedestrian trails,

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: our trail is much shorter,

[Unknown guest legislator (Newport/Derby area; H.894 sponsor)]: and it wasn't designed for snowmobile. It was only designed for pedestrian use, whereas the other trails like the Rainbow Valley Railroad Trail, also open railroads or to railroads, This particular trail, our Railroad Spur Trail, again, was never designed for use by snowmobiles. The path is approximately seven to eight feet wide and less than that for some of the bridges. There's like three or four bridges that are are on the path. We contend that the trail is not safe for pedestrians and snowmobilers together on such a small path. And if you look at individual guides that do the designs for designs, converting them to pedestrian paths. Generally, creating a rail trail falls for a minimum of 10 foot width for moderate use. And for a standard I don't know what the well. And then for a standard shared use path, the width is recommended at 10 to 12 feet with two feet on either side of the trail for shoulders. And as I said, the deep, steep banks on either side with large rocks and granite, you can really hurt yourself if you go over the side. What else should I tell you? Tourism fees? Has there been a problem between pedestrians and snowmobilers, or has anybody gotten hurt at all? Has anybody gotten off the It's only recently been opened a snowmobile. When was that? Within the last few months since we've had started having snow and being able to take the snowmobile out by the trails. Is that like a handy route to go to a gas station or something? Is that why they're going through there? Well, in the past, they haven't used it because it was prohibited. But there have been landowners along the path that have allowed snowmobilers to go down their property and bust the lake and join other paths. But for the past, since '19 For the past twenty five years, it's been prohibited to have a snowmobile. And the Agency of Transportation has just only recently opened snowmobile travelers on all railroad pedestrian paths to include this one. That way, down my way. There's a rail trail down my way that looks just like that. It's steep on both sides, but there's been an accident or two, but somebody was drinking and nuts. And so, but there's, it looks very much similar to it. It goes towards Paddy's District. Well, railroad spur It's been there for a while. This railroad spur was built on the condition that there would be no motorized vehicles on it, period. Really?

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Representative Pouech has a question for you, then Representative Burke, let's make sure Is

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: this property under the rail banking, federal government rail banking?

[Unknown guest legislator (Newport/Derby area; H.894 sponsor)]: I can't answer that.

[Rep. Larry Labor (Orleans-4)]: City picked it up. I

[Unknown guest legislator (Newport/Derby area; H.894 sponsor)]: will also tell you that my district, city in which I live in, signed a petition and requesting V Trans to close the trail to snowmobiles. And the town of Derby, which is the next town, they unanimously also passed the resolution, but it was with an amendment stating that local abutters should have the ability to use the trail for access to the vast trail system. So you have the two differences. My town says, like, but I don't what the other town

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: didn't want to go to that. Temporarily use it to get where you're going. Right. Can you say, it sounds like for a while, there wasn't much controversy, maybe there was, but then the agency came in and said, you've got to allow snowmobiles. And do you understand what, do you know what their reasoning was? Is it something to do with the federal laws?

[Unknown guest legislator (Newport/Derby area; H.894 sponsor)]: I believe it was to do with the federal laws, but I couldn't I think we have a couple of slides.

[Kate Lalley (Member)]: Representative Burke? Well, that was pretty much my question too, is why did they open it up, when it's been closed for so long? And it seems like your argument that the trail is nearer than the standard.

[Unknown guest legislator (Newport/Derby area; H.894 sponsor)]: It is. Is. But If

[Kate Lalley (Member)]: we're talking, I don't know if this is we need to find out whether this is actually federal, is it?

[Unknown guest legislator (Newport/Derby area; H.894 sponsor)]: Well, you say that initially getting this trail built in the first place was very difficult, and the reason it was built initially was because that moratorium overrides. Here's another picture of the trail that the snowmobile has gone through and I've got a couple more. There's another one. Sphere. And for the past twenty five years, it's basically been used by skiers, cross country skiers, or just people that have walked from the hospital to get exercise. It is a great recreational area. I'll just sort of say I was

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: up in Morgan Biking up there and whatnot with my wife. And we went a couple of times there just to walk it because we saw it and we said, oh, let's check it out. It's along the way. It's

[Unknown guest legislator (Newport/Derby area; H.894 sponsor)]: on a map. It was on pace. Made as fast. Any money into that? No. Nothing. Nothing. Period. I don't know whether you can bring up the letter, the 1997 letter. I should show you that. It was originally written by the Agency of Transportation, and you'll see a list of signatories on it. Larry, type in if I have missed While this is coming up,

[Rep. Larry Labor (Orleans-4)]: one of our constituents who lives year round on the trail, Popular's Land Buildings, joins and they come up with 28 recommendations of why not call motorists. It's all summarized here, I've got enough copies for everybody to like to pass these around.

