Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: And we're back live on Tuesday, February 24 in house transportation. We are looking at we heard from Green Mountain Transit last week, well, a couple different times during the public transit several times so far this session. And we my perception of they have come to us with some language or request that our legislative council is gonna review with us today. And it was based on testimony and request from Green Mountain Transit regarding sort of the assessments that they are in their ability to negotiate and raise funds. Did hear some testimony about their efforts to work with different entities in their community to hopefully raise ridership and raise funds, which there's something we can do to help. I certainly hope that we can do that. So you should find an email maybe under Damien the posting of this language. Suspect he's

[Patricia McCoy (Member)]: gonna bring

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: up noise. And with that, Damien thanks for coming back in again and And if you can sort of walk us through a request for language in the T bill. Great.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Well, thanks for having me. For the record, I'm Damian Leonard from the Office of Legislative Council. So as the chair mentions, Green Mountain Transit came in with a request last week and began talking to you about this. And then the request was passed along to me, and I've put it into some draft legislative language, which you'll find both on the web page and on the screen behind me. And so what this would do is in the current this is amending the charter for Green Mountain Transit. So in the current annual budget and assessment section, which is section seven of that charter, we would be adding at the end of subsection a, a new sentence to say that the proposed budget may include, in addition to revenues from fairs and other sources, anticipated voluntary local match contributions, grants, donations, and other non assessment revenues that may be offered by a member municipality or another public or private source. It then goes on on the next page to add a new subsection f that would permit the authority to seek and accept voluntary local match contributions and then provide that notwithstanding the formula for apportionment, the authority may accept those voluntary local match contributions from a member municipality or another public or private source for the purposes of meeting federal, state, or other grant matching requirements and supporting authority programs, capital projects, and operations. And then finally, providing that a voluntary local match contribution accepted would be in addition to any assessment required pursuant to this section and would not reduce, offset, or otherwise modify the assessment for the member municipality pursuant to the formula for apportionment unless the formula is amended as provided in that section. So these are voluntary amounts that are on in addition to and separate from the assessed contributions. It also provides authority for things like grants, donations, and other non assessment revenues that may be offered to Green Mountain Transit. So this is sort of broad. It's two things. It's broad authority to accept amounts that may be available like a grant or something like that. And then it's more narrowly tailored authority to accept these voluntary local match contributions. And I think the important word there is voluntary contributions. So the member municipality has to choose to give this amount. This is different than the regular assessment, which the member municipality may or may not want to pay in the full amount, but which as a member, they're required to pay. Questions? Well, this is my easiest committee hearing of today. Thanks, folks. See you tomorrow.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: For the committees, I'm sorry, Representative Keyser. Just a curiosity,

[Chris Keyser (Member)]: just a background, Damian. So they were not allowed or they were not able to collect outside money besides the normal funding from the state?

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So I don't know the full background on this. Oftentimes, we get some of this cleanup language, some of it is just cleanup to reflect. There is an assessment process for their member municipalities, and this is providing for additional voluntary local match contributions and also clarifying how they affect or in this case don't affect the formula for determining assessments. I don't know whether up to this point Green Mountain Transit has accepted funding that's not specifically called out in its charter. Oftentimes, what happens with language like this, and again, I don't know the background on this, is that we've been doing something like this for years. And someone asks a question, we say, well, the law doesn't address that. We should go in and clarify the law and clean this up.

[Chris Keyser (Member)]: So this is for monies, the dollars, would there be any advantage to putting in light kind exchanges or that type of

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I would defer to the transit authority on that. They know they know what's available to them and what their restrictions are under their under the regulations, both at the federal level and state level that govern their operation better than I do. So

[Chris Keyser (Member)]: So I I I wouldn't I wouldn't wanna put it in my trust.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Definitely can't advise you of what to put or not put into your trust.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Representative Pouech was up next and then Representative White.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: So I was a member of

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: the Green Mountain Transit Board for a number of years and have been off now for a couple years. They haven't had this ability as far as I know, but there are organizations that will buy that when they were charging fees and now are charging fees, will buy passes for employees. But it's a little different. So they're just helping the employees buy the

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: I

[Patricia McCoy (Member)]: just had a comment to say I'm uncomfortable with the language.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: I reached out to Mollie S. Cities of Town. Our normal person who interacted most with and the committee wasn't here, but they shared it amongst their policy. People, their comment was that as long as it's voluntary, they seem to think that it seems to make a lot of sense. I thought the question about in kind is kind of interesting to float. I had asked for suggestions to who else we might need to hear from. That's where League Cities Towns came up. And I asked them if they thought there was any where we should go. And they said that they felt that Burlington was a pretty significant contributor to their mountain transit and it has funding in a lot of their pieces and that we potentially could ask if That's they wanted to comment more as far as making sure we hear from everybody. As far as the comment about whether they could do it before or not, I thought that their testimony last week that they had said that they had felt that they were able to, but they wanted to clarify it. Sort of like they had come to us relating to the idea of forming a fundraising nonprofit previously. They want make it more directly obvious that they can raise funds outside of, and I hope that it is very much a recognition that the state can fund money and it's not unlimited to go to Green Mountain Transit, forward transit entirely within their area. Representative McCoy? So,