[Unknown guest legislator (Newport/Derby area; H.894 sponsor)]: So you can see it was dated 09/30/1997 from the Office of Attorney General Transportation Division. You could just start with me. Okay and here again they're talking about starting the project. Supposed to put down a surface of fresh material four inches deep, 14 feet wide. Surface will be rolled and will be upgraded satisfactorily for pedestrians and bicycles. Existing trestles will be upgraded and there will be signs to indicate the following beginning and end of trail approaching U. S. Customs and then motorized vehicles are not permitted anywhere on the trail. Here again, ALT has the following commitment to the community. The Select Board determines that sometime in the future, though a community based process, there is a desire for further improvement on the path, ALT will begin a project development process. And then continue on. This does say this is not an effort to avoid Act two fifty jurisdiction by segmenting the project. As far as I know Act two fifty didn't play a role in the building of this project. And as signed by the Assistant Attorney General, Scott Pouech, if you continue on, You'll see some of the signatories here. Derby Planning, Newport Board of Selectmen, Lindy Palin is one of the landowners that lets, currently family lets motor car snowmobilers cross his property to be able to get across the lake to other sites. If you continue on, the Lakemont Beach Association, that's a group of houses along there. There's, we go down just beneath it. Oh, here. Duncan Kilmarth is a former representative and lawyer representing the group as well. Representative Pouech?

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: The letter, from the testimony, thought, you know, that this was a town project that they did, but it doesn't matter one way or the other, but the agency helped build the trail So no transportation funds.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Yeah. Okay. Okay. So other clarifying questions. We're not solving it today. We're just getting the introduction of what they're asking for. Is there any other clarifying questions that anybody's got? Or did you have any more?

[Unknown guest legislator (Newport/Derby area; H.894 sponsor)]: I'll just say would request that AOT, Agency of Transportation, review this issue and return the railroad strayer back to its previous restrictions and only allow biking, walking, and skiing for the DB rail trip. Do you have any additional alerts? Well, it's not just

[Rep. Larry Labor (Orleans-4)]: snow machines. If you turn it over to mechanized, the next thing would be ATPs, and the next thing would be molded rock spikes. While these people would purchase the land and built beautiful homes, looking at the lake, are all paying high taxes, period. I don't think they would buy in, well I know from Nimst that they are not buying into the noise and the limitations of sharing. If you can't get off, say you're skating, you're on a high school Nordic team, and you're out there skating, not traditional, You're going have a tough time getting off at a track on a machine, or an ATV bearing down an ATV that's difficult at the summer time. So getting off the track, it's only six feet wide, two snow machines passing, four feet deep, Chittenden, somebody's going to the bank.

[Unknown guest legislator (Newport/Derby area; H.894 sponsor)]: And originally the trail was, there was maybe one or two individuals that live along the trail that wanted access to it, and there were some that were saying, well, maybe we could open it, like the Derby Select Bowl, open it to access for only those individuals that live on the trail, okay? Well, now you've got everybody and their brother that's traveling that trail. And as representatives of Labor said, you've got high school students that are skiing there, running there. It's not a safe situation. Are you saying that you don't want snowmobilers crossing the trail even to get to the lake? No, no, I'm not saying that. So there's access for them to get it over. There is access for them not to use the trail to get to the lake. Well you can cross it. As far as I know, right? Yes.

[Rep. Larry Labor (Orleans-4)]: The other thing, it's a dead end trail.

[Unknown guest legislator (Newport/Derby area; H.894 sponsor)]: The whole thing with that was just wondering if

[Rep. Larry Labor (Orleans-4)]: they cross the If you get to the end of the trail, it's the Canadian border. There's no customs there. So then you gotta

[Unknown guest legislator (Newport/Derby area; H.894 sponsor)]: go count highway. They're not using for gas. They'll be gas. No. Okay. I I don't think that I saw

[Rep. Larry Labor (Orleans-4)]: this No. That's extremely remote.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. President Pouech, last one. You know, think what you need to understand what the federal rules are for rail banking. The Moyle Valley Rail Trail allows, it's a vast trail, they allow snowmobiles. They don't allow motorized bikes or ATVs. So there is that distinction.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Okay. Thank you very Gentlemen, thank you very much for coming in. Thank you for your time. Appreciate

[Ashley [Last name unknown], Acting Deputy Director (Maintenance), Vermont Agency of Transportation]: it. What's

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: next? What is next though is return to the maintenance budget. Thank you very much. Maintenance budget review that we didn't get through and that we've rescheduled rescheduled again. Let us figure out where we're transferring up there. We're looking at the, I don't know, I'd have to look at it again here, the $100,000,000 that we spend in maintenance budget. And I know there were clarifying questions and we didn't get through the whole testimony. While they're setting up, I would say that this week's gonna be a bit of an odd week in committee. Because tomorrow morning we're downstairs in the Senate for a joint hearing on local auction tax, which is not necessarily the fuel tax piece that Representative Burke had proposed. Then we have some follow-up here in the afternoon. We've got the last of our planning commissions that we're going to have some conversation about, the planning commission testimony and what interest teams or actions that we may have. Thursday, of course, is the tag election and talks to the whole and all those piece. And then by Friday, we have to have our letter to appropriations in on our budget priorities. So in the schedule, expect to see a couple of updates. Expect that we're losing some committee time to the joint hearing and to the election of the caucuses. And there is a public hearing on inspections next Tuesday night run by the Senate that we're invited to, but it's in the evenings. There is a press release out there and it is next Tuesday evening downstairs for public on the Vermont state inspections, which after crossover will find its way to us. So we know that that's a big part of what's coming. And I wanted to make sure that everybody was aware of that. And with that, Ernie, welcome back to committee for the multiple times. And actually, thank you for joining us. You can kind of remind us of where we were and what we've not covered and all the pieces of your budget, and we'll get back into some questions and pieces on it. Alrighty. Thank you very much.