[Patricia McCoy (Member)]: trying to understand this, the Board of Commissioners comes up with a budget, which is then each town that's in the Green Mountain Transit area is assessed a certain amount to make up that budget. So this is over and above that budget. But I read this section, Section E, and it says, In the event that the budget of the authority in any year becomes insufficient to support the operations of the authority, the Board of Commissions may assess the member municipalities for additional sums apportioned in the manner provided in this section, but such additional assessment shall require the approval of all the municipalities. So I think if they do go over budget, they can assess, but every municipality has to agree to that. So with this, it would be a voluntary thing. Hey, folks. We're a million dollars in the hole. We need to cough up some money to help us break even this year. Is that about it?

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It could be that. It could also be, you know, we need additional support for a route that goes through your municipality. Would you be willing to contribute to help us meet the local match to pull down this federal grant, whatever it is, to get the service? So there are I can imagine any number of circumstances where it could be an individual municipality thing. It could be all the members. It could vary. I did wanna clarify my testimony earlier while you were talking. I checked the powers that the transit authority has under existing statute. They do have the authority already to accept gifts or grants or loans of money or other property and to enter into contracts, leases or other transactions with any federal agency of the state, any agency of the state, or any other public body of the state, including municipalities, school districts, or other authorities. And they also have authority to borrow money or issue bonds under the statute there. So they're they do have some authority already, but this clarifies additional authority, particularly when it's a voluntary assessment or a voluntary local contribution and how that affects assessments. Because you can imagine that if one municipality decides to kick in an extra 20% because they're supporting construction of new bus shelters or something, and this is entirely hypothetical, that you wouldn't want to then open the conversation about, well, does this decrease everyone else's assessment, especially if it's over and above the operating budget.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. It is another example. Think I mean, it's always possible another municipality will decide to give more because of something. I don't know that that's happened. It may have. But even though I can say Beta Technologies saying, we've got so many employees, can we get better bus service? And so they're having discussions, I don't know what will happen with that, but that might be just a hypothetical where they might say, hey, we're gonna help fund this. And they wouldn't want the South Burlington assessment to go down by that.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: I think with what representative Pouech is saying, Free Mound Transit cited three examples in their request for this language to help clarify. I do think they acknowledge that they do have the ability to do this. This they feel like is worth further expanding. They cited three examples. Beta Technologies is one of them, is saying that they might want to help Green Mountain Transit if they're able to help tailor services to get people in and out of their campus. The Burlington High School is in the supervisory district, however that is run. Burlington, a lot of students ride the bus. They want them to look at potentially coming across North Avenue and into the school property. That would involve an increase in operating expenses and a delay on the line. So how would that support look itself if the Burlington School were able to they also The UDM Medical Center would like a bus route to come onto their campus and drop people at the front door as opposed to the back on Colchester, but up in the front where the actual interaction is really most happening. So that was the three examples they cited that should those three entities be able to negotiate with Green Mountain Transit in a way that would perhaps improve their services, would also perhaps be support. They don't want it to impact their budget and matching monies and issues at this for them to go above and beyond to help solve more of their financial problems than potentially impact it. So those were three examples they put in their testimony. I thought I made it very clear that they need to do something to help improve ridership and seek opportunities along every route to support the service before I would be any more receptive, it matters what I think, but receptive to straight state mice. This seems to be in the direction of them helping their riders and helping themselves. What I'm looking for is there anything in here that we're missing that somebody else would take away from some entity in some way as opposed to just giving them the opportunity to, or to have more explicitly laying out the opportunity for them to negotiate these deals. Am I missing anything that's on the other negative side that some other party might be injured in some way or would have testimony and possibility on this? I'm only looking for members if they are looking for any members. Vermont leads the cities in town, possibly the city of Burlington are the only things that I've heard. Anybody else have any other ideas? I just want to

[Patricia McCoy (Member)]: say that happens, say UBM, which is in Burlington South, Burlington South, and they want an additional bus route for the students, they voluntarily pay money to have that bus roof. Is not going to affect the assessments of any other municipality within this GMTA, nor will it affect Burlington's assessment. Correct? This is over and above, because their budget, but the following year, if this continues, I mean, I'm assuming it will be absorbed into their budget. And