[Ernie Patno, Director of Maintenance, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: Patno, director of maintenance. So we've been like you mentioned, we've been a couple times. I presented on a new budget the first time we were here, and that was what we considered our stars checkbook, if you will, where I presented some new information than what you have seen in the past. And that folks, that had some challenges. And so we put together short little slide network here. Here's what we're going on. And yep.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Do we have these slides?

[Chloe Tomlinson (Committee Clerk)]: What date? Is it under?

[Kate Lalley (Member)]: On date,

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: not under the witness?

[Chloe Tomlinson (Committee Clerk)]: Is it not

[Kate Lalley (Member)]: under the

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Okay. Our defense.

[Kate Lalley (Member)]: There it is.

[Ernie Patno, Director of Maintenance, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: Would you like me to hold up for a second?

[Ashley [Last name unknown], Acting Deputy Director (Maintenance), Vermont Agency of Transportation]: And

[Ernie Patno, Director of Maintenance, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: so we really don't have anything very new versus what we presented. So we made it all the way through the presentation the first time, and we ran out of time. And

[Kate Lalley (Member)]: we were

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: well, we were talking about reduction in force, which seemed to hit your area a fair amount. Yes. And that's where we ran out of time.

[Ernie Patno, Director of Maintenance, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: So Yep. That's exactly how it ended.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: There at some point. And then I also wanna get into the memo from the chief financial officer as far as the impact of maintenance on the reductions and then on the additions back and whatnot. So there's a few different things to get into once we get there. So that's my song. I'm not sure if it's up for people or not.

[Ernie Patno, Director of Maintenance, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: So I came expecting no, nothing except for where you folks wanted to go. So I had presented on everything I had in front of me. I could quickly go through it again, or I could take question. It's completely up to

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Let's start with one of my big. There's 31 reduction in force positions. Right? Yes. How many of them where we were at was how many in your arena?

[Ernie Patno, Director of Maintenance, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: So it was gonna be a total of 24. Correct? And how many vacancies? I don't have it written in front of me.

[Ashley [Last name unknown], Acting Deputy Director (Maintenance), Vermont Agency of Transportation]: So, actually acting as Deputy Director, we had 24 of those positions, four of them were lined up to other divisions, so it was a total impact of current maintenance employees 20 of those individuals and out of those 20 we had 11 vacancies or my apologies it would be seven vacancies because four of those that were lent out were vacant so 20 positions maintenance seven vacancies 13. Yep.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: 13 in the business. Of

[Chloe Tomlinson (Committee Clerk)]: those seven vacancies, were those advertised at all or that was trying to be filled

[Kate Lalley (Member)]: prior to this decision?

[Ernie Patno, Director of Maintenance, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: I would have to actually look, but I would to answer your question, mostly yes, I would say that they had been advertised throughout the year.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Represent Yep. That.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Out of the number of positions, was it, you know, across the board, some sort of managements, mostly

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: crew workers.

[Ernie Patno, Director of Maintenance, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: So this is gonna be really hard for me to answer because the folks have not received official notice yet. And I apologize, but because of how we're structured, if I got into that, and I'd happily come back.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: No, don't worry about it. Total number of employees in this division?

[Ernie Patno, Director of Maintenance, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: Five and change. 500 and change.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Are these 13 all over in or in one place? Are they all over the

[Unknown guest legislator (Newport/Derby area; H.894 sponsor)]: They're all over.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: They're all out of district garages? They're all over. They all work in a district garage somewhere, is it? They all work in a district, but I can't I couldn't specify down to a garage. Yep. Oh, no. I'm sorry. They're all in a district they're all out in district garages regardless of which one specifically, but there's 13 of them. Okay. I guess if you don't know what positions they are, how do you plan on what work is or isn't good? How do you handle what works not when you get done when they're not here?

[Ernie Patno, Director of Maintenance, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: Well, do know what positions they are, but it would be I'm sorry. It would be hard for me to talk about it without employees being formally notified, because if you ask me if you're not gonna do X, that immediately identifies a small group of people. And then the next thing could identify another small group because we are structured. It would easily point out. And then unfortunately, folks would find out by listening to testimony instead of hearing it from a supervisor or a manager.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Okay. We're not trying to get at the individual employee per se. I would like to understand your thoughts about what work we will or won't be able to see as a state that won't get it done.

[Ernie Patno, Director of Maintenance, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: Through efficiencies, we would like to continue to do the amount of work that we are doing. Maybe we've over promised throughout the years, and maybe we could go back to some of the things instead of over promising, providing more along our plan. And that would be a significant change right there.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: How was your group affected in back in the fall?

[Ernie Patno, Director of Maintenance, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: Our group our group was not affected

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: It's not affected.

[Ernie Patno, Director of Maintenance, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: Okay. In the fall.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: So none of the maintenance people were in that spot, and then but a pretty good chunk of them were the positions anyway. What does it mean to be lent out, by the way? Was four you said four positions are lent out to another department?

[Ernie Patno, Director of Maintenance, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: So it's

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Or you didn't say it, I guess. Was that. No.

[Ernie Patno, Director of Maintenance, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: I'd happily chat. So let's just say a division let's just say somebody's retiring and they gave, like, a six month notice, which that's very common to someone who's dedicated, and they would like to double fill per se so they could advertise. They can't advertise the same position twice. And so we all collaboratively work together, and we may lend a position number, one that we've maybe had a hard time filling, and we could lend it to a neighbor. And then as soon as they have, they fill that. And then let's just say that person actually retires, they return a position number. So that's what lending out means. That's pretty common practice.

[Chloe Tomlinson (Committee Clerk)]: Can you speak to the morale? I'm not sure about the policies. It seems like you know the physicians, but the people that are going to

[Unknown guest legislator (Newport/Derby area; H.894 sponsor)]: be affected

[Chloe Tomlinson (Committee Clerk)]: quite don't know, but they know something's going to happen.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: And I imagine when they plowed all of

[Chloe Tomlinson (Committee Clerk)]: their heads within thing that's there, I can't imagine it as warm and fuzzy. So can you speak a little bit about maybe morale and how the process is gonna work out with the rift and all that, and when the employees do find out? Sure.

[Ernie Patno, Director of Maintenance, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: So the morale, can speculate. Probably, it's kind of tough to work with that cloud over your head. But on the flip side, the men and women of Etrion, as I've always said when I come in here, extremely dedicated. So I think we're well past 1,500,000 miles cloud this year. Again, imagine it's not that fun living with some of this news that's being spread around, and it's tough because a lot of inaccuracies are being spread around as well. And so what's worse than the fear itself is to then have misinformation as well. So that's unfortunate.

[Chloe Tomlinson (Committee Clerk)]: So what is the how does it play out? When did when does the process start? So starting July 1 when this budget officially has passed?

[Ernie Patno, Director of Maintenance, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: I believe that the process has started with some unofficial notices Yeah. With no official notices yet. I would probably hold off on speaking about official notices because I actually I thought I knew the date, but I just received some emails today that I'm not sure that I actually know the exact date anymore.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: In the presentation that we got about building the budget, it says under maintenance reduction and stockpiling supplies Yep. To save $600,000. Yep.

[Unknown guest legislator (Newport/Derby area; H.894 sponsor)]: Can you what does that tell me

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: what that means and what that what's your plan there and

[Unknown guest legislator (Newport/Derby area; H.894 sponsor)]: what Sure.

[Ernie Patno, Director of Maintenance, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: So a lot of times in the summer, we will stockpile things like culverts. We will stockpile large amounts of guardrail. Sometimes we'll stockpile gravels, aggregates, the things that we have the luxury of stockpiling. We're gonna reduce the size of our stockpiles to the tune of 600,000.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Probably not a lot of money out of it. That's probably not a lot of money out of $100,000,000 But I don't know how much you would normally spend on that. I mean, that's not a 600,000 probably doesn't go far when it comes to what's a culvert cost?

[Ernie Patno, Director of Maintenance, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: It it does not. So a culvert, like a three foot culvert could be I'd have to give you an exact number, but it's big money.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: 600,000 savings is not it's not gonna slow down a project, I guess.

[Ernie Patno, Director of Maintenance, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: It is not. And we're maintenance as well. We're very different from construction or highways.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Slow down your respond your response time to emergency?

[Ernie Patno, Director of Maintenance, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: We will always keep so a good analogy was three foot culvert that I just mentioned. Maybe every garage had a 100 feet. Maybe now only two two every two garages may have the 100 feet, to give you an example. So if we needed a three foot culvert, someone's gonna have it.

[Chloe Tomlinson (Committee Clerk)]: But what's the percentage of the 600,000? Like what do you normally spend on back then, 2,000,000 a year?

[Ernie Patno, Director of Maintenance, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: I would have to.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: I was just wondering

[Chloe Tomlinson (Committee Clerk)]: how much we're cutting that back by.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: It's hard for us to understand what impact are we having here, Because we don't know what it would be up against. How much less stuff are you going to have to do your work and be responsive? It's hard to tell from that perspective. Thank you. That's trying to get at that idea. Representative Burke?

[Kate Lalley (Member)]: Yeah, so if you're not going to be stockpiling, mean presumably if you have a bigger amount of things it's going to be cheaper, for example or something, I mean are you sort of meeting the budget by not having such a stockpile, but eventually is it going to cost you more in the out years?

[Ernie Patno, Director of Maintenance, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: I don't believe so. So let's stick with Culvert. We have 65 facilities, right? Does all 65 facilities need a stockpile of culvert? Is it nice? It's nice. Is it going to impact functionality to borrow a three foot culvert from your neighbor? Absolutely not. The price per culvert, the way it is currently bid now, it is not buy one, it's this price, buy 10 and it's this price, buy 100 and it's this price, it's a contract. Most contracts held by VGS or the State of Vermont are buy this at this. So I don't believe there's a cost savings there.