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. I can't speak to the impact on their budget in the out years. The way this is worded is that the proposed budget for any year can include additional revenues from anticipated local match contributions, grants, donations, etcetera. And non assessment revenues, which could include an ongoing agreement with something we've talked about on your counterpart in the Senate is there's a ski resort that has an agreement with one of its local or its local transit operator where they pay a certain amount per year to get services at the resort to help with the traffic issues there for both their employees and so forth. And so that non assessment revenue could be something where there's an ongoing agreement. But I can't speak to if the agreement is structured so that there's more of an upfront payment or if it has some sort of carry on effect, how that would affect the out years. I wouldn't want to speculate on that. I think that's a better question for them. You know, do they see one of these potential scenarios having a carry on effect where the assessments grow because they've expanded service?

[Patricia McCoy (Member)]: So they're accepted. If they accept it can I continue? Yeah. If they accept a payment, Does it say anywhere in here where they have to enter into an agreement with?

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: No. The language isn't that prescriptive. So they do have the authority under their basic powers to contract with public and private entities.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: And

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: then this clarifies authority to accept and budget around this additional non assessment and non revenue or non fair revenue. So that's what this is doing is it's basically clarifying that they can accept these other revenues, budget around them, and that these other revenues are not going to affect the formula for apportionment. For other revenues? Yes.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Does anybody else have anything right now? Otherwise, I'd like to hear from the agency and public transit administrator from Ross, our public transit program manager, one of our regular guests here in house transportation. Damian, if you don't mind, right? I'll be staying in the chair and we'll bring Ross in and we'll hear from the agency and for public transit on this. On the overall language and on any of the comments or questions any of the members have brought up. So Ross, thank you for joining us this afternoon. Please share.

[Ross McDonald (Public Transit Program Manager, VTrans)]: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Ross McDonald, I'm the public transit program manager here at VTrans. And yes, as stated, the idea of allowing for more revenue sources to generate non federal funds for services contracted is something that we appreciate GMT looking into. Certainly a scenario that was provided to us would be, oh, company is hiring a thousand people in Burlington in the next couple of years and they may want shuttle services to and from their location. And is that an opportunity for contracted services to generate dollars like, as gentlemen was talking about, similar to ski areas where they can provide some dollars for a service and it could be an overmatch of the non federal requirement, and that could allow for those funds to be otherwise used for non federal as that would go into their reserves. So the idea that GMT is trying to broaden the opportunities to generate additional revenues outside of the assessment process is one that we support and we have no recommendations in terms of changes or revisions here.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Okay. Pretty straightforward. Well, Representative Pouech.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: I think I know the answer to this question, but perhaps you could say other public transit agencies in the state do this regularly.

[Ross McDonald (Public Transit Program Manager, VTrans)]: That's correct. That is, the funding formula is less prescriptive throughout the state and so they're able to work with large employers, resorts, those types of entities to generate more non federal match in addition to what most folks depend on primarily through community, you know, obligations through town meeting day. So yeah, this was just allowing them and I think Clayton was talking about this, the GM at GMT last week about, you know, their ability to become more flexible like the five thousand three hundred eleven Rural Services. So I think you're right in line with their expectations representing the bench.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Okay. I don't want to make it more complicated if we're not missing something. It'll be out there and people can hear it. People will certainly, if something comes up between now and Friday, I want to hear about it. I'm going to put it,

[Patricia McCoy (Member)]: we

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: don't have a number yet. Do that on Friday, and then we mark up the rest of it. If there are concerns between now and then, we'll have you do that on Friday. We need to hear about it and we need to hear from anybody else that might be out listening and we'll wrap it from there. We're gonna do that on Friday when we mark it up and add them. Guess what we can say. Do you want me to just put it in the whatever? We can certainly instruct our legislative council to find a spot for it in the sea mill that we're going to continue to mark up on Friday. That's why I'm assuming everybody wanted to get thumbs up for now. If there's any reason that anything changes, we're all on board with this. I do believe it shows that Green Mountain Transit recognized they need to help us and help themselves and themselves and help us. We appreciate that. Okay, with that, thank you Ross for joining us. Thank you Damien for joining us. For the committee and for the public that may or may not be interested, tonight is the public hearing for the state inspections run by the Senate Transportation Committee. So you have some work committee time and an opportunity for those of you I know that are coming from five to seven or viewing, etcetera, that you can do what you have to do between now and then because a lot of the members will be involved or participating or watching or whatnot from five to seven tonight for what we'll take on when the miscellaneous motor vehicle or any other action done by the Senate gets over to us after crossover. So that is why the gap for this afternoon, it gives you the opportunity to, for those of you who to be involved tonight between five and seven, we'll be picking up from there. So we are adjourned for this afternoon.