[Unknown guest legislator (Newport/Derby area; H.894 sponsor)]: In case Uh-huh. Let's step backwards a little bit here. Sure. Did it comes to, like, layoffs, was there any consideration of any administrative jobs? Was it just I hate seeing the shovel. The guys are on the shovels. Those are jobs. Just it seems like there's a lot of administrative out there. Was surprised there's no nobody nobody lost her. There's no lose her job on the administrative end?

[Ernie Patno, Director of Maintenance, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: So I'm gonna let chief financial officer Candice answer that. But, again, we're on the kind of ground that we're breaking out groups of people in our agency.

[Kate Lalley (Member)]: Okay. Alright.

[Ernie Patno, Director of Maintenance, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: But Candice did have her hand up.

[Ashley [Last name unknown], Acting Deputy Director (Maintenance), Vermont Agency of Transportation]: So if I direct her registration, Jane Morris was here, she would say that there are eight positions of the 31 coming from the administration.

[Unknown guest legislator (Newport/Derby area; H.894 sponsor)]: Okay. That's good. Not saying it's good, but just saying

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: think we're there. Were any of those eight vacancies or were they actually all eight?

[Candice [Last name unknown], Chief Financial Officer, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: Oh gosh, I mean I'll have follow-up with you. I don't really break out if they didn't and filled, but some are vacant.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Some there are live, there are employees, and then there are positions. Some of both. Okay,

[Ernie Patno, Director of Maintenance, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: thank you.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: 65 facilities, you've got 65 different garages that stockpile some level of material, divided up to $600,000 I suppose $10,000 is not being dramatically eased. What about overtime utilization? Half 1,000,000 out of how much overtime are we talking about? Is the weather gonna make that impossible for this year?

[Ernie Patno, Director of Maintenance, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: So I'd have to give you an exact number again in all my papers here. I don't have overtime broken out separately by year, but the reduction in sell and the reduction in overtime is through waste. And that is why I feel that we can save that amount. And what I mean by waste is, we train new employees and we continue to see this, sometimes emotion comes in to taking care of the highway. My mother drives this road. The dial moves up. Or, well, I'm out and my truck is a quarter full. Let's run the truck out. Okay? So efficiencies are working with our supervisors to rein this back in. If you got a half a truck, dump it in the shed. If you're meeting the snow and ice control plan, you don't need to meet it any higher. And this is what I was mentioning by services that we have gone above in the past, and maybe we need to bring them back down to what the policy says.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: It's kind of interesting. Hard to get your head around that exactly. It's interesting. Representative White.

[Rep. Candice White (Member)]: Thank you, Ernie. I'm just looking at two of your line items in your budget, cutting trees and mowing, which cutting trees is like 2,400,000.0 and mowing is 1,500,000.0. Because I'm hearing you, you've identified areas to cut. I think you've done it very thoughtfully. We appreciate that. But I look at those, a million and a half for picking up litter. I guess my question is, and I don't even know what the state law is regarding littering, but do you think there's any opportunity to revisit our state laws regarding littering and to perhaps increase the penalty to try to prevent littering? You talked about picking up tires, are we seeing people actively throw stuff out of the I just can't believe you have to spend that much of your resources and your crew to pick up littering that people are They know what they're doing.

[Ernie Patno, Director of Maintenance, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: So a lot of this committee knows I started almost twenty nine years ago out in the field. And very sadly, I would like to tell you that people throw garbage at our people because they think it's funny. And a lot of times, I'm sure you folks see this with your own eyes, we walk every inch of our road, every inch full size and media on the interstate. And there's a lot of pride in that. It takes about six weeks. Everybody on deck, six weeks to pick up the litter. And I think you all know on your commutes within a week or two, there's places that it doesn't even look like we did that. As far as fines and stuff like that, that's a little bit outside of what I do, but it's very sad what we see right now in this state.

[Rep. Candice White (Member)]: I was wondering if there's a different way we can approach that to cut down how much you have to spend on it and also to make people be more responsible. And I don't know if you talk to people in other states, if you're seeing any innovative ways of pain loneliness.

[Ernie Patno, Director of Maintenance, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: Have not. Some states do not pick their litter. I think you may notice that when you travel outside of Vermont, but I can't call them out because I don't know their exact policies, but I just know what I see when I'm driving in the springtime. Vermont takes a lot of pride on what our roads look like.

[Rep. Candice White (Member)]: We also have bring up decks, which is citizens out and making a pretty good impact. And that's all volunteerism. Just kind of making it out loud, wondering if there's a better way to approach that. My other question on mowing. So we heard some interesting testimony from someone in the agency who had worked towards some pollinator areas, identifying those and pretty close to implementing others. I think a federal grant was pulled back. So my question, have you been involved in those conversations? And do you see, again, with the goal of how do we cut that mowing $1,500,000 If we could cut some out of that, do you see an opportunity for saving some money on mowing if we were to somehow find a little money through these pollinator gardens that require less mowing once they're planted because you want them to grow and support pollinators?

[Ernie Patno, Director of Maintenance, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: Yeah. So I have a little bit of experience with this. I've actually been the guy planting the seeds and running a tractor out in the median on the interstate to make this happen. And with like any crop, whether it's a corn crop, an alfalfa crop, the native species around it reclaims it.

[Unknown guest legislator (Newport/Derby area; H.894 sponsor)]: And

[Ernie Patno, Director of Maintenance, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: I have no idea how to, once the flowers are planted, to how to keep them from everything else, even if it's clover and just lawn grass. It's very similar to planting your garden at home. If you don't weed it, it quickly becomes grass all by itself. And so I don't That's way beyond my expertise. I know that we have tried it many, many times. There is a few fields that survived. I don't know why, but I think about Franklin County, the soils are so rich. I'm sure you could just run a tiller through a middle of a field and within weeks it just grows green again. So I don't know. I'm sorry.

[Kate Lalley (Member)]: Yeah. Thank you.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: In that arena of cutting there, case of knowing when the roadside cutting, it was part of what was added back in Yep. On the 10,000,000. Can you tell us what what you're gonna do with that?

[Ernie Patno, Director of Maintenance, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: Absolutely. Reclaim the right of way along the interstates is what we'd like to do. You have particular sections in mind? Or We'd like to focus somewhere on the interstate, and we'd like to focus it all close together to kind of get a gauge of what $600,000 worth of tree cutting looks like. It would be interesting for me to the past, this is not new. We've we've spent a million dollars several years in a row now of cutting trees, but it's a 100,000 here, a 100,000 there, a 100,000 here, each district all over the state. And this time, we'd like to pick maybe a route or a corridor and try to pick a large section or, say, three large sections in that one corridor so we can make a true difference. That's what we're looking at.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: I have a I I find it to be a tough question for me.

[Unknown guest legislator (Newport/Derby area; H.894 sponsor)]: Don't even know if it's tough for you.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Know, a third of the state funds come through your budget. Obviously you're well aware of all the financial issues, and you wouldn't be back here again if it wasn't a substantial issue. These are, the employee trusts are certainly pretty significant in terms of any person. They've got cuts in programs, etc. When's it cut too far? If we were to reduce some of these other areas, which I wouldn't be going to tell you which areas to account for, to that recommendation. When's the knife cut too deep? When are you gonna start feeling it? When are Vermonters gonna notice the difference? Is there further to cut? There's a lot of questions tied into that.

[Ernie Patno, Director of Maintenance, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: There is a lot of questions tied into that.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: A third of the entire money and flexibility that we have that's spent here and not on projects, and some of it's district paving. People look at your budget and think that that's a place that we can potentially rechannel to other focuses and other areas. I'd like Ashley, do you have time to talk about what we can and can't do with some of that.

[Ernie Patno, Director of Maintenance, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: I'm gonna have Ashley, gracefully gonna pull up a pie chart slide. There's a couple of pie chart slides that I think are very important for this conversation, very important. I get my page to it, so I'm not looking behind myself.

[Unknown guest legislator (Newport/Derby area; H.894 sponsor)]: Would you go to the first one? Thank you very much.

[Ernie Patno, Director of Maintenance, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: So this is just a really basic. You got personal services, which are salary and benefits, and then you have maintenance and operating cost. Those are a couple big numbers when you ask where the money's going. That's right. So go ahead

[Rep. Larry Labor (Orleans-4)]: and oh, yeah. So go ahead and flip it.

[Ernie Patno, Director of Maintenance, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: So when you start taking out this slide here is just for the operation side. So you start breaking this all out. The orange is central garage. This is what we play our fleet people, $15,000,000. BGS fleet calls, little thing, major facilities, 2,500,000.0. That's what it takes to maintain our garages. Environmental programs, bridge maintenance. This is match money that we give to highways to make sure large bridge maintenance projects continue to move along. And then we have salt in there. And so when you break it out and I could this the chart that you folks are normally used to, this is what you've always mentioned to me that you wanted to see where the money went. You take all those fixed, if you will, cost out. That leaves us 24,000,000 to do all these 130 codes that we have listed as maintenance project. Then the other thing that I'm up against when I testify to you folks, let's just say I say to you in FY '27 on these 130 codes, we're gonna do a, b, c, all the way down through. We got a number plugged in, which we do. I'm gonna use this winter, and about to what's happened this spring is why it's hard for me to tell you a year in advance where every dollar is gonna go. I can tell you these fixed costs. They're fixed, give or take just a smidgen. You might turn into trout, might be a smidgen there. This winter has been a great year to own a snowmobile. I found it ironic we're speaking of snowmobiles, I was chuckling inside. I think I've mentioned this committee before, I've bought a new snowmobile every three years, and I have not for five years now, because the one I bought five years ago is still brand new. Three years ago, it had 400 miles on it. Made me sit sat in my garage for three seasons. Well, last season, it didn't sit in my garage. It was an average winter. This season, it's definitely not sitting in my garage. So why am I bringing that up? Because it's an analogy of what our budget's gonna look like versus the past five years. So it has snowed and snowed and snowed. And then the old Vermont saying is, it's too cold to snow. And it still snowed and still snowed and still snowed. 10 below zero, snowing. Okay? And then from my old supervisor days, I still look at the weather five times a day at least. And we also sugar. We made maple syrup. So my son took today off from work because he was gonna work in the woods because Friday, it was supposed to be 35. Saturday, it was supposed to be 40. Sunday, they were talking possibly 40. Yesterday was supposed to be sunny and high thirties, and today was supposed to be 40. Well, we snowmobiled and worked outside this weekend, but it never hit above freezing at my house in Morristown. So we plan on sugaring season, I relate it to maintenance. What he's doing today is not what he planned on it because the weather's different. Now, on all these days, I checked the weather fourteen days out. It was supposed to be beautiful. And right now, an hour and a half ago when I checked the weather, the next fourteen days, it's supposed to snow. No sugar in sight. It's supposed to snow every day for fourteen days. There's a pretty significant chance. This is on the weather channel for Morseville Verbant. Now this could change. So what I'm saying is our winter budget, are we gonna make it on money? We'll make it. Are we gonna be over? Yep. But we have other programs that are gonna cover it. So now let's lead to this spring. The snowbanks are higher than they've been in a long, long time. So spring comes, and let's just say we have one warm up and the roads stay dry. That's great. And hopefully the rivers don't break up. But if we have a spring like we had last spring, where it warms up and then rains, freezes, rains up, freezes, warms up and freezes, rains, freezes, rains, freezes. Our pothole budget, I could tell you we're going to spend 1,000,000 in FY twenty seven, and we're going to spend 5 or whatever it takes. We have no choice, we can't say, we're not gonna patch today because we told House Trans that we're gonna spend a million. And so it puts me in a spot every year when I'm sitting in the share of, I'd love to give you a number. I'd love to give you a rock solid number on what we're gonna do for maintenance. But let's just say the way this winter's playing out right now for FY '26, Snow, snow, snow, snow, snow. And I suspect the spring is gonna be a heavy patching season again. And so those numbers are gonna be high, which are gonna make other numbers suffer. And so are there opportunities to save more money? We'd be running pretty lean if we did that.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: So I take it you're not gonna pick up the garbage on the same day this year as you did the last

[Ernie Patno, Director of Maintenance, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: few years. It is not. It is not looking that way.

[Rep. Larry Labor (Orleans-4)]: It's out of the school banks.

[Unknown guest legislator (Newport/Derby area; H.894 sponsor)]: It is not looking that way. At least you get the snowmobile rides in. I've got

[Ernie Patno, Director of Maintenance, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: a lot of snowmobile rides in. Yep. I haven't been there. You better hurry.

[Unknown guest legislator (Newport/Derby area; H.894 sponsor)]: I know. What

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: are saying? There's good weather on the way? You said you better hurry to arrive sooner. I mean, there's good weather on the way.

[Ernie Patno, Director of Maintenance, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: Because the type of snow that is on the ground could indeed melt fast. It's the type of snow that I've often said it before in this committee. We get a foot of snow or an inch of snow. The salt at the end of the day, it's the same. The plowing is cheap. It's the salting that is killing us. And that snow is fluffy and it's light. I don't know if you've been in the woods, but it's hard to step off any type of track trail. So, Candice, I did see you trying to get my attention. I'm sorry, it took me a minute to get there.

[Candice [Last name unknown], Chief Financial Officer, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: Okay, Chair. Rough solid number for you all over time. We're asking what our typical overtime expenses are, Chair.

[Kate Lalley (Member)]: So for the past

[Candice [Last name unknown], Chief Financial Officer, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: two years, actuals was $3,500,000 So the $500,000 reduction means that $3,000,000 is budgeted for 27 overtime.

[Kate Lalley (Member)]: Specifically negative. For me. Sit nicely.

[Candice [Last name unknown], Chief Financial Officer, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: I'm gonna defer back. Do know what your overtime is on, Ernie?

[Kate Lalley (Member)]: Didn't. I asked whether it'd be overtime as well as some plowing or

[Ernie Patno, Director of Maintenance, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: And that's the other thing on where we think we could reduce some overtime is, would it all be plowing? Absolutely not. Maybe this summer, could other things suffer a bit? Yes, we could not allow a lot of overtime this summer, which we tried to limit overtime in the summer anyway, but maybe it's no overtime unless it's an emergency. So the overtime is 90% in the winter, absolutely.

[Ashley [Last name unknown], Acting Deputy Director (Maintenance), Vermont Agency of Transportation]: It's a bit on that. For a summer activity that might be overtime is, say, somebody calls in and says that there's a tree across the road. We might be asking some more third party questions like what size of the tree? Is it actually in traveling or is it in the shoulder? I get some questions like that to then limit the amount of call outs that we would have to see is this is this a concern that we need to address right now or is this something that we can do during a normal work day?

[Kate Lalley (Member)]: Or is it the responsibility of the town?

[Ashley [Last name unknown], Acting Deputy Director (Maintenance), Vermont Agency of Transportation]: Correct. Identify the location, clarify the location. Is this on a state route or

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: is this on a town private?

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Well, we were cut back to the right of way everywhere, wouldn't have that call, and then we'd all be bankrupt. So that's okay. Representative Lalley?

[Kate Lalley (Member)]: To that point, was kind of wondering about in the summertime, that's like your peak time for actually clearing the roads of vegetation so that you can avoid said tree from becoming a problem later on, right? So there's a balance, could So you speak to how you can, if you were to cut back on some overtime in the summer, would that impact your ability to make progress at some of the clearing that you guys do?

[Ernie Patno, Director of Maintenance, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: Well, specifically with clearing, besides mowing, is hard to cut trees in the summertime. Oh, okay. Because we are actually restricted by the I think it's the Northern Longview vat restriction. We actually can't cut trees until October 15.

[Kate Lalley (Member)]: That's very interesting. So there's a whole cycle of what happens when?

[Ernie Patno, Director of Maintenance, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: There is. We can do an environmental study for a very short distance and cut some trees, but it would be hard to do large scale cutting for V trans in the summertime. But I can go to other activities to answer your question. A good one would be sometimes a really good garage could really work hard and maybe with an hour or two of overtime, replace two culverts instead of one a day. So maybe they only replace one. Ashley's example of we're gonna have to ask more clarifying questions, because a lot of times the 911 call reports a tree across the road. And when we get there, it's a two inch hoppled branch laying beside the white line. We're gonna have to ask some clarifying questions before we just rush out and take a peek.

[Kate Lalley (Member)]: I don't know if others in the committee would find this useful, but if it would be not a huge lift for you guys to just do real broad brush, like this is what we do in this season. This is what we do kind of focus on some of that stuff. Obviously some of it will be pretty self evident with the plowing in the winter and stuff, but it would be really interesting to know that. And then put the bad thing, just limiting factors, because otherwise, I certainly would not understand some of those nuances, which are really important to how you guys do your job.

[Ernie Patno, Director of Maintenance, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: So if you have And I'd be happy to take a stab at it. But if you have this document, you This is every single code that we do, and there is a very two to five word sentence about what that is. And so I can maybe put season besides because those are real. That this is the system we use. Maybe I can put seasons beside it.

[Kate Lalley (Member)]: I that'll be very Okay. It's it's not huge ask.

[Ernie Patno, Director of Maintenance, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: I'll get that done. I just won't do it right this second because it'd take us a few minutes to go through them.

[Kate Lalley (Member)]: Yeah, no, it just makes it a little more legible to us. There's so many different things that you guys do. It's very interesting to know that there are very specific reasons why things have to happen when that might not be entirely understandable at first glance to somebody like me, for example, who doesn't understand about rules around bats or something.

[Ernie Patno, Director of Maintenance, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: It's another kind of a segue into why it's no excuses being made, but why it's very, very hard when for me, I mean, this is my life. And so these 130 coats just come naturally in my mind, I just that's what we're doing, and that's what we're spending money. And then in your folks' mind, I get it. That's a huge chunk of money. And it's we we do our best to paint that picture every year, and we're still trying to strike that balance with you folks.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Well, we appreciate your efforts and your time. Sorry, out of time, but a quick question. So your team of direct reports, are they the 9 District? I mean, who is your team that you work with on the day on your Yep. Focus on these things? Is it you the director district garage managers report to you and then their teams are under them?

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: That is correct.

[Ernie Patno, Director of Maintenance, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: Okay. Do have an MTA that's maintenance transportation administrator that falls in between there, but I am very hands on every single day still and just snapshot into my normal commute. A lot of times, I will use my Bluetooth connection on my truck, and I check-in with every single district manager almost every single morning just to make sure everything's going along in their district. Right? Or do they and a lot of the times, the question is, do you need anything? Or do you have a specific problem? Right? And and they get town x needs a load of salt, as I testified last time, or constituent Susan is upset and they're gonna call the governor's office about their driveway. And at least I get a general thing, and I'm like, Once a

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: year. Once a year. Just once. Okay. I'm sorry, did you have one more?

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Just a similar comment. I've been Greenup coordinator for more than twenty five years in Hinesburg, and we really appreciate the fact that we can count on the district taking care of 116. And when I break up all the roads to sections so people can do, I do put 116 out in there. I don't encourage it, but there are some people who wanna do around their house and stuff. So I'm like, okay, just as long as they know it's not the safest place to bring kids. And then what we can do to get people to stop throwing trash. I'm a strong believer if you get kids helping out with green up and they have a lot of fun doing it. I mean, young at age, they love working with their parents or their friends and doing this. I'm pretty well assured they're not gonna throw trash out their car when they're 16 years old or going further around it. So that's probably the best program on motor control,

[Ashley [Last name unknown], Acting Deputy Director (Maintenance), Vermont Agency of Transportation]: I think.

[Ernie Patno, Director of Maintenance, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: Well, I could mention growing up in the 70s, that if I would've thrown trash out my parents' car's window, I'm sure that I would have remembered it for a long time. And I also would have picked up everybody else's trash for 10 miles, probably. I'm just saying. And it's not really to make someone laugh.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Ernie and for the Toll team, I appreciate you coming back and being back multiple times, and for the effort and where you're at and for reaching out the extra word.

[Ernie Patno, Director of Maintenance, Vermont Agency of Transportation]: Thank you very much.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: I know you have a struggle with what you have to do and what's gonna play out over the next month or two months, and we appreciate your service to Monarch.